Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1) (16 page)

“You are the tiniest bit too bright to be considered thick. But wisdom, well I do wonder if you’ll ever attain that,” Moira Hagan said with a smirk as she looked into the fire. “No it surprises me you have grasped the ability to project your thoughts. It is a talent that most acquire last. The difficult you seem to do with amazing ease. The easy things, like quieting your thoughts, are nearly impossible for you.”

“Nearly impossible for now,” Julian said.

“Alright, I’ll go along with your, ‘for now,’ but let’s hurry it along. I don’t plan on living forever just to prove you right.” Moira and her student shared a smile.

The fire illuminated half of her face giving her next words added gravity.

“Julian, I do have a rather important question to put to you. You need not answer now, but you will need to answer soon.”

“Yes?”

“What frightens you?” she asked.

Julian closed his eyes and let his chin rest on his chest. He took a very deep breath, exhaled and his thoughts took over. “
I knew you would ask that eventually. I had in fact practiced some very snappy replies, but they were all lame and shallow – even for me.”

“No, Julian. I want you to speak the words and I want to listen as you say them,” his companion said softly.

He continued aloud, “I have given this a lot of thought since I started working with you. I have examined the thing from every possible direction and discovered something.

“The complex answers I concocted always ended up looking a lot like rationalizations while the simple answers all pointed to the truth. Moira, I am afraid of nearly everything.”

Moira continued to stare into the fire as Julian fell silent. She turned to look, not at him, but into him when he continued.

“I am very serious. I am afraid of both sides of everything. I am afraid people will know me – the real me and I am afraid I will die unknown. I am afraid to be happy and am terrified I will never know happiness. I am afraid of being a friend because I don’t know how to be one and the thought of losing one is terrifying to me. I am afraid to love because I don’t know how to receive love or what to do with it. I am afraid of being intimate with someone and afraid I will never be truly close to anyone.

“Not in the things we practice of course, but I am afraid of not being good enough all the while hoping people don’t believe I think I’m too good. I am afraid I will never get a handle on all that you have shown me and that what little I have grasped will somehow slip away.”

Moira listened to him as he continued the litany of his fears. She looked deep inside the man and knew the measure of his sincerity. After a while, Julian went silent, spent from the effort of summoning up his personal torments.

“You have not mentioned the one thing people fear most, why is that?” Moira asked.

“Why is that? I have not even plumbed the depth of how much I don’t know. I have no idea what people fear most.”

“Death, boyo. They fear death in all its many ways and means, yet you mention it not a’tall. Why is that?”

“That, Moira is sadly simple. It is the one coin of which I fear only one side. I’m not afraid of dying. I am afraid of living.”

Teacher and student sat in silence while the firelight painted the walls. Shapes and shadows lingered and merged, softened and disappeared.

“It is time to face those fears of course, but then you know that,” Moira said. “You have told me something of your life before you arrived. In your old life, your risk-taking was always calculated and when the reward out-weighed the risk, you rolled the dice. Winning and losing was based on your ability alone to read the financial tealeaves, but rearranging the tealeaves a bit worked too. In your own way, you could win if you could direct, redirect or predict the course of life. Would that be a fair statement?”

Julian nodded.

“Well, my young friend, it is time for you to learn the sort of power that awaits and the protection it affords you. Time for you Julian, to discover you are in league with life rather than fighting to outflank it.

“The best way to gain the knowledge you need is for you to risk without the least hope of a reward. It is a thing that is more important than you know. It will be hard for you, but you must do it and keep doing it until it becomes not second but first nature. You see, you must know when calculating your risks is necessary and you must know when to risk all for no reason at all other than you know it to be right.

“To some degree you have come to know the people of the village and the valley. What do you suppose would happen if you made it a habit of telling each exactly what you thought of them?”

“You’re joking of course,” Julian said wrinkling his forehead in consternation.

“I am not. This isn’t your former life. These people are simple as is your life here. A simple truth will not offend. What would happen, do you think, if you went around and told each of them your observations of what they meant to the village, or what impact they had on you? The short of it is you have a debt to repay and that is an easy first payment.

“These people are Irish and so they hold a foreigner like you at an arm’s length, but you’ve grown on them over time and so they have softened toward you. They have allowed you into their lives even if only to a small degree and they have given you a place to rebuild yourself.

“In the short time you have been here you have done some good already. You have given these people a view of a world that exists outside of their own. That is a wonderful gift, but you can give more and in so doing, you just might come to grips with your fears.

