Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1) (23 page)

Julian’s face mirrored the pain his injuries still caused him. He found himself leaning heavily on the borrowed cane. Stopping to catch his breath, he wiped his forehead with his hand. It was a cool day, but Julian felt hot and tired. His muscles cried out for a hot shower and a chance to rest.

Sean approached and asked Julian if he would join the Mahers for supper before they returned to the search. Julian’s chest ached and he wanted to unwrap it in the hope of breathing deeply. He thanked Sean for the offer, but said he would just clean up a little and they would meet again in an hour.

Julian made it to the police station with slow, painful steps. He removed his shirt, wiped down his upper body with a wet cloth and lay down, intent on a few moments rest. The shower could wait. Minutes later he swung his legs off the bed, got up unsteadily and grabbed for his shirt.

“Come in, Doctor,” he said softly before the knock landed on the door. He could feel her nearly the way she had been. Urgency and fear were intertwined with her softness and caring. He closed his eyes knowing her caring would never be for him.

Ailís Dwyer entered and crossed the room to him quickly. “It’s Timothy,” she said out of breath.

Julian looked into her eyes and asked more calmly then he felt, “Tell me what has happened.”

“He’s gone into the woods to search for Brendan. He saw everyone come back and I guess he thought they had given up the search. You must help me find him. He is terrified of the dark, and the thunder and lightning only make it worse for him.”

Julian thought for a moment and walked to the open door.

Her gaze followed him. His shoulders rolled forward in weariness. In his profile, she could see how deeply pain had etched lines in his face.

Julian said slowly, “I want you to bundle up some food, find a flashlight and then meet me at the tree line where the woods meet the village. Can you do that quickly?”

“Of course,” she answered and ran from the room.

Julian gathered a sweater and jacket. The weather had turned against him and a light mist was falling. The wind was biting cold, blowing in gusts that sent leaves scattering before it down the main street.

When he reached the tree line, Ailís met him with a heavy backpack. She, too, now wore a heavy jacket and scarf.

Julian yelled to her over the wind, “You’re not going to like this and I’m not saying it out of any sense of bravado, but I would rather you stay here. The villagers will want to start the search again, especially knowing Timothy is out there too, but we don’t want everybody and their brother roaming around the woods in the dark. Keep them here tonight and don’t start the search until nine o’clock or so in the morning.

“If Timothy gets back before I do, he’ll want you waiting for him even if it means he is in trouble. If there is a safe way of getting back here tonight we will. If not, he and I will find a dry spot and sit tight until morning.

“For another thing, it could be that Brendan didn’t come back sooner because he was hurt. If he limps back in, he’ll need you around to patch him up. Believe me, if I could I would stay in the village, but you’re the doctor. You’ve got the skill, not me. Make sense?”

She looked frustrated, but nodded her head. “Here is your torch,” she shouted over the wind and handed him the flashlight. “There are pain medications in the pack. Please tell me you’ll take them if the pain gets to be too much and, whatever you do, be careful.”

He smiled tightly, leaned nearer to Ailís and said, “It’ll be alright. It has to be. I won’t let it be otherwise,” and started on his way into the forest. The rain had increased and turned the dirt street at the tree line into a swamp.

“Julian took a step fighting against the wind and then fell down on the slick mud. Working his way back to his feet, he slipped and fell again and the pain was intense. With another try, he struggled to get upright and managed to gain the limited shelter the trees provided where he would begin his search.

Had he looked back quickly enough, he would have seen Ailís fight back the tears. To her mind they were tears for the man she loved, tears for the boy she adored and bitter, bitter tears for herself. He would have also seen her mouth the words, “I won’t let it be otherwise.”

***

Although soaking wet and muddy, Julian finally gained the shelter of the thicker part of the woods. The trees broke the wind and the branches overhead gave him shelter from the heaviest of the rain. He began to work his way around the woods in a long arc to the right thinking he would ring the forest and then gradually work his way in deeper.

He walked for half an hour, stumbling over rocks and roots, slipping from time to time, but never being able to sense Timothy’s presence. Julian saw a sparkle of light straight ahead. “The Squire,” he thought and continued on, depending on his walking stick to keep him upright.

At last, he came to the tree line at its nearest point to the Squire’s home. Lights showed from the downstairs windows. Thinking the boys might have made for shelter, Julian moved toward the large brick house.

