- K -

When We Dance On Your Grave It Will Be Nothing Less Than a Rumba

         By the time Tristian returned home the Agent had disappeared. He didn't know where he had gone or even at what point he had left. They didn't tell him such things. Part of him thought it was slightly unfair. After all, they knew him intimately, sometimes he felt they had a clearer view into the parts of himself that he wasn't even aware of. And yet all he could ever judge them by were their surface actions, whatever muted pastel facade they decided to parade before him that day. Actors to the very core, following the Method until you weren't even sure who they had once been. An uneven partnership, if it could even be called that. The Agents were using him, that much he was sure of. But concurrently, he got the sense that he was using them. Somehow. He wasn't sure. But that was how it felt. He couldn't explain. Deep down, he prayed it was all for some common good. At this point, it was all he could do, else he'd be lost in spirals of redundant speculation, too frightened to even take a step. Then he would be no good to anyone, an outcome which perhaps frightened him the most.
         After waiting in his house for close to a half hour, Tristian decided that Brown wasn't going to show up. He was only somewhat surprised. Brown was following his own trail at this point, pursuing an investigation as brutal in its aggressiveness as Tristian's was passive. Tristian didn't know if they'd cross paths again before whatever was happening came to a sort of conclusion, either by honing itself into a sharply drawn climax or merely dissipating into the cool winter air.
         But if they did cross again, Tristian had a feeling he knew both the place and the scene.
         The folded up and crumpled piece of paper lay discarded on his living room table. He didn't know why he hadn't thrown it out. It wasn't like it was valuable information, only those who were sick enough with fervor could decipher its code and chase its elusive message to whatever bitter end it promised. Tristian found himself a bit frightened of the emotions it unraveled in him. Later, when he left his house he found himself making extra sure the doors were locked, as if the address might escape and track him, pushing and prodding gently but assertively, subtly guiding him to its destination, so that he might find himself turning a random corner and coming face to face with the dead end of a trail he didn't consciously remember following. Then what would he do? Turn around and go back? Or plunge forward and perhaps do some actual good for once?
         It was an approach Tristian felt he wasn't ready to take. He wished he knew for certain the utter uselessness of the action, so he could shove it out of his mind and go forward confidently, knowing without a doubt that he had kept himself on the proper course. But he didn't. The potential lay there, dormant and buried and purring to him that, if he crept in from the right angle, if he filed the lock down just right and slipped in at the appropriate time of day, then he could work some good out of the situation, pry it free of the dirt and the dark that lay flush around it. But Tristian wasn't sure of the angle, the combination or the time and so the caution approach offered him the same meager rewards as a reckless plunge.
         So he did neither. So he left his home still with no questions or answers, just empty facts and flightless suppositions, with a list of possibilities being shorn narrower and narrowing with each expedition he made. All he knew was that he had wasted too much time gathering background. Now he needed to speak to closer sources, to perhaps lance a wound and examine the pus that welled out and maybe find an answer in its infected mass that eluded him in places where the lacerations had long since been debrided.
         On this grey day the grey house nearly blended in with the sky, a daytime constellation given width and depth. He had only been here maybe twice and even those two times were suspect in his memory, an attempt to forge some kind of connection that had never existed, years after it would have made any sort of difference. Yet, manufactured recollections or not, the home hadn't changed, its simple sparse architecture having weathered the years in fine shape, even the cracks in the driveway all appeared dated from when the asphalt was forged. Looking over the fence that sealed in the backyard he could see a covered pool, next to it the slanted roof of a shed and maybe the wooden railing of a small deck. The front of the house was austere, a few simple bushes bringing some verdant color to the stairs leading up to the door, an iron stair railing highlighting the whole affair. There was an outer screen door, although the screen had been replaced by a regular window for the winter, and beyond that a sturdier wooden door that led into the house proper.
