3 Ghosts of Our Fathers (3 page)

“What kind does your dad make?”
Daniel asked.

Steven shook his head. “I really
don’t know. I just assumed that protection was protection, all the same.”

“Everyone has their own recipe,”
Daniel said. “Your dad’s is probably his own personal preference. Do you have
some around?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,”
Steven said, walking to the kitchen to find the bottle. He located it hidden
behind the cereal boxes in a cabinet.

“Would you mind if I sampled it?”
Daniel asked. “In addition to my time studies, I’m a bit of a protection
connoisseur.”

“Sure,” Steven said, handing him
the bottle. Daniel raised it to his lips and took a mouthful. After a moment,
his eyes went wide, staring at Steven. Then he swallowed it.

“What?” asked Steven. “Too
strong?”

Daniel left the room and returned
with the collector knife, invisible in his hand. “Could I pour a little into
this?” he asked, removing the top and exposing the hollow inside.

“Why?” asked Steven.

“I want to analyze it. I’ve never
tasted anything quite like yours.”

“OK,” Steven said slowly,
wondering what oddity Roy was using. Daniel took the bottle, entered the flow,
poured a tiny amount into the top of the blade, then handed the bottle back to
Steven. He left the room and returned to his bedroom.

Steven followed him. Daniel raised
the knife to the box, but stopped.

“Oh,” he said. “I can’t analyze
this without losing the sample of the glass man. I’ll have to wait until I get
home and get this sample transferred, then I’ll take a look at the makeup of
your father’s protection.”

“So it tastes unusual?” Steven
asked.

“Everyone’s recipe is a little
different, so there’s always slightly different tastes. But this one is unique.
It doesn’t taste like most of them.”

“Probably too much vodka,” Steven
offered.

“It’s liberal on the vodka, yes,”
Daniel said. “But it’s not just that. There’s something else very interesting
going on.” He stretched his arms, extending his fingers, feeling the protection
moving through his body. “It feels like a general protection, but it feels
different. Stronger, more intense and focused. Whoa!” Daniel spread his fingers
wide, then curled them into a fist. He smiled.

He turned to look at Steven. “Your
dad makes some good shit, my friend!”

Steven smiled. Roy hadn’t yet
confided his recipe to him, but with Daniel’s help he might be able to needle
it out of him.

“You realize you won’t be going to
sleep now for at least another hour,” Steven said.

“Don’t care,” Daniel said. “I have
other work I can do. Why don’t you try to sleep? I’m going to leave as soon as
I wake up in the morning.”

“Wake me up before you go,” Steven
said, “and thanks for your help Daniel. I don’t know how I would have figured
any of this out without your help.”

“Oh, no problem,” Daniel said.
“And let me tell you, this shot of protection was worth the trip!”

Steven saw Daniel off the next
morning and decided to spend some time with Roy’s book, which was  at Roy’s
house. As he drove over to Roy’s, he imagined his father and Dixon blissfully
ignorant of what was happening here at home.
He deserves a break,
he
thought.
I can handle this on my own.

At Roy’s he let himself in and put
on a pot of coffee. Then he sat at the kitchen table where Roy’s book had been sitting
for quite a while. Steven began leafing through it.

It was composed of several
sections, each one newer and bound to the previous sections. He was the fifth
generation of Halls to be reading it, and he expected some day he’d add his own
section onto the end. It was already a few inches thick and a little unwieldy
to carry, but after hearing Daniel describe how rare such a book was, he
resolved that when it passed into his hands he’d make sure it was freshly bound
and any delicate pages preserved. Maybe he’d even digitize it as a backup.

As he turned the pages, he kept an
eye out for sections that he might understand. Most of the book seemed written
in a cryptic way that made no sense. He knew the words were English, but when
he read them he couldn’t piece together a meaning. Once he had some experience
with a subject it gave him a personal context and he found the words began to click
in his mind and their meaning cleared. Several sections had opened up to him
after he’d been exposed to ghosts and some of the creatures he and Roy had come
across recently. He was hoping now that he’d had a brush with the glass man
he’d be able to find something in the book that helped him.

He was surprised to find an extended
section from Roy’s grandfather, Charles. It read clearly to Steven, and he
assumed this was because it dealt with something he’d been exposed to. Hoping
it was something that might shed some light on his current situation he poured
a cup of coffee and read.

