Harbinger in the Mist (Arms of Serendipity)

by Anabell Martin

  In Loving Memory

  John Franklin Dorsey

  June 6, 1978 - Nov. 26, 2010

  Dear John,

  What is there to say? You’re gone and there’s nothing anyone can about it. I was so excited to reconnect with you … and then you were gone.

  Thank you for giving Eli the gift of music. His abilities with the violin are a tribute to your great musical talents.

  I will never understand, John, but I do hope that you have found peace. I love you and miss you.

  Prologue

  Lindsey’s heart pounded fiercely, thumping against her sternum like a war drum. A salty mixture of tears, sweat, and mucus dripped from her quivering upper lip into her mouth as she gasped for air. In this stifling southern summer night, she felt like she was suffocating. A massive amount of adrenaline was racing through her body causing her stomach to churn; the short, quick gasps of air heaved her diaphragm up and down, increasing the nausea. And the sorrow! A heart-wrenching sadness clawed at every cell in her being. Tears flowed down her cheeks in a stream.

  Two angry men grabbed her and began pulling her toward the front door, away from the macabre room. She glanced one final time at the gore splattered across the tiny bed and up the wall. The men jeered at her and called her vile names; she could smell the whiskey clinging to their waxed beards. But their rhetoric was just background noise, barely audible behind the staticky pulsing of the blood in her ears. At the threshold, a large, black Palmetto bug skittered down the wall and out of sight behind the credenza. Her bare feet faltered and she stumbled.

  The humid air outside was still as death. The only movement came from the tiny legs of the crickets playing her death march. She gazed fearfully at the branches of the tree into which a third man was hoisting something… something that made her already broken heart shatter into a million more pieces. She began to pray the Lord’s Prayer in a foreign language, yet the words felt as natural as breathing. “We Papa een heaben, leh ebrybody hona you nyame cause you da holy…”

  One of the men forced her to kneel. The gravel and sand spurs that had not bothered the thick soles of her feet cut into her kneecaps, but that pain was nothing next to that in her heart. She looked down lest she look back into those blood-streaked faces hanging above her. Tears dropped from her rounded cheeks and dotted the dusty ground like rain. Lindsey reached out a violently shaking hand to touch the liquid pain. With a shock, she jerked her hand back and held it out in front of her. Instead of the small, smooth, pale cream skin to which she was accustomed, her hand was now covered in flesh that was weathered, callused, and a dark shade of cocoa. Her petite nails were no longer oval and polished; now they were broad, chipped and dirty. She checked the other hand. It matched the one held up in the air in front of her face.

  Something was wrong.

  Reality settled around her shoulders like a security blanket – she was dreaming. The psychic’s vision earlier this evening had no doubt fueled this unconscious delusion. She took a deep breath to calm herself, but the relief was short-lived. She felt the drunken men lower a heavy rope around her neck.

  She tried to compel herself to wake up, but the thick, twisted fibers tightened around her neck, burning her skin and crushing her windpipe as the men hoisted her up into the gnarly, moss-covered branches of the old tree. She clawed in vain at the rope that was gagging the life from her. WAKE UP! She screamed in her head, but it was no use.

  She heard a gunshot in the distance. She knew what the spent gunpowder smelled like, having just experienced it herself. She somehow knew that her grief-ridden master’s brains were now splattered in a gory display against the back wall of the bedroom upstairs.

  So many innocent lives had been lost on this evil, humid night … Certainly a dark hand had settled over Retreat House.

  Knowing her own life was coming to an end, Lindsey opened her eyes and looked at the blood-streaked faces of her babies who were staring vacantly into the night as they swung beside her. She reached out and grabbed at them. The men below bellowed with laughter. After several attempts, she managed to grab their hands; their silky skin was still warm. In a final explosion of agony, she breathed her last.

  In the sorrow-filled void that was death, she felt hands caress her – large, soft, reassuring hands. She opened her eyes and looked into the light. She saw the face a god staring back at her; he hugged her to his chest and assured her that things were going to be OK.

