Spider Lines

by Terry Trafton

  “The figure, this woman, dressed in early 20th century clothing, suddenly appeared one afternoon on your staircase?”

  Ben nodded. “I didn’t imagine this. There were two others who saw what I saw, and each of us saw her clearly.”

  “And it was the same woman that night on the lawn?”

  “I think so. She was dressed in the same black dress and had a veil across her face.”

  “Did she come out of the woods?”

  “I’m not sure. When I saw her, she was crossing the stone bridge, coming toward me. I thought it was a neighbor out for a walk.”

  “Did she speak to you?”

  “She said she was searching for something . . . then she was gone.”

  “Tell me about this bridge.”

  “It was built over Archers Creek at about the same time as Atwood House. It’s ornate and has carved granite posts and panels. There are several acres of trees on one side and a few acres of open land on the other side.”

  “You believe in ghosts?”

  “Never thought much about ghosts, but I do know what I saw, Dr. White. If you’ll excuse me for saying, people just don’t come and go this way.”

  “That’s not entirely true. There are numerous accounts of people disappearing suddenly, without any plausible explanation. But it’s my opinion we’re talking about another phenomenon that could have something to do with what you suggested.”

  “Time?”

  Nodding, Dr. White’s stony eyes bulged a deeper shade of gray as he continued, “Einstein’s Rosen Bridge.”

  Ben smiled. “I’m in over my head already.”

  “When Einstein introduced his Theory of Relativity in 1916, it became the template for gravitation research. Twenty years later when Nathan Rosen collaborated with Einstein, they published a paper, in which they included with the theory of general relativity, a curved space concept that connects two different regions of space.” White took a piece of paper off the desk before speaking again. “A straight line might not be the shortest distance between two points. If I fold this piece of paper like so, the distance between two points is shorter, resulting in what might be referred to as a wormhole.”

  “But didn’t Einstein say nothing could move faster than light?”

  “Yes, Einsteinian causality it’s called. But here it gets much too complex to discuss.”

  “Can you put this idea in language I can understand?”

  “It’s a shortcut from one part of the universe to another.”

  “Sort of like a black hole, then?”

  “Similar in some classic respects,” White replied. “A black hole results when a large star explodes—a supernova. The remaining mass collapses to a point of infinite density . . . or singularity. The intense gravitational field traps any emitted protons. Since no light escapes, the result is what John Archibald Wheeler referred to in 1968 as a black hole.”

  “So, they actually exist?”

  “What I’m about to tell you is absolutely true. It has nothing at all to do with imagination or inspiration. It actually happened one summer morning a few years ago when I was driving from Bloomington to Evansville on Interstate 69 . . . a two hour drive I’ve made many times.”

  “Yes, I know the route well.”

  “I remember it was a particularly cold day for late June. About an hour or so before noon on a long stretch of highway between Washington and Princeton, referred to locally as Peddlers Run, I saw coming out of the southwest a bank of gray clouds or fog. At first, I thought rain was coming in across the corn and bean fields. Suddenly, I was totally immersed in this strange fog and had to turn on my headlights to see the road. Even with the lights on, the highway was nowhere in sight. It had just dropped out from under the car. Lightning snapped all around me, but there was no rain . . . not a drop of rain. There were no headlights, no other cars, just this long dark tunnel of electrified clouds, or a sort of swirling magnetic fog which seemed to attach itself to my car.”

  Before speaking again, he lifted his eyes to regard Manning seriously for several seconds. “I no longer heard the car engine and had the unusual sensation of floating, almost like the car was being pulled—funneled into a bright light at the end of the tunnel. When the fog dissipated, I was driving west on Interstate 40 toward Nashville, Tennessee. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And here’s the strange part. When I looked at my watch, 22 minutes had passed, and I was 200 miles southeast of Evansville, Indiana.”

  “That’s incredible,” returned Ben.

  “It’s absolutely impossible, and yet it happened.”

  “I’ve read accounts of people who have experienced missing time.”

  “This is where it gets interesting. I was in Tennessee the day before I left Bloomington.”

  “You’re telling me you went back in time?”

  Dr. White rubbed one thumb across the back of the other as he spoke. “Yes, 18 hours in fact.”

  “That’s astonishing. Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely positive.”

  “This is the Einstein Rosen Bridge theory . . . the actuality of it?”

  “Yes, to some extent, but although what happened to me might sound like science fiction, there are mathematical foundations that can explain at least some of it. I experienced a quantum jump in time . . . a time–warp.”

  “This is way more than I expected,” Ben remarked. He was slightly suspicious to hear White recount such an astonishing event so openly.

  “There are hot spots, areas of intense energy where anomalous events consistently occur.”

  “Like the Bermuda Triangle?”

  “It’s certainly one of those places with an expansive profile. But there are numerous other known places across the globe. Some are only now gaining provenance.”

  “Already mapped and researched, I suppose.”

  “Not so easily done as you might expect. Since we’re not using crucibles and Petri dishes, empirical data are thin.”

