Guardian Evil

CHAPTER 48: The Abandoned House of the Jimenez

"Luciel is the only one who can answer you, Romina.”

Walking alone in the lobby and bowing her head to look at her shoes, Romina kept on thinking about the reasons why Simeon couldn’t tell her about the white feather she found on Luciel. “If he knew about it, why couldn’t he tell me?”

If I asked Luciel about it, he might not tell me about it…

As Romina looked up to look in the direction she was walking, she saw Luciel leaning on the wall as if he was waiting for her to arrive.

Realizing that she actually took too much time talking to Simeon, she composed herself and approached Luciel who was staring intently at her. “Oh, Luciel. Why are you here outside?”

“You lied to me,” Luciel said.

Romina’s left brow twitched. “What do you mean…?”

“You said you’ll go to the library,” Luciel added. “You took too long so I decided to follow you there but you’re not there. Where did you go?”

“I-Uh, I went to the female restroom doing my business… you know, call of nature,” she responded with a chuckle and she was hoping that her guardian demon won’t notice how awkward her laugh was.

Lord, I’m so sorry for lying. Huhuhu.

“I am just making sure that no apparitions or any ghosts bothering you and since you returned in one piece so you’re fine,” he said and nodded in satisfaction. “Let’s go. Marivic told us to go to the open field since she wanted to share her snack box with us since they’re also practicing dance there and those humans—”

“You mean our classmates.”

“Yeah right, our classmates, and they kept on bothering me just to teach them how to speak Japanese,” Luciel shook his head. He’s now walking side by side with Romina towards the open field of their school. “Why on earth did you tell them that I came from Japan and that I have a Japanese bloodline? Now, they wouldn’t stop bothering me because of it.”

“Because that’s the only thing that I could think of and it’s believable since your features are not so Filipino. They will believe that you’re a mixed-race and it won’t complicate our situation,” she shrugged. “It seems like they believed it—no, scratch that. They absolutely believed it.”

“What kind of feature are you talking about?” Luciel frowned at her.

She faced him and cupped his face. “Out of this world.”

He frowned and she kept on blinking while grinning at him. “Because I’m not a human, silly.”

“Because I am an angel like you of course.”

“Yeah, the most handsome angel I’ve seen.”

Romina paused for a moment when a sudden memory flashed in her mind. She saw that angel who looked exactly like Luciel in that memory. He’s not Luciel’s twin named Sachiel. She could definitely tell that the angel she saw in that flash of memory looked exactly like Luciel.

She felt a sudden déjà vu.

Unholding his face, she smiled at him again. “Let’s go.”

Why do I keep seeing memories like that? Do they mean something?

“Hey, have you perceived the rumors?”

“Here she goes over.”Both Romina and Luciel look at Marivic as the two of them ate the sandwiches Marivic’s mother created for them (well, Luciel was forced to do so—since demons don’t surely eat human food—since Marivic was unmistakably watching them and kept querying if how was the food). They turned their heads to their classmates just any meters away from them. They’re spending their leisure period on their school’s open field, appreciating their vacant time under the blue sky. They were just spending their vacant hour silently, not just before Selena, one of their classmates who’s genuinely a huge, huge, fan of supernatural rumors encircling their school came to unmistakably chat with them.

“What is it? What rumors?” their classmates whose sitting with her couldn’t help but ask.

“That girl unmistakably brought so many rumors inside her bag than our books,” Marivic couldn’t help but comment that made Romina snort and Luciel confused with the analogy that she said.

“Let me guess, it’s another supernatural rumor about our school again,” Fred, one of their classmate pronounced in an unamused face. Their classmate Selena smirked at them, as if she was proud of that. “Tumpak!” (it's a Filipino term for ‘right’ or ‘correct’. It’s one of the Filipino terms like ‘tama’.)

“Not again~” their classmates groaned.

“You never took weary of giving these kinds of rumors to us, huh?”

“She’s a huge fan of supernatural occurrences so yeah, it’s actually weird, not gonna lie but we should deal with her since she’s our friend, obviously,” Janet, one of their classmates said.

Luciel sipped his canned carbonated beverage while overhearing their classmates’ discourse. Human food surely is tasteless.

