Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1) (12 page)

Her jaw was straight and strong as that of any statue. Her nose was delicate and complemented every aspect of her face, as did her pale complexion. Her eyes and her mouth were her most expressive features, but her voice was more a caress, a tender, loving touch rather than just words spoken in the half darkness.

She continued. “William would often come home from work and find me on the Chesterfield asleep with our son on my chest. By the same token I can’t tell you the number of mornings I came home from work and found him in a chair holding our son in his arms – both sound asleep.”

“On one occasion I came home and found them like that. I put Timothy in his crib, packed a lunch and woke my husband so he could go to work. I could see the weariness in his eyes. His fatigue was palpable.

“One day around noon I was getting ready for bed. Getting up and going to bed get all turned around when your schedule is upside down. I answered a knock at our door and found my chief of staff, Dr. Gaddis standing there.

“He was a stern man with little warmth or charm, but he was a first class physician and he knew how to teach. Still, it wasn’t like him to drop by the apartment of a mere resident. I invited him in, but he didn’t move. His eyes were on mine and I couldn’t look away.

“It was then that the penny dropped.

“‘I have something to tell you, Dr. Dwyer. It is your husband. He was killed in an accident at work,’ my chief said. He was a very formal man and referred to my by my title even then.

“The next thing I knew I was sitting on the chesterfield with Timothy in my arms and Dr. Gaddis sitting beside me. The shadows in the room told me it was late afternoon. I don’t remember sitting down or how Timothy got into my arms or how long I had been there.”

“‘Mr. Dwyer was working on a roof. He lost his balance and fell off. It wasn’t a great height, but he died instantly. They brought him to the hospital and one of the staff recognized him. Your husband’s superintendent was going to tell you, but I insisted I would be the one,’ my chief said.

“I remember his words so clearly, but little else.

“He used the telephone and had one of the pediatric nursing sisters sent over to be with Timothy. At first, I wouldn’t give him up, but Dr. Gaddis took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. ‘You have much to do. Phone calls to make, things to arrange
.
’

“God I remember that old man’s words and felt his compassion and the softness of his hands. At that moment everything I knew about medicine and life and death and people and thoughts and emotions changed.

“I realized that this lonely old man, whom I had cursed under my breath hundreds of times for the harshness he had shown us residents, could feel what I felt and still remain clear headed enough to know what had to be done.

“The nursing sister took Timothy and as I looked into the old man’s eyes and with my heart broken, I sobbed. He folded me into his arms and I cried until I had no more tears left in me and then he whispered, ‘You have work to do.’ I nodded my head and picked up the telephone to start calling our families.

“Months passed then years and I developed two passions – Timothy and medicine. I wanted to be not just a good doctor, but the sort of doctor Dr. Gaddis showed me it was possible to be. I passed out of my residency and went to work with a large and well-regarded private practice in Dublin.

“The experience I acquired was invaluable, but it wasn’t the sort of medicine I wanted to practice. I made more than enough money to provide everything Timothy needed. I went to work and came home during normal hours and when not working I would spend every moment with my son.

“Still, I was not practicing Dr. Gaddis’ kind of medicine. The IPH – sorry, the Institute of Public Health – wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to know my patients. Spending four and a half minutes per patient and having more patients than anyone could handle, wouldn’t do. That much I knew.

I went to Dr. Gaddis and we talked about my future at length. That is I talked – you’ve noticed I do that a lot – and he listened. In the end he simply said, ‘I’ll look into it’.

“One day the old man called wanting to know if I was still interested in a different kind of medicine. I told him I was and he simply said, ‘Good’ and rang off. The next day there was a letter pushed under the door of my flat.”

“Seems a little farming village in the northeast of Ireland was looking for a country doctor and here I am. But that doesn’t explain why I’m here in church which is what you asked,” the doctor said.

“At first I came here every night to ask God and my late husband to watch over Timothy. He was and still is everything to me and I begged them to intercede on Timothy’s behalf and not let anything happen to him.”

