Teagan’s Thursday evening exorcism
Date: 2025-10-30 17:51
(Teagan’s Thursday evening exorcism)
[Thu Oct 30 2025]
Nantucket Gardens/span>after dusk, about 58F(14C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It’s raining. The mist is heaviest At Maple and Blackstone/span> There is a waxing gibbous moon.
The rain falls steadily across Nantucket Gardens, pattering against the concrete paths and dripping from the bare branches of oak and maple trees. Teagan and Matthew find themselves standing near the park’s center as the October evening deepens into true darkness, the street lamps casting pools of amber light that reflect off puddles forming in the worn pathways.
A jogger in a bright yellow rain jacket passes by on the main path, earbuds in, heading east without acknowledging either of them. The digital clock on the nearby community board reads 17:51.
The wind picks up from the Atlantic, carrying the salt-spray scent and sending a scatter of wet leaves skittering across the grass. Near the center of the park, an old oak tree stands alone in a small clearing, its gnarled trunk thick with age. Something about it draws the eye, though it’s hard to say exactly what.
On a bench about thirty feet away, partially sheltered under a maple tree, an elderly woman sits with remarkable stillness despite the rain. She wears a plastic rain bonnet and clutches a worn handbag in her lap, staring toward the old oak with an expression that might be sadness or simply fatigue.
The rain continues its steady rhythm. Everything feels oddly familiar, though neither Teagan nor Matthew can quite place why.
Still circling it, Teagan chews at her lip and and glances to her phone as she texts. “Matias is apparently trying to…. get some information out of someone. He says if it’s a reality break, it’s due to time magic or ghosts? And that we’d need to find… whatever is anchoring the disturbance and destroy or resolve it?” She gives a little shrug and pockets her phone. There’s a brief muttering that she should have worn something different. Rain and sweaters do not get along. Stepping back, she turns slowly and looks around the park, pushing wet hair back behind her shoulders. She keeps looking toward the oak tree, even as she tries to look around the park itself for… something. “Do you see any, uh… ghosts? It is almost Halloween.”
It’s raining alright, but Matthew is fine with it. He hasn’t exactly been chipper lately, but he’s not wallowing, but the falling rain seems to suit his mood. “You know,” he tells Teagan casually, “I think I caused this rain,” is said as he reaches out, attempting to catch what he can in his palm only for it to trickle out and away. He doesn’t quite notice the tree, barely responds to the advice given, bit the lady? She catches his attention. “Well guess we better find an anchor, right? See what’s causing it, but if it’s a ghost, and if I was gonna say something or someone here was a ghost–” he points towards that immobile woman, “it’d be here. Somethin’ not right about her.”
deeply lined face, pale blue eyes, and hands that grip the handbag with an intensity that seems out of place for someone simply sitting in the rain.
The wind gusts harder, and something odd happens. For just a moment, the woman’s lips move, forming silent words. Then she blinks, looks down at her handbag as if surprised to find it there, and glances around the park with mild confusion before her gaze settles back on the oak tree.
Near the old oak itself, the bark shows unusual markings. Not graffiti exactly, but something carved or worn into the wood. The rain makes them harder to see, but there are definitely patterns there, possibly numbers or letters, weathered by decades of exposure.
The jogger in the yellow jacket, who had been heading east, is now somehow visible again in the distance, approaching from the west. Same jacket, same pace, same route. The community board clock still reads 17:51, though several minutes have clearly passed.
A faint sound carries on the wind. It might be the creak of old metal, like a swing set moving in the breeze, though the playground equipment visible from here looks modern and still.
The woman on the bench suddenly speaks, her voice thin but clear: “He was such a careful man. Douglas never took risks.” She says this to no one in particular, then seems to forget she’s spoken at all.
“I doubt you did,” Teagan tells Matthew in a very mildly bemused tone. “It’s New England and nearly November. We’re lucky it’s not snowing yet.” She does tug at her sweater a bit, making a blech face. “It could be me. I have really weird luck lately. Like getting hit by a car and it looking really bad and being out of the hospital the next day.” She follows his attention to the woman and shrugs. “Doubt she’s a ghost but… mebbe she knows one?”
And then she notices the clock on the community board and groans to herself a bit. “Not a ghost,” she tells Matthew and tries to direct his attention that way. “Time. We’re stuck.” With the deep sigh of someone who has dealt with TIME SHENANIGANS before, she looks around briefly and nods toward the tree. “I’m gonna check out that oak tree. You go talk to the woman. Find out who Douglas is.” And off Teagan goes toward the oak tree, heading for those markings that seem to stand out… at least a bit in the rain. She’ll get a better look once she’s close, surely.
Matthew squints up at the sky, “I dunno,” he informs Teagan, “I hired a woman named Isabel Showers to–” and he lifts his hand to indicate the sky, “y’know, match the weather to my mood.” He leaves it at that, however, seeing as Teagan is already working on her half of the mission, leaving the old lady for him.