         Tristian left both doors closed when he rang the doorbell. The multiple barriers muffled the friendly chiming, warping it into something distant and ominous. Perhaps it was just his imagination. Lena had told him that, recently, she had said Not everything is a dire portent, Tristian. She had been kidding with him about something irrelevant, in fact the comment didn't really even apply now. Still it came to mind, wrapped in her voice, its brief echoes already fading even as the vibrations from the doorbell came whimpering to a halt. After a moment he heard shuffling movement inside, a pile of leaves acting as a butler. In the lost magic of the world, anything was possible. He knew that. Yet everywhere he turned all he permitted himself to see were the dire portents, the signs telling him it was all going to hell. So why was it any surprise to him when it did? Talking to Lena might help, at the very least he would be doing something he honestly wanted to do for once in his recent life. But he was reluctant to involve her in this morass, right now she was even more distant than he had been, and he had no desire to draw Lena in any closer. It wasn't worth it. Let her savor her detachment from the situation while she could, if that was even possible. Jina had been snagged much the same Brown had and slowly they were being taken down one by one. Spread the contagion. Contain the sickness. Lena was levelheaded enough that she might be able to fortify herself against it, but Tristian couldn't be sure. There was so much he didn't know. About her about himself about anything going on here. When was the last time he had even spoken to her? He didn't even remember. And it was a lapse he desperately wanted to correct, but there was just no time. No time at all. His nebulous duty called him to this specious self inflicted quest and all the host's advisors could do was look the other way and pretend that was some kind of necessary aid. No, he was on his own. To the end. Whatever that meant. He could sympathize if Lena didn't understand. He barely did.
         Inside the shuffling had grown quiet. Tristian didn't ring the doorbell again. The patterns of the shadows behind the door had changed, he could see through the small half circle window on top of the door. Someone was there. In a second he would either be in, or he wouldn't. Simple as that.
         With a dry pop the door opened.
         Donald's mother faced him. Tristian had been expecting Jackie for some strange reason, an encounter he hadn't exactly been relishing. This quest had been simmering in him even since he had heard of Donald's death, he understood that now, but it had been her strained grieving demand which had been the catalyst to launch him on this path. No doubt she felt a little guilty. Tristian wasn't sure how he felt.
         "Oh, hello, Tristian," she said simply, opening the screen door with a twisted squeak. Her expression was slightly confused. "I didn't expect to see you here. Step in for a second." With her free hand she indicated for him to come in. He hesitated for only a second before slipping around the open door and inside.
         "Hello, Mrs Wintersfield," he said politely, carefully and quietly shutting the door behind. Don't want to wake the dead, Tristian. You know how angry they get. Eternal slumber should never be interrupted. "I don't mean to drop by out of the blue, but-"
         "Don't think anything of it," she told him, already walking deeper inside. They were in a narrow hallway, with stairs leading up straight ahead. An opening about halfway down on his right led into what looked like a cluttered dining room. "Don's friends have been dropping by all the time in the last day or so."
         "That's good," he said neutrally. He wondered if she counted him as a friend of Donald's. Tristian had never considered himself one. And yet he was here. Why?
         "Oh no, it is," she agreed. "I really appreciate everyone stopping, it's helped a lot." What it helped she left dangling for him to figure out. They were in the dining room now. A round table made of dark wood was covered in various papers and books. They looked like they had been there for a while, even before Donald had died. A window across the room had its shades drawn and was bright with ostracized sunlight. Further on his right was a vaguely circular room. He could see a television and at least one couch. A family room, maybe. Faint light from the television indicated it was on, but there was no sound. Maybe it was a silent film.
         Mrs Wintersfield was walking toward the kitchen though, which was on his left, toward the back of the house. She was still dressed like she had just gotten out of bed not that long ago. No doubt not going to bother to change until the second wake later tonight. Why pretend it's a normal day if you don't have to? Tristian could understand that.
         "How have you been?" she asked him over her shoulder. They reached the kitchen and she pulled out one of the chairs from around the small square table and sat down. Tristian took up a position leaning against the counter next to the sink on the opposite side of the room. She would offer him a chair soon and he would no doubt refuse it. The same drill everywhere.
         "Not bad," he admitted, feeling guilty even saying that much. Still as rampant as his pessimism was, it was an honest assessment of his life. The slow integration of his divided lives were beginning, his friends were supportive, the Agents, as irritating as they could be weren't spending each day demonstrating the new horrors of the Universe to him and the places he did go were filled with more wonder than depravity, which he was very grateful for. And as for Lena . . . with her he couldn't say anything definitive for fear of losing whatever fragile balance he had so far managed to sustain this long. Needless to say he was content, if not happy, with the way things were going, with the promise of it becoming something more both frightening and exhilarating him at the same time.
         Tristian didn't mention any of that, of course. He didn't think it appropriate to ask her how she was, but staring at Mrs Wintersfield he could see all the unspoken details. Her eyes were rimmed by a fading redness and a distinct lack of sleep was evident on her newly worn face. She didn't so much sit in the chair as submit to it, her posture due to inertia as anything else. He shouldn't have come here. But the choice hadn't been his. Once he had made the decision to begin, he had to see it through to the end. It was the only way he knew.
