“‘Yes, you did,’ he said. ‘At least six or seven months, possibly longer than that.’
“‘I wish I could remember,’ I said, trying to picture what that period of time had been like.
“‘I barely remember it,’ Jeremy added. ‘Just bits and pieces.’
“‘Bits and pieces,’ Grandpa repeated thoughtfully. ‘If only it had been just a visit. Monty and Martha probably never told either of you that y’all were taken from your grandma’s and my custody—forcibly taken, I might add. Did they?’
“‘No,’ we acknowledged quietly, surprised by this revelation.
“‘Well, you were,’ he said. ‘It happened while the investigation going on in our backyard continued. All the while, the police interrogations we endured became more and more intense. They never filed charges against us, though, since they were unable to produce any physical evidence suggesting foul play.’ He studied us both intently, perhaps noting how disturbed we were by the bitter sorrow that drove him along.
“‘Let me backtrack for a moment, because it’s important to understand what actually happened the afternoon of your folks’ disappearance before we go further,’ he said, and then leaned toward us, tightly gripping the side of the table to steady himself. ‘Elsie never told me herself, but she did tell a reporter quite a bit for some reason. Seems to me, she would’ve confided in someone she trusted and was close to, like myself. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I now realize she needed to share her terrible secret with a stranger instead, since I was too close to the situation and our mutual loss.
“‘The reporter she talked to was a young girl by the name of Gloria, though I’ve forgotten her last name. Hell, I don’t even own a copy of the magazine article anymore since it brought me too much pain, and folks around here thought her story was a bunch of bullshit anyway!’ Grandpa stood back up and resumed pacing again in front of the windows, while our eyes were glued silently to his every move.
“‘According to the published story, Elsie told this Gloria that she was in the house when she heard a loud rumbling sound coming from the backyard. Since she was unwilling to leave you, Jack, in the house unattended, she brought you with her out onto the porch. She then said she saw a brilliant light coming from just beyond the oak tree. I guess she would’ve stayed on the porch, but she claimed to hear Julie calling to her from within this mysterious light.
“‘Though Julie’s voice seemed calm, Elsie instinctively thought she and Frank were in some kind of trouble. She ran down the porch steps and over to the tree with Jack in her arms. What she saw next is the stuff I figured only people experiencing religious hallucinations or visions and the like were apt to see, until your story last night. All around the back gate, including in the air and on the ground, were angels—and not so much the girlish kind you see in paintings or on Christmas cards and such. No, Lord, these angels were at least ten feet in height, and very muscular. Much like the angel you told us about, they were the perfect mix between male and female, with long beautiful hair and handsome facial features, as well as the large wingspan you described.
“The angels prepared the ground for the sphere, which was descending to the earth through a spectacular rainbow-like spiral that was suspended in the air. That’s how the reporter claimed Elsie described it, anyway. These angels pushed and guided the sphere along until they positioned it in our yard directly in front of the back gate, calling excitedly to one another with their strange voices. Two of the angels walked up to Elsie and started talking to her. She was so terrified that she pretty much forgot everything they told her just as soon as they said it, other than the fact the sphere was placed here to cover up an ancient doorway between heaven and hell. After telling her this they turned and walked away. But one of them turned back to her one last time and told her she must ‘keep the children safe’, and especially to be sure that ‘the baby was protected’—the same stuff she told me when I found her kneeling by the sphere with Jack in her arms a little while later.
“‘According to this reporter, this Gloria, your dear grandma was completely overwhelmed by all of this. Yet, she managed to keep her wits long enough to inquire about Julie and Frank, since she knew something had to have gone terribly wrong for them that day. The one angel lowered and shook its head, at which point Elsie became hysterical. She grabbed the arm of the angel while pleading with it to tell her this wasn’t so, that it wasn’t too late to save them. To her surprise, the angel’s arm pulsed with energy and what she soon recognized was unfathomable strength. This powerful and gentle being told her nothing could be done for either Julie or Frank, other than to pray for their souls. The angel then told her that our daughter and son-in-law would be all right if she did this, though we wouldn’t see them again for a long time.
