by P. W. Child
“I feel like we have to applaud or something,” Pam whispered to Joanne as the haughty coach finished his sermon of rules and warnings. Joanne just smiled, hoping he would not detect his two female colleagues’ ridicule. The students dispersed lazily, lugging their bags along to their designated rooms. Mr. Spence did not utter another word. He just unpacked his macho vehicle before the midday hike they would soon embark on before dinner.
As the cold hand of the imminent evening took hold of Lac Seul and its surrounding natural beauty, the trees began to whisper over the small group of visitors from Labrador City. They moved swiftly, challenging each others' nerves or fitness according to the intimidating loneliness of the forest. At the helm were the more athletic students, followed by Mr. Spence. Behind him, Nathan and the other less capable movers slouched along, chatting and taking pictures. At the tail-end the two ladies, Miss Parsons and Miss Earle, strolled, discussing dinner.
“Only up to that valley entrance, you all, and then we have to turn around and head back to camp!” Mr. Spence commanded reassuringly. “There is a nice meal we still have to prepare and we still have to make the fire for it.”
“Why the rush, sir?” Lisa asked, looking at him over the edge of her Galaxy, still sounding of the shutter.
“Didn't you hear the coach?” Nathan panted as his plump legs ached under him. “The bears are hunting.”
Rolling her eyes at Nathan's repetitive joke, she dismissed him and took another picture. It was a stunning photograph, she reckoned, capturing the panorama of emerald foliage and distinct tree bark to their left. “Wow,” she said as she composed the picture just right for a snap. She could hear Mr. Spence answer her, “Because we cannot be in the woods after dark, Lisa. And if we don’t turn back now we won’t make it back before sundown.”
“Okay,” she smiled at him, and proceeded to zoom in on an especially lavish patch of ethereal greenery that reminded her of a perfect kingdom of fairies from those old obscure books of folklore. “Now that is a perfect picture,” she mumbled as her fingertip wavered, waiting for the high definition screen to sharpen. “Pink blossoms among the ferns this time of year? I bet nobody has even noticed.”
Lisa zoomed in some more so that she could identify the type of flower, but what she thought were pink blossoms were nothing of the sort. She frowned. Her senses changed. Some, like her hearing, dampened considerably, leaving the group's chatter behind in a distant hum. Her sight sharpened to confirm her suspicion of what she thought she saw, while her physical sense of touch assimilated into her intuitive sixth sense. Erect on her arms and her neck, the hair tugged at her skin in waves of disbelief.
“Miss Earle?” she stammered, discovering that even her speech was out of place. “M-miss...Miss Earle! Miss Earle!” Her lids fluttered as she whispered weakly, “My nightmare, it has come true.”
“Yes, Lisa,” she heard somewhere far away in a dream. Lisa's nostrils sucked in stiff tufts of air, becoming dangerously rapid as her eyes affirmed more and more the grisly vision in her phone's viewfinder. The young woman's heart started to race as, one by one, her senses revealed the truth. Around Lisa the world began to spin. Her ears hissed and she felt the ground under her soles neglect her, sinking and rocking. With her last bit of strength she pushed out her breath in a cry.
“Miss Earle!”
“Yes, Lisa!” Joanne's voice suddenly sobered her. The teacher stood right behind her, grabbing her by the arms to steady her. “My God, child, what is wrong? What is wrong? You are white as a sheet! Are you okay? Pam! Lisa is fainting!”
Slurring from the confusion of her hissing brain, Lisa tried to explain. Her body felt like an anvil as she leaned hard against the history teacher. “Miss Earle, I-I think...just...look at the picture. Look at my picture, will you?” she almost shouted in fear of passing out before she could point it out.
“Alright, alright,” Joanne soothed her, and she took the phone from the girl. By this time Mr. Spence and his athletic followers had joined the gathering where Lisa first stood to take her picture.
“What is it, Pam? Joanne?” he asked as he craned his head over Joanne to see the image.
