“It was hard for me after my parents’ death, even though I was coming to live with family. Antonio and I did not always get along. We were the same age, and we even looked alike, but we were completely dissimilar in every way.”
“I have a quick question, if I may?” Sidney’s interruption had been overt, but Andre remained patient and nodded. “Did you and Antonio attend Green Valley High School together?”
“We did at first,” he said, “but not later on. It wasn’t long before my Uncle Silas discovered that I possessed the family talent. Acrobatics is a physical stealth that seems to run in our family. Antonio didn’t receive that particular inheritance, although he was athletic. He chose track and field as his sport, his outlet, much to Uncle Silas’ chagrin.
“But when Uncle Silas discovered my prowess, he trained me to join the family act—not Antonio. In doing so, he hired me a private tutor. So, I was schooled outside of the public educational system while I worked in the show. And yes, I finished on my own.”
“So that explains why you’re not in the 1986 yearbook,” Sidney said.
“That was the second year that the show had performed here in Appleton. We moved here from a smaller town in Ohio, and by 1986, I was a full-fledged performer in the family act. It was a time in my life that I will never forget. So, no, I am not in the yearbook for that year.”
Brett spoke next, and when he did, Sidney noticed his eyes narrowing on Andre, sizing him up. Andre reminded Sidney of a caged bird about to be snatched by a calculating cat, or worse, a wolf.
“Did you know my mother, Claudia Taylor? Surely, you would’ve briefly gone to high school with her also.”
Sidney felt the heat and tension that Brett’s question left behind. Andre stared at Brett, and the ensuing pause of seconds was like time falling away. Sidney watched as Andre’s eyes softened in a brief display of empathy for a wolf that secretly sized him up. Then, Brett reminded Andre of the reason he’d invited them inside.
“That is why you recognized the name, Taylor, right?”
“It is,” he said, looking at Brett before he continued.
“So, you knew her?” Susan asked.
“I knew who she was because she and Antonio had been seeing each other,” he said.
Sidney watched as Andre and Brett’s eyes locked on each other’s in a tense meeting of the minds. Two sets of similar eyes just gazed back at each other, studying each other’s soul. The unpredictable outcome of this confrontation caused nerves to flutter, and Sidney could feel the heightened stress spreading throughout the room. He kept his eye on Brett as Andre’s next words caused his own heart to pound.
“So, you must be the child that Claudia had abandoned,” he said.
* * * *
Brett felt the heat surging him again; it wouldn’t be much longer. This man, his very own relation, had just figured out who he was, and his words had hit him like a locomotive. He wasn’t leaving here until he learned everything this man knew, regardless of how little it was.
“I am,” Brett said, his eyes unwavering from Andre, who lowered his head and spoke.
“I’m so sorry about how things happened in your life, Brett,” he said, looking back up at him. “But as I explained, I am not Antonio.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Brett said. “I’ve had a great life. So, what can you tell me about either of them, especially my mother?”
“I recall that Antonio was two or three years older than she was,” he said. “He always liked to mesmerize the younger girls. I think it was some sort of a power trip. But Claudia was different. In many ways, he was mesmerized by her. That was his downfall.”
“What do you mean, exactly?” Susan asked.
“I mean that once Antonio got close to her, he found it hard to break it off, even after he realized the extent of her problems.”
“What sort of problems?” Susan was probing now, not merely asking.
“You did say that you’re a psychiatrist, right?” he said. “I think you know what kind of problems I mean. Claudia had mental problems, and she became poisonous to Antonio. She began stalking him, showing up out of nowhere, making his life a living hell. Every time he turned around, there she was. She was insecure, so afraid of losing him to another girl. Once, she even attacked him.”
Brett asked him to explain. Though he was fully aware of Claudia’s mental issues, that last statement had been nothing like the Claudia that Uncle Jack had described.
“I wasn’t a witness to it,” he said. “But one night, Antonio came home with a bloody leg. He reluctantly admitted that she had attacked him. His leg had been so torn up that he was unable to resume track and field. I’d suspected that she went wild on him with a knife, or some other weapon, yet Antonio would never fully admit to what actually happened. He just wanted to let it go. Then, Antonio came home one day, claiming that she was pregnant.”
He watched as Andre swatted away a fly that seemed determined to land on his nose.
“So, is that why your family made an exodus from Appleton, because she was pregnant?”
“No, not exactly,” he said. “After the alleged attack, Uncle Silas had wanted Antonio away from her. But the news of the pregnancy was met with shock, not alarm. Uncle Silas had called it a way for Claudia to hang onto Antonio, which he was not about to let happen. But he was fully prepared to be a part of his grandchild’s life. Family was very important to him.”
Brett felt a sudden heartbreak well up inside of him, a weak pain in the chest that almost brought tears. He suddenly swatted at the same persistent fly that Andre had a moment ago.
“But something strange had happened,” he said. “It was something I never fully understood. One night, Uncle Silas instructed all of us to pack up our things; we were leaving Appleton immediately. He refused to explain it to anyone, shouting orders for us to get our asses moving as quickly as possible.
