by Chanel Smith
“Okay,” he replied, satisfied with the explanation.
“Let’s get you back in bed, okay?”
“Sure,” he yawned and started down the hallway to his room.
His head had no sooner hit the pillow then he was asleep and she was sitting in the dim light of the nightlight trying to figure out what had just happened. After waiting to make certain that he was soundly asleep, she started back down the hall to the living room and went directly to the desk. “Very funny, Granddaddy,” she said to the empty room. “Using my son to do your typing.”
As she said it, she could have sworn that she had heard his soft chuckle; the one that he used after playing a keen joke on one of his children or grandchildren. She wasn’t sure if she had really heard it or just imagined it, however, she was certain that she smelled the scent of Cherry Cavendish in the air.
She pulled the sheet from the typewriter and read it slowly. There was no doubting the brilliance of the writing, nor was there any doubting that it was her own story, but the manner in which it had been accomplished was the part that truly had her baffled.
I was worried about having a possessed typewriter before. Having a possessed son is by far much worse. Determined that she was going crazy once again, she began to doubt herself anew. Had she been irresponsible for not pulling Jaxon away from the typewriter and awakening him out of the trance? What sort of mother would allow her son to be possessed and do nothing about it?
Sleep didn’t come to her again until, perhaps, a few hours before her alarm went off. When she awakened, she stared at the ceiling, trying to decide if what she had experienced earlier that morning had been real or a dream. After shuffling into Jaxon’s room and getting him out of bed, she started into the kitchen and saw all of the evidence she needed to let her know that what had happened had been real. The typed sheet of paper was lying right where she had left it after reading it.
She looked at the silent typewriter, loaded with paper. She had always loved that machine because she associated it with pleasant memories of her grandfather, however, things were beginning to get scary and she was starting to look at it with a great deal of dread.
“How are you feeling this morning, Jax?” She hoped to subtly discover whether he remembered anything from the night’s events.
“Fine, mama.” He gave her a curious look as he continued to dig into his waffles with peanut butter and jelly.
“Do you remember getting up to get a drink of water?” She hoped to stir his memory a bit and see what reaction she got.
Jaxon shook his head, cocked an eyebrow and continued eating.
I’m certainly no closer to solving this new chapter of my mystery.
Chapter Thirteen
Jaxon’s bus had barely pulled away from the curb before Diana was banging on my door.
“Good morning, Di…”
“He’s back.” She went straight for a mug and the coffee pot, slapping the typed sheet of paper on the kitchen table as she passed it.
I knew without asking to whom she was referring. I casually picked up the paper and began reading while she helped herself to the coffee pot. The writing, as far as I could tell, was brilliant and I was instantly drawn into the story that began to unfold in the words.
“Wow!” I exclaimed when I had finished reading. “Your Granddaddy wrote this during the night?” I was assuming that she still had the typewriter set up and had simply discovered the typed sheet or gotten up to watch as she had before. The look on her face told me that something else had taken place.
“Yes and no,” she replied. She took a long sip on the coffee, unconcerned about the fact that it was extremely hot.
“Are you okay?”
“Should I be? I mean, I know you don’t think that I’ve lost my mind, but I’m absolutely certain that I have this time.”
“Okay. What makes you think that you’re losing your mind?” I decided to use a different tactic with her, though I was totally in the dark about what her new issue was.
Fighting to calm herself, she sat down at the table with me and started to tell the story of what had happened the night before. She was obviously a great deal more stirred up about what had taken place than she had on the previous occasions and I could understand why, since Jaxon had been suddenly placed into the picture, it was no wonder that she was freaking out over it.
“I just stood there and watched, Ellen. What sort of mother would have just stood there and watched while her son was being possessed by a spirit and doing something that was completely impossible? Why didn’t I stop it?”
“I can think of two reasons.”
“Will you please explain them to me then, because I’m losing it here.”
“I would suggest that the shock factor of seeing your son typing so rapidly when he has never even sat in front of a machine before and certainly would have no idea what keys to press and turning out words, phrases and paragraphs with such brilliance to boot. Am I right?”
“Yeah. It still seems completely impossible that it was actually happening. I still can’t believe that I really saw it and didn’t imagine it all. What’s the other reason?”
“Let me ask you a question first.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“If your grandfather was still alive, would you trust Jaxon to him? You know, to take him to the mall or to the park; anywhere or to do anything for that matter. Would you trust him without question?”
“Of course, he’d absolutely love Jaxon and Jaxon would love being with him. They’re almost two peas in a pod now. So many things that Jaxon does remind me of Granddaddy. You know, just a few minutes ago when we were eating breakfast, he cocked his eyebrow at me exactly like Granddaddy used to do.”
She rattled on for quite a little bit about how much Jaxon reminded her of her grandfather and I knew that my strategy had worked. Had I simply suggested that she did nothing because she knew that she could trust her grandfather with Jaxon, she might have gone through the roof, however, as she continued to talk about the similarities, she slowly began to answer the second reason for herself.
