The Journal of Edwin Hale (Silver Thorn Book 1) Read online

  “They don’t look like much, but if you put some of this on them, it really makes it tasty.”

  Penny nodded and Howard placed a drop on the end of her plate. She watched as the man dipped one of his French Fries in the red paste and placed it in his mouth. Following his lead, she did the same and went wide-eyed with delight.

  “I like it!” After a nudge from her mother’s arm she added with a smile, “Thank you, Mister Grant.”

  The man across the table from her tilted his head and with his now familiar, mile-wide smile said, “Please, call me Howard.”

  ***

  Nikki stood in the manor house’s library staring at the torn and wrinkled artwork she had found rolled up in a box in the attic. There was the painting, obviously copied from the photo she and Harley had found. In this picture however, Edgel Hale had not been removed.

  He was definitely not as she had imagined he would appear. His height was somewhere between that of his taller wife and his only slightly shorter son, barrel chested and with a short crew cut of dark brown hair. Unsmiling, he had a Romanesque nose and light grey eyes. He looked like the image that would accompany the dictionary definition of the word “bully.” I hope the hell you’re in now is a million times worse than anything you put your family through, Edgel Hale! Nikki thought. When she heard the sound of light footsteps coming down the stairs, Nikki allowed the painting to roll itself back into its tube shape and tossed it on the floor. In a way, she hoped it would fall to pieces and she wouldn’t have to look at it again.

  “It is too early for you to be taking a break from your schoolwork, little lady!” she reprimanded over her shoulder.

  All of a sudden, it was as if someone poured icy water down her back. Nikki nearly went into shock as she heard a girl say in a voice that did not belong to Harley.

  “There’s no school today, silly!”

  Harley watched her mother pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. She didn’t need to see the glow to know that Nikki Baldwin was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Even though her mom had quit smoking over a year ago, when she was extremely agitated, she would still put her fingers up to her lips as if holding an invisible cigarette.

  “Yeah, there are spirits here. I just didn’t know who they were for sure.” Harley said in response to the story she had just been told. “I guess we know now that Penelope Hale is one of them.”

  “Damn it to hell! Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Harley?”

  “Isn’t this what the state wanted? A real haunted house that would bring in paranormal tourism business?” Harley asked with terribly biting sarcasm. “Let’s see if we can add some vampires, werewolves, and zombies to the mix, and this place would go international!”

  As Nikki turned a sudden, hardened glare at her daughter, her aura went red hot with anger.

  “This is not a time to try and start a fight, Harley Elise!”

  The girl that suddenly stood up from her chair and started shaking with barely controlled rage would not back down now.

  “The souls of people that are trapped in this world against their will are not sideshow freaks! What if it was Daddy, Mom Ball, or Daddy Bill?”

  Nikki started to take a step towards the antagonistic Harley. The muscles in her arm twisted like a rubber band in preparation to send the back of her hand across her daughter’s face. But suddenly, she was embraced in the same chill that she felt when Penny appeared. She saw Harley’s face go white as the fiery emeralds disappeared from her eyes. Both of them heard Anezka Hale when she stepped in between and spoke simply in a whispery voice.

  “There is no need for this, ladies.”

  Annie then reached over and took Penny’s hand in hers. Just as quickly as they had entered this world, the pair left it.

  The city of Marshall, Texas was not a major metropolis like Dallas, but it did have a library and a pharmacy. Those were the two things that both Nikki and Harley needed after the encounter with the ghosts of Annie and Penny Hale earlier in the day. Since Cody had not called, Harley felt that their field trip to the Blue Light Cemetery was off. That singular disappointment had been the main catalyst for the heated verbal, almost physical, exchange earlier. The long drive also did them a lot of good. Once they had talked out the root causes of tension between them, both agreed to not let worries and stress simmer. They were a team, and they promised each other to resolve all differences of opinion without anger or recrimination.

  The Internet connection at the mansion was intermittent at best, so Harley used one of the computers at the public library to submit her papers to her online instructor. Nikki was making arrangements with the local recreational vehicle dealership to have her camper moved and set up outside the Hale House. Another source of anxiety, the two had decided, was sleeping on uncomfortable cots. There was also the presence of the paranormal in the house to contend with. Being exposed to this kind of situation twenty-four-seven was both mentally and physically unhealthy.

  As Nikki was leaving the RV lot, the phone on her hip vibrated. Answering it, she heard her daughter’s hushed library voice.

  “Mom, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, baby, I can hear you. Are you ready to be picked up?”

  “Yes I am but, that’s not the only thing. Cody called me and he’s in trouble.”

  “What happened? What kind of trouble?”

  “Well…his parents got arrested for making and selling crystal meth.”

  “Shit, Harley! Are you where anybody can hear what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not that stupid, Mom! I’m in the crapper and I made sure that no one else is in here. But let me finish tellin’ ya! The child protective people came for him. Before they could get Cody downtown, he bailed on ‘em.”

