Phoenix and the Dark Star

by Gerald Pruett

  “Good,” Ellen began. “We did a lot of activities together. Although, I believe that most of what we had done were diversions in order for her to keep her mind off of all the family members that she had lost.”

  “Your siblings?” Dr. Pendell questioned.

  “My siblings, her brother and parents,” Ellen replied. “The other two children that she had wanted to have after me and never did.”

  “Your mom had wanted additional children?” Dr. Pendell quickly questioned.

  “My mom had wanted to have a total of eight kids,” Ellen replied.

  “Why did your mom want to have that many kids?” Dr. Pendell asked, curiously.

  “I don’t know,” Ellen said with a shrug. “She told me that she didn’t really know; however, she had always known—even as a little girl—that she had wanted eight kids, and that her wanting to have that many kids had never changed. I’m not certain about this, but I think that the attraction that the birds and animals have for my siblings and me is accumulative. As more of us are gathered, the more birds and animals are attracted to us. So I’m guessing that my five older siblings were attracting a large number of birds at the time of the psychic’s warning. Still, my dad should’ve known better than to have listened to that psychic.”

  Dr. Pendell nodded before making a notation in his notes. “Out of curiosity, how many kids do you want?”

  Ellen amusingly grinned before saying, “More than one, but less than six.”

  Dr. Pendell grinned before asking, “So what did your mom do for a living?”

  “Before she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, she was a manager for a travel agency. She quit her job after being diagnosed.”

  Dr. Pendell nodded before saying, “So tell me about your mom’s parents and brother.”

  “I don’t know enough about them to tell you much.”

  “Tell me what you do know about them,” Dr. Pendell urged.

  “Okay,” Ellen began before taking a breath. “My grandparents are from Kansas City, Missouri like me, but when my grandpa… my mom’s dad graduated from high school, he went straight into the army. My grandma married my grandpa soon after he got out of boot camp. They lived on several army bases during my grandpa’s time in the army and the last base that they lived on before my grandpa was given his medical discharge was in Germany. My mom had just turned seventeen when they moved back to Kansas City, Missouri… from Germany. My mom had met my dad within twenty-four hours of her moving to Kansas City. Thirteen months after that, my mom’s parents and brother were killed.”

  “How were they killed?”

  “Auto accident,” Ellen said jadedly. “But in their case the accident had involved toxic chemicals and the authorities had to destroy the bodies involved. At least, that was what the authorities had told my mom anyway.”

  “Your mom didn’t believe the police?” Dr. Pendell asked curiously.

  “According to what my mom had told me, it wasn’t the police who had come to the door with the news,” Ellen began. “She couldn’t remember which branch of the authorities that the person was from, but what she did remember was that there were no reports of any major or fatal accidents that day within the city limits. My mom tried for months to learn more about the so-called accident, but she kept getting the runaround. Eventually she gave up and accepted what she was told.”

  “What are your feelings about that?”

  Ellen gave Dr. Pendell a curious look before saying, “Asking me about my feelings on that makes as much sense as asking me about my feelings on December 7th, 1941. In fact, my feelings would be the same. They’re both history events that took place before I was born.”

  “And yet you have feelings about what had happened to your siblings,” Dr. Pendell pointed out.

  “My siblings were killed seven and a half months before I was born,” Ellen began. “And my mom’s parents and brother were killed sixteen years before I was born. So my siblings being killed were less of a history event to me. Plus I saw the effects that my siblings’ deaths had on my mom.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Pendell said while making a notation in his notes. As he looked up, he asked, “Was your mom’s brother an older brother or a younger brother?”

  “A younger brother,” Ellen said. “He was fifteen.”

  “What was his name?” Dr. Pendell questioned.

  “Tucker Wiley,” Ellen said. “My mom told me that his nickname was Coyote—as in Wiley Coyote.”

  Dr. Pendell grinned before asking, “What else can you tell me about your mom’s parents or brother?”

  Ellen shrugged before saying, “That’s all I can think to say about them.”

