Tahoe stared at the eye of the hawk, solid, dark, and unmoving. He moved in closer to it, but carefully, as it watched him keenly. It flapped its wings, almost expecting him to know.
“What business is it that you have with me, friend?” He spoke to it, somehow knowing it would render an answer. He continued to stare, and then the visions flooded his mind...
A different time, nearly two decades ago...the little girl...blonde hair, the bluest eyes he’d ever seen...the face of an angel...a worried father...the child, a powerful third eye.
He remembered the father’s name, Paul. He struggled to recall the little girl’s name, and when he looked at the hawk, the name was placed in his mind.
Leah...Yes, he remembered. Leah Leeds.
It was some years ago, but he recalled the distraught father bringing the child to him. Tahoe had realized that the child saw things far away and long dead; she’d seen his ancestor. He hadn’t thought of her in years. He continued to stare at the hawk. Something was not right, and his first conclusion had been correct; this was a bird like no other. He gazed into its eyes and looked deep into its soul with his own third eye, and he saw...
The quick vision was of a young man with long brown hair, a slight goatee, and mustache as equally hindering to his appearance as the dark sunglasses he sometimes wore, and the green army jacket. In awe, Tahoe straightened his stance and beheld the great shape that perched before him. His mouth gaped open in speechless admiration, pondering the revelation that wonders would never cease.
Then a new vision filled his mind: the blonde girl as a beautiful young woman, a large house, colonial in its structure, inhabited by the dead. But, Tahoe saw farther than the bird was showing him. In his mind, he saw flames, faces of evil that sought refuge, presences that filled the halls and rooms of the house in a macabre union of death. Those beings often dwelled behind the veil of anonymity, but they were identifiable to him—they were demons.
The evil that dwelled in the house had consumed it and finally consummated it into a malignant structure that served as a domain for the demons it housed...and for a passageway to Hell. Tahoe became automatically sure of five things that formed somewhat of a riddle in his mind...
The evil in the house was after the girl.
It had encountered her as a child.
Now, it sought to steal her third eye.
It would also leave her among the dead.
He must go to her at once.
He continued to stare at the hawk, understanding the message. He spoke to it again.
“I will come to her at once.”
At his words, the hawk flapped its wings again in a flurry, and Tahoe watched it lift itself from its perch and gain flight higher and higher into the air. It continued to watch him as it flew away, and he likewise watched it soar behind the mountains and out of sight. Still mesmerized by the encounter, Tahoe thought back to the past.
He recalled that Paul Leeds was from Pennsylvania, and so he would make the east coast flight as soon as possible. There, he would find the girl, as well as her father. In his mind, he saw a university. They that awaited him there were going to need his help, more than they could possibly imagine.
* * * *
Quickly, he threw back the screen door and pushed open the front door which he’d left slightly ajar. The manner in which he’d left things allowed him to gain easy access to his apartment before anyone could possibly see him. He shut both doors in a flash, breathing heavily as he gazed outside through the rectangular windows of the front door. No one was outside, no one was watching, at least as far as he could tell. He’d made it back safely.
Around eighteen hours had passed, and Brett plopped face down on the couch in his living room, exhausted. He was always completely sapped of energy whenever it happened. Every muscle of his body ached, and his mind fought the onset of a sleeping euphoria as his body began to shut down.
At some point, he was going to have to tell the team everything, but for right now he lounged in the safe comfort of home, knowing one thing for certain—his mission had been accomplished.
Chapter Seven
Cedar Manor
The Leah Leeds Memoir
(Excerpt)
I stood on the long, limestone walkway, clutching my father’s hand and staring at the immense, three-story colonial fortress for the first time. To me, it looked like a palace, a dark, angry palace that no princess would dare to enter. But I wasn’t a princess, and my mother’s acquiring the house at a low cost meant that she could restore it and sell it for a much larger profit, or live there if she so chose. So, her exuberant joy in front of the house that day decided where we were going to live, like it or not.
Cedar Manor loomed before us, magnificent in its structure and overpowering with its dominant presence. I’d never seen a house that large in my short life. Undoubtedly, Cedar Manor was breathtaking in its grandeur. It had stood the test of time, making mockeries of younger structures now fallen and forgotten. Its stone structure was hard, everlasting, and final, tempered only by its soft, chocolate hue. Yet the cluster of gables reminded me of cages meant to keep the inhabitants from fleeing its dark majesty, and the strange, pointed spire seemed somehow out of place and almost threatening in its position.
I felt a strange foreboding drape over me like a veil. My heart began to beat faster, and the nervous apprehension inside manifested into a crawling sensation up and down my spine. It made me cringe. I looked at my father; his face mimicked my own melancholy at leaving our familiar and comfortable three-bedroom townhouse.
But inside, the house remained beautiful in its well-preserved existence. My mother had most of the renovations completed before we moved in, but there was still much to be done in reconstruction, updating, and painting as well. The sturdy pine floors in the grand hall had been recently refurbished and polished, gleaming magnificently as they reflected the morning sunshine that beamed through the windows.
