The Haunted Spirits of Fort Mifflin (Rick Thane book 3)

Chapter 3: Silent Guns

Chapter 3: Silent Guns

The ride to my uncle's house was silent. No one uttered a single word, and that included Penny and Holly. I didn't know that my father was even still around. For all I knew, he had a new family and had moved on, but I guess he kept in contact with his sister, my aunt June.

My father had quite a large family. Three sisters, Rosie, Amelia and June and a brother, Ben. Rosie was the youngest of my father's siblings, so I gathered Holly was her daughter, but really I only assumed. I didn't want to press Holly as, to be honest, I didn't want to know about my father.

Arriving at the house and the entire mood was lifted from the frigid feeling car. My Aunt June met us at the door and rushed to hug me. 'Oh my dear boy, don't you look like you need feedin' up,' she shot at Penny.

'Rick is perfectly capable of making his own dinner.' She said under her breath. 'Rick, you're not an idiot, are you? You can operate an electric oven.'

'Just don't', I muttered. 'Nice and pleasant. Okay?'

Penny sighed but put on a brave face and followed Aunt June and Holly into the house while Uncle Jim and I got the luggage.

'So,' Jim began in an awkward tone as he dropped the luggage off at the bottom of the stairs. 'This ghost thing-'

'Can we not?' I said shaking my head. 'This is our vacation. We're not here on business. We're here to see family and then go back to our rather adventurous life in the UK. I'm not here to uproot people, piss anyone off or... whatever my abilities may do to people.'

'So...so you can see the dead?' He seemed extremely uncomfortable in asking and must have taken a great deal of courage to ask, but what could I say? He had heard that I could see the dead, but like everyone else, there's always some damn show and tell with people. I felt no presence around him, or in the house and nor did I see or hear anything. The house was clean, which was often the case with many houses in the states. Apart from those who were near-tragic deaths or houses that were buried near or on sacred Native American land.

Thankfully, I was spared the explanation when I heard June call me from the lounge at the end of the hallway. 'Coming.' I left while giving Jim an apologetic look. As I entered the lounge, Holly was sitting directly opposite Penny, on the semi-circular sofa, staring at her as a child stares at something strange in a zoo. June was fishing around for something in an ottoman under one of the bay windows. 'What's up, Aunt June?'

'Oh Rick, where was that tiny plaque you made when you were little, I want to show Penny.'

'Plaque? What are you talking about?' Wandering to her I leaned over to see what she was looking for and my eyes went wide. In this ottoman were dozens of paper clippings and letters from newspapers and they were all about me. 'My mother sent you these,' I picked up one letter that was from a local newspaper in my home town. It was dated 1983, I was ten, three years after I acquired my abilities.

'No, actually your father collected them,' she turned and smiled and brought up a small hand-printed plaque. 'This is what you did when you were seven. See, there are two hand-prints of the same hand?'

Helping her up I took it and turned it around to see the date. I vaguely remember making it and couldn't really remember the reason why. The plaque was oval, about two feet in length and was made of clay. I'd decorated it quite plainly. It was all white apart from a few splodges of red, blue, green and yellow. They weren't anything interesting, but I wanted to have some colour. 'What's the significance of two handprints the same?'

'You told your parents that one was for you and the other was for your brother.'

The entire room went quiet and an icy feeling gripped my heart as the memories came flooding back. It was the same day that I told my parents that I had met my brother and it was also within that very same week that the school knew there was something "different" about me. It's when my life turned completely upside down.