She chuckled and repeated, “‘Asking God and my husband to watch over Timothy.’ Not very sophisticated of me. I am supposed to be well educated and enlightened. I am supposed to know science is the new religion and that religion is nothing more than superstition encased in dogma. Still, there it is. I would have prayed to the devil or sacrificed goats if it would keep my boy safe.

“As time went on, the visits to St. Michael’s to beg for protection became fewer and fewer. Having pled my case, now I come to express my gratitude that my son is safe. Every day with him in my life is a wonderful gift.”

The intensity of her words showed in her eyes. “I love Timothy so much. I can’t imagine life without him. And so I come here because I don’t know what else to do.”

They sat in silence in the dim light, softened further by flickering votive candles and with the faint smell of incense in the air. The old stone church had served for baptisms, confirmations, confessions, communions, weddings and funerals.

This church had heard countless supplications, helped to heal loss and provided shelter when it seemed no other safe harbor was available. It had given people a place where they could talk with their god. Now in early winter, it offered sanctuary to two souls.

Ailís Dwyer said, “You are a strange man, Julian Blessing.” She had moved closer. Julian could smell her, see her eyes clearly, feel her warmth and her humanity tinged with sadness.

“There was no reason for me to tell you all of that. You asked a simple question and I could have given you a simple answer. But for some reason I felt I could tell you a story I had never shared with anyone – a point of view not previously heard.”

The doctor reached over and distractedly picked a thread from the sleeve of Julian’s sweater. Her movement was relaxed, effortless, graceful and infinitely slow. Julian watched her and marveled. He knew her thoughts had taken her to a place he could not go. Still, she seemed to include him with her simple unguarded act, unguarded and unbelievable intimate.

“I wonder what it is about you that could have caused me tell you so much,” she continued.

“Doctor, I believe we all have a need to tell our story.” Julian said. “Keeping the story to ourselves keeps it safe to be sure, but it’s in the telling that we connect with each other. We reveal the depth we each have within us. In admitting how fragile we really are, we are demonstrating how very strong we are. That is a position to which I have recently arrived. Most of my life I have believed the exact opposite.

“I am glad you are comfortable talking with me,” he continued. “I am honored really and feel fortunate to be here with you right now. Our stories come bubbling up to the surface. We can suppress them temporarily, but we can’t hold them back forever. In time, those stories, if felt deeply enough, will be told.”

He continued. “Maybe in telling our stories we free ourselves somehow. It is perhaps the only time we can be more than we are because in telling, we touch another and in that moment maybe we become more human.

“I don’t know. I have so many more questions than answers. I really don’t know much about anything anymore. Funny really, all of my life I thought I knew and understood everything worth knowing,” Julian said with a sad smile. “What arrogance.”

The doctor thought a moment then said, “I think you sell yourself short. I believe you know far more than you think you do. You have clarified a few things for me tonight. And you have been a tremendous help. I mean that sincerely.

“Possibly what you said earlier applies to all of us. Maybe we can find our real selves not in the answers to the questions we ask, but in the questions themselves and in the asking of them,” she said in a whisper.

“Oh, my, did I actually say that? I certainly hope not.” He smiled and she laughed.

“Well, it might have been something like that,” she said.

“May I walk you home, Doctor?” Julian asked.

Her gaze had moved to the front of the church again. In a distracted voice she said, “No, but thank you. I think I’ll stay a bit longer. There are some things I would like to think over.” She looked back to Julian and her eyes held his. “Ailís, Julian. My name is Ailís.”

He was silent a moment as he looked into her hazel eyes. “Good night then, Ailís.”

“Good night, Julian. Sleep well.”

He smiled warmly and kept that smile until he fell into a restful and soft sleep.

Julian’s lessons continued even as the morning fogs disappeared and the weather turned brisk. Still, the mornings were clear and pleasant. If it rained, Julian and Moira Hagan would sit in the police station. If there was a respite from the rain, they might sit in Moira’s garden. On this morning, they slowly walked the lanes of the village.

