Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1) (17 page)

***

Julian was returning from what he viewed as a very productive if somewhat peculiar interview with the Squire. For his part, the Squire thought it somewhat less satisfying. He would say in the future, this was the day Julian Blessing became unhinged.

Julian was feeling light and refreshed. He seemed to be attuned to every breath of wind, the movement of every tree branch, the rustle of the leaves beneath his boots. Before he rounded a bend in the road he knew Moira Hagan would be waiting for him. He felt she was troubled. What he should have felt was that she was about to trouble him.

“Hello,” Julian shouted as he waved at his teacher sitting on a large bolder. She said nothing.

“Are we brooding a bit today?” Julian asked.

“Brooding is it? Not a’tall. Brooding is something one saves for those times when things are unsure. I am feeling quite sure just now. I am sure in fact that I gave a very simple assignment to an eejit and like any good eejit he carried it off like a most excellent eejit would!”

“What?” Julian said shocked. “I thought about what you said and I took your advice and now you are berating me for it!”

“Blessing, you went at this like a job of work. If I weren’t such a lady I would simply smack you in the gob and have done with it.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“That is the only – I repeat the only – reason I have not cuffed you,” Moira snarled.

“That and your being a lady of course,” Julian added.

“Tempt me not, Blessing. I can change my mind at any moment, you great bloody fool. I gave you work that would nourish your spirit, feed your soul and you went at it like a construction gang. Did you have to run through the entire village like a dose of salts? Did it all have to be done in one day? I am only surprised you didn’t try to work ’em all before early mass!”

Julian came back hard. “Hey, you are the one who said I had a unique perspective that people needed to hear and that I had a short time to get my affairs in order – or words to that effect. ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.’”

“Lovely and an appropriate quotation, little man, but you may remember that was Shakespeare’s Macbeth, plotting murder. I had something a little less ghastly in mind,” the Hagan said with some heat.

“…” Julian said.

“Ahhh…” Julian said.

“Err…” Julian said.

“Oh. Well, perhaps I could have approached this a little differently.”

“You mean differently from leaving your fellow citizens feeling as though they had been run over by a train?”

“Well, yes.”

“Odd as it may seem, even through your own unique, blisteringly stupid way, you seem to have accomplished what needed to be accomplished.”

“Oh, thank you,” Julian said. “What is it that needed to be accomplished again?”

“You were overcoming fears, transcending other people’s expectations and ideas about you.”

“Well, good for me then, right?”

“Oh, yes, you did indeed face at least one fear that I know of. You were afraid of not being known. Well boyo, it would be safe to say you are known now. It would also be safe to say you have transcended other peoples’ expectations too.”

“Terrific. I’ve been a success.”

“Oh yes. And aren’t they all quite sure you are mentally disordered and therefore capable of doing the queerest things imaginable at the oddest times possible? Oh yes, people know you all too well now.”

“Oh. Hmmm. Someone told me the villagers think I am pleasantly strange. I rather liked that term. You think they’ve changed their minds about that?”

Moira’s hand went to her forehead and she snorted, “What do you think, ya eejit?”

“Not the success it might have been, eh?”

Moira Hagan drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Not quite. But we can work with it.”

Tom Lynch, hardened, tall and broad shouldered with a barn coat and a cloth cap stood in front of his employer’s desk. He had worked hard all his life. He feared none, liked few and respected the thin Pale Man not at all.

“Why is it you and your people will down tools at the slightest provocation?” the Pale Man asked.

“We was caught out by one of the local farmers. He happened upon us while we was at it and there ‘twern’t anything for it, but to make ourselves scarce,” Tom Lynch said.

“A farmer? Do I have this correct? A farmer frightened you and all your men away?”

“You told us we were not to be seen. He must have been waiting for us he was on us that quick. Still, we got away ’afore he sawed anythin’.”

“Ah, but you have already been seen.” The Pale Man took one of Julian’s wanted posters off his desk. “You’ve been seen and now people are looking for you. A dirt-poor farmer runs surveillance on his property and manages to nearly capture you and your lot. For the love of God, you are pathetic.” The Pale Man held up his hand and said, “Enter” a moment before his servant knocked and announced another visitor.

“Oi came as soon as I got your honor’s message,” Liam McMaster said as he rushed into the room.

“Do not take another step,” the Pale Man said slowly. He looked beyond McMaster to the open door behind the farmer. “You, boy, step to where I can see you.” Bobby McMaster sullenly lurched into the doorway.

“What is that?” the Pale Man said through gritted teeth. The man’s anger was palpable.

“Ach, that’s just me boy. Bobby, say hello to his honor.” The boy glowered and said nothing.

“Bobby, that is your name, correct?” the Pale Man said with a plastic smile. The boy said nothing. “Well, Bobby, get out or I will kill your father.” The boy shrugged.

Liam was thunderstruck. Tom Lynch suppressed a smile and looked away. The Pale Man said, “So much for filial loyalty, eh McMaster?”

The Pale Man’s voice was hard and low, his mouth twisted into a hideous sneer, “Bobby, get out or I will kill you.” The boy shrugged again, turned and left. He closed the study’s big door with a bang and sat in a nearby chair in the hallway.

