Aftersight

by Brian Mercer

  "Looks can be deceiving," Sir Alex replied. "What do you feel? All of you, quickly. The first thing that comes to you. Write it down. What did you get?"

  "I saw trees, streams, mud, and soldiers," Nicole said. "Muddy, dirty soldiers."

  "I saw horses," Sara added. "It was like some of them were dead or dying."

  "I saw like a tree on fire," I said.

  "Mmm, very interesting," Sir Alex remarked. "Symbolic imagery, do you think, or literal?"

  I shrugged.

  "All right. Cali, what did you get?"

  "I didn't pick up anything."

  "That's all right, that's all right. Don't force it. Let it come."

  Sir Alex punched a number into his mobile phone. "We're arriving now."

  Our van turned onto Oakleigh Park and quickly into the gravel drive of Lord Humphreys' house. Men on either side of the gate moved in to close it as soon as we were inside. The van pulled around to the back of the house and came to a stop on a small strip near the lush back garden. A second van was parked here, a black one, windowless, its back doors open to expose computers, video cameras, and what looked like miles of extension cords.

  The driver helped Sir Alex out while the girls and I wandered around the leafy garden. In the distance we could hear the trickle of a little creek that passed behind the house.

  The back door opened and a tall, slender man wearing a blue sweater and khaki pants emerged. He shook Sir Alex's hand. "Headmaster, good morning. These are the students you told me about?"

  "Thomas Banks, this is Nicole, Cali, Becky, and my grandniece, Sara."

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance. I don't mean to rush you, but if I could get you to come inside, Lord Humphreys is rather obsessed about the comings and goings to and from his residence remaining as discreet as possible. Please, follow me."

  "Lord Humphreys is at home this morning?" Sir Alex asked.

  "No. He's at the office, as it were. And Emily and her mum are out as well. It's just us until late this afternoon. I'd like you to meet some of the other members of my team. This is Brooks. Archie. There are others faffing about, setting up equipment. Sir Alex explained this morning's exercise? I apologize for keeping you in the dark like this. I'm afraid my American counterpart is suspicious of information obtained in this way and was resistant to having you come at all, but I'm afraid we're rather desperate at the moment, so he's relented. Where is Tyson?" This last was to Archie, who'd been walking by with a tripod and bundles of electrical cords. Archie shook his head and shrugged.

  "All right, you'll meet him soon enough."

  I examined the kitchen décor, a strange mixture of modern and rustic. It was difficult to guess the age of the house after what appeared to be several remodels, but it felt a hundred, maybe two hundred years old.

  "I should give you a tour of the house," Thomas said.

  "Perhaps," Sir Alex interjected, "let's let them explore on their own, gather their own first impressions."

  "Right. Of course. I wouldn't want to contaminate anyone's radar with what I'm thinking or feeling."

  "Nicole and Becky, why don't you start with the cellar. Cali and Sara, please follow me. I'll show you up to the attic. Spend about ten to fifteen minutes on each floor and write down your impressions." Sir Alex glanced at his watch. "Why don't we meet down here in forty-five minutes to an hour to compare notes."

  Cali looked longingly at Nicole before following Sir Alex and Sara out of the room. Thomas directed Nicole and me toward the stairs leading to the basement and the two of us descended the steep, narrow steps on our own.

  The basement extended the full length of the house. The side nearest the stairs looked newly finished with grey-painted concrete floors, fluorescent lights, a washer, dryer, and closet of cleaning supplies. The north end of the basement was paved with weathered brick and filled with junk piled high, loose, and in boxes. There were no lights on that side. The basement just receded into shadow, giving the impression that it continued perpetually into the dark.

  I ambled around the electrical box, feeling elusively unpleasant, before gradually moving toward the dark side of the basement. Nicole stood at the edge of the shadows, peering into the gloom.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "Do you feel it?"

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I sensed something moving in the dark. It felt heavy... familiar.

  "This is where it manifests," Nicole explained. "This is where it comes in."

  "Where what comes in?"

  Nicole shook her head. We each wrote our impressions in our notepads.

