“We are being followed by something or things. It’s a long, troubling story and when the coffee’s done brewing you will hear it… that is, if you want to.” I gestured for him to have a seat and then continued, “Tell me, what went on when you spotted the veiled ones here?” I asked.
“At first, I thought I was seeing things, then, I thought it was a lawn gnome. Little, it was just like a gnome that was veiled but when I turned around and came back, of course I realized it wasn’t that. So I called you immediately.” He sat down across the table from me.
“It wasn’t there when you came back. Isn’t that what you told me on the phone?” I prodded him expecting the answer.
“It was gone, but as I told you then, I thought that I saw someone looking out from behind the curtains. So I called you and the rest is—”
“History,” I said with resignation in my voice.
“Well that’s what happened. The cops went in like gangbusters but found nothing. Have you noticed anything unusual in the house?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I have. Remember the image that showed up in the pictures you took of me when we were in Arizona?” I asked.
“Yeah. It was that mystic you had consulted with at one time. That was…” He drifted off in thought.
“Weird,” I completed his thought.
“Unexplainable,” he corrected me as he returned to the moment.
“Good morning.” Kate greeted us as she came to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. “What’s new with you, Kevin?” She sat at the table with us as she spoke. She looked a bit perkier than she did the night before falling asleep. She sipped her coffee before saying, “Tell me Kevin, what did the person looking out from this house, look like?” She put her right knee in her hand after putting the coffee mug on the kitchen counter and pitched her head a bit waiting for his answer.
“Oh you heard that part of the conversation from outside the room?” He paused and then, “It was veiled and, er, empty–looking I guess,” he said.
“Empty… that’s a good description Kevin.” I continued, “That is the feeling I seem to get whenever I’m around those things. Empty… and hopeless.”
“They, or what they seem to be, scare the living shit out of me.” Kevin blurted.
“Me too,” Kate agreed.
Kevin’s comment was so on the money it put me on a train of thought that took me back to the first time I saw one of them. Excusing myself I headed for the bathroom with a sudden urgency commenting, “Nature’s calling,” as I left the kitchen.
Kevin chuckled as I closed the bathroom door. Bending over the sink I threw some water on my face. The shower curtain seemed to move a bit as I dried my face. Before I would sit down it became necessary to check to see if there was anyone or anything behind it, as I was easily spooked these days. There was no sound or movement. I took a deep breath, grasped the curtain edge and quickly pulled it aside. Nothing was there. “Probably the air circulator,” I thought out loud.
“Welcome back,” Kate greeted me as I returned to the kitchen.
“Kotter?”
“Huh?” asked Kevin
“You wouldn’t know, before your time,” I responded.
“So… huh?” chuckled Kate.
“Come on you guys, so I’m showing my age. Can’t I even have that as the privilege which comes with age?” I complained.
“No, you can’t… and if you got that privilege granted, how do you think people would think of me?” Kate was somewhat sensitive about her age. I wasn’t.
“So are you ready for the coming out party on the project?” Kevin asked before sipping his coffee.
“I haven’t really been giving it much thought, what with everything else going on.” I was beginning to realize what a grouch I was becoming as I said those words.
“It might be good for you to put your energy and thoughts into this and maybe that will help ease some of that internal tension.” Kevin counseled me and went on, “I have been staying close to the team and have been of some help to them in areas where I wasn’t thinking I’d be.”
“Such as?”
“What media rounds might work best for getting the word out and creating some buzz.”
“What media, Kevin?” Kate asked as she shifted in her perch.
“PBS, the Science Channel, George Noory. These venues are where inquiring minds seem to go for this genre of information.”
“Did they take your advice?” I asked.
“They will,” he responded with a strange confidence. “I’m planning on heading over to the site later today. Do you want to ride with me?”
“I guess so.”
“Don’t show your enthusiasm, Tell. Why… you might actually… smile,” he commented.
“I should be more into it Kevin, I know that; but what we’re dealing with really has my full attention. And that’s the way it is for now, and who knows how long.”
“I don’t think it will be too much longer,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Kate jumped in immediately.
“I mean how much longer can something like this go on?” he shrugged. Kevin acted like he resented being challenged.
He seemed a bit uncomfortable with Kate’s question, but having been around him enough, I was coming to realize that he was a creative genius and those folks don’t well tolerate those of us known as the ‘Great Unwashed.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kevin liked driving fast, and as we were on the way to the project site he was speeding like a wannabe Formula One driver. I sat in the passenger seat, feeling somewhat tense but trying my best not to show it. He gunned it as we passed a Volkswagen bug and its senior citizen driver who flashed me a dirty look as we went whizzing by him and back into our lane.
“I just got the fisheye because you’re driving like a friggin’ madman.”
“What’s a madman drive like?” he asked.
“Like you.” I responded hoping he would get the message without my whimping out and begging him to slow down.
“Come on Teller, you’re showing your age, man.”
