A Dark Inheritance

by Chris D'Lacey

  “You were dreaming,” she said, tossing away the tissue, “throwing your head around in the night.”

  “Where am I?”

  “In the clinic, where you’ve always been. We moved you to another room after … the incident.”

  A room with no window.

  “Rafferty,” I muttered. An image of me holding hands with her flashed through my mind but was gone so fast I couldn’t trap it. A whole pile of other stuff rushed in instead. Rafferty’s “visitation,” Chantelle with a gun, Freya’s heart transplant, Freya’s kiss, her running away from my bedside in terror. “Where’s Freya? I want to see Freya.”

  “You will, shortly,” a familiar voice said.

  In walked “Dr. K” in his usual immaculate suit, this time minus the doctor’s coat.

  “What’s the matter, Michael? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Maybe I had. Somewhere not a zillion neurons away, I had the weirdest feeling that he ought to be dead. I even said, “You’re … alive.”

  He smiled and wiggled his fingers for me. “I asked Chantelle to sedate you last night so we might carry out a small procedure. It’s not uncommon to suffer some mild confusion. I hope your dreams were not too troubling.”

  “I don’t remember my dreams,” I said. My mind was always blank in the mornings — unlike Josie, who had colorful adventures every night. Our breakfast conversations were often dominated by her discoveries of pyramids on the moon or the strange things cows liked to talk about. But on this particular morning, I could feel my mind clawing at the edges of a dream. Falling. Water. Rafferty. A promise. Fragments, gone like dust in the wind. I looked at Chantelle and remembered her putting the needle in my arm. What was it Dr. K had said? Something about moving to the next level? “What have you done to me, Klimt?”

  “Mr. Klimt,” he said. He picked up a clipboard and flicked through some sheets of medical notes. “If you work for me, Michael, you will show me some respect. I take it he hasn’t seen the mark yet?”

  Chantelle shook her head. “I was waiting for you.”

  On a nod from him, she rolled back my covers. Oh, no. I was wearing my Star Wars pajamas. Chantelle had seen me in a pair of pj’s with a Wookiee and a golden robot on the thigh. Someone take me out with a lightsaber. Now.

  “Show him,” said Klimt.

  Chantelle raised my left leg off the bed and pushed the pajama halfway up my calf.

  On my ankle, almost hidden in the shadows of my skin, was a small tattoo of a unicorn. It was UNICORNE’s design, with the tail looped around itself, making an e.

  “This confirms your recruitment,” said Klimt. “You will not deliberately show it to anyone. If your mother or your sister should happen to see it, you must be prepared to say you paid for it and suffer any consequence arising from that. Congratulations, Michael. Welcome to UNICORNE.”

  Welcome to a year in my room, more like. “You could have told me what you were going to do. If Mom sees that, I am TOTALLY grounded. She hates tattoos. And what about my friends?”

  “You undress before friends?”

  “Um, gym?” I said. “Someone’s bound to spot it. Then they’ll all want a look.”

  Chantelle lowered my leg. “Say you had it done without your mother’s consent. That will buy their secrecy and their respect.”

  Fair point. I smiled at Chantelle and she actually smiled back.

  “The tattoo is not merely decorative,” said Klimt. “It covers a microchip under your skin. The programming, in your case, was very advanced. We must be careful not to lose track of you, in case you have a sudden reality shift.”

  Tagged, like a dog. Was that a blessing or a curse? Either way, the unicorn did look cool. “I don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve this. It wasn’t me who found out about Rafferty’s heart.”

  “But it was you who brought the case to our attention,” he said. “And it’s you who will continue the investigation when you leave. I want you to return to the Nolans’ house — this time, taking Freya with you.”

  “Freya?”

  Almost as soon as her name was spoken, Rafferty’s voice swept through my mind. Promise me … it said. Like an oncoming train.

  I gasped and covered my face.

  “Michael?” Chantelle came up and parted my hands. “Michael, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I … My head hurts a bit. Can I have a drink of water?”

  Klimt stared at me a moment, then nodded his approval. While Chantelle was busy at the water cooler, I asked, “Why take Freya to Rafferty’s house?”

