Chapter 12

The following is parsed from various, but conflicting snippets of information. As ever, I endeavor to be as accurate as possible – A.S.

Union Shift Log

Union Station #12 –March 9th,1862

Reports of missing children. At least three last night. Two the night before. Sent private to gather information but he returned after an unruly mob gathered while questioning witnesses.

~~~~~

Union Station #12 –March10th,1862

Private Templeton and Private Ash were on their nightly rounds, south of Pratt Street, near the B&O railroad. This was after midnight and all was generally quiet. Both privates say a tall woman in black was carrying a young Negro child under her arm like a sack of potatoes. When confronted, the woman dropped the child and jumped a distance of twenty yards toward them.

Private Templeton was knocked to the ground and Private Ash did not shoot for fear of hitting his fellow soldier. Private attempted to pull the woman off and noted, “She was unusual strong and aggressive, showing long, white canines and hissing at us like some kind of coon!” The men were almost overwhelmed by the sheer power of this mystery woman.

Both privates swear that the woman stopped attacking when confronted by the sight of the cross around one of the private’s necks. She raced off into the darkness. The privates took the Negro child back to her family unharmed. Both men signed a sworn affidavit about the incident. Additionally, Private Ash mentioned that the woman in black smelled “strong of flowers”.

This information was conveyed to Captain Tenny directly.

~~~~~

Stevedore Foreman’s Log: March 11th, 1862

Dock workers on Pier #6 reported seeing a woman in black talking to a group of children. She led them away from the pier, but not before appearing to throw one of them in the water. Workers ran down to the spot to retrieve the child, but could not find any trace. Almost as if it never happened. The woman and other children disappeared.

******

The Diary of Lucius Williamson, Esq.

March 11

6AM

Woke up from a terrible nightmare. In this nightmare I once again wandered the streets of the city, but this time, instead of encountering a group of thugs, I found myself at the docks. In the exact spot where I encountered the child. This time there was a group of several children. Some white, some black. All with a peaceful look on their faces, as if sleeping. Among them towered a shape, clothed in black. The very shape from my basement. The shape pulled back the hood and this time it was a youthful woman. Her face was angular with high cheekbones. The eyes cunning.

The woman did not see or acknowledge my presence. She spoke to the children and they smiled. The sounds of this nightmare muted her voice and the children’s. Then, without warning, she picked one aloft by the crown of the head and threw it into the river. I was horrified, but as I began to move forward, I heard men shouting. A group of stevedores ran down the docks toward us.

I started to hide when I saw a black tear open in the night. It was jagged and cloudy, but through it I could see twilight on the other side. The shadow woman ushered the children through this ephemeral gateway. I tried to follow, but the portal closed and I woke up, the shouts of the men still ringing in my ears.

What strange madness is this? Why do I suffer so? I need to find some kind of answer or help before madness sets in!

7AM

Ruby and Momma Simms noticed my lack of appetite. The three of us sat at the kitchen table. Ruby leaned over, speaking to me with a voice so hushed it did not seem to be my sister.

“What’s wrong Lu? You ain’t your normal self. Tell me I can help.”

I hesitated. Afraid that if I shared the occurrences I had experienced as of late they might think I was mad. Or worse, lose confidence in me as a man.

“I have experienced some events that…uh…I cannot explain. I…” My voice trailed off.

“Visions Lu. I have them too.” Ruby said.

I was staring at the table when Ruby spoke these words. Visions?

“What are you talking about? Visions?”

Ruby began, a faraway look in her eyes. “They started before Momma and Daddy were killed. Back when we were still little, about six, maybe seven. The first one was of Jimelee, one the slaves on the Barton Plantation. She died trying to run away. I had only heard the stories, but this day I felt as if I were the one running in her shoes. I could smell the red cedar and sweetbay magnolia trees as we ran. I heard the dogs behind us. Since it was near dusk, I glimpsed torches waving behind in the distance. The ground hurt our feet. Cutting and slicing them to ribbons since we were barefoot. But still, we ran on. Finally coming to edge of a body of water. I wasn’t sure which one, but I plunged into it, sinking down to my waist as my feet stuck in the mud right below the surface. We kept moving further and further out from the shore until our feet didn’t touch bottom no more…and we drifted down and down…water filling our lungs, pressure in our ears. Screaming a silent scream nobody would hear…”

Ruby stopped. I could tell this memory was hard on her.

“You have it too Lu. Have the gift, or curse of foresight. You can see things that others can’t.” She looked over at Momma Simms who seemed as still as marble. “Just like Momma Simms.”

Momma Sims nodded at me.

Then I knew. That is why she took us in. Not just for the children she had lost, but to mentor and maybe hone the gift we all shared. All the wisdom of her years distilled into this moment at the table with my sister and I.

