The Mystery of the Screaming Elms (Eden Patterson: Ghost Whisperer Book 2)

by Constance Barker

  Now I felt as though I was looking through multi-colored lenses. I didn’t get the significance, but I kept it to myself and followed Syd and Luke as we walked over the rubble of the rocks that one day had been walls to these homes. The forest and moss had overtaken much of the area, but you could still see where once laid a stone walkway between the homes.

  We were silent as we took it all in. I was listening for the singing, but heard nothing but the wind whistling through the trees. Finally we stopped and Luke took a seat on a rock that had formally been part of a wall to a home.

  “Does anyone feel different?” Luke asked. “Remember, Kenneth said he and his brother felt something special at first when they found this place. Or do either of you hear anything…the singing or the screams? I’ve heard neither.”

  Syd shook her head. “No, don’t hear or feel anything out of the ordinary.”

  I decided not to say anything about my odd vision. “No can’t say as I feel any different and the only sound I hear is the wind in the trees. Now that I think about it…isn’t it odd we don’t hear any birds or even insects?”

  Luke looked up at the trees. “Now that you mention it, I don’t hear them either.”

  “Heads up,” remarked Syd.

  Luke and I looked in her direction and then towards the area she was staring at. Up ahead, through the rubble of stones was the tiny whirlwind. It’s velocity was the same as it had been the other night, but it remained in one spot. We slowly approached it.

  “Let’s circle it,” I said.

  “Do you think that’s wise Eden?” Luke asked, not taking his eyes off the whirlwind.

  “I’m not sure if it is or not,” I replied. “But it’s showed itself to us once already, and I have a feeling it’s beckoned us here for a reason.”

  “But won’t it feel trapped?” Syd asked as she slowly circled behind it.

  “Perhaps,” I said, standing in front. “Then again maybe it will feel comforted by our presence too.”

  It was almost hypnotic looking into the whirlwind with its swirling debris. The kaleidoscope of colors remained, even within the tiny tornado. The speed never changed…always remaining at the same rate. Finally I decided it was time for one of us, me or the whirlwind, to speak.

  “I feel as though you’ve welcomed us here for a reason. We never would have found this place without your beacon of light.”

  Nothing. Just continuous spinning.

  “We want to help. Something is distressing you, we know that by the screams. If we can help in anyway we want to, but you have to communicate with us. What has you so disturbed?”

  Still nothing. It was almost as though the small cyclone was studying us. And then, before I knew it, I was inside the whirlwind. I heard my husband Luke yelling at me, and Syd’s voice too, but they were muffled.

  Although I knew I was inside the whirlwind, I felt rooted to the ground. But I also knew I was looking at things through someone else’s eyes. I could see what she saw and feel what she felt. Everything else, Luke and Syd, and the forest, was all falling into the background, like it was a million miles away. Then I knew I was looking through the eyes of a five or six year old little girl. The rock buildings seemed tall to me as they would to a small child. I was walking, as this small child, with another adult. I saw that I held a water pail in my hand as I swung it back and forth.

  I (she) looked up at the adult holding her hand. The woman looked down and smiled. Her face was etched with years of hard work, but it softened as she smiled down at the child. They stopped at a well and the girl watched the woman turn the crank at the side of the well. Then the little girl turned around and looked up at the towering trees above her. She held her small hand over her eyes to help block the sun’s rays as she looked up. I was looking through her eyes at the trees and the forest beyond, then back towards the rock village. All the while I knew I was separate from the child, yet I could sense the wonderment she had at her surroundings, as only a child can have.

  I remembered what Grandpa Winky had told me, about how as I grew older my amazement at life’s offerings would fade and a more jaded nature would emerge. How right he was and how sad it is to lose that sense of wonder at your surroundings. But how lucky I was to feel it again, a sensation so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. I’d forgotten how it was to believe as a child. How simple life is before it’s filled with worry, concerns, and stresses of adult life.

  I felt light as a feather as she ran circles around who I believe was her mother as she carried the now filled pail back through the rock house village. People were outside, tending to their own chores. Washing clothes and hanging them over lines. I could smell food cooking, likely over a fire within the rock house. In the distance I could see what looked like several people hoeing the ground, getting ready to plant. It smelled like Spring with the faint fragrance of Easter lilies.

  The mother entered the house with the pail of water, but (we) remained outside. The girl grabbed a rope that sat against the house and began swinging it over her head and jumping. We were jumping rope! I had forgotten how fun it was. One, two, three…she counted as we continued to jump over the rope as it dropped in front of us. Then suddenly we stopped. I didn’t want to however. I wanted her to keep going. But she was listening. It was then I noticed that the sky had turned dark and the wind began to howl.

