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Chapter 15
“Murder, Lij? Is that what you mean? Who was murdered?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she amended, “According to the mirror.” God, that sounded even worse – Mirror, mirror on the wall, who was murdered after all?
“Technically, murder…”
“Stop,” said Elsa, having no interest in his lecture. “Just tell me who died?”
“Peter’s parents,” said Lijah.
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Elsa frowned.
“Crash. They were killed in a car crash. If I’m to believe myself,” said Lijah waving vaguely toward the bathroom and mirror, “the crash was no accident.”
“When?”
“Not long after the war.”
“The war.”
“World War II, Elsa. Spring of 1948. I’d been back a year, almost 2.”
Elsa took a breath. Lijah had lived through World War II. She knew this; she had no reason to be taken aback. That the event occurred decades before she’d been born also stood to reason. What jarred her the most though was the nature of the crash, that it had been conspired, had somehow escaped him all this time. Worse, that a trick of a mirror had revealed this ‘truth’. If was the stuff of tabloids, of conspiracy theory, paranoia, obsession, derangement. And yes, she’d accused him of all those things at one point or another. But only because his genius startled. Slowed down, stepped through, his thinking might prove unorthodox, but always, always, methodical, grounded, sane.
“So what changed your mind?”
Lijah looked at her in annoyance.
“Allow me to rephrase. What did you read of yourself that points to malice?”
“Nothing,” said Lijah disgusted. He walked about the room, picking up objects, setting them back down. “Nothing tangible. No smoking gun. I wasn’t present for the crash and am therefore incapable of resurrecting a memory or clue long suppressed.”
“But you read something that got you from point A to B.”
Elsa watched him mentally scroll through his experience with the mirror. “No one thing. And no several things I can string together logically to warrant my conviction.”
“And yet,” said Elsa.
“And yet,” repeated Lijah. He wandered off, continuing to brood.
“Why not tell me what you read. I won’t hold you to it, Lij. I don’t need it preprocessed, neat and clean. It’s 1948, you’re recently back from the war, and there’s a car crash, which you learned of second hand. What about Peter, where was he?”
“Not in the car. If memory serves, in town with friends. Peter was 12 and just coming into his powers. After the crash he came to live with us.”
“You and your wife?” she asked, trying to convey passing interest.
“All of us.” He ticked off the list with his fingers. “My wife. Nona. My 3 brothers, Gunner, Finn and Conri, along with his wife and 2 children. My sister Rae. Peter.” He’d counted to 10. He looked around the room, shook his head and dropped his hands. “We’d been scattered for years but after the war, for a time, we all lived here.”
“Here, here?” asked Elsa, pointing at the floor. Eleven of them including Lijah. They would have been on top of each other.
Lijah nodded. “We’d survived the war but there’d been so much… upheaval… loss. So much unpredictable consequence, not always dire but beyond our control. I think, Nona especially, but all of us, we needed to gather under one roof, take stock, and count each other’s fingers and toes.”
Lijah looked to the floor. “Thought. I thought we’d gathered for reassurance. Now I have another explanation.”
“Which is…? What, Lijah?”
“To circle the wagons.”
“For protection, you mean? Because of the murder? Or was that later.”
Lijah frowned at her use of the word ‘murder’ but let it go. His gaze drifted. Not until Elsa shifted position, did he refocus.
“Later,” he said, then corrected himself. “Both. Nona came first, invited the rest. They were meant to be short visits, but became extended at Nona’s request. After the crash, there was no more talk of leaving, not for another 6 months.”
“But you didn’t know it was murder. Not until just now.”
“I. Didn’t know,” said Lijah.
“Peter?”
“No.” He paused as if double checking the veracity of his assertion, then continued. “None of the younger generation did.”
“Nona, then. You’re saying she knew.” Elsa wrinkled her nose. “So, your mother. She gathers everybody together, the whole family, kids included, because of some nameless danger. And then there’s the crash. Still, she doesn’t tell anyone her suspicions, the family, the police. But she keeps you here, all bundled together, with a killer on the loose. Doesn’t make sense, Lijah.”
Lijah said nothing.
“I’m asking, how do you make sense of it?”
