Fallen Stones (37 page)

Stephanie sat relaxing on the sofa out on the deck overlooking the atrium outside the loft. Sammy was inside taking his afternoon nap in the small bedroom next to the kitchenette.  She looked out across the expanse of the atrium into the back yard. In the distance, she could see the first signs of autumn approaching in the slightly changing colors of the leaves. She could not believe it was the first week in September already. The idea was almost impossible to grasp. The two older children were already settled into their new school. It seemed like only yesterday they had learned of her inheritance, but that was four months earlier and now she was comfortably relaxing in her luxurious home as if she had lived in the place her entire life.

Inside the loft, far behind her, a decorative mirror hung in the center of the back wall. It occupied a space next to the kitchenette between the small bedroom where Sammy slept and the bathroom. It was quiet inside the loft, just as Stephanie liked it. Not only did she want to make sure nothing disturbed her son's rest, but she enjoyed this quiet time herself; a time to relax and reflect.

In the silence of the large loft space where the only light needed was the natural sunlight filtering down through the skylights and in through the many windows, the surface of the decorative mirror began to shimmer, then ripple in concentric circles emanating from the center of the glass and noiselessly working their way outward. Soon an image, faint and faded at first, then becoming clearer began to take shape inside the rippling mirror.  It was the face of Marie Livingston, long dead great-grandmother of Stephanie Wright. The visage appeared to be staring intently out toward the deck and at the woman reclining there, whom she knew, was her descendent and who resembled Marie enough to be her sister.

For the past several months, Marie Livingston and the others had chosen by design to stay quiet and out of sight. They had no desire to make their presence known and to do anything to frighten the Wright family into leaving.  They had waited almost a century for the correct family to become available and now the long wait was almost over and the time for action would soon be upon them.

They had plans for the family; plans which needed to be carried out in the timeframe required. They wanted to give the family time to become acclimated to their new home and lifestyle. The inhabitants of the land of the dead had been carefully watching and monitoring the Wright's progress, all the while being careful to remain unseen. Although normally time would be an irrelevant concept to creatures such as they, the spirits had a deadline in mind and needed to adhere precisely to it. And that meant the first phase of the plan would to begin shortly.  That was why Marie had appeared at that location and at that exact time; to plant the first of many seeds, which would eventually put the wheels of fate in motion once again.

As Marie looked out at the woman on the deck and saw how similar, they both were in appearance; her hatred and envy toward the woman grew. She cursed Stephanie for being alive and for having all of the things the dead still remember from their own lives on earth, but could no longer experience; such as the touch of a loved one, the joy in a sunset or simply the feeling of being alive.

On more than one occasion, during particularly frustrating and angry times, Marie had been tempted to reach out to Stephanie and take control of her mind, then force her to slowly kill herself in some incredibly horrible fashion. Marie knew she had that power, but that was not in her master's plan. Doing so would have brought Marie severe consequences and great suffering. She had forced herself to hold her anger and stick to the timetable as her husband had demanded. Eternity was a very long time to suffer his wrath to any worse degree than she was already being forced to endure.

She and her cohorts also discovered how it had proven to be more of a challenge than anticipated to remain unseen by that infernal small child, Samuel, who seemed to have been constantly milling about. Prior to the Wrights moving onto the property they had been able to come and go as they pleased, the living for the most part never being any the wiser. But that little boy had some sort of natural ability to sense their presence and see them whenever they appeared.  Marie discovered this the very first day the family had visited the property and the boy had seen her watching them from the large mirror in Washburn's master bedroom.

As a result, they had to learn to be extra careful. The young boy was getting older, and his vocabulary and understanding was increasing daily. In the beginning, he not only couldn't comprehend the meaning of their appearances but even if he had understood, he did not have the vocabulary necessary to express his sightings. Marie recalled how the boy almost had revealed the presence of the other two; those damned boys, when he had seen them at their gravesite. Fortunately no one understood what he was talking about, as he could not make himself clear to his
family. That was several months ago. Now, however, he might be more capable of doing so.
 

The spirit wished she could see the boys herself; wished they were accessible to her, then she would fix them so they could never cause her problems again. But they were on some other plane of existence; separate from her own and she could never quite locate them, although she could sense their occasional presence. She didn't know if they could see her and Dwight from where they existed. She suspected it might be possible, however, since she could see the humans in their world, but they could not see her. Even after almost one hundred earth years, she was still new to the spirit world and unable to understand everything about her reality.

She cursed the heavens for her rotten luck. It would not be fair if she could not find the boys while they could see her, if that was the case. But one thing she learned quickly after death was that nothing in this afterlife was any fairer than in life had been when she was alive. Marie was in constant turmoil worrying about what would happen if the boys continued to manifest themselves to the small child. Eventually he would find a way to let his parents know what was going on.

Fortunately, Samuel was the only member of the Wright family with this ability. And as such, she and Dwight had devised a way to control Samuel and what his visions showed to him, since they were not able to be in command of their two former sons' comings and goings. And they had done so without the use of violence, much to Marie's chagrin.

Many times, Marie had wished she had the ability to float a pillow over the boy's head as he lay sleeping in his daybed and smother the very life out of him, putting the brat out of their way forever. But she unfortunately didn't possess such power. And even if she had, she knew Dwight would never tolerate such an act, as it would cause so much heartache and chaos in the family it might drive them apart and eventually away. If she were responsible for that, there certainly would be hell to pay and she felt she was already paying quite enough hell already. Besides, she knew they needed the three of them, Jason, Stephanie and Samuel to complete Dwight's plan. If anything should happen to the boy, it might take several more centuries until they once again found the right combination of souls.

