Chapter 25
The Secrets of Wesley’s Private Journals
Mike sat on the couch eye lids growing increasingly heavy as he flipped through page after page of Wes’s hand written journal. Jen was sleeping with her head in his lap which put him at a bit of a crossroads. He needed to get up and move around before he fell asleep but he couldn’t do so without waking her. How am I going to do this? He thought to himself as he stared down at her peaceful face. Maybe I can lift and scoot. He thought as he began to slowly lift her head up to give himself enough room to scoot out. The plan worked long enough to lift her head but the second he attempted phase two and scooted to the side her eyes shot open.
“Where are you going?” She asked half asleep. She raised herself up into a sitting position. ‘What’s wrong?” Her eyes barely open.
“Nothing.” He stood up and began to stretch. “Just needed to get up I was starting to doze off.”
“Go to sleep then.” She laid down in the opposite direction putting her head on the arm of the couch.
“I will in a bit, just reading through those.” He pointed towards the journals that he sat on the coffee table. “I won’t be much longer. Why don’t you head up to bed?”
“I’ll wait.” She said her eyes now closed.
“Ok.” He hadn’t really expected her to go but he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be up and he didn’t want to wake her every time he got up. Thinking to limit his getting up, he grabbed his glass and made his way into the kitchen. “Grabbing a drink and then I’ll be back in.” He was expecting a response and when none came he poked his head through the kitchen doorway and saw that she had fallen back asleep. He quickly refilled his glass with ice and a decent amount of bourbon then made his way back to his seat on the couch and took a large gulp from his glass then sat it down and picked up the journal again and started reading.
“Anything in it?” Jen asked in a sleepy half audible tone. She must have woken when he sat down.
“So far just a lot of stuff about him being sick and not wanting anyone to know.” Mike looked over to Jen and she was asleep once again. He smiled as he began to read through the journal again.
About half an hour and half a glass of bourbon later he had finally finished the first journal. As he closed it he started to think about their friendship and how he felt that he wasn’t near the friend to Wes as Wes was to him. The thought that Wes didn’t want to tell him about being sick because he was afraid it would change how he or anyone else would look at him was an unpleasant one. When he first read that, he was hurt but given what happened later with Emily he began to get angry with himself. I was such a shit friend. He thought to himself as he picked up his drink and downed the rest of it. He shot up out of his seat not thinking about waking Jen but it hit him a second later. He looked over and saw her eyes open.
“Drink.” He grabbed his glass off the coffee table and made his way to the kitchen and quickly made himself another drink and began to drink it as he leaned against the counter.
I wasn’t a bad friend. What was I supposed to think towards the end? That’s bullshit to put that all on me. He thought as his mind raced and the alcohol started taking its toll. He continued to sip on his drink. ”Screw it.” He tossed back the rest and quietly made his way to the front door. He looked over at Jen and saw that she had fallen back to sleep so he quietly opened the door and with one last glance at her, he slipped through the door. He walked past the car and made his way on foot to Wes’s house.
The night air was cool against his skin and worked to calm him down, however his mind was still set. He still planned on walking down there and demanding Wes talk to him. That was the whole reason he even agreed to do this investigation and come on this trip. However, after the earlier events in the house, he wasn’t sure exactly how the rest of the time would play out.
By the time he reached Wes’s house his anger had mostly subsided but he was still determined. He walked up on the porch and as he approached the front door it occurred to him.
“Son of a bitch.” He said out loud to himself as he reached in his pockets. “I can’t believe I forgot the damn key.” He reached for the doorknob and gave it a twist but nothing. He began to look around and he was going to make sure he tried all the possibilities to get in the house before he gave up on the idea of calling Wes out. He tried window after window and he even tried the back door but all were locked. “Damn.” He said admitting defeat. He stood there staring at the house in the backyard thinking through his mind on how to get in but he knew apart from busting out a window it was a lost cause. As he turned to leave he noticed the bench swing that sat in the back corner with large bushes, that in the spring bloomed beautiful flowers sat on either side of it. Not ready to return home he decided to sit for a while and hopefully clear his head.
