Emily's House (The Akasha Chronicles) (12 page)

He had a point so I did what Jake suggested. I sat on the ground, closed my eyes and tried to get quiet. It seemed so silly. Fan started giggling and that got me laughing. Jake looked stern and serious, which made us laugh more. But after a few minutes and Jake pleading with us, we stopped and I tried again.

This time, after just a couple of minutes, I was able to quiet my mind a bit. At first I felt sleepy. I could have just laid down there and taken a nap on the hard ground between all these gravestones. But then a sort of peace came over me, and I started to daydream, just like on the airplane.

I saw the same green hills and a circle of stones. I saw the face of a beautiful woman with long wavy red hair. At first I thought it was my mom, but it wasn’t. Then I saw it. The torc. Just as in my dream before. Shiny and golden and glowing – hovering right in front of me. I felt like I could reach out for it. Then I saw the initials ‘SCS’ in my mind. Then the dream was gone.

I opened my eyes half expecting myself to be surrounded by lush green hills with the torc hovering before me, but I was still in the graveyard. Fanny was lying down, maybe asleep. Jake was still sitting across from me, his eyes droopy but awake.

“Well?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but I think we should look some more,” I said.

I got up and began walking, not sure why I was going where I was going. My feet seemed to steer me to the west corner of the graveyard. Fanny and Jake followed behind. My feet led me to this small grave marker almost on the very edge of the cemetery.

It was different from all the others. It wasn’t shaped like the usual tombstone but instead was sort of a small obelisk shape. It stood only two feet or so above the ground, and it looked like it used to have a point on top but it had worn down. It was covered in lichens and moss – now almost entirely a yellowy green rather than grey stone.

It was such a small, plain stone, most would probably walk by it and not notice it at all. No crosses or carvings or writing. But as soon as I approached it, I got that tingly feeling again all up and down my spine and my arms. The hairs all over my body were standing on end.

I bent down and gingerly put my hands on the stone, feeling for a mark of some kind. I didn’t feel any markings with my fingers, but as I touched it, I saw the letters ‘SCS’ appear in my mind again, just like in my dream. Then, just as in my dream, I could see verdant hills and a circle of stones in my mind’s eye. And then there it was – the torc – gold and glowing right before my eyes. The vision was so powerful it made me dizzy, and I started to wobble.

“Em, are you okay?” asked Jake as he bent down to steady me.

“This is it,” I said in a low voice. “Here. We dig here.”

Fanny and Jake just looked at each other and at me, their mouths open just like when I’d thrown Muriel against the wall. It was like they were in a daze.

“Jake, Fanny,” I said. “We’re running out of night. Come on, let’s dig.”

Jake came out of his stupor and started to dig. Soon Fanny had had enough of Jake’s slow and methodical digging. She grabbed the shovel from him and began practically hacking at the ground.

“Be careful,” said Jake. “You don’t want to break it.”

Fanny dug with that little shovel for close to an hour without finding anything except earthworms and slugs. Just as the first light of dawn was starting to peak out over the hills to the east behind us, Fanny hit something hard.

“Hey, I’ve hit something,” she said.

I shined the flashlight into the hole. There was something in there all right. All three of us used our hands and the shovel to uncover the object.

“Do you think this is really a grave?” Fanny asked.

“I don’t know, but this is creeping me out a bit,” I said. “I don’t want to find a corpse or anything.”

But our fears were soon alleviated. Not a coffin at all. Soon we had the shape of what we were after, and it was a fairly small box, no more than six inches all the way around. In no time, we had it out of the ground completely and began wiping it off.

“It’s metal,” Jake said. “And look, it has something carved on the top.”

“What is that,” asked Fanny?

It was a tree – a large and magnificent tree with many branches. It looked like an oak tree. But the weird thing was that all its branches ended in a flame. A flaming tree.

“Open it Emily,” Jake said as he pushed the box into my hands.

“No, you open it,” I said trying to shove it back to Jake.

“No, you should open it,” he said.

He was right of course. But the truth is, I was afraid.
What would happen when I opened it? Would that torc thing crawl up my arm and wrap itself around me? Would I suddenly become someone – or something – else? Would the ground open up and swallow me into it like it did with Saorla?

