Chasing shadows, p.14
Chasing Shadows, page 14
“You were right, Jarek. This room might be better. It does feels right,” Annie said.
“Thank you, Miss Annie. I have high hopes for tonight,” Jarek said, looking at the young girl who appeared to be enthusiastic about the event. “I like that evening robe, by the way. It looks very comfortable.”
Annie was wearing a blue silky night robe. It was very expensive-looking, soft, and flowing. Her dark brown hair was let down and clearly had just been brushed smooth.
“Thank you. I figured I better look like I was going to bed . . . just in case Father had seen me coming down here.” Annie batted her eyes, displaying her long eyelashes in front of her emerald-green eyes.
“That is smart,” Jarek replied, giving Annie a small debonair smile.
Rose returned carrying a small dish, followed by the heavenly scent of hot buttery cheese biscuits.
“Excellent, Rose! Just place a few on the other tray on the table,” Jarek said.
Rose placed the biscuits down and leaned in to take in the smell herself.
The room was set up now, with the flicker of the flames from the oil lamps, the smell of smoldering sage, an offering of the spirit’s favorite food, and the table set with candles ready to be lit. It was time to try and reach the other side.
Jarek moved and stood behind his chair, hands resting on the back. He took a moment to observe the room. The energy seemed to be all over. It was strong, just what he needed to conduct a mediumship. Yet behind it all lurked a darkness.
“Ladies, please come take your seats,” Jarek said, gesturing toward the table.
Both women walked over to the table and sat down, Rose to his left and Annie to his right. They scooted their chairs in tight, right up to the table’s edge. Jarek picked up a matchstick and struck it, causing it to ignite. He leaned forward and lit the three candles in the center of the table. He blew out the matchstick and laid it next to the smudge stick on the tray. Jarek pulled his chair out and sat down before scooting his own chair in close to the table.
“OK, please place your hands on the table so that we may join them,” Jarek said, and the women followed the instructions and laid their hands into each other’s, making a complete circle. “Feel and hear my breathing. Try to focus on that as you close your eyes and begin to breathe in unison with me.”
The women’s eyes closed, and Jarek began to feel them trying to join his breathing pattern.
Jarek closed his eyes. The room was nearly silent except for the faint sound of the three people breathing and the cold wind hitting the window outside, making a deep quiet howl as it bounced off the glass.
“Now, I am going to recite a chant to bring our energies out so that they may mix with the energy on the other side,” Jarek instructed again. He then took a few shallow breaths before beginning the chant.
“In this tween time, this darkest hour, we call upon this sacred power. Three together stand alone, command the unseen to be shown. In innocence we search the skies, enchanted by our newfound eyes.”
Jarek began to open his mouth again as both Rose and Annie attempted to join in.
In this tween time, this darkest hour,
we call upon this sacred power.
Three together stand alone,
command the unseen to be shown.
In innocence we search the skies,
enchanted by our newfound eyes.
The three individuals hoping to the find answers worked in unison while reciting the chant three times. It did seem to bring a feeling of connectedness in the room. The energies, though mixed, began to feel balanced. Jarek had tuned out the sound of the wind outside and the sound of their breathing. He could feel each of their warm hands in each of his hands. Not a sweaty warmth, but just as if they had each been holding on to a warm skillet right before touching Jarek’s hands. This was all a sign of the energy in the room being high and ready. Jarek felt it was time to reach out.
“I am looking to speak with the lady of the house, Sarah O’Connell.”
Silence.
“Sarah, my name is Jarek, and I would like to speak with you.”
Silence.
“Are there any spirits here that can help us reach Sarah?” Jarek asked.
“I don’t think . . .” Annie began to say before Jarek squeezed her hand.
“Annie, please remain silent,” Jarek said quietly. “I am going to try communicating another way.”
Jarek opened his eyes and glanced around the room. The two women sat still in their chairs, eyes closed tightly and holding hands. The rest of the room seemed the same as earlier, too. The sage still smoldered, the biscuits gave off a few streams of steam, and the candles flickered. He wanted to try a method he had read about that other mediums had used. The method used a combination of internal energy and attempted to pull in the surrounding energy to move him into a trancelike state. It was similar to how some spirits were able to make a full manifestation from the other side into this world.
Jarek closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He kept his breathing calm. He used all his might to pull the energy from within his core and project it outward. His body began to feel weightless, like he might pass out. Rose and Annie’s hands still connected to his own, but it felt as if his hands were floating in midair. Jarek began to visualize Sarah and began calling to her spirit, asking her to make contact.
Silence. Then a slight knocking sound was made.
Jarek felt each of the women’s hands squeeze his in startlement from the knock.
Another knock, another hand squeeze. Then another.
“Sarah, is that you?” Jarek asked.
Silence once again.
“Sarah, if that is you, please make your presence known.”
Silence.
Right as Jarek was about to speak again, several keys on the piano seemed to be slammed out of anger. All three of them twitched from the sudden noise. Then the first few notes of a song began to play on the piano.
“Sarah, we hear you. We’d like to talk with you.”
The keys banged as if someone slammed the hands down of whoever was playing the notes.
