The Gemini Child

by Shea Meadows

  William turned his attention to Nory’s parents. “You have questions? I don’t want to rush right into business, but I’m a bit under the weather and don’t know when I’ll succumb to the need for a nap.”

  “We understand,” David said. “Ricky went through all the letters and picked out a few that might be referring to the artifact that is causing our troubles and others that mention it by name.”

  “Bi Mo Chu; I try not to even think that name. It has very uncomfortable vibrations, but since it is front and center in this crisis, I’ll discuss it. One thing before I do. Might you have some charged stones on your person for protection?”

  “Daddy, please put three of them around the room so William is at their center. Even talking about this puts him at risk.”

  David did as Nory requested, surrounding them and William with etheric emeralds. After that, William seemed more relaxed.

  “Sorry for interrupting but I need to nurse. You can ask questions while I do.”

  Ricky changed the baby’s diaper and put her to her breast. David took out the copies of the letters Ricky wanted to focus on, and they began the discussion. “In the first letter I picked, March of 1938, your father writes about finding clay statues that he thinks have been scavenged by locals from the burial plots. This is long before there were official excavations by anthropologists that were sanctioned by the government. He mentions that he thinks there are ghosts in them. Do you think this has anything to do with the artifact in the cellar?”

  William nodded. “It has everything to do with it. I’m sure Nory has mentioned that Father brought what he called ‘the sacred object’ to Minneapolis in 1936. This was the year before the Battle of Shanghai, when the Japanese fought the Republic of China for rule of the city. If he had waited another six months to make his move, it would have been impossible, and the abomination would still be buried in a cave in China.”

  “How did he get it out? I’m sure there were rules about removing artifacts of the early dynasties from the country,” David asked.

  “That was a time of chaos in China. The threats from the Japanese had already begun. Armies were forming across Europe. Russian expatriates were streaming into Shanghai, beginning in the 1920s right after the Russian Revolution. Jews from all over Europe arrived as well. They feared for their lives as well as their wealth. The comings and goings were overseen by just a few government inspectors, so it was an ideal time for smugglers,” William answered.

  “Father bragged about how he brought a supply of obviously phony Chinese vases, statues, globes, pots and other things, and put the artifact in with the rest. No one noticed, and he claimed the whole lot was gifts for friends and relatives. He had kept a low profile in his previous digs, so he wasn’t someone they thought of as a potential thief of the Republic.”

  “Did your father talk about what the object looked like?” Ricky asked.

  “My mother saw the artifact before he locked it away in the cellar, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She said it gave her the shivers knowing the object was in the same house. She begged him to rent a vault in the bank or put the object in a cave somewhere, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The only description I got from her was it was the color Chinese purple, which would have been a dead giveaway if the inspectors were trained at all. That particular shade was only found in artifacts from the Xia Dynasty and then again in the Qin, which was the time of the terracotta warriors. You’d never find it on a tourist knock-off.”

  “So what does this have to do with the ghosts that your father claimed were in the statues?” Ricky asked.

  “He thought the artifact was a ghost gatherer. That it was made by a dark sorcerer sometime during the Xia years. Exactly what it would do with the ghosts, I couldn’t say. He never let us in on the secret,” William said, clutching the emerald in his hands nervously as he spoke.

  “1936 is when Nory tells us she was born as Nellie. That she and your mother, Emily, had to come home to Minneapolis because your mother didn’t feel well. Did he come back after your sister’s birth?” David asked.

  “Mother was with him in China in 1935 and was pregnant then. She went home in January of ’36, and Nellie was born prematurely after they made it back to Minneapolis. She was six months old when Father returned with the artifact. Our sister, Susan, was turning four.

  “He stayed in Minneapolis for two years. During that time, Susan died and mother went into a deep depression. I was at school most of the time, so I heard little about it. From what I understand, Nellie was having headaches, and mother had a miscarriage, a six-month old fetus they named Paul. That’s when Father insisted they go back to China to take their minds off everything. I, of course, was invited as well but refused to participate.

  “Nellie had just turned three, and Father insisted she and mother dig for artifacts in his favorite cave. Nellie enjoyed it, so says Father in his letters, but mother became ill after being there six months. Nellie and mother returned to York Street, and lived away from father for the next five years. Mother became weaker by the day, but, surprisingly, Nellie died before her, near the end of ‘43. By May of ‘44, mother was in her grave as well,” William told them.

  “Your Father seemed to be of the opinion that he must gather the essence of a thousand souls from the Han statues to feed what he called Bi Mo Chu. He talked about it in several letters. Where did he get this information?” Ricky asked as she put a sleeping Nory in her stroller.

  William looked out the window, staring at the rose garden deep in thought. “There was a scroll I believe, from the Xia Dynasty, which would have been around fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. He discovered it in a trunk in the Shanghai tombs. He took it out and brought it to a friend who knew how to read the characters from that time. Father was astounded with what it said. I’m not sure of the wording, but the scholar wrote a translation before Father was forced to put it into his friend’s hands for safe keeping. This is all from my Father’s viewpoint, so who knows how much is true?”

  “It mentions the Bi Mo Chu by name?” Ricky asked.

