VOYAGERS

by K. L. Nappier

  Greta and Mr. Shane didn't waste a moment following Enderly out the door. In life this was the time she had bolted like a doe into the linen closet several feet away to avoid being found out. Now she and Mr. Shane followed Enderly as he walked that distance, then paused before reaching the closet.

  She was amused to see why he had. When she'd been mashed against the sheets and bath towels, holding her breath for fear of being heard, she had assumed the visitor almost found her out before moving on. But now she saw he had only been pulling his watch from his vest pocket and had flipped it open to peer at its face beneath the burning sconce. She looked over Enderly's shoulder, then turned her smile on Mr. Shane as she pointed at the watch. He joined her, and she looked back in time to see the 'D' elegantly etched inside the lid just before Enderly snapped it shut. Mr. Shane was at her side.

  "Dear God."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dream Wending

  "An alias?" Miss Roscoe mused.

  She was at the oaken cabinet, where she pulled out her favorite beverage. To Aaron's surprise and amusement, two ample sandwiches were on the tray as well.

  "But which is the alias?" he replied, and followed her back to the divan, where he sat as near to her as he dared. "I've known him as Carroll Enderly ever since my father's been dropping his name."

  Miss Roscoe took a bite as uninhibited as a laborer, then looked at Aaron. She pointed to the remaining sandwich with the one in her hands.

  "Yes, thank you," Aaron said.

  Even if he hadn't thought himself hungry, he wouldn't have refused her. The invitation lifted his heart. Miss Roscoe now turned her attention to Aridite.

  "Would you care for one?"

  Aridite smiled and shook his head.

  "I can still hardly believe it," Aaron said. "What in all of God's creation is he doing to require a dual identity?"

  "He's going to murder two people," Miss Roscoe said, her mouth half-full. "And by his demeanor, he's well practiced at it. Isn't that reason enough?"

  "But something's missing; we just can't see where the puzzle piece fits yet."

  "We're going to have to see it soon," Miss Roscoe replied, with heat. "My sister has less than 48 hours."

  Aaron tried to gauge Miss Roscoe's ire, unsure if her tone reflected hostility toward him or anxiety about her sister. He was hopeful. She didn't seem angry with him; not as much as she had before they'd looked around together. Lord, indeed, how he deserved her loathing. But he could hardly bear it. Perhaps, like the clue about Enderly/Dubenshire, the future would offer him a chance to earn her trust again.

  "The future!" Aaron shouted, as if trying to get that very thing's attention.

  Miss Roscoe almost dropped her sandwich. "What about it?"

  "If we can visit the shades of the past, why not of the future?" Aaron stood and looked at Aridite. "Is it possible? Is it similar to the other looking?"

  "Mm, yes," the angel replied, "but there are complexities. Relative to the present, the past already exists, and the present impacts the future. Future looking is an estimate at best."

  "And that's good enough. How do we do it?"

  "I won't tell you that."

  Aaron was stunned out of his elation. Miss Roscoe's voice was shrill beside him.

  "Why not?"

  "I thought you were here to help us," Aaron said.

  "I'm here to help you come forward. That includes steering you from unnecessary risks that may delay or prevent you. The key word there is unnecessary, and that's what future looking is for you. You could too easily misread the looking and be led astray from your goal. In any case, future looking would eliminate the point of the exercise."

  "In God's name. A girl's life is in danger."

  Aridite nodded, his eyes sympathetic. "Always in His name, Aaron, and I'm very much aware of her danger."

  Aaron's legs trembled under the strain of outrage. "If I thought it would do any good, I swear I would throttle the answer out of you."

  Aridite flashed a broad smile. Aaron felt nauseated.

  "It's difficult, I know," Aridite said, his expression sympathetic again. "Remember, I told you the Passage was a dangerous and difficult place to be. There seems to be cruelty here, at least in the face of mortal reason. It's never easy learning to leave that behind. But listen, you two. You're fixated on the one basic skill of looking around. There are others at your disposal. Greta, what was it you wanted to know when you were visiting Tess after your murder?"

