by Mark Tufo
“My earthquake clothes,” Peter said. “I carry them in the trunk in case the big one hits.”
“Most people just go so far as shoes, maybe water.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “Confession. The stuff’s really in there from last time I went to the gym. I got there and decided I didn’t want to work out. Left them there ever since.”
In the car, Emma said, “Leg’s stronger now, so the walking cast shouldn’t keep me from climbing the ladder.”
Peter sighed. “That’s good. If I turned you into a gimp I couldn’t handle it. So what all’s in this trunk?”
Emma shifted in her seat until she was almost facing Peter. She took a scrunchie from her pocket and pulled her hair up in a ponytail. “Well, it was dusty and warm in the attic, so I just took photos with me,” she said. “They were in a separate box inside, which is why I didn’t take any mental journeys up there. But there’s bunches of stuff I didn’t take. I didn’t get to the bottom of the trunk, so I’m not sure.”
“We better watch what we touch.”
Emma reached in her tote bag and pulled out a package of brightly colored latex surgical gloves. “These are large, so they should fit you okay.”
“Christ,” Peter said. “What the hell difference could it make whether we were touching the photo paper directly or through the gloves?”
“I have no idea, but it seems to prevent the trip, at least when they’re in a plastic sandwich bag.”
“I suppose when physics get this strange, there aren’t too many rulebooks we can check to see what works and what doesn’t.”
Northbound traffic on the interstate was mild. Most of the traffic was heading south, toward the beaches and southern beach towns. They made it into Torrance in less than an hour, exiting at Crenshaw and making their way west to Emma’s parent’s home.
Vince Sandelli owned and ran a construction company and was not home, but Yolanda greeted Emma at the door with a big hug and a kiss. “Baby, your leg looks good.” She turned to Peter. “You better be glad, too.” She winked at him and gave him a squeeze.
“Oh, yeah,” Peter said. “You don’t even know. She’s already kicked me with it once or twice to prove it’s working.”
“So, you’ve come to rummage through my attic. I don’t know why you two don’t just get married. Two better friends I’ve never seen.”
Peter glanced at Emma and raised one eyebrow, smiling. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it.
Emma, her face flushed, shook her head. “No, no no, Mum. Web and I are just close friends and you know it.”
“Yes, but sometimes love comes later. Like in arranged marriages.”
Emma walked into the hallway and Peter followed.
Yolanda brought up the rear. “What do you want with that stuff up there anyway?”
“It’s a long story, Mum. There might be some strange history to it. Web and I are just checking it out, that’s all.”
Emma pointed to the plastic grip hanging from the rope in the middle of the hall ceiling, and Peter reached up and pulled down the attic stairway. Dust came down with it, and sent Emma into an immediate sneezing fit.
“I’ll get a tissue, honey.” Yolanda hurried off to the kitchen.
Rubbing her eyes, she said, “After you, sir. The light is just to the right of the hatch. Pull the chain.”
Peter started up the steep ladder-stairs, which protested his weight with each step. As his torso protruded one, then two, then finally—when he trusted the ladder enough to proceed to the next step—three feet inside the attic, he stopped.
A single vent on the far side of the attic allowed the sun to filter in, sending shooting streams of light all the way to the entry hatch. As Peter turned to view the entire attic, it appeared that each visible corner of the sequestered space was dominated by deep shadows; shadows that seemed to cower from the dusty spikes of sunlight as a spider might recoil from a flame.
“Turn on the light,” Emma called from below.
“Got it.” Peter pulled the dangling chain just to his right, and the attic swam into view. Still, the corners seemed to clutch the darkness, refusing to relinquish its grip to the 100 watt bulb. Peter stepped the rest of the way up the ladder.
“You going to make it with that leg?”
“I told you it’s almost perfect. I’m a fast healer.”
She proved her point by practically scurrying up the ladder. Peter took her hand and helped her in.
“Where’s the trunk?”
“Put these on first,” she said, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans and handing him the pair of the bright pink gloves.
“These are flashy enough to chase away any demons,” Peter said, pulling the gloves on and holding up his pink-sheathed hands.
“Is that what you think we’re up against? Demons?”
“Relax, it’s just an expression,” said Peter. “I don’t know what the hell it is. I’m still not sure we’re not all going nuts. Or maybe it’s just me who’s gone nuts, and you’re all gathered around me in a psyche ward while I babble on and on about these pictures, and how they take me into the past and I’ll never really know what’s going on in the real world again until the meds take effect and I get to see my friends again.”
“Now you are babbling. Trunk. That-a-way.” She pointed toward the far corner to their right. “If you’re sure you can handle it.”
“Sure,” Web sad. “Once the meds kick in, I’ll be back in the ward, struggling against the Velcro and leather restraints.”
“I suppose I should be thankful you’ve got a sense of humor about it.”
The trunk was smaller than Peter had expected. The top was rounded, the exterior held together with what appeared to be brass or copper banding, badly tarnished from years of exposure to the elements, and clearly, a lack of exposure to polish.
“How old do you think it is?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t be too hard to find out. We could take it on that show where they tell you how much your old crap’s worth.”
