The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (6 page)

§

The man thought. A lot. Sometimes he
would think about the home he’d left. Sometimes he would think
about his work. Work that he loved. And sometimes he would think
about the choices he’d made that he regretted. He thought about
those a lot more than he’d like.

Time has a way of making some people
question their thoughts and memories. The man was no exception. His
recollection of the day before had gotten a little fuzzy. This was
despite the fact that he’d thought of almost nothing else since the
little girl’s “performance”.

The man wasn’t prone to flights of
fancy, and he didn’t believe in the supernatural. Quite the
contrary. He was a firm believer in facts, and science, and
evidence. But was this not the evidence of his own senses? While he
hadn’t witnessed her disappearance (Thanks Rembrandt!) he had
definitely seen her reappearance, literally out of thin
air.

His formidable intellect, so used to
difficult scientific problems, was now chewing on how to react to
the evidence his eyes had collected. It wasn’t exactly logical, but
the man felt drawn back to the spot of the event, as if maybe it
could provide some answers. He had witnessed what happened from a
fair distance down the hill and across the street. Maybe a closer
look would help him understand better what had happened.

Rembrandt’s love of a good walk was an
excellent excuse for the man to revisit the spot of the
disappearance. Whether Rembrandt knew he was serving a higher
purpose or not was irrelevant. Rembrandt was happy for the
walk.

§

Binny often let her frustrations get
the best of her, but she learned quickly from her mistakes. And on
this sunny morning, Binny had already learned one particular lesson
well – yesterday her shouts just gave Cassie time to escape and
abandon Binny’s mirror on the ground. This time there would be no
warning.

Even from the top of the hill, Binny
could tell that Cassie was lost in her world of imaginary stardom.
Binny would shoot down the hill to catch Cassie red-handed, and
only then would she administer a verbal smackdown. Binny smiled as
her board picked up speed.

§

The man was now past the spot to which
Rembrandt had dragged him a day earlier, and this time he was on
the correct side of the street. As well-dressed as the man was,
people generally didn’t like others nosing around their property,
even if just from the sidewalk. But, if anyone was watching,
Rembrandt’s meandering and relentless search for some scent he
absolutely had to find was the perfect cover story. Distracted by
those thoughts, the man looked up to the very place where the
little girl had vanished only to see the very same little girl
putting on an encore performance. Maybe she would repeat her
disappearing act as well?

§

As Binny hurtled down the hill, she
had already started composing the speech she would give to her
parents about the virtues of honesty and respecting boundaries, and
her sister’s complete lack of both. She could see herself bringing
Cassie by the ear, or wrist, or shirt, or whatever she could grab
onto, before their stern but fair judgment. This fantasy was
quickly set aside as Binny saw a strange man with a large dog
approaching her baby sister. The man hadn’t done anything wrong
exactly, but there was something about the look on his face that
bothered Binny, and he was going to reach Cassie before she
could.

§

It was Rembrandt’s enthusiastic
snuffling that brought the little girl out of her trance. She
wasn’t scared of the dog, but she did pause mid-performance to
regard Rembrandt suspiciously.

“
Hi,” said the
man.

“
Hi.” Cassie
responded.

“
Sorry to interrupt your
concert.”

Cassie paused, slightly sheepish for
the briefest moment realizing she’d been seen putting on her show.
But her eyes sparkled and she flashed a toothy grin and said, “It’s
ok.”

Rembrandt was a little less formal in
his approach to meeting new people. He started sniffing the little
girl. “Don’t worry, he’s friendlier than he looks.” The man said
this in a confident and reassuring manner, as if he were practiced
at it.

“
I know.” The little girl
replied dismissively while petting Rembrandt gently on the top of
his bobbing head.

It occurred to the man that there were
probably very few things you could tell this little head of curls
that she wouldn’t claim to already know. He grinned.

Even though the man had already
dismissed the possibility that his eyes had played tricks on him,
some part of his brain was not done arguing the point. This was the
exact spot where he had seen something impossible happen the day
before. He kept sneaking peeks out of the corners of his eyes to
see if he could spot some sort of hole or shrub that might have
provided the little girl a place to hide.

§

There’s a moment when you’re riding on
something of which you’re not completely in control that you
realize your speed has exceeded your ability to stop without
hurting yourself. It can happen when you’re learning to ski. It can
happen when you’re learning to roller skate. And it was happening
to Binny right now. She continued to accelerate.

§

“
Know of any good hiding
places around here?” The man realized that perhaps the little
girl’s presence was to his advantage in solving his little
mystery.

The little girl just looked at him,
puzzled.

“
My dog’s name is
Rembrandt,” the man interrupted himself.

“
Hi Rembrandt” the little
girl said as she continued to pet the dog, a little more
enthusiastically now.

“
Rembrandt, he likes to
play hide and seek, so I was wondering if you knew of any good
spots nearby to hide out.”

Cassie thought for a moment, then
asked: “Dogs play hide and seek?”

