Consequences (5 page)

“Well, actually, I'm sure that it’s kind of
like hearing the animals … you always tell the truth, a rarity by
far. I’m starting to understand that before my unfortunate time in
Los Vegas, I heard the truth from lies, because the chemical
response to fabricating deceit. That fabrication makes part of a
person’s honest mind actually scream the facts. I’ve always been
able to hear thoughts; I’m just sensitive to that particular
reaction. You, on the other hand, you whisper all the time, always
thinking, always analyzing … it’s like you have no room in your
head for dishonesty or manipulation. Since you are always stating
the facts in your head, as long as I listen closely, I can always
hear you.” He has a smile on his face that makes me wonder if he is
giving me a compliment, or enjoying his version of a freak show
…
Ladies and gentlemen, the amazing honest man, as rare as the
illusive unicorn.

“What is your attraction to freak shows?”
Christopher starts laughing so hard that tears roll down his
face.

Blushing, I react by puffing up my chest, and
then ask what we are having for dinner and what can I do to help.
Christopher pulls himself together in just enough time to tell me,
all I have to do is grab a bowl. It is a simple soup that he had
apparently frozen; so all he had to do was throw it in a pot to
thaw. The kid is a good cook. His independence always surprises me;
I wasn’t nearly this together at nineteen.

Sitting down at his table with a bowl full of
soup and a roll from the Polebridge Mercantile, I hadn't realized
just how hungry I was; until I noticed my mouth had started
watering.

To accompany our meal, Christopher sets a mug
of the richest, dark coffee, in front me; and, I know instantly
that he makes his coffee the same way as Lilly … and simply
thinking her name, takes me back to her.

Sitting in her kitchen, alone and talking,
while everyone else was in town, I watched the snow fall outside
her kitchen window. The very same window I would watch her from
when I would return from my patrols around the property boundaries.
The coffee she set in front of me, to warm me up, tasted different
than the stuff the guys made by the gallon in our barracks. I would
watch her press her brew in a small glass carafe, asking questions
the entire time. When I wouldn’t answer honestly or mumbled, she
would look at me from under her bangs with an eyebrow raised; her
dark eyes would make my breath stop in my throat.

Quickly taking a drink of the hot coffee to
cover my reaction, I burnt my tongue every time. Those eyes, I had
never seen eyes like hers before, and I doubt I’ll ever see
anything like them again: sea green around the outside and rich
brown at the center. When I finally kissed her, the brown had
turned deep red … almost the same color as her hair.

Back at Christopher’s table, staring at the
mug of coffee in front of me, in the dark liquid I can see Lilly’s
window and the snow. Long dark nights full of giant snowflakes …
light reflected and broken on the surface of the steaming drink.
“Snow … cold, bitter; frozen…we sat in comfortable silence just
watching the snow.” I say dreamily.

When I look up, Christopher has his arms
crossed over his chest, nodding. The defensive posture of his arms
is openly betrayed by the understanding look in his eyes. Looking
down at the table he speaks quietly, “Ellie devoured my soul too …
the consumption of such intense passion can derange your mind,
forever.”

We sit nodding at the unspoken vulnerability
laid out on the table, but nothing more is said on the topic of our
obsessions.

Eating in silence, then cleaning up after
ourselves, and stoking the fire, we sit down in the living room
adjacent to the whelping pen. “Tell me about what happened in
Vegas. One doesn't have to be ‘talented’ to know you’re hiding from
something, and I think that something is in Nevada.”

With an obvious bitter tone he blurts out, “I
suppose the whole ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ thing
won’t work for you, will it?”

Shaking his head like he is trying to forget
a bad taste he continues, “I found out that there are actually
worse creatures than simple humans; I found out that monsters are
real.”

Waiting for him to continue, I realize he is
going to need prodding. “Monsters? Like what … Frankenstein or
serial murderers?” As surreal as the question is, I admit I am
curious to know the answer.

