by Elen Chase
"Really?" said Chloe. "Interesting, I'm sure one day one of us will make good use of it," she winked at me and I wished Sean wouldn't notice. "Let's move forward!" After that it was my turn with Chloe, and then Dan and Sean.
"Make it fast and painless," said Sean.
"Don't worry, Ben."
"It's Sean, jeez!" Their lips touched for less than two seconds, but I felt my stomach burn like somebody set fire to it. The next pair was Dan and Sara. After they kissed she was so red I thought her head would explode, and I was sort of happy for her, even if my stomach wouldn't stop aching. I found myself wishing and not wishing at the same time for me and Dan to be chosen. Like I asked for it, we were the next pair. I panicked completely. I refused to kiss Sean, why would I kiss him now? It would be strange, yet I sort of want it at this point. Barely hearing any noise over my heartbeat, I decided to accept, but as soon as I opened my mouth to say it out loud, he spoke before me.
"I say no," said Dan. I felt like falling from the sky to the hard ground, but at the same time I was somehow relieved.
"Penalty!" screamed the girls, drunk at least as much as I was. Sean was picked again to decide the penalty.
"Same question as before! Most secret sex fantasy."
"Oh, I already know that!" said Chloe, lifting her hand in the air like a kid who wants to answer a question in school. She had lost it completely.
"Alright, Jean. Uniforms," said Dan.
"For the last time, it's Sean!"
"What kind of uniforms, be more specific!" said Chloe again, and Sara nodded next to her, clearly interested in the answer. I was kind of curious too.
"Uniforms in general, but especially… police uniforms. Complete with all the accessories."
"Like handcuffs?" asked Sara.
"...Yes."
"Whoa, this is hot stuff!" commented Sean. I really found it hot. Even too much. I cleared my throat and put more ice in my drink to try cool myself down. Spinning the bottle again, the next pairs were again Sara and Chloe, Dan and Sean, Sara and Sean. After that, Dan and Chloe were chosen, and I immediately saw on his face that he was going to refuse. But Chloe, completely drunk, passed her arms around his neck and kissed him, probably without thinking too much. When she realized what she was doing she moved away, but as soon as she did so, she burst out crying. I wasn't expecting that, and neither was anybody else.
"Chloe, no… " said Dan, taking her face in his hands and drying her tears.
"… I thought I was special. I wanted to be special," she said, sobbing.
"Dan, take her to get some fresh air," said Sara, caressing Chloe's shoulder.
"Can you stand?" Dan asked her, but she was crying so desperately now, she couldn't even talk. So he took her in his arms and carried her out. On the table fell an embarrassed silence.
"So it was him… the ex," said Sean.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Sean," I said. "I was sure both of them were over it."
"We all were," said Sara. I felt a growing anxiety in my chest, I couldn't stay still.
"I'm gonna see how she's doing," I said, and followed them outside. They were sitting on the floor behind the corner, and he was still holding her strong in his arms. I didn't have the courage to show myself, so I stood on the other side of the corner, and ended up listening to what they were saying.
"You never loved me, never," she was repeating while crying.
"I'm sorry Chloe… for everything," he said, caressing her hair.
"Was it so bad? Being asked to come live with me."
"No, I was happy when you asked me. Chloe, I have been happy every second I spent with you."
"But it wasn't enough."
"This is not about you. I’m the one who’s never enough. I don't know how to love people, I don't understand any of it. You deserve someone able to always put you first. You deserve all the best life can give."
"I didn't want the best, I wanted you."
"You can't waste your time with me. I always had things I couldn't tell you about, things that brought me down. I'd never want to bring you down with me… I'm sorry Chloe, I'm sorry I couldn't love you…"
Chapter 30
That evening Sara went home with Chloe and stayed with her for the night, and between Sean and Dan fell a thick, polite hostility. I had drank too much, and the next day I felt awful. Or maybe it was because I couldn't sleep at all, thinking of what I heard Dan and Chloe say the night before. After eavesdropping on their conversation, I couldn't look Dan in the eyes. I was somehow sad, hearing him saying that he couldn't love a girl he spent two years with, and at the same time I felt a sort of weird satisfaction thinking about it. I tried to fight the uneasiness I had inside, repeating to myself that it was all the alcohol’s fault.
In the morning I kept staring at my cappuccino with a disgusted face, hoping to find the strength to do something. I knew Dan hadn't slept at all that night too, since he couldn't take his pills, yet he looked more rested than me.
"I know you were there, outside the pub," he told me. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I didn’t want to get in the way."
He exhaled and said, "I should have stayed away from her a little longer."
"It's not a matter of time… she needed to talk with you about it. Hopefully she's gonna be better from now on."
"When I left her… Before I left her, that very night, she asked me to go live together. And I said no. I told her ‘I'm leaving Rosedeer,’ and I thought it would be over just like that. But there's no way it would be. I hurt her so much."
"Were you honestly thinking that? That she deserves someone better? It's not just an excuse?"
"I honestly think that. I couldn't put her ahead of my revenge, never. If my ability to love is so half-assed, I must say I'm not cut out for relationships."
