Soul Seekers (16 page)

39

Lincoln, Massachusetts

(Two days later)

‘You go first.’

Mack stared at Crazy Jo’s shack in horror and backed away, almost tripping over a log in the fading light.

‘There’s no way I’m goin’ in there man,’ he uttered. ‘Why the hell did you all want to come out here anyway?’

Cas glanced at Jude and Emily, who hid their smiles from Mack’s panicked face.

‘Mack,’ Cas said, leaning toward him. ‘You’re such a coward.’

Mack stared at Cas for a moment and then blustered a response. ‘You think you’re so tough,
you
go in there.’

Cas glanced at the shack and shrugged. ‘Okay.’

Cas stepped over the big log and strolled up to the shack, flicking on his flashlight as Jude and Emily watched from nearby.

It had been a little more than forty-eight hours since they had returned from Hascomb Air Base to their ordinary lives. Cas had been given a day off school to recuperate from the events, as had Jude and Emily. But they had all been told that they should return to their normal lives as soon as possible to avoid arousing suspicions. The military were happy to drop the affair too, just as soon as Karen Ryan had handed over the big book filled with Crazy Jo’s advanced physics equations from two hundred years ago. Cas guessed that they would never see that book again.

Despite this, school had been an entirely different affair. Mack and his crew were now almost subservient to Cas, who was viewed with suspicion by some and a sort of reverence by others. Either way, nobody hassled him anymore and that was just fine by him.

The only thing that wasn’t fine was Siren.

Nobody had heard or seen anything from her since they’d left her in the facility, hovering on the brink of life and death.

Cas walked up to the shack door where it hung from its rusting hinges and eased it open before aiming his flashlight inside.

The interior was much as he had seen it the previous night, but the scrawled equations on the walls had vanished. His eyes caught on the book lying on the bench near the window and he walked across to it. The pages were still heavy and encrusted with dust, the spine of the book crinkling as he opened it to the last page and peered at the words written inside.

The pages of records for the old tavern they’d hidden beneath in Boston were still there, but at the bottom a new line had appeared, written in an unsteady hand with a different coloured ink.

Thanks for the cash! K.

Cas smiled, and as he did so he felt a warmth permeate the abandoned hut as though somebody had lit the fire for the first time in two hundred years. Slowly, Cas turned.

The sound of flames seemed to echo distantly through the hut and Cas realised that he could smell the mouth-watering odour of cooking food. The sensations drifted distantly through his field of awareness, like a word that crosses the mind only to be instantly lost, just on the tip of the tongue. Cas directed the flashlight beam around the dark, empty shack, the smell of wood smoke tainting the air as he realised what it was he could detect.

‘It’s not over,’ he uttered to himself.

He could still sense the past around him, like a ghost drifting silently through the vaults of his mind. He closed his eyes and the sensations intensified. He heard the fire crackling, could almost see the food cooking close to it, and then he heard the sound of footsteps moving through the shack.

Cas blinked his eyes open, but the shack was empty and dark.

‘Cas’!’

He whirled as the sounds and smells vanished instantly and saw Jude and Emily appear at the shack door, their faces stricken.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘We wondered what you were doing,’ Jude replied. ‘We saw flickering lights in here. I thought you’d started another one of your fires.’

Cas shook his head slowly. ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘But I think Kip just did.’

Jude looked at the dark, dusty, lonely shack. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I could hear it and smell it,’ Cas replied. ‘And you could see it.’

‘Just the light,’ Emily said. ‘Very faintly, but it was there. We knew it wasn’t you because your flashlight was pointing out of the doorway.’

‘We’re still seeing stuff,’ Cas said.

‘Maybe without the headsets we can only see it faintly,’ Emily said. ‘Maybe it won’t bother us as much.’

Jude looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get out of here before somebody misses us.’

Cas nodded and walked out of the shack. ‘Where’s Mack?’

Emily chuckled as Jude sniggered.

‘He was more or less okay,’ Jude told him, ‘until we saw the firelight. You’ve never seen anybody run so fast!’

Cas smiled and glanced back at Crazy Jo’s as they walked away.

‘We’ll have to change the name of this place,’ he said. ‘We’ll call it Old Kip’s from now on. I think he happily spent the rest of his days here.’

Cas clambered up to his bedroom just before nine o’clock and snuck back into his bed. If his parents had noticed him slip out, they gave no indication of doing so.

