by Chanel Smith
“You must understand that during the time that the battle Henry is referring to was taking place, they were being invaded by foreigners, more or less, for the first time. Knowing who was a native and who was a foreigner was extremely important. The ancients had a sense about this sort of thing and, no doubt, in spirit form, they have an even keener sense of ethnicity. Then there is the other factor…” He glanced at each one of us individually. I didn’t think that his eyes could be creepier, but they were.
“What other factor?” Ellen asked.
“If, in fact, our Celt is a Druid priest, or at least of the religious order during that time period, he was very likely an extraterrestrial being, or at least a direct descendant of one.”
There it was again. I still wasn’t buying it, even if Ewen looked like E.T.’s taller, hairier and creepier brother. “Hogwash!” I said. “All of this alien stuff is just a bunch of bunk.”
Ellen stuck out a hand and placed it on my chest as a signal to hold my tongue, as Henry and Ewen turned to look at me as if I had cursed God at the altar of the church. Ellen covered for me well.
“This is a little bit beyond what we’re used to dealing with. Paranormal is one thing, but an alien presence mixed in has me in something of a conundrum as well. I’m not sure how this is all possible. I have no control and no power when it comes to dealing with an alien being.”
I was ready to get away from creepy man and was hoping for a way out, but Ellen still had questions.
“I realize that there are some theorists who believe that Stonehenge was constructed by aliens that later became what we understand to be the Druids; at least, that is what Henry has told us, but why would they still be here and why would they, if our theory is correct, be holding back the Celts and Romans from moving on toward the light? What purpose would they serve? How is it possible that they are trapped?”
“I believe that your Celt is the only one who could truly answer that question, but if there is an alien element to it all, as Henry’s theory suggests, perhaps it is the aliens who have blocked the way to the light. Perhaps a Druid would simply not be able to overcome something that was placed there by a more powerful being.”
Ellen heard what he said and I could tell that she had started thinking about it and searching her feelings concerning what had been said. He’d gotten into her head and I wasn’t pleased about it. I was done. I wasn’t going to subject myself or anyone else to further discussion on the topic of aliens and no one was going to stand in my way this time.
“Alright, great, we have aliens blocking the portal to heaven. Do you hear yourselves? This is ridiculous. We’re leaving,” I took Ellen’s arm and started to escort her back toward where Rochester was waiting with the car. Luckily, she was in one of her deep, thinking trances, or I might have drawn back a nub.
I could hear Henry excusing us and thanking Ewen for his time and within a few moments, his quick steps caught up to me. I think that he was keenly aware of my perturbation and therefore kept his distance and his mouth shut, though I did not doubt he wanted to chastise me for being rude. In my book, the creep didn’t necessarily need my courtesy. He was a huckster and a fraud and I wanted nothing more to do with him.
We hurried into the car without a word being exchanged between us. The look on my face was enough for Rochester to start on his way back toward our hotel without first waiting for directions. It was a good enough guess anyway. Wherever we were going, would likely require the use of the Vauxhall Bridge to get there anyway.
Had we had another destination in mind, I would have had time to communicate it to Rochester. I could tell that Henry was as perturbed as I was, by the way that he continued to look at the watch and snap it shut as we traveled in silence. I had plenty of time to run back over my actions with Ewen Egham and decided that I had been a little bit too harsh. I didn’t like him, there was no denying that, but the real issue that I was having was being forced toward believing in aliens being a part of this entire mess. Regardless of that discomfort, however, Henry wasn’t to blame. I liked the guy and I didn’t like having a wall between us.
“Henry,” I said. “I must apologize. I was a little bit harsh to your friend.”
“He’s not my friend, Monty,” Henry replied. “I have worked with him on occasion in matters concerning the Druid Order, but we are not particularly chummy. But yes, you were a bit harsh.”
Ellen put her hand on my knee and when I turned to look at her, she nodded her head in agreement and smiled. I could tell that she wasn’t entirely upset with me. Henry really wasn’t either.
“Monty,” Henry said after a pause, “I’m not entirely comfortable with all of the alien talk either; however, if Ellen feels there is an alien presence involved and there are theories of aliens being a part of the building of Stonehenge and with the Druid Order before the time of Christ, don’t you think we ought to look into it? Doesn’t it warrant a proper investigation?”
He was right, of course, and I felt the sting of being rebuked, not by Henry, but by myself. I was a professional. I had always kept my mind open and remained objective about things no matter how off the wall they might be.
I was still sorting things out when we arrived at the hotel.
“Same time tomorrow then?” Henry asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “Same time tomorrow.”
As we closed the door behind us and Rochester drove Henry back to the museum, I couldn’t help but be concerned about Ellen’s silence. The smile in the car hadn’t been a ‘just wait until we get home’ smile, but more of a patient, understanding smile. However, I was still worried. It wasn’t like her to sit silently for such a long period of time while we were in the middle of an investigation. She typically directed things and remained strong.
Once inside our room, I wandered into the conversation that I knew was forthcoming.
