“Tess? You okay?” Kade leaned close, looked at me intently. “Tess?”
I squeezed his hand to reassure him. I didn’t want him to look too closely in case he saw how nervous I was beginning to feel. For them, I had to appear completely calm, in control and confident. It bothered me immensely that Sheila was not with me. Should we go through with this?
I bowed my head. “Let’s pray.” The others immediately closed their eyes. “Why don’t we repeat the Lord’s Prayer?” My belief was that this prayer in particular was quite powerful, and I felt marginally better once the prayer was finished. But still, more was required. “God, I ask that you protect us here in this room, keep us safe in your loving light and do not allow negative energy to come through. Our purpose tonight is to contact Abigail or Nathan. Should others want to communicate, they must first seek permission and their contact must be positive and for our highest good. We thank you, God, for all your love and for your protection. Amen.” I opened my eyes, looked across at Nancy. She smiled with approval, looking more relaxed.
Swallowing past a lump that lodged itself in my throat, I began the process of emptying my mind and opening myself to communication with the other side. The room was so quiet, I could hear the others breathing. Not a single solitary sound carried from the house above us. The kitchen was the nearest room and it was closed for the night. I listened to the quiet and let the peace of the moment fill my soul.
Something wasn’t right. In an instant I felt a shiver of warning, a sense of foreboding. Goosebumps rose on my flesh and my breathing deepened. The room’s temperature dropped. The candle flames flickered as if someone blew on them gently. Jack’s grip on my hand tightened. Kade was already holding tight. Nancy made a sound in her throat. I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her face pale, she looked about her as if trying to focus on something. She caught my glance and shifted uncomfortably.
“I feel someone, Tess.”
A presence filled the room that felt so tangible it was hard to believe we couldn’t physically see it. “He stands to my right.” I closed my eyes and tried to picture him. I was pretty sure … hoping … it was Nathan. “Nathan? Are you here with us?”
The table shook. Nancy gasped and jumped back. Luckily, the men held fast to her hands. Okay, then. Here we go.
“Nathan?”
The temperature around the table dropped several more degrees. It was now so cold we could see our breaths. Beside me on the crate, the candle’s flame flickered to the side as if a wind blew continuously across it. Again the table shook. It was more like a tremor of movement, a strong vibration. Sensing the fear level in the others begin to rise, I spoke quietly. “Those in the Tri-State are interfering with the natural order of things here in our present reality. When such interference occurs, things happen … like the flame flickering, the table shaking. The temperature drops because they utilize the energy from heat to manifest into our physical state. Please, do not be afraid.” But even as I said that, a shiver of fear raced through me. Something wasn’t right. What? Sheila, what is going on?
I mentally strengthened the white protective light around us, picturing it so brightly that it was nearly blinding to my mental eyes. Some of the heavy menace permeating the air faded. Someone was still with us, though. I was pretty sure it was Nathan but I was equally sure it wasn’t Nathan I sensed only moments ago. Some of my foreboding began to fade and my clenched stomach muscles relaxed. Until that moment, I wasn’t even aware that I had tensed up so badly. As Nathan’s image began to solidify in my mind, I regained my inner calm. Now maybe we would get somewhere.
The smell of the sea filled the room followed by the tang of drying seaweed and the acrid odor of rotting fish. Nancy gagged. It was time I took control of the situation. “Nathan? Stop with the smells.” Almost immediately the eye-watering odor went away. The smell of the sea continued to fill the air. We could live with that. Nathan identified with the sea. And he had died there.
“What is it you seek, Nathan?” A blast of cold anger hit me right in the chest, temporarily knocking the breath from my body. I jerked back in my chair and the only thing that kept me from toppling to the floor were Kade’s and Jack’s hands holding tight to my own. Gasping for air, I closed my eyes and concentrated on Nathan. “Don’t hurt me.” I told him silently. “I’m here to help you.” The pressure in my chest let up and just as I took a grateful breath, something crashed loudly behind me. Nancy cried out and Jack responded by squeezing my fingers so tight I thought he’d cut off my blood circulation.
“Jesus! What the hell was that?” Jack gave my hand a tug. “Tess, what the hell is going on?”
Though I struggled to answer him, I felt a tug for control within myself. Nathan wanted to speak and he wanted to do so through me. Because I was a bit afraid of him, I fought to keep him at bay. His desperation made that hard to do. Sounds emerged from my throat that were probably scaring the others. Maybe for a minute, then, I’d let him speak.
“Go away! You must go away.”
As soon as the words were out, his energy completely dissipated. The candle flames stopped flickering and the table’s humming vibration ceased. The chill remained in the air however. We still had a visitor.
With Nathan’s strong energy gone, the atmosphere settled down considerably and the tension within me melted into calm. The men must have felt the tension drain from me because their grips relaxed as well. My eyes closed, I took several slow, deep breaths and silently asked Sheila to join us. Just as the cobweb feeling began to tickle my chin, I felt a female presence standing next to me. She stood close, near my left shoulder, between Kade and me. My heart began to race but I knew it was in response to her feelings. She was anxious and my contact with her tenuous. I had to really focus my concentration to strengthen the lines of communication between us. I could sense her fear and wondered what was driving it.
