“No, I distinctly remember she was wearing lacey white gloves. She held a parasol in one hand. I saw the gloves clearly when she passed me.”
“But if at any time the vase had been handled without gloves, there would be prints.”
Before the conversation could continue, Adrian White remarked from a few feet away, “You’ve mentioned this slip, this bulge or wrinkle of green light, which often accompanies her appearance and disappearance.”
“That’s right. Sometimes brighter than at other times, but always present, and coming from behind her.”
Adrian looked from Manning to Liz who were both anxious for an explanation. “I have an idea,” he admitted. “Strange as it sounds, it might actually have legs.”
“I’m certainly open to any ideas you might have,” Manning replied encouragingly.
“I think we have a time slip, a hole in the fabric of time. Only momentary, but existing long enough so that another universe can be breached.”
“Another universe?” questioned Ben, with a distinct air of doubt, “a doorway to another time?”
“Or portal,” answered White. “The research is out there. Cutting edge as it is, it offers at least one possibility.”
It was Liz Raymond who attempted to put a provocative, somewhat edgy spin on what Dr. White said. “If Anna has found a gateway or portal, then what’s to keep us from using it?”
“I like the time I’m living in now,” admitted Ben. “Even if I had a guarantee that we could come and go into another time, I’m convinced that I would never take that chance.”
White nodded. “The risks would be great. There would be no guarantees.”
“Then we stick with observations for now,” declared Liz.
“Yes,” continued White, “we begin with what we already know. Reanalyze our field notes to date, and then document every detail of Ben’s encounters.”
“Don’t forget that Jenna was here, too. She saw what I saw,” Ben reminded.
“Yes, of course,” agreed Liz. “We already know the hot zones. We reset cameras near the stairway and one here in the library.”
“And maybe another in the great room,” suggested Ben.
For the next hour, the three of them arranged cameras at locations that had been previously active. With computer laptops placed on the long walnut table in the library, they were ready to settle in for the night. To say that surveillance was tedious business would be an understatement.
Until four in the morning they sat, waiting for something to happen. The huge silence of Atwood House filled every room and hallway. The anomalous activity they anticipated never occurred.
Away from Atwood House, in Saint Meinrad, Indiana, Walking Einstein was sitting on a park bench drinking coffee from a thermos when the black SUV rolled to a stop on the street in front of him. Two men in suits helped him to his feet, and in less than a minute, the SUV and Walking Einstein had disappeared into the night.
Chapter 19
“How was it last night?” Jenna asked. “Anything happen?”
“Nothing.” Ben reached out for her hand. “Thanks for coming.”
“You’re welcome,” she smiled.
In the kitchen at Atwood House, Liz and Adrian looked at the map given to Adrian by Professor Trafford, a map denoting numerous ley lines crisscrossing the planet. It was spread out on a round table that Ben used in a breakfast nook. White traced the lines that passed through Newburgh with the fingers of his right hand.
“Hi, Jenna,” Liz said, when she saw Ben and Jenna enter the kitchen. “Hope you can spend some time with us today.”
“Ben said you had a quiet night.”
“Absolutely nothing to get excited about last night, but there’s always tonight,” Liz returned hopefully.
Jenna made her way to the kitchen table and glanced down at the map, “It’s a regular spider web, and look at all those spider lines. They’re all over the place.”
“Ley lines,” corrected Adrian.
“And what are ley lines exactly?” Jenna asked with enough curiosity to get an immediate response from Adrian White.
“Simply stated, they are lines that pass through sacred or significant points on the earth’s surface. According to Professor Trafford, they are high energy resolutions. You see these lines, Jenna?”
“The two heavy ones passing through Indiana?” she asked.
“They pass directly through Newburgh,” White acknowledged, a hint of authority evident to the rest of them.
“That’s interesting,” Jenna said. “They must indicate places of some significance then.”
“Exactly,” White agreed. “Although documenting a planetary grid system might still be considered pseudoscience, we know that Plato recognized energy grids and their patterns. But maybe it’s the New Agers who have continued to push the authenticity of energy grids, by widening the boundaries to suggest ley lines resonate energies that provide battery and navigation power for UFOs.”
“If I understand you correctly,” began Ben, “these circles identify places of unusually high concentrations of energy . . . ”
“Vortexes,” interrupted Adrian. “They’re called vortexes.”
“These vortexes are points of navigation?”
“That is fundamentally correct, Ben,” White assured.
Many lines bisected small red circles. The two heavy lines that passed through Newburgh had a small grouping of these circles northeast of the Ohio River. Near this grouping was an intersection where several lines crossed through one large red circle.
White took from his briefcase another aerial map with similarities to the map on the kitchen table. “This map gives us a more detailed topography of Newburgh and the surrounding area. You can see how the lines pass through specific places from the Ohio River all the way to the Great Lakes.”
Ben looked closely at the map, reading the names of towns on the two parallel lines which passed through Newburgh. “Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what these circles identify, especially those around Newburgh?”
