Unfinished Business, Part Three

5 November 2006

I finally got around to the guest book from Dad’s funeral. I’ve always felt awkward about these things. I sign them when I go to funerals, of course, but I’m never sure why. Is it just a record of how many people bothered to show up? Am I supposed to take some comfort from it somehow? Is it more for them? I kinda always assumed other people knew why they were doing it, but it never seemed appropriate to ask. But now that I had one, I didn’t know what to do with it. I skimmed through the names and short messages, hoping I would get a sense of what everyone else thought it was for, when I noticed the one from Benedict.

“When you’re ready, call me,” it said. “We need to talk.” I decided that I might as well be ready, set the book aside, and stepped away to call him. I don’t know why I still do that. It’s not like I have roommates anymore, except Jackie, and she’s never going to give me weird looks for talking about spirits.

“Matteson,” he said, by way of a greeting. “I expected it to take you a little longer.”

“Is this a good time?” I asked.

“Might as well be. Sprichst du Deutsch?”

“Yeah. Dad was very keen on teaching me a few languages.” He continued in German, so I did the same, and it took me a minute to figure out why.

“Your father and I were working on a case. Well, I brought him a case, and he gave me the information I needed to move on it. He said something very interesting, though, and I need to know if he ever told you.”

“I will need you to be a bit more specific.”

“Did your father ever tell you that you do more than break magic?” I sat down, thinking about that for a moment.

“No. He did not. What do you mean?” I heard some conversation in the background, sounded probably English. It grew more distant, as if Benedict was slipping away from a group.

“If he took notes, they may be more” here he said a word I didn’t understand, and when I repeated it back as a question, he said, “ah…helpful, I suppose. Clear.”

“Like ‘enlightening?’” I asked, in English.

“Yes, much like that,” he continued in German. “But what I know of it is this: your power is not just a passive breaking of magic, or at least it does not have to be. I searched that town you told me about, in Ohio. What they were doing there is something you can do, maybe by nature, maybe with some work.”

“What is it?” I slipped back into German.

“He said it as ‘enforcing a version of reality,’” that last bit in English, “as if you set rules on spirits, or on the world of spirits. That town was…separated from the rest of the world of spirits. It was a dead zone, and they were trying to create a new form of spirit world there that they liked. We have been searching for others.”

“I will see if he left notes.”

“Good. I have to go. We should talk more about this.” I agreed, and then he was gone. I sat in the chair for a few moments, tapping the arm of it, before I finally got up and went to the basement. I dug around the books on the shelves, until I found one out of place. It was in with the texts in a language I hadn’t learned, so I had never looked there before, but it was definitely I English. I opened it to find that it was a text on how the worlds meet, and as I flipped through the pages a note fell out. I sat down and opened it.

​“There is no doubt now that Johnny is a door between the worlds,” it said, in Dad’s handwriting. “The things he sees and knows line up with too much of this research. The question is whether he is an open door, or a closed one; if open, I must keep him away from these things for his own safety. But if closed, he may be exactly what can stop Jeremiah.” There were no other notes in the book, but I gathered that a ‘closed’ door must be what I turned out to be, given the way he didn’t try to keep me away from these things. I turned back to the beginning of the book and began reading.

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