“Is the second reason because I trust him and know inside that he would never harm Jaxon?”
“What do you think?”
She nodded. “You know, you’re a pretty smart gal, Ellen. That was a pretty neat trick you just pulled.” She was several times calmer than she had been when she’d stormed into the apartment.
She sipped the coffee for a few minutes. I remained silent and watched her. I could tell that the wheels inside her head were spinning rapidly, processing something.
“So,” she said, finally. “What do I do?”
“Well, you could try to awaken him from the trance, but I doubt that would have any effect on him and, if it did, there’s a pretty good chance that it would be a terrifying experience for Jaxon.”
“I don’t want to scare him. To this point, he doesn’t seem to even be aware that anything happened to him. It’s better if he doesn’t know, right?”
I shrugged. “It’s up to you. I don’t know for certain that it would scare him. He might deal with it just fine.”
“But there is a chance that it would. Maybe you could come help me? I mean, you’re an expert in paranormal things, right? Maybe if you were there, we could bring him out of the trance properly. Would you come help me?”
I guess that I shouldn’t have been particularly thrilled about the prospect of getting out of bed and going over to Diana’s apartment at 2:00 a.m., but the entire chain of events had been drawing my curiosity and professional interest deeper and deeper and I was jumping at a chance to witness the things that Diana had been talking about first hand. However, I wasn’t keen about trying to break into something that had obviously been progressing for a reason. I didn’t know what that reason was, but I had a feeling that it was something important for Diana and Jaxon’s life and I really didn’t want to interrupt whatever message was intended for her.
“I can come observe,” I r
eplied. “However, I think we ought to consider other options besides trying to break the trance.”
“Okay, what other options?”
“Maybe we ought to just let things play out and see what happens.”
“You might be more out of your mind than I am.”
“Diana, I can’t help believing that there is some reason behind all of this. We don’t know what it is at this point, but if this is your Granddaddy trying to contact you from beyond the grave with something important, then he’s not going to have any peace until he can settle whatever this is and, I might add, neither will you. If we break the chain of events, it could have disastrous consequences.”
“You think that it’s okay to allow my son to be possessed by a spirit, then?”
“By just any spirit, I would be a great deal more hesitant and concerned, but like you said, you trust your Granddaddy and you know that he would never hurt Jaxon. In fact, what if what your Granddaddy is doing is actually meant to help him or you or even both of you?”
“So, why not just type out a message and tell us what he wants?”
“Maybe the lesson is something that has to be learned through an experience instead of only through words.” I noticed the doubt on Diana’s face and started scrambling to find a different way to explain it.
“Okay, what did your Granddaddy teach you about writing a novel? I think you went into it a little bit the other day, right? He told you that the key to really making it work was to…”
“Show and not tell,” she whispered, finishing my sentence. “So, you think he’s showing me something important through this writing instead of just telling me something?”
“That sort of tracks with the things that you’ve told me about him.”
“Oh god, Ellen, you’re exactly right. I’d still like you there tonight, if you don’t mind?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I replied.
Chapter Fourteen
When Ellen came home from work the following night, instead of returning to my own apartment, I continued to study at her kitchen table while she took a shower, put on her pj’s and brewed a pot of decaf.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be drinking the regular stuff tonight,” she laughed. “I don’t think that either of us needs any stimulus, besides, if he doesn’t come, we might want to get some sleep at some point.”
Continuing to study had become impossible to me. I was on needles and pins with anticipation of witnessing, firsthand what Diana had been describing to me. I was nervous, because it was one of my first real encounters, though I had studied a great deal from secondhand accounts, videos and photos, actual contact was still something new to me.
As the clock continued to creep toward 2:00 a.m. my nerves had had such an effect on me as to make my mouth completely dry and speed up my heart rate. I knew that I ought to try to calm myself, but that was proving to be much more difficult than I had originally thought it would be.
When the hour arrived, both Diana and I were perfectly still and quiet, holding our breath as heard the door to Jaxon’s room open and his small steps coming down the hall. He entered the living room without looking at us. Though he was definitely Jaxon, there was something about him that wasn’t exactly him. He walked with the purposeful confidence of an older man and went directly to his seat in front of the desk.
Though I had believed Diana, seeing the speed and confidence with which Jaxon set about his work was a bit astounding. Once he was well into his work, the two of us moved forward quietly, not wanting to disturb him and, to be honest, feeling a bit anxious about what we were witnessing.
With Diana leaning over one shoulder and I over the other, we watched the story develop before our eyes and marveled at the way that Jaxon’s small fingers moved so quickly over the keys, knowing not only the precise location of the keys in order to type out the words, but creating paragraphs in the proper places and inserting the proper punctuation as though he was a longtime professional writer. There was no doubt in my mind that it had to be the spirit of an accomplished professional that was possessing Jaxon’s body, for not even I could have written so well and my graduate classes, at that time, had been providing me with a great deal of practice.
