Chapter Nine

It had been a few days since Shaddid had written to his parents about the drawing. There wasn't a lot he knew about it, other than the paper had come from Zardan, so there wasn't much to go on. Regardless, he hoped his parents would be able to at least recognize the drawing style and tell them who had drawn it and where it had come from.

He settled comfortably into the recliner in the living room and opened their most recent letter journal. It was the same one that Felix had found upstairs with the drawing in it, and it was the same one that yesterday Shaddid had used to write a letter to his parents. Maybe they had written back. The last entry was printed in small, even text, which Shaddid recognized as his father's handwriting.

Gently, he ran his fingers over the page. He wouldn't change anything about the life he had chosen here in this world, but he missed his family back home. They had been trying for a while to organize a visit, but neither of their schedules had been able to line up.

With a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, he started to read. Jarmuth explained that upon hearing about the picture, no one in the family had recognized it, despite Shaddid's detailed and lengthy description of it.

Disappointment replaced the anticipation he had been feeling, but he continued to read. His father had changed topics and started discussing something else.

Your mother and I have noticed something strange with your sister Sheila. You know as well as I that her powers have matured over the years so that now she can both become and conjure characters on her own without the assistance of music, but this is different.

A few weeks ago, she invited your mother and I over for dinner. When we arrived, the front door was locked, and no matter how much we knocked, she would not answer. Eventually we managed to get in and found her in her music room staring blankly at the wall. There was nothing else in the room that we could see except for her. Her eyes had changed colors from their normal light blue to a dark blue, and she was unresponsive.

Shaddid's eyes widened. "She's a Soul Traveler?" he muttered softly. Disappointment changed again to concern. He kept reading.

We told her to let us know if she has any more episodes, but one of the side effects is that the less dominant host typically exhibits memory loss and moments of unconsciousness where they are unable to recall the incident in question. So there is a chance that she has had more episodes, but we would be unable to know for sure.

She was hoping to be able to plan a surprise visit to see you soon, but with these developments and the unprecedented nature of them, your mother and I think it is unwise for her to be traveling, at least until we can figure this out.

Jarmuth had closed out the letter and signed it. Shaddid stood from the recliner and took the journal to the dining room table where he sat down and wrote out his response.

Father,

It was wonderful hearing from you. Thank you for your insight on the drawing as well as the news about Sheila. I find it surprising that we didn't find out about her changing abilities as a Soul Traveler until now. Usually those abilities present themselves earlier on during adolescence or shortly thereafter.

I know that it would most likely be foolhardy, but I would love to be able to ask her about the episode she experienced when you and Mother found her. If you would, have her write to me when she gets a chance. If you wish, I will not mention anything about her plans to visit, as that was supposed to be a surprise.

Everyone here is doing well. Lizzie is working with Nicole right now on illustrating a new book, and Nikki is out of school for the summer.

Greet Mother, Keeyana, and Sheila for us. We love and miss all of you.

Love,

Shaddid

With a sigh, he closed the journal and stood from the table. Lizzie came in from the garage.

"Hey, hon. What's going on?"

"Hey." He set the book on the table. "I got a response from Father."

Her eyebrows raised in anticipation. "What did he say? Did they recognize the drawing?"

He shook his head. "No. Mother and Father didn't draw it, and Sheila and Keeyana hadn't seen it before. That's not the worst of it though. Sheila has recently acquired some new powers."

"Why is that a bad thing? Is it because usually you guys get your powers by the time adolescence kicks in, and she's well past that age?"

"It is unusual to develop more powers in your thirties, but it isn't entirely unheard of. But these powers in particular are concerning. She's a Soul Traveler."

Lizzie's brow knitted with confusion. "What does that mean?"

"Basically it's a mental connection between two people. It usually happens accidentally, but the problem comes in as the connections progress. The two people during a connection can see through each other's eyes. In the beginning, sometimes only one person of the two is aware of what's happening, but eventually the other person clues in. When that happens, the two 'switch bodies' per se. One of the side effects is memory loss for the weaker of the two connected persons. Sheila doesn't remember anything about her interactions with whomever it was she was connecting with."

"So what does that mean for Sheila? Is she in any danger?"

