Bystander in Time

by Richard Stockford

  “Wow, sounds like you had an adventure.”

  Dex grunted. “Sounds terrifying to me. I’ve studied colonial history all my life and I don’t know if I’d be able to survive in 1768 Boston… but apparently I did, or he did… Damn, this is confusing.”

  “Is any of it coming back to you?”

  “No, well, every once in a while it’s like Déjà Vu. Like I almost think I know what’s going to happen next, but then it all just slides away. Hey, look here. Apparently the good ship White Shark was a raider.”

  “A raider? What’s that?” Annie asked reaching for the journal.

  “At the beginning of the revolutionary era, there was no American Navy. As British taxation became more and more intolerable, merchant captains began arming their vessels and using them to smuggle goods into the colonies and generally doing anything they could to screw with the crown.”

  “Was that legal?”

  “Well, some of them had letters of Marque, a sort of commission, from various colonial governments; some were out-and-out pirates, but most of them operated astride the line; patriotic to be sure, but always with an eye on turning a profit. In any event, they were the unsung heroes of the revolution. Campbell damn sure was.”

  “Who?”

  “Who, what?”

  “You just said ‘Campbell damn sure was’. Who’s Campbell?”

  Dex frowned blankly. “I, I don’t know,” he said getting up from the couch to cover his confusion. “I think I need a break, I’m gonna go check on the construction.”

  When Dex got up stairs, he met D.J. and Zach just coming down from the attic. “We got temporary braces in place and jacks set,” Zach said. “We’ll lift that ridgeline straight over the next few days, bit by bit, and then nail’er in permanent.”

  D.J. brushed past them. “I’m going out and do some metal detecting before the bugs come out,” he said running down the stairs.

  “I’ll be along in a minute. I want to see that machine work,” Zach hollered after him. And then, quietly to Dex, “The boy told me you had an interesting morning. Already found some gold as I understand it.”

  Dex made a decision and motioned Zachary to a chair in the bedroom. “Ms. Kneeland, down at the end of the road, told me she’d be inclined to trust you,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I think you know something about what’s going on around here. “You remember me from before, don’t you? From back in 1995.”

  Zach nodded slowly. “I started having strange memories right after I met your boy. Sorta’ like I’d think I remember something and then realize it was impossible, never could’ve happened. I dunno, it’s hard to explain, but when I met you it came back stronger. I was mate on a fishing boat in 1995, a charter boat, and you were aboard with a bunch of other people for a day trip.” He squirmed in his seat. “I remember you fell overboard; we looked for hours; called the Coast Guard, had half the lobster fleet out there, but we never found you. “

  “But I was found. Here I am.”

  “Well, see, that’s the impossible part. You were found in the water a week later. It ain’t unusual for some fool to fall in the ocean and drown, but that water was cold, even in July. There’s no way you could have survived even a day, much less a week. And the really strange part? I don’t recollect anyone even questioning it. We just all sort of accepted it, like the happy ending to a fairy tale.”

  Dex shook his head. “So why now? Why is your memory coming back and my sanity taking a walk?”

  “This island is an old place; honest and hard. I don’t know the how nor the why of it, but I suspect you started something that summer that you’ve now got to finish and if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with the bastard that built this house.”

  When Dex got back downstairs, Annie was holding one of the journals in the air triumphantly. “I found your Campbell,” she said. “He was the captain of the ship you were on. Captain Jacob Campbell.”

  With her words, Dex’s vision once again waivered and he suddenly found himself standing on the open deck of a sailing ship beside two men, one with shoulder length blond hair wearing a blue jacket and the other, much taller and more muscular, dressed as a sailor. They were both staring out at another ship, looming, huge and threatening out of a fog bank behind them. In a small corner of his mind, Dex noted that the taller man bore a startling resemblance to Zachary Taylor. Much more than a memory, the experience was real enough for Dex to grab for a railing to steady himself as a wave passed under the stern and lifted the ship sideways. “Fall off to larboard Mister Wills,” Dex heard the blond man say, his words measured and confident. “Reverse our course and bear to the west behind her.”

  With an unconscious snap of his head, reality flooded back and Dex found himself kneeling beside the couch Annie wide eyed, by his side. “Where did you go?” she whispered hoarsely. “Your eyes rolled back and you collapsed. Are you ok? I thought you were having a convulsion.”

