I waited for the people in the mansion to retire again after the excitement. Once safe, I snuck in through the now unlockable kitchen door, went to my room and traveled back to my own time.
When I stood up in my room I saw that everything was as I left it. I opened the door and a startled Cindy and a guard looked at me.
"How long?" I asked.
"Almost a full day," said Cindy.
I said to them, "I no longer need a guard. What I need is to rest a bit. We will talk in a few hours. Keep the guards on the Hidden six." Cindy nodded and tried to look into the room as I closed the door to see if Handy had made it back. I lay on my bed fully dressed and fell asleep.
XVII
I woke up and looked around my room. I knew that my plane tickets were for tomorrow morning. This is my last 24 hours in Hamelton. I went over what had occurred in the last two and a half weeks in my mind. I now knew that Handy could never return to the life he left from. Then I thought about Handy's tombstone at the local church. John the Friar is the one who died in 1824 not Handy. John the Friar had picked up Handy's bracelet. Perhaps when they found him, having no way of knowing his name, they took the engraved name on the piece of jewelry he had on him as his name. The records showed that he was found on the road and does not mention William's dagger showing up as the murder weapon one hundred and fifty years after William"s disappearance. Maybe the owner of Hamelton mansion at the time, found a dead body on his property the day after a large party with a weapon implicating involvement from the mansion. He had the body dumped on the road and kept the dagger so there would be no investigation of his guests.
I looked at my sheath which I still wore on my side and the opening in it where William's dagger used to belong. Then I looked up at the dagger on the wall. The dagger must have showed back up after the 1824 owner died and no one knew it was a murder weapon. That dagger was mine until I lost it in John the Friar's chest. I broke the dagger down off the wall and placed it in the sheath where it belonged. I went downstairs and entered the kitchen. Maggie was not there so I continued to the library. There were still several people investigating the past for me. Maggie, her brother, and my friends were all in the room. I was greeted, but I walked past everyone and went up to the balcony.
From there I addressed everyone, "First, I would like to thank everyone for their wonderful help. Any debt that may have been owed by the Mulligan family to mine, I consider repaid. I have one question. When the rouges came in 1903, did they kill anyone?”
George ruffled through some notes, “No one died. They raided several farms for hoses then emptied out a seed store and nurseries.”
I smiled knowing that Handy must have still been alive in 1903 and maybe was able to transform part of the land into useable garden.
“ If you researchers will finish up what you are working on and then return the house to its original shape before the Simons return, I would appreciate it." I started to leave then I caught myself and continued, "Please keep watch over at the Hidden Six until I say so." With that I went downstairs and took Maggie, Jeff, Cindy and Hanna into the dining room for a private meeting.
I explained what had happened on my last trip, however I left out the part of John the Friar. I said that there was no need to try to save Handy again. If we could get him back, he would die of increased aging. There was not much left for us to do. What a hell of a vacation we had. I told Maggie that William had given me his dagger and I asked if the Simons would miss it if I kept what was rightfully mine. She said she would hang something in its place so no one would notice. Maggie said she was going to make an early dinner. I told her that I would be coming in a minute, I wanted to be alone. After they left the room, I climbed on a chair and examined the wall. I found a small hole with a piece of lead in it. That was the first shot I took at John the Friar. We spent the night talking about all the things that had happened. We all cried for Handy. Eventually, we all retired for the night.
I could not sleep at all that night. I knew that in the morning I was leaving and my friend would be staying there forever. I sat up and realized that I would not be able to sleep no matter what. I showered and dressed for the day. I packed my belongings in my suitcases. When I was about to put in my dagger and gold pieces, yes I still had mine left, into my suitcase, I thought of Handy trapped in that hell William made. I realized that he would never know I had fought John the Friar for him. Of course he knows that the Friar never made it back. I would like to believe that once the Friar was dead, William took back over as leader, Handy purified the water and that they lived in peace.
I decided to go to the Hidden Six one last time. Outside it was still dark. I walked to the Hidden Six. Once there, I saw the two men sitting at the top of the stairs. I told the men that everything was over, they could go home.