         "Good, good," she replied, nodding slightly. "Do you want anything, something to drink?"
         "No, that's all right. I won't be here long," he said.
         "How about you take a seat then, at least?" she offered, gesturing to the chair across from her.
         "No thanks, I'm comfortable." He slipped his hands into his pockets and crossed his legs at the ankles, as if demonstrating to her just how damn comfortable he was. It felt way more confrontational than it should have. He didn't know why he just didn't sit the hell down. What kind of point did it prove? That his knees didn't bend? To ameliorate his refusal, he added, "I've been sitting all day, actually. I'm just enjoying stretching my legs." Which was a lie of course, he'd been standing all day. All these false little words one day will one day grind the world to a halt. You just wait and see.
         "Well it's there if you change your mind," Mrs Wintersfield said with a motherly smile. There was patient understanding there and he wondered if she had argued with her son over this in the past, though his reasons were no doubt better than Tristian's poor excuses. "How are your parents, by the way? It's been a long time."
         "They're both doing good. I'll tell them you asked about them." This small talk felt like a precursor, a formality that had to be dispensed with before the real discussions began. He should get to the point soon, or else he'd lose the thread completely and leave with even less than he had entered with.
         "Hm, thanks," she said. Her brow was furrowed, an expression he suspected she had indulged in often lately. Tristian could almost watch the creases being formed. "Tristian, I have to say," as she twisted in his chair, leaning one arm on the table, the other on her leg, "I really didn't expect to see you here. Did you come here to see Jackie?"
         "Ah, only partly, actually. I didn't come here to see her, but if she was here, I . . ." he stopped realizing that the already tenuous knot of his speech was fraying fast. "No," he said finally. "I just came to talk. If she was here, I'd talk to her, but I wanted to talk to you as well."
         Mrs Wintersfield eyebrows dipped in puzzlement. "Is this about what she . . . said to you, at the wake? Because I don't know what she was talking about and I don't think she did either. I hope you weren't too upset about it, Jackie feels pretty bad about it already."
         "I, ah, I was startled, that's all. It wasn't something I was really . . . expecting," Tristian said, his statement feeling rehearsed. He had figured this would come up. If only she knew. Would he even be here, if not for her mournful question? Maybe. Maybe not. Who could say? Just tell me why he died, can you just tell me that? Was she only just echoing his own buried thoughts. Is that why he had pursued this so far, when the results were despairingly small? Is that why he continued? Because the reverberations of her small question only deeply stirred the bells in his own mind? And now he couldn't stop until they were quieted. When that would be though, he had no idea. He hoped it was soon.
         "No, I wouldn't expect you to," she replied with the same patient smile as before. All mothers are the same. We're all just children to them. Even after we grow up it's like we never have. Frowning, she continued, "What I didn't understand was why she asked you, Tristian. All of Don's friends in the room and she knew least of all, I mean, as far as I know . . . and she asks you."
         "Ah, I have a bit of an undeserved reputation for knowing things," Tristian hesitantly explained. It occurred to him that he should probably keep his jacket zippered up, to avoid any questions about the sword. His friends had once bought the flashlight explanation out of respect for his rumored eccentricity, but he was fairly sure an adult wouldn't be so accommodating. Nor was he really in the mood these days for making up yet another lie. He shrugged dismissively. "It's happened all my life, you get a few decent grades on some tests and people start to believe you know everything."
         "That can be tough, I know," she said. The edges of her mouth pulled downward again as she added, "Funny, why didn't Jackie just say that when I asked her?" She looked up at Tristian, "She wouldn't really say, she just kept saying I don't know I don't know, and you know, I didn't want to press her on it." She smiled again. "Typical teenagers, though, right? Never a straight answer when an evasion will do."
         "She was probably just embarrassed," Tristian answered noncommittally.
         "You're probably right," Mrs Wintersfield said, nodding sagely. "I can't really can't blame her. The last few days have been hard on her." Those last words were accompanied by a barely repressed sigh. There seemed to be a greater weight on her than when Tristian had seen her last night. Reality seeping in through the cracks, giving her no choice but to sit down, else the world would buckle her knees and shatter her spine merely for the hubris of thinking she could withstand it.
         Shifting in her chair, as if trying to find a more comfortable way to be inexorably crushed, she peered at Tristian and said, "So if you're not here because of my daughter, then you must be here because of my son." Tristian's heart quickened. "You said you wanted to talk to me, then? About Donald?"
