Shepherd's Warning

by Cailyn Lloyd

  “Absolutely. Why don’t you plan on Thanksgiving dinner with Dana and me tomorrow, okay?”

  They talked a few minutes more, then Ashley said she would drive up in the morning. Laura tapped the red icon and walked out to her car. She felt happier than she had in weeks. Fixing things with Ashley. Making the decision to leave.

  Outdoors, the air was bitter cold, the sun a pale disk in a haze of cirrus clouds. At the door of the vicarage, Laura felt nervous, worried the reverend considered her a nut job and was waiting for the right moment to commit her, to send her away in a padded truck to a place where old ladies wove imaginary baskets.

  Stop it!

  Reverend Drew opened the door in full dress, his face somber.

  “Good morning, Laura. Let’s go back to my study.”

  They walked down the passage in silence. He gestured to the straight-back chair and sat at his small desk, the clutter somewhat organized today. He pointed to the bag Laura was holding and said, “May I see what you have?”

  Aimlessly reading titles on the bookshelf, feeling foolish, Laura wished she hadn’t come. There were times, despite all she knew and had seen, when she doubted herself, and this was one such time. In the light of day, the haunting of their house seemed silly, ludicrous even.

  Laura opened the bag and handed him the album first, allowing him to page through without interruption. He raised his eyebrows occasionally but said nothing.

  Laura nearly choked when he turned the last page and saw a new article taped there:

  LOST ARROW MAN INJURED IN EXPLOSION

  “Did you put this in here?”

  “No! It wasn’t there the last time I looked.” Another element of a crazy story. She realized Lucas might’ve added the article, harking back to her paranoid theories. Reverend Drew looked at her with an indeterminate expression between concern and disbelief.

  “Honest! My husband might’ve done it.”

  “Why would he do that?” His look verged on condescension. She was rapidly losing his trust.

  “He doesn’t believe any of this. He might be mocking me. As I explained last time, we aren’t getting along.”

  He took a deep breath. “What else do you have?”

  She handed him a printout of the family tree with the name Anna Flecher circled.

  “A curious coincidence but probably not supernatural.”

  She then handed him the list of events in the house: the old lady in the hall, the knives, the doors, and the fireplace screen. He perused the list and paused, looking thoughtful.

  “There’s another thing,” Laura said. “I found bones in the basement last night. Human bones.”

  “Are you sure they’re human?”

  “I am. I found them in the basement under the room Nate broke into. I think it was a burial vault.”

  He sat forward, spoke more formally. “That may be, but you need to report them to the police. Now.”

  “What?” Laura hadn’t even considered that.

  “It’s the law. You need to call now.” He was insistent. Was he testing to see if she was lying about the bones?

  She pulled out her phone and said, “Nine-one-one?”

  “No. Just a sec, I’ve got the number for the sheriff here.”

  Laura dialed the number and explained the find in the house. After they determined it was likely an old burial and not a recent event, she was told not to disturb the site and keep the room closed until they could investigate. Someone would stop by the house later in the day.

  “Satisfied?” Laura said.

  “Is this all of it?”

  “Yes. Is it enough?”

  He studied her thoughtfully, then glanced at the list again. “It’s a good start. I’m just asking myself the same questions the bishop will ask. You must understand that most of the people who come forward with stories like this have psychological issues. Often, the phenomena they describe have conventional explanations. I’m not sure what the bishop will think, but for what it’s worth, I think the case has merit. You’ll have to give me time. There are strict procedures to be followed. I’ll need to keep these things, of course.”

  “I expected you would.”

  “The bones might be the compelling reason for an exorcism, or at least blessing or purification ceremony, depending upon the age of the bones and the circumstances surrounding their interment.” He added offhandedly. “One question. If you’re convinced the house is haunted, why are you staying there? Aren’t you worried about your safety?”

  “I am. In fact, I’m planning on leaving in a day or two until this is resolved.”

  “Okay. I’ll see the bishop later today. We have a meeting scheduled. I’ll bring this up then.”

  “Thank you.” Laura studied his shoes, which were black and scuffed.

  He stood and said, “I want you to think about therapy as well, okay? We should explore every avenue.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “I have to go,” he said. “Another appointment.”

  Laura stood also, but balked, looking him squarely in the eyes. “So will it work?”

  “What?”

  “The exorcism, blessing—whatever. Will it work?”

  * * *

  “If one or the other is necessary, I think so—yes.” But with that positive statement, Kevin Drew felt an aching doubt. While he professed an interest in hauntings and possessions, he never truly believed such things existed beyond abstract religious thought.

  He donned a brave face. After Laura last visited, he had asked around and heard a plethora of tales and legends about the MacKenzie house. Though superficially archaic and silly like most local folklore, he sensed the presence of something here, a strange foreboding that was compelling and illogical in the same breath—the presence of evil. His mind returned to childhood fears, imagining creatures lurking in the shadows of unfamiliar halls and doorways. Though he never actually saw the monsters, he sensed them reaching out to grasp and hurt him. He’d fight the feeling, tell himself it was nothing but nerves and silly superstition, yet he would quicken his step and his fragile beating heart would race until he was safe.