“I don’t make sense of it, Elsa,” barked Lijah. “It’s exactly as you describe. A heretofore unsuspected bit of ‘knowledge’, for lack of a better word, has landed in my lap, with certainty, but nothing else: no logic, no evidence, and no defense.”
“Okay. Okay. Sorry.” She’d felt the same after her own experience with the mirror. “So that’s one thing you read from yourself. Nona anticipated danger, circled the wagons, and with the crash had her fear realized. You feel confident Nona suspected murder?”
Lijah scowled.
“We’re not in a courtroom, Lij. Think of the word as shorthand. Conspiracy resulting in death is a mouthful.”
“Yes. For no good reason. But yes, Nona acted deliberately. She visited unannounced, insisted everyone else come too, and after the crash became adamant that everyone remain. Given the tight quarters, Peter’s… troubled adolescence, it was not an easy time.”
God. Peter. A traumatized and hormonal teen coming into exceptional powers. She could only imagine the havoc he brought to the mix.
“But you went along with it,” said Elsa.
Lijah grunted. Eyes down he watched his hand idly rotating an empty cup.
What would it have been like for him, a soldier returned, hoping to reclaim some measure of peace and normalcy, having instead to bear the crush and chaos his mother imposed upon him? Intolerable, she thought, and nearly impossible to imagine of the man she knew: private, independent, willful and self-assured. Perhaps he’d grown into those traits in the decades since, but she suspected the opposite; that the war forged the man he remained. In which case, he must have agreed with Nona, at least for a time. The world had been rent and torn, and then Peter’s world much the same. Maybe Lijah needed to count fingers and toes as much as any of them. Maybe he needed to spare Peter what he could. Or maybe he’d simply chosen the path of least resistance; that the price of resisting Nona was too high. A sobering thought given the extremis of their close quarters, the hardship for Lijah, his wife, all of them.
Elsa wondered at the control Nona exerted over her brood, extending beyond her direct line to her nephew as well. To Peter. What options had he had? Had there been no other family, no other place, for him?
“Did you know Peter lived in the Eastlands?” asked Lijah. “Where your grandmother now resides?”
“What?” said Elsa, startled by the coincidence of his question and her thoughts. “Oh, um, yes, I guess. At least, I got that he was familiar with the area. From way back. I hadn’t heard of the Eastlands before, although Granny knew the old name. He talked about how much had changed, about skinny dipping in the brook. Makes sense he once lived nearby.”
“Not nearby. In the exact spot where your grandmother’s house now stands.”
“Oh.”
Lijah was on the move, roving about the great room, picking things up, putting them back down, too agitated to stay still. As a rule, Lijah didn’t prowl about. Except for his hands, doodling and the like, especially when working a thought through. But otherwise, he held himself uncommonly still. She’d even joked if he thought any harder, birds would land. This whole-body disquiet was new. New since he’d first revealed himself to her, and exaggerated since his experience with the mirror. Elsa’s best guess was that Lijah felt vulnerable. Vulnerable or scared.
“At the time the property was quite isolated,” said Lijah. “Forest mostly. Peter’s parents, or rather his parent’s parents were squatters you could say. Homesteaders. They lived close to the land, believed in self-sufficiency, autonomy, and didn’t concern themselves with the wider world. Nor, as it turned out, to legal ownership, deeds, property lines. When Peter’s parents died, there was no paperwork to back up the claim. Your grandmother bought the parcel outright and Peter came to live with us.”
“You’re saying Granny robbed Peter of his home?” said Elsa.
“I’m saying what happened. What you call it, depends on your point of view.”
“So, that’s the land dispute. Martha said the animosity between your family and mine started with a land dispute.”
“Battles for land are where the war plays out. Yet another reason this cottage must remain hidden. But the animosity? No. That dates back to Enlightenment.”
Elsa rolled her eyes. “Seriously? The Morrisons and Wrights, back to Enlightenment? Are you sure you can’t trace it back to Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve?”