  "You want to go back there?" asked Nicole, motioning toward the shadows.

  "I will if you will."

  We clutched hands and advanced down a part in the clutter, what looked to be the main aisle. The junk stored here was a mishmash of items from several previous owners. I found myself reading the energy projecting from the artifacts, reliving old family memories from as far back as when men's fashions included straw hats, handlebar mustaches, and loud plaid suits. I was trying to make sense and sort out each image when a deep sadness reached into my chest. A rank odor, like burning compost, accompanied it.

  "Let's go back now," Nicole said, her face masked in shadow. On the light side of the basement, we individually took more notes and then climbed the stairs to the main floor.

  On the ground level we wandered up and down the hall, from kitchen to dining room, study to lounge, occasionally passing one of Thomas's crew taping cords to the floor or setting up cameras and sensors. We didn't speak to each other or even stay together, but we both seemed to be individually drawn back again and again to the lounge.

  I sat meditatively on the rocking chair, my eyes directed toward the music box on top of the piano, when Nicole walked up to it and played the first three chords of "Clair de Lune," the phantom song she and Cali had heard in our next-door parlor at Waltham. Nicole had barely finished the last notes when she jerked back, as if bitten. She looked at me, shook her head, opened her notepad and started writing.

  Cali and Sara thumped down the stairs from the second floor. Cali looked pale and disconcerted. Nicole and I took that as our cue to make our way up to the next level.

  There were more cameras, tripods, and electrical cords already set up here. Nicole wandered down the hall toward the master bedroom, while I moved in the opposite direction. When I walked into what I assumed was Emily's room, I heard two people whispering.

  "Look, look. There's another one."

  "I see. 'ow many are there?"

  Thinking I might be overhearing members of Thomas's team, I called out, "Hello? Who's there?"

  There was a pause. Then one of the voices said, "Ohhh. She can 'ear us."

  "Hello?" Realizing there was nobody there, I took a half-dozen steps back out of the room and into the hall where Nicole was standing.

  "Did you say something?"

  I shook my head, tapping my index finger to my lips in a motion of silence. I pointed into Emily's room. "I don't think we're alone."

  Nicole peered inside. The room was cluttered but nothing looked out of the ordinary. She tentatively stepped inside and I followed her.

  There definitely was something in there with us. I could feel them, even smell them. An aroma hung in the air like old grass clippings, a scent from my babysitting days that I associated with sweaty boys. I'd overheard two of them, but it felt like there might be more. I sensed the presence of three or four but there could have been as many as six. I wrote this down.

  We spent another few minutes wandering up and down the hall before climbing the stairs to the attic. Here the house's oppressive atmosphere altered drastically. Like the basement, the room ran the length of the house and, also like the basement, there were boxes stored here. That's where the similarities ended.

  This space was bright and airy. The three dormer windows on either side of the slanted rooflines were open, letting in a gentle morning breeze. Unlike the dead, trapped air in
the cellar, the energy here was alive and full of motion. The room was bursting with reflected light.

  While there were items stored here, they all seemed to be possessions of the Humphreys that they had yet to find places for downstairs. Furniture and boxes were piled here and there; nothing like the overwhelming mass of old junk in the basement.

  I wandered down to the far end of the attic and crouched over a plastic dog with a rope leash.

  "I like it up here," Nicole called out from the other side of the room. "It's so fresh and bright. If I was fixin' to sleep anywhere, it would be up here."

  I opened my mouth to answer her when a male voice said, "Hey there, Scarlett. Where abouts you from?"

  "Macon, Georgia. Originally."

  "Me, I hail from Shreveport, Louisiana. Shreveport and points beyond."

  "Ah. You must be Tyson."

  "And you must be one of them gypsy gals that Tommy sent for."

  I made my way back toward the attic stairs and peered out from around a pile of boxes. As soon as I saw the guy standing next to Nicole, my stomach and heart seemed to grasp each other and plunge together, falling, spinning, down into my shoes.

  HBR!

