Revenge of Cornelius (11 page)

His white shirt was muddied with dirt
and his short, black pants were darted with tiny prickles. He was
sweating profusely.

"Where have you been?" Andrea asked
curiously. "And where's Rosie?"

The closer he got to her, Andrea could
see that the pupils of his eyes had an abnormally darker hue and
the expression on his face was blank and unreadable.

"I saw her walk through the family
room and out onto the deck," he started. "I thought she was just
going to sit outside, but after a while I noticed she never came
back in. That's when I went to look for her."

Andrea was listening intently and
watching the mannerism that didn't appear to belong to her
husband.

"I didn't say anything to you because
I thought I'd find her playing in the yard. After I didn't see her,
I went further off into the property to look for her, but I have no
idea where she went." He shrugged.

"My God! This can't be happening!"
Andrea exclaimed, worrying less about Theo's odd behavior and more
about the child's sudden disappearance. "We have to find her! How
can I possibly look her mother in the face and tell her I don't
know where her child is when she was left in our care?"

"We'll find her." He weakly embraced
her.

They gave the grounds a thorough
search, even wandered some distance out into the forest area with
no luck. Andrea slumped down on the front porch with tears in her
eyes. "I have to call Mira," she said nervously. "I have to let her
know Rosie's missing and we have to call the police."

Theo was sitting next to her. "Call
her mother first and let her give the go-ahead to call the police,"
he suggested.

Andrea got up and went inside the
house.

Mira's hair was still damp from the
shower when Andrea's call came through. Devastated by the news, she
flew to her parents' room, stood in the doorway and said: "Rosie's
missing! Andrea said they can't find her anywhere. I'm going down
there!"

"Wait for me!" Sara cried.

"I'm going too," Michael started to
get up.

Mira stopped suddenly. "No, Dad. You
stay here. We'll find her. She just probably wandered off playing
somewhere. I'll call you as soon as we find her."

Mira and Sara hurried up the street
and Michael walked slowly toward the kitchen door.

"Over my dead body!" he mumbled under
his breath.

"What happened?" Sara asked on
arriving at the house. Andrea was clearly distraught. She explained
everything that happened from the time they got back home from
their outing to what Theo had claimed he witnessed while watching
television in the family room.

"Did anyone call the police?" Sara
pressed.

"I was going to. I thought maybe I'd
wait for Mira to get here first," Andrea responded.

At that moment, Mira saw a dark shadow
a little ways off into the distance. "Rosie?" she took off into the
huge yard. "Rosie, honey!"

Sara and Andrea followed her, but she
had them in a fairly wide gap as she attempted to catch up to the
figure that moved into the densely-wooded area. Suddenly, another
shadowy figure darted in front of her, then another. She stopped in
her tracks and looked around at all of them that were assembling in
front of her. There were scores of them. The feeling she had at
that instant, took her back to the very first day she ever walked
onto that property. Fear intermixed with anxiety gripped her as
their distinct features gradually came into view.

"Where is my daughter?" she asked.
"Where is she?!"

Each of them had an innocence about
them that slightly allayed her fear. "The renovations…" Mira said
softly.

"What?" Andrea asked behind
her.

"The renovations triggered something;
brought them back here."

Mira's rambling sounded like gibberish
to Andrea and Sara who had no idea what she was talking
about.

Then as if on cue, she turned around
suddenly and looked toward the old well that still stood near the
front of the yard. Sara and Andrea turned too. Rosie, with a
frightened look on her face, was standing on top of the old, brick
structure as Theo Benjamin stood closely behind her with a crazed
glare in his eyes.

"Theo!" Andrea cried. "What on earth
are you doing? Get her down from there!"

"Mister Koney…" Alex, who had advanced
from the front porch, uttered in a low, but audible voice. He was
not referring to his father, but to the ghostly figure that was
crouched on top of his father's back.

"Cornelius!" Mira cried in horror as
she noticed the exact, same thing. She cautiously advanced toward
the well.

"Stay back!" Theo demanded in a loud,
raspy voice, clearly not his own. "I had this well built in the
year eighteen hundred and fifty-two. Its depth is forty feet into
the heart of the ground. When she hits the floor, head first, her
neck will crack in half and she will die instantly!"

"Please…" Mira held out her hand.
"It's me you want—not her. I was the one who helped Karlen all
those years ago. Just let my daughter go!"

As Mira was making her passionate plea
to the angry spirit that invaded the soul of Theo Benjamin, Michael
drove up into the yard. Shock hit him in the face when he saw Rosie
standing at the tip of the empty well. Weak and exhausted, he moved
toward the scene as quickly as he possibly could, inhaling deeply
and vigorously, for each stride across the lawn commanded it. He
knew he had to save her even if it cost him his final
breath.

"What're you doing? Get her down from
there!" He yelled at Theo; his voice hoarse.

Sara rushed over to Michael and held
his arm.

"Pops!" Rosie said meekly with tears
streaming down her face.

"You'll be okay, pumpkin. Everything's
okay. Just be very still," Michael told her.

"Why are you doing this?" He was a
mere six feet away from Theo. "That's my grand-daughter. Please,
let me bring her down."

Andrea tried to convince her husband
to release the child, but the closer she got to him, the more he
inched Rosie closer to the deep, wide hole.

An evil grin escaped Theo's throat as
his head spun full circle on the axis of his neck. Mira was
grateful for Rosie's sake that the girl's back was facing the
horrid sight. If not, fear alone might have murdered her that
day.

