novelraw Chapter 280: Ancient God's Whisper
Chapter 280: Ancient God's Whisper
On the other side of the Atlantic, in London.
For the Arthur Weston family, who had moved away from the nightmare of the White Church District and settled in the western suburb of Richmond, life had never been so peaceful and happy.
They not only owned a comfortable cottage with a small garden, but Arthur had also opened a small shop locally. His daily life consisted of managing the shop, reading the newspaper, and picking up and dropping off his most cherished daughter, Lily, to and from school.
Lily's health had also recovered at an astonishing speed after that "gas poisoning" incident.
Her pale little face regained a rosy glow, and she became much more lively and cheerful overall.
Only occasionally, she would still stare blankly at an empty corner, as if listening to something.
Arthur attributed this to the aftereffects of that accident and didn't pay too much attention to it.
Until that afternoon, a phone call from St. Margaret's Girls' School jolted him awake from his comfortable daily routine.
The call was from the school's headmistress, a strict and rigid nun.
Her tone on the phone carried shock and confusion."Mr. Weston, please come to the school immediately. Regarding... regarding your daughter, Lily, there's a bit of... a bit of an unexplainable situation."
Arthur immediately sensed something was wrong.
When he hurriedly arrived at the school, he was instantly rendered speechless by the surreal scene before his eyes.
It was in the school's small garden.
At this moment, the area around the small garden was already crowded with students and teachers who had heard the news.
And in the very center of the garden, the flowerbed that should have only had a few sparse autumn roses blooming was now in full, unusually resplendent bloom!
Hundreds of roses, in the unseasonably deep autumn, were blooming in their most beautiful forms.
Red, white, pink, each flower blooming full and delicate, an intense and somewhat ominous rose fragrance permeated the air throughout the entire campus.
And his daughter, Lily Weston, stood quietly in the center of this oil-painting-like sea of flowers.
"...It was during the afternoon nature class." The headmistress nun's trembling voice sounded beside Arthur's ear. "We were just... just leading the children to observe plants as usual. When Lily approached this flowerbed, these... these flowers, right before everyone's eyes, all... bloomed by themselves."
The nun kept crossing herself, as if she had witnessed some pagan witchcraft.
Arthur looked at his daughter, then at the surrounding gazes filled with astonishment. A familiar, icy fear rose up his spine.
He remembered those several terrifying nights.
Perhaps, the trouble haunting his family had never truly left.
...
A few days later, in the Old Captain bar located in London's Underground City.
Marcus, shirtless, was engaged in a sweat-and-hormone-filled arm-wrestling match with another equally tall and burly hunter of Germanic descent.
The bar was packed with off-duty hunters who had come to join the fun. The clamorous shouts and clinking of glasses almost seemed about to lift the entire dome.
"Crush him, Marcus!"
"Black Forest bear! Show him the strength of us Germans!"
Finally, accompanied by the sound of bones almost cracking, Marcus, relying on his terrifying brute force, slammed his opponent's arm down hard onto the oak table.
"Oh—!!!"
The bar erupted in cheers.
Marcus grinned, revealing a sweat-drenched smile.
He picked up the rye beer on the table and downed it in one go, enjoying this rare moment of peace-time relaxation and glory.
Just then, the bartender handed him an internal letter that had just been forwarded from the information center from behind the bar.
"For you, big guy. From someone named Arthur Weston."
Arthur Weston?
Marcus's brow furrowed slightly.
He certainly remembered that name.
That somewhat pitiful old patrol officer.
Before Lin Jie left Europe, he had privately asked Marcus, if convenient, to visit that family in Richmond in the name of an "old friend" to ensure they were safe and sound.
Marcus opened the envelope.
The content of the letter, aside from polite pleasantries, carried a deep, barely concealed anxiety.
In the letter, Arthur, in a very subtle way, told this friend of a friend about a series of strange things that had recently happened to his daughter.
He didn't directly mention the "rose incident," instead using a more homely tone.
"...Lily seems to have recently become obsessed with a new game. She always likes to draw some strange maze patterns on her desk or on the window glass at home. When I ask her who taught her, she can't explain clearly, only saying a 'lady who sings very beautifully' taught her in a dream..."
At the end of the letter, Arthur earnestly invited Marcus to come visit their home sometime and taste his wife's newly baked apple pie.