“Jesus!” Joanne exclaimed in awe and terror. She held up the screen to the other two teachers. “Please tell me that is not real.”
On scrutiny, Pam inhaled sharply and looked away. Mr. Spence winced, “I hate to be that guy, Joanne, but that looks pretty real to me. Let me go investigate. Stay here.”
Wading through thick forest growth and thorn-bearing branches, he braved his way towards the pink fabric that was decorating the ghastly collection of bones under the umbrella of low growing plants. He stopped short of the scene and turned to the reluctant audience who waited for his verdict. Jacques Spence just nodded contritely, marking the spot until Joanne reached him. She had instructed Pam and the students to go back to camp and contact the local authorities.
“Oh my God, Jacques,” Joanne said softly as her eyes surveyed the skeletal remains of what appeared to have been a woman. What was left of a pink and white blouse strained over protruding white rib bones, the material ripped and disintegrated by decades of weather and elements.
“She must have been here for ages,” he remarked. “Look. See how brittle her bone structure is, porous? She has been lying here for a very long time, and it is no wonder.” He pointed to a nearby pond in the moist forest floor. “Looks like she was underground, mostly, until the annual sediment shifts over every winter's thaw scraped the earth away.”
“It is true, then,” Joanne nodded quietly, kneeling beside the poor woman's remains. “All secrets are eventually unearthed. Nothing stays hidden from the truth forever.”
The handsome swimming coach stared at the history teacher with a measure of admiration.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just…you didn’t strike me as the poetic type.” He shrugged amicably.
Joanne looked back down at the unfortunate and forgotten corpse as she heard the camp administrator and local law enforcement arrive. As Jacques relayed to them what they had discovered, she saw something very peculiar in the mummified tissue of the chest that gathered up under the protective bone stockade of the sternum. Checking that nobody else had noticed, Joanne quickly inspected the tangled corpse for any other traces of strange objects, other than the mud-covered golden medallion she’d found inside the dead woman's tissue.
With no time for further examination, the history teacher scooped up the artifact and slid it into her hoodie's front pouch. No sooner had she done so when Jacques turned around to point at the horrible find without noticing Joanne's keen sleight of hand in procuring the ancient trinket.
Chapter 6 – Oban's Organist
Nina's nerves had been rattled by the preacher's revelation, of that there was no doubt. After she’d assured him that she would not go home without reliable company, she drove to the market for groceries, as had been her intention before Father Harper had showed up. Yet, she could not conduct her business in a relaxed and collected way. She forgot half of the stuff she was supposed to buy for the house just because she was so preoccupied with taking note of every single person she encountered.
Could it be this one? Or that one? Is this the one Father Harper saw? Her eyes darted up every now and then to briskly examine those close to her, those on the other side of the shopping center, and anyone even looking in her direction. The paranoia was overwhelming, so she elected to go home where she could hide, a place where she would at least see him coming, whoever he was.
Against her better judgment, Nina took her half-assed shopping goods and got in her car to go home; there where nobody could help if things went wrong, there where she was isolated from public view. She would normally call Sam, but he was abroad. Calling Purdue would be dangerous for him, and futile for her while he was in hiding. Regrettably Purdue's face was too well-known for him not to be detected in public. This left Nina without a choice. She would have to confront whomever it is follow
ing her…alone.
When she stopped in her driveway, everything looked disturbingly normal. In all the time since she’d moved into the house on Dunuaran Road, she hadn’t once felt this compelled to revise her security measures.
“I need a goddamn fence, a tall one at that,” she said to herself as she sat in her stationary car with the doors locked, surveying her property. “And a dog. No, two dogs…Rottweilers…and a security camera on every bloody corner of my house.”
Maybe a husband would come in handy.
“No,” she protested out loud, stretching her slender fingers out like sun rays while her palms still rested on the wheel. A sharp sound startled her, sending her body backwards into her seat. “Jesus!”
Her phone was set on outdoor, so that she would hear it ringing while it was raining down in sheets. But now the rain had subsided and she sitting in a quiet car, making the ringtone sound like the advent of Doomsday to poor Nina's edgy nerves.
