Echoes from the Mist

by Advocate

  In less than a heartbeat, her knees violently hit the dock and she tasted the metallic tang of blood where she’d bitten the edge of her tongue clean through. Her eyes bulged and she gasped as the agony that had failed to fully register a second before came roaring to the forefront of her consciousness with savage intensity. Arghh!! Saliva mixed with blood dribbled from the corners of her mouth as she panted harshly. She instinctively gripped her dangling arm closer to her body as she began to shake. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut and hot, salty blood dripped from her elbow to her hand, trickling from her fingertips in a steady stream onto the sun-bleached dock. A light fog lifted from the crimson liquid as it pooled on the ground.

  * * *

  Virginia (Mainland)

  That same day in January, 1691

  "Do you think they’ll make it back before dark?" Katie asked, holding her mending up to the light coming in the window so she could examine her handiwork.

  Faylinn sat in front of the fireplace and next to Katie so she could learn the new stitch the husky woman was trying to teach her. She brought a cup of tea to her lips and took a sip, enjoying its warm, sweet flavor on this cold winter’s day. "Bridget assured me they would. She—" The blonde woman stopped abruptly as every ounce of air was crushed from her chest in a violent spasm. In a panic, she tried to stand but before she could find her feet her legs buckled and she dropped to the floor with a solid thud. Her hands flew to her ears as a mind-numbing scream ripped through her consciousness and sent her heart into her throat.

  "Faylinn?" Petrified, Katie jumped up, knocking over her sewing in the process. "Are you—?" Her eyes automatically shifted to Faylinn’s belly. "The baby?"

  Faylinn shook her head vigorously, still trying to process what had just happened. She was trembling and felt as though she was going into shock. That scream could have only come from one source. "It’—" She paused as Katie helped her back to her seat and pushed the cup of tea back into her hands, placing her own hands around Faylinn’s shaking ones. "It’s Bridget." Terrified green eyes met Katie’s. "Something’s happened."

  Katie’s face showed her confusion. "Something? Bridget’s not here, girl." Her eyes darted back and forth nervously as she responded to the horror in Faylinn’s eyes. "What are you talking about!"

  Haphazardly, Faylinn set down her cup and stumbled to the door. She grabbed her cloak from a peg on the wall as she went. "Something bad," she said tightly as she disappeared into the cold.

  * * *

  Will’s eyes were so round it would have been comical had Bridget not been writhing around on the dock in pure agony. "Oh, God. I think I hit you too hard." The stick fell from his limp hand and he sank to his knees alongside Bridget, afraid to even touch her. "I-I-I…"

  "S’fine," Bridget hissed from between clenched teeth as she rocked back and forth, one arm wrapped around herself in mute, pitiful comfort.

  "Sweet Mother Mary, I can’t believe you’re still conscious!" he screeched. "What in the hell is wrong with you?"

  Bridget sneered at him though she herself had wondered the same thing.

  Will had thought for certain the shock of the strike in combination with the amount of alcohol she’d consumed would have knocked her out instantly.

  For a moment, Bridget thought the normally stolid man might actually burst into tears. "T-time for hit number two, eh?" she joked faintly. She wasn’t sure at all if she’d live through another strike, but it was too late to turn back now. She tried to smile to remove the stricken look from Will’s face but her mouth refused to cooperate. Instead, it shaped an ‘O’ as her stomach lurched and she began to retch painfully. Her breakfast made an unwelcome reappearance.

  When she was finished, Will took one look into vivid, bloodshot eyes and knew what he had to do. "Let me help you, Bridget." It wasn’t a question it was a command.

  "What?" She coughed weakly at the acrid taste in her mouth and tried to focus her fuzzy mind on anything besides the millions of knives that were stabbing her arm.

  "Sit up a little." He guided her with gentle hands. "There."

  "Wh—?" The last thing Bridget remembered was the sight of a meaty fist hurling directly towards her jaw.

  * * *

  Virginia (Mainland)

  That same day in January, 1691

  "Jesus protect and keep me," Will said to himself as two figures appeared on shore like apparitions emerging from the evening fog.

