Still, it’s amusing to me that Kimberly knows about me being an Aberrant, but Mom doesn’t.
I suppose that’s not anyone’s fault, but I do have a pang of guilt in my stomach for having to be evasive towards Mom. I need to tell her something, but I don’t want to lie.
“I’m just really stressed lately,” I say. It’s not untrue - it’s just not giving her specifics.
“Is this because of your job?” Mom asks, leaning forward. “I know you probably wish that you could just rely on your father’s royalties, but I know he would have wanted you to learn financial discipline -”
“It’s not because of the money,” I say with an amused laugh. “It’s the writing. I still don’t know what I should do for the finale of Super Guy, and my deadline is going to be here before I know it.”
Mom gives me a knowing smile.
“You have to remember that the finale isn’t going to be one giant book,” she says. “A story told through comic books is stretched out over at least twelve issues, or more, judging by Crichton’s desire to milk the cow for as long as he can.” She reaches out a hand and places it on mine. “Your father had a lot of writer’s block when he first started, too.”
I straighten up a bit, raising my eyebrows.
“He did?” I say. I have never heard of my father struggling with writer’s block before. This would be the first time. The only memories I have of my father working were when I actually saw him writing and drawing. All the other times that I didn’t see him it was because he was locked up in his study, away from prying eyes.
Mom nods.
“He really did.” She lets out a sigh and looks up towards the ceiling, remembering a time long past. “I remember waking up in the middle of the night with his side of the bed completely empty. When I walked downstairs I found him sitting with his laptop at the kitchen table. He was usually on his second pot of coffee. I could tell because the smell of the roasted beans just seemed to seep out of his pores.
“He told me that he was stuck. He didn’t know how to move forward. This was right when the books took off. Up until then he was writing and drawing the stories just to entertain himself - and you, mostly. They were a fun way to make money and not feel like he was really working. But, when millions of fans were buying the books faster than the bookstores could put them on the shelves...that’s when the seriousness of the story started to weigh down on your father. He started to see writing as a responsibility. Is that how you’re feeling?”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I realize that there are so many parallels between Dad’s experiences and my own. Whatever fear I’m experiencing, it had to be ten times worse for him after he had written so many issues without any pushback from readers. When there was only a handful of readers it was harder to disappoint them with answers to questions.
“That sounds exactly how I’m feeling,” I say. Then an ironic smile forces its way onto my face. “I’m assuming that you gave him some advice that helped him work past his fears? That’s the point of the story, isn’t it?”
“There’s always a point to the story,” Mom replies with a grin. “My point is this: It was a blessing that your father attracted all those fans, but in the end, it would be sabotage to try to write the story based on every changing whim of the readers. Your father needed to focus on writing the ending that he had in mind, regardless of whether or not everyone loved or hated it. The story was his to tell. Nobody else could tell it like he could.”
“So, what did he do after this?” I ask.
“Well, originally he wrote most of Super Guy for you,” Mom says. “You might have been a little too young to really appreciate it, but you were his first reader before the comic was published. When he was writing for you…” Mom trailed off with a hopeful look in her eye. “I don’t know. He just found his stride. So, I told him that he should pretend that he was writing just for you again. He ended up getting a journal where he could free-write his plot ideas.”
My attention is piqued.
A journal?
My mind races. What kind of journal was it? Did Mom ever see the notes that Dad wrote inside it?
“Do you know what happened to this journal?” I ask.
“It must be buried with the rest of your father’s obscure writing,” Mom answers. “He was very secretive after I suggested the journal. I never got a chance to look at it, so there’s no chance I could have spoiled the plot, even if they asked. I bet that journal is worth a ton of money, if we ever found it.”
I am practically salivating. Little does Mom know that I have that very journal upstairs in my desk. Up until now I took my time reading through the entries, but now I want nothing more than to tear through the book and see what is at the end.
A flicker of hope ignites in me and I suddenly feel less intimidated about writing this script than I was before. All the threads I need are supposedly in that journal. I just need to organize them and finish what my father started.
“That’s what I’m going to do,” I say, and Mom blinks.
“What’s that?” she asks.
I straighten up in my seat. “I’m going to write as if I’m only doing it for my own entertainment. If I like the ending, then odds are at least some of the readers are going to think that the answers to the mysteries are satisfying.” I keep the journal to myself, not letting on that it’s in my possession.
This resolve brings a genuine smile to Mom’s face and she settles back in her seat.
“You’re just like your father,” she says, continuing to eat.
I clear my plate, actually shoveling a few scoops of Alfredo into my mouth, before throwing the dishes into the dishwasher and hurry up to my room. With the door closed, I yank Dad’s journal out of the desk drawer and flip through it, absentmindedly setting my own notebook on the bed.
There is a collection of notes in my spiral-bound that I’ve been keeping all along, but now the threads are starting to come together. I click my pen and start drawing lines between my bullet points.
