“The face at my window,” Lester Carlson said. “Last night, in the eyes. Before I couldn’t look at the face long enough to notice much, but last night I forced myself to look. I saw the blue light--way, way back in those dead eyes. Very intense. Very hypnotic.”
Lester Carlson took a last swallow from his coffee cup and turned the cup upside down and shook it clean. “This Dr. Robb said one other thing that I thought was interesting.” Lester Carlson took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“He said it might be possible that I really saw a disembodied face—a ghost if you like. That we just don’t know enough yet about human perception and our ability to decode things that are outside of our realm of experience to say for sure that nothing else is out there. There are psychologists who think our doors of perception are closed for our own good. That if we swing the door open wide, we see things; we experience things that we’re not equipped to understand.”
“Phew!” Katherine said. “Aldous Huxley where are you. Remember his books in the 60s—The Doors of Perception, that was one of his big books, I think.”
“Sometimes the doors of perception get knocked open or left open,” Lester Carlson went on, “and we see into another world. A world parallel to ours but hidden from ours.”
“I know,” Katherine said. “I’ve read some interesting stuff on that. Perhaps we are created from one type of matter, and the other world is another type of matter. Or maybe we’re in the early stage of a development process, and all the other stages are usually kept hidden from us.”
“Like the caterpillar,” Lester Carlson said. “The caterpillar doesn’t know it will become a moth or butterfly. Something totally different from what it is now.”
Katherine nodded again. “You know it could be. Maybe there is something out there that doesn’t belong in our world trying to get through the door. The door that maybe only opens at midnight of the Summer Solstice.”
Neither Katherine nor Lester Carlson said anything for a long time as they continued walking down Old Enfield Road.
“The town storage hut,” Katherine pointed to her left as she and Lester Carlson came around a corner of the road where the stone building stood shaded by a large maple—it’s broken door repaired.
“Right here” Katherine said. “I saw that face hovering right here.”
“Why break the door and take those old bones from Vietnam?” Lester Carlson said. “That part just doesn’t make sense to me.”
He and Katherine paused across from the storage hut. Old Enfield Road narrowed at this point; its blacktop surface bucked and ridged by numerous frost heaves and washouts. “Helluva place to store bodies,” Lester Carlson gestured toward the storage hut. “Not very efficient of the town.”
“They fixed the door,” Katherine noted. “Too bad. I wanted to peek in.”
“Lots of memories here,” Lester Carlson said as they continued walking. “Down here on the right somewhere there used to be an old creamery. We’d all come here in the summer for ice cream.”
Lester Carlson stopped walking. He strolled to the side of the road and pushed through dense brush and tangles of bittersweet. Several yards into the brush he found an old cellar hole overgrown with thick blackberry bushes and poison ivy. Katherine used both hands to open a passage through the thick brush and follow Lester Carlson. She stood on the stone foundation and looked down into the matted cellar hole.
“The creamery,” he said, pointing into the tangled greenery that almost concealed the cellar hole. “It’s not hard to remember all this now.”
Lester Carlson pointed into the bushes. “The Flanagan house was around here, built on the old Durman property. Near the creamery. I remember,” Lester Carlson was excited and spoke rapidly not in his usual well-modulated tones. He and Katherine scrambled back onto the road and hurried down the road another 300 yards.
“This spot,” Katherine stopped and pointed. “Those trees over there.” She gestured toward a group of five large, ancient maples whose gnarled branches seemed to reach out and embrace the road with late afternoon shadows. “This is where I saw that face that evening. Right here.”
“Talk about connections,” Lester Carlson said. He walked over to the stand of maples and then turned to Katherine. He shook his head and smiled; the smile of a man who has finally finished a difficult and taxing examination.
“It all comes back so clearly now.” Lester Carlson expelled his breath in a forceful sigh and carefully reached out to touch one of the big, old maple trees. “I used to know this area like the back of my hand. Did a lot of work down here with my surveying crew. Had to fire one of the guys in it. Young kid, my age. Tough kid. Lived around here. Must have been a neighbor of the Flanagan family.”