  It was Faylinn and Katie, hands on hips, feet tapping impatiently.

  His rowing suddenly slowed and he turned to a very drunk Bridget, who had regained consciousness on the open sea, halfway to shore. "I’m about to be the victim of a bloody murder. I just thought you’d like the opportunity to thank me for torturing you today before I die."

  Bridget sniggered. Her lower lip was twice its normal size and a lurid purple bruise covered most of her jaw. Her left arm, now broken in two places, was splinted and tied to her body so tightly she couldn’t move it even an inch. "Feckless coward!" she snorted, pointing at her friend and laughing some more.

  "I only thank God that I didn’t knock out any teeth."

  Bridget reached up and stuck her fingers in Will’s mouth. She felt around curiously. "Why would you knock out your own teeth?"

  "Phft. Blah." Will glared, then slapped her hand away, snapping a long string of spit that ran from his lips to her fingers in the process. "Ewwww. Keep your filthy hands to yourself, Bridget. I already feel sick to my stomach as it is. You’ve no need to gag me too."

  "I do beg your pardon," she giggled unrepentantly.

  As they approached the shore, her laughter, however, died down. She took another drink of brandy then tossed the empty bottle into the floor of the boat. "Dammit!" Tears welled up in her eyes. "Why didn’t I take two bottles?"

  The boat creaked loudly as Will put his back into the last several strokes and they caught a small wave, gliding them safely onto the sandy beach. Now Bridget got a good look at the worried, furious gleam in Faylinn’s eyes. "Goodbye, Will," she said.

  Will couldn’t speak. He could only close his eyes and whimper. Katie had a rolling pin in her hands.

  * * *

  "Well, it’s truly been a pleasure." Badger stood up and smiled at Kayla and Liv. "Will you ladies be stopping by another day?"

  "Wh-wh—?" Liv and Kayla exchanged startled glances.

  "You can’t just leave us here in the story," Kayla complained, yanking the blanket off her legs as she stood up.

  "Leave you where, lass?" Badger’s eyes opened a touch wider and he regarded her with his normal mixture of mirth and curiosity. "You don’t really think that that slip of a girl, Faylinn, killed Will Beynon, do you?"

  Kayla scowled. Now that she thought of it, it did seem pretty ridiculous. "No." She shoved her hands into the pockets of her well-worn Levis. "I mean, well, how do I know? But, I guess not."

  "Good."

  Green eyes twinkled as Badger offered Liv a hand up. "Thank you, Badger."

  He bowed gallantly at the waist just as Brody had done earlier in the week causing Kayla to roll her eyes dramatically. Being with Liv was like walking around with a life-sized sample of catnip.

  Liv folded up the blanket Kayla had tossed aside and set it down on the cushion. When she was finished, she dusted off her hands, wondering what she’d do if someone hurt Kayla like that. Even if her lover had stupidly been the one to ask for it. "So how many teeth did Will lose, Badger?"

  Badger chuckled and winked at Liv. "Only one. But it was Katie and her rolling pin that were responsible for the concussion."

  CHAPTER NINE

  LIV PEERED OVER Kayla’s shoulder at the laptop that was perched on the darker woman’s knees. She rested her chin on a broad shoulder and yawned. It was almost 10:00 PM. "Ever notice how tired you can get from sitting around doing nothing like we did this afternoon? That’s so weird."

  Kayla was too absorbed in what she was doing to do more than grunt.

  Liv rolled her
eyes.

  An intense blue gaze flickered from place to place on the screen as Kayla watched over twenty-four hours’ worth of surveillance recordings taken in Mr. Keith’s bedroom. No blood gushing out of the walls, big surprise. She was sitting uncomfortably on the hard wood floor of the bedroom in question, watching studiously as the laptop’s digital recording whizzed by at a startling rate. To her left was a small stack of DVDs. The women’s damp coats had been laid out in the corner of the room next to a pile of take-out cartons, empty soda cans, and Styrofoam cups that had once held hot, black coffee. And as per Liv’s doing, every light in the house was shining brightly.

  "How can you watch that so fast?"

