“The officer told me that their mother died.” Hearing those words out of his own mouth was like hearing a balloon pop right next to his ear. He had chosen not to think about it much. “How did she die?”
Shawna suddenly showed her age, like the confidence from all her schooling and training melted away and only the young woman remained, unsure and naïve.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, and her eyes brimmed with more sympathy than David could ever have mustered for a stranger, but then she averted her eyes. She pulled out some more papers, one of which was a thin pamphlet that read, A Guide for The Foster or Adoptive Parents of Sexually Abused Children.
The span of missing years suddenly felt as vast, dark, and cold, as deep space. So happy they were alive, he hadn’t spared much thought for what that life had been like. He had just assumed they had lived with their mother, off the grid but okay. Happy. Safe. He should have put the pieces together based on what he had been told so far. Surely, this hadn’t been the first clue, but his brain had refused to see it. The information had to seep in painfully slow, as the drip… drip… drip of water slowly carving a gash into rock.
“In your packet, there is the card for the caseworker you’ve been assigned in Houston,” Shawna said. “She’ll help you arrange care for your children. And she can answer all your questions.”
David stared at her, aware that his glare probably looked threatening. Part of him wanted to shake her until she gave away all the information she feared giving him. And another part just wanted to pocket the pamphlet and the business card and nod politely, maintaining his ignorance as long as he could.
“What happened to my children?” he asked. He had to work hard to speak each word, and his voice sounded breathy and hoarse.
She took a deep breath and looked at her papers as if she had her script written there. “Crystal re-married, a man named Whitman Colter.”
“We were never married.”
“Right. Well, she was married. She and the kids lived with him, Colter, completely separate from society. We didn’t even know they existed. I’ve never seen anything like it. If you told me they had been invisible up until the day we found them, I might believe it. I’m not sure how they managed it, really.”
David felt impatient with her explanation, but she seemed to warm up as she spoke, re-gaining her confidence.
“The police found the kids on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It took them a long time to find where they had come from. When they finally found the house, the police swear they had already looked at those coordinates several times, as if the house suddenly popped into existence. Even after they had found it once, they had trouble finding it again.
“Anyway, when they found the house, they found Crystal’s body. Her husband had killed her. The ground is hard here… so it’s tricky to bury someone. He… he burned her body atop a pile of sticks. And the kids saw everything.”
White spots appeared in David’s vision. He could see her body, with dark hair that always smelled of sandalwood, lying on a pile of sticks. He could see her toes, probably painted green or purple, and the tattoo of angel wings on her back, blistering as the fire covered her.
David’s thoughts must have shown through his eyelids, because Shawna’s eyes became watery. She picked up the papers on her desk and straightened them, even though they already seemed straight.
David couldn’t find the words to ask his next question aloud, so he picked up the pamphlet, A Guide for The Foster or Adoptive Parents of Sexually Abused Children, and pushed it across the desk toward her.
She nodded solemnly and continued, once again regaining some of the strength in her voice. “When they were examined, the doctor found a series of small cuts about a half inch long in a neat row on their backs, starting with old scars and gradually progressing to cuts that were still healing. They are like tick marks. Colter added a tick mark every time he completed his “ritual”, as Evangeline calls it… when he raped them.”
“Both of them?”
“It’s not about sexuality… it’s about domination. Evangeline has fifty-two tick marks. Xavier has seventy-seven.”
David didn’t say anything. He couldn’t imagine what he should say. That the most horrible thing he had ever heard of happening to anyone, had happened to his own children? And since he chose Amanda instead of Crystal, it was his fault? He made note of the nearest trashcan, just in case he threw up.
“What should I do?” His voice now sounded like a croak.
“The caseworker will help you. For now, just be cautious. Respect their personal space and privacy. Don’t ask too many questions. Keep things calm. And be very careful about touching them; even a pat on the back might be inappropriate.”
The advice sounded reasonable, but this would be a hard way to live. How long would this mandate stay in effect? Could he shake Xavier’s hand when he graduated high school? Dance with Evangeline on her wedding day?
“And make sure your family knows too. They also need to keep things calm and respect their privacy.”
The image of his kids flashed into his mind. Emmy—―the loud, touchy-feely quizmaster who entered every room like she twirled a flaming baton. Jude—―who thought punching people was the supreme form of affection. Patrick—―whose sense of humor bordered between hilarious and verbal abuse. Amanda—―control-freak who had to be involved in everything and always had an opinion. His family felt like an atomic bomb.
“I read in your file that your children with your wife are similar ages,” she said hesitantly.
“Yes. Jude is seventeen, Patrick is fifteen, Emmy is thirteen, almost fourteen. And I know Xavier is fifteen and Evangeline is twelve.”
Shawna crinkled her nose slightly, and David assumed she had done the math and came to the obvious conclusion.
“So you know what you’re doing then,” she concluded. She must have majored in looking on the bright side. “Kids who have been abused are still just kids. Just be kind to them and show them you’re safe. It will all come together eventually. They are actually very well developed, considering their situation. I’ve seen much worse. They’re resilient.”
