CHAPTER 001

Miracles always occur when they are least expected or wanted. According to our dictionary, a miracle is usually positive. I disagree. The few miracles that have met me always gave me a neutral feeling. I don’t care much for them. They are unnatural, unplanned and they mess up one’s entire daily schedule. Some people pray for miracles. I don’t.
I considered it a miracle when my older brother stood on my threshold on a Saturday morning. Years had passed since we stopped regarding each other as siblings and we hadn’t talked since last Christmas, when our parents forced us both to attend dinner in their house. I had almost stopped believing I had a brother and yet I didn’t celebrate his visit with throwing disappointed swear words at him. The literal distance between us hadn’t entirely been his fault-- both of us were to blame. It started right after he graduated. He spent more time outside than inside our house and didn’t waste his breath on conversations with me unless he needed my pocket-money. It became worse after I graduated. While my brother remained in London, the teenage version of me attended Liverpool University, planning on becoming the greatest historian in the history of historians. It wasn’t motivation that I lacked. On the contrary, I sat always on the front row during lectures and annoyed my fellow students by raising my hand before questions were even fired at us. Money appeared to be a bigger issue and soon I had to quit one of the two courses I followed. My ambition threw a wall between me and my parents, who’d funded my education. The anger I felt for having to give up my dream wasn’t directed to anyone or anything in particular, so it wasn’t very fair to blame them, yet I did. Disappointment was always easier to cope with when one had someone to point at. It took me months to realise my mistake.
Anyway, my brother. According to my parents’ gossip, William was the definition of a workaholic. The offices of The Times were his permanent residence, his desk and laptop the foundations of his thoughts. When he wasn’t there or out doing research for new articles, he was asleep. Despite all that, there was never a glimpse of stress floating around him (at least not on the rare occasions when we saw each other), which I deeply admired. I never treated him as the older one and he never boasted about being the older one. Even when we were children there was no rivalry between us on trying to gain as much parental attention as possible--- we simply accepted we were stuck with one another and tried to make the best of it. Only now we were older, I noticed the similarities between us. Both extremely inquisitive, yet it were the new things that interested him as a journalist and the old ones that caught my attention. Despite these practically identical traits, I had no intention of letting him portray a big role in my life.
Will mumbled a hurried ‘’hello’’ and allowed himself to enter my small apartment. He rushed straight to the living room. ‘’Can I turn on the television?’’
I froze briefly-- this sudden invasion perplexed me. ‘’Morning to you too. Would you like something to drink?’’ I asked him sarcastically with a baffled look on my face and closed the front door. I’d forgotten how direct my brother could be when he had something on his mind. No answer was flung in my direction, so I figured he had shaken his head as a reply. I, more slowly than my brother had done, walked through the hallway and entered the room. Much to my annoyance, the TV was already on. Will sat in front of it, his unblinking grey eyes studying every inch of the screen as if it would attack him if he turned away from it. His hair, which usually was the same colour as mine, was now coal black due to the drizzle outside and the short locks stuck to his face.
‘’Look. What do you see?’’ Will asked. I stood still in the doorway, crossed my arms and raised a puzzled eyebrow at my brother before answering. ‘’A television screen. BBC. SONY. The news. A presenter who’s clearly not enjoying her job.’’
Will interrupted me before I could include ‘’pixels’’ as a guess. ‘’What do you not see?’’
His tone wasn’t impatient nor disappointed, but I felt I was getting slightly on his nerves and decided to take his questions a bit more seriously. The question echoed in my mind as I flopped down on the couch. What didn’t I see? Ugly Christmas sweaters. Food. The amount of possible answers was endless and the fact he was dramatically trying to make something clear to me was extremely aggravating. I didn’t care about what he saw and I apparently didn’t. The fact that Will had felt the unforeseen need to visit me and act like he was a regular visitor raised more questions in my head. I purposefully allowed the silence to grow rather large so William had to answer his own question.
‘’They’re keeping something out of the news, brother.’’
‘’Why’d you think that?’’ I inquired of him, pretending to be interested in the answer. He sadly didn’t notice.
‘’I’ve done some digging. Do you know how many disappearances have taken place in the past week in London alone?’’
‘’Yes,’’ I said brusquely, obviously lying. It was a mere attempt to check whether or not he was listening to me. I crossed my arms again and tossed an emotionless look at him.
‘’Three-thousand eight-hundred and fifty-nine.’’ His eyes remained glued to the TV.
Even I had to admit that was quite a lot. I wasn’t up to date with the police records, but I knew disappearances weren’t that regular. Still, Will hadn’t interested me in the concerning subject. When I had the chance of staying out of things that didn’t directly involve or matter to me, I always gladly grabbed it. Avoiding problems, zigzagging through risks-- I’d become quite a master in that.
‘’It’s probably got something to do with privacy,’’ I noted.
‘’Privacy? Are you thinking straight, Tony? Murders and rape cases are left out of the news because of privacy. Faces are blurred because of privacy. This kind of news would be like fuel for the media! It. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.’’
I gritted my teeth. ‘’It doesn’t make sense that you suddenly invade my house. Is this why you’re here? To point out something’s not on the news? You could’ve just called, y’know,’’ I said -- or rather hissed, for my frustration was now becoming hearable in my voice. William finally turned to look at me, his face full of incomprehension. The tension between us didn’t become stronger now he was also aware of it--- on the contrary, him not understanding my reaction seemed to decrease its span. ‘’Figured it would be safer like this,’’ he mumbled, seemingly offended, and turned his back on me again. ‘’They’re always listening.’’
I felt no need to ask who he meant by ‘they’. For all I cared, that word could refer to green-faced aliens or Abraham Lincoln’s sideburns. Without hesitation, I reached for the remote control and pushed the red button to switch off the TV. It seemed the only way to completely catch my brother’s attention, for he now got up from the floor and faced me again. There was a slight hint of regret in his eyes, presumably for choosing the wrong kind of approach-- he had finally realised this wasn’t going to work. I wondered how long it would take him to come with the conclusion switching his manner wouldn’t be effective.
‘’How are you?’’ he asked. His tone of voice was more gently. I frowned, surprised by his genuine politeness. He wasn't going to fool me into believing he was actually interested in my life. ‘’What do you want from me?’’ As the words left my lips, my eyes turned into mistrustful splits. He fell right back into his old ways by answering my question. ‘’Help. You have access to several archives, right?’’
I cringed and ran a hand through my hair. Unbelievable. Even someone like Will could’ve predicted I was going to refuse cooperating in such a thing. The fact that he dared to ask me anyway made clear how desperate he was. That didn’t make much difference though-- I sternly shook my head before he had the chance to ask me any more questions and got up from the couch. Subsequently, I made my way to the kitchen in order to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere in the living room. My eyes stared blankly through the window above the counter, studying the balconies of the apartment block opposite mine. There, I waited. For what, I did not really know. For my brother to come after me? For the sun to make its way through the everlasting clouds? I couldn’t assist Will in whatever he was doing or about to begin with, even if I wanted to. And at that particular moment, I wanted anything but. Anthony J. Cole wasn’t an investigator, let alone a motivated one. As long as those disappearances didn’t concern me in any way, I didn’t want to be associated with them. A sudden sound entered my ears: the slamming of the front door. My eyes fell upon a stack of papers near the sink. Ungraded tests about Medieval England. I felt the urge to toss the pile out of the window.