Chapter Nine

Pastor Schmidt

I moved away from the gaping hole, and my family, toward the other side of the tree to see who drove up. Through the branches and leaves I spotted a dark figure get out of the vehicle after the car was parked near the curb. Still jumpy, I was nervous until I spotted Steve. Despite the circumstances, a big goofy grin spread across my face.

He trotted over to me. “Hey sweetie. How’s it going?” he whispered. He also surveyed the downed tree and squinted toward my family on the other side. “I guess things escalated a little.”

I blushed. “No. Not at all. This tree is half the story. What are you doing here? I’m not used to seeing you before midnight.”

He smiled. “True, but I’m not a vampire. I can come out in the sun. Unless you like that kind of stuff.”

“Maybe I would with you.” I smiled back, and he took a turn at becoming bright red.

“Seriously, I brought help.” He pulled himself together and glanced back toward the car. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you and this house all day. I worried so much my stomach hurt. So I went to the one person I could think of.”

“Other people believe now. The spirit attacked everyone. God, I don’t even know where to start.” I kicked at dirt in front of me. “And the jewels. I know how to use them now.”

“Whoa, slow down.”

I wanted to kiss him but knew any physical affection was a bad idea, so close to the street and my family.

“Listen to me.” Steve grabbed my arm. “Before you tell me anything else, you need to meet someone. You already know him.” As if on cue, the driver’s side door opened and an older man got out of the car. He carried a large black briefcase and wore all black, except for a small piece of white at his throat. His clerical collar. Pastor Schmidt.

“I asked him to come because my grandmother told me he helped your grandma,” Steve whispered in my ear as Pastor Schmidt plodded toward us. “I told him everything and asked about the house. He wants to fight the demon. He believes you.”

“You told him everything?”

“Everything about the ghost. I said we were friends because you wandered downtown one night.”

“Jaret!” Pastor Schmidt extended his hand and smiled. “It’s good to see you.” His booming voice had not changed from my childhood memory of a deep and authoritative baritone. But I detected the sincerity in his words. “I wanted to speak with you this morning at the funeral. Circumstances prevented our discussion.” He motioned for us to continue along the tree and around toward my family. “I want to speak with your whole family. I can help. I promised as much to your grandmother before she died when she requested an exorcism. Perhaps I’ll at long last fulfill my pledge.”

I wondered if Pastor Schmidt could help. His low voice, clerical garb, and self-confidence made him look the part, as if straight out of a movie. Substitute a Lutheran minister for the Catholic priest and we were headed toward a scene from The Exorcist. But could succeeding be so easy against the spirit haunting the Bachmanns? Victory sounded too simple for a man of the cloth to walk in and reverse a century of hauntings.

“Um, Pastor Schmidt,” I said.

“Yes?”

“More happened at the house today.” I unleashed the entire episode on him and Steve from start to finish. Both Steve and the pastor listened as we walked toward my family, still gawking at the tree. Glancing upward, the pastor frowned at the sight of the broken windows above. Steve was horrified. He kept looking at me and I figured he wished we were alone so he could ask me more questions. I wanted to be alone with him, too, but that’s not how things were working out so far. As I finished the story, we joined my family.

“Frank.” My father extended his hand to him.

“My condolences. And also my sympathies about this morning’s, uh, situation.” They shook hands, and then the pastor began going to each family member in greeting. “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know. Beth, Alice.” He nodded. “And look at your kids. They were little ones when you left Fremont.” Jenn and Lincoln smiled in an awkward way. Darth found a stick for Steve to toss for her, which reminded me to introduce him.

“Everyone, this is Steve,” I said. I tried to hide my nervousness but a slight embarrassment came through, nonetheless, and my voice cracked. Shit. “He goes to Pastor Schmidt’s church too,” I added and felt my face burn red.

Jenn stifled a giggle next to me, but everyone greeted him like they would anyone else.