“‘I guess this last part was what gave me the slim hope they’d find their way back here someday, that they hadn’t actually died after all, but maybe were prisoners in some unknown world or reality. I believe this was partially true after hearing your tale last night, Jack. I guess I never wanted to accept what I always knew was true in my gut as well as in my heart and in my soul...that your folks had died that awful day and were never coming back.’
“Grandpa moved over to the southernmost window and peered through the blinds and the French panes, looking out into the backyard one more time. ‘Elsie said the angels gathered around the sphere as a group and then suddenly disappeared in a bright flash of light,’ he said with his back still turned toward us. ‘The rumbling sound immediately ceased, and once her sight recovered from the light, all that remained in the backyard aside from the stuff that’d always been there, was the sphere. The storm that’d been gathering for the past half hour or so, began to unleash its fury on the entire area, sending torrents of rain upon the backyard and Elsie, who’d dropped to her knees with Jack here held tightly in her arms. That’s when I found you both.’
“He turned to face us. Tears streamed down his face despite the fact he’d kept his voice in check, keeping his pent-up grief and sorrow largely at bay while he told us his story, which I hoped for his sake was nearly done. He tried to smile, his eyes clouded with tears and his mouth quivering. Somehow he mustered enough strength to complete the chronicle he’d started more than two hours ago.
“‘When Elsie told Gloria her story, the magazine she wrote for quickly printed and released it in September. I’d say it’s no coincidence that the authorities, including a man named Stu Johnson from the FBI, soon paid us another visit. They came out to the house a week or so later and placed us under ‘house arrest’. They took you boys away from us that day and wanted to place you in a foster home. I was finally able to persuade them it’d be in your best interests to stay with a close relative.
“‘Ned Kenney was given the first opportunity, but wasn’t willing to shoulder the responsibility for you two. The thought of raising a young toddler was the thing that scared him the most. He seemed a little too unaffected by his brother’s disappearance, which really irked us. I mean it was his brother and sister-in-law for Christ’s sake! What more had to happen before he gave a damn??
“‘We finally decided Monty and Martha’s home would be the best place for you, and since they were immediately willing to help, they picked you boys up that night from the detention center. Me and Elsie were forced to share this place with a pair of U.S. Marshals, who guarded the front and back doors to the house to make sure we didn’t run off, while a third one did all of our errands and grocery shopping for us. It was horrible being stranded in our own home!
“‘Elsie was so distraught about this latest development that I knew for sure she was headed for a heart attack or nervous breakdown if things didn’t improve quickly around here. The worst part was the charges against us were tenuous at best, since there was still absolutely nothing that linked us to your folks’ disappearance. We even quietly discussed the idea of hiring a lawyer to force the state and federal government to either bring us to court and try us or let us go,
but we kept thinking they’d surely realize their mistake and release us and give you boys back.
“‘After a few months like this, we knew they weren’t going to leave us without a fight, as more and more scientists came here to study the sphere. You’d have thought the media would’ve caught wind of this—at least a tidbit or two from the Carlsdale rumor mill. But, every time you’d turn on the television or radio you wouldn’t find anything pertaining to it. Just the continued search for Julie and Frank and the police’s suspicion we were involved. The same was true for the mainstream newspapers.
“‘Finally we had enough, and contacted an attorney recommended by Carl, a Mr. Dwayne Stevenson from Demopolis. We arranged an appointment with him on the Tuesday afternoon right after Thanksgiving that year. He was a nice enough fella in his late forties and had lots of experience in criminal law; though he told us he’d never encountered a case like ours before. After meeting with him for a few hours, he left us both with a promise to get this whole thing resolved by Christmas. He said it was the gravest miscarriage of justice he’d ever seen and that he intended to contact the judge in Birmingham who’d signed the arrest warrant in the first place on the following day, since they both knew each other fairly well.
