Death Lies Between Us (An Angel Falls Book 1)

by Jody A. Kessler

  I know the kind of suffering she must be feeling. I see it with every case and I know it from my own experience. What I don’t know, is the strength it takes for a mother to do what she has just done. Her eyes never waver from the water as she waits for what comes next. I tear my eyes from her to see what happens. Wisps of steam rise from the water’s surface but over the hole, a cloud of steam lifts into sight. It lingers and then transforms into the shape of a baby. It’s misty and cloud-like but distinctive in shape, a little boy. The cloud rises higher than any of the other puffs of steam and then even higher, fading into the sky until he’s gone. When I look back to the woman by the pool she is also gone.

  I hear Juliana gasp and I look over to her. She appears as shocked as I feel. She wipes away the tears sliding down her pale cheeks. Chris touches her forearm and says something too low for me to hear. He points back to the hot spring. She refocuses on the scene below. Is there more? I expect to see the woman again but it isn’t her.

  It’s a man this time. His image becomes clearer as he nears the water. He’s wired with sinewy muscle under leather clothes. The look on his face is stiff, like a mask of resolve. His face is easy read; recognizable by those who have experienced a sense of duty and mind numbing grief simultaneously. I’ve seen this face more times than I can count. Over the man’s shoulder he wears a bow and a quiver of arrows. There’s a knife strapped to his side. He moves to the water’s edge and lays a lumpy bundle on the ground. Then he stands up tall and looks around. He turns to face north and then closes his eyes. He spins a quarter of a turn and stops, pausing again. He does this two more times. I think he’s addressing the four directions of the compass.

  Next he reaches for a small pouch hanging from a thong around his neck. With pinched fingers he digs something out of the bag and then sprinkles it over the water.

  I catch Jules’ slight movement and I see her grab at something under her shirt. Then my eyes shift quickly back to the Native American man.

  He squats down and opens the bundle, pressing it flat with both hands. It seems very stiff, like the dried hide of some animal. The sides want to curl back over. He picks up each of the items inside the hide one at a time, a bone handled knife, a leather bag, and one moccasin. He holds them up to the sky and then sets them back down. He lifts the entire bundle and slides it onto the water’s surface. He pushes it forward and then takes a silent step back. He, like the woman before, begins to sing.

  I feel the loss and sadness in the unfamiliar song as if it’s my own. I brush away surfacing memories and refocus on the view below.

  After the hide falls over the edge of stone, a cloud of mist rises into the night sky. This time it appears in the image of a warrior. He soars higher and higher until there is no separation between him and the stars.

  “Whoooa,” I hear Juliana whisper. Then after a long silence she says, “I think I’ve seen enough. It’s… wow…”

  She’s overwhelmed. I can feel the heaviness of it as well, it’s intense.

  “This is a sacred place, or it used to be,” Chris says to her.

  “Those people, did everyone have to come here?”

  “No,” Chris answers as he shakes his head. “The people who needed this place, either the one who died or someone who was left behind, could not let go of their earthly life. They would come here to use the power of the water combined with the energy of our Great Mother Earth to set them free.”

  “Oh,” Juliana replies. “You said ‘used to be.’ What happens now?”

  “The souls often get stuck here. There is no one to come and help them because no one knows they need help. The distortion of the water, the cutting into the earth, and the removal of the stone, the loss of ceremony, has created a void. If you enter you may not get out.”

  “That’s terrible,” Juliana says to her shoes. “What’s happened to the earth here, to the people, all of it, is depressing.”

  “It is. The Western Spring of Souls was once a needed and sacred place. And now it is destroyed. I came to Castle Hill to see if I can help, but I am not sure if my efforts will change anything permanently. The damage has already been done. Now I can answer your other question.”

  She stops staring at her shoes and looks up at Chris. “What question?”

  “You asked why I surrounded us in the protective white light.”

  “Yes, because of the hot spring, right?”

  “There is something else here.”