He knocked at the back door and, remembering that the housekeeper was nearly deaf, he pounded harder. With the rain pelting him hard, Julian deferred to practicality and entered the mud room. Calling out he got no answer, so he ventured even further before the Squire’s dogs ran to greet him and led him deeper into the house.

Light from the fireplace danced on the wall of the hallway outside the Squire’s study. Calling again, and again receiving no response, Julian continued toward the study before he heard a soft humming; the tune was a familiar sad ballad in the way only Irish ballads know how to be. The rendering now was diffused, distracted and filled with melancholy and pain.

At the entrance to the study Julian froze. The Squire was seated in his wingback chair before the large fireplace humming to himself. Hanging above the fireplace was the portrait of a staggeringly beautiful woman. Julian heard the Squire had been married long ago. Because the drape had been drawn whenever he visited, Julian assumed it was a painting of the Squire’s late wife.

“Squire,” Julian said softly.

“Who’s there? Oh, it’s you Blessing. I’m afraid I’m in no condition for a game of chess. As you can see, I am quite drunk. What brings you out on a filthy night like this?” the man asked.

“Two of the village boys are lost in the wood that borders your property.”

“Let me see if I can be a detective, eh? One of the boys is Brendan Maher. That would make the other one Timothy Dwyer. Dirty business about that dog. That McMaster boy should be put down of course. The father, too, come to think of it.”

“I wonder if you would make such a good detective if everything wasn’t reported back to you as soon as it happened. I thought the boys might have come here to get out of the rain,” Julian said distractedly. The portrait mesmerized him.

“Oh, but I am remarkably well informed. Sadly, I cannot say the same for you,” the Squire said. “I see you can’t take your eyes off that portrait. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen and I worshiped her. Look at the eyes. They could pierce you right to your soul. Her hair was coal black and her skin was as smooth and as utterly flawless as the finest silk.” Julian stood awestruck before the painting. He was unable to look away.

“Ah, you too are captivated,” the Squire said looking up at the painting. “It is entirely understandable of course. I myself am a slave to that image – and to the memories.

“She was twenty three when that was painted,” the Squire said as he indicated the painting with a boney finger. “Her family had been a well placed fixture in Ireland back to the ancient times. Druids, they say, run in her family, my boy.

“There was that, but there was something more. I never knew what, and she never spoke of it.” Wistfully the old man said, “You see, she was special in many ways – in so many, many ways. She had a power, and not just over me. No, it just emanated from her somehow.

“And that I suppose was where the problem began. I was young and a more perfect idiot you would never hope to meet. She was younger still and a more headstrong and stubborn creature you could not find.

“We met, married, and at first things were perfect. Our life was a poem, as they say. But an old priest in the village managed to poison me against her. He told me that both of our souls would be damned if she did not give up the old ways of Ireland. He even hinted at witchcraft. According to him, I had an obligation and a right to demand it of her.

“Until then she had balanced the old and the new quite well, but being an ass, I ordered her – commanded her, mind you – to leave off with the old ways of her people. She, of course, said she could not and would not if she could. I told her if she did not, we were through.

“I knew I had gone too far, but my stupid pride would not allow me to take it back. She looked at me, I could see the love that we shared begin to die.” The old man’s voice tore the air, “and still I did nothing. I could have stopped it, I could have saved our love, but I did nothing. The next morning she was gone from this house and from my life forever.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but she was carrying our child. She gave birth to the child and raised him for a short while, but again Father Fahey’s predecessor convinced me that the boy was mine and must be raised in a ‘proper Catholic home’ whatever the fuck that means.” Bitterness dripped from his words.

“Being an idiot and having my pride wounded, I lashed out again. I sought sole custody of the boy and got it. Money is a powerful motivator for some and I spread it freely to get…” his thoughts trailed off.

“For decades she and I have lived in each other’s shadow and have never spoken a word to one another.

“’Tis a sad story, don’t you think? Still, it is a fitting punishment that I should have to live forever beside the thing I loved above all else. And love her still.” The older man drew in a deep breath and with eyes closed, let it out slowly.

“Friend Julian, it is the simplest thing in the world to give advice. It is the hardest thing in the world to take it. Listen, son, never willingly let go of love. Never give up on it.

