Ghostwriting

by Traci Harding

  But he’ll be back after he reads those glyphs. Tristan willed for her to hear him, but she did not. He was weary from his heroics and could not make his will felt.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Karita asked, tears rolling down her face. ‘Are you all right?’

  I am fine. Tristan gazed at her, feeling beholden to her. He loved it that she knew he existed. But then, I am not the one who has been knocked out three times in one day.

  When there was no response, Karita smiled anyway in the hope that he could see and hear her. ‘It figures that I finally meet a man who intrigues me and he’s been dead for a hundred years.’ She sniffled and took a seat to ponder her situation.

  Tristan gave a loud laugh, flattered. Where were you a hundred years ago? Nay, he rejected the fantasy, you would not have been the woman you are, back then … society would have squashed your spirit and suppressed your art. Tristan, considering the day’s events, had to conclude that society hadn’t changed that much. You have to get out of this house. If I had a way to tell you about the key that Preston Molay is sure to return to find, would I? Possessing the key would place you in more danger. Tristan took a seat, too. Why didn’t I take up the challenge a hundred years ago when I was told to? Because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, that’s why. Tristan looked to Karita, whose tear-filled eyes were gazing about the house in search of him. I never loved anyone so well in life as I have you these last few years. I gave my life to protect the secrets entrusted to me, but I did not have the courage to utilise that knowledge when I could, and thus I damned myself to be a prisoner in this house. What I wouldn’t give to have my earthly vessel back. His brief time in Logan’s body was enough to make Tristan green with envy for the living. But he’d touched that beautiful dark-haired woman, which was more than he could have hoped for before this day. I should never have mused you into painting that work … I just wanted to make my presence felt in your life, in a beneficial way that would not scare you into retreat. Tristan scoffed at his efforts in retrospect. Well, I’ve made my presence felt all right … and placed you in mortal danger in the process. Tristan ceased his confession as Karita burst into tears. Oh, please lass, don’t cry. He felt guilty, because her misfortune was his fault entirely. She had been doing fine without him. I would give anything to undo the harm I’ve done.

  ‘Could it be that Tristan de Scott has finally come to his senses?’

  Karita gasped when she heard a voice with a strange European accent, distinctly different to Tristan’s. A spiritual entity manifested in mid-air before her and assumed the form of a robed man with a jovial face. ‘Tris … tan?’ she stammered. The being was transparent and ghostlike, albeit illuminated, and it puzzled Karita that he could speak aloud whilst lacking a physical body.

  ‘No, no, Tristan is over there, pouring his heart out to you from the lounge,’ the spirit advised, motioning to where the ghost sat pining.

  ‘Really?’ Karita was so charmed by the information that all fear of the unknown was swept away. She would have thought that the sudden appearance of a spectre in the middle of her lounge room would scare the wits out of her! Yet she felt perfectly calm — calmer than she’d felt since she arrived home. This being had a very welcoming energy indeed.

  ‘I never lie,’ the visitor stated. ‘Now, I think the first thing we need to do is get you both functioning on the same plane of demonstration.’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’ Karita was amazed when tiny bubbles of light, in long slender streams, poured out of the visitor’s hands to gather around a form where Tristan was sitting. The swirling masses of light seemed to stick to the form, gradually making it more and more visible. As the substance of the body thickened, features became apparent; a young man, not much older than Karita, with long, fair, wavy hair that fell about his shoulders and beyond. ‘Tristan!’ She stood up, her heart pounding in her chest, for he was angelic to look at.

  ‘You see me?’ Tristan turned, awestruck, to the spirit who had made this possible. ‘How?’

  ‘Just a simple matter of stimulating the vibratory rate of the atoms of your etheric body, my friend.’

  The penitent man fell to his knees before the spirit. ‘Master, you came … all these years … I thought you had disowned me.’

  ‘No, Tristan, it was you who disowned yourself,’ the spirit enlightened.

  Tristan observed his subtle form fast filling with light. ‘Why do I glow thus?’

