The boy with the stick made a growling sound and drew back his arm to throw the stick at Kipp, who remained unperturbed. As the stick, which had no form but was an ethereal construct, flew towards Kipp, he managed to catch it in his mouth. When he did so, the glowing object made a popping noise and disappeared; the stick boy’s face contorted with rage. Kipp rose, ignoring the boy, and walked to Timmy, who was sitting on the unyielding floor, his back propped against the rough stone wall. With his nose, Kipp manipulated the manacles, which fell free from the specter’s thin wrists. Kipp lay down next to him and invited Timmy to touch him. Walking closer, I could see Kipp’s fur ruffle as an unseen hand rubbed the thick pelt of auburn hair.
“Your time is past, Timmy. You need to leave this place and go to the afterlife where all is good, and you will be welcomed and loved.” Kipp looked up at me, asking for more words of comfort and direction.
“Tell him to go to the light,” Peter whispered. “That’s what they always say in movies.”
“And this isn’t a movie, so let’s not pull a line out of Poltergeist, please,” I hissed. “Let Kipp handle it.”
“I don’t like it here,” Timmy whined.
“And you can leave,” Kipp answered. “Walk with us and leave him behind,” he said, returning stick boy’s glare with narrowed eyes and bared teeth.
Reluctantly, because he feared another beating, Timmy rose, placing a shaking hand on Kipp’s broad back. Peter’s eyes opened wider, as did mine. We could clearly see the imprint of a small hand tangled in the thick fur. Ignoring the hostile taunts of stick boy, we left that innermost room and began traversing the rock lined corridor that led to the stairway. I walked behind Kipp and the ghost, which I could only see through Kipp’s view, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the little boy.
“Go ahead,” Kipp urged. “He thinks you’re pretty and would like you to pet his head.”
Looking through Kipp’s eyes, I gauged the appropriate place to rest my hand and attempted to gently tousle the little boy’s hair. I heard him laugh, the sound bright and tinkling like a tiny bell being rung. Pausing, I stared at my finger tips which tingled slightly after the caress.
“I wanna go home.” Timmy’s voice was plaintive in the narrow passageway.
“We are taking you home,” Kipp assured him.
Sandra stared at our odd convoy as we slowly walked across the room until we reached the front door. Hearing a hissing sound, I turned and noticed that stick boy had followed us into the main room and was growling again, the sound rolling like soft thunder across the room. For a brief, terrifying moment, his teeth resembled those of a predator.
“Ignore him,” Kipp said, his words directed at Timmy as well as the rest of us. “He works off of fear, so we will give him nothing.”
Peter darted ahead to open the front door and stood aside as Kipp led Timmy to the threshold. The little boy’s head rotated on his thin neck as he scanned the environment; he hesitated, his body still inside the interior of the building where he’d been trapped for so many years.
“I’ve not been outside in a long time,” he said, his voice soft in our minds. The ghostly child was filled with eagerness as well as apprehension.
“Go now, play, run, skip…and don’t come back here. You’re free,” Kipp said.
It is difficult to describe what happened next, but the form of what Timmy was–or what was left of him on earth–walked forward into the bright sunlight of day. I saw a smile on his face as he tilted his head back and let the sunlight touch what once had been corporeal flesh. A shimmering glow surrounded him, a circle of light that became brighter and brighter, and then it popped like a balloon overinflated with too much air. Kipp stared at me, but I had nothing to say.
“Since we aren’t ghost busters, I have no idea if we did the right thing, but it felt right,” I finally stammered. As the elder of the group, it fell to me to try and define our actions in a positive light.
“As Timmy, uh, popped, he felt happy and safe,” Kipp said. “I guess that is our best judge.”
A car drove by, giving a toot on the horn to remind us gaping tourists to get off of the road. We stepped back onto the grassy verge and took shade beneath an ancient oak with a heavy canopy of green, summer leaves. The heat of the day as well as our ghost encounter had made me break out into a sweat; using the back of my hand, I wiped beads of moisture from my forehead.
