“It is a mess,” Ellen noted. I’d forgotten in the spectacle around us for a moment that she was there and that we weren’t actually here. We were our astral selves.
“What are they doing? Waiting in line for something?” I asked.
Ellen shook her head. She wandered slowly over to the group of women who seemed to be whispering to each other. “Um, excuse, me we’re new here? Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
The lady in the long evening dress seemed older than the other three, but she did focus in on Ellen directly. “Yes, you are new, aren’t you? Did the Captain bring you here?”
She eyed the woman oddly. “You mean Captain Beale?”
“Yes, he’s brought us all here. After the storm, he brought us all here to be safe.”
Ellen smiled. “Safe? From what exactly?”
The gray-haired woman looked a bit surprised. Then for the first time I noticed there was a large maroon stain near her ribs on her dress. Her eyes became a bit wary. “You can talk to the Captain. He’ll be back soon.”
I moved behind Ellen, whispering to her. “Let’s not push. This is a bit bizarre.”
As we walked further down the hall, I stopped short, feeling an odd crunch around my ribs and then a weakness pass through me. “Did you feel that?”
“We’re losing energy.”
Right on the heels of that observation, Ellen’s eyes seemed to fix on one of the closed doors at the end of the hall. Pretty quickly I realized that it was the bedroom, the one we’d gone into last time. “Something’s down there now,” she whispered and started moving in that direction.
“Hey, hold up!” I shouted, but it was as if she didn’t hear, just seemed compelled to keep moving toward it.
Out of nowhere a small child appeared from behind Ellen. I recognized it as one who had been sitting down with the group of children moments before.
Looking up at her, the child said, “Don’t go in there.”
Ellen smiled at the little boy, who seemed no older than five or six but pale and sickly looking. “Why not?” she asked.
“Because a monster lives in there.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The little boy’s voice reached her, reached into the fog that she felt as though she was wrapped in. She focused on his pale thin face and huge brown eyes, “What did you say?” she whispered.
He glanced around him as though in fear, then repeated, “There’s a monster in there.”
Ellen realized the magnetic pull would have taken her right inside without a thought. The only thing that prevented her from going inside was that gentle little voice of the boy staring up at her apprehensively.
Monty caught up with her, his face looking concerned and grim. “Hey, let’s step back a bit.”
But in their efforts, they nearly ran into the tall gray-haired woman in the evening gown.
“Thomas, hush,” she rasped a bit frantically. “Don’t tell stories. Of course there isn’t a monster in there.”
Monty eyed her with skepticism. “Really! Then why don’t you tell us what’s in there.”
She smiled tremulously. Ellen could feel the terror. That was the common element among all of hese spirits: fear, naked fear. It was tangible in the hallway. They all breathed it and radiated it.
The woman glanced around a bit furtively. “Why, it’s just the Colonel’s quarters. That’s all.”
“The Colonel?” Ellen remembered from her encounter with Beale that there had been a Colonel but that was during Beale’s lifetime.
“Yes,” she went on, with a bit more confidence in her voice. “It’s Captain Beale’s commanding officer. He…” then she stumbled over her words a bit. “He doesn’t like to be disturbed.”
Ellen met Monty’s gaze directly. “Something’s not right here,” she directed to his mind.
“Ya think?”
She looked again toward that door, the one she’d felt such a strong pull toward. “We’d been in there and felt nothing, nothing except emptiness.”
“Monty, we need to find out what’s in that room.”
“Mrs. Drew,” a cold voice seemed to slice right through the hallway. The crowd of ghosts instinctively parted like the Red Sea to clear the way for the new arrival.
In seconds the imposing figure of Beale was standing directly in front of her and Monty. But fortunately, at least as far as Ellen was concerned, the hole in his head had settled down into some black, scorched scar.
“Mrs. Drew, I see you don’t take a hint easily,” Beale said.
She smiled, trying to appear affable. “Captain, I would say your suggestion that we leave was a bit stronger than a hint.”
“Yes, and still you chose to ignore it, which makes this much worse for you.”
He was angry. Ellen caught that profoundly. But then just as suddenly his mood shifted. His eyes fixed fully on Monty for what seemed to be the first time. She felt confusion ripple through him like a wave.
“Whitehall,” he murmured.
Monty glanced at me, then back to Beale. “What did you say?”
“Attention!”
Monty smirked and gave a goofy salute, which Beale didn’t like at all.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Go with it!” I heard Ellen nearly scream in my mind.
I returned my gaze to the tall creepy ghost who clearly felt as though he owned the place. But maybe he did. I was his little buck private, apparently, someone to belittle and abuse.
I smiled, “How’s it going?”
“How are you here?” Beale said, his face like chalk dust.
I glanced over to Ellen for some explanation. In my mind I heard her say carefully. “He recognizes you as Whitehall.”
“Captain Whitehall,” he emphasized.
Again I looked to Ellen but with wide eyes she said to both of us, “Yes, I brought him here. The Captain wanted to see you, Joshua.”
