Hardy Detective Agency

"Aunt Agnes, I really need to know everything…" Isaiah followed her relentlessly around the small white cottage. He had traveled miles across continents to the middle of nowhere in New Zealand to seek her out and now, his auntie was not being co-operative.

"Let it rest, Saiah. The past is past… what more do you want? Your old scars bleeding and festering again?"

"No! I just want to know why Daniel hated us so much, especially Lijah. I want to know why my mom took me and not him!"

"Isaiah, go home. Leave your brother alone. Maybe he found his own way to deal with it… let us just leave it…"

"I’m not going, aunt. You don’t know the sort of… statue he became! I’m staying put until you tell me everything you know." Isaiah gripped her bony shoulders tightly. She shrugged off his touch and turned around, resigned.

"The truth is terrible."

"I’m been through worse." Isaiah replied with conviction. "Nothing can be worse than not knowing why."

***

It was the last week of January- a month had almost closed with some promise of normalcy finally. The two brothers had grown much closer, having spent so much time together. Isaiah tried to teach Elijah how to play the violin again, or rather, help him remember that one aspect Isaiah would not mind Elijah recalling.

"Wow… that’s good!" Elijah exclaimed after Isaiah drew out the last note of Air on G-String.

"Thank you! Now, your turn." Isaiah motioned for Elijah to pick up his own violin. Elijah shook his head and twisted his lips.

"I don’t think…"

"C’mon. You’ll never know until you try…"

"All right. Don’t laugh." Elijah pointed a warning finger at Isaiah. Without even Isaiah directing him, Elijah knew exactly the correct stance and started to string some arpeggios.

"Hey! I think I’m getting it…"

His kid brother took the violin naturally. One night, Isaiah thought he heard someone playing Canon in D Major. He came out to investigate and saw Elijah coaxing the violin, making it serenade to the quietness of the night like the master he was.

The violin imbued the air with the sweet, running melody. There Elijah was, in the middle of the living room, playing his violin passionately. His straight blond hair swished with the movements his body made- it seemed as if he was trying to twist and turn until he became one and the same with the formless music that was everywhere and nowhere at once.

Isaiah watched him quietly from the archway separating the bedrooms from the hall. It was dark but he could see his brother very clearly and was brought back to their childhood in which Elijah would always play the violin in defiance- infusing the simple tunes he knew then with anger, rage, despair and then hope, forgiveness and love.

Now, there was nothing but passion and love in the melody. Isaiah smiled. Lynn should hear that. Lynn always said Isaiah was the best violinist she ever heard since he was the only one she ever listened to. He knew Lynn would not change her words but she would change her mind.

The music stopped and, as Isaiah’s eyes grew more accustomed to the lack of light, he saw Elijah stared at the violin and after, the custom-made bow in stunned speechlessness. Then he let out a soft laughter and hugged the violin and bow closed to his chest like they was his long-lost love.

Isaiah then retreated stealthily back into his room- elated at the landmark improvement in his brother’s condition; disturbingly disappointed simultaneously.

The seasoned PI sure worked fast. It was slightly more than a month and, with only the skeletal information Isaiah had given him, he was almost about to bet on Fenton Hardy giving up. However, last night, he received a call on his cell. Fenton was on the other line with some information for Isaiah and Isaiah replied him immediately, thanking him and informing him that he would check the leads out himself. Fenton had not much idea what Elijah did for the past year besides dabbling with shares and making some money when everyone was losing their fortunes and even families. Whatever it was, Fenton said he would continue to keep a look out but Isaiah had a hunch he would not be able to discover more than he already had so he had Fenton off the case, promising a check for all his efforts. Fenton had waived all fees but Isaiah wanted no favors from this private investigator.

Isaiah studied the carton Elijah’s ex-landlord sent over. He had rented a small room in the apartment of his favorite restaurant’s owner and had the carton sent there. It arrived yesterday but Isaiah could only get to it today. His absence would be a little difficult to explain since he had no job but Anne had unwittingly helped him by asking Elijah out for a movie. Seeing Elijah’s thrilled expression the whole day yesterday after Anne casually asked him along to join her and the children at the orphanage both amused and relieved Isaiah. Elijah was too happy to ask Isaiah anything else about the past and, moreover, Isaiah had run out of lies and he had forgotten a huge chunk of the stories he spun. Soon, he would contradict himself and Elijah was sharp enough to pick up the mistakes.

"How did our parents die, Isaiah?"

"About 7 years ago. They died in a car accident."

"I thought you told me 6 years ago a few days before?"

