disclaimer is that I don't own them just like to torture them with my sick demented thinking. . . . .




Memories Of Long Ago
part 1
by Trish





Like my mother before me I am a woman of solitary disposition. Resembling the women in this family runs true, grandmother to daughter to granddaughter. The only visible sign that I am my father's daughter, a tiny mole under my right eye. I am her only child, so it was only natural that she spoiled me to a degree. I was her darling, her heir, so when on her deathbed it was I s he called into her room, before the lawyers, and gave into my hands a red notebook in which she said my father had written the strange story of the events that had befallen them in their younger days, it didn't surprise me.

My father, a figure shrouded in mystery and whispers passed between my mother and her two closest friends. This notebook written by my father held my gaze while I listened.

My mother murmured to me that the story I would read had haunted her all of her life, and that she had always wished to go back and change things, to find closure. She was entrusting me with the task of going back, knowing I would feel the same way once I read the notebook.

It was a strange request and one which I had no time for until after she was dead and buried. As the only survivng relative and residing in England with her when she died, I was given the major tasks of settling the estate. It was then that I learned that she owned some major companies and land in
the states. Mother didn't work once she had learned that I was on the way, she left her country and headed for this desolate place of moor, with its perpetually fog or torrential rain and gale winds. I use to ask her why, and she told me it was how she had felt after leavng of my father. You see, I never knew my father but he knew about me and begged my mother to get away before it was too late. How he died still remains a secret. One that my mother took with her to her grave.

So here I am this night, unable to sleep and rather tired, idly flicking open the pages of the notebook which my mother had protected, each page white and crisp, the lines of my father's handwriting flowing easily across the pages uninterrupted by marks or corrections. I realized than that my mother had loved him dearly and preserved this material bit of him as much as she nurtured me. I turned the first page and read what he had committed to paper and what my mother had kept from me during my childhood, knowing full well that it would have fueled a deep desire in me to go back. Back to where it all started. Blue Cove, Delaware.

And so here I am in this strange town which there stands a mysterious building, owned now by me, a sunny climate I am not use to and yet there is a darkness that shrouds it.

Yes, the notebook did excite and intrigue me. My mother knew me well, the imaginative one, the dreamer --I was captivated by the love-hate relationship between Jarod, my father, and the enchanting, tempestuous, wayward M. Parker, my mother, and its curious and bitter end. I grew impatient with the lawyer, Mr. Worth, and longed to see with my own eyes the cottage house, and the place my father called Hell, better known as the Centre.

They still stood. No one lived in the house. The building known as the Centre stands empty and has been for the last 10 years. I finally manage d to receive the key and directions to the cottage and drove to it, in the rental car that Mr. Worth had arranged for me to use during my stay. The excitement was mounting, when I turned on to the road and saw the house nestled in the woods, my breath caught in my throat.

My father had a gift for evoking the mood and situations as well as portraying his characters in his journal. I knew the house from his description, how it lay nestled in the woods, yet nothing he wrote prepared me for the beauty and remoteness of it that was so my mother. The weather was balmy and the sky blue, one could almost see the beginnings of spring although it was early February and traces of snow lingered on the ground.

I moved closer to the house, no longer tired or weary, but uplifted knowing that part of my prize was in sight. There was something tough and enduring about this house, now I know why my father called it Refuge.

The windows were tiny and latticed and, yes there was a fir tree standing slightly apart from the house from which my father would occasionally stand when he watched over my mother. Taking the key in shaking hands, I put it in the lock and turned it. With what was a quickening of my pulse I stepped inside. I had journeyed all the way from England, for this moment. The in side was as I knew it would be. There was no corridor and I stepped straight into the living room; there was the huge fireplace with the oak mantle above it, just as my father had described it.

Half of me wished to stay still; the other, and strong half, had me standing in front of the door. The door that lead to the room, grandmother's studio. Upon opening it, there was muted moonlight filtering in through a stained-glass window, the red heart clearly defined on the floor. I stood
still and the blood seemed to rush through my body; there was a prenatural silence in which even the wind ceased its moaning and I glanced around expecting to see. . . what? My parents. It was in this very room that my mother told my father that she was pregnant and of his urgent plea for her to flee. With the notebook in my hands, I turned to the page that described how he felt when he learned that he was going to be a father, his joy and his anguish.

It was his anguished words which invoked such feelings of fear and dread, as such I never experienced before, and they overtook me. I felt the wetness on my cheeks, he was going to protect my mother and his unborn child even if it meant he had to sacrifice himself to do it. He knew that my mother's life would end as grandmother's did. I would become property in the pit of hell.

It was then that darkness engulfed me and I fell, inert, to the wooden floor.

It was Broots that found me lying crumpled on the floor, at first he thought I was dead, and told me that my pulse was weak. Swiftly he took m e to the bedroom that belonged to my mother and brought me a glass of water as there was nothing stronger in the house. Broots was clearly beside himself with worry and fussed like a mother hen would with her chicks. I was in such a state of excitement that after dinner, I bid Broots goodbye. With father's journal, I sank down on the sofa in front of a roaring fire in the stone fireplace. I sat through the night, reading and dreaming until the journal became the dream and the dream the journal. I knew not which was which.

The younger form of whom could only be my father, appeared at the window, arms at his side, a forlorn look upon his features, that I woke with a jolt. Making my way to the bedroom, I crawled into the bed and it was only the n that I fell into a heavy slumber.

When I woke the sun was streaming through the windows, and I was filled with a firm sense of purpose, and knew what I had to do. Mother had left instructions that I not pester Broots or Sydney until I had uncovered all that I could on my own, and only then would they be allowed to divulge the rest. In my father's journal, he made mention of a sweeper that helped him, after mother disappeared.

Sam. Could he be still alive after thirty years? He would be close to seventy-five if he were. Only Sam or someone like him could bring the story up to date for me; someone must be able to fill in those missing pieces once my mother left for England. I knew what had happened to my mother. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl, and lived a leisurely comfortable life dividing her time between her home in Yorkshire and her townhouse in London. She wrote, painted, very well, I might add, and loved to fence. She even taught me.

There had been visits from her two closest friends, Sydney and Broots, from time to time. In fact, Broots's daughter, Debbie, was sent to London to go to school and was the closest person I had to a sibling.

Yet I needed to know what happened to my father.




Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other than Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole for saving my behind . . . . my husband was cleaning out the mailbox last night and he threw out my story. .

. . Feedback please not that it matters . . .




Memories Of Long Ago
part 2
by Trish





I dug in my handbag for my cell phone and called Broots. When he arrived, there was a reproachful expression on his face, one that I knew so well that sometimes I wondered way I tolerated it. I knew why, because my mother did.

"Wipe that expression off your face, Broots. I'm fine, no need to alarm yourself. It was a long flight and I had not eaten since I left Heathrow. Now to the matter at hand, the whereabouts of the sweeper known as Sam."

"He's living at Greenbriar Estates," he said as he cleared his throat, that look still upon his brow.

Having discovered the whereabouts of Sam, I made arrangements to meet him.

He had a small cottage in the middle of Greenbriar that looked out over the duck pond. Broots, at my request, accompanied me as far as the door. I wanted this to be informal and when he answered the door, his expression changed rapidly from shock to pure joy.