  Then everything fell silent.

  One

  Bremen, Indiana

  Angel wings engulfed Lindsey Foster in a bright embrace, dispelling the darkness of the vestibule in which she stood. Tearing her eyes away from his beautiful face, she tucked a bouquet of tiger lilies in her Gramma’s cold, stiff hands. Tears rolled down her face as she kissed the palm of her own hand then placed it on Gramma’s cheek. Unable to handle the visceral pain of seeing her grandmother lying in the satin-lined coffin, she looked back at the angel in the center of the only stained glass window of St. Michael’s United Methodist Church.

  He seemed to come alive under the late May sunshine filtering through it. Each pane of glass glowed and shimmered, a myriad of colorful prisms suspending him in midair. Above his head he held a massive, silver sword and his wings spanned the entire width of the frame. At the top of the window, in red glass calligraphy, the words “St. Michael, defend us against all evil” shone brightly as if on fire.

  Aware of the small line of mourners behind her, Lindsey turned her back and went to the pew and dropped down by her sobbing mother. With no blood family, they were both comforted by the church members and friends in their small, Northern Indiana town that had come out to support them.

  When the pastor took the podium, he pointed to the angel above and said, “We gather here today in a state of sadness. Like those dust particles floating in the streams of multihued light, we know that our dear Mary Ann has floated up into the arms of an angel to be whisked to her Savior, Jesus Christ. Let us pray.”

  As heads bowed, Lindsey glanced around awkwardly. Her Gramma had been a woman of deep faith, but neither Lindsey nor her mother had followed in her footsteps. She could count on one hand the times she’d willingly gone to church – she had stopped going all together when she was in the seventh grade and came to the realization that religion was a farce. She had little reason to believe in angels or devils or even God. And, as much as she hated to admit it, Gramma was gone. There was no ethereal spirit floating around them as much as the pastor tried to convince the assembly. And no amount of religious prose could convince her otherwise.

  As the preacher of the tiny, rural Indiana church droned on, the little, innocuous details of Gramma’s finals hours flitted painfully through Lindsey’s mind like the ominous buildup to a melancholy movie. She saw Gramma’s plump, rosy face and bright smile as she wiped down the counter and sang along with the radio four days ago. Then, as if someone had lit a fire to the filmstrip in her brain, the image to bubbled and faded to her sallow silhouette laying motionlessly in the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room after she’d suffered a massive heart attack that same evening. Her dentures had been removed, causing her cheeks to cave in, and her hair was a frizzy, knotted mess. Her eyes had looked lost, scared in that hollow, skeletal face. Gramma was only 63 – hardly elderly – but the hospital had aged her twenty years the minute they rolled her off the ambulance.

  More poignantly were Gramma’s last words, which knotted her stomach.

  “Death’s a … natural part of … life. Don’t … be … sad … I’ll be with daddy tonight … in paradise,” she had wheezed behind a chorus of machinery beeps and hums. She turned
her gaze to Lindsey’s distraught mother. “Aimee… there’s something … you should know... Something … only I can … tell … you.”

  Lindsey had then been dismissed like a small child during an adult conversation. She had protested, of course. She was 18 and able to handle the very grown up circumstances, but her mom had sent her down to the canteen to fetch a cup of coffee anyway.

  When she returned 10 minutes later, her mother was in tears and her Gramma was apologizing profusely. The heart monitor was beating rapidly and the red line zigzagging across the screen frantically.

  “I am so…. so … sorry, honey. I can’t – ” The machine flat-lined before she could finish the sentence. Lindsey dropped the Styrofoam cup, splattering the hot mochiatto across the white linoleum floor.

  Aimee, being a nurse, jumped up and hit a button on the wall. Before she finished speaking some very technical terms into the speaker, the room was flooded with men and women in scrubs. Lindsey had backed against the wall and crumpled.

