518: HER HOPE

HER HOPE

"There's a torch in the festival?" Hope asked while washing all the dirty plates after their dinner with Rossie, who was cleaning the table. All the men were in the living room while Sophia was preparing some cookies for them.2

"Yes, there is. The festival will start when the torch is lit." Rossie put another dirty bowl in the sink. "You have never been in the festival, have you?" she stated.

"And I think, I'd never will." Hope pouted her lips, trying to act normal, which was hard to do if you lived surrounded by those supernatural creatures, who was able to sniff your lies.

Fortunately, they didn't pay attention to Hope and as long as she wouldn't do something strange, Hope thought she would be fine until she could execute her plan. Hopefully everything would be fine…

"Tell me how the festival is, you had been there the last time it was held, right?" Hope dried her hand with towel and turned around to face Rossie. If she was going to go there alone, at least she had to know how the situation there.

Her plan was simple; fled from this house unnoticed, went to the festival, looked for the torch and met with the witch. Sounded like a simple and nice plan, yet Hope was unsure she could go until the final steps run smoothly.

Meanwhile, here she was, trying to gather any information that could help her to escape.

Hope knew, her reason for doing this was inexplicably ridiculous, yet she couldn't help but felt the beast was asking for her help. Kace needed her.

Though, it would be too risky, but it would worth a shot.

"The festival is a masquerade, where people from this village wear beautiful masks and dresses." Rossie shrugged her shoulder. "There is also this role game during the festival,"

"What kind of game?" Hope was clueless about it all because she had never been there and was never put any interest on finding out about the festival.

Rossie then explained about the role game. Apparently, three people would be chosen as witches, and each of these witches are tasked to bring a small golden balls, and hide them behind their dress or shirt, so no one would find out. It was the task of other villagers to find out the witches among them.

Also each witches had to snatch one flower that was previously put behind everyone's back.

That was why, they must be more vigilant and trusted the right person to watch their back.

The game would last until the torch was completely burned off or until the identity of the three witches were revealed.

It sounded like a game that Hope would love to play and she would definitely join if she wasn't in this kind of situation.

"The story behind this game is quite ironic," Rossie said as they walked to the living room, where the rest of the family were watching the football match from the TV, "It is said that this game was created to banish all the witches away and all their allies too, because witches are associated with something evil and could make someone ran out of good luck."

Hope started to see the ironic part of it.

Those villagers thought they were chasing away the witches out of their land. But, Hope and all the supernatural creatures aroundknew that this village stood still where it is now, all because of the power of the witches.

This place was the nearest to where human and witches' realm was located and yet, the villagers held this festival.

"Hm, I think so…" Hope mumbled while nodding her head, agreed.

In the next hour, Hope stayed together with the family, watched football and laughed with them. But, when the clock hit eight, she stood up.

"Where are you going?" Ian asked, seeing Hope was about to go.

"Take a bath," she replied curtly.

"At this hour?" Rossie turned her body and stared at Hope.

"It's hot, I'm soaked with sweat…" Hope frowned as she fanned her face with her hand. "Be right back."

No one asked anymore questions, as they knew Hope would often do something peculiar like this and Hope was indeed taking a bath. They could hear the water running in bathroom and weren't suspicious at all.

Actually, Hope needed a bath to lessen her scent, because it was definitely impossible to get rid of her own scent completely, but at least this will slow those with remarkable noses in the living room,on tracking her down once they noticed her absent.

This was important because realistically speaking, there is no chance that Hope would outrun those beasts.

Hope scrubbed every inch of her skin until it turned red, after that, she wore a t-shirt, jacket and jeans in which pocketsstuffed with flowers that she picked from Sophia's garden. All that, just to cover her scent.

Finished with that, Hope made sure that no one was nearby, that everyone was still in the living room. And apparently they were. Hope could hear everyone's voice there.

Using a small window beside the bathroom, Hope lifted herself with the support of a wooden chair. It was hard to fit herself in that small window, but at the end she managed to do it after five minutes of struggling.

Hope landed on the soft ground with her hands covered her head, as she fell upside down.

However, Hope didn't have time to complain about her arms that got hurt from falling, as she stood up hastily and rushed toward the dark of the night.

It wasn't hard to know which direction she should take, since the festival itself was easy to spot, and then Hope could see the bright light of it from the distance.

All Hope could do was to run towards that direction before anyone noticed and caught her in the middle of her escape plan.

Another wish; she hoped her decision this time was the right thing to do and was not going to cause another problem to her and many people.

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