by Mark Tufo
“Tanya Reese made a deal, as she called it. She wanted something, so she gave something. Maybe that's what her home life has always been like. You want ice cream, you sleep with Daddy. I don't have any idea. What is clear, though, is that you cannot know in your hearts whether Othello Kingsley was aware of Tanya's mental capacity, and you cannot know Tanya's intentions when she had sex with him. He says he didn't know she was mentally handicapped, and she never said he forced her, even in her testimony. All you can know for certain is that no rape happened in this case. I trust you'll return a just verdict.”
Glenn Webster smiled at the jury, nodded to each of them, and returned to his seat. They were sent away for deliberation.
And it was only noon. Though he was certain the jury would not remain out very long, Glenn called his brother for lunch. Hell, it would pass the time.
* * * * *
“So what is this about pictures?”
“These,” Peter said. He removed two baggies from his pocket and placed them on the table between their plates. Glenn was having a burrito, rice and beans, and Peter had a quesadilla with the same sides.
Glenn stared at the pictures and took a bite of his burrito. With his mouth full he asked, “What's with the baggie?”
“Just to keep them clean.”
“Where'd you get 'em again?” Glenn asked.
“In an old trunk in the DeSante's attic.”
He spun the picture around and looked at it.
“Take it out of the baggie. Get rid of the glare,” Peter said.
“I can see ‘em okay. You know who they are?”
Peter had to figure out how to get Glenn to touch the photos. The one he was looking at through the plastic bag was a strange one. It was clearly clipped from a newspaper article, the photo itself taken of several cars traveling down what appeared to be Laguna Canyon Road, and one of the cars looked familiar – like the one that ran down Stan, Chris Wickham’s boyhood friend. The caption at the bottom had been cut off, so there was no way to determine what importance it held, if any. Peter guessed it may have been a follow-up article on the accident, talking about speed limits or something.
“Am I supposed to be able to tell if I know either of these guys in the background?”
“You probably won't know anyone. These were before our time. Still, I thought you might—”
“You're full of shit, Petey. What's going on? Why don't you just fuckin' tell me instead of all this jackin' around?”
Peter sighed. “Okay. Something strange is going on and you'd think I was nuts if I told you everything, but I want you to touch this photo and tell me if you feel anything. Anything strange at all.”
“Like what?”
“Like you're being drawn in.”
“That wasn't so hard, was it?” He shook his head. “Drawn in.” He smirked like he thought Peter was a fool.
“Just take it out of the bag and hold it.”
Before the picture was out of the plastic, Glenn froze. His hand shook and his eyes grew intense.
“Glenn!”
No response.
Suddenly, his right hand clenched closed as if he were holding a joystick on a video game, and he crushed the photo. Peter reached over in a panic and pried his brother's fingers open and slipped the picture out of his convulsing hand.
Glenn looked up and laughed out loud.
Peter stared at him, confused.
“You're fuckin' crazy, Pete!” He bellowed some more. “But how did that look? Good?”
“You're a rich attorney, so pick up my lunch. Sorry I wasted your time, asshole.”
“Here, let me give you your picture back.”
Peter watched as Glenn returned the photo back to the baggie and handed them to him. He turned toward the door.
“Hey, aren't you gonna wait until the verdict comes in?” As he said the words, his cell phone rang.
“Hello?” He held up a finger, but Peter shook his head and walked away.
It would be fine with him if he never saw his brother again. When he arrived home, there was a message on his machine from Glenn.
His client, rapist Othello Kingsley, was a free man. Peter pressed the ERASE button before he heard the details he was sure he did not want to know.
* * * * *
Peter had looked at the photograph he had showed to Glenn several times before choosing it. All the cars in the photo were different makes and models, but one in particular looked familiar to Peter. Nothing happened when he touched it, but there were scattered people in the background, some of the figures far too small to identify, and closer, a couple of men standing outside what appeared to be an auto repair shop.
He was so sure his brother had gone in, but his laughter was a jab in the stomach. Glenn got pleasure out of humiliating him. Always had. Probably always would. At 32, he wasn't about to change now. Peter slipped his hand into the briefcase and pulled out the baggies. His brows pulled down tightly over his eyes.
Though he had watched Glenn return the photos to the bags, one of them was empty. The picture of the canyon scene was gone.
* * * * *
For the next hour the five worked to create a new chart, this time including an upper tier. When they were done, it looked like this:
Galen Bishop - Christopher Wickham – Peter Webster
Katherine Burroughs – Ellen Carver – Allyson Newland
Elliot Corey – Joshua Mattingly – Matthew Webster
Margaret Cloyce – Lilly Morris – Emma Sandelli
Murdock Vickar – Ferguson Carver – UNKNOWN
Nobody seemed to want to leave. It was becoming an obsession with all of them.
“Peter,” Isabel said. “I'll need you to sit with me. Emma, you and Matthew should remain outside. Allyson may come in if it makes Peter more comfortable.”
