Reign of Silence

by Tony Martin

  Meredith and Bethany disappeared into the kitchen, looking for candles and matches. Christine moaned melodramatically, rolling over on the couch to face the ceiling. “Mom,” she said, “how are you doing with all this?”

  Lydia turned from the French doors and smiled. “I’m fine, dear. But I must tell you that I’m a little apprehensive.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m not apprehensive about – what does Precious call them? Apparitions? But I am concerned about you and Meredith. I’m afraid all this has worked on your minds, and that’s unhealthy.”

  “Do you believe all we’ve told you?” asked Christine.

  “I don’t doubt that you two believe it, but I’m still trying hard to understand what might really be happening,” said Lydia.

  “Dad’s had to work through all this, too,” said Christine. “He’s come a long way.”

  “He’s like me,” said Lydia, crossing over to Christine and kissing her lightly on the forehead. “He’s concerned about you.”

  “Parents,” sighed Christine, flopping back over on her stomach.

  Soon Bethany and Meredith returned with a shoebox full of candles. “OK, folks,” said Bethany. “We already have candles burning in the kitchen, breakfast room, and both bedrooms. Meredith lit the candelabras on the dining room table – it looks like Christmas. We’ve got candles in the library, too. The men can stumble around in the dark if they want to. How about in here?”

  “Just put a couple on some end tables,” said Christine. Meredith lit them, suffusing the room with a warm yellow glow.

  “That’s almost romantic,” said Meredith.

  “Candlelight, and no men,” said Christine ruefully.

  “Precious is single, isn’t he?” asked Meredith.

  “Uh, well,” said Christine, “that’s not exactly what I had in mind.” Both girls hooted and cackled.

  “Come on, Lydia,” said Bethany. “Let’s go out back and take some photos for Precious. Wouldn’t want to miss an orb.”

  This struck Christine and Meredith as even funnier. Meredith fell on the couch alongside Christine, moaning, “Y’all are killing me.”

  Bethany and Lydia exchanged glances. This was the most cheerful the two girls had been since the beginning of the whole ordeal. “This isn’t too bad,” said Lydia.

  The two women exited through the French doors onto the verandah. Christine and Meredith tried to compose themselves, with little success.

  Precious was on his third lap around the upstairs, holding the EMF meter at arms length, making slow, overlapping arcs. The machine registered nothing.

  He passed by Joshua and Jimmy’s room. He heard guttural snoring from one of them – most likely Jimmy. Fair enough. Precious wasn’t sure how valuable Jimmy was to the evening anyway.

  Still sweeping with the meter, Precious made his way again to the rear of the second floor landing. A large arched window, the upper pane formed of intricate stained glass, faced the back lawn and beyond. Precious looked; he could see the family cemetery, the cedars swaying gently in the evening breeze.

  He turned, preparing to make one more circuit around the hall and into the unoccupied bedrooms before going downstairs to check on the women. Before he took the first step, the meter sounded a tiny beep.

  “Hello,” Precious said softly. “What do we have here?” For the needle on the EMF meter had swung wildly to the right, pegging out, and was now hovering and twitching in the midrange of the dial.

  Precious stood motionless, holding the meter steadily before him. The needle did not return to its resting place, but instead vacillated ever so slightly between the midpoint and highest reading. Precious experienced a delicious chill – no matter how many times he’d witnessed this phenomenon, the thrill was still there.

  “Al,” Precious called out, “bring your camera. Now.”

  Not only did Al burst from his room, his face twisted, but so did Joshua, brandishing the digital recorder like a sword.

  “I’m getting a strong reading,” Precious said, “and I need you to get some photos of me. Josh, is your recorder operating?”

  “It is,” hissed Joshua.

  “No need to whisper,” said Precious, still motionless. In a moment, Jimmy, too, was standing at the bedroom door, hair disheveled.

  “What are you people doing?” Jimmy said.

  “Get your camera,” said Precious, “and start shooting.”

  Jimmy, transfixed by the tableau before him, seemed unable to move himself.

