by Brian Harmon
“He was the skinny fellow who returned your phone to you down in the janitor’s office.”
“Oh.”
Frank smiled again. “It was Howard who did all this. He knew how to make things unseen.”
Aiden was shocked. “Make things unseen?”
“I know. Remarkable, isn’t it?”
“So it wasn’t the school that was making the other places unseen?”
“Precisely the opposite. Making those other places unseen was what twisted this one down deeper, making it more unseen, so that even a seer couldn’t see it without help.”
“But why?” pressed Eric. “What was the point?”
Frank looked up at him as if it were obvious. “You were the point.”
This caught Eric off guard. “Me?” Surely he meant Aiden. He was the one who spent the last six years searching for this place.
“Howard lived his life much like Glen did, seeking out the unseen around the world and trying to understand them. It was he who first discovered a pattern in them, who first began to realize that there was a greater purpose. He also discovered a remarkable looking glass.”
“A looking glass?” Aiden asked.
“That’s what he called it. He never told me what it was, exactly…if it was a mirror or a telescope or magnifying glass or…whatever… All he said was that looking into it allowed him to… How did he put it? ‘To make sense of a world in chaos.’ That was what he told me.”
Make sense of a world in chaos… Eric withdrew the glass shard from his pocket and looked at it.
Frank smiled and nodded. “He never told me how it ended up broken, but I know that shard came from it.”
Pink Shirt said something similar about the shard when they were outside, that there were remarkable items out there, things with extraordinary powers. Was it really possible?
“So it was Howard who hid it on the train car?” said Eric. “Before Glen moved it.”
“He arranged all the clues, laying a path to lead you to us.”
“Me?”
“He told me that before the looking glass broke, he peered inside and saw you.”
“But why me?”
“If he ever knew, he never shared it with me.”
“Of course.”
“Wait,” said Aiden. “If he hid it there, why did Glen move it?”
“Glen was the only one to ever successfully navigate Howard’s clues and find the shard. But before he could find the school, I confronted him and gave him a choice. He could blindly follow his orders or he could be a part of a much greater secret. He chose wisely and I took him to Howard. But as was his nature, he never trusted us completely. Instead of returning the shard to the train, he hid it elsewhere and gave the means to find it to the only person he did trust.” His old eyes gleamed at Aiden.
“So how does the jinn fit into all this?” asked Eric as turned to follow another fleeting shadow across the stained ceiling.
“It doesn’t. It was nothing more than the catalyst that first made this building unseen. Howard used it to his advantage. The same with the lot on Hosler Avenue. It just happened to already be here.”
“Yeah. Speaking of Hosler…”
Frank looked embarrassed. “My pets never meant any harm. I sent them there to discourage you from poking around. I hadn’t yet realized that the shard was there, and I knew you’d be in danger. That was all. I didn’t know that spirit could take away my control. It was…horrifying. For a moment, I thought that all Howard and I had worked for was lost before it began. Fortunately, I was finally able to recall them at the last moment.”
So that was why they disappeared when he fell from the tree. And why they didn’t reappear when he went back to Hosler to retrieve the shard. Frank clearly wouldn’t have been stupid enough to send them there a second time.
Frank closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Around them, the shadows stirred. Eric saw that even Aiden was looking around, trying to get more than a passing glimpse of one. “I’m running out of time. I’m sorry, but you have to listen. Aiden…”
Aiden looked forward, forgetting the shadows. “Glen wasn’t always truthful with you, but there was one thing he was always right about. There is a profound truth waiting for you, hidden within the unseen. And you’ll find the path that will lead you there in Baton Rouge.”
Aiden stared back at him. “Baton Rouge… Okay.”
Frank turned his head and looked at Eric now. “And for you…”
Eric leaned closer. “Yes?”
“There’s already a profound truth hidden inside you somewhere. I’m not sure what it is or how it got there or even where it will take you, but I know it’s there. I’ve glimpsed it. Howard glimpsed it, too. In the looking glass.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. You’ll go places you never dreamed. You’ll do things you never thought possible.” Frank chuckled. “You have to believe it because we both know you already have.”
Eric smiled. He had indeed. “Sounds like a lot of pressure for an out-of-shape English teacher.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s only destiny. It’s not about saving the world or anything. Although, you might do that, too, along the way.”
“I doubt that.”
Frank smiled tiredly up at him. “Just trust in yourself and you’ll do fine.”
“I’ll do that.”
The shadows were all around them now, more of them than Eric had seen all day, scurrying from his line of sight everywhere he looked, like cockroaches fleeing the light.
“Oh, and while you’re at it,” added Frank, “here’s another of those little profound secrets. You know that poem I left scattered around? About the six standing guard where the water turns?”
Eric nodded.
“I stole that.”
“Yeah?”
Frank nodded. He looked very tired now. His eyelids were drooping. And there was something odd about him, something that reminded him of the black creatures. He still couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. “Six really do stand guard out there somewhere.”
Eric was confused. “Six unseen structures?”
Frank shook his head. “Six guardians… Six real guardians… Out there somewhere… Standing guard…”
“Six guardians?”