  Miss Roscoe, who had left the divan to stand beside Aaron, narrowed her eyes, then opened them wide. "You told me you'd show me how to get through to her."

  "Communicating with the living is a good tool, though also risky. Aaron, I'm sure you remember having done that, albeit briefly, at Mr. Enderly's house."

  "Yes, with Father. Tell us. We don't have an eternity to leisurely stroll through this."

  Aridite smiled. "Eternity, Aaron, is all you have. Why don't you sit down?"

  Aaron sat and yanked emphatically at Miss Roscoe's sleeve until she did the same. If he was beginning to understand anything, it was that the speediest way to Aridite's help was offering neither comment nor debate.

  "All right," said Aridite, "what was the factor in the breakthrough to your Father?"

  "Focus."

  "Yes, certainly, that's fundamental to everything you're learning. Expand now. Are you familiar with the working of electrical communication?" Aaron and Greta shook their heads. "Never mind, then. Let's do this: think of your mouth as a transmitter. It sends out the sound of your voice. The ear, then, is a receiver…"

  Miss Roscoe nodded impatiently. "Simple enough. I think we get your meaning."

  "Good. Well, then, simply put, both transmitter and receiver need to be in good condition to create communication. Aaron, you remember having to shout into Grandma Shane's ear trumpet to communicate to her. She made it through the Passage very nicely, by the way."

  A rush of understanding burned through Aaron. "Wait, I see. Father was a receiver."

  Aridite's delight was evident. "Excellent! But the doing is much more complex than the understanding. To have optimum effect, your 'receivers' shouldn't be 'jammed' with the daily tasks of living. You're father hadn't rested well for days when you broke through to him."

  "Sleep," Miss Roscoe said.

  Aridite nodded. "Dreams."

  "Be extremely careful. Dream wending is never without price."

  The angel's warning was strong in Aaron's mind, for this was nothing like he had experienced before, not even dying. He would be lying to himself if he didn't accept his fear. He walked through his father's dream cautiously, watching everything he could, uncertain of what to expect. Because this was a dream anything might happen. Even if Aridite hadn't warned him before he had entered, Aaron would have known by the very feel of it: this terrain could lead to ghosthood.

  His father's vision was a nightscape, and Aaron disliked it because something ugly or distressing always happened whenever his own dreams were of the night. The dense, barren woodland looked white against starless black. It was a gnarled forest ringing the spongy clearing he tread. He was certain things were moving within the trees, he sensed their hulking forms as he walked along. But he never seemed to progress toward the forest's edge.

  Just as his nerves became strained, just when he was sure he would have to stop and look full upon one of those nameless hulks he saw a dim light ahead in the forest. He was suddenly at the woods' threshold. Every sense in him was urging retreat, but he held his fear in check. Something stronger in him than dread wanted the experience; indeed, craved it. But even had Aaron lacked this, there was another reason to stay: Miss Roscoe's young sister needed him to carry through. He stepped into the wood.

  The going was difficult, not only because of his trepidation, but because the roots of the trees were large and had grown twisted around one another, sprawling over every inch of ground. The formless entities were much closer. Still, there was no sign of Aaro
n's father. He began to see shapes lying about just beyond reach slumped over the roots. The temptation to stop and find out what they were grew strong. He was in a quandary, for he didn't know if the temptation was tool or distraction. He stopped walking, and looked at the light ahead, noting that it had not grown nearer whatsoever. Perhaps he needed to heed these shapes before he could reach his destination. But that was silly, it made no sense. Sense? What do I mean by that? This is a dream. It was an effort, both physically and spiritually, but Aaron made it over the roots to a form directly ahead.

  He was perhaps five feet from it when he stopped, wishing he didn't have to go nearer, for the shape was obviously a small corpse, face down and broken across the roots. Now is when I need You, he prayed, and crossed himself. When his fingers came to rest at his chest, he clasped his fist to his heart, and made it the rest of the way.

