The Forgotten Eden

by Aiden James

  “‘Elsie never recovered,’ he said softly, his voice straining just above a whisper. ‘She might’ve been able to, but they wouldn’t let her. They just wouldn’t do it!!!’

  “He dug his finger tips into the dining room table, nearly pushing the embroidered lace of the table cloth into the thick mahogany. He grimaced painfully while fighting the torrent of emotions threatening to overtake him. Once the tempest subsided, he realized we were staring helplessly at him, unable to disguise our worry. Until then, he’d been the role model of peace and self-control for as long as either of us could remember.

  “Jeremy was the only one willing to push him further into his pain.

  “‘What do you mean by ‘they wouldn’t let her’?’ he asked, trying to broach the subject as gently as his blunt nature would allow. ‘Who are they?’

  “Grandpa regarded him suspiciously, perhaps deciding if his query was noble or not.

  “‘They are the ones who slowly drove your grandma down into the ground, twisting the disappearance of our most prized possession in the world, your mom, like a dagger through her broken heart and soul,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t enough that we’d never see Julie, or Frank, ever again. Almost immediately, other problems began to complicate what was already a nightmare—problems far bigger than we could’ve ever imagined at the time.

  “‘That very day, I called Carl and some other close friends of mine to form a search party and head out into the woods. We waited first to see if your folks came back. But when they still hadn’t returned by late afternoon, my buddies and I set out after them. We searched everywhere, including the old fort and hot spring.

  “‘By then, some of us got to thinking about the local legends concerning the ‘Season’ and all. We even extended our search to the burial mounds and beyond, up to a mile in every direction. The place seemed especially eerie in the fading twilight, I recall…. We didn’t find a single trace of them, even with help from a small team of bloodhounds. We finally had to turn back and go home, where Carl and I contacted the state authorities. That’s when our problems got a lot worse.

  “‘Everyone was quite amazed by the sphere in the backyard, as were the state authorities when they finally came down to Carlsdale from Birmingham to investigate your folks’ disappearance. The news of all that’d happened, especially the appearance of the sphere in the backyard, spread like wildfire throughout the local region. People drove up and down Lelan’s Way trying to catch a glimpse of the goddamned thing! The most impertinent ones snuck around to the backyard, or simply drove behind our place on the utility road. Some of them got to see the sphere, but I ran most of them off using the very shotgun I’m holding now.’

  “He lightly stroked the weapon’s barrel while shaking his head.

  “‘People came from all over,’ he continued. ‘Elsie was a mess over this, I mean near a breakdown over it all! What she truly needed was peace to help her deal with the loss of Julie and Frank, because she knew they were dead and we’d never find their bodies. She’d tell me this all the time, largely on account of my stubborn resistance to the idea. Even so, I was gentle with her. What she got from everybody else, though, was a steady dose of insensitivity and downright rudeness.

  “‘The older folks were the worst. They said we should’ve known better, because some of them saw the drastic change in Frank’s behavior that last week when he stopped by Max Reynolds’ grocery store. They couldn’t get over how the nice young man from Atlanta had turned into such an obnoxious asshole, seemingly overnight. Even the younger townsfolk stated Frank had gotten to the point where he was just plain mean, most noticeable on the day before he and Julie disappeared for good, when he’d stopped by for the last time to pick up some picnic supplies.

  “‘But, the real trouble for us started once a few FBI agents from Atlanta showed up one day. Cordial enough at first, once they’d completed their own search of the area, their attitudes changed. They asked a bunch of personal questions about our relationship with Julie and Frank. It didn’t help none that Missy Palmer next door overheard Elsie and Julie damn near duke it out the night before your folks went on that last picnic.

  “‘Everybody else around here started changing toward us, too, except for Carl and a couple of other buddies of mine who’ve since passed away. Everyone’s suspicion was on us, like we’d made Julie and Frank somehow disappear. I’m not saying they thought we ran them off, either! Most everyone thought we’d killed them ourselves and buried their bodies in some unknown location, which the federal authorities were now here to find.