Momma Simms drank some coffee, lit a cigar, then blew smoke rings toward the ceiling. I watched the hazy rings coalesce and merge into what seemed to be an image of the three of us sitting at the table. When I squinted my eyes, the smoke had dissipated.

“Lucius, my sight has dimmed over the years as age has mellowed me, but your sister and you got it strong. You strongest of all. Me and Ruby can’t see what you see. But you need to allow yo’ self to see it. To believe it. Hear me Lucius? You need to allow it. So, tell us. What did you see?”

I could not grapple with the enormity of what I was learning. That there was a world beyond this world. Even as child, I had struggled with the concept of God and Heaven since all I saw around me bespoke of evil. Thus, why I entered the Law profession when I was able. The Law was a concrete concept I could understand and analyze. My foundation of belief, built on rules and procedures I could measure and articulate seemed unshakable until now.

“Something is upon us. Something worse than war or violence. Something that wants to take advantage of this chaos and build something new.” The words flowed out of me, but they were true. Something was rising, it was not just the South.

“Then Lucius. It is YO responsibility to help stop it.” Her eyes bored into and through me.

“Why me? I do not owe anything to the White man after the unjust treatment we have received. What could I possibly benefit from helping save some children?”

“Lucius, children is children. They don’t come into the world hatin’. They is taught to hate. Same as you and me. This thing? This evil force? It don’t care about White or Negro. All it cares about is strife and evil! And striking down evil is the Lord’s work! So, I don’t want to hear any more about I can’t do this, or I won’t do that! You do what’s right!”

Momma Simms was a hard woman. But she spoke a truth I felt deep in my bones. I needed to do something.

I was still uncertain about what kind of action to take, but action needed to be taken. As I pondered this more, a weight seemed to cloak my shoulders. All that was happening in this world right now, and added to this was one more conflict to fight. As I thought this Ruby’s hand fell on my shoulder. I looked up and she smiled; as always, right by my side.

******

I am on the docks again with no memory of how I ended up here.

Silvery mist flows off the river as I walk along. Tendrils of white vapor lap at my shoes, covering them until it seems I am cut off at the legs. I feel the cold, but yet am not cold.  I smell salt water and hear the sounds of men laughing as they work. Further in the harbour I hear the creaking of wooden hulls in the water and ropes slapping against masts. Now, a shrill wind is carried to my ears, and within this wind another sound.

Evil, ominous. A constant droning which grows louder.

I spin in a circle, searching for the source of the sound, realizing that it brings my doom. The mist breaks and I see the shadow woman…M’Lady…But now, she is much younger. She seems to smile at me. Her cruel eyes staring at me, though I feel that she is not staring at me, but through me, at another. I glance over my shoulder and see another woman. Younger with sad eyes. M’Lady speaks to her and this is the droning I hear.

I call out to the woman, knowing that certain death is upon her, but the woman does not hear nor see me. I am invisible to them. M’Lady steps toward the younger woman. I am in her path attempting to stop M’Lady, but the tall woman walks through me as if I am mist. It is then I understand…I am not here on the docks. This is a vision of an event that has either already transpired, or has yet to. I know not which, or why I am fated to witness this.

M’Lady moves closer to the younger woman, taking her by the shoulders as if to embrace the younger one. Then, as I watch M’Lady opens her mouth wide, displaying teeth suited more to a large predator. Her mouth stretches far past the point any human mouth should stretch.

M’Lady bends the younger woman’s neck to the side and bites deep into the throbbing flesh. I want to turn away, to hide my disgust, but am rooted to the wooden beams of the pier. Blood cascades down the younger woman’s neck, but instead of pain, the look on the younger woman’s face is one of ecstasy.

It is a horrible parody of love-making.

M’Lady pulls back, satiated; a smile playing on her lips. The younger woman leans against a stack of barrels, in a daze. M’Lady speaks again and the droning sound splits my eardrums. I clamp my hands to both ears to shut out the hideous cacophony, when all goes silent. I look and see nothing but mist once more. The dock, the younger woman, all gone. But I sense a presence near me. As I turn back, I am certain of what I will find.

M’Lady stands before me, piercing me with her malicious glare.

“Who are you that can gaze upon me?”

I am silent, too afraid to speak.

“Answer me mortal. How can you see me thus?”

When I failed to speak again. M’Lady seems to become enraged. She claws at me with a taloned hand. Red fingernails shining like fresh blood. I throw my hands up to protect myself, but nothing happens. M’Lady stares at me, aghast. She attempts to claw me once more, but her hand shimmers like waves on a pond, passing through me.

M’Lady reappraises me.

“I see. A formidable adversary. Very well. This round goes to you sir.”