"You know something? I’m not good with the dying and death… I hardly think about their deaths. I still think they’re alive somewhere so…I could have gotten the dates all wrong."

"Oh. Let’s visit their graves then. I bet they must have loved us a lot. See how well you turned out."

"Sure… but it’ll have to wait. Their ashes are in the columbarium of a small obscure Church in Arizona."

"Huh? That far? We stayed in Arizona before?"

"Yup. They loved Arizona so much that they wanted their ashes to be kept there. So, want an ice-cream?"

Using his Swiss Army knife, Isaiah sliced through the masking tape securing the cardboard carton. The contents inside revealed Elijah’s clothes and other mundane necessities like his electric shaver. Elijah’s slim notebook was carefully packaged up in its leather bag which was reinforced with several layers of bubble-wrap. Isaiah raised a brow, impressed by the landlord’s honesty.

A browned sketch book caught his eye- it was resting beneath the notebook and seemed to be almost falling apart. Isaiah carefully retrieved it and delicately flipped opened the cover. Childish drawings greeted his sight- details sketched by a tortured young mind broke his heart. Elijah had drawn pictures of flowers, violins and angels but they were all colored black- like shadows of beauty from a mind that knew only the night. Isaiah wondered why Elijah, if he was totally unfeeling and detached from his experiences, would want to leave this heartbreaking relic behind.

Too late he tried to catch a drop of tear from falling onto one of the pages, smudging the drawing of a black kite. He wiped at it but it only made the tear-stain worse. With a heavy heart, he closed the sketch book and placed it back into the carton. Next, he picked up the all too familiar micro-tape recorder with a tape inside. He pressed play and heard Elijah’s soft drone- the manner of speech which he desperately wished would never rest upon Elijah’s tongue again- rolling off the tape.

"August the third. The leaves are still brown. Winter will come and so will judgment. She refused to see me or pick up my call. But she will one day return to me.

We will be together. I may even be happy again.

Whatever I have lost, I will gain back and I will take everything back a hundred folds more…"

Isaiah narrowed his brows- Elijah sounded pretty psychotic in that maddening dull speech. The tape ran for sometime, recording nothing but the echoes of the wind. He must have been in an enclosed space which was extremely quiet.

"Please, Elijah. You know this will hurt me… let go. Set me free…"

Lijah?

His heart throbbed crazily and he paused the playback right at that moment. Elijah sounded so weak all of a sudden- vulnerable and pleading. Was Elijah suffering from severe personality disorder? Isaiah gnawed on the back of his free hand and let the tape play again.

"Set me free…" The begging tone sharply angled into that of an evil mockery. Derisive laughter pierced through the small, inbuilt speakers and scratched Isaiah’s ear drums.

"That was fun. Lijah. I buried Lijah. Lijah no longer exist. No one can hurt me. You can’t hurt someone without feelings. She can’t hurt me now. Only I can hurt her.

But I won’t. I won’t hurt her. She will be happy- ecstatic. When she grows old, I’ll still be young. I’ll take care of her until she passes away. I will be all that she ever needed, wanted.

And she will know that until her very last breath."

Isaiah let the tape run for a few more minutes but that was all to the strange, unsettling monologue. There were no names; no mention of any places.

He held the tape recorder close to him and shut his eyes, clearing his mind of everything but a prayer for a sense- a vision.

There was nothing. But he could gather that Elijah had most probably been obsessed with someone from his past- he remembered Elijah speaking of falling in love with a client from his past exploits. Fenton had given him a name which could shed some light on that. The PI’s skills would be well appreciated in the Network and Isaiah had privy knowledge that Fenton Hardy had quite a few brushes with their clandestine organization. It was almost hilarious that while his sons knew something about his meddling with Network affairs, Fenton had no idea just how deep his boys were involved with the same intelligence agency.

Fenton actually found the guy called Barney and Isaiah’s heart wrenched painfully when he informed Isaiah that Barney was an ex-pimp operating in New Haven- ex because he was currently in prison. He was serving time for his role in a prostitution ring.

Elijah remembered running away. Running away from whom?

Deciding that he could not proceed any further in his investigation in this room, Isaiah took the notebook with him and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

"Is something wrong between you and Lynn? How long will you be renting the room, Isaiah?" Mrs. Greenfields, proud proprietor of Kettles N Pans, asked him just as he was about to leave.

"As long as possible." He mumbled and left the apartment.

A few seconds later, he was heading down to Network.

