Free Poltergeist II - The Other Side by James Kahn Page A

her. “Right.” She halted. “I know. And I hope they’ll learn to forget all this soon.”
    “They cannot learn by forgetting.”
    His sophistry angered her. “And what would you have me do? They’re children, for God’s sake.”
    “Children have fought wars,” said Taylor, as if he were explaining something to a child. “They have built nations. They are strong and have courage. Don’t patronize them because they’re young.”
    “I protect them because they’re young,” she corrected.
    He tried to make her understand. “Children have special powers. They have a magic that most adults lose. Because children don’t act against their natures. They are like warriors in this way. Only ‘civilized’ adults, who have learned to fear themselves, need fear the kind of Evil that now covets your spirits.”
    “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” she scolded like a mom. “That kind of talk. It’s just not part of the normal kind of world I want my kids to grow up in.”
    “What you want has little to do with what is ‘normal.’ In my world, normality includes demons and beasts. In your world also, I suspect. No, I don’t suspect—I know. We all have beasts to conquer.”
    “With a baseball bat?” She tried sarcasm, but her heart wasn’t in it.
    “With whatever we have,” he assured her.
    “Well, what I have is my love for my children.”
    “And that is your greatest strength. Never lose it.”
    “I . . . won’t.” Again she was disarmed by his concurrence.
    “But the universe is a wide place, with many paths. We each take a different path, though we may go to the same place—and these paths cross like the colored threads in a rug, weaving a beautiful pattern. Only when a thread leaves its shuttle to join the path of another is the pattern upset. So we each must remain on our own thread, in its own place. Your place is in the love of your family. Mine is in the way of the warrior. Your husband, I think, still seeks his thread.” He took her hand, looked at her fingers. “Your hand is strong, though—you can hold much together.”
    She felt suddenly moved by his reassurance, by the poetry in his words and in his soul. And quite against her wishes, tears came to her eyes.
    That was the scene Steve saw from the corner of the house: Taylor and Diane holding hands, Diane moved to tears. That, on top of the trouble he was having with the car, was just the last damn straw. He came storming up to them, sweating, dirty, and distinctly displeased. “Okay, Taylor . . . you can stay in this house . . . you can have my aura, my spirit, my ghosts. But leave my car alone. Okay? Hands off! It’s worse than before.”
    “Car’s still angry?” Taylor shrugged, then nodded. “Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.” He waited a moment, then spoke more softly. “Sometimes everything does.”
    That night Taylor sat in the backyard, looking up at the stars, trying to find strength in their patterns.
    This was a difficult family to help. There were none so blind, his paternal great-grandmother used to tell him, as those who would not see.
    As if in answer to this thought, Steve approached and sat at the picnic table. He was drinking tequila straight from the bottle; it was blinding him further, though endowing him, at least temporarily, with a generosity of spirit he was incapable of when sober.
    He took a long swig and offered the bottle to Taylor. “Whew! Ta kill ya,” he joked.
    Taylor shook his head politely. “Used to drink. Bad dreams. I gave it up.”
    Steve shrugged. Taylor probably had a drinking problem, he figured. Too bad; it was good medicine. Helped you forget what you didn’t want to remember.
    He took another swallow and forgot something else.
    Taylor continued staring at the sky.
    Steve said, “See somethin’?”
    “No,” said Taylor. He wasn’t looking to see; he was looking to feel.
    “Well, uh . . . what’re you doin’, then?”
    “Seeking power,” said