The St. Augustine Trilogy: Book I
Young adult, paranormal/historical
23
A Blood Connection
“What’s going on?” Carla called from behind me.
I stood in front of my ancestor’s portrait, looking up at it wide-eyed. The square face, and long sideburns matched perfectly. “This painting is of one of my relatives going way back. His name was Walton … and ah … he’s the man I saw in the plaza and in the cathedral with Lobo.”
“You’re being haunted by your own ancestor?” Carla quickly joined me so she could study the picture.
“Looks that way. He seemed familiar, but why I didn’t see the resemblance before this …”
“It’s a very old painting,” Carla said, “badly cracked and very dark. From where I was standing, I could barely see his features. Just his eyes seem to stand out. Besides, here he isn’t wearing a uniform.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen that portrait ever since I was a little kid.” Only then did I notice for the first time The Ancestor’s eyes were dark brown.
“No one in your family ever told you about Walton’s background?” she asked.
“Not really. My parents never cared about things like family history. Years ago my grandfather told me Walton served in the military and died in some war, but I didn’t really pay attention. I was pretty young.”
“Now,” Lobo said, “we see the primary reason why so much happened to you today. Your blood connection with this man means you and he have a direct channel to each other. After your bike accident and your abilities to link with other worlds instantly blossomed, your ancestor increasingly attached himself to you using this channel.
“As December 28 approaches, and all that it means to him, his agitation threatens to engulf you. As I have told you before, I don’t believe that this is his intention. He simply clings to you like a leech in hopes you will help him.”
I didn’t like how Lobo used the words, “blood” and “leech,” together in his statements. At first, I thought about how The Ancestor gushed blood in the plaza. That made me think about vampires, and I hoped to God there wasn’t actually anything like that in Lobo’s worlds-within-worlds. Crazy thought, I know. By then, I guess, I might have believed about anything.
Lobo paused and studied me intently before going on with his explanation. “Most of today’s strange events have simply been your ancestor’s way of making you sit up and take notice. He even led you back here to this house tonight so you could rediscover his picture.”
“Jeff just wanted a shower,” Carla protested, echoing my own thought.
“Wrong!” Lobo shot back, his voice filing the room. “The very fact that we are here looking at this picture proves the point. Walton’s influence manifests itself in your friend here through subconscious mechanisms.”
“You mean he’s influencing my mind without me knowing? Come on, Lobo, that was a coincidence,” I said.
Tell you what, the guy bounced out of his chair and got right into my face. “Hammer this into your head once and for all. Everything in this world connects with everything else in all the infinity of worlds that exist. You discount what you call coincidental events at this point in your life to your peril.”
“Oh man, Lobo,” I said, looking away and rubbing my temples, “you make my head ache with all that stuff.”
“Your blood connection to Walton is the cause of your headaches, not my words. Make no mistake about it. Your entire body feels the pressure from your ancestor as he attempts to contact you in order to stop his pain. Along with that pressure, you are definitely sensing whatever agony he endures.”
“Oh,” I replied. Such a thing never occurred to me. “But what kind of agony could cause him to be so, well, blindly dangerous?”
“We don’t know exactly. There is one thing I can tell you. A Lieutenant Walton died during Major Dade’s battle with the Seminoles in 1835. His agony no doubt relates to that event which occurred on December 28.”
“Of course, that Walton,” Carla said, her eyes bright with recognition and surprise.
With her love of history and the involvement of her own ancestor in the battle, I had no doubt she knew every detail about what happened back in those days. My thoughts though, flowed in a slightly different direction than hers and it dawned on me that Walton was buried under one of those pyramids in the National Cemetery.
The memory of what seemed like an electrical charge running up my arm when I put my hand on the central pyramid fired through my mind.
“Another thing,” Lobo said, this time to Carla. “There is a high probability that through you, your ancestor, Luis Pacheco, adds to the intensity of this situation. Pacheco’s spirit might somehow be supporting the contact between your friend here and Lieutenant Walton.”
“Pacheco? Through me?” Startled, Carla looked at me like she had done something wrong.
“Relax,” Lobo scolded her. “It isn’t a fact, just a probability. Even if it is true, you couldn’t have controlled it.”
“But I can make certain it doesn’t impact Jeff anymore by staying away from him until after tomorrow.”
“Forget about that!” I blurted. “No way!” Unlike how I felt in the plaza, I couldn’t stand the thought of not having both Lobo and Carla around to help me figure out what to do.
“Not necessary and even detrimental at this point,” Lobo said to her. “If that linkage exists, it has already been solidified. Your absence would not change it in the least. Besides, your young man here can greatly benefit from your presence and your insights.”
“There you go!” I told her. “You gotta stick around. Please?” I gave her one of my sad-eyed puppy looks.
“Oh stop it with the eyes and the long face,” she replied. “If you’re sure, Lobo.”
“I’m sure.”
“OK, all right, but I do have an idea if you want to hear it.”
“Go for it,” I told her.
“I was thinking that sometimes people write or attach information on the backs of old pictures and portraits. Maybe your grandfather or somebody along the way in your family recorded some information that could tell us a little more.”
“Smart lady!” I rushed to take the picture down. In no time, I had the portrait sitting on the floor. Kneeling in front of it, I looked on the back as Carla suggested. There, covered with dust I found a large, ratty old envelope taped to the canvas.
“Carla, you are so right!” I yelled. The envelope came loose easily when I pulled on it—old tape holding the thing in place just fell apart. While still balancing the portrait upright with one hand, I held up the dusty envelope triumphantly in the other. That’s when it happened. Everything in the room started … flickering … as if someone was quickly turning the lights off and on.
No, that’s not completely right. All sound also stopped for a split second at the same time everything would go dark. Carla said something, but her words got chopped up so much they didn’t make any sense
Into those spaces between seeing and hearing what went on in my living room, came other vague, unfamiliar images and sounds. This flip-flopping back and forth between the known and unknown sped up until nothing remained but those unfamiliar sights and sounds. They also flickered on and off but at a slower rate than before. It was like watching and listening to a whole bunch of extremely short film clips strung together. Think of turning your TV from channel to channel every second or two and you’ll get an even better idea of what I experienced.
I’m telling you, what I saw was a wild mixture of places I had never been, things I had never seen before, and people I didn’t know. Images maybe? No, even that word doesn’t explain it properly. No, what I saw seemed more like … memories … random memories… someone’s memories … thin slices of a life I had never known.
Weird? No kidding. I mean, within each of those life slices, there were also emotions, touch, smells and sounds coming at me so rapid-fire, I couldn’t make sense out of them. Through it all though, one thing became crystal clear. Those flashing, living images were not from the twenty-first century. No way. In that world, horses transported people and many streets went unpaved. The clothes people wore, the hairstyles, absolutely everything screamed, distant past.
On and on it went until the whole mess blended into a massive painful blur.
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For a brief description of The St. Augustine Trilogy, click here.
For Sliding Beneath the Surface on Amazon.com, click here
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© 2011 by Doug Dillon. All rights reserved.
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