Hidden Voices (Tess Schafer-Medium)

by Deborah Hughes

  I had to drop my gaze to the box nestled in my lap while I did my best to bring my emotions back under control. The devotion between the two touched my heart. I would have loved to have had Tootsie in my life longer than the two years I had her. But it wasn’t to be. She was with Mike and I was here. “He’s lucky to have someone who loves him as much in return.”

  Rid continued to gently stroke Teddy’s head, his own bent down as if lost in thought. He wasn’t completely with me at that moment. I wondered where his mind had taken him and then he spoke. “My life has been so quiet, the spark for life having faded when my wife died. I love my son and his wife is a wonderful daughter-in-law. The two grandsons they gave me, they are the best. But I’m ready to get on with it.” He gave a soft sigh and shook his head in an effort to bring himself back to the present moment. “I still feel her near sometimes. It’s the strangest thing. I would swear to you that I can smell her…the perfume she liked to wear, the lotion she was forever putting on her hands, the shampoo she used…” He drifted off for a moment, once again lost in his memories.

  The room swelled with a buzz of quiet excitement. I sat up a little straighter and looked around curiously as the light tickle of cobwebs brushed across my face. Sheila was bringing someone near and I knew immediately who it was. I felt her love warm the room and cocoon around us. Teddy lifted his head and focused his eyes over Rid’s left shoulder.

  “He does that sometimes. Acts like he sees something. I often think he can feel her too.” Rid’s voice was quiet and reverent of the moment. He knew as I did that she was here.

  “She’s waiting for you, Rid, but she isn’t in a hurry for you to join her. She worries about your son. He works too much.”

  Rid glanced at me, his hazel eyes faded but sharp in their focus, fastened on mine and stayed there. “You can feel my wife’s presence? My son thinks I’m being fanciful.” Rid gave a small grimace. “Although we didn’t raise him that way, he hasn’t much faith in God or the afterlife.”

  “Has he always felt that way?”

  Rid shook his head. “No. He attended church with us and took part in their youth ministries but this job of his…” Rid shook his head, his expression troubled. “He sees so much ugliness. It’s pushed his beliefs away. He’s a lawyer and he’s seen it all. It’s hard to hang onto the belief that there is good in the world when you are constantly dealing with the ugliness.”

  Now I understood his wife’s concern. It was practically bombarding me. “Your wife feels that you keep him from losing what little faith he has left.”

  Rid’s eyes narrowed slightly as he continued to hold my gaze. “Ted told me you speak to spirits and I figured this would come up…I pretty much steered us to it, but are you really talking to my wife?”

  “We aren’t having a discussion like you and I are, Rid, but I can feel her emotions, her concern. I can’t see her but I can feel her.” I nodded to Teddy who had once again lowered his head to Rid’s lap though his eyes remained fixed on the spot above Rid’s shoulder. “Teddy probably sees her. Dog’s eyes are different from ours. They see what we cannot. They also can hear what we cannot.”

  After a moment, accepting that I was being honest with him, Rid gave me a wide smile. “I thought I was just being an old fool thinking that. It gave me comfort to think of Brid being near me still.”

  “I think it’s wonderful that you are aware of her. It shows how open and sensitive you are and I must tell you, that in itself is a gift.”

  “I am what I am in part because of her. She was a wonderful woman. She still is.” He turned his head toward his left shoulder and closed his eyes. I knew he was talking to her and waited quietly, fascinated at how close they were. Death had not separated them. Some, like Mike, moved on in the afterlife. Where they moved on to, I couldn’t say for sure…heaven? Another life? We’d all find out someday. But some people stayed close like Brid with Rid. And as soon as that thought went through my head, I had to fight to keep from smiling. It was cute how close their names matched. I had no doubt that when his time came to join her, she’d be the one to help him cross over.

  Rid opened his eyes and looked at me curiously. “Are you a Spiritualist, Tess?”

  It was a good question. Given my spiritual beliefs and mediumship ability, you’d think that I would be involved with just such a church. What other religion would I be better suited to? “I’ve been to Spiritualist churches a time or two but I’m not a member. Why?”

