There's Another Side

There's Another Side - Word Count: 1,995

He was awakened by a loud banging on the front door.

         Startled, Jeff's head snapped up from his book. He quickly reviewed the events that had brought him to this particular place, at this particular time, wondering if he’d imagined the banging on the door. The clock displayed 3:00am.

         The concierge had told him stories regarding the ghostly ‘visitors’ that revealed themselves to any occupant of this particular room. Previous occupants had described seeing a ragged old woman and a bearded old man, dressed in rustic garb, and two frightened children dressed in tattered clothing.

         These ghostly visits ended the same way; after cursory observation of the guests by the ghosts, they simply faded away. The only constant in descriptions of the apparitions was that they carried a woven reed plate, upon which appeared to be several objects. Guests recalled a colorful stone, a bit of crystal, a small wooden figurine, and a small disk of gold.

         Interested in paranormal events since growing up on a small farm in Wisconsin, he encountered literally hundreds of folktales of myth and magic growing up, thanks to German, Dutch and Scandinavian populations that surrounded him. His family was of Dutch descent, and as was the custom those early years, he was the end product of a very large family; the more hands to manage the farms, the better.

         His grandmother and mother had regaled him of legends related to his cultural roots, including those of other cultures to capture his imagination. His own personal experiences with odd events were not remembered by him, but related to him by his kin.

         His current energies were taken up by Information Technology; an abrupt departure from the farm work he and his brothers had grown up with over the years. This had left him with precious little time for social activities. He still felt, at the young age of 29, that he had plenty of time to think about that, but he knew his mother was more concerned for potential grandchildren.

         This latest adventure involved a 30-year legend of ghostly visitations to a singular guest room of the Dutch Inn near Little Chute, Wisconsin; Room 122 to be exact. These visitations would reportedly take place at 3am each Friday morning, and had been occurring with annoying regularity, according to the service staff.

         Despite the protestations of the Inn, he’d managed to reserve that particular room for two days, Thursday through Friday on his next vacation. He’d brought a small voice recorder and a digital camera to record whatever might happen that Thursday night. Whatever happened, he felt sure that he’d be able to explain it away; most probably a prank by the locals for publicity.

         Arriving early, Jeff obtained a quick lay of the land and discovered a large Dutch culture in this small Wisconsin area, and the folks that he encountered were very friendly and informative. A few cautious questions regarding the local legend of the haunted room at the Inn garnered him a few curious possibilities, one of which seemed to make more sense than any others.

         Local sights and tastes were well worth the trip, and after a trip to one of their museums, he’d gotten some good historical background for the one theory that seemed plausible, if in fact the haunting were real at all. It seemed that an old country doctor, a Dutchman named Hans Schoonmaker, was called to the bedside of the city mayor’s pregnant daughter, who was in the throes of a very difficult labor.

         An old midwife, who usually handled most of the births in the small town, had called him in as soon as she’d determined that the birth was going to be breech, by sending two of the local children to search for him. Once the doctor had arrived, he saw that the midwife had called him too late, for both mother and child were lost.

         In his grief, the mayor cursed the townsfolk attending to her delivery and the very spot on which his daughter and her unborn child had perished, condemning the doctor, midwife and the two children to search for the ‘seventh son of a seventh son’ through eternity to bring his kin back from this brink of tragedy.

         Further questioning of the local residents revealed that they were a very superstitious lot, and one of the prevailing myths in their culture believed that the ‘seventh son of a seventh son’ was possessed of some occult healing powers, and could, by a touch, or a talisman of some sort, reverse disease, injury or even death.

         Although the house in which the tragedy took place was razed after World War II, the Inn was built in its place, and room 122 just happened to have been constructed in the exact spot where the woman and her child died.

         It made a great story, he thought, and spent the evening outlining the details accumulated throughout his visit in the surrounding city that day, wrapping a nice story around it for his graduate writing class. He felt sure they’d get a kick out of the superstitions of current day descendants of long ago immigrants in rural cities these days.

         Tying the old lady, old man and the two ragged children into the explanation of the specters with the reported sighting of the various guests who’d stayed in his room in the past made it possible to write a straightforward story, adding nothing of his own imagination to make things more plausible to the reader.

         Finally, setting his alarm for 2am, he prepared his equipment for recording anything that might happen that Friday morning of note. A pot of hot coffee, a textbook open in front of him, he settled in to await the next hour.

         Obviously he’d fallen asleep, and as he considered this, the banging on the door rang out again, this time even more insistent. Turning on the audio recorder, and grabbing his digital camera, he crept to the door and looked out through the security hole in the door. He saw nothing.

