The Recurrence of Henry Edward Jr

Four months, two weeks and today – the day Henry and his wife would know with medical certainty if their unborn child was a boy or a girl.

“Honey, you almost ready?” Henry yelled from the kitchen to his wife upstairs.

“Ten minutes. I need to dry my hair”.

Henry mumbled something inaudible from under his breath, looked at his watch and paced the kitchen. He turned his attention to the living room table where a medium sized package, having arrived the day earlier, sat unopened. It was addressed from the estate of the renowned, but now deceased, Dr. Samuel Pritchett.

Dr. Pritchett had grown to national fame by treating the children of the privileged but became a national hero when he broke patient/doctor confidentiality and provided authorities information on the whereabouts (a shallow grave) of one Mary Katherine, a woman who had gone missing years earlier. He also provided the name of her killer, one John R. Denney, who police found incarcerated in Fishkill Correctional Facility for other crimes. Against protocol, the authorities allowed the Doctor a private session with Denney, who afterwards, summarily confessed not only to the murder of Mary Katherine but to the grisly murder of an additional twenty young men and women, providing sketches of the precise locations of all of their graves. Denney committed suicide in his prison cell a few days later.

The facts aren’t clear, but Dr. Pritchett was himself under some kind of review by the authorities to disclose who exactly was the patient that provided the information on the whereabouts of Mary Katherine. It is said that Dr. Pritchett disclosed that his patient overheard the story of Mary Katherine during his outpatient drug treatment reform group; but the Doctor would say no more “on the grounds of principle”. The authorities probably would have pressed the case further but given the public outcry against the Doctor’s interrogation (it is also assumed that his friends came to his aide), the matter resolved itself, so to speak.

Henry had been under the care of the esteemed Doctor from the ages of seven to ten and during that time, his late mother told him, was treated for a mild case of autism. Henry didn’t remember much from that period or anything for that matter before the age of seven. It was as if the Doctor’s treatment cured him by erasing the memory of his past entirely. Since his remission, Henry had only met with Dr. Pritchett intermittently to discuss his recurring nightmares which the Doctor attributed to the natural unconscious workings of the mind, but he added, if Henry desired, he could also use the terrible dreams as a didactical instrument, in that the symbols from the dreams could be used to teach important lessons of what not to do.

Henry opened the package. Enclosed was a letter from the executor of the estate that obliged him under data privacy and disclosure laws to provide Henry with his case files and other personal artifacts that were in the custody of Dr. Pritchett. With a desultory curiosity, Henry began emptying the box. He thumbed through the many manila folders that contained the Doctor’s case notes. The last of the items in the box was an unopened letter and a rusted silver pocket business card holder. The silver object grasped Henry’s attention: he felt a queer affinity with it, a feeling of nostalgia and oddly, of sexual arousal. He smiled and opened the holder. Inside was a driver’s license of one Mary Katherine. Confused, Henry turned his attention to the letter. It was unopened with “Return to Sender” stamped across the address. Henry unsealed it and read the contents:

“Dearest Percival,

I hope this letter finds you well. I have tried to contact you using more modern and timely media but I have failed miserably in each of my attempts. It wasn’t until a chance encounter with your wife that she informed me that you have once again sequestered yourself to write the next great novel. I should have known when I was unable to reach you that you had tuned out the world in the name of literature. Your creative spontaneity is admirable, but I must confess your silence nearly put me into despair. I am, however, eternally grateful that, like all great men of the pen, you have chosen to continue to receive letters.

Now to the point of this brief yet most important letter. I am in urgent need of your counsel. I have stumbled upon some serious misfortune; no, not the kind that afflicts a man’s purse or pecker – something far worse. You see, my dear friend, in the science of the mind that I have dedicated my life’s endeavors to, truth is indeed stranger than fiction. This I know you can appreciate and, as you will see, it is why I have sought your advice.