  “‘The strangest thing about all of this was that while they turned their investigation’s focus upon us they became a hell of a lot more interested in the sphere. Like a diversion to get the growing national media and local interest entirely on us and our missing daughter and son-in-law. All kinds of scientists started showing up here. None of us were allowed anywhere near the damned thing while they examined it. Ya’ll wouldn’t believe the amount of strange looking equipment sitting in the backyard.’

  “‘So that really happened, too, huh?’

  “Another surprise for my brother, who was all ears at this point. Just like me.

  “‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ said Grandpa. ‘And the stress from all this wore us both down, but Elsie took it the hardest. She aged quickly from the loss of our only child. I tried to comfort her, but I was dealing with the same thing as she. I didn’t know if either of us would make it through, though you boys’ presence in our lives made a huge difference. Knowing you both needed us to hang in there helped a great deal, and if they’d have just let us be at that point, your grandma would likely be here today!’

  “He stood up and walked over to the dining room windows again. This time, he peered more cautiously through them into the backyard. The moon above shone brightly, illuminating the entire landscape. He smiled sadly, maybe envisioning the way the yard once looked.

  “‘Grandpa,’ I said, ‘if you don’t want to tell us any more, you really don—’

  “‘I need to finish this!’ he interrupted me, whirling around to face us. ‘I’ve got to finish this tonight! I can feel it!!’ he shouted. ‘Now’s the only time I’ll be able to talk about it all the way through!’

  “He began to pace back and forth in front of the windows, his head bowed sullenly as he gathered his thoughts and resolve. When ready to address us again, he moved back to the table.

  “‘Do either of you remember staying with your Uncle Monty and Aunt Martha?’

  “‘You mean when we visited them last summer?’ I asked.

  “‘No, son. I mean when you were just a toddler,’ he said. ‘You were just over a year old back then and Jeremy would soon be five.’

  “‘I remember, Grandpa,’ said Jeremy. ‘I celebrated my fifth birthday with them. We stayed awhile with them after that, didn’t we?’

  “‘Yes, you did,’ he said. ‘At least six or seven months, possibly longer.’

  “‘I wish I could remember,’ I said, trying to picture what that period of time had been like.

  “‘I barely remember it,’ Jeremy added. ‘Just bits and pieces.’

  “‘Bits and pieces,’ Grandpa repeated thoughtfully. ‘If only it had been just a visit. Monty and Martha probably never told either of you that ya’ll were taken from your grandma’s and my custody—forcibly taken, I might add. Did they?’

  “‘No,’ we acknowledged quietly, surprised by this revelation.

  “‘Well, you were,’ he said. ‘The investigation still went on in our backyard. All the while, the police interrogations we endured became more and more aggressive. They never filed charges against us, since they couldn’t produce any physical evidence suggesting foul play.’

  “He studied us both, surely noting how disturbed we were by the bitter sorrow that drove him along.

  “‘It’s important to understand what actually happened the afternoon of your folks’ disappearance before we go further,’ he said, and then leaned toward
us, tightly gripping the side of the table to steady himself. ‘Elsie never told me herself, but she did tell a reporter quite a bit for some reason. Seems to me, she would’ve confided in someone close that she trusted. But after years of thinking about it, I realize now she needed to share her terrible secret with a stranger instead. Someone not so familiar with the situation and our mutual loss.

  “‘The reporter she talked to was a young girl by the name of Gloria, though I’ve forgotten her last name. Hell, I don’t even own a copy of the magazine article anymore since it brought me too much pain, and folks around here thought her story was a bunch of bullshit anyway!’

  “Grandpa resumed pacing again in front of the windows, our eyes glued to his every move.

  “‘According to the published story, Elsie told this Gloria that she was in the house when she heard a loud rumbling sound coming from the backyard. Since unwilling to leave you unattended, Jack, she brought you with her out onto the porch. She saw a brilliant light coming from just beyond the oak tree. She would’ve stayed on the porch, but she heard Julie calling to her from within this mysterious light.

