Letters

2

--M--

June 16, 2007

Headlights flickered by the window, illuminating the thin curtain that hung over it and not really providing the kind of darkness Matt preferred. L.A. was certainly bright and loud, even at night.

He ran his hand through his hair, pulling the goggles completely off. It had been a hot day and the orange lenses were starting to stick to his hair, even though he had the air conditioning on. He hadn't even laid a finger on his vest due to the heat, except for the pack of cigarettes he had left in the right pocket. Maybe he'd take a cold shower after midnight to help cool off, and rinse away the painful memories for another year.

Matt had gone to the dollar store across the street earlier that day and bought six candles, three black, three white, but in various sizes. He had then proceeded to pair up a black with each white one and placed them around the room so that he had three groups of flickering soft light. It was depressing to see the little lights in the hotel room, as if the three members of his family were growing dimmer. He knew from experience that it would only get worse as the candles burned all the way down, sputtered, guttered, and died.

He usually cried at that point, allowing himself the chance to do so once a year.

"Hey Blair Rose," Matt called to the two smallest candles. He had only realized that she would probably be as tall as he was after he had bought the candles. It was okay, he figured; she would always be the small, giggling girl in his memories anyway.

"Do you think I'm independent now?" he asked the dying candle. His voice was dry and he nearly laughed at the irony. He needed another cigarette.

A siren passed by outside, red and blue lights flashing, the sound echoing through his memories.

--M--

"Images of broken light


which dance before me like a million eyes,


they call me on and on


across the universe."

June 16, 1998

They seemed to arrive all at once, fleeing from the darkness outside, the whirring sirens jarring Mail out of the hours of silence. So many footsteps, so many voices, loud and harsh, and then suddenly the closet door was beaten open. The police flashlight nearly burned a hole through the fabric of Mail's hiding place.

"Hey," the sharp voice said, and Mail couldn't tell whether it was directed at him or towards another man that was carefully sweeping the area. He pulled the tablecloth over himself tighter, wishing everything would just go away. The tears had stopped long ago and he had been left in a blissful kind of nothingness, but now, things were happening… he would be required to be alive again, or something.

The footsteps came closer, a little softer, as if someone were trying to creep up closer. Mail stiffened, and then the cloth was ripped off him in one quick movement.

Mail screamed.

He was scared, beyond terrified, unable to open his eyes, the light was shining in his face, through his eyelids, and he knew someone was in front of him, but—

"Hey there, kid," a man's soothing voice tried to calm him and he was enveloped in strong warm arms. "Nothing's going t' hurt you now. You're okay, you're okay."

Mail felt himself being rocked slowly back and forth, the light no longer in his eyes, instead thick cotton fabric muffled it. The constable held him and continued to repeat the same phrase, almost like a mantra. But Mail clung to it anyway, putting all his faith into just holding on, letting his own sobs and hiccups drown out the other footsteps and voices, as he was carried out of the closet. He felt a hand press against the back of his head, almost petting his hair, and knew that he must be passing by his family. He didn't try to look.

The cool night air was refreshing to Mail's quivering body. The sobs of relief that had begun as he let go of his shock slowly died down, carried off by the breeze. He focused on that alone, trying not to understand more than the melodic tones of the conversation about what was going to happen to him. It was easy enough to do; the police were whispering or speaking vaguely in the hopes of keeping him calm and away from anything too frightening. But the night calmed him, and Mail was able to lift his head away from the shoulder of the man carrying him to stare off away from the squad cars. Mail stopped crying, and took a deep breath.

It was calm. Yes, there were still the bright flashing lights reflecting off the windows of nearby buildings and the murmur of voices deciding his fate, but inside Mail was still. It was a terribly empty feeling, but tranquil. All of his emotions had been drained and he was left with only the unadulterated knowledge of the events that had transpired. His fingers relaxed their grip from the officer's uniform until he had let go entirely. The policeman didn't notice, still speaking in hushed tones to a woman at Mail's back.

"Um," Mail began, knowing that something was forming in his mind. The officer stopped speaking abruptly, shifting Mail and looking down at him. The woman came into view then, and Mail could see she was a paramedic.

She spoke first, kindly and using the voice of a mother to her three-year-old, "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No," Mail replied clearly, realizing it was easy to answer simple and direct questions. He pushed himself on. "The man didn't come into the closet."

Both of them blinked at his matter-of-fact tone. The officer recovered first, "You saw someone?"

"Yes. It was a man. He was really tall and wore a hat."

The officer's eyes widened. He looked up briefly and yelled over Mail's left shoulder. "Joshua! This kid saw the suspect! Get over here!" His gaze returned to Mail and he smiled encouragingly. "Go on. Can you tell me anything else about this man you saw?"