  "Whaddya mean?" Kayla answered absently, pausing the picture for a split second before clicking a button and starting it up again.

  "Won’t you miss something with it playing that fast?" she asked patiently, waiting for Kayla to come out of her trance. The only indication that time was passing on the screen was the eerie movement of shadows as they moved across the room’s floors and walls and a digital time display in the lower left hand corner.

  "Nah." Kayla paused the display again then frowned and pressed play. "I know what I’m looking for."

  "Carrie in her prom dress?"

  Kayla smiled wryly. "That would make for a nice change of pace. Actually, I’m looking for anything out of the ordinary and for light balls." She looked at the screen as she spoke. "There seems to be an association between light balls and hauntings."

  "Light balls?" Liv rubbed her cheek affectionately against Kayla’s before dropping down alongside her on the floor.

  Kayla paused her computer. "Tiny focal points of radiant energy." She cocked her head to the side. "That’s what I hypothesize they are, anyway." The tall woman paused the playback and set the machine on the floor next to her. Then she went over to her equipment trunk and dug down to the bottom, not stopping until her hands hit something smooth that felt like paper. "Ah. Here we go." She padded back over to her lover. As she sat down, she handed Liv a ragged Manila envelope that contained a single photograph. "They sort of look like little stars or like those pen-light pointers people use for presentations."

  Liv opened the folder and examined the photograph. It was of Kayla and an old woman sitting around a small kitchen table. Kayla looked a little younger and her hair was several inches shorter. The old woman was clutching a crucifix with one hand and gesturing wildly with the other. Tiny pinpoints of light dotted the space around her. "Did you see these at the time?" Liv pointed at the picture where Kayla appeared to be looking directly at the other woman.

  She shook her head. "Nope. It wasn’t until I looked at the recording the next day that I caught a glimpse of them." With her index finger she traced the dots. "Those are yellow. I’ve seen pictures of green, white, and red, too." A buzzing fly circled her head and she shooed it away with a few swats of her hand.

  "Wow." Liv set the photograph down and looked at the computer screen with renewed interest. "So have you seen any yet on this recording?"

  "Not yet. But that’s why I’ve got the speed cranked up. They’re actually easier to spot in fast-forward mode. Sometimes the balls appear and disappear all in the same spot. Those are called stationary light balls. But more often they dart around objects or people like fireflies and leave a light trail the way a shooting star does. There’s almost no research on them though, because the only evidence they exist at all is photographic. They’re not visible to the naked eye in real time and no ‘normal’ or at least plausible environmental cause can explain their presence in most cases." Kayla turned her head and regarded Liv seriously for a moment. Then she smiled. "I like this." She wrapped her fingers around Liv’s and squeezed gently.

  "Holding my hand?" Liv asked impishly.

  "Yes," Kayla admitted with an arched brow. "But I meant working with you." Her smile widened until it shaped such a contented, happy grin that Liv found herself mirroring it without thought.

  "Me too, Kayla. I feel like I’m learning a lot."

  "You are. And you’re doing great." As abruptly as it came, however, the tender moment passed, and Kayla was all business again. She pulled her reading glasses out of the front pocket of her denim shirt and tucked her hair behind her ears before starting up the recording again. "This is murder on my eyes," she complained slightly petulantly. "No wonder I need these damn things."

  They were sitting shoulder to shoulder, and Liv whispered her thanks when Kayla tilted the screen a little so they both had a good view. The picture suddenly went black and Kayla took a moment to replace the DVD. "Nothing for the kitchen. First floor hallway’s next." The scene changed to the narrow passage that led to the first cluster of guest rooms.

  "So do you think this place is haunted?" Liv asked curiously, her eyes glued to the screen. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, but if she was going to get serious about this job she was going have to accept that it was at least a possibility.

  "The feelings you described to me earlier… the ones you had last night, downstairs?"

  Liv nodded, remembering the icy chill that had chased down her spine and how the hair on her arms had stood on end as though being subjected to static electricity. "How could I forget?"

