Intersections

by Megan Hart

  “Come this way,” she said once I was ready. She led me into a parlor room where five other people sat around a very large table. “You may sit anywhere you like except at the end.”

  I chose one of the two empty spots between two ladies. The lights were dim and no one spoke. No one looked at me. They stared quietly ahead. I sat patiently with my hands in my lap. The heaviness of the room weighed on my shoulders like a million pounds.

  There was a candle in the middle of the table. A real candle, not an electric one. It flickered, casting shadows against the walls. Outside of the windows, the trees creaked, a car roared by, and the distant waves crashed.

  As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I saw that there were several bookcases with many esoteric items on them among the books. There were several styles of Ouija boards and planchettes, talking boards, pendulums, tarot cards, and little statues that I couldn’t quite make out.

  At last, the final people arrived and the table was filled. The lights were dimmed further. Meredith entered the room once more.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Natasha. She is your medium tonight.”

  A tall, pale woman entered the room. She was more beautiful than any Morticia and ten times more creepy. She didn’t walk, she glided. She took her place at the head of the table, her movement liquid as if she were oil on water. She spoke with a thick accent, maybe Romanian or Hungarian.

  “Good evening. I’m Natasha and I’ve been a medium for a very long time. I’ve made Hermana my home for many years. I enjoy holding séances for people who are searching for messages. I even enjoy holding them for those who don’t believe at all.” She stopped speaking and stared at me. Her gaze was sharp and I winced. “Please hold hands.”

  We all held hands, still strangers in the dark. Natasha led us through a bunch of traditional séance stuff. Calling out to the spirits, waiting for answers, as we sang, clapped, and so on.

  At last, there was a series of knocks that vibrated the table. The person holding my right hand gripped it tighter. The flickering candle illuminated beads of sweat breaking out on the forehead of the man across from me. The knocks were in some kind of pattern. They didn’t seem to be Morse. It amuses me that I even know Morse code, but of course, a magician has her tricks. I didn’t believe the knocks were anything of a supernatural nature and they weren’t a message in Morse code either. Yet, the nauseous feeling returned and in my mind, a darkness seeped in.

  The candle flame stretched long and thin, the flame reaching high towards the ceiling. Someone gasped. An older woman with red hair teased into a beehive looked around quickly.

  “Something touched me,” a woman said. “On the shoulder.”

  We continued to hold hands as we looked around the room and behind each other. The vibrations in the room seemed to shift. A mist rose over by the bookshelves where the crystal balls and Ouija boards were displayed. We looked back at the candle. My stomach lurched. The dizziness returned. There were voices arguing in my head. I looked around, wondering if there was a radio being piped in.

  “Do you feel anything else?” Natasha’s warm voice sliced through the darkness.

  “I have the chills now. Goosebumps,” a young woman with long blond hair whispered.

  “Ah, the spirits are here,” Natasha said. I shivered. The air in the room shifted again. A wave of cool mixed in with the previous sudden heat and through it all, the arguing voices. The effects were easy enough to manipulate. The house could be full of people fiddling with fans and thermostats. Transmitters. Radios. I bet if I asked aloud, others would describe the voices. There was more knocking. It didn’t scare me one bit. However, some of the others were falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

  “There is someone here. Someone coming through,” Natasha said in her thick Hungarian accent. The candle flickered wildly. The room grew brighter for a moment, as if there was a bonfire in the middle of the table instead of a candle. The faces around me illuminated for a moment. A mosaic of people from so many walks of life. One woman had tears running down her face. I wondered if she too had been touched. The nattering voices stopped. The only sounds were breathing or rather, breath being held in anticipation.

  Something tugged my hair. I let out a yelp. My cry startled several others who also shuffled and gasped. I looked around but my partners were still holding my hands tight in theirs. Then, something was tickling at my neck. I pulled my hand away to swat at it. For a moment, it felt like something solid clasped my hand. Something that wasn’t there. It held tight for a moment, and then released me.

  I looked for wires, for people, but there was nothing in the shadows to give an explanation. I settled down and held hands once more. The mist by the bookcase grew larger, rolling in on itself.

  The hair on my arms burned as if I were standing too close to the fire. Again I pulled away my hands to rub at them.

  “I have come here with several others, to show you that there is indeed, more than what you see.” A flat woman’s voice with a New England accent spoke from Natasha’s mouth.

  “I’ve come here for five years and have never seen anything like this,” Beehive whispered in the dark. “My lord.”

  There was a crashing sound as something broke on the other side of the room. Several knick-knacks flew from the cabinets. The table shook.

  There were screams and gasps. Even I had let out a shout before I pulled myself together. I wasn’t going to succumb to the panic of the herd. I was in this business of freaking people out as well. I wondered again what kind of trick this was. A Halloween haunted house. The special effects were the best I’d ever seen, even on YouTube. There must have been mirrors to hide the wires. I looked up at the ornate patterned ceiling, shadows from the candle giving the illusion of tiny shadow devils dancing. Something was pulling my hair again. Hard.

  I stood up, wrestling with whatever was there. Several others had stood as well, struggling with unseen forces.