“He’d been furious with Antonio, blaming him and labeling him as the reason we had to leave Appleton, a place where we were all so happy. I’ve always had the feeling that Uncle Silas walked in on something, discovered something that upset him enough to leave here. And of course it had something to do with Claudia, but I assure you, Brett, our family leaving here was not because of Claudia’s pregnancy.”
Andre swatted at the fly again as it seemed to zero in on him. He apologized for the distraction and continued.
“Uncle Silas and Antonio rarely spoke ever again,” he said, “except for one time when they had a fight. I heard Uncle Silas tell Antonio that he should’ve left him behind in Appleton to face his responsibilities. Those were the most words they’d ever exchanged, even until Uncle Silas passed away in 2000. His wife, Mina, followed two years later.”
So, his grandparents were dead. His list of blood relatives, outside of the man sitting across from him, seemed to be growing shorter.
“So, you see, Brett,” Andre said. “Although I’m not Antonio, you and I are related. We’re second cousins.”
Brett stared at him and asked the question he’d been meaning to ask for some time.
“So, where is Antonio today? How do I get a hold of him?”
Andre continued to stare at him, his eyes solemn and serious.
“I hate to have to tell you this,” he said. “But Antonio is dead.”
The sound of those last words was the sound of hope dying, the sound of one last shot being fired. Maybe he’d expected too much in the first place. Maybe some things were meant to remain a mystery, to belong to the unknown. He felt his temperature rising, his body getting hotter. He swiped beads of sweat away with the back of his hand. A slight quivering in his throat allowed him to utter only one word.
“How?” he asked.
Andre let out a sigh, as though the subject was a taboo, as if Antonio’s life had not been worth remembering.
“It was tragic in the fact that he was young,” he said. “He was only thirty-five. It was also puzzling in the sense that there were no serious health pr
oblems, no drugs, and no foul play. He liked his beer, but that was it, as far as I know. His autopsy revealed that he had choked to death. He was found near the kitchen sink after walking away from the table.”
Why had he come here? The story worsened as more was revealed. Maybe this thing was some kind of a curse that was passed down through time and generations. Brett listened as Susan and Sidney began asking questions about why Andre had decided to return to Appleton. He caught only bits and pieces of their questions as his mind wandered, but Andre’s response brought him out of the reverie.
“I always loved it here,” he said. “The whole family had loved Appleton. I felt like my life had been interrupted yet again when I had to leave here. I swore that one day I would return to raise my own children here, and I have.”
Susan and the rest congratulated him as he pointed to pictures of his two children—a boy and a girl. They were Brett’s third cousins, and they posed perfectly together, smiling within a double picture frame that sat atop a shelf along the wall. Brett knew that the time to leave was nearing; Susan was throwing hints and saying things to signal their impending exit. But Brett had one last question on his mind, and he knew that he couldn’t ask it outright. He struggled, silently searching for a proper and discreet way to ask, and then he finally let go.
“What I want to know is if you were ever aware of anything unusual or out of the ordinary about Antonio? Did you ever notice anything about him that seemed extraordinary?”
Andre stared at him as though he was crazy. That’s probably what he was thinking—crazy like his mother. Andre cast his eyes upward and away and then back again, trying to register the question, searching to find the answer.
“Well, let’s see,” he said. “He was reckless, arrogant, a bum much of the time, conceited, conniving, but a good athlete. I don’t know how unusual or extraordinary that made him, but that’s how I saw him.”
It didn’t answer Brett’s question. He closed his eyes and sighed. The frustration was enormous.
“Well, I think we’ve taken up enough of your time already, Andre,” Susan said, handing him her business card. “If there’s anything more you recall that might be useful to Brett, we’d really appreciate it.”
“Certainly,” he said. “And Brett, I hope that you get through whatever it is. When you do, you know where I live. I’m sure that your cousins would like to know you.”
Brett shot him a half-smile as he stood, his mind roaming in a million different directions, while he felt the slight trembling inside his body.
“Thanks for letting us in,” he said, his voice humbled and apologetic. “Thanks for your help and your time.”
“Not a problem, Brett,” Andre said. “I hope you discover what it is that you’re seeking. And I assure you, Antonio’s biggest flaws were the ones that I mentioned. I’m afraid I can’t shed any light beyond his being young, stupid, and irresponsible.”
Brett thanked him once more, mumbling, not even conscious of his own words. He didn’t even notice his mindless swatting toward the irritating fly that escaped death yet again. He turned and walked out the front door, the team following closely behind. Inside of him, the chaos began to tear him apart.
Chapter Twenty
Tahoe could see the tension stirring inside of Brett—the tension that the young man had so aptly deemed as chaos. It appeared as a gathering mist, and within the mist was a flickering touch of something electric, something unexplainable. He’d watched while inside the Wilson Street house as it slowly rose to the surface, fighting to break free, and tearing Brett’s soul in two different directions. Tahoe doubted that Brett understood the extent of what was occurring to him just before he shifted.
Now, as they drove back to the motor lodge, Brett managed to delay the inevitable, taking deep breaths, and controlling his emotions. Yet his attempts to quell his anger at the situation’s outcome were futile. Tahoe realized that it was only a matter of time before the metamorphosis occurred.
