The Ghosts of Miller's Crossing Read online

  Edward picked up the next album. The photos were more of the same, but they took on a whole new meaning. Picture after picture of men gathered together in some sort of commune. The cross and book only appeared in a few pictures each with his father, grandfather, and who he assumed was his great grandfather.

  He stacked this album off to his side on top of the others. The stack in the bookshelf appeared to be more of the same, except one book. The book on the bottom had a brown leather cover and was much thicker, about the size of four albums. He pried it from its home of the last several decades and blew off the layer of dust covering it. The cover was cracked brown leather, with a single gold leaf cross on it. He remembered this book: the family bible. When he was five, his mother sat him in her lap and showed him their family tree inside it. He opened it, and sitting folded in the inside cover just like he remembered was the family tree.

  The last entry at the bottom of the tree was his name, Edward Meyer, with his birthdate July 27th, 1974. Above that appeared his father’s name, Robert Carl Meyer, and his birth date, February 11th, 1951 with his mother’s name written next to and the date they married. The next one was his grandfather, Carl Edward Meyer, born August 13th, 1924, with his grandmother’s name written next to it. Edward continued working up the family tree. It was a single tree, with each generation only having one child, which he thought was odd until he ran into something even more peculiar. There was a line drawn across the tree two-thirds of the way up. Just below the line written on the left edge of the page was “Miller’s Crossing–1719”. Above the line on the same side was the text “Saint Margaret’s Hope, Scotland–1719”. That must be where we settled from, Edward thought to himself. The mystery around the line only lasted a second. The next name up replaced it with even more questions. William Miller, born December 21, 1694.

  Edward let the paper fall to his lap. His family’s real name was Miller, like the town. Looking back up the tree, he confirmed the name below the line was Jacob Allen Meyer. They changed their name when they moved here, but why?

  “Dad, are you ok?” Sarah asked while looking at him perplexed.

  “Yeah, why?” Edward said from his position on the floor.

  “Well you’re sitting in the floor, surround by old books, and looking out into nowhere, looking all weird.”

  “Just looking through some old family things.”

  “Okay,” she said with a hint of a question, and then headed toward the kitchen.

  Edward called after her, “Hey Sarah, wait up.” Now was as good a time as any to have that conversation.

  18

  Edward followed Sarah into the kitchen. She grabbed a soda from the fridge and started back toward the door.

  “Come have a seat with me for a second?” Edward said and sat down at the table.

  She rolled her eyes and offered the mild protest, “Why?”

  “Because I want to talk to you.”

  Her shoulders slumped as she dragged her presence over to the table and fell into the chair across from him. Edward knew if he asked her what happened Friday night, she’d give him some other excuse besides the truth. There was one way to do this, and Edward decided to lay his cards on the table, even if it meant she might think he’d lost his mind.

  “How long have you been seeing…” he took a moment to choose his word, "things?”

  Sarah stopped taking a drink from the bottle of soda mid-sip. Her eyes exploded wide open and she stared at him over the bottle pressed to her lips.

  He tried to reassure his daughter. “It’s OK. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy. Quite the opposite.”

  Her glare had not moved, and neither had the bottle.

  “You saw something Friday night, didn’t you?”

  The bottle dropped, and she gave a silent yet defiant, “No.”

  “You have nothing to hide. The Sheriff told me what happened.” Edward then threw her a life preserver. “I see things. I have since I was ten.”

  “You see things? What do you see?”

  “Well, I see spirits.” Edward searched her eyes and expression for any reaction. Her body language relaxed. The bottle lowered to the table and she leaned forward. Her eyes blinked for the first time in moments.

  “You see spirits. What do they look like when you see them?”

  “It is hard to describe. They look like people, but people who are there and at the same time are not there. Does that make sense?”

  “The ones you see flash?”

  “The ones? So, you did see something?”

  She leaned back in the chair, looking around the kitchen. “I didn’t say that. I don’t know what I saw. Whatever it was didn’t flash.”

  “They disappear and reappear in a different spot… but you can see through them.”

  “Like they’re made up of light?”

  “Yes, exactly. Some of them have a blue hue, some white. I have even seen a few that were reddish.”

  “Oh god, I thought they spiked my coke with something at the game or maybe used a projector to play a cruel joke on me. When the sheriff showed up, he yelled at a few of my friends for a while before he offered to take me home. I thought we were in trouble, and that was why he wanted to talk to you.”

  “He wanted to explain what happened and to help me understand. It took him a while to help me believe it myself. I used to think I was the only one that could see them. You have inherited something of a family trait that is tied to this town. My father had it and his father had it. I don’t know how far back it goes. I was looking through our old pictures and family tree when you saw me earlier.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t a trick or something?”

  “Trust me. I wish it was. When it first happened to me, no one believed it. They thought it was the emotional stress from losing my parents. To say I had a rough time of it would be saying it lightly.”

  He motioned for her bottle of soda, which she slid across the table to him. He took a quick swig and continued. “Hell, I didn’t understand things until the last few days. I still don’t, but I know more now than I did before. Back then I learned to accept it.”

