Mothers tears

After Uncle Chuck left, I made another bid for sleep, this time with a bit more success. It was mid-day now, but I was so damn tired it didn't matter. I tried to ignore the skittering sounds of the Negasites creeping in the corners until finally, the sandman came.

I had nightmares the whole time of course. Mostly residual memories of Jeb's monstrosities, plus some new ones of kids being snatched from playgrounds by shadowy figures. None of them had the feel of talisman-induced visions. Just good old-fashioned trauma. 

I was so exhausted by the time I passed out I managed to sleep until late the following morning. Even so, as I awoke stretching and grumbling, I still felt tired. 

Having not eaten in over a day, my stomach rumbled loudly. I went into the kitchen, chucked a pot on the gas stove, and plopped some canned chili into it. A few minutes later I was putting something warm in my gut and started to feel a little better.

I glanced across the room and saw Leo standing in the corner by the TV, watching me. I ignored him and kept eating. 

"I know this is difficult," Leo offered after a while. "No one worthy to undertake this challenge would relish it. Your hesitation means you aren't stupid. Your disquiet means you are empathetic. You're a good man John."

I finished the chili and passed a Negasite sitting on the counter to toss my bowl in the sink. I leaned over counter mulling over my thoughts.

"I'm going to fuck up," I confessed. "I'm no hero. I couldn't save my partner, hell I barely held it together for that girl the other night. What happens when I mess up again?"

Leo crossed the room and looked down at the talisman lying on the kitchen counter where Chuck had left it..

"You may." He said, "But 'fucking up', as you say, isn't nearly as horrible as giving up. Try, that's all I ask."

I fell quiet staring at my dirty dishes again as a spasm ticked across my left arm near the scar where the bullet had torn through my flesh.  In a weird way, what Leo said made sense. As scared as I was about failing, knowing what I knew now, If I didn't act something told me it would feel so much worse. My head cleared slightly as I worked through my fears and the tension in my chest eased up a bit.  

"Alright," I said, turning to face Leo. "So then let's try..."

Though I was still plagued with uncertainty, I picked up the talisman and walked over to my desk. I flopped down in my chair and placed the relic in front of me as I switched on the computer.

"If all of this is about missing people, then that's where we start," I told him. "Let's see what we're working with." 

For the better part of the day I delved into research on every missing person's case in the city over the past year. I searched through old news reports and videos looking for patterns connecting the victims by location, demographics or commonalities, but nothing stood out. As I worked, I paid special attention to the pictures of the victims and their families, trying to feel something, anything that might trigger a vision. But it was easier said than done.

I found dozens of news reports covering disappearances, but It's what I didnt find that disturbed me more. All these cases had to do with unusual disappearances, victim demographics who you would never suspect to go missing. The children of middle class families, people who didn't take risks or travel to dangerous places. Victims who would be loudly missed when taken. But I read between the lines. The reports didn't cover the high risk groups. The poor, the homeless... The invisible. 

If public reports said dozens were missing, I was willing to bet the real number was much higher. Maybe even in the hundreds. Chuck was right, this was big. The bad guys were getting bold. 

I pulled up one of the recent articles featuring a bright-eyed, curly-haired little girl. It was Annabell, the girl whose body they found in the raid Finnick mentioned.

The tragedy of it was surreal. Though I'd been on cases like this before, even so, this one was hard to swallow. She was only five... 

I had heard of the girl several times, but this was my first time seeing her picture. Looking at her face made it much more real and brought up inexplicably deep sadness. I felt an ache of grief growing in my chest, disproportionate to my involvement.

That's when I noticed the sapphire glowing on the desk...

That was odd. She was gone, why would I feel a prayer from her? I tried to follow the emotions. Closing my eyes and focusing on her mental image, I let the feelings come.

As the picture of her in my mind sharpened, the feelings became more pronounced. In a wave the emotions flooded me and I was out of myself once more.

I sat in a child's empty bedroom, awash in absolute despair. I remembered her as a baby, and could see her playing and laughing. But she was gone now... I would never hold her again. Would never see her grow up. My baby, my little girl. Why god, why? Why did you take her? I can't go on, help me, please! 

Like a mule kick to the gut, I returned to my own senses and fell backward out of my chair. Tears, not my own, spilled out of me. 

"It's her mom," I choked. "Leo, her mom is calling for help!" I felt panicky, "there's no one for me to fight. Why did I see that? What do I do?" 

Leo kneeled on the ground, glancing between Annabell's picture and me. His expression shifted, and I saw a comprehension in his eyes that I didn't understand. He saw something I was missing.

Leo sighed, "sometimes people need help with the fight in here," he said, holding a hand over my chest. "Go to her." 

Shaking slightly I stood up. "What good could I do now? Why would she need me?" I asked, wiping my face.

"It doesn't matter why," Leo answered, "she called for you. Time to go to work John."

***

It took me a while to muster up the courage to leave my apartment after that. The prospect of facing a grieving parent seemed so much worse than taking on a Watcher. 

When I finally prepared to leave it was evening, and Leo insisted I wear the uniform. Though I was afraid of scaring the poor woman, I felt so out of my depth that I deferred to his judgment.

As I departed, an Aether trail lit up in the sky showing me the way like an Aurora Borealis in hues of blue. I drove through the city following the Aetheric path until, at last, it brought me to a modest suburban neighborhood. 

When I could see the end of the line, I parked several streets away and traversed the rest of the way on foot. With the talisman's power it was easy to jump silently over rooftops until landing on the house where the Aether trail ended.

