The Flight to Briarwood
Tara Woodfield reclined in the luxury jet set, barely feeling any turbulence, and wearing a rejuvenation-sleep mask over her eyes when she felt her phone buzz, then give off a small notification. It was an indicator that someone "important" had messaged.
She sighed in annoyance, as if any disturbance was of little importance compared to her rest and beauty regime.
She pulled out her phone and frowned when she saw that the screen was blue with tiny twinkling lights. An odd chill flowed through the cabin, but Tara ignored it as she shook and tapped her phone. She sighed again and fully removed her eye mask. Before it was off her face, a blue light seemed to shimmer from nowhere. Tomas and Selene had both been awake, unable to sleep, their eyes slowly drifting to find each other as chills ran down their backs.
They both jumped as Tara's annoyed voice boomed through the cabin.
"Tomas, get this working. I need to check my messages." Her attitude was that of a higher-up speaking to a lackey, and she held the phone with two fingers closer to her body, as if she was refusing to extend her arm to reach out to Tomas.
Tomas looked at her for a long moment, then rolled his eyes and rose, taking the phone and frowning.
He looked at Tara's wallpaper, a filtered picture of her smiling broadly into the camera, and then looked at her.
"What do you want me to do, Tara? It needs your face or fingerprint to start."
She frowned, snatching the phone from him, "It is just a blue sparkly screen, Tomas! Fix…" She stopped and blinked several times, her eyes focusing on her picture. "Oh." She shrugged as she sat up and used her fingerprint to open the phone. "I guess it glitched or something. Maybe it's time for a new one."
As she checked her messages, Tomas and Selene froze, both their minds immediately moving to thoughts of Willow Shore. Again, their eyes met, knowing looks passing between them.
Tara sighed dramatically. "Daniel says that we do not have permission to enter the property yet. We will stay in a hotel in Briarwood until Kathleen gets us in." She rolled her eyes. "Of course, the Morrisons would make things as difficult as possible."
Kathleen sat listening to Marcus Jasper as he explained the reason behind the ritualistic reconstruction.
"The Morrisons and the Jaspers have been tied together for at least a century." The man shook his head, in seeming disbelief, "Believe it or not, we still run in the same circles and see each other often at events."
"The wall at Willow Shore is essentially a promise between our families." He shuffled through papers as he spoke. "Here we are. We started in 1920…" He paused, "That's a long time," a whisper mostly spoken to himself with another shake of the head. "…With this ongoing project, and we actually just redid the wall five years ago in 2020."
"We have strict instructions to always use whatever the current best materials are, add 17.25 feet to the previous construction height." He looked up at Kathleen, "It is actually never necessary because the previous wall is always still pristine." He looked back to the paperwork, his lips pursed, "and we are never to recycle the materials in any way, shape, or form. All previous materials, no matter their condition, have to be destroyed."
He frowned. "It is all actually very odd, to be honest." He looked up at her as if he needed to see her expression. "I was over the project in 2020, and I am telling you, it was very hard not to keep the deconstructed wall. It was all too pristine." He paused, looking off to the spot behind her. "Now that I think about it, it was actually too pristine to be twenty years old as well." He shivered, his eyes falling to the desk.
Another man walked into the shared break area with a serious look on his face. "I remember that. Grandpa almost beat you to death behind that." His face became even more serious. "Grandpa is always very serious about that job."
The second man, Timothy Jasper, Marcus's older brother, handed Kathleen a new sheet of paper. "It seems Adam Morrison is still over things. I saw him at the tennis club last week. He's a pretty good guy."
Kathleen nodded as she focused, took notes, snapped photos of the paperwork they weren't going to allow her to take, and all the while her phone had vibrated. She knew it must have been important, but this was too. Especially when she found out there was no toxic leak of any kind.
She sat in her car, a frown on her face. She had already begun mapping out the Morrison family tree while she waited for her appointment with the Jaspers.
Adam was a descendent of one of the main lines of the family. Unlike many other families, the matriarch, in the late 1800's, split the main assets of the family between two of her grandchildren, Edwin Leads Morrison, and Samantha Teal Morrison-Trace.
Adam Morrison was of Edwin's line, and the head of Samantha Teal's line was her namesake, Samantha Tracie Morrison-Lettson.
Kathleen leaned back, her eyes closed. Her day had truly been taxing. She exhaled, pulling her phone out to check her messages. Just as she noticed an odd smell of damp earth and mint or spearmint, and she was breathing in deeply, her eyes fell on her rearview mirror and she screamed louder and longer than she had ever screamed before.
Her phone flew from her hand as she opened the car door and fell out onto the ground. She backed away quickly, her hands pulling her along almost faster than her feet could keep up, her eyes focused on the backseat. It took a long while for her to realize there was nothing there.
But the image was burned into her memory: the sad eyes, the long, straight, silky-looking, black hair, the smooth tanned complexion, and the slightly open mouth, as if something was about to be said.
She flinched when hands helped her up and someone asked if she was okay. Her eyes still searching the backseat for her, for the woman in the blue dress.
Her heart thundered in her chest as someone asked if she needed an ambulance. She shook her head, her eyes still glued to the backseat of her rental. She turned to a kind woman's face and flinched again, half expecting her to have on a blue dress with an eerie twinkling glow. She plastered a smile on her face.
"Thank you. Thank you so much." She began dusting herself off to buy some time. "It's been a long day of research, basements still give me the willies."
The kind lady smiled, nodded, and patted her arm.
"Why can't he be happy?"
Kathleen flinched back violently, horror written on her face as she stared, wild-eyed. She felt arms catch her and heard a man's voice ask if she was okay.
Her brain fought to understand. Was this really happening, or was she having a mental break? She heard her own hoarse voice ask: "Wh… what did you just say?" The woman looked at her with concern, then to the person behind Kathleen.
"I… I said, 'Get some rest, dear. You can't take that money with you.' I apologize if my words offended you. Are you sure you're okay?"
She wanted to scream no, she wanted to ask them to take her to a hospital and allow her to sleep for a week, but she smiled and slowly walked away, not even attempting to respond.
Kathleen exhaled, took a step to the car, and paused, looking into the backseat as if making sure. She found her cell phone, grabbed her purse, and listened to Daniel Hale's voicemail in the small coffeehouse across the street.
The luxury jet landed at the tiny airport thirty miles outside Briarwood. Tara ignored the stewardess' warning look as she pulled out her phone and looked at her messages. She unbuckled her seatbelt as the plane was coming to a stop.
"It looks like Kathleen got us permission to go in, but we still need to wait." She sighed dramatically as she pulled her carry bag over her shoulder. "The caretaker seems to be hunting or fishing or whatever. He is going to take a half a day to a day to get back to Briarwood."
She stooped over to look out the window. "Welcome to Hicksville, everyone. Pray the hotel isn't too horrid."