Unsettled Graves: A Crossroads of Kings Mill Novel (The Crossroads of Kings Mill Book 3)

by Loni Lynne

  “John and Andrew? Oh sure, honey. They’d be delighted.”

  Camden stood up. “We can’t just have people help us out of the blue. They would want to know specifics. How do you tell them you’re trying to send a man from the past back from the future?”

  “Oh with John and Andrew, it’s no problem. Trust me, they understand.”

  “What? Are they part of your psychic group?” Camden asked.

  “Andrew and John?” Virginia scoffed to answer for her mother. “No, they’re actually ghosts from the Battle of Gettysburg.”

  Camden wiped his hands down his face in mock frustration. “Of course they are.”

  Tonya couldn’t help but laugh as her angst had now turned into giddy excitement. So much for him being a non-believer now.

  #

  “So your mother and I are coming up to visit you for the Fourth of July weekend. We want to see how you’re doing. You need to start gearing up for football season. Training starts the end of July.”

  Camden knew his father was bound and determined to get him back out on the gridiron. Didn’t he know or understand why Camden wanted no part of football anymore? Couldn’t he even have an iota of remorse for what he’d done to the half back from Duke? He dislocated the guy’s shoulder as they’d slammed into each other. His knee was so bad that even with the new kneecap it just wasn’t the same.

  You hurt your knee, not your throwing arm, son. That’s what his father always said. Like having a fake kneecap was no big deal.

  Camden pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dad, I’m not going out for football this year. I’m trying for the history scholarship, remember?”

  “My son is not some desk jockey. You’re pro bowl material. I’ve been talking to Coach Webb and he thinks you’ll make possible Heisman rankings either this season or next. With that, you can sign your own paycheck into the NFL. I just want fifty yard seats at your first Super Bowl.”

  “Dad, will you knock it off? There are thousands of college league players in the same rankings as I could be. The odds—”

  “The odds are in your favor if you keep practicing and listening to your coaches. You’re pissing away your opportunity for something great by wasting away behind some dusty books you probably don’t even know what they’re about. Who is interested in the past anyway? You need to start focusing on your future and that is football.”

  God his old man was hard-headed. What did it take for him to get out from under his way of thinking? Camden just wanted out from his controlling…no, domineering, father.

  “We’re coming up on the thirtieth of June and staying at the Old Town Tavern and Inn. Your mother wants to experience the place that every bed and breakfast magazine is talking about. I figured I would indulge her whim to make her happy.”

  Great. He’d warn Millie and company of their arrival…way in advance.

  “I’ll see you and Mom then, Dad.”

  “Take care, Cam, and make sure you keep working out. Love you, son.”

  “You too, Dad.”

  Hanging up from the call, he knew what purgatory felt like…it was arriving in less than two weeks. And they were going to be here during the reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. God help him, he was in desperate need of an angel. But Tonya was at Vickie’s tonight.

  #

  “The boy is done tuckered out.” Jared softly closed the guest bedroom door on the sleeping Joshua. “The hike up that trail… What did you call it?”

  Tonya forgot how many sites she was accustomed to were not even around during Jared’s time. “The Appalachian Trail. We actually didn’t hike all of it. The trail runs from Georgia all the way up to Maine. We only did a day hike.”

  “Well, all I know is that it wore poor Josh plum out.”

  “He’ll sleep well. All that fresh air really helps a person relax.” Tonya settled in to her paperwork. Trying to find time between entertaining the boys and work, she had to focus on making time for her paper. Camden had finally gotten his time to help Kenneth out at the Mill, being one of the historical reenactors. Without knowing what to do with the boys on such a beautiful Saturday, she’d taken them over to Washington County and hiked a section of the famous trail.

  “So’s what are you learnin’?” Jared asked as he sat down at the table next to her, taking a sip on his of sweet tea.

  His rough grasp of English grammar grated on her nerves at times. Never correcting him, she couldn’t influence him no matter how much his words were like fingernails on a chalkboard. It might affect the time line when they get him back.

  “I’m trying to figure out a way to honor an extinct tribe of people who were indigenous to this part of Maryland.”

  “You talkin’ about Injun tribes?”

  “Yes, the Native Americans.”

  Jared wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Savages…heathens…”

  “People misunderstood.”

  “Taking our land, burning crops…heck, no different than those damn Yanks.”

  “It was their land before the white man came and took their land from them. And history has taught us since the beginning of time that man in general is savage. Wars, battles for land and freedoms every race on Earth has learned to fight for their survival, for their rights, their lands, their families, and their nation.”

  “So’s you’re telling me, ‘Don’t judge, lest you be judged’?” He shook his head and grinned. “You sound so much like my Sweet Molly.”

  “Molly?”

  “My girl back home. We married shortly before I left last year. Tiny little thing but full of fire when she gets her dander up. Heck, she took on her daddy when he refused to give us his blessing. Said I was no good. Wouldn’t amount to nothing. She told him she was marrying me no matter what and that he could figure it out when he wanted to see her again.”

  Wow. That was something. Tonya didn’t think women back then had backbone to stand up for their wants and desires.

  “So he agreed?”