“Oh, yes, I know about you and that girl of yours. I am telling you Julian, forget who is responsible for what and put away your pride. Go to her. Plead, beg, promise anything, do anything to make it right between the two of you. Do whatever it takes to convince her to join you in making a world for the two of you and that boy of hers and tell the rest of ’em to piss off.

“I did not follow the advice I am giving you. It is for that reason I have lived a tormented life. I deserve every moment of it because I forged it with my ignorance and my arrogance. Don’t let that happen to you, my boy. Don’t do now what I did then. The bounty you reap will be bitterness itself. The cost of that harvest will be suffering that is nearly beyond enduring. I say nearly because your choice will not so easily let you die, and death, my friend, is the only escape from this misery.”

At this, the Squire began to hum again softly to himself and before long, he was asleep.

Julian rose, found a lap rug and draped it around the old man’s legs. He threw another log on the fire and took a last look at the beautiful woman in the painting. He smiled at the exquisite young woman who had become Moira Hagan.

Julian closed the portrait’s drape and let himself out.

Julian limped through the wind and rain across the small pasture adjacent to the Squire’s home and reached the shelter of the woods where he continued his search for Timothy and Brendan.

He walked until his ribs and chest and back ached, but pushed on using the notion of rest as the carrot that kept him moving. Still, he could not sense either of the boys. He came to the northernmost edge of the forest that met the rim leading into the next valley.

He could make out a dark mass at the bottom of an adjacent valley he knew to be another small, but thickly wooded stand of trees. The locals said that area was special. At the word,
special,
the faithful would cross themselves and look deeply pained while Moira Hagan would simply smile.

Julian’s endurance of the pain had reached its limit. He felt he had to give up the physical search and allow the boys to find him. The storm raged, but inside the cathedral of trees he was relatively dry. Julian removed his jacket, shook it out, and set Ailís’s bag of food down on a rock. He turned his flashlight on and stood it up so that its beam shone into the canopy of trees. He sat, closed his eyes and began one of the drills Moira had given him.

The object of the exercise was to relax his mind and body, but it was also intended to open him to the forces of the world around him. How long he sat there, he did not know, but before long he opened his eyes and said softly, “Hello, Timothy.”

Before him stood Timothy Dwyer and the look on the boy’s face was one of extreme fascination mixed with instinctive hesitation to engage the unknown.

“You have frightened your mother and are in more than a little trouble.”

The boy looked down at the ground and didn’t reply.

“Are you ready to go back or would you like to have something to eat first?” Julian asked as he gathered his flashlight and jacket. While sitting there, the night had turned colder and chilled Julian to the bone.

“I can’t go back yet,” the boy said.

“Timothy, you are causing your mother a lot of heartache so the reason we have to stay had better be a good one.”

“Oi can’t leave Brendan. He isn’t ready to go back and Oi won’t leave him behind.” Lightening crackled across the night sky and Timothy cringed.

“Well, that is a good reason, but I don’t know that it is good enough. Where is Brendan now?”

“This way,” is all Timothy said as he turned and headed east toward a deeply crevassed hillside that was a prominent high point in the topography of the region. Timothy disappeared behind a clump of bushes and Julian followed. A path led behind the bushes and ascended the hillock at a steep angle. The climb caused Julian substantial pain.

At one point Julian asked Timothy to stop for a few moments. The bushes seemed to be ancient with well-established root systems and a decent canopy that kept out nearly all of the weather. Julian looked through the thick growth and could easily see for miles to the east, west and north. He knew, however, that he could not be seen through the tangle of foliage that clung to the hillside.

Still out of breath and aching, Julian nodded that he was ready and Timothy set off again. The path continued uphill for another forty meters to the top, but ten meters short of the summit Timothy stopped abruptly, turned toward the hillside and disappeared. Julian was stunned and ran to where the boy had been just seconds before. Julian could sense the boy and followed the feeling to a gap in the rock face where he inched his way in.

The opening was relatively spacious. Julian couldn’t stand upright, but the width was ample. He was at the mouth of a cave and the walls were rough sandstone, cool and dry to the touch. He continued along the passageway, but soon found himself crouching down further and then emerging into a large cavern. In the center of the single room was a compact, but efficient fire. Only dry wood had been used so almost no smoke worked its way to a slight opening in the roof of the cave.

Julian was puzzled. This place felt wrong to him, deeply wrong. But he could not fix the cause or the cure.