  “Okay. So—to change topics—how are you adjusting to a life in Savannah, Georgia?”

  “I’m adjusting,” Ellen said.

  “I know that you made at least three friends.”

  “I made several friends since I’d moved here,” Ellen began. “In fact, making friends isn’t difficult for me. I even Email my friends in Kansas City. So I have friends in both places.”

  “Good,” Dr. Pendell said while making a notation in his notes. “So is there anything that you would like to talk about?”

  Ellen thought for a second before saying, “When I was ten, my mom told me that my brother Mike and I were what had kept her sane after the deaths of my four siblings. She put all her focus on properly caring for Mike and me during the day, and then cried herself to sleep at night over the lost of my siblings. I’m like my mom in that way. My only thoughts after Mike’s and Tanya’s deaths were on being with and caring for Sonya. However, being that Sonya was a premature newborn she had to stay in the hospital for about eight days, so I couldn’t care for her as I wanted to during those eight days.”

  “So what did you do during those eight days?”

  Ellen chose her words before saying, “After Mike and Tanya’s accident, I learned that my ancestors and Tanya’s ancestors had shared a common history. Tanya’s family kept diaries that sporadically spanned hundreds of years, and Harry had given me permission to read those diaries. So that’s what I had done, and by learning about Harris’s ancestors, I felt more connected to mine.”

  Dr. Pendell nodded before asking, “And like your mom, did you cry yourself to sleep at night?”

  Ellen nodded before saying, “For the first three nights.”

  Dr. Pendell made another notation in his notes before asking his next question.

  Ellen and Dr. Pendell talked for thirty more minutes before ending the session. Dr. Pendell then spoke to Ellen and Lance together for five minutes before Ellen, Everett and Lance left Dr. Pendell’s office.

  As Ellen, Everett and Lance were walking into the hall, Lance told Ellen, “Kristen had called while you were talking to Dr. Pendell. Megan fell and scraped her knee, and there’s no peroxide at the house. So before I take you home, Ellen, I’m going to stop off and get some peroxide.”

  “That’s fine,” Ellen assured him. “In fact, I need to get something anyway. And I do have money.”

  “What do you need?” Everett quickly asked.

  “A box of tampons if you must know,” Ellen told him. “I have one left and I need more before I start up again, which will be in a couple of days.”

  “Okay, that was more information than I had wanted to know,” Everett told her.

  “Well you asked,” Ellen said with a grin.

  “And you couldn’t have said feminine products?” Everett questioned.

  “I’m not embarrassed over it,” Ellen retorted.

  “So who do you look more like?” Everett asked. Lance just amusingly grinned. Ellen gave Everett a curious look as Everett continued with, “Your mom or your dad?”

  “Where did that question come from?” Ellen quickly asked.

  “I’m just changing the subject from tampons and I am curious to know,” Everett replied.

  Ellen shook off the abrupt subject change before saying, “I look very much like my mom… except for my eye
s and ears. My eyes and ears I got from my dad. Oh, and I’m currently the same height as my mom was.”

  “Short,” Everett playfully said in a joshing tone.

  “Five-five isn’t all that short,” Ellen defended. Everett and Lance grinned. “Also reaching full height at sixteen is just an average age for girls. Girls can stop growing at fifteen or continue to grow until they reach eighteen—it just depends on the girl, and my mom didn’t reach her full height until just after her seventeenth birthday. So I just might become five-six or taller before I stop growing.”

  “Okay,” Everett said in an appeasing tone.

  “And you’re only five-nine,” Ellen continued. “So you’re not exactly towering over me.”

  “Okay,” Everett said with a slight laugh. “I was just messing with you.”

  “Sure you were,” Ellen playfully retorted before shooting him a delightful grin. She then took and held Everett’s hand before continuing on with another topic.

  Chapter Four

  The conversation from Dr. Pendell’s office to a twenty-four-hour drugstore had remained casual. Their time within the drugstore was short before reaching the moderate size checkout line with their items to be purchased.

