James Swain - Shadow People

“Is my past fiction?” Peter asked.

“Yes. Part of your family’s past is fiction.”

“So this includes my parents.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“How bad is it?”

“I never planned to tell you, if that’s what you mean.”

Peter removed a bread stick from the basket, broke off a piece. Did he really want to hear dark things about his family’s past? Milly’s accusation that he ran away from his problems didn’t seem such a bad idea right now.

“Go ahead,” he said.

Max wiped his hands with a cloth napkin. Bunching the napkin up, he extracted a full glass of water, complete with ice cubes and a slice of lemon, which he triumphantly placed in front of his bug-eyed student. Fooled again, Peter thought.

“You flashed. Do it again,” Peter said.

“I did no such thing,” Max thundered. “Admit you’re fooled!”

“All right, you fooled me. Bravo.”

A thin smile crossed Max’s face. “Listen carefully to what I have to say. This will be upsetting at first. Once I explain certain things, I think you’ll understand. Okay?”

“Sure, Max.”

“All right, here we go. You were raised to believe that your mother and father left London and came to New York because they were being threatened by the group of evil psychics called the Order of Astrum. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“That is not the actual reason your parents left England. The real reason they left is that their precious son killed a man in Hyde Park, and they were running from the law.”

“I did what ?”

“Please let me tell my story without interruption.”

Peter could feel the blood draining from his head. “Sure, Max, whatever you say.”

“Thank you. Here’s what happened. Your parents lived in London and taught at a small college. Each Sunday when the weather was favorable, they packed a picnic and went to Hyde Park, where they allowed you to play while they read books. It was one of their favorite things to do. One Sunday in the early spring, your parents were going about their usual routine when your father realized you had disappeared. He grew alarmed, and went searching for you. Several minutes passed before he found you behind a thick hedge a hundred yards from where your parents had been sitting. You were in a daze, and barely speaking. Lying on the ground was a man with blood pouring out of his nose and mouth. The man’s neck was broken and he was dead. Your father gathered you in his arms, and asked you what had happened. And you said, ‘I killed him, Father. He was going to hurt us.’”

“Who was he?”

“Please, don’t make me get ahead of myself.”

“Sorry.”

“On the ground beside the dead man was a lead pipe. Your father couldn’t be sure if the man had been holding the pipe, or if it had been lying there. Your father rushed you home, where your mother gave you a bath, and wiped the blood away.”

“Why didn’t they call the police?”

“Your parents knew you were different in many ways, and did not always understand the things you did. That night, after you were put to bed, your parents talked it over. They couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to harm them. After all, they were college professors, and led dull, uneventful lives. If the man in the bushes had wanted to rob them, he wouldn’t have gotten much money. And if he’d wanted to hurt them, why?

“The next day, the story hit every newspaper in London. Scotland Yard was looking for you, and claimed to have a rather vague description of what you looked like provided by an old woman who’d been bird-watching in the park. Your father saw the newspapers and panicked. If the police found you, he was afraid they would have stuck you into a mental institution. He had to protect you, and convinced your mother that they needed to leave London, and quickly.”

“So they left because of me.”

“That’s right. Your father knew there was more to the story, and felt certain he’d figure out the rest eventually. Your parents came to New York, where they took jobs at Hunter College and went about their lives. Then the unthinkable happened.”

“I killed again.”

Max nodded gravely. “Six months to the day, to be exact. It happened at night. You were in bed, and your parents went to see a newborn in a neighbor’s apartment. When they returned, your mother went to check on you, and found you covered in blood.”

Peter stared at the table, thinking he might be sick.

Max squeezed his arm. “It gets better,” he said.

“How can this story possibly get better?” he half whispered.

“Because now you’re going to hear the truth.”

His head snapped. “Which is what?”

“While your mother tended to you, your father went onto the fire escape outside your bedroom. Finding more blood, he followed it down to an alley. It was there that he found your victim, who’d been beaten around the face and had died from loss of blood.”

“How awful.”

“Stop flogging yourself. I said it got better, didn’t I?”

“Sorry.”

“The man in the alley reminded your father of your victim in Hyde Park. Both men were physically large, in their early thirties, and rough looking. That bothered your father, yet he was still unable to make the connection. He decided to move the body before someone discovered it, and called me for help.”

“Because you had a car.”

Max nodded.

“Had he told you what I’d done in Hyde Park?”

“Yes, he had. Like him, I believed there was more to the story than met the eye. Mind you, Peter, I’d gotten to know you during my visits to your family’s apartment, and you impressed me as a fine fellow and not some little serial killer in waiting. Anyway, I rushed over with my car, and your father and I loaded the dead man in the trunk. We hauled him to a vacant lot in Brooklyn, where we planned to dump him.”

Peter found himself shaking his head. Max and his father were the two most important men in his life. The idea that they’d dumped a dead man in a lot in order to save him from the police brought out an emotion that he could not describe. He took a deep breath.

“Wow.”

“Wow is right. And that was when I had a eureka moment,” Max said triumphantly.

“Your victim was wearing a turtleneck sweater. As we dragged him out of the trunk, it got pulled down, and I spied a shimmering silver tattoo on his neck.”

Peter gasped. “He was a member of the Order of Astrum.”

“Indeed he was. He wasn’t a burglar, as your parents originally thought, but an assassin who had been sent to kill them.” Max paused again. “And you stopped him.”

“You think I knew who he was?”

“Of course you did-why else would you have killed him?”

Peter wrestled with what Max was telling him. Why couldn’t a few memories of these events have remained? It would have made it so much easier for him to deal with this. But the memories had been erased along with the violent emotions that had gone with them.

“So these killings weren’t random acts of violence, but served a purpose,” Peter said.

“That was the conclusion your father and I came to,” Max replied. “As you know, your parents were founding members of the Order. They left the organization in their teens, got married, and moved to London. One day, the three remaining members of the Order paid them a visit, and asked them to rejoin. Your parents said no, and they threatened them. Your father said he hadn’t taken the threats seriously. Now he did.”

“What about the man in Hyde Park? Was he an assassin as well?”

“Excellent deduction. Yes, he was.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I have a friend in London whose brother is with Scotland Yard. I called my friend, and asked him to ask his brother to check the autopsy report of the dead man to see if he had a shimmering tattoo on his neck. Not surprisingly, the man did.”