"Sam? I am Caitrin Parker, the daughter of Miss Parker, who you used to work with at the Centre. From what I understand you knew my father, as well as the other members of my family."

The statement, was wordy, but it was intended to put him at ease and erase the bewilderment that crossed his face, and it vanished the moment I mentioned my mother's name. His face all smiles as he asked me into the house, Broots declined the invitation and told me to call him when I was ready to return to the cottage.

Sam offered me a seat in one of the chairs that sat in front of the large bay window. He took residence in the other.

"My god, the resemblence is uncanny, but I suppose you have heard that as often as your mother did in her lifetime. My condolences on your mother's passing. She was a good woman, your mother. If it wasn't for her, I would have nothing to show for years of loyalty to a place that didn't deserve it."

"Excuse me, sir," his statement startling me.

"She arranged for me to leave the Centre. Alive, I might add. Something rarely done. I live comfortably, thanks in part to a trust fund she established for me and my family. However, my life's story is not why you are here, is it, Caitrin?"

I shook my head and grasped the arms of the chair, then settled into it.

" She sent me on a quest, a quest to discover the truth about my father and the relationship that the two shared."

"It's a strange and long story. I am only a part of it. There are others that could help you, such as Broots, Sydney and Angelo. There is also your cousin."

"Cousin?" I leaned forward with excitement." Mother always lead me to believe that all of her family had passed on."

" Not true, Jarod wanted her to believe that. He sacificed his freedom for her's, at the time, I never knew why. . . but seeing you, it becomes clear.

You may look like the Miss Parker I knew, but you are also his daughter, as well."

"Thank you, " I said softly. A candid opinion that didn't come attached with any strings regarding my father. " This cousin of mine that you mentioned. . ."

"Your uncle's boy."

"Mother's brother, Lyle. She had made mention of him only briefly and that was when Sydney had informed her of his death. How he died I don't have a clue? I was around three, I think. I didn't know he married. Mother would have said something about a child."

"Your mother was lead to believe that Lyle's son was her brother," Sam said, taking hold of my hands.

"The little boy that she regretted leaving behind," I murmured," I would catch her crying, every first week of May. When she saw me, she would wipe away the tears and tell me that they were caused by memories of long ago."

"It was Jarod. Four months after coming back to the Centre, he learned the truth and smuggled the boy out. I saw to it with Sydney's help that he found a good home. He comes to see me, he's a good man. Married with two children."

"She was told that the little boy died, complications of a ruptured appendix, he was just four years old."

"Yes, it was Jarod's way of getting the boy out of the hell he was living in. Jarod swore that no one would tell Miss Parker. She never knew that he was her nephew and not her brother."

"The family that raised him, it was a good one?" my mind reflecting upon my childhood, one that I would have gladly shared," She would have taken him in a heartbeat."

"I know that now, but your father did it the way he did, so that no one at the Centre was allowed to believe that your mother or the boy was still alive. Only five of us knew." I knew the five that he referred to----Sydney,

Broots, Angelo, the man sitting with me and my father.

He sighed deeply and gazed out the bay window. I looked at him and a feeling of delicious anticipation swept over me. Part of my quest was to be filled with revelations that not even my mother expected.

I was amazed that he seemed so inclined to trust and confide in me. Maybe it was because he was reminded of my mother, or he felt the need to unburden himself of a story every bit as remarkable as my mother and father.

"I remember the day that your mother brought him back to the Centre," Sam said, settling back in to the armchair. " What a day it was; everyone from sweepers to the Chairman was there because it was something that no one ever believed they would see."

"She waltzed in, the pretender in handcuffs; demanded her freedom, just like that," he snapped his fingers,"She didn't even wait for the Chairman to okay it, she just waltzed back out, never looking back." He looked at me with pain-filled eyes, "Sorry."

"It's all right, Sam," this time it was my hand the took hold of his, his eyes taking in the square silver ring on my left hand, my mother's," Please continue."

"I tell you, Caitrin, my blood froze in me when I heard those words escape her lips, yet there was this strange almost triumphant look upon the pretender's face as he stood there in the middle of all this. It was Sydney that took it hardest, he stood there in the shadows and the life seemed to have gone out of him and, instead of the invincible doctor there was an old man standing there. She was so cold, none of us were prepared for that. Then word of the crash and her death nearly shocked the Centre to its foundation.

The only one that seemed to celebrate your mother's death was Lyle. He saw it as his chance to shine but your grandfather pushed him farther away, he never was the same after your mother's supposed death. It was the death of the boy that did him in. He just seemed to grow older in front of us. That was the beginning of the end of the Centre that I knew. Raines tried to wrest control from the old man but Mr. Cox proved more powerful. Raines lost, and Lyle switched sides so many times even the sweepers lost count."

"My father?" I asked with held breath.

"He continued to work with Sydney and minded his own business. Then the holidays rolled around and Sydney went away for a convention in Switzerland for three weeks. I was left to watch over your father, I even offered to help him escape. He wouldn't hear of it. Murmured something about staying put until Sydney returned. For three whole weeks, he paced up and down in the SIM lab like an expectant father. Little did I know, that was one secret they keep from me. When Sydney returned, Jarod was upon him and he didn't have a moments peace. I couldn't understand what was so exciting about a convention of shrinks."

His eyes twinkled with warmth and a small laugh left his throat as he informed that my father did celebrate my birth, granted after the fact. I was a New Year's baby. Mother and I celebrated our birthdays together, her's being on the third.

Night was starting to settle upon us when I rose reluctantly from my chair, and said my goodbyes. I knew that if I lingered any longer that Broots would start to worry. Once a mother hen always a mother hen.

Sam made me promise to return once my quest was completed. I agreed and left the old man content and what seemed happier than he'd been in a long time. Perhaps his soul had been purged of the demons that plagued him. Again, I agreed to return and meet this cousin of mine. Mikhael Stamatis.







Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other than Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole




Memories Of Long Ago
part 3
by Trish






I returned to my mother's cottage, and walked up the porch, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, seeking out that lone pine tree. Broots, who is ahead of me, has the key in the lock. I enter to find the house cleaned and livable, thanks to dear Broots. I notice that he even stocked the liquor cabinet, now I, maybe my mother's daughter but somethings only run true to a certain degree. Drinking was not one of them. I point out to Broots that mother didn't drink after I was born and when Debbie started living with us. She saved it for special occasions only- I distinctly remember Lyle's death being one of them. Syd and her toasted the old bastard a restful slumber in hell. Not that I understood why then, I was a child of three. Now I think a peaceful slumber is to good for him. I ready myself for bed and promise to call Broots the moment I wake in the morning to meet him for breakfast. Settling upon the sofa in front of the fireplace, I pick up the journal that started this fact finding mission.

Turning to the last entry in father's journal, a detailed account of the argument they had had. He told her that he would turn himself in, and she would walk away, no looking back. They had called upon Sydney, Broots and Sam for help but didn't reveal all of the plan. They knew that something had transpired between my parents, after all each had lost loved ones because of Centre interference. Mother lost Thomas and father lost Zoe. That they sought solace in each other, made some sense. Grief does the strangest things to people. A woman that father met long ago taught him that. Yet each carried deep scars. Emotional baggage. Mother was not one to let go of things easily, that is until she had a reason. Father made her see that reason was me, or what would eventually be me. That was when the roles reversed. Mother's creedo of "God forgives. I don't," became my father's.