“You’ve an outsider’s eye. Think of Sean Maher and Ailís Dwyer. Think of that priest, Fahey and Thomas Cahill. Think of what they mean to the village and then think they will never know it unless you tell them. Share your observations so they can see what you see. Sharing yourself will follow naturally. Don’t be afraid to be human, Julian. They’ll see you are not as foreign as you appear and I think you’ll come to know the truth of that yourself,” Moira said.

“You may gain from this experience. You may not. But this much I do know, this time there is no way to calculate the odds.

“Remember, Julian, by taking time to connect with another human being, you are connecting with the life inside yourself. With that connection will come a freedom from fear.

“Know this, you are coming to a time when you must be devoid of your fears if you are to be able to invoke the power and the protection you’ll need. You must face your fears now, but how you face them is really up to you,” Julian’s teacher said.

“I will leave you to think on these things, Julian. I know you will come to find within yourself the best course of action. Good night to you.”

Julian continued to stare into the fire as Moira Hagan rose, crossed the room and left, closing the door quietly behind her. The sun rose in the morning and found Julian still gazing into the remnants of the peat fire. He got up slowly, took a shower and went to bed. He had work to do and he would need at least a little rest before he started it.

***
107
***

Timothy Dwyer waited under the twisted birch tree in front of St. Michael’s school for his friend Brendan Maher. As usual, Brendan was hustled out the front door of his family’s home right on time and hard on his heels was Brendan’s dog Dunla. Timothy smiled and waved and his friend waved back and picked up the pace.

“So Dunla is on her way to school then,” Timothy said and laughed.

“DDDon’t be daft. She waits for me here,” Brendan answered his friend.

Brendan laid out a small blanket under the shade of the birch tree, and then took out a tin bowl he had brought which he filled with water at the side of the school building and brought it back to Dunla.

Brendan communicated with Dunla by gesturing with his hand that he wanted her to lie down. Once she was settled, Brendan put her water down beside her. “Oi know you will, but be a good dog. Oi’ll be back soon,” Brendan said in Gaelic and he and Timothy hurried inside the school.

As they made their way to class Timothy asked, “How is it she knows what you want? It’s like she was a person. She seems to understand you perfectly.”

“AAAAnimals are like that, but Dunla is sssspecial. She is the best ddog ever.”

“That she is, Brendan. You’re lucky and so is she.”

***

Bobby McMaster was late. He was nearly always late, but he carried a stock of plausible excuses. This time he was late for school and his excuses were wearing progressively thin with Sister Eugenia.

As he hurried to school, he passed the big birch tree. Although he hadn’t seen Dunla, she had seen him and moreover she had remembered. She stood at Bobby McMaster’s approach, head down, hackles up, teeth bared. Only the low rumble of her growl made her presence known and McMaster skirted the tree mumbling curses under his breath.

“Mister McMaster!” Sister Eugenia barked as the boy entered the schoolroom.

“Sister?” the boy responded.

“You are late and doubtless you have another fanciful explanation.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Sister. It was Brendan Maher’s dog. She chased me, Oi fell down, and I had to fight her off.”

“TTTThat’s a lie!” Brendan said jumping to his feet.

Bobby McMaster turned away from Sister Eugenia and toward Brendan and smiled maliciously.

“McMaster, take your seat. Brendan, please see me after class.”

“BBBut, Sister,” Brendan stuttered.

“But nothing, Mr. Maher, you will see me after class. Now sit.”

After class, Brendan and Timothy approached Sister Eugenia’s desk. The nun continued writing in her lesson plan as the boys stood uneasily before her. Although Brendan and Timothy were not in the same grade, she knew to expect Timothy at Brendan’s side.

She set down her pen, sat upright in her chair, and addressed Brendan Maher as though Timothy Dwyer wasn’t present at all.

“Brendan, I have a choice for you. Either leave your dog at home or secure her to that tree outside school. I do not say this to be unkind, please understand that. You can go. Mr. Dwyer you will stay.”

With his eyes burning with tears of frustration at the injustice, Brendan left the schoolroom.

“Timothy, I asked Brendan to see me after class. Under normal circumstances I would have chastised you and sent you on your way for your presumptuousness in staying with him, but Brendan is a singular case. I know you are a special friend of his. I know you are able to influence him and so I allowed you to stay. I have kept you behind now so that you will be able to show Brendan the wisdom of my decision.”

“But Sister, Dunla would never have chased Bobby McMaster. She does nothing without Brendan saying so. Honest, Sister. She is innocent and this is wrong,” Timothy said.

