Harbinger in the Mist (Arms of Serendipity) (22 page)

“How soon could you get them here? My mom will be gone for a week starting Monday. She would freak if she found out about this, so I’d rather do it while she’s away.”

“Give me a day or two to talk to them. Maybe we can do some research and investigating while your mom is at work one night so that we can get a better feel for what’s going on here, then do the cleansing while she’s away. But I must ask you this – what are your feelings on witchcraft?”

Lindsey and Eli both took a step backwards. Maddie sighed and said, “No, you silly people! She doesn’t mean that stupid Hollywood, Satan-worshipping crap. Sadie and her friends are Wiccan.”

“Wiccan?” Lindsey asked.

Maddie rolled her eyes at her. “Yes! It’s an ancient earth religion that celebrates and protects life. Wiccans aren’t Satanists.”

“I understand your hesitation. It’s the reason that my dear brother and I don’t talk. He thinks that I dance naked under the full moon and commune with the devil. But Maddie’s right – that’s just Hollywood’s spin on what we do and the view of fear-mongers and Bible-thumpers. In actuality, we are as much against the evil ones as they are. 

“Now, I have three friends who live by the ancient rede and would possibly be willing to come to your aide. Let me get them out here to look around. They are also members of the Charleston Area Paranormal Investigators. Maybe they can bring their set-up and try to get some of the activity here on tape. That’ll help us figure out how we can banish it, too. Kill two birds with one stone, if you will. I’m sure we can get it done early next week.”

“So soon? Man! I wish I could help,” Maddie said.

“Why can’t you?” Lindsey asked.

“We’re going to Asheville to visit my grandparents and then helping Michelle get settled in at Clemson. We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon and won’t be back until next Thursday. I know that we told you!”

“Yeah, I knew she was leaving, I just didn’t know that the whole family was going or that you all were going to be gone for so long. I assumed that she’d just drive herself.”  Lindsey knew how silly that sounded now. Her mother wouldn’t have let her drive away to her first semester at college alone. Why had she not figured out that the Robbins’ would escort Michelle, too?

 Lindsey then looked at Eli. He stood rigid beside her, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of getting help from witches. She feared he wouldn’t participate if there was a ceremony here. She knew she wouldn’t be able to face the spiritual battle in the house without at least one of them by her side.

“Can we do the paranormal sweep thing, see what we find, and then go from there? I don’t know how I feel about participating in a pagan ceremony just yet, though.”

“I completely understand. I’ll give Sara a call and get the group out here tomorrow night if possible. There’s also a Christian deacon in the group and a Trinitarian Wiccan – a Wiccan that only observes the Christian Pantheon in her workings. Let me talk to them and then I’ll call you. Until then, please be safe. Blessed be.”

Sadie walked slowly toward her car. Halfway there, she turned and looked back. “Oh, that painting that hangs in your living room. Where did you get it?”

“It was a housewarming gift. Our friend Darby bought it over at the Artisans Center. Why?”

“Hmmm. Just curious. It seems to be a sort of sanctuary for the spirits of the slave and her children. The darker entity won’t approach it so they feel safe near it. I wonder why that is?”

Sadie shrugged and drove off into the night.

Sixteen

Dusk was settling over the tree tops when the white van approached the house. Aimee had just left for work; she had probably passed the van on the road only minutes before. The driver was a short, portly man of about 45.  Four women poured out of the side door carrying small cases. “C.A.P.I.” was written in large, black, block-lettering along the side of the vehicle. Below it, in red script, said “
Charleston Area Paranormal
Investigators: Connecting with Lowcountry spirits since 1999.”

Sadie approached Lindsey, who was sitting in a chair on the front porch, but the others stopped at the largest oak tree. One of the women whispered something to the man and pointed up.

“Hello, Lindsey. We won’t be here too awful long, maybe a couple of hours or so. We’re just trying to get a general feel for the spirits and what it might take to banish them all. My friends will set up some digital recorders and thermal cameras around the house while we go through and try to contact spirits. I do ask that you stay outside because I feel that the one spirit is angered by your presence. “Marissa, the one with the long, red hair, wants to talk to you anyway. She did some research on the house and has some things to tell you. While she is with you, the rest of us will be inside. We'll let you know when we're done.”

Lindsey nodded. Eli had gone for his daily reflection walk a little while ago and Lindsey found herself wondering where he’d gone and if he’d be back soon. She didn't feel like going through this without him here.

“Lindsey I want you to meet the members of C.A.P.I. that made the trip out here tonight.” Sadie pointed to each of the people that were now standing at the foot of the stairs. “Marissa Jordan, our historian, Raven Jones, a Trinitarian wiccan, Sara de Zierold, a fellow clairvoyant and psychometrist, and Chris Long, a deacon from St. Francis’ Catholic Church out in Ritter.” Sadie pointed to each of them and they waved as they were introduced.

“Hi,” Lindsey muttered.

Marissa stepped forward, extended her hand and said, “Where would you prefer to go to talk?”

The others walked around them, cases in tow, and through the front door.

Lindsey led her around the house and out to the back porch where they sat down on the top step. For a while, they just sat and watched the reeds in the estuary blow in the wind and the colors of the lowering sun reflect on the rippling water.  The only sounds were the twittering, cawing, and buzzing of the various birds and insects that called the water’s edge home. In the distance a deep, baritone bark from a large dog echoed. The smell of a charcoal grill drifted on the air. Marissa dug a bottle of insect repellent out of her bag, applied it to her exposed skin, and passed the can to Lindsey.

“So...” Lindsey began as she sprayed her legs.

“Well, I have been digging around, trying to find out something about the history of this place so that we know who – or what – we’re dealing with. Darby helped me out over at the historical society. We found some interesting stuff. I wasn’t allowed to take the journals, or to even photocopy pages, but I did take some notes.”