His father had been given a leave of absence for one month, something that his mother was extremely pleased about. Although Cas could not quite put his finger on what had changed in his home, there was a different atmosphere now, one of contentment and warmth, much like what he had felt when he had visited Old Kip’s that night. The shack was still
totally
haunted, but it no longer felt cold and lonely.

Cas was thinking about that when he fell into a deep sleep. There were no dreams, just a long and blissful oblivion that finally ended when his eyes drifted open to see the light of the moon streaming in through his bedroom window.

He didn’t know what had awakened him from his deep sleep, only that something had changed. His room looked like it always did, but there was a new smell that filled the air, a vibrant odour of sea salt and spray. He could smell timbers, old tar and a strange metallic whiff that he recalled once smelling in an old museum.

He lay perfectly still for a moment looking out of the window, the bright white moon blazing in the night sky as tattered clouds drifted past it.

And then a hand shot through the wall above his head and clawed at his face.

Cas almost fell out of bed as he leaped away from the hand, his heart pounding against his chest as the hand was followed by an arm, and then a body, and finally a head.

A man drifted through the bedroom, his head almost touching the ceiling. He pulled hard on a thick rope beneath him that was attached to what looked like a huge tree limb that swept across the room.

Cas almost cried out as he tried to duck beneath the huge beam, but it swept through him as though he was not even there, drifted silently through the bedroom and vanished through the opposite wall along with the man perched upon it. Cas stared at the wall in shock, and then shadows passed by his bedroom window across the moon outside.

Cas dashed to the window and threw it open.

The street below was devoid of people and illuminated in the blue white glow of the moon. But sailing down it was a huge ship, her masts towering into the night sky and filled with men hauling heavy canvass sails up into the yardarms.

Cas saw the ship’s deck teeming with sailors, heard shouted commands echoing across time along with the crash of ghostly waves beating against the magnificent vessel’s hull. He looked down at the figures working on her decks, and his breath caught in his throat as to his amazement he recognised one of the sailors.

Jude Harris laboured at the capstan, dressed in a sailor’s uniform, his bare feet driving against the deck as with several other sailors they hauled a huge anchor up from the unseen depths. Cas watched as the ship sailed gracefully past and vanished into the woods nearby, her stern lights flickering as she moved away through the trees.

Before the ship vanished vanished, Cas saw painted in graceful letters on her stern her name.

MARIE CELESTE

* * *

40

Hascomb Air Force Base

‘We’ve got a problem.’

Cas stood with Jude and Emily as his father, Joshua, stood before General Winchester’s desk. Doctor Harrison was in the general’s office with them. The big soldier stood slowly up from his seat.

‘It’s not over,’ Joshua said.

‘What do you mean
it’s not over
?’ the general asked.

‘We’re still seeing the past,’ Emily said. ‘I spent half of last night listening to a Civil War battle raging out on the common. I hardly slept a wink!’

‘Last night I saw a two hundred year old sailing ship sail straight through the middle of Lincoln,’ Cas added.

‘I believe him,’ Jude said, ‘because I had a dream last night that I was working on an old sailing ship. We need to do something about it because the working conditions infringed my human rights.’

The general shot a questioning glance at Doctor Harrison. ‘Is this normal?’

‘No,’ the doctor replied. ‘But it was a risk that we knew might occur.’

‘And Serena?’ the general pressed.

Doctor Harrison nodded. ‘She will be likewise afflicted.’

Joshua stood forward. ‘What’s going on, general?’

‘Where’s Serena?’ Cas asked.

The general walked out from behind his desk and opened his office door. ‘Follow me.’

They were led outside to a transport vehicle that drove them across the airbase to the huge hangar and then down into the tunnel beneath it. Within five minutes they were walking back into the secret facility.

Cas gasped as he saw that the entire facility had been rearranged. The huge screen showing the map of the earth remained with its clock, but now the computer stations had all been renewed and the floor covered in glossy black tiles that reflected the blue neon lights hanging from the refurbished ceiling above their heads.

But what was most amazing was that the entire facility was filled with people. Scientists and Air Force staff bustled to and fro, some carrying papers, others setting up new computer stations. Moments later the workers all noticed the three children standing at the entrance to the facility and they stopped moving. The buzz of conversation and the rustling of papers died down until the entire facility became utterly silent.