"Well, that's the thing," Shaddid sighed. "The stronger the connection, the harder it is to break it. If the connection isn't broken, the stronger of the two will completely take over the weaker host, and the weaker host will cease to exist."

"So if she doesn't break out of this connection…"

"Then there will be a shell of Sheila, but the part of Sheila that we know and love will no longer exist."

Dave and Elizabeth sat at a Mom and Pop's breakfast café. Elizabeth was coloring one of the kids menus and watching the televised weather report while Dave finished up his coffee. He raised the cup to his lips before lowering it and staring at a fixed point over Elizabeth's left shoulder.

The coffee cup in his hand trembled, spilling coffee onto his wrist. His eyes slowly started to change colors from their normal dark blue to a light blue.

"Dave?" Elizabeth leaned over so she was looking into his eyes. She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, but he didn't flinch. "Dave!"

Within Dave's subconscious, he couldn't hear or see Elizabeth anymore. All sound had filtered to a warble like he was submerged under water. His vision slowly faded away until all he could see was a fuzzy grayness. Only one sound came through distinctly. It was a woman screaming.

Unwillingly, Sheila was thrown into Dave's mind again. The more often this happened, the more she hated it. Elizabeth was sitting across the booth from him at a restaurant. They raised a cup of coffee to their lips, and then something changed. It felt like something was probing her brain. Her vision grew blurry and gray. As soon as it did, her arm where Dave had grabbed her before started burning like hot pokers. In her subconscious state, she grabbed her arm and screamed in pain.

"Dave! Can you hear me?"

Slowly his vision came back. Elizabeth's panicked face was close to his. "What happened?" he mumbled groggily.

"You blacked out and spilled your coffee."

Right, his coffee. He glanced down at the mostly-empty cup. His wrist hurt where the drink had burned him. "Who was screaming?"

Elizabeth met his gaze. "No one was screaming. Are you sure you're okay?"

Confused, he flexed and relaxed the fingers of his left hand. Turning his palm upward, he noticed a greasy substance on his fingertips. Casually he wiped his hand on his pants. "Yeah, I'm fine." He cleared his throat as he pulled a few dollars from his wallet and tossed them on the table. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah." She glanced down at his lap and then raised her eyes. "Let me see your hand."

He frowned. "Why?"

"Just give me your hand." She held her palm out until he laid his hand, palm up, into hers. She gently turned his hand back and forth and studied it. "What did you wipe onto your pants?"

"I had something on my fingers. Grease from the bacon, I guess."

She looked more closely at his fingers. "This isn't bacon grease. It looks more like…salve of some kind. Almost like what you would put on a burn. How did you get that on your fingers?"

Annoyed, he pulled his hand away. "I don't know. Just leave it alone."

"Your eyes…they're back to normal."

"Now what are you talking about?" His annoyance was growing by the minute.

Slowly she looked back and forth between one eye and the other. "A minute ago, they were a baby blue color. Now they're back to your normal dark blue."

"It's just the lighting." He grabbed his coat from the bench seat next to him and stood up. "Now let's go."

They paid for their meals and walked back out to the car. He opened her door for her and then walked over to the driver's side. As they buckled up, she spoke up again, "Did you see anything or hear anything other than the screaming when you were blacked out?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't see anything. Everything was blurry and gray, and everything sounded like I was under water. Nothing was clear. The last thing I remember was hearing a lady screaming and then you were in my face staring at me."

"We need to keep an eye on it. If it keeps happening, you might want to see a doctor or something. You were completely unresponsive. What if it happened while you were driving?"

"It was probably just one of those random one-time things. It'll be fine. I think we only have to start worrying if I start seeing stuff." He chuckled.

"Yeah, sure. That's when we start worrying." Elizabeth shook her head. "You're a mess."

Dave's tone turned solemn. "Yeah, well, that's what you get for being born with the parents I was born with."

Elizabeth grew silent. She didn't know everything about Dave's relationship with his dad, but she knew that the two of them didn't get along very well. "Sorry."

Dave shrugged. "It's not your fault." He sighed. "Let's change the subject. I hate thinking about him. He may have been my father, but he was never a dad to me. Not really."

She didn't say anything, and she didn't have to. Instead, she smiled apologetically and covered his hand resting on the car's manual gear shift with hers. The two rode in silence the rest of the way back to the motel.

