Batman: On a creepy night the investigation goes on....

Alfred´s journal:

When I found Mr. Pennyworth´s huge stack of journals on an otherwise very clean room, I decided they could help us in a huge way. Mr. Wayne hasn´t been found yet even though we´ve searched through the whole mansion and no one knows where Mr. Pennyworth is either. Gotham´s finest is still on strike so I decided to venture solo to uncover the mystery of the vanishing of this  highly respectable and influential man and his butler but to no avail.

Yet.

Though some of the passages from the journal are simple I found this one which captivated me since it was written to a dead man (written by the butler) after Wayne´s father´s killing all those years ago:

“Sir:

It has been one month since you and your wife´s Martha´s passing.

The young boy has not shed another tear and remains silent. Captain Gordon showed up today just to see how he was doing and after offering assistance of any kind he quickly left since they informed him of a robbery in down town Gotham. Master Bruce spends his time on your library, often falling asleep reading every one of the medicine journals you left, as if your handwriting still hugged him strongly before he dozes away. He seems kin to start eating as healthy as ever, not even a chocolate bar and only speaks back when asked about something; all he does at this tender age is ask me about acting lessons, as if he was trying to hide something even though the whole town now knows what he must be feeling.  I show him what I learned all those years ago in my country; he also shows a lot of interest in medicine and European cultures which he now told me he´ll go some day to learn from other cultures something which he hasn´t told me yet.

I must say, I feel a bit worried as to how he doesn´t like going out in the middle of the day anymore and insists on having the curtains down and keeping just dim lights so he can study, read and learn. How fantastic must be his mind that he is actually talking to me in French and Portuguese without me knowing he was already learning those languages at the tender age of 8. French I do understand due to my old, shall we say, knowledge of the language for reasons I dare not tell anyone but you. I once did and you were kind enough to understand me. How could I not be loyal to you? Oddly enough, Mr. Fox who does know about this obscure past has been appointed as a chief executive on Wayne enterprises.

As I was saying, during the day he likes to read and watches every zorro movie he can investigating why that character behaves how he does. Teachers come and are unable to explain some of the more significant questions he asks about human behavior and their motivations. Mrs. Thompson visits regularly and he feels in a better mood then, responding everything she asks about. When she offers a glass of milk, he asks me to put black coffee on it and no sugar; he has been asking for a higher dose every week.

Even though he is unable to understand some things due to his tender age, I consider him to be a brilliant child. Everything he reads stays in his mind and he can recite every single word that has been read often hitting me back with some of Shakespeare´s more obscure novels as answers to routine questions. When asked if he was done with the criminal psychology books he had recently purchased his response was “"Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once." From Caesar´s play.

Last night I saw he was looking at some pictures of the ball dance you had some months ago and he said that her mother was beautiful. He then turned the page and found a letter she wasn´t done writing about but I could sense he wanted me to leave the room.  I gathered strength and told him they loved him very much and you should never doubt, not for a single moment, of that. He shot back: “Yes, but I can never love them back now so they will never know. Just as I will never know what it will be like growing up with father and mother.”  He began to fall asleep clutching the letter and building this disturbing frown he´s now grown fond of it seems.

I am trying my best to be a helping hand and to be there but deep inside I know parental love can never be fully replaced even though I continue, without dismay, to prove myself that I can look out for the boy, just as I promised you. He has once asked will you ever quit on me? My direct response is “Never.”

I know it is weird I´m writing to you since you´re gone but this is my way of staying sane with the hopes that I can lead the child into a beautiful life full of love and wonder as every child is supposed to have at this age; I know, despite everything, that he´ll grow up to be a brilliant human being and some day the world will know him as the person he truly is: a caring, loving, good human being.”

Hmmm….I´ll stop reading for today. But tomorrow I´ll see if I find anything more that can lead me into finding the socialite and the man that takes care of him. There´s this huge clock, an eerie one that signals 10:45pm….quite late….wait! there seems to be a crack through the pendulum that looks weird.

I guess I´ll have a closer look….the detective in me.

 Won´t harm nobody I´m sure.

(WRITTEN BY JOSÉ CARLOS FERNÁNDEZ)

Batman, Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox and all characters included herein are property of DC COMICS.