The Silhouette (Alan Quinn and the Second Lifes)

by Thomas William Shaw

On our way back home, the weather took a turn for the worse. Funnel clouds formed overhead, lightning struck with what felt like the strength of a million rapiers, adding a new feeling of dread that made me want to get away from all of it. I thought it might have been Dad causing the storm to appear but he looked inconvenienced when he looked up at the sky.

  He chose to walk a few paces behind me. I couldn’t help but feel he was going to switch personalities on the spot and kill me in front of the whole town quicker than he could make another one of his grilled cheeses. If I somehow managed to fix him, I wasn’t sure if I would ever feel safe around him.

  As the rain began to pour, Dad picked up on a jog and I followed suit. We cut into a sprint once we got to Hatter Circle and sped through all the bushes that were in our way until we made it to the house. I heard a loud shriek from inside. Worried, I burst through the front door only to find—nothing at all.

  Mom was rolling around on the living room floor with Peaches. Every time Peaches would lick her face, she would scream as loud as she could, but with a giggly, child-like smile. Even worse, I didn’t see the memory stone anywhere in the room.

  Dad followed me in, bouncing around like a circus clown, which was none too different than the strange way he was acting in Victor’s. I knew I had to act fast or he was going to have another personality turn. He shouted, “Bravo, Lady Quinn.”

  Mom got up on all fours and barked along with Dad’s orchestrations. He snapped his fingers and Mom froze in place, her face stuck in a cheery glaze. Peaches attempted to bark, but only air came out. The only noise I could hear in the room was Dad’s maniacal laughter.

  “Let them go!” I yelled. “What are you playing at?”

  He waved his hands, making Mom and Peaches chase each other’s backsides like he was fast-forwarding a movie to the good parts. He mumbled the words, “She has to remember. As soon as she remembers, I will stop.”

  I didn’t think I had another tackle left in me, so I stood in front of him in the hopes that I would throw him off.

  “Get out of my way,” he said. “This is important.”

  I held my ground.

  Dad said, “Every moment your existence continues is detrimental to my health. You know this is your fault, do you not? Yes, Alan, none of this would be possible without you. If I had it my way, you would be eliminated. The Silhouettes may spin a tale of heroics for you, but they know as well that I am the key to the survival of both worlds. If they do not back off, they will be right about one thing.”

  My voice was shaky, I could barely whisper, “What?”

  “Draio will fall.”

  I couldn’t allow myself to believe that he truly felt that way. I got closer and closer until his hand was directly against my chest. I’d definitely lost my mind, but I wasn’t left with many options.

 

  I wiped a tear from my eyes, “Then, do it.”

  He grinned, “Do what?”

  “If this is what you have become, I don’t want you to be my father. Eliminate me.”

  For a moment I thought this was it. I was going to die and it was all going to be for nothing, but a change in his manner revealed there was another side of him trying to fight through. He lowered his hand. His smile lowered into a tight frown. “I am sorry,” he said.

  He snapped his fingers together and everything went back into motion. Dad joined in with Mom’s silly game she was playing with Peaches and rolled around on the floor. I could not take another second of Dad’s mood swings, so I bolted as quickly as I could out of the room to hunt for the memory stone.

  I went up the stairs and made my first destination their bedroom. If it wasn’t in the living room, where else would Mom have put it?

  I dug into the few drawers on Mom and Dad’s dresser. There was no luck in my dad’s sock drawer or the one where Mom kept her blouses. I wasn’t about to put myself through the trauma of searching either of their underwear drawers. I picked up whatever clothes I had thrown to the ground and stuffed them back into the dresser as I closed it up gently.

  I went to their bed and searched through each lamp table. I even looked under their bed where I could usually find random things they never use, but there was still nothing of interest. Where had she hidden it? I briefly searched the inside of their bathroom even going as far as looking behind the toilet, but I was relieved not to find it there.

  I decided to change locations, but I paused in the hallway to make sure my parent’s were still busy doing whatever it was downstairs. Both of them started howling along with Peaches, catching me off guard. What was happeneing to my family?

  I assumed I was good as gold to continue searching. My next stop was my bedroom although I didn’t quite know why she would have put it in there.

  I got inside and locked the door, thinking they wouldn’t expect anything out of me in my natural habitat. For all I knew, Mom and Dad were about to start up a game of Twister, or something, only to turn it into a game of “Don’t Step on that Mine!” Dad had become so unpredictable that I thought it wise to push some of the chairs in my room up against the door. I definitely missed when my biggest worry was where we were going to move next.

