by Jojo Brown
“Oh really, I can just imagine what I must look like.”
“The way your hair is totally mussed up, standing up on end and hanging in your face is very endearing, in an animalistic sort of way. The puffiness of your eyes, from spending nearly forty-eight hours in some other realm, reminds me of the way you look after a long night of lovemaking.
“Even the tiny drop of soup that has dribbled down your chin is wonderful. It all works together to show a softer more vulnerable side of you. A side you don’t let many people see.”
As he was thoroughly enjoying teasing me, my hands flew to my hair, trying to make it lay down, to no avail. When my trembling fingers found the moisture on my chin, I was mortified. “I am so glad you are finding all of this so amusing, Dr. McLean.”
Taking the still steaming cup from me and putting it down on the bedside table, he took me in his arms.
“Sweetheart, the fact that you are sitting here with your crazy hair and puffy eyes, with enough control over your muscles to get all but one drop of soup into your mouth, makes me happier than anything ever has in my whole life.”
We clung to each other, as if the mere idea of being separated was something that neither one of us could bear.
“I am so sorry,” I murmured, shakily into his shoulder, “I didn’t mean to give everyone such a bad fright. I didn’t even realize that I was gone. When I woke up, I was so confused.”
Sitting back enough to be able to look in his eyes, I continued, “Chris, it felt like I just closed my eyes for a few minutes. How is it possible that I don’t remember being out for so long?”
“It’s that good old protection thing at work again,” he reassured me, as he gently ran his hand down the side of my head.
When his fingers accidentally grazed the knot on my skull, I winced and brought my own hand up to the spot. “Oh! That really hurts!”
Chris carefully brought his lips to rest on the hot distended skin. “It is actually a good thing that it is sore and swollen. If you had hit your head that hard and it wasn’t, then I would really be concerned. Now, get yourself into that bathroom and have a shower. I have a feeling that your aunt has a lot planned for you. Plus, you will feel a lot better once you’re cleaned up and dressed.”
As I made my way to the adjoining bathroom, I turned back to Chris. “Thank you,” I hoped he knew how deeply I meant it.
“You are the strongest person I have ever known, Ella. Nothing is going to happen here that you cannot handle. You just have to believe in yourself.” He smiled, and as I closed the door, I heard him whisper… “I love you.”
Twenty-three
When I finally came back out of the bathroom, feeling refreshed—just as Chris had said I would—I was startled to find Adam sitting cross-legged in the middle of the big bed. He was holding the paper Chris had written on at the home.
I walked over to him and he held it out to me, saying, “You need to look at this, Ella, before you go out into the living room.” He patted the bed in front of him, indicating that he wanted me to come and sit there with him.
He passed the page to me silently, as I looked into his eyes. I still could not get over the difference in him. He was like a totally different person, as though the real Adam had been hiding and now for some reason, he had stepped out into the light.
“It’ll be okay,” he promised, with a wink.
Looking at the page, I began to shake uncontrollably. “Adam, can you help me with this? I have never been very good at math, especially something this complicated.”
“Honey, I really do not know what it all means. To be honest, I can’t even remember any of the numbers anymore. As I walked out the front door of that house for the last time, it was as if I became a completely new person. I know that probably doesn’t make much sense, but it is true.”
“It makes perfect sense to me, Adam. You are a different person now. Even the way you stand, walk, and talk is completely different from the way you were. You’re not the scared child anymore, you are a man all of a sudden.”
“It’s almost as though the last thirty years never happened.” He looked at me, through lowered lashes, “Except that we are all that much older. It really is a strange feeling, Ella. Now the task is to find out what’s going on and why.”
Looking back down to the paper in my hand, I asked, “How am I supposed to figure this all out?”
“Just read it out and see what happens. I just have this gut feeling that you will know what it all means. Maybe the answers will simply materialize. I have no idea. All I do know for certain, is that you are the one who has to do this.
“We all tried to have a go at it while you were out, but none of us could even read it all. It just made us sick. It was like we were all suffering from a terrible case of sea-sickness, just from looking at those numbers.”
Taking a deep breath, I began to read what he had dictated to Chris, word for word; number for number.
First, you take the number two and times it by ten and one, then double it again. Add that to one more than four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. Multiply all of that by the number of fingers on your hand and put it together with seven hundred and eighty. Multiply it again with the number of hours in a day and a half and split it into two thousand pieces. Now, take one of those pieces and take away nine and ninety. After you double that, throw away six hundred with twenty-eight. Put eighty-two together with it and divide all of that by sixty-four. That is the first number that goes in the line.
My head was swimming. “This is what you used to say all the time, Adam. You used to repeat all of it, all the time. It goes on and on, are you telling me that this whole thing is what the woman told you to remember?”
“No, I don’t think so. I am quite sure that in the beginning, I just had the actual numbers in my head. Somehow, over the years I turned it all into this rambling monologue that you now have in front of you. I don’t know what the numbers were and I can’t even figure out how to make any sense out of my own ramblings. Sitting here listening to you read it, it just sounds like nonsense to me.”