“That is enough!” the nun said slapping the top of her desk with the flat of her hand in a way that made Timothy jump. She took a long slow breath and continued in a calm voice.

“You are a bright boy, Timothy, but no amount of brightness will take the place of experience. I realize the dog is a good one. I have seen her at Brendan’s side all summer and never have I seen her act out of turn. I only wish my students were half so well behaved.

“You must realize this and, more importantly, you must make Brendan realize that by leaving that dog unsecured Brendan is playing right into the hands of the Bobby McMasters of this world.

“I could have had McMaster here in front of me instead of you and your friend, but Brendan gave that great bully McMaster the perfect excuse to escape punishment. So now, he is out on the playground tormenting one of the other children and you and Brendan are here.

“Do you understand, Timothy? Do you understand that all of our choices have consequences intended and unintended. Sometimes the purest motives and intentions bring us great grief, but the grief from our unconsidered actions is more bitter still. Give Bobby McMaster no further excuses,” Sister Eugenia said.

“Yes, Sister,” Timothy said without conviction.

Brendan had gone home, and brought back a length of cord. He wound it loosely around the tree so Dunla would not become tangled. With tears in his eyes, he knotted the other end of the line inside the dog’s collar. He spoke to her in Gaelic so he would not stutter, “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, but Sister is making me do this.”

Brendan Maher with both fists clenched then went looking for Bobby McMaster.

It had been a night and a day, another night and now on the second day after Moira Hagan’s visit to Julian, he emerged with a plan.

The first stop on Julian’s list was Edmond Brady’s shop. Julian had never known anyone so versatile, so accomplished, and so confident in his abilities. Brady’s sign told it all – Brady the man to see to fix anything. Julian decided he would take that truth-in-advertising concept a step further by letting Brady know his true value.

Julian’s analysis was detailed and far-reaching.

Next on the tour was Flynn's General Store where Julian stated his observations of the man and the importance of his business to the village and the valley. He explored with Flynn the financial state of the man’s store.

Julian catalogued each aspect of village life that was being supported by the store and how Flynn could play an even greater role in the future of the valley.

It was a short walk to the Apothecary and the bells above the door tinkled as Julian entered.

Julian waited until both of the Hackett sisters appeared behind the counter. As always, they were dressed in gleaming white, starched blouses, black jackets and long black skirts. Each was replete with an identical watch on her jacket above the breast pocket just as they had when he first came to Cappel Vale.

“Ladies, I am a stranger here and as such I am conflicted. I bring a unique perspective with me. I can see clearly things that you may not have noticed. At the same time I feel a certain reluctance in discussing my findings with you.” This introduction had been a formula he had practiced on both Brady and Flynn and it had easily hooked both crafty men.

“Do continue,” the sisters said with more excitement then he had ever seen them demonstrate.

“It stands like this, ladies. You and your shop are integral to the life of this area. I know you are meticulous in dispensing the medications Dr. Dwyer prescribes, but there is more to it than that.

“Not everyone takes his or her ailments to the doctor. People depend on you two, on your establishment, to give them the advice and help they need. It is you who provide the herbs and poultices, the compresses and the wisdom. It is you who blend your knowledge and your care into every remedy and it is you whom the valley loves.

“Ladies, with time we all fade away and find our final reward elsewhere. I am telling you it is imperative that you do not allow your shop to follow. The people’s needs must not be abandoned. Modern medicine does much to alleviate suffering to be sure. You know this as well as I do, but the folkways must not be forsaken and neither must the people, your people.

“For the love the people have for you and you for them, you owe the Apothecary’s continuation to them. Perhaps I have said too much. I will leave you now to think about this and to not think ill of me for having said it.” With that, Julian nodded, turned and walked out the door. Both of the Hackett sisters stared open mouthed after him and then turned to each other in stunned silence before tears began to roll down their cheeks.

Julian worked his way through O'Gavagan's Pubs – he had to visit both before he found the elusive O’Gavagan. Done there, Julian crossed the street and dealt out the cards face up to Francis Mulherin at the pub of that name before he closed on St. Michael’s Catholic Church.

Father Fahey was just coming out of the rectory as Julian approached the church.

“Julian Blessing, saints be praised, would you be here for confession? Is that what brings you to the church at midday?” Father Fahey asked.

“No Father, it is you who brings me to the church today. I come with a message especially for you. I’m afraid confession is not my purpose today. No, I come on another mission altogether.

“I am here to tell you a story about a young priest who joined St. Michael’s in the 1960s and about the love and respect he imparted and engendered.”

Julian left the church half an hour later leaving a shaken Father Fahey in his wake.