He looked at her suspiciously and then I remembered. He could hear our thoughts. So Ellen couldn’t speak freely.
I turned back to Beale who was still looking at me with great confusion. And it tugged at me a bit, his face sort of like a déjà vu. That nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten something, like not locking the front door or leaving the stove eye on or leaving a love letter where your other girlfriend might find it.
“Whitehall didn’t die here. I would have known it.” Beale stated emphatically.
“I brought him to see you, Captain Beale. He’s worried about you.”
Beale’s eyes widened. Then he looked beyond us to that closed door. “We?” Then he corrected, “I believe you are lying to me, Ellen Drew.”
“Beale,” I said. “Is that any way to greet an old buddy who has come all this way to see you?” It jolted him and it jolted me, the words that were coming out of my mouth. “We go back a long way my friend. Ellen here was just trying to help out. Can’t you see that?”
I could see it. There was impact, confusion crossing his face. The stony confidence wavering. All I had to do was keep hammering at him. To what end I wasn’t at all sure, but it felt right. Like jabbing at him with soft body blows to soften him for the sudden uppercut. “What’s with all the civilians here, Beale? It seems like a bit of an odd situation.”
He continued to stare at me as though he didn’t know what he was looking at. “Things are different now, Captain,” he stammered a bit.
Good, good, that was it. I could feel I was reaching him. And then he turned his face back towards the door at the end of the hallway. “You both shouldn’t be here now.”
“Josh,” I said instinctively. And he turned back to me. “It’s me. Come on. Let me help.” And I saw just for an instant something familiar in his eyes, but also fear.
Then the next thing I knew I was slamming against concrete. My face bounced against a stone cold floor.
Chapter Twenty-six
“Owww,” I grunted.
Mathilda was standing over us and Ellen and I were laid out on
the floor of the museum. “Are you all right?” she gasped.
Painfully, I tried to pry myself up but literally every bone in my body cried out in protest. She was bending over me now. “Do you need help?”
I shook my head and brushed a bit of dust or some other unknown material off my face. I hoped it wasn’t my shattered skull. “Just give me a little space, will ya?”
She stepped back a bit.
Ellen with her yoga trained body had already sprung to her feet and was smoothly helping me to mine. “What happened here, Mathilda?”
“I’m not sure. I was focusing like you said, concentrating on grounding you two. But then I started to feel this horrible irritation.”
“Irritation?” I muttered.
“Yes, it started at my neck then traveled right down the middle of my spine. Then all of a sudden I had the terrible feeling it was a baby moccasin.”
I rolled my shoulders and twisted my neck trying to shake the horrible ache I felt all over my body. It kind of felt as though I’d been hit by a truck. “Baby Moccasin?”
“It’s a snake,” Ellen explained.
“Oh, that makes more sense. I thought you meant a cute little shoe.”
“I’m sorry, it scared the crap out of me. I hate those poison things. Did I mess things up for you guys?”
Ellen shook her head. “No, I think we’d gone as far as we could from here. We learned a lot Mathilda. But I think it’s time we headed back to Number Four.”
“You do?” I stared at Ellen with more than a bit of confusion. “I’ve heard of ‘Third time’s a charm,’ but I think we’re pushing our luck.”
She clenched her fists in a “victory” gesture. “We’ve found the chink in Beale’s armor.”
“Care to enlighten me?” I asked.
“It’s you, Monty. Or at least who he believes you are, Captain Whitehall.”
“Ellen, I was making stuff up, trying to get to him. If he can make Mathilda feel like a snake is crawling on her, then who knows what horrible things he can cook up?”
Ellen peered at me curiously. Then Mathilda jumped in. “Wait a minute. This dead Captain Beale thinks you’re another Captain?”
“Evidently Beale recognizes Monty as someone he knew a long time ago, and seemed to be a comrade of his.”
“Clearly the guy is completely confused.”
Again the odd look from my wife, “Maybe.”
“Or maybe he recognized you from a past life—you know, reincarnation.” Mathilda enthusiastically interjected.
“I don’t believe in reincarnation.”
“You didn’t used to believe in ghosts.”
“The jury’s still out on that. I admit it’s something weird, but how do we know all of this isn’t a communal hallucination?”
“It doesn’t really matter what we believe,” Ellen said. “It matters what Beale believes. We have a tool now. And we need to use it before….”
“Before what?” There was something else but I caught on from the expression on her face that she didn’t want to discuss it in front of Mathilda.
Ellen turned back to Jackson Barrack’s chief archivist and gave her a big hug. “I can’t thank you enough, Mathilda, but we have to go. Just the two of us.”
And on a whim, I did the same, wishing I was hugging Ellen instead. “Thanks, Ms. Vance. You’re aces. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. And thanks for those restaurant recommendations, if we live long enough to check them out.”
As we headed out of the front door of the museum, I saw that night had begun to fall. The real night, that hard, black hand that smothered the world and cloaked its secrets.
As a former P.I., I loved to bust secrets wide open.
