Intersections

by Megan Hart

  I’m right here. The first set of letters that I transcribed spelled out.

  I laughed.

  “Where?” I asked.

  In this room, the letters spelled.

  “But I can’t see you?”

  It’s the best part of the trick! You brought us a fantastic act, the letters spelled.

  * * *

  Yes, he was somehow inside the board or the spirit world or something. He wasn’t dead, was he? I didn’t know. I still don’t know.

  For a couple of months, it was kind of fun. I became the solo face of the act. I was the one who talked and performed and wore the fancy clothes. I was the one collecting the tips and banking the paychecks. Our mentalism act went through the roof. After all, how could I ever be wrong with Danny going into people’s pockets and purses, seeing their dreams, running out to their cars, actually reading me word for word what is on the driver’s license instead of me listening for the codes and clues. As for that mysterious touching trick where I touch someone without touching them? He was more than perfect for that trick.

  I was so magical I was being booked beyond Toronto. Clients wanted me to fly all over Canada and the States with my magic Ouija board so that I could read their minds and amuse them and maybe they’d also get a chance to speak to one of their dead relatives.

  And it was cool, like I said, for a couple of months...

  Until Danny was bored of being inside of the board.

  I miss you. I want to see you.

  “You see me every day,” I told him.

  It’s not the same, not at all, Danny wrote. Sometimes, I just want to be real again.

  “How can I get you out?” I asked him.

  I don’t know.

  “How did you get in there?” I asked.

  I don’t know.

  * * *

  Of course he knew how he got in there. He just wasn’t going to tell me. A magician never reveals his tricks.

  * * *

  And so, I had to return to Hermana. And Natasha.

  * * *

  Now that the sun is up, it’s a bazillion degrees in here. The men are up. Sweating and grunting as they shift around in their seats, trying to get comfortable playing video games on their phones.

  * * *

  It doesn’t matter that the sun is up. The things are still here. I can still feel them pressing against me, anxious to get at the board.

  * * *

  I did try to get him out before this trip, of course. I did lots of things to figure out where he was and how to get him out. I pored through ancient spell books, googled modern Ouija board advice, and all the stuff in between.

  One time, at his place, of course, I wouldn’t dare do it in my room, I drew a chalk circle on the floor. He had a painted pentagram under the rug, but I drew a chalk circle kind of over it. I figured my energy and my chalk might be important to make this work.

  I brought the Ouija board into the circle. I had a candle, goblet, incense, a chalice, an athame, salt, herbs...all the things I needed for a spell. I lit the candle. Said the words on the paper. I stood up, moving my arms into the formations dictated by the spell.

  The candle flickered. The room grew dark though it was daylight since I was too afraid to cast a spell by myself in the night. Shadows danced along the walls. The air was hot and cold, hot and cold. Goosebumps ran up my arms, up my back. My hair stood on end as I recited more words. The air was electric with my words, with my energy, with energy from somewhere else. The candle flame shot high and then folded into itself. There was a whistling noise and the room grew darker still.

  The whistling, like the sound of a boiling kettle, grew louder. It was difficult to determine where the sound was coming from. I looked around the room. The sound was in the room but it wasn’t clear where it was originating.

  Something pushed me.

  “Danny!” I said but I wasn’t so sure it was Danny. He had a softer touch. Would he ever actually push me?

  I said the words again, louder. I slid the athame along my arm. Bright red drops of blood welled up and then dripped down. I held the chalice to catch some of the blood.

  I lit some charcoal and put more incense on top of it. A special blend from various herbs that I had found in a spell book burned, perfuming the room with pungent smoke.

  I mixed the blood in with some water. I dipped my fingers into it and drew the required symbols on the Ouija board. The planchette shuddered and shook. It slid back and forth, as if trying to erase the symbols.

  The candle tipped over and as I reached for my bowl of sand to put out the flame, a wind came through from somewhere. The wind blew the flame over to one of the circus posters. I ran over, throwing the blood water on the flames lapping at the paper. I managed to put it out. Another small cluster of flames burst up over by one of the puppets.

  “No, not Mr. Peepers!” I cried out loud, grabbing my bottled water from my knapsack and pouring it over Mr. Peepers. As the fire sputtered out, I was amazed at my hitherto unknown affection for Mr. Peepers. Before I could analyze it, another spark took hold, this time on the Ouija board itself. I watched it. Was the board supposed to catch on fire? Was this part of the ritual? Should I just burn the board and Danny would return? Or what would happen if the board burned and Danny was trapped wherever he was, forever?