Before I ask you what I seek, I beg of you to keep this correspondence in complete confidence. Given our long friendship, I presume that you accept, so let me begin by providing the context of my situation. About a fortnight ago at Reginald Monroe’s reception (which by the way was where I also had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of the most dreadful Port), I was accosted by one Mrs. Sara Edward, whom you may know better to be the wife of our esteemed Governor H. James Edward. She had heard of my pioneering work in the field of psychology and discreetly requested that I evaluate her youngest son Henry Edward Jr. She believed the boy to be somewhat socially inept and wanted my professional opinion as to a diagnosis. I probed her in order to get a better sense of the signals that triggered her suspicion, but she offered me little in the way of valuable information. I was skeptical to say the least, but she persisted, and as the spouse of the seat of power, she persuaded me that I must see the boy. Although my caseload was heavy, I humbly obliged and scheduled an appointment for the next morning.

My first impression of Master Edward was that he was in every way a normal boy. I performed the standard diagnostics to determine if there were any abnormalities in the boy’s communication, social interaction or behavior. Over the course of the day, I observed nothing abnormal. He was at first shy but soon perked up and was gentle, social and sprite. My first impression was indeed the correct impression. What I did discover was that the boy had a very high IQ. Perhaps the boy was not being academically challenged. This may have been what the mother was sensing.

I sat down with Mrs. Edward at the end of the day and provided her my observations and expert opinion. It was then that she finally came forth and provided me with the information that I was searching for the previous night. On occasion, when they were alone, she confessed that the boy would say the most unusual things – things that no one knew but herself. It was as if the boy could read her mind. You see, my dear friend, the powers she believed the boy to have were ESP. Specifically, she believed the boy to be telepathic. As you can imagine, I was somewhat taken aback by this. Obviously, given my professionalism, I did not exhibit the slightest skepticism. But although my skeptic alarm was ringing, I was also at the same time both curious and intrigued by the socialite. Perhaps it was not the son who required an evaluation, but the mother. It would take some time, but I would get her in my chair. So needless to say, I cleared my calendar again and scheduled another appointment with the boy for the following afternoon.

I ran another series of tests on the boy to determine whether or not he had ESP. As you can probably guess, the boy did not exhibit any powers of extra sense outside of what is statistically normal. I thought for certain that it was indeed Mrs. Edward who had the mental disorder. I sat in my office with the boy as I summoned the mother and prepared to confront her. It was then that the boy handed me a note.

I must add that it was more than just a note. It was more like a sketched map with coordinates that intersected in the wooded park near my home. My dear friend, you know of this park. It is the park that you and I have taken slow walks together in. The park that in the springtime has the most beautiful Japanese cherry blossoms.

So the boy handed me the note and looked at me with his blue eyes. Again and again I inquired as to what he had handed me – yet he said nothing and continued his gentle stare. There was silence between us until he broke it and said, “I know things.” It was then that the mother entered the office. Startled, I simply told her that we needed to run additional tests and that they should come visit me again the following morning.

Upon their exit, I asked my secretary to cancel any remaining appointments I had and tell my patients I wasn’t well. I immediately left my office and returned home. I fixed Toby to his leash and we headed straight to the park. Fortunately it was still light out, so when the map directed us off the trail and into the woods, we could continue the search. It was at the intersection point on the map, approximately two hundred yards from the trail, that I found it. Even though it was only an inch below the surface, it took some time to find – first Toby, scratching through the layer of new leaves, then the old leaves and finally me, pushing soil aside. What I uncovered was a silver pocket business card holder. Obviously, it wasn’t silver in color. It had oxidized and looked more bluish gray. But I digress. It was sealed closed by time and required some effort to unfasten. Opening it revealed three letters, JRD, etched on the inside cover, and a driver’s license for one Miss Mary Katherine.

Toby and I quickly returned home. Who was this Mary Katherine? I spent the better part of the evening researching until I got my answer. Mary Katherine was a prostitute who had disappeared in the neighboring city some ten years earlier. She was one of those low priority missing persons. I suspect it was assumed she was a transient and had just moved on. What was her driver’s license doing in the park? And what was the significance of the silver pocket business card holder with the letters etched inside? And the boy, how did he know?