  “‘Though Julie’s voice seemed calm, Elsie instinctively thought she and Frank were in some kind of trouble. She ran down the porch steps and over to the tree with you in her arms. What she saw next is the stuff I figured only people experiencing religious hallucinations or visions and the like were apt to see, until your story last night. All around the back gate, including in the air and on the ground, were angels—and not so much the girlish kind you see in paintings or on Christmas cards and such. No, Lord, these angels stood at least ten feet in height, and very muscular. Much like the angel you told us about, they were the perfect mix between male and female, with long beautiful hair and handsome facial features, as well as the large wingspan you described.

  “The angels prepared the ground for the sphere, descending to the earth through a spectacular rainbow-like spiral suspended in the air. That’s how the reporter claimed Elsie described it, anyway. These angels pushed and guided the sphere along until they positioned it in our yard directly in front of the back gate, calling excitedly to one another with their strange voices.

  “Two of the angels walked up to Elsie and started talking to her. Terrified, she pretty much forgot everything they told her just as soon as they said it, other than the fact the sphere now covered up an ancient doorway between heaven and hell. After telling her this they turned and walked away. But one angel turned back toward her again, telling her she must ‘keep the children safe’, and especially to be sure that ‘the baby was protected’—the same stuff she told me.’

  “‘I believe it, Grandpa!’ I blurted out, unaware my excitement might’ve looked a little insensitive to his eyes. I looked over at Jeremy, but he merely shrugged his shoulders, which told me he wasn’t convinced about this event’s authenticity—regardless of how it matched up with my experience the day before.

  “‘Well, I wasn’t too sure about this until now, after what’s happened the past few days,’ said Grandpa, studying us both before going on. ‘According to this reporter, this Gloria, your dear grandma was completely overwhelmed by all of this. Yet, she managed to keep her wits long enough to inquire about Julie and Frank, since she knew something had to have gone terribly wrong for them that day.

  “‘The angel shook its head, at which point Elsie became hysterical. She grabbed the angel’s arm while pleading with it, that it wasn’t too late to save them. To her surprise, its arm pulsed with energy and what she soon recognized as unfathomable strength. This powerful and gentle being told her nothing could be done for either Julie or Frank, other than to pray for their souls. The angel then told her that our daughter and son-in-law would be all right if she did this, though we wouldn’t see them again for a long time.

  “‘I guess this last part was what gave me the slim hope they’d find their way back here someday, that they hadn’t actually died after all, but maybe were prisoners in some unknown world or reality. I believe this was partially true after hearing your tale last night, Jack. I guess I never wanted to accept what I always knew to be true in my gut as well as in my heart and in my soul...that your folks had died that awful day and were never coming back.’

  “Grandpa moved over to the southernmost window and peered through the blinds and the French panes, looking out into the backyard one more time.

  “‘Elsie said the angels gathered around the sphere as a group and then suddenly disappeared in a bright flash of light,’ he said with his back turned toward us. ‘The rumbling sound immediately ceased. Once her eyes readjusted, all that remained in the backyard aside from the stuff that’d always been there was the sphere. The storm that’d been gathering for the past half hour or so, unleashed its fury on the entire area, sending torrents of rain on Elsie, who’d dropped to her knees with Jack held tightly in her arms. That’s when I found you both.’

  “He turned to face us. More tears streamed down his face despite the fact he’d kept his voice in check, keeping his pent-up misery largely at bay while he spoke to us. He tried to smile, his eyes clouded with tears and his mouth quivering. Somehow he mustered enough strength to complete the chronicle he’d started more than two hours earlier.

  “‘When Elsie told Gloria her story, the magazine she wrote for quickly printed and released it in September. I’d say it’s no coincidence that the authorities, including a man named Stu Johnson from the FBI, soon paid us another visit. They came out to the house a week or so later and placed us under arrest. They took you boys away from us that day and wanted to place you under foster care. I finally persuaded them it’d be in your best interests to stay with a close relative.

