"Tell you what," Roy said, "that should work out fine. I"m planning on being back in the area at the end of next month, and I"ll stop back in and see if he"s available. You"ve been very helpful, Judith. I think your little church here might make a wonderful addition to my book."
Judith blushed a little, although it was hard to tell under the makeup. "Well, I"m delighted to help. I"ll tell Pastor Wayne you stopped by once he gets back. I"m sure he"ll be excited to partic.i.p.ate."
Roy turned to leave, and Steven and Daniel followed suit. They walked back through the dark chapel, and as they left through the main doors, they heard Judith say, "thanks again."
The door closed behind them. Roy turned to Steven and Daniel. "We"ll jimmy the back door. There"s no alarm system."
They waited until it was dark. They chose a door that wasn"t facing the street and was partially hidden by a tree and shrubs, intended only as an emergency exit. It led to a short hallway behind the dais. Steven used a flashlight to navigate to the end of the hall where there was a door secured with a padlock.
"Great, now what?" Daniel said.
Roy placed the crowbar behind the hinge holding the lock and pried the hinge out of the door. It left holes where the screws had been.
"They"re going to know who broke in," Steven said. "It"ll be obvious, we were just here asking about the bas.e.m.e.nt."
Roy produced a bottle of wood glue. "We"re going to glue it back in place. She"s too scared of here to come check anything before the pastor returns. By the time he gets back, this glue will have set it back in place."
Steven seemed skeptical but the deed was already done. Roy turned the handle and the door opened to a wooden staircase that descended into darkness.
"Here we go, boys," Roy said. Steven shone the flashlight down the steps and started down.
It was obvious the bas.e.m.e.nt hadn"t seen visitors in a while. Cobwebs were plentiful. It was half finished with wooden floorboards and walls. Steven found a pull cord to turn on a bare bulb overhead. The room was thick with dust.
"Let"s try to not stir up any more of this dust than we have to," Steven said, shining the flashlight into the rooms beyond.
"Any idea where the boy is?" Daniel asked.
"No, I just know he"s down here," Roy said.
They moved from area to area. Most were filled with banker"s boxes, presumably filled with doc.u.ments. There were old wooden filing cabinets in some sections. One area had large boxes filled with Christmas decorations. Eventually they worked their way back to the furthest corner, where several boxes had been stacked haphazardly. They looked very old and fragile, as though lifting them up might cause them to dissolve. It looked as though no one had touched them in many years.
"Here," Roy said, pointing to the boxes.
Steven shined his flashlight on the boxes. They were stacked in a way that created gaps between them. Some of the gaps were small, others were larger, several inches wide. It looked dark inside the gaps.
"Do we wait?" Daniel said.
"No," Roy replied. "I"m going to go into a trance. Let me see if I can get him to manifest."
"You usually sit for this," Steven said, looking around for a chair but finding none.
"I"ll just stand this time," Roy said, removing his blindfold from his pocket. He handed it to Steven, who wrapped it around Roy"s head. "Keep an eye on me," Roy said.
Steven stepped back from Roy and turned off the flashlight. There was very little light in the bas.e.m.e.nt and he couldn"t see Roy at all. He decided to turn the flashlight back on but keep it concealed in his pocket; that created just enough light so he could watch Roy. While Roy was in a trance it was Steven"s job to make sure he didn"t hurt himself.
The creepiness of the bas.e.m.e.nt began to seep into Steven as he stood next to Roy, waiting for Roy to make contact with the boy. The ceiling was low, almost to his head, and it felt claustrophobic. The half-finished wooden walls allowed images from other areas, and it felt as though he was being watched from between the wooden planks. He understood why Judith didn"t want to come down here.
After several minutes Roy began to breathe more deeply. Steven glanced at Daniel, and saw that he was in the River. He felt a little jealous, like he"d been left with the boring job no one wanted to do. Still, Roy had to be watched. Dangerous things had happened to him while he was in a trance, and Steven wasn"t about to let his father wander and fall, or step into something sharp.
Roy emerged from the trance and removed his blindfold. Daniel opened his eyes at about the same time.
"He"s afraid of adults," Roy said. "But he"s willing to talk to us. Daniel should do the talking."
"Why Daniel?" Steven asked.
"Because I have a son about his age," Daniel said, "and I think he might be a fellow time enthusiast."
Daniel approached the boxes. "Steven, could you let a little more light into the room?" he asked.
Steven removed his flashlight from his pocket and shined it into a corner at the other end of the room. The boxes and the dark gaps between them became more visible.
Daniel scanned the boxes, looking for the boy. Steven saw the face appear in one of the gaps and stifled a gasp. It looked like it was just behind the box, dimly lit, and greyish white. As he watched, it changed from the face of a toddler to a ten year old.
"h.e.l.lo, Sam," Daniel said.
"You know my name?" the boy said.
"Yes, and do you know mine?"
"No," the boy said. His eyes moved around the room.
"I"m Daniel. And this is Roy, and Steven. They"re friends. We"re all friends."
The face of the boy shifted to several years younger, a five-year-old. He didn"t reply to Daniel.
"Sam, we"re here because of Garth," Daniel said. "Do you remember Garth? And Sean, and Frank?"
"Yes," Sam said. "Frank used to beat them."
"That"s right," Daniel said. "And you helped Sean and Garth stop Frank, do you remember?"
"Yes, I remember," Sam said. "And Davy."