  “Do I want to know?” Juliana asks, hesitantly.

  “The light is also because of the pump house.”

  “What?” she asks.

  I strain to hear what is being said so I move closer. The weird sensation of walking into a sandstorm is back. It’s milder than before but still there, as if a swarm of gnats surrounds me. I shiver as I realize it’s somehow coming from Chris.

  “Something inside that building needs my attention. Can you feel it? Do you see anything?”

  Juliana looks over first and then I peek at the small stone cottage. It is little more than a pile of old stones with a rusty metal roof and a door that is falling off, but I remember what I saw the night before with Mason. Juliana needs to get away from here.

  Her eyes are narrowed as she stares. A visible shiver passes over her before she speaks.

  “It’s,” she says and takes two steps backward increasing the distance between her and the little building, “dark in there. It feels heavy and sickening.”

  “Yes. You are very intuitive. You could excel I think in the ways of the spirit. No matter though. As I’ve said, I have been here before. It has been a long time and much has changed. I need a good look around before I can work on the problems.”

  “You can go look. I’ll wait right here,” Jules says.

  “This will not take long. Then I will know what I need when I come back.”

  “Yeah okay.” Juliana’s hand has been clutched to the front of her shirt for some time; her fingers flexing and kneading.

  Chris notices too. “Are you feeling all right, Miss Crowson?”

  “Jules, just call me Jules, and yes, I’m as well as can be expected, after everything. Why?”

  “You are wearing a hole in your shirt.” Chris nods at her hand.

  “Oh,” Jules says with a note of surprise in her voice. She lets go of the twisted fabric and pulls out a tiny bag tied around her neck. “I didn’t realize I was holding onto it.”

  She holds it up for inspection. “It’s my grandmother’s. She asked me to keep it for her. It looks the same as the one the man was wearing in the place memory.”

  “Yes, it is a similar medicine bag,” Chris agrees.

  I shift my position again for a better view of Juliana and the medicine bag in her hand. The gnats increase in number. What’s this ghost hunter capable of? The feeling isn’t unbearable, but it does make me want to stay back.

  “Similar how?” Juliana asks.

  Chris moves in closer and takes the bag in his hand. His fingers close around it for a second or two then he lets it go and steps back. “Your grandmother is a wise woman. You are fortunate to have her. The medicine bag is for your safety and protection. It will warn you of danger if you pay attention. Do not take it off, especially while you are here at Castle Hill.”

  “Whatever you say, chief,” she jokes, but the straight line of her mouth tells me she is not taking his directions lightly.

  “You said that you saw some bright lights around me, did you not?”

  “Yeah, they look like, this is going to sound stupid, but like twinkling stars.”

  “Consider them extra protection. You are safe out here if you still want to wait for me. I will…”

  Chris’s mouth hangs open in mid-sentence. Even in the dark of the night I can see some of the whites of his eyeballs as he stares straight at me.

  “What?” Jules asks as she spins around to see what has stalled Chris’s mental engine.

  “Hi,” Juliana says with more than a hint of surpr
ise.

  I look at her instead of at Chris. She gives me a half smile, shy and sweet, maybe even happy to see me.

  While my non-flesh heart pounds in my chest with the excitement of her recognition, the rest of me is stunned into incapacitating debility. Why is she seeing me? I’m not showing myself. I thought she might be able to sense me around her before, but she’s staring at me plain and clear.

  Chris moves first. He places a hand on Juliana’s arm. He whispers as if he’s in a church but with the force of cannon fire. “Jules, we are leaving right now.”

  “What? Why?”

  She shrugs out from under his grip. She looks at him, and then back to me, and then back at Chris’s face.

  He doesn’t take his hawk eyes off me for a second.

  “Um, do you know each other?” Juliana asks Chris.

  She sounds unsure and I’m feeling similar uncertainties.

  “I know about him, yes,” he answers.

  His eyes still do not waver.