“Hello?” she stammered.
Hissing static came over the speaker with an almost imperceptible voice saying something in the background. The words were so faint that Nina could not even discern if it was male or female. It frightened her. Adrenaline coursed through her body as she scrutinized the area around her for any suspicious movement, but she could see no strangers or anything that seemed out of place. Just for good measure she hung up and switched off her phone.
“God, where are you when I need you, Purdue? Where are you when I need to get rid of my phone's global location system?” she sighed, lodging her hand in her moist, dark hair. She needed her phone to keep in touch with Purdue and Sam, but now it had become a window, bare of curtains, for the world to look through and see her. It had become a homing device for her enemies, still she had to keep it on her at all times because it was also her only life line if things went wrong – a necessary evil.
After over a half hour she got out of her car, trying to look oblivious to any threat. Unpacking her back seat, she constantly checked her driveway, but there was nothing. At last Nina started to wonder if perhaps the clergyman had been mistaken, prompting her to be overly vigilant. Maybe he said that on purpose to scare her back to the faux safety of church, who knows?
She found her house blissfully vacant of any alien entities, murderous men, or threatening stalkers. Only her guest, Sam's cat, ran out of the shadows when she entered the lobby with her bags.
“Hey, Bruich!” she smiled. “You have no idea how good it is to see your ginger butt, my friend!” The large feline, generally not the affectionate sort, spent a few seconds for some obligatory rubbing against Nina's legs before making for the kitchen as if he was hinting to being fed.
The kitchen was clear, the back door still locked, to her relief. By no means was she going to let go of all her defenses, but she did calm down somewhat after she’d put away most of the stuff she bought, which was still only half of what she was supposed to get. Every sound appeared suspect. Every creak, even familiar ones, were subject to consideration this time.
“God, I wish I could be as indifferent to the world as you are, Bruichladdich,” she sighed, shaking her head at the big ginger cat's nonchalant existence. He only cared about food and sleep, with no thought about prospective peril. Nina figured such was the privilege of predators.
When Nina woke up the next morning on her couch, she could hardly breathe. Quickly she turned her head to draw in air, just short of suffocation. The obstruction over her mouth and nose had cut off her oxygen supply and because last night's wine had knocked the shit out of her, she almost did not wake on time. A few rapid breaths later, Nina shoved Bruich away from her throat and chest where he’d been sleeping.
“Get off me, you stupid bastard! Geez, do you want to kill me? Huh?” she bitched really slowly with her recently awoken tongue. “Christ! Who do you think is going to feed your fat ass if you kill me in my sleep, hey? Who? Not your bloody owner, oh no, he is off gallivanting!” She spat cat hair in between her words. “Fucking hell, my skull is split open, I tell ya. I swear! I swear,” she whined at the equally drowsy cat as she stumbled to the kitchen for a lifesaver batch of black coffee. Bruich meowed, a long, drawn out, low-toned howl accompanied by a yawn. He leapt onto the kitchen chair as she raced through her coffee-making ritual, impatiently tapping her nails on the counter as the kettle took its sweet time.
Feeling guilty for her outburst a few moments before, she dared turn and look at Bruich. His green eyes stared at her from a face that expressed utter disappointment and hurt – cat-wise.
How could you?
“I'm sorry, honey.” Nina hastened to wrap him up in her arms, rocking from side to side with unintelligible mutterings only cat people would appreciate. With his ginger fur in her face again and one paw protesting against her cheek, she paced around the table until she’d completed her lap of penance.
Next, Nina and Bruich enjoyed a good full English before she hit the shower. Outside, the day was peaceful, unlike the day before, although the cool Scottish clime persisted. When Nina emerged from her bathroom, Bruich was already sound asleep on the unoccupied side of her bed. Shaking her head at the luxurious life of Sam's pet, she got dressed and straightened the bedclothes a bit to not look as unmade as the bed really was. She worked carefully around Bruichladdich so as not to wake him, before gathering up her car keys and locking the house.
