My suitcase was packed and Chuck and I were off to a weekend in Indiana at a paranormal conference. A room was reserved in the hotel next to the Masonic Temple, and one of my best friends was going to join us. I was super excited, except for what put a damper on my mood.
Before we left, I opened my computer, turned on the Internet, and saw three e-mails from literary agents. I was excited until I read, and re-read each of them.
I have received and reviewed your query. I greatly appreciate your sending your ideas to us for consideration. Because of the number of submissions our agency receives, we often are not able to take on clients who merit publication. While I believe that your ideas might have market appeal, I am not convinced that we could represent it successfully at this time.
Rejection, rejection, and, oh, another rejection. I laid my head on the desk next the computer keyboard and sobbed. Feelings of inadequacy stabbed like a sword through my heart and at that moment I decided that I wouldn’t pursue another query and take it as a sign that I wasn’t supposed to be an author. My cell phone jingled as I was about to go into another fit of sobs. Picking up my cell, and anticipating more bad news, I saw a text message from my best friend asking me how I was. I replied with bitterness and negativity over my bleak situation. Instead of giving me sympathy, she told me that it made me one step closer to my agent and that the others just weren’t meant to be. What? No sympathy? No poor, poor Kristy? To make matters even worse, Poe stood over me with his typical stoic look. He wasn’t disappointed that I hadn’t been accepted, he was ticked off that I was acting like a girl and crying.
I sorely wanted to make everybody proud of me, and I felt like I was doing just the opposite, even with my own guide who was supposed to be gently nudging me on the right path.
“What?” I asked, ready to feast on a chocolate bar. Who cared if it was 8:00 o’clock in the morning?
“Oh, I remember these days well. The dreaded rejections,” Poe snickered, which angered me even more.
“Look, you didn’t do well with rejection either, and from what I know, it happened often with you. Now look! You’re idolized and regarded as a genius! If they just knew,” I spat.
“Kristy, everybody is rejected at one point or another. Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because ‘he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.’ Van Gogh only sold one painting, but he kept painting. Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. And remember Walt, well Disney wouldn’t hire him either. Lucille Ball was told she couldn’t act and needed to find a new profession. Harrison Ford was told the same. ‘Balding, skinny, can dance a little,’ they said of Fred Astaire at his first audition. Beethoven’s music teacher declared him ‘hopeless’ at composing. And there are countless more who continued to find that journey within themselves and succeed. But there are many of us who give in and give up. We have stifled our life because of a critic who implied we were not good enough. And yes, even me, I was rejected numerous times and I took it to heart more than I should have.”
I bit my bottom lip and took in a deep breath. “Maybe that is why you are my guide—to teach me not to take it all too seriously.”
“There are always possibilities, Kristy. What I have learned, and yes, we gain perspective on the other side, is that you cannot compete with others. Instead you need to keep the doors open to the possibilities. Most of the time those possibilities aren’t at all what you expect, but they end up being exactly what you need, at the exact time that you need it.”
I nodded. I knew that he was right. But I was tired of being rejected so much in life. You would have thought I was used to it.
I rose from my brown leather computer chair and gave Poe a hug, a rarity. I could probably count on my one hand how many times I offered him affection and I was a crazy hugger. It was also uncommon for him to give me a pep talk, but when he did, he said all the right things.
“Is there anything that I need to be warned of before tonight?” I asked him, changing the subject.
Poe nodded. His demeanor turned serious and he scowled. “Yes. Protect yourself. I will be there, though, as will Alto. Just don’t be stupid.”
I had a question for him that I had pondered since he first became my guide. And with him sharing that there is gained perspective once you die and cross over, my curiosity was just too much not to inquire.
“Edgar, do you believe in God?”
“Why are bringing this up now, Kristy? Don’t you have that black stuff to fix on your face.”
I looked in our living room mirror and saw that my waterproof mascara was running down my face. I made a mental note to look for a different brand.
“I realize that you once said that your faith was yours alone, but many of your writings are confusing as to what you do believe in. They range from atheism to Christian to being a deist to pantheism. I always wondered, seeing as you have been to the other side, and seeing as I was raised Lutheran—well, I wondered if you had a new stance on your beliefs. You are quoted as saying ‘all religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.’ Do you still believe that?”
