I've always been fascinated by the concept of cause and effect. How everything has a beginning. It's own start. Its own origin story. Not just people, but events too. Historic occasions or every day occurrences. Every single action. Every…altercation. Everything grows from some seed planted some time somewhere by somebody.

I can't tell if I was the one to plant this particular seed, or if this story's origins are rooted somewhere deeper. I guess they have to be. I mean, I suppose, really, the root of this particular occurrence can be traced back to bad parenting. But then again, isn't that always the case? When you get right down to it, isn't it always because someone's mommy didn't love them enough? Or maybe she left and their daddy hit them?

Evil is always born from either evil itself, or neglect. And Jack Kerr was so evil, he must'a been born from both.

But I guess bringing up Jack Kerr is jumping the gun a little. If I'm gonna tell this story properly, I'll have to start at the beginning.

Well…the beginning as near as I can tell. My beginning. I'm sure everyone involved has told it a million different ways, and start in all varieties of beginnings, and I'm sure they're all plenty interesting. But if you're asking me for mine…well here it goes.

I was 13 in the year 1959, living in Castle Rock, Virginia. It was a small town. So small we had one doctor and no hospital, and two teachers for the whole dang school. Everybody knew everybody, and so everybody knew everybody's business.

…which is why we all knew Jack Kerr was a bad apple.

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

My story starts in the early summer of 1959. In Castle Rock, Virginia. With a cat.

Or a lack thereof, I should say.

At 13 years old, my two best friends were named Selina Kyle and Pamela Isley. They were as different as can be and I was nothing like either one of 'em. It didn't always make sense, our friendship, but then again, we didn't have a lot of options, so we never questioned it.

Selina was from the big city and she didn't have any parents, both of which made her seem very exotic. She'd never had parents, according to her. Couldn't remember her mom if she tried. She once told me she'd had a sister, but they hadn't gone to the same place after whatever happened happened, so Selina had been on her own for a while. She was traveling the country at 10, riding boxcars from town to town and finding food where she could. That was, until the state got her. After that, she got shipped to Castle Rock where Old Man Pennyworth took her in. I never heard her call him anything but "Alfred", so I wouldn't describe him as her father, but I know he did eventually legally adopt her, and she still calls him on Sundays.

Selina was whip smart, with sharp green eyes, shaggy black hair, and the most un-godly mouth this side of the Mississippi.

If Selina was the ring leader, and I was the wild card, then Pam Isley was the unwitting accomplice.

The whole town thought she was a little off. Pam, that is. Her parents didn't let her outside much. Really only for church and school. Not because they were especially cruel, I don't think, but because Pam had some sorta weird disease. The longer she stayed out in the sun, the greener her skin would become. It was the strangest thing. Inside, if she wore long sleeves, thick pants and a sunhat, she could stay looking mostly human. Just real pale. But as soon as her skin hit the sun, she would turn this sickly looking green. Needless to say, this didn't make her very popular. And she was mad a lot because of it. Mad at the other kids for their cruelty, mad at her parents for forcing her indoors when all she wanted was to work in her garden, and mad at god for cursing her.

That's what she told Selina and I her parents had said about it. That God had cursed her. Payback for some sin she hadn't yet committed. My family didn't go to church, so I thought that was absolutely bonkers, but what did I know.

They brought a fancy doctor over from somewhere on the coast to take a look at her. He stayed for a while. A couple months, actually, and Pam didn't even go to school while he was there. Just church. And when he left, it seemed like Pam was even angrier. Not because he was gone. No, she was thrilled about that. But something was different about her. More than mad or sad, it was like there were cracks in her now. Cracks she filled with rage, not just frustration.

Selina seemed to understand the change better than I did. They'd have silent conversations that I couldn't interpret. Brief, quiet glances that would communicate their secrets.

I didn't have any secrets. I lived my life out loud and I think they needed that.

Or…I'm not sure what they needed. After all, I was the one that got us into all this trouble in the first place, so maybe they'd have been better off without me.

The cat that started it all belonged to Selina, though, so maybe she would'a been roped into this mess anyway. Who knows. See, this is the whole cause and effect thing I was talking about. Who's to say fate has only one path.

Selina's cat went missing on May 13th. I remember this because I was 13 at the time and I thought this had to be some kinda sign. The cat's name was Isis, and Isis was one of many pets that had gone missing from Castle Rock in recent months. Selina was absolutely beside herself with grief. There was nothing and no one she loved more than that cat.

"I brought her with me all the way from Gotham," she'd sobbed. "She never ran away, even when the trains got bumpy."

"I guess she finally decided to," Pam shrugged, staring absently out the cafeteria window.

"Screw you, Pam!" Selina shoved her. "Isis would never!"

I'd hated this conversation because I was pretty sure I knew exactly where Isis was. I knew because, as I said, Isis hadn't been the first animal to disappear, and I knew she wouldn't be the last, either.

He was just starting to get good at it.