Out on the deck, Stephanie was thinking about how today had been another quite productive day of putting the final touches on her illustrations. Things had been going extremely well with her latest children's book over the past few months; so much, that Stephanie believed she might be able to declare the work finished at last.

She understood when it came to writing or art or any creative endeavor, it was very difficult to say for sure when a work was completed.  

Her practice had been, once she determined a book was completed she would set the book aside for a few weeks, maybe as long as a month. During that time, she would begin a new project, perhaps another book or maybe something completely different. She had been thinking more about researching her ancestry lately; perhaps she would begin that project next. It might make for a good change of pace; one sufficiently different enough to allow her to clear her mind.

Then in a month, she would sit down with a fresh set of eyes and an open mind, and then begin the process of re-reading, editing and critiquing her work.  

Although Stephanie had been thinking about beginning a genealogical investigation, the idea had not actually been her own. Since the day she first learned of Emerson Washburn, Stephanie's mind had been receiving occasional subtle suggestions from the creatures of the dead to begin her research. It was critical to their plans. But even more important was for Stephanie to believe the idea was her own.

As she looked out at the cool September afternoon, Stephanie shook her head in disbelief, trying to come to grips with how the entire summer had passed by so quickly. And so much had happened during those months as well. Jason had taken the new job, and they had sold their own home and moved into the Ashton estate. They had done some limited remodeling, especially in the master bedroom and had sold most of the antique furnishings and pictures for a substantial profit, which helped to make up most of the cost of their painting and cleanup of the bedroom. They had kept the tall mirror from Washburn's bedroom as well as the portrait of her great grandparents from the living room, but had stored them up in the attic along with a few other items they thought they might want to keep. Stephanie liked the mirror but decided to hide it away because of the way it had seemed to bother Sammy. That particular incident had been so strange. She wondered what it was about the mirror. Perhaps when Sammy was a little older she would bring it down from storage and try once again.

However, neither she nor Jason cared for the portrait. The thing bothered them both to no end. First, because of how the subject's eyes seemed to follow everyone anywhere they might move throughout a room. And secondly, because of how much her great grandparents looked like she and Jason. Stephanie thought again about her idea to do a family tree and realized now she had to make sure to include Jason's side of the family as well. After all, that side of the family was not only important to Jeremy but to Sammy as well.

Chapter 24

 

Stephanie heard a rattling sound from down below and immediately recognized it as being Mrs. Franks, Connie, dusting the furniture in the atrium area. Stephanie was so very grateful to Jason for suggesting they hire Connie to help her with maintaining their new home. She realized that without the woman's assistance, she might never have been able to finish her book. If she were to be perfectly honest with herself, it was more like she was helping Connie, who was doing the lion's share of the housework.

And Connie's husband, Wilbur had become a great asset to Jason as well, helping him with the yard work and other such duties. With his new job and growing responsibilities, Jason often had to go into work very early and stay late into the evening. Like Connie, Wilbur had assumed most of Jason's chores as well. And although Jason was enjoying his new position, it was causing a great deal of stress for both he and Stephanie. His came in the form of overworking and hers in the form of loneliness. She found herself spending far too much time by herself, especially now that the two older kids were settled in their new school.

She found the time alone to be something of a double-edged sword. From a writing perspective, it was a blessing because it allowed her time to think, to work and to illustrate her projects. But from the standpoint of a wife and mother, it simply meant she had far too much time in solitude; too much time to miss her husband and far too much time to imagine. Being a creative person, her imagination found itself in high gear, particularly during the alone times and not necessarily always in a constructive or positive way.  She had often found herself imagining things about Jason she knew he would never do, could never do, but still the ideas came nonetheless. She simply had too much quiet time.  

Stephanie found this situation to be quite ironic, since prior to meeting Jason when she was a single working mother she would have given her eye teeth for one tenth of the time she now had available. Now she would give something equivalent just to have less free time. She silently scolded herself for being so ungrateful and thought "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."

To break things up, she often would take Sammy out on trips to the town Ashton and the surrounding communities to become familiar with the area, but there was not much to see. The place was not a booming metropolis of specialty stories and custom boutiques. Most of the people she met during their trips were all very friendly and seemed to be honest hardworking folk, but the blatantly poor economic conditions of the county only served to depress Stephanie.

She missed being only twenty minutes from the bustling and trendy shopping district in Wyomissing or the cultural opportunities of downtown Reading. All of that was a good hour or more away now. She had considered returning to Berks County for some day trips but chose not to. If Ashton was to be their new home, then she had to find ways to make it their home. And she understood running back to what was comfortable or familiar was not the answer.

Being a caring person by nature it made Stephanie feel bad and frequently guilty to live in such splendor while so many people in Schuylkill County were financially suffering. Yet she knew there was little she could do to help anyone even if she was so inclined, as all of their wealth was tied up in the house. Jason had been right about one thing, with their inheritance and Jason's promotion, they truly were living like a king and queen among peasants when they compared their home and land with the meager wood-framed dwellings owned by most of the people in the community. Even the local business owners, doctors, lawyers and politicians did not have homes, which could be considered in the same league as theirs.

But neither the presumed wealth nor the prestige it brought with it mattered to Stephanie. She really missed Jason and missed the way their life had been just a few months ago. Yes, it was true that back then every day had been a struggle financially but they were happy. Now she had no more money problems, was living in a mansion and plenty of time to work on her books, but her husband was seldom around to offer the type of emotional support she needed. Stephanie didn't consider herself to be high-maintenance, emotionally speaking, but that was how she was beginning to feel.