  In high school, my friends and I had developed an elaborate rating system to grade boys — C-, B+, A, F, etc. — based on a complex algorithm of Looks, Hair, Clothes, Car, and Wealth. The rating system did not include an A+, however. To achieve the coveted top spot on what became known in our circle of friends as the Becky-Ashley Scale, a boy had to meet one specific criterion: upon first glimpsing the boy, your first reaction had to be Hot Beyond Recognition! It was known as the HBR test and it had to be your first reaction. "If you have to think about it," Ashley used to say, "HBR? Not HBR? Then your answer has to be no."

  HBR!

  I stepped out from behind the boxes. Tyson glanced over at me, looked back at Nicole, then back at me. His eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and he took a step back.

  "Hey there, Jailbait. Who might you be?"

  I felt my forehead crinkle. "Uh, I'm Becky, and I'm eighteen years old."

  "Sure you are, darlin'. Whatever you say." To Nicole, "I couldn't help but overhear your talk about the attic feeling safe. My thoughts exactly. In fact, I'm tryin' to convince Tommy to set up our command post here. I was wonderin' if you'd mind givin' me your thoughts on this area back over this way." He gently took hold of Nicole's right hand and elbow and guided her toward the far side of the attic. "Now, I was thinkin' we'd set up a table back here with the computers, maybe put a cot over there, in case someone needs to rest a spell, get their second wind..."

  I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. Are you kidding me? Who does that guy think he is?

  Disgusted, I took a few steps toward the stairs leading out of the attic when I remembered Jenny's singsong voice. He's co-o-o-o-oming.

  Who's coming?

  I came to an ambling stop at the top of the stairs.

  "The one you've been waiting for."

  ****

  "So, who wants to go first?" Sir Alex asked, settling into the kitchen chair that sat along the side of the room. "Anyone? There's no need to be formal. What did you pick up?"

  Thomas, who'd been leaning against the wall near Sir Alex, reached over and activated a digital recorder lying on the tabletop.

  "Boys," I blurted from my seat at the far end of the table. "I heard and, well, smelled a bunch of boys in or around Emily's room."

  "Good, good. What else?"

  "There's a lot of fear there," I added, "and not just Emily's fear. I get a sense that down deep these boys are really pretty scared."

  "Uncle Alex, you said the family had no pets," Sara interjected, "but I believe there is a dog living upstairs."

  At this Thomas made eye contact with Tyson and began to pace restlessly in and out of the kitchen.

  "What can you tell me about the dog?" Sir Alex asked.

  Sara shook her head. "Nothing yet. Only that he's big."

  "Okay. What else?"

  "The basement," Nicole said. "Whatever is comin' into this house is comin' in through the basement. It's a very dark, heavy energy, one I've come across before, I just can't place it.

  "I was gettin' boys on the second floor, like Becky said, but there was somethin' about this dark energy in the basement that seemed different to me. It's separate but related to the boys, but it's definitely distinct. A male energy. This house is full of male energy.

  "When I was standin' in the doorway of the master bedroom, what I'm guessing is Lord Humphreys' bedroom, I got a sense that this dark energy from the basement stands there, too, and watches him. It’s just like somethin' it does."

  "Very perceptive. I was sensing the same thing," Sir Alex remarked.

  "One more thing," Nicole continued. "The piano in the family room. The dark energy that I felt in the basement. It's attracted to the piano. Does anyone in the house play?"

  "Emily does," said Thomas.

  "Okay, that's what I'm seein'. It's like it watches her play. Has the piano ever played by itself?"

  "Yes," Thomas answered.

  "Yeah, it'll do that. But I'm gettin' that it does that mostly when nobody's home. It's almost as if the act of playin' somehow helps to anchor the dark energy to the physical world."

  "What about you, Cali?" Sir Alex asked. "Anything so far?"

  Cali shook her head, blushing. "Nothing to report."

  "No worries, child. No worries. Don't go looking for it. It will find you soon enough." To Thomas and Tyson, "Gentlemen, is this enough or do you need more?"

  "Thank you, Sir Alex," Thomas said, "that's quite enough."

  Tyson bobbed his head non-committedly to the right and left.

