Candle in the Wind

By T Connor Michael and T. Burchell

Elizabeth Feye had problems as a sophomore...

...many of them, all helping to make her time at Edgar Allan Poe High School a hell on earth. Short, myopic, and overweight, the only thing going for her was an immeasurable IQ (and even that caused more problems than it solved). In the end it was in Phys Ed (a class she was failing), during a volleyball game, that her real problems began, starting with her introduction to the mysterious janitor Mr. Hawkins. And through him her mundane life would disappear and the veil over her eyes would be torn free, her legacy revealed. Then the real hell began.

Thus are woven the first strands in the tapestry of the Chronicles of the Ladder Society, where nothing, and no one, is what it seems. Through four volumes and more the story continues.

Elizabeth is moved like a pawn on a chessboard with no squares and no visible opponents yet sports a knight and a queen of origin unknown. Good and Evil, ever at odds, clash on a historical field of battle, and the winner takes the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T Connor Michael
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781736015803

Book preview

Contents

Dear Reader

Candle in the Wind

Copyright

Dedication

Other Titles by the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

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3

4

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Dear Reader,

This is the first of a series that illuminates the mission and deeds of The Ladder Society and where the mysterious Jack Hawkins initially makes an appearance (chronologically speaking). However, Mr. Hawkins does cross over into Heed No Evil, The Lost and Found Department, Driving Miss Sandy and other upcoming titles. He is, to put it bluntly, the eye of the hurricane. Many other characters also have trouble staying within the confines of their own stories and wander into the tales of other players. You never know where or when Vic the Apple, Cuddy MacDonell, Charlie Carter, An Bronntanas o Dhia, Zorra or Sal the Icepick Volpe might be just around the corner...

Enjoy,

t connor michael

Copyright © 2021 by Dobermann Enterprises LTD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Dobermann Enterprises LTD

Black Hawk, Colorado

www.tconnormichael.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Cover Illustration and Design © 2020

by Michael Molinet

Book Layout and Ebook conversion by YellowStudios

Candle in the Wind / t connor michael and T. Burchell

ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9983849-9-3

ISBN eBook: 978-1-7360158-0-3

To Tania, Mo realta treorach!

Other Titles by the Author

Here Know Evil

Heed No Evil

The Lost and Found Department

Driving Miss Sandy

The Chronicles of the Ladder Society

Book One: Candle in the Wind

Book Two: Bad Moon Rising

Book Three: The Gales of November

Book Four: Crow’s Raven

Book Five: The Last Architects - A Love Story

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While this book is a possibly a work of fiction, there exists a person in our world upon whom Aubrey de la Feye was based. When in school she looked to the stars for her future. But darkness is everywhere, even in institutes of learning, and she was advised not to aspire, but to settle, settle for less of an education. But with the support of her family she stood her ground and made Harvard University her home for four years. She is now an astronomer and the universe is hers.

PROLOGUE

The fall wind eddied the leaves around the stoop of the old building, the dead foliage denied entrance by the stout oak door. It was already half-past dark and the alley itself was as black as any of the nooks and crannies that normally defied the light of day. Inside, however, things were different. Not allowed to escape the interior, bright light illuminated every part of the room where the four people were assembled. The air around them was charged with emotion and other, less-easily identified passions and fears. All the inhabitants had the look of friends, bound by years and circumstance, come together for a purpose, yet each wishing to be somewhere else.

An old man with glasses and thinning hair spoke first: You all know what has happened. Just as did I, you felt it. It cannot be denied.

The big man in the corner stood up. Yes, I did. We all did. The point is rather, what do we do about it?

A gray-haired woman spoke without rising from the easy chair she sprawled in: Is all our work to be undone by a sphere of leather wrapped ‘round nine pounds of air?

Aye, said a smaller, red-haired man. Can this be arrested? ‘Tis such a small, wee thing.

The old man, obviously the most equal of equals, spoke again: You can’t wish this away, nor can we stop it. It rises to meet us like the morning sun.

I see not a sun’s warmth with this day’s doings, said the big man.

Nae, neither do I. Darkness is all that I perceive, echoed the redhead.