The goose bumps that form on Christopher’s
arms arrive as his gaze shifts to the left, and his expression
softens considerably. Like before, watching him talk to air, this
reaction makes the hair on my neck stand on end again. Whispering
“Yes, all right” to the phantom, he returns his eyes back to me …
but he is looking through me, not at me.

“My world changed about thirteen months ago …
I started having these nightmares, hearing voices; and I was angry
all the time. It took every ounce of my strength to not take my
pain out on everyone around me. I was sure I’d gone insane. Have
you ever had so much anxiety, anger, and pressure, that your head
and stomach actually hurt? The discomfort leads to not sleeping,
which of course, leads to more pain. I muddled through school,
work, and my so-called home life, but I was being pulled apart
inside. Then my grandfather, my closest friend in the world, had to
be moved to a hospice; he was dying of brain cancer. I lost him
within a week of the move, but during that week something unseen
held me together. A sweet voice in the back of my mind … soft
touches on my skin, and just a small glimpse in my peripheral
vision … were leaving me walking in a waking dream. I thought I was
hallucinating, even before she revealed herself to me.” Still
looking through me, he smiles at the memory.

“Let me guess … Ellie?” I am not sure what he
means by ‘before she revealed herself to me’, but I do recognize
the look in his eyes … it is love. Watching his expression change
from affirmation to confusion, I start wondering what he is
thinking.

“I tell you that she is unseen, and before
she presented herself she might as well have been voices in my
head, crazy hallucinations … and no questions? I finally tell you
the truth … well, the surface of the truth; and the only thing that
sticks out is that I’m talking about Ellie? Michael, I know the
questions have passed through your mind … I’ve heard them … Who do
I talk to? What am I hiding from? Where did I get these scars?" He
almost looks exacerbated to the point of yelling at me.

“Christopher, you are a very private person …
for that matter, so am I. I was giving you space to tell me what
you want … when you want. I can’t read your mind, I can only read
your body language, and you let everyone know that you don’t want
to let anyone in. So if you know my questions, then answer them,
without me asking. I think we’ll both be happier. I’ll tell you
this one without you poking around in my head, I want to know the
truth, tell me the truth.”

“The truth is, even when I look back at my
memories of Ellie, I still don’t know if they are real. My life was
unfolding like a bad dream, before I knew she existed; and I was
desperate for release from the nightmare before it broke me. The
nightmare’s name was James. Ironically, his presence helped to
entice Ellie to my side, bringing about my means of escape; even
though she didn’t know why I was special to her at the time. Ellie
showed herself to me in a dream, and then let me know she was real
by touching me and talking to me while I was awake. She explained
her idea of what she was … a creature alive in the ethereal mist.
She found purpose in helping others, like a muse of sorts. She was
human once, but after her death, she moved to a place of lost
potential … where special people lost before their time, still
survive. She didn’t realize that ‘lost potential’ could include
inhumanely powerful capability for good, or evil. Hell, she didn’t
even realize there were others like her … out there in the mist.”
His expression reflects bitterness again, but I can still hear the
love in his words.

“So you’re telling me that Ellie died?” Well,
that would explain the ghostly presence.

“Yes and no. She was lost from our world in
1940, during the London Blitz … but she saw that as a passing over
to a different life, not ceasing to exist like we normally think of
death. She broke after World War Two, slid into an emotionally
paralyzing fugue state … a state of mind that she said she couldn't
awake from, until she found me. She would say things like, ‘I love
you. I give you everything that I am, and I don’t want to make the
mistake of not telling you how I feel. Sharing feelings, even if
they might be a mistake, should never be regretted. Life is too
short, to not be honest with yourself.’ Her purity made me feel so
small, and the fact that she chose me to give it to … well, her
selflessness overwhelmed my senses. I fell fast and hard; there was
no way I could avoid falling in love with her.”

“She sounds like a remarkable girl.” I am
dumbfounded by his description; her self-sacrifice seems more
fictional than her existence. “Tell me, have you seen the
mist?”