  Aaron knelt over the body and looked into the face of a boy, the flesh gray, the lips blue, one cheek pressed cruelly against a root. The boy's eyes were clouded with death, staring past Aaron's knees. The back was broken at the level of the heart and the splintered point of the spine had torn the boy's white shirt; dull, black blood clotted on the cloth.

  Aaron stood quickly shutting his eyes, close to nausea. Desperately he reminded himself this was a dream, not even his own, but his father's. This last reassurance gave him the courage to open his eyes, and he looked at the young corpse. Yes, the face was very familiar, and for a panicked moment Aaron thought this might be his own boyhood strewn broken on the roots. But, no. Somehow, he knew. No.

  He looked up at the dim, yellow light peering through the dead wood. It was closer. The next corpse he found was that of a young man broken also across the tree roots, his chest cracked open as if split from the impact. His eyes held the same cloudy gaze as that of the child's corpse, and Aaron knew this was the boy again, though older. Now the boy was a priest and the Bible he held was rent just as his body was. And something else; the young man was more familiar in this maturity. Aaron could even remember when he had seen this man in life. Aaron had been five years old.

  He didn't linger long; he had no stomach for this and endured it only because he understood the connection between acknowledging these gruesome deaths and the flickering light. Another lump of broken flesh awaited him, he could see, and he wondered wearily how many he would have to endure.

  He stopped before it, knowing who he would see and understanding the meaning of the visions. This body was that of a fully mature man, 40 years old, his priest's collar blood-stained and tattered. He lay with his fingers dug into the cap of his skull, as if he had wrenched it open himself. His teeth were bared in a hideous death mask, but the man's mature face was how Aaron thought of his father; the seams and creases were just beginning to touch his features in this death. They had deepened long ago in actual life.

  Aaron closed his eyes and leaned against a tree. This, in his father's mind; torturing himself with the wretched death of his innocence, his idealism and the selling of his very soul to Carroll Enderly. All of it was his father's own doing, but Aaron could find in himself no satisfaction, no self-righteousness. Only pity and concern about his father's true death. Would he survive the Passage when his time came?

  He looked up in hope of relief and saw that he was at the forest's edge, and the flickering light that had lured him through it came from the windows of his father's church, St. Peter Episcopal. Aaron moved quickly toward it. It seemed the sanctuary had been closed for centuries. The congregation was only cat-sized rats and spiders large as saucers. Dust lay like a thick carpet; countless, tattered cobwebs shrouded the stained glass and sagged from pews and lightless gas sconces. Flickering candles oozed wax onto sills, in niches, and on the backs of the pews. But upon the altar, no light was offered. The candles there refused to burn. Nevertheless, Aaron could see long swirls of dried blood across the blanched marble, as though someone had smeared it. And on the altar steps sat the elder Father Shane, facing away from it, his head pressed into his hands. Aaron didn't move until his father lifted his head to look at him.

  "That's your blood on the altar. I spread it there myself." Aaron didn't reply. "Have you come back for revenge?" his father asked, tonelessly.

  Aaron shook his head and took a step forward, the dust swirling fog-like around his ankles. "No. I came for your help."

  "I stopped being of help to anyone years ago. I hadn't meant to stop. It began with a favor, was all. Enderly said the matter was a political one; that was the reason for the secrecy. He trusted me, being a priest, to deliver that first simple message to Fielding. We did one another a few favors here and there for years. What was this to me? Then he knew how hard it would be for a simple priest to educate his son beyond Principia. Principia alone was difficult for your mother and me; I was resigned to that being the last for you. But you were such a bright boy, so bright. I only wanted the best for you."

  Aaron swallowed hard. "I understand, Father. I honestly do. But you see, now, don't you? You see how shallow the excuse is."

  The elder Shane slumped into his hands again. "I saw long ago," he said, his voice muffled. "I can't even console myself as though all this were a revelation. I've known for a very long time that I am weak and cowardly. Weak and cowardly. Now I am useless, as well. No help at all to anyone."

