Convalescence by Maynard Sims

Test match of all things, and scored a century. He’s something of a local legend. Are you aware of the power that kind of celebrity brings?
    â€œNo, someone has to bring him down, but it will have to be someone with more courage than I have. I fall short on every level.”
    â€œBut couldn’t you have said something to your mother?”
    â€œI did, and I’ve lost count of the number of arguments we had over it. It’s why I left here when I was old enough to do so.”
    â€œIt’s true, Jimmy,” Amy said. “Your uncle was really upset when Hughie left. He swore he’d track him down and bring him back, which is why I could never let on that I knew where he was.”
    â€œWhat about the girls who came to stay here?” I said. “Did he ever—” A sickening thought struck me. I turned to Amy. “Did he ever—”
    She shook her head quickly.
    â€œAmy and all the girls were safe,” Hughie said. “Their dormitory was on the other side of the house. Besides, he’s only interested in boys, especially pretty boys like Michael. Poor little bugger didn’t stand a chance.”
    I stood there for a long moment, not speaking. Thoughts were whirling around in my mind like a dervish, and I picked at them at random, trying to build them into a cohesive whole.
    After a while Amy said, “Jimmy, what are you thinking?”
    Her words seemed to break the spell, and suddenly everything became very clear.
    â€œWe have to stop him,” I said.
    â€œI told you,” Hughie said. “I don’t have that kind of strength.”
    But I did.
    I think I understood now why my father and my uncle had fallen out. Dad must have known about his brother’s weaknesses, and wouldn’t have him in the house—to protect me, if nothing else. I dare say that when he learned Uncle Thomas had left the country, he breathed a huge sigh of relief, figuring that his brother would be somebody else’s problem and that he himself would not have to deal with it. I can’t begin to imagine what he felt when he learned that Uncle Thomas had returned from South Africa.
    If there were any conversations about him at all in the house, then they were conducted in a system of guarded whispers and stolen glances between my father and my mother, and together they adopted a policy of near silence around their children. If Thomas wasn’t mentioned, it would be like he didn’t exist. I wondered how many young boys they had condemned to a living hell—as victims—by the simple act of not speaking out.
    My father’s weakness would not be mine.
    I didn’t know yet how I was going to bring Uncle Thomas down, but the tuberculosis had spared me. I had been given another chance at life, and I wasn’t going to squander the opportunity I’d been given to atone for my father’s tacit complicity in his brother’s crimes.
    â€œI’ll stop him,” I said flatly.
    Both Amy and Hughie looked at me as if I’d gone slightly mad. And I suppose, in a way, I had.
    â€œWe need to bring this out in the open,” Amy said.
    â€œWe just can’t go around making unfounded allegations,” Hughie said. “We need evidence to back them up.”
    â€œHow about Michael O’Herlihy’s body?” I said.
    â€œYou’re off your chump,” Hughie said. “They probably got rid of it ages ago.”
    I shook my head. “No, it’s still here,” I said. “I’ve been blind and stupid. It’s what Michael’s been trying to tell me all along.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Amy said.
    â€œWhen I was in that room under the summerhouse, Michael appeared to me, standing in the center of the room. He drew me to that room with more of that bloody music, but the only thing he had to say was ‘I’m here’, and I misunderstood what he was saying. He meant it literally. I think