  Reston nodded. His face and body showed signs of stress and weariness. “It said something about the gathering of ghosts that were now entombed and those which would be entombed by magic within the burial mounds. The number one thousand was mentioned as the number of completion. Father always complained that the parchment was damaged and the number difficult to read. He ranted about not knowing when to stop releasing ghosts in his letters.”

  “I can see this is wearing you out, but one more question that Nory asked me to mention. Why didn’t you want to go to China with your Father?”

  “She wasn’t around when I went there. I was ten years old. Father and I went alone. I was very excited and looking forward to having him all to myself. He took me to Xian where he found most of the small statues that had been stashed away by the local villagers. In fact, I was the one that stumbled upon the cave where he made most of his finds.

  “We were in there together, rooting around, and I saw the head of a painted clay figure which was bigger than the ones he had found before. He got all excited and pushed me aside and started freeing it from the ground. When it was loose enough to remove, he brought it out. It had no arms but was anatomically correct otherwise. It didn’t look at all like the terracotta warriors that were found decades after that from the Qin Dynasty. No elaborate military garb. He handled it gingerly, turning it around in his hands. Then his eyes took on the glazed look he got when communicating with spirits.

  “He thrust it at me, saying ‘Hold this, what do you hear?’ I heard a whimpering voice begging for mercy in the Han dialect that my Father had drummed in to me during the previous year.

  “This was a ghost who was a member of the royal court of the Han emperor Jingdi, Father told me. He said they had used the extraction process to pull the spirits from the bodies of those who had served him and deposited the ghost in that statue. This was the work of Ta Yi, the court alchemist w
ho copied the work of the sorcerer Luan Du of the Qin dynasty. The ritual was performed frequently in those two eras. There were thousands of beings encased in this way over a period of three hundred years. Or so Father said.”

  “This was before Norton found the Bi Mo Chu?” David asked.

  Reston nodded, looking more exhausted every minute. “And it was before he found the parchment. I am unsure which he found first. For the rest of the dig I watched from the side and did grunt work but refused to dig up any more of the figures. He tried to explain that this was noble work. He would free unjustly encased spirits.

  “In the other dynasties, the entire court was killed or forced into suicide at the death of the emperor. This, Father believed, was a much preferred method of having a retinue with the leader when he passed through Heaven’s Gate. The beings could then go on to the next incarnation when the emperor tired of them. With the encasing method, they were stuck as long as the statues existed.”

  William Reston let out a shuddering sigh that turned into a sob. “After that trip, I never returned to China. I now have this fear, that my sister Sandra, my brother Paul and my mother have been drawn into the Bi Mo Chu which he stored in the cellar on York Street. That they reside within along with an army of ghosts that Father has somehow released from those statues in China.” And then a whispered, “I also fear that when I die, I will be drawn into it, too, because I knew what Father was doing but didn’t try to stop him.”

  Ricky took his hands and looked into his rheumy eyes. “William, Moon released everyone in your family except Nellie, who existed as a ghost in the house on York. Somehow they were forced to stay there, but only until Moon showed up. We know very well where Nellie is. Look at that beautiful baby having another incarnation in a loving family. You are helping us stop him now, if he is in fact continuing to feed ancient ghosts to that thing in our cellar.”

  Reston gave a weak smile. “I must confess another lie. I told you when you visited last week that I sold the house to Moon because my wife was unhappy living there. The truth is my wife never put a foot in that house.

  “I knew the history of deaths in my family and disclosed it to Moon when she cleared the ghosts. I was so impressed with how quickly she released them and what a shine she took to Nellie, that I sold her the house at less than its market value. But I never told her about the thing in the cellar. She didn’t realize that I had many of my Father’s skills in the metaphysical. So I put all of you in danger as well. Could it be that the Bi Mo Chu emanations changed the frequencies in those that live there? I really don’t know.”

  “Moon could feel it there, but it was a small humming at the time. We don’t know for sure if it clouded her judgment. Both she and Nellie agree it has increased lately. Moon’s death wasn’t from something you did. It was from another cause altogether. But now that we know a big chunk of the history, we can use what you told us to track down the cause of the new activity,” Ricky answered.

  “I’m so grateful you moved Nory out of the house. Promise me you won’t go back until this is solved,” William pleaded.

  “We give our word,” David said. “We have a comfortable place to live and can carry on our work as we eliminate the danger. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced something like this, and it won’t be the last.”

  “You’re looking exhausted, William,” Ricky said. “When will you have your lunch?”

  He looked at his watch. “It’s 11:30. Not until noon. I may ask for a tray in my room. All I want to do is sleep.”

  David collected the other three etheric emeralds, as Ricky put the box in William’s lap. David pushed his chair as Ricky followed with Nory and her stroller. They situated William in his room on second floor, distributing the crystals around him in a triangle and said goodbye, promising to return when they had made some progress with their research.

  Bonta was playing Canasta with Marie and Glory and was putting on a happy face. “We must lure her away, ladies,” Ricky said. “We promise we’ll let you know when we visit again.”

