by Alexie Aaron
“A penny for your thoughts,” Tauni’s voice broke through her memories.
She looked at the nurse and shrugged. “Just some regrets.” Mia sighed. “Life is never what you expect, is it?”
“No, but it is filled with possibilities. You have more than others.”
“It’s not that I’m not grateful for what I can, and am learning to, do…” Mia paused to gather her thoughts and continued, “It’s just that the cost of it sometimes is very hard to bear.”
Tauni motioned for her to come closer. “I’ll tell you a secret, child. You know that saying about how God will never give you more than you can handle?”
Mia rolled her eyes and nodded.
“It’s shite.”
Those words coming out of Tauni’s mouth surprised Mia.
The woman smiled before continuing, “He will give you more than you can bear, but you have to rise up to the challenge. He’s not thinking let’s see what Tauni or Mia can handle. He just gives us a world in which to live. In your case, he’s given you a job to bridge the living and the dead. The dead don’t improve their outlook on life just because they’ve passed on. They remain the same stubborn fools they were in life. I don’t envy you, but neither will I let you indulge in a pity parade. You are surrounded with love.”
Mia looked at the gay couple until Tauni placed a finger on her chin and turned her head towards Bev. “She, too, loves you. Sure, she struts around like a self-absorbed bitch but she loves. She loves you. She will be there for you in your time of peril.”
“I hope you’re right. If you will excuse me, I am going to try to get a hold of my boyfriend before we depart.”
“You go child and take as much time as you need. I’ll hold off the impatient ones until you are ready.” Tauni waved her off.
Mia walked into the bedroom and shut the door. She bristled as the call went straight to voice mail again. She closed her eyes and left Burt another message before turning her phone off and heading into the living room to begin an impossible trip to save a very special girl.
~
Sabine wandered the halls, imprinting them in her mind. After a while she came across workers, men and women dressed in cheap garments. The women were dressed in tunics with ragged hems. The men worked hard in blue shirts and trousers that had seen too much use. They spoke a language Sabine guessed was Hungarian. Their skin was pale considering that summer was full and the sky cloudless over the isle on which they were imprisoned. During the course of her solo tour, Sire would suddenly appear at her elbow, asking her questions regarding his collection. She would look at him silently with disdain until he left her side.
She found a small chapel, kept more for the beauty of the windows and relics interred than for worship. Sabine knelt at the altar and prayed for divine help, if not for her then for the people living in this slave-like existence. She felt weary and decided to rest, sitting down on the carved walnut pew, smoothed by a craftsman’s hands. Sighing, she leaned back and molded her back to the structure of the bench. She placed her feet on the cold stone alongside a floor drain, although she only imagined the temperature as she couldn’t actually feel it. She did feel something move about her ankles though.
Sabine looked down and saw hands. They encircled her legs and clamped down. She was wrenched off the pew and pulled through the grate and downward into a dark abyss. She was pulled too fast to retain any OOB persona. Panic filled her, the deeper into the ground she was pulled. Was a demon taking her to hell? “Help me, oh please,” she screamed, her words lost as the passage narrowed until she was barely a drop of moisture. Finally she felt a release. The darkness left and phosphorescence lit the air around her. She morphed back into her form and floated downward. Before her an image formed.
It was a monk of unknown origin. No nationality held long enough on his ever changing features for Sabine to see who his forbearers were. She suspected he was of an old order or he wanted his persona to indicate this. He turned and bowed his head as they continued to float to the cave’s floor. “I am Komal,” he said solemnly. “My apologies for my conduct, but we have precious minutes in which to talk.”
“Go on,” Sabine said, knowing any question she could ask would be answered if she gave the monk the time he needed.
“I was his teacher. I taught him to travel. I showed him the ancient lines. How to draw power. He rewarded me with death. We were on a joint excursion, and he shared how he could travel over water. He trapped me here and let my body die when I could not return to it.”
“Why did you not ascend?”
“I don’t know.” The monk’s face held a sadness that caused Sabine’s soul to cry. “Maybe I am not worthy. Perhaps the crossing of the lines holds me to earth. Or my hatred of the man who wants me to bow to him and call him Sire.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Too long,” he said simply. “But yet again, long enough. For I have learned from this place.” Komal raised his arms and honored the cavern, bowing to the natural hewn walls. “It took me a long time to find it.”
“Will I be stuck here too when my body dies?” Sabine whispered.
“Yes, and it is my fault that you are. I should have never showed myself to Sire after I died. But I was angry and foolish. He knows the island can contain you. You will become part of his collection for his eyes only.”
Sabine sunk to her knees and then lay prone on the ground. Despair overcame her. She lay there mutely while the tears escaped her persona and moved through her to collect on the ground beneath her.
“I can help you to learn. Maybe together we can defeat this monster and return you to your body.”
“It won’t be in time. I have been gone too long.”
“Surely you have friends watching out for you?”
Sabine brightened thinking of Bev and the knight who called to her with his mind.
“Ah, I see light in your eyes. There is someone.” Komal smiled. “Let’s not waste time indulging in our weaknesses. I will teach you how to draw power from these rocks.”
