Chapter Twenty-One

The Past

Jeremiah Halstead had a tough childhood. He was a surprise pregnancy, and his mother died giving birth to him. His father hated him on sight for that, though it wasn’t anything Jeremiah had control over, and his upbringing was left largely to his older brothers. His brothers were a rough group, and were equally pissed at this child for taking their mother away from them.

The five Halstead boys were always getting in trouble for something or other, and more often than not, it was Jeremiah who took the brunt of the punishment. Since he was the youngest, he didn’t know any better than to listen to his brothers, and more than once he took the switch for something one of the older boys did.

Out of necessity, Jeremiah worked hard to be faster and stronger than his brothers. The beatings he withstood would have broken a weaker child, but Jeremiah was tough. He had to be. Any sign of weakness was pounced on by his bothers, and the beatings would only get worse if he cried.

All the hard physical labor meant he’d grown up bigger than his peers. To the young children who were his neighbors and fellow pupils in school, he looked older than he was, so they made fun of him for being "stupid". He got into many fights over this, and each time he did, his father or oldest brother would beat him more for fighting at school.

Jeremiah never knew a tender touch or a mother’s hug, so had no idea that there was gentleness or love in the world.

Until he met Kirstin St. Claire.

Kirstin joined his school when they were both fourteen. She was warned to stay away from "that creepy Jeremiah" by the other girls in the class, but she was brought up to be kind and considerate to everyone, so she chose instead to give him the benefit of the doubt. She saw how the other pupils treated him as a blight; in fact they called him "Jeremiah the Pariah" though few of them knew what the word meant. That only made her redouble her efforts to befriend the loner.

One afternoon, when the class had broken for lunch, Kirstin noticed the boy sitting by himself under the sprawling oak that dominated the area in front of the school. She watched as he furtively unwrapped a cold meat sandwich from a greasy wrapper, and took a bite, smiling a little in satisfaction. Then she watched as an older boy, clearly one of his brothers, strode up to him and took the sandwich from him. Jeremiah leapt to his feet in anger, but his brother pushed him down into the dirt.

Outraged, Kirstin ignored her friends and stalked over to the two boys, who were squaring off for a fight.

"Stop that this instant," she demanded, fury clouding her soft gray eyes.

"Who’s gonna make me?" the belligerent boy, whom she recognize as Isaiah, Jeremiah’s brother, asked her, raising his chin in defiance.

"I will," Kirstin said, stepping to stand between them.

Isaiah laughed. "You, a girl, cannot stop me from doing what I want, when I want." To prove his point, he kicked dirt at his brother, who was sitting in awe of this young girl who wasn’t afraid of Isaiah.

"I said stop that." Kirstin’s voice was getting louder, and some of the other pupils started to wander over to see what would happen. One student went inside to fetch their teacher.

Isaiah looked at his younger brother. "You gonna let this little whore do your talking for you?"

That shook Jeremiah from his reverie. He stood, fire in his gaze. "You don’t call her that filthy name."

His brother’s dirty laughing had Jeremiah pulling back his arm and letting a punch fly that sent his older brother staggering backwards, his arms wind milling to no avail; he fell in the dust, and Jeremiah smirked.

"You’ll get it later," Isaiah said, standing and brushing the dust from his pants. "Just wait until you come home." With that last threat, he turned his back and walked away.

"I’m sorry he called you that awful name," Jeremiah said.

"That’s alright," Kirstin said bravely, though tears clouded her eyes. "I notice he took your lunch; do you want to share mine? My mother always makes more than I can possibly eat by myself."

Jeremiah nodded shyly and the two sat under the tree and shared Kirstin’s cold chicken sandwich and chatting softly with each other.

Jeremiah was in love.

The Present

Richie had stayed with Ang, holding her deep into the night. They made love tenderly close to dawn, and woke to the blaring alarm clock when the sun was climbing high into the sky.

"Good morning," Richie said, kissing the side of Ang’s head.

"Mmmm, morning," Ang answered, and planted a kiss over Richie’s heart. "What time is it?"

"A little after eight-thirty."

"We should get going then, if we’re going to meet your realtor." She stood and looked at Richie; the sheets barely covering him. "Are you sure about this?"