Marcus's brain, slightly dulled by alcohol, instantly sobered up upon seeing the word "maze pattern."
He finished the remaining beer in his glass, then stood up. "That crow's mouth Lin, I'm afraid he's hit the mark once again."
The next afternoon, Marcus, carrying a bottle of fine Scotch whisky, appeared at the door of the Weston family's comfortable cottage under the identity of "Arthur's long-unseen old comrade-in-arms."
When Arthur saw him, a complex expression of both pleasant surprise and gratitude appeared on his face.
He invited Marcus inside, and Mrs. Weston warmly served him a freshly baked apple pie that exuded the fragrance of cinnamon.
Everything looked so warm and normal.
Lily was quietly drawing on the carpet in the living room.
She seemed a bit happy to see Marcus, the old acquaintance.
"Hello, Mr. Giant," she greeted politely. "Your arm is thicker than my daddy's leg."
"Hahaha!" Marcus let out a hearty laugh, carefully squatting down so his massive frame wouldn't feel oppressive to this porcelain-doll-like delicate little girl. "Because I eat more spinach than your daddy."
Just as he was talking with Lily, his gaze inadvertently swept over the drawing paper in front of her.
His pupils suddenly contracted.
What was drawn on that paper with crayons wasn't the houses, suns, or little animals children usually draw.
It was a very complex, symmetrical pattern with a mystical flavor.
At the center of the pattern was a "trefoil knot" symbol formed by three interconnected, spiraling curves.
Surrounding the trefoil knot were circles upon circles of spirals extending outward like a maze.
Marcus's hunter's intuition could sense that this child's drawing contained very ancient spiritual fluctuations.
"Lily, this drawing... is really beautiful," Marcus tried his best to make his voice sound as gentle as possible. "Can you tell uncle what you're drawing?"
"It's 'her' home," Lily tilted her head, answering in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Her?"
"Mhm," Lily nodded, pointing first at the vibrant garden outside the window, then at the solid floor beneath their feet. "She lives here. In the garden, under the ground, everywhere. She sings beautifully and teaches me how to draw."
After exchanging a brief, knowing glance with Arthur, Marcus, under the pretext of "taking a look at the little girl's room," was led by Arthur to Lily's bedroom on the second floor.
More drawings were neatly arranged in the bedroom.
Most were similar complex patterns with the "trefoil knot" and "spirals" as the core elements.
One of them even depicted a massive world tree, its roots deeply embedded in the earth, its branches holding up the sun, moon, and stars.
"What... what on earth is going on?" Arthur's voice carried suppressed fear. "I beg you, tell me, my daughter... what's really happening to her?"
Marcus silently looked at those drawings.
He couldn't understand the specific meaning behind these symbols, but he knew he had to immediately report all of this to someone who could.
— Intelligence Officer Phillips.
Although that bookworm was a bit rigid, in fields related to mysticism, he was considered one of the authorities in the Underground City.
That night, Marcus returned to the Underground City.
Without making a fuss, he directly entered the office of Intelligence Department Analyst Phillips.
Marcus handed over everything he had seen and heard during the day, along with several photos of Lily's drawings he had taken with his portable camera, to this intelligence officer known for his meticulousness and coldness.
"...That's the situation," Marcus said gravely. "I suspect this might be related to some ancient Druid belief."
Analyst Phillips adjusted his monocle, carefully examining the photos.
When his gaze fell on that "trefoil knot" symbol, a subtle change appeared on his face.
He didn't immediately draw a conclusion. Instead, he rapidly retrieved relevant intelligence from his database-like brain.
"...Triple Goddess... spirals represent rebirth, cycles, and eternity... Celtic mythological system..." he muttered to himself, then suddenly looked up, staring at Marcus with an incredulous gaze.
"You guessed correctly, Marcus. But it might be... far more serious than you imagined."
Phillips took a deep breath and voiced a bold speculation.
"This girl... Lily Weston, like a receiver, has inadvertently established a weak, one-way synesthetic connection with a very ancient Celtic mythological system UMA slumbering deep within the mineral veins beneath the British Isles."
"Judging from these symbols, that ancient god is highly likely to be the Celtic Triple Earth Mother Goddess representing life, death, and rebirth — the Morrígan!"