“Sarah, Sarah, are you still there?”
Silence.
A cool draft swept through the room near the floor, hitting everyone’s ankles, causing Jarek to open his eyes. Both Rose and Annie still had their eyes closed. The room had not seemed to change at all, but Jarek knew something had happened. Something didn’t feel right.
The chill from the cool draft quickly faded. The air became thick, still, and stagnant. It felt like how the atmosphere feels right before a storm. Jarek could feel the thickness and heaviness of the air on his face. His focus shifted down to the three candles lit in the table at the center. The flames stood perfectly still. No flicker, no nothing. Completely motionless. Jarek began to fully absorb his surroundings and realized everything within the room was at a standstill, as if time had stopped.
It worked. Jarek had moved into a dreamlike trance in the realm between worlds. He stood up to experience this ability further. As he stood up, he realized quickly how far into the realm he really was. Jarek looked around the room, then back at the table. He was looking at himself sitting in the chair still. He was not only in a trance, but he had pulled his consciousness out of his body and into the beyond.
Jarek leaned in toward the table, homing in on the candle flames. As he looked closer, he could still see a small moving flicker at the center. In this warm, thick, heavy air, time had not stopped completely but was rather just different. Jarek wondered if this difference in relation to time was how this plane always was. Could it be that this world between the living and the dead always moved at a slower pace, or was there simply just a difference between the plane. Or perhaps, just maybe, Jarek’s trance worked, and he was able to summon a spirit strong enough to control the environment in which they wished to communicate.
“Hello, Jarek,” came a voice from beyond what Jarek could see.
“Hello?” responded Jarek with a hint of nervousness in his voice. “Sarah, is that you?”
“Yes, Jarek. I am here.”
A shadow emerged slightly from the foreground near the piano. It didn’t have enough energy to become a full apparition, but Jarek could see and feel a presence in front of him.
“It is good to finally talk, Sarah,” said Jarek as he glanced around the room to see if time was still moving lethargically.
“It’s all right, Jarek. Rose and Annie aren’t able to see or hear me. They don’t . . . they don’t have the abilities that you do, Jarek.”
“How do you know about my abilities?” Jarek asked.
“On this plane between the worlds, it is easy to notice someone unique. Your very soul looks different. But that isn’t important right now, I don’t have much time.”
“I need your help, Sarah. I need to figure out who killed you. And what is the darkness surrounding this house?” Jarek blurted out rapidly.
“Breathe, Jarek,” the shadowy figure said as it moved closer to him. As it passed the piano, a few notes were played.
“I’m sorry, I just need your help so that I may help your family.”
“And I greatly appreciate it, Jarek. They need your help. Help to bring them closure. Help Annie find her way in life.”
“I will do my best, Sarah. But what happened that night, that night in the library?”
“I think you already know, Jarek. You know the answers to the questions you ask. You’ve seen how he is. He can be the best man you’d ever met; then the next moment, he can be hostile. He is battling a darkness within himself.”
“You mean Martin is the one who did it?” Jarek asked with skepticism.
“Yes, Jarek. I love Martin, but he is not well. He is mad in his mind.”
The shadowy figure seemed to fade a bit.
“Sarah?”
Silence.
“Sarah?” Jarek asked, reaching out from within and extending his arm toward her.
A semblance of a hand reached back toward Jarek’s hand.
“I’m here, Jarek. I’m not going to be able to stay much longer.”
“All right, Sarah, but please just tell me why. What did Martin do it?”
“I don’t know, Jarek. I remember being in the library, and he came in so mad and angry. He was so confused. I tried to calm him down, but the next thing I remember is the sharp stabbing pain in my chest. His eyes . . . His eyes were dark. It was Martin, just not in the right mind.”
The entity faded more, losing its humanlike figure.
“Help Annie. Help her to continue to learn, and lead her down the correct path in life . . .”
The voice trailed off.
“Sarah! Sarah!” Jarek shouted, arm still extended.
The dark shadowy arm extended back and grabbed his wrist. It sent a jolt through Jarek’s body. It was a feeling so dark, filled with vast emptiness and despair.
Everything went dark. Dark . . . heavy . . . stagnant . . .
Jarek opened his eyes, unsure of how much time had passed. As he regained his focus, he could see both Rose and Annie still sitting there, holding hands in the circle. Candles were still lit, and he noticed they regained their natural flicker.
As Jarek stared at the ladies, they each opened their eyes almost concurrently.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” blurted out Annie, clearly annoyed she didn’t experience anything.
“Did neither . . .” Jarek paused midsentence. “Did neither of you experience anything?” he finally asked them both.
Jarek stayed silent as he began to process the encounter he had had. He immediately knew he must have been the only one to see or hear the being.
Annie released her grip from both Jarek’s and Rose’s hands.
“No, not a thing,” Annie replied, disgruntled.
“Well, I heard the notes on the piano and could feel something happen,” Rose responded quickly.
“Well, I’d hardly call that much of an encounter. Sorry, Jarek, but that was fairly pathetic. I expected more,” Annie said angrily as she stood up from the table, pushing her chair back so aggressively it almost tipped over backward.
