Jeremy Finley - The Darkest Time of Night

This sudden attitude of mine could cost me this job. And I hated confrontation. Tom rarely became angry with me, and when he did, I quietly tried to even his temper to end the argument. I certainly never fought with Daddy. Perhaps it was that no one had ever totally dismissed me before or spoken to me like hired help.

I am wasting my time, I thought. I could be working on my writing. I leaned back in the chair, holding up two pages. These are the last two. I’m dumping this all back outside his office and apologizing for my inability to finish the project. I imagined sending all the students inquiring about him back to his office, and telling them to knock loudly because, despite being in his late twenties, Dr. Richards is a little deaf.

The fluorescent light above flickered. I sat forward and began to toss the papers into the box, when I stopped. I read the page again and found nothing. Then I leaned back and held up the pages.

The paper was so thin, I could easily see through to the blocked out words on the first page. I had encountered that problem myself before, when I tried to black out one of the professors’ home addresses on a handbook that all the students would see, only to find the address could been seen when angled correctly in the light. But this time, it wasn’t an angle that revealed what was marked through. When I held the two pages together, I could not only see the blacked out words, but also saw the words on the page behind it. The words from the second page fit the sentences from the first page perfectly.

I held the pages up to the desk lamp. I read them over and over again. The second page wasn’t a second page at all.

I reread the sentence on the first page:

“I had noticed (blacked out) were blowing, so (blacked out) outside, and that’s when I saw the (blacked out) and I (blacked out). The (blacked out) had (blacked out) him.”

Dr. Richards—or someone, I guessed—took the time to type out a key for every single page. When I held the pages up to the light and matched up the paragraphs exactly, the words on the second page were, in fact, the words that had been blacked out on the first.

I had noticed (blacked out) were blowing.

The word behind the blacked out word was “trees.”

I had noticed trees were blowing, it read. I smiled.

The words “trees,” “ran,” “streetlight,” “panicked,” “knew,” “lights” and “taken” had all been blacked out on the first page and placed strategically on the second.

I snatched a pencil and wrote the words above the blacked-out smudges, and read the sentence in full:

I had noticed trees were blowing, so I ran outside, that’s when I saw the streetlight and I panicked. The lights had taken him.

I had stayed until midnight the night I first unraveled the code of the files. It had not been dedication that had kept me glued to the pages.

The letters were not always written to Dr. Richards. Many were firsthand accounts, all had most words blacked out. I knew all I was supposed to be doing was finding the dates to figure out some kind of order, but I quickly realized it would be more complicated than that. While some were dated in the upper left-hand corner in standard letter format, the rest required full readings to find some mention of a day, a time, or even a month.

Soon, even if letters were clearly dated, I found myself reading them in their entirety. Several I read more than once. I had to put on my sweater due to the goose bumps on my arms.

When the clock hit 12:30, I grabbed my coat and hurried home, fearing Tom would be pacing in alarm. But he wasn’t home either, which meant he was out with his law-school buddies, blowing off steam.

I made angry laps around the apartment. I’d never been a drinker, and while I didn’t disapprove of alcohol, I certainly didn’t like how it was contributing to my solitude. He hadn’t even stopped by to leave me a note to say he was going out.

The next morning, I left without leaving him a note, making his lunch, or waking him, since had slept through his alarm.

I got to work early and waited. When Dr. Richards arrived, I practically blocked his entrance into his office, holding up one of the files.

“What is this?”

The professor’s head was down as usually, but upon seeing the letters in my hand, he glanced at my face and told me to come in and close the door.

He sat down, folding his fingers behind his thick, dark-red hair, which was already streaked with silver, even though he wasn’t yet thirty.

“You can read them?” he asked.

“Of course I can read them.” I hoped the bags under my eyes didn’t give away how long it had taken me. “I don’t know how else to say this: It’s disturbing. These are letters about people disappearing, being abducted, losing their loved ones. This has nothing to do with astronomy.”

“It has everything to do with astronomy,” he responded quietly.

I stood with my arms folded across my chest, waiting for him to continue. “I’ll be honest with you, Miss Stanson—”

“It’s Mrs. Roseworth.”

“I suspected you were bright, but I actually didn’t think you’d figure out the system this quickly.”

“Well, you thought wrong. And I’m wondering if you should be giving this to police instead of to me to organize for you.”

The professor reached deep into his pants pockets, and then fumbled in the interior of his coat, finally locating his keys. He pivoted his chair around and unlocked an old file cabinet behind him, pulled out a drawer, took out a thick envelope, and slid it across the desk.

“Open it.”

I picked it up and lifted the clasp. I expected to find more blacked-out papers, but instead saw what looked to be hundreds of photographs of varying sizes.

“What is this?”

“Those are the people we’re trying to help. They’ve had someone disappear, or are missing themselves. I keep that envelope close by, and about once a day I open it, to remind myself why it’s so important to keep all this so… shall we say… cryptic.”

I once again looked around at the posters of space and maps of various states and countries, connected with pushpins, notes, and coordinates.

“What’s going on here?”

Dr. Richards chewed on his lip.

“I will tell you one thing: The second I think you’re up to something illegal, I’ll go to the police.”

“It’s nothing like that. But you have permission to do so if I ever break a law. I suppose you could say that some people come to me when someone they love goes missing.”

“Why would they come to you? You’re an astronomy professor.”

“Because they can’t get answers from police. And they know something is wrong. I believe we have the ability to tell—to sense even—that something has happened beyond our understanding.”

I raised my eyebrow.

“Has anything ever occurred in your life that you can’t explain?”

“Honestly, no.”

“Then you’re lucky, and I hope, for your sake, that the rest of your life goes that way.”

“I don’t understand. Why would they come to you if someone is missing?”

“They don’t just come to me. They come to all of us who are trying to find the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That the government is aware of people disappearing and refuses to acknowledge it. I really shouldn’t discuss this anymore until you agree to keep what we do silent. I had to see first if you could even decipher how we communicate–-it can get complicated. Maybe I should have you sign something.”

“Does the university know about this?”

“Oh, no. I’d be fired if they knew the amount of time I devote to this. They pay me to teach students about stars; students who actually don’t care about stars and only want to fulfill their undergraduate demands.”