Bystander in Time

by Richard Stockford

  Dex snapped instantly awake, gasping for breath in the pre-dawn light of his room. He was dimly aware of a loud thump from D.J.’s room seconds before his door burst open and Annie ran in and threw herself on the bed. “Dex, I had the most horrible dream. There was a terrible man and he had D.J.,” she cried clinging to his arm.

  “No,” said Dex, absently rubbing at the warm spot on his chest and surprised at the calmness in his voice, “it wasn’t a dream. D.J.’s in trouble.” He slumped on the bed. “He’s in trouble and I don’t know how to help him.”

  Chapter 36

  An hour later, Dex and Annie sat over coffee at the kitchen table comparing notes. Their dreams differed only in the fact that in hers, Annie had entered the carriage house to find Dex already there. Although she had never seen the picture of Weldon Quill, she was able to describe him exactly as Dex had seen him and felt the same sense of danger for D.J. as Dex did. Dex had already called D.J. and having found him still safe, if somewhat querulous at the early wakening, in bed at Oscar’s house was rereading the letter from Tobias, trying to put the pieces together. “So, if we believe Tobias, he and I and Quill were together on a ship in 1768,” he mused, “and I apparently had a ring which Quill stole.” He got up and went to the living room, returning with his laptop. “Tobias called it DeJong’s ring. I wonder who or what that was.” He searched the name DeJong and the year 1768 and got an immediate Wikipedia hit. “Listen to this. ‘Captain Anders DeJong, also known as the Dutchman was a pirate who operated in the north Atlantic from the late 1750’s until his death in a naval battle off the coast of Virginia in 1768.’”

  “Maud’s automatic writing said something about a Dutchman,” Annie recalled. “And a curse too.”

  “Yeah, this also says DeJong was the most successful pirate of his day and was said to have made a pact with the devil.” Dex scratched his head. “Let’s keep going with the family papers; maybe the answer’s in there somewhere.”

  On a large sheet of paper, Dex has started a family tree based on the names gathered from the cemetery. “It looks like Weldon Quill had two wives,” he said. “The first one was Mary who died in 1783. They had three children, Sarah, Ann and Thomas. Sarah and Ann died as infants, and there’s a stone for Thomas, but there’s no date of death.”

  “He’s the one that Maud said disappeared, right?” asked Annie.

  “Yeah, apparently he vanished shortly after the death of his father. He would have been,” Dex did the math in his head, “about thirty-eight years old.” He continued, “The second wife was Rhoda, and they had three more kids, Martha, Celia and Nathan, all accounted for out back along with their husbands and kids.”

  Dex read through their notes. “It looks like we can trace most of the family right down to present day through those graves, but something tells me it starts and stops with Weldon. Let’s separate out anything that mentions him. Or Thomas,” he added.

  Maud Kneeland joined them at mid-morning and after hearing about their joint dream grabbed a box of papers blew the dust off. “You do realize that you weren’t dreaming, right?” she asked as she upended it over the table. “That was a visitation and it did indicate a danger to D.J., but the important thing, the scary thing, was the location. Weldon didn’t come to you; he got you to come to him. He was in control and you were also in danger.” She nodded at Dex. “If you hadn’t been wearing your medallion, I don’t know what might have happened. There’s a level of aggression here that really scares me.”

  “Nothing new for Weldon, it seems,” Dex said shoving his copy of Quill’s gravestone inscription across the table. “'To the bold, the treasure - To the strong, the power - To the weak, conquest;' it looks like he was always an aggressive bastard.”

  “Humph,” said Annie sitting up in her chair. “Maybe more than you know. Look at this, It’s Weldon’s will. Thanks to my last boyfriend, I know something about control freaks and this guy sure qualifies.” The single sheet of paper she laid on the table, yellowed and stiff with age, bore only a few hand-written lines…

  Last Will and Testament

  of

  Weldon Quill

  I Wendell Quill being of sound mind do here by declare this to be my final will. My affairs will be settled by my eldest son, Thomas Weldon Quill and I direct that that he follow these instructions without fail.

  My house and properties, all business interests and all personal properties are left to Thomas Weldon Quill with the explicit instruction that he provide safe domicile, and employment as necessary for his mother and siblings.

  I further charge Thomas Weldon Quill as follows:

  That I be buried quickly, with neither wake nor funeral, alongside those who have preceded me in the family plot.

  That the ring I wear shall not be removed and shall be buried, forever with me.

  That he take to his own grave the secrets we share.

  Neglect these instructions on penalty of my eternal fury.

  Weldon Quill

  October, 1820

  Dex studied the will. “Well, at least we know where the ring is,” he said.

  “Do we?” asked Kneeland.

  “Yeah,” said Annie. “It says right here he wanted it buried with…, oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dex shook his head. “I hope you’re not suggesting we…”

  As his voice trailed off in horror, Kneeland’s elaborate shrug was her only answer.

  Annie looked from one to the other. “B…but that’s grave robbery,” she said.