General Winchester looked across the facility and his voice rumbled like boulders tumbling down a canyon wall.

‘These young patriots,’ he announced, ‘were the ones who saved this program. They will be our pioneers.’

Cas stared at the crowd before him and felt a tingle of embarrassment as the entire staff began clapping and cheering. He looked sideways at Jude, who shrugged.

‘What the hell, let’s not disappoint them.’

Jude clasped his hands together and shook them victoriously above his head as he waved back at the staff.

Cas looked at his father. ‘What’s going on dad?’

Joshua shrugged and glanced at the general as the applause died down. ‘I take it that being shut down is no longer an option.’

The general led them down onto the facility floor, and as they walked Cas noticed the four beds arranged at the far end of the facility, but these were no ordinary beds. Each was encased within a bubble of what looked like Plexiglas, blue lights glowing within. Complex looking head-sets were attached to the interior and computers glowed alongside each bed.

‘There are four beds,’ Emily pointed at them.

The voice that replied came from behind them. ‘Of course there are four. You didn’t think that you were going anywhere without me did you?’

Cas turned and saw Siren striding toward him. Jude and Emily turned and without thought the four of them collided in an embrace.

‘You’re alive,’ Emily said brightly.

‘Damn right,’ Siren replied, ‘ain’t no bullet gonna bring me down.’

Cas released Siren, who gave him a shove on his shoulder and pointed at her stomach. ‘That’s one you owe me.’

‘Damn right,’ Casmir replied.

Cas turned to the general. ‘You going to tell us what’s going on?’

General Winchester gestured to the facility around them.

‘This is Project Pioneer,’ he announced grandly. ‘After the accident we were required to reveal our original experiment to the Pentagon in more detail. Although the experiment had ultimately failed, when Serena recovered from her injury it was realised that she could sometimes still see the past around her.’

Siren nodded. ‘I get flashbacks,’ she said. ‘I can hear and see things but it’s random, not under my control.’

‘Just like us!’ Emily said.

Doctor Harrison nodded. ‘Your exposure to the energy field we created changed your brain waves permanently, giving you the ability to detect different frequencies of light and time. But the change cannot yet be reversed.’

Cas felt dread creep across his skin. ‘You mean we can never be cured?’

‘I said that it cannot
yet
be reversed,’ Doctor Harrison corrected him. ‘We’re working on that right now and we think we have some answers.’

‘That would be splendid,’ Jude said. ‘In your own time, hurry up.’

‘We think,’ Doctor Harrison said, ‘that you are all now partly ghosts.’

Cas blinked. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘Not at all,’ the doctor replied. ‘Although you can interact with this world almost entirely normally, there are one or two things that are different.’

‘Such as?’ Emily asked, her voice pinched with concern.

Beside them, Siren picked up a mirror. ‘Things like this.’

She held the mirror up to them. Cas almost fell over as he stared at his reflection.

He could see himself clearly enough, but the problem was that he could also see straight through himself too. It was like he was made of mist.

* * *

41

‘That’s not so good,’ Emily uttered as she examined her reflection.

‘It’s not a big problem,’ Doctor Harrison shrugged.

‘Not a big problem?’ Jude echoed. ‘On the internationally recognised Scale of Big Problems, I’d say this is one of the slightly bigger ones. We’re half the people we used to be!’

‘The forces within the atoms that make up your bodies are secure enough that you can still touch, feel and be seen,’ Doctor Harrison explained. ‘But your reflection shows that the light you reflect is more scattered than other people’s, which is why you can see through your reflection.’

‘How did this happen?’ Cas asked.

Doctor Harrison’s features became apologetic, as though he had failed to predict the consequences of the experiment he had devised.

‘When you went into the energy field, you became a
Doppelganger
of yourselves in 1776 just as I described. You were essentially seeing the past through the eyes of a previous life.’

‘Sure,’ Jude said, ‘we get that. So what’s the problem?’

‘The problem,’ Doctor Harrison said, ‘is that the change in your brain’s frequency means that you didn’t just open yourself up to one previous life. You opened yourself up to them
all
.’

Cas thought about that for a moment. ‘All of our previous lives?’

Doctor Harrison nodded. Jude and Emily exchanged glances.

‘How many previous lives have we had?’ Emily asked.

Doctor Harrison glanced at the huge screen on the wall.