There was one thing Sam had been right about though. My sleep that night was again distrubed by strange dreams of ghosts. I wonder if mother dreamt of these ghosts, she must have. I recall waking up to find her in my bed with me when I was young. So when I woke in a cold sweat several times that night, I was anxious to continue this mission. It was then that I realized that I would have to visit the building that was located on the outskirts of town. A place where my welcome would be received coldly, but I wasn't quite ready to enter that hostile place.

I decided to visit Angelo, the childhood friend of both my parents. The man-child that lived in a world of others feelings, thanks to a man known as William Raines. He lived with Broots and I knew that talking to him would prove difficult. According to my father's journal, Angelo communicated with minimal words but that in his mind, he knew exactly what was going on. An empathic genius. Three children thrown together. Father kidnapped for his genius, Timmy for his potential, and mother, what secret did she carry.

The morning was rainy, cold and dark just like the night had been for me, so I hurriedly dressed, and then drove to Broots's home. He was surprised to see me so early, but I didn't apologize for it either. Not my nature, too. The person that I came to see was standing in the shadows, waiting.

"Mother's daugher," he said, emerging from the shadows," Friend's legacy."

"Yes, Angelo, it's my father I want to talk to you about," I was cautious and yet the excitement was building again.

"Couldn't protect Jarod," he said loudly, that even Broots was startled by this outspoken statement.

"That's not true, Angelo. You protected him from Bartlett, when he needed protection," I reached out toward the aged man, his clear blue eyes fixed on mine.

"Protect from Barlett, but not from self," he whispered, " Wouldn't listen. Warned him no go lab. Danger."

His agitation was beginning to worry me and so I motioned for him to sit on the stairs with me. I sat and watched him, attempting neither to touch nor speak. He sat slumped next to me and he was trembling, finally his hand reached over and touched mine. I smiled at his touch and took his hand in mine.

"Loved you much," he said, not looking at anything in particular," Both."

" I know, Angelo. We both knew."

"Be back," he muttered and scrambled up the stairs, just as Broots returned with a hot cup of tea for me. He took a position across from me, leaning back against the couch.

"Where did Angelo go?" he asked as he brought his own mug to his lips.

"He told me that my father loved me and my mother and then scrambled up the stairs. He said he'd be back." I looked at my reflection in the silver tea cup, when I caught sight of the man-child lumbering down the stairs, a box in his hands. A box that he thrust at me with some urgency.

"For daughter, saved it."

"That must be rather important. He's never let anyone touch that box." Broots said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that it was a rectangular metal box that he thrust into my shaking hand. Broots stared from the box to Angelo to me and repeated how the box must be important to my quest, for its been with Angelo since he left the confines of the Centre.

"Angelo?" I quiered.

"Jarod's," he whispered and then turned and starts to lumber away, up the stairs, slowly. I set the tea cup down on the wooden stair and place my other hand on top of it. My knees start to quiver as my fingers start to unwork the lock. Angelo stops in his tracks and turns back to face me. Getting down on his haunches, his feet percariously balanced on the stair, he looks at Broots then back to me.

"Not here. Home!" he whispers and my hands wrap around the box tightly as he continues to speak," Go see hell."

"Angelo!" Broots snapped forcefully, a look of horror mixed with fear crossing his features, as well.

"Angelo? " I wanted to get up from my spot on the stair, and walk, no run, back to the car that's parked in the driveway and go home to my mother's cottage with this find. Instead, my parent's childhood friend is telling me that it is time to go . . .

"Time has come. Go to hell," he repeats.

Understanding dawning on me, Angelo is telling me that it's time, time that I face the greatest demon of all. The Centre. His eyes say it all. Yes, it's time, that I am strong enough to conquer whatever it is that's locked away in that cold hostile place. I watch, as Angelo slides off his perch and comes back down toward me, his hand reaching out to touch my cheek.

"Go," and with that one word, my mother's voice echoed in my head that it would be all right. Mother who always claimed that I had my father's inner strength and serenity instead of her wilfulness and petulance.

So it was with trepidation, with a lifetime of memories, not mine, that I climbed the stairs to the glass doors of the Centre. To a place my father returned, freely, so that my mother could escape its evil grasp. Broots had wanted to accompany me to this bleak, desolute and empty world but I persuaded him that I was indeed strong enough to go alone. As I moved through the hallways, I perceived how unfriendly this place is, was. There is no warmth here, just dark coldness that penetrates the soul and turns it into something grotesque and twisted. The place is so deathly quiet, that the only noise is the echo from the heels of my black leather boots as they make contact on the tile floor. I felt that I had intruded on unfriendly ghosts that were better left undistrubed, yet I continued my explorations and found myself in front of a rather precariously hung door. Pushing it open, its groans reverberate down the hallway, the interior revealing itself to me. My eyes taking it in.

Half the ceiling is missing and the i-beams and wires beneath exposed, and in my imagination, which is heightened by the eerieness of this place, they resemble the bones of a skeleton, and the broken glass windows the sightless hollows of its eyes. Time stood still and I realized that this was were my father had died. I could feel it. My father's death was no accident, the blast had been contained to this area of the Centre. Slowly I sank to the debris-covered floor and stare at the devastation. How long I sat there, I have no idea, but when I left the building, the rain from the morning had turned to snow and the blackness of night only illuminated the tiny swirling flakes.





Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other t han Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole. PG-13 I never rated it in the first three parts.




Memories Of Long Ago
part 4
by Trish






I made it home that night. How is unknown to me. It was only after dinner, as I sat up staring into the inky night, that my eyes caught sight in the window of the box's reflection, the very one that Angelo had placed in my hands that morning. Taking it up in my hands, my fumbling fingers worked the lock. Soon the lid was opened and my eyes found the contents revealed.

Photographs, their corners creased and bent from being fingered continually, stare up at me. I remove them, one by one, a montage of my first six months of life. Under the photographs, neatly bundled were several envelopes, yellowed from age, the handwriting that of my mother's, a single name on the front, my father's. Since there was no postmark on any of the letters, they must have reached my father via Sydney or Broots. The risk those men took.

Extracting the first letter from its protective sleeve, I slowly unfold it and scan the contents. Mother reports that all's well with her, and she has slipped into the persona of Payne Hunter. Yet she wanted to know what possessed him to select those names for her and how she could hear his laughing at her question. The next couple of letters dealt with how she is coping at a normal life, if that's what she is experiencing can be called. The letters then take on a more serious tone, how she felt the baby moved, heard the baby's heartbeat, and how he wasn't there to share in it. Then she wrote somet hing that I never would have believed, if I had not read it, how she never s hould have allowed him to talk her into this arrangement and that she regret ted doing so.