“So, do we go back and rescue stick boy?” Elani asked.
“I don’t think he wants to be rescued. He likes the hidden corners of the cellar,” Kipp said. “I don’t know how to help him. There was something dark about him that’s frightening.”
“Since we’re not really in the business of rehabilitating lost souls and don’t know what we’re dealing with, I’d opt for staying clear.” Peter was the voice of reason on that particular day.
Privately, I felt some despair at leaving the museum with the knowledge that angry, disturbed child lingered there like some sort of demon lurking in a place of sad memories and darkness. We had no knowledge of Jeremy’s journey in life and what had led him to such circumstances. Perhaps he’d been terribly abused, too, at some point causing him to follow a grim path. But Peter was right, and it was with sadness mixed with joy that we drove away.
“What’s next, boss?” Kipp asked, as he poked his big head in between the front seats. Curling my arm up around his neck, I pulled him close to me.
“We’ll head towards the battlefield park and check in with the rangers. Philo submitted a request for us to have access for reasons of research. I guess we’ll start at the Devil’s Den.”
The air conditioner kicked in, and I closed my eyes against the breeze. I didn’t formally object to this current assignment but none of this was really in my wheelhouse, and I preferred a time shift to a place in history where a true mystery lurked. And if I had to drag Peter and Elani along, I’d reconciled myself to the fact that was okay, too. Peter, who was driving, turned to glance at me, a big smile on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“That was pretty cool,” he replied in the manner of youth.
“We met ghosts, confronted an evil specter, and sent one off to the afterlife.” I sighed. “I’m not sure that cool is a big enough word.” Trying to return his smile, I added, “Just another day in the life of a quartet of symbionts.”
Chapter 3
Normally, dogs are not allowed to roam the battlefields of any national park, including Gettysburg. Technicorps had applied for an exception since we were on a research venture. It had taken some convincing and, if Philo was to be believed, the arm twisting of a congressman or two. Philo was the reluctant head of our collective and my oldest friend. We were more like brother and sister than anything else and could argue and disagree with the passion and certainty of solid friends. In terms of the lupines being admitted to the fields at Gettysburg, we had been told, more than once, to curb them elsewhere and not on hallowed grounds.
“I really find that pretty darn insulting,” Kipp began, rolling his eyes at me as we walked along a grassy span in our approach to Devil’s Den. “The fact they think we would relieve ourselves out in the middle of what is basically a shrine to the fallen and a massive graveyard is just too much.”
“Okay, dial it back,” I replied. “Kipp, you are always the research hog, so what do you know about Devil’s Den?” I asked, trying to divert him from his irritability and get him back on track.
Kipp was still a bit huffy over the park ranger’s last instruction to us, and he plodded along, head down, tail slowly wagging as he sniffed at the grass, eyes staring ahead for a moment. The grass on the field had not been mowed recently and was dry from the late summer heat; there was still green but the blades were withered and brown on the tips. Since Kipp hesitated, Peter, who was always the eager student in the back of the class room who would frantically waive his arm to get the attention of the teacher, volunteered.
“We all know that the battle
of Gettysburg was the most significant in terms of loss of life of any American battle. And the moment came together accidentally and was not really the culmination of a definitive plan by the combatants. Around sixty thousand men died and countless others were seriously wounded or maimed.
“The history of Devil’s Den precedes Gettysburg, going back to the 1700’s when the American Indians who occupied this land regarded it as a place of evil, and the landscape has been associated with a sense of foreboding since that time.” Peter used his hand to sweep outward in a display. “Some people speculate there’s a convergence of the topography and other elements that have made Devil’s Den a place of sensitivity for the cosmic world.” He glanced at us, obviously pleased with his recitation. All he needed was a mortarboard hat and tassel, a pointer stick, and he’d be good to go.