Frank’s eyes were closed now. It was hard to look at him for some reason. He seemed to be twitching around, flickering like the images in old cartoons. “While you’re out there...being…profound… Keep an eye out for them, will you?”
“Sure,” promised Eric. “I’ll do that.”
A small smile touched his withered lips. “So happy to meet you…before…”
Something caught Eric’s eye and he turned. One of the creatures was standing there, its white eyes fixed on Frank. As he watched, it shifted queerly before his eyes and then broke apart into several darting shadows.
The one that had curled up beside the bed did the same.
Suddenly, the room was flooded with these shadows. They scurried over the floor, ceiling and walls, scuttling between the stacks of books, oozing in and out of every crevice.
Then they were all just gone.
When they looked back at the bed, they found that Frank was also gone.
Taken by the shadows, wondered Eric, or merely a creature of the shadows himself?
Perhaps they’d never know.
He turned away from the bed and met Aiden’s eyes.
“Destiny, huh?” said Aiden. “And six guardians, too?”
Eric smiled a little. “Baton Rouge, huh?”
Aiden smiled back. Then he looked down at the empty bed again. “Yeah. I guess so.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Aiden found the keys to the SUV in the console, saving them the trouble of trying to find a ride (since neither of them had any intention of retrieving them from Pink Shirt’s charred remains), and drove Eric to the hospital, where the PT Cruiser was still parked. On the way, he called Karen to inform h
er that he was done and would be returning home shortly. And also that he was starving.
With the promise of dinner underway, Eric followed Aiden to the one unseen structure that he never visited during the events of the day. The abandoned ranch house sat in the middle of a quiet neighborhood, much like the Hosler lot, although it had a long way to go before it was that far gone. They stashed the SUV in the garage and left it there. With the driver permanently entombed in the unseen schoolhouse, there was no reason to burden the police with an unsolvable mystery by simply leaving it parked somewhere. Besides, unlike the cowboy’s red pickup, this vehicle had their fingerprints all over it.
The deed done, Eric drove Aiden back to the library to retrieve his bike.
Along the way, Eric pondered all that had happened. Not every question had been answered. He still didn’t know what the mysterious organization was that kept complicating his strange journeys. He also still didn’t know the meaning of the strange name the old hag uttered to him before letting him escape. Evancurt…
Frank Lezner told him that he’d have more adventures. Maybe those answers would eventually come to him. In the meantime, there was no reason to obsess over them. Just like last year, he’d walked away with more than just new scars. He’d made a new friend.
“You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner,” he asked again as they stepped out into the parking lot behind the library. “You won’t get fried chicken like Karen’s anywhere out there.”
“Tempting,” confessed Aiden. “But I’m impatient to get going.”
“Heading to Baton Rouge, then?”
“I am. Soon as I grab some stuff from the apartment.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about the Men in Pink anymore.”
Aiden laughed. “True. It’s nice to not have someone constantly watching everything I do every minute of the day. That really sucked.”
Eric’s phone chimed at him, alerting him to a new text message.
YEAH, THAT WAS JUST SO CREEPY!
Eric smiled. “Well, sometimes you just don’t mind.”
Aiden laughed. “Present company excluded!”
Eric stood there for a moment, looking at his former student. “So you’ve decided to stay missing?”
He shrugged. “It’s better this way. Don’t want to draw too much attention to myself. After all this time, no one’s really looking for me anymore.”
Eric nodded. He couldn’t really argue with that. Look how much trouble he got himself into just for coming back to Creek Bend for a few weeks. “Hey. If you ever need anything…”
Aiden smiled. “Yeah. I know. Don’t worry. The best part about all this is knowing I’m not alone out here anymore.”
“Never.”
Aiden seated himself on the bike and picked up the helmet. “Tell your brother I said goodbye.”
“Sure.”
“Oh, and that I’m sorry again. For tasing him back there.”
“He’ll get over it. Someday.”
Another text message appeared on Eric’s phone. He glanced at it and then held it out for Aiden to see.
BYE AIDEN!
Aiden laughed. “Bye, Izzy!” Then, to Eric, he said, “Dude, she’s awesome. I’ve got to get me a phone like that.”
Eric looked down at the phone, smiling. “You never know what you’ll find out there.”
“That’s true.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the glass shard. “Especially with this.”
They’d agreed that the shard belonged to Aiden. It only made sense. He was driving straight to Louisiana tonight in search of more unseen secrets. He was going to need it. Eric had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon. Although he didn’t think a black eye and some bruises were going to get him out of that baby shower…
“Good luck out there.”
“Thanks.” Aiden put on the helmet and fastened it. Then, with a final wave, the bike roared to life and Aiden Chadwick sped away, leaving again as quickly as he’d entered Eric’s life.
Eric stood and watched him go until he was out of sight, then he turned and walked back to his car.
SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW?
Eric smiled down at the phone. “Well, first I’m going home to shower and eat.” He opened the door to the PT Cruiser and paused. “After that…I think I’m going to go online and see how much it’ll cost me to buy Paul a manikin for his birthday.”
###
About the Author
Brian Harmon is an author of horror fiction, suspense and dark adventure. He grew up in rural Missouri and currently lives in Southern Wisconsin with his wife, Guinevere, and their two children.
www.HarmonUniverse.com