The old man sighed. The genie is out of the bottle. That is the truth of it. Yet I have neither the ability nor the desire to stopper the jug now that Fate has had her way. If not now, when? We have always been at our best when assailed.

When pushed, yes. But are we not being shoved in a direction we dare not travel? asked the woman.

The old man shrugged visibly and walked his vision to each person in turn. Milady, we must act…or be mere reactionaries. That is the gist of it. Near two decades we have readied ourselves as best we could. If the fight comes to us, better we advance to the line rather than wait to be assaulted when least expected. Lest you have better arguments to present, I feel we must take the offensive. A ball has started this. Let us take that ball and run with it. The old man’s eyes visited each person, questing for doubt and indecision. Satisfied, he spoke again: I am putting The Ladder in play. Advise those that are unaware what is now at our doorstep. This was not wholly unexpected, and I have already put certain things into motion. This may yet turn to our advantage.

Aye, maybe so, and maybe not so, said the redhead. But sure as trees have roots what has happened has reached the ears of them what should remain deaf.

Truth again, my old friend. Yet what happened was undirected, unfocused, and truly omni-directional. They’ll not be finding the source in short order. And time is what we have on our side, though many know it not. While dark things stumble and grope in the shadows for a glimpse of what is, we will move forward at quickstep. Belay your fears, for it feeds our enemy. We have not passed through years of fire and brimstone to be now thwarted by such a small act. We are sworn to our task; let us begin this, and end it. Tonight, let us consign ourselves to action with as much passion as we have remained quiescent for these many years. The old man lifted his glass to the air and spoke in a voice that belied his years: Confusion to our enemies. We must commit. I ask that The Ladder be lifted.

As one, each person in the room, quietly, with harsh tones, or silently, repeated the phrase. And with that mutual litany The Ladder was raised for the first time in two millennium.

1

And the story begins…

It is so incredibly nice here. I can feel the wind at my back, and the sun on my face if I look to the west, or where I think west should be. And the music. Sweet, happy children’s voices, singing as if they haven’t a care in the world. I think I should know the song, but I just can’t seem to pull out the words. The mountain I’m on allows me to see, well, into forever. But somehow I know that this wonderful moment won’t last. The Voice will come, sooner or later, calling me. Maybe this time I won’t go. I really don’t want to leave, so why can’t I just stay? And as if what she thought was an instantaneous, self-fulfilling prophecy, The Voice shattered the bucolic scene, and she was quickly wrenched away.

Elizabeth, get up right NOW or you’ll be late for school!

Oh, God how she hated hearing that! Five days out of every week her mornings started with those same horrible words: Elizabeth!, Up!, and School!. She hated all three. Worse yet, she couldn’t do anything about any of them. She was stuck with the name (and by the way, if you had to live with a name for the rest of your life, why couldn’t you pick out your own? Who made up these stupid rules anyway? The last person who really made the name Elizabeth work was the first Queen of England, and she’d been dead since 1603. But her mother would keep calling until she did get up, and she had to go to class. It just wasn’t fair.

Elizabeth turned over and aimed her face in the general direction of her alarm clock. She thought it read 7:15, but without her glasses she wasn’t sure. Her radio was playing, and Julie Andrews was just finishing up some song from The Sound of Music. Maybe she could get up on time if she set the alarm to ‘buzzer’ instead of waking to music. But just the thought of being vibrated awake by that obnoxious noise was enough to keep the button set for ‘music’. Since there was no use in prolonging the agony, Elizabeth got up and did her morning get-it-together-kid routine: Go to the bathroom, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, make the bed, and gather up the schoolwork scattered across her desk. It was time to face the day. She figured it was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Some joke that was. She snapped off the lights and clomped downstairs to the kitchen.

As usual, Elizabeth was greeted by her mother with the same words she used almost every day. She wished she had a brother or sister she could make bets with about what her mother would say. She would win the wager every morning. Elizabeth, what took you so long? The bus will be here any minute! her mother said in that infuriatingly rushed way that Elizabeth hated.

Next, just like clockwork, came the question that Elizabeth had yet to have an answer for: Why can’t you get yourself up on time?