“McMaster, you are truly unbelievable. You brought your son here. Here! I trust you will make it perfectly clear to that little animal the consequences of any lack of discretion. Up to now I’ve not cared if you lived or died. I am starting to rethink all of that and it’s not looking good for you.” The Pale Man shook his head and said, “Back to business. I believe I was about to give you both a good bollocking.

.

“I think we were talking about neither of you being so much men as rabbits, running away at the slightest noise. Maybe I am not providing the proper motivation. Perhaps you are not the right men for this job, eh?” The Pale Man rose and paced in front of the cold fireplace before he sat in one of the wingback chairs flanking the hearth, crossed his legs and steepled his fingers.

“What do you think? Is there a reason I should keep you on?” he asked.

“Oi would keep meself on, your honor. Oi have value,” McMaster said.

The big man snorted. He stood just off the carpet and with a flinty look in his eyes said, “Me and me men we’ll get the job done. You needn’t fear on that account. The American can paper the moon with posters if he wants, it won’t bother us a’tall.”

Tom Lynch sneered as he watched the Pale Man and considered snapping his employer in half should the disrespect continue much longer.

Emboldened by anger Lynch said, “Now if we can be pointed in the proper direction rather than spend our time digging away at one dead end after another…” He let the statement hang in the space between them.

The Pale Man smiled maliciously and then rocketed to his feet.

“I plan and you dig. It is a simple division of labor. I think and you do.” His face reddened and he continued. “Most of all though what you never do is question me, my plans, my motives or anything about this operation that does not concern a spade and dirt.

“You, McMaster are even less beneficial to my cause, but I live in the hope you will someday get your thumb out and do something useful.” McMaster cowered.

The Pale Man went on, “I want to make certain I am perfectly understood. I pay you to do what I tell you to do. Your rabbits do as you tell them to do because I suffer to pay them too and because you are supposed to put the fear of God in them.

“If I want them to turn over all the turf in Ireland that is what they will do and you will make sure they do it or I will find someone who can. Do I make myself perfectly clear?” The Pale Man was shaking with rage and his voice was raised.

“I will now give you both a new task. I require you and your men to spread a little terror in our little part of Ireland. I do not want to put too fine a point on this, but it seems I must.

“If you chance upon someone or they happen upon you, now follow along,” the Pale Man taunted, “I want you to maim that person. Badly. I want you to continue this policy until the general population stops seeing fit to disrupt my activities.

“Please, understand this applies equally to men, women, children, priests, nuns, the lot. Burn the village if need be. Is any of this sinking in? Don’t look stupid, McMaster, this applies to you as well.”

Big Tom Lynch said nothing. His knuckles ached for the opportunity to mutilate his employer. McMaster nodded his agreement with the plan, although he was unsure of what the plan was exactly.

The Pale Man continued. “You may not think it amounts to much, but those two idiots in the village, Maher and that American, have plastered nearly the entire county with these handbills. I hear reports they are circulating more widely than that. I do not need this distraction. Employ that amount of violence necessary to stop further interference with my plans.” The Pale Man was pacing and shouting. His face had nearly taken on some color.

“I want this valley to ache. I want people to suffer. I want this part of Ireland to get what it deserves.”

“What it deserves?” Lynch questioned. He did not look so much puzzled as wary.

“That is what I said! I will have what is mine. Kill anything that gets in your way,” the Pale Man screamed. Servants in the hall outside stopped what they were doing then resumed their duties more quietly and elsewhere. Bobby McMaster, however, had a ringside seat.

The Pale Man stopped pacing. He took several deep breaths and tried to gain control of himself. He turned and smiled. McMaster took the smile as a positive sign. Tom Lynch went to an even higher level of alert.

“Gentlemen,” the Pale Man said, “we will be finished soon. We will then evaporate like fog. The American will have questions without answers and little else – if he is still with us. We will stop as quickly as we started and we will all be far wealthier – that is if I can get you two to do your part.” His smile lacked warmth, humor, pleasure and fellowship. It was a smile that wasn’t.

“Do you have any questions.” It wasn’t a question.

“In Cappel Vale, that witch, the Hagan,” McMaster said, “’tis she who protects the village. Muckin’ about with witches, Sor, is bad business.”

The Pale Man let out a noisy breath. “I would point out three things only. Business, bad or otherwise, is my business not yours. Next, I’ve worked a little something of my own. The witch isn’t able to protect herself right now let alone anyone else.”

The Pale Man walked slowly across the room and faced his employees. “The last thing is something I urge you never to forget. Mention that woman’s name in my presence again and, well, let’s just say, you will beg to die. Either of you or both of you – it makes no difference to me. But know I will kill you.” The pale man walked to the window turning his back on his visitors. “You understand all of this?”

“Aye.” Lynch felt his employer would not hesitate to try to kill whatever got in his way. He had done it before, he would do it again. He thought over the word that made all the difference. Try. The man smiled, turned and walked toward the door.