My stomach churned when I heard Mom address him, wondering how she would react in a different setting. Without her son’s tongue down the guy’s throat. “How are you?” Her voice sounded kind. Normal. Only I was freaking out.

“Fine, Mrs. Bachmann.”

“Call me Beth. I’m glad you’re here.”

“All right,” Pastor Schmidt said. He always liked to take charge. “Jaret told me what happened today after the funeral. I know a sinister being haunts this family and has for a long time. I doubt we need to worry about anyone in the family disbelieving anymore. While I know few Lutheran pastors who study exorcism, unlike those in the Catholic Church who have kept the old practices alive, I learned from a priest about the ritual. I believe exorcisms work. Sometimes the Enlightenment and modern thinking don’t have what it takes to address certain things.”

“Can you do anything here?” Dad asked.

“I believe so. I can perform an exorcism. The Catholic rituals have had a great deal of success, and still do today.”

I wanted to believe him. Because a pastor swooping in and fixing the whole mess sounded like heaven. But I had doubts. Serious doubts. I thought he already tried to intervene with my grandma. Did his effort fail? Or did he have a new trick to try?

My father invited everyone inside, and Mom offered refreshments, which I thought was kind of funny. I mean, we were gearing up to fight a ghost, and she’s serving tea and crumpets? Jenn, Lincoln, Steve, and I brought up the rear.

“This sounds kind of weird,” my sister blurted what was already on my mind.

“I agree.” I smiled. “But weird is what this family does well. At least they believe us about the ghosts. And we’re not charging up the stairs with a toolbox to attack a door.”

“Maybe you should take control,” Lincoln said.

I shook my head. “Uh, no. But thanks.”

“You know more than them.” Lincoln pointed toward the door.

“And I’m still a kid to them. I’ll do what I can. Pastor Schmidt seems in charge.” I stopped at the top of the porch. “Shit. I forgot one of the jewels. You go on ahead.” But I signaled to Steve to stay with me, so we returned to the Blazer and went around to the street side, between the SUV and the fallen tree but out of everyone’s view from the house.

“You gotta be more careful with those things if they hold so much power.” Steve raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t forget one. I wanted to see you alone.”

He grinned and took my hand, leaning in for a quick kiss.

“Is everything okay?” My heart pounded hard as I waited for an answer.

Steve laughed. “Well, for the most part, yeah. I mean, you can’t say it’s cool. This house freaks me out. It’s kinda ironic, you know? I find a boyfriend, and he comes with a gang of ghosts.”

My heart sank. I sighed and nodded while staring at the ground and stepping away. But he grabbed me by the waist with both hands and pulled me back.

“The ghosts are a problem.” He kissed me on the nose. “Not you.”

I grinned. “I was worried—”

He put his fingers on my lips to stop me. “I know. Don’t be. Except about the ghosts. We’ll worry about them together.”

I pulled away but didn’t want to. “As much as I want to stay out here or run away, we better get back.”

“Yeah. To ghost hunting.”

He gave me a last quick kiss and we went back to the house, where we found everyone assembled in the living room. Pastor Schmidt’s tough persona contrasted with the plush pink chair in which he sat and the cup and saucer in his hands. Others had various drinks and sat around in a circle. Only Aunt Alice drank liquor, sloshing out of a glass she held at a forty-five degree angle. I sat on the floor next to Jenn and called Darth next to me, where she curled up and put her head on my knee while Steve sat on her other side.

“If you’ll indulge me.” Pastor Schmidt cleared his throat. “I’ll explain my methods.”

“Please, do.” My father nodded, too excited, too convinced we found the solution.

Pastor Schmidt launched into a dry and detailed history of exorcisms, ancient Christian rituals, and why they disappeared. He droned on, sounding worse than the most boring lecture I ever heard in school, so I zoned out. History wasn’t going to fight the ghost. I wasn’t even sure a Bible or holy water would do the trick either. The fucking ghost could rip trees out of the ground and change the weather. I saw visions of a bad horror movie where the priest gets offed by the spirit in the middle of the ritual. Pastor Schmidt wanted to throw baptismal water in various rooms, call the hosts of heaven, and declare how God sanctified these premises. Why would the spirit give a crap about that? His plan, I decided, was a bad idea.