“Abigail is here.” I spoke quietly to the others, hoping they would not tense up on me and weaken the communication. “Abigail, can you tell us why you are afraid?” The chill in the air grew colder and the candle flames flickered. “Can you give us a sign of some sort to tell us why you are afraid? We are here to help you, Abigail. We are here to help you go into the light …” I barely got the last couple words out and the door to the outer cellar began to rattle, as if someone were pulling on it from the other side. Nancy gasped at the sound and Jack’s hand tightened on mine. I gave him a reassuring squeeze and opened my eyes, meeting Nancy’s wide, frightened gaze. “Please, Nancy, do not be afraid. Nothing is going to harm you.” Nancy gave a small nod to let me know she was okay to continue, but her face remained pale. “Talk to me, Abigail. What are you afraid of, please let us help you.” Again the cellar door shook. At that same moment, a stab of fear shot through me and I knew that another presence had just joined us.
It was not friendly. My heart pounding, I tried to get a grasp on this other presence even as I felt Abigail’s energy draining away. A loud crash and then the shattering of glass sounded from the adjoining room. The candle next to me went out and Nancy cried out as she pulled her hands free and stood up.
“Enough, Tess. I’ve had enough.”
Kade gave my hand a quick squeeze before letting go and hurrying over to turn on the overhead lights. He blew out the remaining candles, then came back to the table and covered my hand with his. “You okay, Tess?”
“Yes.” But I was confused and that made me uneasy. I didn’t like it that I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t like it at all. “Something is amiss here. I just can’t figure out what it is. Abigail is afraid, but of what?”
Jack pushed away from the table and began to look for the reason of the first crashing noise we all had heard. He muttered something that indicated he’d discovered the cause and we all turned to look. A sickle was lying on the floor a short distance from the far wall. Jack picked it up. “Don’t know what this is doing in here, we keep this stuff in the shed. But now I think of it, I remember seein
g it propped against the wall when we brought the table and chairs down.” He stared at the sickle in amazement. “Did you see how far from the wall it landed? Something had to have pushed it hard for it to land where it did. Interesting.” We all mulled over that for a few moments and then Jack set the sickle against the wall and headed for the door to the next room. “Something crashed in there as well.”
Kade followed close behind him. After giving Nancy a reassuring look, I stood and held out my hand to her. She entwined our arms and allowed me to pull her along behind the guys. Jack opened the door and switched on the light, then surveyed the room before entering it.
As soon as we stepped in the room, we saw what the noise had been. The lid to the barrel that hid the tunnel entrance lay on the floor. Beside it was a broken jar of canned fruit. We all walked over to it and Jack knelt down to examine the mess more closely.
“It’s a jar of diced apples.” Jack picked up the largest pieces of glass and tossed them into a nearby trashcan. “Why break a jar of canned apples?”
Nancy plucked nervously on her sweater. “George uses them to make pies and stuff. Do you think this is supposed to be the sign you asked her to give us, Tess?”
The apples were used to make pies. I immediately thought of my dream from a couple nights ago. Mike told me to never bake that apple pie again. There had to be a connection, but what did it mean?
Kade pushed the trashcan closer to Jack and watched while he cleaned up the mess, his face a study in concentration as he tried to figure out why the lid and jar of apples were destroyed. “I wonder what we are supposed to make of this?”
Suddenly my dream seemed really important. Mike’s warning about the apples … what was it? What? “There’s a clue here somewhere. What do the apples have to do with the tunnel?” I started to pace, thinking, while the others stood and waited.
It was Kade who finally interrupted the silence. “What makes you think the apples have to do with anything? Maybe breaking that jar was a way of telling us she was here. You know, like proof that she was actually present.”
I waved toward jars of canned tomatoes sitting on a shelf next to the barrel. “Then why not knock one of those jars off the shelf? The apples are across the room, yet the jar broke over here. There has to be some significance in that.”
Nancy glanced nervously around her then nodded toward the door. “Why don’t we all go back upstairs to talk about this?”
Jack put an arm around his wife. “Good idea, honey.” He waved for Kade and me to follow as he headed for the other room. After shutting the door and ensuring it was latched firmly in place, he and Kade made short work putting the table and chairs away. I gathered up the candles and followed Nancy up stairs.
Since a cup of coffee sounded like a good idea, Nancy suggested we all stop in the public sitting room to make ourselves a cup before heading to Jack's office. Modesta eyed us curiously from the front desk but was too busy with a customer to come talk to us. A fact I was happy with because I just didn’t feel like dealing with her suspicions and accusations right at this time.
Once we were all settled in Jack’s office, silence ensued for several minutes. I knew everyone was trying to assimilate what happened. As for myself, I couldn’t stop mulling over the broken jar of diced apples. Jack and Nancy looked perplexed about everything that transpired and Kade … well, Kade I couldn’t be sure what he was thinking. He stared down into his coffee cup, watching the dark liquid as if it were about to reveal some answers.
“Are you trying to do some scrying, Kade?” It was a poor attempt at a joke, especially when it was completely lost on him.
“Excuse me?”