I continued to read the letters from her and wondered about his responses to her. I never found any letters in her belongings at home but then again mother tended to be rather secretive about her past. When I took the letter, that was dated two days after my birth as well as mother's birthday, I felt the tears starting to well up in my eyes. She wrote describing me, telling him that I was small but healthy, and perfectly formed, all ten fingers and toes. A tiny porcelain doll. A crown of dark hair, big blue eyes, tiny lips that form a bow and cheeks soft as peach blossoms. My mother's words chille d me. How her heart must have ached as she committed those words to paper, k nowing that he would never hold me and only see me through her eyes and thos e close to her.

Her next letter detailed my christening, six weeks after my birth on a cold day in February. It wasn't a big celebration, the guest list was small. Mother, Sydney, Broots and Debbie, as well as the priest. Mother related that Debbie held me and at the moment when the priest poured the water over my forehead a shaft of sunlight shone through the stained glass window straight into me. My mother took it as an omen that perhaps Grandmother had sent that ray of sunlight as a blessing on her namesake. Mother then continued, that I was growing strong and chubby, that my cheeks had a pink glow to them; that I was starting to smile and coo.

The letters were long and detailed, filled with the excitement of watching that which they had created, grow and change before her very eyes. How she loved being a mother, that this, freedom was a whole different world. Yet each time she wrote to him it was getting more and more painful and she didn't want the situation to continue. She wanted him with her, us and yet she knew the danger that would follow if he left that miserable place, again.

Drawing the blanket from the back of the couch around my shoulders, I buried my head in my hands and wept for I had had no sleep and the first rays of dawn could be seen coming in through the window. The shock of what I read was still with me, that I hastely reached for the glass of water that sat on the table in front of me and I knocked the box to the floor. The box clattered to the hard wooden floor, the sound of it causing me to jump. Through blurred vision, I feared that I had damaged it, for the bottom of it pulled away. Reaching with trembling fingers, I brought it up into my lap cradling it as if infant, I discovered a false bottom. Nestled inside--another red notebook.




Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other t han Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole. PG-13 I never rated it in the first three parts.




Memories Of Long Ago
part 5
by Trish








As I removed the journal from the hidden compartment, a photograph fluttered to the floor, landing face down at my feet. Knowing what I did, my heart filled with a sense of foreboding as I reached for the picture. Across the top of it, scrawled in my mother's loopy handwriting--Caitrin Faith, age 6 months. Below it, in father's block lettering, the word, "Soon".

Turning it over, the shock of what I saw passed quickly, and since learning that Mother had wanted father with us, it did not surprise me. It was of Mother and I.

I knew she was beautiful but here she was stunning, motherhood radiated within her. Her dark hair haloed her face, blue eyes blazed with such intense joy. She knew this would've fueled his desire to be with us. It was this photograph that must have made him realize what mother meant to him. Why else would he write that which he did on the back. He must have thought about us, her-- constantly.

Did his arms ache to hold her? Did his blood burn inside him? This photo tugged, gripped at the heart and held tight and fast. She used visual blackmail.

With a heavy heart and the journal in my hands, I headed for the bedroom. A room that I was beginning to love. Crawling between the sheets, I pulled the comforter over my head and clutched the book tight to my chest. Sleep eluded me for what seemed hours. Then sleep came; I dreamed. I dreamed that I was somewhere cold and dark. I was afraid. In the distance, a flash of bright light. Urgency made me walk toward the light, and I stumbled over unseen objects in my path. A high-pitched noise filled the air like a scream, yet no one could scream that loud without catching their breath. Danger, yet I felt compelled to find the light. It flashed, no closer than before, the source unknown, unnatural.

A voice spoke in my head. It was impossible.

"Soon," it said," Soon."

The light turned into flames, and I screamed.

I woke and stared wildly about the room trying to get my bearings, my heart thundering in my chest as the visions of the nightmare faded. There was a clammy feeling of apprehension that passed rapidly, but the feelings of uneasiness persisted. I could feel the perspiration on my neck. I lay back, thinking about the vision.

The ringing of the telephone is what roused me from my fugue state, reaching a hand out toward the table, I brought the receiver to my ear.

"What?"

"So like your mother, Cait," the voice on the other end said softly.

"Sydney, how are you?" I struggled to sit up in the bed, wrestling with the bed covers, noticing the purple clouds that dotted the sky outside the windows.

"Older but none the wiser," he said," You?"

"Tired."

"Up for a visit with someone from your parents past?"

"You! I'm not allowed to talk to you until I have completed my quest, Syd. You, of all people know of mother's wishes," I chuckled softly, a small smile forming.

"Not me, but Cox," he said in a low voice.

"He's alive!"

This was a surprising start to a surprising day.

***

Sydney confirmed it when he showed up at the house with Broots. I smiled at them as they entered the house. He reminded me of a tortoise. This is not to suggest that there is anything foolish about him, for tortoises are dignified and self-sufficient, its just that Sydney had not set foot in this house in a very long time. His entrance was slow and yet one got the impression that his thoughts were not nearly as slow. He was almost ninety-five and full of opinions on everything.

Our bond had been forged at my birth and wouldn't change. He said it was d
estiny, and I didn't doubt it.

"All this time and you never said a word," Broots said, dramatically yet hurt echoed in his words.

I said nothing. I sighed and took a seat on the sofa, as Sydney took up a position in front of the fireplace. He spoke of mother, father and of treachery and deception on part of the Centre. For the first time I began to understand what my parents had been fighting against with more than blind loyalty. Mother never discussed this part of her life with me, yet it dwelled in the recesses of her mind. She didn't need to discuss it, for father had written about it with such clarity and committed it to paper with such care. As I thought my silent thoughts I noticed that the room had grown startlingly silent.

It was my voice that broke the silence.

"Where is the devil incarnate lodged, Sydney?" I asked coldly.

"Salisbury Asylum," Sydney said as he looked in to the flames.

"Is he . . . .?" Broots stammered.

"Insane, no, but he did suffer a stroke that left him paralzyed. He can't move, and his speech is slurred, somewhat."

Broots pulled the car up to the gate and waited for the guard to unlock it, and then relock it behind us. I'm not sure why they bothered ---surely the remoteness of the place was an effective way of keeping others out. Or was it to keep those housed within from obtaining freedom. I tried to see the building but ornately clipped trees obscured the view. Someone had gone to great lengths to keep Salisbury hidden.

"Salisbury," Sydney said looking out the window. His voice was low as if the sight of the sombre building quelled him as much as it did me.

It was a massive construction and outwardly more like a series of buildings than one single mansion. It was constructed of grey stone blocks streaked with flecks of blacker stone. It had no grace and in some places it was two and three stories high, with barred windows. It was immense and made me wonder how many lost souls dwelled in its rooms. There was something unnerving about the place, its ugliness churning my stomach.

It was a grim, gray place and suddenly a sense of gladness seemed to wash over me when I realized that Cox was locked away in a place that offered as much hope as the Centre had to its occupants.




Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other t han Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole. PG-13 I never rated it in the first three parts.




Memories Of Long Ago
part 6
by Trish




I could not tear my eyes away from the doors as Broots pulled the car up to the entrance. I watched as Sydney pressed the bell, its buzz mutely heard inside. The door opened to reveal a tall, thin woman. Her features cold-looking with her gaunt face and severe bun.