“Not for myself, no … but there are other
ways to know something exists without seeing. The influences of
these creatures can be witnessed all the time … if you watch close
enough. James could force emotions onto someone else and cause
hallucinations, and Ellie could feel others’ emotions and even
project herself into your mind. Then there was James's mentor, V.
He was a real monster, one that fed off fear and sadness. He could
strip any internal defenses you might have, and force you to relive
torturous memories so that he could feed on the negative energy.
They were all like me once, talented humans; and I will most likely
end up like them.”

I asked for the truth, and I got the truth …
or at least what, I can see, Christopher believes is the truth. If
he is right, then I have a lot to think about. Knowing about his
talents, and seeing his interaction with the animals, brings me to
question the validity of some of the folklore I’ve read over the
years. Now, confronted by the idea that ghost stories could be
real? My mind is reeling from what the kid is saying, battling with
my ideas about reality … all the possible examples of interaction
with these creatures throughout history.

My God, we could have been living with,
secretly watched and manipulated by, these creatures forever …
since the beginning of mankind.

“Hey, Christopher, do you have anything
stronger to drink?”

Michael is taking the news better than I
thought he would. He doesn’t like the fact that I don’t have any
hard alcohol around, but he gratefully takes a Summer Honey Ale
when I hand it to him. I listen to his mind as it runs a mile a
minute, applying what I have told him to every possible myth he’s
ever heard. I remember when I started putting the pieces of
knowledge about the ethereal creatures together, and how the
awareness was both awe-inspiring and insane.

When I hear Michael's thoughts speak about
the Inuit tale of the Taqriaqsuit, or shadow people, it catches my
attention right away.

“Tell me about the shadow people?”

He looks relieved to be lifted out of his own
musings, “The Inuit believe that they are benign entities, who live
just outside our realm of perception. If you hear laughing or
talking, but no one is around to make a sound, they say, you’ve
just been exposed to a Taqriaqsuit. The tribal Elders say that if
you actually glimpse one of these shy creatures, they will appear
to sink into the ground, so as to avoid contact. Stories say that
some Inuit have chosen to cross over into the shadow people’s
world, but they never returned to tell anyone what it was
like.”

“You said they were benign … are there evil
entities, too?” Cringing internally, I almost think better about
asking, but it's more important to be armed for the future, than it
is to be squeamish about history.

“Of course there are. If a culture
understands good or benign, then they’ll also see evil. If nothing
else, my interest in mythology has taught me that humans have the
same ideas and fears, no matter where, or when, they live. I’m
sorry if I sound brash, but you have to know how incredible it is
to find that there are more ties between different civilizations
than just the stories they have told. These creatures are
everywhere, leaving behind footprints throughout time. The concept
of, and the varying ideas about, these entities, must have crossed
oceans long before humans ventured out into the sea. The thought
that the thread of truth in so many folk stories may not only be
morals, but that these creatures exist… there could be actual
facts, proof, showing that they are real, and have been here for a
very long time.” I can see his empirical, deductive mind fighting
with his imagination. The only obvious truth inside of his
confusion is his overwhelming excitement over uncovering answers to
philosophical and historical mysteries.

“Give me an example of evil … please.” I am
still shrinking away from knowing more about evil … I've seen
enough evil. But I need to know for safety's sake.

“Well, the Inuit have another tale about
creatures known as the Ijiraat. They are shape shifters, who change
into any animal or human that they want in order to lure lone
travelers to a trap. The only things that they can never change are
their eyes: always red and full of danger, never trust those with
red eyes.

"When an Ijiraat catches a traveler, they
steal memories … maybe even feed on the echoes of emotions attached
to those memories. Some of the ancient council members, I've read
about, think that the Ijiraat are also benign, because they aren’t
known for physically hurting anyone. Personally, I think someone
stealing memories and emotions, is still causing physical harm.” He
shrugs his shoulders and takes a long draw from the bottle.