Making a Medium

by Erin Huss

  He points to the door. "Leave."

  This man has a lot of nerve. "I'm not going anywhere. You leave."

  "I'm the person that's going to keep Betty from serving a life sentence. Who do think needs to be here more? The ghost lady or the lawyer?”

  I open my mouth, ready to spit out a witty retort, but nothing comes out. The witty part of my brain must be broken.

  Or I'm intimidated by Jackson.

  Probably both.

  Jackson narrows his eyes. "Betty may think you see Willie, but she's in a delicate and vulnerable state of mind right now. I'm not." He takes a step closer, and I instinctually back up until I hit the wall. "You're an opportunist. Nothing more. I have it figured out: You read the article printed in The Gazette last month about Willie and the work he did for the space program. He bragged about his wealth, as he usually did, and you realized this multimillionaire was on death's door and decided to insert yourself into his life."

  I'm baffled. "There was never an article about Willie in The Gazette."

  Jackson reaches into his briefcase, pulls out a copy of the paper, and opens it to page six. "Right there." He points to the article circled in red.

  I grab it from his grasp and scan down the page. It's a complete bio of Willie, detailing his time in the Navy, his work within the space program, love of cross-country skiing and boating. How he still played golf at the country club every Tuesday and Thursday, and it ends with a quote, "Sure, I've had a great life. Made a lot of money, lived in many places, met a lot of beautiful women, but I'm happy. Trucker County is the best place to retire." And below the article is a picture of Willie in his thirties, wearing the homburg hat, suit, and tie. The same ensemble he's worn since he appeared.

  The article was written by Brian. He'd said that he met with Willie, but he didn't say why.

  How had I missed this? It was published right below “The Squirrel of the Month.”

  "Part of my defense is to provide a number of suspects who had reasonable motive to kill Willie," Jackson says. "And I've been doing research on the girl from Fernn Valley who claims to see dead people. And do you know what I found, Zoe?" He hooks his fingers into quotation marks when he says Zoe, and I don't know why. "It's like you don't exist. So, Zoe." Again with the air quotes. "What is your real name?”

  Now he's gone and ticked me off. "You don't get to talk to me like that, got it?" I poke him with my finger and ouch!

  Gah! This hurts.

  Jackson appears amused. "You okay?"

  "Yes." Noooo!

  I think I broke my finger. Is his chest made of titanium?

  Jackson doesn't let up. "John and Mary Lane have one child, born October thirty-first, nineteen ninety-six.”

  "Right?" I say, holding my finger, not sure where he's going with this.

  "A daughter by the name of Samantha Lane," he says. "No other children. So my question for you is, once again, who are you?"

  My mind grabs ahold of one detail. "Samantha?" I ask at a whisper. "Did you say Samantha with an S?"

  "Yes, Samantha Lane." He produces a file from his briefcase and flips it open. "Samantha Lane, born—"

  I snatch the file. It's nothing but handwritten notes. Samantha Lane circled several times with a question mark. Los Angeles. House fire? No driver's license. No bank accounts.

  I lift my eyes. "Why does it say fire?"

  Jackson studies me with an intense gaze.

  "Why does it say fire?" I press.

  "John and Mary's house burned down in nineteen ninety-nine," he says, still studying me. "All articles say it was started by their child. But there's no record of a Samantha Lane after that. Your parents applied for a rental home when they first moved to Fernn Valley in two thousand three, and they claimed it would only be the two of them occupying the residence. Which makes me question where exactly you came from."

  I don't know what to say. Samantha with an S and a house fire. Willie's article in The Gazette. I feel a bit dizzy and out of breath. Jackson is speaking to me, but I can't make sense of his words. The room is spinning around and around, as I mush this all together.

  S and fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It feels like someone has wrapped my head in cellophane, and I barely register Betty who has stumbled into the foyer slurring her words or Jackson who is still talking to me as if I were caught lying under oath.

  Samantha, the fire, no memories of my life prior to seven. Even worse, the article on Willie …

  I knew Willie wasn't a figment of my imagination because I had never seen nor heard of him before. But that can't be true. I read that issue of The Gazette. I remember that squirrel!