The cool breeze as he swung felt good and helped lift the slight fog of the alcohol. He wouldn’t get what he came here for but it wasn’t a lost cause. He started to feel peaceful and all his bad thoughts from earlier slowly slipped away. He was amazingly surprised at the tranquility he was now feeling. The house had always brought up bad emotions even before he had come here on that Halloween night. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of cool night air.
“Did you read the journals you and your friend took?” A soft voice asked from beside him.
Mike’s eyes flew open and he nearly jumped out of his skin. If the arm of the swing and the chains that hung it not been there he would have surely been on the ground. He turned his head not knowing what to expect and there, in all her spectral glory sat Emily.
Not able to speak he could only sit there staring at her. The idea of coming over and confronting a ghost was much easier in his head but now that he sat here face to face, he was unable to do anything let alone speak.
“It’s not polite to stare Michael.” She said as she sat there staring up at the house. “Did you read them?” She asked again. Her voice was soft and sweet, and was very comforting.
He shook his head. “Not both of them.”
“I’m surprised.” She looked over at him.
He saw a hint of confusion on her face, a face that he could see every detail of and he could now see how Wes fell in love with her. “Why are you surprised?”
“The way you came over here. You seemed angry.”
“What is in the journals? My friend acted odd about them too.” Mike shook his head anger boiling up again at the thought that everyone is privy to some piece of information and they were all keeping it from him.
“Tracy.” A smile crossed her face as she said her name.
“You know her?” He began to feel even more confused.
“We’ve talked a few times. She is very intuitive and very gifted too.” Her gaze went back up to the house. “Why did you come over?”
Mike recognized her attempt at changing subjects He decided he would answer her question but had no plan to give up on his. “I wanted to talk to Wes.” At the mention of Wes’s name he began to wonder where he was and why it wasn’t him sitting here with him but he figured he focus on the topics at hand first. “How do you know her and what is in the journal.”
“Like I said we’ve talked and that is for her to tell you more.”
Mike had a feeling that he wasn’t going to get more from that subject and as much as it was starting to piss him off his main concern was the information in journals. “Ok then, but what about the journal? What is this big secret?”
Emily sat in silence as she stared up at the house.
“Or is that something I should get from the journal? Not your secret to tell?” Mike angrily stood up. “I will just have to go read the damn thing apparently.” He took one step to leave.
“Wait.” She said in a soft tone. “Don’t go.”
He turned in place and looked down at her still sitting in the swing, a look of sadness across her face now. “I feel like there is this giant secret and I’m the only one who doesn’t know i
t.” He took a seat beside her. The ease at which he could talk to her was surprising to him. “Since the hospital… my parents and Jen… Hell! Even Tracy and now you.” He paused and looked up at the house. He noticed how beautiful it was as the moonlight illuminated it.
“Beautiful isn’t it?” She asked with a smile. “I would have never thought I could say that about that house.” She looked over at Mike. “I’ll tell you but you have to promise you’ll bear with me and won’t get upset.”
This caught him by surprise I can’t really promise that. He thought to himself but wanting her to tell him he agreed. “I’ll do my best.” He sat back down and gave her his full attention.
She nodded and took a deep breath.
“Wait, do gho…” He stopped himself remembering something that Wes had said in his journal. How ghost almost seemed derogative to him. “I mean…” He corrected himself. “Do spirits breathe?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not actually, we don’t need to but it’s more of a…” She paused deciding the best words. “Going through the motions kind of thing.”
“Sorry go ahead.”
Smiling she started over. “I died in this house nineteen years ago.” Her gaze went back to the house. “I was homeless. My father kicked me out of the house over an argument. Well it was more of a situation.”
“In Wes’s journal he said that you got along with your family?”
“I did for the most part. All but my father really and no one would stand against him from fear of what he would do, not that I would have let them anyways. I told Wes I got along with them at first before I knew just how much I wanted to share with him.” She paused as her eyes closed. “He was very persistent about wanting to know my past so I told him little bits of it at a time.”
“That is Wes for you. Always asking why and not stopping till he finds out.”
She smiled. “Back to the story. I moved around a lot going from job to job. It’s hard to keep a job when you are homeless so I ended up just doing whatever I could do. I did some cleaning for the occasional person and I am ashamed to say that I even stole, it wasn’t easy.”
