by Alexie Aaron
Sabine saddened. “I know he’s not long on this plane of existence, Tauni, but I want to be with him until he leaves.”
“You are a brave girl, makes me proud.” Tauni’s eyes watered and she sniffed away a sob. She was going to miss this waif. “You give Tauni a call now and then. Use the phone. Don’t be OOBing around me or I’ll swat your butt.”
“I will,” Sabine promised.
Gerald and Bev’s squabble got louder. Tauni shook her head and yelled, “Stop it, you two, or I’ll cut a switch. Can’t you see your upsetting the child!”
Sabine stifled her laughter and hid her face in her hands. Bev looked at her a moment. Gerald probed her mind, and they went back to arguing.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Beth looked at the text on her phone, stunned. It was from Ted, Ghosties firing real bullets remember to duck. She took a deep breath and looked around her. She stood over the tiny forgotten graves of the twins. They had nothing more than a small, etched piece of marble level with the ground to mark their passing. Anneliese was entombed next to her husband’s remains. Her name and that she was a wife and mother were all the world would know her as. Not a reader, happy grandmother, unjustly accused of falling asleep on the job. She walked over to the massive grey edifice that bore the name of Klaus Hofmann and kicked at the dirt in front of the grave.
“Now what was that for?” Max’s voice said behind her. “I have a feeling there is more to this story than you’ve told us.”
Beth turned and faced Max and motioned for him to follow her to where Susan sat in the shade on a bench overlooking some folks named Schneider.
“Please have a seat. I wanted to wait until Mia was around to corroborate this story, but I think you too need to know the true story of the fire. Please bear with me as many of the things you are going to hear came from images and testaments by souls that are no longer with us.”
Beth told the sad story of Erdmut and Garrit, the autistic twin sons of George and Ethel Hofmann. Susan’s rapt attention overshadowed Max’s uncomfortable motions on the bench. When she finished her story she apologized, “Not everything is set in stone.” She realized her faux pas as she took in the graveyard around her. “It can’t be proved that Klaus killed his brothers, but this is the impression the twins are under. Grandma Hofmann just thinks that she is at fault.”
Max sighed and said, “My uncle Klaus was a hard man. He never married as no woman would have him, according to my father. He died rich but heirless. My father Gustav was born several years after the fire. He obviously had no memory of it, and if it weren’t for the odd relative here and there mentioning it, I wouldn’t know anything about it. My grandparents were always a bit sad. My grandfather hard like Klaus, his wife more put upon as if she had no will of her own. I think my father took after her side of the family, and since I look like her, I would hope that I inherited her temperament too.”
“So how do we right history?” Susan asked. “I don’t want to embarrass your dad or Mark and George, but we do have a very large, stinking skeleton in the family closet.”
“It appears so,” Max agreed.
“If it were up to me I would keep the mention of fratricide off camera. I work with compassionate people, and they would agree to keeping that silent,” Beth spoke in her best authoritative voice. “I do, however, feel strongly that when PEEPs is able to get things under control I would have you all at the house to have a talk with Grandma and possibly the twins.”
“What are we waiting for? I could have George there tonight,” Max offered.
Beth held up her hand. “There is something else going on that doesn’t relate to this issue that is making the house unsafe for anyone presently.”
Both Hofmanns stared at her, mouth agape. She could read their thoughts without any esp. What the fuck, radiated out of every pore.
“The dueling pistols,” she began, “seem to have spirits attached to them, also. We don’t know why they’re no longer dormant, but whatever woke up Grandma, Erdmut and Garrit also gave some power to two men of the post-Revolutionary era. I’m not unconvinced that they may have woke up the Hofmanns.”
“Okay, so we have more ghosts. Why is this dangerous?” Susan asked.
“These ghosts fire real guns with real bullets. They are shooting at each other, but they don’t seem to understand that we corporal beings are in the middle of their fight.”
Max got to his feet. “I never liked that house. Why don’t we convince Marjorie and George to have it razed,” he said, looking at Susan for support.
She nodded. “I don’t think Marjorie will have much of a problem saying goodbye to what’s left of her home. But what about Grandma and the twins? How will they get their justice?”
Max walked over to Klaus’s grave and put his back to the women. He unzipped his pants and proceeded to piss on his monument saying, “Here’s a start.”
~
Sire moved through the halls of his castle in his bi-located form. He spied on his servants to assure himself that none of them had been turned. The systematic torture, he devised himself, had taken these humans and made them less. They would work until he said stop. No one rebelled because, early on, he took hope away. They were disposable. He would just get more. Human trafficking was easy when you had money. The only mistake he would acknowledge thus far was Komal. He should have just had the bastard killed in his corporal form. But he wanted to test his theory of trapping travelers on his island. He was right, but now he had a big problem. Komal had gained in strength. He was strong enough to aid in the release of his prize. Komal would pay, but he wasn’t quite sure how to do this.
He thought about systematically torturing and dismembering some of his staff, showing Komal if he didn’t toe the line, more would go through this pain. But he wasn’t sure his old mentor cared anymore about humans. If he did, wouldn’t he have done something before now?