Pastor Schmidt opened his briefcase and pulled out an old, tattered Bible and several books on demonology. The books creeped me out a little, when he showed us pictures and read passages about what he was going to do. Yep, I thought again. A very bad idea. My eyes glazed over. I shifted around, trying to get comfortable, and glanced over at the sun porch.

*

And there was Gramps. He walked into the room, circled everyone, then stopped and beckoned at me from the other side. I looked around. Everybody else seemed interested in the pastor’s monologue—even Steve. I got up, figuring they’d think I was going to the bathroom, and followed Gramps into the foyer and toward the stairs.

When we got to the second floor, Gramps turned the corner toward his office. He remained silent as he walked past the shelves and shelves of books dominating the room. When I closed the door behind me, a fire burst to life in the fireplace, adding a nice warm glow, even in the spring heat.

Gramps went to a glass-enclosed bookshelf behind his desk. All the other books sat on dark-cherry shelves, accessible to anyone. But a very few old and delicate manuscripts were lined up in a neat row and locked in the case. Those old texts always fascinated me, but Gramps would never explain them beyond dismissing them as old family histories. Not anymore, because Gramps motioned for me to open one of his desk drawers. I did and found a small key hidden inside a compartment he pointed out.

I unlocked the case and opened the glass door. Most of the stuff in the cabinet was old and written in German. I ran my finger across the leather bindings and touched the golden embossing of words on the side covers. As my finger reached the last book, Gramps touched it, too, to tell me to open the cover. I grabbed the text and sat in his big leather desk chair, then looked around for Gramps.

He’d vanished. The fire had gone out, too, and the room went still.

I placed the volume on his desk and pulled myself forward to examine the cover. The binding looked even older than the other books and more tattered. I glanced through the first few pages, all in German, without any clue as to what they said. I took German in high school so recognized the language, but not enough to translate because the book didn’t say anything about asking to go to the bathroom or greeting a stranger. I could, however, decipher the Bachmann family trees and read enough to figure out I looked at a family history, dating back a number of centuries. Holy Shit. As in, literal centuries.

I flipped through the pages with more reverence. The volume was not a typewritten manuscript or published book. Someone handwrote each chapter. And different people, from the look of the handwriting changes. The volume also contained pictures, inlaid or glued in. I went through the whole thing, happy to find the last two chapters written in English. The first English sentence explained how the next chapter was written in English and German, alternating from one paragraph to the next, but both languages containing the same information.

The very last chapter was in English and typed. I thumbed to the end, and there was Gramps’s signature to a chapter he’d added on the family history after his father died. So my great-grandfather wrote the combined English/German chapter. Most of Gramps’s chapter cataloged names, births, deaths, and weddings, along with an updated family tree. I found Lincoln’s name, followed my mine and Jenn’s.

Cool, to find an ancient family document, except the tome left me wondering why Gramps wanted me to see the book amid the fight against a pissed-off ghost. I turned to the last page and found loose-leaf papers tucked into the back. I pulled them out. Gramps typed them, too, but as a separate entry from the book.

I read the first paragraph.

 

The following is a brief summary of parts of the family history contained in this book but written in German, aspects of which are much disputed among the family. I do not believe the magical enchantments described herein. Rather, I type this to outline my understanding of what these pages say. I, in no way, endorse these beliefs. This is my grappling with the information. I hope my thoughts will assist future generations if these matters arise, and so I include my ideas in this family history that contains hundreds of years of records, both of a genealogical nature and of a magical character.

*

I blew out a huge breath and my hands trembled, as I was convinced my secret ability was tied to a hidden family history. I wasn’t demented or fucked-up. Cursed, maybe, by the family past. But one paragraph alone had already validated my own history with seeing ghosts and shit.