  “I am curious to see what happens,” he said. “It should be clear to you now that Rafferty wants Freya to remember something, something that has kept her spirit from rest. Do you recall the hypothesis I mentioned yesterday?”

  Chantelle came back with the water. The cold bite on my tongue almost made me spit. “Cellular something?”

  “Cellular memory,” he said. “A branch of our research has led to the suggestion that the physical donation of body parts can sometimes result in the transfer of the donor’s memories. Imagine you received an organ from a Norwegian child and then discovered you could speak Norwegian or took a sudden interest in pine forests and fjords. That would be an example of cellular memory. There are many recorded instances of it, but none where the donor has returned to haunt the recipient. Freya is shutting Rafferty out because she does not understand what is happening to her. Your task when you leave here is simple. You will go to Freya and reassure her — and in doing so, find out what Rafferty knows.”

  “Are you going to …?” What was that word people used about ghosts?

  “Exorcise her spirit?” Klimt said.

  That was it.

  “We intend to help Rafferty … move on,” he said. “But she has become of interest to us. Ghosts are not uncommon, of course, but they rarely form the kind of interstitial link that Rafferty has to you — or to Freya. We plan to study Rafferty’s movements. It takes immense energy to cross the temporal interface and slip between the planes of human consciousness. We can learn from her. Forgive me, you seem puzzled. Should I make myself clearer?”

  “Interface …” I muttered, pressing my temples. Why was that word sticking in my mind?

  I leveled my gaze and thought I glimpsed a look of concern on Mr. Klimt’s face. “Chantelle,” he said quietly, “give Michael something for his headache, will you. A single dose of Meztamine should be sufficient.”

  She blinked her stunning brown eyes. “I’ll have to go next door for that.”

  “Then go,” he said, like a teacher dismissing an unruly child.

  She threw a glance my way, then drifted from the room.

  “What’s Meztamine?” I said. It didn’t sound like the sort of thing Mom might drop into her supermarket basket.

  “A painkiller. It will calm your mind.”

  “I’m not anxious.”

  “As your doctor, I disagree.” He fixed me with his purple-eyed stare. Was it my imagination or did his eyes look different? “You are about to return to the field, Michael. The thought of encountering Rafferty again must be making you slightly uncomfortable?”

  “Not as bad as the thought of meeting Freya.” I couldn’t forget the words she had shouted just before she dropped the newspaper article: How could you? Those were the words of a girl betrayed. Making friends with her again might not be easy. “What if she doesn’t want to know me anymore?”

  “Then you must act like a UNICORNE agent, and use a little guile to renew her favor. You have more in common with Freya than you think. Cast your mind back to your early years. When you were young, you were very ill. So ill you almost died, did you not?”

  “Yes. How —?” I stopped myself there. He probably knew what I ate for breakfast and how often I changed my socks. Downloading my medical history couldn’t have been much of a challenge for him.

  I was five when I’d had a rare form of leukemia. I’d only learned this from Mom the year after Dad disappe
ared. It was one of those things she’d only wanted to reveal when I was old enough to understand, she said.

  My life in those days was an endless series of hospital visits, followed by years of dwindling checkups. What I didn’t know, until Mom chose to spill, was that my chances of survival had been quite slim. She described how I’d lain in an intensive care unit, with nothing but tubes to the outside world. Four days of constant vigil, she’d said, when prayers were more important than sleep. Then the overwhelming relief when I began to pull through. She’d rambled for a while about guardian angels. And when I asked her, “Do angels really exist?” she’d replied, “I hope so, Michael. I really hope so. I pray there’s one somewhere over New Mexico, looking out for your dad.”

  Mr. Klimt, who didn’t strike me as an angel, said, “Your father saved your life by donating some of his bone marrow to you. It was fortunate for you that he was a match. Freya waited nine months for a suitable heart.”

  And she ended up with Rafferty Nolan’s.

  I pushed myself upright, causing a pillow to fall to the floor. “How long before I can leave?”

