To a dispassionate observer, they were nothing less than the predictive responses to human themes. A Jungian analysis would easily have mapped the patterns out in no more than two sessions. For those children, a bright and purposeful counsellor would have seen them each prosper to their full potential. After all, they were brilliant. In 1981, pedagogical theorists had just begun calling right hemispherical brain dominance combined with IQ's measured at 150 or above, atypically gifted.

For years after that summer, the parents would tell themselves, sometimes even successfully, that it began as a noble idea. The best interests of their children after all, the only concern. An intensive summer of study, a normative routine, it was structured discipline meant to apply a needed and missing focus. Wonderfully and ethically provided by the tall, slim head master from England, Leland Quinley.

....As reported by chief Sandreck, fire still burns at the lakeside property outside Waleston. While no one from the town or cottage area has been reported missing, we have received and continue to receive several reports of large human remains being found in the vicinity of the original blaze. However the Lakeside District coroners office cannot say for certain if the remains are that of animal, or human....

A man who had come to them highly, highly recommended. Another fact that, years later, the parents would attempt, less successfully, to reconcile. Whether it was one too many attempts, or perhaps the futility of trying to ignore what they each knew at their core; that what happened to their children that summer in 1981, is something that simply can never, ever be reconciled.

****

Playfully teasing the leaves, the crisp wall of November wind is almost purposely disarming. And by a lake on the edge of a woods, the air grows noticeably colder as the man who was once considered human locks the door, climbs into the car, telling the driver his destination today will be the city. Manhattan please.

Hours later, the wind is much stronger, and it slams hard against the fourth floor of the Manhattan brownstone. Her blond hair is tied with silk, and the woman with the perfect, aquiline neck, faces away from the window. Surely she must hear the developing storm? Instead, her mind is on other things. As she thinks of the three people she is closest to in this world, she is beyond regret. Sitting alone at her kitchen table, the woman who's commissioned paintings grace the walls of every museum in this city, slowly and purposefully eats the food that she knows will be her last meal.

Glancing down at what she recognizes to be the usual mess on the plate, the woman continues to spin the meat in slow, concentric circles. As the meat that originally had an intention of meatloaf makes its way through the swamp of brown gravy, the woman remembers just how much she hates the canned peas sharing space with the boiled potatoes. Both soon to become the instrument of swirling gravy when the meatloaf is consumed.

In what is the third white flash of hot anger today, the tenth this week, she picks up the plate and hurls it out of range. As it lands somewhere near the entrance to the coat closet sized kitchen, she screams,

"What the fuck do you want this time. What now! Fuck!"

Gaining control just as quickly as she lost it, the woman glances at her watch. Doing the mental arithmetic, she knows it has been exactly an hour since the milk, and no more than twenty minutes since the meatloaf. Time for the aspirin. She suspects he will be here before long.

Gagging only a little, she swallows the fourth large handful of pills. She has been successful in her task. As the nausea begins several minutes later, she does not hesitate. It is to be unpleasant, this she knows. All the more reason to get it over with quickly, she tells herself. After taking what is required from the rack on the kitchen counter, she climbs into the claw foot tub, and positions herself back to the wall. When she hears it, her pause is no more than a second.

That sound. There is never a need to hear it twice. Many years of attempting to erase it have instead made Savannah highly skilled at recognizing it. The same sound that so many years before, fractured a young child's world into sharp, jagged pieces of dark, crimson red existence.

She shuts her eyes with the full awareness it cannot keep him out.

Almost a giggle, a pause, and then a shrill, maniacal squeal are the sounds that rise from deep within the man who wears the tall boots.

As he asks her the question, he can barely contain himself.

"Tell me Savannah, does it sing"?

The woman's pause is slight, however fatal. Her brief hesitation causes a reflexive drawing back on the blade. But now, more than ever, she is determined. With a grimace, she continues, deeply drawing it across her throat, the kitchen knife rips and tears a jagged swath from right ear to just under the tracheal prominence. Panicked and coughing, she recognizes the warm liquid in the back of her throat as blood. She is choking. Knocked off balance by the retching, she falls hard into the tub.

The blow to the head is severe, and it will ultimately prove her demise. Mercifully, she will only see the boots. The tall boots that cross the floor into the washroom are as she remembers, though muddy. When they stop directly before her, Savannah George begins to sob. And like so many years before, she begins to urinate. The terrified woman remains conscious only moments longer.

"I asked you a question Savannah."

It is three minutes before midnight when the light that has flickered tenuously for thirty seven years, the light that is Savannah George, draws its last flame. As the blood flows freely, swirling in unison with the water in the claw foot tub, the man in the tall boots, pauses, then walks away from the dead, naked woman. It will be five full days before anyone considers that the fragile, blond artist named Savannah George, is the source of an ever growing and unpleasant scent on the fourth floor of the Manhattan brownstone.

As he leaves the front door of the upper west side residence, bracing against the uncharacteristically cold November night, the man in the tall boots thinks of the others; Ben and Jason. Serena. He places his slender fingers with the overgrown nails on his chin, and again Leland begins to squeal. He simply cannot wait.

In the phone call to Jason he tries to be purposeful, reading the quote from Savannahs neighbor.

"It was the strangest thing, this guys laugh was almost like a squeal....But it didn't sound, okay this is really fucked up, but I swear it didn't sound human".

It is ten full minutes before Jason speaks. The first thing he asks, is when Ben will arrive. He tells him. When he asks what they should do, Ben does not answer.

Jason is the one to finally break the silence, saying aloud what they both already know. What they have known since being told of her death a week ago. In a measured tone that Ben does not recognize, his former lover says "I think it's fair to say....he has come back".

As warm urine runs down the leg of Ben Walker, spilling onto the floor, he holds on to the counter, white knuckled. It is all he can do to ground himself, as a voice from long ago is heard. Like a wet, putrid tongue in his ear, "Does it sing"? squeals the man who wears the tall boots.

**** 

A week after the death of Savannah George, and a lifetime after Ben Walker had convinced himself it was over, he hangs up the phone. And as the forty year old man cups his face in his hands, it all comes rushing back.

 
by: Allan G Rae