Out on the deck, Stephanie was thinking about how today had been another quite productive day of putting the final touches on her illustrations. Things had been going extremely well with her latest children's book over the past few months; so much, that Stephanie believed she might be able to declare the work finished at last.
She understood when it came to writing or art or any creative endeavor, it was very difficult to say for sure when a work was completed.
Her practice had been, once she determined a book was completed she would set the book aside for a few weeks, maybe as long as a month. During that time, she would begin a new project, perhaps another book or maybe something completely different. She had been thinking more about researching her ancestry lately; perhaps she would begin that project next. It might make for a good change of pace; one sufficiently different enough to allow her to clear her mind.
Then in a month, she would sit down with a fresh set of eyes and an open mind, and then begin the process of re-reading, editing and critiquing her work.
Although Stephanie had been thinking about beginning a genealogical investigation, the idea had not actually been her own. Since the day she first learned of Emerson Washburn, Stephanie's mind had been receiving occasional subtle suggestions from the creatures of the dead to begin her research. It was critical to their plans. But even more important was for Stephanie to believe the idea was her own.
As she looked out at the cool September afternoon, Stephanie shook her head in disbelief, trying to come to grips with how the entire summer had passed by so quickly. And so much had happened during those months as well. Jason had taken the new job, and they had sold their own home and moved into the Ashton estate. They had done some limited remodeling, especially in the master bedroom and had sold most of the antique furnishings and pictures for a substantial profit, which helped to make up most of the cost of their painting and cleanup of the bedroom. They had kept the tall mirror from Washburn's bedroom as well as the portrait of her great grandparents from the living room, but had stored them up in the attic along with a few other items they thought they might want to keep. Stephanie liked the mirror but decided to hide it away because of the way it had seemed to bother Sammy. That particular incident had been so strange. She wondered what it was about the mirror. Perhaps when Sammy was a little older she would bring it down from storage and try once again.
However, neither she nor Jason cared for the portrait. The thing bothered them both to no end. First, because of how the subject's eyes seemed to follow everyone anywhere they might move throughout a room. And secondly, because of how much her great grandparents looked like she and Jason. Stephanie thought again about her idea to do a family tree and realized now she had to make sure to include Jason's side of the family as well. After all, that side of the family was not only important to Jeremy but to Sammy as well.
Chapter 24
Stephanie heard a rattling sound from down below and immediately recognized it as being Mrs. Franks, Connie, dusting the furniture in the atrium area. Stephanie was so very grateful to Jason for suggesting they hire Connie to help her with maintaining their new home. She realized that without the woman’s assistance, she might never have been able to finish her book. If she were to be perfectly honest with herself, it was more like she was helping Connie, who was doing the lion's share of the housework.
And Connie's husband, Wilbur had become a great asset to Jason as well, helping him with the yard work and other such duties. With his new job and growing responsibilities, Jason often had to go into work very early and stay late into the evening. Like Connie, Wilbur had assumed most of Jason's chores as well. And although Jason was enjoying his new position, it was causing a great deal of stress for both he and Stephanie. His came in the form of overworking and hers in the form of loneliness. She found herself spending far too much time by herself, especially now that the two older kids were settled in their new school.
She found the time alone to be something of a double-edged sword. From a writing perspective, it was a blessing because it allowed her time to think, to work and to illustrate her projects. But from the standpoint of a wife and mother, it simply meant she had far too much time in solitude; too much time to miss her husband and far too much time to imagine. Being a creative person, her imagination found itself in high gear, particularly during the alone times and not necessarily always in a constructive or positive way. She had often found herself imagining things about Jason she knew he would never do, could never do, but still the ideas came nonetheless. She simply had too much quiet time.
Stephanie found this situation to be quite ironic, since prior to meeting Jason when she was a single working mother she would have given her eye teeth for one tenth of the time she now had available. Now she would give something equivalent just to have less free time. She silently scolded herself for being so ungrateful and thought "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."
To break things up, she often would take Sammy out on trips to the town Ashton and the surrounding communities to become familiar with the area, but there was not much to see. The place was not a booming metropolis of specialty stories and custom boutiques. Most of the people she met during their trips were all very friendly and seemed to be honest hardworking folk, but the blatantly poor economic conditions of the county only served to depress Stephanie.
She missed being only twenty minutes from the bustling and trendy shopping district in Wyomissing or the cultural opportunities of downtown Reading. All of that was a good hour or more away now. She had considered returning to Berks County for some day trips but chose not to. If Ashton was to be their new home, then she had to find ways to make it their home. And she understood running back to what was comfortable or familiar was not the answer.
