Here's Chapter 25. It's a little shorter, but I'll be back next week with another exciting episode...same gay time, same gay channel....
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Chapter 25
I stood on the top step of the small room, seemingly paralyzed; staring down at a woman I knew had been dead for over a hundred years. My entire body wanted to scream out in sheer terror but, somehow, as long as she held me in that mournful gaze, I couldn't. I don't know how long we stood staring at one another. Something in her eyes told me that she was almost as surprised to be seen as I was to see her. Almost, but not quite. Gradually my racing heart began to slow as it became obvious that she meant me no harm. It almost felt as if she was trying to tell me something, but if she could speak she had chosen not to, at least for now.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she turned and moved away from the door. As soon as she was out of sight I felt released from the spell of her gaze and I felt myself collapse into a clumsy pile on the steps. I didn't even know I had screamed until I heard a commotion on the stairs and hallway below me that sounded like the entire combined US armed forces were storming the house. Adam, Steve and Kane skidded to a halt in front on the door that led up the steps to where I was lying.
"Killian!" Adam yelled, fear in his voice, as he took the steps two at a time. He knelt next to me. "Are you hurt? Did you fall?"
I shook my head no, but I still hadn't found my voice.
"What were you doing up here anyway? What happened? Why did you scream?"
I simply looked at him with wide eyes, unable to speak. He scooped me up and carried me carefully down the stairs as if I was nothing more than a rag doll. Once back on the first story he laid me carefully down on the floor, cradling my head like you would a baby.
I looked up at him and then took a deep shuddering breath. "Amalie." I said in a strong, clear voice that surprised even me.
"What? What about her? Did she hurt you?" Steve demanded. He and Kane had followed Adam and me down, both wearing concerned expressions.
I shook my head no again and sat up as I took another deep breath. Suddenly the story just flowed out me: how I had heard the footsteps and thought it might be Kane playing tricks on me, how I'd seen the door to the cupola open and had decided to go up to prove to myself that there were no ghosts, and how I had seen Amalie, long dead, at the foot of the stairs, staring up at me with those indescribably sad eyes.
"It felt like she was trying to tell me something, but I don't know what," I finished and looked around at the three faces staring down at me. Steve's expression clearly said that he believed me and could have almost been described as excited. Kane looked plain scared, taking frequent furtive glances over his shoulder as if he expected to find someone there. Adam just looked skeptical. It was his face that I looked into the longest.
"It happened, Adam. I saw her," I insisted. It was suddenly terribly important that he believed me.
"Or maybe you just wanted to see her," he suggested gently.
"Are you saying I made it up?" I demanded. I was surprised at how much it hurt that he didn't believe me.
"Come on Adam," Steve said quickly, "You know what the stories are, what the workers have been saying. You heard Killian scream just now. You can't sit there and tell me you're still a skeptic. I think we've gone beyond that now."
"I just have a hard time..." Adam was cut off abruptly as a huge bang resonated throughout the upper floors. We all jumped and looked upward at the ceiling.
"What was that?" Kane asked in a squeaky voice. He now looked as if he just wanted to leave.
"It sounded like several doors being slammed at once," Steve said. His eyes were shining with barely suppressed delight. He took a few steps towards the staircase.
"It's an old house..." Adam started, but once again he was cut off as the unmistakable sounds of footsteps sounded from above. "Someone's up there," he said, moving quickly to his feet.
"Yeah, Amalie," I said, jumping up as well. "I just told you..."
"Killian," his voice was filled with impatience, but before he could say another word we all froze in place. It seemed that someone was determined to convince Adam of the presence of something supernatural. The thin wail of a distressed baby floated into the room. We all stood stock still for several seconds until the footsteps upstairs began to get faster and more agitated. It sounded like they were heading for the staircase and none of us were ready to deal with what might come down. Kane was the first to bolt, followed quickly by Adam as he grabbed my wrist and started dragging me towards the door. Steve was the last to move, as he stared up the stairs, half hoping to see something and obviously half-terrified he would.
We stopped only when we were all standing on the sunny front lawn. Kane's eyes were as big as dinner plates and he was hugging himself tightly as if cold, even though it was definitely not cold outside.
"What the hell is going on?" Adam demanded angrily, as if one of us had planned and executed some sort of elaborate hoax on him.
"I'll tell you what's going on," Steve said, so excited he kept rolling up onto the balls of his feet and bouncing a little before settling back again on his heels. "The house is haunted and now you can't deny it anymore. Killian's seen the ghost and we've all heard it...her...them."