  Lance glanced at the box of tampons before saying, “So not to give the cashier double work, we’ll combine our purchases. So let me have your money.”

  “Alright,” Ellen said before pulling out her money from her front pocket and handing it to Lance.

  When Everett saw beef jerky on one of the shelves at the checkout line, he grabbed a few bags to be purchased. He then saw that Ellen was looking at the bags in his hands.

  “There’s a lot of protein in beef jerky,” Everett supplied.

  Ellen amusingly grinned before saying, “I just assumed you just like beef jerky.”

  “I do actually, but I mainly get them for the protein.”

  “Okay,” Ellen said in an appeasing tone as a muscular twenty-something-year-old man with a full beard stepped in line behind her group. Ellen glanced at the man and saw that he was carrying shaving supplies. After seeing what the man was carrying, Ellen faced forward.

  Once Ellen, Everett and Lance had finally reached the cashier, the cashier stared puzzlingly into Ellen’s face.

  As Ellen was returning the puzzled look that she was receiving, Lance asked the cashier, “Is there anything wrong?”

  The cashier broke his stare, and as he went to scan the first item, he said, “There’s nothing wrong.”

  Ellen shook off the incident, and as she glanced down at the item that was being scanned, she noticed a thorn vine tattoo that encircled the cashier’s right wrist. Ellen then noticed that the tattoo was tattooed over a thick scar that also encircled the wrist.

  Ellen quickly grabbed the cashier’s right hand and flipped it over in order to see the opposite side of his wrist.

  As the cashier pulled his hand from Ellen’s grasp, he uttered, “Excuse me!”

  Ellen locked eyes with the cashier before saying, “I know you.”

  “I have been working here for six years, so…” the cashier was only able to get out.

  Everett and Lance had confused expressions on their faces as Ellen interrupted with, “You’re Tucker Wiley.”

  Lance saw the fear in the cashier’s face before he told Ellen, “You-you’re mistaken. My name is David Robinson.”

  “You weren’t killed thirty-two years ago,” Ellen continued as if the cashier didn’t speak.

  “Kid, you have me confused with someone else,” the cashier told Ellen.

  “My name is Ellen, and I’m your sister’s daughter,” Ellen informed.

  An acknowledging expression, that Lance saw, came across the cashier’s face before the cashier said, “I’m not your uncle, Ellen…”

  “She died back in June from a brain tumor,” Ellen informed.

  “Ellen, stop,” the cashier demanded. “I’m not Tucker Wiley. I’m not your mom’s brother.”

  Ellen glanced at the cashier’s right wrist before saying, “You were twelve when your right hand was severed off after my mom had accidentally shoved you into a large glass window. She shoved you to keep you from accidentally stepping on your pet hamster. She prayed from the time when your hand was severed off to the time that it was reattached that you wouldn’t lose your hand. And even after learning that you would recover full use of your hand, she felt so guilty for what had happened to you that she had done your chores for two years.”

  The cashier grinned before correcting, “It was nineteen months actually. It would’ve been longer if your grandpa didn’t intervene and insisted that I do my own chores.”

  “So you are Tucker Wiley?” Lanced questioned.

  “I am,” he replied. “And my handler isn’t going to believe that I was identified by my sister’s daughter.”

  “Handler?” Ellen echoed in a confused tone.

  Tucker leaned closer before whispering, “For the past thirty-two years, I’ve been in the witness protection program.”

  The customer behind Ellen’s group asked impatiently, “Can we move along here? I have somewhere to be.”

  “Of course,” Tucker told the customer. As he continued to scan the remaining items he asked Ellen’s group, “Can you three stick around for a few minutes?”

  “We can spare a few minutes,” Lance told him.

  Tucker nodded before announcing the total amount that Lance owed. Lance pulled out the money and handed it to Tucker. Tucker put the money into the cash drawer before handing Lance his change. Before Tucker went to the next customer, he picked up the phone and dialed it. After a short wait he requested for someone to come to his register to take over for him.