From the ceiling in the hallway was a glass candelabra-masterpiece chandelier, grandiose in its display of newly made white candles that cut through the colonial dimness with their soft light. It hung from a beam that spanned high above the first floor and beneath the lower balcony. It was one of many priceless chandeliers throughout the house, and I remember being captivated by all of them.
I looked around, astounded at the inside of the immense structure. My eyes met the sprawling lower balcony that wrapped around, conforming to the rectangular formation of the great house. Behind its balusters, I could see the many rooms that occupied that floor, and the workmen walking in and out of them as they neared the completion of their work.
Then, my eyes moved even higher above me, catching a glimpse of the upper balcony, which safely guarded the rooms and hallways of the third floor. The towering height above cast a dizzying spell on me with its grand façade both monumental and historical, so much so that I remember pulling closer to my Dad and burying my face in his side. One could not gaze up to the ceiling of Cedar Manor without the slightest sense of vertigo or the lightest touch of whiplash.
Sixty-six rooms in all, though I never had the chance to enter all of them. But even in the light of day as it poured through the windows, and amid the random sounds of drills, hammers, and saws, I felt a sudden coldness as I stood in the hall. It was as though the heat had suddenly been overshadowed by a frigid and icy interruption. I looked to my father, who was watching my mother discuss the renovations with one of the workmen. By the time I’d gained Dad’s attention, the cold had disappeared as quickly as I felt it, and the room temperature felt normal again.
My mother turned our attentions toward an older man who’d shown up to meet us. He fancied himself to be a connoisseur of the house and worked with many estate agencies, including hers. He acted as sort of a tour guide that day, and he began with the first floor drawing room. My father was still holding my hand when we walked into the room, but my head was turned as my eyes were fixed upon the chandelier in the hallway. I saw
one of its candles go out, as though it had been blown out, but there was not a draft in the house. I watched as the smoke from that extinguished candle danced and formed strange shapes rising up into the air.
The drawing room was a vast, elaborate, but comfortable room with lush velvet curtains and chairs, both of a dark, cranberry, or maroon type of hue. That color was everywhere, enriching the darkness that already seemed part of the house’s natural atmosphere. Even the walls were perfectly painted of a softer version of the color. My mother had done an outstanding job restoring the drawing room to its eighteenth century antiquity, yet integrating it with modern day adornments such as glass tables and even a television.
We’d continued from there to our bedrooms on the second floor, and onward to the rest of the floor when I suddenly became ill. The dizzying spell I’d felt earlier had returned, and with it came an upset stomach I could later compare to sea-sickness. The cold sweat that soaked my face and drenched my body had caught my father’s attention.
“Janet, Leah’s sick. I’m taking her back to her room. She can’t go on.” My father’s voice sounded like he wasn’t in the mood for the tour of the entire house, and he’d just gained the perfect excuse to cut out.
“Oh, is the pretty girl not feeling well?” The older man walked over to me and felt my forehead in his kind yet exuberant way. “I’m not surprised. These tours wear me out in my old age, not to mention a mere child. I think she may have a temperature.”
He said this to my mother after removing his hand from my forehead. She walked over to me, felt me, and then hugged me and kissed my forehead.
“Go ahead, take her,” she said. “I’ll see you both later.”
My father took me back to my bedroom, and as he lounged in the soft velvet chair adjacent to my bed, he soon dozed off. But I found it impossible to sleep. As I lay there, I suddenly realized that like the cold in the grand hall, my symptoms were gone. I felt okay, except for a restless stirring within me. This was not my bed. This was not my home. I didn’t like this house. There was something wrong here. I became convinced of this as I stared out of my bedroom window...and could have sworn that something moved outside of it.
The next night, after we’d ended an uneventful day in the drawing room watching TV, my father carried me to bed for the night. That was the first time I saw Agnes. She was rocking in the rocking chair on the second floor near my bedroom, and I saw her look up at both of us as we passed her. I asked my father who she was. He said there was no one there. There was someone there; I saw her. I felt too tired to make an issue of it. Soon, I fell asleep in the new bed to which my tired, young body was quickly becoming accustomed.
The next day, my mother took me with her up to the third floor, and I played on my own, while she consulted with the workmen. Soon, my curiosity lured me into the rooms of the third floor. In and out I explored until my mother told me to play in the hallway where she could find me. I was bouncing a ball that day, kicking it upward to see how high it would reach in this dark kingdom, when a strange perfume wafted through the air, interrupting my thoughts. I knew it wasn’t my mother’s, and soon it became distracting and overwhelming. Then, my ball, of which I’d missed a beat, bounced off on its own and rolled into one of the rooms I hadn’t explored yet.
I walked around the corner and into that room to discover yet another rocking chair, much like the other, and sure enough, there she was, almost waiting for me. I could see her as plainly as I could see any other person. Today, whenever I see the dead, there’s a soft glow, an aura from the other side that encompasses and surrounds them; they are part of it, and it is part of them. But at such a young age, it wasn’t something I realized or even noticed yet. Agnes appeared as a real person to me, not a spirit or a ghost.