  As I flailed around, Natasha slowly stood up, her pale hands glowing in the darkness as they gripped the table.

  “Enough!” Her voice had returned to her thick European accent.

  Meredith snapped on the lights.

  “What’s going on?” Meredith asked. “I was ironing upstairs and heard so much noise.”

  Natasha smoothed out her velvet dress, her thin figure gliding towards Meredith.

  “The spirits were very active tonight. They put on quite a show.”

  Meredith nodded. She looked around the room.

  “Is everyone okay? Who came through this time?”

  “The usual ones were there but there was also a new one. A new spirit, perhaps two, that I’ve not encountered before. They were dark with ill intention so I decided we call it a night.”

  “I don’t want to call it a night,” Beehive said loudly. “I came here to speak with my cousin. I’m sure he’s the one who touched me.”

  “Your cousin was here, yes. He misses you but says not to worry about him. He’s at peace now,” Natasha said.

  Beehive smiled. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. You must continue on with your life. He wants that.”

  “Yes, I have been. I have so much to tell him. His advice has been spot on. Can I speak with him? Is he still here?” Beehive looked hopefully around the room.

  Natasha shook her head.

  “Not now. We had to stop tonight. Too much evil in the room. It’s not fair to the pure.” Natasha said, her face stern as she looked over the clients. “We must keep it fair.”

  “That’s wise. You know what can happen if you invite in the wrong ones,” Meredith said as she helped her guests find their belongings.

  The whole exchange sounded so phony to me. It takes a con to spot a con. I had no idea how they pulled my hair and burned my arms. Wires of some sort. It had to be. Elaborate hoax.

  Every séance was likely exactly the same. Meredith returned my phone and purse from the lockers and I headed towards the door with the others.
>
  Natasha stopped in front of me. Her mouth was curved in a half smile. A smirk, perhaps. Maybe she was just haughty. I figured she had something to say.

  “Thank you ever so, for the séance,” I cooed in my best Marilyn. I adjusted my little pillbox hat and attempted to walk around her.

  “You’ll be back,” said Natasha, her smile revealing long, actually weirdly long, teeth. She stepped back and waved her long, burgundy painted nails at the door. “Goodbye.”

  * * *

  And she was right. What am I doing right now? Going back.

  * * *

  However, that night, as a half dozen of us wandered down the street to our respective destinations, or at least those of us not driving, we mused over the evening’s events.

  “I’m Peggy, by the way.” A blond woman shook my hand. “Have you ever been to a séance before?” she asked me.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  “Me too. What did you think?”

  “I’m not sure at all what to think,” I whispered, channeling Marilyn.

  “Me neither.”

  Another woman piped up.

  “I think it was rigged. I don’t know how, but it was,” said the other lady.

  “Yeah, I was trying to figure out how they could have done it,” said Peggy.

  “Me too.”

  I listened to them all discuss their theories. I always learned a lot by listening, especially after a show like that one. Hearing what they saw and didn’t see, what they expected and what they thought was an experience of value, could be great research material for my own gigs.

  “But what about that one lady? That one who has been coming for five years? There must be something working for her. These séances aren’t cheap.”

  “Some people just want to believe. They want to connect with their loved ones. I know that I sure do.”

  “Me, too.”

  The other two clients joined in the conversation.

  “I’m still shaken up by it all. Scared the hell out of me. Tom’s the name.” A silver-haired man held his hand out to me.

  “Do you think it was real?”

  “I sure can’t explain it,” said Tom. “All that stuff flying around the room. I’ve been to a few séances in my time. Even here in Hermana, and there’s never been that kind of activity. For me. I’ve heard it happens to others.”

  “Maybe they only do it occasionally. The special effects, I mean,” said Peggy. “To keep up the mystique.”

  “Or maybe it really happened,” said Tom.

  “What about the voices?” I asked. “How do you explain those?”

  The others stopped and looked at me.

  “You mean when Natasha channelled that other lady?” Peggy asked.

  “No... the voices. The ones arguing. The bickering. That shrieky woman against that annoying man. The whiny children.”

  “I didn’t hear any voices. Not like you’re describing,” Peggy said.

  “Me, neither,” the others agreed.

  “You sure they weren’t in your head?” Tom asked. “Or maybe, they were demons.”

  I saw he was half-kidding so I rewarded him with a half-laugh. I didn’t press the subject nor did they hound me. I wondered if these supposedly naive people were all plants and I was the only stooge... client. How did they not hear those voices? Those sounds couldn’t have been in my head. I’d never heard some of those sounds before in my life so it wasn’t like I was remembering something from a bad dream for some reason. Why wasn’t I hearing them now? Or any other time in my life? But I kept my mouth shut and let my thoughts spiral around shadow people and voices as my stomach finally began to simmer down. The conversation wound back around to the stuff flying around the room. Their speculation continued until we all parted ways.

  However, even as I half-listened to their theories, I didn’t care anymore. I had found the addition to our act that we needed.