  “Oh . . . my . . . God! Just what does Mister Taylor think we can do for him?” After a prolonged silence from her daughter, Nikki’s voice broke as she shouted. “Harley! No! It is not like you are asking me to take in a stray puppy!”

  “Mom! He has no one else.”

  “What about Miss Odette?”

  “She’s too old and frail.”

  “Shit fire, girl! I’m headed your way now. We’ll talk more when I get there.”

  4

  September 10, 1952

  Mother and father had a big fight today. Mother doesn’t like the way that father treats the people that work for him. She gives them books and clothes that Penny and me outgrow. Me and Penny stayed outside in the garden. It makes me and Penny sad and scared when they fight. It is happening more often.

  S17

  November 3, 1952

  Father told everyone that there would be no holidays or parties at the mill. The war in Korea means a bigger demand for wood and other things the mill makes. They would have to work straight through until early next year. I think Mother was more mad than the men at the mill.

  S17

  March 28, 1953

  My parents had another big fight today. Father called the people that mother was helping Pine Tar Niggers and White Trash. Mother told him that they were people and that just because they work in his mill does not make them less than him or her. Penny and me were hiding in our special place in the garden. Father left and went to his office at the mill. I hope he stays there forever and never comes back.

  “S17,” Harley said aloud as she looked at the sky permanently stained brown south of Silver Thorn. Even though Houston was nearly 200 miles away, the smog that held the big city in its’ deathly grip was still visible. S could mean South, but what does the number seventeen mean? All night long as she lay awake, unable to sleep, S17 had echoed in her mind.

  “There ya go!” Nikki said more or less to herself from the opposite end of the porch. The original bench swing had rotted to pieces and had been replaced by a newly reassembled one. “Your uncle Brad did a real good job making that look original to the house. You want to hand me those cushions?”

  Harley didn’t move from where she sat on the pillows her mother had
requested. She was intensely watching the tan and black car with the word “Sheriff” written in green on its side. As it pulled off of the county road and crossed the bridge to the driveway she said, “We have a visitor, Mom.”

  Even through the vehicle’s tinted windows she could see the dark purple aura of the female occupant. Harley rapped her knuckles twice against the wood deck. This was the signal code that she and her mother had worked out, and it was a serious warning of the approach of danger. Nikki heard the warning and with her motherly instincts in high gear, she put herself between the stranger and Harley.

  “This is probably going to be about your boyfriend, Mister Cody Taylor.”

  “Not funny, Mother!”

  The tall woman with short blonde hair seemed to extricate herself from the wheeled suit of armor with some difficulty, as if it was a size too small. She looked, for all intents and purposes, strikingly like the heroine of one of Harley’s video games. A ballistic vest hugged her torso. Every pocket of it was filled with ammunition clips for the huge hand cannon on her right hip. Khaki pants were stuffed into the combat boots that crushed some small bits of gravel underneath them with a loud crunch.

  A stream of sunlight glinted off the silver pendant that had fallen from the woman’s undershirt. Like a movie projector in her brain, Harley saw the history of the Alberona Cross narrated by Gaielos.

  “Extremely rare, this crucifix is a combination of ancient Papal and Slavic designs. Jesus has died and his body slumps with his knees spread. The skull and crossbones at the base symbolize Golgotha. It is singular in that it is given as a powerful protection, to those who specifically hunt vampires.”

  Speaking in a voice not her own, and without conscious thought, Harley hissed, “It is daylight, so there is no need for that overly gaudy talisman to be displayed!”

  Nikki immediately recognized the signs of an imminent seizure in her daughter and quickly moved to intercept Harley. As the girl’s eyes rolled back in her head, she fell sideways into her mother’s arms.

  “If you will pardon me, officer, my daughter is having one of her attacks!”

  With no offer of assistance or even a call to emergency services from the Deputy, Nikki lowered Harley gently to the deck. Awash with anger, the protective mother turned her head and saw the policewoman had her hand on her pistol grip and that the holster was unsnapped.

  “What the hell do you think you’re going to do? Shoot her?” Nikki shouted, “Unless you are here to make an arrest, go away and come back later!”

  The smell of rotting vegetation assaulted her senses and almost weakened Harley to the point of nausea. Her legs moved her forward into the swamp. Her shoes lost to the mud that sucked them from her feet. She wanted to stop and go running back to the house and her mother. Nothing about this was under her control however, including her arms that tried to lift thorny branches out of her way.

  Not every bush that sent out its claws to grasp hold of her was carefully pushed aside. Where her pajamas had been torn away, the flesh underneath was scratched and gouged. It burned like fiery pokers when sweat that seeped from every pore ran into the wounds. Stumbling over a rotten log, Harley fell hard onto leaf-covered dry ground. Her head stopped its uncontrolled fall barely a half inch above a mound of cracked cement. As a cloud cleared away from the face of the moon, its dim light wiped Harley’s vision clean. S17 appeared scrawled on the stone before her.

  “What the fuck are you doing out here, Harley?” Cody shouted with a mixture of shock and anger. “You promised me you wouldn’t come out here without me!”