"Them?" Kane said quickly.
"There were obviously two of them, Amalie and...and...a baby?"
"This is ridiculous," Adam growled. He seemed angrier with himself now than anyone else; probably at the way he had run. "I can't accept that there is the spirit of a dead person, someone who died a hundred and fifty years ago, still inhabiting this house. It's in direct opposition to everything I know or have been taught."
"Oh get over it, Adam," Steve shouted with exasperation. "You believe in God, right? Of course you do, you have a very strong belief. And I know that you believe in life after death. Why is it such a stretch to believe that some spirits just get caught here for some reason?"
"Unfinished business?" Kane suggested shakily. He was obvious still upset.
"This isn't Casper," Adam snapped.
"Would you just stop it?" Steve said through clenched teeth. "I know this is hard for you to accept, but it's staring you right in the face. There is something in that house that we can't explain using traditional science. And for whatever reasons it's chosen to make itself known to us in no uncertain terms. Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn't hear that baby crying? Or the footsteps? Are you going to stand there and tell me you honestly don't believe Killian when he says he saw Amalie? He's never lied to you and he's never seen things before."
"His post traumatic stress disorder..."
"It's been months since he's even had a mild episode and you know it. The house is haunted, just admit it."
Adam threw up his hands in frustration. "Ok, I admit there is something in the house that I can't explain..."
"Will miracles never cease?" Steve muttered as Adam continued.
"...But I refuse to be chased out by some dead woman and a colicky ghost. We came here to paint and damn it, I'm going to paint." He turned sharply on his heel and stalked towards the house.
"Dad, no!" Kane cried out, fear choking his voice.
"She won't hurt him," I said calmly. It was the first words I'd said since we'd run from the approaching footsteps. Kane and Steve turned towards me as one person.
"How do you know?" Kane asked urgently.
"I just do. You have to believe me. She wants to tell us something but I don't think she knows how."
"Tell us something?" Steve repeated.
"Yes."
"What do you mean?" Excitement filled his voice.
"I think there's something that she wants us to know, maybe something she wants us to do; I...I just don't know what."
"We have to talk to her!" he exclaimed.
"If we talk to her will she go away?" Kane asked hopefully, his eyes glued to the front door.
I shrugged, "I don't know that either. Maybe."
"How can we talk to her?" Steve asked.
I shrugged again.
"A Ouija board? A séance? Maybe we should just sprinkle holy water around the house. Or wait! I know, we can go the whole nine-yards and just get that psychic that's always on TV to come and help put her to rest." Kane's voice rose in pitch with every word, as if he were verging on hysteria.
"A psychic maybe," Steve said thoughtfully, as if Kane's suggestions had been serious. "How do you find a psychic?"
"Judy," I said.
"Judy?"
I nodded.
"Asher's aunt?"
I nodded again.
"What about her?"
"She can talk to her."
"Judy could talk to Amalie?"
I nodded.
"How do you know?"
I shrugged. "I just do."
"Killian, are you ok?" he asked suddenly. He took my face in his hand and tipped my chin up to look into my face.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You aren't acting like yourself."
"I just saw a woman who's been dead for over a hundred years, Steve," I said coolly. "How am I supposed to act?"
"Can we go home now? Please?" Kane asked in a small voice.
Steve dropped his hand from my face and turned to look at the car and then the house. "We all came in one car. Let's go get Adam."
"I'll wait out here," Kane said quickly.
"I'll stay with Kane," I volunteered.
"This will probably take a while," Steve said with a sigh as he started for the door.
We stood there for a minute and then suddenly Kane said, "Let's go for a walk. I don't want to just stand here like this."
I shrugged and fell into step beside Kane as he wandered down towards the river.
"I never believed in ghosts before now, you know?" he babbled as we walked. "I just thought it was all a bunch of crap: God, life after death, all that. It just thought it was all myths and stuff left over from when people were ignorant and didn't understand science. They teach you all this stuff in school that contradicts so much of the Bible. I know Dad believes in God and stuff but it's almost like his own religion and it's just one I never bought into. And now I feel like I've just been hit up-side the head with a two-by-four. I mean, I didn't see her myself, but I believe you did. I heard you scream. And then I heard the footsteps and the baby crying. It wasn't just my imagination. I don't care what Dad says."
While he was talking we walked along the river and past the site where the docks were being built. It was obvious he wasn't looking for any explanation, there wasn't any. He just needed to verbalize the things that were swirling out of control in his mind. And verbalize he did.
