PART 2 — The Birthmark
I turned away from Edmund and stared at the water.
Something about the way he was sitting bothered me.
Not the dirt.
Not the smell.
Not even the terrible condition of his clothes.
It was his silence.
He wasn’t embarrassed.
He wasn’t angry.
He was watching me through the mirror.
Almost as if he were trying to remember something.
I reached for the soap.
“Lift your arm,” I said.
He slowly raised it.
And then I saw it.
A small crescent-shaped birthmark just below his left shoulder.
My hand froze.
The sponge slipped from my fingers and landed in the water.
I couldn’t breathe.
That mark.
I had seen it before.
Once.
A lifetime ago.
I was ten years old when my younger brother disappeared.
His name was Elliot.
He was seven.
We had been at a crowded county fair with our parents.
One minute he was holding my hand.
The next, there was only an empty space beside me.
They searched for months.
Then years.
There were police reports.
Newspaper articles.
Missing-person posters.
People came to our house asking questions.
But Elliot never came home.
My mother eventually stopped speaking about him.
My father couldn’t even hear his name without leaving the room.
And I carried one memory with me for twenty-six years.
A crescent-shaped birthmark beneath Elliot’s left shoulder.
I stared at Edmund.
“No.”
He looked confused.
“Madam?”
I backed away from the bathtub.
“Where did you get that?”
He looked down at his shoulder.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always had it.”
My heart began pounding.
I ran downstairs.
I tore open drawers.
Then another.
Finally, I found the old wooden box I’d kept since childhood.
Inside was a silver locket.
I hadn’t opened it in years.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was the only photograph I still had of Elliot.
Seven years old.
Smiling.
Wearing a striped shirt.
And showing the same crescent-shaped mark.
I ran back upstairs.
Edmund was still sitting in the tub.
I placed the photograph beside his shoulder.
He stared at it.
His expression changed.
His lips parted.
“I know that boy.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Where?”
He touched the photograph with trembling fingers.
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