I nodded toward his cup. “Scrying is done by looking on the surface of water and waiting for pictures to appear.”
Kade took a sip of his coffee and set the cup down on the table in front of him. “If only we could get our answers that easily.”
“Tess, tell us what you saw.” Nancy grabbed my hand, squeezing it with suppressed excitement. Though the séance had made her nervous and at times had even frightened her, she could now barely contain her enthusiasm over what happened. “Tess?” Nancy gave my hand a gentle shake to gain my attention. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking that the séance was quite successful even though we didn’t accomplish what I had hoped to do, which was to send Abigail and Nathan into the light.” Feeling a burst of nervous energy, I stood and paced the room. “There is something here that frightens them. I can’t shake the feeling that whatever it is, it’s something we should know.” And why did they keep warning me away? Why me? So far, none of the warnings were for anyone but me. What did I have to do with this?
“Should we fear it as well?” Nancy’s face filled with apprehension once again.
I hastened to reassure her. “No, Nancy, whatever it is they fear, we certainly have no reason to fear it. Whatever it is, it occurred during their stay here and that was many years ago. The thing they fear … it’s gone now but for them, stuck as they are in the past… it is still very real. Somehow we need to help them realize that they have moved beyond our physical reality. We need to help them understand that they have crossed over to the other side and nothing can hurt them there.”
“Once they realize they are … dead … will they see the light and go into it?” Nancy asked.
“I’m thinking that the light is always there, but their awareness of it is not. When we say “go into the light”, what we really mean is that we are asking them to open their consciousness to truth, and truth is represented by what we call “the light”. I think that is where the saying, “Let those who have eyes, see” comes from. That’s my theory anyway.” I couldn’t hold back a yawn at that moment and then it hit me how very tired I was. I needed some down time. I needed to be off on my own so I could think. “If you all don’t mind, I’d like to head off to my cottage and turn in for the night.”
Nancy stood, frowning. “But … but you haven’t told us what impressions you got.”
They deserved to know as much as I did, minus the personal warnings of course. “When Nathan appeared, I felt a lot of fear, for him and for Abigail. His spirit is full of anxiety and desperation to help Abigail. As for her … well, she is very sad and she is very frightened. Something took place when they were alive that we need to discover. I think once we know more about what happened the answers will come to us and we’ll be able to help them move on.” I gave Nancy a hug then pulled back to look her square in the eye. “Once they move on, the haunting will stop. I am sure of it. I am also quite sure that you have nothing to be afraid of.” As for myself, however, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, I was beginning to feel the exact opposite.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A restless night of jumbled dreams involving Mike, Tootsie and diced apples, made me feel tired and disoriented when I woke up. With so much on my mind, I couldn’t focus on anything in particular. Somehow I needed to calm the chaos in my mind and approach this haunting with a clear head. How to do that, though? Thoughts of Kade and the kisses we shared kept creeping into my thoughts. Guilt for having done so soon followed and then worry over Nathan’s and Abigail’s warnings for me to leave would crowd out all other thoughts. Until the memory of Kade kissing me invaded again, that is. It was a vicious cycle and it was tiring. It was also frustrating for I was getting nowhere, and my time here was running out. Thoughts like that sent an intense feeling of urgency racing through me. I had to solve the mystery of Abigail and Nathan’s tragic story or they would never be at rest. The idea of that distressed me so much that the sense of urgency only heightened to feelings of panic. Such a state made it impossible for me to keep calm, which is what I needed to be in order to contact the other side.
I had no sooner stepped out of the shower and slipped on a robe when someone knocked at my door. Worried that something else had happened, I rushed to answer it and then wished I’d taken the time to dress first. Kade stood there looking at a loss
for words as his eyes took in the fact I was standing in nothing more than a robe.
Feeling decidedly self-conscious, I pulled the robe closer around me and shrugged awkwardly. “Is something wrong, Kade?”
Kade’s eyes finally came up to meet mine. “What? Oh, no, nothing’s wrong. I just stopped by to make sure you were okay. We didn’t see you at breakfast and Nancy was worried. I told her I’d come and check on you.”
I pulled at my wet hair. “Slept in and just finished showering.” Feeling like a shy, inexperienced teenager and annoyed with myself for feeling that way, I motioned toward the patio. “Why don’t you wait for me out here, and I’ll get dressed real quick.”
“I can come back later, Tess. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and hooked his thumbs through empty belt loops. His discomfort was rather cute. Cute? Good Lord, now I was sounding like a teenager.
“No … really, if you don’t mind waiting. I’d like to talk to you.”
His dark, intense gaze met mine and held for several breathtaking moments before he took a step back. “Okay then, no hurry.”
It took all of five minutes to throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and run a comb through my damp hair. Though I usually pulled it back in a ponytail, it was still too wet to do so and I let it hang loose. After slipping my feet into a pair of flat sandals and giving myself the once over in the mirror to ensure my eagerness to see Kade didn’t show on my face, I drew in a deep, calming breath and headed for the patio.
Kade sat in one of the patio chairs, his long legs stretched out in front of him, gazing out at the ocean. He looked relaxed and not in the least impatient. Patience was never one of Mike’s virtues so I had learned to be quick.
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