Mira advanced some more, though
cautiously—knowing instinctively that there was no way Cornelius
Ferguson would release his grip of Theo who, in a split second,
could easily toss the child to her death.

"You don't have to be
afraid of him anymore,"
went a feminine,
ethereal voice behind Mira. Glancing back, she saw the shadow
figures staring up above them, but for some reason, was not allowed
to see what they saw. Nevertheless, she knew who had visited
them.

Mira continued toward the well, when
suddenly, rushing past her as lightning bolts were the dark shadows
that had once stood far behind her. They flew full-force into their
former slave-master, bringing him down with a large thump that
seemed to shake the earth. Theo, now dazed, stumbled off slightly
which caused Rosie to lose balance, and just as she was about to
topple into the deep, dark abyss above which she stood, Michael,
who had mustered up every bit of energy inside yanked her from the
well in the nick of time. They both fell to the ground—Rosie
landing on top of her grandfather.

Mira hugged Rosie tightly as Sara
helped Michael up. Andrea ran over to Theo who was still clearly in
a daze, having no idea what had just occurred.

Cornelius, trapped beneath the ghosts
of his former slaves, emitted blood-curdling screams into the air.
Mira and Rosie could hear his painful squeals as those, who once
were tortured, ravenously returned the favor. The screams
eventually faded into the distance as the otherworldly visitors
collectively vanished into thin air.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?" Mira
was checking Rosie over.

"Yes, Mommy. Who was that woman in the
sky?" Rosie asked.

Mira smiled with a heart full of
gratitude—yet again. "Her name's Karlen. She's our guardian angel,"
she said.

"She's pretty,"

"Yes, she is."

"Why did Mister Koney try to hurt me?"
Rosie asked.

"You saw him?" Mira was
surprised.

"Yes. Remember I told you from the
first time we came here? He seemed so nice at the time."

Mira then realized that Rosie had been
seeing the ghost of Cornelius Ferguson from their very first visit
there together. She shuddered at the fact that unknowingly, she had
been placing her daughter in the presence of infinite evil each
time she brought her to this house.

"Yes, honey. I remember," Mira
said.

Rosie escaped the grasp of her mother,
ran back over to her grandfather and hugged him tightly. "You saved
me, Pops. You saved me! I love you soooo much!"

"I love you, too, pumpkin." Michael
smiled, though exhaustion fought against the very
gesture.

The Benjamins stood together. Theo and
Andrea felt terrible about what had happened and Andrea was
horrified that her husband could be capable of hurting a child.
Mira went over and explained to them what really happened after
first explaining the same to her parents, who this time, didn’t see
any of the ghosts nor understood Theo's actions. Theo was aghast
that he could have been used in such a devious way, but Mira tried
to explain to him that it wasn't his fault.

"But it is," he answered sadly. "If I
wasn't so selfish, but cared more about my family than I did my
career and social status, this never would have happened because we
would've been out of here a long time ago."

Andrea's heart softened when she heard
him say those words.

"I allowed my wife and son to be
tortured in this house. What kind of husband and father does that?
Could you please tell your daughter that I'm truly, very sorry for
what I put her through?"

Mira saw the sincerity in his eyes
that were now back to normal. "I will."

Rosie was telling her grandparents
where Theo had hidden her before taking her to the well. She
revealed how he had tied her to a tree some distance into the
wooded area and taped her mouth so that she couldn't scream. More
than anything, Michael wanted to walk over there to the fine
senator and disfigure his face, but he knew what Mira had told them
explained the man's irrational and extreme behavior.

"It was the renovations and the fact
that you're a colored family that awakened his ghost," Mira told
the Benjamins. "He was brutal in life and no different in death.
When you moved in here, the ghosts of some of the former slaves
felt the need to protect you—especially your son. Even so, they
were still afraid."

"That's why I constantly saw the
shadows…" Andrea inserted, "…and Alex did too."

Mira nodded.

"But Alex saw the slave-master as
well. He called him Mister Koney, but I never saw him
myself."

"Yes, Rosie did too."

"She did?" Andrea was
shocked.

"I guess he likes to scare young
children," Mira said.

"And attack women," Andrea
added.

"Sorry?" Mira wasn't sure what she
meant.

Andrea turned around and invited Mira
to raise the back of her blouse. On doing so, Mira gasped at the
sight in front of her. The cuts closely resembled lashes—similar to
what she saw on Andy's back in the vision years earlier.

"
He
did this to you. You know that
right? Not the slaves," Mira asserted.

"Cornelius?" Andrea asked.

"Yes."

"What on earth stopped him from
harming Alex like this?"

"I suppose the slaves. They may have
put most of their energies into somehow protecting him since he was
a child and completely helpless."

Theo shook his head in utter
amazement. "If anyone had ever told me this story, I never would've
believed it. I had to experience this awful thing to be a
believer," he said.

Although Mira felt things would be
calm now since Cornelius was confronted and overcome by his former
slaves, the Benjamins insisted on moving out of the house.
Considering he had almost murdered a child, Theo could not have it
any other way.

9

_________________

Wade and his family showed up for the funeral that was held four
months later. It was a rainy day and the Cullen family sat up front
under the velvety-green tent at the cemetery. Fortunately, Wade had
spent several weeks with his father after the news of his illness
and did everything he could to make life more comfortable for
him.