  The little girl looked up at the tall trees swaying back and forth from the force of the wind. Then we heard the screams. Those same screams I had heard before.

  Her head turned swiftly towards the yelling. Neighbors had come out of their homes and were pointing into the distance. They were frantic, not knowing what to do. Whatever it was they were pointing at sounded like a train hurtling towards us. Then the mother ran out of the house and grabbed (us). She ran towards the others as they too began to run. The little girl looked over her mother’s shoulder as she carried her. People of her village were ahead of us and behind us as well. Her head bobbed up and down, but we could see it coming out of the sky. And we knew it wouldn’t matter how fast her mother ran. It was coming.

  That dark whirlwind only a thousand times larger and darker rode just above and behind us. We could see rocks from the homes being sucked up into the air. And then the people. High pitched cries as the wind tore around them and then blew them out of sight. We could see the terror on their faces as they knew the dark cloud licked at their heels. I would have thought the little girl would feel terrified herself, but she wasn’t. I could feel and see what she did, but there was no fear, only wonder at the force of nature breathing down upon her and her people. She reached out her arms towards the swirling mass right before it took us, as if to welcome it’s arrival. We flew then, above the trees and that little rock village. We flew and I could see those brilliant colors again. Everywhere I looked, the sky was a brilliant shade of blue, the grass was a bold shade of green, and the sparkling water that dripped on the flowers below appeared as diamonds. And then I heard Luke saying my name over and over again…and I opened my eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  “Eden, are you alright?” Luke was practically shouting in my face as he knelt over and held me. Syd was standing but bent over me as well. Somehow I had landed on the ground. I jumped out of Luke’s arms and straight up.

  “Where did they go?” I asked. I looked around me. Nothing appeared as it did just a few moments prior when I was within the little girl.

  Luke put his arm around me. “Honey, calm down. Here come and sit.”

  He pulled me towards the rock he’d been sitting on before. I sat down but kept looking around me. Gone was the rock village, the people, the little girl whose eyes I looked through in what must have been a hundred or more years ago. It took me a minute to orient myself.

  Syd sat on a rock across from me. “Drink this.” She handed me a bottle of water. I took it gladly and drank.

  “What happened Eden?” Luke’s face was full of concern.

  I finally lowered the bottle fr
om my lips. “I’m fine hon. How long was I out?”

  “Only about twenty seconds or so. Is that what you would say Syd?”

  Syd nodded. “Yeah, not long, but long enough for us to be worried. When that whirlwind moved into you and I saw those electrical jolts…I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked, taking another swill from the water bottle.

  “The mini cyclone disappeared and you collapsed,” Syd answered.

  I couldn’t believe it. “That’s it. I was only out for 20 seconds?” It felt like hours to me, although for Luke and Syd’s sake I was glad it wasn’t any longer than that.

  “Why? What happened?” Luke asked.

  I told them about my experience. How I felt like I was inside the little girl, seeing and hearing everything but from her own perspective. I could see how the village was at one time and what had destroyed it and its people.

  “A tornado,” Syd said. “Makes sense. The little girl is replicating what took her life by manifesting as a whirlwind.”

  “That must be where the screams have come from as well,” Luke said. “When the tornado hit.”

  “But Luke,” Syd countered. “For years I and a few others only heard singing. Well except for Kenneth and his brother. They did hear the screams when they were here. But after all these years of singing, why is she screaming now? There has to be a reason.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Syd’s right Luke. She’s been serene up until now.”

  “But that’s just it, Kenneth experienced the screams when he was here.” Luke was having trouble taking it all in.

  “I think she wanted to show Kenneth and his brother how it had been for her,” I explained. “I’m only guessing, but I think she wanted them to feel and see how it was before the destruction. Remember, Kenneth said how serene he felt at first, but then the sky darkened and a violent wind came through and the heard the screams. He said after he and his brother crested the hill they looked back and saw the darkness over take the little village. She was showing them what happened.” I sighed. “Just like she showed me.”

  “How terrible.” Syd stood up and walked over to one of the rock walls still standing. “A whole village taken out by one storm.”

  “It does sound like a tragedy,” I said.

  Syd looked at me. “Sounds? I think it was.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. When I was inside the child and the tornado struck, she wasn’t afraid. In fact, she reached out towards it. It was like she wanted to feel its power and strength. Even though people were running and screaming terrified, she wasn’t. She still had the ability to be amazed.” My voice trailed off as I gathered my thoughts.