Richie shook his head. "I’m not absolutely sure, but pretty sure." He slid out from under the covers, and stretched; his nakedness making Ang want to crawl back into bed with him. Instead, they showered and dressed, and stopped off at the Thompson Estate for Richie to change clothes. He set a record for fastest quick-change ever, relieved that Kirstin didn’t make an appearance, and the pair made it to the Historical Society a little before ten.

They had been standing over the counter, looking at the drawings they had spread over its expanse, when the door opened and Marty walked in. Ang turned white and gripped the counter for support. "Jeremiah," she whispered.

"Marty!" Richie said, striding toward the man with his hand extended. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us here this morning."

"Of course, of course," Marty answered. He saw Ang’s face, and frowned. "Are you alright, miss?"

"F-f-fine," Ang said, though she was far from fine. When she saw Marty’s face, she knew, beyond a doubt, that this man was descended from the man Kirstin called ‘Jeremiah’.

"So," Marty said, redirecting his attention to Richie. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Richie flipped through some of the drawings on the counter and selected two. One of Kirstin, and one of the man who was chasing her. He showed them to Marty, whose eyes went wide as he scanned the pictures.

"What is this?" He tilted his head. "Why does this man look familiar?"

"’This’," Richie said, "is what I wanted to talk to you about. My house is haunted."

Marty started to chuckle, but stopped when he saw the look on Richie’s face. "Aw, damn," he said, resignedly.

"So you knew," Richie said, surprised.

"I knew there were rumors," Marty said, "but I didn’t know for sure." He dropped the drawings and held up his hands. "Nothing I had heard mentioned anything violent or malevolent; I just thought it was talk."

"I suspect you thought more than that," Richie said, "but that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is that man you thought you recognized. Looked in a mirror lately?"

Marty blanched and picked up the sketch of the green-eyed man. "The chin is the same and the eyes....do you really think this looks like me? Where did this come from?"

"I drew it," Ang said. "After Kirstin Maddox showed him to me."

"Who?" Marty asked.

"My ghost," Richie said.

Over the course of the next couple of hours, Richie showed Marty the research he and Angel Rose had been doing, and told him about his experiences in the house. Marty didn’t so much as flinch when Richie told him about the scratches on his arm, and the rocking chair that moved on its own. He didn’t snicker or shake his head when Ang told him about making contact, and seeing through Kirstin’s eyes, what her last moments were like. He did go pale when Richie told him about the vision Angel Rose had had about being chased by a monster called Jeremiah.

"Angel Rose? Summerlin?" When Ang nodded, Marty just said, "huh. Are you sure you heard the name right?" he continued, looking from the drawing to Angel and nervously to Richie, who was hovering just behind Ang’s shoulder.

Ang answered, "Mr. Halstead, there are very few words that sound remotely like ‘Jeremiah’. In fact, I can’t think of a single one."

"Please, call me ‘Marty’," Marty answered distractedly. "And of course you’re right. It’s just – " He trailed off as he stared at the drawings and processed everything he’d been told.

Richie pointed at the drawing of the green-eyed man. "And you did admit he resembles you."

Marty nodded his head. "I do recall having an ancestor named Jeremiah," Marty said slowly, "but I never heard anything about him hurting anyone."

"Anyone but Kirstin, you mean," Ang interrupted.

Marty shot her an annoyed look. "No, that’s not what I meant at all. He was the gentle one. Now, if it were one of Jeremiah’s brothers – that I would believe. Isaiah especially was a real bastard." He looked at Ang. "Tell me exactly what Kirstin showed you."

Ang was surprised. "You don’t doubt that Kirstin spoke to me?"

Marty shook his head. "I knew your mother," he said. "She had the gift. She had thought that her birth mother, your maternal grandmother, did as well." He smiled an easy smile. "Besides, child, I’m from the south. Southerners have a predisposition to believing in the supernatural."

Ang smiled back, happy not to be ridiculed.

Richie was incredulous. "How do you know so much about Angel’s family?"

Marty chuckled. "Son, it’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. Story goes that Joy was only 16 when her daughter was born. Her parents were mortified when their only daughter turned up pregnant one day. She was shipped off to a maiden grand-aunt, Beatrice, I think her name was, in Seattle until after the baby was born. A private adoption was made, though unbeknownst to her parents, Joy arranged to keep contact with the adoptive family. When Joy’s parents, Hope and Connor died, she made contact with Angel Rose’s ‘natural’ grandmother, I think her name was Aideen..."