         Tristian took a deep breath, placing both palms flat on the counter behind him and stretching to release some of his coiled tension. "Actually, I'm . . . I'm sort of here because of the two of them. When, ah, when Jackie asked me, I realized that I didn't know why and . . ." in his head the rationalizations barely made any sense. Put into words, they came across as so much gibberish. ". . . and it bothered me because I found I wanted to know. I didn't know your son well, but he wasn't just a face in the newspapers or a name on television, he was someone that people I know cared about for a long time and I like to think that I'd do it for all of them." He wasn't looking directly at her, and he should have been. All he could see was her faded shadow, barely darker than the kitchen floor. "But, really, I think I'm mostly doing it for myself." To myself, he should have said but didn't correct his own words. "I try to believe that there's reasons for everything . . . and I'd like to know why this happened because . . ." he hesitated again, seeing the words half formed in his own head, embryonic and unsure, deciding to let them go anyway, "because I don't know everything and I never will, but I want to try. I have to try." It was as simple as that in the end. He didn't want to wonder anymore, didn't want to lay in bed late at night and hear a train's piercing wail and try to discern whatever Donald heard in that deathly shriek. There were reasons for everything and those reasons came sometimes from people, sometimes from elsewhere and he firmly believed that as much as he believed in anything else and that was why he had to know. It didn't make any sense to him either. Tristian never expected it to.
         For a long while afterwards all he could hear was the soft sound of her breathing. It was even and weary but not labored. When Tristian screwed up the courage to try and make eye contact with her, he found she wasn't staring at him at all. Instead she was staring away from him, toward the back of the house, the refrigerator on the other side of the kitchen, past it, beyond and into the backyard and perhaps even further.
         She was going to throw him out. His ramshackle quest, composed of nonsense even to him, had done little more than stir up feelings that weren't even old yet, sent them prancing mockingly before her and for what reason? So he could satisfy his own feelings of inadequacy and try one more time to convince himself that this world as of yet had a use for him when more and more he found none?
         There was no reason for him to even be here now. He'd done enough damage. Best to excuse himself politely, make his apologies, and redirect himself to where he wouldn't case anymore undue personal suffering.
         Tristian was about to start leaving when Mrs Wintersfield spoke. "This information . . . what did you want to do with it?"
         He stopped. "Do?" he asked. "I really didn't want to do anything with it. If you mean like publish or spread it around, no, I never even considered that. It's for my own knowledge and that's it." This was one of the few things he was sure about. He doubted any of his friends would have wanted him to share any details he had garnered with them. For them, it was enough that he was dead and they were mourning. For Tristian, he couldn't let it stop there.
         She nodded slowly, still not looking at him. "There were reporters here. Before." Her tone was almost conversationally, like she was giving a graduation speech to old friends. "They probably wanted to know the same things you did, about Donald, about what made him do what he did, what may have caused it. I don't know, I didn't talk to them. I didn't want to talk to them. None of us wanted to. Reporters of course never like that answer, can't write the stories themselves I guess. Brian and I think Jack chased them away, I don't know what they said, but they haven't come back since." She looked up at him finally, and her eyes were sad.
         Tristian told her, "You don't have to tell me anything, ma'am."
         Mrs Wintersfield looked down and smiled wanly, shaking her head slightly. Her hands fidgeted on top of the table, counting beads that weren't there. "I never knew you well, Tristian, not like I knew the others. Brian and Joseph and William and more, even as kids they were always here." She tapped it with one finger, trying to release the memories absorbed like fine dust inside, as it might conjure their departed youth, resurrect these boyish phantoms and turn back her own unwinding clock. But the path of time only moves in one direction and if the ghosts aren't carried along, then they're lost forever. "You weren't, but sometimes it felt like you were. They'd sit here and chat, like boys did, and it was Did you see what Tristian did or I can't believe Tristian . . ." she threw a glance at him. "You made an impression on that crew, somehow." Tristian only shrugged, not wanting to break into whatever she was trying to tell him. "But you were never close to my son, were you?" Making up for lost time now? was the unspoken question, one that only Tristian heard.
         "No, we weren't," Tristian answered, knowing this wasn't the time to stop being honest. "Most of them, Brian and Joe and everyone else, I didn't get to know until after we all graduated."
         "Just as Don was seeing them less and less," Mrs Wintersfield murmured. Tristian didn't reply, watching her get lost in times past, of warm autumns filled with the clank of glasses on wooden tables, the resounding thud of backpacks hitting the floor, of a cool breeze reassuring that winter was coming but still too far away to care about, the rattling of a screen door opening and closing, and the talking, always the talking, racing up and down and barely making any kind of sense except in an incomprehensible way. Yet it all fit together. It still did, but for other people, other parents now, down the street and across the town and all over the world, reenacted like one of the Bard's plays on a million stages with a million lives improvising their lines one more time, for all time.