  “Jimmy!” said Precious.

  “Yeah. Right,” said Jimmy, returning to the bedroom. He emerged in seconds, fumbling with the lens cap.

  “I’m still registering activity,” said Precious. “Keep shooting.”

  Al, hands shaking, had managed to squeeze off about a dozen shots, dazzling them all with the sequential flashes. Finally, Jimmy was able to get three photos, but he seemed unable to register what was happening. Joshua was still recording, murmuring “oh, Lord… oh, Lord,” under his breath.

  Precious, wide-eyed and smiling with unconcealed joy, finally withdrew his EMF meter. “I’m not getting anything at all. I think the show’s over.”

  Jimmy lowered his camera. Al continued to hold his in front of his face, like a shield. Joshua turned his recorder off and leaned weakly against the wall.

  “Relax, gentlemen,” said Precious.

  Al exhaled loudly. “I think I forgot to breathe,” he said.

  “Let’s talk about this,” said Precious. “In this sitting room.”

  The four men sat, pulling their chairs in a tight circle.

  “Can Bethany hear what we’re saying?” said Joshua.

  “No,” said Precious, “I can hear her, but I’ve got my voice activator turned off. They don’t need to know anything yet. I don’t want them to be distracted. Al, your camera, if you please.”

  Al passed his digital camera to Precious. Precious turned on the viewscreen and scanned through the photos. He scowled. Nothing.

  “Well…” he began, as he came to the end of the series of shots. Then he paused.

  “Paydirt!”

  Precious examined the viewscreen from several different angles, nodded, said, “Gentlemen, gather around.”

  The three men moved in close to peer at the tiny viewscreen, stretching their necks to get just the right angle. “I don’t see anything,” said Jimmy, squinting.

  “That’s because there’s nothing to see,” said Precious. “I wanted to show you some other shots first. Here” - and he pressed the advance button - “you can see me, holding the meter. You’ll notice nothing, but the flash has me evenly lit.”

  “You’ve got red eyes,” said Al.

  “Yes,” said Precious. “And here are a couple more.”

  Each photo showed Precious, his back toward the window, staring straight ahead. “Still nothing … until we get to this one.”

  Precious advanced the photos one more frame. “See here?”

  The three men looked at the photograph. Jimmy spoke first. “OK – what am I looking at?”

  The photograph showed Precious in the same position as before. But in this one, clearly seen directly in front of Precious, were four tightly grouped spherical yellow lights, positioned about two-thirds away from the top of the frame. Each sphere trailed a streak of paler yellow light that traced its way to the bottom of the frame and out of sight. It was as if Al had captured a miniature meteorite, moving against gravity.

  “Those, my friends, are orbs,” said Precious.

  Jimmy looked closer, then turned his gaze to Precious. “That is not glare from the window, is it,” he stated.

  “I don’t know if that’s a question, but no, they’re not,” said Precious.

  “They aren’t dust particles or water droplets, either,” said Jimmy.

  “No.”

  Jimmy looked at each man in turn. “Something’s not right,” he said finally. Then, to Joshua, “we need to get those girls out of h
ere.”

  “No, we’re fine,” said Precious. “If nothing else happens, we’ve got pretty good evidence here. And when we get your film developed, Jimmy, I hope we can see some of the same phenomena.”

  Jimmy looked at Precious. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Right about your photos?”

  “No,” said Jimmy slowly. “That we’ll be OK.”

  Bethany and Lydia walked around to the back of the house, unaware of the excitement upstairs. The two women were silent, but Lydia was thankful that Bethany and Christine seemed to be having such a good time. She loved Meredith as if she was her own daughter, and she knew that Meredith had never grieved appropriately for her parents. She felt Meredith might still be holding on to the all but needless hope that her parents would turn up alive. Lydia couldn’t imagine Meredith’s parents not contacting her if that were so.

  A sudden gust of wind blew Bethany's hair from around her face. “Wow, where’d that come from?” she asked.