"I think she wanted to try, even if it was half-assed."
"Chloe is still in her teens, and she's intelligent and talented. In a couple of years she'll start thinking more seriously about her future, and in ten years she'll want a family. I could never give her what she needs. And she knows that, she's a smart girl."
What Dan said suddenly rang a bell in my head. In a couple of years she'll be as old as us. As old as Shallie. In ten years she'll want a family. I had solved the mystery.
"Dan," I called his name. "Dan!"
"What? Are you alright?"
"I have to go to the library!" I ran around the house and got dressed as fast as I could.
"What's going on, what happened?"
"I've just figured it out. Give me your keys."
"No way, I'm coming with you."
We went to the library, and I rushed to the table and opened up the books and the articles. "Four cycles of seven years. That's exactly how they kill, it was so banal! A girl, or a woman, every seven years."
"Why do you think that?" asked Dan.
"In the book the characteristics of the cycles are described by the presence of the woman that Jukka meets every time. In the first cycle she represents language and traditions and is a priestess. She dies consumed by the suffering of not being able to pass on the traditions and their ancient language to the newborn kids. So when kids bear the first sin, that year they'll kill a girl. Second cycle, family. A mother gets abandoned by her adolescent daughter that gives away her identity to become a cyborg. The girl bears the sin, so they'll kill a teenager. Third cycle, feelings. The young bride waits in front of the church in a white dress but slowly forgets who she's waiting for and why. When she sees a memory of her fiancé in the looking glass she remembers him, but realizes she can't love him anymore and kills herself. She bears the sin of forgetting feelings. A young woman around our age. Fourth cycle, heart. Jukka carves out his heart to save the girl, but fails to consider that he would leave her all alone in the world. Jukka bears the sin, and the world gets destroyed. As you know, Jukka doesn't age during his journey. He was always, right from the start, a man in the ‘middle of his life’, so Jukka's age is th
ought to be around thirty. Look… Shallie died this year. If I take the files of the murders from seven years ago looking for a teenager, the only possible victim is this girl, fourteen years old. Again, fourteen years ago, a grade school kid: this one, seven years old. If I'm right, how old is the victim supposed to be from twenty one years ago?"
"Twenty eight."
"There she is. Twenty eight years ago?"
"Twenty one years old. It must be this one."
"They all have a seven year gap between their age. It can't be a coincidence."
"No, it can't be a coincidence. This means that since they started again from the first cycle, they have been killing girls born in the same year as us," said Dan.
"And if we fail to stop them, in seven years from now one of our old classmates or friends might be murdered like Shallie. I can't stand this." I picked up the files with the victims of the second sect. Finally we knew who they were. I searched through them for a while, and noticed that all of their deaths had been covered up by accusing somebody and having the person arrested. Also, all the victims suffered physical injuries of a different nature, and had been somehow stabbed in the heart. It was slightly different from how the first sect killed, but I was pretty sure they had kept the tradition of the knife. Only, I didn't understand why Shallie was killed by poison, even though I was happy none of those filthy bastards touched her body. I concluded that they probably wanted to kill her first, and then stab her heart; if they didn't, I probably had to thank Bart Robinson, or whoever brought her back home with his car.
"What if you go seven years back from the last victim that matched the conditions?" Dan asked me suddenly, and since I already had the articles close to me, I checked.
"No, nothing."
"So they did start twenty eight years ago."
"The material Robinson selected starts from thirty years ago, that makes sense."
"Also, sixty years ago, when the first sect was discovered, their last victim represented the second cycle. They probably wanted to continue their work and they started killing again from the third."
"You're right," I said. "But Robinson, why was he so sure about thirty years ago? He came here and immediately chose the articles starting from that date. There's something that’s still missing."
"Let's try to turn around the perspective," said Dan. "Let's start thinking from Robinson's point of view. Who was he? Why did he start investigating?"
"The son of the minister of education. He suspected his father being in a sect and wanted to know more."
"He suspected it. Why?”
“From something he heard him saying, maybe? Or for something he saw… but we're just guessing again." It was always like this with the analysis. It was frustrating. I would find out something, mainly thanks to an intuition, then I would be stuck for days reading the same things over and over, until something triggered another idea.
"Don't give up," Dan scolded me "If we don't guess, we'll never get another theory. Let’s say he saw something; what did he see?"
"Something that made him think of a sect. A symbol?"
"A symbol, alright. This symbol?" he said, pointing at the picture of the altar.
"It may be, but it may not be. A symbol like this one is not something you can carry around so easily. You can't take the risk of somebody taking an interest to it, especially if you're a politician."
"Who said he was carrying it around? It was his father, he could have seen it at home. And what he saw made him think immediately of thirty years ago."
"Thirty years ago… two years before they killed the first victim."
"Drew," he said, "don't we have something else from thirty years ago?"
