Dual Identity - Chapter 7

SundaySeptember 8th 12:05 P.M.

“And this is my daughter, Amy.” Lara was saying, a repetitious phrase that Amy would have thought to have been all over the church by now.

“Can she – can she hear me?” The old lady whispered quite audibly.

Lara just laughed. “Of course she can.”

Amy had to get out of there. Leaning over Lara’s shoulder she murmured, “Can I go outside?”

Lara just reached up to grab the hand Amy had placed on her shoulder and kept talking.

“Can I at least have the keys? I have Jasper.”

This time she received a slight pinch on her arm.

Amy sighed to herself and withdrew her hand. Maybe she could at least find a place to sit down or something.

She maneuvered through the after-church crowd, painfully aware of the conversations put on hold as she passed by and then resuming in hushed whispers.

She seemed somewhat alone in an adjacent hallway, and she leaning against the wall, finally allowed herself to breathe a little easier. Large crowds of people always overwhelmed her with their oppressive stares and murmurings.

“Doggie!”

Amy groaned to herself. Yet another little Sunday schooler who had sticky glue hands and wanted to distract Jasper with their loud, startling voice.

“Wait, Violet!”

Amy turned. “Jimmy?”

“Amy?”

“Doggie!”

“Violet, no.” Jimmy apparently caught up with his sister in time because no sudden kamikaze took place. And because she nearly started screaming.

“Let me go!” Judging by the little girl’s voice and pronunciation, Amy would guess maybe five or six years old. “I’m gonna tell Mommy!”

“Ouch!” Jimmy complained and Amy raised an eyebrow. She had a feeling someone was getting kicked in the shins. He turned back to her. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking desperately for a way out of here.” Amy replied, immediately regretting it. After all, if this was his church then she didn’t want to offend him – but what if she did? It wasn’t like she was every coming back here.

She hoped. “Is this your sister?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jimmy grumbled. “Vi, stop it already! How could you tell?”

“Let me pet the doggie!” The little girl demanded. “I want to pet the doggie!”

“Hold on-” Amy couldn’t tell if he was talking to her or his sister.

“Ow!” Violet gave an elaborate screech. “I’m telling mommy you pinched me!”

The last phrase spoken resonated in Amy’s head and she drew in a shaky breath as she reached back once again to grab the wall.

She finally summoned the courage to speak. “Hi, Violet.”

The little girl stopped squirming and there was a brief silence as Amy figured that she was just beginning to notice her.

“Hi.” Violet said. “Is this your dog?”

“He sure is.” Amy answered. “Would you like to pet him?”

“Mhm.” Amy could almost see the little girl bobbing her head vigorously as she was set down on the ground with a thump. “He’s so soft! What’s his name?”

“Jasper. He’s my service dog.”

“Does that mean you take him to special church services?”

Amy mustered a chuckle. “No, he’s what you would call a Seeing Eye dog. He helps me by guiding me around things I can’t see.”

“Oh,” Violet continued stroking Jasper’s head and Amy figured whatever she had just said had made no sense at all to her.

Jimmy spoke up now. “Hey, Vi, mom is down talking to Mrs. Phelps. Do you think you could go there all by yourself?”

“Of course I can.” Violet huffed.

“Maybe Mrs. Phelps would like to see the whale you made today in Sunday School.”

“Fish.” Violet corrected. “It’s a fish. And I don’t like Mrs. Phelps, she smells funny.”

Amy half cracked a smile herself as Jimmy exasperated. “Just go-”

Violet ran off, and Amy felt Jimmy turn to face her. He was wearing some sort of musky cologne and she found herself almost liking it. At least it didn’t make her want to sneeze like most did.

“Hey, Amy.” Jimmy said, sounding relieved he had managed to get his sister out of his hands and into someone else’s. But she recognized the tricks he used on his sister. Bentley had used them all the time with her and Celia. “When did you start coming here? I’ve never seen you around before.”

“Since today.” Amy said, suppressing a snort. "Lara decided to just up and come.”

“Lara?”