Poe stepped over to the picture window and turned his back to me as he spoke. “There is no doubt that my life was filled with discontent. I felt as if most all of my life I was living in a tomb, buried alive, yet still having to live somehow. Or at least going through the motions of whatever living was supposed to entail. My soul felt broken and my heart blackened by all of the death and disease that surrounded me. In fact, I wondered for most of my life if I was the curse upon my family. A cruel karmic bounty put upon my head.”
It made sense to me why many of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories had a reoccurring theme of being buried alive. That’s how he actually felt.
“But I always believed that there was a God, or a master energy of some sort. And when I went to the other side,” Poe grinned a knowing smile, “well, let’s just say that the faith I had was enough to make me your guide.”
I laughed. “Or do I now have the karmic bounty on my head?”
We both grinned widely at one another. My life hadn’t been all peaches and cream either, and Poe knew it.
“I ask about God because having a faith base while investigating the paranormal is very important. You have to fight with the right weapons. And you have me a bit freaked out with your hesitation with me going this weekend. Am I using the right tools?”
“I’m sorry that I frightened you. Well, maybe … ” Poe retracted, “Although you are smart, you do have a silly romantic side to you, even when it comes to the paranormal. There is good and evil. Balance only comes when they both exist within the same plane. And evil will attempt to fell the good. You are good, Kristy. Stay alert.”
I agreed that I would. Although his words didn’t comfort me, I felt oddly comforted. Sort of like when you have an argument with a friend or a spouse and you make up, even though the argument wasn’t settled. A white flag was raised, and I felt a peace within my heart.
The trip to Fort Wayne was uneventful. Chuck and I fought over the radio, as he pestered me to listen to Paul McCartney and Wings and I kept switching over to anything but.
We checked into our hotel and bumped into some friends in the lobby. There was a scheduled VIP ghost hunt that night, so we didn’t have much time to do anything other than catch a quick bite to eat and head over to the Mason Temple.
The Freemasons Hall was built in 1926 and stands as a monument to the ambitions of the fraternity. The building, at the time, was one of the tallest buildings in Fort Wayne with ten stories. It was built with two electric, state-of-the-art passenger elevators, one that has been updated and the other is the original. The building has four separate lodge rooms, all identical in size but thematically decorated differently according to the uses for each room. Mason Halls were, and still are, utilized as exclusive gentlemen’s clubs where men enjoy the fellowship of their fraternal brothers, much like college fraternities.
It was an ominous structure against the May night sky, and even more so when we made our entrance into the terrazzo lobby. Ornate plaster, mahogany walls, wooden ceiling beams imported from England, and a pipe organ all made it seem as if time travel had in fact occurred once the large steel doors closed behind us.
An array of participants gathered in the first-floor hall. Authors, television personalities, and ghost hunt fanatics all made up a misfit group of paranormal investigators. With cameras, recorders, walkie-talkies, and various other paranormal investigation tools in hand, we created teams. And with a plan as to which floor to go to at what time, my group of three (which consisted of myself, Chuck, and Madelyn, one of my best friends) we headed to our first destination—the basement.
Originally planned to house a bowling alley, the basement of the temple was just a typical cement-floored, musty, dusty basement. Our trio first headed to the right where there was a workshop. We could hear the furnace humming, but in the back of the room we could also hear footsteps, as if someone was waiting to jump out and give us all a good scare. Although lacking professionalism, I had been on many investigations that were pure setups with a prankster ready to give the team member a scare, all for the fun of it. I headed to the back to call out their lack of ninja skills. But as I rounded the corner, nobody was there. I shined my flashlight around the back wall to see if there was an exit, but there wasn’t.
They would’ve had to go right by me, I thought. I turned to call out to Chuck and Maddy when a dark mass formed and even dimmed the flashlight I had hanging around my neck. I swung back around, sure once more that it was going to be an actual person, but instead I was met with a figure of a man. There weren’t any obvious features that I could make out except for being ebony, as if he was a cartoon colored as dark as the darkest black would allow, with several layers. But this wasn’t a cartoon and he stood in front of me with a long, black trench coat and a short dark hat. If there ever was a real shadow man, I was face-to-face with him now.