         "I knew your parents long before I knew you, Tristian," she told him, almost confessionally, letting him in on all the parental racketeering that must have gone on. The collusions, the deals, alliances bent and drawn and redrawn. The network of benevolent eyes watching you casually as you walked home, on their porches and through their windows, ready to report anything out of the ordinary, all for your own good. You were in the middle of the world's most complex spy ring the entire time, Tristian, and you never knew. The web of parenting. "I'd see them at PTA meetings and sometimes at school plays and the like and we'd talk, but I never really got a sense of you, Tristian. The quiet, studious boy your parents always lovingly described never seemed to go with the way my son and his friends saw you. One day . . ." she stopped and swallowed, bowing her head a little to make it easier, "one day, before a play, when I think you were in junior high, I was there with Don and I remember watching you just . . . just running all around, from place to place, person to person, group to group, just all over . . . I guess you were trying to set stuff up or, something last minute, honestly I couldn't tell what you were doing. And I said to Don, He's going around like a nut, and he said to me, that's Tristian, yeah he does that. And he didn't say anything else for a while, so I said, His parents always say how quiet and calm he is. And you know what Don told me? He said, Mom, he's just pretending, he does that."
         Tristian smiled, vaguely remembering the incident she was referring to. That had been a hectic day.
         "And I asked my son, Which one is he pretending to be? And this is the part that I always remembered. Don told me, he said, Mom, I couldn't tell you, sometimes I think it's both, he's weird. Why would he do that? I asked. Why would he pretend to be something he's not? I don't know, he said to me. I don't know and sometimes I don't think he's pretending."
         She stopped then, sighing again. "My son . . . never knew what to make of you, Tristian. But I think in some way, he admired that you could jump between those two extremes, be the person you needed to be when you needed it, like . . . like switching gears on a car. And I think he felt stuck in the same rut, only able to see things one way, move in just one direction at a time, instead of like you, dashing from spot to spot one moment and sitting tucked in a corner reading a book the next." A shrug indicated how much all her suppositions meant now. "But I'm just guessing. I don't know what he thought. I never will, now." That last was said evenly, clearly, as if she was trying to test herself.
         Folding her hands, she stared right at him. "You do some strange things, Tristian, I don't think even you can deny that. But I always got the sense that even at your strangest you knew what you were doing and you knew why you were doing it and you had a damn good reason to be the way you were."
         "I try, that's all," was all Tristian said, ducking his head politely.
         "So you do," Mrs Wintersfield agreed. "And I'm sure you've already gone out and found stuff about what Don was doing before he died." She lifted a hand, stopping a speech that he hadn't even prepared. "I don't want to know about any of it. I know my son was doing some bad things, some of it I can guess, some maybe I can't. It doesn't matter, it's too late now. He's broken our heart already, I don't want you helping him do it beyond the grave. All right?" she asked him, her voice nearly stern.
         "If that's what you want," Tristian said.
         "It is," she said definitively. "Now," she asked slowly, turning toward him again, "what would you like to know?"
         Tristian blinked, the words taking a second to sink in. Not really expecting this, his nicely drawn up mental list of possible questions had already been filed in his increasingly cluttered cerebral cabinets.
         "Ah, well," he stalled, trying to get the conversation back on track now that the ball had been retossed to him, "I was curious, really, about what went on before . . . before he left here."
         "Before we kicked him out?" his mother clarified with a humorless smile. As the mirthless expression faded back into one of neutrality, she continued, "That's what they say, I know. I hear them. Saying that we sent my son to his death." She shook her head, as if not knowing what to make of these unspoken accusations. There was venom in her eyes when she glared at Tristian, like she was blaming him for the troubles that Donald had brought upon himself. Guilt by proxy. It didn't bother Tristian though. Misplaced pain and guilt was a well worn hat that fit his head all too well.
         "Did you know my son after graduation at all?" she asked Tristian.
         "I never saw him," Tristian told her. "But Brian and the others were always talking about him, where he was, what he was doing, they used to wonder every so often." A faint smile signaled the resurfacing of the memory. "Him and Joe, really. The two of them just vanished, as far as we were concerned, but with Joe it was an actual fall off the face of the Earth sort of thing . . ."
