I don’t remember much from when I was fifteen, but I remember the ride to my Aunt Judy’s house down in Tennessee. It was just me and my mother in the car, the air conditioner the only noise for the several hour drive, though it wasn’t the only reason for the chill in the air. I remember knowing that my mother hated me and being terribly sad about the fact, especially because I deserved it. That’s the fucked up thing. I remember feeling that I had earned everything I was getting somehow, but I didn’t know why.
Until the last few days, I’ve been sleepwalking through a life built on an obscured past without even questioning what would cause me not to remember something so important. But I’ve woken up now, at least a little. Every day bits of memory are coming back to me, but only about those things I’ve been told, as though someone has to point out objects in a shadowed room for me to notice that they’re there.
I had decided I would talk to Mills on the phone and get more details of what went on before visiting my mother. The idea was that I would be better armed with knowledge, and to be honest, I wanted to be able to learn enough to talk myself into abandoning the idea and of contacting my mother at all. The last time I spoke to her was over the phone on my 18th birthday, and it was not a long or heartwarming conversation. It ended with her saying she hoped she’d never hear from me again, and I have lived up to that hope for over a decade.
But despite repeated calls and texts, I hadn’t been able to get Mills yet, though I kept trying on the road to Euclid, Ohio. Hearing Mills’ voicemail always makes my heart jump slightly, though increasingly it was from fear rather than excitement or joy. I didn’t want to panic, and I’d already booked a flight for Austin from the Cleveland airport for late tonight, but it was still hard to keep my mind on what I was doing while worrying about her.
In some ways it was a blessing, because I arrived at my mother’s house before I realized it. I had never seen it before, only knowing where she lived thanks to my Aunt, who kept hoping we would reconcile someday and would periodically slip me unsolicited updates on how my mother was faring and what she was up to. It’s not that I didn’t care—I cared a lot. It was just that reminders of her were also reminders of a lot of pain and loss.
I had always been closer to my father growing up, and when he died suddenly when I was fifteen, it sent both me and my mother into a tailspin…I froze as I realized something. I didn’t remember how my father died. I didn’t remember anything other than that he’s dead. What the fuck was wrong with me?
The terror and anger of realizing how profound my memory gaps truly were drove me from the car and up to the front door of the house. It was a small but nice house in a pleasant neighborhood, and I tried to knock as demurely as I could both for the neighbors’ sake and my mother’s. Still, I knew I probably looked wild-eyed when she opened the door.
“Hi…um, Hello, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t call or warn you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t see me if you knew I was coming.” I smiled weakly, my stomach churning in knots. I was afraid if I stopped talking, she would just slam the door in my face, which might still happen anyway. “I just really need to talk to you for a few minutes. I won’t stay long and I won’t ever bother you again if you want. Can I please come in and talk to you for a few minutes? It’s very important.” I could hear my voice shaking, and I hated it, but it couldn’t be helped. For her part, my mother’s initial look of surprise had slowly slid down into a look of suspicious anger.
“Are you on drugs? Is that what this is?” Her voice was dry and hoarse sounding now, and I wondered if she had started smoking again. She had stopped when I was little when…something happened. Fuck. “I hear on t.v. about junkie kids coming to kill their parents.” She raised a thinly penciled eyebrow. “I think you’ve done enough killin’ already.”
I clenched my teeth, my anger and frustration burning away my guilt and fear for the moment as I took a step forward and jabbed a finger at her face. “There. That right fucking there. I’m so sick of this. Of all of this. People are either treating me like I’m a piece of glass or they’re shitting on me for things I don’t remember. No. Fuck that.” I realized I had made it five steps into the house now, my mother retreating from my angry tirade. Taking a deep breath, I started over. “Look, I’m sorry. I know you don’t want me here. I don’t want to be here. But I need answers for things I don’t remember. I’m not on drugs, and I’m not going to hurt you. I just need your help.”
My mother looked up at me, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t have any money to give you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need money. I just need help remembering things.”
Studying me carefully, she narrowed her gaze again. “What kinds of things?”
I had been mostly looking down at the floor since entering, but now I met her eyes again. “Like why you hate me for one. I really don’t remember why or what happened when I was 15.”
I saw her eyes begin watering, and at first I thought it was sadness at how far apart we had drifted or regret for sending me away. Then I realized it was raw hurt and anger.
“Get out. I won’t hear any more of this bullshit in my own shitting house!” She was screaming like a madwoman now, her eyes wide and her face red as she advanced on me. “That was always your problem, you’d never admit to what you done. Never admit to killing them or letting them get killed, whichever it was.”
I stood my ground. “They? Who is they? Who did I kill or let get killed?”
She had reached me now, beating upon my chest with her small, thin hands. “Damn you, Alex. What is wrong with you? Are you telling me you don’t remember? Are you still going to play this game after all this time?”
I gently grabbed her wrists and held them still for a minute. “Mom, Cassidy and Ellis are dead. They’ve been murdered because of something we all were doing as kids. And if I don’t figure out what is going on, it may happen to the rest of us too.” I sighed. “Fuck, it might even if I do figure it out.” I let go of her wrists and stepped back. “I’m not playing games. I really don’t remember. I never could. I can’t explain it, but it’s only since I’ve been talking to the others the last few days that I’ve started to remember any of it. So I’m going to ask you one last time to please talk to me for a minute. Explain to me what went on. Then I’ll go away forever.”
My mother wiped at her eyes and I could see her fingers were yellowed with age and cigarette tar. I realized I had smelt alcohol on her breath when she was close by as well. She was looking at me like a wounded animal, and I hated myself for making it all worse for her by being here. And if she wasn’t going to…
“I don’t know everything. I don’t know much, really. But I’ll tell you what I can, and then you have to go.
