26. Nyssa

26

NYSSA

LOSE MYSELF - REYKO

My favorite holiday is Christmas.

We never had much growing up, but on Christmas, it was like we had everything. Mom did her best to make sure there was always a small collection of presents under the tree. She made hot cocoa and snowflake-shaped pancakes and took me around the neighborhood to see the Christmas lights.

It was often just the two of us, but I hadn't needed anything else.

Even as I returned to school and was forced to listen to the extravagant holidays the likes of Heather Driscoll and Macey Eurwen had had.

When I arrive two hours away in Roseburg, the first snowflakes of the holiday are falling. Mom's waiting at the train station to pick me up and drive me home. I step into the entrance hall of her modest townhouse and smile at the strung up lights and little Christmas tree she's set up.

"Sorry it's not bigger, Nys," she says. "I know you love seeing all the lights on the tree."

"Mom, this is great. Thank you. "

And I mean it.

But as I shrug off my puffer coat and unwind the scarf from my neck, the vibe feels off in more ways than one.

I've been unable to eat more than a bite or two of food since the Fairchild's winter solstice party. My appetite's nonexistent since I left the party and made one of the grimmest discoveries of my life.

As I sit down on Mom's sofa and she happily boasts about the hot cocoa she's making, I can't help feeling like my visit evokes the same feeling out of me.

Some kind of bottomless feeling in my stomach, like I'm in a permanent state of free fall. She brings me steaming hot cocoa in my favorite cracked mug—the one with the tiny cartoon Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeers imprinted on the sides—and I force another smile to my face.

"What's the matter, baby girl? You're too quiet."

"Am I? I guess I'm just…"

Tired is the word I mean to use but find that it wouldn't be the whole truth. There are other emotions welled up inside me that refuse to be ignored. Emotions that would probably trouble Mom as much as they're troubling me.

Confusion.

Guilt.

Dread.

The lack of triumph I thought I'd have this deep into my mission.

No more than twenty-four hours ago, I watched the man I've been seeing be hauled off by the police. I could've stopped it from happening; I could've warned him, yet I'd retreated into the darkness and let the police lights flood him.

In the moment, I was defiant. I was certain it was the right move to make.

All the signs were there. All the clues.

The anonymous text told me where to go to find what I was looking for. A second text told me that the police would be on the way.

I had been drawing the Valentine Killer out for months, hoping I would incite him enough to reveal his identity.

Theron had been on my radar from the beginning.

He was on the short list of suspects, but if I was going to carry out the rest of my plan, I had to be sure. I had to get close to him.

I was pretending until I wasn't.

…until our engaging conversation, heated passion, and achingly real moments began to feel like I wasn't acting anymore. It made me want to be wrong.

Maybe I was mistaken.

Valentine was someone else.

Then I discovered the police file and crumpled break up letter that were hidden inside his closet. I read the date on the file and thought back to what Theron had told me about his time as a student at Castlebury. Though he was the son of highly regarded Thurman Adler, he was largely an outcast.

He resented many in his social circle.

Valentine's revenge matched his sentiments about the very same people.

But what would drive him to kill my father? How could a student like Edward Oliver incur his wrath like the others? Why would he choose to take his life when Mom said my father was a good man?

He was a law student just getting his start. He wasn't a crook or rapist like some of the others. He wasn't some vile child abuser .

He took Edward Oliver's life out of bloodlust. The same thirst for violence that drove him to kill Samson last night.

I should've known he was Valentine after how easily he killed Jackson Wicker. But I had rationalized that he was acting out of self-defense. He was protecting me. That didn't make him Valentine. The same man who left behind heart-shaped cards and went on a mass killing spree so many years ago, eventually turning his wrath on my father.

"I'm sorry," I sigh. I set down the cracked mug of hot cocoa. "My head's pounding. I think I need to go to bed early."

Mom's face dims, but she nods in understanding. "Hope you feel better, Nys. I put fresh linens and towels up in your room."

I head toward the staircase, feeling Mom's gaze on me every step of the way. At the bottom stair, I pause and glance over to find she's still watching. She smiles, though it doesn't reach her eyes. Unlike earlier, I find I can't fake one in return.