“I . . . I’m sorry, Miss Annie,” Jarek responded with a dumbfounded tone, only making slight eye contact with her.
“Well, maybe next time. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up so much. I just wanted to know for sure . . . but, like I said, I should not have gotten my hopes up. I just expected you to be better. To live up to everything . . .” Annie’s voice trailed off.
Rose shot a curious look at Annie.
“Sorry, just frustrated,” Annie said quickly.
Annie turned and walked right out of the parlor, leaving Jarek and Rose in dead silence.
Jarek sat in his chair, eyes wide open, but he was clearly deep in thought. He noticed that Rose, still sitting at the table, was staring at him. He cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said after a few moments.
Rose didn’t respond to him. She simply kept staring directly at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, Jarek. Even after everything you have seen since coming here, this is the first time that I have seen you scared,” Rose said.
“That’s because, for the first time, I feel scared.”
“Why? Did you see something that Annie and I didn’t?”
“Yes . . . I was frozen in time . . . talking to . . . talking to Sarah.”
Rose took a deep breath and shifted slightly in her chair as she leaned toward Jarek, her elbows resting on the table. “Isn’t talking with Sarah what you needed?”
“Yes. It is . . .” Jarek trailed off.
“Well, then what is it, Jarek?”
“The entity I talked to, it wasn’t Sarah,” Jarek said, looking straightforward through the flicker of the candle flames. He began scratching at his wrist.
Chapter 11
Sarah
December 24, 1924, 12:06 a.m.
Rose sat in her chair, still looking at Jarek. She didn’t say a word to him. She let him process the event he just went through. The room was still. A very light draft moved through the room, reminding everything in its path that it was still winter outside.
“Jarek, what do you mean that wasn’t Sarah you talked to?” Rose finally asked, breaking the silence.
“I . . . I can’t explain it.”
“Well, at least try.”
“She . . . It made contact with me. It seemed to be Sarah, though I never saw it fully manifest. It stayed in a shadowy form. The voice was what I assume Sarah sounds like, and it knew everything.”
“So how do you know it wasn’t Sarah?” Rose asked hastily.
“I just . . .” Jarek stretched his wrist. “I just know it wasn’t. It told me exactly what it thought I wanted to hear . . . And it was just too obvious of an answer.”
“Too obvious?”
“Yes, it told me that Martin killed Sarah. It even mentioned Martin’s ‘mad mind.’ But no, this didn’t feel right. I know within my heart this wasn’t Sarah. This was something much more malevolent.”
“Well, what could it be Jarek?”
“Rose,” Jarek said. “I think this was a demon.”
Rose’s eyes grew wide as she slowly stood up from the table.
“The same dark demon that has a firm grip on this house.”
“How . . . How could a demon be here? I thought we were simply being haunted by some spirits . . . trying to hide the truth of Sarah’s death.” Rose said, clearly showing her anxiety escalating as she thought about the possibility of a demon within the house.
“I believe that Sarah’s death was used to summon the demon itself, Rose. I don’t know exactly how yet, or what demon or even why. But I know that it is all connected.”
Rose stood there for a moment. Her eyes continuing to grow as she stared at Jarek.
“I . . . I just don’t know if I can believe that, Jarek.”
“Is it not possible?”
“If that is true, Jarek, that would mean that someone . . . someone in this household summoned a . . . a—oh, I can’t even say it. And they used Sarah’s death to do it. Ripping out her heart, but for what?”
Rose was wiping away the water that was beginning to pool in her eyelashes as her voice trembled. Nearly on the brink of hysteria, she slowly walked toward the archway to the foyer. Before leaving the room, she turned back toward Jarek with a face that looked to be filled with nothing but hopelessness.
“It’s all right, Rose. We will . . .” Jarek paused.
The sparks of a small orb began to manifest in the archway just beyond where Rose was standing.
“Jarek?” Rose asked. “Jarek, what’s wrong?”
Her voice began to fade in Jarek’s ears, as he began to focus on the orb forming, growing larger and larger. It appeared to be the same one he had seen before.
Rose was looking at Jarek and clearly saying something, but Jarek was so tuned into the orb it seemed as if he suddenly had lost his hearing. A hum of energy grew louder as the orb moved past Rose, closer toward Jarek. He remained focused on it so intently, everything else seemed to disappear. He himself began to feel weightless once again, not hearing anything but the hum, not seeing anything but the orb. Then it got so close to his face, within arm’s reach. Jarek extended his arm. The orb touched his outstretched arm.
Jarek felt an exhilarating rush throughout his entire body. A flash of light, then total darkness. He slowly regained his bearings. The air was still and cool. It seemed as if Jarek was standing in total darkness, yet he somehow could still see everything around him. The room, the table, the windows, and even Rose standing in the doorway. However, it all seemed to be transparent, as a mist slowly departing from the push of a slight breeze. Time was frozen again.
As he stood in the disappearing reality, he was face-to-face with Sarah. She was merely feet away, it seemed, nearly transparent herself, but Jarek knew it was her. Her presence was a calming energy for Jarek. He felt a combination of sadness and peace.