To Elizabeth, this was the Question of the Ages. Her mom wouldn’t understand if she told her the truth, that she liked her dreams better than her waking life, and would be content to never wake up. So instead she gave her mother the standard fifteen-year-old going-through-puberty answer: I don’t know, Mother. This answer never failed to start her mother on a five-minute lecture, all of which Elizabeth tuned out, having heard it a zillion times. It seemed like a litany for her mother, some sort of religious response that made her feel good just to be saying it. As for Elizabeth, while her mother droned on, it gave her time to toast a PopTart and drink her orange juice before the school bus arrived. If she was lucky (and she was) the lecture would end as she finished her juice, and she could make a break for the bus stop.

Gotta go, Mom. See you tonight, she yelled as she scrambled out the back door, the screen door smacking her left ankle as she hurried out of the house.

Elizabeth was the last kid to make it to the bus stop (as usual). Not that it mattered. It was not the place for social intercourse. Most of the kids there were juniors and seniors, and God forbid they should speak to a lowly sophomore. In Elizabeth’s mind arriving at her high school by way of the bus was incredibly demeaning. It was noisy, dirty, and cold (or hot, depending on the season), and you usually had no control over who sat beside you. By now she was fairly adept at making herself invisible, always heading for the front of the bus and the seat directly behind the driver, because no one wanted to sit close to Mrs. Davner, the Ogre of Bus 81c. Consequently, Elizabeth usually had the seat all to herself. She pulled a textbook out of her knapsack (it didn’t matter which book), and hunched behind the pages, and, in effect, disappeared until the bus turned off the street and entered the circular drive of Edgar Allan Poe Senior High School.

* * *

Elizabeth debussed with the rest of the flotsom and made for her locker where she met her most times best friend, Holly Draper. Holly, for whatever reason, liked to hang out with Elizabeth. Holly was by no means beautiful, or even very popular. Secretly, Elizabeth figured Holly knew that by comparison she was Homecoming Queen when standing next to good ol’ Elizabeth. She was consoled by the fact that Holly was definitely not the brightest color crayon in the box, while Elizabeth was 4.0 in everything (except gym class). And that reminded her that today was Thursday, and Thursday meant no Driver Ed, but Ms. Carlin, and volleyball. Great. Thinking of Phys Ed removed any pleasure lingering in Elizabeth’s mind. She equated the class to the Spanish Inquisition, with herself as the guest of honor.

Holly’s soprano voice cut into Elizabeth’s reverie. Earth to Elizabeth! Are you receiving? Hello!

Sorry, Holly. I was just thinking about gym class.

Holly snorted. It’s only forty-five minutes. Forget it.

Well, just the thought depresses me, answered Elizabeth.

If it bums you out so much, tell Carlin it’s your time of the month. Maybe she’ll let you slide.

Elizabeth laughed. In the two years we’ve been here, have you ever heard of that working? I mean, for anyone?

Hey, you could make history at Poe if it did work! Carlin might even believe it, coming from a sweetheart like you. She’d prob’ly think you had too many brains to come up with such a lame excuse!

Carlin hardly knows I exist. Maybe I will, replied Elizabeth, knowing full well that she would ultimately chicken out. What was it you were saying before?

I asked if I could borrow your algebra homework to check mine over before seventh period, said Holly.

Elizabeth rummaged in her book bag and retrieved her algebra assignment. More likely than not Holly hadn’t even opened her math book last night–she just wants to copy my homework. Elizabeth sighed and handed over the sheets of paper. Somehow she knew that Holly Draper was never going to suffer ten years from now because she didn’t know the value of ‘x-y’. It was going to be another great day at The Poe, and she hadn’t even made it to Homeroom.

For Elizabeth, English Composition, American History, and Journalism class had flown by all too quickly. In each class she was able to do her vanishing act, only becoming visible when a teacher asked a question and no one answered. She rarely volunteered or raised her hand, but her teachers’ eyes all seemed to gravitate toward her when no volunteers were forthcoming. She thought that her invisibility spell (book up, head down, eyes open) was somehow canceled by the embarrassing silence of a classroom full of bored, unprepared kids, each wishing that the teacher would call on Elizabeth and get it over with. She always answered, though, realizing on some level that her reply reaffirmed for the teacher their worth, and their ability to instruct at least one student in a class of thirty-five. But that was Period One, Period Two, and Period Three. She would need to marshal all her powers of invisibility now, because Fourth Period was Girl’s Physical Education.