Lester Carlson gestured to the area behind the stand of maple trees. “He was fouling up everything. Thought it was just stupidity at first, But it went on and on. Weeks of it. Bad surveys, work orders sending crews to the wrong houses, boundary markers moved. You name it, it happened down here. I finally caught on. Realized this was probably a house the kid had some interest in. Don’t know why. I trailed him one day. Caught him moving boundary markers. Fired him on the spot.”
Lester Carlson stepped behind the maple tree he had been standing in front of. It was mid-afternoon and the Quabbin woods were silent with the stillness that blankets the New England outdoors on a hot day in June. “Now, over here,” he said beckoning to Katherine to follow, “I’m pretty sure was the Durman-Flanagan family home. Big place, but run down.”
Katherine followed Lester Carlson as he stepped into the woods. They pushed through a dense tangle of brush and small oak saplings. Less than 50 yards in from the road, they found a cellar hole. Lester Carlson walked slowly around the space looking down at the damp, green stones. Above them a red squirrel chattered in an old oak.
“This is it,” Lester Carlson said. “This was the Flanagan house.”
“That guy you fired,” Katherine asked. “You never saw him again after you fired him?”
Lester Carlson bit his lip and frowned. “Christ, now that you’ve got me thinking about it—sure. One other time. And that was pretty strange.”
Chapter 83
“Why?” Katherine asked. “Why was it strange?” She walked over to a large fallen oak tree on the roadside, its trunk still smooth and firm indicating it had fallen recently. She brushed dead bark away and seated herself on the trunk.
“Tell me about the last time you saw him?”
“The last auction—the big finale. Over in Enfield they held a final auction for the whole valley. I still remember the day—a Saturday, in June. The MDC had all sorts of things left over from the homes after months of auctions and demolitions. And they had buildings to get rid of.”
Lester Carlson paused and smiled. “What a day. Huge crowd; no place to park, antique dealers from Boston and New York all dressed up and looking way out of place, wrecking company agents, regular folk looking to buy a last memory, a sovereign from the lost valley. And a gorgeous day to be out and about.
“Old Harry Percy, the auctioneer from Enfield, ran the show right there in the Enfield Town Hall. The old wooden Dana Town Hall that had stood on the Town Common sold for $90; the Dana Schoolhouse went for $110. The Enfield Town Hall, a really nice brick building, went for $550. That’s when you knew it was really over—the towns were now the Lost Valley. Funny. I can remember the prices paid for all those old buildings.”
“Some of those buildings are still around?” Katherine asked.
“Yup. Several in towns right around here. Restored. Really nice.”
“What happened at that last auction?” Katherine steered the conversation back.
“Well, this guy that I’d fired from the crew before came up to me. He trailed me around a bit, and then just stopped me and grabbed my elbow. Said he was real sorry about moving the boundary markers, but that he needed a big favor. When we went out to the old cemetery on Curtis Hill near Mount Pomeroy in the center of
Greenwich--he wanted to go with us. Wanted to be sure we got all the bones of his ancestor—said he was a Flanagan family member, but not direct.
“Listen,” I told him, “you’re out of your mind. We already moved the tombstones. ‘Well what about my ancestor’s bones,’ he asked. There weren’t any, I said. All those old graves, when we dug them up—there was nothing, maybe a few buttons or a belt buckle. But the bones; were all gone.”
Lester Carlson paused to recollect his thoughts, and then continued. “The young guy got really upset. ‘I’m dead, then’ he said. ‘I’m in trouble. I’m finished.’
“What the hell do you mean?” I said.
‘I was supposed to keep that property from going under water. That was my assignment.’
“No way, I said. You moved a few markers and held us up a week or two, but no way can anybody affect the final outcome. Your old family home is going to be part of Quabbin Reservoir, and that’s that.”