  “Another day,” said Chantelle, coming back into the room. She retrieved the pillow and stuffed it behind my shoulders. “No bones were broken in your accident, and your stitches were taken out while you slept. You can go home tomorrow. Here, take this.” She handed me a pill in a small plastic cup.

  “The police will call on you again,” said Klimt. “Do not tell them you were going to meet Candy Streetham.”

  I looked at Chantelle, who’d obviously updated him. “We wiped your phone,” she said.

  “You don’t think Candy was driving the car?”

  “No, I do not,” said Klimt. “But if the police believe you were going to meet a journalist, they will deepen their investigation. This is a case for UNICORNE now.”

  And I was an active part of it, a member of a secret organization that I still wasn’t sure I could trust.

  “The pill,” he said.

  I tipped it into my mouth and took a drink of water.

  “Rest well, Michael. I will see you briefly tomorrow. You will keep us informed, through the usual channels.” He nodded at Chantelle and started to leave.

  “Wait. I want to ask you something.”

  He turned and looked at me, inviting the question. There was definitely something wrong with his eyes. The left one appeared to be a slight shade of blue, yet I distinctly remembered that it used to be purple. “Did Dad have a unicorn on him?”

  Klimt drew back and thought about this. “No,” he said airily, twisting the ring on his little finger. “It was your father’s disappearance that prompted us to start using the microchip tags. Now, if you have no further questions?”

  I shook my head and lay down on the pillow, spitting out the pill as I pulled up the bedsheet. Any self-respecting kid knew how to hide a tablet under his tongue, a tablet I was pretty sure had nothing to do with curing headaches. And I did have a further question for Klimt, but I kept it to myself. While he’d been talking, I’d looked for any sign of flecking in his eyes. If there was anyone I suspected of lying, it was him. But I must have been too tired or too scared he’d notice, because I couldn’t see a single flicker of movement or detect any signs of emotional feedback.

  As if he had no soul.

  Or didn’t really exist.

  Klimt was right about the police. They called again on my first day home, the same two detectives that had talked to me before. This time they gave themselves names: Detective Probert, the man, and Detective Coverley, the woman.

  The four of us sat in the living room. Josie, despite her Sherlock tag, was not allowed to listen in and had gone to her room in a huff to phone Tirion.

  The police asked how I was and had I remembered anything more about the accident, particularly the car? I shook my head but told them I had something to say. Detective Coverley leveled her gaze. I gripped Mom’s hand and told her I was sorry, that I’d lied about being on the headland to see a friend that morning. I didn’t mention Candy Streetham but instead told a half-truth. I said I’d gone to the Nolans’ house because I wanted to know how Trace was doing, and I’d learned about Rafferty’s death from Aileen Nolan. I said it had spooked me a bit. When Mom asked why I’d hadn’t said this at the hospital, I lowered my head and muttered, “I thought you’d be mad, because you were so fed up with hearing about the dog.”

  “Oh, Michael,” she sighed. She raised my hand to her mouth and kissed it.

  Klimt would have been proud. It was a pretty good act.

  The police seemed to accept the lying as standard. But if I thought I was in the clear, I was wrong. The whole session was about to go in a direction I wasn’t expecting — literally. Detective Coverley said, “So you were cycling home from the Nolans’ house when the car hit you?”

  “Yes,” I said. Another lie. Suddenly, I felt very cramped and awkward. I couldn’t find anywhere to put my hands. I noticed Detective Probert watching me, and that just made the fidgeting worse.

  Using a pencil end to check back through her notes, Detective Coverley came out with another observation. “That’s not consistent with the accident report. The tire marks we found suggest that the car was coming from Poolhaven toward Holton. Also, the front wheel of your bike took most of the impact. Both these facts would imply you were riding toward the Nolans’ house, not away from it. Do you want to comment on that?” She stared at me without a flicker of emotion, a gaze that could strip a coat of paint from a wall.

  “Michael?” Mom prompted.

  I swallowed hard. Here was a chance to blow the whistle on Klimt and go back to being a normal kid. But I heard myself saying, “My cap came off. I went back for it.”