  Mom was right.

  I don't see dead people.

  I don't feel other people's feelings.

  I'm sick.

  With a clear brain scan and normal blood count, it means physiologically there's something wrong with me. My brain has manifested everything. Everything! None of it can be real.

  I need to get out of here.

  Ignoring both Jackson who is calling after me and the neighbors outside of their mansions watching me go by, I run down the street like I'm being chased. I'm able to slip through the gate when a car enters. I get as far as the frontage road before my lungs stage a protest and I collapse to my hands and knees.

  The cufflink falls out of my shirt and lands in the dirt beneath my hands. I pick it up and fall back onto my legs. Is this real? If someone were to walk up to me right now, would they even see it? But Betty saw it. So did Brian.

  Are they real?

  Am I real?

  Is this dirt real?

  Is the little spider crawling up my arm real?

  It feels real, but so did Willie.

  I shove the cufflink back into my bra and bury my head into my hands, too freaked out to even cry. My mind is desperately trying to grasp the situation.

  Roughly six minutes into my nervous breakdown, a car pulls over and rolls down the window. A bearded man in a pale blue shirt leans out of the car and asks if I'm all right.

  I stare at him.

  Is this guy real?

  "Do you need help?" the man asks, giving me a pitiful look. Like I'm crazy, like I'm a charity case, like I'm one of those transient people who walk along the highway. Speaking of which, a man with a bushy beard and a Davy Crockett hat on his head stomps by, muttering something about vases and cigarettes. I reach out my arm, and my hand brushes against his pant leg, but he doesn't notice and keeps on walking. I think he's real, and wowza, his odor lingers. Blah!

  "Can I call someone?" the man in the car asks, and I hear the unmistakable click of car doors being locked.

  My cell phone is at Betty's, and I don't have my wallet or any way of getting anywhere.

  Looks like I'm left with no other option.

  * * *

  When my dad arrives, I'm still sitting on the side of the road, hugging my knees. I asked him to come alone. I'm not ready to face Mom, because even though I have clearly hit rock bottom (quite literally, there are several rocks digging into my bottom), I still have a sliver of pride left (a very small sliver). And my pride doesn't want to hear, "I told you so."

  Dad exits the car and walks toward me with his hands shoved into the front pockets of his pants. "Hey, Pumpkin." He extends a hand and helps me to my feet.

  "Hi, Dad," I say to the ground. If I look at him, I will cry.

  I slink into the passenger seat of the van and pull on my seat belt. My briefcase is sitting on the floor between the two captain’s chairs in the back. Dad slides into the driver’s seat and follows my gaze.

  "I thought you might need that," he says.

  "No." I shake my head. "I won't need it where I'm going."

  "And where is that?"

  I steal a glance at him. If he's concerned about my current mental state, he's not showing it. "You need to take me to a hospital," I say, feeling a little annoyed. Isn't it obvious? Does he not communicate with his wife? "I'm seein
g imaginary people who claim to be dead."

  "Is that so?" Dad shoves the key in the ignition and Jabba jumps up on the center console.

  “Ah!” I grab my chest. “Why’d you bring the cat?”

  “He followed me out to the car and jumped in. I tried to get him out.” Dad pulls the sleeve of his shirt up, revealing red claw marks.

  “Oh.” Maybe Willie is right. Jabba is possessed. Except Willie isn’t real. So he can’t be right. Jabba is just a cat, and I’ve manifested the entire conversation.

  Ugh.

  I drop my head into my hands.

  "How about ice cream?"

  I peer up at my dad. This man is as crazy as I am. "No! I don't want ice cream. Did you hear what I said? I see people, Dad. People who don't exist. People like Willie MacIntosh, the multimillionaire who died in Trucker. The man whose house you want to sell. That's who I'm seeing." I stare straight ahead. "Now, hospital."

  "Is he here now?" Dad looks around. "Willie?"

  "Nooo, he's not." Geez. Getting committed is harder than I thought it would be. Maybe I should have called Mom.