“’I know that,’ he said. But it’s the timing mister. It’s the timing that counts.’
“Timing,” I said. “I’m not following you, fellow.”
‘I missed twice now,’ the young fellow said. ‘First time I was supposed to make sure the house was still standing until after June. I missed on that. And then I was supposed to get some bones to rebury. Some bones from the old family grave site. And you’re telling me there ain’t any. Now I’m a goner.’ “
Lester Carlson paused again. “Funny thing, Katherine. He was a goner. Two, maybe three days later, he died. Drowned. All by himself in Pottapaug Pond. Nobody could figure it out. Maybe slipped and hit his head. But he drowned with nobody around and he was good swimmer as I recall, and they found him on some rocks, not in deep water, and with some big bruises.”
Katherine looked over at Lester Carlson. “And this all happened in June?”
“Yes, June. I remember it as the last summer of the Quabbin towns.”
“June,” Katherine repeated. “The Summer Solstice and June.”
“Timing,” Lester Carlson said. “I remember that real clearly for some reason. ‘Timing, Mister,’ he said.” “’Timing.’”
Lester Carlson took a long swallow of his coffee and Drambuie concoction. “All those surveys and cemetery work I did back then—hell, if I didn’t do it, somebody else would have. Simple as that. The reservoir was going in no matter what.”
Katherine got up from her seat on the fallen oak and walked over to peer down into the cellar hole. Lester Carlson came over to stand beside her.
“The old curse,” Katherine said. “Elijah Durman. When the times are right, I’ll return.”
“Do you think—really?” Lester Carlson asked.
“It makes a crazy bit of sense,” Katherine said. “You helped build this reservoir; you worked on a crew that helped destroy the family home; you and your crew even dug up his grave and moved him.” Katherine paused. She didn’t want to add the last reason, but Lester Carlson saved her the embarrassment and spoke it for her.
“And somewhere years ago, I probably sat in some room in the Pentagon and helped devise a war plan that sent that boy Flanagan to his death in Vietnam, and those are his bones missing in that coffin.”
Lester Carlson fell silent. Katherine felt sorry for him. She spoke again. “It’s not your fault. It’s some jumble of crazy circumstances.”
Lester Carlson shook his head. “Old Elijah Durman waiting all these years to get back to the world and he has to pick on me. Christ.”
Katherine stood in silence for several seconds and then looked up the road. Two figures were slowly walking down the road heading for them. “We’ve got company,” she said.
Lester Carlson turned to look. The two figures meandered at a leisurely pace. When they drew near, they saw it was an older woman with a child of perhaps 12.
Lester Carlson started breathing heavily. Katherine turned to him.
“That presence,” Lester Carson said. “That presence that guided me around Quabbin—I feel it again. Right now and very powerful.”
* * *
Chapter 84
Katherine nodded. She also felt a presence—a slight jolt as if an unseen somebody or something had brushed up against her. She and Lester Carlson watched as the two figures approached on the road. The older woman wore a long gray dress—perhaps a nun’s habit and she held the hand of the girl.
“Good afternoon,” the older woman said, in a light friendly voice. “It’s a lovely here. I hope we’re not disturbing you. We’re out for our afternoon walk.”
“Oh, not at all,” Katherine replied. “We’re just walking the road too.”
“We’re from St. Sebastian’s in Petersham,” the woman said. “This is Noreen, and I’m Sister Cecelia. Noreen stays with us.”
Katherine and Lester Carlson nodded. The girl glanced over at them with her mouth slightly agape the way a young child stares at a fascinating sight, though Noreen was older and her behavior noticeably different from most children around her age.
“Hello Sister and hello Noreen,” Katherine said.
She looked closely at the girl and felt another jolt of recognition. The girl was of medium build with long brown hair. But it was her eyes and smile that drew Katherine’s attention--deep blue eyes and a child-like smile that flashed across her face followed by a deep chuckle at the mention of her name. It was the smile of a very young child—perhaps a 4-year-old—not the smile of a pre-teen girl. It was also, Katherine realized, the face she had seen in her dream upon waking that morning.