When the sheet was nearly full, Diana reached for another, but I put up a hand, signaling her to stop. I wanted to see how our spirit reacted. Would he ask for paper, would he assume that it would be put in, would he load it himself or would he simply quit writing and allow Jaxon to go back to bed?
My answer came only a few moments later when Jaxon’s fingers came to a stop and he leaned back in his chair crossing his arms, with his eyes scanning what he had written. I glanced over at Diana and noticed that she was mouthing something to me. After a couple of tries, I picked up what she was saying. Granddaddy used to do that.
After a few moments, I picked up the faintest smell of a sweet tobacco that had a hint of cherries. I must confess that when Diana was telling me that part of her stories, I had just assumed that she had associated her memories with that smell and had made it up. Though there was no smoke anywhere to be seen, there was the definite aroma of pipe tobacco in the air. Again, I looked at Diana, who pointed to her nose. I nodded my head, letting her know that I smelled it too.
When he finished scanning over his work, he grunted, perhaps expecting someone to refill the typewriter with paper. Diana started to reply and I put up my hand to stop her and mouthed “wait.”
After a few minutes, he grunted again and then placed one hand on the desk and started drumming his fingers impatiently. He was obviously waiting for paper to be put into the typewriter and was growing more and more frustrated by the second. It was in that moment, that I heard a paranormal voice for the first time.
“More paper, please,” it said in a rather impatient tone.
I looked at Diana, assuming that she had heard voice as well, but I could tell by her reaction that she had not. I’m not going to lie to you, at first, I thought I had imagined it and in the second place, I was a little bit freaked out about it. I wasn’t sure what to do.
“More paper, please,” the voice repeated.
I don’t know what prompted me to do it, but I decided to respond and to do so in the negative.
“There is no more paper,” I said aloud. I caught an odd look from Diana, who was holding paper in her hands and showing it to me. Again, I put up my hand and mouthed wait.
Jaxon looked directly at me, though the eyes that I saw were certainly not those of Jaxon and neither was the voice. “No paper?”
“No paper,” I repeated.
“Next time, bring more paper,” he snapped. He immediately stood up from the chair, turned toward the hallway and continued down it until he came to Jaxon’s room. Diana and I followed right behind him.
In the dim light of Jaxon’s room, we watched him lay down into his bed, pull the covers over himself and begin to breathe deeply. Diana and I looked at each other and waited a few moments to make sure that Jaxon was truly asleep before we quietly left the room and made a beeline for the desk.
Diana pulled the paper out and began to read. As she did, I noticed that there were tears forming in her eyes. “It’s beautiful,” she said, handing the sheet to me and then reaching for a tissue to start dabbing her eyes.
I had to agree that what I was reading was certainly the work of a professional novelist. I knew a little something about what made a good book work, though I wasn’t exactly gifted in knowing how to make that happen. “This is yours?” I asked looking at her.
She nodded a reply. Instantly, I understood what had brought tears to her eyes. In that moment, she had realized that her grandfather was uniting her and her son in a strange, but very intimate way and using her own words and emotions as the means of doing so.
“What was all of that about the paper?” she asked me as we took a seat at her table again.
“He asked me for paper,” I said.
“I didn’t hear him say a word,” she replied. “You
mean, you actually spoke to him? What did he say?”
“He said, ‘more paper, please.’ When I told him that there was no more paper, he looked at me and said, ‘no paper?’ And I told him ‘no paper.’ And then he snapped at me. ‘Next time bring more paper.’ After that, he left.”
“I saw him look at you, but I didn’t hear anything.”
“When he looked at me, the eyes were different. They weren’t Jaxon’s eyes.”
“This is way too much for me,” Diana replied.
“I don’t know,” I responded. “I thought it went well.”
“So, what do we do now, I mean, like tomorrow night?”
“We’ll put in more paper and see what happens.”
Chapter Fifteen
Diana and I had planned to wait up the following night as well, but due to our exhaustion from not sleeping the night before, I fell asleep in the chair and she fell asleep on the couch. We both snapped awake at the sound of Jaxon typing away on the typewriter.
Just as we had the night before, we stood beside Jaxon and watched him work. Once more, the brilliant, flowing text of the novel was equally as impressive as the fact that a seven-year-old boy’s fingers were flying over the keys to produce it. A bit more relaxed than we had been the previous night, Diana and I whispered to one another while we watched the sentences and paragraphs taking shape on the page.
When Jaxon came to the end of the page, he sat back, crossed his arms and looked straight ahead. Just as on the previous night, I picked up the scent of pipe tobacco, this time, it had a slightly different aroma, when I looked at Diana and raised my eyebrows, she answered my question.
“That’s the Whiskey Cavendish,” she said. “He smoked that when he was getting into his work seriously. I think he only smoked the Cherry for my benefit.”
“So, that would mean that he’s getting serious.”
“More paper.” I heard the voice inside of my head.