“That’s good advice,” David said. “Thank you.”
She looked like she might cry again, perhaps with relief that she had said the right thing. “One other important thing,” she continued. “Evangeline has created a magical narrative to help her cope. She needs to believe it for now. One day, it will fall apart and she’ll have to face what has happened to her, but you shouldn’t rush her.”
“A magical narrative?”
“She thinks her stepfather was a wizard. I know, it’s strange. But, in my opinion, good imagination is one thing that keeps kids resilient. Just go with it for now.”
“What about Xavier?”
“He has more of a grasp on reality. He understands they have been abused. At least, he must understand, because he chose to run. Shortly after his mother’s death, he took his sister in the middle of the night, and they walked ten miles to the road, then three miles along it, before they were found and someone called the police.”
He couldn’t help but feel… pride. Xavier saved his sister. He ran. They walked thirteen miles and never gave up.
“I’ve been keeping something for them,” Shawna said. “I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to give it to them. I didn’t know if they’d be ready. But it’s theirs. It should go with them.”
She opened a drawer, pulled out a wooden box, then placed it on the desk next to Pablo. David reached to open the box, but Shawna put her hand on top of his.
“It’s their mother’s remains.”
His breath caught in his throat. He had his hand on her. Shawna must have noticed the look on his face because she squeezed his hand before she let go.
“Will you take them?”
“Yes, of course.”
“There is this too.”
She handed him a Ziploc bag containing a platinum ring set
with an opal, accented by small diamonds. David’s eyes burned with tears he didn’t want to shed in front of Shawna. Seeing the ring made it completely real. It really had been Crystal’s body that burned atop a pile of sticks. His Crystal. Many years ago, he had given Crystal this ring. She had said it looked like an engagement ring and wouldn’t take it at first, but he convinced her he just thought she would like the ring, that he didn’t mean anything by it. In truth, he did mean it as a wedding ring. He wanted a symbol. Something to mean that even though he wasn’t married to her, he loved her… she was his. He thought she had tossed it over a bridge when they broke up.
“It was with her body.”
“This was the only piece of jewelry she was wearing?”
Shawna shrugged. “I suppose.”
Perhaps everything else melted in the heat. She always wore lots of jewelry, but mostly cheap bangles. He held up the bag and stared at the ring for a long time.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He couldn’t be further from “all right,” but he nodded and put the ring in the inside pocket of his jacket. He tucked the wooden box in too. The box, unnervingly small to contain a person, fit into the large pocket inside his jacket. Crystal lay against his chest where she could hear his heartbeat. He never wanted to take her out again.
“Are you ready to meet them?” she asked.
“Right now?”
“They’re ready. And we’re all settled here.” She pushed a folder toward him. “Here’s your copy of all the paperwork.”
“Okay.”
She smiled and patted him on the shoulder as she got up. “Wait here. I’ll go get them.”
He liked Crystal waiting with him, his little secret tucked into his pocket. But it didn’t stop him from feeling like he might pass out. He held his breath. He always did that when he felt nervous. He could hear the words, “Breathe, David,” in a voice which could have been Crystal’s or Amanda’s. They both said it in the same gentle but exasperated tone, as if they couldn’t believe they had to remind him to complete the basic functions of life yet also satisfied they needed to. They liked knowing that if they didn’t remind him to breathe, he might stop.
Then his children appeared.
A beautiful boy and girl looked at him with the same indiscernible expressions their mother had mastered. He thought, these are my kids. They looked so much like his children, as if they could have lived with him the whole time and now he was picking them up from a friend’s house. In some ways, they looked even more like his children than the ones he had raised. Jude looked like Amanda’s brother, tall and broad with blue eyes and blond hair. Patrick looked like David’s brother, lanky and dark-haired. Emmy looked like a carbon copy of Amanda.
But Evangeline looked like her mother. She had Crystal’s thick brown hair and pouty lips but had green eyes exactly like David’s mother’s. A little ghost of the women he had loved and lost. Evangeline had drawn an elaborate tree on her arm with roots extending on to her five fingers. David thought Evangeline meant to mimic her mother’s tattoos, and he appreciated that the shelter workers didn’t make her stop. And Xavier… Xavier was David. He had the same no-color gray eyes and brown hair, only slightly darker than David’s. But the eyebrows showed the most similarity. They both had striking, slanted eyebrows that Amanda said made David look like a movie villain. And there the eyebrows appeared again, on a ghost of David himself. A David with tick marks carved onto his back.
They looked like normal kids. He had expected… well, he didn’t know what he had expected. Only their silence seemed unusual. No, “Hello, nice to meet you,” or even a distant teenage, “Hey,” or probably the most appropriate, “I hate you, abandoner. Go to hell.” Nothing.
He already didn’t know what to do. Should he stand up? Or would that be aggressive? Was staying seated too rude? How should he introduce himself? Hello, I am your father, the married man your mother had an affair with for seven years?