He would have to find another trustworthy boat captain before he could start looking for his possession and terminate those who dared take her from him. He would start with the knight. How dare he touch his superior? Sire was a king, no mere knight should dare to battle him.
A gong sounded and his servants obediently stopped working. They soundlessly moved towards their quarters where they would be fed and given six hours to rest. While they were confined, Sire would return to his body and communicate with his strike team to find out whether Captain Duda regretted his betrayal.
~
Mia climbed the stairs, toting a few plastic bags with her. She knocked on the nursery door. She didn’t expect to hear anything but thought it was a polite thing to do. She opened the door, quickly scanning the room. Nothing seemed changed which was a good thing, at least she hoped it was. “Hello, Erdmut and Garrit. Mia here. I brought you some new toys to play with. I think you will enjoy them. I know Burt and I did when we were children.” She pulled out a big crate of Lego building blocks. She also had two sets of Lincoln Logs. She sat on the floor and demonstrated to the room how to connect the blocks first before dumping out the logs and showing the proper way to build something with them.
“Any questions?” she asked in the direction of the doll. It opened its eyes and shook its head no. “I’ll be back as soon as I see a friend of mine. He’s a farmer and lives a little bit away. I’m going to close the door and give you guys some privacy,” she explained and backed out of the room. The doll’s eyes followed her, and just before she pulled the door shut, it winked.
~
He saw her truck pull into the driveway of the farm. He wasn’t surprised as he felt her presence as soon as she left the two-laner. Murphy knew she was back to get his answer, and he was ready to give her one. He waited until she parked her truck and walked over to the house to see if April was in. It was a courtesy. She knew by the absence of the hybrid car that April wasn’t at home. He followed her with his eyes. The little woman-child Mia wasn’t hard to look at. He didn’t understand why she was so thin, but April worke
d very hard to stay thin too. In Mia’s case he suspected that it was nerves. She was always looking over her shoulder and running away.
He looked at the sky and figured that it was that time of day. He walked over to the picnic table and sat down facing the hillside. One feather would be riding soon. Watching him ride now after Mia told him why the Indian rode was bittersweet. Before he got a good laugh out of it, but now he sensed the man’s desperation to get to his village and warn his people.
“Has he started yet?” Mia’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
He shook his head no and patted the table beside him. Communicating with Mia when she was in her, as she put it, corporal form was tough. It drew so much energy for her to hear him. He instead would mime the majority of his conversation. When she came out of that whirly wind, he could speak effortlessly.
Mia looked at Stephen Murphy and fought with herself over what she had decided to do. She would ask him again. The PEEPs team needed him. She needed him. But the risk was great. If this didn’t work, then having a disappointed morose Murphy would be worse than this placid relationship she had now with him.
She sat next to him and together they watched One Feather ride. When he had passed and faded into the echo that was his existence, Mia turned to Murphy.
He pushed back his hat. In the fading light Mia could see just how handsome this man was in life. True the years of hard work had etched lines into his face, but she now saw the majority of lines were laugh lines. She remembered his touch as she left him the last time. A thrill of want, need, and desire maybe, passed through them. She to him or he to her, it didn’t matter the attraction was there. There was also loneliness. It was this emotion that was the determining factor in her decision to ask Murphy for his decision.
“I guess we could dance around for a little while longer or I could come out and ask you. Would you like to try to become mobile?” She looked at him, in his grey-green eyes and waited.
He put his hand to his chin and scratched.
“While you are thinking, let me tell you how I thought we could handle this new situation. I talked it over with Burt, Mike and Ted. Beth wasn’t there, but she will go with the group. Ted will be in charge of your axe or what’s left of it when we travel. He is a nice young man, talks a bit goofy, but you can ignore that I suppose. Anyway, when you want to return here, home, here, anyway…” Mia stumbled for the right words. “He or I will bring the axe back. Maybe in a lock box or something and bury it where you want. But we will have to talk about your body, er, earthly remains…”
Murphy got up and climbed off the table and stood in front of her. He wanted to see her whole face when she was talking. He pulled together some power and asked, “Why?”
“Why do we need to talk about your rotting corpse?” she said crudely.
He nodded.
“Because April is going to want to know what is going on. We will have to have her permission to disturb your grave as it sits on her property or near enough. I was thinking there would be a spot vacant up at the hollow since Father Santos and Angelo cleaned house. Daisy is still there and a few other folks who decided to hang for a while. Your body doesn’t hold you here, we think, it’s your axe.”
Murphy picked up his axe and looked at it a moment.
“It was with you when that tree fell on you. It has the ability to cut through the ether into this world. I’m hoping, like Grandma, it will allow you to travel with me, er, with us.”
“Grandma?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry, shoot. I forgot you don’t know exactly what’s going on and why we are more certain you can put yourself in that axe blade and leave this place. You better sit down. It’s going to take a while telling it.” Mia patted the table next to her and watched the farmer climb up beside her. She turned to face him and related everything from the first moment Anneliese Hofmann left her chair until this afternoon when she was almost drilled by a bullet fired at the blue-coated man.