  Bonta took the diaper bag and followed behind, with a fragile smile on her face. David pushed Nory in the stroller and Ricky dropped back to walk beside Bonta. “This has been a hard day for you, and I’m amazed how bravely you’re handling the separation.”

  Bonta’s eyes welled up with tears, but she wiped them with her hand. “I will adjust. Strength is always there. I see this choice as needed. Some part of me will be of service in more than just the physical realm.”

  Ricky nodded. “Katera told me that when you go back to New Orleans at the end of September, you will be starting in an art therapy program. I knew you were artistic but not what form your creative talents manifested.”

  Bonta brightened up with the topic. “I have a sketch book at your house. I would be honored for you to see my work. Umm. I spoke with Rita and it makes more sense for me to sleep on the second floor and Rita on the lower level. She would then have her own apartment, and I would be closer to where Nory sleeps. When you go back to teaching and speaking to spirits, it will be easier for all of us.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Know, too, if you need a day or two off each week, that’s part of the agreement,” Ricky contributed.

  Bonta shrugged. “I have never been one to go to clubs or hang out with groups of people who are unaware of their level of consciousness. My fun would be to apprentice to you while I am here and help in your work. That is what gives me joy.”

  “I would be delighted to let that be so,” Ricky answered as they arrived at the van.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  By Tuesday morning, Nory’s weight had increased to seven pounds six ounces. Two pounds in a week for a preemie was almost unheard of.

  Chick, the teenaged ghost, piled in the car with Ricky, Nory and Bonta after he had spent time playing with Ralph and Pigeon. That might be the last day of his career as a ghost if they could find Blue Olsen and she would listen.

  The two teens, one with a body, the other without, took up the back-seat of the van, with Nory in her infant seat between them. An ongoing dialogue continued all the way to Minneapolis General. Someone looking in the back seat would have seen a quiet girl who was smiling at a baby next to her and glancing over to an empty seat, gesturing occasionally.

  What Ricky heard was: “Tell us what Ralph really likes, Chick. He seems to enjoy the walks.” This from Nory.

  “He likes to rough house in the backyard, but that would be something David should do. Ralph is too big for you to do that,” Chick answered.

  “What does Ralph do when he’s sad?” This from Bonta.

  “He barks and sits there with his big brown eyes and tries to get someone to play. But it’s great that he and Pigeon are getting along. He’s always wanted a wing-man,” from Chick.

  Nory giggled in response. “Yup, Pigeon does a lot of out-of-body flying. Maybe he’ll teach Ralph how to do it.” All three of them laughed.

  There was a pause in the conversation, and Nory sounded serious. “If all turns out well with talking to Blue, you’ll be going over to spirit world today. How do you feel about that?”

  A sigh from Chick that made the map in the front seat float up in the air and drop back down again. “I’m a little nervous. All the stuff in church about going to hell and being judged. What if it’s true?”

  “I just came back from spirit world. Nothing like that happens. The only hell comes from your thoughts. Get the scary ones out of your head. You’re powerful, and what you believe creates what you experience. So, picture all the people who’ve loved you and have gone on. They will be greeting you, and you will be meeting your spirit guides. That’s what really happens,” the wise preemie advised.

  Bonta nodded. “Ask for Moon Angel. She is Ricky’s sister. She will help you settle in and figure out what you’ll do next. We have all died and come back hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. Most of us forget when we are in a new incarnation, but you’ll remember in spirit world.”<
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  “You know way more about it than I do,” Chick answered. “Can I pop back and visit now and then?”

  “Having been a long-term ghost myself,” Nory answered, “it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. People in bodies can’t see you unless they’re like Moon and Ricky and their crew. It’s pretty boring unless you have a project. It’s easier to do a little lower frequency viewing. Check out how Ralph is.”

  Ricky pulled into the parking lot outside the pediatric medical offices and in-patient wards. Bonta helped with the stroller as Ricky took Nory out of the car seat. Chick floated above the pavement at the level for the windows for the ped’s ward, peeking in, hoping to get a glimpse of Blue.

  “Chick, don’t go so close to the windows. Some of the kids may be able to see you, and we don’t want to scare them,” Ricky said.

  He floated down and showed Ricky he’d figured out how to decrease or increase his frequency. Ricky could see a faint outline as he increased. “We have to see Nory’s doctor first, then we’ll go to the lunch room near the ped’s ward and see if we can make contact,” Ricky reminded him.

  “Is it okay if I check out if she’s there if I keep myself invisible and not say anything? Then we can be sure she’ll go to lunch while we’re here,” Chick pleaded.

  “Okay, but you can’t say a word or you might scare her off.”

  “Don’t worry Chick. I’ll draw the meeting, then it will happen for sure,” Bonta said.

  “You can do that?” Ricky asked admiration evident in her voice.

  “Usually I can, but no guarantee,” Bonta replied aloud, pointing to her sketch pad tucked into the baby’s diaper bag.

  They walked through the automatic door, past reception and followed the signs to Dr. Susan Fry’s waiting area. The chairs were full of moms and dads with babies waiting for status checkups, kids with runny noses, kids with bumps and breaks. The new baby parents had carved out a section removed from the contagious children and made room for Ricky when they saw how tiny Nory was. Bonta looked around at the crowded room.