Owen

by Barton, Kathi S.

  Randolph,

  I told you this would happen. I was told to tell you that, because we both know now that they’re as bad as I told you they were. The woman with me, she told me that I was going to pay for all my sins, and pay fully. I think she means to make me suffer.

  Run.

  Randolph looked at Benson again before he could continue. Then he wiped at the useless tears before he was able to read again.

  Leave here now. It will be the only way to save yourself.

  In your service,

  James Benson.

  Randolph hadn’t even known his first name was James. He’d thought, and sadly so, that his name was Benson and never called him anything else. While he sat there, holding onto the note, he had a clear thought.

  “What the fuck do I do with his body?”

  Chapter 8

  Conrad knew that someone was following him. He was afraid to turn around, but also fearful to run. The pack had left him not five minutes ago, him being so close to the house that he could see it. But someone was coming after him, and he felt his heart hitching up.

  “Hello.” He stopped moving when the pretty lady was in front of him. “You don’t know me, but my name is Sharon. My daughter, Penny, lives with Xander. I’m going to help you.”

  “You’re dead.” She smiled and nodded at him. “How come I can see you? I’m not dead, am I? Oh lordy, I’m dead. They done went and killed me.”

  He fell to the ground, rocking back and forth. He knew that Clare was going to be so upset with him, for letting himself be murdered. But when the lady sat down across from him, she told him he wasn’t dead, just innocent.

  “I don’t get that.” She told him why she thought he could see her. “You thinking because I’m a dummy.... I can’t say that word no more. Clare, she gets upset with me.”

  “Because it’s not kind, and you are a very kind man.” He wanted to hug her, to show her how much it meant to him to be called kind. “The people behind you are your parents. I wouldn’t call them your mother or father. They’re cruel beyond words, and I think they do mean to harm you.”

  “Clare said I was to stay away from them. They want me dead.” She nodded and asked him to follow her. “All right, but I have to go home soon. My sister, she gets worried something awful when I don’t get home on time.”

  “I’ll make sure that she knows that you’re with me. Just come along.” He followed her to the trees. “You have a seat right here, all right? I don’t want them to see you. A few ghosts I know, they’re going to help me scare them a bit. All right?”

  “Yes, that’ll be fine with me. Just don’t get yourself hurt.” When she left him, Conrad hit himself in the head. “She’s dead, you dummy. How you think she’s going to be getting herself all hurt up?”

  He was nearly ready to tell the ghost that he had to pee when he saw his dad. My goodness, he sure wasn’t doing well. There was a bit of fat around his belly, and his shirt looked to be too little.

  And his mom? Conrad wasn’t even sure that’s who the woman was. She looked funny. All puffed up or something. And her boobies were all wrong too. Conrad wondered if she had something hidden inside her pretty blouse but thought that wasn’t right either. She was bigger. Like her boobies were having boobies. Almost laughing out loud, he covered his mouth and watched.

  His dad was talking. He did that a lot, he remembered from when he’d been with them. Dad would talk about something for an hour, and Conrad would be made to listen. Conrad rarely if ever remembered why he was telling him this or that. Most of the time he’d think about playing with his sister or having her read him a book.

  When Clare would read to him, she would point at each word and say it slowly to him. He could read pretty good now, because of her. And he could add little numbers, so long as he wasn’t rushed, or he could use his fingers. Clare had even taught him how to break up a math problem, so it looked like a little one. He’d been doing that since she’d showed him. And Conrad could now add two or three numbers in a line, with that many more under it. Like he could add four hundred and two and three hundred and six to get seven hundred and eight easier now. Clare had always been so kind to him.

  His dad stopped moving when he saw the woman. Conrad wasn’t sure that he could see her or not, but the big old stick that she was holding he knew he could see. There was also a man with her. He was walloping his dad right in his butt. And that almost had Conrad laughing too.

  “Conrad?” He looked over at Donald, his friend from the pack. “Conrad, come on with me while they take care of them.”

  “They gonna kill them?” Donald said he didn’t know, but he was to take him home to Clare. “All right. I think my mom has a disease or something. Her boobies are too big.”

  “She got herself some jelly put in them. And don’t ask me what flavor. It’s not that kind of jelly. She’s had a boob job.” Conrad had no idea what that meant, and asked Donald to explain it. “She didn’t like her little boobies, I guess, and wanted them to be bigger. And so, she went to see a doctor, and he cut them open and put in these jelly looking balls in her boobs, and she got bigger ones.”

  “That’s gross.” Donald said he thought so as well. And sometimes they got sick from that kind of boob thing. “You think she knew that when she went and had it done?”

  He turned back to watch his parents once more. They were being beaten up by the sticks and logs, and now the woman was throwing rocks at them. As they ran by him, not even looking where they were going, he watched as his dad fell, head over bottom as he’d heard Mr. Winchester say, and fell down over Mom. He did laugh then, but they didn’t hear him. They were screaming too much to hear about anything but themselves.

  Clare was waiting at the door. She’d been crying, and that hurt his heart so much. When he was close enough to touch her, she hugged him so tight that it almost hurt. But he didn’t let go until she did. Conrad thought she needed it more than he did to take a breath.