“Not as farfetched as you might think,” said Lijah continuing to pace. “The biblical tales can be understood historically, as mankind wrested control over nature with the rise of agriculture and civilization. Consider Adam and Eve, tossed from the garden’s natural abundance, forced to toil and till. Cain, the farmer, builder of cities, murdering Abel, the nomadic shepherd, living in harmony with the land. We learn them as origin stories to the human condition, our fall from grace, but they also chronicle the transition in how we engaged with the land. Hunter gatherers to agrarians. Recipients to lords.”
“Are you done?”
“No, not quite. We like to think of Enlightenment’s ethos of self-sacrifice as consistent with the moralistic interpretation of the biblical tales; our human natures are sinful, suppressing our natures, our powers, serves not only a societal good, but God’s will for us. One could equally argue that God’s will for us is to enjoy the bounty of creation. The ideal is the garden of Eden – not fratricide, jealousy and greed.”
“God, Lijah, how do you get from a car crash to original sin. For that matter, how do you get from an accident to murder? Oh wait, let me guess, Cain’s kin ran them off the road?”
Lijah didn’t answer.
Elsa stared at him with growing dismay. “Who exactly do you think killed Peter’s parents?”
“I don’t think,” snapped Lijah. “There’s no thinking involved.”
“Damnit, Lij. Who? Just fucking say who?”
“Your grandmother,” yelled Lijah. “And my mother too. She was involved.” Anguish poured off him. He turned from her and cracked his shin against the coffee table. Cursing, he bent to rub his leg and bumped the pin-legged side table that held his stash. One moment he steadied the spindly antique, the next, sent it sailing across the room, smashing against the wall. He followed in its wake, planted his hands on the windowsill, and stared down at the wreckage in a heap at his feet. The aftermath rang silent, the only sound Lijah’s rough breaths.
Elsa remained where she stood and held onto herself, arms clamped tightly to her body, refusing to give way to her own shock and fear. Lijah was out of control in every way: body, mind and soul. He was also wrong, a true rarity. She knew this for the simple reason that he had to be. He’d been trying to convince himself of exactly that but had been unable to. Probably because he’d arrived at the conclusion in a way wholly unfamiliar to him; the experience was too close, raw, and foreign to figure out where he’d gone wrong.
He needed her to anchor him. She needed to stay calm. Only then could they digest what had happened and decide what to do.
As Lijah regained control, he dropped to a squat and began examining the damage. His back to her, holding a splintered piece of wood, he said, “Forgive me.”
“You’re asking me or the table?”
“Your grandmother’s been here, Elsa. Just the once. That same day.”
“If she’d been here, she’d know where it is. Which she doesn’t. It’s just like you said. We tried something we don’t understand and came to false conclusions.”
Lijah glanced briefly at Elsa who remained rooted in place across the room, then busied himself gathering up the debris. “I’ll have to replace this leg. Most of the damage though is at the joints. It shouldn’t be too hard to repair. My apologies for my outburst.” He paused, back straight, facing the wall in front of him. “You can approach, Elsa. I don’t make a habit of violent outbursts.”
“Except here. This is the second time you’ve erupted.”
He stared at her over his shoulder.
“You remember,” said Elsa. “That first time I met Peter. He flirted with me, and you almost came to blows.”
Lijah nodded and returned to gathering up debris. “Peter has a unique ability to bring out the worst in me. He considers it his duty. To inspire my baser instincts. To prove I am not as evolved as I pretend to be. He’s right, of course, if for no other reason than that, between us, Peter’s the one who never loses control. Elsa.” He turned and held her eye. “I’m incapable of hurting you. You know that, don’t you?”
Yes, she did. He’d never hurt her, not intentionally and never physically. But he would duck, dodge or lie. She didn’t believe for a second that he’d put behind him the mirror-revelation about Peter’s parent’s demise.
“But you believe Granny capable of murder.”
Lijah threw his armful of broken table back to the floor.
“We have to talk it through, Lij. That’s what we do. That’s what we always do.”
“You only say that because you’re sure I’m wrong.”
“Of course, I’m sure. You’ve made a leap and lost your way. It’s the only explanation. So let me help you.” Elsa spoke with confidence, determined to convince herself as much as she would convince Lijah. She understood that there was no ignoring what he’d read in the mirror. But there was no accepting it either.