“I can’t believe it,” Brett said, from the front seat. “I’d been so sure. We came all this way, and it’s not him. Antonio, my father, is dead.”
He looked at Tahoe and Susan, who sat behind him in the van’s middle section.
“I guess that’s it,” he said. “I’m now the original skinwalker, left to bear this curse.”
“Brett, we will figure out another way,” Susan said. “We’ll research everything we can until we come up with something.”
“She’s right,” Tahoe said. “My grandfather told of how the legends were varied, as I explained before. The legends go back many years and throughout many cultures.”
“And just how long will that take?” he said. “What happens in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, we stick together,” Leah said from the back. “We hang in and fight like always.”
The sentiment was echoed throughout the van. Then, Tahoe revealed what he’d seen when he looked at Brett and Andre, together in the same room.
“I stood watching as the lines formed, connecting the two of them,” he said. “But the lines were faint, not strong and vivid as is the case between parents and children, or siblings. I knew right away that he could not be your father, and I also knew something else. The man was not a skinwalker.
“I recalled gazing into the eyes of the hawk when it had landed on my porch. I’d thought back to that later moment when I first met you, in person, after employing the same divining technique. I could tell what you were, Brett. But of course, you had inadvertently shown me. I saw nothing similar in Andre.”
Brett scoffed.
“I’m no closer to knowing who I am now than when I started,” he said.
“That’s not true,” Susan said. “You’ve discovered a great deal on this excursion. If Sidney hadn’t found that property listing, you may’ve never learned of Silas and his family.”
Sidney chimed in from the back, where he sat alongside Leah.
“While researching in the library today, I noticed that Antonio had suddenly disappeared from the track and field team in 1986. Andre filled in the missing piece of that puzzle.”
“He said she attacked him,” Brett said. “Somehow, that just didn’t sound right to me.”
“It’s certainly possible,” Susan said. “Given her condition, if Claudia had obsessed over Antonio, that obsession could’ve led to the behavior that Andre described. I wish I knew more about what type of medication she’d been taking. Then, I might be able to gain a clearer picture.”
A sudden pause allowed Tahoe to close his eyes and try to envision once again. Instantly, he saw the hawk flapping its enormous wings and rising upward into the air. It was the same as in the last vision, but this time, he could see the hawk in a much closer view. Then, the scene faded to only blackness.
He kept his eyes closed. Slowly, through the sea of black, a vision of a wooded area wavered in and out of focus. He saw a trail that cut through the earthen floor of woods that seemed so familiar. He’d never been in these woods, but he was almost sure that they were adjacent to the farmhouse, the same woods where Leah and Dylan had searched for the wolf. In the vision, footprints appeared on the path one by one. Only they weren’t exactly footprints; they were paw prints—that of a wolf.
Impossible, he thought. How could this be? Brett was with them, not at the farm. The wolf was not the animal that Tahoe had just seen in the vision. The blackness resumed, and he opened his eyes. For a moment, the silence seemed almost soothing. He noticed that they were nearing the motor lodge.
* * * *
Brett remained silent as they quickly gathered their belongings and checked out of the motor lodge. Disappointment, anger, and a tinge of bitterness consumed him, twisting and tying a solid knot in the center of his chest. He felt like a failure, left with no other choice but to live as the monster he’d become and engage and revel in this dark, mysterious birthright. He no longer had family, outside of the team, and a cousin who thought he was crazy. The thought of
living his life in solitude as a lone shape-shifter, living among the shadows, and the deep remoteness of the country was a fate he felt himself fighting against, yet running toward in a fit of bitter despair.
They checked out of the motor lodge and stood beneath the blazing daylight, preparing to board the van. He was tiring of it all; he needed to be alone. His breath was heaving faster, and as the sweat soaked him, he realized that the sun was much hotter to him than to the rest of them. He knew the reason why.
His anger had depleted the last of the deep, calming breaths. Now, he feared the change occurring before he was willing to shift. But it was no use; he began to let go. They all turned to face him when he spoke.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “Not right now.” His breathing became heavier. “I can’t control it anymore. I’ll meet you all back at the farm. I’ll be there before you will.”
He pulled his shirt off and tossed it to Sidney.
“Brett, don’t do this,” Susan said. “Not here.”
Brett heard Tahoe’s whisper to her, louder than normal.
“It is inevitable,” he said.
Brett looked at them once more. He loved them all, but he was experiencing the feeling of being ripped away. It was an inner torment that was somehow dividing him. His final words had wept from a weakened voice.
“Sorry, guys,” he said. “It’s time for me to fly.”
* * * *
The change was instantaneous. Brett’s jeans dropped to the ground in a crumpled heap, instantly vacated by their owner as if by some strange magic. The great flapping of feathered wings rustled with a sweeping, upward thrush that caused them all to step backward. The bird was soft beige in color with white tips at its wings, just as Tahoe had seen it the first time. Above them, the mighty hawk soared, free and embracing abandon. It ascended upward, higher and higher, just as the vision had shown him.
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