  “Are you all right?” He nodded and told her he was fine and dandy. “I didn’t know they’d be this close to the house. Or on pack land.”

  “I’m okay. Did you know that I was innocent? I didn’t either. Sharon said I could see her because…. Oh my gosh, Clare, Mom had a boobie job. Her boobs stick out like this on her chestal area.” She was laughing now, and he hugged her again. “You can’t be sad, because I’m all right, Clare. Okay?”

  “Yes, all right. But I was so worried when I was told they were out there. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He hugged her and told her that he had homework to work on. “Homework? What sort of homework?”

  “They’re teaching me the rules of a pack.” She watched him. “I can tell them to you if you want to know. There are all kinds of them, but I like the one where it says that you worship the females of all creatures. That they’re the ones that...the ones that....”

  “The ones that make us what we are and raise us to be a good wolf.” They both looked at Owen when he came into the room with them. “Hello, my dearest love.”

  When Owen kissed him on the forehead, he laughed hard. Conrad loved being with these two ‘cause Owen made Clare shine with her happiness and was always joking around with him. As he sat with him to go over the rules, Conrad looked at him.

  “I can see the ghosts now.” He nodded. “I can see the one with you. She’s very old, and she has a pretty glow around her head. She wants me to talk to you about something.”

  “Ask her if you can tell me what she says.” Conrad nodded at Owen when she nodded at him. “Thank you, Conrad. I feel much better knowing that you’re helping me. And her.”

  “Thank you, Owen. I’m glad that I’m innocent too.” Owen glanced at Clare, but she said she’d explain to him later. The lady started talking and he told him, word for word, what she was saying to him.

  “‘Hello, Owen Winchester. My name is Birdie Fenton. I’m so glad that you’ve found my things.’” Owen told her that he was glad as well. “‘I so loved all
my treasures. And my tea cups were the envy of every woman in the world. The things I could tell you when someone saw them. You have no idea what I’d have to do sometimes to keep them safe from females that were so stanch in their seating but wouldn’t bat an eye to steal from me.’”

  “Conrad and Clare, my wife, they’re your relatives, did you know that?” She told Conrad that she thought he looked like her son when he was a small boy. “There is no mention of you ever marrying. Is that right?”

  “‘Oh my yes. I didn’t think it was good of me to marry a man that already had enough going on in his life without me adding to it. And he wasn’t married, just...I guess you could call him a moron.’” She touched his face and Conrad could feel it. “‘Unlike him, you have learned from your mistakes, haven’t you, young man?’”

  He didn’t know what that meant, so he just looked around the room and spotted his work from today. Conrad was proud of the paintings that he’d done lately. And the class he was teaching was doing well too.

  “I love to paint too. Not like my sister. She’s really good. You did pretty work too.” She thanked him and moved around the room. Conrad wasn’t afraid of her at all. “You going to be staying with us, Grandma?”

  “‘Oh, to hear someone call me that after all this time. No, my dear child, I will not. I’ve only come to explain a few things, and then I’ll be on my way. I’ve been hanging out with my trunks for entirely too long, I’m afraid.’” He told her that it made him sad. “‘It does me as well. But to explain.’”

  “Wait, I’d like to ask you something first. If you don’t mind.” Grandma told Owen to go right ahead. She loved him as much as she had her own son. “Thank you for that. But these trunks, do you know why they’re spread out all over the property? And have we found them all except the ones in the red shed?”

  “‘No, not yet. But there are other things that you need to find for you as well. There is a key somewhere in one of the trunks. A safety deposit box—well, a few of them. They now have your name on them. You find the key and open those for yourself. Keep the jewelry please. A beautiful woman should be draped in diamonds and gems, don’t you think?’” Owen said that he thought so too. It took Conrad a minute to realize they were talking about Clare. “‘As for why they are spread all over the place? I don’t know. It’s taken me an age to find them all. But I do think that one is missing. I’ve been to your lair with all the cash. My goodness, I was a penny pincher, wasn’t I? No matter, it’s going for a very good cause. I love the way the two of you are going to use it.’”

  “The key—which bank did it go to?” She told Clare that she’d have to think on that and disappeared. When she returned, she was glowing more, and Conrad smiled with her. After telling him which bank it was, Clare thanked her.

  “‘Now, if one of you would write this down for me, I’ll tell you where the trunks are. The rest of them, save the one. I’ll find it before I leave. But it would help me if you were to bring them all here so that I can search. The ones still out there, they’re pulling me, and that’s not helping.’” Owen said he’d get right on it. “‘Good, my boy.’”

  After she told him where to find them, the list was really long. Conrad knew that there were pretty trunks in the barn, but Clare had told him not to tell anyone. But Owen said he’d have him help him when they went looking for the ones he had on his list. Conrad was excited.