  "Why not?" Dad asks.

  "I asked him to leave," I say, feeling frustrated. Does he not understand the gravity of this situation? "But it doesn't matter, because he's not real."

  "Hmm."

  "What do you mean, hmmm."

  "We need ice cream." Dad starts the car and takes off down the highway, toward East Trucker.

  "Dad, trust me. Ice cream cannot fix this situation. Please turn around and take me to the mental hospital in Fernn Valley. I'm sure they're expecting me."

  "Ice cream fixes everything." He takes the J Street exit and stops at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, complete with pink and white awnings above the windows and a seven-foot-tall chocolate sundae statue out front.

  "I'll be right back," Dad says before I can protest. I can see him through the window, pointing out his flavors to the girl working behind the counter.

  Maybe the hospital has a two-for-one special.

  I lean my head back and stare up at the ceiling, feeling completely dejected when Jabba paws at my leg.

  “What do you want?” I ask, half expecting him to respond. I have made-up conversations with rich dead people. Why not pets?

  Jabba scratches at my leg again then leaps down to the floor and lands on a copy of The Gazette beneath my shoe.

  Of course, it's Tuesday.

  I hadn’t noticed it was there. The paper is still rolled and fastened with a rubber band, but I can see the front-page headline: "Pedestrian Struck on Main Street."

  Great.

  I snap off the band and unfurl the paper, leaving my fingertips black from the bleeding ink.

  A woman was struck by a vehicle on Main Street early Monday morning … LeRoy … no charges filed … yada-yada-yada … article continued on page 4.

  I unfold the paper and flip to the fourth page … Ahhh!

  There's a picture.

  Not just any picture.

  A full-page display of the accident! There's LeRoy standing beside his car with his hands over his mouth wearing the country club attire, beige pants and white-collared shirt. The driver’s side door of his car is wide open, and my briefcase is lying in the middle of the crosswalk.

  What I find horrifying is Brian, who is walking toward the doctor's office with me in his arms. My head is flung back and my mouth is open, while Brian's cheeks are puffed and, even though the picture is in black and white, you can tell his face is flushed. Like he's hauling a 200-pound bag of cement.

  Gah!

  This day just keeps getting better and better.

  “Thanks,” I say to Jabba. “This is exactly what I needed right now.” I throw the paper on the ground.

  Dad returns with an ice cream cone in each hand. Oh, for heaven’s sake.

  I open the door for him.

  "Thank you, Pumpkin." He gets in and licks an escaped dribble of mint chip slithering down the side of the cone. "Here you go." He holds out a double scoop of vanilla with a cherry on top, and I give him a look. "What?"

  "I don't want ice cream, Dad. I’m not seven. But I am sick."

  "More for me." He shrugs.

  "Fine." I yank the cone from his hand and take a small bite. Admittedly, he's right. I feel a tiny bit better. But that's only because my stomach is empty and the calories are a welcomed addition. "Can we go now?"

  "No." Dad reclines his chair, like he's planning to stay for a while. "We need to have a chat. There are things your mother and I have been keeping from you."

  I think about Samantha and the fire and why I wasn't with them when they first moved to Fernn Valley. I'm not sure I want to know the truth anymore. Honestly, I'd like to go back to being blissfully unaware.

  "It started when you were three," Dad says. "You had imaginary friends. At first, we didn't think too much of it. You were young. But your friends weren't typical for a three-year-old. One friend was named Jose Luis Francisco, and he'd recently died on death row after being charged for the murder of his nephew."

  I drop the ice cream onto my lap.

  "Here you go." Dad hands me a napkin, not skipping a beat, and I clean up the mess, feeling numb. I've been crazy since I was three!

  "We put you in therapy," Dad continues. "You told the therapist that Jose was wrongly accused, and it was your job to clear his name."

  This sounds slightly familiar.

  "Your mother freaked out."

  That too sounds slightly familiar.

