Sleight (24 page)

MY EXCITEMENT AT his amazing improvement was tempered by what I’d seen. I couldn’t imagine what kind of knack sequence could have necessitated the clock, Breno and Constance working together to heal him. It felt as though there was something dark that was being kept from me, in addition to practically everything else in his early life.

He wriggled under the covers to better prop himself up on his pillows.

“How have you been my boy?” he asked.

A simple question but hearing him ask it almost made me choke up again.

“Good.” He peered at me over the rims of his glasses, clearly not believing me. “Actually, not all that good.”

“Ah, I expected as much. I’m sorry that you’ve been facing your challenges alone. You have questions, and you deserve some answers.”

I was about to start babbling but I couldn’t decide where to begin. Confronting him was hard for me. Other than Maddy, and perhaps Justine, he was the most important person in my life. But my family’s past was something I had to understand.

“Did my mother know?” I asked.

Scooting back into his nest of pillows he cocked his head. “Did your mother know?”

“Did she know about you? I just need to know how much my mother was aware of. Did she know you? Did she have a knack?”

Lacing his stubby fingers over his chest he leaned his head back. “No, your mother was blissfully unaware of knacks, their presence in the world and me. I hid myself from her.”

“So you did know her, but she didn’t know you. You hid from her? Why?”

Eyebrows raised he gave me a tired smile. “There’s the rub. There are a few layers to that question and therefore my answer. Your mother, Faith, was taken to an orphanage when her mother died shortly after she was born. At least that is the official story. In reality her mother, your true maternal grandmother, was killed. The Shades were attempting to create a managed gene pool that would allow them to mate knack practitioners. Your maternal grandmother was endowed with a powerful knack, not as great as yours or mine, but it made her known. There were two knack manifesting individuals with positions in the maternity ward. They immediately recognized the aura of knacks surrounding the young family. It put the baby and mother at risk.”

“What happened?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I was one of the people in that ward that had a knack, the other was a Shade. I knew that the Shade would try to take the baby, and kill the mother if necessary. I was able to intervene and spirit away the infant. I was too late to save the mother. Hospital records in those days were easily manipulated. No one wanted to admit to a missing infant, particularly after a mother supposedly died after giving birth.”

Of all the things I had read about his earlier life and skills, being a doctor or hospital worker had not come up.

“You’re a doctor?” I asked, amazed.

He gave another shake of his head, followed by a wry smile. “No, my services were much more mundane.”

“What?” I asked, not willing to give up.

“I was a janitor.”

“A janitor? But you were...Kenwoode said you were wealthy. Why would you work as a janitor?” I asked.

“Not all vocations are chosen for their ability to produce income. I worked there to observe.”

I nodded. His life and his choices defied any normal categorization. “So you worked there to save people?”

He frowned. “Not exactly but in that instance, yes. Even though I doubted that knacks were hereditary, the Shades believed that they were, and that was all that was necessary for the child to be at risk.”

“Kenwoode believes it too. Are you absolutely sure it isn’t?” I asked.

He frowned. “Categorically? Clinically? No, I’m not. I just have my own past to reference and the possibility that they are hereditary would inspire ugly behavior. I have seen the horror that a philosophy like that can create. I’ve worked to prevent it.”

I nodded. I remembered his life-changing experiences with the Nazis, and his failed attempt to kill Hitler.

“So, that brings us to you, or more accurately to your mother. It didn’t seem that the baby was born with a knack. But its safety depended on disappearing to prevent others from tracking it down. I moved your mother to San Diego. I checked on her from time to time, but we never made contact. Not until you were born.”

I swallowed hard. It was bizarre to have someone talk about your life before you were even born.

“Just one baby? Not two?” I felt that he was only giving me part of the story. “Constance looks just like my mother. They could be twins.”

The look in his eyes softened and he let out a sigh. “That’s someone else’s story to share.”

Once again, I was prevented from getting the details of my own personal history. If there had been twins, and Constance had been the other baby, she was my blood. Family. I felt frustration rising inside me. “What about my mother?”

“Faith and I never had any direct contact. But when I became aware that you had been born with tremendous gifts, I made it a point to visit the area frequently. I kept track of you.”

“You kept track of me? Did you influence my decision to come to Seattle? My choosing your apartment building, was that you too?”

He looked down. Was that guilt I saw? “I kept track of your mother and you because I believed that you might be at risk if the Shades ever located you. Your manifesting was always a possibility, but on balance you were a surprise.”

“You didn’t answer my question about why I picked your apartment building,” I said.