Dad’s journal was addressed to me, not because he knew that he was going to die, but because Mom prompted him to pretend that he was writing his plot only for me. It was a way of getting his subconscious to loosen up. I draw a line from that note down to one where I frustratedly scribbled about the lack of concrete answers regarding the Vestige.
If Dad didn’t have the ending clearly in his mind when he sat down to write in this journal, then that had to be because he was still in the process of working out what he needed to discover in free-writing.
Dad’s handwriting takes on a whole new life as I flip through his pages.
All the entries about his childhood and Bill Flagrant seemed so pointless and meandering before. Now, they are all starting to fill in pieces of the story. The true enemy of Super Guy was always The Drone, but now I understand the real life man behind the fictional villain. Bill Flagrant was the original betrayer who tried to harness the power of the Vestige for himself, taking another girl’s life, which, to my father, would have been unforgivable. Dad was a peaceful man, and once he realized that the Vestige was capable of destroying human life, he tried to bury it and instead focused on the fictional side of Super Guy.
But as I continue forward through the journal to the entries that I haven’t read yet I begin to see that returning to the true history of the Vestige became something that my father found unavoidable.
I read an entry where he recounts an evening long after Bill was locked up in prison where Dad talked to Grandpa about where exactly he found the Vestige. All he said was that he stumbled into a cave. My eyes are glued to the page because even when I was up in Maine with Mae, Grandpa was mum about where he found the medallion.
Now, as I read on, the unspoken story is now revealed to me.
Grandpa spoke about how he found the Vestige by accident when he fell into a cave. He was exploring on his lunch break when he broke through a shallow patch of earth and had the wind knocked out of him in a small
cave. When he went to stand up, he pressed his hands down on the mulch-covered ground and managed to scrape his hand pretty badly on the sharp glittering object that originally caught his eye. When he inspected the sharp object on the ground, he uncovered the Vestige.
“A cave…” I mutter, my mind buzzing with excitement. But, what cave? Where is it?
I read on.
Dad writes about going on family vacations, which until this point I would have taken as just another anecdote when his mind was stuck. But, then the name of the site where he went camping with his family pops up: Sebago National Park.
I write down the name in my notebook and hurry to the computer.
I type in the name and search for a website, or a picture - anything that will tell me where this park is.
It’s no surprise that the park is in Maine. In fact, I am excited to see that there is even a system of caves that is listed as one of the attractions. You can actually go walking through these cave systems!
I turn back to Dad’s journal. As the entry comes to a close, he mentions cave drawings. He discovered them once in one of the caves at the national park. It’s where he got some of his ideas about the origin of the Vestige, since some of the drawings looked like they referenced the medallion.
If only I’d read through the entire journal weeks ago…
I don’t waste time beating myself up over it. I have a lead to go on - a solid location that can actually be visited - and there’s nothing more important to me besides calling Mae.
It only takes a few rings before Mae’s voice answers the call.
“Shaun?” she says. “Why are you calling so late? Something didn’t happen, did it?”
“Something did,” I say. “But, not something bad. Mae, I think I found our lead on where Grandpa found the Vestige!”
“What?” she replies, her voice high-pitched with excitement. “You mean you have an actual location? How in the world did you find it?”
“In the back of Dad’s journal. I put the pieces together and found the name of a national park that Dad and the family used to go camping in. Not surprisingly, there’s a river nearby, and even a trail that goes through the caves. Mae, it even lists Native American cave drawings as one of the historical attractions.”
Mae lets out a squeal.
“This is so exciting!” she says. “If you can get pictures of these drawings, you can use them for the plot of your finale.”
“Not only that,” I say, “but, I can make sure that there aren’t any copies of the Vestige floating around. If we can say for certain that the pieces of the medallion around our necks are the only ones in existence, then we can rest easy when it comes to The Drone, and anyone else like him.”
I can almost feel the relief flooding through my body already. Finally, we’re getting somewhere.
“When are we going to go and check this cave out?” asks Mae.
“I say we skip superhero training and go next weekend,” I reply.
I can tell that Mae is smiling on the other end of the line. She sounds like she’s about to say something encouraging, but then she stops.
“I just thought of something,” she says.
I adjust my hand on my phone.
“What’s that?” I ask.
There’s a pause while Mae contemplates what she’s about to say. Then she goes for it.
“What are you going to do about Austin?”
23
Sebago National Park
The drive to Sebago one week later is awkward at first.
As expected, I can’t in good conscience leave Austin behind, so he joins us - crammed into the back seat with his drawing supplies. Austin has never met Mae, and I think that they are polar opposites. But, thankfully once we’re on the highway with music playing, Austin and Mae warm up to each other. To my surprise, Austin compliments Mae on looking like a character he had to draw once for a miniseries, and Mae is flattered.
We arrive in Maine later that morning and the drive to the State Park is thirty extra minutes through dense trees dotted here and there with single story camps. Most of these are abandoned, whether permanently or just due to vacation schedules. Screen porches are tattered and roof shingles are dotted with moss, sagging under the weight of many snowy winters.