"Dr. Green," she said, as her dark eyes looked me over with an iciness that I returned with my own stare. Mother would have been proud, when the woman took a step backward, admitting us.

"Cox's room, Vivienne."

She nodded her head regally after a lengthy pause toward the far hallway.

***

The walls were cold, and tomblike as I walked along the corridor; before crossing over the threshold of his room, I took a deep breath and father's words echoed in my mind. His entry in the newly found journal describing Cox filled me with a numbness. Cynical, haughty, conceited. The man who wore black. Today, I wore the black.

Entering the room that was not fully lit, I could make out the shape on the bed and as I approached, his eyes locked on mine. I was trembling as I stared at the pathetic, sullen creature that was lying there. He was thin, his hair unkept, his eyes wide with terror.

"I'm not a ghost," I said, standing over him, his eyes staring into mine, his pupils pinpoint small and the whites showed all around them.

He looked scared, and I relished that.

"Wh----o a----re yo-----u?"

" I could say your worst nightmare, but that is so cliche," I pause, then continue, "Her daughter."

"Not possi---b---le. Die---d thir---tty yea---rrrs ago. Cr----ash."

" No," I shook my head,"she didn't die but escaped the Centre's clutches with help from my father."

"Wh---o?"

I leaned down closer and placed my lips next to his ear.

"The pretender," I whispered.

A thin scream passed his lips and he tried to claw at the bedsheets, jerking his head, a look of anguish crossing his features. His eyes were fixed on me with peculiar intensity, and I held his gaze; his eyes dropped first. I grinned.I turned as I heard a noise and saw Sydney enter into the room, then I sank into the chair next to Cox.

"Are you all right?" he asked," I heard someone yell."

"It was him."

***

It was dark when we left Salisbury, and I know that Cox looked much older, when I left him. But for how long? How long could his remorsefulness remain? After all the destruction that had been brought on by the viciousness of the Centre. A place that sought to deliberately destory the human spirit, but by seeing me, he knew that somehow it failed. They failed.

Sydney had tears in his eyes as we pulled into the driveway. I was afraid that he would succumb and cry uncontrollably once we entered the house. And yet it was Broots, mild, meek Broots, who let his temper finally get the best of him.

"How dare he seek absolution?" Broots thundered, shocking us both, "Grief? Compassion? He doesn't know the meaning of those words."

"Broots, calm down. He's dying and if he seeks forgiveness then he'll need to seek it from a higher power, he won't receive it from me," I replied as I looked the poor man in the eyes.

"Do you know how proud of you, she would have been?" Sydney said, his voice cracking," What memories he invoked for me, though."

"He doesn't exist anymore, Syd. Not for me. As much as he tried to provoke me, I got what I needed. He's a pathetic creature, the less we talk of him the better," it was then that Sydney removed a bundle of yellowed envelopes from inside his jacket pocket.

"What are those?"

"Your father's letters to your mother."

"You had them."

He nodded.

"She gave them to me after. . . ."

Sydney's eyes filled with huge tears and they finally rolled down his cheeks. I, myself, turned to stifle my sobs and kneaded my fists into my eyes. I wanted to cry, yet I was drawing strength from unsuspected depths, deep inside me. He placed them in to my shaking hands, and then both left me alone.

Yet I wasn't alone, I'd grown use to apparitions outside the windows, and that is what I saw as I took up the journal and letters and sank down upon the window seat in grandmother's studio.





Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other than Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . . . Feedback please not that it matters . . .




Memories Of Long Ago
part 7
by Trish





Sydney and Broots are gone and I am alone. I wonder why they left me alone? Alone with my past. . . .my future. Whatever is contained in these letters, in his journal, it will impact my life in ways that I have not even begun to consider. I ask myself if I really want to do this. Do I want to know? Pulling my legs up under me, I reach for the red notebook, the one I found hidden in the bottom of the box that Angelo gave me and in my heart I know the answer to my question. Yes!

The first entry starts twenty four hours after he returned. In fact, his statement is hauntingly beautiful:

" I can sleep knowing that you're free. Dreamless sleep, profound as the darkness itself, unpenatrable. I am with you, close beside you. I can feel you, see through your eyes. There is no other life to dream of other than yours. Do not limit the dream! Fulfill it for me."

The dream of living outside the Centre, free. Something that I have taken for granted. Freedom, the ability to move from place to place without worring that someone would want to take that away from me. I turn the page of the journal, not allowing the tears that fill my eyes to fall on the crisp pristine pages. His next entry tells more:

" They try to break me, and can not. The destruction of my soul is their main goal, purpose. I retain my self-control, knowing that through you, a small part of me will live outside these dark walls. "

It was a bleak, desolute and empty world that my father returned too. He sacrificed his freedom for mother's, no questions, no complaints. The greatest gift he could have given to her, other than me. A continuation of the entry that rips at the heart strings:

"Sydney and I had a chance to talk, finally. Sydney thinks that I should leave this place. He knows that there is nothing preventing me, yet he is so wrong. If I left, the urge to be with you is too strong, and they would hunt for me and then they could find us. I told him that for now this is home and the outside world is your's."

His next entry deals with the uncle I never knew but who's son still lives because of my father:

" I try in vain not to have to look at the nightmare known as Lyle. The hate and violence that is reflected in his eyes is perverse. He interrupted a Sim. Two weeks after I'd returned; he strolled in, his manner gruff and yet gleeful at the same time. He announced that his sister, his rival, his nemisis was dead. Behind him, was Mr. Parker, distressed at the news. His normally rubicund face was ashen and he seemed to have shrunk into himself. I knew it was coming and quickly closed my eyes, I slipped into pretend mode. He thinks he's won."

This is harder than I thought it would be. I feel like I am breaking a silence that is better left alone. I feel that I am betraying secrets that should remain sacred. I am stripping away the masks. I look out the window, my breath causing the window pane to fog, it's past midnight and my task is only semi-completed. I take up the journal, again, wondering what the next entry will tell me.

This time it is the details of the power struggle that occured shortly after mother's supposed death:

" Raines tried to wrest control from Mr. Parker, but Cox proved stronger. He has a slyness about him, he reminds me of a wolf, not exactly flattering to the animal, but there it is. Raines is heading toward death. I bid him a silent goodbye."

Then while reading father's journal, I found the passage that I had known would be there. There in father's script was the scene that Mr. Cox had told me about earlier.

"Three days after the attempted coup by Raines, Sam came to the SIM lab, telling me that Mr. Cox was coming to see me. He came for me and demanded answers about Lyle and how he had tried to help gain control along with Raines. Hell, illict activities were nothing new to either man for that matter. I told him the truth. He clapped his hands together and smiled; then he hurried from the SIM lab."

I stand for a moment, the room suddenly turning cold. My bones ached and my stomach growled for I had not eaten all day. Taking a break, I headed into the kitchen and rummaged around for something to extinguish the hunger pangs. I return to the window seat and devour the food. I take up the journal again, and continue with my quest. The next entry has me frightened for a moment:

"Sam came and got me from my slumber and it could not have happened at a better time. Nightmares. No ordinary dreams, I am happy to be awake. Sam informs me that I am needed in Master Parker's room. It seems that the young boy has taken ill and with Raines just another addition to the Centre burial grounds, there is no one else."