  “Nah, not really. She told him I was the man whose baby she was going to have.” Jared blushed and rubbed at his neck. “He took it wrong and thought she was already in the family way. He walked me up the aisle with his flintlock at his side. By the time he realized she was talking about having my baby in the future, it was too late because we was hitched.”

  Tonya laughed. It sounded like his Molly was a good con. “Does she always get her way?”

  “With me? Yes. I can’t resist her sweet ways or her fiery temper. That’s where her daddy and I are alike. But she’s also smart and takes a stand for others. Her little brother was always getting teased at school by this bully and one day she went up and punched the kid in the nose when he laughed at her trying to stick up for Jimmy.”

  “Did the bully leave Jimmy alone afterwards?”

  “Sure did. My nose bled for a long time. Molly has a mean right punch. I think that was when I fell in love with her.”

  Tonya laughed and shook her head. She wished she knew Molly. They would get along so well.

  “You remind me of her. The way you’re like a dog with a bone…never giving up on something until the job is done. Never taking ‘no’ for an answer. You’re nose wrinkles the same way when you smile.”

  Self-consciously she rubbed at her nose. Jared winked at her. Well, so much for her theory of them being an item. He was in love with Molly. But it gave them a new approach for research. If there wasn’t anything on Jared Evansworth in the history records, but maybe they could find something on Molly that would give them some insight.

  #

  “I don’t know what your big issue with your family coming to visit is, but you are really freaking out?” Tonya asked as she noticed Camden’s agitation as the days got closer to his folks arrival.

  “Trust me. You haven’t met my dad.” Camden scoffed as he wrote more notes down.

  The only thing keeping him focused was the research into Jared’s past and the preparations the Wilton Women were giving them into the
weekend reenactment of Gettysburg. Andrew and John had agreed to help them out…according to Dorothy but he was taking all of that with a grain of salt. They were ghosts. How predictable could they be? Parts of him wasn’t sure how predictable the Wilton Women could be either.

  “So did you find anything on Molly Evansworth?” Tonya asked.

  “I actually did. Not much, but it’s something.” Camden handed her the papers he’d copied. A birth certificate and her death certificate.

  Molly Ann Wilde had been born in a small town in South Carolina and yet she’d died in 1912 in Kansas City, Kansas, Molly Ann Wilde-Evansworth at the age of sixty-seven. There were no records of marriage or occupation, just the two certificates of having existed.

  “Well, we know they were married. She took his name with her, at least.” Tonya clicked her pen a few times, habitually. “But it begs to question, why did she leave South Carolina to go west? Who did she go with? We’re talking about a time when proper women weren’t allowed to travel unescorted.”

  “Jared had deserted. She was alone in a land torn apart by a bloody civil war that took land, men, and communities away. There was nothing left of what they remembered. People and families left behind what they couldn’t take with them and traveled west. Why wouldn’t she leave?”

  “She could have left with other family. It doesn’t say. It only tells of her death and where she was at the time. In between the Civil War and the time of death, she could’ve traveled the world for all we know.”

  Camden closed his down his window menu to a website he’d been on. “So what you’re saying is I’m no closer to the truth than I was before. Right back at square one.”

  “Look, Camden.” She pushed her papers and research books away towards the middle of the work table they shared. “If it’s any consolation, I’m getting nowhere in my search for the truth about what happened to the Susquahannock tribe that was massacred by the Maryland Militia back in the 1670s.”

  She made a sweeping gesture towards the books and her small laptop. “All it says is that at one point George Washington’s great-grandfather, John, led a group of Virginian’s to annihilate one of the forts on the northern Potomac River…and a few years later, the Maryland Militia went in and destroyed another group somewhere near present day Columbia. We’re talking an area of mass proportions. Not only that, the area could be misconstrued as the land boundaries between Pennsylvania and Maryland at the time were convoluted. It wasn’t until the Civil War that the Mason-Dixon Line was established. ”

  “That could be anywhere between Columbia and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

  “Exactly. Talk about your needle in a haystack.” She sighed.

  “You could always change your topic?”

  “Yeah, and so could you,” she quipped back. The topic of possibility to change her subject had come up many times in her overworked, frustrated brain.

  “That whole boring topic of the economics during the Reconstruction is looking better and better…but…”

  “But?”

  “Not as exciting or challenging.”

  “Nor rewarding as trying to find out the truth?”

  Camden didn’t need to say anything, but he nodded his head rhythmically. They were on the same page. Neither one wanted to give up on finding justice for their victims of misconstrued history books.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Never take your issues with history to a Historian, especially one from a family of metaphysical gifts. History to them was a trip back in time through touch or thought…or meditation.

  “We’ve worked these past few weeks on maintaining the balance of your chakras. That is the first step in focusing on your gift. Healthy chakras can not only produce harmony within your soul but can strengthen your gift and power to handle it.”

  “So now what?” Tonya asked Vickie as she sat, cross-legged on the woven, multi-colored blanket in the middle of Vickie’s living room floor.

  “I want you to connect. Connect with your gift. Let it flow through you and guide you where it wants to take you.”

  “Are you sure I’m ready for this?” Tonya whimpered.