  "And you told everyone about Jose," Dad says. "Teachers, strangers, neighbors, and even Santa Claus." A smile creeps on his face at the memory. "You sat on his lap and said all you wanted for Christmas was a plane ticket to Mexico so you could visit the Francisco family and tell them Jose was innocent. Then you showed him how to make a shiv out of a candy cane." He pauses to take a bite of mint chip. "It was right before your fourth birthday when the house burned down. You were making bacon for Jose at midnight and started a grease fire."

  Sadly, this also sounds familiar. I can pull up a vague image of a man with dark brown hair, golden eyes, and a silver tooth telling me about how he was denied his last meal—which was bacon.

  Oh, hell.

  "We had no choice but to put you on medication," Dad says, his easy-breezy let's eat our feelings tone has faded. "You stopped talking to Jose, but the problem was, you stopped talking to everyone. Even us. You were tired all the time. It was a struggle to get you to eat. You said food didn't taste good anymore. You missed Jose. Kids wouldn't play with you. Their parents wouldn't allow it … And that was our life until you were seven."

  “So that explains why I don’t remember anything before we came to Fernn Valley, because I was drugged.”

  “It does.” Dad wipes the corners of his mouth with a napkin. "We decided to move to a place where no one knew us or you. We even went so far as to change your name, paranoid you’d somehow hear about the fire, or someone from Los Angeles would look you up. When we got here, we took you off all medication, and you appeared to be fine."

  "But Mom put me back on it without my knowledge," I say.

  "I didn't know about that," Dad says. "But, you have to understand, your mother would do anything for you. She wants so badly to protect you, and she can sometimes overstep."

  Ya think?

  "We've spent a great deal of effort to make sure you were never too excited or exposed to anything that could trigger an episode. No internet. No caffeine. Your mom read that profanity caused stress and banned us all from using it. We found jobs which would allow us the flexibility to be around more.”

  So this is it—I've had another episode. Why now? I feel terrible for my parents. I had no idea they had gone through so much just to keep me sane.

  "The thing is, Zoe, about a month ago, I was watching an episode of 20/20, and they ran a story about a man named Jose Luis Francisco who was killed on death row for the murder of his nephew. But new DNA evidence had come to light which
exonerated him." He shakes his head. "When I saw the picture of Jose, a man with golden eyes and a silver tooth, just as you said, I yelled for your mother. She watched the episode but refused to believe it. This is where she and I differ." Dad stares straight at me. "Zoe, you can see ghosts. There's no way you could have known about Jose at three years old. We didn't even have cable back then. And I started doing research. The book in your briefcase, Reaching the Other Side, I'd read it when I'd take you to the library."

  I bring my hand to my mouth. "You're the one who marked it up?"

  Dad nods. "You have a gift, Zoe. Use it."

  I can hardly believe what I'm hearing.

  "B-but what about Mom?"

  "I love your mother, and when you love someone, you'll do everything in your power to protect them. She doesn't handle paranormal stuff well. So for her sake and yours, we should keep this a secret for a while."

  "Good call," I say, still not quite convinced this isn't all a psychotic meltdown. "But I read about Willie MacIntosh before he showed up. It was in The Gazette two weeks ago, right above ‘The Squirrel of the Month.’"

  "No, you didn't see the article because Mom took the page out. I clipped ‘The Squirrel of the Month’ for you."

  He's right.

  I'd completely forgotten about that. He'd told me Mom had cut out an article for work. But, "Why did she save the bio on Willie?”

  "To convince me we should expand our business to Trucker because there were wealthier people there and we could sell bigger homes than we do here."

  "Oh," is all I can say.

  "I think you're going to do great things, Zoe."

  I’m not so sure about that, but I appreciate his confidence in me. “What about the safe?” I ask. “The one in your closet. What’s in there?”

  “We have your health records and birth certificate.”

  “And a gun.”

  Dad nods slightly. “Once I realized my daughter sees dead ex-convicts, it seemed like a good idea to have some form of protection.”

  I laugh. I can’t help myself. “I don’t think a gun is going to protect you from a spirit.”

  “No, but it will protect me from the spirit’s alive friends.”