by Kathi Daley
Trevor and Mac both looked at me with suspicion on their faces, but eventually she noticed my look of desperation. “Yeah, okay,” she said, taking Trevor by the arm.
I left the costume shop and hurried down the block to Chan’s Occult Shop. I’d been wanting to talk to him about my dream, but he’d been out of town, so I hadn’t had the chance. When we’d driven by on our way to the costume shop I’d noticed an “Open” sign on the door.
The bell on top of the door jingled as I walked in. The store was quite large inside. One wall was completely covered with shelves of books that reached to the ceiling. There was a counter to the right with a cash register and a glass case that held the more valuable items. The center of the store was lined with shelves bearing glass jars filled with all sorts of strange-looking things.
“Chan,” I called, when he didn’t immediately appear. “Are you here?”
The small man with his perpetual smile poked his head over the half railing lining the loft on the second floor. “Amanda. How nice to see you.”
“I hoped you’d have a few minutes to chat. Can I come up?”
“Certainly. You know my door is always open to you.”
I climbed the stairs to the second story, which was stocked with jars filled with newt eyes and chicken feet as well as different-colored crystals and powders that weren’t labeled, though I assumed Chan knew the identity of. I still remembered being completely freaked out the first time I’d visited his shop and even more freaked out when he’d called me Amanda. Since that first meeting, however, I’d come to know and respect him. More importantly, I trusted him.
“You’ve been having dreams,” Chan jumped right in.
“Yes. How did you know?”
Chan placed a hand on mine. “As I have said in the past, I’ve been charting your essence.”
“So what does it mean? Am I in danger?”
Chan led me into a back room and instructed me to sit down. He poured me a cup of tea from a pot that had been sitting on his desk. He took a sip of his own tea and waited for me to follow before he answered.
“I sense the focal point in your dream is a door.”
“It is. A dark door at the top of several steps.”
“I suspect the door in your dream represents a barrier between what you know and what you want and need to know. It may have a physical form or not. My sense is that the purpose of the dream is to bring you closer to the place you need to be to resolve your conflict. Once you can overcome your fears and accept what it is your mind wants you to know, you will have the answers you seek.”
“So the door I need to find and open may not be real?”
“That is unclear to me at this time. While it is true you may one day stumble onto the door in your dreams, it is equally likely you won’t.”
“So what do I do? How do I get rid of the dream?”
“Tell me exactly what you see and feel.”
“I’m alone and it’s dark. There’s an old house with several steps leading up to a dark-colored door. I instinctively know that my destiny resides on the other side of the door, but I’m terrified to open it. When I first had the dream I’d wake up in a cold sweat after placing one foot on the first step, but over time I’ve been able to maintain my dream state longer. I’m now able to climb the stairs and open the door. The moment I step inside, though, I’m filled with overwhelming terror. I scream and wake up.”
“And you do not have a sense of what you see once you open the door?” Chan asked as he topped off my teacup.
I shook my head. “I can only see a white light that’s blinding me, but I feel both terror and hopelessness. I haven’t been able to sleep in months. It’s gotten to the point where I’m falling asleep in class. You need to help me conquer this.”
“The dream is yours to conquer.”
“Can it hurt me?”
“That depends on you. You can let the dream destroy you or you can take charge of the images in your mind and make them show you what it is you need to know.”
“But do you sense I’m in danger? Actual danger, not dream danger?”
Chan paused before he answered. He took my hand in his and closed his eyes. It almost seemed like he’d dozed off, but after several minutes he opened his eyes.
“So?” I asked.
“There is a darkness surrounding you. My sense is that the time of reckoning is near.”
“Reckoning?”
“Your aura is fragmented, as is your life. There will come a point when you must choose. It won’t be today, but soon.”
I felt my throat tighten. “Choose what?”
“Life.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face. I’d come to Chan hoping he’d make me feel better, but I was more terrified than I’d ever been before.
“When the time comes I will be there for you. Until then, you have a job to do.”
I took several deep breaths, followed by several large sips of tea. It did seem to have a calming effect. I wondered what was in it.
“A job? You mean the bodies in the secret room? Do you know who they are?”
Chan handed me a piece of paper. On it were two names and a single date: Julius and Bobby, April 12, 1992.
“Are these the names of the spirits?”
Chan just smiled.
“Do you have last names?”
“You have all you need. Let your heart lead you where you are destined to go.”
I hated it when Chan’s help wasn’t really all that helpful, but things had all worked out in the past, so I decided to go with this. “Okay; thanks.” I put the note in my pocket. “I guess I should get going. Mac and Trevor are waiting for me. If you do get any more insight will you let me know? One of the ghosts in the house is a child. I feel he’s afraid of the other one. I’d really like to help him move on.” I paused and considered the situation. “I’d really like to help them both move on.”
“Trust what you know, my young friend.”