  After a pause, Ben asked, “So it’s possible that not all these sites have been located?”

  “That is very much the point. There could be hundreds, even thousands of these portals and most remain undiscovered.”

  “I’m sure the government would want to control these sites.”

  “Without a doubt, but do you grasp the importance of what I’m telling you?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s definitely extraordinary,” admitted Manning.

  “The important thing is that it happened. Time was somehow bent or squeezed.”

  “How is such a phenomenon possible?”

  “To some extent, I think it was coincidence. When I entered the portal, I was in the right place at the right time, or wrong time, depending on your perspective.”

  “These portals just appear out of thin air?”

  “Don’t know. Research shows that location of portals requires mathematical calculations—foundations, if you will.”

  Ben walked across the room and stared into the sunny afternoon, giving Adrian White the impression that he was trying to comprehend at least some of what must seem a preposterous account. “You’re positive this really did happen to you?”

  “Absolutely, just as sure as I’m standing here now.”

  “This figure I saw, this woman, she came through one of these portals . . . out of the past?”

  “Possibly.”

  “That would explain it, wouldn’t it?”

  “This is not something easily understood. It involves energy fields, grids, parallel realities, and much, much more.”

  “But you’ve given me a possible explanation, and that’s what I needed.”

  Standing beside Manning, hands in his jeans pockets, Dr. White’s expression conveyed serious interest in what Ben had told him. “We might be onto something here.” />
  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d like to spend a couple days in Newburgh.”

  Ben nodded. “Great, but I can’t promise she’ll appear again.”

  “A friend of mine is a leading authority on psychic phenomena. I’d like to bring her along.”

  “When?”

  “The end of the week, if that’s okay. I’ll call you.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “In the meantime, if anything unusual occurs, please call me.” After jotting two phone numbers on a desktop notepad, he tore off the sheet and handed it to Ben. “My home and mobile numbers. Call me anytime.”

  Ben thanked the man and left, anxious to get back to Atwood House. Whether he would ever really understand this business of quantum leaps, he couldn’t say. One thing was sure, and that was that Adrian White had believed him, and that was certainly important in Manning’s mind.

  Remembering Lacey’s performance at Atwood House, he quickly realized how gullible he was. Maybe White was also having a go at him—but he didn’t think so. Though the man’s strange narrative seemed highly suspect, even implausible, White seemed genuine.

  Chapter 5

  Ben was adding paint to a long black vintage dress when the phone rang. “Hello.”

  “It’s Jenna. Lacey’s out of town for a couple of days, but if you want, I can finish the big room tomorrow.”

  “You sure you want to come back after what happened?”

  “This girl has got to make a living.”

  “I’m sure you realize what a huge task it is putting this house back together and how very much your help is needed and appreciated.”

  “See you around nine in the morning.”

  The painting was unlike any he had done. Portrait painting was not what Ben preferred, but this was more than that. Since he saw the woman, she had been in his head, drumming against his skull, as though trying to escape confinement. Or, was it the face he had painted, the face behind the veil that was enduring confinement? It was a face that continued to haunt him. Had he painted the wrong face and made the veil a barrier? Why had he so often hesitated when painting her face? Regarding the portrait with a more critical eye, he began to doubt the integrity of the portrait. But then, he hadn’t seen her face clearly, and what stared back at him now was only paint on canvas. It was a portrait that could not be finished, not until her face appeared behind the veil.

  Footsteps in the foyer. The room brightened. Was it her?

  He had lost track of time, and when he looked at the mantel clock, was surprised to hear it striking ten. Floorboards creaked, causing Ben to draw back, maybe afraid of what he might see. From somewhere, light spilled into the library, covering first the walls then the floor, revealing clearly the intricate designs of the large oriental rug that he had laid down only the day before. Still he hesitated. Glancing at the painting covered in white light, he could not believe the remarkable thing he was seeing.

  Emerging on the canvas was another face, slowly appearing behind the black lace veil. Unpainted, but right before his eyes, the face gradually took shape. Two eyes, the color of midnight, vacuous eyes without light became clearly visible. Where a mouth should be, a hole in the canvas was sucking him inside, and he had the suffocating sensation of being devoured by a mouth he had not painted but only imagined.

  The veil was being lifted by long delicate fingers. But the arms that held those long fingers were melting into pools of vanilla wax on an expensive oriental rug. Was the veil gone all together? And where had the light in her eyes come from so suddenly? Darkness had set in hours ago.

  The lips in the painting went thin as a whisper and he knew they were about to speak. “If you are to find the truth, you must look at what you cannot see. The veil I wear is a mourning veil. It must be lifted by your fingers—and only by your fingers. It is then that you will see what I cannot hide.”

  “You ask me to see what is not possible,” Ben admonished softly.

  “I ask you to imagine the impossible, sir.”

  “If removing the veil will permit me to see you clearly, then that is an action easily done.”

  “Did you find it?” asked the mouth in the painting. “It was a gift, a wedding gift,” and as she spoke, her voice grew faint and trailed away, leaving behind a perceptible echo.