As we get closer to the entrance of the State Park, the camps become more modernized. A few look like they are year-round residences, reminding me of Grandpa’s house. I wonder what it’s like to live so far away from civilization. What do these people do about plowing in the winter? What if there’s an emergency? What if The Drone were to attack such a peaceful community? Would anyone notice?
I shake the jitters from my body. The Drone doesn’t know we’re here. Almost nobody does. I made a point to be as stealthy as possible to keep the presumed birthplace of the Vestige a secret. Of course, Mae shoots my false sense of security out of the water when she comments that there are probably hundreds of little rocks and minerals for sale in one of the gift shops that could be siblings of the Vestige.
That’s all I need - to find out that copies of the Vestige have been sold to tourists for years.
It’s a crazy idea. I reach up to my shirt collar as if to scratch my neck, but instead make sure that the Vestige is safely around my neck. I don’t want to lose it, or have anyone else take it from me. Not that anyone would, as far as I know. I’m being paranoid.
At last the park entrance filters into view and the sight of it takes my mind off of protecting my powers. The sandy pavement cuts through a collection of buildings constructed like log cabins. One of these has a row of bright red canoes and kayaks leaning against a porch railing. The other building is set up against the roadway where an employee dressed in an olive colored uniform collects payment for entry to the park.
Mae stops to pay and also asks the woman where we should go for a hike.
“Hiking trails are to the north,” the woman says, handing us a glossy pamphlet containing a map. “Just follow this road up about two miles and then you’ll come to a turn-off. Take that left and the parking lot for the start of the trails will be right there.”
We thank her and set off.
“This is already too exciting,” says Austin, sketching on his tiny pocket book. “I love drawing nature. You never know what you’re going to find.”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking only of finding what I’m looking for: The cave where Grandpa found the Vestige with the Native American drawings on the wall. My phone is ready to take as many pictures as possible.
We park and prepare for the arduous hike. Mae looks like she’s the most equipped for a physical excursion. Her shorts are pocketed with multi-grain bars and she has a Nalgene bottle of water hanging from her belt by a loop. I feel very underprepared with only one half bottle of water crammed into one of the cargo pockets of my thick shorts. Whereas Austin and Mae are wearing walking boots (I didn’t even know that Mae had walking boots, but I guess her shoe collection is larger than I give her credit for) I am wearing my flying shoes. Those probably weren’t the best idea when I left for this trip since I don’t plan on doing any flying.
Austin hands me a bottle of sunscreen and I lather a bunch on the back of my neck and arms.
“Don’t forget your nose,” says Mae, and she dabs a splotch of sunscreen on the tip of my nose. I fend her off and rub it into my skin, making sure that there are no white patches left.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s get going.”
___
The trail is beautiful, if a little rocky. We have to keep an eye on the ground as we hike to avoid tripping on rogue stones that poke out of the dirt. Thankfully it’s cool under the foliage and after some huffing and puffing at the beginning, I find my stride and the hike becomes more enjoyable. Everything smells like pine and birch trees, mixed with fresh earth. Birds call out overhead to each other in a steady chorus.
After a few pit stops for Austin to do some gesture drawings, Mae looks to me.
“So, where ar
e we headed?”
I pull out the folded map, now a little crumpled, and trace our current path up through the trees.
“This trail goes up the mountain a little ways,” I mutter. “It should come out at a landing with an outpost. From there, we will follow some wooden bridges until they take us to the entrance of a small cave system.”
“And these are the ones you wanted for our comic?” asks Austin, leaning over my shoulder to look at the map.
I nod. “They’re supposed to be really cool. I read that there’s some Native American drawings on a few of them.”
“The Native American angle again,” says Austin with a wink. “So, there goes the aliens theory.”
“Aliens?” says Mae, crossing her arms. “You really believe that fan theory that aliens put the Vestige here as an experiment?”
Austin waves his arms around in protest.
“You too?!” he says with a laugh. “Fine. Maybe it’s a stupid idea. Luckily for you, I’m just the artist, so whatever Shaun tells me to do, I’ll do it. I don’t necessarily have to agree with it, though…”
We continue up the trail and after a good twenty minutes of hiking, we arrive at the landing. It’s beautiful and picturesque with platforms built around the summit for people to take pictures. There are even a few of those old chrome view finders that cost fifty cents for a minute of binocular vision. People are scattered in groups around the entire place. We pass a good bunch of people who are coming down the trail, and it’s clear that this spot is an enviable destination for the tourists. I suppose that we’re tourists as well, and we look it, especially with the map in front of our faces.
“So, where’s the cave entrance?” asks Austin, itching to get drawing. His graphite pencil is already tucked behind one ear and he taps his fingers on his medium-sized hardback sketchbook.
I study the map, looking up at our surroundings a few times. Then I spot the trail we need to take.
The Aberrant Series (Book 2): Super Vision Page 12