***

"It’s kinda hard to get them all back into the bus when they are out. Thanks for helping." Anne handed Elijah a soda and he took it gratefully. He had accompanied Anne and some kids from Sunshine Shelter for Homeless Kids to a cartoon movie- a re-screening of some show called The Lion King. Once again, he slept through the movie and when he woke up halfway through the show, his hair was already messed up by several small naughty hands and popcorns were stuck to his shirt.

He decided then that he was definitely not a movie person, neither someone who found kids adorable.

"They were terrible. How can you do this voluntarily?" He took a long drink from the can and watched the rays from the overhanging lamp dance off her lovely face. Light blue eyes shown just like the morning sky on summer with some unexplained happiness.

"I just love children, I guess. The love makes everything… easier." She sat down next to him on the bench in one of the hallways of the orphanage. Elijah felt extremely cold although the place was heated. There was an instant sense of kinship he felt with the nature of the place but it was not a good one. He wondered if he had volunteered in orphanages before and encountered some real terrifying children that forever marred his vibes about these organizations.

He would have to ask Isaiah about that.

"I think you just guaranteed yourself a place in Heaven. I’ll make a bad father… I don’t think I have any affinity with children." Elijah joked and Anne gave him a strange, discomfiting look before her mien melted into that lovely smile again.

"I don’t think so. I think everyone can be great parents. It just takes that bit of love and effort."

Elijah shrugged. Outwardly he was calm; inwardly, he just wanted to bolt from the place.

"How’re you doing?" Anne touched his hand and he was shocked for he was so cold and she was so warm. The difference in temperature both attracted and repulsed him.

He wondered, with so many contradictory feelings inside him, if there was another personality lurking somewhere.

Time to ask Saiah if I used to be schizo as well. Hahaha.

"I’m fine. I just wish I can remember things faster but Isaiah has no time to bring me to the places of our childhood and youth to see if they can trigger anything inside me. The stuff he tells me didn’t strike any chords in me either. Though Dr. Mersing said my condition should not be permanent, it sure feels like I’m going to be this way for the rest of my life. New Year’s resolutions never come true, right? I picked up the violin the other day and the sounds I made would definitely strangle chickens." Elijah meant the last line as a joke but Anne did not even smile. He was a little crestfallen for, from a talk show he watched last night, he learned that most girls like funny guys. The most disheartening fact he discovered within himself was that he did not even have a funny bone to start with.

"Liar!" Anne punched the side of his upper arm playfully. "Isaiah told me he heard you coaxing your violin masterfully in the middle of one night."

"Only that one piece." Elijah jabbed his index finger in the air to stress his point. It was true- he could only play one piece which Isaiah told him was called Canon in D Major. He tried to remember how to read scores and even listened to renditions of several works to see if he could play by ear. However, he would have better luck muting horny bullfrogs.

Anne twisted her lips and gazed at him contemplatively. "So you really can’t remember anything of importance yet? Pick some… hmm… sensations just by seeing or touching some things?"

"Maybe… maybe something. More like feelings…" Elijah began. Since he was not good at telling jokes, he might as well see if she could help him out. The talk show too said that girls had very acute senses and were more in tune with their feelings. He could not remember details but the vibes he received about certain things could not have been born out of nothing.

"What kind of feelings?" Anne’s interest was greatly stirred. Her light blue eyes narrowed in either concern or curiosity or both.

Elijah tilted his head up and composed his thoughts. He had to be very careful about what he was going to say for he did not want to sound like a paranoid freak and scare Anne away. Deep down inside from some place pleasant, he knew he wanted Anne around him for a long time to come because she made him feel very good about himself without even having to do anything special for him.

"Like… salad. It felt natural to me to order bland salad and I ate it without enjoying or hating it… you know… I have no feelings towards it but it gave me comfort for it felt right to just eat and be done with it. And this place… I have a certain unpleasant feeling towards this place. Hey, maybe I entered an orphanage once and a kid vomited on me. I don’t know… I just… don’t like it here. I like it at night, when the lights are switched of. Again I just feel very comfortable. And there’s more…" Elijah left his thoughts hanging- he really had no idea how to voice what he was going to say next without sounding kind of mad.

"More? It’s ok. I’m safe. You can tell me anything." Anne assured him. Elijah blew up his cheeks and, after a few seconds, exhaled heavily.