Turning back to the page, I started to see the equations. “As far as I can tell, there are three separate equations here. It refers to the first, middle, and last numbers in a line.”
It was all becoming clear as crystal, it was right there in front of me. “I don’t understand why none of you were able to figure this out. I know that Chris is a very intelligent man and Aunt Rachel has done accounting. Why couldn’t any of you do it, Adam?”
Handing me a pencil and a clean sheet of paper, Adam informed me that I was the only one who had even been able to actually read it. Whenever the rest of them had tried, strange things had happened.
Adam, himself had not been able to read it. Every time he had tried, he could not even recognize any of the letters. Chris and Aunt Rachel were both struck with terrible headaches—in fact, Aunt Rachel had actually lost her sight as a result for a few hours, the last time she tried.
“Someone, or something, did not want any of us to figure this out.”
Taking the paper and pencil, I moved over to the small desk to try to figure out the problems. As the desk was under the window of the yellow and white room, the natural light from the sun filtering in under the lowered shade would be easier on my eyes.
I wrote down the equations as I found them, for all three of the numbers, before I even attempted to try to solve any of them.
2 x 11 x 2 + 5000 x 5 + 780 x 36 ¸ 2000 – 99 x 2 – 628 + 82 ¸ 64 =
100 x 6 – 16 + 3000 ¸ 2 x 3 – 2500 ¸ 4 + 5 x 2 – 700 ¸ 4 – 174 =
10 x 60 – 120 ¸ 3 + 1 x 25 – 5 ¸ 2 =
I came up with the sums for all of these, after struggling to filter through the profoundly confusing ramblings. I finally came up with the numbers 3, 13 and 2,010. I tried writing them out in every order I could think of. I tried adding them all together, multiplying them, subtracting the smaller two from the larger.
They meant nothin
g to me; I was at my wit’s-end, until I happened to glance at the little calendar that was sitting right in front of me, at the corner of the desk.
3 – 13 – 2010
It was suddenly completely clear to me.
“It’s a date! Adam, this all came together to make a date. A date, Adam. It really was so obvious, it has been right there in front of us all along. See, look at this, Adam, it’s the thirteenth of March, two thousand and ten.”
Chris was standing in the doorway. I don’t know how long he had been standing there; maybe he came running when he heard me getting excited. Maybe he had been standing there watching my puzzling it all out. I didn’t care. I was so excited to finally get a part of the puzzle figured out.
“It’s a date, Chris. All that muttering and rambling, he did for all those wasted years, just for a stupid date. Why would someone make him remember a date? Why would they be so adamant about it that they would force Adam to forget so much of the rest of his life? It’s just a day Chris, just a stupid number on a calendar!”
“It’s not just any date, Ella” he interjected, “look at the calendar again. It’s March thirteenth, two thousand and ten. That is this coming Saturday, that is in four days. What could be so important about that day?”
I turned back to Adam. “For thirty years, you have been living every moment of every day, just to tell me this date. It has to be important. I wish you could remember why Saturday is so important. Adam, are you positive that you don’t have any idea what this is all about?”
“He already told you, Ella,” Aunt Rachel scolded from the door. “It was his duty to remember the numbers. Just the numbers. Now it is up to you to remember the rest. It’s time for you to get to work; there is obviously not a lot of time left.”
Looking up at her, as tears once again stung my eyes, I was amazed at the strength that she seemed to exude.
She’d had her naturally curly hair cut very recently. I was not used to seeing her with such short hair. It had always hung to her shoulders for as long as I could remember and grey always streaked through the tresses. Now, as well as the new style it was dyed, no more gray. Multiple shades of brown and red worked together, making her look years younger.
Standing there with her arms crossed under her ample breast, she made it clear that she was ‘a force to reckoned with’. Her jean-clad legs spread, stocking feet firmly planted, she gave the impression that she was ready to take on the world.
I found myself wondering where the sweet little woman, who always had homemade soup and cookies ready, had gone. Although I must say, I got a strange feeling of security from this new Aunt Rachel. Maybe I was clinging to anything that could have the remotest possibility of helping me right then, but I absolutely knew that she was an integral part of what was about to happen. I knew that with her help I would figure it all out—eventually.
“Is it time, Aunt Rachel? Time for Ella’s test?” Adam asked quietly from his perch on the bed. “Are you going to put your hat on the stand in the hall, this time? Or, are we past that now?”
Before she had a chance to make any type of response, I jumped to my feet. “You are the woman he was talking about, the one with the pink hat? You’re the one that he said came to test me?”
“Ella,” she soothed. “I promise that all of your questions will be answered soon. You will remember everything; you just have to trust us. We are all here because we love you. Can you at least try to trust us? Can you do that, Ella?”
I slowly looked around the room at each of the people gathered there, all of them looking at me, with real concern in their eyes. Could I? Could I truly trust them all?
Chris was the man that I loved, more than life itself. I knew that I could trust him, no matter what happened. I knew that he truly did love me in return and would never let anything happen to me.
