Read Spirit Legacy for Free Online

At least I imagined it was, never having set foot inside a church. Feeling a sudden flood of pity for the poor old man, I reached out and covered his spidery old hand with mine.
    What happened next happened so fast, I couldn’t react.
    It was as though I had flicked some invisible switch. His hand flipped and jerked suddenly upward and clamped mine in an iron grip; I wouldn’t have believed someone so old and frail could grasp so tightly. He pulled me with such force that I flew off the sofa and was suddenly on my knees before him. His face, so carefully trained on nothingness a moment before, was staring at me with a desperation I could not fathom. His eyes were still cloudy, but something was awake behind the veil, and that something terrified me.
    “Send me back!” he cried, with a voice hoarse and cracked from disuse. His other hand clutched for mine, claw-like, and grasped it just as tightly.
    I could say nothing; I couldn’t move, such was my shock at the sudden awakening of the unwakeable. He pulled at me again, so that my face was inches from his.
    “I’ve seen it, Elizabeth! I’ve seen it! Send me back! I want to go back!” His voice broke and shuddered as he shook me in his hands. He was staring at me with such intensity and desperation that I couldn’t breathe.
    “I’m … not … Elizabeth!” I managed to choke out.
    “Send me back, do you hear me? I’ve seen it! I’ve seen it!” His voice rose to a tortured shriek and he shook me harder, his hands crushing mine. I tried to scramble to my feet but he held me down.
    “I can’t send… I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not Elizabeth! Let go of me!” I gasped.
    At that moment the door burst open and Karen flew across the room. She threw herself between us and wrenched my grandfather’s hands away. I cried out in pain as I was flung to the floor, sliding into the wall where the back of my head cracked into the windowsill. For a moment everything in front of my eyes disappeared in a bright flash of blindness, and I had to shake my head to regain my vision. When my eyes refocused, Karen shimmered into view, cradling my grandfather in a comforting embrace. The old man was crying inconsolably on her shoulder.
    “It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay,” Karen cooed, stroking his withered old cheek.
    His eyes were turned again to the window, looking far beyond anything visible to the living eye, and his mouth was moving rapidly again between his sobs, in a silent mantra I could now recognize.
    I’ve seen it. Send me back.
    When his sobs had quieted, Karen carefully extricated herself from him and knelt beside me on the floor.
    “Jess, are you okay?”
    “Um, yeah. I think so,” I replied, unable to repress the quiver in my voice.
    “I’m so sorry, honey. He hasn’t done anything like that in years. I would have warned you if I’d thought he was capable of any sort of outburst.”
    “No, I … it’s okay.” I tried to rise. The room spun.
    “Don’t try to stand up, sweetie. I think you gave your head a pretty good whack on the windowsill. Just sit for a minute, I’ll be right back.”
    I must have looked frightened because she added, “Don’t worry about Dad, he’s calmed down now. Just don’t touch him.”
    I sat on the floor and closed my eyes, trying to relocate my center of balance. My grandfather gave no further acknowledgment of my presence. The only visible evidence of his outburst was his newly anxious expression and the tears that still glimmered damply on his cheeks, reflecting the sunlight.
    Karen returned a moment later, followed by the nurse from the reception desk. The nurse’s formerly jovial expression was twisted with motherly concern as she bent over my grandfather, a syringe flashing in her white-gloved hand. He vanished behind her for a moment and when he reappeared again, his face had lightened into the attitude it had worn when I’d first seen it: expectant, eager.
    Karen brought me a cold compress, and