The Magic at the End of the World (Do You Remember, Book 5)

Thursday, January 11, 2001

Oh my God.

It happened again.

Another autistic person snapped and killed some people who had done nothing wrong.

And the sad thing was, though, the autistic person in question was Black; the people she killed were also Black.

And they just happened to be her family.

Here's how that happened:

Yesterday, in the historically Black section of Charleston, 14-year-old JoLee Griffin had apparently snapped and killed her parents Bobbie and Kala, older brother Darius and older sister Krystol due to her finding out that Darius wasn't her father's son. (Another sister, Jeimy, was at a friend's house when the tragedy happened.) It took several neighbors at least 45 minutes to restrain JoLee before the police arrived to take her to the hospital.

I don't believe it.

Once again, people protesting against the death of Jakobe Garrett are now protesting against this new tragedy, believing that JoLee was innocent and that a White man had committed the crime. Yet at the same time, the Black community is slowly learning that autism has seeped into their community like a thief and is stealing the minds of their babies, children, and siblings. I'm quite sure that in some of the older families, it was quite common to have more than three autistic relatives, who were cleverly hidden from the world by the way of secret rooms and forced masking.

I then thought about Kaprice and how his birth mother had chosen his autistic brother over him, but I'm not sure if now's the right time to bring up the issue. (Besides, he's already said his piece about that particular story; there was no need for us to be beating that smashed potato.)

But that doesn't mean that Kaprice didn't call me to talk about that. In fact, here's what he said:

Jed: I take it that you've already heard the story about...

Kaprice: That's all that BET is talking about. I already knew that it was good too to be true, especially where Jakobe Garrett was concerned. Now, there's another part of Charleston that has to deal with this tragedy, and they don't have all the answers.

Jed: And neither do the White people. Seriously, what's going on to make these autistic people snap and turn into homicidal maniacs?

Kaprice: You're telling me. I can only hope that the Griffin family gets some much-needed help with their problems. It's not good for anyone to have to endure raising an autistic person, knowing that they could snap at any time. That's partially why my birth mother took my brother and left me.

Jed: I thought so. But it still doesn't excuse the reason why she left you in a town that was notorious for killing so many disabled people.

Kaprice: Who knows? Anyway, Joanna and Toby have gone to Washington, DC for an emergency meeting with the Supreme Councilor, so we're stuck with Orlando, Adam, and Sansa for the time being.

Jed: I knew it!

After that particular conversation ended, I went back to work on writing some more fake diary entries, being careful to space them out. (Can't have anyone knowing the time difference between diary entries!) I also went over my notes that I had taken when Chesley was here; I intended to make sure that everything I currently knew and everything I had just learned were in alignment. Nothing had to be out of place, or the entire story I was a part of would fall apart.

Just then, Mary came to me, saying, "I've been hearing some stuff about you from Chesley."

"Well, he did come and see me a few days ago," I said.

"I should have known," said Mary. "And here I thought that he was just spewing crap from his mouth."

"Whatever does that mean?" I said.

"Well, Chesley has been known to say things that aren't true, but we all know that the Chester family has been after him for many years," said Mary. "We just don't know why."

"Not if we can investigate it," I said.

Well, I will admit that I haven't exactly used that power in a long time, not since I had helped expose Micheal Kidd, Luke McPherson, and Danny Peck as the killers of Christina Brewer. (In case you don't remember, Declan Caesar was blamed for that death and eventually murdered by the three boys in question. Micheal, Luke, and Danny were later arrested for murder and fraud.)

Well, this is unbelievable.

I then said, "Did you want me to use my powers to find out what happened to Chesley?"

"You mean, you have the power to see into the past?" said Mary.

"Well, I can't intervene with the past, but I can observe it," I said. "That's how I was able to find out how and why Declan Caesar was so hated."

"You mean, only a selected few hated Declan," said Mary. "Don't forget, nobody really liked Christina Brewer and the special ed students were kept away from the general population."

"And that's our next project," I said in a manner of speaking. "For all the times we've dismissed Kelsey and her insane ramblings, there's a bit of truth to them, a truth that we can no longer deny."

"And what is that?" said Mary.

"People with disabilities have been isolated, shamed, and abused for countless centuries," I said. "In fact, ableism is 100 times worse than racism."

"Meaning," said Mary.

"Anyone can fight for the rights of a certain ethnic group of people, but no one wants to fight for the rights of disabled people," I said. "You already saw what had happened with Uncle Zach and Jimmy."

"We have," said Mary. "Uncle Zach never recovered from the abuse that he was handed, which is why you have some issues. Plus, Jimmy is still dealing with PTSD from being kidnapped and abused. It's like what negative thing happens to a person will inevitably affect their descendants. In this case, you're dealing with everything that Uncle Zach went through."

"And Hadley?" I said. "We have to make sure that Hadley is actually Jimmy's daughter before accusing Nicholas Farley and Michael Wharton of child abuse..."

"Except that Michael Wharton is dead, because Freddie had killed him," said Mary. "And once we know the truth about Jimmy, Zoey, and Hadley, that guy and his accomplices are going to jail for the rest of their lives."

I immediately thought about Terrence Powell and Stacie Whitney, who (like Jimmy) had survived the nightmare of being kidnapped and abused. Alex Lawrence, Benjamin Underwood, and Tracy Hammond had died shortly after being rescued; their families are planning to sue Farley for wrongful child death.

I then said, "We need to get inside Jimmy's memories before we do anything else. Only by asking him questions that he's afraid to answer can we finally figure out what's going on with the world."

Mary nodded in agreement, knowing that the second Jimmy revealed the truth about what had happened to him during the five years that he had spent in captivity, that was when someone's goose was truly cooked...