He stood. Slowly. “Hello,” he said. “I’m David. It’s really nice to meet you.”
They didn’t say anything right away, but Evangeline finally filled the expanse of silence with a quiet but confident, “Hello.”
And that was it. Several trees’ worth of paperwork, a discussion that lasted all of two minutes, and a five-page pamphlet for the foster or adopted parents of sexually abused children. They were his. He felt like he did the first time the nurses left Jude alone with him in the hospital. That’s it? You’re just going to hand me a little bundle of life and hope for the best? What’s wrong with you?
David carried their bags to the car. His kids at home carried bags this big to soccer practice. These bags included everything they owned. Xavier ran a finger along the hood of David’s Mercedes, eyebrows slightly raised in apparent amazement, which pleased David. He asked them if they needed anything from their bags before he put them in the trunk. Xavier shook his head. Evangeline said she wanted to keep her bag. David opened the back door for them, and they climbed in. Before he closed the door, he noticed Xavier held his breath. Evangeline whispered something in his ear, and he took a breath.
hawna had suggested he give them the basics of what to expect, even if they didn’t ask.
“The drive is about eight hours long, but we’ll stop for lunch. I was going to stop every hour and a half or so for a bathroom break, and you can get a drink or snacks. Let me know if you need me to stop before that. It’s no problem. I was thinking pizza for lunch. I saw a pizza place along the way. Do you like pizza?”
“Sure,” Evangeline said.
Everyone liked pizza. Good.
“I could put on music. What kind of music do you like?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
They seemed most comfortable with silence. He would try to be too. He let the miles pass under them and considered his plan of action. He hesitated to tell them about their new home. He couldn’t be sure where it would be. If David didn’t keep them in his own home, as he had said, would the state take the kids back? One of the many pages he signed said something about following through with the plan they had agreed upon, which implied David’s wife would welcome them into their two extra rooms without issue.
The meal felt like a first date from hell. David had never met anyone who could stay quiet like that. He kept glancing at them to make sure they hadn’t disappeared into thin air, just spirits he’d imagined.
After pizza, back in the car, he figured they had enjoyed several hours of their preferred state of silence, and he would try again.
“Is there anything you want to know about me? Anything at all.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. They didn’t shake their heads right away this time, which seemed like progress. Evangeline looked as if she wanted to say something. He could tell because she looked the same way Emmy looked all the time; words jumping inside her like firecrackers, just waiting for a moment to release them. Evangeline glanced at Xavier, as if wanting his approval. David couldn’t tell if Xavier had given any sign either way, but he needed a microscope to read Xavier’s body language, even when looking right at him. David had no hope of reading his expression while driving eighty miles per hour down the highway.
“Go ahead. Ask me anything, really,” David said.
“Are you a wizard?” Evangeline asked.
He had expected an easy question such as, “Do you have a pool?”, or “When do we have to start school?” This question stumped him. Not that he didn’t know if he was a wizard or not, but how should he answer without crushing her magical narrative?
“What do you think?” David asked.
“I don’t know,” Evangeline said.
“Do you hope that I am a wizard, or would you prefer if I wasn’t?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “Never mind.”
He completely deflected the only question she dared to ask.
“Are you a wizard… or a witch?” he asked.
He watched Xavier for hints, at least, the
best he could without drifting into oncoming traffic. Her older brother would understand her narrative and know how to respond. Xavier had moved ever so slightly closer to his sister and looked at her. But that didn’t tell David much. Only that he cared more about this conversation than the endless empty hills out the window.
Evangeline paused and examined David with his mother’s green eyes.
“Yes. I am a witch,” she said.
He needed to respond without sounding patronizing or sarcastic. She was twelve. This wasn’t like playing princess games with Emmy when she was six. To her, this was real. He pretended she had told him something normal, like she knew how to play the piano, and responded accordingly.
“That’s very cool.”
“I shouldn’t tell you more if you’re not a wizard. I shouldn’t have even told you that.”
“That’s understandable. But if you want to tell me more, you can. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Magic runs in families,” she said.
Then maybe she did expect him to be a wizard? He didn’t have a problem with that as long as she didn’t ask him to prove it. He thought about Crystal pressed against his chest. He hadn’t taken off his jacket since he had put it on. What am I supposed to say?
“As far as I know,” David said. “I am not a wizard. But I’ve never tried to do magic.”
He glanced in the mirror and saw her nod. She cast her eyes down.
“So if magic runs in families and I’m not a wizard, then that must mean your mother was a witch?” David regretted it as soon as he said it. Dangerous territory. For some reason, he regretted the word ‘was’ most of all. He wished he could see their reactions, because they didn’t say anything right away.
“Yes,” Evangeline said. “We all are. Our mother and stepfather are very powerful dark wizards.”
Discuss their dead mother and their abuser during your first casual family conversation didn’t appear in the pamphlet. Of course, the pamphlet didn’t say anything about how to handle witchcraft-related questions either, so screw it.
Destruction: The December People, Book One Page 2