by Brian Mercer
Chapter Forty-Eight
Cali
Lord Humphreys' Residence
1:30 a.m.
I moved down the darkened basement steps, lit now by the directionless white moonlight beaming from my own ghostly being and reflecting from everything around me. There was a kind of hazy but noticeable liquid resistance preventing me from reaching the bottom of the basement steps. I had to push through it the way someone might push their way through neck-deep water. Something about it made me feel less ghostly, more real.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw a figure standing with his back to me, gazing into the ruin of fallen boxes and smashed debris in the unfinished part of the basement. He was relatively short — my height — and had long, wiry white hair growing out from under his black-capped head. He was dressed completely in black and, though solid-looking, was absolutely colorless, bled of pigment by the darkness and the translucent astral light.
"Gotfrid!" I knew his name, though it had never been consciously spoken to me.
The old man didn't turn so much as rematerialize facing me. He still had long, bared teeth; stubbly white whiskers covering pale, sagging flesh; and wide eyes, crazy eyes. But, as substantial as he was, he was only a man now, no longer a ghostly being to frighten with shock and surprise.
"Anderlyn!" the old man called out to me. "So you've come to me. But for help or hindrance?"
I looked behind me, thinking maybe he was talking to someone standing there. When I turned around, I caught a glimpse of my own astral form: the black robe that reached down to my knees, the black hose and pointy, black shoes, the white hair that framed my field of vision. There was only an instant of bewilderment, a passing thought that somehow I'd taken on the old man's appearance, mirroring his form. But then I knew. Then I remembered.
"You think you can just join these witches with impunity?" Gotfrid barked. "You think you can just dance into their midst and they'll accept you as one of them? You were just as complicit in their retribution as I. It was cosmic justice and now you are as cursed as they!"
Tyson and Nicole emerged from a seam in the boxes, having felt their way out through a narrow side channel. Like Gotfrid, they lacked definition or color. Ty looked moonlit and handsome, but Nicole... Nicole was radiant! She possessed beauty far outshining even the sculpted features she possessed in life.
But Nicole was not the girl I'd met in Sacramento. Though I could not see color, I could perceive it still, the wavy blond hair, blue eyes, creamy complexion flushed with health. How I — Anderlyn? — loved her! Not as Cali but as...
"You didn't remember, did you?" Gotfrid observed. His smile showed missing teeth. "The betrayal of your wife for the whore?" He motioned in Nicole's direction and suddenly I understood everything. My uncanny attraction to Nicole from the beginning, the out-of-body projection where I saw myself as a black-clad man making love to the young girl, loving her completely.
The past life. I was the priest's brother! I was the magistrate who sacrificed the girls to save my own skin. And lost the only love I'd ever had!
"It's too late for them, Anderlyn," Gotfrid went on, "but not for you."
Chapter Forty-Nine
Becky
Lord Humphreys' Residence
1:32 a.m.
The attacks on Sara, Emily, and I grew more intense. So much fear in here, I thought. They're drawing power from it. From us.
Emily was whimpering, trembling. I could feel the fear like something oily leaking from her. There was actually a sound to it, like random tones washed in ugly dissonance; a symphonic orchestra scratching out notes at random, discordant counter-melodies and overlapping tempos.
Curiously calm and steady, I reached my head down to Emily's ear. "It's okay, sweetheart. They're just boys making noise. Don't be afraid. That's how boys get girls' attention sometimes when they're really desperate. They make noise."
Something slapped the back of my neck. Something else pinched my butt. I heard catcalls and bellows. I ignored them.
"Love is the answer," I thought. "People forget that love needn't be an abstract concept. It is an energy. It is a frequency. We can hone in and tune to it like a radio receiving broadcasts." I smiled.
"Just think of how scared they are, how truly frightened they are, all on their own with no one to take care of them, no one to love them, no one to show them the way home. Remember their stories? Feel sorry for them, sweetheart, like you did before. Send them love. Send them light. Send them home."