  If he had hackles, they would be raised. I mean neither of them any harm. In the past, I know I’ve given off a certain unwelcome vibe to a select few sensitive people. I assumed it was a fear of death and had left the room for the sake of keeping the peace. Now, I don’t know what to think about Chris’s reaction.

  “Miss Crowson, leave now.”

  “No. I need to… don’t you have some looking around to do?” She takes a step in my direction.

  Just then, a dark shadow glides out of the night sky. It swoops down between Juliana and me in a silent arc and lands on the nearby hand rail.

  She jumps back, “Oh, good God!”

  The surprised look on her face and the speed of her movement tickles my funny bone. I cannot stop my smile at her expense, even in this tense situation.

  On the railing the shadow’s head rotates in a smooth pivot. It’s listening and watching the night. It lifts off again. With its impressive wingspan, flat face, and silent flight, I confirm what I suspected it to be, an owl. I imagine I feel a whisper of breath from its beating wings. It’s exquisite and I’m honored to be in its presence. It takes only a second before it disappears back into the night.

  If Chris is disturbed by my presence, then the appearance of the owl pushes him over the edge.

  He stumbles backward, then changing his mind he dives forward reaching for a lumpy pile on the ground. He digs inside the bag and then his hands reemerge with a stubby looking stick. It’s difficult to see exactly what he’s doing in the dim moonlight but I can hear his quick deep breaths and see his jerking tense movement. There is a small tssst sound followed instantly by a tiny blue and yellow flame. A couple of seconds later and the end of the fat stick Chris holds catches on fire, illuminating the front of his body and face in a flickering orange glow.

  The flame dies to a glowing ember and clouds of smoke drift from the torch in his hand. Chris bends down again, reaching into the bag at his feet with his free hand. Juliana and I both watch his frantic motions. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m still unnerved at being seen. I make a quick decision to put some distance between myself and the ghost hunter. It was a mistake to come so close in the first place. The eerie discomfort I get from him should have been enough for me to stay farther back, but I’d ignored it and moved in too close. The forest will conceal me and give me a minute to think. I increase the distance between us while she is distracted by Chris.

  I can still see him as he stands up holding what looks like a large feather. He starts to chant. No, not chanting. He’s praying.

  “Great Spirit protect us. I ask my ancestors and my spirit guides to surround us with a mighty shield. May the sacred smoke cleanse our air and our Great Mother shelter us from harm.”

  It goes on, and in repetition. I’m enthralled by his impromptu ceremony. The glowing end of his smoking torch throbs with amber light as he waves the feather around it, building up an impressive smoke screen. He’s quick and efficient and then he moves in on Jules, waving his arms and surrounding her in the smoke. The gnats turn into a gritty sandstorm, irritating my non-existent skin.

  “Why are you doing that?” I hear Juliana ask.

  She steps away from him with a look of uncertainty on her face.

  “I’m attempting to save you,” he growls.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She glances at me and confirms my thought. The confusion on her face is plain. I take a few hesitant steps backward into the deeper shadows of the forest.

  “Wait,” she says.

  “You call to him! Now I ask you, what are you doing?” Chris sounds outraged.

  “Just stop it!” She waves her hand at his smoke.

  “Stop trying to save your life? Did you not see that owl, you foolish girl!” The orange glow halts in midair like a giant lit cigarette.

  “Owl, so what?” she asks.

  “Owls bring death. And he is…,”

  He doesn’t finish. He stares right at me, pointing his feather like an accusing finger. It looks menacing and sharp like a long knife in the dark.

  I halt my retreat. Chris’s unpredictable behavior makes me at once on guard for Juliana. If I could punch myself in the face I’d do it now. I swore to myself I wouldn’t interfere in her life, or death, again. And now, with only the slightest bit of malevolence in the air, I instantly want to protect her.

  I turn my back in disgust, and walk away into obscurity.

  “Nathan?” Juliana calls after me. I hear her make an excuse as I retreat. “I need to speak to him.”

  She’s coming after me. I hear her hurried footsteps over the forest floor.