Nicole sat down at her computer again. She still didn't have any more information on Dave. It reminded her of when she lost Shaddid's father Jarmuth, and she had to figure out what had happened to him when it turned out he had been here on earth for sixteen years.

This time she was certain that Dave hadn't escaped her clutches. At least Jarmuth had gone missing as a part of her story's timeline. This guy was a complete mystery to her. After sitting there for an hour with nothing but a blank page and a blinking curser staring at her, she closed her notes section and pulled up her book.

The next portion of her story was talking about Michael's back story. So far she hadn't really been able to write about him much, other than the night that he left Charlotte in the restaurant with promises to return—that unfortunately he didn't stick to.

She started a new chapter and began to type. In 1965, Michael's dad, William, was working as a computer engineer after graduating college with his bachelor's degree. Each day he left for work an extra thirty minutes early so he could get coffee at the local coffee shop.

He had to admit that he had never been much of a coffee drinker. That is until he had come with a colleague to this very coffee shop for a meeting. The girl behind the counter was very attractive, even if she was ten years his junior. She was a twenty-one-year-old college drop-out who was just trying to make ends meet after her parents had kicked her out. She had a run-down apartment on the edge of town that she shared with a few of her friends.

Despite the age difference, the two became quite close. He looked forward to seeing her every morning. Pretty soon he was visiting her on her lunch breaks and taking her out for dinner. Her parents didn't agree with the relationship, but William didn't care. They were perfect for each other, and Lucy Schmidt insisted that she was an adult and could make her own decisions. William agreed with her.

One night, Lucy called him crying, saying that her parents hadn't called to wish her a happy birthday. William suggested that he give her a night on the town, his treat. She heartily agreed, and the two met up behind the coffee shop. As soon as she saw him, she took him in her arms and kissed him. He was a bit surprised but not disappointed.

By the end of the night, they had visited several bars and were both very drunk. They ended up back at Lucy's apartment, where her friends told them to have a good time and left them to their own devices.

In the morning, William woke up to a massive hangover. He realized that it was Monday morning and not only that, it was nearly eleven o'clock. He jumped out of bed, put his clothes back on, said good-bye to a sleeping Lucy, and swallowed a couple of Excedrin tablets before rushing out the door.

His boss was very merciful and didn't fire him, but he made it clear that it was to never happen again. Throughout the day, all William could think about was Lucy. She had been the reason he was here with a hangover, and if she hadn't called him, he would've been on time this morning.

That afternoon his mind was made up. Last night, even though he couldn't remember most of it, had been a mistake. He couldn't let that happen again, or he wouldn't have a job. When he left work, he stopped by Lucy's to tell her the news. He liked her, but he couldn't let their relationship get in the way of his job anymore. She cursed his name and called him every name in the book as he drove away, never to see her again.

Three years later, job still in hand, he received a call from Lucy. She wanted to meet up and talk. She told him she didn't want to get back into a relationship, that she had moved on. But there were some things she wanted to discuss with him.

William agreed and met her at her apartment. When he knocked at the door, another woman holding a toddler answered. The woman claimed to be Lucy's sister and let him inside after looking him over several times.

When Lucy came out, William had to swallow a lump in his throat. She had lost a lot of weight, and her hair that had once been long and silky was now long and scraggly, looking like she hadn't combed or washed it in weeks. A white powder had been spilled on the front of her shirt.

"Hey, William," she said with a smile. "It's been a long time."

He shifted his briefcase uncomfortably from one hand to the other, watching as Lucy's sister put the toddler down. The toddler ran to Lucy and held his hands up for her to hold him. She pulled him into her lap.

"This is Michael," she said with a smile as she tried to tame Michael's matted brown hair. "I wanted you to meet him."

William set the briefcase down on the floor and walked closer to Lucy. Michael looked up at him and smiled, holding out his arms. "Sorry, I—I'm not great with kids."

"You married?" Lucy asked, motioning to his ringless finger.

"Engaged. Her name is Marian."

"She's a really lucky woman." Lucy smiled sadly and then asked her sister to take Michael into the other room so she and William could have a few minutes to themselves. Once she had left, Lucy continued, "I know why you left. Now I do. You didn't want to get tied to a little girl who didn't have any future for herself."

