ELEMENTARY VIRTUE: The Savior

by Sonja Wuthrich

  She scrolled to the bottom of the page to see the text to image 1.

  Why wasn’t she surprised that the describing text read ‘The Savior’

  Chayton Moonworthy

  As long as he could remember, Chayton Moonworthy had always been the black sheep that couldn’t fit in anywhere.

  The crank with the funny name. His adoptive parents had indeed claimed that they had been impressed by a movie about an Indian boy named Chayton. They had loved that name so much, that they wanted to name their son Chayton. Whatever, he didn’t believe a word of their story. No one who wasn’t completely out of their mind could like such a name. He had attended High School in Milton, a small town about 50 miles west of Toronto. Most of the kids there were mean and made fun of him. They used to call him redskin Winnetou.

  There had been this group of teenage idiots who were breaking out regularly in an uncontrolled howling when he passed.

  That he looked anything but Indian was rather skinny and pale and unfortunately didn’t change their behavior. It had taken years until he accepted himself for who he was – a whey-faced geek with a huge nose not necessarily blessed with charms and good looks. He had made an effort once to get a tan when he visited a solarium but that hadn’t been a serious improvement. Well, apart from the fact that he had been strolling around for a few weeks with red-colored cheeks and a red nose in school, the result of his tanning attempt had been that they called him Randy Rudolph after that. This had seriously been the last time he tried to blend in and look like the other kids. It was in college, when he learned that he had been adopted and forced his adoptive parents to tell him the truth. Doing an assignment with his only friend Chris, they noticed that there was not a single baby photo from the time of his birth to the first year of him. Actually, that wouldn’t have been particularly suspicious because back then, they had no digital pictures and the paper ones got lost quickly. In any case, the matter leaked out and his adoptive parent admitted that he had been adopted.

  Suddenly, it all made sense. He'd never fit into this perfect stiff family and had never felt understood or particularly loved. He had been a rebellious teenager and became a so-called emo. At seventeen, he only wore black cloths, preferably with rivets.

  He wore his hair at shoulder length, colored in Jet-black with a slight purple tinge. His eyes were painted with a thick black eyeliner. He also managed to get a few piercings, of course, without the permission of his adoptive parents and a huge Tattoo covering almost his entire back, which he had regretted at various occasions. It was pretty clear that his adoptive parents were anything but enthusiastic about those piercings and the tattoo when they found out about it. After some time, he calmed down a bit and changed to a moderate Emo. No one would have hired him with his piercings, not even as a substitute teacher.

  Anyway, he had always been a loner who had not many friends and he never even really cared. Only once in his life had it really hurt him. At seventeen, he had fallen madly in love.

  He thought back with a certain melancholy she had been his first and only love. Her name was Clare Hastings and she had been unique. Not quite as gloomy as himself, but they were two of a kind. She called herself a punk and was singing in a school band: Dark of the Aimless.

  Her voice had sounded like silk and velvet.

  He remembered her. Saw her dark sad eyes in front of him, as if it had been yesterday. Her red-painted full cherry lips, her long black hair with blue strands in it and her eyebrow piercing. She had been an outsider, just like him and they were soul mates meant for each other. There had never been a doubt about it. For a time, they spent every free moment together. But in all this precious time, he had never been able to find out much about her. She was very secretive and rarely told him something about herself. He never met neither her friends nor her family. He knew where she lived, but she made him understand that they had to meet in secret because her parents were somehow different and wouldn’t approve of their relationship. He had no idea what she meant by different, but he would have done anything to be with her. So he didn’t ask her about this topic because it seemed to make her sad. Then, suddenly, on a Monday she was gone. He had never found out what had exactly happened. Anyway, she didn’t appear at school after that day. No one wanted to tell him where she was. He couldn’t reach her at her address; no one was there. The family had moved away and he had no idea why and where they went.

  In the age of digital technology, he would have certainly found out what had happened to her, but then, nineteen years ago, his options were limited. He had been devastated for a while. Then he started to devote all of his time to his historical study of Indians and shamanism, which had always fascinated him. He also loved chemistry above all. In the past, he had loved to mix all sorts of ingredients in his free time and had caused more than once trouble by damaging his room much to the dislike of his adoptive parents.

  Even his only friend Chris, who was always there for him through thick and thin, thought that he was kind of a weirdo when he heard of his damaging actions. At these occasions, he used to call him the crazy professor.

  They still were like brothers even though Chris was now living in Boston and had a family himself. With his adoptive parents, he had a rather cool relationship. Well, maybe it was also his fault. He was not exactly lavish when it came to showing some emotions.

  During his history studies in Boston, he had come across a story about the Onenda clan and his research had him assume that his blood relatives were still living in Toronto today. He had found out that a certain Cheyenne Di Santos gave him up for adoption. So the way it looked, he was at least half of Indian origin, which had led him to publish his book on the Onenda clan under the name Chayton M. Di Santos. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to find his own mother, but a family of the Di Santos in Toronto that was apparently related to him. Therefore, he had decided to take the opportunity to work there temporarily. The job as a math teacher at the Scarborough high was exactly what he needed to explore his family tides.

