Spirit Eyes

by Lynn Hones

  She opened her eyes and although she still felt the same, she wore next to nothing. A horribly thin dress, made of light cotton, was unable to keep her warm in the bitter temperature. Her hair gone, she had no way to keep her head warm. She was in a drafty barracks where she worked stripping batteries. Snow blew in from cracks in the boards. Only a thin layer of cloth was stretched over the windows, which kept out the worst of the winds, but as she breathed she saw the mist swirl about. The acid ate at her fingers, causing intense pain, and the dust created by the hundreds of other workers doing the same job as she gave her a terrible cough, and stung her eyes. She wore wooden shoes that rubbed against the blisters ravaging her feet.

  Although she was exhausted, sick, and battling constant diarrhea, and high fevers, she had to keep working. Sickness meant death, and she wanted more than anything to live. She’d been standing at the table quietly, when the woman next to her whispered. “No food or water, or even a bathroom break for over ten hours. What do they expect from us?”

  A female guard approached the woman and hit her hard across the face with her whip handle and reprimanded her on her sloppy work and lack of progress. She then turned her wrath onto Ruth, who apologized. The guard beat her, also, with the handle of the whip. She fell to the floor in a heap, curled into the fetal position, and covered her head with her arms in order to protect herself the best she could. “Sie Schweine. Erhalten Sie beschäftigt, oder ich töte Sie—Swine, get busy or I’ll kill you.”

  After the horrifying beating, bleeding profusely and seeing double, she got back up, and began working again. This beating loosened a couple of teeth. Coupled with her lack of hair, bug bites and sagging skin, she no longer felt human. She went through the motions. Just motions, like waves coming to shore. Get up, work, go to bed, get up, work, and go to bed. In between, she lived in constant fear of starvation and beatings. Get up, work, and go to bed. She had no tears to cry. She began to wonder if life was worth it. Many of the women in her barracks had thrown themselves against the electric fence, preferring death to this life. But something wouldn’t let her do it. As much as she wanted to end it all, she couldn’t.

  She woke to Paul shaking her. “Ruth, are you okay?”

  Blurred vision confused her and she tried to focus. “Paul, is that you?”

  “Sweetheart, you’re burning up.”

  “I feel so awful, so weak. Paul, I think I’m dying.” She felt she was falling into a state of catatonia, and sat to help her circulation.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital. You need nourishment. You’re probably dehydrated.”

  “Paul, please, no. I’ve been to doctors. They don’t know what’s wrong. They’ll only stick more needles in me, and scan my body and see nothing.”

  “I’ll get some ibuprofen, then and some water. Can I at least call the doctor?” He caressed her warm cheek.

  “No, the medicine should help. I hope.”

  Even after taking the pills, Ruth still felt feverish and achy. She couldn’t hold anything down and was in the bathroom constantly. The typical flu-like symptoms.

  “Just rest, Ruth,” Paul said. “I feel so responsible for your getting sick. No wonder, what with you trying to handle all of this on your own. I’ve been so selfish. I truly thought that Pearl was doing all of this for attention, but you’re right. She wouldn’t lie about it. And now, with that skeleton in the basement, she obviously knows something. Do you forgive me?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m too sick to be mad anyway.” She coughed. “Where are the girls?”

  “Asleep. Lotus is in Pearl’s bed with her arms wrapped around her.”

  “What did you find out about the documents?”

  “You were right, they were all made out to those two people. They’re land grants, personal savings and checking accounts, business transfers. You name it. Whoever these people were, it looks like they swindled a lot of people out of money.” He held up a large pile of pages. “You see these? These are contracts. They stipulate that whatever was being entrusted to these two would be returned once the war was over. However…” He held up another pile “These show that they never honored these contracts and cashed in on everything.” He cleared his throat and continued. “It appears that one family in particular lost millions to these people. They took them for everything they had. Oh, and get this.” He held a couple of old black and white photos. “These fell out of the files.”