  “You’ve been ready. It’s been there waiting for you to accept it fully. Do not be afraid. It knows where you need to be and is ready to take you there. Put all doubts away. Concentrate on the power within.” Vickie spoke slowly and gracefully like a hypnotic trance.

  They’d sage smudged the room earlier, inviting only spirits of the light to enter. Saying the Prayer of St. Michael together they’d allowed the saint to bless them into the ‘knowing’ portal, but none of the spirits they encountered could come back through. That was Tonya’s mistake the last time. She had not instructed the spirits to stay in their time…or at least that is what they assumed happened.

  She was ready for this. April had told her that in order to find truth it was time to use her gift. What kind of truth would she find? There wasn’t anything in the history sites or books on Maryland History helping, nothing she could touch, like April’s gift of psychometry. But she trusted April’s ability to know a bit more about the gifts than she did. She would leave it up to the experts to guide her.

  And it was time.

  Listening to the lilting instructions of Vickie’s voice, Tonya let her body completely relax, opening up to the possibilities of the energies around her. There was darkness as her mind let go of all negative thoughts. She was hoping for enlightenment, not darkness…and she focused fervently on Vickie’s voice, chanting and soothing…

  Tonya found herself walking down a long corridor surrounded by cobblestone bricks. The echo of water dripping near her but never on her. She was somewhere underground. Voices whispered in a strange, guttural language she couldn’t understand but she felt the anger, the sadness and despair of the souls belonging to the voices.

  With each step she took, the voices became clearer. So many. Cries of children, the soothing of mothers…and something else. A common soul who all these cries centered around. A being of ancient wisdom.

  Tonya rounded the corner of the long hallway. Tentative and alert of her surroundings she’d entered a chamber of light so radiant it blinded her temporarily. Shielding her eyes with her forearm the rays dissipated revealing a large group of people, a hundred or more, barely clothed, their skin dark…the men stood and walked forward threatening with the tall, broad statuesque statures.

  Their eyes were black, empty sockets where eyes may have been. Tonya gasped as the voices died suddenly. Not even a child cried out.

  “You have come.”

  Tonya turned around at the gnarled voice behind her. A weathered old woman. She’d seen this woman before. In her nightmare.

  She looked around at the others until she realized she was the one being spoken to. “M…m…me?” The old woman’s head bowed once in acknowledgement. “Where am I?”

  “The Crossroads, my child. A place between spirit worlds.” She shuffled forward on fur clothed feet. Her skin hung on a skeleton-like frame, and yet, Tonya wasn’t afraid.

  Looking back to the mass of people, she recognized some of the markings. They were those of the drawings the European settlers had taken of the Susquahannock people.

  “Are you of the Susquahannock tribe?” Tonya ventured to guess.

  “We are the People of the Muddy Waters…we are those who lived and died among the white man. We were many…now we are few.”

  “I know. And I am sorry.”

  “You did not do this. Do not be sorry. You are what the spirits called forth. You are The Great Traveler.”

  Tonya shook her head. The old woman didn’t make any sense. “No…I’m just…”

  “You have been called as have others to lead our souls and the souls of the lost. This is the crossroads in which I called forth from the great spirits as we lie dying from the ravages of war and disease… A place where all souls who’ve suffered wrongly go to find release from bodies harmed.”

  “Is this the massacre site from the Marylan
d Militia?” Tonya gasped, wondering where in conjunction with time and history she was.

  The old woman shrugged. “We were attacked by men and settlers, yes, but we do not know of which you speak.” She stepped forward a bit, examining Tonya. “You are of the spirits as was foretold. You must set our souls free to go forth.”

  “I don’t know how. What do I do?”

  “A spirit guide knows…they tell tales of honor. They add their spirit to help forge the bridge over the chasm between death and the eternal light. We are in death…darkness.” She waved her hands around the bricked-in walls. “We seek the way to the light. At the crossroads we stand, waiting.”

  Tonya understood the whole seeking eternal rest, but how could she be the bridge? Was she a missing link? A gap in between here and there? The crossroads?

  The woman moved in closer as did the warriors and others behind her.

  “We seek you to join the crossroads. You must join the crossroads.” The woman’s voice grew louder, more agitated until it blended in with the foreign words of the others, chanting over and over in Tonya’s head.

  Tonya closed her eyes and covered her ears with her hands. “Stop!”

  #

  Vickie shook her out of her vision and she gave a startled cry, thinking it was one of them shaking her.

  “Tell me about the vision. I couldn’t comprehend what you were trying to interpret.” Vickie’s ability was a mixture of spiritual connection and organic connection with the soul of a person. Chakras and Reiki were only a small portion of her gifts.

  “I…I…don’t know. I’m the bridge in the crossroads.”

  “The spiritual realm between life and eternity. So your gift is true.”

  “But what crossroads? They want me to join the crossroads. Does that mean I’m supposed to die?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There could be many different interpretations. Were they the tribe from the massacre near Columbia?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t think they knew for sure. Again, the interpretations of a different time period could be as convoluted as a missing landmark having been removed over time. Something that was there then and been gone for hundreds of years?”