I slumped to the ground and darkness fell around me. I felt as if I was slipping away, into unconsciousness, or maybe sleep, I couldn’t be sure. Everything was black.
“Kristy!” I heard Chuck calling my name, but he felt far away in a tunnel.
And then I heard Poe telling me to move. To get out of the basement. To get a grip on myself. And it was as if someone reached out their hand to mine and helped me up off the ground because before I knew it, I was standing and Chuck was walking toward me with his blue flashlight, he always had a blue flashlight, shining on me.
“Did you fall?” he asked me, pointing to my dusty jeans.
“No … ,” I began to explain when the walkie-talkie went off alerting us that time on our current floor was over. “Nothing’s here,” I said, swallowing hard. Maddy look at me cockeyed as the three of us got into the ancient elevator to meet the other teams on the main floor.
I grabbed a bottled water and put on my favorite hooded sweatshirt. It had a thermal lining and although it was eighty degrees, I felt cold. Still shaken, but trying to act normal, I continued on our haunted journey. The next couple floors were interesting, but didn’t offer a repeat performance. Before heading to the fifth floor, a floor that the organizers were anxious to show me, I sat down in the social room, once used for the Masons to play pool, smoke cigars, and tell fish stories.
Why would the temple be haunted, I thought, and who is this shadow entity? Energy impressions can become quite pronounced with tragic events such as murders, suicides, and wrongful deaths. Spiritual energy is released within the environment and, although it doesn’t necessarily equate to ghosts gone wild, it can create spikes on equipment and those who are overly sensitive can sense the differences. It is like an echo that has no time or space. And it is those echoes that paranormal investigators gravitate to because it helps define, or give a reality to, the spirit world. Each one of us has our own imprint, much like our thumbprint. Maybe good and evil had their own echo within that imprint, I contemplated.
“There’s a portal here,” Poe bellowed inside my head. “Be careful going to the fifth floor. I mean it.”
A portal. There are many theories that portals are like elevators to other worlds, whether those worlds
include heaven or hell or something in between, I didn’t know. It is theorized that within the spirit consciousness an entity is able to move and shift easily between locations through portals. Those portals can move, they are not constant to one place.
“And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. Joseph Glanvill,” Poe continued.
I wanted to roll my eyes at his persistence to pound in me to be careful, but seriously, how cool was it that a gothic mastermind was quoting a seventeenth-century writer? I realized that he was enforcing his message earlier about good and evil and that it continues through lifetimes.
I gathered my equipment and found Chuck and Maddy in the lobby. We pushed the elevator arrow up and waited for the squeaky doors to open before getting in. Pushing the button for the fifth floor, we grew anxious as we felt the elevator wobble and lurch. After what felt like a year, the elevator doors opened, and ever the gentleman, Chuck let us gals exit first. But before he could get off, the elevator doors slammed shut and his screams of stop, no, along with several swear words brought fits of giggles from both Maddy and me. Figuring that it was just a quirk of an aging elevator, we waited for Chuck to return before entering the ritual room. A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened, and again, just as Chuck went to step out, the doors slammed on him and his cuss words continued as we heard his yelling echo below us. Now we were a bit worried. Our previous laughter instead turned to slight anxiety. Once more, the doors opened and Chuck jumped out and began running down the hallway. Now, Chuck doesn’t run. Nor does he jump. And he is rarely frightened. I began running toward him, darting questions along the way.
“What are you doing? Stop running. Tell me what’s wrong.”
All I could hear from him was, “It’s chasing me. Don’t get near it!”
But I didn’t see anything, only Chuck sprinting down a long corridor—to where I didn’t know.
Maddy and I finally caught up to him sitting in a leather chair next to a case with Scottish armor. I handed him the opened water bottle I had drank out of earlier. Visibly shaken, his eyes darkened and were darting back and forth as he shared his ordeal.
“There was something in the elevator with me. I felt it. It was trying to enter into me. Possess me and I knew it. I can’t tell you how I knew it, but I did. The only way to prevent a possession was to run from it.”