  Dex held up a hand and gathered his scattered thoughts. “I’m ok,” he said. “I saw him. Captain Campbell, I saw him.” He levered himself up onto the couch. “No, it was more than that. I was there. I was there with him on his ship. I saw him, heard him, I was close enough to touch him. Annie, he was as real as you are right now.”

  Annie stood and reached for his hand. “Come on,” she said, “I’m taking you down to the clinic.”

  Dex shook his head. “No, no, I’m ok. It’s just some sort of flashback or something, I’m fine.”

  “Dex, I’m scared. You need to talk to someone, make sure there isn’t a physical problem.”

  Dex snorted. “And tell them what. I’m seeing ghosts? Dropping in and out of the past because I used to be a time traveler? They’d put me in a rubber room.”

  “Just tell them you blacked out. Let them run some tests…”

  “No. I’m not going to be someone’s science project. I’m ok.”

  Annie sighed. “Well, at least let me call Missus Kneeland. She said she was a nurse.”

  “If you were my patient under any other circumstances, I’d drive you to the ER myself.” Dex and Annie were sitting at Maud Kneeland’s kitchen table and she had just finished a quick examination. “In all honesty, that’s probably still the best advice but, the problem is, they’d want to admit you and spend a few days doing brain scans and MRI’s and I don’t think you can afford the time. I think,” she said stressing the word think, “I think you’re right about these episodes being flashbacks of some kind, but I don’t understand what could be causing them. This is really interesting.”

  Dex laughed. “I’m happy to be able to provide a little entertainment,” he said.

  Kneeland brushed it aside. “You know what I mean,” she said. “Tell me you wouldn’t like to experience the history you teach first-hand.”

  “History is one thing. Being there is another.” Dex took a deep breath and began telling Kneeland what they had learned from Simon and Melody Masters. Twenty minutes later he sat back and sighed. “So apparently that’s what we’re up against,” he said, “some kind of evil force from a time I don’t even remember.”

  “Fascinating,” said Kneeland. “And that would explain the flashbacks.”

  “Ok, so what do we do now?”

  “What the man said I guess; we just keep on keepin’ on. You got a spare room in that place?”

  Chapter 35

  After hauling an old bed out of the carriage house and getting Kneeland set up in the smallest bedroom, the three of them spent the rest of the afternoon going through Tobias’ journals. Apart from his own involvement, Dex was fascinated by the glimpses of history they provided, while Maud Kneeland saw them more as advanced study material in the world of the supernatural. “Oh, how I wish I could have known this man,” she exclaimed as the setting sun dimmed the room. “He understood things I’ve barely been able to guess at.”

  Dex pushed away from the journals. “Well, I don’t understand any of it past the idea that I somehow spent
a summer in 1768 when I was fifteen,” he said. “Anybody up for pizza? I’m starved.”

  The next morning, Dex awoke to the fading memory of a dream involving thundering cannons and the acrid stench of gunpowder. In the kitchen, he found a rumpled D.J. huddled over a bowl of cereal. “What are you up to today?” he asked

  “Oscar’s coming over. We’re going to do dome metal detecting.”

  “I want to clean out the carriage house today. Suppose you guys could give me a hand?”

  “Sure, we…”

  D.J. was interrupted by Maud Kneelands’ entrance. She slumped into a chair; face pinched and drawn and eyes bloodshot beneath disheveled hair. “We need to get this resolved quickly,” she said. “I don’t know how long I can stay in this house.”

  “What happened?” “Did you see a ghost?” Dex and D.J. asked at the same time.

  “I saw spirits, yes,” she said looking at D.J. “A woman, sad and lonely, and a man, lost and afraid. Much as I would expect in a house as old as this one.” She looked at Dex. “But then something different. A malevolent entity, strong and evil; a man, I think. All in black. ‘Get out’ it said, over and over, ‘Get out’. Dex, I have never been afraid of the spirit world, but this was …terrifying. I felt the evil to the depths of my soul.” She shook her head. “I’m going to go home and sleep for a while. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

  Dex stood to help her out of the chair. “I’m going to spend the day researching the Quill family,” her said. “Maybe it’ll help if we know more about who lived here.”

  Nodding wearily, Kneeland walked to the door. “Be careful,” she said.