“My step-mother.” After the first move at thirteen when Amy had slipped and called her adoptive father by his real name, it was decided that her cover would simply have to intertwine the obvious of having two parents she just couldn’t completely endear to.

“Oh,” Jimmy was silent a moment. “Hey, if you’ve got a few spare minutes there’s a couple of people I’d like you to meet.”

Amy hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was get all buddy-buddy with these churchy people. But if Lara took any longer –

“Okay. Lead the way.” At the split second of silence that followed Amy reassured, “Jasper will follow you.”

Jimmy led her down the hall and around the corner. Here the church smelled older and felt a bit darker, feeling herself close to a wall Amy put her hand out and felt vertical plank-like boards. Just as she thought. This wing had to have been renovated in the sixties if the church not built then.

"What was that about a fish?" Amy always had been awful at trying to make conversation. But then again, it wasn't like Jimmy was trying to make it easy on her.

"Oh, in Sunday School they cut off about a fourth of a paper plate and turned It around the glue on the round side like a fin. Then the kids got to color it."

"Oh, and what color did Violet choose?"

"Purple. With about a half dozen googly eyes. I swear that's the only fish that can see out of it's tail!" Jimmy laughed and Amy could see that he was proud of his sister even if she could get annoying at times. Maybe he would learn to cherish it before it was gone all too soon.

Jimmy led her towards the sound of voices and laughter and Amy felt dread knotting up in her stomach. As they stopped in a doorway, the conversations tapered off.

“Hey, guys.” Jimmy said. “This is Amy, the girl from my class.”

The girl from my class? Amy said to herself. They had obviously been talking about her or she would be a girl from his class, not the girl from his class.

A few hellos were called out and someone asked how she was doing. Amy just tried to keep a smile on her face, hoping it wasn’t too terribly strained.

Ashley, the girl who sometimes sat with them at lunch, asked to pet her dog.

“Sure, I guess.”

“What’s his name?” Someone else asked.

“Jasper.” Amy said, shifting from one foot to the other.

Just then another person blew through the doorway, nearly knocking her over. Jimmy kept a firm hand on her arm and succeeded in keeping her upright.

“Hey, Jimmy, did you get the-” The newcomer paused. “Amy, is that you?”

Amy just nodded in Ben's direction as he immediately reformed into a perfect gentleman. Funny how she was the one who couldn't see, but they couldn't understand it was her at first glance.

""Sorry about that." He apologized.

“It’s fine.” In your deranged little brain maybe.

“Amy, I have an idea.” Ashley was saying. “The youth group is getting pizza and hanging out today. Why don’t you join us?”

“I think that would be a good idea.” Someone said from the doorway.

Amy turned, startled. “No, Lara, don’t you remember? We have to go.”

“But-”

“Paul will want lunch soon, and besides I don’t know my way around here.” He had already had enough of a fit that she had gone without having all of the exits memorized and such. And if they didn’t get back in time for lunch-

“Alright,” Lara drew in a breath and let it out before continuing. “Maybe some other time, kids. We have to go.”

Most said goodbye, a few said see you around, but it was what Jimmy said that made Amy want to punch him.

“See you next week!”

~

Wednesday September 11th 3:52 P.M.

The Shadow watched the little girl bound out of the elementary school as the floodgates opened. Eleven years old she was, the same age Amy had been when she had been marked as his.

Dark pigtails bounced as the girl struggled to shoulder the candy pink backpack with a picture of Elsa and Olaf over her shoulder. Giggling gaily with her two friends, they cut across the school yard and towards downtown.

Two days now, and her routine had stayed the same. It would take them roughly twenty minutes, give or take a few to make it to their neighborhood and the older of the three friends had a cell phone, but he decided that she wouldn’t make herself a problem.

He would make sure of that

His plans usually required more time and planning so that they would come off precisely the way it should. How it they were meant to.

But this little girl was special. Just like Amelia had been. She had caught The Shadows eye last Friday, but he hadn’t been too sure where she fit in with his plan. Until now.

The Shadow lowered the binoculars and shifted his car into gear. He knew just the right place for her to meet him. He had plenty of time before the girl got there, but he still needed to make sure that everything was as it should be.