His journal is suddenly quiet for a more than a week and when he resumes, I realize that he discovered the truth regarding the little boy. His small parathesised notation in the margin confirms it: (renascence ms).

" How I wish that I could tell you he's alive? How he's not your brother but your nephew. There is no other way to do this, he must remain hidden, just as you do. And if Sydney decides to tell you the truth someday regarding his grandson, I hope that you do not hold it against him. I know that you would want him with you, unfortunately it would only raise questions and draw attention to you and the child you carry. I know that your grief rans deep, Sydney told me that, yet he also told me that you are at peace knowing that he will not become a pawn for the Centre."

***

I glanced out the window, and a web of stars appear between the stark and barren branches, an omen, a sign. My stomach's in knots and my hands are shaking and I wanted something to drink to drive away the dryness from my mouth, instead I returned my gaze to the journal.

" I woke up this morning thinking I was with you. I heard your voice and I sat up in the darkness of my cell and thought that we were together. Then I remembered were I was and I laid back down. Reaching under my pillow, I take that which must have caused the dream. I stare at the picture Sydney gave me, reveling in the feelings of knowing I created something wonderful. Yet distrubing noises in the corridor bring me back to the harsh reality of being confined, within the Centre walls. I scarcely have time to hide my daughter's picture, when the door is drawn back and I have visitors. It is Lyle and a pair of sweepers and he has a syringe in his hand. He motions for me to open my shirt, I refuse and that is when the sweepers who have accompanied him grab hold of my arms. I watch as he plans to inject whatever is in the syringe into my chest. He is stopped by a voice. It is Cox's voice that causes the syringe to freeze midair, mere inches above my heart. There is a light, ever so faint, and my heart is filled with renewed hope."

I place the journal on the window seat and take the first envelope from the stack that Sydney entrusted to my care, earlier. The paper is yellowed and it crackles when I unfold it. His block letters bold. His salutation is for them alone, the rest I take comfort in.

" I returned from the SIM lab this morning to find Broots pacing nervously in my room. As jittery as a water bug, it seemed like minutes ticked by before he handed me the letter. Joy, tears of elation: I can see your handwriting. My fingers shook so badly, as I carefully opened the letter, my first from you since I returned. You're safe. I read and re-read. Your sentences are short and simple. You even acknowledge my sense of humor regarding your new name. Yes, Parker, I laughed."

It is the shrill of the telephone that interrupts me. Reaching for and flipping open the receiver, I sigh, annoyed at the intrusion.

"What?"

"Miss Parker, it's Vivienne."

I sit up a little straighter, and my eyes seek out the watch that is on my wrist. Its an outdated piece but it means so much to me for it was my grandmother's, 3:15 in the am it reads.

"Yes?"

"He's dead, Miss Parker."

"And?"

"He made it known that he wanted you to have his belongings, instead of Dr. Green. He indicated that they will aid you in the truth."

" Bring them tomorrow morning," then as an afterthought, I asked," Who's making the arrangements for him?"

"Dr. Green made them months ago."

"The Centre cemetary?"

"No, cremated and then his ashes are to be delievered to Dr. Green."

"Really," I am surprised, somewhat," Tommorrow morning then, say 10:00 am."With that I terminate the call. So he did know more that he let on when I visited him in that dark, cold place that has been his home for years. Father was right about you, Mr. Cox but I sense that you were more like a fox than wolf, and a sly one at that.




Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other than Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . .its amazing what a long weekend allows one to concentrate on . . . .
Enjoy. . . . .




Memories Of Long Ago
part 8
by Trish






I randomly take a letter from the stack and again listen to the crackle of old paper as I slowly open it. The same salutation in the heading, but this letter is different from the rest, rising from my perch, I walk to the small table upon which lay the letters that my mother wrote to my father. I search for the one that corresponds to the one in my right hand. Finding it, I re-read mother's words:

"Do you remember when I told you? How the stick turned blue, as blue as my eyes. It silenced me. And I waited for someone, something to tell me what to do. That inner voice that had always been a part of me, was suddenly quiet. Too quiet. Still I waited. Then I told you, and you made an appointment with a doctor, one you trusted. The first picture of our child, the only time you got to see her, 8 weeks old. Tiny, so tiny. Feet, hands and the heart the size of a pea, that pulsed steadily away. So sweetly.

We sat stunned in silence.

Finally, it was you, with your hand on my abdomen, who broke the silence and quoted the ending from Bertolucci's film the "The Sheltering Sky" to me, in that deep, sonorous voice of your's:

Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

It was at that moment that I realized that our lives would never be safe, or sane or easy, but that this was a gift. This tiny life, a gift and that's all that mattered. So I conceded, I gave in. I regret that now, Jarod. Enough is enough. Those walls are not strong enough, tall enough or secure enough to hold you. Break free from the darkness. Leave."

There it was, her plea for him to leave. Yet, she didn't stop there, oh no, mother knew that more was needed and she provided him with it:

"She said it, Jarod, with her chubby hand on the silk of my robe, I asked," Who's Momma?" and she gave me a big toothless grin and a pat right on the chest, right through the robe where my heart is and said Momma."

The candles that I lit earlier, glow golden, chasing away the hollow darkness, but not the chilled cold. I am tired, exhausted really, yet I have no time for sleep. It's more than that. I'm afraid to stir. Afraid to move, so I stand and read his response:

"Do you wonder why we return to each other, I do, and the only reason I can come up with is that we are flawed and that no one else wants us, because combined, our flaws make us whole. You are more than a friend, Parker, more than a lover, you are my equal and soul mate. Therefore I love you all the more for it and I sim my escape with each passing day. Soon!"

I needed no further consolation. I sank down upon the couch and drifted into a long profound sleep, or at least it seemed that way when I awoke. The blanket that covered me was wet and the thought of breakfast turned my stomach. My eyes sought out the watch on my wrist. It was such a vivid dream, and at the moment I could not recall a single detail of it, yet I know I dreamed. There was a knock at the front door. Vivienne.

Opening the door, I was blinded momentarily by the bright morning light that filled the room, the wooden floor reflecting the sun like a mirror.

"Good morning, Miss Parker," she said apathetically.

"Come in," I said as I pulled the blue terry-cloth robe around me, tightening the tieat my waist, running my fingers through my tousled hair, "What happened last night?"

"He was highly agitated and after asking that I retrieve his belongs from storage to give to you, he suffered another stroke," she pursed her lips angrily, her eyes stormy.

"You make it sound as though it's all my fault," I lowered my voice, the tone caustic, "I hope that you are not blaming me for that?"

"Blame you! What did you think would happen when you showed up?" she bit back, then turned away vehemently.

"Honestly, I didn't think about it. What difference would it make, anyway? Why do you care?"

She was silent; a haunted look came into her eyes.

"I don't know. Now that he's dead, I'm free," her voice was low and shaky," His belongings are in the car."

"Do you need any help? If so, I'll go and get dressed, it will only take a moment."

"No, that's all right, there's not much, really. Don't trouble yourself."