  Dex was still at the table with his third cup of coffee when Annie and Zachary Taylor came in. “Fresh coffee in the pot,” he said.

  “Just going up to jack the roof a little,” Zachary walking into the living room said as Annie took a mug from the cupboard.

  “How did it go last night?” she asked, sliding into a chair.

  “Maud says she saw a couple of ghosts and something else that scared the hell out of her. A man in black that kept telling her to get out. She’s gone home; said she’d be back later.”

  Annie shuddered. “So what do we do now?”

  “I need to get started on cleaning out the carriage house, if you want to help; sort out the salvageable antiques and Quill family stuff and haul the rest to the dump.”

  Three hours later, D.J. and Oscar had joined Dex and Annie in carrying most of the carriage house contents out to the driveway. Zachary had come out of the attic and, interested in the antiques, begun sorting sound or at least repairable furniture into a separate pile. Annie carried anything that looked like Quill family records or personal possessions into the kitchen, and Dex tossed the obvious junk into the back of his pickup for later disposal while Stanley prowled underfoot.

  “This is the last of it, but we’re gonna’ need a fire hose to really clean this place,” Annie said as she came out of the carriage house with a dusty box in her arms.

  Tired and dirty, Dex rubbed at a greasy smudge on his arm as he stepped to the door for a look. The midday sun couldn’t penetrate the thick layers of grime on the building’s two side windows and for a moment the rough interior looked to him as it might have a century ago. The thick plank flooring was worn smooth by decades of wagon wheels and riding boots and dust motes drifted lazily through the bright knife slashes of light lancing in around the hinged double doors at the front. He stepped inside, absorbed in the sense of timeless solitude he always experienced in historical structures. So bemused was he by the character and feeling of the old building, he was only vaguely aware of the sudden terrified screams behind him and it was several long moments before he turned back to the door to see what was wrong.

  Standing with a broken box of papers at the feet, Annie screamed again, a look of fear and horror on her face.

  Dex jumped to her side. “Annie, what’s the matter?” he said, looking at the box for the source of her terror.

  “You…you disappeared,” she cried. “You went through that door and just freaking disappeared.”

  “What? I didn’t disappear. I’m right here.” Dex put his arm around her. “Come on, let’s go inside and sit down.”

  Sitting at the kitchen table with Dex and Zachary, Annie quickly regained her composure. “You went into the shed and then Stanley started to growl real loud, and, and I looked up and you just started to fade out,” she said.

  “A trick of the light?” mused Zachary.

  Annie shook her head. “No, not a trick of the light. He got, I don’t know, he got dimmer somehow; he was there, then I could s-sort of see through him, and then he was gone.”

  Dex looked at D.J. and Oscar hovering wide-eyed over the table. “Look, it’s hot and we’ve all been working hard,” he said. Why don’t we get something cold to drink and I’ll make some sandwiches. I think we’re done for the day.”

  They were just cleaning up after lunch when Maud Kneeland walked through the door. She took one look at their faces and shook her head. “Now what’s happened?” she asked dropping into a chair. She sat listening to Annie’s story then shaking her head and sighing heavily, she leaned over the table and poked Dex hard in the chest with a ridged forefinger. “You’re like a lot of doctors I’ve worked with. They’re all about their fancy education and expensive technology and completely ignore the practical common sense of those around them. As I understand it,” she said, “at least two people who appear to care for you have told you that you need to believe in the medallion you were given and wear it all the time. Where is it?”

  Dex squirmed a little in his chair. “Well, that’s the problem,” he said. I don’t believe in magic charms or rabbits’ feet or any of that stuff.”

  “But you are ready to believe that some evil, time-traveling ghost is coming for you out of the past?” she grinned. “Dex, as your highly skilled and abysmally underpaid resident spiritual advisor, I’m telling you to wear the medallion. I don’t know anything about Tobias’s magic, but sacred or special objects have been a part of spiritualism since the dawn of time, and I do know one thing; it damn sure can’t hurt. Go get it and let me see it.” Dex trotted obediently upstairs and when he returned he laid the medallion in Kneeland’s palm. She closed her fingers over it and held it to her chest with a soft cry. For long moments she remained silently bent over, eyes closed and rocking gently in her chair. When she finally looked up, she said, “Dex, I can’t believe you didn’t feel anything when you wore this.”

