The Tower

The funeral had gone by faster than they’d all expected. The four sat in the den, each in spots they’d always picked growing up. A fire was going. They passed around a bottle of cheap whiskey.

Instead of their late grandfather a fat tabby sat in the large high backed chair, sleeping gently, completely ignorant to the fact that its owner was now six feet under. 

“So, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sleeping here tonight,” said Virgil.

They all nodded. There was definitely enough space. Evan looked towards the rain pattering on the small porthole window. He always sat on the couch with Nell. “Tomorrow do we need to do anything?”

Winter said, “Just start going through things. Finding what we want to keep or sell. What might need to be donated to a museum.”

Virgil laughed. “Why would a museum want any of Grandpa’s stuff?”

“He wasn’t Stephen King or anything but Claw in the Night was a hit. His books sold well enough to sustain us. Some of his stuff might be important,” she replied.

Virgil nodded. “I suppose that’s possible.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Nell sighed. 

They had all known their patriarch would die one day, but he was the only parent any of them had. This whole horrible process had been more exhausting than they could’ve imagined. So exhausting none of them had even cried, they were just numb.

“Grandpa would’ve loved tonight. He loved nights like this.” They collectively nodded. He had been a romantic. He loved warm fires, rain, and pipe tobacco. He would have been puffing away like Gandalf over in his throne as they all discussed whatever came to mind.

They shared a few more memories. Some funny, a few sad, and some poignant. Then as the whiskey got low, and the fire burned down, they slowly slunk off to various bedrooms. No one really wanted to let the night go, because as soon as they fell asleep they knew he was finally gone. 

-

Winter had imbibed the least amount of bourbon and woke up first. Almost immediately she began making a fatty breakfast to help ward off any hangovers. Slowly the rest arose. By noon they had consumed all the bacon and coffee.

They sat around the big wooden table in the dining room. In turns, they began to cry. Winter started it off because Virgil had reminded them what a bad cook Grandpa was, evidenced by the first but not last time he tried to make pancakes. He set off the smoke detector. This story got them all laughing except for Winter. 

“I miss him. He’s only been gone a few days and I miss him so much,” she squeaked out between sobs. And the seal on their hurt was broken. The tears flowed.

None of them really wanted to start the hard work of going through everything. They set up camp in the living room where the only television in the house had ever been. Grandpa had never upgraded past VCR or tube tv. But he had loved movies and had an entire closet dedicated to an extensive VHS collection. They took turns selecting films from the closet and decided to binge out the day with a selection of classics the old man had loved. 

“Since it’s fall I’m gonna suggest we stick mostly with horror films,” Evan announced as he popped in An American Werewolf in London. They were halfway through the original Fright Night when Winter started feeling ansy. As the oldest she often felt set apart from the others. She was the only one that had consistent memories of their parents, who had died in a car crash when she was five

She got up and started looking around the house for photos. She knew there were shoeboxes full somewhere. Grandpa wasn’t messy but he also had not been organized.

Eventually she found them in the attic, which wasn’t so much an attic as a massive workspace for Grandpa. He had never stopped writing with typewriters, and there were several strewn about across large old desks. There were also all his books on numerous shelves and a couple old overstuffed chairs. Winter had always loved this room. It smelled like books and pipe tobacco -- it smelled like Grandpa. He had always been home whenever they needed him because he was always up here working. 

The shoeboxes were all inside a big old green trunk off in the corner. She slowly began looking at each photo. Lots of them were of Grandpa and Grandma when they were young parents. Grandma had died of pancreatic cancer when their dad was in high school. Also lots of photos of Uncle Steve, who had died in the first Gulf War before any of them were born. 

Winter finally stopped on one picture though. It was a picture of Uncle Steve, his wife Virginia, Mom, Dad, and Grandpa. They were all on the Oregon coast at a restaurant that Grandpa loved. It was called Stewbies and every time they went to the beach Grandpa wanted to eat there. They served all kinds of food but they specialized in seafood, which Grandpa loved. He was originally from New England and had grown up eating lobster and clams. 

She couldn’t think of another time she’d seen a picture of the five of them together. Virginia had died several years after Uncle Steve, according to Grandpa his death in Iraq had caused her life to spiral and she just didn’t recover. 

Winter kept staring at it in the quiet of the attic. Imagining a different life. A life with an aunt and uncle, and parents. A life with normal holidays and cousins. She was lost in an imaginary past when she noticed something odd. 

There was the tip of a tower in the distance behind the large conifer trees that surrounded the back of the restaurant. Not the top of a large building, but an actual tower. An ancient-looking tower built from stone. Not much was visible but it clearly was not a modern building. The top came to a violent point in a gothic design.