  “That has to be hard to just accept,” Sarah replied with a sigh.

  “You ain’t kidding, but it was what I had to do to stop it from creeping me out and running my life.”

  “So, we are the ghost whispering family. Now what?”

  “Not sure. Sheriff Tillingsly and Father Murray are trying to help me figure that out.”

  “Figures that old creepy priest would be invol…”

  Edward cut her off. “Hey, wait, he’s a nice man and a long-time family friend. Yes, his sermon and ways are a little… off… but the more I learn about this, the more it makes sense.”

  “So, they see spirits too?”

  “Yes.” Edward answered.

  Surprised by her father‘s answer, Sarah asked, “Who else? Does the whole town?”

  “Some do. I’m not sure who else. What I understand is much of the town sees them, but we have something beyond just seeing. We can interact with them.”

  Edward slid the soda bottle back to Sarah. Her eyes were wide open and mouth hung agape. The soda bottle came to rest next to her hand, which did not try to catch it. “What do you mean interact? Can we talk with them?”

  Sarah‘s question was one Edward had given a lot of thought. “Well, Father Murray said we can. I don’t know yet? I’m still learning. There is also a chance your abilities may stop at just being able to see them. Father Murray said something about it only passing to male members of the family. So, I am not sure yet, but we can find out together.”

  “Good god, I was joking earlier. WE ARE the ghost whispering family,” Sarah said with a half-hearted laugh. “What about Jacob? He is probably scared shitless... I mean scared to death.”

  Edward gave her a look at her choice of phrase, but let it slide. “He would be scared shitless, I agree with that, but no he doesn’t. At least not that I know of. Father Murray said the abi
lity doesn’t develop in anyone that young.” Edward realized he was making himself sound like an expert on the subject, when at that moment he was anything but. He had learned to live with it, yes, but was still learning what IT was. “When did you first see something? Was it Friday night?”

  “That is something I have thought about a lot.” She took a sip from the bottle and slid it to her dad as an offer, but it stopped half way. “For a while I have had what I would call ‘eerie feelings.’ I would feel cold and tingly, but saw nothing. A few nights after we moved here, I felt it again and thought I saw something when I was outside. Since then I have felt it off and on.”

  “A cold sweat followed by pin pricks from the top of your neck down your spine and the feeling of something heavy pushing down on you?”

  “Exactly.” She was stunned that he described it so aptly.

  “I know it well. I feel it every time one or more of them appear. You get used to it. I have. It doesn’t faze me one bit anymore. Neither does the group of them that circle my bed when I sleep.”

  “No way! You’re just messing with me now.”

  “I wish I was. Every night since I the first time I saw one when I was ten.”

  “Did Mom know?”

  “Nope. I never told her.”

  “That is creepy. A group of them standing there watching you two sleep.”

  “Yep, and they watched you and Jacob too.”

  “What? You saw them around our beds?”

  “Oh no. I mean the times you guys slept with us. They were there then.”

  She shivered at the thought, and then stopped. “Can they harm us?”

  “So I’ve been told. Father Murray will teach me how to protect everyone.”

  “He’s getting you a proton pack and traps?”

  “No. Wait here.” Edward went back to the dining room to retrieve two important objects. He returned to the kitchen and said, “with these” as he displayed the cross and book to Sarah. “They told me these have been in my family for years. They ward off these spirits, and send them where they are supposed to go. That is all I know at the moment.”

  He left the kitchen again and returned carrying the photo album. Sarah was flipping through the pages of the small book he’d left on the kitchen table. Edward laid the photo album down and opened it to the page marked by the junk mail. “Look at this picture. That is my father, and I believe this is my grandfather. The man seated must be my great-grandfather. Look at what he’s holding.” He pointed to the object in his hands, the object that all three men were touching.

  Sarah’s eyes grew wide when she recognized it. She reached over and picked up the cross. She studied it as if comparing it to the photograph and uttered, “What the…”

  “I don’t know. It all seems unbelievable. Father Murray said he knows the story behind all this and will help me understand. This is a part of our family’s past I know nothing about.”

  A loud rumble of thunder rolled across the pasture and rain pelted the tin roof. Sarah got up from the table. “I need to go close my window.” She headed toward the kitchen door and stopped short. “I guess we’re that one family every town has that is considered weird.”

  “I guess we are, kiddo.”

  “Damn, and I was just hoping to inherit something like a fortune, not a freaky ability. Just don’t go changing our phone number and buying a white hearse with flashing lights Dad.”

  He gave her a smirk. “I’m not making any promises.”

  19

  “Cream and sugar?” Edward asked Father Murray.

  “Just black, thank you,” he answered from the kitchen table.

  “Here you go. This should take the chill out of your bones.” Edward put a cup of black coffee down in front of Father Murray. The rain was still falling outside, along with the temperatures.

  “Say goodbye to summer, my friend. It won’t be long until there is snow on the ground.”