I put my hand to my forehead, perplexed. “What was it?”
“It was more than a shadow. It was evil. Demonic, even. Maybe. All I know was it was evil.” He shook his head as if trying to shake the experience from his memory. “I’m sorry, girls, I need to go lie down.”
Before I could ask him if he thought letting his defenses down by lying down was so smart, he offered me a hug and ran down the stairway, calling for us to meet him in the social room when we were done.
“That, there, is my hero,” I laughed and Maddy joined me.
Hand in hand, we entered the fifth-floor ritual room by ourselves.
I knew that Poe’s warnings were now manifesting into truths. And his overly imaginative self wasn’t just being, well, overly imaginative. If both Chuck and I experienced something in the matter of a couple hours, there was definitely something here, but what, and why were we targeted?
The room was humongous. Carpeted, with rows of pews and seats on both sides of the room, a large chair stood at the foot of the room and the head of the room. In the center was an altar of sorts.
“Let’s walk and see what we feel,” Maddy suggested.
We walked the perimeter of the room until we came to one location right of the doorway out.
“The energy shifts,” I said, “My head feels funny, much like it did in the basement.”
Maddy nodded, her hazel eyes brighter than the flashlight that we were holding.
“It’s a doorway, for sure,” I jumped in and then out. A static electricity could be felt.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” a voice from the entryway called out. One of the event organizers stepped into the room. “Chuck told me what happened and I thought I best check on you. I tried to call you on the walkie-talkie, but there wasn’t any answer.”
I lifted up the black device to see that it was on. I shined the flashlight on it, and held it up for him to see.
Doug hesitated for a moment. “Doesn’t surprise me that you were blocked. This room has something negative attached to it,” he informed us.
“What is it, Doug?” I inquired.
“Not sure, we just call him the shadow man. The other night our group investigated here and every single one walked in that spot,” Doug pointed to the suspected portal. “And everybody blacked out.”
“What?” I said, stunned and trying to stay objective.
“It’s true. Everybody with the group is a first responder, too. We have no theories except for time travel, time continuum, or a portal of some sort.”
“I have heard that quartz can generate energy. What is this building made out of?” Madelyn asked.
“Limestone. Actually most of Indiana is limestone. Native Americans were the first people to discover limestone in Indiana and not long after American settlers used the rock around their windows and doors and for memorials around the towns. The first quarry was started in 1827,” Doug stated.
Both Madelyn and I studied crystals and stones and knew a bit about many. Ironically, we were going to be giving a lecture the next afternoon on crystals. Limestone is a sedimentary rock that usually forms in lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans. Most limestone is deposited in warm shallow seas. It is made up of many things such as shells, compacted crystalline rocks, plant and animal matter, and decaying algae. Limestone is a great source of fossils. Could it be that energy that signals paranormal activity by keeping the light energy out and the dark energy within?
“Buildings such as the National Cathedral, the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, the Empire State Building, and the Pentagon feature Indiana limestone in their exteriors. And many churches use it within their interior,” Madelyn added.
“And is the paranormal or portals attracted to limestone, or … ”
“No, it is thought that they can’t escape through limestone. They can move, but they cannot leave,” Doug interrupted.
“And much like secrets, they stay hidden with the walls of the history within,” I heard Poe say.
“So has anybody been possessed by whatever is here?” I asked, a bit frightened of the answer.
“Not that I am aware of. Thoughts attract things. If you have good thoughts, you bring good things. If you have negative thoughts, you bring negative things. Dark spirits feed off of fear. Like a lion that can sense it, so the dark can, too. We don’t allow anybody to feed or taunt it.”
Just as Doug finished his sentence, I felt as if someone reached from the darkness and scratched my left leg. I jumped back and yelped. Shining my flashlight on my calf, there was no mistaking the blood that was dripping down and staining my white sock.
“I need to find Chuck,” I said, running to the stairwell and down the three flights of steps. I opened the door to the social room to find him sprawled out, snoring on a couch that looked to be about as old as I was. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” I whispered it three times as I sat in the chair next to Chuck, my hand softly resting on his arm. His eyes fluttered open.