  Ruth sat up, slowly. “Here, let me see them.” She scanned the photos with her feverish gaze and froze. “Paul, this woman, this is…no. It can’t be. It just can’t be. Never mind.” She put them on the table and lay back down.

  “Can anything be done about the contracts?” she asked.

  “Oh, no. These are all worthless now. We’re talking sixty-years ago. These contracts are nothing.”

  “But the family that lost millions, are they mentioned? If they are, than this treasure we found would belong to them.”

  “I’m one up ahead of you, kid. I’m going to start checking into that now. Something else, whoever this couple was, and hopefully it can be found out, he was a member of the SS and she was a member of the Helferinnen Corps, auxiliary personnel of the SS. They both were guards at different concentration camps.”

  The doorbell rang, startling them. Ruth heard Lotus come downstairs and answer it. She talked to whomever she’d let in. A male voice.

  “Who is it?” Ruth called out, weakly.

  Around the corner came Senator Eberstark, Pearl and Lotus trailed behind him.

  “Senator—Tom, I mean, come on into the living room,” Ruth said.

  Ruth and Paul exchanged glances of confusion and Puddles ran to him barking furiously.

  “Thank you,” Tom said eyeing the dog nervously.

  “Lotus, get the dog out,” Paul said.

  “He won’t come, Dad.” She pulled on his collar.

  “Make him.”

  “I’m telling you, he won’t.”

  The senator gazed down at Ruth. “I’m sorry, once again, I disturb you when you’re ill.”

  “It’s okay. I’m making a living out of it,” Ruth said.

  Paul, at his wits end, sighed. “I’ll take care of Puddles.” He took the dog by the collar and pulled him out of the room, Puddles growling the entire time.

  Quickly the senator turned to Ruth. “I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’ve found the remains of a child in your basement.”

  “Yes,” Ruth answered. “This nightmare keeps getting worse and worse.”

  “Do they know who it is?”

  “Oh, no. There’s nothing left. I mean I’m sure forensics can find out the age and sex, but I don’t think they could find out much more than that.”

  The doorbell rang once again. Paul answered it, asked who the guest was, and then followed Al into the room.

  Ruth made the introductions all around. He bent at the waist and shook Pearl’s hand.

  “So very nice to meet you, finally.”

  “Thank you,” she said cautiously.

  “I stopped by as soon as I got your message,” Al said. “A dead child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  Before he could answer, Pearl blurted out, “Mom, I need you and daddy.”

  “Can it wait?” Ruth asked.

  “No, I need you right this minute.”

  With help from Paul, Ruth stood and they excused themselves and went with Pearl to the stairs. In a whisper, barely audible, Pearl looked into Ruth and then Paul’s eyes. “You have to listen to me. That man, the senter…”

  “It’s pronounced senator,” Paul said.

  “Whatever, Dad. I have more important things to worry about than how to say words.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s not nice. And, Mom, your friend, Al, isn’t nice either.”

  “Pearl, why are you saying this? Al is here to help us.” Ruth turned her head, her eyes fixed on the senator, with every nerve in her body on high alert.

&nb
sp; “Mom, I think he’s a ghost. I can hear his mind. He’s helping the senter. They know each other. I found these on the table, too.” She held the black and white photos. “This picture is the woman who was in my closet and wanted to shoot me.” She took a deep breath. “It’s Mrs. Eberstark when she was young and pretty. She can change. She can be old or young. When she’s old, she acts all nice to me, but when she’s young, she wears that spider on her sleeve and tries to trick me that she’s one of my people. She wanted me to think all my people in the house were mean, but they’re not. They’re the nice ones.”

  An inner voice inside Ruth’s head screamed for all of this to stop, but she quietly looked at her daughter. “Hold on, let me think.” she said. Her memory went to what Mrs. Schuster told her, about evil taking different forms.

  “Don’t take a long time thinking. Your friend and the sentor, they…”

  “They what?” Paul said.