  Yet before he was able to contact the family, all of them died under mysterious circumstances. Unbelievably! He was incredibly angry and disappointed and determined to elucidate this tragedy to find out exactly what was behind it. He had done research on a prophecy that had to do with the Onendas and he suspected that his blood relatives had something to do with it. There were also rumors that brought some students in connection with the murder case. There was a girl in the math class he was teaching whom he suspected to be involved and he sure would take a closer look and watch her very closely.

  Natalie Hastings

  Natalie was desperate. She could not stay here any longer.

  Her mother Clare would never change. No, it was all getting worse. She had thrown her out while being high on drugs again. She had even thrown a part of Natalie’s stuff out of the window. Natalie was wandering around without knowing where to go. The tears ran down her pale cheeks, left a dark trail of tears, and smeared her makeup. Her mother had seriously promised never to touch a drop of alcohol again after her last rehab this year during the holidays. Natalie spent her whole holiday in Sicily with her grandparents because of her mom’s rehab. She had been tortured for weeks with boring family visits, always fearing to get a call that her mother had done something stupid again. After her recent collapse, the doctors warned her that she wouldn’t probably survive another relapse. Sometimes Natalie thought her mom just didn’t see a purpose in life, which was a painful thought. It meant nothing more than that she didn’t mean the least to her mother and that she had never loved her. For other mothers, their daughters were the greatest thing on earth. Sometimes even their only purpose in life; this was particularly true for Italian moms. They tended to watch over their children like true clucking over their chicks. Natalie's mother had never cared particularly for her daughter. Most of the time, she was too drunk or too high to notice anything around her. Natalie didn’t have any memories of her mother when she was small, which was probably
because she had spent much of her childhood in Italy. She was twelve when she came to Canada with her mother. In the beginning, her aunt Valeria had come along to support her mother and look after her while her mother was looking for a job. They actually had kind of a normal life. Her mom had worked for some time in a shop at the Eaton Center. Everything seemed to turn for the best and during this time, Natalie was really happy. Then Valeria had met Jim and married him.

  They had needed their own apartment and Valeria had gotten pregnant. Jim even tried to find an apartment nearby. Yet that was difficult in the current apartment market situation in Toronto. Then Valeria was no longer nearby to come to her rescue when things got out of hand. So eventually, her mother Clare had started drinking again. At first, only secretly until one evening when she came home and her mother was laying on the floor. Natalie had immediately called Valeria and from that day on everything was getting worst constantly. Valeria had her own life and could not be with them all the time. Besides, she had a difficult pregnancy and had to lie down for a while. Natalie didn’t want to impose herself on her and tried to help her mom as much as possible. And yet she couldn’t avoid being noticed by the social welfare office at some point. Finally, Natalie was minor and her mother had enough to do with herself and was by no doubt a lousy role model. Social workers went in and out and seemed to be always present. Before her ultimate collapse just before the summer holidays for the first time, her mother had felt better for a short while and for the very first time in her young life, Natalie hoped that everything would be fine after all.

  Her mother got pregnant as a teenager. She never mentioned a word about her father and she never dated or something of that kind, as long as Natalie could remember. It seemed as if men had become a taboo topic for her mom until that day in spring when she met Bruce Henderson at one of her therapy sessions. Bruce Henderson was a former alcoholic himself, who was on rehab, when Clare Hardings met him. They both seemed to be one of a kind from the beginning and to be perfect for each other. They made fast progress and swore both that they would never ever drink again. Her mother had fallen head over heels in love with Bruce and was talking about moving in with him soon. Natalie had high hopes this time that her mom would be able to turn her live around. For the first time in her life, her mother seemed to be happy.

  Bruce had a son, who was about Natalie's age and attended the same school. Jason had a bad reputation and was known as a troublemaker. Natalie didn’t care about the rumors, she was an outsider herself and now she had finally someone to look after her and to protect her. Her appearance had never corresponded in any way to the popular girls at school. She had joined a group of older students, some kind of punks. Unfortunately, they all finished high school and she wasalone again. Jason just came into her life at the right time. She was sure that he wasn’t half as bad as his reputation. After all, he had certainly been through a lot with his dad, just as herself. She​​got along quite well from the start with Jason and fell in love with him. She met him every day after school at the Tim Hortons inside Scarborough Centre. At Tim Hortons, only the bad boys and their girlfriends met. The other kids met depending on the age or group at either Starbucks or McDonalds. She left her punk friends and her whole world turned exclusively around Jason. He was her anchor and he was always there for her. For this reason she didn’t protest when he seemed to demand her absolute attention, and was extremely jealous on everyone who approached her in any way. At First, she was flattered to be loved that much. After some time, however, it began to annoy her. He was jealous even if she talked a few words to some stranger. He behaved like a father with his bossy overprotective behavior and not like a boyfriend. The relationship of their parents broke up; apparently Bruce had beaten up her mother badly. With the result, her mom freaked out completely trying to drown her sorrows in a bottle of Vodka. She passed out and landed eventually again in a clinic. This time, the doctors said that her next alcohol abuse could be fatal. Her liver had been too damaged over the years during her alcohol abuse. On top of all, Jason had taken his father’s side, accused her mother to have provoked him even if his father admitted the assault, and had been brought to a psychiatric clinic. Jason was acting totally crazy and attacked Natalie at first verbally. And when she yelled at him that his father had beaten up her mother and not the other way around, he tried to strangle her. Mr. Foster had watched the scene by chance and had rushed to her aid. She had no clue whether Jason would have killed her if Mr. Forster had not intervened. Jason emerged as a choleric, as a time bomb that could go off at any time, and he did not feel guilty at all. For him Natalie, and her mother were responsible for his misery. The worst part was that Natalie actually felt kind of guilty, even if she didn’t know exactly why.