I tried to open the box, but it was stuck. Then Jake tried but no use.

“Oh, give me that,” Fanny said. She took the box and with one mighty pull it came open for her. As she held it open, I shined the flashlight into the box.

There it was. The torc.

It didn’t move on its own or crawl its way onto me. It just lay there, a beautiful arm bracelet made of many strands of twisted gold all coming together and ending in a finial on each end. On one end, a bird – maybe a hawk or eagle. On the other end, the head of a woman with her hair going back from her face and becoming flame. A chick with her hair on fire!
What’s with all the fire
I thought? The torc didn’t glow or anything, just a regular looking old piece of jewelry.

“I can't believe it. That’s it,” Fanny said.

“Yeah, I hoped we’d find it but really, I was beginning to have doubts,” Jake said.

I couldn’t say anything. It was great that we’d found it of course. And yeah, it made me believe again in Hindergog, that weird little guy. But the truth is, I was kind of disappointed. I guess I expected it to glow like in my visions and for something magical to happen.

“What’s the matter Em?” asked Fanny.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “It just, in a way, it looks sort of – you know – ordinary.”

All three of us just stared at it for a few minutes. Then Jake said, “Put it on Em.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think I should,” I said. “Look, the sun is starting to come up. We need to cover this hole up and get the heck out of here.”

Jake could see that I was right, but he still eyed me cautiously. I think he could see that I was scared of this thing, but he didn’t push me. At least not then.

21. On the Run

We got to the inn and put the shovel back inside the shed. As we walked inside the inn, there were already a few people gathered round the dining table having breakfast. When we walked by the front desk, Paddy looked at us with raised eyebrows.

“Bit early, huh,” he said.

“We wanted to see the sunrise,” I answered back as we walked up the stairs to our room.

When we got to our room Fanny and Jake both flopped down on their beds to get some well-deserved sleep. “I think Paddy was a little suspicious of us, don’t you think?” I asked.

“Ugh-huh,” was all Fanny said in reply. I think Jake was already asleep.

“I gotta go hit the head guys,” I said. As I tiptoed out into the hall and closed the door behind me, I heard Paddy talking to another man down the stairs in the reception area.

“Imagine that, some German tourist lady falling into a hole out there in that old graveyard,” the man said.

I heard Paddy chuckle loudly. “I’d have liked to have seen that then mate! Old bird was she? Falling right in a hole.”

“It ‘taint funny Paddy, that there’s some serious stuff now,” said the man.

“Well the ladies out there at Monasterboice, they said the German tourist gal wasn’t harmed. So what ‘taint funny about that then Officer Kelly?” Paddy asked.

“Oh the old bird going down, that’s funny mate. But the hole being there – now that’s another story. The volunteer ladies who run the place, they said that half to nine a German tourist came to them complaining that his wife just twisted her ankle in that hole back there. They ran to where the old bird was down and when she got up, they got to lookin’ at it, and it was a right proper hole someone dug up. Fresh too. Wasn’t there yesterday when they locked up. Someone just dug a hole at one of those old grave markers.”

“Can you believe it, some heathen defiling an ancient grave that way!” said Paddy. “Do you think they’re after some treasure or something?” he asked.

“Probably some teenagers, you know, pulling some kind of prank or just random vandalism like kids do these days,” said the other man.

“Did they take anything – you knows, out of it?” asked Paddy.

“They don’t rightly know seeing as how it’s so old, no one knows if there was anything in there still. But the hole was pretty small, so who’s t’ say.”

There was a pause for a minute then Paddy said, “Hey wait a minute. There are some youngsters staying here. American kids, teenagers.”

“Yeah, so?” queried the other man.

“Well, my groundskeeper was out early this morning, and he couldn’t find his shovel in the shed,” said the innkeeper.

“Oh yeah,” said the other man. “Tell me more.”

“Well, those kids, they came in early this morning. They said they was out for sunrise, but I reckon they was out all night,” said the innkeeper.

Then there was another silence. I didn’t wait to hear what they’d say next. I ran back to the room and opened the door.

“Guys, wake up. Get up man, we gotta’ go,” I said as I began gathering up all our stuff.