“You’ve been awfully quiet since we left Battersea,” I started. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been silly and unprofessional the whole time we’ve been working on this case. Now, I’ve been a jerk and nearly blown our best connection for helping us solve this case.” I paced around the room as I spoke, taking note of the continuing absence of our luggage. “And we still don’t have our goddamned luggage!”
She waited patiently for a moment until I sat down on the bed and placed my face into my palms, frustrated. She moved to kneel behind me and began rubbing my shoulders. It felt good and I realized that I was actually in need of some tension release.
“I wasn’t thinking any of those things at all,” she replied. “I was thinking of how far I’ve pushed your limits. When we first started all of this, you were skeptical about ghosts, but you believed in me. You’ve accepted every challenge – kicking and screaming at times, but you’ve taken them on – while at the same time staying grounded in the real world. Your silliness and sense of humor are part of that grounding. This one has pushed us both beyond our limits of understanding and what do I see?”
“What?” I sighed, relaxing a little bit more every moment by the combination of her touch and her words.
“I see you still grounded. I see you still supporting me, believing in me and protecting me.” Her voice was changing and I knew what that change of voice meant; I was more than ready to play along.
“You see all of that?” I had to milk it for a few more seconds, at least. “It’s just hard.”
“If you mean difficult? Yes, I understand.” She moved around in front of me, pushed me back onto the bed and began fiddling with my belt and the button on my trousers. Her voice had that familiar, seductive purr in it. “I’ll show you hard… Posthaste.”
Our lovemaking was a combination of tenderness and savage passion. Both of us had needed a release of the pent-up tension. We continued to relieve it well into the night, only taking time out to order room service and a bottle of champagne to recharge our energy for more.
Chapter Ten
“Where is the other one?” Henry translated th
e Celtic spirit’s words. “I only see two, but there are three of you?”
“Yes, there are three,” Henry replied.
“The other is a priestess?” the Celt asked. “Why is she remaining invisible?”
“How do I answer him?” Henry asked.
I was there, but I felt more like a bystander, which was fine with me. I’d already had my fun on our other cases, I was perfectly willing to allow Henry to do the heavy lifting.
“Tell him that he is only able to see the two of you, because I have allowed it.”
“Going on a power trip there, Babe?” I laughed. She didn’t respond.
The Celt screamed something at me when he heard me laugh. I drew back a little and waited for Henry’s translation.
“He said, ‘Why are you laughing!’ Maybe it’s better if you don’t do that. It seems to annoy him,” Henry said.
“Sure.” I didn’t need him getting pissed off. I’d been in the company of pissed off ghosts before and I was okay with avoiding it. “Tell him that I am nervous and that I laugh when I’m nervous. And apologize for me, of course.”
As Henry translated my words for him, he seemed to become calmer. Henry continued to translate what Ellen had said.
The morning had started off nearly identical to the morning before. Arthur and Winnie brought our clothing and exchanged them for the others; something that I was growing weary of. I wanted my own stuff, our own stuff and, because I’m sort of on the geeky tech side, I was truly wishing that I had my equipment to test some of what was going on in the tunnel.
Rochester had arrived with the car and Henry sitting straight up, just as he had the day before, checking his watch as we got into the car, half-past nine rather than twenty after like it had been the day before. We’d had our plan in mind and had already begun to execute it flawlessly.
There had been no issues of finding the ghost in the fog, which I must say, as we entered, it was the spookiest “pea soup” I’d ever experienced. It would have done a Sherlock Holmes mystery proud. The eeriness of it was a little unsettling at first, but I had gotten used to it after a few moments. I just hoped that there wasn’t a ghostly legionnaire with a gladius wandering through the fog and ready to run me through with it. I didn’t know what effect it might have on me, but I wasn’t keen on finding out either.
Henry’s translation of Ellen’s reason for not being present seemed to make sense to the Celt and he settled himself on a tree stump. Though I could smell the mustiness of a marsh around me, the stump was the first physical thing that I had noticed that truly placed me in the marsh. I looked around for other signs, but the thickness of the fog didn’t bring anything else to light.
“Why are you here?” Henry translated.
“We, the priestess, would like to ask some questions?” Ellen said and Henry quickly translated.
“Tell him that we would like to help him and the others to move on toward the light.” Again, Henry carried out his task.
The Celt answered.
“Help us toward the light? Is the priestess as powerful as that? Why does she not ask me herself? If she is powerful enough to help us toward the light, then why does she not speak the language and have need of an interpreter? A very bad one; you speak funny. Maybe I am misunderstanding everything you say.”
Ellen decided to ignore his challenge to her power and press forward. “Perhaps I have been too bold in saying that I can help you toward the light. Failing that, however, I want to understand.”
Henry translated and then received a reply. “What is it that you wish to understand?”
“Does the fog keep you from seeing the light? Is that why you are still trapped here?”
Henry indicated the fog around them with a gesture of his hand as he repeated the words in the Celtic tongue.