“Right.” Peter slipped on his gloves. “Ready, doctor?”
“In a moment, nurse.” Emma pulled on her bright pink gloves, snapping them both at the wrists. “Okay. Exciting, huh?”
“Twilight Zone exciting.” Peter lifted the darkened brass latch and pulled up on the lid of the chest. Dust swirled in the glow of the bare bulb, rising rather than falling, seeming to take on a life of its own as the trunk lid came to rest at the limit of its hinges.
Emma stepped back and held her hand over her mouth to avoid ingestion of the fine particles.
“I thought you just opened it,” Peter said.
“I did. It’s an attic, not a hospital. Dig in.”
Peter directed the beam of his flashlight into the inky interior of the trunk. It immediately fell upon ancient wooden picture frames, some containing photographs, something rolled into a tube, some articles of clothing, and a couple of pairs of ladies shoes. After glancing over these items, Peter scanned the inside of the trunk’s lid.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Emma touched it, running her fingers over the rough image carved into the dark wood of the trunk. “I didn’t see this before. Looks like a pentagram.”
“That’s what I thought it was. Witch stuff? It’s gotta mean something else.”
“Maybe,” Emma said. “Could just be a manufacturer’s symbol or something.”
“It might explain a lot, but if it does, not only do I have to start believing in reincarnation, I have to include witches, maybe warlocks in my belief system.”
“Does that leave any room for God?”
“Don’t even start with that crap. I’m so turned around I don’t know what to believe or if I even want to think about it.”
“Shine the light back on it, Web.”
Peter did.
Emma touched the star again, then tapped on it. The circle that encased the star released a pattern of dust that floated through the flashlight’s beam before disap
pearing into the trunk beneath it. “Look at this.” She dug with her thumbnail along the line of the circle encompassing the pentagram. “Got a pen knife or something?”
Peter reached into the pocket of his jeans and removed a key chain knife. “Looks like that whole circle will just pop out, doesn’t it?” He inserted the blade into the curved groove surrounding the star and as they watched in amazement, the disk began to lift out of its slot. As Peter caught it in his hand, Emma gasped.
“What?”
“Web, look!”
On the back side of the wooden pentagram, written clear and dark, were passages of some kind. Eight lines in all, tiny simplistic drawings, a language far from English or any other immediately ascertainable to Peter. The images were written in some kind of crimson ink, the gaps and lines evenly sized and spaced as though each space were measured with a micrometer and each character created by a high-precision instrument of some kind.
Emma shuddered audibly. “I’ve got a constant stream of chills going.”
Peter nodded. “I have ‘em, too. Feels like centipedes are crawling up my spine. You recognize this language?”
“It's completely symbol-based. I recognize it, but I don't know from where. If it was in some kind of language using actual letters we could at least Google it and see if we find a match on the internet somewhere.”
Peter looked at the chest for a moment. “I don’t think we need to take the whole trunk. We can get all of the stuff inside in one trip.”
“Works for me,” Emma said.
They set to work. Emma put the wooden pentagram disk in a baggie and zipped it shut. She snapped open several Trader Joe’s paper bags and started loading them up with goodies from the mysterious trunk.
“Isabel will be interested in this. She might know the origins of the writing, too.”
“You have a lot of faith in her, don’t you,” Peter said.
Emma nodded. “She’s got it goin’ on.”
“She’s got something going on, that’s for sure.”
“We need to take more journeys, Web. We’ll never know where this is leading unless we do it.”
“That’s us. The travelers,” Peter said, knowing Emma was right. “I guess I’m ready to admit that. School’s out in a couple more weeks. That’ll be a perfect time for me to sink into this thing.”
* * * * *
Isabel hunched over the table, a sheet of paper covering the wooden pentagram engraved with symbols. With a piece of what looked like charcoal, she rubbed gently until the images were transferred to the paper. Afterward, she set the original piece aside and stared at one of the symbols a long time, then at the ones to either side of it. One fed the other. This was the language of the Runes. She had known it when Emma first arrived with the items, but acted curious and a bit confused. She needed time to decipher it before sharing it with the others.
After Emma left, Isabel removed an old sack from the corner of the table and untied the drawstring, then poured the tiles, a complete, very modern set of Runes made of stone, onto the table beside her. From these, she removed the tiles that matched the symbols on the pentagram.
After only thirty minutes, she had almost put the names together.
Some of these symbols spelled out the names of what she strongly felt were some ancient witches whose powers had not been tapped in centuries, probably. In the other drawings, their purpose was made clear: to reveal the Evil One and to destroy him.
But who was he, this warlock with the foreboding name? Isabel felt his presence, but almost as a background hum, something constant yet distant; not with any sort of intensity.
Isabel finished writing the translated names on a piece of paper, and stood. She picked up a tin cup from the table and drank deeply of the room-temperature water. She felt dizzy at her discovery and wondered how much the four should learn—how much would drive them forward, how much would drive them away. Isabel herself was not sure how they would take it, especially when more was learned.