McMaster reached the door first, pulled it open as he repeated the Pale Man’s words. “Kill anything that gets in me way. I understand perfectly, Sor.” He collected his son who looked cunning and sullen. Tom Lynch slapped the back of Liam’s head causing him to stumble into his son on their way out the front door.

“What the…?”

“Do not speak to me, McMaster. You are as thick as shite and not even half as useful.” Lynch snarled and left the manor house. McMaster slapped his son hard for laughing.

The interview was complete. The Pale Man, his colorless complexion restored, returned to the maps spread out on his massive desk. He rubbed the coin in his pocket and plotted the next dig site. The idea of murder calmed him.

***

The thin, Pale Man sat before a cold hearth and relished the hatred inside him. The room was cold, but he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything beyond anger, hatred and the need for revenge. The drapes were pulled and he didn’t see anything but the target of his rage.

He closed his eyes and cast his mind into the darkness.

***

In the pasture beyond the grove of trees, Julian stood and tried to pierce the veil of the reality he knew for the other reality he knew was out there. It was early morning, well before sunrise and the time he found it easiest to focus.

Suddenly the ground seemed to shift beneath him and he felt dizzy. He looked to the grove where Moira was sitting to see if she felt it.

His teacher’s face was ashen and she was trembling. Her right arm and shoulder twitched violently. He ran to her, took her hand and then did what he had no reason to do, no way of knowing he could do or should do.

He closed his eyes and relaxed. He opened his mind and gave Moira Hagan a place to hide. He tried to construct a barrier between her and whatever was gnawing at her, clutching at her, attacking her.

He could feel a violent, malicious, consciousness leaching Moira’s abilities, draining her. Julian’s hands began to shake uncontrollably with the effort to hold back the attack. His fingers began to tingle.

He took a deep breath and suddenly his mind focused. The world went painfully white and intense. Everything went quiet. Reality shifted, but only slightly. Then he saw it, felt it. He was there at the source of the blackness.

A reed-thin man with an unnatural pallor sat in a chair in a darkened room. Julian could sense him, sense his loathing, his malice and the horror his spirit had become.

To be successful required more energy and skill than Julian knew he possessed, but he turned all his power to protecting his teacher. He relaxed again and opened himself to all the resources true reality could offer. He concentrated his thoughts, narrowed the intensity to a single spot, to a single moment in time. He waited. He waited for the slightest opportunity, the smallest chance.

It was there. He could feel it approach. The Thin Man paused to gather his thoughts for what Julian felt would be a final onslaught. Julian attacked with all the ferocity he could manage. To save his teacher he had to stop this man. The student remembered his teacher’s words, “People get hurt when we get it wrong.” Julian’s world went whiter still.

The man in the chair began to shake. His body went into spasm, his face contorted, he shrieked in pain and then went slack and sat panting. His eyes were unfocused, unseeing. His mouth was slack and open. His breath came in short sharp gasps.

Julian was back in the glade. He took up maintenance of the shield, but no further attack materialized. The breeze felt cool. His arms and legs were suddenly heavy. Each breath was an effort, every movement painfully slow. Moira watched as his eyes fluttered open. He tried to speak, but she held up her hand to stop him.

For an eternity, they remained frozen in time and space - an eternity in a moment. Slowly, Julian stood, lost his balance and fell to his knees. He tried again, swayed but remained upright.

He looked at Moira, smiled the best he could and thought to her, “
I’ll go get Sean. He can carry you to the doctor’s. I would do it, but I’m not feeling quite myself.”
He chuckled and Moira Hagan smiled her appreciation of his concern if not his plan.

She had lost the capability of transmitting her thoughts so she said aloud, “Julian Blessing, you go get that ox, Maher. You just do that, boyo. If he lays hands on me, it will go very badly for the pair of you. I don’t have much left, but I’ll wager I can make life unpleasant for you both.

She chuckled. “Indeed, the very idea. I’ll not be manhandled through the streets of the village. This experience has left you more than a little addled! Come here you great bloody fool. Help an old woman up,” she said not unkindly. Julian smiled and did as he was told.

“What happened?”
Julian thought to his teacher. The effort needed for speech was beyond him.

“It is too much for you to absorb, too much for either of us. Tomorrow night or the day after maybe,” she said. “We need to digest this.” Julian understood completely and didn’t understand at all why or how things were changing so quickly for him.

***

“Sean Maher, the Squire would be after sending me to get you.” Sean recognized the boy before him as belonging to the family who tended the Squire’s flocks of sheep. It was getting light. The sun would be up soon spreading light but no heat. Sean shivered slightly and indicated with a nod that he would be ready to go with the boy in a few moments.

While many others would be ablaze with questions, Sean Maher’s mind was unfettered by what might be and concentrated instead on what was right in front of him. Right in front of him right then was a pale, blond boy who led the way to the Squire’s home and did so with a dreadful state of glee plastered on his face.

The walk was a brisk one and terminated at the side door that led into the squire’s large brick house through the kitchen. Sean deposited coin with his young guide and smiled benignly.

The messenger peered into his palm in stark disbelief and then looked upon Sean Maher, Protector of the Right. “Oooh, all for me? Sure you can afford it, m’lord?” the boy said, his voice soaked in sarcasm.