From the date, I could tell Gramps must have written this right after Grandma died. Despite expressing misgivings in what he wrote, I suspected Gramps’s ghost changed his mind. I scanned the document, astonished. No way. I wasn’t the only gay guy in the family. And I wasn’t the only one who could see ghosts. I looked up from the book, tingling with excitement. Everyone needed to read the book. Even if the content made them uncomfortable. I ran downstairs, clutching the tome tight to my chest, and into the living room. Pastor Schmidt was still talking, but I interrupted. Lincoln jumped at the sound of my voice when he woke up.

I set the book on a table but held up the separate, typed pages. “Everyone, listen.” The adults stared at me like I’d lost my mind again.

“Can this wait?” Pastor Schmidt frowned. “I was about to begin the process.”

“No. You need to hear this first.”

“Jaret,” Dad said in his scolding tone.

“C’mon, Dan. Let him talk,” Aunt Alice slurred, holding yet another drink. “Remember what I told you?” She glared at my father, who shut up.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I found this book in Gramps’s study.” I pointed to the book on the table. Waving the loose sheets in the air, I continued. “Gramps wrote this part after Grandma died. At the time, I don’t think he believed the story, but you’ll see what he wrote is true. It’s about the Bachmann family history.” I sat next to Darth, who put her head on my leg. I ran my fingers through my hair, surprised no one raised further objections to my latest comment, and hurried ahead.

I read fast, because the tale was pretty dry and talked about our lineage, like being nobility in Prussia—we used to be rich! And Gramps’s entry included crap like establishing successful businesses in Fremont, and why my relatives came to America to escape military service. But for the most important part, I slowed way down. When I stopped, I looked up to see everyone staring at me.

“So this Henrik Bachmann,” Mom said. “He was the one who immigrated from Germany and built this house in the late 1800s?”

“Gramps’s grandpa.” I nodded.

“Sounds to me like he had major issues,” Lincoln announced from his chair. “I mean, look at him. He’s married with a kid, and he falls for another guy. That sucks in the 1800s.”

“Right. And then the guy he loved killed him,” I chimed in. “Henrik came to America, built the house, then went back to Germany. He sends his wife and kid ahead with the family stuff, then goes to meet the guy he was in love with at the inn—”

Lincoln jumped in again. “And the guy goes nuts because he’s about to go into the ministry, and he feels all guilty, so he kills a bunch of people at the inn, including Henrik.” Lincoln whistled and shook his head. “That sucks. It’d make a good movie though. On the cool side, we’re a family with a bunch of Harry Potters. Including you.” Lincoln stared at me.

“Who’s Harry Potter?” my aunt asked, making everyone laugh.

“It’s a bunch of books and then movies,” Jenn answered. “He’s a wizard. Like Jaret.”

“Like all the wizards the family history told us about.” Alice pointed at the book. “Centuries of wizards. And all of them liked the boys.”

“Like Jaret too,” Lincoln added. His words made me feel good, to hear him acknowledge and affirm my being gay. My big, macho brother was willing to think outside the box.

I nodded agreement before continuing the story, “After he was murdered, his wife shipped his body to Fremont to bury, and to start the Bachmann legacy in America. His ghost must have hitched a ride here, too, so Henrik could do his haunting thing and watch over the gems.”

“So Henrik was the one who protected the jewels,” Dad said. “And those jewels are tied to certain men in the family.” He gave me a look.

Aunt Alice contributed to our summary. “Gramps’s brother, who died of sorrow after Gramps’s son died. He could see things. He was the one from his generation.”

“But what happened to Gramps’s son?” Lincoln asked. “Why did he die so young?”

