A Requiem Eternal

Chapter 10 - An Unsettling Guilt

Sara O'Duinn, Grimoire Entry, 24th October, 2008 - Tasha woke up in the morning with an intense feeling of guilt. Guilty she wasn't repulsed by the experience in her dream. Instead she felt revitalized, and in some way, disappointed because it wasn't real. The candle ritual crossed her mind. She quickly dismissed it. It was only something she did to heal herself. A made up affirmation to keep her mind open to meeting someone. What else could make her mind create such a fantasy? Her thoughts returned to working late and accepting the walking canes.

In an instant she thought of me. I have known Natasha Cross for ten years since our first meeting in college. She remembered hearing very little truth about me before sitting down next to me in the corner of the library I chose as my sanctuary. Only that half of the students thought I was too odd to merit friendship. The other half was just plain scared of me. The whispers on campus created a peace around me I thoroughly enjoyed. It made her smile whenever she saw me. She thought I was a beautiful young woman, waif like with long flowing blond curls and calmness about me so unlike the others. She was drawn to me not only for these qualities but she thought at once, what an interesting person to know.

She was one of the few whom I allowed to know I could see a window to the past simply by laying my hands on an object. As owner of the auction house, acquisitions passed through my eager hands first. She thought I could shed some light on the origins and history of the objects. More so than she could ever glean from searching endless library microfiche or researching on the internet.

Only first she would have to get past Nori. He was our freelance webmaster for the auction house. Nori was lord god geek of the town. If it was computer related, Nori had been there done that ten or so years ago. There was a playful chemistry between them, and also such an affinity that I didn't think either of them would ever push it further than friendship. Although he was mainly a colleague, he knew her well enough to suspect that she was definitely up to something. Just hiding her unusual good mood from Nori would be hard enough, never mind trying to get the canes out of the office.

When she walked into the office, Nori had the box of canes on his desk. He was carefully scrutinizing, photographing and cataloging each one for the online auction web site.

Oh, great. She thought to herself. The difficulty rating of getting the canes out of the office jumped from a five to a ten.

Nori looked up from the box, his green eyes glinting.

"Hey, what's up, Tasha? Sweet find by the way."

"Yeah, and I think I already have a buyer. Well sort of," she lied.

"No way, these could go upwards of $1,000 each at auction."

"And who do we know that will pay that or more sight unseen?"

"Um, the boss spooky Sara?"

Tasha noticed the web page he had been painstakingly creating in her absence.

"Yep, so tell me that's not live yet."

Nori deleted the page with a quick keystroke and pushed the box away as though it were plague ridden.

"You know my hours, I just got started."

She continued to feed his superstitious nature.

"You didn't touch any of them, did you?"

"Hey why not just tag crap like this "Spooky Shit for Sara" so I don't waste my time or worse, have some kind of weird shit follow me home?"

"Then how would you get your game fix using our T1 connection for the rest of the day?"

"My gaming monster blows the shit out of this MS office crammed crap even with a dial up connection. But it doesn't have your sweet ass," he replied, ducking as if to avoid an invisible flying office object.

"Euro trash."

"Beautiful American terrorist, would you like to come dumpster diving?" Nori replied with his signature exaggerated Belgian accent, his head playfully tilted toward his crotch.

Tasha grabbed the box laughing all the way out of the office.

The drive out to my place was intimidating no matter what time of day it was to Tasha. The roads were completely covered by thick oak trees under which no sky escaped. My century plus farm was in an area just outside of town. It had a shroud of the tales of children disappearing or just downright being chased by unseen entities through the woods. A few children could be telling tales just to fabricate the legends further. Every child that mistakenly wandered down my lane had a frightening tale to tell. The stories were all independent and similar. My ancestors before me lived there for centuries. In some way, Tasha sensed they were watching over her.

I was lounging on my cottage porch with my cat, Shadow. I greeted Tasha with a customary hug.

"Good to see you, Tasha. It's been a while, how have you been, lately?"

"You tell me."

"You aren't your usual."

"I have something I want to show you. I thought...well I'll just go get them."

The scent of chamomile permeated the air from the nearby acres of herbs. Usually this had a soothing effect on Natasha, only not today. She could feel my penetrating gaze seeking all the information I could get without her participation. She placed a long thin box of gentleman's canes on the wicker table in front of me. I took the first cane in hand. It had a silver bar down its side with some inlaid pattern and gems scattered sparsely down the length of the bar.

I closed my eyes and now and fortunately for Tasha, focused my inquisitive mind on the canes. "This one was a favored possession for many years...he liked to thump the heads of his spoiled, ungrateful grandchildren with it. He longs for it, even now. He intended to be buried with it. They were very quick to sell it as soon as he passed."

She tried to listen further, but kept slipping into daydream mode. It was probably because she wasn't hearing anything that would put her mind at ease.

"Tasha, would you like some tea to calm your nerves?"

She smiled politely.

"Yeah, sure."

"I've just made some rose hip tea. Anything you'd like to talk about?" I asked, while leaving to pour some tea for Tasha.

"No not really. I just came out to find something out about the canes, they have a weird feel to them and I thought you may want a shot at one before they go up for auction."

Returning with the tea, I looked at her as if she was full of shit and I knew it. We never kept anything from each other, especially the strange stuff.

"Sara, there is nothing to tell. Lately it's like the same thing happens every day. Sometimes I only know what day it is by watching the news in the morning. Okay, tell me what makes you think anything is different?"

"Well first of all, Shadow didn't jump in your lap and harass you for attention when you sat down. Second, I can feel how uneasy you are, that's not like you."

Shadow moved away from her preferring instead to make circles around my legs. She pled her case further.

"Well this week has been a bit more stressful than most. You know, all the extra tourist traffic with Halloween coming up. Work has just been crazy, that's all. Maybe that's it? I dunno...are any of these interesting to you?"

I rolled the cane in my hands while the crystal reflected light to my eyes.

"Yes, this cane with the hand holding the crystal at the top."

"Well, I'd better get going, I promised Nori I'd come back and close."

I smiled with suspicion.

"Okay, well you know you can tell me anything, right...when you are ready."