  "You can begin again." Aaron walked up to him, the dust parting as though in panic as he stopped a foot shy of his father. "There's someone who needs you very much. A girl. Her name is Tess."

  His father nodded into his hands, as if unimpressed. "I know her."

  "And do you know what's going to happen to her? Do you know Fielding's plans for scandal and murder? Tess and some man of influence, a horrendous event. And no one will doubt it for what it will seem: a shocking affair gone awry. This isn't just a dream. I'm really here and I'm really talking to you. I just walked through the forest and I know your torment." Aaron swallowed, the memory tightening his chest. "I understand you as I never have before. You don't have to despair so. As long as you draw breath you can change this nightmare."

  "I'm old, Son."

  "You're alive, Father. You can go to the authorities and tell them what you know."

  "Nothing I do can reverse things. There's no bringing you back to me. There's no starting over with you."

  "I'm not talking about going backward. I'm talking about coming forward."

  He knelt at his father's feet and gripped the old man's arms. The thick dust swirled away in a breeze, leaving a pristine circle around them. Aaron could touch him. He could feel him, there was no barrier at all! Aaron let the tears come. His father squinted for a moment as if seeing him for the first time, and his eyes teared. He brought one hand up to Aaron's face.

  "Are you really here?"

  "As real as the living. Every bit as real."

  "Dear God."

  The old priest clutched at him, pressing Aaron so tightly it hurt. It hurt wonderfully. Aaron wrapped his arms around his father and wept, and understood how to become a ghost. It would be painful, indeed, resisting the desire to return to his father, to touch him in his dreams. Then he felt the cool barrier again, and his eyes snapped open. His father had awakened, and they were on the old man's bed, sitting up in their embrace. But the elder Shane was staring directly at him, pale and terrified. He still saw him.

  "Aaron!"

  Aaron understood what had happened, he knew he wouldn't be visible long and he shouted, "Go to Judge Tandy. Walter Tandy. Father, you can save the girl."

  "Aaron, don't go. Son..."

  His father was grappling toward him, then looked about wildly. The connection was lost. Aaron left the bed and backed up trying to clear his head, watching with a desperate hope to see what his father would do. The old man was shiny with sweat, and with trembling hands he reached to the nightstand, struck a match, and lit the lamp. He looked at the clock there. It was just after 5:00, dawn was still far from the sky.

  The elder Shane paced, and mu
mbled, "Get hold of yourself, get hold." Then he wrung his hands and wagged his head, looking up at the ceiling. "Aaron. Dear Lord Jesus, did I really see him?"

  "Yes!" Aaron shouted, more for his own sake than in hopes of being heard.

  And, obviously, his father didn't hear. He sat heavily on the bed and ran his fingers through his gray hair. After a moment he rose purposefully and headed for the door. Aaron followed. Down the stairs and into the study the old man went, then walked about lighting sconces as if afraid of the dark. He went to his desk and took a small, green leather book from the middle drawer. His formal address book, a 'Who's Who' compilation of which he was enormously proud. Aaron hurried to his side and watched anxiously. The elder Shane paged to the 'T's.

  "Yes. Father, yes."

  The old priest stared at the page for a long time, working his lips as if he might chew up some courage. He put his finger on the name Tandy for a moment, then pulled a piece of paper from the stationary. He sat and dipped one of the desk pens into the ink well, poising it above the paper. There he stopped. He began to tremble again. He lay the pen down and mashed his face into his hands, just as he had in the dream.

  "I can't. I can't!" he shouted, as though he thought Aaron could hear.

  Aaron felt as though all the breath had been sucked out of him. So close. He watched his father pull himself out of the chair and stand staring down at the address book. Then with a violent move he snatched it up and threw it across the room.

  "A dream!" he screamed.

  Sudden anger coursed through Aaron and he looked at the nearest picture on the wall. He would will it flung at his father. Would that be a dream? And if that didn't work, he would will something else, and something else until his father acted or died of fright.