The thunder clapped loudly at a distance, and birds shot across the sky in a dispersed arrangement. Lightning cackled silently but it's electric traces zapped down the atmosphere. Grey clouds were full of sky water, ready to make earth wet again, as the wind howled.

Somewhere on a path covered by the blood red, cherry orange and dead brown of leaves, a lady limped towards the wooden mansion. Her face was covered partially by a bronze mask that hid ugly burns. A puzzling tattoo slept on the right side of her neck in black ink. Almost gold strands of scanty blonde hair rode with the autumn's chilly wind.

"I'm back Mary. I'm back and the bastard will pay. He will pay. Blood, bones, fire on bridges, we'll stay...He'll be the one to burn this time." She said with an eerie smile, less than a mile from a wooden mansion she knew so well.

"George!" Mary barged into George's room. The tin boxes and journal she held unto fell on the floor. The weight of the objects sent her crashing on the wooden floor.

George's heart wanted to run to her aid, but his hurt ego told his legs to stay put.

"Ouch! George I'm sorry if I hurt you, but this is no time to look sullen. I found something important." Mary said, trying to sort out the papers and pictures scattered on the floor.

"More important than the fact that Richard's not my father, or the fact that I got rejected because of my age? It's the twenty first century, Mary!" George barked. With anger in his limbs he got out of his bed and stood over Mary.

"I know I'm just a kid to everyone in this house, especially my dad...but I really thought you saw me differently. Fine! I'm sixteen, but there're a lot of sixteen-year olds, who're more mature than adults." George continued his speech of heart.

Mary was annoyed but she kept her eyes on the tin boxes. She unlocked Richard's tin box, then opened a page of the journal. She took out a photograph from the opened page and placed it on the floor. Her eyes scanned Richard's tin box and with hasty fingers, she took out the locket she'd found earlier.

"Is it Todd? Is that son of a bitch, the reason you've rejected..."

"Shut the fuck up George!" Mary raised her voice at George for the first time.

George's heart halted for a second. His chest felt tightened and he swallowed so hard, his throat hurt. His head banged a bit. His halted heart fell from his chest. He was almost at the brink of tears.

George was hurt, but he wasn't sure if it was because Mary yelled at him, or if it was the look of disappointment in her eyes.

"George, I don't have an interest in you or Todd either and that's that! How can men be so stupid? There's a mystery to unravel, one that possibly depends on our lives and all you can think of is being rejected by a girl who's older than you by seven years! Are you crazy or just plain stupid?" Mary said. She thought her words too harsh.

Mary took in a deep breath and stood straight. She walked to George and took his hands in hers. He had gotten taller in a few months. Boys' growth was truly a mystery.

"George, I'm not walking over you or your feelings. You're a good person and sure, you feel ignored by everyone in this family, so yeah you have the right to be pissed. But I'm not ignoring you George. I'm right here for you just as you've always been for me and while I might not consider you a romantic interest, I do consider you a close friend. The only friend I have, actually. And as a friend, it's my job to tell you when you're in the wrong. Right now, George, you're in the wrong. Something is going on and only your dad knows the truth. Whatever it is, I can feel a chill in my spine." Mary tightened her grip on George's hands.

"George, I have a feeling in my heart. It tells me to protect your family, to protect you. The only way I can protect you is if I get my memories back, and I can't do it without your help. I don't even know if Richard's the villain in my story or if it's someone else..." Mary took in a deep breath.

"I think I found your real father." She said in such a low voice, one would think she whispered.

"What?" George let go of her hands.

"I didn't mean to give you this information, right after you found out that you were adopted but I..."

"Who's he?" George asked, rage growing in eyes.
Mary placed the locket and a photograph in his hands.

"I saw the locket in this photo of you as a baby. Then I when I found the locket, I recalled where I'd seen it. I opened it and well..."

"Is this him?" George said staring at a photo in the locket.

"I think so." Mary replied.

Tears were trapped at the corners of George's eyeballs. The middle of his chest felt squeezed by invisible claws, that caused his heart to bleed. His throat felt blocked by a huge rock and his breath paced so fast, Mary could hear his intake and outtake of air loudly.

George glanced at a mirror in the room, and back at the photograph on the right side of locket. Besides, the uneven settlement of freckles over his nose, George was a carbon copy of the man in the photo. A tear crept out of his left eye.

