Free Beautiful Musician by Sheri Whitefeather Page A

money to
see. He was obsessed with alternate universes, and Duncan was an
immortal from a meta-universe.”
    Should I tell him that Abby was
obsessed with other realms, too? No, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t
say it.
    He continued, “When Jack found me, all
I knew about myself was my age and that I was of Native descent. I
still don’t remember anything else. Where I’m originally from, who
my parents are, what tribe I belong to, when my birthday
is.”
    “ What date do you use for
it?”
    “ June thirtieth. That’s
the day Jack found me.”
    Was that the day I’d created the
warrior? I couldn’t remember the exact date, but it had been the
week after my birthday, which fit the troubling
timeline.
    I studied him from across the table,
thinking about how the warrior was supposed to die. “Your birthday
just passed. So did mine. We both just turned twenty.”
    He raised his coffee in a mock toast.
“Here’s to us. We have almost a whole year to go before we can
officially buy a beer.”
    Or before he died? I couldn’t bear to
think about that, not now, not while I was sitting here, trying to
figure him out. “Tell me more about you and Jack.”
    He lowered his cup. “I was scared and
confused when he first found me. He was all I had. He protected me,
treating me as if I was his own. We lived on the streets together
until I was fifteen, then I was taken away from him and put into
foster care.”
    “ Why didn’t Jack turn you
over to the authorities himself? Why did he keep you with him for
so long?”
    “ He thought I was sent to
him from another dimension to be his adoptive son.”
    “ The Highlander
dimension?”
    “ No. He knew that one was
created for the movies.”
    Dare I ask? “Then what dimension did
he think it was?”
    “ He didn’t know. But he
said that I would find out someday. Of course I knew that he was
delusional, but I played along with him anyway. I preferred to
think of myself the way he thought of me.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Because I figured that I
must have run away from a bad situation. That’s what they assumed
in foster care, too, especially since they searched for missing
kids fitting my description and didn’t uncover anything. If I
wasn’t reported missing by my family, then it seems obvious that no
one cared.”
    “ What about now that
you’re older? Don’t you want to know the truth?”
    “ Not if it’s something
that’s going to trigger disturbing memories. I’d rather just leave
well enough alone.”
    I struggled to comprehend his
mysterious past. How could there be so many parallels between him
and the warrior? How was that possible? “What last name do you
use?”
    “ Lock. That was Jack’s
last name.”
    “ So you’re Duncan
Lock.”
    “ Yep. That’s me.” He
glanced toward the window. “I used to have blackouts during the
time I was with Jack, and he said it was because I would disappear
and go to the other dimension, then would return with no knowledge
of where I’d been. He even said that he saw me disappear. But I
knew the blackouts were just part of my amnesia. It stopped
happening after I went into foster care.”
    “ Why did that make a
difference?”
    “ I don’t know. But Jack
had his theory, of course. He said that I couldn’t slip off to the
other dimension with the foster care system watching me so closely,
so I had to stay grounded to this world.”
    This world. That world. As fearful as
I was that I was losing my mind, that he was too damned close to my
creation, I couldn’t get up and walk away. I kept questioning him,
anxious to hear his answers. “How did you feel about being in
foster care?”
    “ I hated it, and I wanted
to go back to Jack.”
    “ Weren’t you afraid of
living with a delusional man? Of him regarding you as his adoptive
son?”
    “ As delusional as he was,
he wasn’t dangerous or violent. He treated me with love and
kindness. He gave me a sense of belonging that foster care never
did. And he encouraged my