By the time I returned to my car, Mac and Trevor were both waiting. Trevor immediately picked up on the fact that although I’d told them I needed to pick up some things for my mother, I wasn’t carrying a single bag. I made something up about my mom texting at the last minute to let me know she’d bought them herself and then slid into the driver’s seat of my Jeep and headed toward home.
Chapter 7
Now that we had names and a date to use as a frame of reference, Mac and I got to work, looking for news articles, missing persons reports, obituaries, anything we could think of that might relate to Julius or Bobby and the date April 12, 1992. Trevor had gone home after getting a call from his mother that some out-of-state relatives had arrived, but he promised to join us when we went back to the house that evening.
“It’s going to be hard to find information that might be relevant with only first names,” Mac murmured.
“Yeah, I know, but Chan said I had all I needed. Julius is somewhat of an uncommon name. Let’s start by running it coupled with the date in the newspaper archives and see what we come up with. Woody said they hadn’t found any missing persons, but they didn’t have a frame of reference. I wonder if I should call him and give him these names and the date.”
“And where are you going to tell him you got them?” Mac asked.
“An anonymous tip?”
Mac rolled her eyes. “All that’s going to do is make him suspicious. We need more. Something concrete before we start sharing what we have with the police.”
“Normally, I would never even consider sharing clues Chan gave me with the police, but Woody seems different. I think he might actually help us.”
Mac stopped what she was doing and sat back in her chair. She gave me a hard look. “Are you crushing on the cute young officer?”
“What?” I protested. “Of course not. I have enough going on in my life that I don’t need to be crushing on anyone. I just thought maybe he could help.”
Mac continued to stare at me.
&nbs
p; “I’m not crushing,” I insisted.
“He is pretty cute,” Mac admitted.
“And so nice. Did you notice how nice he is?”
“He was nice. He’s also an adult and you’re in high school.”
“I’m not saying I want to date him; I just said he was nice. Besides, I’ll be eighteen in two months and he’s only four years older than me. If I wanted to date him—and I’m not saying I do—it wouldn’t be weird at all.”
Mac returned to her computer without responding. She seemed to be focused on what she was doing, but I was certain she was still wondering if I’d lost my mind. I knew I couldn’t get involved with anyone right now, especially not a cop, but it had been a long time since I’d even noticed a person of the opposite sex. It felt good to look, even if I could never touch.
After more than an hour of trying to find a link to the date and names Chan had given me we decided to change direction and see what we could find out about Eliston Weston, the previous owner of the house. We knew he’d died two years ago. We also knew he’d purchased the property from Joe and Jenny Jenkins around thirty years before that, which would have been around 1985. Joe and Jenny had owned the house from 1962 to 1985.
“I wonder if we can get the exact date the property changed hands,” I said.
“I’m sure we can. I can look at the county records. It might take me a few minutes, though.”
“I’ll run down to the kitchen and get us a snack,” I offered. “We never did have lunch.”
Tucker and I went downstairs while Shadow and Mac stayed up in my room to work. Ever since I’d seen Chan that morning I’d found myself looking over my shoulder and jumping at every little sound. My mom was in Portland today for an art show, so it was just Mac and me in the house. I jumped when I thought I felt a presence behind me, but when I turned around there was no one there. I glanced at Tucker, who looked unconcerned, and realized I must be losing my mind. This was no way to live. I needed to get a grip.
I stood in front of the open refrigerator for what seemed like a long time before I decided to make turkey sandwiches and dice up some fruit. Mom had made pumpkin muffins for breakfast the day before, so I added a couple of them to the tray, and a couple of colas as well.
I was about to head back upstairs when my phone rang. I set the tray down and looked at the caller ID. It was a local number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” I said with a question in my voice.
“Alyson, it’s Woody Baker.”
“Woody.” I smiled. “Do you have news?”
“More like a question. The crime scene guys found fingerprints that haven’t been identified but seem to belong to children. The prints were left recently. Do you know if there have been children in the house?”
I let out a sigh before I answered. “There were children in the house. Three boys, around ten. I didn’t catch their names and I didn’t mention them last night because I didn’t want them to get into trouble.”
“Trouble? Why would they be in trouble?”
“They weren’t supposed to be there,” I admitted. I decided not to mention the vandalism. “It seems Mr. Weston let the boys have a clubhouse on the second story of the house. No one came to claim the house after he died, so the kids continued to use it. They’re nice kids who didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. They showed up when we were at the house last night. I explained about the Hayride and they agreed not to enter the house until after the high school was done with it.”
“So you spoke to them but didn’t ask their names?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Do you have any reason to believe they knew about the skeletons in the room?”
“I’m certain they didn’t.”
“Can you describe the boys?”
I paused. “Like I said, I don’t want them to get into any trouble. They didn’t do anything wrong and they couldn’t have known about the skeletons in the boxes, so I don’t see any reason to bother them.”