Eli strolled out of the woods and approached the porch as Marissa began to go over her findings.

“The house was built in 1851 by Georgetown rice plantation owner Milton Walker. Now Walker wasn’t born rich. He spent much of his life working. When he could afford to buy land, he built his plantation up with his own hands. As the plantation grew in grandeur, so did his status and reputation. He was in his late forties when he finally married. His wife, Abigail Carter, was the middle daughter of an aristocrat from Virginia. She was only 19 when they wed. She quickly grew tired of the summers on the plantation. Several of their society friends had homes in Hickory Valley and she wanted one, too.”

“Hickory Valley? Where's that?”

“Well, right here,” Marissa waved her hands as if displaying a prize on a game show. “Hickory Valley was the original name of this town. It eventually took on the name of Paul and Jacob Walter – two brothers who first settled in the area in the 1780s.”

Lindsey wiped beads of sweat off her forehead. “But why come here for the summer? I can't imagine that the weather is any better here than there. I mean Georgetown isn’t that far away, is it? It’s only a couple of hours or so away, right? It had to be just as sweltering here as there.”

“They weren't escaping the heat. They were escaping the mosquitos that swarmed the plantations in the summer. But I’ll get to that in a bit. Milton and Abigail arrived here in late May 1852 for the first of what they thought would be many summers. Abigail was approximately six months pregnant. They brought four slaves with them as well as a carpenter and a medical doctor. The carpenter was there to finish some minor construction on the baby’s nursery and the doctor was there for the well-being of Mrs. Walker. The slaves were there take care of them all – cleaning the house, maintaining the grounds, hunting, cooking, and such.

“Abigail took one of the slaves as her personal servant. Her name was Olemargaret. It is believed the Walkers intended for her to be the baby’s wet-nurse once it was born. Anyway, Olemargaret had twin sons, Sambo and Tom, age 4. Her husband, Sam, had been sold at auction a few months before.”

Lindsey shuddered and shook her head. Marissa either didn’t notice or ignored it.

“In late July Abigail fell ill. The records say that she had flu-like symptoms – fever, chills, muscle aches, fatigue, vomiting, etc. The doctor, Dr. Amos White, was summoned. He said she was suffering from something called the agues, and that she would most assuredly die without Jesuits Powder. But Milton honestly believed that Olemargaret had cursed his wife out of jealousy, that she had gotten a taste of living in the big house and wanted to be the woman of the house – not the servant.  There were even rumors of a sexual encounter between the two of them shortly before Abigail fell ill. With that in mind, he disregarded the doctor’s diagnosis and proposed treatment.”

“What are agues?”

“I had to look that one up, too. According to an online medical dictionary, it’s ‘
a febrile condition, especially associated with malaria, characterized by alternating periods of chills, fever, and sweating
.’ I also looked up Jesuits Powder. It’s just powdered quinine. Jesuit missionaries in Peru back in the 17th century learned about it from the natives. They would give the bark of a local tree to tribe members when they fell ill with the symptoms of the disease that we now know as Malaria. The priests brought the bark, in powder form, back to England and it eventually made its way to the United States. Jesuits Powder is known today as a drug called quinine.”

Lindsey had heard of the disease and that it was still rampant in most third world countries, but she didn’t know exactly what it was. As if on cue, Marissa pulled a tattered copy of a scientific magazine from her bag. There was a bright pink slip of paper sticking out of it to mark her page. She flipped the magazine open and began to read a highlighted passage out loud.

“I
was
allowed to borrow this, though,” She said of the magazine. “This is from an August 2009 story by Andrew Palich: ‘
A mosquito lands on your arm as you sit on your back porch. You watch as it assumes its hunched, tail-over-head posture. You smack it, leaving a smudge of blood on your skin. You think nothing more of it. You go back to your burger, drink, and conversation. But if she was a carrier of the plasmodia parasite, the infection has begun. Your body has no clue that things are about to haywire but the countdown clock is ticking.

“‘Plasmodia – one-celled, worm-like creatures – live in the infected mosquito's salivary glands. Over fifty thousand of them could swim in a droplet of saliva the size of a period. They rush through your bloodstream and take up residence in your liver where they each pick out a liver cell and hunker down for the next week or two. All the while that clock is ticking away to D-day
’.

“The story goes on to explain how one deadly species of plasmodia,
Plasmodium falciparum
, is especially virulent. It attacks the brain and has a 95% death rate.”

Marissa ran her finger down the two-column page, stopping here and there. “It says that pregnant women are ‘especially susceptible’ to the disease.”

Lindsey squinted her eyes in confusion. “But how does it
kill
? And what about what Sadie told us last night. She said something about the woman, Abigail, dying from the air or something like that.”

“I'll get to the air thing. Essentially what happens is that these parasites live in the mosquito’s salivary glands and are injected into the blood stream when the insect feeds. The parasite is filtered out in the liver where it hijacks liver cells. For a week or so, the parasite eats the cell’s contents and multiplies. The cell finally reaches a breaking point and explodes, sending like 40,000 parasites PER CELL into the bloodstream. They start invading red blood cells which is really bad because red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body and brain. 

“At this point, according to Palich, ‘
The body finally realizes it’s been ambushed. Flu-like symptoms – headache, muscle pains, and fever alert you that you immune system has begun to fight, but it’s too late. If this is your first bout of malaria, the immune response will be virtually ineffective. The fever continues to rise and you start to shiver. You become drenched in sweat as your insides boil. Your lungs struggle to provide oxygen to your blood as the red blood cells are mostly destroyed. Your brain begins to swell and your heart is working overtime.
’