armchair as his granddaughter sat on him, looking and wondering.
“Are you sure you met Brad?” he sounded looking hopefully at Mary and then the young face struck her. The little girl looked the way Gillian did when she was five years old.
Mary looked around sizing up the place, anxious now. Something told her Daddy had a link to the place in a way she least expected.
“Is that Brad’s photo?” she asking politely pointing to the photo frame that sat on the mantelpiece.
“Yes it is,” said the old woman and grabbed the frame for Mary to see.
Mary looked at the portrait. It was a picture of a younger looking Brad with an older woman holding a baby, presumably the little girl who looked so much like Gillian.
The old woman smiled proudly and was quick to explain.
“That’s a picture of Brad with his mother and our little Gillian,” she said looking at her granddaughter lovingly. “Something tells me you must be Mary Percy are you not? The resemblance is unmistakable. You are your father’s daughter.”
Mary looked at the old woman, wondering what secrets lay before her that she was not privy to. What had Daddy been up to all these years? And why did he give the same name to this child too? Mary felt the stab of revolt etching through her soul. For once, she felt the resentment towards her father. An anger that she knew would go up in flames if she stayed longer.
“Come here Mary,” said the old woman feeling a need to explain, “Sit here child,” she offered moving her seat a little so Mary could sit close by and she began her story, telling Mary everything she needed to know. “My daughter Lara was a staff sergeant assigned to the same unit your father was in and when she fell in love with your father, it was in a way that was most innocent,” the old woman said, her kindly eyes reflecting and then watching if Mary could digest all that seemed to be an infidelity on the part of her father.
“But how could Daddy do this?” protested Mary. She was angry. Anyone would be. “How could he cheat Mama like this?”
The old woman nodded, her old hands now cast over Mary’s shoulders wanting to hold the girl down. It was a show of comfort Mary chose to do without.
“There, there. I know how you feel Mary,” insisted the old woman firmly. “I did reprimand her and I want you to know I did all I could but Lara could not stop the feelings from happening. She never wanted to hurt you Mary nor your mother. Their love just happened and she died too, came in the box the way he did and two weeks from now, we have to face that ceremony and I am afraid,” sounded the old woman, her voice almost broken now.
Mary looked at the old woman. Her face was plastered with the same kind of sadness and anxiety that Mama felt. For a little while, she felt some sorrow for the old couple and then her constitution hardened again. No matter what, it would never erase the fact that Daddy betrayed them and parked another family he nurtured close by them. It was unforgivable.
“And Brad?”
“He is your stepbrother. We want to find Brad. Will you help us find him? He must be hanging around here if you say that you saw him only yesterday? He must come home Mary. This is where he lives,” declared the old woman vehemently.
Mary looked away. Brad Percy was far from her mind now. She was angry. Daddy had his secrets and he hadn’t been truthful to them. Couldn’t they see that?
“Are you going to stay with us?”
Mary looked at the little girl who spoke. She was a pretty sight just like the way their Gillian was when she was a little girl.
“I will come and visit you if that is ok?” she heard herself say reluctantly.
“Will you find Brad for us? I miss him so much you know,” little Gillian declared, nestling herself closer to her grandfather.
“I will,” she heard herself say almost coldly. It was a clipped reply, she knew.
“Can you please? I don’t want him to die like Daddy. He said he was going to fight like Daddy and if he is gone, I would have no one to play with,” she insisted, taking a little lollipop now from her grandmother.
“You must not mind Gillian. She is quite a talker,” said the old woman apologetically as she stroked her granddaughter’s head, “Brad has been our worry these days. We want him back home. It is where he belongs and with the memorial coming up soon, he needs to be here with his family. Will you have some tea with us Mary? Just a treat we have at this time in the afternoon. Peter’s English you know.”
The old couple looked at Mary with an encouraging smile.
“You say Brad went up the cliff?”
“Yes, quite sure,” replied the old man, “We want him back Mary. The two of them are all we have. I cannot imagine why he’d leave us so suddenly. He has always been a good boy.”
Mary mulled over the sudden course of events. She felt a sudden urge to go. There was something she had to do.
“I have to go,” she insisted abruptly.
The old couple looked at each other but it was the old woman who held Mary’s hands. Mary looked at her feeling the pain arise within her blue eyes.
“Please come see us as often as you can. Do not leave angry Mary,” she insisted holding Mary’s hand gently. “You must know your father loved you so much. He always talked about you to us,” the old woman said as she showed Mary to the door.
“I will be back I promise,” and it was all she could say when she walked down the path to her car.
She knew they were watching her but so many questions crept through her mind. She needed to know and she knew the cliff had the answers to Brad. Quickly, she drove up the long stretch of road that took her round the winding cliff until she found herself back at the spot where the terrible accident almost happened. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. There was no sign that an accident had even happened and that she could have lost her life in the most terrible way. Quietly, she paced up to the edge of the cliff and looked down below, careful to ensure that she held on to the old tree nearby. Mary felt her blood run cold when the feeling hit her.
“Oh goodness!” she moaned, “It cannot be!”
With no further time to waste, Mary quickly drove back down to the foot of the cliff and walked around the rocky boulders that stood jutting upwards in perilous ways. They protruded menacingly some as sharp as spires, dangerously sounding instant death calls to anyone who greeted them. Even the fir trees which grew close by offered little respite to the unwary victim. Still, enmeshed with the overall scenery, the dangerous boulders offered a natural landscape of the coastal sea which Mary and her father had always welcomed.
But today she knew. She could feel it in her bones but she knew no way of verifying if Brad Percy had met his death in the most terrible way. The climb was too dangerous for her to make. She summoned the police and the search began with helicopters and several police officers who trailed the area, searching and scouting for what she believed to be the rocky gravesite of Brad Percy, her stepbrother.
It didn’t take long before the police signaled their find for rooted in between the boulders were the skeletal remains of a young boy they determined to be almost fourteen years of age, his thin bony fingers still clutching tightly a faded and torn page that read the words “The Voice of Reason”.
But it was what Officer Charleston said much later that sent chills down Mary’s spine. A check in Brad Percy’s torn clothes had revealed some peculiar information that baffled the police for a crumpled tear of the local newspaper still sat fresh in his pocket. On it, Officer Charleston had stated were scribbled the telephone number to Mary Percy’s home and a frayed but discernible section that suggested the paper was but part of the newspaper print of yesterday.
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About the Author:
My joy for writing extends beyond just writing childhood memoirs and about a father gone so wrong. For those who have read "When Sally was 9…", you will know the hardships Sally went through but there's more to me than just what these books tell.
I love writing and I write to tell a story. So, you
will find me writing just about anything that interests me from murder mysteries to supernatural stories that blur the division between reality and the other world as well as stories that tell about life and living.
I hope you will find interest in trying my collection of supernatural short stories after reading The Voice of Reason. Please check my blogs for any updates or information pertaining to my writing and new book releases.
Other Books by the Same Author:
Paranormal Shorts: Tales of the Unexpected
Protocols for Murder
When Sally was 9…
3 Young Sleuths Mystery Series: What Happened to Halloween?
Connect with Me Online:
Blogspot: https://forgettingsally.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/forgettingsally
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