Chapter 18
After Devon ended that call, she had no idea how she was supposed to get through the rest of the night.
She was scared to go back to sleep in case she did go back to that same space. Stefan had tried to give her a few tips and tricks, but she knew the pull to go into that light herself was strong. And yet she also wasn’t sure that she would be allowed to.
If she was meant to be here to deal with something on her own, then maybe she couldn’t make that choice.
But the remembrance of how warm and caring that light was kept her awake for a long time. As did the implications of trying to leave before it was her time.
Was that even a thing?
Could people do that?
Given everything else that she was dealing with right now, it seemed foolish to even question.
Apparently, people could do all kinds of things, whether they thought it was real or not.
After all, Devon had been in that world many times.
In fact, it was one of her favorite places to dream about.
Other people would talk about going to their favorite spot to de-stress and unwind.
For some, it was always a space with waterfalls and swimming pools out in the middle of nature, or, for others, it was spas or some man-made luxury.
But, for her, it was this dream place.
It felt like home.
She had never really considered that it was the doorway to her eternal home.
Stefan probably would say something about her coming into this world, this other dimension, to help people. And, for whatever reason, she’d been doing it subconsciously, instead of really understanding what she was doing.
She finally got up around five, made coffee, and stepped outside into the early morning atmosphere. A chill filled the air, but she had grabbed a sweater and now sat outside on the deck. The remnant energy was here still, but she was no longer afraid of it.
These remnants were parts and pieces of people, long gone.
She still didn’t fully understand the remnant part.
Were these people whom she could help cross over?
Were these people whom somebody had stopped from crossing over?
Did they have a certain amount of power to them?
Did they have something that other people could take from them?
She was starting to wonder if somebody had done this to them, fragmenting them into these remnants. Were they trying to cross over when somebody had stopped it from happening?
And when she mentioned somebody, her mind immediately thought of it.
Once that thought entered her head, she couldn’t not think about it. It was all absolutely mind-boggling. When she heard a noise nearby her, she looked over to see Camden step out on his deck.
She got up, walked down her steps, and crossed her yard to reach the fence between them. He followed suit. She asked him, “Did you get any sleep last night?”
He shook his head. “No. Did you?”
She shook her head and added, “Not a whole lot. Too much to think about.”
He smiled and nodded. “Yeah, Stefan’s good at causing that.”
She winced. “Good isn’t the word I would use.”
He laughed.
“Are you really somebody who can help me with this?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “This is the first time Stefan has ever shared that with me. You hung up on us, but we continued to talk a little longer.”
“About what?”
“I’ve been doing work in this field,” he began, “but not what Stefan’s doing.
The fact that he even thought that I could do that blew me away,” he admitted.
“I use my skills to close cases at work. I have used Stefan’s help to develop my own special skills, so I can become a better cop.
” He laughed. “However, I never expected to be a ferryman.”
“A ferryman,” she repeated, sounding the words out on her own. “Is that what it’s called? Is that what I am?”
“I don’t know if you are. Yet Stefan has told me about a woman who did a lot of this work where a lot of people died at once.”
“Well then, wouldn’t she have been there last night?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Did you see anybody else?”
She pondered that, frowning. “I don’t think so, but I really don’t know.”
“I think she moves from location to location to deal with a lot of these particular cases,” he shared. “I don’t know if she can do them over long distances.”
Devon wasn’t even sure what that meant.
He laughed again and added, “I know. All of this is a little bit crazy.”
“A little bit?” she muttered. “I think this is all way past a little bit.”
“I won’t argue with you about that,” he confirmed, with a dry laugh. “This is definitely Stefan’s world, but I do use a lot of this in my own work.”
“And how would you use any of this?”
He explained, “I use the energy. I can recognize energy signatures of people and animals.”
She tried hard to suppress her shock, but, by the look on his face, she hadn’t been very successful at it.
“Obviously I still need the forensic proof to get the criminals into a court of law and properly charged.” He shrugged. “However, I can utilize these special skills for all kinds of stuff, but I’ve never come across this scenario.”
“I don’t imagine many people have.” Devon turned to stare at the remnants in her backyard.
“You really have spent time in this area, huh?”
“I guess I have, if my dream world was more reality than fiction,” she muttered, followed by a laugh. “It’s not something I can explain, much less talk about.”
“Of course not. That’s also very Stefan,” he added, with a laugh. “He has a knack for bringing people together who do this work so we can help each other out. So, I’m not against helping you, as long as I have some idea of what I need to do.”
“But if you don’t do this work and you don’t see the light, I don’t know what you can do to help me,” she pointed out.
“I don’t either,” he admitted, “but that’s neither here nor there as far as Stefan’s concerned.”
She winced at that. “Seems he’s got an awful lot more going on than you or I have any idea of.”
“That is very true,” he agreed, with a knowing smile. “And never underestimate him. He has abilities that you and I have never even thought to consider.”
She didn’t say anything about that. “Finding him in my dream world was a very unique experience for me.”
“You talked to him over there, did you?”
She smiled up at him and nodded. “Honestly, I think he was quite startled to see me there in the first place. Of course I had no idea who he was. He knew me instantly but didn’t call me by name until we had talked for a while.
Yet he spoke to me with this note of amusement, as if he were part of an inside joke that I wasn’t aware of,” she explained. “So that was a little disconcerting.”