  Laura MacKenzie. Her house, her books, her stories made him feel that way, an irrational pulse of fear his religion couldn’t erase. He was glad she planned to leave. He was suddenly convinced the threat at the house was real and he wanted no part of it.

  Forty-Seven

  Sally’s house was four doors down from the church, a small neat brick house surrounded by the bare frames of oaks and thick green spruce trees dressed in snow. As Laura walked up to the house, Sally opened the door and waved her in.

  Sally took Laura’s parka, gestured to a small settee, and said, “Would you like some tea or coffee?”

  “Tea, please.” Laura sat down as Sally walked into the kitchen through a café door, using her cane for support.

  “Can I help?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The living room was small, papered with a dated floral print. Walnut cabinets filled with Hummel figurines, Carnival glass, Jasperware, and pieces Laura didn’t recognize flanked the window. A tall bookshelf filled with hardcovers sat next an antique RCA floor radio. A small flat screen TV was tucked in the corner.

  Sally returned with two cups of tea and sweetener on a small tray and set them on the maple coffee table. She sat in a fat stuffed rocker, tucking an iPad under the table.

  “I love your cabinets.”

  “Thank you. I used to love shopping for all those things. Going to auctions and flea markets was always fun.” Sally took a sip of tea. “So how can I help, Laura?”

  Laura described the last few weeks in some detail—the apparition, the knives, the pots, the cemetery, the persistence of that name, Anna Flecher. She finished by saying, “I suspect Reverend Drew thinks I’m crazy.”

  “It does sound crazy,” Sally said. “Unless you know that house the way you and I do.”

  “And what do you know about the house?”

 
“There’s something very wrong with it.” Sally settled into her chair. “Where do I start? According to an Indian legend, the house just appeared out of the blue.”

  Laura almost dropped her cup. “What?”

  Sally nodded. “It’s true. They considered it evil and gave it a wide berth. It’s only a legend, of course, but I’d be concerned if my house figured into Native American folklore. Over the years, a good many people lost their lives in or around that house. Tom’s disappearance was the final straw for me. It may seem irrational to blame an inanimate object, but I do.”

  “Why wasn’t the house ever investigated?”

  “TV people come out here occasionally looking, but they never find it,” Sally said. “Folks here don’t want people snooping around it anyway.”

  “I don’t believe this is happening.”

  “Unfortunately, I do.” Sally sipped her tea. “I understand why you’re talking to Reverend Drew. My feeling is he’ll be of little help.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Sally opened her eyes and leaned forward. “To be honest, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Over the years I’ve learned to trust my feelings.”

  Laura was suddenly more curious about their common ability. “When did it start for you? This…thing?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged, turned her palms up. “I guess I’ve always had it.”

  “And how do you feel about it?”

  “How do I feel?” She looked vaguely confused. “It’s part of me. I don’t feel one way or another about it. It’d be like asking how I feel about having blue eyes.”

  “I don’t like it.” Laura stared off into space.

  “I sense that. You’ve been running from it.”

  “Absolutely. How can you be so calm about it?”

  “I accept it, that’s all.” Sally gave Laura an inquisitive look. “Mindfulness. Isn’t that what you call it?”

  Laura nodded. She sipped at her tea. “So you heard about Janice Foster?”

  “Of course.”

  “She called me the day she fell ill. I cut her off. Maybe I shouldn’t have. The timing was spooky.”

  “Maybe.” She pursed her lips and exhaled dismissively. “Janice is fifty-eight years old and sixty pounds overweight. Her heart attack didn’t sound unnatural to me.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, but—”

  “But nothing. It was a heart attack.”

  Laura, thoughtful for a moment, set her cup down. “So, tell me about Elizabeth.”

  “Didn’t you know her?” Sally asked, clearly puzzled.

  “I did, and I didn’t.” Laura said. “I thought I knew her until she died. She kept all of these secrets. We didn’t know about the house until the reading of the will.”

  “If Elizabeth had her way, you’d have never known the house existed.”

  “What?”

  “Elizabeth had planned to tear the house down and donate the land to the state.” Sally seemed to be staring into a different plane.

  Laura leaned in. “How do you know that?”

  “We stayed in touch. She visited now and then, usually in the spring. She came to walk the land and visit Alan. Elizabeth never got over losing him. I think that’s why she kept the house so long.”

  “Then why tear it down? Why not pass it on to her children?”

  “Because she knew there was something wrong with it,” Sally said. “She not only planned to tear it down, she planned to have the site blessed.”

  Laura cocked her head. “What? Like an exorcism?”

  “Not really. Gentler than exorcism.”

  “So why didn’t she?”

  “She was torn, I think, between wanting to be rid of it and losing her last connection to Alan.”

  Laura became more confused, and her memory of Elizabeth faded a bit more. So much had been hidden behind a careful facade. “Then why did she marry Alan? Why did she live there?”

  “Love. Simple as that, and as a young woman, she didn’t believe the stories about the house. She was stubborn. Then Alan died. She packed up and moved out the week after and never set foot in the house again.”

  “I found an album in the basement. A strange book with all these clippings about MacKenzies who died through the ages. The story about Tom was—”

  “Is there a strange drawing on the first page with the word—what was it—?”