I looked into the room and thought that William and Handy could return at any moment. I wondered why they had not appeared yet. Hopefully with the absence of John the Friar, William returned as leader. The filtered water, two loads of farm animals, and Handy's twentieth century education may have indeed turned the land into the Garden of Eden. So maybe they had no desire to leave it. On the other hand, they could have all become sick and died. They could have found another gate to another time or place. Or maybe they just had not tried to cross over at the right time. They could come any minute or in 70 years from then.
I walked into the large room and looked around. There was the bloodstain that I had seen before with the hole in it. I put my small finger in the hole and realized that was where my dagger went when it pierced through John the Friar's body. I thought how all those men were once men of God and the years of isolation caused even William to become a murderer. If still alive, Handy had now been in the Garden of Hell for almost 250 years. Surely, he is as corrupt as could be now. If he ever returned, he would be as murderous as the rest of them. I lit a candle in memory of my best friend in the middle of the large room. I talked to it for a little while.
Downstairs in the kitchen I turned the gas on the stove to high and left the Hidden Six for the last time. I slowly walked back to the mansion. I had done the good people of Hamelton one last favor; the rouges would never be able to return again. About half way back, I heard the explosion as the gas ignited from the candle I had lit. I didn't turn to look. I just walked on, slowly. The dawn was arriving and a new day had begun.
I arrived at the mansion and Maggie was standing by the door watching me approach with the smoke from the blazing Hidden Six behind me. She said in a calm voice, "What do you want for breakfast?"
We sat and talked and neither one mentioned the fire over the hill. My friends came downstairs and joined us, unaware of the fire. After breakfast we put all of our suitcases, including Handy's, in the entryway. We loaded the Limousine and Albert drove us away from the mansion. When Jeff noticed the fire, I told him to ignore it. He watched it until the smoke was hard to see through the back window. We drove past the cemetery and I looked out and tried to get one last glimpse of the rogue headstone.
EPILOGUE
All that I told you, happened years ago. I felt that some readers may be curious for a shortened version of what happened after that.
When I saw Handy's father at the airport I could not bring myself to try to explain a story that I knew he would never believe. I told him that Handy vanished on a walk two days before we left England. I lied to him that I had made a police report and there was a missing person report out on him. When he called the town of Hamelton and asked for a copy of the report, one was predated and sent to him from the police station. Mr. Handy went to Hamelton and posted a large reward for any information about his son"s disappearance. No one has claimed the award. Age eventually took Handy"s father to his death still looking for his son. I could not write this if he was still living. Maybe if there is a bright side to this story it"s that with no heirs he donated most of this money to some foundation for missing children. This would surely be a better use of the money than
Handy would have used it for.
Hanna and I kept in touch for the next four years or so, and then we slowed down in writing each other due to the hard memories. I wrote to her last known address when I started to write this account of what happened, the letter came back “undeliverable”.
I had also sent a letter to Maggie. She said she was retired years ago, but keeps busy as the bookkeeper for her nephew, who now runs the family stables. Maggie said the stables has been busy with riding classes because the mansion is now owned by a college and is used as a retreat, which brings good profit to the town. She also said that Hanna left England six years ago to Australia because, "She could not find a decent man in Hamelton."
Jeff and Cindy were married two years later. They sold their gifts from William and bought an apartment building. They have two kids. Cindy was a cub until she had her man married, then she transformed into a lioness. She controls every moment of Jeff's life. Jeff has a low level aerospace job in California. When I call them Cindy sees that the conversations are short and they are never available to visit me.
I have had a difficult time since Hamelton. I dropped out of school that year. I have spent my life not holding down any job for a long time. I have spent years in therapy trying to find a way to handle what happened. Three times in my life I have committed myself to mental hospitals for help. I have been medicated, in assisted living, an outpatient and thru about allthe government programs for the “mentally ill”. This manuscript was originally a paper that one of my counselors recommended I write because the story was too complicated to understand verbally. I think he really felt that I could gain a better sense of peace if I saw how there was little I could have done to change things. He said my story seems to have been written in history years ago, so I was just playing it out. I can"t help but wonder if this is wrong since I could have done any one thing different and the whole story would have never happened. I replay it constantly in my mind and everything indicates that it was prewritten in time. But did I not have free choice in my actions?
Yes, I did get a good sum of money for the museum quality gold coins, and I have the dagger and jeweled sheath of William R. Hamelton on my desk in front of me.
Hamelton (Dr. Paul) Page 13