  “I was just curious. You know, we used to have a pretty strong spiritualist community right here in Bucksport. There used to be a prominent Spiritualist camp located across the bridge on Verona Island. Of course, that was many years ago.”

  “When?”

  Rid waved a vague hand. “Oh about the time the spiritualist movement was sweeping across Europe I image. The late 1800s.”

  “How interesting that they were prominent in this area.” Was there something about Bucksport that drew people like me here? How many ghosts had I encountered since arriving? The place practically oozed spiritual activity everywhere I went.

  Eyes twinkling, Rid smiled, pleased with my interest. “I knew you’d find that tidbit of information interesting.” He gave a small puzzled shrug. “Not sure why they moved on. There aren’t any Spiritualist communities here anymore” We both went silent for a moment then Rid leaned forward, his eyes focused on the copper box I held on my lap. “So, is that the box you found?” He gave a nod towards it and held out a hand. “May I see it?”

  I handed him the box and watched his reaction as he lifted the lid then parted his lips to draw in a breath. “These are exquisite.” He scooped some of the beads into his deeply lined palm and examined them closely. “Such workmanship. The Indians really knew what they were doing, didn’t they?”

  I leaned forward as my enthusiasm for the pending conversation increased. “I believe they used to be strung together to make a necklace.”

  Rid let the beads fall through his fingers into the box then lifted the smooth stone. He held it between his thumb and forefinger on its rounded edges and turned it this way and that. “It’s slightly reflective isn’t it?”

  I leaned forward to see what he meant and he held it tilted toward the window and the late afternoon sun streaming through it. The light danced across the surface of the rock but did not reflect a glare as would a mirror. Something niggled at my mind. When I was researching the magical properties of hematite, one of the things I read was that it was often used for divination or fortune telling. The flattened smooth surface of the stone was held near a candle flame and the idea was to stare at the flame’s reflection, which would then reveal the future. In other words, it was used for scrying and when I said as much to Rid he asked me to explain.

  “Well, scrying is sort of what one is doing when they are looking into a crystal ball. Bodies of water are often used as well. Actually, any smooth, reflective surface is sufficient. The idea behind scrying is that when one stares at the surface long enough, eventually it will reveal things. Answers to questions, the future, a past event.” I shrugged, “It just depends on what the scryer is trying to accomplish.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes.” And then just like that, I knew it was for this purpose that the rock was used. Since only a tribe’s spiritual leader, typically known as a medicine man or woman, was the only one to perform anything like this, then it stood to reason these items must have belonged to one. Was it possible the red- faced guy at the Tenney house was a spiritual leader? The idea was an exciting one because it might explain a few things. But it also created many more questions. As Rid and I stared at the rock, admiring how it captured the light of the sun that danced across its surface, I worried that he was going to change his mind and keep it. But then he suddenly stretched his hand toward me and when I held out my palm, he dropped the stone onto it.

  “I imagine you will get a lot more use out of it than me.”

  I curled my hand around the stone an
d sat back in my chair. “Are you sure, Rid?”

  He nodded his head decisively. “Quite. Now tell me how you found them.”

  I explained to him about my vision of the bloody face and how I now wondered if maybe it wasn’t blood but red ocher, and then how I noticed that one of the hearthstones was different where he’d been standing, and so on until I ended the story where I pulled the box from its hiding place. Rid listened without comment and seemed quite fascinated with the whole tale. When I finished, he glanced down at the box he was holding in his hands as if to remind himself that the story had to be true and closed the lid. He handed the box to me then nodded towards it.

  “So you think the beads used to make up a necklace? Why?”

  Now here I wasn’t sure what to say. The truth of it was just too fantastic. Besides, I was now more inclined to believe that I had been having a vision and hadn’t really witnessed the beads move themselves into a pattern. “I had a vision.” It seemed the easiest explanation.

  “What did it look like?”