“I was snoring, huh?”
I laughed and nodded. He was known in the paranormal communities for being the most annoying investigator, as more times than not he would find a quiet place and fall asleep. His snoring reverberated throughout wherever we were investigating and contaminated any recording evidence.
“Do you remember anything?” I asked.
Chuck sat up on the couch and smoothed his dark hair back before answering, “Hell yeah. Something tried to enter me. And I wasn’t having anything to do with it either.”
“Were you scared?”
“No, mad. I was really, really mad. Still am.”
Chuck got up and stretched just as the door opened and the remaining teams walked in, along with Madelyn and Doug.
“I don’t want to talk about it, though, Kristy,” he whispered with a warning tone.
I nodded and gave Maddy a look and without words she understood. Chuck could be testy. Not sure who he reminded me of, I smirked, looking over at Poe who was standing over by the doorway looking concerned. Alto was next to him with his normal indifferent look on his face, but no indication that an exorcism would need to be performed.
It was 10:00 o’clock when we called it a night at the Freemasons Hall and walked to the hotel where we picked up our car. Mexican for dinner was the consensus, along with margaritas for Maddy, Chuck, and me. We steered away from any conversation that had anything to do with ghosts, demons, and the paranormal.
It was midnight before we were tucked in our bed at the hotel. I closed my eyes to try to sleep, but I was bothered and felt curious, and also feared the answers. My phone jingled and I looked over at Chuck, who already had his CPAP machine on and was fast asleep. I thought maybe it was Madelyn texting, or maybe the kids at home, so I climbed out of bed and padded to the desk that sat in the corner by the window where I had the phone charging for the night.
There wasn’t any phone number or name listed on the phone, only one word. Brotherhood. I shook my head and looked to see if Poe was in the room, but it felt empty. My eyes felt droopy, so I climbed back into bed and fell asleep.
You say—“Can you hint to me what was the terrible evil which caused the irregularities so profoundly lamented?” Yes; I can do more than hint. This “evil” was the greatest which can befall a man. Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of her forever & underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially and I again hoped. At the end of a year the vessel broke again—I went through precisely the same scene. Again in about a year afterward. Then again—again—again & even once again at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly & clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive—nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife. This I can & do endure as becomes a man—it was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope & despair which I could not longer have endured without the total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I receive a new but—oh God! how melancholy an existence.
—Edgar Allan Poe’s Letter to George Eveleth in 1848
Poe sat at his desk, tears falling and staining the parchment paper. I stood outside his front door and gazed into his window. I was almost surprised to see his tears were water and not blood. He reached down to pet a calico cat that rubbed affectionately against his right leg. Animals knew the sadness within the soul even when we denied the true emotion from bursting through. But Poe owned his emotion mostly through his writings. It was as if he was stuck riding in the boat in between two rivers; Acheron and Styx—woe and hate, without a means to move to a heaven. Why was he so tortured that he couldn’t stop grieving? I contemplated. I, too, had lost—my first husband to another woman and my son to the military. I sighed louder than expected.
“Sara, I didn’t notice you there,” Poe said, opening the heavy wooden doorway.
Startled and a bit embarrassed at peering in without an invitation, I thrust my hands in the coat of my blue paisley dress. “Mr. Poe, I apologize. I went to knock, but noticed that you looked to be busy and thought I would try another time. I’ll come back,” I said, turning around.
“No, no, come in, Sara. What a welcome surprise. How is Edward?”
“Thank you, sir, for asking. He’s been better, but I believe he’s on the mend. His breathing is much more stable.”
“Please don’t call me sir, Sara. Edgar will do. If I recall, it was pneumonia that he’s been fighting?”
I nodded.
“Edward is a good man, Sara. I know that you have been through romantic challenges just as I, and more than likely like thousands of others. It is apparent that Edward is quite taken by you.”
I nodded. I did feel quite grateful. After my first husband abandoned me and his children, I wasn’t quite sure what I would do, but then Edward found me and took my children in as his own.
“Congratulations to you, too, sir, I mean, Edgar. I heard of your engagement.”