  "Those are very consistent with reported hauntings." Kayla frowned. "Though the whole blood-on-the-wall thing is really more in line with demonic possession or some sort of cult ritual than it is ghostly. The profiles of those events are very distinct. And if I do say so myself," she shrugged self-deprecatingly, "I have a pretty good sense about these things and this seems like a haunting of some sort to me." Kayla surprised herself a little by how sure she was. She tried not to form any sort of opinion until she’d analyzed all the hard data, but something about this job was different.

  Liv swallowed hard. "Demonic? As in: Linda Blair, crosses, and spewing green pea soup?"

  "Don’t be ridiculous," Kayla laughed. "Besides, I’d spew too if I ate pea soup." She mock-shivered. "Yuck."

  "Thank God." Liv breathed a sigh of relief. "I knew that had to be fake."

  "Oh, it wasn’t fake," Kayla corrected her conversationally. "The film just combined several well-documented accounts of Satanic possession into one single incident for dramatic effect." She snorted in disgust. "So unrealistic. Speaking in tongues, the Stigmata, and levitation? I mean, come on!" She looked at Liv as though her conclusion was completely obvious. "You might get two of those–tops."

  The smile vanished from Liv’s face. "I feel so much better now," she said flatly. "Thank you."

  "No problem. But we don’t deal with those intentionally, Liv. There are specialists who do, just like I specialize in—"

  "Ghosts?"

  "You could say that." Kayla stopped the recording again and jumped to her feet. She handed the machine to Liv. "Bathroom break for me and those six cups of coffee you bought." She glanced at the computer then back at Liv. "Can you keep going on your own?"

  "Sure," Liv answered excitedly. Another fly buzzed around her face, and she batted it away, smiling diabolically when she hit it and sent it sprawling to the wood floor.

  "Great. I’ll be back in a few. If you spot anything out of the ordinary just pause the recording, okay?" She left the room, chuckling to herself when she heard Liv cursing as the dazed insect flew up from the floor and began annoying her again.

  "Go ‘way!" Liv’s hand darted out, and in an impressive display of coordination she snatched the fly out of mid-air and threw it hard against the floor, ending its tiny existence instantly. She stared at its lifeless, black body for a few seconds. "Don’t look at me that way," she warned. "You made me do it. It’s not like I wanted to."

  Free from distraction, the blonde woman turned her attention back to the laptop screen. After a few moments she felt her attention began to wane. She rubbed her eyes and when she glanced back at the screen she saw it. "Whoa!" She hit ‘pause’, then ‘rewind’, and ‘play’. It was so fast that she nearly missed i
t, but if she was careful, she could pause it at just the right frame and see a fluorescent blue light ball. It looked just like the ones from the picture Kayla had showed her, and when she allowed the recording to play she could see it began at one end of the hallway and race erratically to the other end, where it disappeared. "Oh, wow." Liv paused the recording again and pushed to her feet. "I can’t wait to show Kayla this. She’s going to freak."

  She looked towards the door, feeling for the first time since coming to Edinburgh that she’d actually made a contribution towards this case. Sure, Kayla would have probably found it herself. But the point was, it wasn’t Kayla, it was her. It wasn’t obvious either; it had been a good catch. "Where are you, ghostbuster? You didn’t drink that much coffee."

  Another fly landed on the tip of Liv’s nose. "God dammit!" She knocked it away and glared down at her previous victim, which was still lying on the floor quite dead. Liv carefully set down the laptop, her eyes scanning the large room. In the very upper corner she spied several more buzzing flies. "Where are you little nasties coming from?" she wondered aloud. Moving closer, she peered at the white wall, the same wall that had supposedly been drenched in blood only weeks before. Would bugs still be attracted to it? Probably, she decided, though surely the painters would have scrubbed it clean before painting, right?

  She lifted her eyes up to the corner again. Several more flies had mysteriously joined the first few. She walked a few steps to the window and gave it a firm tug. It was closed tight. When she looked back the number of bugs had decreased. "What the—? Ah. Ha." The flies were moving into the corner of the room and disappearing into the wall. There must be a crack. She took a step closer and heard a tiny crunch under her foot. Liv lifted her shoe and noticed a few crushed paint chips stuck to its sole. She brushed them off. "Hmmm…"