  Kneeland shrugged again. At what point does grave robbery become archeology?” she asked. “The ring is obviously the crucial element here; we’re not trying to steal it, but have to figure out where it is.”

  Dex frowned. “I think she’s right,” he said to Annie. “And anyway, according to Tobias, Quill stole it from me in the first place. I think…” He was interrupted by the trilling of his cell phone. He answered and immediately paled as an excited voice spilled from the phone. “Where?” he asked. And then, “I’ll meet you there.”

  “That was Oscar’s father,” he said. “D.J. collapsed and their taking him to MDI Hospital in Bar Harbor.”

  They all piled into Dex’s truck, and he covered the fourteen miles to the hospital in a reckless race across the island’s narrow two-land roads. They found Oscar and his parents in the emergency room waiting area. Oscar’s father was a big man who owned a successful construction company in Southwest Harbor. He was sweating as he clasped Dex’s hand. “They’re doing tests,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. D.J. and Oscar were in the back seat, and he just passed out. We were close, so I came right here.”

  “Did he say anything?” asked Dex.

  Oscar answered. “No, we were just talking about camping, and all of a sudden his eyes, like, rolled up in his head and he passed out. I shook him, b, but…”

  “I stopped and he was breathing ok and everything, so I just came right here,” his father interrupted.

  Maud Kneeland pushed past them. “I used to work here,” she said. “Stay here, I’ll find out what’s going on.” She disappeared through a pair of swinging doors only to reappear a moment later motioning at Dex to follow her. “This is Doc Blaisdell,” she said introducing Dex to a burly, middle-aged man in hospital scrubs. “He was just on his way out to talk to you.”

  “What’s wrong with my son?” Dex asked.

  The man shook his head. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “What I can tell you is that he seems to be in no immediate danger. He’s deeply comatose, but all of his other bodily functions, heartbeat, breathing and so forth are normal.”

  “I want to see him.”

  Blaisdell nodded. “Were getting a CT scan right now. He’ll be going up to a room in a few minutes and you can wait there for him.”

  “No, I can’t just leave him here.” It was early morning, and Dex was fighting the exhaustion of more than twenty-four hours without sleep and Doctor Blaisdell had just suggested that he go
home and get some rest. “I’ve got to know what’s the matter with him.”

  “It may be some time before we can tell you that,” said Blaisdell. “We’ve pretty well ruled out stroke, poison and diabetes which are three of the most common causes of non-traumatic coma,” he said, “and it doesn’t feel like epilepsy to me, although that’s still a possibility. For the moment we’ve just got to wait and watch and your being here isn’t going to change that.” He glanced at Maud Kneeland and sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Look, D.J.’s resting comfortably and we’re waiting on some of the blood tests to come back. I’m sure we can find a bed around here somewhere if you want to stay close, but you do need to get some rest.”

  Maud Kneeland spoke softly in Dex’s ear. “We all need rest, Dex” she said. “And you know the battle isn’t being fought here. The best way we can help D.J. is by going home and dealing with Quill.”

  When they pulled into the yard, Dex jumped out of the truck and grabbed the shovel D.J. and Oscar had been using to unearth their backyard treasures. Kneeland was right behind him, pulling at his arm. No Dex,” she said as if to a child. “You two are going to get some sleep. Give me your phone and I’ll wake you if there’s any news.”

  Dex fell asleep wondering how little sleep Maud would let him get away with and woke up with Zachary Taylor standing over him in his room lit only by the setting sun.

  “Evening, Dex. Missus Kneeland tells me you got some diggin’ to do out back. Thought maybe I could lend a hand.”

  “Feels like there should be a full moon and some ground fog,” said Dex twenty minutes later as he placed a couple of battery lanterns on top of Weldon Quill’s granite tombstone. “Maybe some bats flying around.” Not the least bothered by the macabre nature of their undertaking, his nervous humor was instead provoked by the lack of information his call to the hospital had provided. “No change, sir” the charge nurse had said, “he’s still resting comfortably.”

  Annie grimaced. “You’d probably be happier if this was Halloween,” she said. “Can we just get it over with?”

  “Sorry.” Dex glanced at Maud Kneeland. “Do we need to do anything, er special?” he asked.

  “Just think archeology and dig,” Kneeland responded with a shrug.

  Zachary had brought a pickaxe, and after they removed the sod, he and Dex swopped off between it and the long-handled spade until they stood about three feet deep in a hole the size of a coffin. “We need to go slow,” Dex cautioned. “They didn’t always bury them as deep as we do nowadays.”

  As though to prove his statement true, his next shovelful brought up several large pieces of rotted wood and the faint smell of corruption. Dex dropped to his knees and began pulling the dirt aside revealing the rounded orb of a yellowed skull. “It’s collapsed,” he said. “This is going to take a while.” In the end, Zachary made a rough screen by nailing some wood laths together and after removing the bones they could see, they shoveled the grave’s dirt through it, scraping carefully until the base boards of the coffin lay rotted and empty at the bottom of the hole.