  I looked at the table that sat between our chairs. It was cluttered with notepads, books and a cup full of pens and pencils. “Maybe I should draw it for you?”

  Rid waved a hand. “By all means.”

  I took a pen and a small notepad and drew the necklace as best as I could. My talents did not run in the art department. Not at all. I closed my eyes for a moment as I tried to remember how many layers of circles I’d seen. I was pretty sure it was seven. When I finished, I handed Rid the drawing. He stared at it for a long quiet moment then he looked up at me. “Is that a Thunderbird in the center or an eagle?”

  “I have no idea. Why?”

  Rid returned the paper to me then resumed petting his dog’s head. He thought for a long moment and I knew he was thinking everything over and trying to piece it together. “Well, thunderbirds are very symbolic to the Native Americans. As is the eagle.” He went quiet again and frowned, thinking hard. “It could be those beads were hidden away because of who they belonged to. If the stone was used for…what was the word? Scrying?” When I nodded, he went on, “Then I’d be willing to bet the Indian that owned them was a spiritual leader in his or her tribe. They are typically known as either a Medicine Man or Woman though I refer to them as Shamans. Since these are Indian beads then it is pretty logical to accept that assumption.” His lined face tightened with displeasure. “The fact they ended up in our hands…well, I’d say something unsavory must have taken place. I’m quite sure spiritual articles were not given or bartered away. They were considered sacred.”

  My heart pounded with excitement that his thoughts were matching mine on this issue. The fact Rid came up with the same conclusion was surely proof I was on the right track. “I was just thinking the same thing.” And then, because I was really curious, “Do you know what the eagle or thunderbird symbolize?”

  Again Rid’s face pulled together in thought. “I believe the thunderbird was a messenger of God or the Great Spirit or whatever it is the Native Indians called him. Such birds were thought to have supernatural strength and power. Thunderstorms are connected to them obviously, which is why they are called thunderbirds. I just can’t remember much about it, I’m sorry.”

  I thought about the red-faced guy on the stairs at the Tenney house and how he made a booming noise which I likened to thunder. It wasn’t a coincidence that these beads used to make up a necklace with a thunderbird (for now I was sure that is what it was) as its centerpiece.

  Rid continued with his theory. “If those items in that box are indeed sacred, they would never have been given to anyone not of their culture. They wouldn’t even have shared them among themselves. Seeing as the box was found in the house of a colonist and was obviously hidden away, I’d venture a pretty strong guess that whoever hid it came by the contents in a way that required discretion. How they ended up staying there for so long, I can’t say. Perhaps the person who hid them died before he could tell anyone about them. It certainly makes you think.” His eyes regarded me curiously. “You haven’t been able to pick anything up on that?”

  “No. But I’m not a sensitive in that area. At least, not a very good one.”

  “A sensitive?”

  “Some people are sensitive to energies left in items. Picking up past energies by someone sensitive to that is called Psychometry. Sometimes I can pick up impressions but I’m not really good at it. I think my own thought processes get in the way.”

  “I see. So you haven’t a clue concerning them?”

  “Well, I had a vision while holding the stone that I was standing in the trees looking out at a rocky shoreline dotted with boats and lots of men walking around dressed as Colonials. At least that’s who I think they were. I’m not totally sure how they dressed back then but from pictures I remember seeing in high school history books, I’d say that is who they were. Although my vision showed a girl holding the stone, it was a man who inadvertently led me to where the box was located. So, I’m not sure what to make of that. As for the girl, I’m pretty sure she was an Indian. I know she did not like seeing those men and was afraid of them.” I decided not to tell him about the second vision I’d had in which I became a tree. It didn’t seem to have any relevance to our current discussion.

  “How interesting. You are quite a fascinating young lady, aren’t you?”

  I laughed at the remark, finding it most amusing to be called fascinating. I’d been called many things over the years, and that wasn’t one of them. After a moment Rid laughed along with me. Even Teddy lifted his head and wagged his tail as if he too found our discussion amusing. “I’m different, that’s for sure.”