Thomas Cahill was next on the agenda and the Mayor of Cappel Vale felt drained and fully sober by the time Julian was done.

Julian continued his relentless door-to-door campaign of telling people how important they were to the valley until he ran into Sean Maher.

“May I speak to you in private a moment Sean?” Julian asked when he met his friend on the village’s main thoroughfare.

“Never fear, friend Julian. Oi always have time for you even though Oi was about to make time for a pint.”

“Well, that’s important business, so I’ll get straight to the point, Sean. I envy you.”

“Oi’m sorry, you were saying something, but Oi must have got it wrong,” Sean said.

“I envy you. You are a man who has it all and I unabashedly covet what you have,” Julian said with a warm smile.

“Julian, you envy me. Is that what you said? What in the name of God do Oi have that would be of the slightest interest to you?”

“You have a warm and welcoming home. You have a wife who loves you. You have the twins, your daughters and your son Brendan who all adore you. You have your honor. You are a man who lives a simple and abundant life. You have everything, Sean.

“The people of the valley respect you. One need only mention Sean Maher and people know, not who you are, but what you are. You are known, loved, respected. The valley would be a far poorer place without you,” Julian said with terrifying sincerity.

Sean Maher had taken all of this in while looking at his shoes. “Julian. Julian?” He looked up now to see the back of his friend as he walked away. “Julian?” he said weakly. Sean’s next thought was, “Now, Oi really need a pint!”

***

When Moira Hagan entered Mulherin's Pub looking for Thomas Cahill she was greeted by a sight of soul eviscerating devastation. Seated at one long table were Sean Maher, Jimmy Grogan, Ailís Dwyer, Edmond Brady, and Old Man Flynn.

Sitting in a curtained off section of the pub in an area called the tearoom sat Sisters Eugenia and Gertrude at one table and the Hackett twins at another. O'Gavagan was leaning on the bar staring into a pint of bitter while Francis Mulherin absentmindedly washed glasses behind the bar.

Father Fahey entered and strode to the bar and ordered a whiskey neat. The time was eleven o’clock in the morning.

The priest downed his drink and ordered another. Mulherin arched an eyebrow and the priest looked murderously at the landlord who poured a second drink in order to save his own soul. Father Fahey joined the long table and after a wary nod to Moira Hagan, he took a seat.

“Who is the wake for today?” Moira joked.

“He envies me and people respect me,” Maher said quietly.

“He? Who?” Moira asked even though she had a sinking feeling she knew the answer.

“Mr. Julian says the valley needs me,” Brady added.

“Without me the valley might survive, but never the village,” Flynn chimed in.

“What have we here?” Moira Hagan asked then answered her own question. “A thinking priest. It is a terrible thing to behold truly. What say you priest?”

“As God is my judge I felt like I was in the presence of a minor saint. The man reminded me that my life and my soul were precious gifts and not to be used frivolously. He caused me to think hard about what Oi represented to the people of the parish. He spoke with absolute humility and he humbled me in the process.”

“He has gone mad of course,” Sean Maher said.

“Would that we were all so mad,” Flynn added.

“True, ’tis true,” they all chorused with murmuring voices lost in thought.

“Jimmy Grogan, you’ve not said a word,” the Hagan remarked. “What says a nasty little piece of work like you?”

The young man’s eyes brimmed with tears before he spoke. “He told me I didn’t have to be a nasty little piece of work. He said I was made of sterner stuff and that the world expected more from me and that it was time I started to deliver the goods.”

“Good advice. Perhaps we have all underestimated our Mr. Blessing, eh?” Moira said quietly.

“Aye, perhaps we have, but I’ll not underestimate him again. I believe he is blessed or mad or both,” Father Fahey said for them all.

Moira Hagan sat and studied the group closely. Their thoughts ran in similar veins. She could see those thoughts mirrored clearly on each face. Each finished his drink slowly and left the pub lost in a private world of thought and emotion.

“Doctor?”

Ailís Dwyer looked up and then looked around the nearly empty pub. The landlord continued to clean glasses and put them away. Moira Hagan was seated directly across from the doctor.

“You’ve run into Mr. Julian have you not?” the Hagan asked.

“I have and if called on I would have made something up. I could never tell the truth of what he said.”

“There are only we two now.” Moira looked concerned.

“Like the others, he told me the contribution I was making made a difference in the lives of people, but he went into detail – great detail, very great detail. He knew things he should not have known. He had individual examples and he covered each in turn.

