Upwyr

by Bill Bowler

Chapter 5: Wandering Soul

part 4

Thanatosius had stormed out of the crypt in a rage, his head throbbing, sick at heart. He had sensed, he had felt the touch of an unclean, profane presence committing sacrilege at the sacred ceremony. Cursing under his breath, with a splitting migraine, Thanatosius climbed the hidden staircase from the crypt and came out in the back room of his private quarters.

As he began to regain his composure, a dim recollection entered his consciousness. Something about the obscene presence at the ceremony had struck him as vaguely familiar. He had smelled that stink before. But where? And when? And then it came to him.

He went out to the grounds and hurried, beneath the night sky, through the dark orchard, past the gardens, to the barn that stood near the vineyard, and threw open the doors. Two hundred hooded figures stood in rows, motionless, awaiting his command. He selected ten of them as guards and went to check his prisoner.

When they entered the vestibule, Thanatosius summoned his courage and unlocked the door. Inside the cell, he saw Straker sleeping on the bed. The hooded figures crowded silently into the cell. Thanatosius grabbed Straker by the shoulders and shook him. “Wake up! Open your eyes! I want to talk to you!”

The prisoner was insensate, hanging limply in Thanatosius’ arms. Thanatosius slapped him and shook him violently but the body was unresponsive. Thanatosius dropped Straker back onto the bed and looked at him curiously. The body lay motionless, limp, and still as death.

Thanatosius took Straker’s wrist and felt for a pulse, put his ear to Straker’s chest and listened for a heartbeat, and found neither. The body was cool to the touch. Thanatosius realized that the man had died.

“Take him to the crypt,” Thanatosius ordered his followers. “We’ll have a new bodyguard for my bride.”

They carried Straker’s body down the stone steps to the candlelit crypt. When they arrived, Thanatosius found his minions slumped lifeless in place and his bride to be no longer on the stone slab. Though drugged into unconsciousness, somehow, she was gone.

“She won’t get far!” Thanatosius screamed. His hooded followers straightened up as one.

Thanatosius ordered his monks to put Straker’s body on the slab where Hope had lain.

“We have another recruit,” Thanatosius spoke to the brethren. He sprinkled the powder, muttered the incantation, and poured the foul mixture down Straker’s throat. The body coughed, choked on the liquid. The eyes opened, but stared dully. The body sat up, but it was not alive. It mimicked life, an empty husk without spirit, without emotion, without thought, a hollow shell.

The pale, thin golden thread that connected Straker’s spirit to his mortal coil, that led from his wandering soul back, like a safety cord through a dark twisting cavern, to his dormant shell, had tugged gently but Straker, like a dozing fisherman, did not feel the gentle pull on the line as his spirit whisked Hope along the forest path away from the monastery grounds.

And when Thanatosius finished his devilish incantation, applied the herbs and potions, and restored brute motion to the hollow shell, Straker, laying Hope gently on the soft earth beneath the flowering roses, did not feel the slender thread break.

* * *

At daybreak, Straker’s panic-stricken spirit swirled from the empty cell. Madame Sonya had warned him sunrise was the deadline. Was it too late now? Straker’s spirit whirled like a vortex and flew from the cell towards the orchards. The brethren had already begun their day’s labor. One hooded figure reached up towards a ripe peach hanging from a branch and, as he reached, his hood fell back from his head. Straker saw himself.

His soul flew to his body but, instead of dissolving back into the flesh, he simply passed through it. His spirit tried again and again to re-enter the body, but no connection was made. His spirit congealed and enveloped his body, seeking desperately to condense back into the mortal dwelling from which it had emerged, but the soul remained separate and the body just an empty shell.

With horror, Straker realized he was too late. His spirit was now cast adrift between two planes of existence, condemned to roam aimlessly in the netherworld. What could he do? Who could he turn to? He was overwhelmed with hopelessness and despair...

* * *

“Do you have an object that belonged to the deceased?” asked Madame Sonya.

“Yes, his pocket watch. It was a family heirloom.”

Sonya took the gold watch and chain and held them in her palm. The customer dabbed the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief and blew her nose.

“This may well serve to open a channel,” said Madame Sonya. “Traces of your husband’s aura have clung to the watch.”

“He always wore it,” sniffled the customer. “If only you can help us contact him! He’s trying to reach us. I can feel it. I dream of him and he’s trying to tell us something.”

