Chapter 3 - The Ghost of the Past
Z
The air in the living room grew suffocatingly thick. The footsteps upstairs were deliberate, heavy, and dragging, accompanied by the distinct scrape of something metallic against the hardwood floor.
"Mark... who is up there?" I whispered, my voice barely a thread. My instinct as a mother immediately overrode my grief and betrayal. "Leo is upstairs."
"Stay behind me," Mark said, his voice trembling as he reached into the side table drawer and pulled out a heavy metal flashlight.
"Answer me!" I grabbed his arm, my nails digging into his sleeve. "You told me she was an investigator! Why is there someone in our locked guest room?!"
"I didn't lock her in, Ket... I locked him in," Mark said, his eyes filled with a desperate, tormented grief that I had never seen in him during our ten years together. "I was trying to protect you. I was trying to figure out the truth before it destroyed us."
"Him? Who is him?!"
Before Mark could answer, a shadow appeared at the top of the staircase.
A tall, gaunt man was leaning heavily against the banister. He was wearing tattered, filthy clothes, his hair matted and graying. His face was hollow, but as the hallway light caught his features, a terrifying jolt of familiarity shot through my spine. He was holding a heavy steel pipe in one hand, his fingers stained with dark silver paint.
In the shadows behind him, Leo stood near his bedroom door, frozen in terror, holding his stuffed bear.
"Leo! Run into your room and lock the door!" I screamed, breaking away from Mark and sprinting toward the stairs.
"Ket, wait!" Mark yelled, grabbing my waist to pull me back, but I shoved him off with a strength born of pure adrenaline.
The gaunt man at the top of the stairs blinked slowly, his eyes wild and disoriented. He looked down at me, then at Mark, a sickeningly familiar smile spreading across his pale lips. It was the exact same gesture Mark made—tucking the corners of his mouth inward.
"Hello, Kathryn," the man rasped. His voice sounded like dry leaves scraping against pavement. "You look so much like your mother."
My heart stopped. My knees buckled, and I had to grab the stair railing to keep from collapsing. "Who... who are you?"
"He's my brother, Ket," Mark confessed from behind me, his voice broken. "My twin brother, Julian. The one everyone believed died in the river fifteen years ago."
The world seemed to spin on its axis. Mark had always told me he was an only child. His parents had died when he was young, leaving him with no extended family. That was one of the bonds we shared—we were both alone in the world, except for my mother.
"He's lying to you, little girl," Julian sneered, coughing violently into his sleeve. "Mark didn't hide me to protect you. He locked me in that room because I know what happened to your mother. I know how she really died."
"Shut up, Julian!" Mark roared, storming up the stairs with the flashlight raised. "You're sick! You're out of your mind on whatever poison you've been taking!"
"She didn't die of cancer, Kathryn!" Julian shouted over Mark, his eyes wild with a grotesque joy. "Ask your precious husband why he visited her hospital room the night before she stopped breathing! Ask him about the silk scarf!"
I felt as though the floor beneath me had dissolved into a dark, bottomless abyss. The silk scarf on my dresser. The smell of jasmine. The missing three hours Mark could never fully account for on the night my mother passed away.
"Mark..." I gasped, turning to face my husband on the steps. "What is he talking about?"
"He's insane, Ket! He’s been hiding in squalor for fifteen years, living off black-market money!" Mark pleaded, his eyes pleading. "The woman you saw today—her name is Sarah. She’s a private detective I hired to trace Julian's origins after he broke into our house a month ago! I locked him in the guest room this morning to keep him away from you and Leo while Sarah went to get the police and a psychiatric hold!"
"Then why didn't you tell me?!" I screamed. "Why keep it a secret for a month?!"
"Because he threatened to tell you stories!" Mark cried out, tears streaming down his face. "He threatened to plant fake evidence to make you think I killed your mother! He wanted to ruin my life because he felt I stole the life he was supposed to have!"
Julian let out a loud, mocking laugh that echoed down the stairwell. "Fake evidence? Tell her about the paint, Mark! Tell her why the kid has silver paint on his hands!"
Julian swung the heavy steel pipe, aiming directly for Mark's head. Mark ducked, but the metal clipped his shoulder, sending him tumbling backward down the wooden stairs with a sickening crash.
"Mark!" I shrieked.
Julian didn't look at Mark. He stepped over my groaning husband, his hollow, bloodshot eyes fixed entirely on me. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, metallic object, tossing it onto the floor at my feet.
May you like
It was a small, silver-painted cassette tape.
"Play it, Kathryn," Julian whispered, stepping back into the darkness of the upper hall. "Play it and listen to your mother's last words. Then tell me who the real monster in this house is."