I pad the rest of the way up the stairs until I'm locked inside the bedroom that used to be mine. Not much has changed about it in the few years I've been gone. Standing among the old mood boards hung up on the wall and the sequined lavender bedspread almost eases the bottomless feeling inside me.

So many memories in one place.

I wander over to my old desk to pick up one of the first sculpture's I'd ever made—a tiny kitten paw that was supposed to be Peaches.

Except it's what's lying underneath the kitty paw that holds my attention.

A photo album that I had used years ago during a class project that required us to put together a collage of our family. I slide it out from under the clay molding of Peaches's paw and prop it open, hoping the trip down memory lane will finally get me into the festive spirit.

It works at first. I flip through old photos of Mom when she was younger, laughing at the '90s hairstyles and clothes. In many of the photos, she's with other family. Her parents who have passed away. My uncle who lives on the other side of the country and who I've only met twice. Another girl that looks vaguely like her, only a few years younger.

I pull a photo out from a graduation. Mom's in a tank top and jeans, a huge smile on her face as she wraps an arm around the shoulders of the other girl, who's swallowed up in burgundy and gold Castlebury U graduation robes. Her cap sits askew atop her head of long braids.

In one hand she clutches her undergrad diploma. In the other, she's holding up a tiny girl against her chest who can't be older than two. The small girl's smile is bright, curly little afro puffs at either side of her head.

She's me.

Goosebumps spread across my skin as I flip the photo over. The penmanship I've seen before. It's the same handwriting from the crumpled letter in Theron's closet. Handwriting that's not far off from my own…

Brooklyn and Josalyn w/ baby girl, May 200 4

"What…" I trail off. My pulse soars so fast, a drumbeat starting up in my ears, the room feels like it's about to spin. I rush toward the door with the photo as I rack my brain for possible explanations.

The letter Theron had in his closet was addressed to Josalyn.

The same Josalyn Webber who died in 2005. Another victim of Valentine.

I leap down the stairs until I'm on the ground floor breathing erratically, seeking Mom out. She's gone from her place in the living room where I'd last seen her.

The townhome I once called home suddenly feels like some kind of distorted maze as I rush through the dark halls with only the twinkling red-and-green Christmas bulbs to guide me.

Mom's in the kitchen when I finally find her, seated at the dinner table as she nurses a now cold mug of hot cocoa. From my first stumble into the room, I can tell she's aware what's on my mind. Her expression is flat and dull, her stare borderline vacant.

"Who's this?" I ask, tossing the photo at her. "Brooklyn and Josalyn?"

The photo floats in the air 'til it touches down in front of her.

"You know who that is. That's my sister, Nyssa."

"Josalyn?"

Her mouth puckers like she's bit into a lemon. "That's right. Why are you asking? Why now?"

"Because I want to know why you've never told me my aunt was killed by Valentine?" I ask. "Why have you never told me she graduated from Castlebury too? And… and if you graduated undergrad this year like you've always said, where are your robes? "

"Nyssa…"

"Mom, if I look up Castlebury's year one law students for 2004-2005, would I find your name?" I snap. "Or would I find this… Josalyn Webber?"

"Enough. Fix your tone." She half rises out of her chair, doing her best to be the stern motherly figure she has been so many times in the past.

The difference is, this time it falls flat. I press on.

"None of what you said checks out, Mom. Everything you've told me suddenly seems like it makes no sense," I say. "The only Edward Oliver I could find is some White guy who majored in economics and who graduated before Valentine was even a thing. You said my father was killed the summer after school let out. But how is that possible when all news reports say Josalyn was the final victim and that was in June 2005?"

She closes her eyes. "Nyssa, you're speaking on things you don't understand!"

"Then tell me! Tell me why you lied about when my father was killed by Valentine! Why is Josalyn Webber holding me in this photo and not you? Why is Josalyn Webber in the graduation robes and not you? Why does her writing…"

…match the writing in the letter Theron had?

I stop myself at the last second, the cotton in my throat too drying. I'm fuming, shaking on the spot, as hot tears mist my eyes.

Mom sighs as if it pains her. She finally looks me in the face, the heaviness on hers telling me all I need to know.

"Because," she says, "I'm not your mother."