“‘We said goodbye to Mr. Stevenson and had a good feeling about things for the first time since before your folks’ disappearance. That was the last time we ever saw him. We waited and waited, thinking he’d get back to us. After we felt we’d waited long enough, we called and left several messages for him at his office number’s voice mail. Elsie set out to find his home telephone number so she could give him a piece of her mind, she was so steamed about his apparent brush-off. She managed to obtain the number, and when she called it, Mr. Stevenson’s wife answered the phone. Once Elsie told her she was looking for him, Mrs. Stevenson suddenly burst into tears.
“‘Elsie, being as tender hearted as she was, felt bad for the woman—terribly bad, actually, when she found out what was going on. But at first she had no idea what to think of Mrs. Stevenson’s behavior. Once Elsie was able to calm her down, she told Elsie that her husband had died a few weeks back. He’d been killed when his car ran off the road near a bridge on Highway Forty-three. The accident happened the morning after his visit with us, on his way up to Birmingham to visit the judge who’d signed our warrant.
“‘We felt awful for Mrs. Stevenson’s loss, and we sent her a sympathy card and floral arrangement to let her know just how saddened we were for her. Elsie was as determined as ever to get to the bottom of this, though, since we both agreed it was a horribly strange coincidence that Mr. Stevenson would suffer an accident soon after talking to us.
“‘We weren’t sure what to do next, but decided we’d be better off waiting till after the holidays before planning our next move. We decided this two days before Christmas. But the very next morning on Christmas Eve, the FBI agent named Stu Johnson came over to our house and told us we were free to go. That’s all he said. No apology, no sorry about the mistake they’d made, no ‘Merry Christmas’, no nothin’!! He just collected the three U.S. Marshals on duty and left.
“‘I had a good mind to say something to him about the whole goddamned affair, until I thought of Dwayne Stevenson and decided to keep my mouth shut. Meanwhile, Elsie ran out into the backyard. Sure enough, all the equipment, tents, and scientists had cleared out quietly the night before. But they’d left the sphere. They took our grandkids and our freedom, but they left us the rock! Grandpa paused to catch his breath and organize his thoughts again before going on.
“‘Sorry, boys,’ he told us, wiping at his eyes and nose. ‘I see you’ve both finished your drinks. Just let me get through this. Five more minutes is all I’ll need, if even that much.’
“We both nodded to him, although he really didn’t need to ask us for this. We were completely absorbed by everything he said.
“‘Well, we were finally free, Elsie and me. Despite the tremendous stress from all of this, I assumed things would work out for us. Later that morning, a representative from the federal courthouse in Birmingham came to visit us with some papers to fill out. The rep came with the social worker involved in removing you both from our care. We soon learned that even though our arrest was over, and despite the fact any and all charges against us were dropped, the state authorities didn’t think we were fit to raise y’all. The only way for us to regain custody of you boys was to fight the state’s decision through the courts. Mrs. Joyce Summers, the social worker, advised what I confirmed later that day, that the earliest court date available wasn’t until late February. This also meant we had to wait at least until then before we could see you boys again, since we were still restricted from having any contact with y’all.
“‘This was the final straw for Elsie, even though we were on our way out of the hell we’d lived through over the past five months. After our two visitors left us, we spent a very somber Christmas together. I did my best to cheer her up, but she seemed to get more and more despondent by the day. She’d even grimace now and then, so I knew her heart palpitations, which had grown more frequent since September, were getting worse. Without having you boys around, there just wasn’t enough to get her through the grief of our first Christmas without our beloved daughter.
“‘On the morning of December the twenty-ninth, just two days before our thirty-fifth New Year’s Eve together, I found her lying on the floor upstairs just a few feet away from the top step. I think she woke up sometime during the night, probably to get herself a glass of milk downstairs. Maybe she thought it was indigestion, but I’ve tried to thank God that the heart attack that killed her did so quickly and quietly.