  Lydia scanned the sky. The half moon beamed benignly down on the Dubose property, a few stray clouds scudding across its face. “There may be a front coming through,” said Lydia. “It seems just a little cooler than before. Good thing, because the house would get stuffy otherwise.”

  Bethany looked at the sky for a few moments, then at the surrounding grounds. “Did you know Meredith’s parents well?”

  “I did,” said Lydia, squinting against another sudden gust of wind. “They were special people. Meredith’s mother was very much a Junior League Cotillion-type lady, but she never came across as uppity. And her father was very involved in the community, too – he was on the board at the bank. But, he always seemed a little sad.”

  “I wonder why?” asked Bethany.

  “I don’t know.” Lydia continued walking, circumventing the family cemetery, and making a broad loop through the back lawn. “He certainly had no money problems, and he volunteered his time in a lot of projects … he started our local Habitat for Humanity. He seemed melancholy, though.”

  “That’s some people’s nature,” said Bethany.

  “Yeah,” said Lydia. The two fell silent, walking through what had once been a formal garden, now planted with boxwoods and other low-maintenance shrubbery. “I guess we need to take some photos.”

  “Of what?” asked Bethany.

  “Let’s take some of the house, and some of the cemetery. I guess if there are any restless spirits around, that’s where they’ll be,” said Lydia disdainfully.

  The two women uncased their cameras and took a series of photos, first taking several of the back of the house, then other random shots of the grounds. They took some of the old smokehouse, of the area around the slave cabins, then finally returned to the cemetery.

  “What is it about cemeteries?” asked Lydia.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re always so peaceful,” said Lydia. “I guess maybe there are beings keeping watch over the sleeping dead.”

  “Like angels?” asked Bethany.

  “Perhaps. Maybe,” said Lydia. “I think there is something to that tradition of somewhere being ‘hallowed ground,’ of a respect for those who’ve gone on before us. Maybe it’s a peace that comes only with death,” she concluded.

  They stood silent, trying to make out the inscriptions on the headstones with the light from their flashlights. “Maybe we should take a picture or two of each other, just to give some context,” said Bethany.

  “No, not me. I don’t want to be the subject of a spook picture,” said Lydia. “Why don’t you stand next to old Laidlaw’s stone? He’s one out of this group that I knew personally.”

  Bethany stood by Laidlaw Duboses’ obelisk. She brushed her hair out of her face; another wayward gust caused her to flinch. Lydia lifted the camera to take the photograph, then paused. She was looking past Bethany toward the fields and woods beyond.

  “Bethany,” she said quietly, “what do you make of that?”

  Bethany, feeling a sudden chill, turned around to face the direction Lydia was looking. Perhaps fifty yards away, at the edge of a ruined fence, both women saw a sphere of bluish light, about the size of a grapefruit. The light seemed to be hovering just above ground level, motionless, and seemed ringed with the palest of mists.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” said Christine. Meredith shushed her.

  “Girl, don’t go making anything mad with that voice recorder,” said Meredith.

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to make friends,” said Christine, holding the recorder aloft. They had moved to the library, after recording in the parlor.

  “This is funny,” said Meredith. “It sure isn’t like any of the other things we’ve seen and heard. Just another night at Dubose estates.”

  Christine raised her voice. “Anyone there? Anyone have anything they want to say?”

  “Just let it run for a couple more minutes, and let’s be quiet,” said Meredith. “We want to do what Precious says.”

  Christine grinned, and the two girls sat quietly on the sofa. Meredith checked her watch.

  The candle on the end table beside Meredith flickered and went out. “Hey,” Meredith began.

  The other candle went out as abruptly.

  “Chrissy,” said Meredith, alarmed. “Where’s your flashlight?”

  “Over here on a bookcase,” Christine said. “I’ll get it.”

  Meredith tried to breathe steadily. As Christine fumbled in the dark, looking for her flashlight, Meredith felt something touch her ankles, exactly as if a cat had brushed against her legs. “Chrissy!” she cried.