“What are you doin’?” said Fanny. “I wanna sleep for a few hours.”

“No time Fan, we gotta’ leave now. A local cop is down there and getting real curious. They’ve already found the grave that we dug up, and he doesn’t sound too thrilled about it.”

Jake and Fanny were up like a shot. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Jake move that fast!

In a few minutes, we heard the loud steps of the portly Paddy and Officer Kelly coming up the stairs.

“What do we do?” asked Jake. “We can’t go out the door; they’ll see us.”

I looked around and saw the small window. It would be a squeeze, but it was our only way out. “There,” I pointed. “Let’s get going.”

Fanny was the first out. She jumped to the gable roof below us then walked along the roof over to the small shed at the back of the inn. Jake watched her do this then turned to me and said, “I can’t do that Em! I’ll fall.”

“You’ve got to Jake. Come on, Fanny will help you.”

Just then Paddy started knocking on the door. “You kids, open up now. Officer Kelly here wants to talk to you.”

Jake took one look at me, swallowed hard, and then jumped to the gable just as Fanny had done. He stumbled a little and looked like he might fall off but somehow he righted himself, got up and ran to the shed roof.

Now my turn. I’m quite a bit bigger than both Fanny and Jake so I had to squeeze to get through that small window, but somehow I did it. I jumped and ran without thinking, all the while hearing the innkeeper and Officer Kelly yelling for us to let them in.

Before long we were running down side alleys and across neatly mowed yards and out of sight of the inn. As tired as we were, the danger made us find the juice in our legs to run like we’ve never run before. We ran south and west for a long time. Before long we were on a small country two-lane road with nothing but fields of grass and sheep on either side.

I was too tired to keep count of time or distance. I only knew we had to keep moving.

After what seemed like an eternity we came to a woods just off the side of the road. It was thick and primeval looking. Finally, a place to get out of the open and into hiding.

We walked until we were far into the dense wood. Without saying a word to each other, we threw off our packs and fell down. I don’t think we were awake for more than a minute. Sleep while we can. This was only the beginning.

22. Zombie Man Wakes

The day that his wife died, a large part of Liam Adams died too. Bridget was the fire burning in the hearth, Liam the stone foundation of their house. Without her passion for life fueling his will, Liam reverted to the only other comfort he had ever known – science.

Liam asked his sister Muriel, fifteen years his senior, to stay with them and help out in the wake of their loss. While Muriel chipped away at the beauty of both their house and Liam’s daughter, he threw himself into his work in theoretical physics at the University of Chicago. He became a zombie of a man in their home.

But on that day that everything changed, Liam was jolted out of his zombie state when he found his sister sitting in their parlor, an ice pack on her head, her bags packed and sitting by the front door. Muriel didn’t even look up at him as she handed him a note.

“I told you, she's trouble,” Muriel snarled. “Probably on drugs or something. You should have seen her when she attacked me! She looked totally hyped up on something.”

Liam said nothing and scanned the note quickly. He then sat down and read it again, searching each line for clues and hidden meaning.

“Was she with anyone?” he asked.

“Those two no-good friends of hers,” Muriel replied.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Okay?
Okay
? That brat attacked me! No, I’m not okay. You need to call the police, Liam. She needs to learn a lesson. If you don’t nip this in the bud, she’ll be running wild all over you.”

“Did she hit you?”

“Hit? Well no, not exactly hit.”

“Well then how did you get that knot on your head? Did she push you?”

“No, she didn’t exactly push me.”

“Dammit Muriel, what happened here?”

“I always knew she was strange. Just like her mother.”

“Muriel, unless you want another lump on your head, you best leave off bad mouthing my wife and daughter.”

Muriel sat there stunned and speechless. Her ‘baby’ brother had never raised his voice at her or back talked her in any way.

“Just answer the question. Tell me how you got that lump,” he said.

Muriel, still stunned, obeyed the request. “Well, you’re not going to believe me. But she threw me. . . well threw isn’t the right word. . . but without touching me, she just looked at me with that crazed look and I was thrown backward. Twice. The second time I fell against the wall, and that blasted frame fell and hit my head and knocked me out.”