“I'll want to come in to tend the monitor—” Emma began.
“Allyson can do that,” Isabel said cutting her off. Then her eyes grew tender and she touched Emma’s hand. “But you know that already.” She smiled kindly.
Emma looked hurt, and Peter understood. Emma wanted to scream out that she had known him longer, therefore she should be the one to come in. It was the first time he'd ever seen Emma's eyes questioning a decision Isabel made.
“Em, you trust Isabel, right?”
Emma nodded. “I just—”
“I know,” Peter said. “I love you too, Em. I'll be all right.” He closed the door slowly.
“That was tough,” I said.
“I know,” said Isabel. “But what we're going to do is something we've not yet tried, and distractions can only inhibit our success. I have a very specific task for you, Peter, and you must be able to achieve it.”
“The studio?” Allyson asked.
“No,” Isabel said. “The hit-and-run.”
The memories flooded back to Peter. The car running down Stan, a friend he never knew in this life. The feeling of terror and helplessness that swept over him as his friend flew through the air to meet the pavement that would snuff out the last bit of life in him.
He looked at Isabel. “To be honest, I'd rather go into the burning studio.”
“So would I, probably. But this is one of the earliest pictures, and there is an order to things. If we are to try hypnosis to increase your awareness of the present while you are in the past, we must start at the earliest point. Information obtained in the wrong order will not make any sense to us, as we'll have no way of using our experiences to place it in perspective.”
“What's your doctorate in?” Peter asked, smiling. “You can't just be a gypsy.”
“Are you ready?”
Allyson squeezed his hand and prepared the heart monitor. “Go ahead,” she said. “I'll be here watching.”
“Let's do it,” Peter said.
“Sit in this chair, Peter. A friend of mine brought it to me today. It reclines, and you must be comfortable.”
“You're moving up, Isabel. Next thing you'll have
a Select Comfort bed in here.”
“Serious,” she said.
“Web. Knock it off.” Allyson was serious.
Isabel opened the drawer of her table and removed the photograph of the two boys. She placed it on the table on a tiny easel so that Peter could see it. “Peter, I want you to stare at this photograph. You will not be required to touch it now.”
Peter nodded.
Allyson watched and listened.
“Focus on the picture, think of the boy in it as yourself. I want you to breathe slowly and evenly. Take deep, deep breaths. It is very important that you relax.”
Isabel's voice grew smooth and low, as though she had called upon a younger self to administer the hypnosis. Her voice took on a droning rhythm, a pattern—even syntax—that steadily grew more and more even.
“You'll go inside for ten minutes, no more. You will keep track of the time, not me. You will come out when the time has passed. While you are inside, you will remember your identity as Peter Webster, and you will also realize your identity as Christopher Wickham. You will carry with you the knowledge of the boy you were and the man you are, and you will be a keen observer of all around you. Numbers, signs, faces, temperature, fatigue, brightness, darkness, and time. You will hear my voice as you venture back into time, into your past life. You will tell me what you see as you see it.”
Peter's eyes drifted closed, then fluttered, and Allyson shifted in her seat. She looked from Peter to Isabel, but the medium was staring intently at Peter. Allyson checked the heart monitor again and was concerned to see his heartbeat had dropped to 48 beats per minute.
“Isabel, he—”
She took Allyson's arm and squeezed, then nodded at Peter, who was now in a deep sleep.
* * * * *
“We're riding,” Peter said. “It was a hybrid of Peter and Chris speaking, and eerily, it didn't exactly sound like Peter. It sounded like a ten-year-old to Allyson.
“He can't beat me! I've raced him before and I always win!” Peter smiled and his heart rate increased to seventy-eight beats per minute as his legs began to move in slight circles.
“Oh, my god. The car's gonna come! I gotta tell Stan.”
“You cannot interfere, Peter. You cannot interfere, Christopher. What happens is destiny and must happen. If you try he will not hear.”
“I coulda won, but I let him get ahead so his mother would think he was something. He's ahead of me, but I know I let him win. He loops his bike around and bares his teeth at me like he's real hot snot, and I see it coming at him from behind! It's behind him, but in front of me!”
Allyson's eyes moved rapidly from the monitor to Peter. His heart was now beating at 155 beats per minute.
Peter rocked in the chair. “I wave to him to ditch, but he doesn't know what I'm saying! He thinks I’m cheerin’ him on! He's got a big smile on his face, but I'm crying! I can't stop crying 'cause I know what's going to happen! I seen it before and I can't stop it! I know I'm gonna warn him 'cause that's what I did before, but Stan's gonna die, I know that already! Look! Look!”
Peter jabbed his finger toward the picture on the table. Sweat poured down his face, and his shirt was soaked through and sticking to his body.
His heart was now pounding at a rocketing 190 beats per minute. Allyson felt panic set in. She wanted to bring him out now, before something horrible happened to him.