Show time.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It was just the very beginning of dusk, but as we walked back to the house I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were getting creepier.
“It will be harder now that it’s night.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, unfortunately, in this circumstance it’s true. I can’t really explain why, except that there is a yin and yang in the universe. A darkness counterbalancing the light, and here it’s definitely coming into play.”
“I liked my little ‘cloaking secrets’ thing, but yours makes more sense. Good and evil, black and white, all that jazz.”
As we rounded a corner and I saw Number Four settled in among a row of similar structures, an overwhelming feeling of sadness came washing over me.
“It is sad,” Ellen murmured. “It’s easy to separate yourself from the fact that all those spirits in there, even Beale, were once just like us. People living their lives, trying to find some purpose in the world and then getting so lost. Can you imagine yourself being trapped like they are?”
“I’d rather not. I don’t even like elevators.”
“Listen, we need to take a few minutes to set things up before we go in.”
“And where do you suggest we do that?”
“Probably the car. Once we’re in the house, they’ll be privy to anything we do.”
“Okay, I’m not loving this ‘they’ you’re referring to.”
“I’ll explain. But there isn’t a lot of time, honey.”
Both of us climbed into the back seat of the car. And I couldn’t believe I had this gorgeous woman in the back seat of my car and we were going to talk about ghosts. But of course I wasn’t a teenager anymore and our priorities had shifted a little. She loved play as much as I did, except when she had some lost souls to assist. “So?”
Ellen had that look again, that you’re not going to like what I have in mind look. “ Captain Beale has connected you with—”
“Yeah, yeah, an old army buddy of his.”
She frowned. “Do you feel anything about Beale?”
“Other than he’s a poor, pathetic loser with some brass on his chest?”
“Hmm, then you’re sympathetic toward him?” she asked.
I shrugged, feeling a bit confused. “Seems over his head. He doesn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him. He still has his pride.”
“That’s odd.”
“You think?”
“Some would see him as the author of this metaphysical tragedy. But you don’t?”
“Live and let live, I always say. Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his baby moccasins. And you think that means something.”
“Follow your instincts, Monty. So if he’s over his head, then who is giving the orders?”
“I think you already have an answer to that.”
“The monster, the one that little boy said is in the room.”
“The old lady said it was the Colonel.”
“Yes but sometimes children—even ghost children—can see things more clearly, aren’t as easily fooled. Or have had less practice in lying to themselves.”
“So whatever is in that room is controlling Beale?”
She nodded, “Yes, but you might be able to break its hold, or maybe Captain Whitehall can. While you were talking to Beale, I could see things in his mind, images of him and Whitehall. I gathered as much as I could from him, so when you go in—”
“Hold on a sec. I’m going in?”
“You’re the only one who can. Whitehall is the only one who can reach Beale.”
I had pretended to be surprised but I wasn’t. I was sitting in the back seat of a rental car in southern Louisiana at the end of a long April day knowing and feeling that somehow I’d been headed in this direction all along.
When I become the last hope, the odds aren’t always so good.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Ellen believed in reincarnation, or at least an interpretation of it. But it wasn’t something we discussed at length. She didn’t try to persuade me to accept her ideas. She would explain them when asked but was always of the opinion that people must come to things on their own, “take their own path,” as she would say.
But she be
lieved that everyone had a spirit and a soul for every lifetime. And the spirit would live many times through different souls. So if this theoretical idea was plausible, then Monty Drew was one of a kind, one soul, but I might, and I stress the word might, have shared a spirit with the soul of Captain Stephen Whitehall at one time.
Of course I made the point of what an unbelievable coincidence that would be, for me to actually have been Beale’s friend in another life. But then she’d looked at me strangely and said, “There are no coincidences. The universe draws people together for a reason. Just like you and me. It wasn’t random that we met. We had work to do together and this was part of it.”
I thought it was her shapely beauty and piercing eyes and my considerable charm and big shoulders, that had drawn us together, but then I’m a hopeless romantic, too.
Ellen emphasized it wasn’t necessary I believe any of this, only necessary that I portray Captain Whitehall for the benefit of Beale. Ellen quietly told me all the information she’d picked up about Whitehall, and the disturbing fact that Beale had seen his good friend shot and killed in action at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in Eastern France. A fact that she believed heartily contributed to his weakened state of mind. I didn’t believe in reincarnation but all these facts that she conveyed to me did strike me as weaving a big, intricate web.
Sort of like Lincoln and Kennedy’s assassinations being linked because they both had seven letters in their names. How could you argue with it?
So this time Ellen would stay behind and I would seek out Beale, garbed in the disguise of Whitehall. I wasn’t comfortable with the plan; in fact, it wasn’t much of a plan—more of a jump-in-headfirst kind of thing. But it was all we had.
We went in the front door this time with no trouble. The supernatural party was upstairs now, Ellen explained. We sat down again on the hard wooden floor near the front entrance of Number Four and held hands. “I’ll be right here, and don’t forget I love you.”
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