Chapter Fifty
Tyson
Lord Humphreys' Residence
1:33 a.m.
I squinted into the perfect darkness, caught a glimpse of smoky movement, motion like white shadows. I recognized Cali first. Her face was the brightest: black hair, creamy skin, deep brown eyes that shone in the peculiar starlight like diamonds. I perceived her old-man-Anderlyn traits, too; they was a wispy phosphorescence enveloping her like a wavering mist. The old man was a shadow of Cali, but he was not really her.
"We have to go," Nicole said beside me.
I ignored her. "Are you seein' this?"
"Seein' what?"
I glimpsed Gotfrid next. He appeared suddenly, as if he'd slipped through a gash in the gloom. I could feel his hate, hear it like birds screeching in a storm. The fear in the old man was an acid texture that I could have reached out and touched.
"What is it?" Nicole hollered. "What do you see?"
The glowing form of Cali turned to me. My eyes met hers, and the words she spoke in my mind could have been put there one by one.
"Get her away," Cali said. "Get her out. Save her."
Chapter Fifty-One
Cali
Lord Humphreys' Residence
1:34 a.m.
I watched Tyson claw his way to the cellar's unlocked side door, push it open, and carry Nicole out into the rain. I knew without knowing how that they would reach his car, that he would find an emergency room, that Nicole would be all right. And I remembered now where I'd seen him before. The cowboy in my out-of-body experiences. Tyson! The cowboy!
I thought back to my premonition earlier, that something terrible would happen to Nicole. Now I understood why. Nicole had died, along with Nicole's three girlfriends, in a lifetime in Germany still imprinted on my unconscious. Had I sensed a true danger to Nicole's life or was I still mourning the girl that, as a German magistrate, I lost when a witch hunt I never meant to start got terribly out of hand?
"You were always jealous of my love for her," I screamed at Gotfrid and now I noticed the strange masculine tenor to my own voice. "It was something you could never have, so you veiled yourself in your piety and self-righteous dogma. You could always find your fears and prejudices justified in your holy books, bending the Word to suit your own purpose.
"But not anymore. You are long dead and buried. You no longer have power in the physical world. You are a shell of what you once were and as long as you carry your hate with you, you will always be in your own private nightmare."
Gotfrid fell on me before I could catch him moving forward. Perhaps I'd spoken too soon. The cold, clammy hands that gripped my neck felt real enough. The smell of Gotfrid's breath in my face stank as if all his insides were rotten and hollowed out with decay. The loathing that hemorrhaged from his being was a putrid, greasy discharge.
I grasped the cloth near Gotfrid's chest and lifted. He had mass, bulk, but I lifted him as if he weighed a tenth of his looks. I brought him up over my head and tossed him behind me, discarding him into the shadowy recesses of the old part of the basement.
I felt him falling, receding, growing smaller. As he slipped away, the cellar's heavy energy, the resistance I'd pressed against while moving down the basement steps, scattered like a rapidly fading fog. And as the last bit of the dark entity passed into shadow, the basement lights blinked twice and turned back on.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Becky
Sir Alexander Bray's London Residence
/> May 9
I sat in the wine-colored leather wingback chair of Sir Alex's Persian-rug-and-bookcase-lined study. The warmth from the nearby fireplace touched my legs as outside the rain continued, occasionally splattering the wood-gridded window panes.
I took a deep breath, very conscious of the shallowness of my breathing and the perspiration coating my palms. I had been meditating for a half-hour, but it didn't do much to take away the flutters in my stomach. A faint scent of cedar tinged the air.
"Jenny, are you there?"
"I'm here."
I opened my eyes, half-expecting to see her standing there. Her voice was always so clear, I think I was waiting for the day when she would walk out from behind a chair and reveal herself at last.
"Why did you pick me? Out of everyone, why me?"
The silence lasted so long I didn't expect she was going to answer me. Then she said, "I think that's how it works, isn't it? I'm supposed to help you and you're supposed to help me. You wouldn't have found these people without me, would you?"