  “If I remember my anatomy lessons, these are all the finger bones,” Maud Kneeland said, dropping the last of the digits into a cardboard box. “And nary a ring in sight.” They had found a corroded brass buckle and several pewter buttons with the skeletal remains, but no jewelry whatsoever.

  Dex stretched his back. “I’m going to take a shower and then run in to the hospital,” he said. “Later, I want to take another look around in the daylight and then we’ll rebury him.”

  At the hospital, Dex spent a half hour with a neurologist who introduced herself as Doctor Ashley detailing all that he could remember of D.J.’s medical history. “With no prior history of seizures and no symptomology of any of the usual causes of non-traumatic coma, I’m at a bit of a loss,” she finally said. “In fact, insofar as we can determine, he’s simply asleep. He’s exhibiting the brainwave patterns of deep REM sleep and there’s nothing else that would indicate any decrease of normal functions.”

  “So what’s the next step?” asked Dex.

  “I want to monitor him for another twenty-four hours,” said Dr. Ashley. “I’ll use the time to do some research and consultation. Try not to worry. He’s in no immediate danger and we will get this figured out.”

  It was mid morning when Dex got back to the Quill house; Annie and Maud were at the kitchen table and there was a faint creaking sound from the attic where Zachary was working. “We checked through that dirt again,” said Annie nodding toward the back yard. “There’s definitely no ring there.”

  Dex nodded. “Then I guess we can assume that Thomas took it. And if they couldn’t find him in 1821, we’re sure as hell not going to find him now. He could have gone anywhere,” he said dejectedly.

  “I don’t think so,” said Maud. She tapped her finger on Quill’s will lying on the table in front of her. “Quill trusted his first born son, Thomas with everything; his entire estate, his business, the care of the rest of the family, the secrets, whatever they were… he put all his eggs in one basket. I can see Thomas taking the ring, but I don’t think he would have walked away from all the rest of this.” She tapped the will again for emphasis and suddenly, Stanley leaped to the table and batted playfully at her finger. Annie giggled. “It looks like Stanley agrees,” she said.

  “Oliver,” said Dex.

  Annie gave him a quizzical look. “Oliver?”

  “I remember a cat named Oliver. He hated me.” Dex frowned. “I remember him growling at me…on the ship; and Tobias thought it was funny and I…” He stopped shaking his head in frustration. “No, it’s gone.”

  Maud scratched Stanley’s head. “Cats have always been associated with the occult,” she said. “They’re very perceptive creatures. I wonder if Oliver recognized that you didn’t belong in that time and was reacting to that...”

  “And Stanley has the same sort of reaction every time something strange happens around here, too” said Dex excitedly. He stroked the cat’s back. “Is that right boy, do you know what’s going on?” Stanly responded with a neat shoulder roll onto the table, squirming to expose his belly, and a loud contented purr.

  Dex laughed. “Ok, it’s settled. We keep looking and Stanley’s in charge.”

  “I’m in,” said Annie, “but where are we looking?”

  “There ain’t but one place left to look.” Unnoticed, Zachary had stepped into the kitchen doorway. “You’ll find what you’re lookin’ for in that old carriage house.”

  Annie groaned. “I was afraid you were going to say that. I don’t like that place. Maybe we should search this house first.”

  Zachary shook his head. “Nope. Maybe she hasn’t give up all her secrets yet, but I’ve seen enough of her to know she hides no treasure.”

  “But we’re not looking for a treasure, only a ring.”

  The old man shook his head again. “Uh uh, Missy, this has always been about a treasure.”

  “Well, first things first. Let’s go get Mister Quill back underground where he belongs,” Dex said pushing back from the table.

  In the cemetery, Dex suppressed a small shudder as he took a last look at Weldon Quill’s bones before closing the box and placing it into the hole. “He hated me too,” he said sadly.

  Maud reached for his hand. “Like the cat,” she said gently, “perhaps he simply sensed you didn’t belong.”

  Chapter 37

  “She was built sound.” Zachary tapped the door frame of the carriage house lightly. “Back when things were made to last.”

  After finishing with Quill’s grave, Dex had called the hospital for an update on D.J. while Annie and Maud fixed sandwiches for lunch and now they stood in the mid day sun at the side door to the carriage house.

  “Not so sound I can’t tear it down if I have to,” Dex muttered.

  Taylor grunted. “T’wont come to that. Knowin’ where to look, we can find what they hid.”

  Dex shoved the do
or open and stepped into the dim interior. Striding to the front doors, he was immediately conscious of a comforting warmth spreading from the medallion on his chest and he grimly welcomed whatever help it offered as he wrenched a wooden bar from its rusted brackets and muscled the swinging doors open letting in a flood of dust motes and sunlight. Thanks to their efforts of the day before last, the carriage house was largely empty, but they took the time to carry the last of its contents out into the driveway. The exterior walls, uninsulated and unsheathed on the inside, held no secret and the overhead was open clear to the roof, so they concentrated their efforts on the floor. After fifteen minutes of rapping and prying at the thick wooden planks Dex shook his head. “This floor’s solid. Let’s take a look in the back rooms.”