“Better than showing my blood, I think.” My snippiness did absolutely nothing to alter his speed.
Then It seemed as though just when we were about to break the land speed record we rounded the bend by the cemetery… and sitting at the front gate was the car that I had seen the night I was driving home from the site. As we approached it, thankfully, Kevin slowed down to a reasonable speed. We both saw the woman in the veil who was walking toward the gate.
“That’s her,” I blurted, pointing her way.
“That’s who?” Kevin looked at me curiously.
“The woman in the veil!” I pointed at her with both hands.
“I can see that,” he said in mocking reassurance.
“She doesn’t look weird to you?”
He looked me up and down, as if measuring me and said, “Here, look in this mirror. That’s weird, my friend.”
“Stop here for a second. I want to see what’s under that veil.”
“And maybe get arrested while you’re at it?” He laughed.
“You don’t think this strange? She looks like she walked out of a Humphrey Bogart movie or some Nick and Nora Charles film.” I was struggling with his non-reaction but then I realized that our age difference gave him a different point of reference.
“Okay, so you think she’s a bit unusual. I’ll admit you don’t see many western culture women in veils.”
“Especially one which is covering the face of a woman who might not even be there at all,” I said, thinking nevertheless that maybe I might be overreacting to this.
Kevin stopped the car behind the veiled woman’s car. I jumped out and told him, “I feel like I’m still moving. How fast were you going?”
“I’ll never tell,” he said, smiling as he nodded in the direction of where the veiled lady had gone. He got out of the car and grabbed my arm saying, “Let’s go meet this lady. You’ll ha
ve a chance to tell her how much her veil disturbs you.”
“You don’t get it, Kevin. Look at that car. What make is it?”
“A Mercedes. I can tell by the emblem. See.” He said exhibiting pride at his knowledge of cars while pointing at the emblem on the hood.
“Oh, yeah. Notice the condition?” I asked.
“Pretty good shape.”
“What year would you say it is?”
He looked the car over before saying, “I dunno; they never change the look of these cars.”
I got a start when I looked at the license plate. It had no renewal date and there was no state indicator.
We started into the cemetery. Looking around I didn’t immediately see her. But after a few momentsI thought I saw her standing by a gravesite with her back to us. It was a woman standing motionless and I started toward her, trying to cover the forty or so yards separating us… but no matter how fast we walked, or how far, we never seemed to get any closer.
Kevin was walking alongside me keeping pace but not saying anything about our inability to close on her. He touched my arm and said, “Look at me. Think about this, here we are two men about to accost an old woman in a graveyard… maybe standing by a family grave. Do you get my drift?” he said, forcing me to engage him as he was staring at my face with a very concerned expression in his eyes.
I started to explain my actions and pointed toward the place she was standing… but she was no longer there. She was nowhere to be seen. We approached the grave. I was startled to see the name on the headstone was Warren Bargison. It had no dates on it but Bargison was the last name of Warren, who was married to Louise, and the friend of my grandparents.
“Kevin, this is wild. That could be the grave of someone I had a conversation with very recently,” I said, staring at the stone. ‘Or maybe it could a family member of Warren’s, or more than likely it was just a coincidence.’ I thought without saying.
“You know, hanging with you is like being in a movie, a very strange movie.” He said while staring at me, staring at the headstone.
I regained my somewhat lost composure and said, “We’d better get going. We’re going to be late for the meeting.”
The Mercedes was gone, and I was not surprised at that. I just sighed a resigned breath, climbed into our car, and buckled my safety belt. “Please keep it below warp speed for a change.”
“Okay,” Kevin responded, in deep thought it seemed. He pulled the car back onto the road and we didn’t speak for the twenty minutes or so left on the trip which he drove at a comfortable pace.
“Hi, Teller,” came a greeting from the project director, Mike Paulsen, who was standing in the parking lot as we pulled in. He closed his car door, indicating that he had just arrived, too.
“Good to see you again.” He shook my hand. He continued, “Are you all rested and ready for the big push?”
“I hope so, Boss,” I responded while grabbing my briefcase from the back seat of Kevin’s car.
“We’re ready to rock and roll, my friend,” Mike said confidently, unaware of Kevin’s rolling of eyes going on behind him.
The donuts were sitting out near the coffee pots and the thirty or so people who were standing around in clusters talking excitedly were in various stages of sugar rush or so it seemed to me.
Pouring a cup of unusually robust decaf coffee, I offered to do the same for Kevin but he refused my gesture and also the donut which I offered to get for him. Eventually I claimed that donut.
Melanie Morris came up to us and said that she really needed to speak with me after the meeting.
Kevin turned toward my ear and whispered, “I think she likes you, old man.”
“Good God, Kevin,” I said. “Mel is a sweet lady; heck, she might just be interested in you. Ever think of that?”
He shrugged that one off and found his seat at the table. I sat next to him. We were across the table from Melanie, who was going through her papers and didn’t look up from them until the meeting began. When it began she did look up, and right at me with an expression of intensity and sadness.