  ‘I think you know,’ the Master said, to avoid placing the man in an awkward predicament, but as Tristan merely frowned and shook his head, his expression imploring an answer, the spirit smiled warmly. ‘You finally opened your heart again. Thus, your subtle bodies are absorbing cosmic light once more.’

  ‘You were Tristan’s muse!’ Karita got a grip on what was happening.

  The spirit nodded. ‘So when push comes to shove, this predicament was of my doing. I expected too much of Tristan too quickly,’ the spirit confessed and then gave a chuckle. ‘It has, in fact, taken him a hundred years to forgive me and decide to take up my challenge.’ The spirit’s expression became serious once more.

  ‘I know I must be a disappointment —’ Tristan began, but the spirit would not hear of it.

  ‘You were only human, Tristan. But by making your own choices as you did, I was forced to wait until you were prepared to understand your errors before I could allow you the opportunity to correct them.’

  ‘How can I correct things?’ Tristan motioned down to his glowing form. ‘I am bound to this damn house!’

  The spirit waited patiently for Tristan to calm himself. ‘Well, it all depends on whether this young lady is prepared to help you complete your quest?’

  ‘Nay, ’tis too dangerous.’ Tristan rejected this option.

  ‘More dangerous than sitting around here waiting to be knocked off by the “Brotherhood”?’ Karita used her fingers to make quotation signs in the air. She was also rather irked that her hero considered her not up to the challenge. ‘Or do you have a problem with accepting a woman’s aid?’ She placed her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows to await his response.

  ‘I didn’t mean … I meant …’ Tristan found himself tongue-tied. ‘I just don’t want to cause you any more harm than I already have done.’

  ‘Well, you’ve done a pretty fine job of protecting me so far.’ Her tone of voice had softened and had a slightly seductive edge to it. ‘And as I owe you my life, I think I can see my way clear to helping you out,’ Karita volunteered, turning to face the spirit. ‘What do we have to do?’

  ‘I do believe Tristan can fill you in on the details,’ the spirit advised her.

  ‘But my curse?’ Tristan appealed for more information.

  ‘Curses are illusory restrictions we place on ourselves, or allow others to place upon us,’ the spirit said. ‘You finally care about something more than you care about protecting the secrets of this house and wallowing in self-pity. You will move with that to which you are most devoted.’

  Tristan dwelt on this, but dared not question the kindred spirit further for fear of really embarrassing himself.

  ‘Only your contact,’ the spirit nodded toward Karita, ‘will see and hear you, unless you wish it. But you can make your presence felt in the physical realm, Tristan, if you but focus your will. If all you do, you do from love, then no feat you undertake will drain your energy.’ The spirit’s form began to become obscure, and his voice to fade, but as he departed he addressed both Tristan and Karita. ‘With a pure heart and pure intentions you are as powerful as I AM.’ The Master vanished, leaving Karita and her ghost thunderstruck.

  ‘Who was that?’ Karita realised she hadn’t caught a name.

  ‘Just about every great thinker in the history of the Western world,’ Tristan informed her, dazed by this upturn in his fortunes.

  Karita wasn’t sure she was ready to pursue that idea right now, but there was one point of interest she did have to mention. ‘Do you really care more about me than the
missing word of creation?’

  Tristan looked at her and formed a meek, embarrassed smile. ‘No one is more surprised than I,’ he assured her. ‘My life and my death add up to nearly a century and a half of self-pity. I didn’t think love existed in any form until you breezed into my house.’

  ‘But you must have loved someone for Logan to be here?’ The question had slipped out before Karita had considered how personal it was. She could tell by the look on Tristan’s face that the memory was hurtful. ‘I’m so sorry —’

  Tristan held up a hand to stop her apology. ‘When I was labelled a fraud, she left me, taking our son with her. I never saw or heard from them again … not that I lived for very long after that. The men who labelled me a fraud knew it was a lie, and so came to this house to extract what information they could out of me.’

  Karita was frozen in horror as the wounds from the torture began to manifest on Tristan’s beautiful angelic form.