§

A trip to the hospital seemed to be
approaching Binny with frightening speed, but her back foot felt
glued to the back of her skateboard. As her foot pressed down on
the back of the board, Binny tried to lean forward to get the front
of the deck firmly back on the ground. Somewhere in her brain she
knew that this wouldn’t do anything more than delay her epic fall
by a few more seconds. But her survival instincts had taken
over.

§

The man was getting nowhere. The
little girl had no idea what he was talking about and this tiny
spot on the Madrona hillside was quite unremarkable. No trenches.
No trap doors. No empty tree trunks. As a child, the man had read
all of the Sherlock Holmes stories translated into his native
language. And in his current profession he’d found one of the
famous fictional detective’s most famous quotes particularly
useful: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth.”

As the man reviewed the events of the
previous day and his observations of the area, the voice inside his
head telling him there must be another explanation grew ever more
quiet. If there was nowhere for the little girl to hide, and there
was nothing shiny nearby that could have produced that flash of
silver light, then the inescapable conclusion was that the little
girl was the first human on earth with a –

“
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

§

Binny screamed as she hit the ground.
The skateboard had decided that Binny was no longer interesting
company and shot out from under her like a missile. For her part,
Binny was happy for the separation, landing squarely on her butt on
the patch of grass running down the edge of the sidewalk. Binny
slid several feet to come to a stop right in front of her sister,
the strange man, and his large dog.

§

“
My god. Are you ok?” The
man crouched on one knee to see if Binny was hurt, a loud snapping
sound punctuating his question.

Binny winced harder at that sound than
she had at her own crash landing. She was not much worse for the
wear thanks to the patch of grass that she lucked onto. But the
same couldn’t be said for her skateboard. Her fourth
skateboard.

“
I’m fine.” Binny
responded to the man, putting her hands behind her and raising
herself onto her feet, slightly wobbly from her fall, and trying to
hide even that from the man. Binny moved closer to and slightly in
front of Cassie, who was still communing with the dog, oblivious to
Binny’s explosive entrance.

“
Cassie, Dad wants us to
go inside now.” Binny said to her sister, keeping her eyes firmly
fixed on the man, who was now slowly getting up from his supportive
stance. He was taller than he seemed when she was at the top of the
hill. Binny put her hand on Cassie’s shoulder, instead of the ear
pulling she had envisioned.

“
I don’t want to go
inside. I’m having fun.” Cassie whined.

“
You should do as your
sister says, Cassie,” the man encouraged. Even though he was
helping her cause, Binny didn’t like how familiar the man was being
with her little sister – the way he said her name, which Binny
belatedly realized she herself had carelessly revealed.

Rembrandt finally settled matters by
pulling on his leash.

“
Looks like Rembrandt is
ready to go home.” The man said. “Are you sure you’re ok?” he
added.

“
I’m fine, thanks. Let’s
go Cassie.” Binny scooped up the battered halves of her skateboard
and shooed Cassie up the hill towards the entrance to their
house.

“
Bye Rembrandt!” Cassie
waved cheerfully as she slowly let herself be herded
home.

“
He says goodbye.” The man
said to Cassie, winking, making Binny doubly uncomfortable and
suspicious.

§

As the man receded back down the hill
from where he came, Binny scolded Cassie, “You shouldn’t be talking
to strangers. And that dog could have bitten you. And give me back
my mirror!” Her concern over her sister talking to the strange man
had now abated slightly, and the original complaint retook its
primary place amid her list of injustices.

“
The dog was friendly.”
Binny whined.

“
Give me my
mirror.”

“
It’s not your mirror.”
Cassie shot back while handing it over to Binny.

The two sisters marched up the hill.
Once the mirror was firmly ensconced in her pocket Binny finally
had a moment to look up only to see that smiling messy looking girl
from across the street standing at their gate.

“
Sorry about your
skateboard, but that was a really nice slide. Have you been
practicing that one?” The girl asked Binny.

Binny couldn’t detect any trace of
sarcasm in the girl’s voice. But she was quite certain that the
girl was just practiced at hiding it, making her comment extra
annoying.

“
I have to go inside now.”
Binny responded as she turned Cassie towards the Jordan house with
a firm hand on her shoulder.

As they distanced themselves from the
neighbor girl, and Binny looked down at the broken skateboard in
her scraped up arms, a thought suddenly occurred to her. If the man
was walking his dog, why did he choose the exact spot where her
sister was standing to end the walk and head home? It was almost as
if he’d come there just to see her baby sister. She wasn’t entirely
sure why, but Binny had a feeling the man had some sort of interest
in Cassie. While she was only ten-years old and didn’t know
everything, Binny did know that the man’s curiosity about her
seven-year-old sister could not be a good thing.

5

“
You really shouldn’t be
talking to strangers.” Binny lectured her younger sister as they
walked into the house. “It’s dangerous, and Mom and Dad would be
very upset if they knew.”

“
Stop
bossing.
” Cassie wasn’t screaming
quite yet, but she was clearly on her way.

“
What’s she bossing you
around about?” As the girls walked into the house they encountered
their brother, back in his prone position in front of the
videogame. The only thing capable of tearing his attention away was
the possibility of messing with Binny.