"I guess not."
There was a triple knock at the door. Sir Alex's uniformed manservant opened it and stepped inside. "They've arrived, Miss. May I show them in?"
"Sure. Thanks."
A stocky couple in their mid-thirties walked in looking lost and bewildered. I stood as they crossed the room. I had to restrain myself from hugging them both. "Mrs. Clarke. Mr. Clarke. I'm Becky." We shook hands. "Thanks for meeting with me."
The couple nodded, mumbled greetings, gazed about the well-appointed parlor.
"Okay, maybe we should start." I waved them toward the sofa across from my chair. "Please have a seat." I sat and closed my eyes, trying to pretend I wasn't as self-conscious as I felt. There were so many things I wanted to say, I didn't know where to start. I had to remind myself that my connecting with these people wasn't the point of the meeting.
"Jenny wants you to know how sorry she is for all the pain she's caused you. She wants you to know that it was an accident, that she didn't mean to hurt herself."
My eyes were closed. I didn't see Mrs. Clarke choke up, Mr. Clarke squeeze her hand, but I felt it easily enough. "Jenny's showing me a shelf with, like, shoes on it. Something from a closet, maybe. She's saying that it broke when she was standing on it and that she couldn't get back up. She couldn't free herself."
I felt Mrs. Clarke's face flush. I peeked enough to see her fumble a handkerchief to her nose and lay her head against Mr. Clarke's shoulder.
"She's showing me a jump rope with pink handles and little silver sparkles," I went on.
"That was—" Mrs. Clarke began. Her words cut off in a little sob.
"That was the cord that was found around Jenny's neck," Mr. Clarke explained. "That wasn't printed in the press. How did you know about it?"
"Jenny's saying that it's important for you to believe that it's really her. This is her way of showing you that it's her."
In my mind's eye, I saw a black cloth with diamonds scattered over it. The diamonds quickly disappeared but the black cloth remained.
"Diamonds?" I whispered to myself. "Black cloth? Black velvet? Velvet?" Then louder, to the Clarkes. "Velvet. Does that have any meaning for you?"
"Oh, dear," Mrs. Clarke exclaimed.
I shook my head, waiting for an explanation.
"Velvet was the name of her rabbit," Mr. Clarke said. "Velvet died just before... just before the accident and Jenny had been very sad about it. We thought that was the reason why..."
"Wait, a rabbit?" I shook my head, swallowing a humorless chuckle. "Tell me, Mr. Clarke, was this a little grey bunny?"
"Yes. How did you know? Nothing about that was printed in the press."
"I'm pretty sure," I replied, thinking of Sara's grey rabbit sightings, "that bunny is still very close to your daughter. Jenny's telling me that she was just trying to visit Velvet in heaven the day she passed. She didn't mean to be gone long. Just for the afternoon. She only wanted to say goodbye."
The reading continued with me supplying information about Jenny's brief life in Surrey, offering up information that none but Jenny could have known about. It lasted almost forty-five minutes, when I said, "Jenny wants you to know — this is very important — she wants you to know that she never meant to leave you. That was never her intention. It was an accident. You have to understand that."
The Clarkes, their eyes swollen with tears, only nodded, smiling vaguely. I could feel their relief, their comfort. It made me think of Catalina giving that reading at Mrs. Hawkley's house in Bridgeport. I remembered thinking that if I could bring comfort to people the way Catalina did, that all the suffering I'd gone through might be worth the price.
"Jenny wants you to know that she's coming back," I revealed, shaking my head in disbelief at what I'd just said. "What?" I whispered to myself. "Coming back?"
"Coming back?" the Clarkes echoed.
"What do you mean you're coming back?" I asked the unseen Jenny. "Mrs. Clarke, I don't mean to ask personal questions that aren't any of my business, but are you... are you pregnant?"
"Oh dear," Mrs. Clarke blanched. "How can you know? How can you know that?" She hiked her thumb at her husband. "He doesn't even know that. Nobody knows."