She couldn’t stop looking at it. It clearly didn’t belong. She quickly walked down the stairs to the living room and turned off the TV.

“Hey! That’s the best part!” Virgil exclaimed right before a vampire exploded into flames.

“Sorry, but this is more important, I found this photo of the family at Stewbies, and there’s something weird about it.”

“Sis, I don’t have the energy for any weirdness today,” said Virgil. 

“Just look at it, please.”

Virgil sighed. Evan got up and looked at the photo.

“This is weird, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the 5 of them together before.”

“Yes, but that’s not what’s really strange.”

Evan kept looking but he didn’t notice the tower. He shrugged and handed the photo to Nell. Nell didn’t see it either, but Virgil did. 

“There should not be a tower there,” Virgil said, deadly serious. “There’s no buildings behind Stewbies, it’s just forest for miles.” 

At this, Nell and Evan rushed over to the photo. They held it between the four of them like little children with a collective Christmas present. The emotional exhaustion was forgotten. 

“Well, this was before we were all born. Maybe there was a tower there? From like the pioneer era,” said Evan. 

Virgil looked at him quizzically. “There’s no way that’s from the pioneer era.”

“How can you tell? It’s barely visible.”

“Look there’s only one way we’re gonna figure this out, we have to go to Stewbies. It’s only a few hours away,” said Nell.

“But we know there isn’t a tower there, we’ve been there probably a hundred times over the years. There’s no buildings back there. I bet if we keep looking through the pictures we’ll find one of all of us in front of it, and there’s no way there’s a tower back there.” 

Winter took them upstairs to the boxes of photos, and they began carefully looking through them. After an hour of searching, they found three other photos taken in front of Stewbies. In two of them, there was no tower, but in the third the tower was there. It looked slightly different, a little smaller but it was definitely the same tower.

“Okay, so this doesn’t make any sense. The oldest picture and the newest picture have the tower in it. But the other two don’t.”

They laid them out in what they thought was chronological order. The two middle ones had people in them they weren’t related to. 

“I think this one is of Grandpa and his agent,” said Nell.

Evan pointed at the next one “This one has a couple people from church. I recognize those guys, but I can’t remember their names.” 

And the last one was of the five of them. Just a few years ago. “That was the last time I think we were all together,” said Evan.

“If the tower is really there shouldn’t we be able to see it in all these photos? They’re all taken from about the same angle,” asked Winter.

“Yes,” said Virgil, “but I think what’s really weird isn’t just that but that it only appears when Grandpa is there with four people he’s related to.”

“Bro, you can’t possibly know that,” said Evan.

“Well not with any scientific certainty, but look, there’s four photos all basically from the same angle. And the only time the tower appears is with our family, exactly five people each time.”

“Appears? Like it’s some kind of magic tower that comes and goes when Grandpa’s family is around?” At the words “magic tower,” they all felt a chill. It was an eerie idea.

“We need to go see if it’s there,” said Evan.

“Okay,” Winter conceded, “let’s take Grandpa’s car.”

-

The Buick Le Sabre pulled into the parking lot of Stewbies a little before 7. There were some locals parked in the lot, but nothing like the dinner rush they were used to with this restaurant. 

“Anybody hungry?” asked Evan.

“Come on man,” said Virgil. He had been getting on his nerves the whole car trip. “We’ve got more important stuff to do.”

The Pacific Ocean roared behind them as they got out and strained their eyes, trying to see this mysterious tower.

“The spot where the photos were taken must have been about here.” Evan pointed to a spot in the parking lot about 20 feet in front of the steps leading up to the restaurant. 

The sun was setting behind them making it difficult to distinguish between the treetops and anything else that may or may not be there.

“I don’t see anything,” said Virgil.

None of them could see anything resembling a tower. 

“We could stay nearby tonight and check in the morning,” said Winter.

Evan pulled out his phone. “I’m going to check on Google Maps and see if there’s anything behind those trees.” He started to scroll around looking for anything. 

Nell and Winter went inside to get a table while they decided what to do. When they got to the entrance, a waitress was standing off to the side texting on her phone. “Excuse me, miss, can we get a table?” 

She said, “Sure, you can sit wherever you want. Slow night.” They sat in a corner booth. A few minutes later the brothers came in and sat next them. Evan was still looking on Google Maps, trying to find any evidence of a tower.

The waitress came back looking for their orders. Instead, Virgil said, “Hey, this is gonna sound weird, but we’re actually here because--” and he filled her in on their weird quest for the tower. 

After taking it all in she said “I don’t know anything about a tower. But sometimes there’s a ren fair in those woods. They might erect some kind of old looking structure that could be confused with a tower.” Pausing, she then asked, “Do you guys know what you want?”

“Sorry, just give us another minute,” said Virgil. 