It was starting to get dark as I crept lightly over the edge of the rooftop to peer down below. She was there, sitting alone in her backyard next to an empty swing set.

Annabell's mom was a modest middle-aged woman, her graying brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail and her face in her hands as she sat alone in a lawn chair. I didn't need special powers to detect her grief, she wore it openly. 

Leo stood next to me on the ledge, "Go talk to her," he urged, waving me on. 

I exhaled nervously and jumped the short distance to the patio. She jumped with a start as I landed in front of her.

I expected her to scream or shout for help, but she did none of that. Instead, she did the strangest thing.

She relaxed. 

As she took in my odd attire and concealed face, she sat back into the chair, her expression confused, but unafraid.

"I heard about you," she said, "You saved that woman. Why are you here?"

Unsure how to answer, I settled on the truth. "I don't know," I shrugged, "I get feelings when people need help, and I go where they lead me."

She bit her bottom lip and started to shake with quiet sobs. "Yeah? Then why not my girl?" she choked, closing her eyes. "Why didn't you save my Annabell?" 

I couldn't answer her, and I think she knew that. She just needed to blame someone, and I was here now. Still, it was a good question...

Had Annabell been alive while I was buried in a bottle? Could I have done something sooner? My doubt, coupled with the sorrow wafting off the woman, threatened to overtake me. I had to use Leo's calm-breathing technique to divert my attention from that line of thought. That way lay madness... 

I didn't know what else to say to her, or how I could possibly help. All I knew as I watched her shake with grief, was that she was hurting.

Watching her reminded me of my own mother. I recalled, as a kid, after dad died, mom used to try to hide from me whenever she needed to cry. One day I saw her in the kitchen. She tried to hide it, but I just pulled up a chair, sat next to her, and held her hand. I had told her, crying gets the hurt out. So she did. 

Maybe that's what this woman needed... Maybe there was nothing for me to fix. Maybe She just needed to get some of the hurt out. 

Slowly, I crossed the lawn and sat on the grass beside her, keeping a distance. She tensed at first but stayed in her chair. We sat together in silence for several moments. Then she began to weep openly. 

I didn't interrupt or try to console her, that's not what she needed. Her wails were heart breaking, and under the hum of the talisman, her pain reverberated in my chest. It nearly overtook me, but I knew she needed to be heard. So I stayed and shared in her grief, such that I could. 

When her sobs finally slowed, I knew it was my opportunity to ask questions, to ask her anything that might be of use. But there was no investigative question I could think of that she could answer, so I didn't try. 

"What's your name?" I asked.

She sniffed, "Susan."

I crossed my legs Indian style and leaned forward on my elbows. "Ok Susan... Do you want to talk about Annabell?" 

Her lip trembled, clearly on the verge of a fresh bout. But instead, she took a shaky breath and nodded. 

"She was an angel," she said, her voice cracking.

For the next twenty minutes, Susan told me about her child. How her favorite color was rainbow, she loved drawing at school and her latest obsession had been ponies. She told me about Annabell's infectious smile and the way she always tried to help mom clean the house, (though she frequently only made it messier). She talked about how kind and generous her little girl had been. I watched her body relax slightly as she re-lived happy memories with her daughter. 

That's when I thought I understood what I was there for. Susan prayed for her daughter, and the only way I could bring Annabell back was by helping her remember. I was there to show her the world knew Annabell mattered. 

Eventually, she stopped talking as fatigue set in, some of the poisonous pain having been briefly drained away.

"Would you like to see one of her drawings?" she asked.

I nodded. 

She crossed the yard and disappeared into the house. Moments later she returned with a piece of paper. I stood up to meet her and she showed it to me, a crudely drawn horse, colored in with all the crayons in the box, turning it almost brown, and a large smiling face with a pink sun overhead. I smiled beneath my mask. 

"She has talent," I said,

Susan's face fell, "Yes, she did..."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there for her."

Susan wiped her face again. "Other people are still missing. Other babies." Her voice took on a sudden steely edge. "Are you going to find them?" 

I nodded again.

She looked down at her daughter's artwork with loving agony, then held it out to me. 

I pulled my hands away, "I can't take that," I said, taking a step back from her precious memento.

She followed me and pressed it against my chest. 

"Please," she begged, "I don't believe they caught the men responsible. There are too many others missing... Please find them. Find justice for my baby girl."

Reluctantly I took the drawing. It felt oddly warm to the touch. "I'll do everything I can," I promised. 

She looked down and nodded to the grass, then turned without a word and went back inside, closing the door and leaving me in the dark.

After she was gone, I held up the drawing again. I could almost feel the joy Annabell had felt when she drew it. The girl really likes ponies.

Liked ponies... Why did I keep doing that?

Something about the picture drew me in. I looked closer at its face, the smile captivating me. It was strange, but as I looked at it, the crayon horse eyes seemed to enlarge. The irises and pupils formed and separated until they looked almost human.

Suddenly the face jumped off the page.

I was looking into a big scary man's face. He was so mean... He threw me a small piece of bread and I was so hungry. I got it and tried to curl up under my little blanket on the cold floor. The lights on the roof were so small, and bunches of other kids were there too, squished around me. It smelled like a potty. The scary man walked away to leave, then someone pushed the big door shut with a creaking noise, it was too loud! The light turned off, it was so dark and scary... 

With a jolt I was back in myself again, panting hard and holding the drawing out in front of me in shock.

Leo stepped out from the shadows, "What is it, what did you see?" 

I tried to catch my breath, "It was a shipping container, crowded, holding lots of kids." I turned to him in the darkened yard, my hands shaking with excitement. 

"I saw her. Annabells' alive!"