  The reverie was interrupted as the small crowd stood and pallbearers lifted Gramma’s casket. She spared one final glance at the angel in the window. “If there is a God, please ask him to help me understand,” she mumbled to him before she turned and followed the sad progression to the graveyard.

  Not wanting to see the interment, Lindsey lagged behind in the church courtyard. Beyond the black-clad procession, she could see headstones lining the hill to the side of the brick building. Several children, unaware that they were supposed to suppress their happiness, were playing tag at the bottom of the hill, reveling in the warm breeze. Their laughter rolled on the perfumed zephyr; a magic tinkling that epitomized the coming of summer.

  Lindsey sat on the hood of her mother’s car and plucked a flower from the dogwood tree overhead. She picked at the petals and watched as another vehicle turned into the parking lot. A tall, black man stepped from the car and leaned against it until the service was over and Aimee made her way back toward the church. The man approached her, shook her hand, and handed her a large, manila envelope. They moved to one side, speaking for only a few minutes. When he retreated back to his car, Aimee removed the documents with shaking hands. Her scream of despair echoed across the landscape. As friends ran to her aid, she stuffed the papers back into the envelope.

  Lindsey studied her mom closely; the look on her face worried her. Even upset like this, Aimee was still pretty. She certainly didn’t look like she was in her late 30’s. In all honesty, she looked more like Lindsey’s sister than her mother. They were both slender and short – only 5-foot-2, with long hair, fair skin, and blue eyes. They were both attractive, too, but their incredibly shy natures tended to make people think them snobbish. The only noticeable difference between the two was in the color of their hair – her mom’s was naturally blonde, but Lindsey had inherited her dad’s deep chestnut locks.

  That’s about all she got from him.

  “Lindsey, I think we’re going to be moving,” Aimee muttered, interrupting her thoughts. “Fairly soon, too.”

  Lindsey’s heart sank. Had Gramma not added them to the lease? Or had they forgotten to pay the rent with the rapid health decline drama over the past few weeks? Had they just been evicted? The look on her mom’s face was unreadable, though, as she scanned the front of the envelope. When Aimee finally looked up, there were tears in her eyes.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “I … we inherited a house. In South Carolina. And if we don’t … want it, we can sell it. Evidentially it’s worth quite a bit of money. We could go anywhere we want. Get out of this hell-hole; go somewhere sunny, somewhere with palm trees. It’s not like we have much tying us here anymore.”

  “I don’t understand. Who do we know in South Carolina that would leave us a house? For that matter, who do we know in South Carolina at all?”

  Aimee rubbed her face with her hands and took a deep breath. “My mother.”

  “But I thought she was from South Bend.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Tears began streaking down Aimee’s cheeks in earnest.

  As they drove away, Lindsey glanced back at the church. The angel in the window was nothing more than a black figure standing ominously in the background.

  Two

  Charleston, South Carolina

  Lindsey was tired and hungry. The flight from Indianapolis hadn't taken very long since it was a rare, direct flight, but they had left their little house at 7 a.m. to make it to the airport on time. The drive from Bremen had taken more than two-hours – two long hours down U.S. 31 South, a highway that runs from Northern Michigan to Southern Alabama. The 100 mile stretch between home and Indy was a mostly barren stretch of asphalt that ran through some of the most rural and sometimes speed-trapped areas of the Hoosier state.

  She had begged her mom to stop for breakfast, but the line at Burger King was wrapped around the building. Aimee was stressing over the time and offered Lindsey a protein bar as a substitute for the sausage, egg, and cheese croissant she’d wanted.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, they had hit every single red light in Kokomo. Lindsey tried to sleep during the tedious drive, but her mom kept yapping about everything that came to mind. Aimee tended to chatter when she was nervous, so she’d stayed awake and kept her mom company, commenting when appropriate and trying her best to be calming and supportive.

  But now it was well after lunchtime and, according to the GPS, they still had another hour-long drive ahead of them. Add in the hot air and humidity that slapped her in the face when they stepped out of the airport, and Lindsey’s ability to fake anything else was growing very thin.