Seated near the fire, bathed in firelight, sat Brendan Maher. Timothy was kneeling beside his friend explaining something. Brendan nodded and Timothy spoke.

“Brendan says you are welcome in this place, sor. As far as we know, only he and Oi know about it. He could hear the men searching for him earlier and he is sorry to cause a bother, but he wasn’t ready to come home. Later on it was too dark and wet to try to get back tonight. He says he’ll be ready to go in the morning and face what he has comin’ so I guess I will too.”

Julian sighed. The boys were right; it was too dark and wet to try to get back without the likelihood that one of them would get hurt.

“Sit tight it is then, but hear me boys – we go back in the morning and no questions.”

“Yes, sor,” Brendan and Timothy said in unison.

“Good. Let’s see what your mother sent along to eat,” Julian said as he sat down by the fire and unpacked the bag. He ached everywhere and he was glad to be able to rest for the night.

***

The three well-fed campers settled in around the fire in silence, each lost in his thoughts. Julian looked up ten minutes later, smiled and shook his head. The boys had fallen asleep in various tortured positions comfortable only to the young.

Something in a back corner of the cave dimly reflected the firelight and caught Julian’s eye. He picked up his flashlight and rose to investigate.

As he neared the object, he first slowed his pace and then stopped. Spilling out of a bag of some sort was a pile of coins. Those exposed to the air were heavily tarnished while the ones underneath still held on to their dull gray sheen. He approached and knelt in the dirt. He picked up a coin and rubbed his thumb over the surface. There, under the covering of fine dust, Julian could clearly see the words that chilled him, PAX AVGVSTS C. He was holding a Roman coin in his hand that dated back nearly two thousand years.

Julian felt, more than heard, Brendan stir. The boy sat up, knuckled his eyes, and stretched. He got up and came over to where Julian was kneeling. He pulled the boy by the sleeve and together they looked at the coin from two opposite points of view.

Julian saw that he was holding a piece of history that dated back millennia. He was filled with wonder, awe, and an ominous trepidation. Brendan looked at the coin as though it were a rock or a fish or some other constant in his natural world.

“Do you know what this is, Brendan?” Julian asked.

“C-C-C-oin,” Brendan answered and smiled without pretense or guile.

“Well, yes, but Brendan, this isn’t just any coin.” The boy nodded his head, then reached deeper into the darkness and pulled out what Julian recognized immediately as a Roman sword.

The grip had long since disintegrated, but the tang and pommel remained in good shape and the iron blade, although corroded, looked serviceable. Brendan used the sword to brush away some the dirt from an area under where Julian had spotted the coin. The boy made a quick stabbing motion with the sword and scores of coins fell away from the dirt mound. Brendan smiled as though he had performed a remarkable magic trick for an appreciative audience.

Deep lines of concern scored Julian face. He had felt more clearly something was wrong, off somehow. Now on the ground in front of him was the cause or a part of it. The air seemed to leave his lungs and the cave suddenly seemed small and tight. At last, Julian said, “This isn’t possible.”

Brendan smiled broadly and shone Julian’s flashlight against another far wall and pointed with the Roman sword to what looked like a low mound of dirt. He drew Julian closer and removed some of the dirt with his boot. More coins spilled onto the dirt floor. Julian used the light to examine the area.

The mound was actually the remains of leather bags full of Roman coins. All but a few remnants of the bags remained. The years it took for the bags to disintegrate were also years when wind and weather deposited a fine covering of dirt on top of them. Julian took the flashlight and sent the beam along another wall of the cave.

He continued to scan the next wall and then over to where he had first seen a glint in the firelight. Bags of coins had been stacked around the entire perimeter of the cave. When and by whom were the questions Julian wanted answered and he knew a man who would have those answers.

“Brendan, may I take a few of these coins and that sword to show a friend of mine?”

Brendan Maher smiled broadly then moved to the back of the cave. He returned with another sword in better shape and handed it to Julian.

The boy then moved back to his bed by the fire and Julian found himself a comfortable place opposite. Sleep, however, was the last thing on Julian’s mind.

He could feel them, see them, these men who brought this treasure to Ireland. They were soldiers, and he could sense their honor and their valor. But the scene Julian was witnessing was confused and confusing. His ability to see into the past was improving, but his previous experiences were of recent events. Tonight, he witnessed an incident two millennia into a dark past.

