Lilian was back in ten minutes, and they both waited anxiously for Peter to arrive. Time was crawling too slowly for Rami. Twenty minutes had never felt so long. They didn’t speak as they monitored the ride’s progress to the house.
When it was five minutes away, Rami couldn’t wait in the living room. She went out to the gate to wait for Peter. When she saw the ride finally arriving, Rami’s heart began to thud furiously in her chest, and she had to breathe slowly to avoid getting anxious. At this point, she could no longer lie to herself. She was hoping that the answers that the man would give her would lead her to her sister – safe and sound and not dead. For months, she had kept hoping that all of this misfortune was a nightmare and she was going to wake up one day to Aba irritating her by banging on her door to wake up. Now that the possibility was there, she was even more scared.
Peter got out of the vehicle, and Rami was relieved to see he was steady on his feet; that meant his mind had not been invaded by alcohol. You could never be sure with Peter, regardless of the time of the day.
Paying the driver gave Rami something to do, and once the driver left, she was left with Peter, who was looking strangely more sober than Rami had ever seen him.
“Let’s go inside, Uncle Peter,” Rami said. “Thank you for coming.”
Peter followed her inside quietly, and he startled when he saw Lilian in the hall, but he gave a small smile when she greeted him. “The nice girl. You’re okay. You were nice to Peter.”
Both girls were relieved that he wasn’t objecting to Lilian’s presence to tell his story. Lilian brought him a bottle of water, which he stared blankly at, as if he didn’t know what to do with it.
“It’s just water, Uncle Peter,” Rami assured him as she sat across from him.
“Yes, yes, water,” he repeated, taking the bottle from Lilian, then looking at Rami. “Gin. Where is the gin? I need gin.”
“Drink some water first, Uncle Peter,” Rami told him, lifting up the bottle of gin Lilian had acquired. “The gin is here.”
“Yes, yes, water first,” Peter said, starting greedily at the bottle of gin while he drank the water. After he had drank half a bottle of water, Rami tried to hand him the gin. He reached eagerly for it and then recoiled. “No. No gin. I must fight this.”
Rami and Lilian exchanged surprised and confused glances.
“Okay,” Rami said, hiding the bottle behind the sofa.
Peter looked tortured. “I want it, but I know I shouldn’t. It’s hard to fight the urge, you know. But water makes my mind a little clearer. Just keep giving me water.”
He snatched the bottle from the table and gulped the rest messily, spilling a little on himself. The girls didn’t know what to make of the new development. Rami had never seen the man turn down a drink. However, the request was easy enough to follow, so Lillian grabbed some more bottles of water while Rami watched her uncle.
He opened the next bottle and drank about half before taking a few calming breaths.
“This helps once I get the first bottle of water in, but I don’t know how long it will last,” he said sadly. This time, the girls were shocked. He was like a whole different person; he even sounded different, younger and somewhat vulnerable. What the hell was going on?
“What do you know about Aba’s disappearance?” Rami finally asked, getting straight to it.
He frowned. “I want to tell you, but it’s probably too late. And if it is, there’s no point in shaking the table.”
Taking a leap of faith, Rami confessed, “It’s not too late. Aba called me and begged me to find her.”
Peter’s eyes bulged. “She called you?”
“Yes, she did. That’s why I need to know what you know.”
Peter frowned. “If she is where I think she is, she wouldn’t have access to a phone. So I don’t know.”
“Just tell us. You said the devil took her. Who is the devil?”
He didn’t answer for more than two minutes. He sat still with unfocused eyes, staring into space. Rami and Lilian looked at each other. Was Peter okay? Were they desperately trying to get answers from a man who had drunk too much gin and gone mad?
Rami was starting to regret her decision to contact him. Maybe this whole thing was ridiculous, and they were clutching at straws.
She opened her mouth to say something, not even sure what, but Peter beat her to it.
“My brother. My brother is the devil. I’m almost certain that he took her. He wants to ruin her like he ruined me. But worse. So much worse. Nobody listens to me; nobody listens to a drunk man.”
Wait. Back up. What? Rami stared at the man in front of her with confusion.
“Ruin you? What do you mean, ruin you?”
“I am not a drunkard by choice. Do you think I like to drink?”
Rami exchanged confused frowns with Lilian before looking back at Peter. “Yes?”
“I didn’t take alcohol at all before. Before the devil ruined me. I never drank. Never had the will or the interest,” he claimed, taking the half-filled bottle of water and draining it.
“Now all I hear is his voice in my head, calling for gin. And I can’t ignore the voice of the devil. It’s impossible to ignore it. I have tried, but it doesn’t work. I am useless, unable to think clearly or work. So I am catered for by the devil. Everyone says what a good, tolerant brother he is, taking care of his useless, drunkard brother who cannot work. But they don’t know, do they? Every time he rescues me from falling into a gutter or sends me food, it is because he is taking care of himself. We are tethered until the last sacrifice; then he can get rid of me too. I have been waiting since your sister disappeared. I have been waiting for my demise. But I am still alive. So maybe the devil still has her.”
“Sacrifice?”
Everything he was saying sounded so farfetched. Granted, they had already suspected that Aba’s father may have had a hand in her disappearance, but being hit on the nose like this with other perceived misdeeds made it surreal.
Rami looked at Peter. Ever since they became acquainted, she had never seen Peter like this, speaking in full, legible sentences and having a long conversation without a slurry voice.
Peter sighed, suddenly looking defeated and sad. “You think I’m crazy. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. Nobody believes the drunkard. Nobody listens when I warn them.”
“No, no, we believe you,” Rami said quickly, looking at Lilian for confirmation. Lilian nodded emphatically, even though she still looked lost. “Yes, we believe you, Uncle Peter. We are just shocked. And we need more details to understand what happened to you and how it affects Aba. We need to hear everything. What kind of sacrifice? When did he do it to you, and how? Why? Where is Aba now?”
He searched their faces slowly, getting a little teary when he saw that finally, someone was going to listen to his story. “You believe me?”
“Yes, we do,” Rami assured him. “Please tell us everything.”
“I will tell you. I –” he paused, then his eyes went glassy. “Gin! I need gi— no, no. Water. Get me another bottle of water,” he cried desperately, eyes wild.
The transformation put some fear in Rami, but Lilian quickly opened another bottle of water and gave it to him. He drank all of it desperately. When he raised his head again, his eyes were clear. If the girls didn’t believe the bizarre story he had shared before, they did now. There was a war raging deep inside that man, and it wasn’t normal addict’s withdrawal symptoms. Something sinister was clearly going on.
“I’m sorry. It’s hard, it’s so hard,” he said tearfully, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
“It’s okay, Uncle Peter. It’s not your fault.” Rami assured him.
“I will tell you everything, but let me start with the most important one. I think Aba has been sent to the Nokalu Shrine to either serve as a maiden for the rest of her life or be used in a blood sacrifice.”
The girls gasped. They didn’t know what they had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.
