Sleight

by Tom Twitchel

  She went on. “Preston’s other ability is incredibly dangerous and very rare. It takes a huge toll on him every time he uses it.” She paused, watching my reaction. “His stiffness, slow movements and the obvious pain he’s in are all a direct result from his use of his gift. Or curse, which particularly in his case, is a more accurate description.”

  I felt pretty sure I could see where this was going. I was also remembering Kenwoode’s hiding from me that he could hear telepathic communication. There seemed to be more things about him that invited distrust than just his bossy nature.

  “So he wants Justine to what? Fix him?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t said, but I believe so. He has a code of honor. He won’t force her, but he’ll ask, or coerce, and he’s not above picking an opportunistic moment to make the request,” she said.

  My jaw muscles tightened. “He’s asked you?”

  Pursing her lips she nodded jerkily. “Yes. More than once. And initially I helped him. I didn’t know at the time that my gift might be shortening my life. I was naive.”

  “But you stopped. And you think that he’s going to pressure Justine into helping him,” I said.

  “Yes, and that’s why I’m telling you this, instead of her. She doesn’t know me. She’s new at this and her talent is still raw. She can’t control it yet. That’s why Preston asked me to come here. One of the reasons.”

  “Why would you agree to that? When you know what it could do to her.”

  She raised her head slightly, lifting her chin, as though I’d insulted her, and I guess I had. “I wanted to be able to influence the end result. I wanted to be sure that this young woman had all the facts. If I didn’t I’d have no way of knowing that she would understand who or what she was and what wielding her talent could do to her.”

  I felt embarrassed at my implying that there was a lack of concern on her part. She had agreed to come out of a noble desire to heal Mr. Goodturn and to protect someone she didn’t even know.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But you said that you helped Kenwoode more than once. You didn’t know it could hurt you, but then you found out somehow. What happened that made you stop?”

  “I didn’t stop because I knew it was hurting me. I stopped because our relationship changed. Or at least I discovered that our relationship wasn’t what I thought it had been.”

  A sick feeling wiggled around in my stomach, like a snake. “What changed? What was he to you?”

  “We were in love. I was. I found out that Preston had cultivated our relationship because he knew what I could do.”

  “He used you?” She winced. Me and my choice of words.

  “He claimed that he hadn’t. But when I found letters he’d received from another woman, l knew that I wasn’t as important to him as I had thought. The difficult part was that he knew from the beginning.”

  The snake started taking a tour up around my heart, and I saw her eyes glisten. “He knew what?” I asked.

  “He knew the very first time, that every time I healed him that it was shortening my life. And he let me do it anyway. Then he let me believe that we were going to be...a couple. Married. Until it became obvious that had never been the plan.”

  Seeing her face in pain, so much like my mother, hurt me. My gut churned. How could Mr. Goodturn trust Kenwoode enough to ask him to come to his rescue? And if Kenwoode’s history with Constance was any indication of his morals I had a pretty good idea as to why he and Mr. G had had a falling out in the first place.

  I bit back a curse. “You said you had some good news too. This all sucks big time. What could you possibly have to tell me that would sound good at this point?”

  She gave me a wry smile. “The other reason he asked me to come, which was just as compelling, was to help Harald.”

  Bobbing my head, I asked, “And?” She’d been risking her own health to do that, of that I was sure.

  “I have. With some help from your friend Breno.” Her smile morphed into something brighter, pride and happiness mixed within it.

  “He’s much better. And he’s asked for you to see him.”

  My heart, run through the wringer a dozen times during the day, leapt to my throat. “He asked for me? You’ve been helping him even though it might cost you? Why?”

  Her eyes brimmed over and two perfectly symmetrical tears ran down the face that was a mirror image of my mother’s.

  “Because he means that much to me, and with Breno’s help it wasn’t quite so dangerous for me.”

  “Why? What did he have to do with it? Did it hurt him?”

  She gave me a reproving look. “I wouldn’t even consider putting someone else at risk. You need to know that.” I felt guilty again, and blushed.

  She stood up and I followed her out into the hall. We went to Mr. Goodturn’s room, me trying not to run.

  He was still in bed and pale but his eyes were open and his head turned toward us when we entered the room. Wisps of his red hair stood out from his round head like an halo. He’d put on his glasses and his eyes stared owlishly at us.

  “Ah, Benjamin,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  I stumbled to the side of the bed and got down on my knees. He opened his hand and I placed mine in his and he gave it a weak squeeze.

  Choking back tears, I said, “I thought we’d lost you. I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.”

  His eyes crinkled in a smile and he looked up over my shoulder at Constance who was standing behind me. “I owe a debt to the good doctor. Without her presence it’s hard to say whether I would have recovered as well, if at all. And thanks to you as well for bringing Breno back and helping him.”

  “Mr. Goodturn so much has happened and I have so many questions. But I don’t want to tire you. I’m just glad that you’re back with us,” I said.

  Taking his hand from mine he patted the bedspread and winked at me. “Sit here beside me my young friend.” He glanced at Constance again. “If you wouldn’t mind Constance, Benjamin and I have a few things to discuss that require a little privacy.”

  Stepping up to the bed she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Of course. Take it slow Harald. The old ‘spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’ thing applies here.” She drew away and left us, closing the door behind her.

  Mr. G looked at me and his eyes disappeared into the folds of another smile, but this one had a more serious quality to it. “We’ve much to discuss. My fatigue might force us to leave some subjects for another day, but there are several things you should know. And I’ve waited too long to tell you.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT: THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

  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 ba
ck. “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.