         "While with Donald all you had to do was find a street corner," Mrs Wintersfield interjected, a long simmering anger stirring beneath her words. It was burdened by age and had lost much of its former fieriness as the years had piled more and more stone atop it, smothering it before it could fully erupt. "I don't know what happened, after high school Don just sort of . . . lost direction. I think, I don't know, that he got used to high school and when it was over, he didn't know what to do with himself."
         "We all had that problem," Tristian said. "We got too comfortable and at the end of it we were all staring at each other going Now what? It was hard to adjust."
         "But you did. You had to. Everyone has to, somehow. I don't think Don wanted to, four more years of school didn't thrill him and punching a clock every day wasn't his thing either. I thought over the summer he would figure something out and when he didn't, I was afraid to push him. I thought it would just take time. Now . . ." with regret a suffocating coating, "now I know I should have."
         "He had to make his own decisions," Tristian told her, trying to soften the patronizing blows of his words, feeling he only partially succeeded, wishing he hadn't said anything.
         "And I let him make the wrong ones," Donald's mother sighed, grief overcoming the bitterness, mixing with it and leaving in its place a sort of soft melancholy, a sense that all the dots were finally connected and the picture wasn't what you thought it was going to be. "I did nothing when I should have given him some momentum, and when I finally did do something, all I did was step back and let him walk right where I knew he was going to walk." Her voice grew thick, sounding like it was coming from underwater. "I remember reading . . . in the newspapers, those stories you see, about kids going wrong, doing terrible things, stupid things and I'd think to myself Where were their parents, why didn't somebody say something?" The corners of her mouth turned sharply down and her eyes narrowed, something glimmering deep inside the orbs. "It's easier than you'd think, to go wrong, to steer your own child the wrong way. And it takes half the effort to go down that way and three times as much to get them back."
         She drew in a shuddering breath. Tristian didn't move, didn't say anything. It didn't feel right to even breathe too loud. Instead he just waited. He had all the time in the world, now. The crisis had already passed long ago and they had been measured and found ultimately lacking, through no fault of their own. The task had just been too severe to scale, by the time anybody realized something had to be done, all their efforts would have just made the missile hit two degrees off the target. And that wouldn't have been enough. His mental platitude did nothing to reassure him, even though his own role had been more minor than a bit part.
         "People don't change overnight," she said after a moment, her hushed, perhaps finally realizing what she had suspected all along. "They just sort of . . . fade into someone else, little by little, day by day and you . . . you don't notice the change happening until one day they say something or do something and it hits you then. That they've already changed. And now there's nothing you can do about it.
         "He took a part time job during the day and at night he'd go out and come home late, so we'd never really see him. Even on days he wasn't working, he'd be out, wandering around, maybe looking for something, maybe just getting out, I don't know. When I did see him he was no different than usual . . . when I'd remind him that it was getting time for him to get a full time job or do something with his life, he'd laugh and joke and tell me, all in good time, Mom, just like when he was in school and I was trying to get him to finish a project or a paper or something.
         "Then one day I found him going through my bedroom. He was looking for money, I realized later, but he gave me some excuse and I believed him. I had to, he was my son. You have to believe your own children, or else there's no one left to trust."
         "How long was this going on for?" Tristian suddenly asked.
         Mrs Wintersfield shrugged. "A few years. On and off. I couldn't tell you exactly when it started. Like being fossilized, bit by bit he was replaced by someone who looked like my son and acted like my son but . . ." she trailed off. "I never caught him doing anything," she said firmly. "Never." Tristian said nothing, she knew as well as he did what that was worth. "But when things started disappearing, little things at first, I tried to pretend something else was happening, that I was getting old, senile, misplacing stuff and forgetting where I put it." She paused, reflecting. "He was selling it all, of course. For what, I don't know. Like I said, I never saw him do anything."
         "Did you confront him about it? When you realized?"
         "I didn't want to. I kept making excuses to myself, to put it off." A sardonic smile colored her face. "Didn't want to see myself as an unfit mother, unable to control her child, someone who didn't raise her own kid right. I figured whatever the problem was would just correct itself, whatever Donald was doing wrong he'd realize it and stop." The smile faded, replaced by a hard line. "That was crap. I know it now. Finally.
         "One day I caught him in his sister's room. She had these . . . these little glass figurines," her hands shaped the air, tracing tiny animals, "my mother gave them to her when she was a kid. Donald always used to say they were right out of that Tennessee Williams play, told her that it meant she was never going to get married." Her hands stopped moving, pressed against each other. "He wanted those figurines, that's why he was there. I'm sure they were worth a lot of money.