Jenna surprised them all by saying, “That might be possible. We might be able to do an image overlay, using Google Earth. Better yet, geocoding would enable us to get a specific address of a geographic location. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try reverse geocoding.”
“You can actually do all that?” asked Manning.
“Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Manning,” Jenna laughed. “I should have something in a few minutes.” She was taking a laptop from her backpack as she spoke. “I’ll send this to the printer in the library, and we should soon have some definitive data.”
“You’re absolutely amazing,” he replied.
“Maybe more technologically informed than you is all,” she smiled.
Later, Ben and Liz left Atwood House through a backdoor, leaving Adrian and Jenna to run the software that would show the geographical locations they needed to continue their “reconnaissance work,” as it was now being called. A sunny cool afternoon, a high blue sky filled with white clouds, this was another beautiful autumn day in Indiana.
“Jenna’s quite a young lady,” Liz began as they walked among several apple trees that skirted the lawn near the woods that marked the northeast end of Atwood House property.
“She’s been a huge help in many ways.”
“You had another interesting experience the other night.”
He nodded, “The kind of experience that hits you pretty hard, keeps you awake at night thinking.”
“I guess Jenna was shaken by it to the point of denial?”
“Maybe at first, but she doesn’t really talk much about it. She realizes it happened and leaves it at that.”
“And what about you, Ben?” Her tone was caring and not at all deprecating.
“Ambivalence has set in, and what happened—just happened.”
“Acceptance, even of something we can’t explain, but know with assurance actually happened, takes courage,” she admitted.
“What occurred a few nights before out by the bridge, that still haunts me. I’m not sure if it happened at all, and yet I know something very unusual happened out there.”
“Maybe it’ll help if we talk about it.”
“I was suddenly caught in dense fog so heavy that everything around began to change. At first, I thought I was hallucinating. Jenna was there. I heard her calling me. It was deeply disorienting and unnerving.”
“You said it was near the bridge?”
“Yes, near that damn thing.”
“We may actually have an account of what happened on the trail camera.”
“I forgot about that.”
“When we can’t explain something rationally, within the framework of our everyday orientations, we often have a tendency to set it aside, realizing a different perspective is needed. Maybe that perspective has been photographed.”
“A paranormal perspective,” replied Ben dispassionately.
“You’re an artist, Ben. Imagination is a fundamental requirement . . . and without it, everything stays black-and-white. There are no spaces, no cracks, no chance to breathe life into a two-dimensional painting. Your brain has to see that third dimension.”
“That third dimension does not have to be paranormal.”
“No, but it can be paranormal. Aren’t there inferences in your paintings? Don’t you allow for interpretations uniquely different from anything you have considered or intended, or are those parameters too rigidly fixed?”
“Parameters are the enemy of creativity.”
“Exactly.”
In the arboretum of apple trees was a circular concrete bench, behind which a trellis of red and yellow roses was sharply accentuated against the deep blue sky. The two of them sat there, Ben watching the grass grow as Dr. Liz stared into the woods more than a hundred yards away. Near the apple trees, sharp morning shadows looked imprinted on the grass. It was a day of spectacular sensations, and both knew the only way to save these impressions was with a camera.
“This is such a stunningly beautiful place,” Liz confided, clicking off a couple pictures with her mobile phone. “In so many ways it reminds me of a place on the Upper Peninsula.”
“Your family still lives in Michigan?”
“No family, Ben. I grew up in a home for orphaned girls.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, not at all. It was a great place to be a kid. We all saw ourselves as free spirits born to roam, as we would so often say.” She had a far-off look in her eyes as she added, “That was such a long, long time ago.” She looked apologetically at Ben. “Sorry, it’s strange how a place can take you back so many years and get you there so quickly.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you acquire this . . . this ability?”
“It happened one summer in Bloomington, several years ago, just after I moved there. I was painting the kitchen and fell off the ladder. My head struck the counter. Days after that fall, I seemed to have a heightened sense of intuition.”
“I assumed that it was a predisposition acquired at birth.”
“And it can certainly be that, but it wasn’t like that with me. The trauma caused a rewiring in my brain.”
“Really?”
“I’m sure this sounds preposterous, but I assure you it is real.”
Ben looked at Liz closely before asking, “Is it something you can turn on–and–off?”
“It’s extremely complex. I’m not so sure I understand it.” She smiled warmly. “Usually, it just happens.”
Another few minutes passed before they walked back to the house. Jenna, who had only recently returned from town, motioned for them to look at what she had just placed on the table. Dr. White was already looking at an enlarged copy of a map with specific locations that Jenna referred to as placemarks, most of them indicated by a specific icon.
“She did it,” said White enthusiastically. “We now have something to work with, and you’ll be amazed at what we have in front of us.” When he had their full attention, he smiled broadly before speaking again. “If these ley lines have the significance I think they do, then we are truly on the brink of a major discovery.”