“Isabel, I’m too close to him. I love him, and I want to bring him out because even though I know how important this is I just can’t be objective at this point—”
“Shh, child. Keep monitoring, watch him, and if he needs us, we’ll know.”
Allyson did watch Peter. His wild eyes, his chest rising and falling fast as his breath charged in and out of his lungs with the force of a giant bellows. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he struggled to maintain his sanity while, as a young boy, he knowingly watched a friend about to be hit by a car – without the ability to stop it.
Allyson knew at that moment she should not have been the one in the room. Emma was right. She should have been there for her friend, to take care of him. If anything happened to Peter, Emma would never forgive her, nor would she forgive herself. Allyson touched Isabel on the arm, her eyes pleading, and the gypsy nodded. A moment longer, her look said. A moment longer is all we need.
Isabel's eyes were intense as she stared not just at, but through Peter, as though she should be able to see what he saw if she focused hard enough. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead, too, and she ground her teeth when she wasn't speaking to Peter.
“There it is! A big, dark Cadillac. It's there! It's gonna chew him up and spit him out like it done before! What am I supposed to do! What can I do!”
“What is the license plate, Chris?” Isabel asked. “Peter, do you see it? Read it. That's what you can do to help Stanley.”
Peter's hands were out as he gripped his imaginary handlebars, and he jerked them side to side as he pedaled as fast as he could and screamed, “Stanno! Ditch! Ditch, Stan! The car is . . . DITCH!”
“Peter,” Isabel insisted. “Look at the license plate. Tell me what it says.”
A horrible scream, but not that of a man; it was one of a terrified young boy.
“Oh, God!” Peter erupted, tears squirting from his closed eyes. “He hit Stanno!”
Isabel's voice repeated the question, this time with more urgency. “Peter, Christopher. Read the license plate of the Cadillac. Now, while you can still help him.”
“It's 8C7547! 8C7547!”
Isabel slumped back in her chair and picked up the pencil on the table, writing down the sequence of numbers and letters. Her eyes lifted to Peter again. “Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Christopher. You have helped Stanley in the only way you could.”
Peter wasn't out of the image yet. His breath came in quick huffs, his veins pressing against his arms and neck from the inside as though they were snakes fighting to get out from under his skin.
“The eyes,” Peter moaned. “They saw me, and they're cold like the Devil. I feel like I just met the Devil, and the Devil's who killed Stan.”
Peter dropped out of the chair to his knees and stared at the bare floor. His hands scratched, clutching at the floorboards, failing to come up with the shirt or shoulders of his friend. “Stan! Wake up, Stanno! You got dark stuff comin' out of your ears and mouth, Stan! Wake up! Wake up!”
Peter’s heart rate was now over 200 beats per minute. “Isabel, we need to bring him out. His heart rate is too—”
Isabel nodded at Peter, who had now dropped the photograph and slumped back into the recliner, his eyes closed. His staccato breath slowed more with each passing second.
“Fuck,” Allyson said as the tension drained out of her.
“I see that fuck and raise you two shits,” Isabel said. “But at least we have what we needed.”
Allyson looked at Isabel, her mouth hanging open. They both laughed for ten minutes as she sat next to Peter and stroked his hair and forehead until he woke.
“I can look the license plate up on your laptop, Peter. You have a hot spot?”
“I do,” said Peter.
He walked to the car and returned with the computer. He fired it up and slid it in front of Allyson. “Internet’s active.”
“Okay. One of the benefits of being the daughter of a cop is he gave me the inside scoop on accessing DMV records. A password here, a hidden URL there, and I’m in.”
“Cool. Let’s search.”
Allyson’s fingers slid over the keyboard and in moments, she pulled up the information.
“It’s not an active license plate. I suppose it could have been changed to a vanity plate or something between then and now.”
“Can you look up history?” asked Peter.
“I think so. Hold on.”
She typed and clicked a bit more, then turned to Peter.
“The car was registered to a Gerald Carver.”
“Ferguson Carver’s pseudo father?”
“His birth father, but not the creator of the soul that lives inside him,” said Isabel.
“So unless Gerald Carver ran down Stanley Ross, we know it was Ferguson Carver, his son. I think we know enough to confirm that in that incarnation, he was the guy we were looking for.” Peter stared at them all.
“Another step taken,” said Isabel. “Now we must find him, no matter who he is. Peter, tell me how aware you were of the present while you were inside.”
“I knew you were there,” Peter said. “I remember you, hearing you, doing what you said, for Christ's sake.” Peter was on his feet now, pacing the room. Nothing could have prepared him for what he felt and experienced that time. The ability to have contact with the present world while living the past was exhilarating and downright eerie.
“Your heart rate got out of control,” Allyson said. “If it were just me, I would have tried to bring you out sooner. The weird part was, I couldn't have. You weren't even holding the photograph. You even quit looking at it.”
“This is because of the powers Galen once had,” Isabel said. “Many witches—”
“That brings up a point Isabel,” Matt interrupted. “I thought they were warlocks when they were men,” Matt said.
