The Secrets my Mother Kept

“I’ll meet you there” Sydney said to Brittney and Marcus as they climbed into their powder blue 1980 Toyota pick up truck with the rusty door handles. Sydney waited, watching them leave before heading upstairs again. 

She collected the scattered paper and looked through the forgotten pages of her sister-in-law’s most upsetting timeline during some of those memorable moments in Alexander’s young life. The phrase “lochlehm” still echoeing in her head. 

“Yeah, hi. Your son, remember him?” Sydney broke her pensive silence getting her brother’s voicemail again. “He’s hurt, bad. And I think he stumbled into something Airi left behind” She hesitated. “Now, I’m dead serious - tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you.” She hung up the phoneand looked around the room. 

The floorboards were soaking wet with pools of water in several places throughout the room. She thought it smart to grab towels from the downstairs bathroom closet before trecking it back upstairs to Alexander’s bedroom. 

Sydney laid the towels down over the pools of water and swept up the room before sitting on the bed and taking a good look at the notebooks that Alexander found again. 

“Lochlehm, Lochlehm, Lochlehm” Sydney said flipping through the notebooks, what did Lochlehm mean? Nothing but the scribbles of a tired woman who was about to die filled the sheets as she ventured through the notebook.   

Sydney dropped another soaked towel into the growing pile by the door. As she leaned down to press a fresh towel against a particularly large puddle near Alexander's bed, something glinted beneath the nightstand - something that would have been hidden if the water hadn't seeped underneath.

She got down on her knees, reaching into the dark space. Her fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. When she pulled it out, her breath caught.

A silver chain, and hanging from it, a single pearl.

"Oh, Alex you curious boy…," Sydney whispered, her hand trembling as she held it up to the light. It shown brightly through the cage around it. Sydney thought they had burried this with her, how did Alex come across this stuff? She smiled silently, tucking the pearl and the notebook in the bedside drawer before getting up again. 

Sydney cleaned the entire bedroom, waiting for her brother to text her, call her, make himself known. When the room was put back together Sydney let out a frustrated groan and texted her brother ‘Headed to your apartment, you better be there, Syn’ Sydney put the phone back in her pocket before grabbing the wet towels and heading back downstairs. 

The drive to her brother's apartment felt longer than usual, each traffic light holding her captive with thoughts of Alexander lying pale in that hospital bed. 

Sydney pulled into the familiar parking lot, noting the absence of her brother's car. But something else caught her eye - a light in his second-floor window that wouldn't be on if the apartment was empty.

She took the stairs two at a time, the wet towels forgotten in her backseat. At her brother's door, she hesitated only a moment before using her emergency key. The lock clicked open with a sound that seemed too loud in the quiet hallway.

“Syn?" she called out, pushing the door open. "If you're here, I swear to-"

She stopped. The apartment looked... wrong. Papers were scattered across every surface, much like Alexander's room had been. But these weren't just any papers - they were copies of Airi's research. Sydney recognized the symbols immediately, the same ones that had been in those notebooks Alexander found.

On the coffee table, a laptop glowed with dozens of open tabs - all searches about underwater pressure, deep-sea anomalies, and...weather patterns around the lake.

“Syn?” Sydney called out. 

The apartment creaked in response to her voice. A breeze from somewhere rustled the papers - but all the windows were closed. Sydney moved deeper into the apartment.

"Hello?" she tried again, softer this time. The laptop's glow cast strange shadows on the walls, making the symbols on the scattered papers seem to writhe and shift.

That's when she noticed the map pinned to the wall behind the laptop. Red strings connected various locations - the lake, the beach where Airi died, and... Sydney stepped closer, her heart pounding. There were other locations marked too, forming a pattern she recognized from one of Airi's diagrams. In the center of it all was a photograph of Alexander at the lake, taken just days ago. He was staring at the water, unaware of being watched.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

Sydney whirled around. Syn stood in the shadows of the hallway, looking nothing like the brother who'd missed his son's birthday. His clothes were dirty, his hair wild, but his eyes... his eyes were focused with an intensity that made her take a step back.

“He's out” Syn said, broken. “And he knows.”