Murphy’s ire was up as he thought that something from his world could once again hurt this sprite of a woman that he held dear.
“You see in each case, the rocker, the doll, the book and the dueling pistols - remember there are two - there is a ghost attached.”
Murphy patted his chest and said, “Help.”
“Yes, I think that you could help us, either in finding the pistols or having our backs. I know you were able to mess with those hollow spirits. I’m hoping you can buy us enough time for us to find the missing weapons or know the reason why these two men are caught in a fight that has lasted centuries.”
Murphy thought a moment. His eyes shut, and he faced the summer sun as it began its path downward. He opened them and turned to Mia and asked, “After?”
“I can bring you back here or you can go anywhere you want to go. I would have to make sure you were safe and didn’t disrupt people too much. But you could call the shots.”
He pointed to Mia and asked, “You?”
She knew this was coming. Mia prepared herself for it. She loved her home as it was ghost proof, or she thought it was. She liked not having to worry about nocturnal wanderers showing up and bothering her sleep. But she also had a responsibility to her friend who had stood by her during a fight. If anyone was true blue in her life, it had been this farmer. She took a deep breath and said, “Murph, if you’re coming home with me I will have to make some adjustments. And there would be rules! No sneaky peaky at me. You will behave yourself as if you were corporal. And you would have to put up with Burt. He hogs the mirror and is a neat freak. He’s not there all the time, but I like him.”
Murphy smiled and lifted his hand and tilted it back and forth.
“He is more than so so,” Mia insisted.
He smiled and nodded. He put his hand to his heart as if to promise. That is what Mia thought. Murphy had a dual meaning but she didn’t need to know it all right now. “Try.”
Relief flooded Mia, and she picked up her phone and explained, “I have Ted waiting. He could be here in minutes. Today we will just take your axe and deal with your, er, bones later. Last chance to back out.”
Murphy smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
Mia hit send, waited for the call to go through and said, “Ted, time to do some digging.”
She pulled the phone away from her ear as even Murphy could hear Ted’s “Ya hoo!”
“Hurry up the sun’s going down,” she said and ended the call. She looked at Murphy a moment and said, “What the heck are you waiting for? Show me your tomb.”
“Bossy,” he said and turned and walked through the wood pile.
“Get used to it, mister. I’m the boss, not you,” Mia said, climbing around the brambles, following the ghost.
She caught up to him, and both of them stared at the ground in front of them. He pointed downward and said, “Me.”
Mia started to lift away debris and rotted logs. She hoped that this would work. But she also prepared herself for failure. Whatever happened, she would have to accept the outcome and hoped that Murphy was in a forgiving mood. She heard Ted arrive, and she went to show him the way. She turned back once to look at Stephen Murphy. He stood sentinel over his grave, his back straight and his axe by his side. Sensing her stare he turned and looked at her. Mia felt a thrill and suspected the farmer did too.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Hello,” Beth answered her phone via her Bluetooth earpiece after noting the unfamiliar exchange.
“I’m looking for Elizabeth Bouvier,” a crisp, female voice inquired.
“This is Elizabeth, how can I help you?”
“Actually, it’s how I can be of service to you. Father Santos requested some information that my group has, and he has asked me to share it with you. My name is Yvonne Bledshoe.”
“Thank you for calling, Yvonne. I’m trying to trace the owner of a signet ring of a stag over two cross swords, post-Revolutionary war era. I faxed a drawing to Father Santos.”
“Yes, I have it here along with
the background information of a set of dueling pistols. I’ve had a small amount of luck. The ring belongs to a Boston family in the right time frame. Which I cross referenced with the sales information on the auctioned pistols. What I found was some gossip that lead me to the diary of a Miss Victoria Cobb. Would you like me to fax the pertinent pages?”
“Yes. Yvonne, would it be possible to give me the gist? I am presently driving back to my team and time is, as they say, of the essence.”
There was a rustle of pages, and she could hear the woman take a sip of something to clear her voice. “According to Victoria, Sam Cobb, her brother, worked for a wealthy family. He was learning to valet for an Andrew Wyatt. Andrew is your ring wearer. He was a noted rake and was called out one cold November morning by a William McCartle, the husband of a woman Andrew had maligned. Sam went with Andrew as his second, bringing Wyatt’s pistols with him. He was in charge of their care. Victoria remembers her brother toiling hours over the firearms. I do find this Victoria to be a wealth of information. I am glad I was issued this project,” Yvonne said as an aside. “Okay, back to our duelist. According to a witness, William and Andrew met. Sam offered William first choice of the pistols. William picked up both as if to judge their weight and shot Sam and Andrew each in the head. William left the county and was heard to move his family west. He never faced a murder charge. The Cobb family blamed Wyatt for getting their son killed. The Wyatts blamed the inexperience of Sam’s handling of the duel that got their son killed.”
A flood of realization washed over Beth. “So each family blames the other for the death of their sons. Thank you, Yvonne, you have been most helpful.”
“You’re welcome, Elizabeth. I’ll send the fax to the number Father Santos gave me. Before you go, I understand you’re from the Kansas City area?”
