Mistakenly Eaten

91. The Montage Part II (Stephanie and Now Althea)

“What happened?” Asked Selena from Althea.

“What happened to Stephanie?” Inquired Salva from Thessa, who sighed, as tears escaped her eyes and flowed down her cheeks.

As Thessa began narrating the tragedy of her daughter to Salva, at the same time, back on the island, Selena’s camera recorded everything that Althea told her about what had actually happened to Stephanie.

“The company that hired her was one of the top class agencies and they had given a contact number as well, that Stephanie left with us when she went to Sicily.” Althea explained, “Stephanie remained in contact with us for about three months after she left Gragnano but then, all of a sudden, she stopped contacting and then there was no contact for six months. We called the agency, Thessa even visited their offices but they also said that they had no track of Stephanie, who had ran away from the family who had hired her. we all believed that Stephanie must’ve run away for a better opportunity and didn’t return back because she was scared that the agency that hired her would file a case against her, that’s why she had gone missing. After about one year, I received a phone call…”

Althea took a pause, as she remembered the horrific moment that she had experience first hand.

Thessa also took in a sharp and a deep breath, as she continued explaining everything to Salva.

“… it was somewhere around two or three in the middle of the night, when my phone rang. I picked it up and it was Stephanie. She was crying for help and told me that she was somewhere in Czech, taken there after being trafficked by the very first group that hired her as a private chef, under the disguise of a rich family. She wasn’t hired as a private chef but instead was bought from the agency to be sold in to p**********n. We rushed to the agency, the very first thing and found their offices to be closed entirely. We then also went to the police but these human trafficking groups are so big and powerful, we were nothing in front of them. Poor Thessa lived in misery over the next four years, of course everybody moved on with their lives but not a mother who cried and scathed in misery. Then, finally after five years, Stephanie showed up. She had lived in those groups for way too long and once, she was torn and tired, they finally let her go and also because by that point, she had stopped resisting her captivators as well. She returned somewhere from Hungary. In five years Stephani had aged fifteen years. Her radiancy, her glow and her beauty, everything had just vanished. She wasn’t the same girl anymore. Her body was covered with marks and burns of these different groups that owned her, having her branded. She was just a completely different person. Thessa would urge her every now and then to go to therapy and I also tried to welcome her back to normal life but the things that she had gone through, only she would know, since she refused to adjust in the world anymore and remained quiet. She would help her mother at the restaurant from every now and then and finally one day, she decided she didn’t need the world anymore, since life had already devastated her. she ended up taking her own life…”

Althea felt in to sheer silence, as she uttered those words, remembering the scene of Thessa old hill top house, where she had rushed to after Thessa had called her that Stephanie had locked herself inside her room and wouldn’t open up. She remembered reaching the house at the same time as the police and the paramedics, who lifted Stephanie’s weakened and scarred body out of the water tub, that was turned entirely red, due to the blood that had oozed out of Stephanie’s wrist that she had slit open, giving up on herself. Shades of grey turned in to red and blue, from the ambulance and the police’s cherry sirens that rang out loud on the top of the hill, informing the entire town, that something sinisterly had happened at the poor lady’s house, who cried in Althea’s arm, finding the young girl to be her own source of solace.

Selena stood ashamed at her own self for even urging Althea to speak up about something that must’ve triggered something within her heart and made her feel sorrowful. Althea released her beath, as she cleared her tears from her face, but it was just not going to be enough. She couldn’t help herself and broke down in to tears. She held her hands over her face as she continued sobbing, regretting the horrific past, where she had lost a very close friend of hers. Selena wanted to step ahead and console the poor girl, feeling responsible for unearthing a wound that she shouldn’t have triggered to begin with but instead, she remained frozen ashamed of her doings.

Salva on the other hand, also sat silently after Thessa revealed the entire tragedy of her daughter. His mind played the flashbacks of the moment when he had offered Althea a private chef job and she had responded in a highly offended tone. Back then, he felt agitated by her response but now, it seemed clear to him. it wasn’t offense but instead it was fear, out of which she had responded. She thought that someone had tricked her and brought her to the island and she might suffer the same fate as her friend.

