The Keeper Returns (The Wallis Jones Series Book 3)

by Martha Carr

  “We are all just suckers waiting to be fleeced,” said Norman, leaning on his elbows. “Someone tells us about something we can’t be a part of it, throws in a scepter or even a talking stick, and we’ll do just about anything to join.”

  “That wasn’t enough,” said Harriet. “That would have only gotten you the Masons. They were after far more than that. They were trying to create a middle class and at the time, nothing like that really existed. Not the way they envisioned it at least. In order to make that happen, they had to be able to promise something more to anyone who joined. A decent life.”

  Father Donald knocked a large ring he was wearing against the table. Wallis couldn’t help looking over to see if there was a ding in the wood. She noticed the large gold signet ring that had two keys forming an ‘x’ in the center and wondered why she had never noticed it before now. It took up most of his knuckle.

  “It’s genius!” he said. In his excitement he didn’t seem to notice Wallis looking at him or the table.

  “Think about it. People who weren’t born into royalty or the ruling class had lives that were unpredictable and harsh with no chance of moving up into a different class. Their entire identity was set. And then along comes this secret group that says, if you can figure out a way to join us, we can help you improve your lot in life, this life.”

  “As opposed to the next life,” said Norman.

  “Good point,” said Father Donald. “In those days, a minister like myself would have been talking more about the next life than this one. Even they knew that saying God would intervene in the present was a hard sell. What a brilliant idea.”

  “But you had to be a descendant of William Reitling in order to join. That would have kept people out, defeating the bigger intention,” said Wallis.

  “You’d have thought so,” said Harriet. “But they weren’t trying to keep people out. They were really trying to set up a form of selection that would weed out the people who were only interested in being part of the society but not willing to contribute. Everyone who suited their purposes, the worker bees, those they helped to find a connection somewhere in their past to Reitling. After all, they were all from the same village and many of them were already related anyway. At the time, they weren’t as concerned with going beyond their own borders. They were trying to change just their part of the world.”

  Suddenly, Ned started to call out for Wallis from upstairs. “Mom? Mom.”

  “I’ll go,” said Norman, “you stay here.”

  “No, I’ll go but not another word about this story till I get back,” said Wallis, pointing at her mother. “Find something else to talk about till then.”

  “Have I ever told you about how the Episcopal Church started,” asked Father Donald, patting Norman on the back.

  “How is it, you can make jokes even now?” asked Norman.

  “Human beings love to take everything very seriously. But eventually, we all end up as worm food. It’s very humbling and somewhat humorous.”

  Wallis had to smile as she took the stairs two at a time. The father was right but it didn’t stop her from worrying about making it through this life.

  She found Ned standing in the doorway of her room, looking anxious.

  “What is it, Ned?” she asked, smoothing a piece of hair off of his forehead. “Why didn’t you come downstairs?”

  “I did. I heard what you guys were talking about, William Reitling. I’m just a fake,” he said, lowering his head as his voice caught. “All of those people at that meeting thought I was special. I’m not at all.”

  Wallis gripped her son’s small shoulders. “Ned, you’re special to the people who matter, for all the right reasons. You don’t need to be something wonderful to a room full of strangers.”

  Ned lifted his face, his eyes were full of tears. “I want to be. I’m special to you and Dad and Grandma but not to anyone at school. No one cares that I’m smart and I’m not good at the stuff they do care about like a sport.”

  Wallis felt like she was arguing with her son that he was worth something. Her headache was getting worse. “This stuff changes all the time. Next year it will be something else. After school, there’s an entirely new set and it will have nothing to do with sports. That’s when the balance of power usually shifts in the other direction.”

  “What if they all find out that none of it’s true?” asked Ned. He looked afraid.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter,” said Wallis, shaking her head. “None of it matters. It’s just a truth they’ve been carrying around that turns out to have a few holes in it. But your dad and I will figure this out together and we’ll make sure you’re protected. That’s what matters. Ned, I want you to get this,” said Wallis, holding his face in her hands. “Who you are has nothing at all to do with who you’re related to or what anyone else has done. That even goes for your father and myself. It’s just about you and what kind of man you become, from the inside out.”

  A loud, sharp bang pierced the air, interrupting what Wallis was saying and made her shake all over, for just a moment. It was a gunshot.

  Another bang rang out and she could hear chairs scraping the floor downstairs and the front door being flung open.

  “You stay here,” she said to Ned, emphasizing each word. “You stay in this room and get down on the floor.”

  Ned nodded and dropped to the floor, crawling into a corner of the room.

  “I will be back very soon,” said Wallis, as she shut the door to her bedroom. Not again, she thought.

  She ran down the stairs, trying not to imagine what she would find and found the dining room empty and the front door wide open.

  “Norman? Norman!” she yelled, as she ran into the front yard and tried to adjust to the darkness. There were no streetlights out in the suburbs. People liked it that way.