  “‘Now, the story of my son. Michael was a good man. Not the best. I suppose I indulged him too much, sending money monthly to a family that was raising him as their own. He wasn’t into trouble all the time, but he was a trouble maker. At the age of seventeen, he fathered a child by a woman that he didn’t marry. It took me some doing to get my son’s name on the birth certificate. But it’s there now, and his son, Michael, is a Macintosh. He was raised as Michael Macintosh the second, by a nanny and a staff where my son resided.’” Owen asked her if she was in either of their lives, her son’s or grandson’s. “‘Just my grandson. He was.... Well, willful doesn’t begin to cover what sort of person he was. And when he married, finally, at the age of nearly thirty, I was thrilled beyond words. Then he had a daughter.’”

  “There is no mention of a daughter in any of the paperwork we’ve located.” She told Owen that there wouldn’t be, that she died not long after her birth. “I’m sorry.”

  “‘It was harder then, back when she was born, to figure out if a child was born with difficulties. She had been born with a hole in her heart. It was too much for her, and she passed quietly in her sleep.’” Again, she was told they were sorry. “‘After Michael the third was born, things got nasty. For him and for my family name. He hated me and the things I did in my life with a passion that I didn’t understand. I was too old to change my mind about the way I did things by the time he came around, and I wouldn’t have anyway. But he took matters into his own hands and killed me one night.’”

  “Your grandson, he killed you?” He looked at Owen and nodded. “I thought that he’d be nice, with him being your grandson and all. He’s wasn’t, was he?”

  “‘No, he was not.’” Conrad asked her how it had happened. “‘He decided that my money, much like his own child has been thinking, should belong to him and only him. That is why, I think, with the help of some ghosts right after I passed, the things were moved around so that he’d never find them.’”

  ~~~

  Ava looked at herself in the mirror. Someone was going to have to pay for the damage they’d done to her face. It was not pretty, and Ava needed to be pretty. She stared at her husband in the mirror and decided she could look worse. He looked like someone had taken an axe to his body.

  “You see anything?” She shook her head and turned to him. “Whatever that was, it beat us within an inch of our lives, Ava. What would do something like that?”

  “I think that it was Norman.” He just glared at her. “Well, since you don’t want to believe in ghosts, my fine man, then you tell me what beat us with sticks that no one was holding. Could you have pissed off the trees at some point? Did the branches have a beef against you and the shoes you have on? Look at my face, Con. I can’t fix this without spending some money, and you said we can’t spend any until we’re home.”

  “I don’t know what it was. But I swear, we should have gotten Conrad then. Where the hell did he go?” She said she didn’t know, but it was like he knew they were coming. “If you tell me that he knew we were coming because of the ghosts telling him, I may leave you here by yourself so that you can think of how dumb that sounds.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say then.” He limped to the couch and sat down. She knew he was in a great deal of pain, and he was bleeding all over his body. “Do you think we should go to the hospital, Con? You don’t look so good.”

  “I don’t feel good either, to tell you the truth. No matter what it was that hit us, I’m telling you right now, it was just too much. Look at my leg.” She did and got him a towel to wrap around it, so she’d not have to look again. To her, she thought it might be the nastiest thing she’d ever seen. “Thank you, darling. I just don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Ava thought of all the things she’d seen out in the woods. The swinging sticks and logs had been bad enough, but there was also the way the wolves, ones that Con told her that they’d have as guards, seemed to be laughing at them. Like it was funny to see her beautiful face messed up.

  “What do we do now, Con? We need to get us some money. I can’t go out like this again. Do you suppose if we went to this man, this Winchester person that is married to Clare, he’d give us enough to go home on? I miss my home, Con.”

  “We could do that, but then what do we live on once we get home? I’m not going to be able to work, honey. Not with this going on with my face and leg. And you’re just too beautiful to even think of doing something like menial labor.”

  Ava so loved this man. He was kind and good to her. Always making sure that she looked nice and felt good. But
this was important to them. To go home and just be safe. And to get her beauty regimen put in place again.

  “I’ll go and talk to him.” Con started to shake his head. “You can’t do it, honey. You’re all banged up. And I know that I am as well, but I can play the part of the injured wife that needs to go home to look good. He’ll have such a soft spot for me that he won’t be able to stand for me to be in pain. I’ll ask him for money, a lot of it, and we’ll go away.”

  “That has some merit. What are you going to tell him happened?” She said she’d have to think on that. “You have to be ready, Ava. He’s brutal about things. Just don’t let him hurt you. I don’t think I could stand that if anything happened to you.”

  “I don’t want to be hurt any more either. But I’ve had enough. I don’t even know why we thought it would be a good idea to come here anyway. We have to move on. Our children are no good to us if we look like this all the time.” She loved the way he was agreeing with her. Ava rarely had an idea of her own, and having him so readily approve of her plan, she felt empowered by it. “I’ll just go see him now. And I’ll make sure that he sees what has been done to my poor face.”

  “You do that. Don’t even put any more of that lip stuff in your mouth. They’re swollen enough, I think.” She wasn’t sure if he’d just insulted her or not, but only smiled at him. He was a good man, if a little dumb at times. “You shouldn’t change either. Make him see how you were treated in this. Perhaps you should take a few pictures of me. That way he knows that you weren’t beaten up by me.”

  “You think he’d think that?” He shrugged, then moaned. “I’m sorry, my dear. I should have known people will not understand us. I’ll go right now.”