“Benjamin, I’ve done things in the past, some that you know of, that while I’m not proud of them, I felt were necessary.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.” I said hoarsely.

“My relationship with you is important to me Benjamin. I can tell that this conversation is upsetting you. There are other things we need to discuss.”

Leaning forward I fought to maintain control over my emotions. “I need to know. I want to know. You’re important to me too Mr. Goodturn but I can’t deal anymore with finding out stuff about my past in bits and pieces. I deserve to know. It’s
my
life.”

He leaned deeper into the pillows. His glasses reflected the light from the lamp on the nightstand, making it hard to see his eyes. “I did influence your choices. First, when you were very young. Your mother had taken you to a toy store and I made sure that I was close to you when you were out of her sight for a moment. I placed a strong suggestion in your mind that Seattle was a safe place. Nothing more than that but I hoped it would be enough if circumstances caused you to run.”

Circumstances
. I felt like my whole life had been a lab experiment.

Mr. Goodturn dipped his head again, his voice hitched. “When you ran away I didn’t know until I learned of your mother’s disappearance. Your choosing to find sanctuary at the hostel made it hard to find you. I lost you for several weeks, until you started to look for a place to live.”

“And you influenced that too?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

He took a deep breath. “I located you at the hostel when I followed you from the downtown post office where you had been picking up mail. From there it was a simple matter to follow you on your errands. I saw your early performances in the parks and on one of those days I spoke with you and placed a suggestion to look for an apartment in my building.”

The hair on my arm stood up as it broke out in gooseflesh. He’d been pulling strings in my life during the most traumatic time I’d lived through. “I don’t remember ever meeting you.”

“You wouldn’t. I blocked that memory,” he said.

“What else have you done in my head?” I felt my cheeks flush. In spite of myself I was getting angry.

Patting the air with his hands he said, “Nothing, nothing. This is exactly why I have avoided having this conversation.”

“I
trusted
you,” I said, my voice cracking. All of the other things I wanted to talk about were washed away by my anger.

Wriggling out of his pillow cocoon he leaned toward me. “Benjamin, no matter my initial motivation, I care about you. That’s why I’m telling you the truth. Can’t you see that? If I didn’t want to have a trusting relationship with you why would I confess these things to you now?”

I closed my eyes, breathing hard. “My friendship with Maddy, my connection with Justine. Baffle. Is any of that you?” Opening my eyes I wanted to will
him into telling me the truth.

His mouth drew down and he put out a trembling hand toward me. “No, Benjamin. You have my word. I know it doesn’t absolve me of manipulating your past, but please know that all I have done was to protect you.”

I stood up. “You knew all along. My mother not really living with me, my reason for coming here. When I asked you how all of these knacked individuals just happened to show up in Seattle you lied to me. You had no right. It’s like what you did to Breno. It was for his own good you said. But you changed him, you damaged his mind.”

“Benjamin, please. Forgive me,” he pleaded. His voice trembled.

Torn between my feelings for him, and the anger I felt made my hands shake. “You’re like the grandfather I should have had, but I’m mad at you. Nobody should be able to mess with someone’s life the way you have. What if my mother has been trying to find me? You could have made it impossible for her.”

He put a hand to his forehead and let out a shuddering sigh. “No, Benjamin. She hasn’t been trying to find you.”

I was confused. “What are you saying?”

He laid a hand on my arm. “I’ve been trying to find her. Your mother has completely vanished.”

“So what? She could have moved across the country. She could be living under a different name, like me. You don’t know.”

Shaking his head he cast his eyes toward the frost-framed window. “I do know. Given time, my resources can find anyone. Your mother is gone from the world.”

A chill ran down my spine, and I shivered in spite of myself. “Gone? You think she’s dead?” My voice was thick.

He nodded sadly.

Someone expressing their belief that my mother was dead was not new. My aunt Barbara had adopted that theory early on based upon the fact that my mother hadn’t contacted anyone after her disappearance. The police had at least in some respect shared that belief, enough so that they had poked around, and dug into my father’s whereabouts, schedule and background. That had produced no end of fun for me, and my little brother Billy. My father had gone on a drinking binge which had ultimately led to the events that triggered my first knack.

And my limp.

But hearing it from Mr. Goodturn’s lips was another matter. It carried more weight and as a result was a bit more upsetting. Okay, a lot more.

“What? How?” I blurted.

Mr. Goodturn stared back at me, his face suddenly looked very old. It was a glimpse of what the passage of centuries had carved into the lines of his face.

