Earth's Grand Healer
Part 6: The Words of Mordicai Wayne (Part 1)
"You are certain that this spot is where the demon is trying to escape?" Bruce went back to inquiring about the demon that Samantha sensed.
"Now, I'm not so sure," Samantha answered. "I just sense this place had a lot of energy."
"Where else do you perform your monthly moon ritual."
"Another part of the garden," Samantha admitted. "I do not know why I was led here."
"Perhaps the demon believes you can open a gateway so she can escape," Bruce surmised.
"Like I said," Virgil stated. "That is impossible. I created the gateway and only I can open it."
"And what led you to create the gateway at this spot?"
"I felt energy coming from that stone in the center. It was as if it was already there. The garden is very old."
"How do you know that?" Bruce asked.
"It's obvious," Virgil pointed out. "There is an old carriage in the lower level. The fact that the clothes in the trunk contained some very old knives for throwing and that book."
"I had not explored this place recently," Bruce admitted. "I remember my father telling me not to go into the carriage house, that it wasn't safe. That was a year before he died. There was also an old barn on the property that was eventually removed because it was falling down from disuse. Horses have not been on the property since my grandfather's time."
"Tim said he lived in the carriage house for a short time, and I used the carriage house early on when I needed a place of refuge from the craziness," Samantha mentioned.
"And now I am living here," Virgil also pointed out the flaw in Bruce's argument. "Obviously, someone took the time to make sure it's been repaired and maintained."
"Alfred," both Samantha and Bruce said together.
"Well then, perhaps the words of Mordechai Wayne could shed some light on this subject," Bruce went on to say.
"Was he a man who hunted demons?" Samantha questioned.
"From what I remember my father saying Mordechai was a practical man, but there was something about him that everyone would agree on."
"What was that?"
"He always got to the truth."
Samantha and Virgil stood there and watched as Bruce walked out of the carriage house carrying the diary of Mordechai Wayne. What was in that diary? Could his words reveal the truth or was it just a dead end?
Samantha felt the tug of the demon once more in her mind.
"Don't let him read that diary! Stop him! Destroy it!"
Samantha ignored the demon's pleas. She knew Virgil had done the right thing in giving the diary to Bruce. It was time to get answers they sought."
_
Bruce Wayne carried his ancestor's diary back to the Manor. This was something he wanted to read in private. He first stopped and talked with Alfred in the dining room. Bruce saw Alfred was polishing the silver. Preparing for the first meal of the day. Bruce had not expected to be talking with Samantha during the last hours of the night as the sun rose in the east.
"I'll have breakfast in my in my study," Bruce said. "He knew his grandchildren would be waking soon and his study would give him adequate peace to be able to read."
"Very good, Sir," Alfred said as he placed the eighth fork back in its place among the other silverware. Returning to the kitchen, he started breakfast.
Bruce headed down the hall, entered his study, and closed the door. He walked over to one of the tall wing-backed chairs and sat down. He opened his ancestor's diary and began reading the first entry.
The year is 1693.
1st of August 1693 in the year of our Lord
I received a letter from my brother, Nathaniel Wayne, though he no longer acknowledges our father's name. Nathaniel has always been driven by fear, fear of the unknown. While I am a man of science and the need to seek the truth. Nathaniel indicated in his letter that there are witches in Gotham Colony and that I must help him to root them out. Ever since the witch trials in Salem the year before, Nathaniel has been possessed with accusing and even destroying every innocent woman who has not married or has been widowed from mysterious circumstances as witchcraft. Perhaps it is my duty to return to Gotham Colony to stop this madness that my brother seems to have spread.
'Witch trials in Gotham?' Bruce paused for a moment in his reading. 'I don't remember reading about those in Gotham's history. Mordecai had a brother? I wonder what happened to him.'
4th of September 1693 in the year of our Lord
I arrived in Gotham colony and was distracted by a commotion that commanded my attention. A woman has had a bat nailed to her door. I do not begrudge her for being terrified, but after examining the bat and the nail I was able to deduce what had happened. My brother, however, was determined and claimed the deed was the responsibility of a witch. The woman was single, and her family had died from the plague that swept through parts of New England just two years prior. Oh, how soon people forget. I was able to convince my brother that the woman was innocent, and that the crime was committed by the very woman who claimed her husband was missing due to the young woman. Even so, the colonists of Gotham continue to persist that there was a devil in the woods not far from the colony.
"How far from Gotham colony are you speaking of," Mordecai questioned.
"Half a day's ride on horseback," a citizen spoke up. "South of the colony."
Bruce paused in his reading.
'Half a day's ride,' Bruce thought. 'I guess if you were traveling on horse-back it might take you half a day.'
Bruce went back to reading from Mordecai's diary. He liked Mordecai Wayne. So far, he seemed to be a fair and just man, one that valued truth and deductive reasoning. Bruce read other entries and not too long his head began to nod, and his eyes closed. Nothing would compare as to what happened next.
continues with part 7
