James Swain - Shadow People

“I’m not a clown,” Sierra said indignantly.

Peter wagged a finger in Sierra’s face. A simple gesture that carried an implied threat. This young man was capable of causing him great harm if he chose to, and Sierra listened carefully to what he had to say.

“If one word of what was said here today gets out, there will be hell to pay,” Peter said. “Do you understand that? None of this can ever be repeated, or written down in a journal or a diary, or passed on to another doctor in a conversation. It stays here. Got it?”

“I understand,” Sierra repeated.

“Look me in the eyes when you say that.”

Sierra swallowed hard. The image of Peter’s mother and father sitting in his office burned vividly in the theater of his mind. They’d been a nice couple, except for the terrible secret they’d carried with them. He’d tried to help them, and when that had failed, he’d gone to a higher source.

Sierra repressed the memory, fearful Peter would see it. He locked eyes with the young magician. “You have my word. I will not repeat anything you said here today.”

Satisfied Sierra was telling the truth, Peter ushered Liza out and slammed the door behind him, causing the walls to shake.

“Damn it,” Sierra said under his breath.

Sierra began to shiver. A gust of cold wind swept through the office, even though the window facing the street was shut tight. This was Peter’s doing. He had not trusted Sierra, so part of him had stayed behind as a warning, in case Sierra had second thoughts about the promises he’d been sworn to keep.

His receptionist returned, reeking of cigarette smoke. “Are you okay, Dr. Sierra?”

“Do I not look okay?”

“Come to mention it, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Back in his office with the door shut, he tried to decide his best course of action. His eyes fell upon the thick volumes of psychiatric journals filling the bookshelf behind his desk. One of the journals inched out of its space and fell to the floor, landing on its spine with a dull thud. As he bent down to retrieve it, another journal crept out of its place, and fell on top of his head, then another and another, until all eleven volumes in the series were raining down upon him. It could have been much worse, and he returned the books to their spots.

The greatest fear was of those things we did not understand. Sierra sat down at his desk, and tried to regain his composure. His heart was racing, and adrenaline was coursing through his veins. His professional career had been filled with challenges, but one had stood out above all the rest. It had never been resolved, and he’d accepted that it probably never would. Each morning he’d stood at his office window, remembering the sunny fall morning twenty years past when a charming British couple named Henry and Claire Warren had paid him a visit to discuss their unusual problem. He’d seen them only once, yet the effect they’d had on him had been so profound that he’d never forgotten them.

He rummaged through his desk drawers. In the bottom drawer was an ancient Rolodex, and he flipped through it, quickly finding the card he was looking for. The pencil markings had grown faint, and he had to hold it beneath the lamp on his desk.

Hunsinger

555-1259

That was all. Just a last name and a phone number.

Sierra could not help the Warrens, so he’d put them in touch with Hunsinger, who had tried to help them with their problem. Hunsinger had failed, just as Sierra had failed. Had Hunsinger’s curiosity been eating at him ever since? Did he also stare through a window each day, pondering life’s unexplainable mysteries? Sierra guessed that it had. Situations like this happened once in a lifetime.

Picking up the phone, he punched in the number on the card, and heard the call go through. Three rings, four rings, five. Sierra expected voice mail or an answering machine to pick up, but instead heard the unhealthy sound of a man’s raspy cough.

“Hello?”

“Good morning. I hope I have the right number,” Sierra said.

“I’ve had this number for forty years. I think you do,” the voice replied.

The receiver grew tight in Sierra’s hand. “This is Dr. Raul Sierra. We met many years ago.”

“I remember you, Dr. Sierra. How have you been?”

“I’m well. How about yourself?”

“My health is not what it used to be. So to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

Sierra hesitated. Ten minutes ago, he’d made a promise that he was now about to break, and he hoped it would not come back to haunt him. “Do you remember a British couple I sent to see you named Claire and Henry Warren?”

“How could I have forgotten, even after all this time? Is this about them?”

“No, it’s about their son.”

“You mean Peter.”

“Yes, Peter.”

“I always wondered what happened to him. I read in the newspapers that his parents had been killed, and I tried to track Peter down. He disappeared, you know. I assumed he was sent back to England to live with his relatives. I think about him often.”

“He’s here in New York.”

“Really. May I ask how you came about this information?”

“Peter and his girlfriend just left my office. They are having issues and needed counseling. A strange twist of fate that he would seek me out.”

“Everything happens for a reason, Dr. Sierra. Please tell me, how is Peter coping?”

“Not well. He’s battling with his demons, so to speak.”

“Did you talk to him about his past?”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell him what happened?”

“The situation was not right. That’s why I contacted you. I thought we could do it together, being that we were both involved. It might…”

“Lessen the blow?”

“Yes.”

“Give me an hour. I still remember your address,” Hunsinger said.

New York was constantly reinventing itself. The neighborhood around Sierra’s office was a perfect example. It was known as Kips Bay, yet most New Yorkers now called it Curry Hill for the many authentic Indian restaurants that had opened there. Saravana Bhavan was Peter and Liza’s favorite of the bunch, and it specialized in South Indian fare of dosas and vegetarian plates.

The owner greeted them cheerfully at the front door. It was a family operation, with his wife behind the register, his son working the kitchen. He escorted them to a table in the back.

“Menus? Or are we having the usual?” the owner asked.

“The usual,” Peter replied.

The breakfast crowd had thinned out, and the restaurant was quiet. Soon the owner served them crispy lentil doughnuts with sambar and chutney, and cups of steaming Madras coffee. Liza munched silently on a doughnut.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Peter replied.

“You’re always hungry. Eat something. It will make you feel better.”

He bit into a doughnut. It was deliciously warm and melted in his mouth. Liza sipped her coffee before speaking again. “What happened back there at the doctor’s office?”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

“It was ugly.”

“How ugly is ugly?”

“On a scale of one to ten, it was a nine.”

“With a ten being my throwing Sierra out the window?”

“I sure hope not. Why did you act like that?”

He stared at his reflection in his plate. Sierra’s question about the demon coming out after his parents had died had hit a nerve. It was as if Sierra had known about the demon, and was baiting him. But how could that be? He’d never met Sierra until this morning. Except for the Friday night psychics and Liza, no one knew about his special powers or his past, and he planned to keep it that way. The only reason he told the doctor was because of the doctor/patient oath, and he was already regretting that he had done so.