  * * *

  When I returned to my little room in the bed and breakfast, I locked the door. I carefully removed my vintage dress and slip and hung them up. There was a small powder room so I was able to freshen up without having to leave. The air in the room felt thick. As I splashed water on my face, I had the distinct feeling something was watching me. Several times I turned around to find nothing.

  I turned on all the lights as the shadows in the corners of the room were beginning to play tricks on me. I wasn’t interested in their shenanigans. I had more important business.

  I sat on the bed and pulled over my satchel. I unbuckled the thick straps and pulled out a Ouija board and a planchette. In the ruckus at the séance, I’d been able to lift them from one of the bookcases. I set them on the bed.

  I stared at the board, at the letters. I studied the “Hello” and “Good Bye.” It seemed to be a basic Ouija board but it didn’t have the same paper glow that I had seen on others. Hesitantly, I reached for it. It pulsed or rather, breathed, enticing me to draw my hand closer. Now when I say it “breathed” I mean, it felt as if the board was urging me to touch it. It wasn’t physically moving or anything. But the sense, the urgency for me to touch it was there. As if the board was tunneling into my mind, urging me to make contact with it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to touch it again. However, it compelled me.

  My fingers stroked the strange material that formed the board. It was like a leather or maybe some other fabric. As I looked closer at the board, I saw that it wasn’t made from one piece of cardboard but from many patches and slips of material, sewn together with tiny, careful stitches. I stroked the stitches that were a pale, brown color that mated with the fabric in an almost imperceptible weave.

  I fell asleep stroking that creepy board. And no, I don’t remember my dreams from that night.

  * * *

  The bus lurched to a halt at a service station and my seatmates woke. I put away my notebook and pen, and took my package as well as my knapsack and joined the others in a zombielike shuffle for food and bathrooms. At least the hovering sense of doom had left as the passengers came to life.

  * * *

  The men beside me slumped back into their comas as our journey toiled on. I’m sure they will waken again soon. The sky has shifted towards dawn, so I’d better get this story finished.

  * * *

  When I returned to Toronto, I surprised Danny with a pop-in. I had hoped very hard to find him in the arms of another, but instead, he was watching An American in Paris surrounded by his creepy puppets in his creepy living room.

  “Look!” I presented him with the board. He looked it over.

  “So? What are we supposed to do with this?”

  “We can have séances. Build an act around séances!” I said.

  “I already have Ouija boards...” he protested.

  “Not one from the magical witch town of Hermana!” I said.

  He picked it up, running his fingers along the board.

  “Interesting...I wonder if this is...human flesh…? Did you ask about the history of the board when you bought it?”

  “Uh...no,” I said. “Human flesh? A bit dramatic. Alligator, perhaps.”

  “Not alligator for a New England witch board. Snakes. Fish. Even beaver or deer. And yes, I was being dramatic, my dear.” He smiled.

  “If it’s leather, as you say, how is it so smooth? The planchette has to be able to move.”

  “Some kind of glaze or finish, I guess. I’d have to look it up. See what others have done although a flesh Ouija board isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence,” Danny said.

  I held out the planchette. The puppets watched, as if I were christening him my knight in shining armor. Maybe knight in shining hair, but that was where that fairy tale ended except maybe the knight and the princess abscond with big bags of real cash they earned from illusions. The puppets approved. Hopefully, Danny did but I knew by the way he was looking at me, he wanted more. More would never happen. Sorry Danny.

  Instead, Danny took the planchette and studied it.

&nb
sp; “Oh, this is just wood. Plain old wood with glass.” He put down the planchette and returned to the board. “But the board, my oh my...that is interesting indeed. As for it being a major game changer for our act. No, it’s just a witch board, a Ouija board, and even if it is made from human flesh, we can’t exactly say that in our act.”

  “Oh, but Danny, we will tell them it’s human flesh even if it isn’t. How magnificently disturbing!” I said as I stroked his arm. His rough edges softened.

  “Don’t worry, my dear, I will figure out an act for us. Thank you for bringing me this delightful oddity. I’m sorry if I upset you,” Danny said.

  “I wanted to surprise you. I hope I did,” I said and I left him to his puppets and the Ouija board.

  * * *

  Well, that was actually the last time I saw Danny...in the flesh as it were...

  * * *

  He had texted for me to come over, that he had discovered the greatest trick of all. But when I arrived at his place, he didn’t answer the door. I let myself in, only to find the Ouija board set up on the coffee table and puppets sitting in chairs around it, including Mr. Peepers. And one empty chair. The planchette was on the board at “Good Bye.”

  “Danny?” I called for him. I texted him. He was nowhere to be found.

  I looked again at the board. My phone vibrated. It was a message from Danny.

  Ask a question, the text suggested.

  So I did.

  I reluctantly took my place at the puppet table. I sighed as I looked at the various glassy eyed faces. Mr. Peepers glared.

  “Where is Danny?” I asked. I placed my hands on the planchette. To my surprise, the planchette moved, racing along the letters on that fleshboard as if it were newly sharpened skates in the Ice Capades. I’d never felt a planchette move on its own before. I had always been the one to move it for hapless vict...customers. The planchette moved frantically and I wrote down the letters with my left hand as my right hand stayed on for the ride.