January 21 – Teresa has been
terrified by Jenny Mae for several nights. I agreed to sit with her and examine
the manifestation. She says JM appears every night just as she is trying to
fall asleep. I will set up a chair in Teresa’s room and observe and see what I
can do to help. Teresa looks as though she has not slept in many nights. She
tells me she often succumbs to sudden and uncontrollable bouts of vomiting when
the child appears. Something must be done.  —  Just as Teresa said, her head
had not been on the pillow for more than a couple of minutes before the ghostly
apparition of JM appeared. Since she was only three years old when she passed
on, her spirit was about two feet tall, and it materialised, hovering in the
air at the foot of Teresa’s bed, and it drifted up towards Teresa, who appeared
terrified, pulling the bed covers up around her chin in fright. The floating
child’s face was angry that Teresa wasn’t wanting to play, and it repeatedly
flew at her with an angry scowl, Teresa cowering her head under the covers each
time the child approached. The child worked into a frenzy and eventually let
out a wail neighbors in the next county could have heard. Teresa screamed in
response. This angered the child more. I rushed to Teresa’s side to comfort her
and to see if my presence would calm her, since her reactions to the apparition
were in my opinion the reason it was accelerating its haunting of her. The
ghost child was drifting around the room and when it saw me next to Teresa it
became angry again. It began to shake in place, as though it was being rapidly
moved back and forth an inch each time, and I felt myself shaking too, in
response. I suddenly felt very dizzy and disoriented, and was afraid I might
throw up. I slipped into the River and had the impression that I was being
physically dislocated. I observed my body and Teresa’s body shifting in small,
unusual ways, just like the shaking of the ghost child. When I had the good
sense to look at my wristwatch, it all came clear to me. The hands of the watch
were rapidly moving backwards and forwards. One moment it would read two seconds
later, the next several seconds prior. In its anger the ghost child was
whipping us backwards and forwards in time, and it was making both Teresa and
myself ill, as our mortal minds were not able to handle anything other than the
passing of normal sequential time. I could see the child knew this would be the
result of its attack upon us. The sicker Teresa became, the more it smiled and
giggled. It liked that it could punish her for not playing with her and doing
as it wanted. I stood and banished it from the room, but it took several tries
before it would leave, and by this time Teresa was violently ill indeed.

January 22 – I gave Teresa a
potion just before bedtime that I believe will help alleviate the attacks of
the ghost child. Tonight I watched as the child appeared, became angry, and
began to shake once again, but Teresa was fine and after a while the child gave
up and faded away. I told Teresa we would try again the next day.

January 23 – Again Teresa drank
the medicine I provided her and once again as the ghost appeared and tried to
whip her back and forth in time it came to naught. Teresa laid back down in bed
and attempted to go back to sleep even before JM had disappeared from the room.
I believe so long as she takes the precautions I have provided to her, she will
be able to get to sleep and stay asleep regardless of what the ghost in her
bedroom attempts. She promised me she would continue with the potion, and I
agreed to check on her in a week.

January 29 – All is well, JM has
given up attempting to haunt Teresa any longer now that Teresa cannot be made
ill and the child’s vengeance is denied. I will continue supplying Teresa with
potion for another month, and after that time, provided JM doesn’t appear, she
can try forgoing the medicine and see if a new pattern has been developed,
hopefully one in which JM doesn’t appear at all.

Below this last entry Charles had
drawn an image of the ghost child floating at the foot of the bed of a young
woman. Seeing its little feet dangling in the air gave Steven a chill.
I
hope I never run into such a thing,
he thought.

The concept of time being used as
a weapon was new to him.
Charles must have had a recipe for a time-based
protection, like the stuff Daniel gave me
, he thought. He wondered if the
recipe was in the book, or if it had been passed down to David and Roy.
Perhaps
Roy’s protection incorporates it?

Steven turned the page and kept
scanning for more passages that he could interpret. Of all his progenitors, Charles
seemed to have the most time-related entries. Just as he found a section on
time binding, his phone rang. It was Daniel.

“Steven, I’m sorry to call,”
Daniel said. He sounded worried.

“Sure, are you in trouble?”

“Kind of,” Daniel replied. “I’ve
broken down just outside of Ellensburg. My car isn’t the most reliable thing
but I thought it would make it. Apparently not. I’ve got a truck coming but the
best they’ll do is tow me to Ellensburg.”

“I’m on my way,” Steven said. “See
you in a couple of hours.”

Steven left the book and poured
the rest of the pot of coffee into a travel mug. Then he locked up Roy’s house,
got in his car, and headed east on I-90 as fast as he could go.

-

Steven found Daniel at an auto
repair shop in Ellensburg. The car would be finished by the end of the day.
They decided to return to Spokane in the meantime so Daniel could finish
analyzing the piece of the glass man collected by the knife. Steven would drop
Daniel off to pick up his car in Ellensburg on his return drive home.

Steven told Daniel about the
passages he’d found in Roy’s book as they drove to Spokane.

“I was wondering, since Charles
had a protection with some kind of time element in it, perhaps it’s been worked
into the stuff that Roy uses all the time?” Steven asked.

“Very possibly,” Daniel replied.
“There’s a lot going on in your father’s juice, let me tell you. It could very well
have some time stuff already in it. I don’t know how Roy feels about sharing
the family information, but if Charles had a lot of time experiences I would
love to read through them. There aren’t a lot of works on the subject and I’ve
exhausted all the ones I have; it’d be like fresh blood to me.”

“Well, I suppose I could ask him,”
Steven said. “When he’s back.”