"Are you okay?" Mary placed her hand on George's left shoulder.

George sniffled and after a fake cough, he turned to Mary with a weary smile. Mary felt sorry for him.

"I'm fine, Mary. We're getting closer to the truth. I never expected it to 'my truth' you know?" He shrugged.

"I'm sorry." Mary said.

"It's fine. None of this is your fault. What's with this design though?" George asked Mary. His eyes were focused on the design in the front of the locket.

"That's why I ran here." Mary said.

"What do you mean."

"Well, when I saw that design, it jogged my memory and I recalled something. A tattoo." Mary explained.

"A tattoo?"

"Yeah, take a look at this." Mary handed another photo to George.

George observed the photo.

The photograph was a picture of Michael. Michael smiled at the camera. He sat on a bed, in a very familiar room. It was George's current room. Michael wore a pair of blue jean trousers. His hair was tied up. Michael was shirtless and over his left breast, a tattoo too familiar to George was drawn out.

It was the tattoo of a deer's skull and the roman numeral 'II'. The deer skull had just one antler.

"Seem familiar?" Mary asked.

George's heart escaped his ribs. He gazed at Mary with wide eyes. His heart raced like the sturdy legs of a galloping stallion. He wasn't sure if his hastened breath was the result of fear or excitement.

He ran to a desk in his room and pulled on one of the drawers with so much force, the entire thing crashed on the floor with a deafening thud.
George took a photo album and flipped the pages quickly, totally ignorant of he paper cuts his fingers received with each swift turn.

"I already knew this, because I get to see him every day but...look." George gave Mary a photograph from the album he held.

In the photograph, a younger Richard Beckham was in a zoo with his supposed son, George Beckham. George was a toddler in the photo.

With a smile so wide and a huge cotton candy in his left hand, he sat on Richard's shoulders. The cute toddler with bright blue eyes balanced himself on Richard, with his left hand holding unto Mr. Beckham's head.

Richard had a beautiful smile in the photo. He held George's little chubby legs with both arms. The white T-shirt he wore, exposed his arms. On the dorsal side of each hand, two tattoos stood out.

On Richard's left arm, the tattoo of a deer skull with one antler, was drawn beside the roman numeral 'II'. Mary took Michael's shirtless photo from George and stared at it. The image on Richard's left arm was the exact copy of the tattoo on Michael's chest.

Mary's eyes moved to Richard's right arm, in the photo. She squinted.

There was a difference in both tattoos. While the tattoo on Richard's left arm was a deer skull bearing one antler, the deer skull on his right arm bore two antlers and the roman numeral 'II'.

Mary's heart beat twice its norm pace. The autumn wind ate through her spine in an ominous manner. Her head ached and her ears rang for a while. She heard screams.

She shut her eyes tight and saw a fire. There was a blonde lady tied to a pillar in the fire. Mary looked around her. She found herself in a cabin.
A hand pulled at Mary. She turned.

It was Richard Beckham.

"Come on, Mary. Do you want to die with a devil like her? Let her go and you'll be safe. You'll all be safe." He said.

"He's right Mary. She's dangerous. If we stay with her any longer, she'll probably kill us before they come for us." Another voice called from the only exit in the cabin, a few steps from where Richard stood.

It was Michael.

Mary turned to the blonde tied up. The blonde smiled.

"I'm not leaving her behind! Something's wrong. I won't trust Richard and you shouldn't trust him either Michael!" The words flew out of Mary Angela's mouth.

"But Jane..."

"Fuck, Jane! She's an 'eye'. How can you trust an 'eye', Michael? How can you trust Richard? Listen to Mary, you bastard and get me the fuck out of here or I swear, I'll pull your eyes out and chew on them!" The handsome blonde screamed with bass in her voice. The fire crawled up the sleeves she wore.

Logs of wood already consumed by the fiery yellow of hot flames, fell from the top of the cabin. The blonde screamed and so did Mary.
Richard pulled Mary out the exit and kicked against the door.

"Betty! Betty! No! I can't. I can't." Mary struggled to break free of Richard and Michael's grip. Tears blurred her sight but she could see the hot flames grow.

"She's my..."

Thunder cackled at a distance.

The glitch vanished and Mary found herself in George's room with two photos in her hands.

"She's my what?" The question bogged Mary's mind, as she tried to complete the sentence, she heard her tongue utter in the flashback.

