"Charles Redfern"

The gentleman who called for our services had just become the new owner of a historical mansion in Nu'uanu. It sat on seventeen acres of land and was built in the Tudor architectural style which made it appear as some kind of anomaly among the other southern plantation houses on the block. His name was Charles Redfern, and within less than a month, he began to experience apparitions floating through the master bedroom and the guest house. He claimed to have witnessed flaming orbs bobbing through the back property one afternoon, but the clincher came when he took his dinner in the downstairs living room and witnessed an entire tableau of people suddenly appear out of thin air. They stood frozen for a second and then went on about their business, talking amongst one another, laughing as if they had not a care in the world, and then suddenly leaving the living room to gather outside. Their specters huddled closely and gazed up into the dark heavens as if they were witnessing some kind of miracle,

"That's when the whole group disappeared, just like they were never there," Charles said.

"I see, did you hear the conversations or anything they might have said?" I asked.

"No," Charles replied. "It was all muted silence, they carried on as if I were never there."

"Like the party went on with, or without you?" I asked.

"Exactly," Charles confirmed.

"Mr. Redfern, how would you like us to help you?" Being a wealthy man, it was obvious to me that Charles Redfern didn't want to lose the ten million dollars he'd just forked over for his historical home and so I assumed that he wanted the issue resolved in anyway possible. I was wrong.

"Well, if there are any more of these ghosts or spirits on the property, I'd like you and your people to draw more of them out, as many as you can in fact. Encourage them to manifest as much as possible, I'll pay you well for your services of course." He said.

I didn't crack and I didn't ask the obvious question, instead, I saw his plan.

"I get it, it's an old historical mansion and you just found out that it's got ghosts, a lot of 'em. You create a website, you cater to the travel desks in Waikiki, tour buses coming through here all the time. It's a gold mine, am I right?" I asked.

"Right on the money," Charles confirmed.

"The only thing is that you're a witness to these activities, but you have no control as to when they appear and disappear. You feel like they're working independently but you'd like them to appear on a regular schedule?" I knew we were on the same page at this point.

"My god," He breathed a sigh of relief. "You understand me."

"You're going to have a problem with the neighborhood board and zoning and all that," I told him, thinking that it would scare him off.

"Let me worry about that," He reassured me. "There's always some politician that needs to pay off a college tuition or a mortgage of some sort."

"Mr. Redfern, I can't help you. We're a psychic investigative team, we're not conjurers or sorcerers. The few hauntings you've witnessed thus far have been relegated to the immediate property. There's much more there than you realize. Someone or anyone for that matter who might have the ability to open that door and invite everything that is on your property to manifest on a daily basis will only invite disaster. Please take my advice, in the beginning, all of this ghost stuff appears to be thrilling and fascinating but there's much more to it than just hauntings of houses and the like. You are still dealing with real people who are very much filled with human emotions and concerns. The only difference is that they are no longer of the flesh. Mind you, I'm only talking about what's happening within the immediate vicinity of your property. The larger part of your property is inhabited by kupua (shapeshifters), kupu'eu (mysterious and mischevious beings,) and night marchers, and that's just the preliminaries. The main event is one that you want to avoid completely and this is why I am strongly discouraging you to abandon your plan." That was a mouthful but it had to be said.

"I'm taking notes here, so what was that last bit of information?" He asked. It was obvious that my warnings went completely in one ear and out the other. I was worried about his sanity and he only saw mad dollar signs. There was not one modicum of concern for his own well-being or for the cultural and spiritual integrity of his property or his own life.

"You'll have to find that out on your own Mr. Redfern like I said, I can't help you." With that, I turned my phone off and went back to work.

A month later, Charles Redfern's body was found ten feet away from his pool house. One leg lay submerged in an old artesian well that no one knew was on the property. Around the ankle of the one leg were deep dark bruised finger marks. His lips were dark and swollen and his eyes were covered in a clear kind of membrane-like substance. On his skin was a similar kind of substance, except that it was more slime like. The cause of death was undetermined even though it appeared that he'd drowned internally. A month later, the property was back on the market for sale at a cool three million, it's been a year now and nobody has bitten so far. Now and then, we drive by the property and stand outside the gate to take a look. The Nu'uanu wind is soothing and the place is quiet and serene, just the way it should be. Personally, I think it should stay that way for as long as possible.

....

The bit of information that I refused to share with Charles Redfern was something that I feared would be his own undoing if I'd told him. It's for that same reason that I told him that he'd have to find that information on his own, I didn't want to be responsible if anything did happen. Apparently, it did. A few months before Charles Redfern purchased the mansion on Nu'uaanu, a realtor friend of ours took my wife and myself on a tour of the property. It was magnificent and we could only imagine what it might have been like in its heyday. It goes without saying of course, that my wife and immediately sensed spirits on the property but they were residual and harmless. The active ones were the ones that roamed the property as I had previously mentioned. However, the most powerful entity was the one that lived in the old artesian well just ten feet away from the pool house.

A Mo'o Wahine.

It is my belief that Charles did do some research and found out, or perhaps he didn't and he came upon the Mo'o Wahine purely by accident. Either way, it cost him his life.