Chapter 20
Millie Stewart was a small wrinkled woman hooked to a portable oxygen bottle. A mound of gray hair was held in place by two matching celluloid combs. Most of her recent days were spent sitting in front of a large flat screen television in a 1920’s two-story clapboard house on Pine Street, which had been in the Stewart family since it was built. Despite the twinkle in her blue eyes, the woman looked tired to the two visitors sitting a few feet away on a faux leather couch. The room, messy, and cluttered with newspapers and books, was dimly lit and had an odor of spoiled food.
Swallowing hard, Ben wished they had not come, wished also that Dr. White, who had arranged this meeting, had not been called away on family business. But in White’s absence, Ben and Jenna were the ones obliged to keep the appointment. He glanced at Jenna, as if to tell her he wanted this to be a quick conversation. She smiled and nodded as though she knew his thoughts.
“It’s very kind of you to meet with us,” Jenna said sincerely.
Millie’s smile was slight, and with her head inclined to one side, the woman nodded almost imperceptibly. “You’re welcome. I wish Mr. Collins could be here. He’s such a nice man. I don’t get many visitors these days. Everybody’s too busy anymore. My daughter’s a physician, and her work is important, so she only comes sometimes on weekends. I like riding the Presbyterian bus, and once or twice a month two of the church ladies will visit.”
Mr. William Stewart, gone for three years, was resting comfortably behind a small headstone in Rose Hill Cemetery near a large oak tree. On the walls were numerous family photographs, each a testament to Millie Stewart’s 78 years. The small space heater near her feet warmed the room and gave it a kind of cheery atmosphere.
“Mrs. Stewart, this is my friend, Ben Manning. He’s the new owner of Atwood House.”
“It’s certainly a beautiful house,” she smiled, “and yet, I have so many disturbing memories, the kind that stay much too long in your head.”
In front of them was a woman who knew about Atwood House, and who had just confessed that at least some of her many experiences there had been distressing. She seemed anxious to speak, but in a cautious way, as if she wanted to reveal the strangeness that was Atwood House.
“It was such a long time ago,” she continued, “and those years have been so long in the past that I have trouble remembering clearly. I have so much difficulty talking with strangers.”
Anxious to leave, Ben nudged Jenna, who just shook her head without looking at him. She was not going to give up so easily. Diplomacy would have to prevail if they were going to get anything pertinent from Millie Stewart. He admired Jenna’s tenacity. Always with tact in mind, she was usually willing to keep pushing, and these moments with Millie Stewart were no exception.
“Atwood House must have been a happy place, especially during a time when life was so much simpler than it is today. I can just imagine parties on the lawn and dances in the great room, and all the guests dressed in fine clothes.”
Millie looked long at Jenna, before replying. “I was about your age when I began working for the Young’s. I remember how excited I was to be employed in such a fine home. Though I was one of the service staff, Mrs. Young always made each of us feel as if we were family, especially on holidays.” She adjusted herself in the chair, which was worn heavily on both arms. “How very much I enjoyed Christmas there. No expense was spared in decorating the house. The decorations were so elaborate that people came from miles to view them, especially the outside light displays. Even when it snowed, the Young’s insisted on
putting up a large tent on the front lawn to serve people from town hot cider, tea, and steaming coffee. There were pastries and fruits of all kinds.”
“I’m sure it was quite spectacular,” said Jenna warmly.
“Yes, but as wonderful as those times were, there were always the shadows.” Her memories caused her to drift a bit and even the soft expression on her face hardened noticeably when she mentioned the shadows. Yet, she gave them the impression that she was reliving experiences that she had not discussed with anyone in years.
“Shadows?” repeated Ben.
“They came and went without intruding.”
“Did you ever speak to them?” Jenna wanted to know.
“They spoke to us sometimes.”
“To you personally?” inquired Ben.
“Only once, when I was dusting books in the library,” she answered calmly. “Anna Atwood was suddenly in the room with me. She was a very beautiful lady, but deeply saddened and troubled by the passing of her husband. It was her habit to leave a bouquet of flowers on a small table. Such delightful flowers. There was one other time when I came into the library from the foyer and she was standing beside the fireplace with her back to me. I don’t think she knew I was there.” Millie leaned forward in the chair before asking, “Have you seen her?”
“Yes,” Manning replied.
“And does she still bring flowers?”
Jenna nodded.
“And there were others who came to Atwood House?” Ben inquired gently.
“Yes, but not from around here. They used gateways in the house and on the lawns. It seemed they were living their lives in the same space as we were living ours, but they were from another place . . . another time. They were always kind, especially Miss. Anna. Her pain must have been a great burden. I never tried to understand how any of this was possible—just accepted it and did my job.”
Somewhat stunned at Millie Stewart’s rather nonchalant reference to gateways, Ben and Jenna looked at one another noticeably surprised. Neither had expected such casual comments about phenomena still considered by most in the scientific community to be little more than science fiction. It was clear to both that Millie had decided years ago that these strangers she saw at Atwood House were not coming to the house in cars from town. They appeared suddenly at various locations, and disappeared suddenly, as though they were passing easily from one time into another.
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