“Stephanie was so full of life, my only child and my soul. After her, I had nothing but just poor Althea, who would visit me every now and then and try and give me the courage to live. I heard a few days back that she had been missing as well and someone took her under the pretext that she was going to be hired by some cooking competition society and they have also provided evidence that she is fine and actually with that society. And I only hope and pray that she doesn’t suffer from the safe fate as my daughter did. Just like Stephanie, Althea is also full of life and hope and I only wish that she gets nothing but superfluous happiness in this word. She is a very strong headed woman, who doesn’t accept help from anyone. I offered her help many times, stating that after Stephanie I don’t have anyone so, she should have the money that she needs but she never accepted my help and instead, told me that my time with her was all she ever needed. I knew she did only to keep a check on me and make sure that I never suffered alone. There is so much that the poor soul could do. I just wish the best for her. Her uncle is an unscrupulous man. he is a monster, who treats her poorly and is forcing her to work at her restaurant in the name of paying off her sister’s college tuition. And that is all not just it. That bastard and his son even spread false rumors around the town about the girl’s character so that no man would dare to approach her or be with her. he even threatens men who try and ask the girl out, that hje would ruin their families, if anybody ever tried to get involved with Althea. That only isolated that poor angel, leaving her with no friends as well. I mean, you can imagine, you look like a sensible guy. No girl would even want to hang out with another girl, whose character had been tainted because of some baseless rumors. But how come you found me? I have never had any friend of hers come to me. Not even the one that she usually hangs out, the twin brother and sister, who are from another town nearby. Are you a friend of hers? Do you know where she is?”

Thessa unraveled through her feelings towards Althea and what she knew about her. satisfied with having collected all the information that he required on Althea, Salva only nodded at her, holding back his urge to cry. He formed a stiff expression, as he nodded at Thessa.

“Yes, I am her friend. Don’t worry! I promise you that nothing would ever happen to Althea.”

With that he got up and collected his bag, biding a farewell to the sweet old lady and made his way out of the house and in to his Range Rover.

“To Sicily?” asked the driver and Salva bobbed his head, commanding him to turn the gears towards Sicily.

Althea finally finished up her montage, having wiped her tears away. Her voice still heavy and broke after she had to revise through the trauma that she had suffered through and decided to actually give something, perhaps a taunt back to her with her words. Fighting her allegations about choosing to live a pathetic life.

“You see Selena, girls like us don’t have power or money behind us to protect us. We are not born with an innate immunity that there is someone out there looking for us. No one comes after us when we get caught up in webs or rings. We have to save our own self and protect ourselves from the harms of this world, that lurk out there, waiting for a vulnerable girl to take a step out and then they pound on us, as if we are prey to those horrendous predators. We have to choose safely and I chose what I thought was safe. It was emasculating for me to work under my uncle and his son. They were horrific towards me. They knew that I love cooking and could’ve offered me a job as a chef as well but deliberately forced me to work as a waitress, only to humiliate me and my mother, against whom they have a vendetta.

You see, my mother was from a rich family but she fell in love with my father, a peasant and the two ran away. My father passed away when I was eight and being a young, single mother of two daughters, life wasn’t easy on my mother, who was forced to come back because yet again, men in the town that she settled in with my father wouldn’t let her live alone and kept on harassing her. when she came back, my uncle saw that as a golden opportunity to enervate her. He sought the moment to be a perfect opportunity to him to extract his revenge of being humiliated due to my mother running away with my father. That’s why, he gave her a small cottage in a field to live in with her daughters and struggle on her own. Then my sister needed to go to college, so I took a loan from my uncle who forced me to work at his restaurant in order to pay his debt, yet getting another opportunity to humiliate me and my mother.

That’s just how life is. It is different for everyone. Living in the same house, my sister doesn’t understand or see the pain that I have to go through and that is what I have learned. That despite of being at the same place, life is meant to be different for everyone. Easy for some and simply tough on others. I can cry about it, scream about it or simply make peace with it and learn to be hopeful. This moment here is me being hopeful. It is not like, I don’t understand why things are a certain way or why people act a certain way. I just want to move on and achieve good things by not getting hurt.”

She finally took a pause, breathing in relief, having ranted out everything to Selena.

She was obviously scattered having a mixture of emotion embedded within her heart but most importantly, she felt angered. Angered towards being reminded that life was not fair towards her and for that purpose, she just wanted to move past the situation that she was in and simply sleep her problems away.

“Would that be enough or do you want to have something more to make my montage spicy and interesting? I hope things are not thin and pale anymore according to you or the viewers.”

With that she got up and dashed out of the room, leaving Selena baffled and astonished, who had definitely not expected things to be that darkly twisted in Althea’s life. The girl seemed so radiant and the things that she had gone through, was something that Selena could’ve never imagined even in her wildest dreams.

Feeling guilt ridden, Selena packed up her camera and made her way towards her bedroom but she wasn’t the only one to feel this guilty.