Sweat poured out every pore on her skin. The autumn wind may have brought chills, but Mary was hot. Her head ached. She stumbled. George caught her.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." At that moment, she recollected a fact.

"There's another cabin!" She said out loud.

"What?"

"There's another cabin! I saw it last night when I had a glitch. It was close to a hill. That's where she was killed." Mary said. She dropped everything she held and opened the door of George's bedroom.

"Who was killed? Mary, slow down."

"I have to find it. I have to see it with my own eyes, then I'll know the truth." Mary chanted as she walked out of the room, and down the stairs, where the unexpected awaited her.

"Are you sure you can hide that, in this house? What if George or Alice finds it?" Todd asked his older brother, when they had reached the wooden mansion, in the middle of the woods.

"It's fine. Alice should be making breakfast by now and Melody should be with her. I'll just bury this, here." Richard told his brother, while he dug a garden bed at the back of the mansion. It was ten feet away from the huge swimming pool they'd never used.

"What if Alice wants to water the plants or something?"

"Are you kidding? She's not interested in plants. When we got here, she wanted me to get rid of everything. I needed some sort of distraction, so I took up gardening and viola! Pretty flowers all over the place." Richard said. Pride engulfed the tone of his voice.

While Richard dug dark loamy soil, the shovel in his hands struck something in his hand. He squatted and with his hands he dug some more. The sight of a tattoo on white skin threw him backwards.

He took the shovel in his hands and dug some more, until the torso of a human was exposed to dark clouds above.

"What the fuck!" Todd screamed.

The thunder laughed loudly in its frightening cackles.

On a pale-skinned chest, the words 'Hail, the conqueror' was inscribed in Mandarin. The tattoo seemed faded on the almost grey skin of the dead being. The headless torso, sat in the depth of the loamy soil, so it wasn't as decomposed as the head, Todd held in a brown sac.

The right arm on the torso bore an interesting tattoo. In black, the tattoo of a deer skull was drawn. The deer had two antlers and it was drawn over the roman numerals 'III'.

"That fucking bitch! Quick, help me cover this up. We'll dig a deeper hole later." Richard said. Todd threw the sac into the hole the torso was laid.

A few minutes later, little Melody ran out the backyard with a headless white teddy bear in her arms. The teddy bear's body had waged a war with time. It was more brown than white, and plushie stuffing of the toy, peeked out of ripped seams.

Richard and Todd deemed themselves lucky, for they had buried what needed to be buried.

"Daddy, there's a lady in the front door. She says she's a friend of yours. Mommy's looking for you and oh! She gave me this." Melody stretched the headless toy to her father, who looked at Todd with fear in his eyes.

Both men ran into the house with Melody, pulled by her father's strong hand.

"Richard will be here in a minute. I love your mask by the way...it's...it's different." Alice stuttered, completely bewildered by the stranger at the door.

"Thank you, Anna." The stranger told Alice.

"Anna? Who's..."

"Alice! Alice are you okay?" Richard screamed from a few steps away.

Head bent over, Richard panted when he reached the front door. Todd stared at the stranger at the door and so did Melody, whom the stranger smiled at.

"George, we have to find...What's going on?" Mary asked when she got to the sitting room. George gazed at the front door as well, and they both walked towards the entrance of the wooden house.

The Beckham family and Mary stared at the masked stranger with different thoughts in their heart.

The stranger took off her bronze mask.

A partly burnt face, beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes that boasted to summer skies were revealed.

The thunder roared and after gentle pitter patters, the rain began to pour like it was vexed with Earth. Lightning flashed and the blue in the stranger's eyes shone brighter.

"Hello, Mary." The stranger said with a warm smile.

The thunder rumbled louder. The wooden walls of the mansion shook. Birds scattered across the grey skies and crows cawed at a distance. Naked trees danced in the wind; their leaves kidnapped by the autumn season.

Alice was confused.

Melody was scared.

Todd almost peed his pants.

George was out of breath. He squeezed his pajama pants.

Richard wanted to scream. He bit down on his lips.

Tears streamed down Mary's face.

"I remember everything." The words echoed in her head.

The thunder roared again and lightening flashed cruelly with the howl of the wind.

On the twenty second day, of the tenth month, in the year 2019, the Beckhams met another stranger in the wooden mansion. The wooden mansion in the middle of the woods.