Out Of The Dark Part 3

I blinked, and stood up straight. So you can hear me?

Dags winced and looked at me. He slowly pulled his hands away from his head. "Say that again?"

I pursed my lips. I said, so you can hear me?

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, well, no. Not really hear you."

Huh?

Rhonda shook her head. "What?"

"It's--it's more like I can suddenly see pictures. Images that kinda tell me what it is you're saying."

Okaynowthatwasweird.

Jemmy reached out her hand and Dags took it, allowing she and Rhonda to help him off the floor. He looked a little pale--which only added to his striking eyes and dark hair.

"Lemme see," Jemmy grabbed his left shoulder and pressed her palm into his forehead. He glanced over at me and sort of gave me a helpless deer look. "Youse okay--but I'm afraid Zoe might have opened up your third eye."

Dags nodded and stepped back. I was thinking he might bolt. And who could blame him?

"What do you mean by images?" Steve said from his perch beside Nona's chair.

"Well," Dags held out his hands, palms up. "I knew she was asking me if I could hear her. But what I saw in my head was a barrage of images of ears and then her face." He glared at me. "And I do mean a barrage. Please, don't yell anymore."

Yell. I can yell?

I somehow felt comforted. Guilty. But oddly comforted.

Everyone took their seats again. I sat down and attacked my breakfast. It was cold.

"Zoe," Rhonda said as an icebreaker. "I'll handle it. You eat." She turned to Dags and gave him a very nice reader's digest version of what had happened to us in the past month. From my meeting TC, to the Reverend Rollins, Hirok.u.mi, Daniel, Susan, Rai, and then the Phantasm.

I was a little surprised too. I'd told them all that? Wow. I'm a blabbermouth even when I don't have a voice.

Dags took it all in, finis.h.i.+ng up his coffee. I did notice he pressed his fingers into his forehead and temple a lot--like maybe his head hurt.

After Rhonda was done, Dags spoke up. "Okay. So," he turned and looked at me. "You're a Wraith--whatever that is--and you can go out of body. That much I've seen."

"And if you did see trouble around the Chief of Surgery," Nona said as she b.u.t.tered a biscuit and then put it on my half-empty plate. "What exactly is it you could do?"

"Nothing," Dags said with a shrug. "I was just told to watch and observe. I'm not an action hero, or an exorcist, or...," he glanced at me. "Or a Wraith. I'm just a guy that sees ghosts. But I was told to log in and report anything unusual."

Rhonda put her hand up. "So, you were also paid to watch Nancy's grandfather?" She frowned. "By whom? Who is wanting to know about Bonville?"

He suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I--I really don't know. Most of my clients come by the internet. And this particular one has been pretty interested in this guy for a while."

"What do they ask you to do?" Mom said.

I wasn't as suspicious as Rhonda--h.e.l.l--my biggest client called themselves--themself?--maharba. So--who was I to judge?

"Well, to keep an eye on everyone around him. See who p.i.s.sed him off next and see if they disappear like all the others."

"And the restaurant?" Mom nudged. "The reason why you responded to Rhonda's response to Maureen's inquiry?"

Wow. She sounded all professional.

I watched him.

Dags' shoulders rose as he took in a deep breath and sighed. "Mostly because I knew Maureen. We'd gone out a few times. After I started there as the loft bartender--I noticed she never came upstairs. I always had to meet her at the foot of the stairs. Then one day the manager was there in his office and arguing on the phone. Most of the staff grew quiet--and I waited until he'd left before I asked them what was up.

"Maureen and Toby--the main floor bartender in the evenings--both took me out back for a smoke--them not me--I don't smoke--and told me about the Shadow People."

"Shadow People?" Jemmy spoke up.

Rhonda gave out the definition she'd googled before. Jemmy nodded. "Oh I knows about them," she said softly before setting back. "But that's not what we calls them."

I looked at Dags before s.h.i.+fting my gaze to Jemmy. I erased, scribbled. YOU SEEN?

"Not seen, but I have heard the stories. They don't like people much," she said. "When I was much younger, they was several of them lived in a house over on Clairmont, near LaVista. Beautiful old house--wrap around porch and a large attic. There was a little girl lived there about--oh--twenty years ago. Went to one of those schools nearby, went to the Lutheran church down from Moreland. I cleaned upstairs in the church three evenings a week after services and meetings.

"She used to sit out in the suns.h.i.+ne during the day when it was hot. Sweating. Wouldn't go inside in. Told me over a lemonade one day that the dark peoples lived in the shade. And they were mean."

"She saw these dark peoples?" Nona said.

Jemmy nodded. "She said they were in her house. Said they lived in the attic. And they hated her, and her family. Wanted them out of that house. She tried to tell her mama and daddy that, but no one listens to a child."

I grabbed up my board and wrote on it. DID THEY KILL LIL'GIRL?

She nodded. I knew she would. "Coroner said she fell down the stairs leaving the attic one afternoon." Jemmy shook her head. "That's not true. She'd never go into that attic. They did it--I don't know how. But I was always sure those dark peoples--or Shadow People--had something to do with it."

"So are they lost souls?" Rhonda asked the room. "Or demons? Why do something like that? What's their motive?"

Dags spoke up. "Tim, Steve, have you ever seen them?"

Both of the ghosts shook their head. "We're bound here," Steve said and pointed to the ground. "To this house. There have never been Shadow People in here. But if they exist on something other than the physical or the astral, then we can't see them anyway."

"Not sure I want to," Tim said.