They talked more about the book
and Daniel’s take on time bindings before the subject seemed worn out and
silence filled the car.

“So,” Steven said, struggling to
keep the conversation going, “you know Eliza?”

“Yes,” Daniel replied.

“How long have you known her?”

“Almost twenty years.”

“You’ll have to forgive me,”
Steven said, “the River is all new to me; did you two meet because of that? Do
you guys have conventions or something?”

“No,” Daniel replied, “we met in a
chat room, online. I think our mutual interests sparked things, but there was
an attraction there for sure.”

“Oh, you two were a thing?” Steven
asked.

“For a while,” Daniel said.
“Troy’s my son.”

Whoa
, Steven thought.

“Eliza didn’t tell you?” Daniel
asked. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing she didn’t.”

“No, she didn’t,” Steven answered.
So what?
Steven thought.
It doesn’t matter. Don’t overreact.

“You know how you can really like
someone,” Daniel said, “but could never live with them? That’s me and Eliza.”

“So you really like her?”

“Who doesn’t?” Daniel said. “She’s
immediately likeable. Everybody loves her. I just couldn’t live with her. And
we haven’t had a ‘thing’ for many years now. We’re friends. More like professional
acquaintances than anything. She has a lot of those.”

“And Troy?” Steven asked.

“I don’t understand that part,”
Daniel said. “I offered child support, I offered to stick around and be his
dad, but she didn’t want any of that. She wanted to raise him entirely on her
own without my involvement. I wasn’t too happy with that arrangement at first,
but she insisted. I decided to honor her requests and stay out of his life.
I’ve only met him once. That was a hard day, let me tell you.”

“I’ll bet,” Steven said. He
thought about his son, Jason, and couldn’t imagine not being involved with him.
But then, Jason was at college and was busy with school and friends. He didn’t
see him very often, which seemed like the right thing to do, to let him live
his own life without a lot of interference. Hell, he’d been pretty distant from
Roy up until this year, when Roy stepped in to help him. In reality he hadn’t
been all that close with his own father in the past, or even with his son now.
Best
not to judge,
he thought.

Once they reached Daniel’s house
in Spokane, Daniel set about analyzing the sample he had stored in the box. He
placed it in a much larger wooden box, about the size of an old 27” television.
After several minutes he began to see the symbols he was looking for.

“Far more complex,” Daniel said,
interpreting the symbols. “But we’re getting there. Can you write this down,
Steven, while I dictate? It will be easier.”

“Sure,” Steven said, sitting at a
small desk and arranging some paper for him to record Daniel’s comments.

“His name is…Frank Wilmon…” Daniel
said, spelling the last name. “He’s been trapped since…1933.”

“Eighty years!” Steven said under
his breath.

“He died in 1974,” Daniel
continued. “The cage was constructed by…”

Daniel paused.

“…Sean and Garth Wilmon, his sons,
ages seven and five at the time.” Daniel turned to look at Steven. They both
seemed surprised.

“That wasn’t what I was
expecting,” Daniel said.

“Me either,” Steven replied. “Is
there more?”

“Yes,” Daniel said, returning to
the symbols. “Sean passed away. But Garth is still alive.”

“Does it say where he is?” Steven
asked.

“No,” Daniel replied, “but you can
usually find that out in other ways, like the internet.”

“Can I use this computer, here?”
Steven asked, referring to the computer sitting next to him on the desk.

“Sure,” Daniel said. He returned
to the symbols, looking for more information.

Steven began searching for Garth
Wilmon. It didn’t take long to locate a phone number which had a 360 area code.

“Found it,” Steven said, “looks
like the Olympia area. I’m going to give it a call.”

Daniel didn’t respond, immersed in
reading more symbols.

Steven dialed the number. “This is
Tall Pines, how may I direct your call?”

Steven paused. Tall Pines? Was it
a hotel? “Can you connect me to Garth Wilmon?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilmon isn’t in
his room right now. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Sure, but before I do, can you
tell me what Tall Pines is? Are you a hotel?”

“We’re an assisted living care
facility, sir,” came the voice on the phone.

Ah, of course,
Steven thought.
“What are your visiting hours?”

“Anytime between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.,
every day.”

“Yes, would you leave Mr. Wilmon a
message?” Steven asked. “Tell him that Mr. Hall needs to meet with him, and
I’ll be there tomorrow morning first thing.”

“Can I tell him what it’s
regarding?”

Steven thought. “Yes, tell him
it’s regarding Frank.”

“OK, I’ll leave this message for
him.”

“Thank you,” Steven said, hanging
up.

Steven turned to Daniel, who was
focused on the readout once again. “There’s no way I’ll make it to Olympia
before 10 p.m. tonight when they stop visiting hours,” he told him.

Daniel looked up. “Your dad’s
protection is off the charts. It has more variants than any I’ve ever seen, and
at the same time it’s the most pure I’ve ever seen. Impressive.”