  “‘We decided Monty and Martha’s home would be the best place for you, and since they were willing, they picked you boys up that night from the detention center. Me and Elsie were forced to share this place with a pair of U.S. Marshals, who guarded the front and back doors to the house to make sure we didn’t run off, while a third one did all of our errands and grocery shopping for us. Being stranded in our own home was horrible!’

  “He paused again, as if reliving the actual humiliation again from where he stood, next to the table.

  “‘So distraught about this latest development, I knew for sure Elsie was headed for a heart attack or nervous breakdown if things didn’t improve quickly around here,’ said Grandpa. ‘And still the charges against us were tenuous at best, since absolutely nothing linked us to your folks’ disappearance. We quietly discussed the idea of hiring a lawyer to force the state and federal governments to either bring us to court and try us or let us go, but we kept thinking they’d surely realize their mistake and release us and give you boys back.

  “‘After a few months like this, we knew they weren’t going to leave us without a fight, as more and more scientists came here to study the sphere. You’d have thought the media would’ve caught wind of this—at least a tidbit or two from the Carlsdale rumor mill. But, every time you’d turn on the television or radio you wouldn’t find anything pertaining to it. Just the continued search for Julie and Frank and the police’s suspicion we were involved. The same was true for the mainstream newspapers.

  “‘Finally we had enough, and contacted an attorney recommended by Carl, a Mr. Dwayne Stevenson from Demopolis. We arranged an appointment with him right after Thanksgiving that year. A nice enough fella in his late forties with lots of experience in criminal law; he told us he’d never encountered a case like ours before. After meeting with him for a few hours, he left us with a promise to get this whole thing resolved by Christmas. Calling our situation ‘the gravest miscarriage of justice he’d ever seen’, he intended to contact the judge in Birmingham who’d signed the arrest warrants in the first place on the following day, since they knew each other quite well.

  “‘We said goodbye to Mr. Stevenson and had a good feeling about things for the first time since your folks’ disappearance. That was the last time we ever saw him. We waite
d and waited, thinking he’d get back to us. When we felt we’d waited long enough, we called and left several messages for him at his office number’s voice mail. Elsie set out to find his home telephone number so she could give him a piece of her mind, she was so steamed about his apparent brush-off. She managed to obtain the number, and when she called it, Mr. Stevenson’s wife answered the phone. Once Elsie told her she was looking for him, Mrs. Stevenson burst into tears.

  “‘Elsie, being so tender hearted, felt bad for the woman—terribly bad, actually, when she found out what was going on. But at first she had no idea what to think of Mrs. Stevenson’s behavior. Once calmed down, she told Elsie that her husband died a few weeks back. He’d been killed when his car ran off the road near a bridge on Highway Forty-three. The accident happened the morning after his visit with us, on his way to see that judge up in Birmingham.

  “‘We felt awful for Mrs. Stevenson’s loss, and sent her a sympathy card and floral arrangement to let her know just how saddened we were for her. Elsie was as determined as ever to get to the bottom of this, since we both agreed it was a horribly strange coincidence that Mr. Stevenson would suffer an accident soon after talking to us.

  “‘We weren’t sure what to do next, but decided we should wait until after the holidays to plan our next move. This happened two days before Christmas. The very next morning, on Christmas Eve, Agent Stu Johnson stopped by to tell us we’d been released from our arrest. That’s all he said. No apology, no sorry about the mistake they’d made, no ‘Merry Christmas’, no nothin’!! He just collected the three U.S. Marshals on duty and left.

  “‘I had a good mind to say something to him about the whole goddamned affair, until I thought of Dwayne Stevenson’s fate. Meanwhile, Elsie ran out into the backyard. Sure enough, all the equipment, tents, and scientists had cleared out quietly the night before. But they left the sphere. They took our grandkids and our freedom, but they left us that goddamned cue ball!’