It’s not a long walk for Matthew to get to the old lady’s bench, choosing to move as if to join her on the bench, asking first, “Mind if I join you?” He motions about the gardens, “such a nice day for enjoying the gardens,” like a fall showers at night in the cold was a good time. “Did I hear you say something about a man named Douglas?”
$4,750
$3,200
$2,890
Below them, barely legible, are initials: G.V.
The bark around the carvings feels oddly warm to the touch, despite the cold rain. And there, at the base of the tree, partially obscured by fallen leaves, are old foundation stones. They look like they once supported a small building.
The clock on the community board now reads 18:02. The jogger in the yellow jacket passes by again, heading east, exactly as before.
“Well, if you plan to be in a dour mood for the next six months, you’ll be in luck,” Teagan tells Matthew before they’re out of earshot with one another. She does make sure to stay out of the jogger’s path… though she stops to get a good look at him, if she can, before continuing onward. At the oak tree, she leans in to look at the carvings. The redhead brushes her fingertips over the left half of them, feeling the warmth and trying to make out the obscured parts with her touch. It’s as she does this that she notices the stones under the leaves. Crouching she clears the leaves — gross, damp leaves! — out of the way and starts examining the stones themselves.
While Teagan studies the treetrunk, Matthew continues to stand near to the woman, never actually sitting, waiting to see whether she has a response to him–whether this is some kind of time spell where only he and Teagan are the free moving bodies deviating fro the cycle or if everyone here is and instead set in some kind of infinite ground hog’s day kind of cycle. As the jogger passes he peers, trying to identify anything about them of importance: gender, age, build.
15.
“So, uh-” Teagan calls over her shoulder toward Matthew, “She tell you anything about Douglas? Her husband or whoever?” If the people are stuck in a loop, they won’t care if they’re talked about like they aren’t there, right? Maybe. The foundation stones are picked up and studied as Teagan tries to find if they contain any information that might be of use or might help her figure out the symbols carved into the tree. She looks up to the community board, trying to see if the time has moved again at all. A look, too, to the path, to see if the jogger has gone by again. And if he has, she calls out: “Hey! Are you Douglas?” Never hurts to try, right?
15.
As if on cue, the rain intensifies dramatically. What had been a steady patter becomes a downpour, and the wind from the Atlantic picks up with enough force to send larger branches swaying. The temperature seems to drop several degrees in moments.
On the bench, the elderly woman suddenly stirs. She looks directly at Matthew with surprising clarity in her pale blue eyes. “Douglas Kerr,” she says, her voice stronger now. “He worked maintenance here. Forty-two years I’ve been coming to this park, and I still remember the day he died. October storm, just like this one. Gerald sent him out to fix a swing.” She pauses, frowning. “Gerald always was too concerned with money. Douglas found something, I think. In the books.“
She blinks, and the clarity fades slightly. “Are you waiting for someone, dear?“
Near the oak tree, that creaking sound returns, louder now. Definitely metal on metal, like an old swing set.
“MAINT SHED – 1959.“
The elderly woman finally responds to Matthew, though her answer comes delayed, as if she’s pulling the words from deep memory. “Douglas Kerr. He worked here, maintained the grounds. October of ’62.” Her fingers tighten on the handbag. “Gerald said it was an emergency. The swing chain. But Douglas always checked the equipment in the morning, never would have left something dangerous.”
She blinks, looks at Matthew as if seeing him for the first time. “Are you from the police? It’s been so long since anyone asked about Douglas.“
The rain begins to intensify. The wind picks up noticeably, carrying stronger gusts from the Atlantic. The clock reads 18:15.
A faint metallic creaking sound grows louder. It’s definitely coming from the direction of the playground, though the modern equipment there shouldn’t make that kind of sound.
Matthew listens to the elderly woman with all the patience of a saint, or a man whose got nowhere better to be and nothing better to do than to stand in the rain — broken hearted and living his best John Cusack Rom-com life, no doubt. “Worked?” he asks, honing in on that detail above all things. “You said Gerald sent him, I assume Gerald owned–” he motions his hand around, “this place.” That the storm just like this was probably deadly some sixty or more years ago doesn’t really register or at least isn’t a high concern for the Montrose. He’s got money, he’s probably more of a Gerald than a Douglas in life. He calls back toward Teagan, “Yeah, pretty sure he’s–” he makes a theatric face, thumbing across his neck to indicate a death — not very professional, and most certainly irreverent. “Guy worked as a maintenance worker here, for someone named Gerald. Guess he found out Gerald was into some dirty business and was sent out here…” he then says to the Elderly lady, “Naw, I’m not with the police. Just here checking things out. What happened to Douglas? WHat happened to Gerald? Do you think this tree is special in any way?”
23.
23.
Near the park’s entrance, another figure appears. This one more solid, wearing what looks like a supervisor’s jacket from decades past. He’s moving toward the gates, reaching for a chain to close them.
The spectral maintenance worker stops near the foundation stones, looking directly at Teagan. His mouth moves, forming words, but no sound comes out. He points urgently at the oak tree, then at the supervisor figure, then back at the tree.
