Brain Child

Alex’s mind was whirling, and he barely heard Lisa’s question. Images were flickering, and there were sounds. But nothing was clear, except that the images and sounds were connected with this place. Trembling slightly, he kept walking.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kate asked, her voice worried. “He looks weird.”

“I think he’s remembering something,” Lisa replied.

“We’d better go with him,” Bob added, but Lisa shook her head.

“I’ll go,” she told them. “You guys wait for us, okay?”

Kate nodded mutely, and as Alex stepped into the tiny fenced cemetery, Lisa hurried after him.

The images had begun coming into focus as soon as he’d entered the cemetery. His heart was pounding, and he felt out of breath, as if he’d been running for a long time. He scanned the little graveyard, and his eyes came to rest on a small stone near the wall.

In his mind, there were images of people.

Women dressed in black, their faces framed by white cowls, their feet clad in sandals.

Nuns.

In his mind’s eye he saw a group of nuns clustering around a boy, and the boy was himself.

But he was different somehow.

His hair was darker, and his skin had an olive complexion to it.

And he was crying.

Unconsciously Alex moved closer to the headstone that had triggered the strange images, and the images seemed to move with him. Then he was standing at the grave, gazing down at the inscription that was still barely legible in the worn granite

Fernando Melendez y Ruiz

1802–1850

A word flashed into his mind, and he repeated it out loud. “?Tio!” As he uttered the word, a stab of pain knifed through his brain, then was gone.

And then voices began whispering to him — the voices of the nuns, though the images of them had already faded away.

“El esta muerto.” He is dead.

And then there was another voice — a man’s voice — whispering to him out of the depths of his memory. “?Venganza … venganza!”

He stood very still, his eyes brimming with unfamiliar tears, his pulse throbbing. The voice went on, whispering to him in Spanish, but only the one word registered on his mind: “Venganza.”

His tears overflowed, and a sob choked his throat. Then, as the strange words pounded in his head, he gave in to the sudden unfamiliar rush of emotion.

Time seemed to stand still, and he felt a kind of pain he couldn’t remember having ever felt before. Pain of the heart, and of the soul.

The pain seared at him, and then he became aware of a hand tugging at him, slowly penetrating the chaos in his mind.

“Alex?” a voice said. “Alex, what’s wrong? What is it?”

Alex pointed to the grave, sobbing brokenly, and Lisa, after a moment of utter confusion, began to understand what must have happened. She had listened carefully that day last month before Alex came home from the hospital, and she could still remember the words.

“He could start laughing or crying at any time,” Alex’s mother had told her. “Dr. Torres says it won’t matter if something is funny or sad. It’s just that it’s possible that there will be misconnections in his brain, and he could react inappropriately to something. Or he could simply overreact.”

And that, Lisa was certain, was exactly what was happening now. Alex was overreacting to an ancient grave.

But why?

He had remembered something, she had been sure of it. And now he was staring at the grave, tears streaming down his face, uncontrollable sobs racking his body. Gently she tried to pull him away as a priest appeared from the back of the church and looked at them quizzically.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” Lisa quickly replied. “Everything’s all right. It …” She floundered for a moment, trying to think of an explanation for Alex’s behavior, but her mind had suddenly gone blank. “Come on, Alex,” she whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

Half-dragging Alex, she edged her way past the priest, then out of the graveyard. Once back in the garden, she put her arms around Alex and squeezed him. “It’s all right, Alex,” she whispered. “It was only an old grave. Nothing to cry about.”

Slowly Alex’s sobs began to subside, and he made himself listen to Lisa’s words.

Only a grave. But it hadn’t been only a grave. He had recognized the grave, as he had recognized the cemetery itself. What he had just experienced, he had experienced before.

The memories were clear in his mind now. He could remember having been in that cemetery, having looked down at the grave, having listened to the nuns telling him his uncle was dead.

His uncle.

As far as Alex knew, he had no uncle.

And certainly he wouldn’t remember an uncle who had died in 1850.

But it was all so clear, just as clear as the memory he’d had at school last week. Clear, but impossible.

He took a deep breath, and his last sob released its grip on his throat. Lisa found a handkerchief in her bag and handed it to him. He blew his nose. “What happened?” she asked.

Alex shrugged, but his mind was whirling. It didn’t make any sense, and if he told her what had happened, she would think he was crazy. But he had to tell her something. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I … I remembered something, but I’m not sure what. But it was like I was here before, and something terrible happened. But I can’t remember what.”

Lisa frowned. “Were you ever here before? Maybe something did happen here.”

Then, before Alex could say anything else, Bob and Kate moved toward them, their expressions a mixture of worry and uneasiness.

“What happened?” Kate asked. “Are you okay, Alex?”

Alex nodded. “I just remembered something, and it made me cry. Dr. Torres said it might happen, but I didn’t really think it would.” Lisa looked at him sharply, but said nothing. If he didn’t want to tell them what had really happened, she wouldn’t either. “Maybe it’s a good sign,” he said, making himself smile. “Maybe it means I’m getting better.”

Kate and Lisa exchanged a glance, each of them realizing what might have to happen. Finally Kate voiced the thought.

“Are you going to tell your folks about it?”

“He can’t,” Bob said. “If he does, then all our folks will find out what we did, and we’ll all be in trouble.”

“But what if it’s important?” Lisa asked. “What if it means something?”

“Why can’t he just say it happened at the beach?” Bob suggested. “Besides, what’s the big deal about crying in a graveyard? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

“I didn’t say it was a big deal,” Lisa replied. “All I said was that it might mean something, and if it does, none of us should worry about getting into trouble. I just think Alex should tell his folks exactly what happened.”

“Well, I think we should vote on it,” Bob said. “And I vote he doesn’t tell.” He looked expectantly at Kate Lewis, whose eyes reflected her uncertainty. Finally she made up her mind, looking away from Bob.