"He was wearing a long coat, a dark color, but…" Mail hesitated as another man jogged up. He had a notepad and a pen in his left hand, and the name Joshua Brinkley glinted off his badge. Mail looked back to the man who was carrying him and realized he didn't know the man's name. He found the badge under his own chest: his rescuer was Simon Seaver. Mail looked up to Officer Simon's eyes to finish his sentence. "I didn't see his face."

"That's fine, little guy," Officer Joshua said soothingly. "Just tell us what you do know, alright?"

"Of course," Mail answered.

He thought for a moment before beginning. It was easy to recall what had happened, seeing it as if he had been removed from the actual events. No one else spoke as he recounted leaving to get the tablecloth, the five shots along with the screams, his own indecision forcing him to run between the corner and the door, the man's hat nearly hitting the doorframe, the spreading blood, the final hiding place. His finished his recitation to meet the shocked stares of the three adults.

"Poor kid," the paramedic murmured, shaking her head and looking at him sorrowfully. "How about you come with me and I'll get you a bit of candy, yeah?"

She reached for him and he was deposited into her arms and away from Simon. He seemed almost relieved to hand off the eight-year-old to a woman, giving Mail a quick pat on the head before turning to Joshua and speaking rapidly.

"Wait!" Mail nearly shouted. He didn't want candy, he didn't want to go with the paramedic, he wanted… he wanted to….

He wanted to solve the crime.

"Shush now, yeah?" the woman said, trying to bounce him up and down a little as if he were a younger child. It wasn't really working.

"No," Mail said firmly, staring her down, focusing on her face and not the flashing lights behind her. "I want to help."

"You have helped," she replied gently. "Now the nice constables are gonna figure out who did this. You helped a lot, and were very brave telling—"

"No." Mail was insistent. He knew he hadn't been brave, knew he had been a coward and now… he needed this, needed to solve it, figure out why this had happened, why his life had suddenly changed, and most importantly who had caused it. "I want to help. I was there, I saw it… if they have a question, I should be there so they can ask. Please put me down, miss."

"No, no, no, love," she said, shaking her head, and Mail snapped, freezing still as ice. She used the same nickname his mother did. Love….

"Put me down!" Mail shouted, startling the woman. He pushed against her, struggling violently, until she was forced to drop him. He nearly fell over backwards, but recovered his footing and darted back to the other officers, the paramedic chasing him. Simon reached down and scooped him up into a hug again, as if he feared the boy would run right past him.

"No, Officer Seaver, put me down," Mail said to the man. The officer blanched at his own name and Mail remembered that he had only read it and they hadn't introduced themselves yet. But the man put Mail down carefully, his eyes uncertain.

"What's up, kid?" he asked gently.

"I want to help you with the case. Please don't leave me out of it." He put every ounce of determination in his small body into the statements. He knew what he wanted.

Simon looked at Joshua helplessly for a moment before giving Mail a sad smile. "Sorry, kid, but we'll take it from here, okay?"

"No… please, you have to let me help. I can do something, I promise. I'm smart, I can help figure it—"

"Sorry, but don't you worry, kid. We're professionals, yeah? We'll figure out what happened. Why don't you go with the nice lady there and she'll help you figure out where you're going to go from here, yeah?" He smiled encouragingly, nodding, and cupping a hand on Mail's shoulder.

"Officer Brinkley? You'd help me—" Mail tried, but was cut off by a shake of the man's head. Simon released Mail's shoulder just the boy felt the woman's cool hands on both his arms. She was hunching over behind him, and as Mail turned around, she took his hand.

She led him away from the crime scene, chattering about how everything would be fine, he would be all right, there would be someone to take care of him, and why doesn't he have some candy? Mail accepted it without thinking about it.

It was his intelligence again… it made him smart enough to realize he may be capable of helping, his brain had already begun rapidly searching for motives, assassins, clues… but his age prevented him from being useful. His age and his maturity had never matched up completely, and he gritted his teeth at his curse. What would he do now? His family was… gone. And they had been the only ones to really come close to understanding him. Would he be treated like a normal child now? He looked at the candy in his hand, wrapped in a bit of plastic. Was it so bad to be treated normally? If he pretended he wasn't so smart, could he live with that? He began unwrapping the candy, realizing that it was chocolate. Would a normal child eat the candy and do what he was told after his family was murdered? It seemed strange, but his fingers found the treat, and he plopped it into his mouth. It was silly, eating chocolate like nothing was wrong, nothing had changed. He chewed it a little, finding the taste slightly off, but let it melt on his tongue anyway. Did he look normal now? In the dark, with his glasses off, being led to an ambulance by a young woman? His feet felt heavy, and she seemed to be walking faster, but Mail realized that no, he was walking slower and it seemed darker….