  “Precious,” said Bethany into her headset, “you need to come see this.”

  Precious sounded winded. “I’ll be right out,” he said.

  Bethany and Lydia saw flashlight beams flickering from a second floor window. The two women turned to see that the glowing sphere was still in place. Precious emerged, with the other three men close behind.

  “Look at that,” said Precious. “Get some photos, people.”

  “What is that?” said Jimmy, visibly shaken.

  “Ignis fatuus,” said Precious. “Spectral lights. Or, literally, foolish fire. There are all sorts of legends attached to what most call ‘ghost lights,’ but --”

  Christine's scream from the back door interrupted Precious. “Mamma!”

  Lydia cried out. “I’m coming!” And leaving the others behind, she rushed to the door. There were Christine and Meredith. Meredith seemed to be struggling to breathe.

  “Baby?” Lydia said, catching Christine in her arms. Bethany threw one arm around Meredith.

  “Settle down, everyone, settle down,” said Precious. He walked the two girls back into the great hall. “Meredith, are you OK?” he asked, leading them to chairs.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Meredith. “No, really,” she said, her chest heaving. Jimmy tried to get her to lie down on the floor.

  “Tell me what happened, ladies,” said Precious. His voice was soothing, calm. He pulled another chair up beside them while everyone else hovered nearby – Lydia at Christine’s side, Bethany at Meredith’s.

  The room was silent save for Meredith’s rapid breathing. The air seemed close and uncomfortable. Joshua caught himself looking around, up into the shadows of the second floor landing, his nerves raw.

  “I was using the digital voice recorder,” said Christine, surprisingly calm. “We were just sort of cutting up, you know? And then one of the candles in the library went out. That wasn’t bad, but then, the second one went out. Neither of us had our flashlights handy.

  “I knew I’d left mine on a bookshelf,” Christine continued, “and I knew about where it was. Then Meredith yelled.”

  All eyes turned to Meredith. She shook her hair out of her face; one blue vein was clearly visible in her forehead.

  “Right after the second candle went out,” Meredith said tremulously, “I felt something rub against my legs. It felt exactly like a cat does when it wants t
o be petted. I looked down, and there was nothing there. Then…” Meredith looked helplessly at Christine.

  “We heard a lady crying,” said Christine. “Just wailing, coming from the parlor. That’s when we came to get y’all. We didn’t look to see what was in there…”

  “OK, that’s it,” said Jimmy, “I’m taking these girls home. Actually, I think we all should leave.”

  “Just a minute, Jimmy,” said Precious. “Before we make any decisions, let’s take another look at that light.”

  Reluctantly, the group followed Precious to the back door. Meredith stood, seemed unsteady on her feet. She followed the rest over Lydia’s protests.

  The group stood on the back patio. In the distance, still clearly visible, was the luminescent sphere, not moving. Bethany had the presence of mind to take another photo. “You get one too, Lydia,” said Precious.

  Then, as they watched, the light faded from view, seeming to pull in upon itself and disappear.

  “What you’ve just seen is a phenomenon known as a spectral light,” said Precious. “I’ve never seen it personally. This was a treat.”

  “A treat,” said Al unbelievingly, hovering at the rear of the group. “Precious, you’ve probably heard Mother talk about ghost lights.”

  “I have,” said Precious.

  “You remember what the old folks used to say?”

  “I do.”

  “Mother said that a ghost light was the ghost of a sinner who was condemned to wander the world for eternity. And the lights are supposed to lure people out in the dark so that they get lost.” What Al didn’t say was that his mother also considered these lights a death omen.

  “And,” said Precious, “another legend says that a ghost light is the spirit of a child who died before being baptized, and is doomed to wander the earth in search of water.”

  Jimmy interrupted. “This is all fascinating. But we need to get these girls out of here. They’re terrified, and I don’t like this one little bit.”

  Precious didn’t answer, but instead walked in the house and to the utility room beside the kitchen. The rest of the group followed. Precious tripped the master switch, and the mansion came alive with light.