  Edward remembered a few heavy storms growing up that created snowdrifts out around the barn that he could get lost in. He and several friends shoveled all day to create a snow fort. It took a week until the temperatures warmed up enough to melt it. When he moved to Portland, there was just a slight dusting of snow there once. Everyone acted like it was such a big deal, but he brushed it off and went on about his business. That was until he received the fine notice in the mail for not shoveling his walk. He had never heard of such a thing, plus the snow melted by the next day anyway.

  “I talked to Sarah.”

  “Oh, and how did that go?”

  “She admitted she saw them.”

  “Good. I would hate for her to keep it to herself and stay confused. Nothing good can come from that.”

  “She was scared when the Sheriff showed up. Said he gave her friends a good tongue lashing. She thought they were in trouble for slipping her some kind of drug or something that caused her to hallucinate.”

  Father Murray let out phlegm-filled chuckle. “That would be an easier explanation, now wouldn’t it?” he said. “Her friends are good kids, no reason to worry when she is with them. Lewis was getting on to them for taking her out there with no warning.” He sipped at his coffee. “Tony McDaniel, you remember his dad, Robbie, don’t you?”

  Edward sure did. His father ran the local hardware store, and every time Edward and his father went Robbie and Edward ran around, to borrow his father’s term, like two chickens with their heads cut off.

  “Tony assumed because of your family, she already knew.”

  “That brings up an interesting question that Sarah asked. How many people are like us?”

  “Well, nobody else is like you. Not even close.” Father Murray took another sip. “But most everyone here can see or sense the spirits passing through. Let me be more specific. The original families can. Outsiders that have moved here can’t. We keep things our little secret around them.” Father Murray held a single finger up to his mouth. “That is why Lewis was so upset with Tony on Friday night. He thought he was showing things to an outsider. Luckily for Tony he only took her out there because he knew who you guys were. Once Lewis realized who she was, he let them off easy and brought her home.”

  “They knew who we are?” Edward asked. It seemed everyone knew more about his family than he did.

  “Your family is one of the founding members of this town. Back in the day, when town elders saw to the day-to-day business of the town, your family had a large seat at that table. Everyone knows who you are and what you can do.”

  Father Murray’s answer reminded him of the family tree and photographs he saw earlier. “I want to show you something.” Edward sprinted from the kitchen to retrieve both books from the other room. He returned just as quick and placed them on the table.

  “You heeded my words, I see,” Father Murray said with a look of approval.

  Edward pulled out the family tree and opened it up. “You say my family is one of the original families. Is it possible we were the founding family?” Pointing at the line drawn across the tree, “We changed our name when we moved here. Our last name was Miller, but when we moved here, we became Meyer.” Edward searched Father Murray’s face for answers. Answers he was more than happy to provide.

  “It’s true. They named this town after your family.”

  “OK. Why did we change our name then? Why not just keep it Miller?”

  “To protect your family’s identity.”

  “Whoa, wait.” Edward sat back in his chair. He broke the silence. “What identity?”

  Father Murray grabbed the family Bible and turned it toward him. He flipped in two pages and turned it back toward Edward. “I guess you didn’t find the inscription in the Bible yet.”

  Edward stared at the page Father Murray was showing him. There was in fact an inscription written in deep dark ink. He imagined someone wrote it with a quill and old-fashioned ink well.

  This sacred Bible has been blessed and given as a gift to the family assigned to the holiest of duties. May
God Bless and guide your family in its duty.

  –Pope Clement XI

  1718

  “This Bible was a gift from the Pope?” Edward asked.

  “I presume. I may be old, but not that old. That is not what I wanted you to see, though. Read it again and pay attention to the words.”

  Edward read it again silently and then paused on one particular word. He looked up from the book and said, “Assigned?”

  “Yes. The Vatican assigned your family to this location. Assigned to do a job. Do you remember what I said about this being a sacred site?”

  “Yes.”

  “When the early settlers arrived in the New World, they identified this site. The Vatican picked, trained, and then assigned your family as guardians over it. Each of the other sites have a similar family. Your assigned responsibility is to protect the living while serving the dead. At the time, the United Kingdom and the Vatican were not on speaking terms. So, they changed your name to avoid any chance the Crown or the local British Army regiments could discover who you are.”

  “Why would the British have cared?”

  “I am guessing they never taught you American history in that place did they, old boy?” Father Murray said as he stood up, stretching his old bones made tighter by the cool wet weather. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a tin flask. He said, “I hope you don’t mind,” while pouring liquid warmth into his coffee.

  Edward not only did not mind, but he pushed his own toward Father Murray, who obliged.

  “Protestants searching for religious freedom established the colonies. They were Puritans, Quakers, Calvinists, and Presbyterians. Not a lot Catholics or love for the Vatican. The thought the Pope was handpicking settlers and governors of those settlements would not be looked upon kindly. It could be seen as interference, and with the wrong tempers involved, it could have started the next chapter in the many wars England had with the Vatican, along with the other countries that supported it.”