Dead Silent

by Ivan Blake

  The public service was followed by her private interment at the Monsegur cemetery. In attendance were Geraldine, Chris, Bernard, Nigel, and three of Bernard’s friends—a middle-aged surgeon from California, an elderly Presbyterian minister from Boston, and a beautiful young professor of astronomy from England. Rose’s interment was followed by the re-interment of her ten Cathar friends. Bernard had decided the most appropriate rite under the circumstances was a Cathar Consolamentum. He and his three friends performed the rite.

  Following the service, the graveside party adjourned to Marymount.

  “Chris, let me introduce you to my friends, Esclarmonde—we call her Clara—Guillaume or Bill, and Arnauld, or Arnie, although he hates to be called that. My friends, this is Chris Chandler. Chris,” he said, “as you may have guessed, we are the final four.”

  “And he doesn’t mean basketball stars,” Arnie, the elderly minister said with a warm laugh.

  “We owe you a great debt, young man. If there is anything we can do to help you,” Bill the surgeon said.

  “What are your plans for the fall?” Clara asked.

  “Not sure yet.”

  “His lady friend,” Bernard said, “who would be here today but for her injuries, is going to the University of Maine in the fall to study science.”

  “And will you go with her?”

  “Maybe. I...I’m not sure.”

  The transformation of Geraldine Paget’s fortunes following the Lewis disaster was nothing short of miraculous. Rose DuCalice bequeathed Geraldine her library and apartment, and in her will, she described how the Library had provided Geraldine with emotional sanctuary and intellectual stimulation, and how as a result, she’d grown from a timid adolescent into a confident and courageous young woman. No one, Rose wrote, could better understand what a library is intended to provide to its community, and no one would do more to ensure the Library continued to fulfill its mission.

  In the wake of Geraldine’s good fortune, the Lewis Town Council invited her to serve out her father’s term as Mayor. And at her first Council meeting, she dropped a bombshell. Through the good auspices of her dear friends from New York, Nigel Harrow and Bernard Monsegur, she announced the insurance giant Haverford Life was planning to locate a data processing center in Lewis and was currently negotiating to purchase the old Burgoyne Theater land for its new complex.

  During the weeks Bernard Monsegur spent at Marymount preparing for his sister’s funeral, he came to an extraordinary realization. He loved the place—he loved the outdoors, the fresh air, the reminders of his extraordinary past, and even the locals—and so he decided to remain at the Cottage with Chris for the balance of the summer. He even talked of one day returning to Lewis for good, operating his New York gallery remotely from Vermont, perhaps even opening a satellite gallery in town. He also overhauled security on the estate, a task made especially necessary by the many curiosity seekers attracted to the area by press coverage of the disaster. He installed lights on the lane, fenced the cemetery, placed cameras on the trails, hired guards for the gate and periodic patrols of the entire property.

  Each evening, exhausted from hours of work in the fresh air or from driving back and forth to Montpelier, Chris and Bernard sat sipping cognac in the parlor and chatting about Cathar beliefs or the Civil War or the Black Death or the Mortsafemen. One night Chris asked why Bernard had been so certain Chris would defend their cemetery.

  “I never told Rose this story,” Bernard replied, “but in 1843, I was living in Padua and trying to make a living as a portraitist. I had been contracted by a wealthy merchant to paint his beloved daughter, a frail young woman suffering from consumption. There was much urgency to the work because the beautiful girl wasn’t expected to live more than a matter of weeks. But I dallied in my work because I was so taken with her charm and wit, not to mention her almost otherworldly beauty.

  “Before I completed her portrait, however, she passed away, in my arms in fact. Her father was heartbroken at her passing and enraged at me for not having completed my task. I felt so guilty, I returned night after night to the family crypt in the wall of the church near her home to beg her forgiveness for my selfish infatuation and for causing her father such pain. One night, as I was heading home, three drunken thugs passed me in the lane outside the church. Something in their manner made me turn and watch. I saw them enter the church precinct. I concealed myself and waited, and thirty minutes later, I saw them leave with a sack of something slung over the largest man’s shoulder. When they disappeared from view, I ran into the church and discovered to my horror they’d pried away the plate from the girl’s niche and carried off her remains. I ran after the thugs, thinking not of my safety, but that I would not betray her father a second time.