  “Can we please stop at the first drive through we see, Mom?” Lindsey asked, stifling a yawn and interrupting Aimee’s muttering of comments about the heat. “I’m starving.”

  “Sure, hon. But we have to be quick. I’m not sure about where we are going and I don’t want to run the risk of being late.”

  Lindsey nodded her head, popped her ear bud in, and cranked up the volume on her MP3 player. Once music was sufficiently blaring in her ears, she opened the AC vents and turned the air conditioning on full blast. Finally, she tucked her purse between the side of her head and the window. The rocking of the car, the rhythm of the music, and the cool air blowing over her face and neck lulled her to sleep.

  Half an hour later, she felt her mom pulling at her ear buds. “Linds. Lindsey. We’re at McDonald’s. Do you still want to grab some food?”

  Lindsey slowly opened her eyes and focused on her mom. For a moment she was confused about where they were. She blinked several times to moisten the contacts that were stuck to her eye lids and stretched her arms.

  “Are you still hungry? Or would you rather sleep while I keep driving?”

  “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  They parked the car and went into the large fast food restaurant seated at the corner of a major intersection. Aimee went to the bathroom while Lindsey stood in line behind several people who, based on how they kept checking their watches, were their lunch breaks. When it was her turn, she ordered for the two of them and took the tray to a booth near the door.

  Aimee sat down, shaking her hands vigorously to dry them. “They don’t have a single paper towel in that bathroom!” She patted them on her pants and grabbed a French fry. She dipped it in one of the little paper cups of ketchup on their tray and raised an eyebrow at the red box with the yellow handles sitting in front of Lindsey. “A Happy Meal? Really? How old are you again?”

  “Yes, really.” Lindsey pulled the plastic bag containing the toy out of her box and stuck it in her purse. Aimee grinned at her, but at least she didn’t laugh. “Quit making fun of my lunch. It’s the perfect size for me. Now, how much longer until we're there?”

  “Oh, about another 40 minutes or so.” Aimee pulled the road maps she’d printed last night from her bag and plopped them on the table. She pointed out the road in front of the restaurant, “We follow this road for like 25 miles before tu
rning onto, oh where is it? Here, Highway 64, for another 15 miles or so. Then we look for St. Peter's Road. It's just outside of the town of Walterboro. It looks like another pretty barren stretch of roads, too. So if you got to pee, I'd do it while we're here.”

  “Nah. I went at the airport. I think I'll be OK.”

  “Well, OK, suit yourself. But don’t blame me if we have to stop on the side of the road and you end up with poison ivy on your butt. I don’t care if I’m your mother or a nurse; I am so not rubbing cream on that for you.”

  Not liking the idea of actually having to bare her bottom on the side of the road, Lindsey went to the bathroom when they’d finished eating. In the car, Aimee started sifting through a handful of brochures that she’d plucked from the little wooden case by the door of the restaurant.

  “Look at these. I was already thinking that we could check out the beach this evening; maybe get some fresh seafood before we have to go back to Green Acres on Sunday. Look at all this stuff. There will definitely be lots to do if we really move down here. Look, they have an aquarium. And, ooh, a serpentarium.” She tucked two of the pamphlets in the sun visor. “Oh, and doesn’t this look spooky?”

  Lindsey looked at the flyer her mom handed over. A zombie-like woman stared back at her with white, vacant eyes. She read the details out loud. “It says, ‘Come join Colonial Walking Tours and take Charleston’s original ghost hunt walking tour by candle light. Adults only, reservations required. Murder, suicide, hanged pirates, voodoo curses, alleyway duels, dungeons and jails, graveyards. This unique tour takes you through historic Charleston’s most infamous haunted locations. In the tranquility of the night your guide explains the unearthly details of haunted Charleston! Will you see a roaming spirit, poltergeist, or ghost? Join us for an adventure into the unknown!’ Wow mom, that’s crazy neat. I don’t believe the dead walk the earth but I love a good scary story. It’s $13 a person and runs from seven until nine in the evening.”