"The book. But Dan, this would mean he had a copy of this edition at home, we don't know that." I opened the third edition of the Eulogy. A simple book, beautiful leather cover, no notes, no preface. For collectors. I turned the pages hoping to figure anything out. Did Robinson see in it something I couldn't see? Did that book made him think that his father was part of a sect? I reached the last page. On the inner side of the back cover there was just the name of the publisher, their logo and the year of printing. Nothing useful. I was getting discouraged. I saw Dan starting to research on his watchpad. Good thing he still had all that enthusiasm. I was sick of all that.
"Do you know that what was seen cannot be unseen?" Dan asked me.
"What's that about now?"
"A painter I liked used to sign his works by putting his profile in them. I couldn't see it at first, but once I found it, it was always the first thing that caught my eye. If you saw one of those paintings now, you wouldn't see the profile in it. But I would. And I think it's the same here. Robinson could see the key and we can't, because he knew something we don't know. Where is it? Just think, this book is mainly plain text, and since the text is identical to the other editions, the key is not in it. All that's left is the cover and the publisher logo," he said, and I sat down next to him. Looking at his watchpad, I saw he was researching the publisher.
I read the content of the web page out loud. "‘Lion publisher, a company born to make limited editions of the most important books of history. Each volume, cured in every detail, presents the original version of the texts, and excludes any type of note or comments, aiming to preserve the artwork clean of any external influence. The company failed after only five years of activity, due to difficulties in covering the costs of the volumes. However, the president and founder of the company, Professor Julian Robinson, declared himself satisfied with the accomplished results, stating that the printed works will always prove themselves unique and undoubtedly the best edition ever made of the books. After more than twenty years, the public opinion has to acknowledge he was right, as every copy of the ‘Eulogy’ printed by them (five hundred in the entire globe) is now worth around fifty thousand credits, and the copies of ‘The songs of the Fool’ (a thousand in total) are quoted fifteen thousand credits each.’ Julian Robinson… who is he?"
"The minister's older brother. Robinson's uncle. I'd say he had a copy of this book at home after all."
"So Robinson realized something because of this? Because his uncle printed the book?"
"Look at this," he said, enlarging the company logo. It was the head of a lion turned transversely, looking toward the reader. "I think the key is in this logo, so well hidden that only those who know where to find it can see it. Like the painter's profile."
"I'm confused," I told him. "Dan, you're getting off track."
"Drew, is it possible that Robinson started searching from thirty years ago because of the book?"
"Yes."
"Is it right to think he understood something by looking at the book then?"
"Yes."
"Is it possible that he found a track in the text?"
"Hardly probable."
"Is it possible that he saw something in the logo, that he knew well, because it was his uncle's own company?"
"Maybe, this is too uncertain!" I said, raising my voice.
"It's because it's uncertain that we have to look into it." He said with the same tone I used. I didn't like arguing with him.
"Okay," I told him, "let's look into it then." He projected the hologram of the logo on the wall, making it bigger. The resolution of the image wasn't too good, but he said it was the best he could find on the internet. He cleaned it with a graphic software, trying to improve the quality. He hadn't lost his artistic abilities, and I stayed still, observing him, like when I used to watch him draw as kids. Suddenly I remembered the dark abstract paintings I had seen in his storage room at home the very first day I arrived there, and I thought about how deeply his life in Downtown must have changed his style and his way of looking at the world. After twenty minutes spent changing blurring, grains, contrast and lights, the image had really improved a lot. And something caught my eye.
"Dan, can you get the contrast up?" He did as I said and the white parts shined on the black drawing. I saw a light in
the lion's right eye, that I thought was black until that moment. "Zoom the right eye," I told him. He did so and cleaned the lines again, defining them better. It was so small you couldn't possibly see it from such a distance. In the printed book the entire logo wasn't bigger than a nail, the lion's eye was a small black dot. Yet his iris wasn't black at all. It was a spiral, with a seven pointed star in the middle. "You were right," I told him. "Robinson must have known this."
"There's something we have to confirm now… call Lilian."
Chapter 31
"Bart often told me about his uncle. He adored him; he was his role model. More than his father, who was always working and never spent time with him. I know he used to bring him to work with him, and I'm sure he knew this logo well. I think his uncle had even made and gifted him a poster representing this lion when he was a kid."
"So he knew it had this symbol in the eye, and recognized it on the book," I said.
"What I ask myself now is: is this all?" said Dan, sitting in front of Lilian and looking straight at her. "He saw his uncle's logo on this book. But it wasn't a secret he had printed it. What I want to know is… why a symbol that he saw throughout his life suddenly made him wonder if his father was part of a sect?"
"I don't know, what do you think?" asked Lilian.
"I think that you don't trust me. And this is making you lie."
"That's ridiculous. We are trying to find out how my fiancé died, and you accuse me of not being honest!"
"No, Lilian, we already know how your fiancé died. He died trying to help Shallie. In case you haven't noticed, he failed. What we are trying to find out now is more about his enemies, so that we can avoid ending up like him," said Dan. It was cruel saying that to Lilian, even if it was the truth. "I know you don't give a shit about me, and that's fine. But I won't let you put Drew in danger just because you don't trust me, and if I were you I'd do as I say," he added.
"Are you trying to threaten me?" she said, visibly angry.