  “The streets of Padua were dark and filled with a greenish, poisonous miasma which rose every night from the swamps surrounding the city. I ran like a madman, searching frantically for the three thugs. At last, I found them, seated on damp cobblestones in a dark alley, backs to the wall and severed heads in their laps. I struck a match to examine them and discovered pinned to each a scrap of paper bearing the crest of the Mortsafemen, the hooded figure with an ax standing atop a mausoleum. I stumbled from the alley and back to the church, arriving in time to glimpse a figure with an ax running away into the night. Inside the church, the remains of my beloved had been returned to her crypt. A mortsafeman had defended a father’s beloved daughter, when I had failed in my obligations to preserve and protect her memory. You have the same passion for justice as every mortsafeman. While I didn’t expect you to use an ax, I knew you’d defend our departed with every ounce of your strength, even if Rose and I could not.”

  One day in May, Nigel Harrow arrived with wonderful news; Gillian’s doctors believed she’d likely be strong enough for surgery in August, and he’d made tentative arrangements for the operation to take place in New York City at the end of the month. Nigel also dropped off mail for Chris, including an offer of a book deal, several requests for TV appearances, and a letter from a small university in Nova Scotia.

  Dear Christopher Chandler,

  I am Dr. Ignatius Greyson, Distinguished Services Professor of Comparative Religions in the Faculty of Theology at Cuthbert College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I am writing to say how impressed I have been to read of your courageous and principled exploits in defense of the dead, and to enquire whether you might be interested in assisting me with my own research. Cuthbert College will provide a full scholarship, including tuition, residence fees and monthly stipend, in exchange for your assistance with my work on Kabbalistic mysticism.

  Cuthbert College is a small university with a rich tradition of academic excellence that will afford you several benefits: small classes, ready access to your professors, proximity to your home in Maine, and a measure of anonymity you might appreciate, given your recent notoriety in America.

  I feel confident we shall work together well, because, as Emansus of Geisteborg once wrote, “We all hear Death’s summons. Only the chosen, however, may hear the cries for reckoning.”

  Chris gasped. A full scholarship! Right out of the blue! Such a sudden and dramatic change in his fortunes was hardly to be believed. Gillian! His first thought had been to tell Gillian. But then, no, he knew in his heart she must never know…or the price might be too horrible to bear.

  July, 1987

  Gillian missed her prom. She wasn’t released from hospital until the end of June and then only on strict instruction she not engage in strenuous or stressful activity. Chris drove Gillian home from Montpelier in the Buick Roadmaster taking three glorious days to make the trip. The days were warm, new growth on the trees was a vivid spring green, flowers were coming into bloom, and the sea shimmered like crystal.

  Chris and Gillian were unchaperoned. They had no need. Chris treated Gillian like a delicate Faberge egg, as though the slightest breath or the merest jostle might shatter her. The first night, they walked the beach at Cape Elizabeth arm in
arm as Mallory whirled around them in a maddened frenzy, then they adjourned to their separate rooms. The second night, they snuggled together in an oversized Adirondack chair on the wharf at Naskeag Point, kissing languidly, and watching the stars move across the firmament as Mallory whipped the waters beneath the pier into a whirlpool, then adjourned to their separate rooms. The third night, Gillian’s mother and Nigel Harrow joined them for dinner at a picturesque inn overlooking Machias Bay. They chatted about everything and nothing. Nigel was delighted to see how fit Chris looked. Mrs. Willard gushed about her recent weekend in New York as Nigel’s guest. Gillian shared her thoughts on medicine as her possible career. And Chris? He said barely a word.

  The time came for Mrs. Willard and Nigel to head back to Bemishstock. “We must do this again soon,” Mrs. Willard said. Chris only smiled.

  Later, sitting on the rocks, with warm breezes off the bay tousling their hair, Gillian turned to Chris and kissed him. The kiss was gentle, soft, and dreamy. Mallory whipped sand into angry funnel clouds along the beach and drove waves crashing onto the rocks. The kiss continued.

  Then Gillian placed her hand on Chris’s thigh, and he flinched.

  “What is it?” Gillian asked.

  “You know what.”

  “Chris, I’ve made love to only one person in my life. You! And I’ve done it only once! And I want more, no matter the cost.”

  “And I do too, more than you can possibly imagine...but not...not if it means you die in my arms.”

  “But I want you...even if it means precisely that...because then I would be complete...and you....”

  “What?”

  She touched his cheek. Tears streamed down hers. “Because then you would know, at the moment of my death, my heart was filled with joy.”

  “That’s madness! All we have to do is wait until after your surgery in August.”