“I have lectured enough,” Moira said. “Now it is time for you to tell me in your own words what you know.” A farmer on a donkey cart passed them and shot the pair a concerned sidelong glance. For his efforts, Moira Hagan terrified the man with a look that sent him on his way.

Julian marshaled his thoughts, and began. “We talk a lot about darkness and light, the lie and the truth. The darkness we speak of is a physical manifestation. Light, like our thoughts, is infinite. Darkness and the convenient lies we tell ourselves are not. In order to progress, I need to pull aside the curtain. If we let in the light, the darkness is gone.

“I’ve learned many truths and am developing some useful talents. But what I work on daily has nothing to do with any of that. You give me exercises to perform and I work on them all, but I always seem to return to the same concept.

“I need to find a way to take hold of what’s important in my life. Life, the light, my thoughts, true reality – they’re all the same. I know this and know also that everything is available to me, but I only know this stuff on an academic level. I’ve yet to find a way to incorporate it into my life, to make it real.” Julian stopped and again tried to get a handle on what he was learning.

“Why are you looking so pained?” Moira asked.

Julian snapped back. “I am not looking pained. I’m looking thoughtful.”

“Is that what that is? For a bit there I thought perhaps you’d tucked into a bad potato or had gas or something. I’m glad to know it is just you looking thoughtful,” the Hagan goaded to lighten his mood.

Julian said “Yes, thoughtful, you should try it sometime,” and smiled an ugly smile.

“Don’t give me any of your jaw, boyo. I may be old, but I can still do you a mischief whenever I like,” Moira said and suppressed a smile.

“Now, back to business,” she continued. “Nearly everyone is bathed in the mist that obscures their lives. They remain sightless because that is all they know. We reject that entirely. We understand that if we open ourselves, our minds, our spirits more fully, the light is all there for us. We come to our place of understanding by employing a clear conscience, an open mind, and a pure heart.

“Understand or even try to understand the light, and the darkness around you vanishes. That’s when we are most able to help others.” Moira stopped and watched Julian. She thought to herself, “He is so close now. I can see it in him. He’s come so far. If he can get through this obstacle then we can begin.”

Julian was breathing rapidly now. “That’s it. That’s the problem, the reason I can’t come to grips with all of this. God, but I am stupid.” His heart raced and perspiration beaded on his forehead. His hands were clammy. Something she said or he felt had given him a sudden insight.

“I can’t be in two places at the same time. In this game, the players are all in or all out. In order to see clearly, I can’t accept any part of the mist. That’s what’s been holding me back.

“Moira. I have to go. I’m sorry, but there is something I need to work on.” And with that, he set off at a quick pace. He crossed through the trees, across the pasture and toward the broken wall. He scrambled over it and began to run as the rain began to fall.

Moira Hagan closed her eyes and in her mind watched Julian and she smiled with some satisfaction and said to herself, “Good for him to run,” she thought. “He has too much pent up energy and he needs to get rid of it before he can begin to see clearly.

“Now he and I can get on to the serious business,” she said aloud as a field hand passed by looking nervously at her.

“Look at me again, like that, boyo,” Moira barked. “And I’ll make sure things start to fall off your body and your Misses won’t like that one bit!” The farm hand decided to follow Julian’s lead and run. Away.

***

Epiphany is not an easy thing. Although it is said to be a sudden grasping of reality, no one ever told Julian it would hit like a punch in the head from Sean Maher.

The things the Hagan had been teaching him, they weren’t on the periphery. They were clearly in sight. He needed only get closer to be able to see it all. Somehow, all that Moira Hagan had said was beginning to come together.

The essential nature and meaning of it all was within his grasp and as he ran, the thunder and lightening were illuminating his discovery. Julian took what seemed like the wisest and best course of action. He ran as it rained. He ran and the freedom of it cleansed him and calmed him and cleared his mind.