  “You are not so defenseless, mate,” Lathon said as he appeared on the wall. He contorted his body into a sword and shield, “It just has to be awakened in you.”

  I stopped what I was doing and stiffened up, “What? You didn’t trust me to handle this on my own? I thought you and LeCarre were going to be hands off on this one.”

  He jumped off the wall and into the middle of the room, “It is not that I did not trust you. I just thought you might need some words of encouragement. You know—from a friend.”

  I blew up with anger, “Please, go find whatever it is you need somewhere else. I have nearly died like fifty gazillion times in the past two days and, quite frankly, I do not think I can take it anymore.”

  “I know what is troubling you,” he said as he completely ignored my protests. “You are worried that if we perform this on your dad he will forget you too.”

  It hurt too much to admit. I said, “Darius, Davison, they are dead because of him and I don’t know whether to be happy for one or sad for the other. In the end, it is still murder. At the same time, I want my father back. I’d rather have stupid family trips to the countryside and picnics. I want the chance for him to be as proud of me as I am of him.”

 

  Lathon’s voice lost some of its strength, “You c-c-could have some of that with me. I mean if he doesn’t remember you?”

  I didn’t know how to respond to him. I resumed my search through all the furniture in the room to see if I could track down the memory stone. The idea of being raised by Lathon never occurred to me, but I could not let it. I had to believe that my Dad was going to come out on a good end of this. If not for me, it had to work for my Mom’s sanity.

 

  Lathon stopped me just before I started pulling everything out of my closet, “Alan, I have an idea as to the whereabouts of our stone. I know it will sound mad when I say it but it will seem simple in due time.”

  Fed up, I said, “Where?”

  “First thing is first,” he said. “We are going to have to come up with a plan to sneak her away from your parents. It is going to take a little bit of thinking, but I think we can manage it.”

  I protested, “No, you cannot be serious. Not her. She spit it up last time. It could not have stayed in her stomach.”

  Lathon shook his head gravely, “Alan, let us get the dog.”

 

  We waited until Mom and Dad calmed down before we leapt head first into Lathon’s plan. He had me put my satchel on and he followed it up by climbing into it. He was worried that if he came into the living room in his vapor form that Dad might sense that he was present. I tiptoed down the stairs so I could look around the corners and monitor the activity of my parents.

  When I got there, I ended up witn
essing an unusually tender moment. Both asleep, Dad had Mom wrapped in his arms and they were cuddling on the couch with a warm fire blazing in the fireplace. It was a scene that was a complete polar opposite of the night both of them were at each other’s throats. This was the perfect time for Lathon to get to work.

  Peaches walked up to me and was right about to bark before I watched Lathon’s shadowy body slither out of my bag and wrap his smoky shape around her throat. She let out a slight whimper of betrayal before the smoke seeped into her mouth and then it was over.

  You could hardly tell the difference, except her eyes took on a silvery glaze. With a wink, Lathon drove Peaches’ body into the kitchen. I followed slowly so as not to wake up the happy couple.

 

  When I got into the kitchen, I whispered, “What now?”

  Peaches looked somewhere between irritated and constipated. Lathon’s voice came out, “I am rooting around and I can not find that blasted stone. I really thought this was going to work.”

  My mind began to race at full speed, “I think I know how to see if the stone is in there.”

  “How?”

  I sat down on my knees and crawled towards Peaches. I said, “Like this,” and opened up her jaws, quickly shoving my fingers into the back of her throat. I hoped it wasn’t going to become part of my growing list of bad habits.

  Lathon said, “Oh, this is going to be bad,” and threw up at least two days of Peaches’ diet in the middle of the kitchen linoleum. It would have been unbearable to look at if it were not for the stone in the middle of it that began to glow bright red.

  “We found it!” I shouted and then promptly covered my mouth when I remembered we were supposed to be keeping quiet. I whispered it again, “We found it!” Containing my excitement was unbearable. We were one step closer to making all of it go away.

  Lathon grunted, “I am not cleaning up that pile of doggy mess. That was worse than having house duty for Actoria and those are some stinky wolves.”

  I remembered Actoria was a chapter in Darius’ book. They had the funny emblem with the wolves. I wondered what Lathon was getting at, but wiped my head of it as I cleaned up the gunk on the ground with a stack of paper towels and threw them in the trash.

  “So, what is next?” I said.

  “Next we have to figure out what is for dinner tonight,” said Dad’s voice from behind me.

  I kicked the memory stone under the kitchen sink. Lathon moved Peaches body on top of it and plopped down to muffle out the light.

  Dad chuckled to himself, “I am starving.”