  Thomas began briefing us on the details of the paranormal phenomena, starting with the neighborhood's history and the battle that took place in the area in the 1400s. He continued through to Emily's experiences and finally with his and Tyson's encounters with whatever black energy was residing in the house with the Humphreys. He only touched the highlights without going into much detail, as if he was still concerned about messing with our psychic antennae.

  When it was over, Sir Alex asked, "What now, Thomas? What's the next step?"

  "If you could," Thomas replied, "I'd like you and your students to come by tonight and meet Emily and sit through one of our all-night vigils. It was your conversation with Lord Humphreys that convinced him to give us permission to bring in my entire team for a full investigation. I can't thank you enough for that. But I fear Lord Humphreys' patience has its limits and I know he has an important dinner party here next week. If we're going to do this, it's got to be now."

  "It just so happens that my girls are available this evening. What time?"

  "Seven o'clock."

  "We'll see you then."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cali

  East Barnet, Northern London

  May 6, 7:30 p.m.

  I moved out of the lounge and into the formal dining room, carefully stepping around camera tripods and electrical cords in the dim light. Members of Thomas's team were hurrying around the house, troubleshooting connections and doing last-minute setup. They all wore headsets so they could talk with Thomas, who was upstairs in the attic where he'd set up the command center.

  Twilight was coming on and the house was filled with a thin, violet light. The team had been working so diligently all afternoon and evening that no one had stopped to turn on lights. I'd been told that Lord Humphreys, his wife, and daughter had come home for a pit stop before the girls and I arrived. It seems he was pretty torqued off at all the electrical gizmos Thomas's team had set up, and had left red-faced and fuming to get something to eat. He sounded like a charmer.

  The Humphreys' place had an animated energy to it that made me think of the moments before a party: house cleaned, chairs set up, cold cuts, chips and dip set out on tables, ready for guests who hadn't yet arrived. In this case our guests might never be seen, but
it felt like they were lurking nearby, unwilling yet to show themselves.

  But who wants to be the first guest at a party?

  I wandered through the kitchen and out the back door, watching Archie tinker with something in the rear of the lighted van. I sensed eyes on me and turned to see Tyson leaning near the kitchen door, one cowboy boot propped up against the wall. He put a cigarillo to his lips and the tip glowed orange.

  I called over. "What'cha got there?"

  "Tobacca. What's it look like?"

  "It looks like a girl cigar."

  "Ouch. An unprovoked attack."

  There was something familiar about Tyson, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I walked up to him and stood close. I had to crane my neck to look in his eyes. "You got another one of those things?"

  He studied me for a few seconds, skewing his jaw, before pulling off his cowboy hat and removing the pack. "You ever smoked one of these?"

  "I've smoked cigarettes."

  "This ain't like smokin' a cigarette." He handed me a narrow, brown stick. "You don't inhale cigar smoke, you just hold it in your mouth."

  I held up the cigarillo. "What's a cigar got to do with this?"

  Tyson smirked. "Nice."

  He flicked open his lighter. I was just leaning into the dancing flame when Sara called out from somewhere overhead. "Cali, we're ready. Please join us up in the attic."

  I stood back, smiled regretfully and handed Tyson his tobacco. "Maybe next time, cowboy."

  Tyson flicked a bit of ash from his own cigar and dropped the spent butt on the ground, smothering it with his boot before collecting it into his shirt pocket. Together, he, Archie, and I made the trek up to the very top floor of the house, where Thomas, Sir Alex, Sara, Nicole, and Becky had gathered at the far end of the attic. There was only one light on, a reading lamp that lit up dozens of notes and hand-drawn plans of the house. The rest of the room's light was provided by four oblong computer monitors displaying digital video and audio feeds.

  "I'm happy everyone could make it," Thomas said. "I just want to talk a little bit about how we expect tonight to unfold. Now that everything is set up, most of my team will withdraw. Archie will remain up here in the command center at all times. I'll alternate my time between here and the rest of the house. Tyson will be a floater, finding quiet spots to stand vigil and observe.