It was the Celt’s turn to laugh. “This fog does not keep us from seeing the light. It is inconvenient, but it does not blind us like before. Before, we were in a cave and plunged in darkness. We wandered in complete darkness amongst our foes and then we found an opening and wandered up into this dim light and fog.”
That answered one of our questions. The excavation had opened up whatever cave they had been trapped in. Two thousand years of wandering in darkness went well beyond anything I could imagine. It was even a little bit more extreme than the thought of burning in hell.
“Then what binds you from going to the light?” Ellen asked.
“It is a greater force. A greater power from beyond. A power from the stars and the planets. The power that built the great sphere of our ancestors. My ancestors placed me here to stand guard over this place. It is a place that was forbidden. When the soldiers fled here, the power from above was very angry. They closed them up in the cave, and I along with them.”
“Why do they fight one another? Why not make peace and live together in harmony?”
“Because one wishes to conquer and the other will not be conquered,” Henry translated. “He seemed a bit confused by the question. They really haven’t entertained any other thought than to fight, I don’t think.”
“That’s rather odd,” Ellen said. She plunged ahead. “What is the origin of the power that blocks the light? Is there any power that will break it? Is there one powerful enough, more powerful than myself, that can help you and the others through it?”
Again Henry translated and then we listened to a very long discourse from the Celt. I saw Henry respond to him several times. They were in a private discussion in Celt. It wasn’t exactly on the up and up for Henry to take such control of the discussion, but I assumed that he was simply asking for clarification, until he nodded as though agreeing to something with the spirit and then issued the translation to us. At the time, I thought it was odd and that his translation was a little bit short for all of the discussion that took place, but I simply let it pass.
“As he said before… That which blocks them from going to the light is a supreme power from the stars and planets. It has existed long before our world existed and they are highly advanced in their knowledge. Those which were placed here by them mated with humans and produced our race, the race of the Druid priests, to which I belong and to which you, Ellen, also can trace your roots.”
“What?” I interrupted. “Ellen is from an alien race? I read the Mars and Venus book and I know she’s a little different; but seriously, an alien race?”
“Monty. Let him finish.”
“In short, the force is too powerful and cannot be defeated.” Henry paused a few moments, thinking through what he had said before I interrupted him. “Oh, and he said that because of Ellen’s ancestry, she had been able to penetrate through the fog and make contact with him. That was the only explanation for it.”
What he said seemed way too short for me to trust it, but I assumed that he was simply paraphrasing. The discussion that he had with the Celt had to have been clarification, so it was very likely that he had simply translated the basis of what was said rather than the literal translation. It wasn’t exactly what we had agreed upon, but I was ready to get back to the real world and not press things further. I could feel Ellen weakening as well. Channeling two of us, even without the chaos that we had been in before, had to be extremely taxing.
“Are you okay, Babe?” I asked.
I heard the Celt begin speaking again and then Henry translated.
“He wants to know your purpose, Monty.”
“Tell him that I am husband and protector of the priestess.”
Henry translated and then gave the reply. He looked at me as he spoke to Henry. There was a firm challenge in it, like he was calling me out.
“He is perplexed that the priestess has need of either a husband or a protector. Maybe things have changed. Our clothing is certainly very different. He says that he can sense a strength in you, but that it is a strength very different from that of the priestess. He wonders if you would be up to the challenge of freeing them?”
“I thought he said it was impossible
?” I looked at Henry.
Henry backtracked a little bit. I saw something suspicious in his eyes as he did so. I intended to get to the bottom of things, but didn’t feel like we were in a place to do so while having a discussion with a 2,000-year-old Druid ghost.
“He did. What he likely means is that since your power is from elsewhere, perhaps you have another way, roughly speaking, of course.”
Something rose up inside of me. I didn’t like being called out, especially where my ability to protect my wife was concerned. I didn’t like the challenging look in his eyes and upon his face and I was ready to step up. “I’ll accept your challenge,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Easy now, Monty,” Ellen said. “Don’t get in over your head.”
“She’s quite right, Monty. You might not want to square off with him just now.”
The Celt looked at Monty and spoke with an angry voice. Monty replied briefly.
“What was that about, Henry?”
“He wanted to know what you said and I told him that you had said you can protect the priestess well enough.”
He seemed to accept the explanation and Ellen seemed to be fading, so I decided it was better not to push.
“We have to go,” Ellen said. “Let him know that we will return.”
Henry translated and then continued another short discourse with him. At the time, I was too caught up in my own thoughts of being challenged to think much of it. They had a common tongue to converse in, for all I knew they were chatting about the weather or the latest soccer scores.
When Ellen pulled us out, I was still fuming. The walk back down the tunnel was a quiet one. Each of us were lost in our own thoughts and experiences. I for one, was not ready to talk about things just yet.
The silence continued as we took our seats in the back of the Rolls.
“Cavendish?” Henry asked.
Ellen and I both nodded, still focused on our own thoughts.
“The Cavendish, Rochester, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Henry said.
