I woke this time knowing my full name, where I had lived both lifetimes and what had happened to me. I woke in hospital in a bed in a ward with only a nurse in attendance.
“Hullo. Do you know who you are, son?” she asked. I saw a woman near my mum’s age, thirties with coal black hair and blue eyes. She was pretty, wore a white uniform with her name on the pocket.
“What year is this?” I asked and she looked unsettled.
“1999.”
I sighed. I had lost another twenty years. “Can I have a mirror?”
“You weren’t in an accident,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong with your face.”
“How old do I look?”
“How old do you think you are?” she countered.
“Twelve or thirteen?”
“You don’t know?”
“I remember being twelve.”
“You still are. You have some unusual scars. Why don’t you tell me your name?”
“Aidan Argent.” Actually, the right Honorable Aidan Michael Darancourt Griffon Argent. I should have been thirty nine years old by now but was still stuck in a 12-year-old body.
“The Moor Murders?”
“What about them?”
“Did they catch the man who did it?”
“Aye. In fact, he just died in prison. Served twenty years and died of AIDS.”
“Aids?”
She looked at me oddly as if I should know what that was. She explained and I shuddered, wondering if he’d done anything to my body after I had been murdered.
“I read about it. A boy named Aidan was his last victim. He saved the intended victim, a girl named Kitty Coyle. She ran back and got the Bobbies and Scotland Yard but they were too late to save the lad. He’d been disemboweled and cut to his heart. In fact, the murderer took his heart with him. The girl recognized the attacker, the postmaster. He was caught with the boy’s organ, arrested, and sent to Wormwood Scrubs. Why?”
“I knew him. Aidan.”
“How? He died before you were born.”
I couldn’t answer without sounding insane. She asked me where I lived and I couldn’t answer that either. I was sure Suzy was long dead and left me with no place to go. “I have no one,” I whispered.
“Orphan. That’s tough.”
“What happened to me?”
“Police Inspectors found you along the transit line. Unconscious, unresponsive. We thought you were an OD but no drugs were found in your system. You were in shock, no sign of any trauma, just these scars. You’ve been here for a fortnight. Doctor thought you’d never wake up. Are you hungry?”
“Is it tea time?”
“Long past but I can find you something. Be back in a bit.” She left me, returning in a half hour with a Styrofoam cup of lake warm tea and a soggy bacon sandwich I devoured in four bites. I felt as if I hadn’t eaten in ages. I suppose I hadn’t.
After her came the doctor, harried National Health and he checked my eyes, heart, lungs and reflexes, seemed pleased with the results and pronounced me fit. He wanted to know about the scars and asked me if I had been abused. The police came next, took my fingerprints, and were disappointed when they came up unknown.
Social service was last, two snarly people, a man and a woman who treated me as if I were some dirty criminal. They didn’t believe me when I said I had no family, no place to live, no money. They said anyone with my accent must have some wealthy family somewhere. The result was that I was placed in a juvenile facility until I was to turn 18 and then I’d be on my own. I would be tested for my scholastic knowledge and placed in a program appropriate to my abilities, some trade school, she said.
I took their tests. Three times. Mostly because they didn’t believe the results the first time. Nor the second. They accused me of cheating. So they watched me take them the third time and they were convinced I really was that smart and put me in an accelerated class in a preparatory school where I boarded.
It wasn’t bad; it was out in the countryside with fresh air, good food and lots of exercise. I was smaller than the other boys were and somewhat behind in social skills, didn’t participate in the social events. So much had changed since the seventies. Computers, cell phones, closed circuit TV, pay-per-view, world travel, and globalization. And the news programs!
I realized how incredibly foolish and lucky I had been to stalk Kitty’s murderer. No sane teen in this time would dare travel alone at night on the tubes or take a five year old on a coach trip. So many children disappeared today to be found slain or not at all.
The school was called Posthwaite Prep and guaranteed its graduates a place in Eton, Harrow, Yale or any other University of note. I was on the top floor, the fourth in a building of non-distinct character save that it resembled an old cotton mill and I had been told the it had been such; converted into an exclusive boys school in the early seventies right before the recession and petrol wars.
I had been too young to worry about the price of petrol but I sure noticed how everything else had jumped in cost.
A ticket on the tubes used to cost a sixpence and I could ride on it all day. Now, they wanted nearly a pound or rather, a Euro for a station-to-station stop. And taxis! Highway robbery.
When the first holiday came and I had nowhere to go home to, I decided to ride into London and visit the old neighborhood. I was totally lost; so much had changed in the ensuing years. Urban renewal, areas that had been highly posh was now rundown slums. The high rises were awe-inspiring and I found my nights spent climbing to the tops of them with astonishing ease and learned that no one hid their business from prying eyes when they thought they were on top of the world.
I saw drug deals go down, pay offs to police officials, high-class prostitutes servicing their clients. I knew where they kept their cash and learned how to break in and steal it.
I took only the cash, nothing else and because of my naivete, thought I could just walk into a bank and deposit it. When that didn’t work, I tried to find a way to hide it in my room but with random drug searches, I was afraid it would be discovered. So, I took it with me in a backpack, bought an excursion ticket for a two-day trip to Cornwall. I booked a sleeper compartment, bought new clothes, had my hair trimmed, styled and set off with trepidation. The closer I rode to Penharris, the worse I felt. Even the conductor noticed and asked if I was ill. I shook my head and huddled into my jacket, sinking deeper into the seat.
Later, when the carriage went forward for tea, the ticket collector brought me a cup of very hot, very sweet tea with cinnamon buns. I gave him a brief smile, thanks and tried to give him some cash. He sat down opposite me and refused it.
“What’s your name, son?” he asked. He was young, about my dad’s age---thirty with curly haircut long and spikes in his ears, one through his tongue and his eyebrow. He had wise brown eyes and creases at the corners.
“Aidan.”
“You’re not a runaway, are you?”
“No, I’m an orphan,” I answered and he sighed.
“Sorry, man. That sucks. Where are you headed?”
“Strathgallant. Losthwithial.”
“You are going up for the Festival?”
“What festival?”
Now he looked at me strangely. “Oh, just the biggest Medieval Fair and Festival that’s been going on for the last five years and half the kingdom runs to see.”
“I’ve been locked away at school,” I said.
“Must have been in bloody bumfuck Egypt,” he muttered. “You be careful. There are a lot of predators out there, especially for a good looking boy like yourself.” he laid his hand on my knee and smiled. I looked at it, back at him and he picked it up.” Sorry. Didn’t think it hurt to ask. You’re not…”
“No. I’m not.” I knew what he meant and now it was my turn to study him. “How did you know you were like…that?”
“You mean queer? I was born knowing it,” he admitted. “I prefer older boys, too but you had that air.”
“I’m just twelve, mister. Jail-bait.”
“I know. The tea’s on me, Aidan. I’ll see to it you get off at your stop safely. You have somewhere to stay?”
“Maybe. I don’t know until I get there.”
“The station is another twenty minutes, Aidan. Enjoy your tea.” He got up and wandered off down the aisle towards the engineer’s car.
I’d meant to ask him if the piercings hurt but his revelations on his sexual preferences had stunned me. More had changed in the years since I’d died than I could fathom.