  A little color crept into Dex’s face. “Well, maybe it felt a little warm. I thought I was imagining it.”

  Kneeland looked at the others. “Protective devices such as this were made for one specific individual; turned to him through proximity or the use of some personal element and because of that they react to that person, but remain ordinary, mundane, to anyone else.” She carefully laid the medallion on the table in front of Dex. “I can feel the power in this,” she said. “It almost breaths with life.” She fixed Dex with a cold stare. “Put it on, Dex. And don’t take it off for anything.”

  Dex slipped the thong over his head and tucked the medallion inside his t shirt. “Ok, ok, I’ll wear it.” he said. “Let’s clean up the stuff in the driveway.”

  Dex and Annie drove the trash to the dump and Zachary loaded the reparable furniture onto his truck to take back to his workshop while D.J. and Oscar carried the other stuff they were saving back into the carriage house. While they worked, Maud Kneeland sat at the kitchen table and began sorting through the boxes of papers they had salvaged. When Dex and Annie returned, she met them at the door with a sheaf of papers in her hand. “I think I’ve identified one of your resident spirits,” she said. From what I can piece together, in 1821 Taylor Quill, probably the son of Weldon Quill, walked out of this house one morning and was never seen again. He’s mentioned in the diary of a Martha Quill and there’s an old newspaper clipping dated 1822. It would help if we could put together
the Quill family tree, but I’m pretty sure Thomas’ spirit is still here and the woman I sensed is probably his mother.”

  “I’ll tackle that,” said Dex. “Most of the information’s probably on those headstones out back.” He turned to Annie. “Come give me a hand?” he saked.

  As they stepped into the cemetery, Dex was suddenly aware of pleasant sensation of warmth spreading across his chest from where Tobias’ medallion hung. As they worked their way through the cemetery, Dex tracing the weathered carvings with his fingertips and Annie writing down the names and dates, he was also aware that that the strange attraction the old graveyard had previously held over him was absent.

  When they returned to the house, Oscar’s father was there with an invitation for D.J. to spend the night and then join their family on a three day camping trip. Dex agreed, secretly relieved to have D.J. at least temporarily out of the house. Zachary and Maud Kneeland had also departed, so Dex and Annie sat down to a scratch supper of soup and sandwiches and began the chore of constructing the Quill family tree. They were both yawning by the time they had finished. “Tomorrow, we can start matching diaries and letters and stuff to these names,” Dex said. “I’m too tired to do it tonight.”

  “Are you sure you want to stay here alone tonight?” Annie asked. “I wouldn’t.”

  Dex frowned. “To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to it,” he said.

  “I’ve got an extra bunk in the camper.”

  Dex considered for a moment and then shook his head. “No. I could use a good night’s sleep, but I’m not going to be run out of here.”

  Annie sighed. “Well then,” she said, “I guess I’m sleeping in D.J.’s room.”

  It was a blindingly bright day and Dex found himself squinting against the light as he once again stood at the side door to the carriage house. In some small corner of his mind Dex knew he was dreaming, but he was again powerless against the pull of the old building. Mouth dry and heart pounding, he opened the door and stepped into the darkness. As before, the tiny click of the useless light switch thundered in his ears as he waited helplessly for his fate to reveal itself. When the light came this time, it was not a blinding flash, but rather a slow, steady brightening as though a lamp wick were being raised to banish the shadows from some genteel nineteenth century parlor. When soft fingers touched his clenched fist, again a small part of Dex’s mind was able to set aside the dream reality and take strength from Annie’s touch. As the pool of light expanded, Dex was able to make out a pair of figures standing against the far wall. D.J. stood with eyes half closed, arms handing limply at his sides with only the slow movement of his chest as evidence of life. Behind him with a hand on his shoulder stood the man Dex had seen walking from the carriage house to the kitchen the day before. Weldon Quill had the old time look of the picture Dex had seen on his computer; an older stern-faced man dressed in nineteenth century frock coat and collar. He stood mute, but the message was plain in his cold glare and possessive stance. D.J. had become a pawn in a contest Dex still didn’t understand. Instinctively knowing the futility of his actions, Dex nonetheless crouched to attack only to find himself held firmly in place by a hand on his own shoulder. Zachary Taylor shook his head in a solemn negative as the carriage house faded away.