         "He and Jackie were always so close and the thought of him taking stuff from her, it . . ." she pinched the bridge of her nose, past events causing present pain. The ghost of the future giving a taste of what's to come. "I just looked at him. I didn't yell. Didn't scream. He just looked at me and I looked at him and he didn't even try to give an excuse. I wanted to think that he was ashamed that it had gone this far . . . but mostly I think he was embarrassed at having gotten caught."
         "Is that when he left?" Tristian asked.
         "Shortly after. My husband was furious when he heard, the two of them screamed at each other for close to an hour. I just sat down here, listening to their voices shouting back and forth and I swear . . . I thought Harold was going to have a heart attack or they'd start swinging at each other or . . . I don't know. I didn't know what to expect. I thought that any second I'd have to run up there, but I never had to. My husband came down and his face was flushed and he was shaking but he didn't tell me what had been said. All he said to me was We have no other choice."
         "But to throw him out?"
         "Yes. I'm pretty sure that's what he meant. I barely saw Donald after that, and one day when I came home there was a note on the table. All it said was I'm gone. I checked upstairs and what little stuff he still had wasn't there. He was gone."
         "Do you know where he went? I was at an apartment he had lived in, but I didn't know how long he had been there," Tristian told her, figuring it was safe enough to share that much information with her.
         Mrs Wintersfield gave a short laugh. "Really? You're a better detective than I am, then. I couldn't even find out that much. I checked with his job and they said they hadn't seen him in a while. He must have quit and was selling our stuff for money. But I don't know. It was a month or two that I didn't see him and I kept hoping that things would go back to normal, praying that he'd come back and apologize . . ." she shook her head. "It was a stupid dream. When they finally told me . . . I didn't want to believe it. My son? I said. It couldn't be. But it was. He'd gone and done it. The only thing we taught him worth a damn, I guess, that when you go and do something, you get it right the first time . . ." her voice began to crack on the last few words, her face seeming to fall downward like it was trying to melt into someone else.
         Tristian went to step forward to do something, comfort her, he wasn't exactly sure. But her voice stopped him.
         "You go find out the whys, Tristian, if that's what you want to do," she told him, and her voice was a broken, hurt thing. "If there's a why to be found, if there's someone who can find it, I'll bet it's you. But it don't matter anymore, not to me. If I want to find out why, I know where to go look." She looked straight ahead, not seeing anything, her mouth twisted into a faint line of disgust. "I know exactly where to look."
         In that moment Tristian knew his time here was over. There was no more of the story to tell. Barely tangible he could see the threads of the tale still dangling in the air, tantalizing, waving gently in a long gone breeze, wanting to be snipped off and tied away. But that kind of resolution would never come. Unspoken words and spurned actions were only partially woven into the fibers and now there was no one left to complete it.
         "Mrs Wintersfield," he said softly, gently sliding finality into his voice, "thank you for letting me come here and for telling me this . . . I know it had to be hard. If you, ah, ever want to know anything else I've found out-"
         "I won't," she interrupted tersely, but softened the sentence with a faint smile. "But if I do, I'll let you know, Tristian." She looked away from him, returned to staring at her hands, at the table, perhaps seeing her son sitting across from her eating cookies and cajoling his friends with what that darn Tristian kid did today. Maybe. Maybe she didn't see anything at all. "Thank you for doing this," she said, so quietly that he thought he heard it wrong. "For caring enough to try and find out."
         He could only nod in response, a gesture he didn't even think she saw. For another minute he stood there, wondering if she was going to say anything else. When she didn't, he figured that she thought he had left. Stepping forward to make that true, he muttered, "I'll see myself out," and left the kitchen. Mrs Wintersfield never even stirred at his departure.
         As he passed through the dining room he saw the television up ahead was still on and still silent. Grey and blue pictures flickered nonsensically, the program too far away for him to discern properly. There were no other sounds in the house at all. Tristian felt like a ghost shunted to the wrong address. Perhaps Donald was at his house now, wandering the empty rooms and wondering where his family was. Can't haunt anyone if they don't make themselves available now, right? Tristian was doing Donald's job for him, shadowing his family and digging his spectral fingers into the fresh wounds, pulling them wider. A tearing of old fabric protesting unwanted abuse. Skin splitting, vessels cracking. Fluid welling in the new spaces. Plasma suspended like hushed droplets, caught in the apex of their own doomed arc. But none of the blood ever touched his hands, at least none that he could see. Everything was so clean. Not a stain to be found.