Elani stared at him, her jaw dropping open as she began to pant in the hot weather. I caught her attention and slowly closed one eye in a conspiratorial wink. Peter was the kid who tried too hard and always knew just a little more than everyone else. It was good that he was basically likeable, since he could have just managed to be annoying. But Elani had grown attached to him, in the manner of our kind, and felt the loyalty of all good, bonded symbionts to her partner. With that thought in mind, she trotted over to walk next to him, her furry side brushing against his leg.
Kipp, too, was an effortless brain. Since he’d learned to read English, he read almost constantly…even more so since I got him a Kindle and a stylus he could grip between his teeth. Peter downloaded volumes of books for him on the American Civil War…as well as every other conceivable topic. And all I know is that anyone who read Shelby Foote’s comprehensive trilogy of the war from cover to cover had my admiration.
“I keep telling Petra she needs to study more before we take an assignment, but she just likes to ride on my coattails,” Kipp remarked, pausing to snap at a honey bee lazily buzzing around his big head. He had no intention of harming the little bee, which was enjoying the warmth of the day, but a gentle warning was in order, nonetheless.
His sarcastic comment told me he’d located his previous good humor, and we were back on track. No one likes being accused of not knowing where one should relieve oneself, and Kipp was no exception.
To be honest, there was something unsettling about the rock strewn hillside we approached; massive slabs of ancient rock hovered, gray and oddly threatening, against a background of blue sky left barren and cloudless. The tactical advantage of having possession of this place from which to fire on the advancing enemies was immediately apparent. The area was southwest of Gettysburg proper and just to the north lay what had been called “The Wheatfield”, another historical killing field. We’d passed that area, which was flat and unremarkable except for the scattering of monuments to those who’d fallen; the gleaming hunks of granite and marble stood out like tombstones beneath the glaring sun. Unsettled spirits were said to walk along The Wheatfield, but on that day, as the unrelenting sun beat down on our heads, we passed unmolested. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine the topography of the surrounding landscape before the war left behind its devastation. This had been farmland, rolling and fertile, with groves of trees standing like islands on a sea of grass which grew to mid thigh before being cut. When the wind blew, the fields would ripple like unsettled water before a storm. There would have been fruit trees with limbs bent from the heavy weight of ripe peaches and apples. Yes, I could clearly see it in my mind’s eye.
“On July 2, 1863, there was intense fighting here.” Kipp interrupted my reverie as we began to thread our way through the natural maze of upright boulders. “The Confederates, under Hood’s division, controlled this ground.” He paused, and I saw the hair rise on the back of his neck. “Uh, the ground underneath us was running with blood and bodies fell in these crevasses, some never to be recovered.” Kipp paused again, turning his head; the sunlight fell on his bright, copper colored coat, and the heat was threading through his dense pelt to his skin. Despite his naturally cooling double coat, he began to pant, as might a dog, to refresh himself. “Do you guys see it, too?”
Well, this time I did without the assist of Kipp, and so did Elani. There was a well documented apparition of a man who many thought was a Texas soldier from his appearance. And this particular ghost had been seen by folks who were not particularly sensitive to paranormal phenomena. Why Peter didn’t see it when the rest of us did, I don’t know…maybe he was trying too hard. About ten feet ahead, the figure of a man dressed in ragged clothes made of brown, homespun cloth, barefoot, with a floppy, big brimmed hat and stringy, lank hair that fell past his shoulders, stood. He turned to look at us, and his face was clearly visible. After a moment, he pointed, turning towards the southeast.
“What you’re lookin’ for is over there,” the man drawled, his voice clear in the stillness on the hillside. His sun weathered face wore an expression of consternation…a perpetual scowl of worry on his furrowed brow.
Curious and feeling no fear, I walked closer, extending my hand. The apparition held none of the malignance of Jeremy, the stick boy from the basement of the Soldier’s Museum as well as lacking the terrified desperation of little Timmy. I wasn’t surprised when my hand floated through the ethereal body of the man. After a moment, he repeated his phrase, turning to point again, directing us. Since we were researching Kipp’s ability to communicate with ghosts, or whatever these encounters were, I asked him to query the man on a few specifics.