“Of course it would be,” he noted. “I can just imagine how that would make you feel.”
“He did ask me to help move some people.”
“And were you inclined to do this work?”
“I wasn’t really thinking that it was work, that it could be done by me, or that I was doing something helpful.
” She pondered that and added, “I guess I realize now that I had always done this work, but I did it in the background, in my dreams, so I wasn’t really aware of it.
So, now that I’m more aware of it, it just feels very creepy and odd.
” He burst out laughing, and she had to smile. “I’m serious.”
“I know you’re serious,” he replied, “and that’s what makes it even better. And yet I also know that Stefan is the person to talk to about this stuff. If he can help you develop your skills, maybe it’s something you’ll want to do too.”
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I was doing just fine on my own.”
“Traipsing through these dreams and helping people out without even realizing what you’re doing is cool,” he shared. “If you really can help people cross over when their world is completely shattered and when they don’t know what’s going on, that’s got to be really rewarding.”
“I guess it might have been if I’d realized that’s what I was doing,” she clarified, with that same half-mocking tone. “I mean, it’s certainly something I feel good about in the moment when they do cross over. I just hadn’t realized it was so real.”
“Right,” he agreed. “You hadn’t realized what you were doing, but now you know.”
“Oh I know,” she declared, then laughed. “And with that knowledge comes great responsibility,” she quoted. “I don’t even know who said that,” she muttered, “but I’m sure somebody out there did.”
He smiled. “I’m sure they did. And you’re right. All of this comes with a great responsibility.”
“Do you tell people at work?”
“No, not if I don’t have to,” he admitted in a casual tone. “Most of them have some idea that I have some woo-woo abilities, and that’s why they give me the woo-woo cases.”
She burst out laughing. “I love that.”
“Yeah, sometimes it’s great, but other times? … Not so much.”
“What about the neighbors?” she asked. “Do any of them know?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I prefer to keep that among very few people whom I trust—usually other energy workers. I don’t really have any woo-woo cases right now—except for you of course.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, a bit of concern in her tone. “Did you ever check on the previous owners of my house?”
“I did get an email about that, but I got so busy that I never had a chance to look at it. Give me a minute to read it.” He pulled out his phone, brought up his email, and clicked away.
Meanwhile she stood here leaning on the fence, looking around at the congestion of energies around her. She broke the silence. “One thing’s been bothering me about these remnants. Did somebody make them remnants?”
He froze, then turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure, but, when I’m over on the other side or in the dream state or ferryman-realm or whatever you want to call it”—she rolled her eyes at that—“I don’t see this.
I don’t see portions or remnants. I see whole people who are lost, confused, devastated, and looking for help.
They look like real people. But this?” She waved one arm at her backyard, where they were all gathered right now. “I don’t understand this.”
He frowned as he glanced around. “You’re right. I’m not sure what this is either or how these remnants were created.”
“But that’s the thing,” she added. “We have a very distinct set of energies that don’t appear to be connected in ways that we would typically think of.”
He glanced over at her and nodded. “Go on.”
“I’m just afraid that somebody has created these remnants for a purpose that we don’t yet know about.”
His gaze hardened. “And do you have any idea what that purpose would be?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t but—”
“But,” he repeated, his frown deepening.
“I’m concerned because these remnants are gathered here in my backyard and potentially related to anything else going on here,” she explained. “Thus it might also be connected with Tabitha.”
*
Camden stared at Devon for a long moment, glancing around her backyard.
“I hate to even imagine that, and yet, because it is mainly connected to your backyard, we have to consider that your theory is possible,” he added cautiously.
“Having said that, I don’t know what the reason would be for her to do this. We would have to ask Stefan.”
“And how is she doing this?” Devon asked.
He glanced at her, then at her backyard. “More very good questions.” Glancing at his phone, he muttered, “Finally. It took forever for this email to open. Give me a second.” He read it through, then winced at her.
“What?” she asked.
“So,” he began, with a long exhale. “First, I don’t know that this has anything to do with what is going on with Tabitha or the kids.
” He glanced back down at his phone while she waited for more.
He read from the email. “Fifty years ago the owner of this property was murdered, along with his wife and daughters. Apparently the case was never solved and remains open to this day. Honest to God, that is the first I’ve heard of it, and I’ve lived beside this house for a very long time. ”
“Do you know anything about their names and who they were?”
He turned to her and asked, “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but it seems to be something we should look at.”
He glanced back at his phone. “The last name is Herschel.”
She stared at him. “As in, H-E-R-S-C-H-E-L?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Why? Do you know the name?”
“I not only know it,” she stated, “but that was Tabitha’s mother’s family name.”
He stared at her for a long moment and muttered, “That cannot be a coincidence.”
“No, most definitely not,” she claimed, her tone almost hysterical. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all. I just don’t know how it plays into anything.”
“No, but it absolutely will.” He looked at the ghouls, the energy all around them, and added, “I wonder how many of these belong to them?”
She stared at him, then winced. “Is that even possible, for them to hang around this long?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “because I don’t know anything about this cold case. However, you can bet, as soon as I get back into the house and to my computer, I’ll be digging into it.”
Just then she heard the kids getting up. She looked over at him and whispered, “Let me know as soon as you can, please.” And, with that, she went inside to start her day.