  ‘I sat around feeling sorry for myself for too long, you see,’ he explained. ‘If I had taken what I knew and pursued my own claims, I could have proven myself legitimate. But I stewed in my misery too long and the Brotherhood came for me. I knew they’d torture the truth out of me in the end. I also knew that if I killed myself, then my spirit would haunt this house and protect the secrets I carefully hid away here. The world was not ready for what I knew then, and the world is not ready now.’

  Karita felt so horrible for making him remember his past, that she thought she might be sick again. She must have paled, because the wounds suddenly vanished from Tristan’s form and he appeared to be very concerned for her.

  ‘I think you need to eat something, and quickly,’ he suggested. ‘We have digging to do and not much time before Molay returns for the rest of his treasure.’

  ‘The rest of his treasure?’ Karita eyes were wide open now.

  Karita dug in a spot in the middle of a lovely bed of flowers, listening to Tristan outline their problems.

  ‘How do I know Molay shall return?’ He echoed her first query. ‘Because in the middle of a vital sentence I scratched out some glyphs so that the translation will read: “the gold plate is a treasure buried in a subterranean vault”. The sentence still makes sense without the missing word, and could just look like a scribe’s error.’ Tristan sounded like he was hoping for too much. ‘However, I doubt very much Molay will feel comfortable not knowing. He’ll bring Logan back, and if my great-grandson is worth his salt as a psychic, he will command me to obedience and ask me about the omission. What’s more, Molay will recognise the secret location of the subterranean vault as the Brotherhood have been excavating the site since the beginning of the nineteenth century.’

  ‘From where in the sentence was the word omitted?’ Karita was most curious.

  ‘Between the “is” and the “a”,’ he replied.

  ‘And the word was?’ Karita paused from her dig to be enlightened and Tristan smiled at his own cheek.

  ‘Near.’

  Once Karita slotted the word in its rightful place, she grinned broadly. ‘Well, that changes the meaning somewhat.’

  Tristan nodded to agree it did.

  ‘So why are we digging again?’ Karita wondered if she’d missed something.

  ‘Well, the glyphs also tell of a key, a triangular plate of gold, required to unlock the secret treasure, which is suspected to be kept in safekeeping in the House of the Holy Spirits. For it is commonly accepted that the treasure is ancient knowledge lost since the time of Solomon.’

  Karita guessed the rest. ‘We are digging for this key.’ Tristan winked in confirmation.

  ‘So where is this subterranean vault located?’ She commenced shovelling once more.

  ‘On a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia.’

  Karita was shocked to a standstill. She wore a large smile of disbelief as she raised her eyes and challenged him. ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘Well,’ Tristan shrugged, ‘you could dig a little slower and Preston shall arrive, claim the key and all the power of creation.’

  ‘I am not too sure I believe in this little treasure hunt you boys seem willing to die and kill for —’

  ‘You didn’t believe in ghosts until yesterday,’ Tristan retorted with humour.

  ‘I did,’ Karita defended, ‘kind of.’ She dug the shovel in deep, hit an obstruction and gasped; she had hoped they wouldn’t find anything.

  From the dirt Karita pulled a small timber chest, locked tight by a large metal padlock. Tristan told her that the key to the lock was hidden beneath a floorboard in the house.

  ‘Can I open it?’ Karita was as much excited as she was frightened to have discovered the key to a treasure so sought after.

  ‘Once we’re on the island and not before,’ Tristan instructed. ‘You should retrieve the key to the chest and make haste to the nearest airport.’

  ‘Tristan?’ Karita cast her eyes down over herself. She was covered in dirt.

  ‘What? You look fabulous!’ He was serious, although there was a laugh in his voice, as he knew Karita would not see his view. ‘Just grab the bags you haven’t unpacked yet and find a hotel,’ he suggested.

  Karita decided to take Tristan’s advice on board. ‘I’m able to use the Gold Card Lounge at the airport. I guess I can change there.’ She carried the weighty little chest toward the house. ‘I’ll call us a cab and we can get the key while we’re waiting.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Tristan smiled, considering that any other woman would have told him to go hang. ‘Karita,’ he called after her and she turned back to see what the problem was. ‘You are truly extraordinary. Thank you.’