‘That are still detectable, within reach of our planet’s orbit?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Any previous life within the past five to eight thousand years. That could equate to hundreds of previous existences.’

The four of them stared in silence at the doctor.

‘So you’re saying,’ Emily said, ‘that we might have lived before at any time over the past eight thousand years, and we might see any one of those lives?’

‘Yes,’ Doctor Harrison agreed, ‘many lives. Countless lives.’

Cas struggled to understand what the revelation could mean and a question leaped out at him.

‘But can’t we just ignore these visions? Surely it won’t affect our lives?’

‘Unfortunately,’ General Winchester said, ‘it does. This means that a part of all of you is trapped somewhere in the past.’

‘Correct,’ the doctor replied. ‘Every time our planet passes through an echo of past events, you will all detect that past and are in danger of becoming part of it, permanently. Unless we can put all of this right.’

Cas turned and looked out across the dozens of staff all watching them silently. Then he glanced at the big screen. There, the digital clock now showed two times: the present, and a time in November, 1872.

‘You’re now seeing the ghosts of 1872,’ Doctor Harrison said. ‘That’s the window that’s currently open, the record of the past that our planet is amplifying. That is where you must go next.’

Cas shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No way am I going back again. It’s too dangerous.’

‘There’s no choice,’ Doctor Harrison said. ‘That’s why you saw Jude here working aboard that ship and why he dreamed it. It actually happened. Jude must have worked aboard that vessel in a previous life.’

‘Did you see what the ship was called?’ Emily asked Cas.

‘It had a strange name,’ Cas replied. ‘Marie Celeste.’

Doctor Harrison nodded. ‘The Marie Celeste sailed from Staten Island in 1872 and was found a month later in the Atlantic Ocean under full sail with her entire crew missing. They were never seen or heard from again. She had become a real-life ghost ship.’

‘Fine,’ Cas said. ‘Let’s leave it like that.’

Joshua looked down at Cas. ‘We can’t run away from this, son. We have to work together to end it.’

‘People could die, dad,’ Cas said.

Siren stepped forward and looked at Cas. ‘We may die if we don’t. Part of us all is trapped somewhere in the past, Cas. We have to go back and recover it. Until we do, this will never be over.’

Cas looked around him at the huge operation that had been built around Pioneer, and then he peered up at General Winchester.

‘You’re not doing this for our benefit,’ he guessed. ‘Two days ago you couldn’t wait to get us out of here. You need us more than we need you.’

The general nodded. ‘We need each other, Cas. Only you can see the past, but without our support you cannot interact with it. But this is about more than just being able to see the past. Doctor Harrison’s team have discovered something even more incredible.’

Cas looked at the doctor, who spoke softly.

‘If we are all reincarnated, over and over again, then there must be a finite number of souls in existence. Otherwise there would be no need for reincarnation. That means that all of us must have been somehow created, that we must have a
reason
for being here. We want to find the answer to that question, our reason for being here.’

Cas looked at Siren. ‘Is he saying what I think he’s saying?’

Siren nodded as General Winchester spoke.

‘All of this is not really about seeing through time,’ he said. ‘Pioneer is about the search for the meaning of life. And right now there are only four human beings who have ever lived who can make the greatest journey our species has ever witnessed. The question is, Cas, whether you are willing to make that journey?’

Cas looked at Jude, Emily and Siren. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’m in,’ Siren said firmly. ‘It’s not every day you get to check out history face to face.’

‘I guess we have no choice,’ Emily replied. ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life a ghost here in the present. That would be worse than dying.’

Cas looked at Jude, who chuckled.

‘Are you kidding?’ he said. ‘As much as being invisible would be
more
than cool, it would also mean that nobody could see me, and how disappointing that would be for mankind?’

‘Terribly,’ General Winchester rumbled in a flat tone. ‘Cas?’

‘What do you get out of all this?’ Cas asked. ‘The government isn’t spending all of this money just for our benefit.’

General Winchester smiled. ‘There may be times that you will witness events of immense global importance,’ he said to them all. ‘You may even be able to influence them to some degree, or at least solve some of history’s greatest mysteries. That service would be of great value to your country.’

Cas looked at his father, who smiled down at him. ‘It’ll be okay, son. You’re not heading into this alone.’

Cas sighed and looked at the four headsets.

‘Let’s just hope none of us get sea-sick,’ he said.

* * *