Elizabeth entered the girl’s locker room with fifty loud, pushing, laughing females, and headed for her locker. She often wondered what level of Dante’s Hell this would be considered. It was just her luck to be in a mostly upper-class period, where the majority of the girls were seventeen. And Fourth period was right before lunch, ruining the only enjoyment in the school day that Elizabeth liked–eating. While making it a point to avoid mirrors at every possible moment, the locker room seemed to have been designed by narcissists; mirrors hung on every available flat wall. Not just little ones, either, but the big, oversized, full-length ones, constructed by their makers to reveal every flaw in the female anatomy.

Unable to avoid it, Elizabeth was forced to view herself as she stripped off her clothes and prepared to don her idiotic gym suit that underclassmen were made to wear. She had a nice face; it wasn’t plain, it wasn’t gorgeous, but it was nice enough. There was lots of character in her intelligent features, although she didn’t know how one described intelligence. Her grey-green eyes were burdened with myopia (taking off her glasses helped), and she had an engaging smile she thought was her best feature, that is until she opened her mouth to reveal the chrome railroad-tracks of her braces. Her dark hair just reached her shoulders. And as the saying goes, it was all down hill from there. Way down hill. Although only 5’3" in height, Elizabeth weighed a hefty 140 pounds. As she eyed herself naked in the mirror, she once again cursed the fact that none of the weight was in the right places. At least she could have decent sized boobs. Was that too much to ask? Obviously it was, considering how many times she had petitioned the gods for a better set. All the excess weight seemed to puddle in her waist, then flow into her butt and thighs. Three years of subscribing to Seventeen Magazine and she had never seen a teenager with a body like hers residing within the magazine covers. Yet there were diets aplenty on those glossy pages, all of which she tried, and ultimately gave up on as hopeless. Elizabeth felt like she was a prisoner in her own body, condemned for life. For spite, she had to dress alongside junior and senior girls with slender bodies, thick straight hair, and curves. If someone, right now, came up to her and offered to barter IQ points for excess pounds, she would willingly have traded two for one. She might end up a moron, but at least she’d be a skinny moron. At the sound of Carlin’s whistle Elizabeth followed the rest of the girls out of the locker room and into her own personal hell.

* * *

Ms. Vanessa Carlin, phys ed teacher, and coach of the girls’ volleyball, basketball, and field hockey teams, awaited the compact herd and inevitable stragglers of Fourth Period Physical Education. Elizabeth, while emotionally wanting to straggle, intellectually knew that greater safety lay in blending in with the main mass of giggling girls, and quickly worked her way to the middle of the group. Coach Carlin stood on the foul line, facing the bleachers. At 5’10’’ and 135 pounds, she lacked but two things, the first being a deficiency of body fat. Carlin herself had attended The Poe years before, gotten a basketball scholarship to the University of Maryland, and then returned to The Poe to make life miserable for anyone with the temerity to have less athletic skill than she thought prudent. In Elizabeth’s eyes Carlin proved the maxim: Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach phys Ed. And those who can’t do either, coach sports. A dollar to a donut Carlin’s minor at college was Health. Carlin had been born, raised, and schooled in Maryland. Elizabeth wondered if Carlin had ever been out of the state for anything other than an away game.

Elizabeth’s gym teacher had a fascination for two things: Round balls and her whistle. If the sport didn’t have a ball involved, Carlin displayed no interest in it whatsoever, be it teaching or coaching. Elizabeth wondered if there was some buried Freudian theme in that. With her close cut hair and muscular build, Carlin fairly screamed that she preferred the fairer sex. But it was all smoke and mirrors to the uninformed; Carlin was a brute of a teacher but straight as could be. Teachers’ sexual proclivities were well known at The Poe, and Coach Carlin was fairly infamous in Poe’s urban legends. Elizabeth doubted that all the stories told were true, but if only half were real, then Carlin’s social calendar was booked with the names of many a gentleman caller.