“What was your husband’s name?”

“Harold.”

Sonya drew the curtains, lit three candles, placed a piece of incense in the burner, and sat down at the purple felt covered table across from the grieving widow. Sonya laid the watch to one side and took out her Ouija board.

“I do feel the presence of the other world,” said Madame Sonya. “It is indistinct still, but it may well be your husband’s spirit that has come to speak to us from behind the veil. Let us begin.”

The widow leaned forward on the edge of her chair, clutching her handkerchief. Madame Sonya rested her hand on the planchette in the center of the board and let herself go limp, inviting the otherworldly presence to channel its message through her as medium.

“We are not alone. The portal between the worlds has opened. The presence is growing stronger,” said Madame Sonya. “What is your first question?”

“Are there any other bank accounts that we don’t know about?”

Madame Sonya did, in fact, sense an otherworldly presence in her parlor. It seemed surprising that the recently deceased Harold would come so quickly, especially since he was being summoned for such mundane and selfish interests. And yet, some spirit did seem to be approaching.

Madame Sonya closed her eyes and emptied her mind, transforming herself into a pure conduit between the two planes of existence. She felt the planchette begin to roll of its own accord. She let it go, careful not to block or hinder its progress until it came to rest. Madame Sonya opened her eyes.

“Y.”

The planchette began to move again and came to a halt on the next letter.

“S.”

“YS? What does that mean? Does that mean yes?!” shouted the customer. “I knew it! He was always hiding his money, the old skinflint! Find out where the account is. What’s the name of the bank?”

Madame Sonya closed her eyes. She felt the spirit close at hand, reaching across to her from the shadow world. The planchette began to move again, and came to rest.

“Y again,” said Madame Sonya.

“What does that mean?” asked the customer. “What bank begins with Y?”

“Wait,” said Madame Sonya. The planchette moved to S again. “YS. The message is YS.”

“What does YS mean? Are you trying to put one over on me?”

The realization of who the spirit was hit Sonya with a jolt. She handed the woman her husband’s watch.

“There’s some disturbance in the psychic field. I cannot help you today. Please call me to schedule an appointment.”

“I don’t think so, you fake,” cried the woman, and she stormed out of the parlor.

Sonya sat back down and put her hand on the planchette. She spoke quietly, as if to herself.

“Yanosh, I know it’s you. What has happened? Tell me, if you can.”

The planchette began to move, but slower and slower — “T-O-O-L-A-T-E” — and finally came to rest. Sonya waited but the planchette had ceased moving. The connection was broken.

Sonya leaned back in her chair with a growing sense of unease. Was it really too late? Too late for what? She uncovered her crystal ball and sought for answers.

The swirling cloud within the globe took on subtle shifting hues of ocean blue and leaf green. The cloud thinned and Sonya saw floating within the ball a walled monastery at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The power stone zoomed in on an orchard inside the monastery grounds where hooded figures were laboring. Among the laborers, Sonya saw Yanosh, dressed in a cassock and sandals.

As Sonya watched, the image dissolved and reconstituted. Now a face stared out at Sonya from within the globe — thick gray hair, sharp, piercing eyes beneath bushy brows, and thin lips curled into a knowing sneer.

Suddenly Death spewed from the globe and flooded the parlor. The deadened, lifeless remnants of what once had lived burst forth, sucking the life force from the very air, and draining Sonya’s consciousness of its life energy.

Sonya fell back in the chair and called out weakly, “Abraham! Abraham, please come here. I can’t breathe.”

Von Holzing rushed into the parlor from the rear apartment.

“What is it, Sonyechka? Here, let me help you!”

Von Holzing helped her to her feet. She leaned on his arm for support as she clung to consciousness and struggled to make her way to the display case. He held her as she put a small jar to her lips and drank a few drops of bitter liquid and then he helped her back to the easy chair. He opened the curtains and pulled up the window, and a stream of fresh air filled the room.

”Thank you, Abe. I’m feeling better now.”

“Sonya! What happened?”

Sonya leaned back in the chair, struggling to focus.

“Yanosh’s spirit was here. He contacted me from across the void and the globe has shown me where he is. But Death itself followed the circuit unbidden. It rules the place where Yanosh is.”

“We must go to him at once! He may be in trouble. But how can we find this place?”

“His spirit will lead us there.”

* * *

To be continued...