The lady walked away and Nell turned to them. “Guys, I’m really hungry, we’re in mourning we need to eat and this is super weird. Can we just eat, relieve some memories and go?” 

“I found it!” exclaimed Evan, disturbing a couple several tables away. He put his phone in the middle of the table and showed them the spot on Google Maps.

After looking at it Nell said exasperatedly, “That’s not a tower! That’s just an area where there’s no trees. What do they call that? A glade or something?”

Evan excitedly explained that he had worked out the math and that glade was where a tower would be if it was visible from the restaurant.

“And I’ve estimated the minimum width, and that matches, too.”

Nell looked at him skeptically. But Virgil spoke up “He is an engineer, and a damn good one. He might be right.”

“Okay but this tower appears and reappears? Don’t you think the Renaissance fair thing is more likely?” Nell said, tired.

Winter was more on Nell’s side at this point, but even she knew that didn’t match up. “Come on, you know no ren faire is erecting something like that.”

She nodded, surrendering, “Okay, so can we eat? And then go look for this spot?”

“Tonight?” Winter said, surprised. 

“Look at their eyes; they’ve got that wanderlust or whatever you call it,” Nell said, pointing at her brothers, who were still pouring over the cell phone.

-

A few fish and chip dinners later, the four of them were trudging through the woods behind the restaurant. 

“Why can’t we do this tomorrow?” Nell said.

“It’s more fun at night,” Evan practically giggled.

“Boys are weird,” Nell said.

“What’s really weird and a bit sad is they’re both grown men,” Winter practically snarled. 

“No one is making you guys come along,” Virgil quipped.

“What’s weirdest about this is I know how happy Grandpa would be if he knew we were doing.” In the darkness, they all smiled, because they knew it was true.

The clearing was not that far from the restaurant. But because there was no path, it took them a few hours. They had to be careful as they moved around the tree to not twist an ankle on a root or rock. But eventually, they found the clearing. 

It certainly looked manmade. The trees formed a suspiciously neat circle. It was about 80 feet in diameter. The moon was shining through some clouds, and it lit up the ground. 

They walked around the perimeter, two on each side looking for anything.

“What are we looking for?” Nell asked.

“Anything weird or unusual,” Evan replied. 

“LIke a bunch of orphans wandering around the woods at night?” Winter said wryly. 

Then Virgil saw something in the center of the glade. It looked like some kind of symbol, but he couldn't quite make it out. Without saying anything to anyone, he quietly walked out to it. It looked like a pentagram had been spray-painted over some freshly dug dirt. “Hey guys, come here. I think I found something.”

The other three scurried over and gasped.

“Isn’t that a symbol for witchcraft?” Nell said.

“Sometimes,” Evan replied.

The symbol was about 3 feet across and had been made with white paint. “Clearly, someone dug up the ground here to bury something.”

“It’s probably an animal sacrifice or maybe a baby!” Nell cried.

“Well let’s find out,” Evan said, and he got down on his hands and knees to start digging at the dirt.

“Stop that! We need to call the police,” Winter said, but Virgil had already started in as well.

“The police? We don’t even know if a crime has been committed. This was buried not that long ago, you can even smell the paint fumes a little bit still.” They both broke up the white pentagram with their hands and quickly found what was buried there. Only a few inches under the soft soil they found a large box wrapped in newspaper. Hurriedly they tore the paper off and found a book. It was large and made from aged leather, no title. 

“This is absolutely wild! Open it up,” Winter said, pulling out her phone to illuminate the pages as they began to flip through. It was completely handwritten in cursive. They found the title several pages in, it was simply called, “The Tower.”

A few pages after that, they found this dedication: 

“To Winter, Virgil, Nell, and Evan. When my boys died, I wasn’t sure I would be able to love again. But you four opened my heart forever. I couldn’t have asked for better children. I hope you’re as proud to be my children as I was to be your father.”

Winter read it out loud. Nobody else said anything. Each word seemed to last a lifetime. A few pages later, they found an explanation that the photos had been photoshopped so that they would be led on this treasure hunt. Grandpa’s explanation was simple:

“After my sons and daughters-in-law were taken from me, I had a dream of a tower made of darkness. It cast a shadow over me, and that shadow was death. If you’re reading this, it's because I, too, have died, and my agent carried out my last wishes by arranging all this. The shadow of death hangs over you right now, but it won’t always. Make sure my agent gets this manuscript, I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written and no one else has seen it yet. Hopefully the sales can help you all in the years to come. Never forget how much I love you.”

They stood there in the moonlight, stuck in the best kind of shock. 

Nell looked up into the dark night and said what they were all thinking. “I miss you so much.” Tears ran down their cheeks and onto smiles.