Pt. 2 – a sad story
Jenkins laid yet another jar full of unidentified materials on his work bench, carefully positioning it beside the five others that he had yet to label. "Having multiple librarians here is both a blessing and a curse" he mused. "It was so much quieter before – but at least I'm receiving some help in getting a proper inventory put together." He glanced up as Baird and Cassandra walked in, Baird holding what looked like an old volume from the public library reference collection. "Col. Baird? Is there something you need?"
"Well – you can start by telling us what this is" she replied, dropping the tome on his chair. "I wasn't aware the library kept paper copies of old newspapers."
"It doesn't" Jenkins replied somberly, gently opening the book and glancing down its pages. "Books of information like deeds, titles, fiction or non-fiction – these are the items that the library would give refuge to. But this…"
"There's a particularly sad story on one page" Cassandra commented, waving a hand over the volume. "A set of deaths that happened just after World War II".
Jenkins cocked on eyebrow at the younger librarian. "Thousands died after the war, from privation, injuries and any of a number of other causes. Just because a war ends, Miss Cassandra, doesn't mean the pain ends." He frowned down at the book for a moment. 'Was this opened to that story when you found it?"
"Yes" Cassandra replied slowly. "I think so – I was just so surprised to see this in the Reading Room that I guess I didn't really pay much attention to what page it was on."
"What story caught your eye?" Jenkins said quietly.
Baird laid the book on Jenkins desk, letting it open automatically. It went straight to the page she and Cassandra had been reading – and the story of the unfortunate deaths in a home in the Isle of Jersey. "That page. Looks like something or someone wants us to read that story."
"But if it's an issue of a cursed object – why didn't it come up in the Clippings Book?" Cassandra asked.
"The Clippings Book has, of late, limited it's warning to items of great import. Events that would, if not dealt with, have disastrous effects on the world or on the Library. This, I think, isn't so grand an issue." He read the article quickly then frowned, a memory from that time slowly working its way through the miasma of others he had of that bloody time period.
"You recognize the story?" Baird asked, quizzically.
"In a way. It's been a long time since I thought about that incident but…"
"But what?" Cassandra said quietly.
"Let's take this tome into the main work room and gather the others as we do so. I don't particularly want to tell this story more than once." Jenkins gently closed the volume and tucked under his arm, waving the two women to proceed him. As he walked with them his mind pulled the details of the story he was about to tell and sorted what he had heard from what he had seen. And wondered if THEY were still out there, living that half-life where he had last seen them.
In the main work room both Stone and Jones were working on their various projects in relative silence. Jones, for once, wasn't in the mood to babble – something Stone was thankful for. He looked up as Baird, Cassandra and Jenkins walked in with a large volume he did not remember seeing before. "Hey, what's that?"
Jenkins laid the book on its spine and let it open automatically to that one page it seemed determined for them to see. "Copies of a newspaper from a long time ago, one that is determined for us to read about this sad occurrence in a house right after the Great War."
Jones looked over at the book and shrugged. "Or maybe it's been opened to that page so much it just automatically goes there."
Stone reached over and pulled the book up, examining it carefully. "Spine seems intact. Nothing indicating it's been opened to this one place enough to make it go there without reason."
"No – I didn't think there would be" Jenkins agreed somberly.
"You remember something about this event?" Cassandra asked sadly.
"Yes – and no. I was not there when the deaths occurred, but I was there, in that house, a few years later. It was then I heard the tragic tale – and came to understand what was constantly going on in that house."
Baird waved everyone into a chair the motioned to the book. "What happened, Jenkins? And what has an event in the later part of the 1940's got to do with us now?"
"What it has to do with us now is perhaps the mystery we are being asked to solve – but as to what happened then…" He stopped for a moment and pulled out a chair for himself. "War is a terrible thing, Col. Baird, as well you know. But it's not just soldiers such as ourselves that must bear the brunt of the pain nations battling against nations brings out. Civilian populations also suffer – sometimes even in areas that might escaped destruction of the land but not of their souls." He waved a hand at the story wearily. "Charlene had friends who had purchased an old house in Jersey with the thought they could make repairs and turn it into a hospice for soldiers returning from the war. They had only been in the house a few weeks before they fled in panic, saying it was haunted. Charlene, for whatever reason, chose not to ask Judson for help with this and instead asked me to look up the history of the house."
"And you found out about these deaths?" Baird guessed.
"The woman's name was Grace Stewart and her husband had gone off to war, never to return. Many men didn't. They died on the battlefield and were not ever identified. Mrs. Stewart had two children, Anne and Nicholas, who suffered from a condition called photosensitivity which made contact with sunlight painful, perhaps even deadly. She lived in darkness for the sake of her children, always fearful that the Germans, who had overrun the Channel Islands, would come knocking on her door and cause harm to her little ones or to herself. Life was unpleasant at best, a nightmare at worse for a single woman with children in an occupied territory. Perhaps the stress of all of that was what led her to do what she did."
"What did she do?" Stone asked, a feeling of dread coming over him.
"No one had heard from her that next morning, her former servants went to check on her. They found her dead, a shotgun blast to her chest. The children had both been smothered in their sleep." Jenkins sighed. 'Rumors, of course started that it been the Nazis, but those rumors pretty quickly died off."
"Because it was obvious she had killed her children to "protect" them and then shot herself in grief and madness." Baird shook her head in sadness. "Probably cracked under the strain of everything she was having to deal with."
"Yes – and knowing that was what led Charlene and I to believe that her friends had been right. That the house was, in fact, haunted. And that the ghosts were Mrs. Stewart and her two children."
"Okay, so the house was haunted. So, what do you do now?" Jones asked, his normally cheerful face somber. "It's not like they wanted to be dead. Maybe they just wanted to be left alone."
"Or maybe Mrs. Stewart didn't want to go on her reward. After all, she had killed her kids." Stone read the article quickly, then pointed to it. "No mention of how the family died. At least they or their relatives were spared that."
"That was my theory, but Charlene was determined that we should set them free from their earthly chains and send them on their way." Jenkins tapped his foot impatiently. "I argued with her about it for nearly a week but in the end, I was sent to see what I could do."