Sabine sat up. “Teach me, Komal. I am ready to learn.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ted rubbed the back of his neck easing the cramp that had settled there. His eyes strained from trying to see through the white dust that swirled before the nursery camera. “Too much build up,” he said to himself. He craned his neck and looked up at the window Burt had opened, and apart from an occasional chunk of drywall falling, there wasn’t much he could see from his vantage point. He saw Beth exit the house and make her way over to him. He saw her rub her arms as if to take off a chill. Considering the eighty degree evening air he was concerned. “You all right?”
“Cold, I think I may have walked through a cold spot in the dining room,” she said as she accepted the blanket Ted had pulled out of the gig bag. “We may want to take a reading in there after the boys are done with Grandma,” she suggested.
“Let’s put it on our techy-do list.”
Beth laughed. She liked Ted. Not in a romantic way but in a comrade in arms way. He never seemed overwhelmed. Sure, he had a caffeine addiction and language that was wrought with dude and geek speak, but he had heart and courage. His long, lanky frame was toned from toting heavy equipment. She could only guess at his hair as he never took off the cap of the day. It was either worn bill front to reduce glare or bill back to let him get up close and personal with his devices. His nails were chipped and torn and had accumulated years of WD-40 use under them. He never stunk. No matter how long they were out in the heat, he remained fresh as a daisy which was incredible because he never seemed to change his shirt. Beth counted her blessings as the two were paired for long hours together.
“The nursery is still going crazy,” Ted said, tapping the viewer. “I don’t hold much hope for getting anymore on film tonight.”
Beth looked up at the open window and had a thought, “Ted, do you think we should train an infrared camera up at the window?”
�
��Brilliant idea, I think that Eric the Red is charged and ready to go.”
“Do you have to name all the cameras,” Beth said as she opened the expensive camera’s case.
“How would we know which is which?”
Beth rolled her eyes and grabbed the spare tripod and set it up, anchoring the legs as she had been taught when filming outside. She secured the camera and ran it through its startup tests.
Ted glance over at the young woman and admired how fast she had picked up the mechanical knack of this job. He knew she was a super smart researcher and had put her doctoral thesis on the back burner for a while when PEEPs went prime time. But to be able to be so hands on amazed him. Eggheads weren’t normally coordinated in his experience. She wasn’t bad looking either, but he would always keep that to himself. No use in making the girl uncomfortable. “Bethy, bring the angle up five degrees,” he instructed. “Perfect.”
Beth winced at the Bethy but did as she was told. She looked through the viewer at the back of the camera and was surprised to see a heat signature. It seemed to be in humanoid form and was sitting on the window sill. She couldn’t tell if it was facing them or the room. “Ted, you getting this?”
Ted increased the picture on the command center viewer and whistled, “Big sucker. Let’s hope he stays put.”
Beth backed away from the camera and walked back to Ted, keeping watch on the window. With her eyes she didn’t see a thing. Sometimes ignorance was bliss, she thought as a case of the shivers had her reaching for the blanket again.
“Dudes, we have captured an entity heat signature in the nursery window.”
Burt continued to film Mike’s progression to the rocker even though he wanted to be outside with the infrared. “Copy that, and I mean copy that tape,” he instructed.
“Copy that copy that, copy,” Ted wisecracked.
“Can you see anything on Little Susie?” Mike asked as he stood beside the chair.
“No, just you, the chair and…”
The e-reader lit up on the seat, and both men watched in awe as it raised and a bookmarked page was opened and Grandma began to read. They couldn’t see her but who else would be reading Love’s Lost Kingdom but Grandma.
Mike leaned in to get a better view of the book when an old wizened face appeared looking annoyingly at his. He reeled back, more from surprise than the horror of the eyeless Grandma. “Sorry Ma’am,” he said respectfully. It only took one shot to the testicles to teach him to respect the entities in this house. He clicked on his digital recorder and asked, “So do you think Angela will find happiness with Bruce the Great?”
Burt almost dropped the camera. Here was Mike discussing a lurid historical romance with an eighteenth century ghost, and he seemed to know a lot about the book. Maybe his mother was reading it - or worse, he was.
Mike didn’t hear anything from Grandma, but it could have been picked up digitally. Grandma turned back to the book and her visage faded from his eyes. “I’ll leave you to your book,” Mike said quietly and walked over and joined his partner. “Sure wish your Mia was here. I’d love to know what the connection is with Grandma and those jokers upstairs.”
Burt nodded guiltily. He hadn’t thought about Mia in hours. He pulled out his cell phone and saw that the battery had been drained. Had she been trying to get ahold of him? He calmed down and thought, if she was in trouble she would have called one of the other PEEPs phones. “She does have a knack with the undead,” he answered Mike. “She’ll be along as soon as she takes care of business with her aunt Bev.”
“Hope it is soon. We are understaffed here.”
“I’m beginning to see that too. Ted has some infrared we should see. “
Mike looked over at the rocking chair and knew that Grandma had at least ten chapters to go on the book. He wouldn’t share that info with Burt. Some guys’ reading preferences were personal. “I think we can leave Grandma to her book. The mini will pick up the slack. I’ll leave my digital recorder on the side table just in case Grandma has anything to say.”