Nina was still wary of who might be watching as she pulled out the car and closed the garage door. Her eyes surreptitiously combed the area as she reversed into the road. Before she drove off, Nina took one last look at her dark Victorian home and its historic charm, wondering how many previous occupants had felt this way throughout the centuries – feeling that the staunch and secure home could not protect them. Pushing aside this trinket of terror that would not stop presenting itself, she took off along Duanaran Road on her way to another patch of horror she’d sworn she’d never come close to again.
“Nina! I…we…are elated that you decided to help us!” Father Harper was smiling from ear to ear, keeping his grin plastered on as he looked at the ladies of the local Virtues for Vegans society gathered in the first pew off the pulpit.
“Oh Jesus,” Nina scoffed at the sight of the stuck-up housewives that she ranked as nothing but deluded, spoiled pets of Oban's wealthy with no concept of real life or the suffering of the homeless they claim to be helping.
“Nina,” Father Harper cried loudly to mask her blasphemous exclamation, knowing full well that it was too late. Nina heard one of the prissy snobs whisper, “What is she doing here?” and could not resist giving them precisely what they expected.
“Just dropping by to clean Father Harper's pipes for him,” she answered, somewhere between cute and catty that left the women gasping. Nina ignored the preacher's mild flush of panic. “Aye, I call it the Heretic Homily.”
Silence prevailed between the surprised churchgoers, and Father Harper was mortified. Nina felt sorry for using him to shock the stuck-up Bonny Bitch Brigade (as she called them when talking to Sam), so she moved right on with business.
“So, Father, which hymns would you like me to practice for Sunday?”
Relieved, Father Harper cleared his throat and skipped to usher her upstairs to the chancel where the large pipe organ from Ingram & Co. basked in the colors of the stained glass window on its right hand side. The sun was glowing against the church windows, transporting Nina back to a time she was not fond of at all. Memories prodded at her mind, but she denied them as she denied the doctrines enforced upon her inside this very old building as a child.
“I’m sure it will not take you long to master our organ, Nina,” Father Harper chirped, unusually delighted to have her back in his church. “There has been some damage to some of the stops, but our dirge will not need to utilize that part of the instrument.”
“Your dirge?” she asked.
He smiled apologetically. “Aye. I’m afraid we will be needing you to play…for a funeral.”
; Nina caught her breath. “Excuse me?”
The preacher looked terribly embarrassed and she could see that he was afraid she’d abandon her assistance at the news. “I did not know myself until this morning. I do hope that you will not change your mind about playing for my service?”
Nina was hesitant. She hoped this was not his old bait-and-switch method to get her back into the church's talons. But looking at his face, it was clear that was not what he’d intended. Father Harper was quite sincere, in fact.
“I thought you had Mrs. Langley for those types of services, Father,” she sighed, crossing her arms across her chest. “I can do a Sunday service – this once – but I don't do funerals. I don't like them. I detest funeral ceremonies. You know this.”
“I understand,” he started to explain, but Nina cut him off. “Then get Mrs. Langley to do this one. Please.”
“I would, Nina, but, you see,” he hesitated, blinking profusely as he searched the floor with his eyes. “Regrettably, it is Mrs. Langley's funeral I need you to play at, my dear.”
Nina was stunned at the news. Her arrogance was disarmed instantly and she was thankful that the snobs in the pew had not heard their conversation.
“I'm so sorry to hear that, Father,” she responded, sounding contrite.
Chapter 7 – Call to the Past
Ex-MI5 agent Jonathan Beck was the type of operative who had no problem hiding in plain sight. In fact, his method of tracking was just so – overt. Through fourteen years of working for Her Majesty's Secret Service, Beck had learned that the most obvious of foes often stalked in shadows and lurked in the tracks of the quiet night. Those who did their nefarious deeds in the cover of dark or the obscurity of shaded places were often the most prone to suspicion.