Salva’s heart felt heavy, regretting the fact that he had not only judged but also scrutinized and cursed Althea at one point for making things difficult for not just him buy everyone at the island but not agreeing to be a private chef. But he finally understood her. she had seen and suffer too much and in fact, it wasn’t just Nicholas that he was going to make things easier for. His target for next in line for help was going to be Althea.

She had helped him cure Nicholas and he had seen the effect that she had on his best friend. So, now he was going to help her as well.

As he sped away in his car, through the narrow hill roads, he looked down at the city, mostly dark and only the street lights left to, paving the way of the roads of the town. He sighed, looking down at the roads and imagining Althea playing happily with her friend, until one day reality struck her.

He closed his eyes, sorrowed, deep within his heart that was filled with an anxious wavering feeling, that made him feel bad for the poor girl. He belonged to a rich family, so safety was never a concern for him but then there was people like Stephanie and Althea, who had to struggle in this world and always be at their toes in order to protect themselves.

The car was about to get on the highway, when something clicked inside Salva’s mind, who called on to the driver.

“Wait! There is one more stop that we need to go to, before hitting the road to Sicily.”

With that, the car turned around and back in Gragnano, where the city had slept entirely but remained awake and stirred was Irene, who was not even in her home anymore.

In fact, she stood in the middle of a cemetery, holding her phone’s flashlight out and looking ahead at the tombstone that had, ‘Stephanie Antonio’ written on it. That was merely visible to even Irene, who meekly held the flashlight over the tombstone, while her eyes remained majorly stuck on the grave right next to her feet.

Irene’s eyes were red, probably due to the lack of sleep and most certainly because of the fact that she had been crying as she drank from the bottle of beer, which she had lost the count of after her third one and was most probably her ninth one of the night.

Her vision was blurry for most of the part and she felt exhausted, as she perched down on the ground and fell on to her knees.

Her hand felt tired, as she dropped her phone down and low on the ground and began weeping.

Tears flew down her face, as she felt tired and lost. She didn’t know what was she exactly sad for.

Was she sad because she feared that her sister might end up the same way that Stephanie did?

And who was Irene to blame? No one but her very own self.

Because she remembered how she had acted with Althea, cold and aloof and the poor girl had done nothing but fulfilled every single wish of Irene’s.

And deep within her heart Irene knew that she enhanced the pressure on Althea, to pay up for the expenses of her wedding as well and it only made Irene wonder if Althea accepted the job as a private chef by some dubious agency, who also may have sold her to some human trafficking ring and now her sister might be suffering the same way Stephanie did.

She remembered judging Stephanie for being so dumb and choosing a risky job, when her mother had a nice business set up in the town. But little did Irene know, that self determination and self sufficiency was something that made people take the biggest risks of their lives and her own sister, Althea might have also just done something in the name of self sufficiency that may have ended up putting Althea in danger.

And now Irene could do nothing but cry and wish and hope that her sister was alright. She and Jacob were the only ones who knew the truth that Althea was not actually with the Secret Chef Hunters' Society. That's why she had been visiting Jaocb every morning in his office, only to know if there was any progress on finding Althea.

She had pretended perfectly in front of everyone that she also believed that Althea was at the Secret Chef Hunters' Society, so that everyone else remained calm. But deep down, she was shattered and incredibly horrified, with the thoughts of where Althea could actually be and if she was alright or not. Her mind wondered and feared that there could be powerful people out there who could actually manipulate Althea and force her to act normally in front of the cameras or even use artificially generated technology to generate fake visuals of Althea and use that footage to fool everyone else.

Her cries grew louder, as her heart felt heavy. She wished and hoped that her sister was fine and that no harm may come her way. And promised herself and once Althea would come back, she would do everything in her power to make things easier for Althea and even help her achieve her own dreams.

She got up and left the cemetery, walking back towards her house. She entered the premises of the field and walked down the narrow path, that was cut throughout the entire farm, making way for the small house. She kept her head low as she continued walking, having no conscious of whether she was even walking to her home or not. She only trusted her muscle memory to walk down the right pathway but her subconscious stumbled a bit when she hit something hard and fell right down on the soiled pathway of her fields, slipping and tripping down in the strawberry fields.

A squeak escaped her mouth, as she rolled down the fields, falling unconscious, without ever knowing that the hard surface that she roughly hit against, was actually a person and that person was Salva, who had turned around when something had hard hit him from behind and watched with confusion as Irene stumbled and fell down, rolling right in to the strawberry fields.

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