SADDLEBAGS, Trunks, and Tombs

Chapter 9

The Watcher:

For some reason I felt like the old man and I were headed on a journey of some sort.  I was meant to see this story, meant to write it down and he unfortunately was meant to walk.  There was no longer any panic over the changing window.  Over the next year I would find that I looked forward to it.  After writing up my notes, I finished my article and poured myself another glass of wine.  All time and space would be leaving my world.  I don’t remember writing anything but what I saw, but now is not the time to get into that.  The journey had begun and it was time to put my all into writing what the window wanted written.

Jackson aka The Walker:

     It would seem that I walked forever but if I had, my body was unaware.  I was tired of walking, but not physically.  I am confused.  I have no idea what’s going on.  As if in answer to my unspoken prayer I began to have visions of the past.  Of the day I snuck Martha out of my father’s house and married her.  She was such a young, pretty little thing.  Outside of my wanderings, she was probably the only thing I had ever loved.

     Martha was five years old when I met her.  Her mother had come into our service at the manor and had brought her along.  She was a spitfire of a sprite and the household immediately took to her.  This all happened around my fourteenth birthday and me being the youngest of the Winchester clan, she was like a little sister to me, for a while anyway.  My parents had used the little girl as a way of keeping me from going on my adventures.  As she got older, though, she ended up being a great accomplice.

     I went away to New York, five years after she had first arrived, to go to college.  I must say, as much as I loved being away, seeing new places, I missed romping around with Marty.  By the time I returned home, Marty was fifteen and had taken her place as a full-fledged servant at the manor.  It was no wonder, she was a hard worker as her mother had been, before her death, and she was almost considered to be family.  

I was twenty four when I returned to the manor.  Female friends were a dime a dozen.  They bored me with their fancy dress and their fancy talk.  I didn’t realize, until I saw her, how much I had missed sitting in the high grass with little Marty, watching the ships sail by, telling her of my dreams to travel the world and see all there was to see.  

The young lady I saw now, standing in the line of servants for my welcome home, was not the ten year old girl that I had left but a girl too young for the budding beauty that she had become.  As I passed her in the line, she being the one to take my walking stick, I saw a small, impish twinkle in her emerald eyes a moment before her proper curtsey. 

(Back to the Present)

     I realized that I had been so caught up in the memory that I had forgotten that I was walking and didn’t realize that I had stopped.  About 15 feet in front of me was a building, above it a sign that read “REBEL”.  I wanted to look around but found myself focusing on a man who looked to be traveling on a strange bike, strange as in he wasn’t pedaling it and it was very loud.  I turned around and began to head, again, for the light that called me.  Next thing I knew, I was very near the light.  Inside the light was a small, brown bottle.  Again compelled, I picked it up.  Something told me that I was to place it in my bag, so I reached to do this.  As I closed the bag, another tube of light began to shine and I began to walk.

The Watcher:

     I feel it is my duty to let you know that from here until the writing of the final chapter, I will be relating the stories as they come to me, not as I see them in the window, but more so how they whisper in my mind.  As far as I remember, the story in the window is always ready to play out when I am ready to write.  My life continued on but seemed to change as time went by.  Well, I guess it’s time to get started.  I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you the first thing I saw once our journey began.

     The old man looked as if he had been walking for ages and yet he did not look tired.  The light we had seen from the place where our journey had begun was just in front of him now.  As he stood just outside the light, he bent at the waist and grabbed something in his hand.  I couldn’t see it.  I needed to see it!  With that final thought, the old man opened the flap of one of the saddlebags and dropped the item in.  I caught a glimpse of it just before it fell into the bag.  Strange, I could have sworn I heard someone scream.