"It's Jenny," I whispered to myself, tears falling down my face. "It's Jenny. She's coming back. Jenny's coming back."
****
When the reading finished, the Clarkes were on their way out of the room when I stopped them. "Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, before you go, I want you to have this." I passed them an envelope. "It was a sketch I made, before I knew... before I understood what was happening to me."
Mr. Clarke opened it. It was a colorful pastel drawing of Jenny sitting near a bright, sunlit window, which I realized now wasn't so much a window but a doorway. A doorway of light.
"I thought that was going to be hard," I told Sir Alex a few minutes later, once the Clarkes had left and I’d had a chance to collect myself, "but it was a lot harder than I thought."
"You were feeling their emotions," Sir Alex explained, "experiencing their grief." He sat behind an opulent mahogany desk with inlaid cherry and chestnut, as behind him the spring rain continued to fall past the window.
"I was using all the protection and separation techniques I learned at Waltham," I said, "but I still felt their pain. Jenny's coming back, but it'll never be the same. I'm going to miss her."
"This sort of thing takes practice. The more readings you do, the easier it will become. But it may never be easy."
"It was Mr. and Mrs. Clarke you were meeting on Saturday night, the night we were at Lord Humphreys' house, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Very good. I'd been trying to arrange a meeting with them for months, but they wouldn't return my calls. When I got word that the Clarkes were in London visiting Mrs. Clarke's sister, I made a few phone calls and the rest just sort of fell into place. I expect it happened at the right time. If the meeting had taken place any sooner, I suspect the Clarkes wouldn't have heard the messages they needed to hear."
"I also think you knew about our past lives," I accused him, narrowing my eyes suspiciously, "and about Gotfrid and Cali and the witch trial and all of that."
"I knew and so did you. And Cali. And Nicole and Sara. All of us keep that information in a higher aspect of our consciousness. We're given access to that information, but it's only downloaded into our conscious mind — to use today's parlance — when we're ready to hear and accept it. I suspect, like Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, had you girls been given access to that information sooner, you would not have taken it in as you should."
I wrinkled my forehead. That was as good an excuse as any why Sir Alex had kept everything to himself. But that only begged another question, If he knew about all that, what else isn't he telling us?
"And how is Emily?" I asked. "Will she be all right?"
"Emily is going to be fine. As soon as you told her the background behind the boys who were haunting her, when she understood that they were
once human, too, with all the human frailties that we ourselves possess, you sent her down the road of love and compassion instead of fear and resentment. It's that love and compassion that will keep the house's negative energy at bay. Either those spirit boys will find a new host or, perhaps, with a little guidance, they'll find their way home."
"And what about Gotfrid? Is he truly gone?"
"Gone?" Sir Alex puckered his lips contemplatively. "Gone? I don't know what you mean by that. Cali managed to banish him from the Humphreys' house. I'm most certain of that. But he has no corporal shell from which he might be permanently parted. He is still energy and while energy has the ability to transform, it most certainly exists in one form or other. No, Father Gotfrid is still very much out there. With any luck, he's learned his lesson and moved on, but at this juncture I very much doubt it."
Sir Alex's manservant knocked three times and opened the door. "Sir, your guest has arrived."
"Thank you. Please offer the usual reception."
"Guest?" I asked. "Not another reading?"
"No, not today," he replied, standing and guiding me to the double doors leading to a sitting room. "This is something different. We have a new student at Waltham, a student that should have started with your class in February but, for reasons I won't name at the moment, was unable to attend."
Sir Alex opened the double doors to reveal a small parlor with a bay window, a sofa, and more bookcases. Nicole, Sara, and Cali sat on the sofa drinking coffee and tea and eating little cookies. The scratch near Sara's eye was healing nicely. And Nicole's seven stitches, running along her eyebrow near her temple — exactly, I realized now, where my sister in the past life had been struck by a stone — were hardly noticeable.
