Authors: Josh Aterovis
“You couldn't know…”
“Why not?
Why didn't I know? Why couldn't I see it?
Because I didn't want to.
I wanted to be needed. I wanted to be a hero.” I didn't know what to say, but thankfully Asher didn't seem to expect or really even want me to say anything. “I don't even know if our friendship is even salvageable at this point,” he went on, “and I know I never want to see Caleb again, so I've made some really important decisions.”
“What kind of decisions?” I didn't like where this conversation was heading. It was starting to feel very final.
“Major ones.
I've talked to Mom and Dad and they are being really supportive. Everything is already in motion. I just thought you deserved to hear it from me.”
“What's in motion? What are you talking about?”
“I'm moving, Killian, leaving the area. I need to get away from…everything.”
“Leaving? When? Where are you going?”
“I'm leaving tomorrow and I'll be going to my uncle's place in
Alexandria
. He's not really my uncle but he was Dad's best friend all through college and we've always called him Uncle Billy. He's like some big shot at one of the universities up there. He's trying to get me into classes there. I mean I know
it's
last minute but he seems to think he can pull it off. If not, I'll take the semester off and start in the spring. Either way I just need to get away, so…”
“I can't believe you're leaving.”
“Why not?
What difference does it make really? I mean, you've moved on. You're happily seeing that Micah guy. We're not exactly buddies anymore.”
“But I didn't…”
“I'm not blaming anything on you, Killian. I just need to get away from here. I think it'll be good for me.”
“You mean you're running away.” I knew I was lashing out, but my thoughts were spinning and I couldn't seem to gain control of them.
“No, I don't think it's running away to put some distance between yourself and painful memories. Maybe I'll be back someday when I've put all this behind me, but right now it's all just too…well, painful.”
“I…I thought we'd be friends again.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we will. But like you told me before, not right now.”
“Asher, I'm sorry…”
“I didn't come here to lay a guilt trip on you or anything like that. I can't lie and say I'm not hurt and angry, I am. But I don't blame you for that. I just wanted you to know that I was leaving and I thought you deserved to hear it from me.”
“I…I don't know what to say.”
“How about goodbye?
I have to go. I have a lot of stuff to do; packing and stuff, and I still have to go tell Will and Darin bye.”
I opened and closed my mouth silently a few times. “Goodbye,” I finally managed.
Asher gave me a sad smile and turned to leave.
“Asher wait,” I jumped up and threw my arms around him in a tight hug. At first he just stood there,
then
his arms slowly came up and completed the embrace. After a few moments he pulled back and quickly slipped out the door, but not before I saw tears forming in his eyes.
* * *
I was left stunned by Asher's news but tried to cover up my confused feelings when Micah came over later that night. We were alone in the living room, settled in front of the TV, when he asked, “Are you ok? You seem really distracted.”
“I'm fine,” I fibbed. “Just distracted, I guess.”
“Distracted by what?”
“Um…” Good question. I didn't really want to go into the whole Asher mess with Micah again, especially my ambivalent feelings about his leaving. A way out occurred to me. “You
know,
this whole thing with digging up the baby.”
The whole time I was recovering, preparations had been in full swing for the excavation of the basement at
Amalie's
house as we were all calling it these days. Steve had checked on the local laws concerning human remains found on private property and discovered that we were going to have to have the county coroner examine the remains do determine if they were Native American or not. He had 48 hours to look them over and as long as he ruled that they weren't native, which we were fairly positive they wouldn't be, we could rebury them in the private cemetery on the property with his permission.
Steve had called and talked to him, and while the man clearly thought we were all stark raving mad, he had agreed to be present when we dug up the cellar. In addition to Steve, Adam, Judy, me, Micah and the medical examiner, Bryan
Caibre
, the pastor of the local
They had scheduled the big event for the weekend immediately following the doctor prescribed 7 days of rest. The medical examiner couldn't be there until that evening and seeing as how he was doing us a favor we had arranged our schedule to accommodate him.
“Are you nervous?” Micah asked me now.
“Not really. I'm just ready for it to all be over.”
“Well I'm nervous. I've never seen a real skeleton before. And I've still not seen a ghost. I'm wondering if
Amalie
will make a personal appearance.”
I shrugged as I flipped through the station guide on the TV. “If she does it'll only make your story that much better, right?”
“You still want me to go ahead with that story?”
“Why not?
Steve thinks it will be good publicity. Hey, have you ever seen Beautiful Thing?” I asked suddenly. It was playing on Bravo and since it was one of my favorite movies it was the perfect chance to change the subject yet again. He hadn't and we settled down to watch.
When the big night arrived, we drove over in two cars, Adam and Steve in one, and Micah, Kane and I in Micah's. Judy,
Bryan
and the ME, or medical examiner, were supposed to meet us there. We were leaving early so we could meet everyone as they arrived. Kane hadn't particularly wanted to come, but his date had canceled on him at the last minute and he had decided that he might as well go along for what was hopefully going to be the last chapter in the
Amalie
saga.
Predictably, Judy was the first to arrive. The ME and Bryan weren't far behind. We all stood making small talk in the upstairs hall for a few minutes until Steve announced that it was time to get the show on the road.