  Getting all serious again, Rid frowned as he puzzled over our discussion. “Do you think there is any relation between the girl in your vision and the man you encountered at the Tenney house?”

  “I’m not sure. I do think the man I encountered at the Tenney house might be a Red Paint Indian. I'm sure you’ve heard of them?”

  “Certainly and I seriously doubt he was a member of that particular tribe. They died out a long time ago. Precious little is known about them but they were pretty exclusive to Maine. Matter of fact, a Red Paint Indian burial site was found right here in Bucksport.”

  “Yes I know. In the area where the paper mill now stands.”

  “You’ve been doing your research,” Rid nodded with approval, his eyes meeting mine and twinkling with mutual enthusiasm for the topic at hand.

  “I have.”

  “There were no Red Paint Indians still in existence when settlers began arriving in Bucksport so I can’t imagine the Indian you saw at the Tenney house was one of them.” Cocking his head to the side, Rid regarded me for a long quiet moment. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. “Why would you think the spirit you encountered at the Tenney house was a Red Paint Indian?”

  “Because he was covered in red. When I first saw him, I thought it was blood. Soon as I got back to the B&B, I looked some stuff up on the computer. As you say, there isn’t much written about them but when I read that they were buried in red ocher and were thought to be connected to the Beothuk who liked to cover themselves in the stuff, I just figured that was who he was.”

  “As far as them being connected to the Beothuk, that is quite disputed. But in any case, if he was a Red Paint Indian, I find it curious that you would encounter him at the Tenney house. How odd.” Rid lapsed into thoughtful silence. After a moment he heaved a sigh. “The Indians didn’t fare well as our numbers increased. We started taking more and more land and they eventually had no recourse but to start fighting back. You know, there was a period of time in our history when it was ordered that all Indians be shot on sight.” He shook his head sadly, “It was quite a sorry mess. Very tragic.”

  I agreed with him whole-heartedly but didn’t want our discussion to fall into a quagmire of gloom about the tragic circumstances of times past. “Do you know anything more about the Red Paint Indians?”

  Rid shoo
k his head regretfully. “Not much, I’m afraid. As I said and you know from your research, the only reason we know about them at all is because of the gravesites we found. You know, there were three other burial sites for them found in Orland, the next town over.”

  I nodded that I did know that though I didn’t find it particularly important. “So obviously they were prominent in the area at one time. I just can’t help but wonder why the spirit I saw at the Tenney house had a red face if he wasn’t a Red Paint Indian?” It was a rhetorical question and Rid understood that, making no attempt to answer. Instead, we both lapsed into thoughtful silence.

  The moments ticked quietly by. I stared out the window, my gaze inward, as I once again allowed the images of the red face to fill my mind. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that it wasn’t blood I saw on his face. But then again, I was being swayed by the whole Red Paint Indian idea. After a moment I shook my head, giving it up for now. “I’ll just have to wait and see what else I uncover.”

  “Ted tells me that you are looking into the mystery of Jonathan’s Buck’s cursed monument.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  Wow. That was a good question. “I heard about it and it caught my attention and so I thought I’d come check it out. When I was standing outside the graveyard yesterday looking at that monument, just before you arrived actually, I detected the spirit of a girl. I was thinking she might be the same girl I had the vision of holding the rock and staring at those men scouring the shoreline but now I am not so sure.”

  “If it was an Indian girl you connected with at his gravesite, I can't think why. It could be that Buck might have killed some Indians but I highly doubt it. He had a pretty decent reputation with them. Most of the town settlers traded with them and there was really quite a bit of tolerance. At least until we started taking more and more of their land. But why they would curse him and none of the others makes no sense.”

  “Unless he was the most prominent figure involved with her death and she was a medicine woman! I could see people back in the day calling her a witch if that was the case.” The very idea filled me with excitement because it felt like I was on the right track. Rid nodded that he thought it a sound theory though a doubtful one. We both lapsed into thought again. After a quiet, reflective moment, I looked at Rid curiously. “Do you believe in the curse?”