She looked at me as she sat in the chair, softly rocking and knitting; her pleasant smile and friendly face I will never forget. Her silver-gray hair was a nest of curls, and her glasses I would later see on women in pictures from the late nineteen-fifties. She wore a purple knit sweater over a blue house-dress with a set of pearls around her neck. She touched them as she looked up at me again and spoke in my mind.
“Hello, Leah, my dear.” Her voice was endearing, like the sweet drop of honey that soothes a beastly hunger. She motioned me forward, and as I moved, the ball rolled back to me. She had done it; I knew she had. She smiled again and beckoned me to sit. “Do you know me?”
I shook my head. I still remember her words that formed in my mind.
“My name is Agnes,” she said. “I live here too, with you. Now, you know me, and I know you. Whenever you need to see me, I’ll be here.”
Her smile lingered as she disappeared. I wasn’t afraid and was met with only minimal surprise at what I’d just seen. I’d felt an instant love for Agnes, as though she was the one person who understood what was inside of me. I had somehow always known things. And now with the appearance of Agnes, I saw things, but this always seemed somehow part of me. It was like my hands, my face, or my hair...or my eyes...
Soon after, we were having dinner in the dining room, another vast and spacious room wide enough to host the long, rectangular oak table and surrounding chairs with plenty of space behind them. To this day, I can’t recall what we were having for dinner, but my fascination with chandeliers led to what happened next, and that memory has taken precedence over any complete recollection of that day.
I can still hear my mother rambling on about the work that was being done to the house, the remaining plans she had for it, and how everything looked so ‘wonderful.’ The expression on my father’s face that kept eye contact with her but told me that he was drifting miles away and listening to his own thoughts is timeless. Not wanting to listen to my mother, I directed my faithful fascination upon the chandelier above the dining room table.
This one was different than the one in the grand hall; it was a glass, three-tiered, tear drop masterpiece of beaming elegance. At first I marveled at how bright it was, reminding me of Christmas which was not far away. Yet, it seemed to grow brighter, and I could hear a soft buzzing as it did so, though not loud enough to interrupt my mother or catch my father’s fleeting attention. Then, it started to sway.
I spoke to tell them, but nothing escaped my mouth. I was mute, frozen by what I saw. I pointed, trying to show them, but they didn’t notice.
I sat, suddenly spellbound by the small, black shape that swung from the chandelier.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t decipher what it looked like, but it was some sort of wretched little animal, certainly not like a cat, or a dog. It had the ears of a bat, though it wasn’t one. It was strangely misshapen, deformed in some way, and it clung to the chandelier, writhing and seething, unlike any species belonging to the sanctity of this realm. It peered down at me with a piercing pair of red eyes as it straddled itself around the chandelier, swaying and rocking it back and forth.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw my father lunge at me. I could hear his voice, but could say nothing. He grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Leah, sweetie; wake up...”
I could tell that he noticed the chandelier swaying, and he began shaking me, while my mother looked on from the other side of the table. Suddenly, I’d been released from the spell that had locked my mind in a trance, and I felt the feeling of instantly being let go, as if I’d been freed from the pull of a strange vacuuming force. The chandelier stopped swaying and the unsightly creature disappeared, as though it had never been there. For a moment, I couldn’t remember anything, but gazing once again upon the chandelier, it all came back to me.
Soon, my parents became louder and more animated in their discussions, which later became arguments over me. Their shouting struck a nervous chord inside me, and I ran up the great staircase to get away from them, leaving their ascending voices to fade into the background. I approached the hallway closest to my bedroom, where just before it, the rocker sat. Once again, Agnes sat in it, waiting for me.
She motioned for me to sit down beside her and I did.
There, I sat on the floor, telling her everything. She listened with astute attention to my every word and nodded, as though she’d already known. It was the sound of my father’s voice that interrupted my endless and lamenting stream of words.
“Leah, sweetie, who are you talking to?”
“Agnes,” I said. And then I watched the spoken name spark an instant recognition. His eyes became bigger, rounder, and almost a shade darker as he moved them up and down the rocker at what I thought was Agnes’ presence. I later learned that my father observed an empty rocking chair...one that was moving back and forth on its own.
Later that night, the shouting continued as he tried to get my mother to acknowledge that I was seeing things around the house.
“She was talking to someone who wasn’t there!”
“So what?” she said. “All kids have imaginary playmates. She’s five!”
She continuously rebuffed him, convinced that nothing more than a child’s imagination was at work.
“The rocker was moving!” He strained his voice screaming back at her, insisting that she explain how the rocker could move and then come to a complete stop all on its own. His efforts became frustrating and maddening attempts at getting her to see what was happening to me with her own eyes. Sadly, my mother never saw anything beyond her own world, much of which was now Cedar Manor.
Yet, in my mother’s defense, my father had never told her about the trip to the desert, or the man named Tahoe, or the fact that I had seen visions in the desert. He seemed somehow afraid to tell her the truth.
Days later, my mother began to act like a different woman; it was like something had taken a hold of her and possessed her very soul. She was distracted, quiet, and often mesmerized. I would catch her staring off into space, and I would look, trying to see what she was seeing, but I couldn’t. I still insist that her radical shift in behavior had something not only to do with the house, but a certain mirror as well.
The Third Eye of Leah Leeds Page 9