Sister Cecelia was speaking again. “I didn’t want to come all the way over to you and disturb the both of you on your walk, but Noreen wanted to see you. She kept tugging my hand. She’s a very good kid,” The nun smiled proudly, and added, “but she is autistic, and when she gets an idea in her head, it’s hard to say no.” The nun smiled again and looked over at the young girl. “She’s our really good girl though—all the nuns love her.”
“Of Course,” Katherine said. “You’re not disturbing us. Hello honey.”
Noreen turned and looked directly at Katherine. Katherine caught her breath. No doubt about it. It was the same child’s face from her dream—the same open smiling face with the wide blue eyes.
“The priest didn’t make it,” Noreen said staring at Katherine, her words unconnected to anything said before. “The priest couldn’t do it, so now you have to.”
Katherine and Lester Carlson both backed up a step in surprise.
“Noreen, I don’t know if these people can understand you,” Sister Cecelia said still holding the girl’s hand. “Noreen talks, but sometimes we don’t exactly understand what she is saying.” The nun turned to Lester Carlson and Katherine. “Communication is a big problem with autistic kids.”
“That’s OK,” Katherine said turning back to Noreen. “What priest do you mean, honey? What happened to the priest?” Katherine asked.
“You know what happened to him,” the girl said gazing directly at Katherine. “I showed you what happened. The big storm happened.”
Katherine caught her breath. “My dream?” she asked hesitating and unsure of what to say.
Noreen looked at Katherine and smiled. She fumbled in the pocket of the sweatshirt she wore and pulled out a small card which she handed to Katherine.
“Noreen likes to write little poems and thoughts” Sister Cecelia explained. “She doesn’t talk very much, but she’ll write these really lovely notes and prayers. This one she just wrote before we left for our walk. We type out her writing on the back of a prayer card for her.”
Katherine took the card and looked at an embossed picture of the Virgin Mary on the front before turning it over. “Thanks honey,” she said.
“Read, read,” Noreen said.
“Oh sure,” Katherine said. “I thought you wanted me to read this later.”
Lester Carlson peered over her shoulder.
“Read, read,” the girl said again. “Read now.”
Katherin
e read out loud:
“This is how it goes
When you die
The spark leaves the body in a flash
And becomes part of the force
Part of the energy
The part that keeps all the worlds together
But if you hurt somebody
If you kill people
You can never come back
Your spark goes out forever
But if you loved somebody
If you lifted somebody
You will live in the stars
And you will live in the light
And always be part of the universe
Coming back again and again
But the dark pieces can never come back
The dark pieces spin forever way out there
“Very nice,” Katherine said handing the prayer card back to Noreen. Noreen took the cared and put it carefully back in her pocket.
“He tries to come back,” Noreen said staring directly at Katherine and then turning to look at Lester Carlson. “He can’t come back. He is part of the blackness. If you hurt people you’re part of the darkness and can never come back. That’s the way it has to be. The priest couldn’t do it. Now you stop him.”
With that Noreen turned away and began tugging at the nun’s hand.
“Eiiiiiii”, she said. “Home now. Teletubbies on TV.”
“She loves the children’s television shows,” Sister Cecelia said smiling. “It’s one of her few pleasures and she is a real good kid”.
“Eiiiiiii”, Noreen made the sound again. “Home. Teletubbies. “
“I don’t know what Noreen meant just now,” the nun said with a small shrug. “She’s a very special girl, but we don’t always understand her.”
“I think I understand her,” Katherine said. “I do think I understand her. Thank you Noreen. Thank you for talking to us.”
The nun and Noreen turned and began trudging back up Old Enfield Road. Katherine said nothing for several moments as she and Lester Carlson watched them go. Finally, she turned to Lester Carlson. “That was it—that was the message for us.”
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