“I don’t know and I think careless speculation is not productive. Or helpful,” he said.

A storm cloud was circling over my head again. “How long have you kept
that
from me?”

“Benjamin, all of the elements of this conversation are connected. If you are going to become angry at every instance of discovery I think we should stop.”

That made me even angrier. “You know what? You’re right. We
should
stop.” I got up and walked out of his room without looking back.

I WOKE UP in a panic. It was my first day back at school and I had stayed up late talking with Constance and then had the upsetting conversation with Mr. G. My mind was still buzzing from what he had told me. I wanted to talk with Constance. I felt sure that Mr. Goodturn’s reference to someone else’s story was about her, and that he had rescued two babies that day.

All my plans for a thorough review of my homework assignments had gone out the window. I’d rather have just skipped school, but there were several reasons I needed to show up, the least of which was homework that needed to be turned in.

Showering quickly I threw on a pair of my ‘good’ jeans, a new T-shirt, a hoodie and a heavy jacket. Despite the fact that Mr. G’s apartment was well insulated the cold from outside had creeped in through windows and walls. Slipping into a pair of Timberland’s I went to the kitchen to grab something to eat.

When I got to the kitchen gray morning light was filtering through the windows. The smell of bacon made me salivate. Breno was sitting across from Sawyer, wearing sweats and a Dexter T-shirt (the cartoon character not the serial-killer). Sawyer was wearing exactly what he’d had on the night before. They were finishing up what looked like bacon and eggs.

“Where’s everybody else?” I asked Sawyer.

“Out. Constance took your girlfriend home and the bosses are off on their hunting trip,” he said, not looking up from his laptop.

I let the ‘girlfriend’ crack slide while I tried to hide my disappointment.

Breno waggled his hand in the air and beamed at me, his mouth full of something. Grease smeared his chin. My heart felt full at what he and Constance had pulled off for Mr. Goodturn. I wondered how much of the three monkey mystery he was aware of, and decided that he probably knew next to nothing. It was likely just magic and pixie dust to him, but he had made that comment about the clock that had seemed innocent at the time, and now potentially hinted at something darker.

Sawyer rolled his eyes at the mess on Breno’s side of the table.

“Did they give any details on what they were going to do?” I asked him.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he gave me a disgusted look. “No. Something about ‘need-to-know’. I gave them the data I had, the address to the condo, but I couldn’t give them anything else.”

I made a noncommittal sound. Scanning the kitchen I could see a frying pan with bits of egg stuck to it and a large plate with one lonely piece of bacon on it. Kenwoode had stocked the pantry with power bars and trail mix so I snagged the last piece of bacon and slid back the glass door to the pantry and helped myself to a package of each.

Turning to Sawyer I gave him a questioning look. I’d asked him to work on two things for me in between his research for Kenwoode and getting some sleep. He gave me a thumbs up.

“Hey...look…there’s this thing I wanted to tell you…” Sawyer said, his eyes shifting nervously around the room.

“Is it part of what you were working on for me?”

“Uh, no. It’s kind of complicated, but I really need to talk with you about it.”

Complicated would eat into the extra time I’d bought myself by waking up early. I had a schedule if tasks that I had to complete before classes started.

“I’m sorta pressed for time. Can we do it later?” I asked.

Nodding with an odd look on his face he said, “Sure. No prob.” There seemed like some embarrassment or guilt burning inside him.

“You sure? I’d stay, but I have things I have to get done early.”

“Nah, it’s cool. We’ll catch up later.”

Stuffing the snacks in my backpack, I slung it over my shoulder.

“Okay, well, see you two later.”

I closed the front door behind me and made the familiar trek to the elevator, and out through the pawnshop. I pulled my hood over my head as I walked out into a bone-chilling wind. There had been several conversations that had left things unsaid lately. Sawyer’s thing. Maddy’s coming back, and her big news. And the snarky comment Silver had made right before he tried to blow my brains out. My bus pulled up and I got on board and dropped into a seat on the rear bench. I tried to remember exactly what he’d said. Justine had been grabbed by him close to my apartment building. He’d made a sarcastic comment about her not being a Girl Scout. Tank and Dell had ended up in the morgue. I didn’t want my mind to go where those events seemed to lead.

The gears of the bus crunched and the brakes groaned as it rounded a corner. The damp smells and crowded interior of the bus should have been sort of nostalgic. Instead I was dealing with what I’d just pieced together.

Justine had probably been responsible for Tank and Dell.