  Karita had not felt so bashful since she was a teenager; men just didn’t say things like that any more. ‘Look who’s talking.’ She struggled with the weight of the chest, which suddenly became as light as a feather.

  ‘Allow me.’ Tristan encouraged her to let it go and as she did so, the chest was left floating in midair. ‘I am feeling much recovered,’ he explained.

  5. Misconceptions of the Past

  Ancient wisdom man pursues,

  in a desperate search for clues.

  But if the motive be for the self,

  this doctrine is better left on a shelf.

  Those who would lie, murder and cheat,

  will their own purpose defeat.

  To know the truth just look within,

  for the answer is there and has always been.

  Karita grabbed a quick shower at the airport, quick being the operative word. Tristan hassled her along, not because he feared being caught by Molay, but because he was so amazed to be out of his house that he objected to sitting in a room at the airport when there was so much to see outside.

  Due to the number of people at the airport, Tristan floated high above everyone to avoid being walked through, which he found most disturbing. When that happened, Tristan would meld with that person and would momentarily be exposed to their memories, thoughts and feelings, which was incredibly off-putting in most cases.

  On the plane, Tristan did the same thing, and Karita wondered if her fellow passengers thought her slightly loony, as she struggled for the entire trip to repress her fits of amusement caused by the poor ghost’s predicament.

  They arrived on the south-eastern coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, at about 3 p.m. Karita hired a car at the airport and drove to a ferry that travelled to the island Tristan had pinpointed as the one housing the great subterranean vault, near which the gold plate inscribed with the ineffable name of God could be found.

  Too excited and paranoid to sleep on the flight, Karita now found herself being lulled into a snooze by the gentle rocking of the ferry. She knew that the cool night air blowing over the bay would revive her, but she stayed in the hire car to prevent being seen by anyone.

  ‘We shall find you a bed.’ Tristan realised she needed to sleep after not having had any in the past 24 hours.

  ‘I’ll be okay.’ She closed her eyes, intending
only to rest them for a moment.

  ‘You should really try and stay awake until we get to the island.’ Tristan’s voice sounded miles away.

  ‘Uh huh …’

  ‘Miss!’

  Karita awoke to a noisy chorus of honking horns and the ferry’s master knocking at her window.

  ‘Miss, please start your engine and move off the ferry. You’re holding up all those behind you.’ The ferryman smiled as he said this, although his tone was not so accommodating.

  She started the engine immediately. Here I was trying not to draw attention to myself … hah! ‘Sorry.’ She drove the car over the ramp and off on to the island. ‘Tristan, why didn’t you wake me?’ She looked to the passenger seat to find him absent. ‘Tristan?’ She pulled the car over to the side of the road, in order to check the back seat. ‘Tristan!’ She called rather more loudly when she could find no sign of him. Karita climbed out of the car to check outside.

  ‘Hello again, Miss Torelle.’

  Karita felt something small and round dig into her back and froze with fear. She was spun around to find Logan standing there.

  ‘Where is the ghost?’

  ‘That’s a very good question,’ she retorted, rather annoyed that her hero had abandoned her to deal with this alone.

  Preston walked forward from behind Logan to join their happy little reunion. ‘We know de Scott is no longer at the house in Australia, nor is the key spoken of in the glyphs carved on the chimney stacks procured from your roof.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about those texts, I told you before,’ Karita insisted.

  ‘Then why are you here?’ Preston challenged and Karita cringed; she’d walked right into that one. ‘Have another urge to go on holiday so soon?’ He pulled his gun from inside his jacket now that the ferry had left and taken any possible witnesses with it. He gave Logan an order: ‘Check her luggage.’

  Logan nodded and immediately moved to do as he was told. A moment passed as he checked through the bags in the trunk of the car. ‘There’s an old chest here,’ Logan confirmed, ‘but it’s locked.’ He returned to question Karita about this. ‘Where is the key?’