You knew he would do it, but you didn't think he would do it. There you are, laying in your bed, pitch black, your eyes fixed open. You haven’t blinked once since he came in the room. Shotgun in your shaking hands as you hold it tightly across your chest trying to sleep. You can feel yourself starting to sweat, your hands becoming clammy. With every second that goes by, you know more people are finding out.
You father had just barged into your room, tossed it onto your bed and said, "Keep this until I say so."
You don’t know why he wants to keep it. Why is he putting you through all of this? The phone rings all over the house. People already know. They know it was him. It was you. It was both of you, together. What are you going to do? Your fingers burn. You can't seem to release your grip on the gun. You know tomorrow will be the hardest day of your life. You force your eyes shut. The first day of school…after this? Your brain goes on a roller coaster of twists and turns, imagining the days to come.
You need to learn how to act innocent, indifferent. You plan your reaction for when the schools starts buzzing about the tragic news.
“What?? Oh no! How could that happen? ”
Not genuine enough. You are holding the shotgun that has done such a ghastly thing. You try to justify it, but can’t. He was the most important person on campus. How could you have let this happen? Not even let it happen but caused it to happen. You think about your actions. Moving the chapel clock back, making sure the gun was loaded for him, changing the RL meeting time exactly to when he would do it. All little steps towards this horrible act.
The phone rings the rest of the night. Your father doesn't answer, he knows why they’re calling. You start to hear scurrying, this was the thing about living on campus, you heard everything; every cry, every scream, every rumor. You knew what people were going to say about you and your father, that you were murderers. You ruminate on that thought. You did everything perfectly, no fingerprints, nothing. Nothing would lead to you. You hear the pacing of your father's footsteps behind the loud ringing of the house phone. Everyone outside the thin walls of your old creaky Mount Hermon house is looking for a killer, the killer you are under the same roof as. You can't sleep. You helped him, you were a part of this. He is your father, how would you have said no?
*
September 15th, 1935
It’s morning now. You have not moved one inch since you grabbed a hold of that gun. The warmth of the fall sun hits your face as the sun shines through your window. The birds are chirping as normal, as though nothing has happened the night before, and your mother calls you for breakfast. Your father has not come in again about the gun. You don’t know what to do with it. You think of the place where you hide all your alcohol from your father, underneath the floorboard. Mount Hermon houses are old so all you had to do was find a panel long enough to fit the shotgun in. You place the shotgun into the floorboard and drop the panel back into place. You breathe deeply into your stomach and out through your nose to keep calm and try to slow down your heart rate. You put on black trousers, a maroon polo shirt and grab your keys. Heading out the back door you pass your father's office which you notice he is not in, which is unusual.
As you’re walking to your first class slowly yet stiff with anxiety, you hear gasps and screams coming from your left. You snap your head that way and see all of your classmates lined up on the grass outside of Crossley. Acting as oblivious as you can, you walk over. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You look around, familiar faces and some unfamiliar, this is the first time you all are together as a class. Things spread fast here at Mount Hermon. The first big gossip: The Headmaster had been shot, no one knows where the weapon is, and no one knows who killed him, expect you. You know both of those things. You see three specific looks, the blankly can’t process what has happened look, the confused look, and the scared shitless look-those were mostly the new kids. Jim walks out of the center doors of Crossley with a wide, forced, and uncomfortable smile stretched along his face.
“Welcome to Mount Hermon School!” said Jim.
Jim is the Crossley dorm head, he always tried to make everything lighthearted. This calms you down until he announces that you were going to be split into groups to search for this gun. Your heart drops, but you quickly try to reassure yourself that they would never check your house. They would check the obvious places.
You are placed in the group searching shadow lake. You weren’t expecting that, maybe they're not only searching in obvious places. You have a gut-wrenching feeling in your stomach the whole day. Thinking of where the other groups were placed concerns you. What if they did search your house? You couldn't let your mind wander like this again; it’s a dangerous cycle. You knew your father was selfish. He didn't care for you; if he did he would have thought about how this would ruin your life. He didn't think about that; he never did. It was just you, figuring out Mount Hermon on your own. You’ve been looking for hours, the whole day of classes had been occupied by this. You look in the lake, in the woods, around the lake, in the canoes, everywhere.
It’s dark now and you’re exhausted from all the useless searching for a gun you know the location of. The constant stress that they might check your house is hanging over your head. You need to hid the gun before it is traced back to you or your father. He can’t just throw the murder weapon over to you and say “take it”, and expect to get away with what he has done. If he’s not going to be smart about this you will be. You need to get back to your house. You just wanted to make your father happy. He said this would make him happy. After years of moving from post to post and barely ever spending two years in one school, you thought Mount Hermon would be that place for you. He always found a reason to leave, a reason to be unhappy in a place that seemed perfect for you. He might have already ruined this for himself but you won’t let him ruin it for you. Once again he has put his needs in front of your own and you need to fix it. He could just run away like he always does. You are staying here, this is your school, and no one is ever going to find out what happened.
You think about places to hide the gun. You need to dispose of it in a way where no one could ever piece it back together and put the blame on you. You’re still at shadow lake, you further drained your brain with all the thoughts of your father. All you want to do is go back and check if the gun has remained under your floorboards. Jim is standing right there, so you can’t leave. It would look suspicious. You take a deep sigh, slip your hands into your pockets and drop your head back. The stars are dazzling brighter than usual tonight. You feel relieved looking at the stars; you were always fascinated by them. At Mount Hermon, they are always so beautiful. You squint and try to find the north star. You have an urge see them more up close. You feel the keys in your pocket scratch you a little. An idea jumps into your head.
You watched Jim intently waiting until he was looking in the other direction. He turns around to talk to another student and you sprint back to your house. You slam open the front door, ran into your room, and carefully lift the floorboard panel up. There it is, in the same place you left it. You drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw, and take a quick exhale. You run to your closet, find your biggest duffle bag and drop the gun into it. You sling it around your shoulder and run towards the house where it all happened: Ford Cottage.
There it is, Ford Cottage. You keep running. Your mind runs through every detail of what your about to do. You stop abruptly, look up and see it, the observatory. This is the perfect place. No one ever goes here. You would know because your freshman year you tried to start a stargazing club but no one joined. Who would look for a shotgun in an old shed full of telescopes that barely work? No one. Half the school didn’t even know there was an observatory. You get the keys out of your pocket, and frantically try everyone in the door. One finally turns in the keyhole. You open the door slowly, it smells musty and humid. The door probably hadn’t been open since the last time you were there. You shut the door and lock it. This is is going to take a few hours. You set down the shotgun gently and take out the oldest most unuseful telescope from the back of the room. You wipe the spider webs off the tripod of the telescope and start to measure. You see that the barrel of the gun would be a perfect replacement for the optical tube, along with the trigger making a perfect finderscope. You sit on the floor and carefully take the shotgun apart piece by piece and reconstruct them onto to tripod of the telescope. No one will ever look at the old, unuseful ‘telescope’.
You do an immaculate job and place the reconstructed telescope at the back where you found it. You feel relieved and satisfied with the idea that no one will ever be able to trace it back to you. You walk back to your house and still wonder where your father has been the whole day, but you don’t really care. You just went through all of that to cover up his muddy tracks. You open the front door, walk down the hallway to your room and open the door. Your father is sitting upright on your bed and says,
“Give me the gun... Where is it, Thomas?”
You don't know this yet but your father will get away with murder and never go to jail. You will spend your whole life fighting the demons of being the murders helper, as the murder keeps moving from place to place.
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