“Are you from Texas?” Kipp asked.
The specter paused before turning to point again, but this time he was silent.
“Answer me, soldier…are you from Texas?” Kipp persisted, his tone more authoritative and with a ring of command.
“Yes,” the figure answered. We had joined in Kipp’s experience and could hear the replies.
“Are you part of the 4th Texas Volunteer Infantry?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why do you linger here? The battle is done,” Kipp asked.
After a pause, the figure replied, “I was told to not leave my post.”
Kipp looked at me, confusion on his face. “I don’t know what to do, Petra. Yes, we intervened with Timmy, but do we do the same with all we encounter?”
A flock of sparrows whirred overhead, their grey and black bodies twisting in the air, and somewhere in the distance I heard a motor start up; the smell of fresh cut grass tickled my throat. Around us, the sunlight became tangled in the matrix of the towering rocks, which appeared to move in the shimmering rays of light. Shading my eyes, I tried to focus and command the rocks to be still, but they kept up their dance. Soft laugher came to us from the pathway we’d just trod; another group of visitors was beginning to thread its way through the maze of rocks, and our peace was about to be disrupted.
“What do you guys think?” I asked, glancing at Peter and Elani.
“I’m uncomfortable with this,” Elani replied, her voice definitive. “Yes, Fitzhugh saw no problem in it, but do we “manage” all the ghosts we encounter? We really have no idea what the ramifications are of such actions.” She paused, breathing hard. “I think we need to record what Kipp experiences and take the information back with us.”
Peter, who lacked Elani’s cautious filter, agreed. Actually, I did, too. This was uncharted and definitely out of our field of expertise.
“And the next thing you know,” Elani persisted, “Technicorps will have you and Kipp running all over the world to act like ghost busters, just because it is novel and no other collective will have a Kipp to do such a thing.” She huffed in agitation.“I fear we will set things in motion for Kipp to be used.”
Well, I thought, the fascination of the youth of the world with their rebellious notions of the establishment…and she was probably right. I may have been older than she, but I had been a mover and shaker of the establishment most of my career. Age and the responsibilities of being Kipp’s partner as well as a mentor for Peter and Elani had made me more
cautious and thoughtful of my actions.
I knew Kipp was relieved by our decision and support of him. Intervening with the spirit world was taxing, and he really wished no interactive part of it. But we would dutifully continue our inspection of Gettysburg without changing the continuum of some of the folks who were unable to leave this place for whatever spiritual reasons we didn’t comprehend.
Despite the heat and stillness of the air, we trudged up to the summit of Little Round Top where the Maine volunteers found fame when they were ordered to hold that critical position no matter what. There was a well known sighting that stretched back to the actual war itself. The soldiers claimed to have seen a man, mounted on a white horse, riding ahead and beckoning the soldiers to follow him. The figure was described as wearing a Tricorn hat such as would have been popular in revolutionary times. It was said the man’s face was that of George Washington. That particular figure had often been seen since the war but stayed in hiding on the day of our visit. Maybe he was wisely avoiding the withering heat.
“I almost wonder if these apparitions are caught in a feedback loop,” Peter suggested. “It would explain why they are seen occasionally but not consistently.” He sat on a large boulder, signaling it was time to take a break. His face was reddened from the exertion of the climb, the collar of his shirt damp with sweat and soiled from the accumulated dust and dirt acquired during our walk.
Personally, I was fine with a breather. I was glad I’d brought a hat lest my face get burned from the persistent sun overhead. The overheated lupines were happy to find a resting place on some trampled leaves beneath a shade tree. With a soft thud, they dropped to the ground, their panting the only sound on the isolated hillside.
“If Kipp, with his exquisite sensitivity, can’t see the man on the white horse when so many others have, it would make you wonder about such,” I replied. “Or do those who are in that in-between place between life and the afterlife chose what they do and when they do it?”
Titanic, 1912 (The Symbiont Time Travel Adventures Series, Book 5): Young Adult Time Travel Adventure Page 3