Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

mother won’t let her out of her sight. Not anymore.

Sandy’s head is in its standard lowered position. She doesn’t look happy to be here. Pretty safe to say nobody is. I’m right there with you, Sandy, I think. Let’s sail a-way, sail a-way, sail a-way.

Tamara and I sit in the rear. Teachers steer clear of these meetings, but we’re parents too. Or, at least, Tamara is. I’m an imposter, a cuckoo who lays its eggs in the nest of another bird to nurture and raise. Brood parasites, they’re called. Maybe I’m a parental parasite. A cuckoo dad.

Tamara leans over and whispers, “How long did you talk to the police?”

“Three or four hours. They wouldn’t let me go.”

“What did they ask you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Just routine questions.”

“Jesus. You don’t have to snap at me.”

Detective Merrin had put me under the microscope, like I was the one who had done this, as if I were the guilty party here. Like he didn’t believe me.

Mr. Bellamy, he started. It was impossible to make eye contact with him. Merrin was closing in on his sixties. He’d probably attended the ritualistic crime seminars thirty years ago. Most police departments had to sit through the FBI slideshows on how to handle cases like mine that had been cropping up around the country. Had he learned about the warning signs? The telltale graffiti? The black candles and desecrated graves? Did he recognize me specifically?

That’s when I notice a father staring at me.

He’s four rows ahead of us. His head is completely turned around, looking straight at me. Glaring. He’s wearing a wool cashmere topcoat. Slate gray. The lights have been left up in the auditorium so there’s no hiding in the dark. I glance over my shoulder, just to make sure he’s not looking at someone behind me—but no, there’s no denying that he’s staring right at me.

“The administration is more than happy to provide parents a voice for their concerns,” Condrey announces before giving the school’s official version of the events.

Yes, the school immediately notified the authorities after this morning’s incident.

Yes, of course, the matter was dealt with in the safest and most efficient manner possible.

No minor laid eyes on the scene. Only the teacher whose classroom this unfortunate episode occurred in.

Yes—it’s true that one of the school’s pets was found disemboweled on the soccer field a few days ago, but there is no evidence to suggest that these two incidents are related.

Mrs. Condrey was calm and cool, like she’d been all day. She handled the whole fiasco rather efficiently when I showed up to her office, distraught and babbling. Come to think of it, she wasn’t shocked at all. Like she already knew…

The other teachers were quick to clamor around the door to my classroom. Everybody wanted to sneak a peek. See the burning fingers for themselves. The gray boy’s hand.

Don’t call him that, I admonish myself. It’s not him.

“Let’s dispel any rumors here and now,” Condrey says. “The authorities have assured me that they will find who is responsible for this and bring him to justice.”

Bring him to justice. Everyone demands justice, but what they’re really after is—

Blood, I say into the microphone. Mr. Woodhouse made us drink blood.

I’m sitting in a room and speaking into a microphone in front of other grown-ups.

I’m telling the microphone about how Mr. Woodhouse would dig up graves of children and chop off their hands. A virgin’s hands, apparently, were very powerful tools of black magic. A satanic priest could curse anyone they wished with it. I knew this because a police officer told me all about it. I heard him talking about how he’d read about black masses and what kind of rituals they perform in cemeteries. This seemed like a reasonable thing to share. Like the right thing. Isn’t that why the officer told me in the first place? To share with the microphone?

“You wanna go?” Tamara whispers. “We can sneak out if you want to…”

“Can we?”

Too late. Condrey opens the floor for questions.

“What’s the administration doing?” one dad in a navy-blue cotton crewneck sweater asks. “Are you just going to let our kids come to school and hope it doesn’t happen again?”

“We’ll open our doors as soon as the police department says it’s okay,” Condrey offers. “Hopefully tomorrow.”

Hopefully sends a wave of ire rippling through the audience. School closings meant a mad dash for childcare, which meant missing work, which meant time and money.

“What are the police doing?” a mother calls out from the rear, decked out in a glen plaid blazer. “Do they have any leads?”

“That’s for the police to say,” Condrey replies. “I don’t have any more information.”

“I’m sorry, but this all sounds like bullshit to me.”

Condrey, our princiPAL, our friend till the end, leans into the microphone and takes a quieter tone. “Please. I’m just as stunned by all of this as you are…But let’s try to keep calm. There’s no need to resort to profanity.”

My mind wanders back to the interview with Merrin.

What did you see first?

(The open door.)

What was different about the classroom?

(The flickering. The pulse from the candles.)

Who else has keys to your room?

(The custodian. The principal. Miss Kinderman.)

When did you leave school the night before?

(After parent-teacher conferences.)

Can anyone verify where you were last night?

(Eli. Tamara. Mom. Kinderman.)

At what time did you arrive at school this morning?

(Early. One of the first, if not the very first.)

Why do you think someone would do this?

(They know who I am. What I’ve done.)

Do you think it’s something personal?

(Mom told me things must come full circle.)

Are there any parents or teachers who you’ve had any disagreements with recently?

(Others. There are others.)

Why you, Mr. Bellamy?

I couldn’t tell Detective Merrin who I was. Who I am. If he knew about Sean, then he would think that I was the one—

That I had—

“I don’t know about you,” another father says. He’s wearing a charcoal wool herringbone half-zip sweater. “But I’m not bringing my kid back until whoever did this is behind bars.”

An echo of consent rises. Pull out