         Some stray thought caused him to walk into the family room. Amused, he inwardly cursed his degraded sense of direction, but took a look around anyway. Couches were scattered about, the epitome of the fifties ideal. Gather round the family to watch some good old American television. Wholesome for all. Those dreams had appealed to his parents, no doubt, and to Donald's parents, but had they ever been real? Or were they just a collective sort of wishful thinking, a forced desire to keep things the way they were, keep the happily smiling boys and girls forever, looked on by a proud Mom and Dad, maybe just as they were getting ready for a quick drive in the country. Nostalgia fading to black and white. The colors on the photographs, on everything, were so much more vivid now, palettes undreamed of. Showing life as it really was. Tristian found he still preferred the washed out feel of those old pictures. It gave the world a distant, lost feel, yet somehow tangible, merely a step removed from what they once knew. Too much was revealed now, and the mystery and the magic were gone. He'd rather have the old photographs let him guess, than stare at the pictures of today and have his mind made up for him. Dig for the truth instead of just accepting it. Truth is worth working for, it always was. Everyone wanted to merely assume the truth, lay it all out in the open. But it's no different than freedom. If you want it bad enough, you have to be ready to fight. To do things that may hurt. Either you or someone else.
         A small cough on his right made him jump back a half step. Someone else was here. Looking down, he saw Donald's father sitting in the chair nearest to Tristian. It took a second for him to recognize the man in the crosshatched darkness of the room. His brief contact with the man at the wake had barely made an impression on Tristian, apparently. His shrunken presence seemed to reflect that somehow. Even the flickering ghost light of the television didn't even reach the man's feet.
         "Oh, sorry, sir I didn't see you there . . ." Tristian apologized. "I was just on my way out-"
         "I heard what you're doing," his father said abruptly, without preamble, his eyes never leaving the television. Close up, Tristian could see it was a cartoon of sorts. Two funny looking animals were striking each other with mallets. Oh no! Both were laughing. Nobody was getting hurt.
         "I was just talking to your wife, yes, I-"
         "We chased him out," he said suddenly. His voice was flat, drained of all affect. One of the funny animals had smoking dynamite stuffed in his pants. Everybody ran for cover and he didn't know why. He smelled the smoke but didn't know where it was coming from. Big white eyes blinking in confusion. Look out! "There was no other choice. I said to him, you can't do this anymore, you can't do this to your family." Mr Wintersfield shifted in the chair, sinking deeper into it, letting himself be dissolved inch by inch. "He knew too. That it had to end somehow. Before it could get better. I thought it could only end one way. I was wrong. There were two."
         The fuse burned itself down and the funny animal exploded, all in silence. Like he was out in space. Pieces of him fluttered down like from a burst balloon. Everyone ran back and after a second started to dance around and cheer. Hooray!
         "He knew it, too. The whole time. Never let on. He was a good kid, always was. A damn good kid." Tristian didn't say anything, he wasn't even sure why he was here. He felt part of some strange reenactment, a silent observer to some obscure punishment. After a second Mr Wintersfield touched his face, rubbed the bridge of his nose. His voice gasped, "God damn that boy. God damn it." He made no other sound.
         Tristian heard the front door bang open. Footsteps tapped slowly. On the screen the burst animal suddenly reformed, causing everyone to scatter and grab mallets again. Tristian turned around to leave. "I'm sorry, sir," was all he could think of to say and even that seemed wildly inappropriate. But he had to say something. Had to release himself from this grainy mirage.
         Mr Wintersfield said nothing as he left. Tristian didn't really expect him to. It was like he had never spoken. Perhaps in five minutes it would all repeat again, whether he was there or not. Waxworks putting on the play for the unseen audiences. These automatons steal our livelihood. This life can fall apart at any second. In any foreign instant. Just watch. You just watch.
         He rounded the corner again, heading back toward the main hallway so he could leave. He heard the footsteps again, growing closer, moving faster now. Maybe Mrs Wintersfield had checked to see if any more reporters were creeping about. If he saw any he'd have to chase them away. These people deserved some privacy. Could pull out the sword to frighten them off. Except it probably wouldn't. Then he'd be the story, unfortunately.
         A shadow filled the hallway just as he heard a voice call out, "Mom! Dad! I'm-"
         Right then he nearly ran into Jackie, abruptly halting an inch from her face, leaving her uncommonly close.
         Her expression at first registered surprise then melted into faint recognition as his too close face resolved into a coherent image, before finally fading into an emotion he couldn't quite quantify.
         Nobody moved.
         "Oh," was all she said, blinking. "Hi."