It was at that moment that I began to reassess the efficacy of my diagnosis of the boy. Perhaps he did have ESP. Perhaps it was not telepathy but clairaudience. Perhaps the boy could speak with the dead. Certainly that would help explain the mother’s suspicions and the map. Perhaps she was not crazy after all.

My dear friend, you may be reading this and questioning my own sanity. But please bear with me. You know that these strange matters – these matters of the paranormal – are something that I am highly skeptical of, and although I have entertained these ideas (as any open-minded skeptic would), I certainly would not believe them without further empirical testing.

And so, that is what I sought to do. The following morning, Mrs. Edward left her son with me to continue the evaluation. Before heading to the playroom, the boy and I sat in my office. We sat there for a few minutes while I observed the boy play with a small toy he had brought with him. I did not want to directly ask him how he had mapped the location to a missing woman’s driver’s license. Goodness knows what other secrets a bit more probing of the soil would have revealed that day. Instead I decided to engage the boy in small talk. I asked the boy, “So, how is your father doing?”

It was then that the boy’s playful demeanor changed. He dropped his toy, turned to me and began to talk to me as if he were a man, fully articulating his words with a vocabulary beyond what any child should know – as if he were a puppet and an invisible man were the puppet master. The boy said to me, “Doctor, are you referring to the governor or to my biological father, because I know very little about the Governor but I know very much about my biological father.” And I replied, “Well then, please tell me about your biological father.”

My dear Percival, the boy told me its name, the name of the voice that was speaking, and then began to describe to me events of stalking – stalking of both young men and women. And in each case, these events led to the most horrific and atrocious acts of savagery and sadism that I have ever heard. Acts so vile that they would chill even the most seasoned medical examiner. The acts weren’t against the boy. The boy spoke from the first person point of view – from the point of view of the killer – not the victim. The boy talked as if he had been there – not as a witness, but as if he had committed the acts himself! I know what you may be thinking; but the boy knew beyond what can be coached or rehearsed. The boy knew the feelings of the madman. Who was this boy’s father and how did this child know?

And my dear friend, this went on for the better part of the day – the details of the horrific events so lucid in this boy’s mind. And when he was finally through with his inhumane diatribe, he climbed up upon the couch and removed my framed doctoral degree from the wall. He briefly looked at it and threw it to the ground. He grinned and chuckled as it smashed on the floor. He then climbed down and proceeded once again to play with his toy.

I know, with the utmost certainty, that the boy could not have committed these crimes. He wasn’t alive when they had occurred. And even if they had occurred yesterday, he wasn’t physically mature enough to successfully execute them. Therefore, my friend, I have witnessed in this boy either the proof of the devil living in the flesh or the first case of a human inheriting not only the physical characteristics of his parents but also the nonphysical characteristic like memory. Could it be that this boy was passed the collective knowledge of his mother and father up to the point of conception – dark knowledge from a father who is a brutal serial killer? Could this boy represent the speciation of the human race, an evolutionary break from old to new, a break that hasn’t occurred since the human ape found reason? I am well aware that neither of these hypotheses is reasonable, but what I witnessed was not from a place of reason.

Percival, now you know why I seek your counsel. I am in quite the conundrum and I need a way out. If I go to the authorities with this story, I sound like a madman – and perhaps I could even be mistaken for the killer. I have the driver’s license of one of the victims and the knowledge of the location of the unmarked grave. And who would believe me over the boy – a boy so shrewd and clever? My story sounds so obscene: the Governor a cuckold and his son the bastard child of a serial killer. What am I to do?

I suggest we meet in person to discuss this in greater detail. If you could either respond to this letter with your own, or pass to your wife the details of how best we should proceed, I would be greatly indebted. I apologize profusely for disturbing you but this matter is of the greatest importance. I look forward to our meeting.

Warmest regards, your dear friend,

Samuel”

END