  “Judgement.”

  “Oh my.” Sally knitted her brow in consternation. “I saw Elizabeth toss that book into the garbage forty years ago, right here at my house.”

  Laura cupped her elbows with her hands. “So that was Elizabeth’s book?”

  “No. Someone sent it to her. She drove up one day with it. She was upset.” Sally shook her head, a look of distaste crossing her face. “We decided to throw it away. It was twisted. Perverse.”

  “I’d say.” Laura’s voice became accusatory. “If you knew all of this, why did you wait until now to tell me? You must have heard I was asking around.”

  “I did,” Sally said. “But I didn’t know you. And I had no idea you were…like me. I did ask Carol to invite you to the Pampered Chef party. And if I had come to you out of the blue, would you have believed me?”

  Laura tried to imagine hearing this two months ago. “I suppose not.”

  “You’d have thought I was crazy.” Sally cocked her head and spun her index finger near her temple.

  Laura smirked, then drew serious again. “In that book, under the picture of Tom, Elizabeth had written It ends here!”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Frankly, all I want to do now is pack and leave.”

  “I don’t blame you. Is your husband going too?”

  “No. He’s obsessed with the house.”

  “Would possessed be a better word?”

  Laura stared at Sally. “I don’t believe that.”

  Sally shrugged. “You said he hasn’t been himself.”

  “He hasn’t, and much of it I understand. Our son’s death, his mother’s death, his brother in a coma. I’ve tried to give him time and space to heal but I think he’s seeing someone else.”

  Sally said nothing, which Laura found disconcerting. This was getting too personal, and Laura thought about leaving. She wasn’t learning anything helpful.

  Sally held her hand out and said, “Here, take my hand, who knows…”

  “Huh?”

  “We both have the gift. Maybe two are better than one.”

  Laura took the hand hesitantly. There was a surge of warmth, like she’d felt at Brenda’s. Sally closed her eyes; Laura did the same. For Laura, there was nothing. Just grey fog and a random stream of consciousness. Sally was silent.

  After a minute, Laura let go. “This is pointless.”

  “No, it’s not.” Sally grabbed Laura’s hand. “Try harder!”

  Try harder? “What are we trying to do?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Sally shrugged but grasped her hand intently.

  Laura just did what she knew: cleared her mind, relaxed, focused on her breathing, mindful like martial arts. A silly proverb appeared:

  Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning…

  Somewhere out of sight, Sally gripped tighter. “Stay with it, Laura. You have the key, I just know it.”

  Laura stood in an auction hall, bidding on a box. Images and pieces of dreams and nightmares came to her, but they were incoherent, no sense to be drawn from them. The proverb played on:

  Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning…

  Laura was in the cemetery again. It was night and the dead were escaping their coffins, chasing her away. Leah appeared and walked away from her, into a fog.

  Leah! Wait!

  The fog was swept away by the house at sea, cutting through the waves like a stout clipper ship. The house and sea faded, then it was over. She could recall only fragments; mostly the red sky thing. Wasn’t it sailors’ warning?

  “Did—did you
see…anything?” Laura said.

  Sally looked hazy. “Just bits and pieces, nothing that made any sense.”

  “The same.” Two didn’t seem better than one to Laura.

  Sally touched her arm. “You’re wrong. It just didn’t work this time.”

  Laura looked at her curiously.

  Sally shrugged. “I heard your thought, I guess. Work at it and you could too.”

  “I don’t want anything like that.”

  “You already have it, sweetie.”

  “And I’ve been avoiding it quite successfully.”

  “You’ve been running from it your whole life, yet, from what I’ve seen, your ability is far stronger than mine.”

  “I don’t feel strong right now.” Laura stood, disappointed. She slipped into her parka. “I’ve got to go.”

  Sally touched her arm. “Who or what is shepherd?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t figure out what it means.” She snugged her zipper. “Thanks, Sally.”

  “Hang in there, Laura.”

  Laura drove home in a sullen mood. She’d learned nothing. Whatever was going on in the house seemed too incomprehensible to fathom. It no longer mattered. She was leaving.

  At the house, Laura walked to the Hall but turned around when she saw Lucas sitting by the fire. She found Dana and Leah sitting in the kitchen.

  “What are you doing in here?” Laura asked.

  “Uh, it was warmer here. What’s with Dad?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Laura popped a pod into the Keurig.

  “He’s acting like he’s not sure who I am.”

  “I don’t know what your father’s problem is, but I’ve had enough.” There was much more she wanted to explain to Dana, but she had neither the energy nor desire to talk. There would be time when they were gone. She said, “I’m going to pack. Ashley’s coming tomorrow to visit. After that, I think we should leave. Is that okay with you?”

  “Anything you say.” Even with Dana behind her, Laura sensed the hint of sarcasm and the wary look that followed her out of the room. Was that what Sally was talking about?

  Laura found the suitcases in a closet upstairs and tried to decide what to take, what to leave behind, but accomplished nothing. She was exhausted. The meeting with Sally had drained her completely. Maybe with a few minutes of rest, she would feel better.