What captivated Elizabeth was Carlin’s whistle. For reasons known only to Carlin herself (but gossiped about by hundreds, maybe thousands), she did not use an ordinary coach’s whistle. Instead, she carried what could only be described as being a bosun’s pipe. The whistle reminded Elizabeth of a chrome-plated cigar with holes bored in the top. It was rarely out of Coach Carlin’s hand, and always on a lanyard around her neck. Using the holes to mutate the sound into various pitches, students could instantly know what mood Carlin was in, what mistake they had made, and how grievous that mistake was. Elizabeth could never decide if Carlin was conscious that the tones she blew had different meanings, let alone that the student body could read them. In any event, Fourth Period was going to suck big time, because Carlin wasn’t piping aboard the Fleet Admiral today. Five quick, sharp notes flew out of the whistle, and fifty girls wished they had cut class.

All right, ladies, let’sgolineuphussleitup, yelled Carlin, speaking so fast as to be unintelligible. Yet not so fast that the intent was not clearly understood by all. It took less than thirty seconds to assemble the mob, and Coach Carlin but forty-five seconds more to count heads and check the roll for missing bodies.

Carlin addressed her troops: Count off by fours, left to right, front row first. And Hanson, if you can’t remember what comes after two, try asking Becker.

While deficient in military precision, fear provided a motivation that compensated for their lack of discipline: No one miss-called a number, much to the relief of everyone. One screw-up and the whole process would be repeated. Early in her freshman year Elizabeth remembered a sound-off drill that took twenty minutes to execute correctly. As it turned out, counting off the correct number was the last thing Elizabeth managed to do that satisfied Coach Vanessa Carlin.

Elizabeth looked ahead to the basketball court. As usual, the gym was separated down the long axis by gigantic moveable doors, giving half the gym to the girls and the other half to the boys. And as she figured, Volley was the ball of choice today. Two nets had been strung in the small remaining space, creating two courts. One net was bright, shiny and as taut as Coach Carlin’s forearms. Obviously this was the game net used in Varsity and Junior Varsity play. In the court nearest her was another net, as much used and abused as the other net was new. No amount of tension was going to create a level line at the top of that net. It sagged in the middle like the badminton net her mother had set up for her when she was nine years old. Only this one seemed to have the weight of the world on its strings. It looked like some bizarre ‘before’ photo advertising Viagra for volleyball nets, with the tight varsity net the ‘after’ photograph. Elizabeth prayed to the God of Volley: Hear my plea, let my number be called to the ‘before’ court! That particular god did not answer Elizabeth, but Coach Vanessa Carlin did: "Ones and threes to the near court, twos and fours to the far. Ones and threes are the blue and gold teams, the twos are the red team and fours the green. Hit the wood, ladies!"

Elizabeth was a ‘two’, or red. Of course. Her fleeting chance at salvation was gone. She wouldn’t be playing on the droopy-net court, where she had a chance of hitting the ball over. Instead, along with twelve or so other acolytes made to pray at the temple of sports, Elizabeth trotted to the far court. The varsity net fairly hummed with tension. I wouldn’t be surprised to see electric sparks erupt if you touched the top of the net. While there was a ten-inch dip in the older net, you could put a level on the uppermost string on the varsity net and not be half a bubble off. She wondered if Carlin would think it funny if she borrowed the referee ladder as an aid for someone as vertically challenged as she was. Then Elizabeth remembered the second thing Coach Carlin did not have: A sense of humor.

Elizabeth knew the drill. Since the courts were smaller than normal, they could not accommodate all twelve girls per team at once. Some crafty mind (The God of Volley?) had devised the ‘Rotate in’ method of substitution: Since only the team serving the ball could score a point, when they failed to win the point the opposing team received the ball. When that happened, the new serving team’s players rotated counterclockwise one position. This allowed each team member to play every position on the court. As the number three player up on the net rotated, instead of going to the rear of the formation, she stepped off the court, and a substitute took her place. It was simple in its complexity, disallowing someone like Elizabeth the option of just staying off the court and having girls who actually liked volleyball stay in the game. And of course Coach Carlin stood on her ladder by the edge of the varsity net, ready to referee her game, and be on the lookout for slackers who ‘forgot’ to rotate in.