***

The coal blackness of night had given way to a steel gray morning that found Julian staring into the fire pit. He had sat before the fire in the company of Roman Legionaries who arrived in Ireland to fulfill their duty. Now these men of honor sat in abject despair knowing they would never see their homes again and, to their shame, knowing why.

The wind had died down and the rain had stopped. Julian woke the boys and together they finished off the last of the food Ailís Dwyer had packed. They doused the fire and Julian watched as the boys erased any trace of their having been there. They obscured the entrance to the cave and dusted the trail with branches to obliterate any footsteps that would have given away the location.

The path through the woods was easier now that they had rested and could see. Soon they neared the tree line that abutted the village of Cappel Vale. Julian stopped and looked at the boys. Even after a night’s sleep, they were tired and ragged and could use a hot bath and a hot meal.

Julian said to the boys, “Now you know you are probably in for it. The entire village was worried sick about you Brendan, and Timothy, your mother was beside herself. It is my advice that you stand up straight, leave off with any sort of excuses and simply throw yourselves on their mercy and hope they don’t punish you as you deserve.”

The boys looked mournful, but only murmured a subdued, “Yes, sor.”

“Right, here we go. Let’s try to look like we know what we’re doing.”

They moved through the tree line and into the village. Sean Maher, Ailís Dwyer and Moira Hagan were on the main street talking together. A number of men were just coming out of the pubs after a farm breakfast and were ready to take up the search again for the missing boys.

With more discipline then he would have expected, the boys stayed with him and marched up to Ailís and Sean. The thunder behind Sean Maher’s eyes dissipated when he set them on his eldest son. Julian approached Sean, looked up at the big man and murmured, “I’m not sure I would have done any differently than Brendan and I don’t think you would have either.”

Sean nodded his head and opened wide his arms to his son. Together they moved off toward the Maher house. On their approach, Kathleen Maher emerged along with the rest of the brood and they surrounded Brendan and spirited him inside.

Julian looked at Ailís and noted she was doing a very bad job of looking stern. Her nose flared and her lips were pressed hard together as she tried to suppress her emotions. Before hugging her son, she took him by the shoulders and said, “You are never to do that again.”

Julian approached, his face drawn by pain and weariness. He leaned down and with his lips close to her ear and whispered, “Try not to be too hard on the boy. He faced his worst fears to search for his friend. He did this after he thought everyone else had given up the hunt. That is the kind of strength and courage few have.” Ailís turned to look at him. This was as physically close as she had been to him in weeks. Pain seared her soul as she looked at him. There was a haunted look that had swept away the softness of his eyes. Ailís slowly nodded.

Moira Hagan looked at Julian, smiled warmly and was shocked by the knowing and disturbingly frank look she received in return. Julian inclined his head slightly, nodded, smiled slightly and, with the help of his walking stick, limped the length of the village to the police station.

With history in his hands, he hefted the backpack with the score of coins he had picked up at random and the Roman sword and thought about nothing but a hot shower, a proper bed and sleep.

Behind him, Ailís Dwyer knelt in the dusty street and held her son for a very long time. She thought, “He said, ‘I won’t let it be otherwise,’ and I knew he wouldn’t. What have I done?”

***

“Timothy, come along and I’ll get you something hot to eat,” Moira Hagan said to the boy who smiled. He left his mother and moved toward the older woman.

“I can do that,” Ailís said and looked profoundly confused.

Moira looked at her as if she were an especially dull child and said, “No, I’m afraid you can’t. There are other things you need to do.” She gently pushed Timothy in the direction of her cottage.

Ailís’s face, drained of color said, “I don’t know what you’re…”

Moira looked at the doctor, into her and said nothing. Ailís deflated visibly. “I can’t and even if I could it is too late. You saw his face. He hates me and so he should.”

“Indeed, I saw his face. Tell me, did you or did you not just see what you needed to see? Did you see the face of someone who overcame every bit of his past and all of his fears in order to love someone? Did you not see the face of a remarkable man who was forced to watch as the woman he loved shredded his soul?

“You are a bright woman, Ailís – a bright woman capable of doing some of the stupidest things imaginable.” Moira let her words sink in.

“Don’t you see? I can’t,” the doctor pleaded. “It isn’t just about me. I am protecting Timothy. I won’t let him have his heart broken.”