  The police exchanged a subtle glance. Detective Probert shrugged, which I understood to mean he’d accepted what I’d said. Detective Coverley tried a different approach. “So you went to the house and spoke to Aileen Nolan?”

  I nodded.

  “Did you meet Dr. Nolan?”

  I shivered, though I wasn’t sure why I felt chilled. I gave a quick shake of my head.

  “Why are you asking him that?” said Mom.

  Detective Coverley crossed her legs at the ankles. She rested her notebook in her lap, stroking the fingers of a ring-free hand. “How did you know it was the Nolans’ dog?”

  I gulped and looked up at Mom, who was frowning. “Well, tell them,” she said.

  Detective Coverley threw me a phony smile. The last time I’d seen a grin like that was on the face of the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

  “Someone at school told me.”

  “Freya Zielinski?”

  I chewed my lip.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “How well do you know Freya, Michael?”

  “She’s in my class. We’re … friends.”

  “Good friends?”

  I shrugged.

  Detective Coverley smiled again. “Are you aware that Miss Zielinski’s father made a complaint to us about Dr. Nolan and his conduct toward Freya?”

  “I’m sorry, what has this got to do with Michael’s accident?” asked Mom.

  Detective Probert raised a hand. “This won’t take long, Mrs. Malone. Let’s hear what Michael has to say, shall we?”

  “Michael?” the woman prompted.

  “No,” I said. And that was the truth. Freya had never mentioned anything about a complaint.

  Detective Coverley reached into her bag for a folder. She took out a photograph and put it on the coffee table in front of me. “Have you ever seen Dr. Nolan speaking to Freya?”

  I glanced at the photograph. Liam Nolan was a proud-looking man with a rounded face and receding reddish hair. I shook my head. I’d never seen him before.

  But Mom had. “Hang on. Isn’t he a doctor at the Poolhaven practice? I didn’t realize you meant that Dr. Nolan.”

  “You know him?” Probert asked quietly.

  “Not personally,” said Mom. “But
Thomas — my husband — went to him once or twice.”

  “What?” I said. Dad had known (or met) Rafferty’s father?

  Detective Coverley picked up the photograph and held it up for me one last time. “So, just to clarify, you have never met the man in this photograph?”

  “No,” I said. But Dad had. Why did that make me feel uneasy?

  “All right. Thank you.” She slid the photo back into the file.

  A sudden knock at the door just then almost had me leaping out of my skin. Even Mom put a fluttering hand to her chest. “Josie, get that, will you?” she shouted.

  Regaining my composure, I said, “You banned her, Mom, remember? She’ll be in her room.”

  It might be days before we saw Josie again. She could yap for hours once she got started.

  Detective Coverley stood up and straightened her skirt. Turning to Mom, she said, “We’ll be leaving now. Please feel free to answer the door.”

  The rap came again.

  “Yes, right,” Mom said, a little hot, a little flustered. She was about to say “thank you” but stopped herself. Maybe she was thinking it wasn’t done, to thank the police for grilling your child. She slipped tamely out of the room.

  Detective Probert stood up, making the seat cushion wheeze. “We won’t need to speak to you again, Michael. Take care on the roads from now on, won’t you? Wear a helmet, not a cap.” He clapped a hand against my shoulder and turned to go, beckoning Coverley to follow.

  The policewoman extended a hand for me to shake. She reminded me in some ways of Candy Streetham. Not so pretty, but twice as devious. And like Candy Streetham, she was hard to shake off. “One last question,” she said.

  “We’re done here,” said Probert in a cautioning tone. He looked toward the hall, where Mom could be heard chatting with the postman.

  Coverley ignored him. “Think carefully before you answer, Michael. Do you know of any reason why anyone might want to hurt you?”

  “Detective Coverley,” hissed the man. He was angry with her now.

  “N-no,” I stuttered, but my mind was pulling down memories from the headland. What was it Klimt had said? There are people out there, other organizations, who would stop at nothing … I’d thought little of it at the time. I was just a kid on a grand adventure. Now his words sank in like poisoned raindrops huddling together at the bottom of my soul. I felt sick and ran to the kitchen.