Grandma watched as the men left the room. She growled at the white footprints they were leaving. She angled her head at the noise she heard from the babies’ room upstairs. If they didn’t keep it down she would have to go up and bust some heads. She looked down at the book and hoped that Angela would be more careful about who she let under her chemise.
~
Mia waited at the elevator for Bev who had decided on a Laura Croft persona. Mia just went as she was. Why waste energy that she may need for the journey. They moved through the building silently, floating downward until they reached the bottom floor.
“Brian should be waiting for us at the boat launch,” Bev informed Mia. “Gerald paid the captain handsomely, but his driver has opted to go along to make sure the man keeps to his agreement of returning for us in an hour after we depart. We have to find her soon. Tauni doesn’t like the way her vitals look.”
“Let’s hope that Brian is still in contact with her.” Mia looked up at her aunt. “Do tell me why this costume is your choice for this trip?”
“Hell, if we don’t make it home, I’d rather meet my maker with this body than a hood-covered gutter rat as you prefer to be.”
“Ouch.”
“Did you get a hold of Burt?”
“No.”
“Maybe if you were donned more like this,” Bev said, sweeping her hand along the siren-shaped body housed in the skin tight jumpsuit, “than your normal hillbilly wear.”
“Hillbilly? Now that hurts.” Mia was saved any further comments on her looks by their arrival at the launch. Brian stood, clothed in battle mail, ready to guide them onto the line and into the boat. No sooner did they step aboard than the engines were started and Captain Duda began to carefully navigate the river, keeping on the invisible line beneath them.
Mia stood beside Brian. “Can you hear her?”
“I haven’t yet. I am, however, sensing another voice in the tangle in my head. It urges me on, yet tells me to be patient. Very confusing.”
“Maybe as we get closer, you will be able to hear her clearly.”
“My lady, could you indulge me and tell me about the fair Sabine?” the young knight said blushing. “I know so little.”
“Gee, I’m not sure I know much more, but I could get Bev. She has known her for a lot longer.”
“No, just tell me what you know. Is she married?’
“Oh, those things.” Mia laughed. “No, I don’t think she has even dated.”
“A maiden then?”
Mia looked at the knight and tried not to laugh. “Um, I don’t know that, but she has always carried herself with dignity. She is a very curious and a very powerful sensitive.”
“So she isn’t just a bi-locater like me.”
“She can do amazing things, but don’t discount what you can do, Brian. There are very few people on this earth that can bi-locate. Who taught you? Or did you come upon this ability on your own?”
“Actually, my sister had a friend in college that was into bi-location. It occurred to her that maybe I could enjoy a feeling of freedom when traveling out of body. Her friend gave her a name of a teacher of this craft, and fortunately for me, I was able to learn. Holly has her feet too firmly planted on the ground to bi-locate, but I can communicate with her if I get close enough.”
“I wish I had a sister like yours,” Mia said wistfully before changing the subject. “I know you can see other travelers. Do you see other things in the ether?”
“No, just travelers, and corporal beings too.”
Mia nodded, taking in this information. “That’s enough. It gets pretty crowded if you add in ghosts too.”
“You see ghosts?” Brian’s face lit up.
“Sabine does too as does Bev.”
“This is most interesting. Please tell me about them.”
Mia laughed. “Okay, I will tell you about a certain farmer and his axe.”
Brian listened in awe as Stephen Murph
y’s tale was told. Bev approached them silently, listening to Mia’s adventures at the hollow. She relaxed as Mia seemed prouder of her gifts and less embarrassed by them. She joined them and added her own perspective on the handsome axe-wielding entity Mia fondly called Murph.
~
Murphy moved through the woodpile and stood above his grave. He stared down at the bramble-shrouded mound. He didn’t remember his burial, nor anyone but his mother mourning his death. She had his body wrapped and set in the icehouse as the ground was too frozen to dig a proper grave. She lay his axe beside him and shut the door until spring. When springtime came, she didn’t have the heart to disturb his body and asked the McKinley brothers to pull the timbers. They collapsed the ceiling of the structure, entombing Stephen’s body. As time went by, rocks and other farm debris were piled on top of the tomb. After a while no one would have ever suspected that an icehouse ever stood on that spot. Mia knew because Murphy had shown her. He trusted her with his secret. He flexed the fingers too long curled around the handle of axe, remembering the touch of her hand in his. What was happening to him? He never missed the feeling of a hand in his before.
He pushed back his hat and stared at the night sky and thought it time to see to the dead wood in the back forty acres. He hefted his axe onto his shoulder and walked away from his grave and his newfound grief.
Chapter Eighteen
Burt listened unbelievingly to the six missed voicemails from Mia. “What the fuck, Mia,” he said to the phone. She talked about ley lines, knights, boat trips and whether or not he thought Hilary Clinton was formidable. She left him Gerald’s number if he had any further questions. He typed in the number while forming a number of questions to ask the facilitator of Father Santos’ professional group of investigators.
