From the Tales of Saint Anthony, the Johnny Holiday Mysteries
These short stories follow the lives of people who populate the fictional city of Saint Anthony (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and make their appearance in the first Johnny Holiday novel, The...
Imogene d'Alsace came to consciousness in the dark.
She had no sense of her body or anything other than silence and cold.
This was not the utter darkness of the abyss, which she had once been preoccupied with; it was the near blackness that betokened the witching hour on a moonless night.
Though Imogene could not feel her body, she was connected to it and fixed to the place where it lay...a lifeless-rotting husk.
She directed her gaze, or what passed for sight, upward as if through a tunnel or the long mouth of a cave; she looked up to a small round disk of shadow across which passed the deep-blue night, and in that place she tracked the tiny-bejeweled, pin-pricks of starry light.
The last thing Imogene remembered was being attacked by Amelie Elmquist, who madly came at her with a kitchen knife; upon recalling that memory, and having no sense of how much time has passed, she realized that she was dead and that her corpse was laying at the bottom of the well just a stone's throw from her cabin in the woods.
The pieces were coming back to her; she had been arguing with Amelie, who fell into a rage and killed her, stabbing her at least three times with the knife that had been on the table, with the breadboard and cheese.
Amelie must have dumped me in the well, Imogene thought, she left me to the elements...to the worms and grubs.
Her spirit was restless; she felt disconnected from the world and wondered why her spirit had not moved on, if it had she had no memory of it and this perplexed her, causing her to question why she had woken to the world at this moment.
She waited and she listened; she was adept at many occult practices and had used her knowledge to keep her body in good health, and her mind sharp. She had grounded herself to this place and had used various pieces of Jewelry, like the broach she wore to anchor her consciousness during her meditations, and during those times when she would traverse the astral plane.
She considered whether those practices might have prevented her from moving on to the next world when her body had died, she considered whether it might have been the trauma of murder, or some combination of those factors that were holding her down.
She wondered if there might be a medium nearby who was seeking contact with specifically, or perhaps a clairvoyant who was seeking contact with any spirit who might be lingering in the in the vicinity; perhaps she had awakened and returned to the world due to their arts.
Imogene stretched her feelings into the world around her; she sensed nothing, no medium, no-one. After a time she gave up her speculation and waited...she waited, and waited until she felt a warm light glowing in the darkness.
The light was faint and distant, but it was golden.
Imogene focused her will on the light and the warmth. She wanted to apprehend it, but she could not translocate; her spirit was bound to the spot where her body lay.
She felt trapped.
Imogene turned her gaze back to the light, this time she concentrated on drawing it to her...and when she did it came with power, like an onrushing bear.
It was searching for something; the great-bear spirit was searching for her.
She sensed it on the grounds above her, she felt it in her house as it stopped over the dried pool of blood her corpse had left on the floor. Imogene focused her attention there and suddenly emerged in that spot.
She saw then that the golden spirit was not a bear at all, but a tall young man who had recently by scared for his life, but was now calm and curious.
She stretched out her feelings, reaching toward his radiant aura, she brushed him with her essence...only slightly, but when she did they were joined and she knew him, though she had not seen him since he was an infant, she knew him because he was her son.
Imogene was overwhelmed with love him, but in that moment he began to recede into the void; she had returned to the bottom of the well and she was as before.
Voicelessly she called to him, pleading with him to remember where she was, at her home in the woods, above the quaking bog.
He did not respond, but she knew she had reached him, and that in touching him she had bequeathed to him the gift of sight.
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