“Pfft,” Poe motioned with his hand for me to sit down, “Yes, Sarah Whitman is a fine woman.”
I sat down on the sofa. I couldn’t help but grin. I wasn’t convinced by his words that he was telling the truth, or at least the whole truth and they certainly didn’t shine with love.
“But you, Sara, you already know all about that,” Poe grinned back, running his hand through his dark hair.
I tucked an auburn curl back into my bun. I could once again feel a blush rise to my cheeks.
“Now shall we get to work?” Poe sat across from me in a wingback chair and held out his hands.
I smiled, closed my eyes, and took hold of both of his hands. With a deep breath, I began.
“Kristy!”
“Huh, what?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and looking around to see Chuck staring at me with one eyebrow raised.
We had gotten home from Indiana in the afternoon, and the weekend’s adventure had exhausted me. I had laid down in front of the television just for a second, and looking at the clock on the mantel, it looked like a second had turned into three hours. I also felt even worse than when I first lay down.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized to Chuck. “You should’ve woken me up earlier.”
Chuck smiled and bent over to give me a quick peck on my lips. “No, it was completely fine. I would have let you sleep, but you were yelling in your sleep. I was worried.”
The image of the completed dream flooded me at once. I was sitting in Poe’s house. It was 1848. I knew that from the letter he was penning. And instead of me as Kristy, I was me as Sara. The same name I always felt was my soul name. The very name that my parents were tempted to change because Kristy never felt right.
“Sara, please be careful. They can’t know what you know. What I know.”
“Edgar, I fear for your life,” I said softly.
“I’ve died several times over, Sara, I don’t fear death. I fear living.”
“Who is Reynolds?” I asked, squinting. “And why does he visit me in spirit so much with an apology for you?”
As soon as I took hold of Poe’s hands, I received a horrific headache. I tried to wish the vision out of my head, but every time I glanced his way, the psychic visions and warnings intensified.
“My father. But he, like everyone else, has abandoned me or died. Or abandoned me into death”
“I . . . I don’t understand,” I stammered.
“My mother was a beautiful actress,” Poe said, taking on a dreamy look. “She performed for the wealthy from far and wide. She made the mistake of falling in love with one such man from Virginia, near the North Carolina border. He would have nothing to do with her when she told him the news. He was a farmer and a merchant, and him and his lineage quite affluent. Although he was a nice man, he wouldn’t take us in when my mother passed away.”
“Us?” I saw a young girl in my vision and the story began to unfold before my eyes. “Your sister and you shared the same father, didn’t you?”
Poe pursed his lips and sighed. “It was because of Reynolds that we were given what he thought would be good homes, instead of being shuffled off to orphanages, and yet I was an orphan still the same. I am certainly not angry with him. Although I often wish that my mother would have aborted me. I guess that is why I went to help Mary Rogers. She thought she was with child. She knew what a tormented life I lived with parental problems, and she wanted advice,” Poe laughed and threw back his head. “Can you imagine, someone asking me what to do? I wish I had known you back then, Sara, I would have sent her to you.”
“She wasn’t pregnant, Edgar. She told us that during our last sitting. She was murdered. And you know exactly who it was who murdered her, and many others,” I added. “You need to let the guilt go. Even if in a story of yours. Kill it, Edgar.”
Poe affectionately reached out, hugged me, and dropped a few coins in my hand. “I would give you more if I had it, Sara.”
I slid the welcomed coins into my pocket. I was saving for some fabric to make new dresses for the girls.
“Next week?” I asked.
“Yes, but let’s choose another time. I am still afraid that you are being followed. Do you sense the same?”
“I will be careful. Until next week.” I bent down to bid farewell to Poe’s cat, then I walked through the door that he held open for me.
Without looking back, I quickly walked back to my home where my children and husband awaited my return. On the trip home, something white caught my eye. Lying on the grass, next to a graveyard was a large white feather. I bent over and picked it up. My heart stopped ever briefly. When I sensed death, I was given signs through found feathers. One feather was a year’s time. More meant sooner. I swallowed hard and clenched the feather in my fist, tearing up the feather, pull after pull. But I couldn’t make it go away.
Someone was going to die.