The Music Box

Chapter Seven

Two years after the prison buried Patrick in an unmarked paupers grave, a delivery man knocks at my door bringing a package delivery. Holding the box against a pregnant belly, I sign for the parcel. Carrying it into the living room, I wonder what it could be. Impulsive buying had become the norm for my soon to be daughters room. I plan to name her Emily Christine.

   The package is addressed to me, but as Dr. Jane Reisler, which is odd because I hadn't practiced psychology since leaving the prison. The name and title had to be on a computer or credit card statement from a previous purchase. Inside, I find a music box. Opening it, my ballerina pops up and twirls to 'Swan Lake'. I gasp when I see what's in the bottom of the box: it's my missing butterfly clasp. I know it's the missing one, because the match is in my hair. I hadn't seen the missing clasp since I escaped from Barnes's cellar.

   My hand begins to quiver and I reach down self-consciously to protect Emily, even while she's confined to my belly. A scream starts to form in my throat while I back up in disbelief. Behind me, I feel something solid were nothing should be.

   Without warning, an unknown hand cradles my belly, and a finger crosses in front, falling against my lips that I'm sure have lost all color. A male voice whispers, "Don't make a sound, Doc! We don't want to excite the baby and send you into early labor. What do we have, another 18 days before she's born?" he asks in a sinister manner as he counts down the exact days until Emily will be here.

  "Don't be afraid, Jane or should I call you, Christina Fletcher? That was very clever of you to change your name, trying to hide from me. I was so worried about you, then you showed up at the prison. I've been watching you for a while. The wedding was so beautiful. Now open those pretty brown eyes for me," he says while his lips graze mine for the first time in over 20 years.

   Opening my eyes, I see the impossible in front of me, Patrick Barnes! Softly I moan, "no, this can't be possible. I killed you! I watched you take your last breath. This isn't real!" I say, trying to convince myself to see the opposite of who is in front of me, then I see it— the scar on his neck is missing.

  "I know, it's also confusing. Let me tell you a story of two identical twin brothers, Patrick and Zachary Barnes. There was nothing to tell us apart except for a mole under my arm. One day, our mother was driving us home a couple weeks before Christmas. Patrick began playing around in the backseat even though mother told him to stop. She turned around to scold him, and lost control the car. The vehicle careened through a guard rail, plummeting into an icy lake. Torn between who to save, she grabbed Patrick's arm and  swam to the shore, leaving me to perish. The strong current pulled me under and away. Gasping for the last bit of air in my lungs, I managed to hook onto a floating tree limb a few miles downstream. The searchers gave up looking so quickly, they said because of the weather, but it's like they never even tried. I've been on my own ever since. Do you know what that's  like? I just turned fourteen years old. Can you imagine the things a fourteen year old old has to do in order to survive? You wouldn't know because you ran away for me when I was still teaching you. You didn't want to know!" Zachary Barnes accuses me while staring into my eyes that were swimming with tears. He pulls a switch blade from his pocket, and flips it open, gently caressing my face with it.

   My voice begins to quiver and break as I try to calm him, the way I remember doing many years ago. "I'm sure—that must've been devastating for you. You had to feel so alone and afraid. Why didn't you ever tell me that story before? Why didn't you just go home? I went home because I missed my family. Did you ever miss yours?" I say and ask him, attempting to be sympathetic and compassionate with the monster that ruined my life and now was capable of doing the same thing again.

   Zachary starts ranting, "What home? To the house of my favorite twin? He caused the accident, yet she chose to save Patrick! You can't imagine my happiness the day Patrick got arrested for my crime. I had no idea when I snatched you he would be blamed years later. Nor did I know he'd been in jail for drunk driving prior to that giving police cause to pull his DNA. A similar strain of my DNA as well as it turns out, at least enough of a match to point the judicial finger at him. He only paid a few years for what I did. I spent years paying for him stealing my mothers love. You robbed me of that revenge. Just like you robbed me of starting a family with you. I loved you and you ran away! Now look at you, you're a whore! Pregnant with another man's baby! I looked for you after you ran away, but your family keep moving you around, hiring bodyguards for you. Did you really think I wouldn't find you? That I would stop searching?"

   Trying to keep the topic off me and the memories I wished I could forget, I say, "It didn't have to be that way. You could've admitted what you did and saved your brothers life. You should've gone home. Your mother was forced to make a very difficult decision. She couldn't very well save you both at once, and Patrick was probably closer and she grabbed him, having every intention of coming back for you."

   Backhanding me for my efforts to reason with him, he screams emphatically at me, "No! Don't you make excuses for them! Don't try to appease your own conscious. You killed an innocent man, doc. What happened to you're Hippocratic oath? Did you enjoy watching as he took his last breath? Wasn't it a rush to allow your visceral feelings to take over? See, we're not so different, you and me, are we?" Zachary asked, not even waiting for an answer as he begins to laugh uncontrollably. When the laughing dies down he takes me on a trip down memory lane—over twenty years ago. "I thought about you ever since you left. Even though there have been many since then, you were my first. I remember that night your parents took you to see 'Swan Lake'. You looked so beautiful in your white tights and pink tutu. I wanted to keep you forever, but you made that impossible. You're the only one who's lived. I know you tried to forget what happened, that you want your childhood back, so do I that's why you and I will always be connected, we both lost something very dear to us," he whispers in my ear like a secret. His tongue flickers against my cheek as he continues, "You thought you killed me, didn't you, Christina? How frustrating it must've been for you. Did you get angry and hit Patrick when he continued to deny raping you?"

   Dazed by the slapping and unbelievable story, I can only stare at him as he continues to taunt me—touching me as he used to when I was a little girl. "Are we even, doc? You know my secret and I know yours. You keep my secret and I'll keep yours. After all, we murderers must stick together. If not, I guess I'll be seeing you again and maybe Emily Christine, too. Mums the word!" Zachary threatens as he mimics turning a key to lock our secrets in silence. With one more revolting pat against my swollen belly, he's gone as suddenly as he arrived, leaving me with the guilt of what I had done to Patrick and the threat against my unborn daughters life, should I ever speak of him. Even today I wonder, not if Zachary will return, but when...