***

He slackened his pace as the thunder and rain relented. He basked in the rainwater that ran in rivulets down his face and soon he was walking slowly with the broken wall still on his right. He had walked and run nearly all the way around the forest that surrounded Cappel Vale on three sides.

Shotgun pellets coursed through the treetops near Julian. Another shotgun blast quickly followed the first and even more quickly came a string of profoundly original profanity and the frantic barking of dogs. Julian followed the sound.

Two beautiful Irish Red and White Setters bounded into the forest nearly colliding with Julian. He knelt down and both dogs determined this was something worth investigating.

Julian had very little experience with animals of any sort but his time in Ireland had been an education in horses, sheep, goats, cats, dogs and cattle. Brendan Maher was talented when it came to animals and he had taught Julian how to introduce himself to each type they encountered.

Brendan’s dog, Dunla would accompany Julian and her master when they walked through the countryside. With difficulty, Brendan explained that Dunla was pronounced
Dun-laith
in Gaelic and meant brown lady. And a lady she was with an elegant gait even for a puppy, and a glossy coat Brendan brushed daily. Through her, Julian learned that a gentle hand and a soothing voice would have her doing anything for the opportunity to please. She loved openly, freely and with an innocent intensity she shared with her master.

The setters approached cautiously and with tails flat out. As Julian slowly turned his palms out to them, both tails came upright and began to wag. Tongues hung out and both dogs bounded around him.

“By the wounds of the sweet living Christ, I am going to shoot those two worthless dogs!” a voice in the near distance intoned. “When I find you – and I
will
find you both – your mangy, fly blown, flea-bitten heads will be on pikes before sundown today. God’s balls, but I hate those dogs!”

Julian whispered to the dogs, “Sounds serious, guys. We better go find him.” Both dogs cocked their heads and danced around Julian as he rose and walked toward the voice that boomed impending dog destruction through the forest.

“Don’t shoot,” Julian called out as a man in his early 70s stepped into a clearing about ten meters away. The man stopped. He was wearing tweeds with a barn coat and Wellington boots. A shock of white hair stuck out from under a cloth field cap. The dogs saw their master and began running between the two men.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? And why are you all wet?”

“I’m sorry to intrude, sir. My name is Julian Blessing and I was out for a walk and got caught in the rain storm.”

“You are the American fellow who lives in the police station.”

“Yes, sir,” Julian said grateful the man didn’t accuse him of being a policeman.

“Well, come up to the house and we’ll get a drink into you and set you by the fire. Perhaps we can roast a nice dog,” the man said as he gave the nearest dog an affectionate rap on the skull.

The two men walked in silence out of the woods and across a field. Over a rise, a substantial, dignified manor house came into view. It was by no means large, but it was the largest dwelling Julian had seen since arriving in the valley.

The hunter entered the house through a side entrance that opened into a mudroom where the man removed his boots. Julian sat on a bench intending to do the same, but the man waved him off.

“I do this out of habit. Keep your boots on for now. You can take them off by the fire.”

Julian walked through a kitchen where an old woman was bent over a stove. She spun around and said, “Don’t track up me floor!”

The man shouted, “Shut up you nasty old crone and get some lunch ready for our guest!”

The woman turned having only heard the word ‘lunch’.

They had arrived at the library before the old man said, “She is deaf as a haddock, of course, but a hell of a cook. If she could hear a tenth of what I said she’d have quit years ago or murdered me,” the hunter said. “Take a seat by the fire. Brandy?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Drinks were poured as Julian took off his boots and stood before the fire admiring the room. It was paneled in mahogany from the floor to the high ceilings. Bookcases lined several walls with well-thumbed copies of leather-bound books.

Two wing back chairs faced a fireplace in which a man could stand upright. The hearth and fireplace surround were lined with granite. A black draped painting hung above the fireplace. Between the two chairs sat a table with a small tobacco humidor and a rack of expensive pipes. Wood and pipe smoke gave a champagne patina to the ceiling.