  Harley couldn’t respond. Her face was slowly descending towards the marker. As its wet, ice cold surface met her cheek, dark infinity swallowed her brain and vision.

  Cody Taylor had decided to sit outside the camper in a lawn chair and watch the sunrise. He was only slightly less muddy than Harley and felt that he shouldn’t give Nikki anything more to deal with. It even amazed him that with his slight frame, he was able to carry the unconscious girl home. As he started to get up and head back to his hideaway in the root cellar of the old sexton’s house, Mrs. Baldwin stepped out of the door with a big mug of steaming liquid.

  “I didn’t know if you drank coffee, but I’ve never heard of someone refusing some good old hot chocolate.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. That will sure hit the spot!” As he wrapped his shaking hands around the heavy ceramic cup, he looked up at Harley’s mother. “Does she sleepwalk like this often?” he asked quietly.

  “Nope, this is a first.”

  Nikki turned and reached inside the doorway and brought out a matching cup of what Cody assumed was the same beverage as his own. Bending over to place her drink on the patio table, Nikki’s robe opened, revealing her right breast. The steam from his cup fogged Cody’s glasses just in time to save him from an embarrassing moment. Almost reluctantly, he returned his thoughts back to Harley.

  “Is she going to be okay?” he stuttered.

  “I believe she will.” As Nikki placed her hand on Cody’s arm, the boy felt his ears warming. “Thanks to you. She is lucky to have a friend like you to be a hero for her. Goodness knows she needs both!”

  “I don’t know about all that. It was just being in the right place at the right time.”

  “As that may be, I still want you to know that I appreciate what you did.” Taking a surreptitious glance at the boy, his torn and dirty clothes were probably not in better condition before his encounter with Harley. “If you’d like to take a bath, I can wash and mend your clothes. Until that is done, I found some men’s clothes up at the house that might fit you.”

  “That would be really nice of you but, you got to remember, I’m sort of on the run. I wouldn’t want you and Harley to get into any trouble on my account.”

  “You let me take care of that situation.”

  “You and Harley are the nicest folks I ever met, Miss Baldwin!” As Cody took the last swallow of his cocoa down, his eyebrows furrowed and he looked back up at Nikki. “Any idea what Harley was doing out there?”

  “All I could get out of her was something about S17, whatever that means.”

  Cody’s eyes suddenly went so wide that his eyebrows disappear behind the thick rim of his glasses.

  “You sure that she said S17?”

  “I’m pretty sure, why?”

  “That’s where I found her out at the Blue Light. It is also Edgel Hale’s grave!”

  Angela Harrison had been a Deputy Sheriff for nearly six years and, for most of that time, had been relegated to traffic duty. Her special training in homicide investigation went unused. Not much call for that kind of thing in this county, thank God! Sheriff Henry “Hank” Donnelly thought as he watched his employee standing defiantly before him. The stories of her overzealous nature haunted her from the time she had been an investigator with the Houston Police. No one could really blame her for being this way. Not after the revenge deaths of her husband and daughter by the notorious child killer known only as “Mister Starlight”. Donnelly had hesitated taking her on when Houston let her go, but her dad had been a fatherly mentor to him as a young New Orleans policeman. In his book, that accounted for a lot.

  “Tell me, Angela, what part of ‘go out to the Hale House and make sure that woman and her daughter know about this psycho that escaped from Huntsville, to be careful and keep their doors and windows locked, and to not answer the door unless they check it out first’ did you not understand?”

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell ‘em before the girl went snake shit on us!” Harrison grumbled back.

  “You signed off on your mandatory training in dealing with troubled kids and their families, did you not?”

  The only response was an angry glare and the crossing of arms in a defensive posture.

  “Well, you did! And I don’t remember the part about releasing your holster snap being a part of that course of instruction either!”

  “With all due respect, sir, you didn’t see what that
girl did. It was like something you would need an exorcist for.”

  “Is that in your report?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “As that may be, you are lucky Miss Baldwin didn’t—” Donnelly was abruptly interrupted by his Chief Deputy bursting through the closed office door.

  “Sheriff!”

  “What the hell is biting you on the ass that you don’t knock before coming through my door, lieutenant?”

  “Sorry about that, sir, but I think you need to know this!”

  The sheriff slammed his fist onto the top of his desk and growled, “Unless the station is on fire, there are protocols!”

  The younger officer started to sheepishly retreat from his boss’ private realm.

  “Well? It’s too late to back out and start over now! What’s so damn important?”

  “That escaped convict has been found . . . dead as a doornail!”

  “L.D. Dupree!” Donnelly exclaimed as he approached the short, stocky man he was meeting. “What have you done now?”

  A huge, near toothless grin opened up L.D. Dupree’s face as he shouted back to his old friend.

  “Ain't me dat done it, boss! Fact is, I ain't never seen anything like dis in all my born days!”

  “Where’s he at?” Donnelly asked after exchanging handshakes. L.D. nodded in the direction of a clump of live oak trees on the far side of an untilled field.

  “Ovuh by dem trees.”

  The Sheriff scanned the entirety of the land and air before him.