  “They’re planning on killing us.”

  Ruth felt the color drain from her face, and an even greater nausea than she’d been suffering with overtook her.

  Paul, in an even monotone, made clear what they should do. “Ruth, you and Pearl go upstairs, lock yourself in our room and call the police.”

  Before they had a chance to execute that plan, however, the senator, wearing a cold, calculating smile, sauntered over to the steps, a gun pointed at them. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask all of you to come back into the living room, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Ruth wiped the moisture that had built up on her forehead, and looked at Paul. He had his hand on Pearl’s shoulder protectively. Reluctantly, they did as he instructed.

  In a voice shaking with fear Ruth intoned, “Why, why are you doing this?”

  “Well, unfortunately for you, my friend, Al, can read your daughter, Pearl’s, mind. And, no, Pearl, Al is not a ghost, although his name, Al Geist, translates into Lonely Ghost in German. Cute, huh? He’s a clairvoyant, just as you are. The thing is, he couldn’t channel my mother, but you could. He knows that you found the treasure and now you know the secret of my family.” His cocky aura plunged Ruth into utter despair.

  “Your family?” Paul said. “These documents are made out to a Frieda and Fritz Wagner.”

  The senator continued. “And, if Al had found the treasure first, as was the intention,” he said solemnly, “none of this would be happening. But as it is, your darling daughter now knows the truth.”

  “What truth?” Ruth said.

  “Do you want to tell them, Pearl? Or should I?”

  Fury appeared to be building in Pearl, which stunned Ruth. She’d never seen her daughter react in such a way. “You’re a very bad man,” she yelled out. “Your mom and dad were bad people.” She turned to her parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Eberstark isn’t their real name. Their names aren’t Klara and Daniel. Their real names are Fritz and Frieda Wagner. They stole all that money from good people, and then they had them taken to the Nazis and killed. Elise told me everything.”

  “That’s right,” the senator said. “So you can see where there’s a slight dilemma. Pearl would never be able to keep her mouth shut, and now that you know everything…” He smiled. “You can see why there has to be a burglary in which you are all killed.”

  During the commotion, Lotus had slipped quietly away.

  “Where’s the other daughter?” the senator asked looking around. “Al, find her.”

  “Run, Lotus, run as fast as you can out of the house and get help,” Paul yelled.

  Obviously, without so much as a second thought the senator turned to Paul. “Shut up,” he said. A flash appeared from the gun and before she knew what happened, Paul lay on the ground, blood spreading over his chest.

  Ruth heard a blood-curdling scream and looked around until she realized it came from her. Everything happened in slow motion and Ruth’s maternal instincts kicked in. She grabbed Pearl and knelt next to Paul, shielding her baby in her arms.

  “Paul, breathe. Hang on,” she shrieked. He didn’t move.

  Ruth turned and looked at the senator. “God have mercy on your dark, evil soul.”

  “I believe you’re the one who needs the mercy.” He pointed the gun at Ruth when a knock on the door stopped him from shooting.

  Al came around the corner. “I can’t find the other kid.”

  The senator motioned toward the door. “See who that is.”

  The senator’s father, Mr. Eberstark entered the hall, after Al let him in, and made his way to the living room.

  “You’ve gotten ridden of only one of them,” he said impatiently to his son. “What’s holding you up? Do you want your brother to be vice president or not?”

  Struggling to come to terms with what she was seeing, Ruth begged Mr. Eberstark, “Please, have mercy on us. We won’t say a word to anyone.”

  The old man ignored Ruth’s pleas for compassion and hit Paul’s leg with his cane. “This one’s still alive. Shoot him again. Then shoot the lady and the kid.”

  The senator raised his gun and pointed, but looked to the stairs as Lotus ran down.

  “Pearl,” she screamed. “Catch.” From the stairs, she threw the talisman to her sister, who crawled out of Ruth’s embrace and caught it.

