We Grow Accustomed To The Dark

Chapter 12

"Heavy are you, my boy, with demons in your sleeve. You, my little boy, charm with anchors of wide, shipwrecked bloody open seas... You whisper and cry in harmony..."

― The Battle of Land and Sea

***

Will hadn't been lying. Hannibal wasn't exactly sure why he was so surprised by the fact that Will hadn't been lying, but it sat odd in his chest.

Ethan Pats' body was found just as Will had said it was. A year ago in an abandoned little shack out in the middle of a forest in nowhere. The pictures were interesting to say the least. Will had been right. They must have used dental work to identify the body because after all these years the body was absolutely stripped clean and the boy's skull was smashed to pieces.

Whoever had been in charge of putting the pieces back together had done their best but there were pieces missing. So many pieces either having been turned to dust or possibly taken off by animals. Possibly taken by Michael Woodmansee and shellacked . As far as Hannibal knew, Will did not keep trophies or souvenirs from his victims. And Will had also been right on the count of the boy having no living relatives left to compare DNA on. His parents were both the last line of their families and had been cremated. The rest of the family lived in Ireland and had been estranged.

As for Michael Woodmansee, it was just as Will had said. Michael killed by strangulation. He had a meticulous account of each and every death he committed kept in the journal just as Will stated. Each and every kill save for Ethan Pats. There was no mention anywhere of Ethan Pats in any of Michael's writings. No observations or obsessions or planning or doing or reliving. None of that was anywhere for Ethan Pats. Not to mention that later in court that Michael said that his confession was a lie because the cops had threatened him into confessing to Ethan's murder as well.

Will had been right. The timing of the kills didn't add up, if both happened on the same day. There was no way that one person could be on the outskirts of town and then in the forest on the opposite side of the town in a cabin several miles deep in the trees. It would be physically impossible.

Hannibal could only accept that Will had been telling the truth.

The next death that Hannibal had looked into was Will's father. It had taken some time to get the name from Beverly. For not being able to afford letters to give Will's name its full length, Will's grandparents must not have had any issues. Jeremiah Graham. If Hannibal hadn't known that they lived in Virginia when Will's father had died, Hannibal wasn't sure he would have been able to find the man. And the only image of the deceased was a graining photo in a local newspaper that spoke about the man's passing.

The picture had caught Hannibal's attention. Will was in it as well. They were on a rusted old fishing boat, Jeremiah with an arm slung around a rather small boy who looked close to starving. The only thing that told Hannibal it was Will was the mass of curly locks on his head that were even longer then than they were now. A mess in the wind off the bay, a fish in the boy's grip. Something nearly as large as him and Hannibal was surprised that the starving child was able to hold it up. But Will was always stronger than Hannibal thought he could be.

Will's father had died, once more, as Will had said. Slipped and fell down some apartment stairs, cervical fracture was the cause of death. It could have looked like an accident but with how strongly Will had pressed, Hannibal believed the boy. Jeremiah hadn't slipped. He had been pushed, shoved down with a viciousness and Hannibal wondered what it was that the man had said that had finally caused Will to snap.

There was no autopsy done and the man was cremated. No one would ever know what truly happened. Only Will, Hannibal and Beverly, though she had even admitted that she didn't believe Will's story.