  Sticks and twigs snap behind me somewhere and I hear a feminine sounding grunt followed by an “oohhh!”

  She needs to slow down or she’s going to get herself killed. Ironic, if that happened, while trying to find me. And why is she seeing me? It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never had to hide from one of my clients before and it’s ridiculous that I’m doing it now. I have to stay out of her life, I have to! Not for me, I remind myself, for Juliana, to keep things from escalating. An unfamiliar pain clenches my gut at the thought.

  “Nathaniel,” she hisses into the dark.

  She’s close by but I don’t answer her. I can’t, I have to stop myself.

  My name is almost immediately followed by a loud “Oufff,” a louder crack of a branch, and then an incredibly un-ladylike description of fornication and excrement, and finally more snapping branches. She sounds like she’s in a bar brawl with a tree and the tree is winning.

  I turn around to look. It’s my job to watch her, isn’t it? A flash of white skin in a thin stream of moonlight and then two dark eyes in an oval face. I pretend not see her and step to the far side of a tree trunk. If she’s standing then she’s not mortally wounded. I’m afraid my will power is about to break and I’ll go to her like a lost puppy. I make myself keep moving.

  Why? I grasp at straws, searching my mind for an explanation for her sudden “sight.” Could it be the moonlight? Is it this place, the grounds, the ghosts, the place memories, that strange water? The even stranger ghost hunting Native, Chris? I don’t have the answer, except Juliana is like no one I’ve ever met before.

  Dull thumping of drums and low reverberations alert me to the castle’s nearness and the band playing within. If I can get her to follow me inside, will she stop trying to break her neck out here, or worse? And who knows, maybe she won’t be able to see me inside. Then again, maybe everyone will be able to see me. There’s one way to find out.

  Chapter Sixteen: The Underworld

  Juliana

  I trip over one last rock, or root, or hole. I’m not sure what that last assailant had been, but I’m now on the relatively level and oh so soft lawn of Castle Hill. I let out a deep, relieved sigh relishing the convenience of walking unencumbered. My ankle throbs and pulses to the beat of my heart and I have a two-second vision of what it’ll look like tomorrow — it’s not pretty. I tread ac
ross the lawn with the utmost care trying to avoid any unseen prairie dog holes or clumps of grass. I miss one and a bolt of pain shoots up the side of my lower leg from my sore ankle. I realize it’s the same ankle as yesterday, curse my luck. Do people have trick ankles like they do trick knees? Apparently so. Yesterday, I didn’t think it was sprained although it had been very sore from being stuck in the creek, but after Nathan had done his thing, whatever that was — magic hands — I hadn’t given it a second thought. It felt completely healed. And now, here I am confused and hobbling along in the dark. Why didn’t he wait for me and how had I lost him so quickly?

  I decide right here on the lawn that my mind is twisted and wrecked. Throw me on top of the junk pile, I’m trashed. Mason appearing with Ashley, then Chris and auras, the ghosts of the past and the present, and then Nathan standing right behind me, like an apparition. I’m scrapped, through, finished, finito. When I saw him, the jolt of excitement wiped my mind clear of everything else. I was blank except for the overwhelming urge to speak with him again. It was unnerving for someone to have an instant effect on me like that. I don’t want any more surprises tonight. I don’t just not want it, I can’t take anymore.

  Chris had felt a jolt too, but by the way he reacted, it must have been the opposite of mine. He freaked out; running his mouth about owls and death. He was so nice and then he was irate. His temper flaring up reminded me of the argument he had with Ashley. Is he always so manic? I have no way of knowing, but I’m glad I’m not riding back to town with him right now.

  In front of me the three story tall castle obstructs the view of the eastern starlight like a looming void. Curved yellow patches of light interrupt the vast expanse of black walls from a few lit windows. To my right is the trailhead, frustratingly close by, and I had not stumbled onto it while looking for Nathan. Instead I had found numerous ways of abusing and bruising myself.