  After Tucker hung up, he told Ellen’s group, “Once Dennis gets over here, we’ll talk.”

  “In the meantime, can you wait on me?!” the customer behind Ellen’s group strongly requested.

  “Of course, sir,” Tucker told him.

  As Tucker went to scan the customer’s first item, Lance gestured away from the register while saying, “Let’s move over there, out of the way.”

  As Ellen, Everett and Lance were stepping away from the checkout line, Everett asked Ellen, “When do you need to be home?”

  The customer behind Ellen’s group had partially heard what Everett had said and demanded, “Excuse me!”

  “Sir?” Tucker questioned in a confused tone.

  “Not you, him,” the customer clarified while gesturing towards Everett. Ellen, Everett and Lance looked back towards the customer. “The boy who’s running his mouth.”

  Lance stepped up to the customer and asked, “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “Yes, there’s a problem,” the man began. “My girlfriend had failed to buy me shaving cream, razors and aftershave, and because of that, I’m running late for my new job that I have to be completely shaved for. So I’m in no mood in listening to inappropriate mumbles from that boy about me needing to be somewhere.”

  “Sir, what you heard was my son asking his girlfriend when she needed to be home,” Lance informed.

  The man snarled slightly before saying, “You wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway.”

  “Sir, I suggest that you pay for your shaving items and leave,” Lance told him.

  “And you will do what if I don’t?” the man challenged.

  “Sir, if you don’t want to spend the night in a holding cell for public nuisance, you will pay for your items and leave without saying another word.”

  “Call the police,” the man again challenged. “I can break you in half and leave before they show up.”

  Lance pulled out his wallet while saying, “I am the police. I’m Detective Lance Delaney.”

  “Detective Lance Delaney?” the man echoed curiously as he stared at Lance’s detective badge. “Kristen Delaney’s husband?”

  “You know my wife?” Lance asked curiously as he put his wallet away.

  “I was an orderly at the hospital where your wife w
orks,” the man began. “Last month your wife had busted me over something and then done me a great favor by giving me the option of quitting instead of getting fired or going to jail. Of course at the time I didn’t see it as being a favor, but I do now. So tell her thanks for me.”

  “And you are?” Lance questioned.

  “I’m Ike Leman,” he said.

  “Mr. Leman, I’m going to do you a favor myself and ignore your comment of breaking me in half,” Lance said.

  Ike nodded while saying, “I appreciate that.”

  “Now pay for your shaving items and leave,” Lance ordered.

  “Yes, Detective Delaney,” Ike said before turning towards Tucker.

  Lance turned towards Ellen and Everett before gesturing and repeating, “Let’s move over there, out of the way.”

  As Ellen, Everett and Lance were walking away, Ike was paying for his purchases. Dennis was stepping up to the register as Tucker was handing Ike his change.

  Ike turned, and as he was walking away from the register, he glanced at Ellen’s group for a moment. Ellen watched Ike for a short time and then turned towards Tucker.

  Tucker was walking towards Ellen’s group when Ellen turned to look, and as Tucker stepped up, he said, “Okay, I can talk.”

  “You’ve been in the witness protection program for the past thirty-two years?” Ellen asked.

  “Yes,” Tucker replied. “And out of those thirty-two years not once have my true identity been discovered. How you—someone who wasn’t born way back then—had managed to identify me, is beyond me.”

  “Mom had showed me a picture of her dad… of your dad, and you currently look much like him… from when the picture was taken,” Ellen began. Tucker just grinned. “That fact and the fact that you have a thick scar that encircles your right wrist were all I needed to identify you.”

  “And again my handler is going to find it hard to believe that I was identified by a niece who I never met,” Tucker supplied.

  “Did Grandma and Grandpa go into witness protection program too?” Ellen asked.

  “Yes, they’re in the program as well,” Tucker said.

  “They’re alive?” Ellen quickly and surprisingly asked.