  She heard Norman yelling at someone toward the far end of the driveway. He sounded like he was near the backdoor and she ran around the side of the house to find Harriet holding a pistol down by her side and Norman yelling at her.

  “Where are Esther and Father Donald?” asked Wallis, looking around for anyone who might be wounded.

  “They went after the guy who was in our bushes.” Norman spat it out, angry. “Someone was listening at our window and your mother spotted him and claimed she was going outside for a little air while we waited for you.”

  Father Donald came jogging down the sloping driveway, slightly out of breath. “I eat far too much bacon to be running after anyone,” he said. “Is everyone here okay?”

  “We’re all just fine,” said Harriet. “Did you catch him?”

  “No, he had someone else waiting in the car and they sped off. It was one of those black SUV’s. They must buy those by the dozen. Not very subtle.”

  “I think that’s the point,” said Harriet. “Management is not worried about subtle. It’s low on their list.”

  “Why were you shooting, Mother? The neighbors were bound to have heard that and have called the police.”

  “Good! We have nothing to hide. I shot at a trespasser. I didn’t hit him,” said Harriet, sounding exasperated. “Clearly, I was only warning him. He can go back and tell the others. But you had better let me finish this story because if he heard anything it won’t be long before the word spreads and then you’ll know what real trouble really is.”

  “Ned,” said Wallis, as she turned and ran back into the house. Norman was right on her heels.

  Ned was still curled up and had dragged the bat Norman kept in his closet over to the corner. He was holding it in front of himself like more of a wall between himself and whatever was coming than a weapon.

  “Oh Ned,” Wallis said softly as she quickly crouched down in front of him and hugged him tightly, the bat still between them. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Is someone dead?” asked Ned, his voice shaking.

  “No, everyone is alright,” she said, her cheek resting against his hair.

  “What was that?”
His hands were still tightly gripping the bat. Wallis eased away and sat down on the floor next to him. Norman sat down in front of them and gently took the bat out of Ned’s hands.

  “Good thinking, buddy. You were scared and got something to protect yourself. That was a good job,” he said.

  “Who was shooting?” asked Ned. “Were they shooting at us?”

  Wallis and Norman looked at each other. She mouthed, I’m sorry, to Norman, wanting to apologize for Harriet even being her mother. Norman gave a small shrug.

  “No, buddy that was your grandmother shooting off her gun in the yard. Sometimes that happens when someone gets older.”

  “Was she shooting at anything?”

  “Nothing in particular,” said Norman, holding on to the bat.

  It was the first time Wallis could remember Norman so openly lying to Ned. It had to be killing him inside, she thought.

  “The police are on their way and they’ll be talking to your grandmother about shooting off a firearm in our neighborhood,” said Norman, “and hopefully disarming her. It’s all okay. Families are weird, you know that.” Wallis knew that Norman was trying to keep his voice calm and sound like he wasn’t thrown at all by his mother in law shooting off a gun in his yard. He was trying to make this all as normal as possible for Ned. Not another intruder wandering around, just the boy’s grandmother with not enough hobbies.

  “Really weird,” said Ned, as his shoulders relaxed just a little and his body gave a shudder that rippled from his head to his legs.

  “You were really scared, weren’t you?” asked Norman, ruffling Ned’s hair. “Me too. I was wondering who was taking potshots at the squirrels. Turned out to be a nut,” said Norman, smiling at Ned.

  “We need to go check on your grandmother,” said Wallis, patting Ned’s leg. “How about we put you back up on the bed.”

  Norman helped Ned to his feet, giving him his hand and pulling him up till he was steady on his feet. “You going to be okay up here by yourself for a little while?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. You come back up and hang out with me for a while?”

  “Kind of have to,” said Norman, smiling as he tucked Ned in under the covers. “You’re in my room, after all.”

  Ned giggled and grabbed the remote as Wallis grabbed Norman’s hand and gave it a squeeze. They backed their way out of the room, still watching Ned who was busy flipping through the channels.

  “Nothing we wouldn’t normally let you watch, Ned. Just because there was gunfire doesn’t mean the rules are relaxed,” said Norman. Ned giggled again and smiled at his father. Wallis felt her throat ache and squeezed Norman’s hand again.

  She stopped Norman midway down the stairs. “You have got to be one of the best fathers ever. I’m sorry about Harriet.”

  “What, because I can make jokes during a gunfight? You’re not responsible for what Harriet decides to do. And I knew who your family was before I married you. I knew more than you did, if you’ll remember. I think you and I have done enough apologizing to each other for our family histories. I know where we stand and we’re good. It’s okay. Right now, we need to get Harriet to tell us everything she knows. Information is going to be power and if your mother is right and that guy, whoever he was, heard anything, we may be in serious trouble.”

  “What do you mean? More trouble than usual?”

  “Maybe. This is going to sound kind of nuts.”

  “Not really, whatever it is. The boundary for crazy is a moving target in our family.”

  “Apparently, the war is now going on right in front of our noses. It’s here, in Richmond. Troops, officers, battle plans, the whole deal and they’re going to just fight their way across North America.”