Eventually I began to tune him out, my mind switched to looking around as we walked. We were approaching the edge of the wooded area that was yet to be cleared. While the undergrowth was still heavy at ground level under the trees, much of the high weeds, small shrubs and wild blackberry bushes that had made up a kind of thicket around the perimeter of the woods had been mowed down. As a result we were able to get closer to the trees than I'd ever been before. We were skirting the edge of the woods when I spotted something that caught my eye.
"What's that?" I asked, interrupting Kane and stopping abruptly.
"What's what?" Kane asked as he peered into the woods, trying to see what I was talking about.
"There," I said, pointing to an oddly shaped lump covered over in vines. "It looks like a statue or something."
"I don't see any-oh, that. It's probably just a tree stump or something," Kane said nervously. "Adam and Steve are probably ready now. Let's go."
"No, wait. I want to see what it is." I felt strangely drawn to the vine-swathed form. I started into criss-crossed mass of brambles that made it almost impossible to move under the trees. The thorny vines scratched and clawed at me with every step, pulling at my clothes and slashing across my flesh. I ignored the scratches and cuts I was receiving, disentangling myself as necessary, and kept pushing forward. As I got closer I could see that I was right, it was definitely more than just a tree stump; it looked like it might even be made of stone. But why would there be a statue this far away from the house? An old garden, maybe?
I was concentrating on the statue so hard I wasn't looking down; suddenly I ran into something about knee high and found myself falling face first into the briars. I scrambled up to see what I had fallen over. It was a grave stone. Its face had been grown over with lichen and moss but I could still make out the name easily enough: Thomas Marnien. The date under the name read 1858. I realized that I had found the grave of the child Steve had told us about, the one that had died as a baby. I wasn't in a garden, it was a private cemetery.
"Killian, are you ok?" Kane called.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I called back. I'd almost forgotten he was even there. A trickle of sweat dropped into my eye and I swiped at it distractedly, wiping it on my shorts.
"Come out now, please?"
"Just a minute, Kane," I snapped. He was starting to annoy me. All I could think about was the statue.
I started for the figure again; it was now only a few feet away now. I reached out and began pulling the vines away from the stone. They were surprisingly strong and stubborn. I realized that to really clear them away I would have to cut them. I did manage to pull them aside enough to figure out what the statue was.
It was a beautifully carved female angel, her eyes closed, her hands held in front of her in a mournful pose, her wings folded reverently behind her. As I backed slowly away from the statue I noticed another gravestone off to one side, larger than the one I'd fallen over. It was carved differently, the top domed and with a carving of a weeping willow over the name that I couldn't quite make out from here. I knew that this was what I was really supposed to find. I made my way over to it and knelt down, gently pulling away the vines.
"Amalie Marnien," it read, "Wife of Captain Elijah Marnien, Lost At Sea. Born May 5, 1833, Died March 1862."
Now I knew where Amalie was buried. I noticed the lack of an exact date on the stone and wondered what that meant.
"Killian, please, can we go now? I think I hear Adam and Steve calling us," Kane called plaintively. I stood up without a sound and started fighting my way out.
When I emerged from the trees, Kane's already wide eyes grew even wider. "What happened in there?" he gasped.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You're all bloody," he said.
"I am?" I looked down at my hand and saw drying blood smeared across my fingers. I realized the sweat I had been wiping out my eyes was actually blood. "I must have gotten scratched up on the briars," I said.
"You look like you barely escaped alive. What was in there?"
"Graves," I said and Kane gave an involuntary shudder. "Amalie's and her son that died as a baby."
"Great, just what we needed to complete the whole haunted house set-up. We've got the creepy old house, the strange footsteps, the crying baby, and now the forgotten graveyard. What's next? Bats in the belfry? Chains clanking at night?"
"Kane, settle down. It's just a private cemetery. It's not a big deal. I thought Adam and Steve were calling."
"I just said that to get you out of there. I was getting creeped out."
I sighed and started back for the house, just as we really did hear someone call our names. We took off at a jog and soon rounded the corner of the house. Adam and Steve were waiting by the car. Adam looked a little calmer and less disgruntled then when I'd seen him last, at least until he got a good look at me.
"What the hell happened to you?" he asked when he took in my disheveled and bloody appearance. Steve just stared open-mouthed.
"I found Amalie's grave," I said triumphantly.
