I hung out at the water front for the remainder of the day, then went home and had a fitful sleep. The new day dawned. As I got closer to the school, I hoped my actions yesterday would have gone unnoticed. Probably no such luck. I was on a roller coaster that was out of control and there was no way to get off. The one thing I dreaded was to have to explain myself to anyone, because inevitably that would lead to questions about how I felt. How was I supposed to feel? Dad was blown up by an IED, mom was so depressed that she hadn't been out of bed in days. I was about to blow off my last year of High School. Everyone seemed keenly interest in talking about the one thing I didn't want to talk about: my feelings. I just wanted to tell them to stuff their questions so far up their Yin that Yang wouldn't know where to find her. It was family business and it was private.
The plan was to slip in through the teachers' entrance; students weren't allowed there. With five minutes left before the start of school, I could be ensured of a quiet entrance. Other than that, my plan was decidedly thin. I would survive for the rest of the day and when fourth period came, I would pretend to leave for my placement at the library. I just wouldn't show up. Of course this depended on the Head Librarian not placing the all important call, of me abandoning my post, which was highly unlikely.
Good, there was nobody in the halls. I had about thirty seconds to get to home room. I had to pass by the co-op/volunteer placement teacher’s office to do this. If I pretended there was nothing wrong, nobody would suspect me...
“Mr. Sonntag?”
Well, at least that worked in spy movies. “Yes, Mr. Itchyberry,” I responded in my best innocent voice.
He frowned at me. “Eye...Chee...Berry.”
Everything about Mr. Itchyberry was severe. He always tried to be taller than the students he talked to. It was a way of exerting his power over them. At five foot something, it was safe to say he was not a tall man. On the other hand, mom had always said I had not been born short.
I could tell he wanted to step up onto the chair beside his desk while he talked to me. To prevent confrontation I sat down.
“Is there something wrong?” I added a dash of sincerity to my innocence.
He frowned again. I wonder if he had practiced that look in the mirror or maybe his job had worn him down into a character of himself. He cleared his voice.
“Yes, it appears you left your placement early yesterday.”
“Ah, well...” So much for the library not phoning. How could I tell him about possessed books, a head librarian that was a cross between a love child and Dumbledore, and some creature that produces iridescent blue slime when it sucks on your hand.
Mr. Itchyberry’s frown softened...oh, lord, here it comes. He’s going to ask me how I’m flipping feeling!
“Mr. Sherlock has informed me of the circumstances, perfectly out of your control.”
They were? Mr. Sherlock must be the name of the Head Librarian...sounds interesting, weird, but interesting. It suited him.
“That’s great, then, I’ll drop by today, right?” I was anxious to get out of there before he started crying or something. That was almost as bad as someone asking me how I felt.
His face twisted in a type of agony. “Ah, yes. If that was all there was, then it would be simple. The Principal has asked me to speak with you...”
Coward.
“You are failing your other courses. I explained the situation with Mr. Sherlock...”
What did he have to do with me passing or failing; he was just some nutty librarian.
“And the Principal and your mother...”
“You called my mother?” I was out of the chair glowering down at Mr. Itchyberry. I clenched my fists. I had promised her not to do anything that would get me expelled.
He held his hands up defensively, in mock surrender.
“Yes, there is some good here, some good. You don’t need any of your compulsories, so, and four credits will get you to graduation...”
“What does the library have to do with any of this?” I asked trying to control my voice, to keep from shouting.
“Ah, well…we,” his face hardened with resolve, “we think it best that you finish out the year by doing a full day co-op at the library. Mr. Sherlock suggested it...”
Though I was furious, though I stormed out of the school, I knew it was the only way I was going to graduate. I decided to take the rest of the day off; treat myself to a little ‘me’ time.
I’ve always like dilapidated buildings. There was something about a building in its last stages of decay that took me out of myself. Downtown had a lot of buildings like that. Ever since they built the mall complex in the east end, the commercial life blood of the center of town had drained away. Historically, there had been two theatres, but the fancy one had burned to the ground and the property had been turned into a parking lot. The second, the one that featured XXX movies, still stood in all its raunchy glory, defying time. Supposedly it belonged to Cliodhna Construction. It was there I went.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I had figured out a way in last year, but you had to be as agile as a mountain goat. It was possible to climb the broken metal fire escape, jump from one roof to another and slide into what must have been a vent. Once inside I worked my way down from the rafters and into the belly of the theatre. Crawling to the edge of a hole, I dropped down onto a hallway and made my way to one of the few remaining balconies. Just as I was about to pull back the moth eaten curtain, I heard the sound of voices below.
“So, when does he turn eighteen?” The voice was smooth and cultured. If I had to guess what the man looked like, he would have been fashioned from the glossy pages of GQ and Sports Illustrated. He spoke in the perfectly pronounced syllables of a Mr. Higgens from 'My Fair Lady.' I slowly reached the curtain to pull it back.
A sibilant voice, like water hitting a super heated surface said, “In a few days. I still don’t know why you want to keep him alive. He’s like his father, best dead. Let me kill him, my Lord.”
Why was it that the uber evil villain was always called ‘Lord.’