Adam was my brother, who I had always felt I had to protect. Now he was so strong and self-assured. He had loved me unconditionally my whole life. He had given up his life to be able to give me the date. I knew I could trust him.
Aunt Rachel had been my confidante as a young woman. It was because of her that I had Chris so deeply ingrained into my life. If she hadn’t urged me on, I never would have had the courage to follow my heart. Yes, I could give her my trust!
Dad! I could see him through the doorway, lurking in the shadows behind Aunt Rachel, as though he was afraid, or perhaps ashamed. Could I trust him? Did I even want to? What had he done through the years? He had lied to me about my mother; forced me to stay on the farm with his neediness! He had kept me from having any real friends, because of his own fears. He had held me back from life, closed me away from the world. He had stifled me! He had fed me, clothed me, protected me, and loved me, maybe too much! He was my father and I loved, forgave, and yes… trusted him
Turning back to Aunt Rachel, with a deep steadying breath, “Yes Rachel, I trust you; all of you. I am ready to face whatever it is that I have to do. Let’s get to the bottom of all of this!”
Twenty-four
It felt almost like a funeral procession, as we made our way into the living room, everyone was so solemn. Most of the furniture had been moved out of the spacious room, making it look even bigger. Aunt Rachel’s big coffee table sitting in the middle of the room was loaded down with papers, files, textbooks, and photo albums. The mantle over the fireplace was filled with framed photographs and white candles. The flickering of the candlelight caught and reflected in the huge mirror hanging over the mantle.
The small round table that usually sat in the bay window was beside the fireplace, more candles, and pictures covering its surface. As I moved further into the room, I noticed that every available surface held a white flickering candle. There were so many of them burning, that even with the heavy drapes drawn tight at the two big windows, it was quite bright in the room.
The bulbs had been removed from the overhead light fixture and all of the lamps removed from the room. I can’t explain why, but none of this struck me as unusual in the least. I had the feeling wash over me that everything necessary had been done to ensure my safe passage through a very trying time. It reminded me of stories I had heard as a child, where in the days of old, the wizards would all gather and form a circle. Using their united powers to ensure the outcome of a battle, keeping the hero unharmed.
It seemed a very strange thought to have at the time. As far as I knew, I was not heading out to do battle and no one in that room was a wizard, but that was the feeling that filled me.
The only thing in the room to sit on was a vast assortment of pillows, no chairs, sofas or stools to be seen anywhere. I folded my legs under me and lowered myself onto a pile near the end of the coffee table. I hoped someone would say something soon to break the tension in the room.
Surprisingly, my father spoke first. “Ella, the time has come for everything to be brought to the surface. Aunt Rachel has worked out a plan for the best way to continue. With the help of this extensive amount of material you see before you, we are going to travel with you, through the years.
“We are planning to delve deeply into your past. Some of the memories will be painful, but you must keep in mind that we are here, with you and that each of us loves you unendingly.”
As I looked closely at him, I saw a side of my father that amazed me. His love for me was blatantly clear in his eyes, as was his fear for me. He reached across the corner of the table and laid his hand on my shoulder. “We ALL love you girl. Hold on to that and everything will be fine.”
Reaching up, I closed my hand over his, “I love you too, Dad. Thank you for being here.”
“What do you remember, Ella, from right before you passed out?” Aunt Rachel broke into one of the few tender moments I had ever had with my father.
“Oh… well… I was watching Adam walk up the street, that’s about it. I really don’t see how watching my brother enjoy his first few moments of freedom, after so long, could be something that would make me pass out.”
“I need you to really think about it though, my dear,” Aunt Rachel insisted. “Let your mind flow freely, back to that moment, and allow all of the sensations that surrounded you, to resurface.
“Close your eyes.
“Relax… and let yourself go back.
“Go back and relive those few seconds.
“Tell us what you see… what you feel… what you hear.”
I really thought it was all a bit ridiculous; but I knew that she had helped other people in the past. She was excellent at helping people retrieve their repressed memories. She had even helped the local police a few times, in cases where the victims were so traumatized, they simply could not remember what had happened.
I could not for the life of me, figure out why I had not thought to go to Aunt Rachel in the first place. She probably would have been able to help me, without all the drama of the past few days. Anyway, I had finally made to that point and I was willing to do whatever it took.
Just as I was closing my eyes, Adam placed a small tape-recorder on the table and pushed the ‘record’ button. I thought it was a strange thing to do at the time, but I am very glad that we have those recordings. I never would have remembered what I said, otherwise; I slipped into some sort of a trance.
Over the next few days, we filled a shoebox with those little tapes. There are hours upon hours of recordings, telling the whole story of my life. I am not going to bore you, by trying to include all of it here; I don’t have enough time or energy to be bothered. If anyone is really that interested in all of the details, I will let them spend countless hours listening to the tapes.
That said; some of the recordings are of extreme importance to the quest, which I found myself on, as you will see.
* * * *