The bookshelf was too tall, but the volumes she used most often remained within reach. Isabel stood before it, squinting her eyes as she scanned the spines of the books within. The one she wanted was there, on the third shelf down. With both hands, she reached out and slid the heavy book from the shelf and clutching it to her chest, carried it to the table. The title was long worn off the leather cover, but she knew its contents well. Inside, among a thousand other things, were the names of all those either accused, or tried or simply executed as witches in 17th century New England.
She started at the top of the list. Many familiar names, sensationalized cases that had become popular movies in past years.
There were categories and sub-categories of those accused as witches. Many were only accused when a politician needed to gain a particular office. A blackmail of sorts. I'll kill your wife if you don't see to it. Better still, I'll torture her until she admits you're a witch, too.
And so it went. The guilty and the innocent. In a way, the witch trials were a beautiful cover for the real witches. So many being accused that it was easy for those who possessed true power to blend in with the masses. Everyone was frightened; afraid to look the witch finders and anyone of political position in the eye for fear that it might be taken for a curse. In most cases, when actual witches were accused, it was nothing more than pure coincidence. Many of them were tried and released as innocent.
As she moved down the page, she found them. The names that matched those on the Runes. Closing the book, she drank deeply of her water, and felt relief cleanse her.
Wouldn't the four be surprised to learn their original names, at the very least. And the spell they cast together with their last breaths. Could they live with the knowledge? She would make her determination as they moved forward into the last incarnation. The lives of Chris, Joshua, Lillian and Ellen would reveal much to them. Perhaps enough.
Galen Bishop. Katherine Burroughs. Margaret Cloyce. Elliot Corey. And the Evil One. The words of the ancient Saga, daughter of Thor, came to Isabel as though she were hearing them spoken aloud from a thousand years before:
Ye will find much wisdom hidden therein,
when ye can read the writing and
understand the meanings of the pictures.
Isabel understood. These four were here for one purpose only. If they stopped, they would never rest for eternity, and their lives would forever end in disaster.
While she wasn't as skillful as she once was, she could understand the meanings of the Runes. Essentially, that's what they were. Runes, laid out side by side, one over the other, telling a story, revealing the past. Only these Runes were not in stone, but in script, on the back of a symbol that in itself, would tell even a novice reader the origin of the four. No, the five.
These four had all been executed as witches, but there was a fifth. A fifth witch whose name was not mentioned here. It would have to be discovered.
The fifth was the singular purpose of life for the four.
* * * * *
He sat in the darkness, as he so often did, embracing the pulsation of power that surged within each and every vein in his body. Veins through which power had always flowed, in this lifetime and countless ones before.
But something was different. A change was taking place where change had never occurred; a shift in power was happening, somewhere, somehow. This would not do at all.
But who or what perpetuated this change? Where did it originate? The very air felt different, thicker, harder to breathe. While he had lost no control over this world yet, it felt inevitable that it would come. As unfeasible as it had once seemed, this feeling of impending . . . what, interference? Doom? As inconceivable as it seemed, it did feel like doom. It could not be ignored.
He would have to be ever vigilant, eyes open wide, senses tuned. Nothing could be chalked up to coincidence, especially if it had a negative effect on his life, on his power.
For he was the vengeful one, the timeless one, the tireless one: the one w
ho would always be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Matt, Emma, Peter, and Allyson sat before Isabel as she opened the cylindrical tube Peter and Emma had found inside the trunk. From within it, she withdrew what appeared to be a rolled up canvas.
Everyone gathered around as she unfurled it on the table, face up.
Allyson gasped. “It’s Ellen.”
Isabel’s hand slid to the bottom of the canvas where she exposed the corner. “It was painted by Chris Wickham.”
The signature was faded, but still legible. Peter leaned forward and held his breath. The painting was exquisite, the likeness of Ellen Carver was so realistic that her eyes sparkled, even through the aged oils. Since their first visit two weeks earlier, he and Emma had returned to get the rest of the items from the trunk. A very formal, lavender dress that appeared to be covered in a variety of dark stains; both he and Emma had ventured a handling of it without the gloves on and nothing had happened. There had been a couple of other paintings, smaller ones, rolled up in the trunk as well. They were of people unknown to them, perhaps just practice runs for Chris as he honed his craft. The difference in the brush strokes was uncanny. The other images were done with a stiffer brush, harder edges, and staccato strokes.
In this delicate portrait, Ellen Carver, wearing flowing silk, sat beside a brown-gold vase overflowing with spring flowers – lilies, daisies, and marigolds. The blossoms exuded a glow all their own, appearing to bask Ellen’s face in a rainbow of light, which, in turn, lit up with a splendor of the season depicted by the flowers. But if Chris had painted her image without bias, then clearly, Ellen had tremendous passion for him. Her eyes, as lushly green as the deepest California sea in the brightest summer sunlight, gazed from the canvas as if to say to the artist – and now to whomever looked upon it – I love you with all of my being. Every stroke of the artist’s brush told of his desire to will the oils to come alive, to dance in perfect step with each natural wave and line of the canvas. Simply put, it appeared Christopher Wickham wanted to capture Ellen Carver’s very essence, just in case he was, for some unknown reason, never able to lay eyes on her again.