Richie held up a hand. "Marty, I need a scorecard to keep up. Why don’t we just leave it at everyone knows everyone else’s business, and be done with it." He shook his head. Coming from the East Coast, this was totally foreign concept to him. Where he came from, privacy was valued, and outside of immediate family, events like teenaged pregnancy wouldn’t be so freely talked about.

"All right," Marty said with a smile. "Miz Summerlin?"

Ang smiled and leaned into Richie for support while she launched into her story. She told Marty about the contact she made with Kirstin in her third-floor room. A room that looked like it hadn’t been touched in the nearly 200 years since it was furnished. Ang told Marty about both she and Richie having a conversation with Kirstin, asking yes or no questions that she answered with her chair, and Marty just nodded. She next told him about the vivid vision she had: about a happy, carefree Kirstin being grabbed by a hand in the bushes. She told Marty about Kirstin fighting off her masked attacker and fleeing from him.

She continued on, telling Marty about Kirstin trying to run for the lake, and being pushed from behind. Richie noticed Ang rubbing at her hands as if to take rub the sting of the fall away. She gripped Richie’s hand when she told Marty about the man hitting Kirstin, splitting her lip and blackening her eye. Richie interrupted to tell Marty about how matching marks marred Ang’s face while she was in the throes of the vision. When she told Marty about the choking, tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered the terror she had felt at reliving Kirstin’s memories.

"She reached out and snagged part of the mask," Ang said. "That’s when I saw the green eye, and heard her say ‘Jeremiah’. It had to be him."

Marty leaned back in his chair as Ang finished her story. He thought for long moments until Ang thought the silence would drive her mad. "Well?" she demanded.

Marty stood. "I want to show you something," he said. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket. From a protective sleeve, he took a small photo. "Do you have a magnifying glass?"

Ang nodded and retrieved it from her desk. Marty handed her the picture. "Look at the picture," he said. "Look very closely at all the men in the photograph; tell me what you see."

She scrutinized the photo for several minutes, then turned the glass over to Richie. He looked, studying the men’s faces. When he was done, he and Ang shared a look.

Angel Rose blew out a breath. "It’s kinda hard to tell, but the men all appear to have green eyes," she said.

Marty nodded. "The young men in the picture are me, my younger brother, and three cousins on my father’s side. The older men are my father and two of his brothers. Green eyes run in the men in my family. All the color photos and family oil portraits show the Halstead boys having green eyes. It very well may have been Isaiah that Kirstin saw, but she thought it was Jeremiah."

Ang looked shocked, and shook her head vehemently. "No, I don’t believe it. Why would Kirstin use her dying breath to say Jeremiah’s name if he wasn’t the one who killed her?"

"Are you sure it was her dying breath?" Marty asked. He held up a hand when it looked as if Angel Rose was going to protest. "From your own words, you lost consciousness, and therefore contact with Kirstin before the very end."

Richie started to speak, but Ang put a stalling hand on his forearm.

"No, I’m not sure, but it sure felt like she was dying." Ang was getting irritated.

"I’m not trying to minimize what you saw or felt, or claim innocence on my family’s behalf. If someone in my family tree did in fact kill someone in yours, I’m truly sorry; but before we update the family Bible with that, I want to be certain." Marty was quiet for a long moment. "Do you think she would talk to me?" he asked.

Ang just shook her head. "I think she’d take one look at you and, well, freak out without some forewarning. I should go with you, and see if she’s receptive."

Richie stepped protectively in front of Ang. "There’s no telling how it would affect Ang if that happened. I don’t think it’s a good idea."

"How else are we going to figure out what happened?" Marty asked.

"We?" Richie echoed, arching an eyebrow.

"I think I have just as much a vested interest in this now as you do," Marty responded. "Maybe even more so, if my blood was involved in something so sinister." He shook his head. "What if Angel Rose stays here?" he asked Richie. "Does Kirstin talk to you?"

Richie rubbed at his arm and smiled ruefully. "Not so much talk as gouge and scratch," he said, making Ang chuckle.

"Richie, I should go," Ang said. "We know she has a connection to me, and you can take me out of there if something starts to happen." At the frown on Richie’s face, she hastened to add, "besides, I know she will talk to me, do you KNOW she’ll talk to you?"