         Finally, he took his courage in his hands and swung open the door, expecting most anything. What he saw took him completely by surprise, although he should have expected it. An old man, bearded, dressed in rural clothing from a generation ago stood before him, hope in his eyes.

         Behind him stood an old woman, also dressed in a generations old wardrobe, with a stained apron covering her front. Two children hung on to her skirt, looking at him fearfully. The old man held out a woven reed platter containing several relatively common items.

         “Kiest u een” the old man whispered.

         Jeff’s Dutch was rudimentary, but roughly translated; he was being invited to choose one of the items on the platter. In accordance with the stories, there was a polished stone, a crystal, a wooden image, and a gold disk. Seeing that the apparitions were not fading away, Jeff reached out slowly and passed his hand over the platter.

         When his hand reached the crystal, it flashed into life, glowing in a soft white light. Reflexively, he picked it up to examine it more closely. Looking up, he noted that the platter had disappeared, but the crystal and the apparitions remained.

         “Dat is uw talisman” the old man continued. “Kom met mij mee.”

         Jeff followed that to mean that the crystal now belonged to him, and to come with him. He had no idea where the man was taking him, since none of the stories had ever mentioned anyone getting this far in the illusion. Perhaps he thought, he was only dreaming this. The old man reached out to touch his arm.

         In a flash, everything spun about him wildly, and he began to feel nauseous. When the spinning stopped, he found himself in the bedroom of a middle income home, but the screams that assailed his ears caused him to panic, until he saw where they were coming from.

         A woman lay in the bed, her legs extended to the sides and two heads hiding what appeared to be the birth of a child. The heads he recognized, belonged to the old man and woman who had appeared at his door that morning. They were feverishly working on the birth, which was apparently NOT going very well. The two children who had appeared with them were holding on to each other at the doorway to the bedroom, frightened.

         The acrid smell of perspiration and rubbing alcohol combined with the stifling heat in the room created an almost palpable atmosphere. Looking about the room, he noted an older gentleman in the shadow behind the headboard, a towel in his hands, occasionally reaching over to dry the sweat from her forehead. There was a look of pure terror on his face. Jeff felt certain that this was her father.

         As her screams began to get weaker and weaker, the old man turned around to look up at him. Sweat poured from his face, and his hands were bloody with the efforts to free the baby from the birth canal. Soon, the old lady turned to him as well, her face twisted into grief and panic, hands trembling as she tried to clean them in her apron.

         In a voice shaking with despair, the old man whispered, “U bent degene, zevende zoon van een zevende zoon.”

         Jeff struggled to translate it into his fragmentary Dutch, coming up with, ‘You are the one; the seventh son of a seventh son.’

         This nightmare was too real, he thought, and wondered if he could force himself to wake up. In addition, his hand was beginning to burn hotly, and looking down to see what the problem was, he noticed that the crystal that he’d picked from the platter was glowing nearly white hot.

         The old man pointed to Jeff’s hand, and motioned to the belly of the pregnant woman, a plea in his eyes.

         He WAS the seventh son of a seventh son, he realized. He’d not made that connection before, simply because he’d never had reason to, until this trip.

         Reaching past the two situated in front of the woman, Jeff placed his hands on her abdomen, just above her pubis. He felt the heat from the crystal flowing into the woman’s body, and for a moment or two, he feared for her safety. Soon, however, the glowing heat dissipated, and his hands returned to normal.

         As he shook his head, he suddenly heard the cry of a baby, and the triumphant shout of the old man. The mother was silently crying, but seemed to be all right, and her father and the children surrounded the bed.

         The old man however, had wrapped the baby in a blanket, and instead of placing it on the chest of the mother, turned and showed her to Jeff, saying, “Beatrice; Beatrice Dijkstra.”

         In that moment, he woke up once again in response to a loud banging on the front door. This time however, it was daylight, Friday morning, and the cleaning crew had arrived.

         Mission accomplished in a manner of speaking, he returned to his work and his studies. There was much to be considered, he thought, but first he needed some normalcy. The one mystery that obsessed him at the moment was the fact that, for whatever reason, he still possessed the crystal of his nightmare.

         His return to his graduate writing class dropped yet another inexplicable mystery into his otherwise regulated life. Walking into class, he noticed that his customary desk was already occupied by an absolutely beautiful woman, someone he’d never seen before. Thinking that she was a transfer student, he approached her to point out that she was sitting in his desk when she looked up at him, with beautiful mesmerizing blue eyes, and introduced herself.

         With a bright smile, she said, “Hi, my name is Beatrice; Beatrice Dijkstra.”

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