Being a caring person by nature it made Stephanie feel bad and frequently guilty to live in such splendor while so many people in Schuylkill County were financially suffering. Yet she knew there was little she could do to help anyone even if she was so inclined, as all of their wealth was tied up in the house. Jason had been right about one thing, with their inheritance and Jason’s promotion, they truly were living like a king and queen among peasants when they compared their home and land with the meager wood-framed dwellings owned by most of the people in the community. Even the local business owners, doctors, lawyers and politicians did not have homes, which could be considered in the same league as theirs.
But neither the presumed wealth nor the prestige it brought with it mattered to Stephanie. She really missed Jason and missed the way their life had been just a few months ago. Yes, it was true that back then every day had been a struggle financially but they were happy. Now she had no more money problems, was living in a mansion and plenty of time to work on her books, but her husband was seldom around to offer the type of emotional support she needed. Stephanie didn't consider herself to be high-maintenance, emotionally speaking, but that was how she was beginning to feel.
And to make matters worse, their love life was suffering as well. There was a time, not all that long ago, when Jason couldn't seem to keep his hands off of her; but now that had changed too. By the time he finally got home from work, Jason was exhausted, mentally stressed, and it seemed that lately sex was the furthest thing from his mind. Stephanie had done all she could think of to keep herself in shape and to keep Jason interested, but nothing seemed to work lately. The various self-help stories she read in various women's magazines about rejuvenating their love life had proven useless as well.
For the briefest of moments during one of her dreary days of solitude, when her mind chose to wander to one of those places it had no business going, she began to feel the slightest stab of concern or perhaps suspicion about Jason. She had even started to imagine that Jason might not be working as much as he claimed, but might instead be involved with another woman, perhaps someone at work. She didn't believe it was possible for someone as devoted as Jason to become caught up in such a thing. But she als
o knew it had happened to her before with her first husband, Bill, and that time she had been caught her completely by surprise. "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" she recalled the title of the song she had once heard by the band Great White.
Maybe it could be happening to her again. She hated when she had those sorts of thoughts and tried to force them from her mind. She blamed them on too much spare time; too much time to think and to imagine the worst. Maybe it was also from her reading too many articles in too many women's magazines. But hadn't Jason also seemed somewhat different lately? Didn't he seem distant, distracted and even short tempered with the kids? Had she been imagining that too?
“It’s time,” the dark sinister voice said to Marie Livingston as she stared angrily out at the contemplating Stephanie from inside her world, inside the mirror. The voice had not been so much spoken as it had simply appeared in what she still thought of as her mind, as the voice always did. There was no need for speech or for such traditional types of communications in the foul place she now resided. She didn't understand how she and the others communicated, they just did. They of course, no longer had physical brains or organs with which to generate speech or for that matter to hear the speech if generated, yet somehow they could understand and differentiate each other's thoughts as if they had been spoken aloud. And as such, she knew this latest communication had come from her husband.
“Time?” she questioned. “Time for what?” she wondered absently. She had been so intently staring at her descendent that she had not heard him approach. Although, truth be told, he could and often did approach silently, whether she was actively listening for him or not.
The ‘voice’ now took on a more angry tone and it seemed to reverberate deep within her as it shouted, “Why do you question me, woman?”
Marie knew she had inadvertently done something she should never have done; she had questioned the Master. “No…no…my husband. I am not questioning you,” she quickly replied. “You just caught me off guard…. I am so sorry.”
She knew she was never to question him. In life, he had been her husband, her friend, her lover, but now in death he had taken on a new roll. Marie did not understand how everything had changed, but she was certain the unforgivable acts, which brought them both to the world of the undead had somehow cursed them both. Perhaps in this hell or purgatory, the universe had chosen to assign new roles for them; Marie, the submissive servant and Dwight, the heartless and unforgiving master. Although she didn't feel the roles were justified in this or any other version of an afterlife, it was clear this was her fate and although perplexing and unexplainable, she had to do all she could do to keep her horrible existence bearable. She only hoped this was an interim step in her journey into the afterlife and not her final destination.
Whatever force had caused this to happen to her; it was how things now were and how she supposed they would be for some time. Dwight's role apparently was to do with her as he chose and to make her suffer whenever he the mood hit him. She understood she likely deserved such a fate, especially after the most heinous acts she had committed while on earth. But he had done something almost as bad, hadn’t he? Often she wondered why Dwight was in the role of master while she was a mere slave. She could only hope after they were finished with the Wright family things would change and perhaps they could move on to whatever else awaited them and could hopefully do so separately. They had waited almost one hundred years for this, and she hoped the end was in sight.
“Now you know what you must do,” he commanded, “You must start putting the wheels into motion. But be sure to take it slowly. It must be gradual. They cannot suspect anything. Do everything as I have explained, and all will happen according to my plan. But the final act must take place at the prescribed time.”