"All right. It’s like…this reluctance on my part to try and remember. I want my memories back, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, I get … I get. I don’t know. My heart will just palpitate uncontrollably in a bad way- like warning signals wailing ‘Danger! Danger!’ Something or someone seemed to be following me but when I turn around, there’s nothing… And my scars? I have scars all over my body? I asked Isaiah about it once but he suddenly had to go to the toilet and I didn’t have the courage to ask him about it again. I must sound like a loony bin." Elijah threw his hands up in the air in surrender. "I think I should just get a simple job and be happy with the way I am now. Earn enough and get cosmetic surgery to make my hands prettier."

Anne listened to whatever he was saying with a straight face and never once did she stirred or tried to interrupt him. When he was finished, she looked away for a moment and stared at a random spot in space, as if she was in serious deliberation.

"Elijah…" She bore her eyes into his and took his hands into hers after about a minute of silence. "Why don’t we try some simple experiments?"

***

"Gray, I just need to run two names on our systems. Please, have a heart…" Isaiah had waited for Gray Man for a long time outside the modern glass building belonging to Tech Enterprise and when the inconspicuous secret agent sauntered out with a hotdog wrapper in his left hand. Isaiah, his understudy for quite some years, almost missed him. Tailing Gray Man like an unfitting shadow that would not go away the moment he spotted him, Isaiah employed all forms of negotiation skills he had ever used before only to meet with silence or grunts.

"No. You are on no-pay leave." Gray Man threw the wrapper into a dustbin next to a streetlamp and simply kept walking to his car- a nondescript Toyota in the same shade of gray as his aura. Isaiah let out a frustrated growl. He had tried reasoning, begging and cajoling but nothing moved Gray’s steel heart.

"No-pay leave means I haven’t quit and am still part of the team."

"But you have been gone for several months. How will I know if some other organizations haven’t contacted you and lured you to spy on us?"

"I’ll take the polygraph or whatever. C’mon. Just two names…" Isaiah gripped Gray’s hand tightly, preventing him from opening his car’s door.

"One condition."

"What?"

"You start work with effect from next week." Gray Man turned and gave him a bored look though the normal brown eyes had a dead serious glint in them. Isaiah knew the demand was coming and he had already thought over it. His savings were running really low and he could not expect Lynn to take care of both him and Elijah.

As a man, as a husband and as the elder brother, Isaiah felt he had every responsibility to take care of the both of them.

"Let’s compromise. I start work in March. I need to… run some errands. Can I run the names now?"

Gray Man’s expression did not change for the longest time, causing Isaiah to let out an exasperated sigh. "What now?"

"Nothing. Let’s go up and run those names." Gray Man left his car and walked across the car park to the building with Isaiah hot on his heels.

***

"The love between your mother and dad took a turn for the worse when she found out about his dark dealings at the same time when she was suffering from post natal depression after having you. He got sick of her antics and started abusing her, showing his true colors. It was then she found out that he had a string of mistresses on the side whom he inflicted violence on but who stayed with him for fear of him, unable to leave him and his money.

But she was stubborn and stoic. Her depression got worse but instead of killing herself or you or both, she resolved, somewhere deep down inside her, to protect you the best she could. You were so small, barely a few months old. She stopped having intimate contacts with him, holding on to you every waking moment for fear he would hurt you. She would only sleep when he did and wake before he did, just so she could watch over you.

Strangely enough, he loved you and doted on you when you were a baby. Maybe it was because you looked so much like him.

One night, he raped her. It was that night that she conceived Elijah. After Lijah was born, he got your mom hooked on drugs to forcefully keep her by his side. That’s the end of the story as she told me. What happened after you can remember all too well. Do you see the difference now, Isaiah? You were, at the very least, born out of the marital bliss. You bring happy memories to her which she wanted to keep. Deep inside her, she still loved your father for the man she fell in love with. Elijah was born out of violence and hate- out of a love gone terribly wrong. And this same violence and hate will mark his life…" She bored her penetrating gaze into his eyes and he felt a strange sort of understanding from her- almost like they were kindred spirit.

"I didn’t mean the last line for dramatic purposes. I knew it the moment I look upon the golden-haired baby. I tried to warn your mom but she could not take him along with her. Daniel died and I tried to find Elijah myself to take him under my wings but he was lost to me. And all I can do now is pray for his soul. You know what I’m talking about."

Isaiah felt consumed by her azure eyes and saw himself diminishing gradually in the swirling dark blue irises. At that moment, some of his own questions were answered. Swallowing with some difficulty, he nodded weakly. With a quiet goodbye, he left her cottage. The moment he stepped out of her house, she yelled after him.

"I see your death Isaiah! I saw it the moment you walk in. And I see your brother face, mingling with your death!"

And he never turned back.