You were always so close with your friends. When you were younger I was happy for you—I know how hard childhood can be, and to have so may close friends can be a blessing. But as you got older and moved to…that damned school…things started changing. You were more quiet and you barely talked to us about what was going on with you anymore.
At first, I chalked it up to adolescence. You were a growing boy, and I knew from my brothers growing up that a teenage boy can be hard to be around. And you weren’t mean or getting into trouble. You were just…not there. You were gone a lot of the time, and when you were home, you could tell your mind was off somewhere else.
When strange things started happening around the school and the town, we didn’t pay it much mind. Your father liked to joke about the teacher ghost, and we really thought that’s all it was, a silly joke or myth. But then we almost had a car accident that one time and…well, you may not remember it, but it was almost really bad. And the way it didn’t happen was so strange. I should have known then something wasn’t right. Maybe I could have helped you. Got you away from those kids, that school.
Still, people are blind to things so much, right? So time passed, and I heard of things happening, but I guess I ignored it or thought it was just talk. Then one night you came in and said that Alicia was gone. That she had been taken by the thing at the school. I didn’t know what you were talking about, but you were all torn up and terrified, so I…
“Wh-who’s Alicia?” I felt as though my head was being torn apart, and as I spoke, each word echoed across my brain like a monstrous bell being rung. I saw my mother wanting to grow angry again, but she wrestled it back down when she saw how much pain I was in.
“My God. You really don’t know. I think you really forgot her.” We had still been standing at the edge of her living room while we talked, and she moved now to her mantle to retrieve a picture frame. In it was a photo of me at about age twelve, along with my parents and a young girl that looked to be about eight. My mother held the picture in front of my face, tapping the girl with a long, yellow nail. “That’s Alicia. That’s your sister.” She dropped her arm and staggered back, her face looking impossibly old and tired.
“That’s half of why I couldn’t be around you anymore. I could never believe that you really forgot her. How do you forget a person? Especially her. She was so sweet and good, and she loved you so much.” She was crying freely now, and I wanted to comfort her, but didn’t quite dare. “We all loved each other so much. But then you got caught up in whatever was going on at the school.”
Her face was harder now, tears sliding down her cheeks like water on granite. “I don’t know what you got tangled up in, whether it was some kind of cult or if there really was some ghost or something at that school. All I know is that when you came in all scared and bloody, your father went to bring our baby girl back. I tried to get you to stay with me, but you ran out after he left.”
“I called the police, but they were already out there. Seven people died that night. They never found my baby girl, but they found your father’s body in the gymnasium. Or parts of it at least.” Her eyes were dry and blazing again. “And you…I was so scared for you. Even when I knew you must have had some hand in her being at the school so late in the evening, especially when you were the one that knew where she was. When we found you and your friends out on the football field later that night, all unconscious, I was so relieved. Both because you were safe and because maybe you had answers. Maybe you could help us find your father and Alicia.”
Her tone grew more wooden as she talked, and her eyes had wandered to the picture in her hands. She stroked it absently as she went on. “But then they found your father around the time the EMTs were checking you kids out. They said you were scraped up but otherwise fine. Rescue crews were still searching the school, but I took you to the car and asked you what had happened. Where you had seen Alicia last.” Her grip tightened on the frame until I heard it crack. “And you know what you said to me?”
“Who’s Alicia?” I finished with her, remembering it as it was being told. I still didn’t know what had led up to that moment, but I remember my mother that night, so sad and scared, staring at me with her mouth open for several moments. Asking me again and again, shaking my shoulders. And then she slapped me across the face.
I could see she was remembering that too. “I know it seems like I’ve treated you bad, Alex, and I guess I have. But just like you couldn’t help what you remembered, I couldn’t help how that made me feel. I tried getting investigators, psychologists, even a preacher, to talk to you. Tried to help you remember or quit lying if you weren’t being honest about what you knew. But nothing helped. And every day…every day I felt like you were slowly killing your sister by either being intentionally evil or just stupid and weak enough to block out the most important thing you could ever know.”
She wiped her nose as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I’m done. I’ve spent years trying to forget all this, to forget about you. I’m sorry you’re in trouble now, especially if it’s not your fault. But I can’t be around you anymore. I don’t hate you, Alex, but I don’t love you either. Not anymore.”
I left my mother’s house and drove to a nearby parking lot where I just cried for a few minutes. I think part of me had always thought we would reconcile, and the loss of that hope coupled with memories of my baby sister flooding back as I tried to cope with losing her too…it was more than I could handle at first. I didn’t know how much I was to blame for what had happened to her and my father, but that didn’t lessen my grief or my guilt.
After awhile I checked my phone. No word from Mills and two hours until my flight. I decided to try her again, and this time she picked up right away. Except it wasn’t her. It was Thomas.
“Hey, Alex. Mills can’t come to the phone right now. Mainly because I have her tied up in the other room. Been trying to get the Professor to sit on her chest, which fuck me, you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about, but it doesn’t matter. We need you buddy. I think it’ll work if you’re here.”
I was momentarily confused, trying to decide if he could potentially be joking or something, but that made no sense. He wouldn’t go all the way to Austin for a joke, and his voice sounded strange, like he was caught between laughing and crying. Or just in the middle of going insane. “Look, you’re right. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll come and we’ll figure it out. Is she okay? Have you hurt her?”
Thomas gave an uneven laugh. “No, she almost broke my arm, but she’s fine. Not trying to hurt either of you. But I need you both to contact the Professor. Ask for its help.”
“Help?”
“With Cassidy. With bringing her back to life.”
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Credits
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