Chapter Twenty-Eight – Faith

 

There was just something about the place. I don’t know what it was, but it just made me so enamored with my surroundings. Under any normal set of circumstances, I would have been hiding in Sam’s Camaro while he came in here and investigated.

But, there I was, kneeling on the floor as I ran my fingers almost lovingly over the old documents and sepia-toned portraits. Yellow, fading, beautiful. Like a piece of history distilled into a physical object that could really be appreciated and lived with, even as it crumbled around the edges of the pages.

In the center of my semicircle of pictures and documents was a single portrait, one of a man with thick sideburns, a heavy mustache, and long hair. His nose was what stood out most to me, a heavy one that was almost beaked. He wasn’t a handsome man, not like Sam was, or anything, but there was something distinguished and wise-looking about him. Like he’d lived life as fully as he could, and had picked up more than a thing or two along the way.

“Well?” I asked.

“I think they belonged to Tanchovsky, the man who lived here before,” Sam said as he picked up one of the documents, peering closely at it. “Just like this whole place. See? This is a deed to some land. I think those are some bills of lading from when he was moving out here. Lading forms from all the way out in Galveston, down on the gulf coast. Lots of immigrants in the south came through that way.”

“Bill of lading?” I asked, the excitement coming through in my voice. For whatever reason, I just wanted to know everything I could about this place. I could almost picture myself stepping back in time, finding the man in these images. Talking to him, laughing with him. “Like for shipping?”

“Exactly.”

“Well,” I asked as I reached forward, picking up the crumbling portrait of Tanchovsky and peering down into those faded eyes of his, “what was he having shipped here?”

“Just a bunch of crates and furniture. Boxes of…soil?”

“Dirt?” I asked, laughing a little in disbelief. “Really?”

“That’s what it says…” he replied, but trailed off.

I glanced over, saw a look of concentration on his face.

“You okay?” I asked when he didn’t say anything for a long moment. “What else is there?”

He shook his head, blinking his eyes a few times, like he was disoriented. “Nothing. Nothing, really. Just, the soil. I mean, who ships dirt all the way from Galveston?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just…just, something feels wrong.” He readjusted himself, pulling his phone from his pocket. He unlocked the screen and pulled up a picture of some man, looked it over.

I just ignored him. Why would he be looking at something on his phone when we had something this cool right in front of us? People these days!

“Faith?” he asked. “Do you recognize this guy?”

I turned and looked at the picture on his phone. It was like a much younger, or, well, newer version of the man in the picture I’d found. “Hey,” I said, “that looks just like Tanchovsky! Where’d you find that?”

“My editor just sent it to me. It’s not Tanchovsky. It’s actually Augustus Ironside, Jr.” He paused, seeming to search for his words carefully. “Are you feeling okay? I mean, are you feeling like yourself?”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning, biting my lower lip slightly. “Best I’ve felt since Eb Shook brought that pig into my work. Hey! You think there’s anything else about this Tanchovsky guy in here?” I turned back to the papers I’d carefully laid out, picking one up to peer more closely at its tight script with strange lettering. “Is this Polish or something?”

“Faith,” Sam began slowly, “did you do something with my, um, good luck charm?”

“No,” I said flatly, without even glancing towards him. I twisted my mouth to the side, trying to figure out how I could get him back on the subject of Tanchovsky. Of who he might be. Of where he might come from. Of how I could know more about him.

I couldn’t explain it. It just felt like I had some kind of connection. Some kind of, I don’t know, bond to the man in this photo. Like I’d seen him before, maybe on a street corner or online.

But that was impossible. He’d been dead for nearly a hundred years!

“Faith,” Sam said very quietly and deliberately.

“What, Sam?” I growled, surprising myself a little at my reaction.

“I need you to look at me.”

I frowned, whipping my head around to face him.

“Where is my necklace? The one I gave you?”

“In my pocket.”