She excused herself and returned momentarily with a silver case similiar in size to a briefcase, yet wider and a small black case large enough to hold compact discs. She placed them on the desk. It was all over and done with rather quickly.

"He said something about it coming full circle. He asked me to give you this as well," her hand reached out and turned palm up, her fingers opening slowly to reveal a silver ring. I took it, gingerly, then I watched as she turned around and walked out the front door, never looking back.

I walked over to the front door and locked it. I found myself in front of the desk, and with a single motion, unlatched the case and unzipped the other. In that moment, I shivered and felt the cold invade my body . There was no turning back. I was terrified and fear gripped me.





Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them other than Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole for proof reading. PG-13





Memories Of Long Ago
part 9
by Trish






I slip the disk labeled number one, out of it's protective sleeve and slide it in to the opening on the veiwer, waiting. For what, I'm not sure.

"Sydney, Mr. Broots,": it starts out, I press the stop button and wrestle with the thoughts that perhaps I should call them, but curiousity has gotten the better of me, after all Vivienne said that Cox wanted me to have them. Hitting the play button, I take a seat in the chair that's in front of mother's desk.

"If you are watching these DSAS, than I am dead. I want to give a modest chronicle of what happened all those many years ago. I have thought of what happened often since the stroke, that left me unable to move and impeded my speech, at times. It's strange that we once both worked for a place that was known for its wonderful research projects and then suddenly changes turned the place into something horrendous. I live with ghosts, Sydney, and spend every waking hour trying to silence them. Since his death, nothing made sense and truth be told, isn't that a funny phrase, coming from the likes of me, the truth. I should have seen it coming. Jarod's death at the hands of Lyle. Yes, there it is out in the open. As I tell you this, I sit in this bed with the door open hoping to make my room here feel larger. To block the ghosts, yet she wasn't a ghost, was she, Sydney? I almost questioned my sanity when she waltzed in here. They won or did they?"

I stop the disk, and rub small circles on my throbbing temples only because Cox stutters and starts again. I then move my fingers to my eyes, which burn from the threat of tears. My body aches with fatigue and yet I breathe deeply to control my anger. I push myself up out of the chair, and make my way to the front door. Pulling the heavy wooden door open, I stand on the porch, inhaling and then exhaling, my breath turning to white puffs in the frigid air. I am completely numb and yet I know that I must go back inside and watch the rest of the disks.

***

Resuming my seat, I press the play button and listen fascinated:

"Lyle thought that he could hid the evidence that pointed the finger at him, but he wasn't smart enough for that. I knew that Lyle felt betrayed, his own father shunned him, the triumverate had little use for him and Jarod's worth to the Centre increased so much that the green eyed monster began to rear its ugly head. Jarod handed over information that he had emassed while outside. . . information regarding Lyle's sordid past. Information that I turned over to the triumverate with preverse pleasure. The night that I found Lyle in Jarod's cell, hypodermic in hand, I should have listened to the warning bells, that trouble was looming. Lyle stormed out of the cell, rushing past me without seeing, his face flushed with anger and his eyes narrowed by his rage at being caught where he wasn't suppose to be. Jarod's importance to the Centre was eating at Lyle's soul, like a poison and it coursed through him working its deadly intention. By all accounts Lyle seemed to be gripped by some type of madness. After the pretender's death, I called for an investigation. I knew what the results of that would be and for that Mr. Broots, I do apologize. For I had already pulled all of the evidence from the mainframe that would have proven Lyle guilty. It wasn't to protect him, only to give him a sense of false security, that he had managed to elude detection."

I poke an angry finger at the eject button and watch in slow motion as the holder that houses the disk slides out effortlessly. I want to pitch it, smash it to pieces but that would accomplish nothing. I want to continue with the disks but the day has gotten away from me, so I head to the bathroom to shower and dress. I am tired and yet mother knew that by giving me, my father's journal that I would be drawn to it like a moth to a flame and adding my discoveries to their story only encourage me to uncover it all. However, I can not stop thinking how unkind life is, how cruel fate, how odd chance. It seemed as though my mother and father were cursed; that some evil thwarted their families and drove out happiness

Refreshed, fed and ready to return to the memories of Mr. Cox, I pick up off the kitchen table, the silver ring that Vivienne had given to me as well. Unsure of it's meaning? What did it symbolize, perhaps it's to prove to Sydney, Broots and Angelo that he was gone. I slip the disk that is labeled number two into the machine and expect to be greet to Cox's stuttering voice, instead it's timestamp.

Twenty-five years ago.


feedback is appreciated . . . . Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is in part one. . .which is posted at www.the-pretender.de . . . .it's been awhile . . .real life. . . .copyrighted 11/3/00





Memories Of Long Ago
part 10
by Trish





I do not like this place, Blue Cove. It's aptly named, and its desolation seems to creep into one's soul. Some, I know, would call the Centre bleak-and surely they are right, for when its doors closed all those years ago, parents used it as a horror tale to make naughty children behave. I feel the horrible emptiness of the Centre deep in my soul. I considered myself a solitary person, but it seemed I have become enmeshed in a web of massive intrigue that should take more than plain steel to cut. Memories. Ghosts. I hiked my shoulders, feeling none too easy in the presence of these ghosts. I thought and as I did, sensed faint and distant laughter, appreciative, and looked about to catch brief glimpses of flickering shadows. I thought I dreamed.

That musky scent was in my nostrils and I felt hands on me. I could hear her voice, urging me to wake. I pushed the sheets aside and opened my arms.

"Mama." I opened my eyes and she was standing over me. I smiled and reached for her.

"Finish the journey," her voice soft, "It's nearing the end." My head ached come the dawn, and I quit the house to find fresh air. It was a bright morning, winter hanging on spring's cusp, the sky a fine, clear blue straddled with windblown billows of white cloud. The air was scented with the crisp cleaness of spring and wood burning, and for a nostalgic moment I thought I was little again, and at home on the moor with mother. Then I remembered, and sank my aching skull against the rope swing.

"Caitrin," the voice was that of my father, I turned and fixed my eyes forward.

"I'm scared, Daddy," I whispered.

"I'm here." His spirit hand slipped over mine. Slowly, I made my way back to the house. Refreshed. Renewed. Ready to finish this journey and bring it home.

My fingertips feel as though they have been dipped in ice water as I settle down to watch those images that I left, once, I saw the date on the disk. And yet, everything I learn seems to foreshadow something else. For the last few weeks, I have watched the life of my parents play out before me in black and white. I press my fingers into my palms to warm them, before moving them toward the play button.

The room is dark, hazy and there is limited lighting; yet the camera caught the shadow of someone. Someone that isn't suppose to be there, in that room that became home to my father, so that mother and I could be free.

Suddenly the lights in the room come to life and the figure that had been hiding in the shadows is revealed. My father has come to the sim lab only to find Lyle, and the way he looked at my father, a shiver of danger shot though me. I look into those eyes. They give me no answers. Lyle smiled. A calculated smile. I closed my eyes, willing this nightmare to stop, but it didn't. Suddenly, my father spoke.

"What do you want, Lyle?"

"I came to say good-bye."

"Really? Cox sending you to hell."

"Hell is just a sauna, Jarod."

