Silas: A Supernatural Thriller (45 page)

All this is to say that life returned to at least a semblance of normalcy. My wedding ring no longer remained stowed away in my dresser. Once I placed it over my finger, it never again left it. We were happy,
truly
happy, for the first time since early in our relationship, when we were both young and carefree. I started writing again and was actually able to start a manuscript I thought might have potential, if only I stayed with it this time. Wendy supported me, I supported her. Now, this isn’t to say we never argued – we did, and sometimes those disagreements were
epic
. But we tried our best to approach these confrontations with respect and understanding, always attempting to resolve whatever issues we had before things spiraled completely out of control, and never again did we go to bed angry with each other.

In early autumn, I was upstairs packing my bags in preparation for a trip. My old friend Marcus had invited Silas and me on a fishing excursion, and though I was never one for fishing – never mind sailing – I decided it would be helpful for the two of us to try new things. While digging through my underwear drawer I stumbled upon a manila envelope. I picked it up and stared at it for a moment. I hadn’t so much as thought of its contents since I stashed them in the drawer the day we arrived back home.

Opening up the package and dumping the two items inside on my nightstand, I was instantly taken back to that other world. Silas wandered into the room as I stared at them, his one eye twinkling while his tongue dangled off to the side. He stared at the golden bullet and silver disk, and then gazed back up at me. His head tilted to the side, as if he knew what I was thinking.

“I know,” I whispered, standing up and stuffing the items in my pocket. “There’s still one more thing we have to do.”

When we went outside that day, I saw moving vans parked in my neighbor’s driveway. A pair of large men lugged furniture out of the house. Joe walked out with a box in his arms. I nodded to him, he nodded back, and then he went back about his business.

Minutes later out came Jacqueline. She skipped down the driveway, humming, her long black hair bouncing behind her. Silas approached her and she stopped. She knelt down and petted him. Each time he turned so that his missing eye faced her, the little girl grimaced.

I walked across the thin strip of lawn separating our houses. Jacqueline glanced up as I did so, a goofy grin appearing on her face.

“Hi Mr. Ken,” she said.

I blushed, remembering how little Molly had addressed me the same way. “Hello, Jacqueline,” I replied, sweeping my arm at the bustle of activity behind her. “You guys moving?”

She nodded.

“Where to?”

“Upstate
New Hampshire
,” I heard Joe say. His back was to us, and he didn’t turn around. “My extended family owns land up there. It’s cheaper than here…not to mention more private.”

I turned back to Jacqueline. “Are you excited about this, sweetie?” I asked.

She shrugged and kept running her hands through Silas’s fur. “I guess so,” she replied.

Just then I felt a faint vibration on my thigh. It surprised me and I uttered a tiny yelp, which made Jacqueline giggle. I reached into my pocket to find the disk was quivering. I pulled it out and stared at it.

The crystal in the center of the disk glowed lightly, illuminating the symbols. “That’s pretty,” Jacqueline said. “Can I see it?”

“Sure.”

I handed her the disk, and something phenomenal happened. The moment her tiny fingers touched its smooth metal surface, the disk erupted in a blinding cascade of colored light. The luminosity encircled her like a cloak while she stared down at it, her eyes wide. She looked like an angel surrounded by the radiance of heaven. I remembered Ben’s words:
It can detect the genetic makeup of any being whose origin comes from this place.
Judging by the intensity of the light around little Jacqueline, she was much more than that.

“It’s so pretty,” she said, handing it back to me and shielding her eyes from the glare. The light and vibration died down the moment it left her grasp. I shoved it back in my pocket, and suddenly I knew, just
knew
, that it wasn’t fate that brought me here. The disk hadn’t reacted that way around the other girls, which meant Jacqueline really
was
the one Paul had been looking for. Was it coincidence that she was my neighbor’s daughter, and that Paul was my mirror? No matter how much my logical brain tried to make it so, I just couldn’t believe it.

I never saw Joe or Jacqueline again after that, at least not in person. But that’s another story.

Two days later, Silas and I stood on the deck of a fly fishing boat out in the
Atlantic
. We couldn’t see land any more. Marcus had stepped below decks for a minute, and I removed from my tote bag Wendy’s old cashbox. I placed the golden bullet and silver disk inside, along with about five pounds of ball bearings, and then closed and locked it. I hurled it over the side of the boat. The metal box splashed into the ocean and immediately sank beneath the surface. In seconds there was no clue it’d ever been there.

I placed a hand on Silas’s head and gently rubbed the place where his left eye had been. “I guess that’s that, huh boy?” I asked.

He barked and wagged his tail. I took that as a yes.

70

The funny thing about life is that it moves on. No matter how many experiences you have, all the spectacular, horrible, or simply dull moments are ultimately doomed to be nothing but a memory given time. And truth be told, that time goes by
fast.

Of course it was the same way for me, and looking back on it now it seems everything happened all at once. Come winter we found out Wendy was pregnant. It was a girl. It turned out to be a mild surprise – we weren’t actively
trying
to have a child, I guess, but we’d stopped using all and any forms of birth control, using the
whatever happens, happens
mentality. I guess you could say we were being passive aggressive about the whole thing, but real change takes baby steps.

