The Seer by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 31

Tom and Linda sat at the kitchen table, sipping their morning coffee as Kara and Zachary shared a stack of pancakes. When they were finished, they held their plates up and licked off the syrup. Naturally, both managed to cover most of their faces with it. Tom and Linda looked on in amusement, trying not to grin too broadly.

“Well,” Tom began. “That's one way to get the dishes clean.”

Linda glanced over from her newspaper, shaking her head slightly. As humorous as she found the sight of her children's sticky faces, she was also annoyed with the fact that she would likely be the one to make sure their faces were clean. But, it was Tom, who, halfway through his coffee, prompted them to go to the sink and wash the stickiness from their faces.

After only minutes of scrubbing, both children turned toward the back door, eager to spend their Sunday outdoors, beneath the blue spring sky.

“Hang on you two,” Tom said. “C'mon over here a second.”

Parenthood had taught him many things, and one was to never trust a child to thoroughly wash themselves. Kara was first, and Tom quickly inspected her face for any syrup that had gone unnoticed.

“Alright,” he said. “You're good.” Darting off to the back door, she flung it open and disappeared, leaving Zachary to be examined next. Tom was a bit more thorough this time, and finding a thin film of syrup clinging to his nose, pointed to the sink.

“Try again Zack,” he said.

Zachary had already grown impatient, as his eagerness to join his sister peaked. Again, he ran to the sink, and grabbing a damp cloth, ran it over his face, not paying attention to thoroughness, but simply going through the motions, hoping to escape his father's watchful eye.

“Okay,” Tom continued. “C'mon back. Let's take a look.”

Zachary ran back to him, and tipping his face up, waited for approval. Looking carefully, Tom saw no remaining traces of syrup, and praising him for his cleanliness, let him loose on an unsuspecting day.

Just after the door closed, Linda looked up with a grin.

“Thanks,” she said.

Tom took another sip of his quickly cooling coffee.

“Hey,” he replied. “I can do these things too.” As long as his work hours were, Tom felt it was important to always have time to be a father, not just a source of income. But, as Linda’s eyes returned to her newspaper, she began a conversation that was far from the hygiene of their children.

“So, what happened last night?”

Tom had been expecting this discussion, but didn't know how to describe what had occurred.

“Well,” he began. “She was here. I sat as far from her as I am from you. Apparently, she's here to keep an eye on the kids.”

“That makes sense,” Linda replied. “She got really attached to them a while after she moved in. So, what did she look like?”

She had seen Eleanor once already, and assumed that she presented herself as a somewhat transparent, yet familiar image.

“Ya' know,” Tom said. “She looked like anyone else. She looked...well...solid.”

Linda's face expressed a noticeable bewilderment as she inquired about Tom's description.

“Solid? You mean, like, a wall?”

Her question was accompanied by several quick raps of her knuckles against the table-top.

“Yeah,” Tom answered. “I could've reached out and touched her.”

Linda took a moment as the wheels of inspiration began to turn.

“Do you suppose anyone else in the area has seen anything like this?”

“I don't know,” Tom replied. “I've never mentioned it to anyone, and to be honest, people would think we're probably nuts. What were you thinking?” Linda's mind soon went from inspiration to an idea that seemed as bizarre as the experiences they were having.

“Well,” Linda answered. “I was thinking that there might be some people in the area who might be interested in these kinds of things. I mean, some people believe in these things, and if you wanted to do more research, maybe getting a few people together would be better than trying to do it by yourself.”

Tom gave the idea some thought. It was certainly an interesting possibility, and with an objective approach, legitimate research could be conducted. The difficulty would be in finding others who shared his curiosity. Of course, there would always be those who would think he had lost his mind, but he also assumed there were those who believed in the existence of an afterlife, that some departed souls, for some reason, manage to get left behind to wander, lost among the living.

“What about your kids?” they would ask. Linda would explain that not did Zachary and Kara remain unafraid, but that they enjoyed the comfort of knowing their grandmother was keeping a watchful eye on them.

Soon, people were asking Tom about his experiences, and none of them questioned his sanity. In fact, a few believed their houses to be haunted as well, but could not be certain. However, it was Linda who offered Tom's services, giving him the opportunity to learn from the experiences of others, and help them to cope with the idea of sharing their homes with the deceased. But soon, Tom was faced with a glaring problem. He was only one person, and lacked the proper tools needed to further his interest. However, these problems soon resolved themselves as people came to him, proposing the creation of a research group. Six months later, Tom was the lead investigator of the Topsham Paranormal Team. Including Tom, there were four members, all volunteering their time to investigating the activity of the deceased. Most of the groups free time was spent doing research, reading about such things as environmental factors, electromagnetic fields and the impact of the mind. They also began learning how to manage their emotions, as most of their work would be carried out in near complete blackness. At some point, Tom recognized the need for equipment, high sensitivity recorders, infrared cameras, and motion activated sensors. Tom's interest in ghostly affairs had, almost overnight, turned into a science, as people invited him and his team into their homes to determine what it was that went bump in the night.