All right ladies, volley for serve! yelled Coach Carlin, punctuating the yell with a middle C note on her bosun’s whistle. Let the games begin, thought Elizabeth. Only Elizabeth’s mind was on another game entirely. Her full intellect was focused on how not to get involved in the game. For Elizabeth, this was more like a chess match than volleyball. Only she was using high school girls instead of plaster pawns and rooks. Her opponent was Coach Vanessa Carlin. Carlin’s mission: Make these couch potatoes know the spiritual thrill of Organized Sports. Elizabeth’s objective: Be an invisible pawn, and get out unnoticed, and in one piece.

Due to the small size gym, and Coach Carlin’s desire to play the game at tournament level, only six players per team were on the court. This meant that six members of Elizabeth’s team sat in reserve, waiting to rotate in. Believing that the best defense is a good offense, Elizabeth put herself on the court before anyone else, in the middle of the front line, at the number two position. This was a dangerous ploy. You were expected to do things when you were at the net. There were things you weren’t supposed to do, too. You weren’t supposed to run into the net, or go under the net, or hit the top of the net (as if!). Elizabeth was banking on a little bit of luck. And sports savvy. Just because I can’t play the game doesn’t mean I don’t understand it!

Luck was with her. Her side, the Reds, lost the volley for serve without the ball coming within ten feet of her. Therefore, the other side would get the ball and serve. Here was the savvy part: With Coach Carlin hovering like a skinny raven on the ladder, and this being the first real serve of the game, Elizabeth was betting the other team’s server would choke. And she choked big time. She was so tense that she wang-chunged the ball over everyone’s head and into the bleachers. Elizabeth could sympathize with the red-faced girl as Carlin tore into her, advising her to try out for the shot-putt if she had that much energy. Carlin yelled Side Out, indicating that the serving Greens had not scored the point and the serve went to the Red team.

With the ball changing sides, the whole Red team rotated one position counterclockwise. This put Elizabeth in the number three position, at the left corner up by the net. She knew that her team’s serving player, Courtney, had one affectation (other than believing she was God’s gift to the Senior Class, or at least the male portion thereof): She had long, artificial fingernails. Odds were she wouldn’t dare try to power serve the ball overhand, but serve underhanded, and softly at that. Coach Carlin frowned on this underhand technique, and Courtney received a withering look and lame whistle blow showing Carlin’s displeasure as Courtney prepared to serve. But here Carlin was stymied. Although Coach Carlin would show, and voice, her disgust, the serve was perfectly legal, much like an underhanded foul shot in basketball. The problem for Courtney, and a delight for Elizabeth, was that this type of serve was easily returned. Not wanting to break a nail, Courtney did indeed serve both underhanded and softly, and that was her undoing. The ball barely crossed the net. That part was good. The bad part was that she served it directly to 6’1" LaTisha Wood. LaTisha timed it perfectly, and slammed the ball right back at Courtney before she had even finished her follow-through. Poetry in motion! Side Out!

As the Greens rotated and readied themselves to serve, Courtney was on the receiving end of Carlin’s tirade: Don’t stand around and admire your work! Serve the ball and be ready for the return! Get some height into that sorry excuse for a serve so the opponent’s front line doesn’t jam it down your throat! And by the way, Wilson, Title Nine gives you the equal right to sweat. Give it a try sometime. Serve it up, ladies!

Elizabeth knew this next point was the dicey part of her plan. A number of things could happen: The Greens could muff the serve, and lose the ball to her team. Or the serve would be good and the subsequent play would never come near her. Or the Greens would score and repeat the process. Or…someone would hit the ball to her. With six players on her side of the net, and four options of play, Elizabeth figured the odds of her touching the ball were nil.

In her number three position, Elizabeth was directly under Coach Carlin. Just having her hover over her made her hair sweat. And then