The Silent Sounds of Chaos

by Kristina Circelli

  She heard the words, understood them in a sense, but didn’t want to accept them. This town, this world, was not the Tommy she knew. “But, I’ve known Tommy since I was little. We lived on the same street until he went to live with you. But even after that, after what happened, he’s always been tough. Leather jacket, cool car, fights at school. I mean, I know what happened when he was little and all, but after … He seemed totally, I don’t know, normal.”

  “In many ways, he was. Is,” Charles corrected himself. “He is not aware of what he became after that day.”

  As his mind took him back to that night when the truth about his daughter’s addictions was revealed, Charles narrated the events to Amelia, never letting his voice waver despite the horror of what they’d found.

  An otherwise quiet night had turned ominous under the threat of a debt unpaid. It had been a routine delivery, one Charlie never condoned but allowed so long as it was never discussed around him—his daughter’s addiction wasn’t something he could help, but he could at least make sure he knew what drugs she was poisoning her body with. None of that second-rate shit his competitors tried to pass off as the real deal.

  Joe always made the deliveries. Insisted on being the one, to make sure it was done right, he claimed. Except, on this night, someone else took it upon himself to make the trip out to Iron Creek Estates. At some point neighbors had called the police with complaints of shouting and glass breaking. But such complaints were commonplace for that neighborhood, and enforcement took its time appearing at the scene.

  When the officers did finally arrive, it was to discover a woman unconscious on the couch, a bruised boy huddled in a closet, and the body of a little girl wrapped in his arms, yellow hair soaked in dried blood.

  “They say the bond between twins can never be broken,” Charles finished, staring down at the untouched mug between his palms. “When Finley died, some part of Tommy died with her and created a hole he could only fill with this.”

  One hand lifted, gesturing to the city before them. “After that night, Tommy ceased to exist. He became someone else. He portrayed himself as he lives in his Silver City, a tough child untouched by his surroundings, but every day he came home, and added to this place. New people he met, new situations that happened. He recreated it all here, putting his life into this other, make-believe world. Sometimes I think the only place life was ever real for him, was here.”

  Letting out a breath, Amelia took a moment to let his words sink in. She too remembered that day clearly. Finley had been her friend, so happy and perky and with big dreams of being a princess despite the poverty that surrounded her. But then she had died, beaten to death by one of her mother’s junkie friends, though no one ever knew why—or who had done it. Tommy had been taken away the next day.

  Not wanting to dive back into the memories of that gruesome murder, Amelia focused on another part of Charles’s words. “I always wondered why he never took me to his new place when he said he moved out. He said he moved to Silver City. I thought that was just his way of saying he wasn’t all that into me.” She laughed softly at herself. “But now I guess I realize he couldn’t bring me here, not really…”

  She’d been so angry with Tommy, with his refusal to let her into his life. How foolish, how blind, could she have been to not see how much he had been hurting all these years? What kind of girlfriend was she to never know? And yet…

  “You said everyone he met was part of his world. So … does that mean I’m in it?”

  Now his eyes did meet hers. Amelia, the black-haired girl Tommy had held on to his entire life, the only constant after everything else had been taken away. Reaching into his coat pocket, Charles retrieved the small wooden figurine he’d taken from Tommy’s pocket, not wanting him to see or have it once the drugs wore off. The figure of a young woman, yellow-painted hair and vivid blue eyes, a true testament to his grandson’s wood and metalworking talent. He handed it to her, the only semblance of peace and comfort he had to offer.

  “Amelia … did Tommy ever tell you about his friend named Snow?”

  HOURS AFTER THE young woman with flowing black hair fled the house, muttering apologies and trying hard to hide the panic in her eyes, Charles sat at his grandson’s bedside.

  He’d sent everyone home, preferring to be alone with the only family he had left. No more doctors and nurses. No more medication. It was time to bring his grandson out of this, one way or another, and it would be done without any prying eyes or ears.

  Already he could see Tommy slowly starting to wake. So he waited, sitting tall in the seat, mind going over twenty years’ worth of mistakes. “Your mother refused help since she was a teenager,” he said to no one in particular. “I gave up on her. In turn, I gave up on her children. It was a mistake.”

  There was no time for grandchildren in his work. No room for family meals, holidays with kids. His wife had been the heart of their relationship, him the muscle. By the time she convinced him to take a vested interest in the kids’ lives, it was too late. Finley had been murdered, and Tommy was lost to his own mind.

  “All this time, I never knew it was my own right hand that killed my granddaughter. Your mother always said she didn’t know who, that he wore a mask. But you knew.” Charles thought back to all the conversations with Annette. How adamantly she insisted she didn’t remember who was there that night, where she got the drugs, who left her children battered and bruised in the bedroom closet. He remembered so clearly their investigations, only now seeing how foolish he had been.

  “All this time,” he said again with a shake of his head, “thinking the mysterious killer got away, because that’s exactly what Joe wanted me to believe. But you knew. Somehow, you knew. Just like you knew if Joe went with you, he’d bring DU out of hiding.”