And baby steps were what we got. Tons of them. In the irony to beat all ironies, Deborah Ann Lowery was born on July 26
^th
, a year to the day since Nick Goodman yanked me from this world and began my path to transformation. She was a wonderful child, bright, happy, smart, and full of energy. She kept us awake most nights early on, and I volunteered to stay up with her, seeing as Wendy remained dedicated to her pottery, and art waits for no man (or woman).

Speaking of
The Spinning Wheel
, my wife’s business took off like never before. Likely bolstered by our newfound fame, orders rolled in by the truckload. By the time Deborah was two years old, we’d had to hire a full-time staff of thirty just to keep up. The shop in
Middletown
was shut down in favor of a much larger building in uppity
West Hartford
, complete with a surplus of warehouse space. Wendy, tired of the countless hours of work, started a search of
New England
art schools, looking to pluck some rising young stars straight out of college. Before too long she had a team of six talented and dedicated artisans who kept the workshop kilns burning. Wendy still came up with the designs, of course, and oftentimes on weekends she’d disappear into the basement and spin that wheel. Creating things was in her blood, I guess, just like writing was in mine.

My personal successes didn’t come close to Wendy’s, but I was still able to take some pride in what I did outside of keeping the books for her. With the construction of a movie studio in
New Haven
, I requested – and received – permission to write a few treatments for novel conversions. A couple of them sold – albeit with major editing done by the studios after the fact – but the money was decent and it became something I could hang my hat on. My mentality was much better by then, anyhow. Hell, I watched Ricky Davenport become a relatively successful director and actually felt
happy
for him. I guess sometimes life really
can
amaze us.

In time we decided to move from our modest home in Mercy Hills to a larger and more convenient house two blocks from the
West Hartford
store. The move was ushered in by three things: we were now rolling in dough and could more than afford it; Wendy’s role as administrator, as there were times she’d had to put out fires – both figuratively and literally – in the middle of the night; the fact she’d gotten pregnant again. That’s right – baby number two was on the way.

Carol Janine was born in May, almost three years after Deborah. And we weren’t done yet, because Rebecca Nicole came to us two years after that. Rebecca’s delivery was particularly frightening. There were multiple complications with the birth, and for a while I wasn’t sure if Wendy
or
the baby would make it. Everything turned out fine, with the baby being delivered via cesarean section, but the two-week hospital stay afterwards was more than either of us could bear. We mutually decided to both get fixed. Wendy asked me if I was sure, seeing as she’d never given birth to a son. I told her that was fine. We had three wonderful children now, which was more than enough. And besides, I already
had
a son.

That’s right, Silas. Through all of these big amendments to our lives, through the moves and the fights and the children, he was the constant. We all got older, we settled down, we
changed.
He didn’t. He remained the puppy he’d always been, running in the backyard, chasing his stick, acting neurotic in rainstorms, showing affection when we needed it most, always staying by my side like my partner in crime. He adjusted well to the girls, but why wouldn’t he? They were simply additions to the pack, more people – albeit of a smaller variety – for him to love and receive love in return. In fact, the first word any of our girls said wasn’t
mommy
or
daddy
or even
pie
, but
Silas.
They adored him as much as I did. He was part of the family unit, as unshakable and sturdy as
Mount Everest
.

Our walks together never stopped. We found different fields to traverse, different beaches to let him run across and chase Frisbees into the waves. Our weekends became grand adventures, filled with excitement and exploration. The girls always joined me, and half the time Wendy did, too. It was during one of these walks – we’d trekked all the way to Cape Cod and wandered down the abandoned fire roads, admiring the flora and partaking in some amateur bird watching – that I looked around me, at the wife on my arm, girls by my side, and my boy running on ahead of us, and realized the dream I had that night in the hotel in Brattleboro had come true. It struck me as funny. Growing up, even into my early thirties, I never wanted this; yet with laughter and joy around me, I realized what we want isn’t always what we
need
, and what I needed was just what I received.

Even with the bliss my life had become, however, I never forgot those four days lost in the wilderness of that strange, parallel world. I was reminded through little things, mostly – the way Silas would lean into me and share one of our knowing embraces, the reflection of the sun off the water at dusk, when it appeared huge, red, and foreboding, the times I’d watch the nightly news magazines and see reports of missing children. Yes, those memories stayed with me like a lurking shadow, never fully revealing itself unless I turned around to face them, which I never did.

And yet life still went on. Before I could blink, Deborah, our oldest, was thirteen years old. Our house was constantly filled with children, as Wendy had an open-door policy when it came to the girls’ friends. Business continued to grow, and we were always on the move, heading to this conference, meeting with that client, trying to argue with vendors about the excessive price of clay. We started taking vacations to far-off places every three months just to get away, often times leaving Silas in the kennel when we did so given airline restrictions in regards to traveling with pets. And yet he was always there when we got back, smiling at us with his one eye gleaming and tongue lolling, ready to leap into our arms and welcome us home. The fur under his chin had gone gray and there were bald spots on his thighs where a series of benign fatty deposits had been removed, but other than that he was the same dog he’d always been. So I’d smile when I saw him and promise that next time he’d be coming with us, to which he’d respond by licking my face and soaking the neck of my shirt with his thick, sticky drool. But sure enough, come the next vacation, he was back in the kennel again, waiting for two weeks until we got back from
France
or
Mexico
or someplace like that. He’d been around so long that I guess I took for granted that he always would be.