"And tangled with a homicidal weed-whacker wielding skeleton?"
"No, just a briar patch that would have made Uncle Remus proud."
"You found Amalie's grave?" Steve asked, my scratches momentarily forgotten, at least by him.
"Yeah, in the woods where they haven't cleared yet. There's her grave, her son that died as a baby and a big angel statue."
"My God, you've got to be kidding. I can't believe Victoria didn't mention this when she was showing the house."
"Maybe she forgot." I suggested.
"It's more likely that she didn't know about it. You can deal with that tomorrow." Adam observed. "Now let's get you home and put something on all those scratches, you look like you've survived a war...barely."
We piled into the car, after Adam warned me to be careful and try not to get blood on the car upholstery, and headed for home.
Once there, Adam dragged me into the bathroom and, after making me strip to my boxers, proceeded to douse my entire body with hydrogen peroxide. The scratches really weren't as bad as they looked only all the dirt and blood were washed away, although they stung like crazy.
I'd just gotten redressed in clean clothes when Steve called up the stairs to me, "Killian, someone is here to see you."
I trotted down the steps wondering who could be coming to see me, half hoping it was Micah. It wasn't. I came to a sudden stop half-way down when I saw Asher standing by the front door. We stared at each other for a moment then I turned and wordlessly started back up the stairs.
"Killian, wait," he called out, "Please."
I kept going but he was right behind me.
"Please, Killian. Give me a chance to explain."
"What's to explain?" I spat out in a dangerously controlled voice as I whirled around to look down at him from the top of the stairs. "You moved on, now get out of my life and let me do the same."
"I don't want to get out of your life."
"Well too fucking bad, because I don't want you in my life anymore." I spun around and tried to shut the door to my room before he could follow me but he slipped his foot in the door just as I slammed it.
"Killian, at least let me tell you what happened. You owe me that at least."
"I don't owe you anything. Can't you see that? We're over. I should have seen it a long time ago, then it wouldn't have hurt like hell to see you kissing Caleb the other day."
"That's just it. I wasn't kissing Caleb, he was kissing me."
"Yeah, and you looked positively horrified."
"Just open the door and let me talk, for God's sake! What are we, little kids?"
With a growl I let go of the door and stalked across the room to stand at the window, my back to Asher. I heard him come across the room to stand behind me.
"Look, Killian, things between us haven't been good in a long time. We both know that. We were over months ago, we just couldn't admit it. When we broke up, I thought it was definitely over. Then I started missing you. We'd been together for so long I didn't know what to do without you. I was really confused. And to make matters worse you suddenly started trying to get back together. I didn't know what to do. I didn't think there was much point in us trying to get back together when none of the things that we broke up for had been resolved. It seemed better to just move on.
"I wasn't interested in Caleb romantically, he was just a friend. That's all I ever thought of him as. I wanted to help him out, that's all. And then...I don't know...it started to change. That was the first time we ever kissed, the day you saw us. We were talking and then all of a sudden he kissed me. I was surprised, I really was. I didn't plan it, it just happened. And then you were there and..."
"And I interrupted."
"I went after you but you tore out of there like a bat out of hell. And then you wouldn't accept any of my phone calls. What was I supposed to do? I'm sorry I barged in on you like this but couldn't leave things like that. You were my best friend for so long."
"Were. Past tense."
"I miss you, Killian. I want to be friends again."
I sighed heavily and finally turned to face him, letting him see the tear tracks on my face.
"I can't do that, Asher. Not now, maybe not ever. It hurts too much."
"I don't want to lose you, Killian. I feel like there's been a hole inside me ever since we broke up. Maybe we weren't meant to be a couple, but I can't stand to not have you in my life at all."
I sat down on the edge of Kane's bed. "I'm starting to heal, starting to move on. Who knows what the future hold? I sure as hell don't. Maybe we will be friends again someday, I don't know. Right now I can't see it. I just want...I want to be left alone. I want time to heal without having you around to poke at the wound."
"Ok," he said, sounding utterly miserable, "I guess I can see that. I'm sorry it happened like this, Killian."
"Me too. I hope you and Caleb are happy together."
"We're not really together, you know. I don't want to rush into anything else right now."
"Whatever," I said listlessly. It's not like I really cared about hearing his plans for his love life at the moment.
"I hope you find someone, too, Kill. You deserve to be happy."
I looked up at him, and saw the pain I felt reflected in his eyes. "Just not with you," I said sadly and turned away. I heard the door close on his way out.