Secrets and Lies - 1. Nathan O’Neale (A Certain Justice)

Nathan O’Neale (A Certain Justice)

The place was overgrown with grass. Gone was the past, and with it the secret, the pain, and the shame. Not entirely, he admitted unwillingly, as he was still alive. He was the last witness, the last one who knew of the events that had happened so long ago. He was the last one who had been involved, but he hardly remembered those dreadful events. A benevolent veil had covered the past, had sheltered his mind, and had subdued his pain. The veil had been like a vapor hood. The vapor had successfully lulled him to sleep for more than three decades. The sleep had been comfortable. It had been a soothing slumber that had enabled him to live a comfortable life, an average life, normal, ordinary, and unremarkable.

He stood and looked around. The place was overgrown with grass. Nothing reminded of the past. He could make his peace, couldn’t he? After all, a secret was not a secret when there was no one left who was affected by it. He was the last witness, the last one who had been involved. He could carry the past to the grave, bury it and thus dispose of it. Finally and forever. Two more decades, three perhaps, and then he was gone and no stain would be left. The smut would have gone with him. The world would be pure and clean again, purified and cleansed by his death.

He looked around and winced slightly. He heard her laughter, light and joyous, carefree, dangerous. And then he saw her dancing. She was whirling around, her bare feet barely touching the ground, her long white dress and her long black hair swaying. She looked like a ghost. She was a ghost. She was the ghost who haunted him. He did not move as he feared he would draw her attention on him. He just stood and stared. And she ignored him. She kept dancing and she kept laughing, louder now and with a mocking undertone. Nathan stared at her. She was a siren, a temptress, and always had been. He knew her intention of bringing about ruin and doom.

He thought of Justin, nineteen years old, naïve, a natural victim. Her victim. Had she grasped what she had done to him? No, she had not, not even when he had shouted it in her face. He saw her eyes, dark brown eyes, the black pupils widened with fear. He had rejoiced at the sight. Her sheepish look had made him feel almighty, had strengthened his power and had justified his thirst for revenge. He had been an avenger, sent by the powers of good, by the gods who sought justice and balance. He had smacked her face again. She had opened her lips, but no sound had come from them. He had silenced her, finally had shut her up, finally had stopped the siren’s call and her mocking laughter.

They had looked at each other. Her eyes still showed that sheepish look. She did not grasp what she had done to him, and she did not grasp what she had done to Justin. She did not grasp why he had come, did not grasp why he had smacked her face. She did not grasp that he had come to kill her. He seized her shoulders, and then he smashed her head on the rock, again and again, until her skull broke and that sheepish look finally disappeared from her eyes. He withdrew his hands and looked at her body, her smashed head and her dead and broken eyes. And then he smacked her face again. Her head flopped back and forth like the head of a rag doll or the head of some push puppet.

He had buried her body later in the wood. The place was overgrown with grass now. They had never found her body, they had not found Justin’s either. They had speculated that the two of them had run away like so many had done in the seventies when flower power ruled and strange gurus from overseas gathered followers around them. Perhaps Justin and Sally had gone to India. Hadn’t they always dreamed of some beautiful place called Goa?

Nathan gave a mocking laugh. He looked warily at the ghostly figure that was still dancing on the clearing. She had not heard him. She continued whirling around, spinning around her self-absorbed ego and center. He looked at her and then he started to walk towards her. He approached her slowly, his eyes fixed on her. Three decades had passed. He had silenced her, punished her, had buried her evil body. And yet she dared to rise from the ashes, dared to tease him with that mocking laughter of hers.

"Witch," he hissed as he had approached her. He raised his arm and reached his hand out to her. She did not stop. She continued whirling around and he was unable to touch her. She was airy and light, unearthly, unreal. She was a ghost, just an image that his mind produced out of guilt and out of scruples. He was not the hardened man that he had thought he was. A benevolent veil had covered the past, had sheltered his mind, and had subdued his pain and his guilt. The veil had been like a vapor hood. The vapor had successfully lulled him to sleep until they had found Justin’s remains. It had all been on TV. They had found his bones in the place where he had buried his friend three decades ago.

The place was far from Sally’s grave. The place was on the west coast, near the sea, close to the village where the three of them had spent one week in summer, where the siren had seduced her own brother just in order to make a fool of him. Justin, nineteen, naïve, and innocent. Just in who had been his first love and the one and only true love of his life. He had found him in the morning after the night when the siren had brought about doom and disaster. He had hung himself in the wood. They had buried his body and then they had fled the place. He had fled with the witch. It had been his only mistake. He should have handed her over to the authorities. But he had corrected his mistake. He had brought justice to the world, in the name of love and on behalf of his murdered friend Justin.

He spat at her. "You deserved it," he hissed. But she did not even turn her head. She continued whirling around and she continued laughing. He made a step back and shook his head. And then he walked away. He cast one last glance over his shoulder. The place was overgrown with grass now. And she was nothing but a shadow, a fading memory, he realized as he stepped out of the dark wood and into the sun. He stood for an instant and looked at the sky. He was a middle-aged man, average looking, with a past no one had a clue of. He greeted a couple coming his way. They nodded in return and walked on. He was just another passer-by, a man going for a walk in spring.