The meeting was fairly brief and much just a reiteration of what had been addressed in principle and policy all through the research period. The Project Director now assigned our duties for the final phase of it all. He commented on how important the Arizona phase of the project wound up becoming — I was thinking that was maybe due to the quality and composition of Kevin’s photographs. Mike then pointed at me and announced that Kevin and I had changed the entire dynamic with our combined, and individual, work. The people around the table applauded at that statement and I playfully mocked it by standing and taking a deep luxurious bow while, with a hand gesture, acknowledging the still-sitting Kevin.
As the meeting broke up, Melanie came rushing over to me and asked if we could speak privately.
We went into her office and she said, “Teller there is something I didn’t discuss with you when we had our evening at the Mill. It is about my father and at the time we spoke I didn’t know if I should have brought it up.” She looked down at her desk and picked up a photo which she handed to me. It was the picture of a cottage in a bucolic country setting.
“Nice little house,” I commented while studying it, looking for a familiarity that wasn’t there.
“It’s a house that’s been in my family for a long time.” She spoke of it as if somehow it were something I should have been familiar with.
Melanie went on to tell me that the cottage was located in Hurley, which was about sixty miles to the south of us. She related that it was originally owned by her grandparents and inherited by her father and eventually passed on to her. “This is where my dad spent his summers while growing up. This was the house he spent the months of July and August until he was eighteen,” she said. I reflected on how it was once traditional, in New York City, for those who could, to go to the “country” which was everywhere that was outside the city limits. It was a common term for vacations in those days.
I was wondering what this had to do with anything until she said, “The house is still in the family; I haven’t been in it since Dad passed.” She got teary but continued, “Two nights ago I was awakened during the night by a voice calling my name in the dark.”
“Uh oh.” I couldn’t help but utter almost automatically.
“It was my father, Teller. It was my father.” She said putting her face right in front of mine. She was upset as she continued, “He was standing near the window with the night sky as a backdrop. He whispered to me that you should go the house alone. He said to tell you to go there only in daylight, and that you would understand why, when you went. He said that you should go there as soon as you hear my words asking you to go.”
“I have to ask you this Melanie; could you have dreamed this?”
“You of all people, ask me that? Come on Teller… you of all people.” She acted exasperated by my question.
“I need to know for sure.” I wondered how her father had been able to get through to her. She hadn’t mentioned ever having a near death event but maybe she had experienced one and been keeping it from me. Why could I go there only in daylight? This sounded like maybe concern that I might encounter something that would terrify me in the dark. Going there in broad daylight certainly worked for me.
She continued, “I jumped up and walked toward my father only to find him gone. I wanted so badly, just to hug him. I wanted to tell him how much I missed him. Please make sure that you tell him that.” She said sadly with a faraway look in her eyes.
“I don’t understand, Melanie. How do I tell that to your dad?”
“Time” was her response, spoken as she stared off at who-knows-what.
“Where is this house, exactly?” I asked, looking at the photo once again.
She handed me a net-generated map with driving instructions to it.
I started to speak but she interrupted me with “No you can’t take your wife in there with you. You can’t take me or Kevin, ei
ther.”
“And you know this… how?” I asked.
“My father’s instructions were concise He said that you must come alone… and in daylight.”
“Alright Melanie, I’ll take a ride there tomorrow.”
“Why not today?” she urged.
“Let me call Kate; I’ll see if she’ll take the ride with me.” When she started to admonish me about taking other people there, I said, “I know, Melanie. I promise you that she will not go into the house with me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Within two hours Kate and I were in our car heading south for Hurley and the Morris cottage with a key provided me by Melanie. It was Mee-hawl’s warning, telling me that I should ‘lay low and say nothing in Latin for two weeks’ kept echoing through my mind. I wondered if this might be a way to get me to not follow that advice.
“The house looks kind of comfy, Tell… at least from how it appears in the photo,” Kate said while studying the picture as I drove.
“Tell, why haven’t you been doing your Chi Gung? It seems as if you have just dropped it. I can’t remember a time when you didn’t do it.” Kate’s question jarred me. It was a revelation of a sort and made me start into the thought process of why that was so. My Sifu, under whom I studied for twenty years, would often tell me in his heavily accented words, referred to by me as Chinglish that I was ‘becoming that which I do.’ In this system our meditation was the foundation of everything, and meditation was both static and moving. The forms were a series of movements that were practiced to the point of them bringing the practitioner to No Mind, that state where there is no thought and there is only Chi (Vital Energy) flow.
As part of my practice over the years I did the Nine Palace Walking Pattern, which was a floating step technique and consisted of nine points, or places, with eight being on a circle and one point in the center of the circle. The walker went from point to point in ascending and then descending order using the center point as the one most circled. The result of this was the creation of a personal energy pattern path. This pattern path created for the walker an energy door to another place where he or she could experience a different level of existence.
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