“You said they had a clubhouse in Mr. Weston’s home. It stands to reason they knew him well. It’s also likely the bodies were placed in the coffins during the time Mr. Weston lived in the house. I think we need to know what they might know about Mr. Weston.”
I groaned. “You’re right. I didn’t think of that. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you last night. Your partner was just so intimidating. I was trying to protect the boys from a harsh interrogation.”
I waited for Woody to speak. The longer the silence, the more nervous I became. Finally, he spoke. “You said you didn’t have the boys’ names. Do you have a way to get hold of them?”
I knew all I needed to do was have Mac check school records against their photos; once we had names we could track down addresses.
“Yes, I can get hold of them.”
“Okay, how about if you and I speak to them? We’ll leave Wharton out of it for now. When we find out what they know we’ll decide whether a more formal interview is necessary.”
I closed my eyes, trying to decide what to do. “I guess I can live with that. When do you want to meet?”
“This afternoon, if they’re available.”
“I’ll need a couple of hours to track them down. I’ll call you after I speak to them.”
I hung up, picked up the tray, and continued up the stairs. Mac was looking intently at the computer screen and seemed not to have even noticed my arrival. I set the tray down on the dresser, then turned to look at the screen too. It was a formal document that I supposed contained the ownership history of the Weston house and land.
“I brought food. Did you find something?”
“It looks like the Jenkinses fell behind in their mortgage payments. The bank repossessed the house and put it on the market in February 1985. Mr. Weston paid cash for it in May. The deed was formally transferred from the bank to Mr. Weston on June 3, 1985.”
I picked up half of one of the sandwiches and took a bite. “I wonder if any of this means anything.”
Mac shrugged. “I’ll take a break to eat and then we can keep digging.”
“Actually, we need to change direction,” I informed Mac. “Woody called. He wants to talk to the boys. It seems their fingerprints are all over the house, although he doesn’t have matches for them. He hoped I knew who they were. I told him I didn’t, but he says they may know something about Mr. Weston. I guess he has a point. Anyway, he agreed that he and I would speak to them first and leave his scary partner out of it for now. I told him I’d find them and call him back.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Mac asked.
“We know what they look like. We suspect they go to the local elementary school and are most likely in fifth or sixth grade. I thought you could hack into the school records to get their names and contact information based on the photos in the student records.”
“Of course you did.”
“Is that a problem?” I asked.
Mac signed. “No. It’s fine. But be careful. Just because the new cop is not only nice but drop-dead gorgeous doesn’t mean you can trust him. Be careful what you share with him. I for one don’t want to be arrested for hacking into school records.”
“I won’t tell him where I got the information. I promise.”
Mac obtained the names, phone numbers, and addresses for the boys and I tried to decide what to do with the information. If I called the houses chances were one of the parents would answer, and if I just showed up on their doorsteps asking to speak to their sons it was going to look suspicious. I’d pretty much decided to walk down the street where all three boys lived and hoped one of them was outside when it occurred to me that it was Saturday and a lot of the ten-year-olds in town belonged to the youth soccer league. Games were held all day and it was already midafternoon. If the boys did play soccer they would have had an earlier game, but I didn’t have anything to lose by looking, so I left Mac working in my room and headed to the soccer field.
There were games on two
different fields, so the place was crowded. The first field I checked was occupied by older kids, but on the second one was a game that looked to be fielded with boys of about the right age. At first I didn’t see any of the boys I was looking for, but then I spotted the tall, skinny kid running down the field for a goal. I didn’t see the other two, but according to the scoreboard there was only two minutes left in the game, so I decided to wait to see if I could find a chance to speak to the kid alone. He must have seen me because as soon as the game was over and the teams broke up, he came over to where I was waiting.
“You change your mind about buying us new stuff?” he asked, a sound of accusation in his voice.
“No. Not at all. But we’ve hit a snag. After you left my friends and I opened the door in the second passage. We found something that created a situation where we had to call the police. They found your fingerprints in the house and want to talk to you.”
“You said no cops.”
“I know. I didn’t tell them about the vandalism, I promise. I just told them the prints probably belonged to some kids who had a hangout in the house, and they want to talk to you about Mr. Weston. I promise you aren’t in trouble. In fact, I got Officer Baker to agree that he and I could speak to all three of you together.”
The kid, whose name I now knew was Carlton, looked like he was going to cry.
“Officer Baker is nice. You’ll like him. And I’ll be there to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“And if we won’t talk to him?”
“Then I think the police will come to your home and speak to you anyway. This really is your best bet.”
The boy crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t answer.
“Look, why don’t you talk to Wesley and Alton? If the three of you want to speak to Officer Baker and me instead of whoever shows up from the station call me at the number I gave you. We’ll meet wherever the three of you want.”
The boy kicked the ground with his toe.
“Please, Carlton. This really will be the easiest on all of you. If I don’t hear from you in an hour I’ll assume you aren’t interested in my offer and I’ll call Officer Baker to let him know.”