  Immediately Pearl’s eyes rolled back into her head and she started to talk. “Immortal Lu Tung-Pin, Immortal Zhong Kui,” she said. “Immortal Lu Tung-Pin, Immortal Zhong Kui,” she repeated. “Evil has come. An evil that fears no mortal. Immortal ones, prove us worthy.”

  With those words spoken, a brilliant flash illuminated the entire area and Ruth’s gaze met with a spectacle reserved for a very select few. In complete shock, she stared as two larger than life men, dressed as ancient Chinese warriors, long swords drawn as if ready for battle, materialized.

  Their beauty and grace astonished Ruth and she felt for the first time since Al shot Paul, the ability to breathe again.

  At the sight of them, the senator let out a weak cry. One of the warriors ran to him and wrapped his large arm around his neck, throwing him to the ground. The second did the same to Al.

  Old man Eberstark fell to his knees, his face a portrait of fear and anguish. “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me!” he cried.

  The gun fell to the ground and Ruth, seeing her chance, dived for it, her sick body using the adrenaline pumping through it for the energy. Once it was in her hands, the two warriors—their saviors from the horror they were living—disappeared. Just like that, they were gone. Her hands shaking, Ruth told Lotus to take the talisman from her sister, who stood in a strange trance.

  “I’ll call nine-one-one, too,” Lotus yelled.

  Ruth’s mind reeling, she thought only of her bleeding husband on the floor. “Tell them we need an ambulance immediately.”

  The old man stuttered. “There’s been a big mistake, a very large misunderstanding. My son was only looking out for you, from the people who are the bad ones.”

  Bile rose in Ruth’s throat, hot and stinging as she howled at him, “And that’s why he shot my husband in the chest?” Ruth shifted her weight from leg to leg. “You stay right there, old man, and don’t you even think of moving, because at this point I won’t have any problem using this.”

  “He made me do this,” Al cried. He looked from the senator to Ruth. “He made me send you that email offering help. He told me he’d pay me handsomely if I helped or he’d kill me if I didn’t. We needed to find that treasure without anyone knowing.”

  “That’s up to a judge, not me.” Her trembling hands held the gun firmly. Her neck muscles felt like concrete, sore and stiff.

  “He’s lying,” the senator said. “It was all my dad. He’s the one who wanted the whole family murdered. You heard him.”

  Ruth ignored them, but when Pearl spoke, she tenderly looked her way.

  “Mommy, what’s happening?”

  “Just stay there, don’t move,” Ruth said.

  Pearl pointed. “It’s the man from the driveway. H
e’s holding down the sentor. And the man from the baseball field is holding down that Al guy.”

  “Pearl, you tell your people, that I give them a great big thank you.”

  “I don’t have to,” she said beaming. “They heard you.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It had been two weeks since the big news story broke. The evil life of the Eberstarks was ripped wide open, revealing every vile thing they’d done from the nineteen-thirties until the present. It sickened Ruth to think that those two depraved people, Frieda and Fritz Wagner, unashamed Nazis, had the nerve to cause the deaths of so many innocent people in Germany and Poland and then, to help protect their own identity, pretended to be displaced Jews, the very people they dishonored and tried to eradicate from the earth.

  It turned out, while in Germany, they had been married and were both active members of the Nazi Party. Once the Reich fell, they came to America, pretended they were strangers who met here, and created entirely new identities living a lavish lifestyle on the money they’d stolen. They didn’t keep their misdeeds a secret from their children, who knew all about it and continued their legacy of hate. They were in politics and had many plans. God only knew what they would have been able to do.

  The only injustice was that Mrs. Eberstark wasn’t alive to get her just dues, but Ruth had a feeling, wherever she was, she was paying the price for her evil ways.

  Best of all, though, Paul pulled through. The bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. He was in the hospital for a few days and released.

  Mr. Eberstark’s son, the future vice president, dropped out of the race in absolute disgrace. Along with his sister, the big time New York Lawyer, he faced criminal charges from tax fraud to possible murder.