Not wanting to anger him further, Marie said, “As you wish, my husband.” And she hated every word of the thought she was transmitting to him. She despised the horrible creature her husband had become. She thought she could not possibly hate him more than when he was alive but realized what he had since become was so much worse. And what she had turned into was a pathetic cowering creature. As if that was bad enough, she feared there might be no redemption for her, no escape and no end, ever.
After a moment, Marie sensed her husband’s presence moving away, although he was never completely gone from her, and might never be. Now she had to do what Dwight had ordered and start a carefully orchestrated series of events in motion which like a snowball rolling down a hill would continue to grow and progress until its final climax on the designated date; December 19th; the anniversary of the deaths of their two sons and the day they had died as well.
From inside the mirror the creature, which had once been Marie Livingston, began to focus all of her concentration toward Stephanie Wright and extending her gnarled index finger out of the mirror sending out the tiniest wisp of sparkling white illumination in the direction of the unsuspecting woman. When the light reached Stephanie, it hung above her head spinning in a circular pattern resembling a small wreath, before settling down atop her head like Christ's own crown of thorns. Then the lights slowly began to seep in through the pores of Stephanie's scalp, tingling, working their way deep inside of her mind, where they were to become the first seeds of doubt, what would fester, grow and eventually become the seeds of destruction.
Stephanie's eyes opened wide, and they seemed to take on a new, intense look of suspicion and anger. Only a moment earlier she had been criticizing herself for thinking such horrible and distrustful thought about Jason. Now, however she was suddenly thinking these thoughts again and these ideas were becoming more real and potentially truer to her than ever. She found her mind drifting back toward something, or more accurately someone. There had been a young female accountant in the financial department of the building where Jason now worked. She recalled him mentioning her once at dinner. At the time, it had seemed innocent enough; him just mentioning a coworker.
She recalled how she hadn't wanted to allow her own insecurities to make her feel jealous and did her best to try to suppress those emotions. But she knew her husband, and knew if he was taking the time to mention someone, it was for a reason. Perhaps it was simply his way of showing respect for her professional skills or perhaps it was more. God, she hated thinking that way, but it seemed lately, the less she saw of Jason on an intimate level, the more they seemed to become distant. A thought came into her mind "If he's not getting it at home, he's getting it somewhere else." She had no idea where that thought had come from, but it planted itself deep in her subconscious, and although she might forget about it superficially, it would remain and fester, never allowing her to completely forget.
She suddenly began to wonder if she might have been wrong about not being more concerned about this woman, this potential interloper. "What was that woman's name?" she thought to herself. "Jo- something. Joanne? No that wasn't it... Jolene! Yes, her name was Jolene.... Jolene Roberts. That was it."
Stephanie had only met the woman once during a visit to the office, and she had been in her estimation a "knockout". In fact, she was drop dead gorgeous, divorced and definitely looking for a pair of male slippers to put under her bed. Now Stephanie began to wonder if the woman might be setting her sights on Jason and was only keeping her distance temporarily, to bide her time until the moment was right. Stephanie could recall the feelings of personal insecurity she felt in the presence of such a confident and beautiful woman. She was certain if Jolene Roberts chose to sink her claws into Jason, it would take everything he had to resist her advances.
She decided she would begin to pay more attention to the way her husband behaved and would monitor his comings and goings more carefully. She would also try to find out more about this Jolene Roberts and find out what her intentions might be in regards to Jason. She trusted Jason, she believed in him, but she also knew how seductive some women could be. She would not allow some bimbo to ruin her marriage and break up her new family.
From behind Step
hanie, another small burst of sparking light flew, encircling her head once again before settling down and sinking in through the top of her skull. Then she suddenly and abruptly changed her train of thought; this one not one relating to Jason. If fact, she had completely forgotten about Jason, Jolene, her suspicions and all or misgivings. Those things had receded into her subconscious, but they would continue to gnaw at the fibers of her brain and eventually gain a life of their own.
Stephanie suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to go up into the attic of the main house and find a box. She could not recall seeing the box before during any of the times they had hauled junk up to the attic, but for some reason she could now see it a plain a day. It was a brown cardboard box with the initials LFH written on the front and top of it. And just as she mysteriously knew about the box, she also somehow knew what the initials meant. They stood for Livingston Family History.
The box contained the records of the genealogical research Emerson Washburn had commissioned several years ago from the private investigator. She could not understand how she knew this but she was quite certain. She had to find the box, and had to do so immediately.
"Connie?" Stephanie called to the woman dusting the atrium below. "Can you please come up here for a moment." She decided she would ask the Franks woman to wait and listen for Sammy while she went to the main house and found the box. A few minutes earlier, she wasn't sure what she would do with all of the idle time suddenly available to her, now she felt as though there weren't enough hours in the day to do what she needed to do.
Fallen Stones Page 29