  I stood up. “Time to go. We need to see if Goog and Matt have discovered anything of relevance. She’s screaming for a reason and I need to rectify it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Once we were out of the forest and back on the trail, Luke called the RV park and arranged for them to pick up the ATVs at Pearl’s house. As soon as we drove up and walked to the door I could smell the heavenly aroma of my favorite dish, fried chicken cooked in lard. Yep, I could tell it was cooked in lard just by smelling it. Luke said I had a nose like a bloodhound when it came to food. My stomach grumbled with anticipation.

  We walked in the door and Goog was on us before we could open our mouths and report our findings.

  “It’s about time!” Goog yelled as he motioned us over to the coffee table. He was sitting on the couch surrounded by papers. He pointed to several on the coffee table. “I printed out the most pertinent information for around here. It’s taken me hours to comb through articles on the internet, but I think I’ve narrowed it down.”

  We looked at the papers strewn everywhere, and then I saw it. One of the printed papers showed several rock houses, just like I had seen in my vision. I grabbed it.

  “Where did this come from?” I stuck it out to Goog.

  “That’s what I was talking about. It’s the nearest I’ve come to what Kenneth might have seen.”

  “We saw it too,” Syd replied. “Well, not like Kenneth did or like Syd?”

  Goog shook his head. “I know I’m slow sometimes, but that flew right over my head.”

  Right then Matt walked out of the kitchen with a glass of sweet tea in his hand. “So what did you find? I think Goog’s got a lead.”

  “We have more than a lead,” I told Goog and Matt. “We found the lost rock village…or what’s left of it.”

  “Yeah, and Eden got hit by the whirlwind,” Syd exclaimed as she collapsed in the lounger.

  Matt’s eyes widened. “What? Really?”

  Luke sat down on the other end of the couch from Goog. “She passed out on us.”

  Right then Patsy walked in. “Oh my, Eden are you alright?” She walked over and touched my arm.

  “I’m fine Patsy. It was a momentary thing. Syd and Luke said I was only out for 20 seconds, although what I experienced seemed more like hours.”

  “Supper’s ready,” Pearl called from the kitchen. “Get it while it’s hot.”

  I was the first through the kitchen door. I couldn’t wait to dig into that fried chicken, scalloped potatoes, salad and buttermilk biscuits with honey. I reiterated my tale over supper. Of course Matt thought I simply dreamed it all. No surprise there. But Goog kept nodding his head, as if he’d heard it before. After the nightly cleanup of dishes, we sat back down in the living room to go over Goog’s research. I again picked up the paper with the image of the rock houses.

  “Where did this come from Goog?”

  “When you were describing the rock houses, I just knew this was connected,” he said pointing at the sheet in my hands. He looked through a stack of papers on the coffee table and then pulled one out.

  “At first I thought this whole thing was connected to moon shining. Maybe these earthbound spirits were wailing over the destruction of their stills or whatever. So I did my research on that. Came up with nothing. Then I searched for stories about Indian tribes around this region. Mainly it was the Shawnee and Cherokee tribes, but I couldn’t find anything that related to what was going on. And then….there it was.”

  He pointed towards the sheet in my hands. After the great potato famine in Ireland in 1740 and 1741, the American colonies saw an influx from that region. Now many of them settled along the coast, especially New York, but there wasn’t much land left, so they moved westward into Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. Now the colonists already settled around here weren’t too welcoming to these outsiders so the Irish relocated in the mountains, forming their own clans, so to speak. Some of them would even break off from those clans, developing their own small villages deep within the valleys. And they would build rock homes, much like the ones of their heritage. They were actually known as Scotch-Irish. It was believed many of the Irish came through Scotland on their way to the new world, so that’s how the name stuck. At least that’s what I’ve come up with. Not sure how accurate it is, but it seems to match up with the rock village Kenneth saw and that you ran across today.”

  “And Kenneth’s last name is O’Reilly,” Syd mused. “Maybe he’s a descendent of some of the clans and that’s why he was shown the mystery village.”

  “There use to be and still are many people of Scotch and Irish heritage around here,” Pearl said as she sipped her decaf. “Syd, even you’re great-great grand pappy was full Irish descent.”

  “Remind me to go on Ancestry.com and look up my ancestors after this is over,” Syd exclaimed.

  “Well, now we need to find out why all the screaming,” I said. “Something’s not right, at least not to her.” If this was the little girl screaming, whatever it was had to be bad. She had stared into the abyss of a giant tornado head on and welcomed it. So what could it be?

  “I don’t know if this is the cause,” Matt replied. “As you know I’m not a believer in ghosts, but I was looking at some of the maps from the courthouse today at where th
is new highway was going in. The one that’s taking the stress off the interstate. Didn’t you hear Luke that some of the construction workers had been spooked?”

  “Yeah, that’s the word. Machines were breaking down and workers heard screams and saw smoke clusters.”