“Lucius.” I blurt out without thinking.

“I give you leave for now. But, do not interfere in matters mortals do not understand or care for. Fail to heed me and the consequences will be dire Mr. Lucius.”

I was ripped from the dream and woke to a layer of sweat, bedsheets tossed onto the floor. I could feel the foul gaze of M’Lady’s eyes on me still, even as the reality of the dream faded into oblivion.

6:30AM

I knocked on the door as soft as I could, but hard enough to be heard. I must have been outside my mind to come here at this time. I had no idea how I would be greeted. As these thoughts rambled unbidden through my mind, the door opened and an older woman stared at me. Her face, not hostile, but not welcoming either.

        “Yes?”

        “I have urgent business with Dr. Strapp. Is he in? May I speak with him?” I asked.

        The woman stared at me for what seemed like several minutes before answering.

        “Wait here.” She slammed the door in my face. I stood in the frigid air outside watching the visible exhalation of breath mix with the light snowfall that had started this past hour. I glanced around, but the street was empty.

        The door opened again and she stepped aside. “Follow me if you please.”

        I smiled and walked through the door into a warm, inviting house. To my right, a large room filled with odds and ends, paintings and maps strewn across the floor and seats like old clothing.  Three or four marble busts stood on pedestals in the likeness of men I knew from own studies to be philosophers; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Homer might have been among them, but my attention was drawn to the volume of books in the room. Hundreds of various-sized texts adorned four oak shelves situated along the walls of one wide room. Scrolls of paper sat in wooden bins and hundreds of quill pens littered a tiny table in the center. When I looked to my left, I viewed what I presumed to be an emergency operating room. There were different types of equipment, a metal and glass cabinet filled with medicines in small vials, and a small table where surgical instruments were laid out in precise fashion.

        The woman (Ms. Judith I later found out) led me up a small staircase to the second floor and stopped at a door.

        “Doctor. Mr. Lucius is here.”

        The door swung open and Strapp stood there grinning from ear to ear. He took hold of my hand, placed his other hand on top, and stared at me.

        “I’ve been waiting for you Lucius Williamson, Esquire!”

        He pulled me into the room, ushering me toward a plush chair near a small fireplace.         “Thank you, Judith.”

        “You’re welcome Doctor. Next time please let me know ahead of time when we’re to receive visitors. Makes it easier to plan you know.” Judith half-smiled, half-frowned and was off before I could thank her. Strapp sat in a similar chair opposite me and waited. He seemed like a person who had a secret and wanted to share it.

        “I…have…seen things I cannot explain…” I began.

        Strapp held a hand up. “I have too Lucius. May I call you Lucius? Please call me Artemis.”

        “Lucius is acceptable. What do you mean you have seen things?” I asked.

        Strapp went on to explain the strange events of his life up until now. The events of the evil child across the bay. As I listened to his recounting, I felt something stir in the very marrow of my bones. It was an uncomfortable, alien emotion. One I had never felt before. Hope.

Not hope that society would suddenly change, which I knew would not occur, perhaps not in my lifetime. No, this hope was the possibility, no matter how small or limited, that someone might view the world as I did. That someone might see evil for what evil was, despite the contrary. I began to have hope that I was not losing my mind as I had feared for many weeks, and hope that Strapp might understand me in some minute way. Emboldened by Strapp’s tale, I shared the visions of the boy on the docks. I ended with the dreamlike encounter with M’Lady.

        Strapp surprised me by speaking. Almost as if he had read my thoughts.

        “Do you ever feel that there might be two worlds out there? One we see and perceive with our senses and brain, and one that is just beyond the veil of logic? Have you felt this Lucius?”

        “Yes, I have. Everyday.”

        He clapped his hands together like a child.

        “Good! Then I am not alone! For some time, I feared that I was alone in thinking that I walked in two worlds that existed side by side. So glorious! Now, finally I can share this with someone! A fellow logistician! I know you are but a Negro, yet I feel that you are also an intellectual and scholar. A man of words and thoughts! Yes. Now, to it we should plunge! Quick, tell me what else you have seen and encountered!”

        I stared at Strapp.

        “Sir, I am afraid I must leave. Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you, but I believe I have made a mistake.” I rose. Strapp was dumbfounded.

        “Lucius? Did I say something in error? Did I offend you?”

        “I will see my way out. Good day to you Doctor.” I nodded, left the room, passing by Judith who eyed me from the stairs to the doorway. I set off at a brisk pace in order to make it home to eat breakfast with Momma Simms. I felt Strapp to be a man of principle, but as with all other White men, he viewed me first and foremost as Negro before even a man. This I cannot abide, so I must find the demon and meet her straight-forward.

On my own.