Everyone crowded into the basement, which was lit as bright as day thanks to several 1000 Watt light stands that had been set up in each corner. I got my first good look at the medical examiner. He was a short, dark fellow with an egg-shaped, shiny bald head that stuck up out of a thin ruff of graying hair. He looked to be in his mid to late-fifties and was definitely on the portly side. He was wearing a very bored expression along with his dung-brown polyester pants and beige button up shirt. He gave the impression that he wasn't exactly the life of the party wherever he went. I wondered what Steve had told him as to why we suspected there was a skeleton under the floor. If he'd told him the truth I doubted he would have been here. He would have probably just called in the men in the white coats to cart us all away.
Personally, I was beginning to wonder if that wouldn't be for the best anyway, at least as far as I was concerned. I hadn't seen anything of Seth since the barn and I was frankly beginning to wonder if it had all been my imagination or some sort of delusion. Maybe Finn had done me a favor by knocking some sense into me with that shovel. Or maybe he'd damaged the part of my brain that housed the Gift, with a capital “G” as I had come to think of it.
Steve had told me that he and Judy had come back on their own while they waited for me to recover and Judy had pinpointed the spot where she thought the baby was. Now, while we all watched in a heavy anticipation, the two of them began digging into the packed earth carefully with small trowels. If they began to hit anything the ME would step in and assist.
It didn't take long to find something;
Amalie
hadn't buried the baby very deeply. The collective sharp intake of breath at the sight of the first tiny dirty bones was easily audible in the oppressive silence. In the moments that followed the initial gasp not a sound was heard, and then a shuddering gust of wind swept through the room, as if the house itself was giving a sigh of relief.
* * *
Several hours later, a complete, if tiny, skeleton had been laid out on a piece of tarpaulin next to a shallow hole. Of those gathered around, only the medical examiner and
Bryan
had really been surprised by the grisly find. The coroner only took a few minutes of examination to tell us that while he didn't know how we knew about the baby, it had obviously been in the ground for a long time so it wasn't a matter for the police. He gathered up the remains in the tarp and stood up, tucking the surprisingly small bundle under his arm.
“Well, this is nothing official, but my preliminary feelings are that these are not Native American bones. If you still want to re-inter the remains on your own, I should be able to release them back to you on Monday if nothing comes up.”
“Thank you for coming out, Dr. Niemeyer,” Steve said graciously, brushing the last bits of dirt from his hands so he could shake the ME's outstretched hand.
Once he was gone, we all stood around looking at each other uncertainly, as if to say what now? Judy was still poking in the dirt.
“Well, I didn't know what to expect when you asked me to come,”
Bryan
said to Steve, “but I have to say this wasn't it. How did you know the…er, skeleton was there?”
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” Steve said with a grin.
“Believe him,” Adam chipped in.
“Try me,” the pastor challenged with a friendly smile of his own.
“Well,” Steve began, but was cut off by an exclamation of surprise from Judy. She jumped to her feet cupping something in her hands.
“More bones?”
Kane asked in a slightly aghast tone. His color had just started returning; he'd been looking a bit green during the excavation.
“No,” Judy said. She definitely sounded excited and we all quickly crowded close to see what it was she had found. “It's a brooch.”
It was a brooch; one I'd seen before, in fact, on the portrait I had found in the storage room. It was crusted with dirt but as Judy brushed it away it was easily recognizable. “
Amalie's
brooch,” I gasped.
“Well, that cinches it,” Steve said with deep satisfaction.
“Cinches what? Who's
Amalie
?”
Bryan
asked in confusion.
“I think we'd better go somewhere a little more comfortable and we'll tell you the whole story,” Adam said, taking pity on the poor confused guy.
“How about our house?
We can all get something to eat and relax,” Steve suggested. Everyone agreed and we all moved up-stairs, Steve staying behind long enough to turn the lights off.
We drove in a caravan of vehicles to our house and we were herded into the living room with drinks and a plate of cheese and crackers.
“Ok, so I want the whole story,”
Bryan
said as soon as everyone was settled. “What's going on? How did you know there was a baby under there?”
Adam and Steve exchanged looks, as if deciding how much to say. Judy, however, had no such reservations. She leaned forward eagerly.
“The house is haunted,” she said with the same fervor a chatty neighbor with a choice bit of information might tell a fellow gossip.
To his credit,
Bryan
didn't even blink.
“Really?
By the baby?”
“No, no. Well, yes, but not primarily.”
I didn't blame
Bryan
for his confused expression.
“The house is haunted by the spirit of
Amalie
Marnien
,” Steve stepped in. “She was the wife of the man who had the house built in the mid 1800's. We think the baby in the basement was her child. I don't blame you for finding this all a little far-fetched…”
“Actually, I don't,”
Bryan
interrupted. “I'm not one of those close-minded clerics who don't believe in anything except what they were told to believe. I've had experiences with supernatural beings before and I'm not just talking about the Holy Ghost. I was even involved in an attempted exorcism when I was in seminary, although I never heard how successful we were. Not very, would be my guess. I wouldn't think the spirit world would respond to vague threats and mumbo-jumbo anymore than the physical world.”
Adam laughed. “I think we underestimated you, Bryan. I know it's a mistake I won't make again. You're taking this better than I did.”