  For years, Charles had looked at his grandson like an invalid. A disturbed child trapped in a young man’s body. He entertained the boy’s wild notions of being some kind of crime-lord kingpin, giving him slum runs and basic duties, never assigning any real responsibilities, never believing him capable. And all along Finn had been living with the faces of those who hurt him, hurt his sister.

  “A manifestation of grief and trauma,” Dr. Jenn had explained Snow’s existence once. “He is so young and has been through something so awful, that this little girl, Snow, is the only way he can process the world. He can’t process losing Finley, let alone the way she died. Snow keeps her alive. From what little he’s told me about her, he’s given this Snow a wonderful life.”

  “A life you both never had,” Charles considered, wondering if Snow’s abduction had been real in Tommy’s mind or if it had all been an elaborate plot to seek revenge—or maybe even both. “Brilliance in insanity,” he murmured. It pained him to know his wife’s passing had been the spark to Finn’s fall into that insanity, but it also gave him some amount of comfort to finally have his granddaughter avenged.

  Movement on the bed pulled Charles from his thoughts. He watched as Tommy began to stir, so peaceful compared to his earlier fits, and blue eyes so closely matching his own opened. “Good morning,” Charles greeted, trying hard to keep his tone warm and soothing.

  Instead of answering, Tommy blinked a few times before pushing himself up to a sitting position. His movements were sluggish, as were his thoughts. “Charlie? What’s going on?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “What?” Tommy grimaced, lifting a hand to his head and wondering why the hell it hurt so badly. “What do you mean? You’re Charlie, my boss.”

  Mouth set in a curious frown, the older man pressed his fingertips together thoughtfully. “Do you want to know how Tommy’s doing?”

  “Tommy? Who the hell is Tommy?”

  Who indeed, Charlie thought. Tommy the seven-year-old little brother was the one piece of the puzzle he couldn’t figure out. The little brother who apparently no longer existed. “Do you have a brother?”

  The look Tommy gave him was nothing short of exasperati
on. “I don’t have any siblings. You know that. What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Nothing,” Charlie answered softly, though he doubted the replay was heard. Tommy was still grabbing his head. “Your mother…”

  The words died on his tongue the longer he watched the boy go through some sort of internal struggle. It wasn’t the time to speak of Annette’s death. Nor was it the time to rehash the past week. Tommy didn’t seem to hear the attempt.

  “Why is it so quiet?” he asked. One finger tapped his temple hard. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “You hear me.”

  “I don’t hear her,” Tommy insisted, sitting up farther in bed and feeling his thoughts clear as more of the sedative wore off. His eyes started to turn wild though he held on to control as he stared over at his boss. “Joe and DU … Did they…”

  He knew the answer by the way Charlie looked away. Breathing suddenly became impossible. “But … I tried, Charlie. Joe … How did he…”

  “He drugged you.” That much Charlie knew to be true based on blood tests he’d had ordered. “I don’t know why. I can only assume he thought you were plotting against him. He brought you to a motel just past the Georgia line, where DU came for a visit.”

  “He left me there,” Tommy affirmed. “He didn’t think I would be the one to make it out.”

  A week ago, Charlie wouldn’t have bet on his grandson either.

  “DU,” Tommy continued as the attack came back to him. The fight, the piece of metal jabbing into DU’s neck, the blood. So much of it, everywhere. “Shit, Charlie. I … I killed him. What if the cops—”

  “It’s taken care of,” Charlie cut in, giving Tommy a pointed look. “We tracked you to Georgia, to the motel where Joe brought you, then to Iron Creek.” At Tommy’s questioning look, he added, “Did you really think I let any of my employees drive around without me keeping tabs on them?”

  Tommy didn’t reply. Instead he looked down at his hands—killing hands, hands that had taken a life without second thought. And, oddly, he felt no regret. Not after all the things DU had done to him as a little boy. Collection for a debt his mother couldn’t pay, he always said. He only wished he could have also put the bullet in Joe’s head. Vengeance for what he did to Snow.

  “They were bad people.” At the affirmation, Tommy looked over at Charlie, whose expression was steady. “I only wish I’d known sooner just how bad they were. I would have tracked DU down myself and slit him open. And Joe … Well, things would have been very different.”

  “I tried to get back,” Tommy muttered, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I tried to beat him back. I failed, and now it’s so quiet. I can’t hear her anymore. She’s gone.”

  Charlie couldn’t stand the look of such heartache on the boy’s face. “She’s not gone, son.” When Finn’s hands dropped, Charlie offered a single nod. “She’s still with you. You just have to find her again.”

  Charlie decided then that he’d put together enough pieces of the puzzle. Whoever Tommy was, an imaginary little brother, a figment of the past, he was gone in the wake of Joe and DU’s deaths. Whatever Snow was to Finn, a tool for revenge, a memory of his deceased sister, or even a genuine friend, she was the existence his mind had chosen.

  He couldn’t force his grandson out of the made-up world. All he could do was protect him, and let him find his happiness wherever possible.

  “HELLO, AMELIA. COME in.”

  Amelia offered a small smile, taking a moment to observe him as she passed by. He’d become so much older in the few days since she’d last seen him, a recent widower grieving for his departed wife while also caring for his grandson, and yet also trying to maintain his usual air of superiority.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner. I … I needed time to process.”