“Ikaw talaga. Tigilan mo na kaka-hithit mo,” one of their classmate, Daniel, joined the discourse. “You indeed kept on telling us about supernatural rumors in our school. You even believed that our school was once a tomb when it’s unmistakably not. Hay naku Selena tigilan mo na iyan.”

“But, it’s valid though. During the Spanish period—”

“Our school was once an empty lot with a garden. Get that in your mind. And allow me to speak you this repeatedly. Ghosts are not real.”

“Hey! Just tune in to me first cause most of our schoolmates experienced it and saw it with their own eyes!” Selena pronounced, motioning her fingers on her both eyes.

“What’s that rumor all about?” one of their classmates, Brianna, couldn’t help but question.

“Have you seen that deserted house just a few blocks away from our school, just behind the school...?”June, one of their classmates questioned. “Yeah, what about it?”

“You really passed that house, right?” Fred asked.“Yeah because our house is indeed a few blocks away from it. Our dog even peed on its rusty gate when we passed there during our walks. Hahahaha.”

“Bro, that’s disgusting!”

“Nah~ it’s nothing. It’s not like someone’s taking care of it though,” June shrugged.

“Yeah, that mansion. It’s actually big and I too bet that the owners of that house were rich. Such a shame that they abandoned that house. The exterior was indeed pretty,” one of their classmates, Rhian said.

“Not going to lie, it gave me creeps when we passed by that house.”

“Because it’s old and deserted, that’s why.”

“Yeah, because of that also.”

“So, what about that house?”

“There’s this rumor spreading around about that mansion that was, unmistakably, experienced not by our schoolmates but also by the neighborhood. They said that it’s been years since that mansion was deserted but for an unknown reason, they kept on seeing someone inside. At first, they thought that it’s just the caretaker of the house but they perceived that the former caretaker already abandoned the house and nobody’s staying in that house, they said that it might be the ghost inhabiting that house. Everyone that would pass through that mansion will consider that she’s just a keeper. It’s been years since that mansion was abandoned and nobody really took care of that mansion so it was really, really disturbing that they could see an unknown woman dressed in white standing in the window each evening,” Selena pronounced, unmistakably making her voice husky and deeper as if she’s one of the horror storytellers they commonly listened on YouTube.

Romina could even tell that she could pass as one, though.

“Huh, that’s sounded so creepy.”

“I know, right?”

“Well, that house honestly made me feel creeps and chills down my spine so it’s not really old news to me if they’ll suggest that there’s entity disturbing inside that house.”

“What does she look like?”

“They said she’s like, you know, like that white lady in the films. Like that. She’s so pale and unmistakably thin, like an actual ghost, you know.”

“Who’s the landowner of that house again? I completely overlooked it.”

“They said, that mansion was owned by a family of three accompanying the surname, Jimenez.”

Romina and Luciel look at each other. Closing his eyes accompanying a sigh, Luciel could tell what was going to occur next.

“So this is the place.”

Crossing his arms beside Romina whose actually amazed looking at the famous haunted abandoned house of the Jimenez, Luciel begrudgingly spoke. “You can’t really mind your own business, huh, Romina? I kept telling you that don’t meddle yourself too much with the dead. Apparitions are not the same as Trisha the poltergeist, Romeo from the school garden, Maya from that abandoned building, and Caroline from the music room that you can easily deal with without having yourself caught in danger or trouble. That soul eater and the dementor were not just the only apparitions that you might encounter. I said that after we helped Caroline, it’ll be the last time that we’re going to meddle with the ghosts.”

“I know, I know we talked about that one already,” Romina said, groaning. “But I just couldn’t help it. We’re the ones who can communicate with the ghosts so this is the least we can do to help them. It’s not that easy for them to get stuck here in the human realm. They also want their own peace.”

“Romina, we’re not ghostbusters. That’s not our task and that’s not even my task. I came here to guard you since I am the temporary guardian assigned to you and not your ghostbuster sidekick,” Luciel said, rolling his eyes.

“But you’re here with me,” Romina grinned at him.

“Of course, I am here because I am your guardian, you idiot.”

“Ugh, quiet down now, Luciel and just tell me if you can sense the ghost inside that house,” Romina told him as she kept on patting his arm.

“We’re not dealing a ghost, you nosy kiddo. We’re dealing with an apparition guarding this house.”

“Eh?” that made Romina pause. “A what?”

“An apparition.”

“AN APPARITION?”