“There was something compelling about what he said and the way he said it that forced me to listen. His voice was so soft I had to strain to hear him. He wasn’t just being honest or sincere though. It was as though his life depended on what he was telling me. When he was done, I felt wrung out, shell-shocked. I was exhausted, but he wasn’t.”

The doctor continued. “He looked into my eyes as though he could see clearly into my soul. His eyes – those soft, deep-set, warm, gray-sky eyes mesmerized me. I couldn’t look away from him. I tell you I was paralyzed. I couldn’t have moved if I had wanted to.”

The doctor went on more slowly. “I’m sure you wouldn’t believe it, but he told me he cared a great deal for me. Then he just smiled, took both my hands in his. At his touch, I could feel some kind of shock, yes an electric shock, that was it. He looked at me for a full minute. His smile was so gentle, so, I don’t know, intimate, tender. I don’t think I drew a breath for the whole time.

“Then he turned and went on his way. He left me standing there literally speechless. And there was something more, something odd. When he let go of my hands, I could hardly feel them. There was this strange gentle, almost tender tingling sensation. I looked at them and my hands were shaking. I can’t explain that. I can’t explain any of it. I’ve not been so shaken in my life. I was moved and stunned and frightened and touched and honored and could hardly breathe all at the same time.

“Do you think he is crazy?” the doctor asked.

Moira patted the doctor’s hands, “Perhaps he has lost his mind a little,” she said at last, “but I believe he has found something far more important and so have we.”

Each woman sat and reflected on all that had been said and thought and felt. They were silent and still for a long time. The clinking of Francis Mulherin’s glasses as he put them away was the only sound that marked the passage of time.

Moira recovered herself first. “Let’s talk about you, shall we? Ailís, do you mind if I give you a prescription?”

The doctor gave a puzzled look, but said nothing.

Moira smiled kindly and with a gentle knowing voice continued, “I want you to go home. Darlin’ you have an aching inside of you. ’Tis an ache you have carried for too long. You need to go to your room, get comfortable and, well, do something about it. You know what to do. It will only be a temporary fix, but it will hold you for now if you keep at it.”

“What?” Ailís Dwyer shook her head and began questioning if not her sanity at least her hearing.

“What? What! What are you saying? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you mad too? No, the whole world has gone mad!” The doctor was flushed, but the color rose higher and she found her face burned and her breath was coming in shorts shallow gasps.

“I have no idea,’ is it? Well then do an old woman a favor, would you?”

Ailís was mistrustful. Her ears felt absurdly hot. “What is it you want then? But I’ll not have any more of your conclusions regarding my personal health. My very personal and very private health, mind you Moira Hagan.”

“It was sheer poetry the way you put it. The Irish are a poetic lot, don’t you think? Tell me again about his – what did you say – ‘soft, deep-set, warm eyes like the color of a gray sky?’ And I believe you mentioned he left you with a, what is it you said, yes – a tender tingling. Tell me again about the gentleness and the intimacy you shared with that man.

“You just think about that when you see to yourself, eh lass.” Moria’s lips broke into a small perceptive smile. She had struck home with the doctor and both of the women knew it.

Ailís let out a quiet, staccato high-pitched moan and her face tightened. “Enough, I have a practice to attend to. I’m sure I don’t know what you are saying and I don’t want to know. Best you leave it before you embarrass yourself further.”

“Embarrass myself, is it? It isn’t I who’ve begun to sweat like a draft horse – yes, just there on your lovely forehead. It isn’t myself whose face and neck look to be about to combust at any moment. ’Tisn’t I who is losing her mind with need.”

With that, the doctor launched herself to her feet. She felt her legs would fail even as her pulse raced and a wave of lightheadedness washed over her. She clutched the table and straightened herself.

It is difficult at the best of times to look dignified while seeking any solid object for support. For Ailís Dwyer this was not the best of times. Her attempt at a majestic exit was stunningly unsuccessful.

Moira Hagan smiled and her eyes were on fire with mischief and then her thoughts turned to Julian. The distance between mischief and malice is very short.

On unsteady legs, the doctor made her way to her office. She climbed the stairs to her bedroom above the examination rooms. She closed and locked the door, then crumpled onto her bed. The doctor panted as she struggled to breathe and closed her eyes willing her head to clear without success.

The young woman rolled onto her side and doubled over with a sustained whimper and an acute longing to be touched, to be caressed, to be held, to be wanted. Ailís Dwyer could still see him. Soft, deep-set warm gray eyes… a gentle tingling... intimate…tender… shared… That was the thought Ailís held in her mind as she found the relief she so desperately sought.