As the wind picks up, Teagan looks into her messenger bag and curses to herself. “Gotta put that poncho in here again.” She does find an elastic, however, and puts her soaked-through hair up into a messy bun. Less messy than it might be, really: wet hair sticks together well enough. She pushes to her feet and is suddenly face-to-face with the maintenance worker. There’s a squeak of surprise from her as his mouth moves. She squints, trying to read his lips. Not something she’s necessarily talented at, but hey. Sometimes you can make guess work! She looks to the supervisor, to the tree. “Uhhhh, okay, so-” she looks to the figure at the gates, then back to the tree. “I got it, yeah, something with the tree? And him?” She crouches back down and starts pulling the foundation stones out, one by one, moving them aside. As she pulls each one out, she checks them for markings… but she’s also looking under them. “Is something buried under here, maybe?”
23. The supervisor ghost has his hands on the chain.
The spectral Douglas looks desperately between Teagan and Matthew, then points at the approaching supervisor, making a stopping motion with his hands.
The rain pounds harder. Lightning flashes in the distance, moving closer.
a metal box, rusted but intact. The kind used for document storage in the 1960s.
The maintenance worker ghost becomes more agitated, pointing frantically between the box and the supervisor figure approaching the gates.
The clock reads 18:23. The supervisor ghost reaches the gates and begins pulling them closed with a heavy metallic clang.
Thunder rumbles overhead. The storm is building toward something.
The maintenance worker’s mouth moves again, and this time Teagan can make out two words: “Stop him.“
the corner of an old metal box, rusted but intact. The maintenance worker ghost becomes more agitated, gesturing frantically between the box and the supervisor at the gates.
The clock reads 18:23. The supervisor figure has nearly finished with the chain.
The metallic creaking from the playground grows louder, almost frantic. The maintenance worker points at Matthew, then at the gates, his spectral form flickering with urgency.
Lightning flashes in the distance. The storm is building toward something.
Okay, that was a ghost. Matthew doesn’t need to say it, his expression says it all. There’s no fear, and it’s not exactly out of the ordinary, but he’s no ghost buster and it’s still a bit of a shock to see one all the same. Teagan’s plan to upturn the corner stones earns her a thumbs up, not like he’s going to help and get his hands dirty. But he will go talk to the owner, will intercept the employee from whatever’s going on here. Will try and prevent some kind of lightening strike playing endlessly through time. He leaves the elderly woman in favor of intercepting Gerald, approaching that ghost like this was a normal thing to be doing. He raises his hand, “Hey, Gerald, right?” gets called out, “hey, so it’s raining super bad and if we should learn one thing from history, it’s that Thomas Edison got struck by lightening flying a kite and like… you probably shouldn’t be touching no chains at a time like this.”
G. VANCE. He turns toward Matthew with a blank expression, then continues pulling the chain.
The maintenance worker ghost becomes frantic, pointing at the box in Teagan’s hands.
The rusted metal box resists at first, then the corroded latch gives way. Inside are water-damaged ledgers, their pages yellowed and brittle. But the numbers are still visible: columns of figures, with amounts circled in faded red ink. Discrepancies. Money missing from the park restoration fund. And at the bottom of several pages, two sets of initials: D.K. and G.V.
The clock reads 18:29.
Lightning flashes much closer now, illuminating the entire park in stark white light. The old oak tree seems to draw the eye even more intensely.
The maintenance worker ghost is now standing directly between Teagan and the oak tree, gesturing urgently at the ledgers, then at Gerald Vance, then back at the tree. His mouth forms words again: “Tell them. Tell them what he did.“
The wind howls. The rain comes down in sheets. Thunder crashes overhead.
The clock reads 18:31.
A bolt of lightning streaks down toward the old oak tree.
“Gerald Vance. He knew. He sent me out here to die.“
The lightning strike at the oak tree doesn’t fade. Instead, it freezes, a brilliant column of white light connecting sky to earth. And within that light, a figure appears. Douglas Kerr, solid and clear, standing exactly where he died sixty-two years ago.
He looks at Teagan, at the ledgers in her hands. He looks at Matthew, holding the chain that would have closed the gates, trapping him in the park. He looks at the elderly woman on the bench, who has risen to her feet, tears streaming down her weathered face.
“Douglas,” she whispers. “I always knew something was wrong.“
The ghost of Douglas Kerr nods once. Then he looks up at the frozen lightning, and speaks in a voice like distant thunder: “Gerald Vance murdered me. He stole from this park, and when I found proof, he sent me to die in the storm.“
The words echo across Nantucket Gardens.
The frozen lightning begins to fade. Douglas Kerr’s form becomes translucent, but there’s peace in his expression now. Relief.
“Thank you,” he says, looking at both Teagan and Matthew. “Thank you for finishing what I started.“
The light dissolves. The rain suddenly stops. The wind dies to nothing.
The clock on the community board reads 18:38.
And then it ticks forward. 18:39.
The loop is broken.
The elderly woman sinks back onto her bench, looking dazed but aware. The jogger in the yellow jacket continues past without looping back. The park gates remain open.