Chapter 1
After a few knocks were heard, Lisa opened the door to her house and in front of her was standing that man, again. Soaked, again. A wandering look in his eyes, the kind she hated, again.
What are you doing here? she asked, again.
They told me I could go… I didn’t know where to go… he said softly.
He seemed genuinely lost. But she couldn’t understand why he was here, why he insisted on being here, when she had no interest in helping that homeless guy who had appeared one day in her garden.
And what do you want me to do ?
He looked at her like a lost puppy.
A few days prior
Lisa was coming home from a long day at the bookshop. She had forgotten to open the blinds in the living room when she had left. She proceeded to let a little light in for the fews hours left of sun for the day.
The grand window was facing the garden that was at the back of the house. After going to her home to get changed she opened her drawer, and realised she had no clean pjs left. A few back and forth between the bathroom, the laundry room and she realized that she had already done her laundry and even left it to dry.Thank God it has been sunny for the past few days!! God know the irritating feeling of having to redo your bad-smelling laundry when you could have just picked it up before you had to go through this whole process again.
She went down the stairs, put on her outside shoes and heard a weird wound… drizzling… almot like… “Oh no no no!” she started saying while running. The air had been so saturated with the summer heat for the past few days, that the heavy rain quickly started. She took the clothes and put them in a basket as quickly as she could. She was getting soaked and so was the laundry so she would probably have to redo it again. “Damnit…” she pestered aloud.
The moment she took the basket and proceeded to take the little path made of polished rocks to get to the house, she stopped at the crosswords, if you could call it that.
It was simply the point in the garden where the other road she took only once a month led to her family treasure. This treasure she never understood, that her dad always told her that once he was gone, she was the one who should take care of it. That little road led to the far back end of the garden, where a huge tree was situated. Beside that tree was the entrance to a cave. The cave was part of her home’s property : “taken care of by generations after generations in our family… and one day it will be your turn Lisa” her dad had said. She had gone to the cave a few times before he and her mom passed away. He always wanted to show her what was inside and she had been so disappointed the first time but couldn’t tell her dad.
A rock… her family’s great responsibility to the world was a rock covered in ropes. But still… it was her responsibility ever since her parents had died two years ago.
Now she almost never went and therefore, she had never noticed how weak the ropes had become, and she definitely wasn’t there when one of the ropes broke, creating a ripple effect through all of the others that fell down, letting the huge rock break in two.
She had only seen the after-effect that she was witnessing now : a tall man, tottering through that flat rocky path in front of her. His hair was not only super long and disheveled, but they were white. He was also wearing weird clothes, long white clothes. He was as soaked as Lisa. He almost seemed as if he hadn’t seen her. And she was too shocked and scared to say anything. She wanted to run to the house, but he was too close already. He finally noticed her and turned his head. His dark, heavy-lidded eyes seemed as if he didn’t really see her. She only had time to ask “Who are you?” when the man turned his head to look towards the house, opened his mouth and fell face first in the grass.