“‘We buried her in the double plot she and I’d purchased some years back on the other side of town, over in Greenbrier Cemetery, as you both know. Then, in February I managed to get custody of you boys once again, and I’ve spent the last eleven years or so trying to raise you two as best as I can. But not a day goes by without me pining some for your mom and grandma—I’d surely be lying if I told you I wasn’t.’
“Grandpa excused himself from our presence and left the dining room. We watched him go into the kitchen, weeping as he did so. When he reached the kitchen table, he leaned upon it and began to cry harder, his shoulders heaving as he could no longer contain the terrible pain within himself. I immediately got up from the dining room table to go over and give him a warm hug. Jeremy wasn’t able to maintain his facade of coolness, and soon followed me over to Grandpa. All three of us cried together, as the deluge of emotion quickly spread from one to another.
“This was the onset of true healing for each of us, the seeds of which had been sown two nights before when I’d brought the talisman inside our old farmhouse. As we stood together in the kitchen, the years of silence, pain, and misunderstanding flowed out of us through our tears.
“When the tears subsided, Grandpa thanked us both for our support, telling us if it hadn’t been for our presence in his life he would’ve never made it this far. Since we were ready to move on to whatever was next, he suggested we spend a few minutes checking out the mysterious photo album he’d set out on the dining room table. He told us he preferred to wait in the kitchen until we were finished looking through it. After Jeremy stepped outside the back door for a quick cigarette, my brother and I returned to the dining room.
“Jeremy pulled his chair next to mine while I brought the heavy book over to us. It smelled musty when I opened it, and I now noticed a small rip on the inside of the leather-bound album. The pictures near the front were old and yellowed. I glanced over my shoulder to where Grandpa sat at the kitchen table, listening to the radio on low volume while he smoked his pipe. The cherry almond aroma was my favorite, and I started to pick up the photo album to take it into the kitchen so Jeremy and I could join him there.
“‘I’d prefer that you both keep that thing in there, if you don’t mind,’ said Grandpa, perhaps more sternly then he intended. ‘It’s important to me that
you look through it without my hindrance.’
“Jeremy looked back at Grandpa quizzically, and almost said something. But after everything that had taken place that evening, he decided to go along with what Grandpa wanted. He and I returned our attention to the photographs on the first page.
“I recognized some of the images, since there were a number of pictures throughout the main floor of our house showing Grandpa and my Uncle Monty as youngsters. I was also familiar with the images of my great-grandmother and her mom and dad. As we moved through the pages, carefully turning each one over before going on to the next, the pictures grew more recent. I paused to point out a photograph of Dr. Stratton to Jeremy when I recognized the image of the old man I met in Genovene’s village. Grandpa recognized that’s who we were looking at from my excited comments, and he asked us to tell him when we reached the very end of the album.
“As we neared the end of the album, we found lots of photographs of our mom and a few that included my Grandma and Grandpa. They looked like a real happy family when mom was young, and I saw how she looked a lot like Grandma when she was a young woman. I lingered most on an image of our mom when she was a senior in high school, since it was identical to how she looked when I first saw her in the village the day before. When Jeremy saw what I was looking at he whistled and nodded approvingly
“‘Goddamn, mom was a real looker back in her day, huh?’ he cooed. ‘Sorry y’all, but man-n-n! The only pictures I’d ever seen of Mom were when she was older. You know, the ones on the wall and that smaller photo beneath the coffee table in the living room. Oh, and the one on Jackie’s dresser upstairs.’
“‘She was definitely something to behold, that’s for sure,’ Grandpa agreed from the kitchen. ‘She was just like her momma, though I’d say she got some of her good looks from her old man, too.’ He chuckled softly, but then seemed to grow sad again. ‘It’s no wonder you kids turned out so handsome with parents like Frank and Julie...You should be just a few pages away from the end.’
The Golden Talisman Page 32