"So true, and it doesn't matter how you get there. Hope you enjoy it. I can't say that I'll miss you, I won't."

Lyle smiled, and it wasn't a nice one.

"Good-bye, Pretender. I have important business to attend to," he walked past my father, then turned to look at him with cold eyes.

My uncle. A man without an identity, a soul or even a conscience.

As I stare into his cold eyes, I hate the fact that his was the last face my father ever saw.

I have developed a ritual here at my mother's house. For the last two weeks, I slip into the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee that was timed to begin dripping at exactly half past six. I enter the studio, shut the door and sit at the window seat looking at a stain glass square of colors that form my mother's picture. I've almost finished this journey that she started me on when she placed that journal into my hands.

Time to talk to Sydney and Broots.




feedback is appreciated . . . . Ractrish@aol.com

The Disclaimer is in the first part and the first 10 parts are found on www.the-pretender.de and I hope you enjoy this part . . . . .Enjoy . . . .




Memories Of Long Ago
part 11
by Trish





I sleep fitfully, my thoughts like colored chips in a kaleidoscope, congealing to form clear images, then drifting apart into meaningless patterns. Most of the dream involves my Uncle Lyle. In between cameos of my uncle, my unconscious presents muscial score sugggestions. The score from 'The Cell' keeps repeating. The music is like a tick burrowing under one's skin. Once in, it's impossible to dislodge.

I awake to pale moonlight gracing the edges of the window shade. Slamming the pillow across my head, I throw an arm over it and pull my knees to my chest. Dreams. At three thirty, I give a startled cry and fling myself upright as if the pane of glass that had been my dream has shattered. I shower and dress donning my usual black; so out of place for the daylight, so very appropriate for night. The color of secrets and stealth. The color of death. I need no mirror to tell how very well it becomes me, how flattering and suitable the hue. Black suited my mother too. Like mother, like daughter. I then arrange myself in the studio. Earlier, I had sorted everything I'd found during my quest for the truth. Photos to the left, letters to the right, and DSA's in the middle and clutched tightly in my hand, Cox's ring. I wrap myself up tightly in mother's quilt, and watch the stars fade overhead and remember evenings with Momma. When I was small, we would identify constellations and christen patterns of our own. I would see a puppy, a bunny, a pair of ballet slippers. Momma always saw a father with his child.

**

The doorbell sounds, telling me that my company has arrived. Easing myself off of the window seat, I walk through the living room and open the heavy wooden door. I find Sydney, Broots and Angelo on my front porch. I gesture for them to enter. Sydney and Broots do so, but Angelo is cautious. His soulful eyes look at mine and he reaches for my hand.

"Almost over," he mutters before walking over to the fireplace to stare into the flames. I take a deep breath, then speak softly as if worried that this is all a dream and that I will awake back home in my own bed.

"He's dead, Syd," I open my hand to reveal the ring that's imprinted itself into my palm. I see Syd's brow wrinkle and could tell that he was waging an internal battle with himself. Anger, fear and then relief had played across his features. I step closer to him, slipping my hand inside of his, the contact reassuring.

"Syd. . . ." I whispered. I watch him nod then sink slowly into the chair located in the corner of the room, his fingers taking holding of the ring that once belonged to Cox.

"So he's with the devil and his underlings. Good! May his soul never find a moment's peace." The words and the curse have come from Broots, and I felt my eyes widen and a small smile turn at the corners of my lips. Timid mouse finally learned to roar---Momma would have been proud.

"My father, Syd, he was willing to give her up. For Thomas. For me. Why?"

"He told me once that from the moment he set eyes upon her, all those years ago, she was his life. They were each other's salvation, redemption from the Centre, the past. Jarod told me once that he understood how easy it was to love her, so much so that no one else filled your heart," Syd's hand came to rest on his left breast, "And that she owned a piece of his soul, always. And as for Thomas, he said that if it made her happy, he could let her go."

I sit on the sofa, next to Broots, with my legs tucked up underneath me, my head slightly bent. Tears swelling in his eyes and then spill over.

"I know that my father and Lyle had a verbal sparring match," I lock eyes with Sydney.

"Danger," Angelo muttered, his hands cupping his face, his eyes mesmerized by the flames," Bad man hurt Jarod. Kill Jarod. Told Jarod go. Bad man in Sim lab."

"Angelo?" Sydney, gaunt by the revelation, looked at the savant, dazed and shocked. Broots looked wretched and helpless. I excuse myself, and retreat into the kitchen to prepare coffee, while the others are allowed to collect themselves. I return, tray in hand, which I set down upon the low wooden table. Then I take a seat next to Angelo on the floor, where he slips his hand into mine.

"Angelo," I whisper," you told my father to go where?"

"Tell him leave. No sim lab. Bad man hurt him," his voice barely audible.

"Where was he to go, Angelo?" I ask him, again. "To momma and me?"

We watch as Angelo nods, his eyes never leaving the dancing flames of the fire.

"Smoke, lots of smoke. Smell awful," he says, his nose scrunching up on his nose.

"The fire?" I ask as a log falls sending sparks up the flue.

"NO!" He replies sharply before he turns to stare at Broots and Sydney. "Building rumbled. Like before. Sydney remembers. Broots remembers too."

"I know. . ." my voice cracks with anger," I know that Lyle was responsible for my father's death. Cox's admission to hiding the truth is on the DSA's that Vivienne brought over. I watched them all." I pull my hand away from Angelo's and press my palms together and wait for either Sydney or Broots to speak. Tears are coursing down their cheeks, only to be wiped away hastily. Both look shocked and relieved at the same time. I am exhausted, but this isn't finished. Not yet.

"I've relived that day over and over in my mind a thousand times," Broots looks at Syd, then down at me. I reach for the cup of coffee, that I had placed on the table, and I watch the tendrils of white steam rise off of the hot liquid, twisting and curling reminding me of the ribbons Momma used to tie my braids with.

"The lab exploded, and there was a fear so deep in me, that I must have stood there for what seemed an eternity. To smell the acrid smoke, to feel the heat from the flames. To know in here, that he was dead, and there I was unable to get to him." Sydney clenched his fist tightly and then pounded his thigh furiously. I quickly placed the mug on the table and scrambled to my knees, coming to kneel before him, my left hand resting on his clenched fist, stilling it.

"It's all right, Syd."

"It was the worst day of my life," Broots murmured, "I'd lost another friend, only this time it was for real. The grim reaper staked his claim and didn't let go. After the flames had been put out, we worked most of the night and into the next day, digging in silence. Sam, Syd, and I removed the rubble from the ceiling that had collapsed. We had more cuts and scrapes on our hands than we could count. My fingers were numb from the effort."

I sit here on the floor listening to the final piece of the puzzle, as it plays out in my mind. I can smell the smoke, the crushing weight of the steel and concrete on my chest, feel the searing heat from the flames. I knew I was in trouble, my hands are shaking, my stomach tightens, and my throat seems to narrow for me to breath. The room is suddenly beginning to blur. Angelo's gently touch with the napkin, from the table, as he blots the cold sweat from my forehead pulls me back. I relived it, father's death. I had become him, if only briefly.


TBC



Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com