--M--

The paramedic had drugged him with the chocolate, hoping it would calm him down. It had taken him out completely because she hadn't known he was also taking allergy medicine. He woke the next day at the hospital, a nurse and his class three teacher sitting and conversing in low murmurs.

"Oh, Mail, I'm so sorry," was the first thing he heard.

He learned quickly that he would be spending the next few days with his teacher until they figured out what to do with him permanently. They asked him about any relatives that he knew of, but of course, he didn't have any. Not surprisingly, no one else had found any either. It seemed he would be going to an orphanage somewhere, unless someone adopted him right away, but they were still waiting to hear from the Chesire County Council. Simon and Joshua also came in later that day to ask if he remembered anything else, and gave a little card to his teacher in case he did. Mail asked again whether he could really be a part of the team, but they had refused, as he had guessed they would.

He spent a quiet night at his teacher's house. He almost felt a little sorry for her trying to cheer him up when he wasn't especially sad, just empty again, so it was hard to feel anything. He stayed inside all day, not really moving, just waiting for something to happen to him. But the universe kept moving forward around him, as if nothing had really changed. Mail had become completely static in the aftermath, nearly hopeless, yet knowing that something had to change… he just didn't know what it would be.

He wished the constables would return, Officer Seaver and Brinkley, to ask for something from him. The terrible emptiness left by his family made him hunger for something to fill it with. It wasn't so much painful, as not pleasurable; not really unhappy, but a lack of happiness. Somehow, it was hard to feel anything at all anymore beyond the need to do… something, and the complete deficiency of anything for him to do. And Mail didn't know if it would ever end. Would he always feel as if the world was moving on without him? He suddenly wondered whether he was supposed to have died along with his family. Maybe there had been a mistake and he felt so empty because his existence wasn't supposed to be. He stared at the wall blankly, and tried to feel miserable.

He couldn't even cry. Normal kids were supposed to cry a lot if their families were murdered. So what was he?

He remembered his family, how they had been alive, and then how they had looked dead.

Still nothing. He thought he should feel sad, or even terrified by his own detachment. But… maybe, there was something…. He clung to the feeling, pulling it up by a tremulous thread, the knot being lifted up for closer inspection….

Mail felt himself quiver. He forced himself to remember the shots, the blood, the monster, his own cowardice, the hat, flashes of light, sound, culminating in black and white stripes, and a single powerful emotion emerging from the pit of his stomach. It was a visceral beast, clawing at his insides, fighting to get out suddenly, and Mail wanted—needed—to feel it.

Anger, so much that his tiny body felt as if it could barely contain it. The sense of it was freeing, and Mail let himself go. He wanted to hurt something, knowing dimly that he had been hurt too deeply. That singular drive made him feel alive again, made him into a person, a normal child who could suffer like he was supposed to. That man….

Mail wanted him found… and then he wanted him dead.

--M--

June 18, 1998

Dear Mr. Mail Jeevas,

We offer our condolences for the loss of your family and while we know nothing can ease your pain, we hope we can be of some assistance. As you have no other family members, we would like to adopt you into The Wammy's House. Situated in Winchester, we have a large open campus with two dormitories, twenty-two classrooms, a cafeteria, administration offices, a state-of-the-art computer lab, a five-acre firing range, and a chapel solely for the use of our students and faculty. Our instructors come from all over the globe, and teach a variety of lessons to ensure that the children living here get the same privileges they would find in a family unit. We believe you may be especially interested in our law program.

We look forward to meeting you in person and hope to see you at Wammy's as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Quillish Wammy

Director

The Wammy's House

Mail stared at the crisp white letter in his hand, the black ink shiny on the vellum. With his glasses, the contrasting black on white… was it a sign? They could have used the typical creamy off-white found in expensive stationary sets with dark blue ink… but they didn't. His mind lurched forward at impossible speeds, wrapping around the possible meanings of the promised law program. Somehow, these people knew him. They knew he would connect the dots, from family to law, from computer lab to firing range. And they were willing to offer him exactly what he wanted. Instinctively, Mail knew the Wammy's House would let him search out the killer alongside the worldy teachers in the state-of-the-art lab, and perhaps he could even use the firing range… perhaps he would serve up Justice to the man with the hat and coat.

At last, something was happening.

--M--

So many thanks to my amazing beta, the SilverSoleAlchmst1, and to the few of you who reviewed the last chapter. And you know you want to click that button. Give in to the temptation.