Mike could see the torment on her face. “What happened that your entire family would disown you like that?”
“My family was very old fashioned.” She forced a smile onto her face. “I got pregnant at a young age. I was fifteen when it happened and I was forced to marry the guy.” She looked back towards the house and took another deep breath. “Well he was abusive and beat me and I put up with it till one night he hit my child and I left.”
“Well that’s good.” Mike said.
“My father didn’t agree. He wouldn’t have an unwed whore of a daughter with a bastard child so he threw us out. My mother tried to stop him but she could only do so much.”
“I’m so sorry.” He was at a loss at what to say.
“Me too.” She forced another smile. “So I started bouncing around broke, hungry, and tired. What little money I had I spent on food for my child. It wasn’t his fault and he didn’t deserve this life.”
It was a boy. He thought to himself as he looked at her face. He could swear there were tears running down it. He didn’t dare ask if she could cry right now.
“One night cold and tired we wound up here and I saw this house.” She waved her hand in front of her towards the house. “Empty… or so I thought. It was however out of the cold nights. When I checked the door it wasn’t locked so we made our way inside. We stayed there for a few days. We would use a candle at night for light and there were some old clothes and a few odds and ends in there to sleep on and cover with.”
Mike noticed a smile cross her face again, but this one wasn’t forced. He knew that she must be remembering a nice thought and he couldn’t help but smile himself.
“It was nice, considering the circumstances.” She paused. “No one noticed us staying there, well that or they did and didn’t care. We were inside all the time and if I had to leave I did it at night while my child slept. I was afraid to risk being seen otherwise.” Her smile began to fade. We kept very busy. We played games, I would watch him as he drew.”
“The drawings up stairs.” Mike blurted out as the image of the little boy drawing appeared in his mind.
She nodded. “He always loved to draw so I tried to keep a supply of crayons or markers for him. I know he shouldn’t have drawn on the walls but I didn’t have the heart to tell him no at the time.”
“That is why Wes kept the drawings uncovered.” He could see that there were actual tears on her face now as she nodded in agreement. “Weren’t there any homes or shelters you could have gone to?”
“Perhaps and looking back I should have but I was scared I’d lose my child. That they would take him away.”
“That would be a scary thought.”
“I just believed that I would get back on my feet and that things would get better.” She shook her head. “I was wrong, so very wrong.” She stopped talking and began to stare out at nothing.
“Then what happened?” Mike asked
“It went like that for a few days and then one night the house just got this eerie feel and it was cold… so cold. It was a full moon actually I remember because the inside was lit enough to where I made my way around the house without needing a candle.” She turned her gaze back to Mike. “It was that night he appeared, angry and full of hate.”
“Warren?”
She nodded. “He came out of nowhere his red eyes drilled into your soul, and it hurt. The burning feeling was unbearable.”
Mike cringed at those words. He remembered all too well of the day he experienced those eyes.
“He came after me and threw me against the wall and as I hit the ground I saw him turn after my little boy.” The tears started back up and ran slowly down her face. “I got myself up and ran and grabbed him by the hand, lifted him up and ran. I tried to get down the steps but Warren was at the bottom so I turned and we ran. We came to the room that had the large wardrobe in it and we climbed inside.”
“Last night?” Mike started to ask
Emily nodded her head. “He grabbed her and I took her from him. I put her in the wardrobe and we held him back.”
“We?” Mike asked
“Wes and I.” Knowing that Mike would ask she answered him. “He is in that room… Stuck in that room trying to keep Warren at bay. After he passed there was a crew that came to do some repairs on the house and they uncovered the door and opened it.”
“And let him out.”
She nodded. “We just forgot about them coming the appointment was made months in advance and was postponed several times and with everything going on we just forgot.”
“How were you to know?” He said trying to comfort her seeing the torment and self-blame on her face. “It’s not your fault.”
She slowly nodded her head.
“How can we get Wes out? There has to be something we can do.”
“I don’t know.”
“We can find a way I’m sure of it.”
“That’s what your friend Tracy said.” Emily looked back at him. “But I need to finish my story.”