  “That is crazy,” hissed Wallis. “Where are they fighting? I haven’t noticed any tanks rolling into town.”

  “That’s very old school. There’s more. They’ve had to move Tom to a safe location, which isn’t easy, especially if they know to look for him. And if there’s some kind of war going on, then moving Tom is like moving your commander in chief through battle lines.”

  “If something happens to him now, it’s even worse. Norman, I don’t think they know about Tom. If they did, they would have come after us.”

  “How do you know they didn’t? That little stunt with Ned tells me they’re stepping up their game. Is that because of the war or is that because they know his uncle is the real Keeper?”

  Wallis hesitated trying to think of a reasonable explanation for all of this. Norman gave her a hug, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Right or wrong, this is why I didn’t want you to ever know about any of this. It’s a maze and it only gets worse the deeper you go into it,” he said. “Nothing is actually as it seems so it’s nearly impossible to do anything about any of it.”

  Wallis let out the breath she was holding in and started down the stairs again. “We have to keep facing this, Norman. They’re not going away and like you said, knowledge is going to be power. I may not be able to solve it but I’ll be damned if I just throw in the towel. I still believe we can do something and that should count for something.”

  Norman smiled gently at his wife. “Why I love you so much,” he said, following her down the stairs. “You have some kind of faith that can also kick ass.”

  By the time they got down the stairs and outside, the police were just finishing up with Harriet. The patrolman was flipping his small notebook shut and Father Donald was shaking the other officer’s hand.

  “Thank you, officer. We’ll keep an eye out,” said the minister, waving at the officers as they retreated up the driveway.

  “They didn’t need to speak to us?” asked Norman. “How did you pull that off?”

  “We told them that we didn’t see anything and that you were upstairs calming down your son. Esther reminded them of what he had lived through a couple of years ago. The fact that Harriet didn’t hit a living thing helped quite a lot as well.”

  “Did they take your gun away?” asked Wallis.

  “No,” said Harriet, who was patting her purse, “just told me to put it away. I have a license you know. Come on, we don’t have forever,” she said, as she walked by them on her way back inside the house.

  “She gives new meaning to the phrase, pistol-packing momma,” said Father Donald, as he followed Harriet inside.

  “You are nothing like your mother,” said Norman, as he watched Harriet disappear inside of the house.

  “I’m not always so sure,” said Wallis.

  Esther finally came back down the driveway without saying a word and followed them all inside. Wallis noticed that she had been gone a little while but decided not to ask the older woman about it, just yet.

  They all gathered back around the dining room table as Wallis thought to pull the heavy curtains shut across the window. She couldn’t remember when she had ever done that since they had lived in the house.

  “We won’t be able to see who’s at the window if you do that,” said Harriet.

  “A bonus,” said Wallis, as she took her seat. “I have a question about the story you were telling us. I get the first part and it even makes sense that it got some traction. But this Management, it’s huge and from what I’ve been told, it’s been widespread for quite some time. How in an era when nothing travelled well, did that happen? Do you know?”

  “Well,” said Harriet, her purse in her lap, “success can help anything gain a bigger foothold and if it involves money or power then multiply the speed by at least ten. That’s what happened. Management was able to gain real power away from the ruling class in their area by claiming they were really of the same type of bloodlines. The upper crust didn’t want to believe them and tried to refute it, even tried to put some of them on trial but it didn’t work. The merchants were shrewd and they had already started to put their main plan into action. They were making sure that the benefits of a better life were already spreading out to those who were willing to put their backs into
it. By the time a trial got underway, no one was backing the ruling powers that be and a minor revolt was underway.”

  “If I didn’t know what came later, I’d think all of this was a good idea,” said Wallis.

  “It was a good idea,” said Harriet. “Just because there were a few bends in the road doesn’t mean it wasn’t.”

  “A few bends in the road,” hissed Esther, angrily. “That benevolent organization eventually killed millions of people, slaughtered them,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “All of that came later,” said Harriet, a whine in her voice. “That’s the mistake everyone always makes. Mixing up hundreds of years till the truth is muddled into one saying. Management has to be bad. Well, that wasn’t always true, not true at all. There was a time when they were the ones saving the world.”

  “None of this really matters,” said Norman, “because without proof we can only cause some to doubt the organization but if they believe their lives are better they won’t risk losing what they have. It’s just like when it all started.”

  “That’s right,” said Harriet, “except there is proof. Some of the founding fathers wrote letters and kept diaries that detailed what had happened. One even wrote out a directive that said exactly how to handle the tale when recruiting new members, especially after Management began to spread across the countryside.”

  “Like franchises,” said Father Donald.

  “Yes, like franchises,” said Harriet. “You understand, don’t you? Most of those documents were destroyed to cover their tracks but not all of them.”

  “I’m not following. Someone kept proof that the organization they were in, didn’t really have a basis to it,” said Norman.