“No, we need him. I need him. Everything depends on him. Do you understand that, Aileen mac Midan?”
“Yes, Lord,” the voice hissed menacingly as though he was conceding something he hated. “Do you think it a good idea to meet here? After all she is not entirely devoid of power in this world.”
The cultured voice laughed.
What a strange name, Aileen mac Midan, but it rung some bell inside me and it made me all the keener to hear what was going on.
“She is mad and of no concern to me. You are sure his memory will return when he turns eighteen?”
“Absolutely, it is when he receives his father’s leadership mantle.”
“Good, make sure nothing gets in the way of him remembering.”
“Everything?” hissed the voice.
“Yes, everything.”
I pulled back the moth eaten cloth to see the authors of these two distinct voices and saw – nothing. There was nobody down in the main section of the theatre. They had vanished. Cautiously I made my way down to where I believed the conversation between the two had been conducted. There was something strange about the floor, a smell, as though a great heat had been present. There were blackened marks on the floor, where the wood had been scorched. I felt the wood. It was still hot.
Deep in thought I made my way home. Whether I had heard the conversation or not didn’t really matter. Somehow, something had changed inside me. I had questions.
We were still waiting for the government to come through after dad had been killed in Afghanistan. All my mom would say, is that there were things about his death which made the military not want to extend his pension to his dependants. Other than that, she didn’t say much. As a result, we lived in the poorest section of town in the rent to income tenements.
Inside everything was dark. The curtains were pulled and the lights were off, the way mom liked it. I noticed that the sink was still full of dirty dishes, and I knew she hadn’t been able to get out of bed again. I went over to the sink and gazed balefully at the orange rusted things. I hated doing them, but they had to get done. I plugged the sink and began to run the water. It must have been the water that brought her out of bed.
She stood framed in the door way, her hair a mass of fuzzed confusion. She wrapped her robe around her body as she leaned up against the door jam, in the hope that it would keep her up.
“William, you’re home? Have I slept all day again? I’m so sorry.” There was a depth of pain in her eyes that made me immediately forget my own problems. “You’re doing the dishes. Here, let me do them.”
“It’s all right, mom. I made most of the mess. You eat anything today?” I asked the question but knew she hadn’t.
“Sure, sure, dear,” she said lying. “I had a little bit. I’m feeling a lot better.”
She looked worse. We both knew she wasn’t getting better. Ever since we got the news of dad’s death she had slipped deeper and deeper into depression. I suppose I was doing the same thing, just in a different way. I placed the first of the dirty dishes in the sink and reached for the steel wool. It was going to take some scrubbing to get the crusty stuff off. “Mom, an interesting thing happened to me on the way home.” I placed the first dish in the rack.
“Oh?” although she still looked dozy, a tone of interest entered into her voice.
“I went down to the old theatre...”
Her face widened unexpectedly. “I wish you wouldn’t go there. It’s dangerous. You know how I feel about the place...”
She rarely talked about anything lately. Just this conversation was enough for me to feel hope, or the stirrings of it inside. “Actually, I don’t know how you feel about it. I really don’t know how you feel about anything...”
As soon as I said it I regretted it. It was the same plea to explore one’s feelings that the counsellors were using on me, and I despised it. Her face seemed to cave in on itself and a blurry darkness threatened to snuff out the light that was barely flickering.
“I’m sorry...”
She held up a frail hand and bowed her head, gathering her strength. “No, no. That’s all right; I’ve been shutting you out. You have a right...”
I could see the pain increasing, etching the lines in her face deeper and deeper. “No, you have the right. You are my son. You are his son, and that gives you all the right in the world.”
The wet dish I was holding was dripping and I recognized how filthy the floor had gotten. I gave a slight, broken laugh. “We’ve really let things go, haven’t we?”
I felt the light touch of her hand on my arm and the tension I had been living with seemed to snap, releasing me from its clutches.
“You wanted to tell me something about the theatre?”
“It was strange. There were two people there, talking, but when I looked they weren’t there, which is strange because they wouldn’t have had the time to get out.”
My mom picked up a tea-towel and fitted the wet dish into it. She was staring balefully at the pile of dirty dishes. “Maybe you were imagining things.”
“Mom, have you ever heard the name Aileen mac Midan?”
The dish dropped from her hand and shattered on the filthy floor.
Her face went wide in horror. “Oh, no. Look what I've done. I've broken it.”
I bent and scooped up the broken shards. Inadvertently I cut my finger. Not a bad slice, but small enough to draw blood. The blood dripped onto the floor.
She took my hand and wrapped it up in a clean dish cloth. Holding her hand between hers she gave me a searching stare. “You have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I responded. She was beginning to frighten me.
“If you remember anything, anything, odd, you have to promise to tell me immediately. Will you do this?”
“Sure. Mom, is there anything you're not telling me?”
She continued to stare into my eyes. “You're blood is precious. You must know that.” Then she turned and stumbled back into the black bedroom. “Your blood is precious,” she muttered before being engulfed.
I suddenly took a deep breath. My blood was precious? What was that supposed to mean? Alone, I could have excused it, but her reaction to the name of Aileen mac Midan indicated there was some type of connection. And of course, there was also the fact that my eighteenth birthday was coming.