“Why’s it in your pocket?”

I laughed. “Is that a trick question, or something? It’s in my pocket because I took it off.”

“Okay, fair enough,” he said, nodding his head a little. “Why did you take it off?”

“Because it was reacting with my skin or something, and I was starting to itch.” He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but I just turned my head and went back to the pictures. “What do you think he was like? Tanchovsky? Do you think he liked his life here?”

He grabbed my shoulder gently, turning me back towards him. He leaned down close, looked me right in the eye. “Faith, I need you to listen to me.”

What was the deal? Why was he talking to me like I was some drunk sorority girl? I cocked my head to the side, smiling at him.

“Look, I just need you to do me a favor, okay?”

I sighed. The sooner I got him off this stupid necklace thing, the sooner I could get him back to the task at hand of trying to figure out who this man really was. “Okay,” I said with a nod. “But first, you have to agree to do me a favor.”

“Sure,” he said, nodding intently, “absolutely. Anything. Name it.”

“As soon as I put your stupid necklace back on, I want you to help me go through these papers, okay? And, after we go through these, I want you to help me find anything else there is.”

He clenched his jaw tight, the muscles flexing and relaxing as he swallowed. “You got it, Faith. Anything.”

I grinned and went to stand up. I’d never been so excited in my whole entire life about the prospect of putting on a necklace. Not ever. Not once. I dug into my pocket as soon as I was standing.

“Awesome,” Sam said, rising up from the floor, licking his lips almost nervously as he looked at the necklace in my hand. “Perfect.”

I ran my thumb over the ceramic shape’s cool surface before putting the leather thong around my neck and tying the knot again. I dropped my hands to my sides and grinned at him. “There,” I said. “See? Happy?”

He nodded eagerly. “Yes. Ecstatic.”

And, just as that last syllable, -ic, left his mouth, the truth came bearing down on me. The reality of where I was standing, of what I was doing, descended on me like a black tidal wave of darkness, staggering me.

“Faith?” Sam asked, his voice sounding hollow and far away as he grabbed me by the side, steadying me. “Faith? Are you okay?”

The terror came next. The abject horror of where I was standing. Of the fact that I was inside this home, inside this place. “Oh my God,” I groaned, my voice like a death rattle as I threw myself at Sam, wrapping my arms tightly around him. “How did you let me come in here?”

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice soothing as he began to stroke my hair. “It’s okay, Faith. You’re going to be all right.”

I pulled back from him, glancing down at the papers and documents in front of me, at the picture I’d just been fawning over. The picture of Tanchovsky. Now, with the wool pulled off from my eyes, I could see where I’d recognized him from. Where I’d seen him before.

“It’s him,” I spat. “It’s him. That’s the man that was in my dream this morning, Sam.”

He pulled me back into his embrace, held me tightly as my body shook with a shiver of fear. “I know, Faith. I know.”

We stayed like that for a long moment, with him just stroking my hair, holding me, making me feel safe. And, in his arms, I did. Like I never had before in my life.

I tilted my head back, bringing my gaze up to meet his. He felt so strong, so warm, as my arms tightened around his chest and my hands ran up and down his broad back.

His arms tightened around me, stroking my back.

Unconsciously, I bit my lower lip as we held that long look.

And then he was lowering his lips to mine. Soft and full, but firm, too. Gentle, yet somehow insistent. His tongue brushed over my lips, and I opened my mouth to him.

Our kiss was like magic, and we held each other more tightly as it seemed that somehow we were pushing back against the edges of the darkness that pressed in from all sides. It was like a noonday sun appearing at midnight, and all the shadows were shoved from that room, and from my heart.

Finally, though, we broke away from each other, gasping for air. “Well,” he whispered as he smiled down at me, “that was nice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, smiling up at him. “Unexpected.”

He smiled more widely, reaching up to brush a stray strand of my hair back from my face.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now,” he said, “we need to find the basement.”