  Each word seemed to paint itself on the air. He heard a shudder coming from deep inside the house, a clatter, or banging, and it was getting louder.

  It stopped suddenly. The house went ghostly silent. Then, from the darkness, a hand thrust out toward him—a white hand with a black ring on the index finger. The slender hand was only inches away from his arm. He backed away abruptly, bumping the library table behind him. The index finger with its shiny ring pushed into the wet paint on the canvas.

  A second later, the hand vanished. Hurriedly, he switched on the overhead lights and immediately the deeper shadows faded. Pulling himself together, he glanced around the room. No one. So, he had imagined it all. Imagination might account for some of the strange occurrences, but something unexplainable was happening at Atwood House.

  Strange things happened in darkness, especially in such an old house with so much history. A little nervousness in such a big house was to be expected. Another thought persisted, though, and this was what had motivated him to contact Dr. White. He looked forward to White’s visit later in the week. If anyone could explain these curious events, Dr. Adrian White seemed, at this point, the most credible source of information.

  After closer examination of the smudged paint on the canvas, he saw the unmistakable impression of a fingerprint. Ben was sure he had not imagined the hand. The evidence was in the swirls of black paint, where there was a definite imprint of an index finger.

  Jenna arrived at precisely nine o’clock the next morning. She looked stunning in the bright sunlight. A tan scarf was wrapped around her head, and trailing down her back, her hair was tied off with black ribbons. Dressed in blue jeans, tennis shoes and a plaid woolen shirt, she looked very different from that first day when they had met in Rikki Whitman’s office.

  “How’s your morning, Jenna?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out what happened, who we saw on the stairs.”

  “That might take more time.”

  “By the way, with all the confusion, I forgot to give you this.” She opened her palm and handed him a brooch, the one she’d found earlier in the week.

  “It’s beautiful. You say you found it?”

  “In the library. It was in a crack at the base of the fireplace.”

  He turned it over in the palm of his hand. “It looks old, really old—Victorian maybe. I’m going to town later this morning, so maybe I can get Bob Bergman to look at it.”

  “Okay, then. I have lots to do, so better get at it. Strange place to find a piece of jewelry though,” she said as she walked deeper into the interior of Atwood House.

  At a few minutes before noon, Ben opened the door to Bergman and Son Jewelers. He was carrying the brooch in a small box. A thin man in his late 60s saw him come in and gave a slight wave. Bob Bergman was dressed in a dark blue suit. His dark eyes were set far back in his head. The neatly manicured beard gave him a distinguished kind of old-school appearance.

  “Morning,” Bergman greeted him warmly.

  “It’s been too long, Bob. How are you?” replied Manning, reaching out to shake the man’s hand.

  “Business could always be better, but got my health and that’s what counts.” He smiled broadly at Manning before speaking again. “I got some nice engagement rings, Ben.”

  “Thanks,” Ben laughed, “but marriage just isn’t in the cards right now.”

  “You’re not getting any younger as they say.”

  “I’m kind of set in my ways, Bob.”

  Ben put the box on the glass counter top and remo
ved the brooch from a thin wrapping of tissue paper. In the fluorescent light, the piece took on an expensive shine. It caught Bergman’s attention immediately.

  “So, this is what you called about,” said Bergman, picking up the brooch and turning it over in his fingers. “It’s beautiful . . . haven’t seen one of these in some time.”

  “Then it’s not costume jewelry or paste?”

  Bergman had an eye loupe on the end of a nylon cord, which he used to magnify the brooch. “No, it’s certainly not paste. It’s a late 19th century bullseye agate mourning locket, or brooch pin. Provenance of the agate is probably German. The rope edging is 24 karat gold. The five embedded diamonds are two-carat.” He paused a moment before adding, “Flawless, no inclusions of any kind, and the color does have some very minor tint. The cut of these stones is European.” He lowered the loupe until it dangled again at the end of the cord. “This is most interesting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “These gems set between each diamond are blue cap tourmaline. I’ve seen that only a couple times. Such an arrangement is rare.”

  “What’s the purpose?”

  “Tourmaline is thought to have healing properties and has long been used as an energizer to align the power of the crystal with higher forms of human consciousness . . . a talisman. If you look carefully you can see that the points of the tourmaline are higher in every instance than the diamonds.”

  “Any particular reason for that?”

  “None that I can think of . . . it could be a deliberate setting, but I don’t know why. There is also some wear to the tips, as though they have been rubbed or pressed against something . . . very peculiar.”

  “I’ve read Internet accounts of people using various gems to enhance spiritual powers, even sexual prowess.”

  Bob nodded, “Let’s look at the back.” Again, using the loupe to magnify the brooch, he said at length, “Sterling case and clasp.” He looked at Ben and smiled that warm ingratiating smile. “It’s an extraordinary piece.”

  “Excellent.”

  “You said you found it in the Atwood House?”

  “Jenna Newland found it when she was cleaning the library. Said it was in a crease around the fireplace casement.”