“Well—” I lowered my head. “—I think Henrik killed him. Because he threatened Henrik. Henrik figured out the legacy and knew which son threatened him, so he wanted to preempt the problem. And I’m not convinced Gramps’s brother died of sorrow at losing this nephew. I bet Henrik killed him too. So all of this explains a lot,” I said in a soft voice. And the explanation included the inference about my being my generation’s warlock, but without benefit of anyone before me being alive to teach me.

“What has been explained?” Pastor Schmidt’s expression was a mixture of confusion and maybe a little bit of discomfort. The gay thing, I guessed. Or the ghosts? I bet both.

“The myth, the ghost, why the spirit haunts the Bachmanns,” I answered, impatient. “Gramps wrote all this without believing the truth. Yet he laid out the story we need to know, almost like he disagreed with his own dismissal of the legend.”

*

Pastor Schmidt cleared his throat. “With all due respect to the Bachmann history, what Jaret read to us does not help with our problem.” He stood and put his hands on his hips. “If I may proceed?”

“Can’t you see?” I asked. I ignored the pastor, which made me nervous, but my idea was important. “We all know a ghost haunts the house. Grandma and Gramps’s brother knew about the ghost too. You saw the spirit today with your own eyes. And I know Gramps was skeptical when he wrote this.” I reached over and jabbed the book with my finger. “But he nailed what’s going on here.”

“What are you trying to say?” Dad asked.

“The jewels possess magic. They manipulate forces we can’t understand. And one Bachmann per generation controls them. Maybe the situation is like Harry Potter.” I wanted to add the Bachmann edition was like the gay version of Harry Potter but thought better of popping the joke at the moment. “I know it’s true. I just do.”

Jenn nodded. Maybe her younger mind allowed her to process the fantastic faster than adults. “You’re Harry Potter. The Bachmann one. You used the jewels in the driveway to protect us. I mean, you stopped the storm. You’re a witch. Your whole life, you saw ghosts and supernatural stuff, all leading to now.”

“My God,” Mom said. “I understand. All this time, we wanted to help you, but instead we did the opposite. Because your uncle died as a little baby. He would have watched over you. He would have explained your power to you. But we didn’t know. We tried to protect you. Thought someone could fix you.”

I choked back tears. I didn’t want to get all emotional here, but Mom’s words touched me. She believed me. After all these years, she believed me.

“If only we had known,” she whispered.

“We do now,” I said.

“So what would you like me to do?” Pastor Schmidt broke the moment. “Shall we proceed?”

Of course he took charge again. “I’m sure you can help,” I said without believing my words. “But I have to be involved.”

“Is that wise?” He lifted an eyebrow at me. “I’m not sure you understand the magnitude of—”

“Wait a minute!” Jenn exclaimed and interrupted him. Pastor Schmidt took a deep breath of annoyance as Jenn continued. “There’s more to the story. You kept part from us. What else?”

I scratched Darth behind the ears, stalling for time and nervous. I could have hidden my omission from everyone else, but never Jenn. “Well, yeah. I mean. Uh, I think—the story seems to—” I hesitated.

“Tell us.” Unlike before, Dad sounded sincere, not annoyed or questioning. “We want to know what you think.”

“Okay.” I blew out a breath. “Gramps’s story explains the ghost’s identity. His writing tells us why he haunts this house. The story makes sense for why the ghost is angry. Pissed. But also why he’s so protective. It all makes sense.” I winced during the last words because my head pounded with pain. The spirit was back, and he was not happy.

Steve glanced up, worried, and even put a hand on my foot in front of the whole family.

“So who is the spirit?” Lincoln asked.

The name caught in my throat as a red glow materialized before the fireplace, hazy but visible. A chill filled the room as the red fog formed itself into a definable shape. I worried blood would seep out of my ears from the pain in my head when the ghost became a more definable entity.

“Yes, Jaret,” the ghost stated. “Tell them who I am. Tell them why I command this household and their futures. Tell them why I control you. Explain why you fear me. Tell them of my power.” He clenched his jaw, venom dripping from each word. Our final confrontation had arrived.