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

“That—that wasn’t me! The night we came back from the fair, I found him hanging from the—from the tire swing. I didn’t say anything because you were so worked up over—”

We miss the turn that takes us back to our house.

I crane my neck to watch our road slip off into the surrounding tree line, swallowed by pines. “Where are we going?”

Tamara doesn’t say a word. She still hasn’t looked at me.

“Tamara…Where are you taking me?”

“To a hotel.” She doesn’t need to say why. A level of trust has been breached and I won’t be allowed back into the house until…when, exactly? I make things right? Clean this mess up?

“I’ll explain everything. I swear. I just—please. I need you to believe me.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

Elijah is slipping away.

Tell her about me, Sean whispers.

Tamara is slipping away.

Tell her now!

My family, slipping through my fingers.

TELL HER.

“Pull over,” I say. Too forcefully. “Please.”

Tamara pulls onto the shoulder. The Jeep’s parked just a few paces away from the farmers market. It must be Saturday. The weekend market is up and running. A Danvers tradition. A half dozen open-air tents are set up in a gravel parking lot just off the highway selling everything from corn to kale to fresh milk and venison. There’s a crowd of J. Crew catalogue models wandering from tent to tent. Stepford parents. The Friends of Danvers. Tamara and I could’ve easily been among them. That would’ve been us on any other day, in any other life than this one.

Tamara cuts the engine. The keys remain in the ignition. She sits back in her seat, still gripping the steering wheel, elbows locked, bracing herself for what I’m about to say.

“I can explain this. I can explain everything.”

The muscles in her neck tighten, the tendons like two steel cables clamping down on her throat. She still can’t bring herself to look—to see me. “I want to believe you. I do. I’m trying, but…I can’t stop seeing that girl. That poor girl. I’d never forgive myself if I…if I brought something, someone like that into…into our house. If anyone ever hurt Elijah…”

“No one’s going to hurt him, I swear. Just hear me out. Please? Please.”

Say my name, Sean whispers.

“We’ve talked about my childhood before. About…me. But there are certain things I haven’t told you, because…because…”

Say it.

“This was—what, 1983? There was a rumor going around about my teacher, and I…So many parents were getting paranoid about predators at school…so when my mom saw these bruises on my body, she panicked. I made up a story, and she believed me and called the police, and they got involved and one thing led to another…Before I knew it, before I could stop it…”

Tamara’s lips part. I can see her panic mounting.

“It got out of hand so quickly. I couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t make it go away. More people got involved. People I didn’t know. Lawyers and the FBI and…and it became this tidal wave that swept up so many people. No matter what I said, there was no stopping it. My mother, she—she couldn’t take care of me anymore. Couldn’t take care of herself…”

This is all coming out wrong. I can’t make the story sound the way it is in my head. I’m losing Tamara, but I have to keep talking, keep telling her my story, the only story I’ve ever had, in hopes that—if I can just reach the end—she might understand. That’s all I want in this world.

I need Tamara to believe me.

“My adopted parents put as much distance between me and what happened as possible. They wanted to protect me from myself. I took their name and they pushed away the press. We created this new narrative for myself. A story for everybody to believe. Something that fit the new me and buried the old. We moved on. It was like we forgot it even happened.”

Forgot me, I want to say. “I forgot, too.”

Please, just look at me, I want to say. It’s me! It’s Richard.

No it’s not, Sean whispers.

“I was five. Most of it I can’t remember anymore. That part of me, that part of my life…it feels like a bad dream now. It doesn’t exist. This is who I am now. This is me.”

I take Tamara’s hand. She lets me. Her arm merely hangs there, limply suspended from her shoulder. A rag doll. “Please,” I say. “It’s me.”

Tamara looks at her hand in mine, as if it belongs to somebody else. She follows the length of my arm until she finds my face. Her eyes are wide, weltering. “Who are you?”

Say my name. Say it.

“My name is…was…Sean.”

Hearing myself say my own name, out loud, for the first time in years sounds like a death rattle to my ears. That last exhalation before passing away. It releases Sean. The presence of my childhood self fills the car with a pungent odor. Something decaying. A dead child.

A gray boy.

For the longest time, I wondered, even fantasized, that coming clean and saying his name would somehow unburden myself. A weight lifting off the shoulders. But there’s no relief. No divestment, no shedding of skin. I’m still me. Whoever that is.

“Who are you,” she repeats. It’s not a question this time. Not anymore.

“Tamara. Please. I need your help. Someone, I don’t know who, is using my past to—”

She yanks her arm away and brings both hands to her face, rubbing her eyes. Her sleeve tugs at her elbow, exposing the lower coil of her tattoo. I stare at the snake wrapped around her arm, the serpent conjured from her scars. It looks like a dagger to me. A winding knife.

I lose myself in Tamara’s tattoo. All her tattoos. All the images on her body represent something significant in her life. She imbued her body with deeper meaning, like an open book.

A book of spells. Tamara, my witch.

What had she said about the thistle on her thigh? It’s supposed to break hexes.

What did the compass symbolize? What about the star on