  “Okay, let’s say we wait, and my surgery goes badly…and we lose our chance to make love again.”

  “The surgery will go well, I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes, and if it does go well…then you’ll leave me, won’t you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s what you’re planning, isn’t it? To move away? Not because you don’t love me, but because you’re afraid for me. You’re afraid you being in my life places me in danger, and you don’t want to place me in danger any longer. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “I…I…”

  “Well, let me make this very clear. I would rather die now in your arms than lose you after my surgery. So, my darling, you must choose. You can make love to me now…or never again.”

  Epilogue

  April, 1988

  Las Vegas Sun, April 17, 1988 by Edwin Karl

  Las Vegas Police today charged Ricky-Bobby Edlee, proprietor of the Blissful Unions Wedding Chapel in Whitney, with the improper care and storage of human remains following the discovery of a secret museum in the cellar of his chapel. Edlee’s secret museum specializes in displaying mummified cadavers and skeletons, arranged in grotesque and even lewd poses. According to LVPD Investigator Arnie Graham, Edlee, also shows “grisly and very graphic films of actual deaths” in his museum.

  Edlee, who claims to have a doctorate in Blessings and Curses from The Divine Institute of the Moon and Stars in Tijuana, says admission to the museum is restricted to card-carrying members of his ‘congregation’. Literature found at the scene describes Edlee’s congregation as “some of the leading intellectual and business figures in our city,” and the museum as “a place of education and contemplation.”

  In a prepared statement, Edlee asserts that police charges represent an outrageous and unconstitutional interference with his congregation’s right of worship, and Edlee’s attorney said he is confident all charges will soon be dropped. Police, however, describe the museum as the creation of a monster and one of the most unsettling crime scenes officers have ever witnessed. They are investigating the museum’s collection of disturbing films to determine whether they depict heretofore unreported homicides. Prosecutors suggest other charges may soon be laid. The existence of the museum became known when Edlee himself called police to report that an entire family of skeletons had recently been stolen from his collection.

  Now That’s Weird; Stories of the Paranormal in Maine from the Portland Clarion Sunday Supplement, May 22th, 1988 by Jennifer Watts

  Here’s a tale to give you the shivers. You may remember the very tragic deaths of a young pastor and his family from the tiny town of Roebuck upstate. The accident and very emotional funerals for the five victims were widely covered by the media because the pastor had been so popular. Hundreds of locals and at least two television stations attended when the pastor and his family were laid to rest in the new cemetery of his tiny church. That was nearly fifteen months ago. Therefore, you can imagine the surprise—no, the horror—when the church secretary last week opened a large parcel postmarked New Mexico and discovered inside the remains of the late pastor and his family. No one had noticed the family’s graves had been disturbed, never mind emptied. Police have confirmed the identities of the remains and determined the five graves had indeed been desecrated. They are now looking into the possibility the robberies might be connected with horrific events in Lewis, Vermont, back in March, 1987. How the remains got to New Mexico, however, has everyone baffled, and why they’ve been returned even more so. The Pastor and his family were reinterred this past Wednesday with the entire town of Roebuck in attendance.

  Dead Reckoning

  The Mortsafeman Book 3

  One of the 150 Titanic victims buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is believed by a controversial Professor to have been carrying an amulet of extraordinary power from the Jewish cemetery in Prague to a new hiding place in New York. But in which grave is the amulet to be found? Chris Chandler, who fears for Gillian Willard’s life if they remain close, agrees to leave New England and help the Canadian professor with his research. What Chris doesn’t yet know however is the length to which the embattled professor will go to recover the amulet and unleash its terrifying power. With the help of a Holocaust survivor who carries a grim and shameful secret of his own, Chris must battle the professor to the death or become the very monstrous thing he has dedicated his life to vanquishing.

  About the Author

  Ivan was born next to the pub in a small village in England whose church was haunted by the Grey Lady and whose churchyard held his ancestors. His family immigrated to Canada when he was five and he attended sixteen schools before completing grade eleven. He did undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Canada and the United States and taught university for fifteen years before joining the Federal Government. He has written for radio, television and the stage, and lectured and advised governments all over the world. He now writes dark fiction and poetry and travels only for pleasure.

  * * * *

  Did you enjoy Dead Silent?

  If so, please help us spread the word about

  Ivan Blake and MuseItUp Publishing.

  It's as easy as:

  •Recommend the book to your family and friends

  •Post a review

  •Tweet and Facebook about it

  Thank you

  MuseItUp Publishing