The dank alley behind the section of Main Street hit the hardest by the recession a few years ago provided a dark, mysterious feeling, and the expectations of this afternoon drew a thrill through his heart and sent adrenaline pulsing through his veins.

The flags flew at half staff today as if commemorating his return.

Ten years was a long time. Too long.

Come to Papa, little Amanda.

~

Wednesday September 11th 5:16 P.M.

Jimmy flipped the remote around in his hand as the weatherman cracked a joke with the news anchor.

Dad snorted, asleep in the recliner to his right, and Jimmy dropped the remote, flipping it onto the floor.

His mother looked up from her cross-word puzzle and did a double take. “Is something bothering you, Jimmy?”

“Nah.” I’m just in a trance form all of these life insurance commercials. That kind of thing should be illegal on the 9/11 anniversary. Life insurance commercials, he meant.

“Jimmy,” Mom began, het pen clicking down as she began to close her book. “I’m your mother. I know when you have something on your mind or not.”

Jimmy didn’t say anything.

“James Theodore Easton.” His mother’s voice carried just enough steel.

“You know Mom, the FBI should have signed you, not Dad. By now you could be their top interrogator.”

Mom cracked a smile, but didn’t say anything.

“Amy Landers.” Jimmy said after a short silence. “She doesn’t quite fit in, if you know what I mean.”

“Jimmy, your father and I have tried our best to raise you to accept people with disabilities.” Mom was frowning at him in that parental kind of disappointment. “After all, Jesus came in to contact with more than just blind people. He healed lepers and those with paralysis-”

“No, Mom, I don’t mean that it’s because of her blindness. Amy is just sort of an odd girl. She gets upset if we even try and help her or anything.” Jimmy paused. “She yelled at Ashley the other day for moving her bag off the back of her chair.”

“Well, blind people do need to know where everything is. As I recall, it can be very upsetting to a visually impaired person to even think they misplaced something.” Mom said, looking doubtful.

“It was in the way!” Jimmy protested. “Ben offered to carry her books once and she nearly took his head off. It’s like she thinks she has to do everything herself.”

“That is a very plausible.” Mom mused, glancing at Dad as a snore rattled deep from his throat. He had come home later than expected and as usual found great comfort in his leather easy chair, the only piece of furniture that Mom allowed not to match the rest of the décor.

“So trying to prove her independence to us or something?”

Mom sat for a minute, tracing the plastic round end of her pen on the waxy cover of her puzzle book making scratchy creases while she thought.

“No,” Mom finally said, glancing back up at Jimmy. “She’s proving it to herself.”

Bleedle-leep-leep! Bleeple-leep-leep!

Dad sat up with a snort, looking like some kind of deranged dancing bird as he stretched for his phone in his back pocket.

“Easton here.”

Both Mom and Jimmy watched as Dad’s gaze flipped between both of them.

“Uh-huh . . . I’ll be there . . . don’t worry about it, I'll fill him in.” James Easton didn’t even bother a good-bye as he fumbled to click his work-issued phone off. “I have to go.”

He reached for his jacket as Mom jumped up and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

“What is it?” Jimmy heard her ask quietly.

Dad just shook his head saying simply, “Don’t hold dinner.”

Mom watched him leave and they sat in silence for a minute.

“I think there’s something on the stove I need to tend to.” Mom finally said, slipping off without another word.

Jimmy turned up the TV as Violet came into the living room farting her little purple hippo. She climbed up beside him on the couch jabbering something about crayons and cotton candy.

Jimmy’s phone buzzed on the coffee table and he picked up, intending to unlock it and check the message when the TV attracted his attention.

“We interrupt this programming to bring you breaking news on a story unfolding in Okmulgee County.” The spokeswoman shuffled a few papers as if searching for something. “We were just informed of the AMBER alert issued on the 11 year-old child reported missing earlier this afternoon.”

A picture flashed on screen of a young, smiling girl. The words beneath were chilling.

CONFIRMED MISSING: Amanda De Saberio