Mike nodded. He was trying to figure out what this had to do with him so he was anxious for her to continue. “Sorry go ahead.”
She smiled. “We were in the wardrobe hiding. It got quiet and for a second I thought maybe it was over. Then the door to the wardrobe was torn open and Warren reached down and drug me out. I tried to fight him off but there was nothing I could do. He picked me up by the throat and held me feet off the floor choking me. Everything began to fade and I managed to look down and see my little boy in the wardrobe scared… shouting… crying. Then there was nothing just black.”
Mike had his one hand covering his mouth he could actually picture it happening and could almost feel the fear. “I am so sorry.”
She shook her head. “I am the one who is sorry. I put us in that position.” She took another deep breath trying to stop her tear
s. “I woke up later and for a split second I thought it was ok and I looked for my son and I saw him sitting there crying and yelling for me to wake up, holding my hand… but it wasn’t my hand.”
“He was holding your body.”
She nodded. “That’s when I knew what had happened. That is when I knew I was dead.”
“Didn’t he see you?”
She shook her head. “No I stood there watching him as he held my lifeless hand yelling for me to get up. I was powerless to do anything to help him.”
“How did I never hear anything about this? I lived a few blocks down and I never once heard about anything like this. I mean no one did. How?”
“Well my son eventually left the house and my body was never found.”
“What happened to it?”
“He took it and held on to it.”
“Warren took it?”
She nodded.
“So it’s still in the house somewhere?”
She nodded again. “What’s left of it I imagine.”
“What does all this have to do with me? I don’t understand.” He began to shake his head. “I feel horrible for you. It is the saddest thing I have ever heard and my heart truly weeps for you but what does it have to do with me?” His tone began to show his building impatience. He wasn’t trying to be but he knew there was something about him in the journal and here she was telling him about her life. An idea began to creep into his head, an idea that couldn’t be true. His face began to distort in a mixture of disbelief and confusion.
She began to slowly nod. “My son left the house that day and was found by a couple around here. The woman fell in love with him immediately and they eventually adopted him.”
Mike froze. “No” He shook his head as the thought in his mind began to take a stronger hold, going from “no way!” to now “can it be?”
“I stayed around here to be near him and I saw him from time to time I even visited him. I stood over him as he played in his yard.” She smiled, it was a real smile. “He never saw me though. I don’t know why but he never could till one night at a party here.” She pointed at the house.
Mike shook his head and shot up out of the swing. The thoughts in his head becoming more of an actuality. “That’s why you were staring at the wardrobe. It wasn’t clothes, it was your kid.” He turned back to face her and saw that she too was now standing. “Your face when you saw me, when you realized I saw you.” His eyes began to swell with tears. “No.” He shook his head “My parents are Tony and Betty Lachey. They live at 502 Sunbird drive. I have a sister Janet.”
“They are your parents Michael… but not your birth parents.” A third voice said from behind him.
He knew that voice and it wasn’t Emily he spun around and saw Jen coming through the rear gate. “What? When did you… How long?” He was at a loss for words.
“For a while.” She said as tears poured down her face. “The night in the hospital I heard you parents talking to the doctor. So did a reporter and that’s why they didn’t want you watching TV in case he decided to run the story about you being adopted.”
Mike dropped to his knees. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He said through tears.
“I wanted your parents to tell you. I was trying to get them to but they wouldn’t.” She walked to him only glancing at Emily for a brief second. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. “I am so sorry.”
He said nothing, what could he say? He looked up and saw Emily kneeling beside them.
“I am so sorry Michael. I was supposed to protect you and be there for you but I failed you and I am so very sorry.” Her hands now covering her mouth. “I love you so much and I am so sorry.” She said through her hands.
Mike looked at Emily “Why didn’t Wes tell me? When he found out… why didn’t he tell me?”
“He wanted to more than you know but I made him swear not to.” Her hands dropped to her sides. “Would you have believed him though? Even if he did?”
He rolled the idea around in his head trying to force an answer that he knew wasn’t true but he knew the real answer. “No.” He dropped his head and placed his face on Jen’s shoulder. “No I wouldn’t have.”
Unliving Love Page 38