  “No need to apologize.” Charlie stepped aside to let the young woman in. As she passed, he gave her a quick onceover. Shadows colored her eyes and her hair was unbrushed, normally stylish clothes replaced with a simple pair of jeans and black tank top.

  This was a young woman aching for the man she loved. A man who would likely never come back to her.

  He couldn’t let her see Finn without preparation. It wouldn’t be good for either one of them. “I should warn you, Amelia. It’s been a long week, and … Tommy is not doing well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come.” Without further explanation, he led her to the kitchen, to a window overlooking the backyard. From the vantage point they could see deep into the yard and into one small corner of Silver City.

  And there, through the window, Amelia watched Finn. From a distance, he looked like the same man she’d known for almost twenty years, that worn leather jacket covering broad shoulders, tousled blonde hair always seeming to fall in just the right place, a strikingly handsome face shadowed by a haunting secret—a secret she now knew.

  Even from here she could see the tense set of his shoulders, the stress set in his jaw, the anxiety in each step. This was not the carefree man she’d come to know and love. He was tormented, and she needed to be there to comfort him. Unable to help herself, Amelia left the kitchen and slipped outside, determined to help him through whatever ailed his heart.

  Lost in his own quiet mutterings, Finn didn’t notice her approach. She tread carefully upon the dew-dropped grass, stopping when she reached the entrance to the hidden village and leaning against the stone wall, ears trained on the quiet words floating on chilly air.

  “Where are you?” he was whispering, kneeling along the main road of Silver City, fingers touching the heads of each figure in a garden surrounded by wildflowers. Not finding what, or who, he was looking for, he moved on, to a small building vaguely resembling a school. “I can’t hear you. Where are you? Where did you go?”

  Her heart ached as she watched the broken boy before her, so lost in his fabricated world, so desperately needing it to be real. Whatever happened in the past week—Charlie wouldn’t tell her everything, only enough for her to know he’d found the people responsible for his sister’s death after his grandmother’s passing—it had overwhelmed him. Taken from him what was left of his reality, sending him deeper into an imagination crafted by tragedy.

  A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another, each one a separate realization of the illusion she was only just now recognizing as one. She cried for Finn, a man so strong he held in twenty years of anguish until finally reaching his breaking point. She cried for the relationship they would never have again, one built upon a fictional life leading to an impossible future. And she cried for Finley, the little girl she played with as a child, always teasing her friend over her love of princesses and snowmen.

  Recognition dawned on her, bringing Amelia’s eyes to the plastic tiara placed among the mountain range along the outskirts of Silver City. She’d been so caught up in the beauty of the town before she hadn’t taken the time to remember where she’d seen the crown before.

  “No princess is complete without her tiara,” Amelia’s mother had said as she placed the gift on top of Finley’s head. It had been her seventh birthday, only a month before her death, and the twins had been invited to Amelia’s house for dinner. Their own mother hadn’t even remembered, let alone planned anything special.

  “So lame. Princesses are so girly,” Amelia had teased from the dinner table, her good-natured chide earning her a stern look from her mother. But Finley hadn’t been upset. No, she loved her princesses and dreams of marrying Prince Charming, and eventually convinced them all to bundle up in thick winter coats in order to build snowmen in the front yard.

  Amelia smiled as she recalled the pathetic little snowman they made, barely two feet high with four lumpy sections to make a body, tiny stick arms, button eyes, and a pink cape that had once been Amelia’s baby blanket.

  “She needs something,” Finley had declared, one skinny finger to her lips as she considered what was missing. Then she smiled, her entire face lighting up, and
took the tiara from her head, gently setting it on top of the snowman and making sure it was centered. “Now she’s a princess. Princess Snow.”

  “You’re such a nerd,” her brother put in, though he too was grinning.

  In response, Finley had launched a snowball at his head, and so began an hour filled with childish squeals, a girl so excited to celebrate a friend’s birthday, and siblings who completed one another in every way possible.

  Princess Snow. A three-dollar tiara. A birthday in the middle of winter. Memories from so long ago now coming back right before her eyes.

  How could things so seemingly insignificant hold such power?

  Amelia let out an incredulous breath, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She needed to be strong and help Finn through troubled times. “Tommy,” she called softly from the stone entrance, not wanting to startle him out of his mutterings. He didn’t answer, didn’t respond at all. Closing her eyes, she searched for the strength to try again, but to try in a way that meant giving in to the fantasy.

  “F-Finn?”

  Now he jumped, spinning on his heel and staring at her as though startled someone else knew where his city existed. Those seductive blue eyes focused on her so intently she nearly took a step back. He saw through her, through time and reality itself, his mind connecting pieces she couldn’t see but could feel in the weight of his stare.

  “Amelia,” he breathed, the single word containing all the hurt in his heart and soul. He approached her slowly, pulling her into a tight embrace, strong arms holding her so close as though he feared she would slip away. It felt good to be in his arms, comfortable and familiar. For a moment he simply held her, head buried against her shoulder, before he whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”