  After this incident, Jason disappeared for a while. Mr. Foster said that he would get some kind of a treatment and had to provide community service when Natalie tried to find out what had happened to him. Even if he had attacked her, Natalie had no one else than Jason at this school and fell into a deep hole. She felt depressed and numb, as if she could see her life through some sort of mist. Then they sent her to Palermo, and there for the first time, all the pain and hopelessness hit her like a hammer. She had been thinking a lot during her time in Palermo, if her relatives had not surrounded her. She had withdrawn completely and was determined not to let anyone or anything get close to her ever again. She would manage to support her mother and they needed no one to help them. She would ignore Jason and make new friends; friends who accepted her just the way she was. Her good intentions seemed to pay off because she’d already got to know a handsome boy on her flight back to Toronto. Soon after that, she had met Mila, who was so different from her punk friends or Jason. She was beautiful, strong and independent and she didn’t let anybody bawl her out. Natalie admired her for those qualities and would have given anything to be like her. She hoped that she would be able to be like her someday. Her mother seemed to do better and they never talked about Bruce or Jason again. Unfortunately, Natalie found out just lately that her mother had replaced her drinking problem with a new vice.

  Looking for a pack of cereals, she found several joints and suddenly understood why her mother had been so laid back and careless lately. She was smoking pot! Natalie doubted that this was a better solution than the previous uncontrolled consumption of alcohol. Moreover, pot was still illegal and a gateway drug. My God, Natalie had no idea what she was supposed to do now. She thought about asking Mila what to do, but Mila was always on the run lately and had no time for her. Apparently, there was something terribly important going on in her live and she was consumed with her clan friends. Then the summer festival came and something horrible happened.

  Someone had been murdered and Natalie shut up about her own problems. Yet she had made up her mind and wanted to talk to Mila on Monday after school, asking her for some advice. Then Gregory disappeared and everything was just one big mess. Mila was a huge bundle of nerves and no longer easy to talk to.

  Natalie had no idea what exactly had happened to Gregory. She was caught up in her own misery. Somehow, everything had started when this Gabe and the arrogant Angel had shown up at the Scarborough High. She had already met that smug girl in Palermo and disliked her from the start. In any case, Natalie once again felt completely alone and abandoned. No one was ever there for her. This feeling persecuted like a curse through her life. As if he had only waited for her to be alone and lost again, Jason appeared exactly at that moment back in her life. Natalie knew exactly that he was bad and even dangerous for her. He was unpredictable, aggressive and you never know what he would do next, but she needed someone’s attention so badly. That was the reason she started seeing him again. She knew it was all wrong and that she might even risk big time, but she just couldn’t help it.

  Her mother was high as usual when she found out about her and Jason. As it seemed, she hadn’t been high enough because she had callously thrown her out of the apartment. Natalie had nowhere to go. She did
n’t want to go to her aunt. She had her own family now; she would be just another burden to her. She tried to call Mila but only reached her voicemail. Hanging up, she sighed. She was on her way to Jason's house.

  A day like any other

  Finally, this endless week came to its end. Leyla had kept her mouth shut and didn’t tell anyone a word about her discovery in the Internet. Although it had nearly torn her from the inside, she hadn’t told anybody, not even Brooklyn. She had watched Moonworthy closely and come to the conclusion that he was up to something. She was quite sure about it. During lunch break, Mila told them about her concerns about Natalie. She had taken up her relationship with Jason again and moved back in with him and his father. The same Jason that had tried to strangle her in the past. Her mother seemed to be into drugs this time and had kicked her out. Mila was shaking her head.

  “My God, he has tried to strangle her. He will do it again and this time, she might not be as lucky as last time.”

  Leyla was kind of shocked.

  “Isn’t Jason's father a lousy brutal thug who regularly beats him up if he loses it again for some reason?”

  She remembered having overheard a conversation between Aiden and Jason. Mila nodded sadly.

  “You're right and I'm to blame, that they are back together again.”

  "Why?” Leyla asked bewildered. “What did you do?"

  "Nothing, that's the problem. She has tried to reach me several times, but I was too busy trying to detoxify Gregory and arguing with Shane when she called me,” she sighed.