Me neither. I was getting goose b.u.mps. Me, Wraith. Sucker of souls, hear me roar.

Mental Note: me-ow.

"So there are Shadow People in the restaurant," Nona said. She picked up her coffee, and I noticed she'd done her nails. They were painted a light pink.

Since when did mom do her nails?

Dags nodded. "I think there's a link between them and Dr. Bonville. I'm sure you already know that Nancy's grandmother disappeared a few months ago. And the seventh employee to disappear under Dr. Bonville's patronage was Maureen."

Seven? I waved at Dags and held up two fingers.

He shook his head. "There are only two we can link directly to Bonville-his wife and Maureen." He shrugged, antic.i.p.ating my next question as to how Maureen was connected. "He was having an affair with her."

Dude was a playah for sure. Wondered what this Bonville guy looked like.

"So the other five are simply missing?" Rhonda said, her previous questions about the Shadow People unanswered.

Dags nodded. "There was talk the others were somehow involved with Bonville, but no one ever knew in what way. Since there wasn't any tangible link between them and him?" he sighed. "They're not really a part of the official investigation."

I narrowed my eyes at Dags-why did I get the impression he knew a lot more than he was saying? I mean, not that I really knew this guy or anything. There was just something...

...odd.

Nona held up her hand. "So you think Dr. Bonville has something to do with the Shadow People and Maureen's death as well as his wife's the other missing employees?"

He nodded.

Mom shook her head. "Poppyc.o.c.k."

I looked at mom with shock. Hadn't I warned her about using words like that? She was so going to get type-cast like that.

Dags and Rhonda started to protest but Jemmy held up her hand. "Why you think that, Nona?"

"Because he has the reputation of a magician. A magician in this day and age--given that meaning--isn't going to ally himself with Shadow People."

Uh--I scribbled on my board. WHY NOT? And where did she suddenly get this fount of knowledge when earlier she didn't know anything more about Shadow People than we did?

Rhonda reached out over the table and flipped the Big Book open. A few more pages to the right, then the left, one right and-- "Because it says so right here," she pointed to a rather ornate page in the book. I stood up and leaned over the table to see just as Dags, Jemmy and Tim did the same.

"Okay, I can't read that," Dags said in a dejected voice. "It looks like an ancient dialect of Finnish."

"Actually it's Gaelic," Rhonda said. "First generation--though not far removed from second gen, B.C."

I could feel the geek-meter in the room rise to the red-o-doom.

I scribbled and put the board under her nose. YOU WANT ME SCREAM? WHAT SAY?

"Scream?" Dags looked at me. "You can't talk but you can scream?"

"You really don't want her to do that," Rhonda held out her hand. "Just everyone sit down."

We did.

"Shadow People, otherwise known as Shadow Folk--according to this tome--are in essence, elemental human spirits."

Uhm.

What? Wikipedia didn't say that.

And that definition is like a kazillion light years away from Brownie.

Dags shook his head. "So--what does that mean? I know what elemental is--being of the elements. There are elementals that control each of the five realms. Earth, air, fire, water and spirit."

Rhonda beamed. I mean, she was glowing she was so happy to have found another information spout. "Exactly. But Shadow Folk are basically humans who transcended life in this physical plane, gaining a bit of elemental attachment."

I erased with the back of my hand, scribbled. THOUGHT U SAID NOT HUMAN.

Rhonda pursed her lips. "No, I didn't say that. The emails from Maureen said they didn't seem human."

Oh. So much for that great memory of mine.

Steve put a finger to his chin, a sign he was processing all this. "So how does this happen? This transcendental mingling of human spirit and elemental?"

I turned my thoughts back to Daniel and wondered what time it was. I did not like the idea of him being alone.

"The Book doesn't say. What it does say is that these creatures have been around as long as the planet itself--existing before people from what I can tell. And they have mischievous streaks and are known in several countries. Domovoi in Slavic folklore, tomte in Scandinavian, lares in the Roman dieties, and wirry-cow in Scotland, a tonttu in Finland and here--"

We all waited. G.o.d she was being dramatic.

"We call them Brownies."

There was that dead silence again.

"You're s.h.i.+tting me," Dags said in a deep voice.

Well, so much for Wikipedia. I told you.

"Brownies?" Nona looked at the book. "You sure you read that right? I mean, your ancient Gaelic is up to date, right?"

That's about the time it hit me: how come Rhonda, whom I always a.s.sumed was younger than me, can read Gaelic?

What, do they teach that in schools now?

"Well aren't Brownies supposed to look like little people?" Nona asked.

And to be honest--I'd kinda had that image in my head too.

"Well, they might have looked like little people centuries ago, before the disbelief in magic became the social norm," Steve said. Everyone looked at him. "But over the centuries they've become shadowy because of our perception."

"How so?" Jemmy said.

"Well, think of myself and Tim. Not everyone can see us, even when we pull our energy together and become corporeal. Which tells me that different people have different filters. Ways of viewing the world. Much like a channel on a television."

Dags nodded slowly. "I'm getting there--"

Glad he was. I was still stuck on Brownies, and I wasn't getting the image of some movie with a Brownie swimming in a Stein of beer out of my head. Oy.

"Think of it as the picture's only as good as the television's reception. Bad reception, bad picture. I don't think we as humans have the necessary capabilities to see them clearly anymore, so we see shadows. As to what they are--" he shrugged. "I feel that's still debatable. They might be Brownies--but I'll hold my opinion on that for now."