"That's not—"

"You don't have to lie, William. Not to me." She raked her dirty hair out of her face. "Thanks for stopping by. I just wanted to clear the air and let you know I wasn't harboring any hard feelings towards you. And I wanted you to meet Michael. Take care."

He had left, not sure if he felt any kind of closure. Feelings for her had resurfaced, but he also felt an attachment to Michael for some reason. He was only three, but there had been some kind of connection between them. But he couldn't let himself get involved. He had a relationship with Marian now.

Two more years passed before another call came. It was Lucy's sister again, but this time the call wasn't a social one. He listened to the call silently while Lucy's sister told him that Lucy had died of a drug overdose. Now, as Michael's closest living relative, William was responsible for him.

William's heart jumped into his throat. Closest living relative? Then that would mean…Yes, the sister acknowledged. Lucy had said for years that there was only one possibility for Michael's father, and that one person was William Afton. It took him a while, but William finally agreed to take Michael in. Now he just had to explain this all to his new wife.

Marian wasn't entirely pleased. They had been trying for their own baby for two years, and so far they hadn't had any success. It wasn't until Michael was nine that Marian's prayers were answered and Charlotte was born in March of the following year.

Now that William and Marian finally had their own baby, the favoritism began, and it only progressed with the later births of Danny and then Elizabeth. Marian's favorite song to sing the kids before they went to bed was "My Bonnie lies over the Ocean." She never sang it for Michael. Charlotte and Danny both loved it though, and Marian had plans to continue to sing it to their future children. That is, until they lost a baby.

Not long after Danny was born, Marian found out that she was pregnant again, but she wasn't far into the pregnancy before she miscarried. Marian stopped singing, and in his grief, William took the name from the song and named one of his new animatronics after it, which Marian wasn't too pleased with. Once Elizabeth had been born, they decided that four kids was enough.

Marian tried to include Michael in the family activities because she knew that he felt isolated, and for that, Michael was thankful. However, once Elizabeth and Danny died, that's when the family really started to fall apart. And when Marian finally left after that, William's tolerance of him only weakened by the day. Nothing Michael did was ever good enough for him, no matter how hard he tried.

Nicole looked back at her notes and the sections she had just written. Michael was turning out to be more of a main character than she had originally planned, which she found odd. There wasn't really anything interesting about him. He had grown up under different circumstances, that was for sure, but other than that, he seemed to be just your ordinary average Joe.

Although she did have to admit that she pitied his relationship with his dad. The poor guy had tried everything in his power to make his dad like him, and as fate would have it, he couldn't catch a break. First it was the unwanted adoption, and then an overall dislike of the situation, until finally Danny's death pushed Afton over the edge, and dislike turned to pure hatred.

As she was getting ready to close her notes document, she looked in surprise at a new fictitious news article. I really have to pay more attention to the stuff I put in here, she thought to herself as she scrolled. The article went on to describe the death of William Afton—Wait, I know I didn't kill him—in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Guards had found his body in the visitation area of the prison. He was still handcuffed to the table, but in one hand he held a short, bloody knife. Next to him on the table lay his heart that he had supposedly cut out of his own chest.

Nicole reread the article to make sure she didn't miss anything, but she didn't see anything else out of the ordinary. The author of the article reported that the situation was odd. Afton had no visitors that day, and none of the guards recalled bringing him out to the visitation area.

Despite the fact that Afton had no visitors, foul play was still a possibility. The medical examiner had pointed out that the wound on Afton's chest could not have been self-inflicted because the wound was too deep and too wide to have been made by the knife found at the scene. Which brought up another possibility.

The murder could have been an inside job. Afton had undoubtedly made enemies over the years. Even though Henry Emily didn't get arrested for Charlotte's murder, he could have somehow contacted another prisoner and convinced him or her to do the deed. That made the most sense to Nicole, seeing as how Afton didn't have any visitors that day. The only question that remained was if that had happened, why didn't they just say that he had been killed by one of the other prisoners?

She saved the document and closed everything out. This was getting more confusing by the minute. On top of that, she needed to find a good time to tell Charlotte about her dad's death. That wasn't going to be easy.