"Yes," Daniel said, "Davy was Roy"s father. And Steven here is Roy"s son."
"Oh," Sam said, "fathers who let their sons live. Why?"
"All fathers want their sons to grow old," Roy said.
"Not all fathers," Sam said. "Not my father." Sam"s face began to shift rapidly between ages. When he would speak, the face would normally be a ten year old. When he wasn"t speaking it would drift between a toddler and a five or six year old. The constant morphing was jarring and Steven found it difficult to concentrate on the words the child spoke.
"Your father didn"t want you to grow old?" Daniel asked.
"No," the boy replied. "Because my mother didn"t. I failed her. He told me so."
"What happened to you, Sam?" Daniel asked.
"I got older. I wasn"t supposed to. I disappointed her."
"Everyone gets older, Sam. You can"t control it."
"She said I could. She said if only I could have remained a baby, things would have been perfect. I tried to stay a baby. But I kept getting bigger. She was so sad."
"Your mother wanted you to never grow up?" Daniel asked him.
"Yes," the boy said. "I tried, I really did."
"What happened, Sam?" Daniel asked.
"My father. She was so sad and upset, he knew he had to do something to make her happy again. He loved her very much. So he tied me to the bench in the garage."
Sam paused.
"What did your father do?" Daniel asked.
"He hit my head with a hammer."
Steven felt the air going out of him and sadness and anger rise in the back of his throat.
"I remember thinking as he hit me, if I could just become younger, mother would be happy again, and father wouldn"t have to do this. I tried to become younger as he hit me, so he would stop. But it didn"t work. When he was done, he buried me in the forest."
"All boys grow up," Daniel said with a frog in his throat. He was clearly shaken by the boy"s story. "What your father did to you was wrong."
"No," Sam said insistently, "he loved my mother. He needed to make her happy. It was my fault."
Daniel felt it best to move on rather than risk angering the boy. "When you helped Garth and Sean, you gave them things. A wooden box and a powder. Where did you get these things?"
"Martha"s friends."
"Who"s Martha?"
"Martha moved into my house after my mother and father moved out. I loved Martha."
"Martha knew about you? Out in the garage?"
"Oh yes, she could see me and hear me and understand me. Like Davy. Like you."
"Martha would talk with you?"
"Yes, once she found out I was in the garage, she would visit me all the time. She wanted to help me. She helped me become younger."
"How did she do that?"
"Her friends. People like you stayed with her all the time. There were always people in the house. She introduced some of them to me. They helped me too."
"How did they help you?"
"They taught me things. They taught me how to do this." Sam"s face switched rapidly from an adolescent to a baby and back again. "See? I"m younger now. If I could only find my mother, I"m sure she"d be happy again."
"So Martha"s friends taught you how to shift yourself?"
"Yes. Martha couldn"t do it, but her friends could."
"What else did they teach you?"
"They taught me how to protect myself. I know how to scare people."
Steven thought of the goat"s head that Garth described.
"So if people try to disturb you," Daniel asked, "you scare them away?"
"Yes," the boy said. "It usually works. It didn"t work when they tore down the garage. But I just waited, and eventually I found this place. No one bothers me here. Except Jeremy."
"Jeremy visits you here?"
"I love Jeremy. He"s like you, and Davy."
So Pastor Wayne has the gift, Steven thought. No wonder he keeps this place locked up, he"s protecting the boy.
"Sam, you said that Martha"s friends gave you the objects you gave to Sean and Garth," Daniel said.
"Yes, they did," the boy answered. "The ones I gave to Sean and Garth I got from William. He was a very nice man. He taught me many things about how to be younger. One day he told me he had to leave in a hurry, and he wanted me to have his things. He gave me a large bag full of objects. I never saw him again. I"ve been playing with them, figuring them out. Some of them I know how to use, like the ones I gave to Sean and Garth. Others I have no idea how they work."
This is right up Daniel"s alley, Steven thought.
"The ones you gave to Sean and Garth, we need to know more about those," Daniel said. "Frank"s soul was trapped by them, but the cage is coming loose. Frank will be free again soon. He plans to attack Roy and Steven, and Steven"s son Jason, to punish them for what Sean and Garth did, because Davy helped them."
"Is Frank going to kill them because they"re too old?" Sam asked.
"No," Daniel answered, "because Roy"s father, Davy, helped imprison his soul all those years ago. Davy followed your instructions. He told Sean and Garth what to do, remember? Now Frank wants vengeance. He"s angry, like when he used to drink and hit Sean."
"He made Sean go hungry," Sam said. "He was a bad man."
The child"s illogic was swirling in Steven"s mind. It was OK to murder someone for being too old, as his father had done to him, but not OK to starve them. Ghosts are truly f.u.c.ked up, Steven thought. Just as Roy told me.
"We need to understand the cage," Daniel said. "Frank is still in the cage, even though it is coming loose. We need to stop him before he can get out of it. We only have a few hours to do something to stop him."
"I have more of them," the boy said. "I could give you another one. You could do it again."
"Frank"s body died years ago," Daniel said. "There"s no way to get him to drink anything."
"You could try this," the boy said. As they watched, a thin, frail arm extended from another dark gap in the boxes. Its tiny hand held a wooden box with intricate carvings, about twice as large as a pack of cigarettes.
Daniel reached for it, but stopped. "What is it?"
"They"re bugs," the boy said. "Jeremy gave them to me. He brought them back from one of his trips. He gave me several boxes, so he won"t mind me giving you this one."