The hunter brought over two tumblers half full of a dark amber liquid. He reached over to a sideboard and removed a throw rug with which he covered a chair. He then invited Julian to sit and handed him a glass.

The man stood tall and square shouldered in front of Julian and said, “My apologies. I don’t get many guests anymore and I’ve forgotten my manners. We have not been introduced. I am…”

“Squire Lanigan,” Julian said and smiled as he shook the man’s hand. Although the hand was smooth, the fingers long and slender, the handshake was firm and the eyes that took Julian in were piercing and steady.

“Padric Lanigan, but Squire if you like. So, they still remember me in the village. They are good people. Not because they remember me, but because, well, just because.

“What brings someone from America to Cappel Vale, Ireland? It can’t be the weather. Perhaps it was the intellectual cut and thrust our little valley has to offer? Do tell.”

“I was on a walking tour of the countryside and found my way to Cappel Vale. One thing led to another and here I am sitting among the gentry.”

The Squire sat in the other chair, thought for a moment and said, “That is a load of shit which is truly beyond all redemption. There is little that goes on here that someone doesn’t know something about and eventually I hear it all. Some of what I hear is nothing but an old piss pot full of jumbled suspicions. Ultimately I sort the good from the bad and find out the truth.”

“Then what am I doing here?” Julian asked and smiled easily.

“That, young man is the mystery isn’t it. A walking tour it isn’t. You arrived from the M1 road by car. There was a woman with you, but on that subject, I have no more information. That is in itself strange. You walked a couple of miles to the village. A very short walking tour, eh?

“Let’s see, what else is there. Oh, you handed that ‘on a walking tour and need a place to stay’ malarkey around until our good mayor put you up in the police station. It is a good use for a useless police station, by the way. His mistake was in not charging you a handsome rent – which you would have paid.

“That is what I’ve been told, but now having seen you, I know a good deal more,” the Squire said.

“I’m enthralled, please continue,” Julian said. Through much of his life, he had dealt with men like the Squire. He had found them to be individuals one did not underestimate twice.

The Squire smiled and set his tumbler down and warmed to his task.

“You are educated, well traveled and well read. You spent just a bit too long looking at the book titles in my collection, by the way. I would say you squirreled away a sizable fortune, which you’ve had for awhile. It is your money, not inherited, although there may be some of that too. I do hope I am not being indelicate, but I mention all this for a reason.”

Julian smiled and said nothing. He knew far from being sorry, the Squire was doing what he could to be as indelicate as possible to draw out his prey.

“People who inherit money seldom know how to use it. Those who work for it do. You are a man who understands money, both in large numbers and in small and how to use it. You have been a source of hard currency revenue for the village since your arrival.

“The villagers overcharge you with some regularity of course. You know this and you don’t mind. In fact, you are pleased to help. Unlike many tourists, you do not throw cash around but deposit it where it will likely return the highest profit.

“You mix, but not easily with the Ach and Oi crowd and you are able to blend with our rather limited educated class and now,” the Squire bowed, “with the gentry. Nice shirt by the way. Did you have that made for you in,” the squire thought a moment, “London? No, wrong cut. New York, I think, but I’ve been out of that world for a long time and so may be wrong.

“By the way, your shirts, for reasons passing understanding, have been the cause of much discussion. You feed that mystery of course, as it tends to distract others and obscure the reason for you being among us. You have a singular talent for saying much while revealing very little.

“People tend to leave your company believing they know something vital about you when in fact they are no better informed than when they arrived. All of this creates enough of a distraction to allow you to go about your business unnoticed. Well played, I say. Shirts for the love of God. That takes imagination,” the Squire said with a smile.

“Since your arrival you’ve supplied one and all with a little welcome respite from the drone of country life. As to why you are here, I honestly haven’t a clue, but if there is a reason, I will learn of it. I’ll let you know if you would like.”