  I stomped on the board to kill the fire.

  * * *

  Goddammit.

  The sun is so hot as it beams into this bus or rather, traveling sewage pit. The smell from the washroom is getting worse as it grows hotter in here. Several people have already called out for air-conditioning but apparently it’s broken. That news was greeted with some pretty loud moans and groans. Meanwhile, the Ouija board is heating up rapidly. The person in the seat in front of me keeps shifting around and poking his seat. I wonder if he’s actually getting burned. There are actually waves of heat wafting from the board through its wrappers. I look at the men on either side of me but they are glued to their games, the forehead sweat from the guy on my right drips on to his hand. Another smell fills the air. Like burning rubber. My seatmates are oblivious to the smells and the heat and the fact there’s a Ouija board between them that is growing hotter by the minute.

  * * *

  Yeah, the bus broke down. So now, I’m stuck by the side of the road with all the other bus people. I guess we’re now Side-of-the-Road-People. I’m trying to keep my vintage Judy Garland look intact but I’m sweating to death and so damn thirsty I’m freaking out. I already drank all the water in my water bottle, my extra-large coffee from the last rest stop, and a juice box that someone gave me. There’s no shade for miles. We’re all trying to squeeze into the shadow of the bus.

  * * *

  The second bus broke down because one of those big long trucks side-swiped into us. We were on one of those mountains in Massachusetts and the bus rolled a couple of times. I still can’t believe that some of us survived. I barely had a scratch on me. I walked away from the crash and took a ride from an ambulance to the closest bus station. Right across from the hospital. The things from the bus took the ride in the ambulance as well.

  Yes, I was supposed to stay and get checked out and talk to cops, blahblahblah.

  Hell, no!

  The next bus to Boston was ready to pull out of the station when I bought my ticket. I still had my Ouija board and knapsack although nothing much else. I slept the whole way to Boston.

  * * *

  I made it to Hermana. I didn’t even stop anywhere to grab a coffee. I went right over to the place where I’d attended the séance.

  Meredith opened the door. A small smile crept across her lips. She nodded her head.

  “Good afternoon,” Meredith greeted me. I was certainly a sight. Trapped in bus trauma hell for days in the sweltering heat was like a tattoo on my face with the New England humidity making it nearly impossible to keep my make-up in place no matter how much powder I used.

  “Good afternoon,” I said. “May I come in?
”

  Meredith let me in and showed me to the sitting room. Not the room where we’d had the séance but another room. I held the board out to her before I sat down.

  “This belongs to you,” I said. She reached out to take the package and then dropped it.

  “Hot!” she said, rubbing her hands. We both looked at the package on the floor. A bit of mist rolled out of it.

  “I- uh...” I struggled to piece together the perfect words. Though I’d rehearsed this moment for days, I still wasn’t sure what to say.

  “What is it?” a woman’s sultry voice asked. I turned around to see Natasha entering the room, regal in a long burgundy velvet dress with black lace trimmed flared sleeves and plunging neckline. Her long black hair swung as she walked, and even when she stopped to look at me, it seemed alive.

  Her dark eyes were like the black button eyes of a shark. I wondered where the iris began and the pupil ended. Her thick red lips sneered at me.

  “Hello,” she said. She looked at the package on the floor. “What is this?”

  She knelt to pick it up. Her long pale fingers gently lifted the package, and then carefully pulled away the fabric of the tote. They picked apart the aluminum wrapping. The board sprang from her hands and flew across the room. I gasped. It circled the room and then flew out the door. The three of us ran after it until it settled onto the bookcase. Shortly after, the planchette flew through the air like a tiny space ship, and landed on the Ouija board.

  Meredith ran over to the board and stroked it with her fingers.

  “Oh, how I missed you, my friends. I’ve missed you so much,” she sighed. As she ran her hand along the board, she stopped. She moved the planchette from it and picked up the board. She held it up to the light, turning it over. She fingered the threads. From where I stood, a tiny patch glimmered. Why hadn’t I noticed it before?

  The tiny patch quivered as Meredith stroked it with her finger.

  “There’s a new addition.” She examined it closely. “Yes, someone has added to the board.”

  She smiled and replaced the board to the bookshelf. She returned the planchette to its place on the board. There was mist forming all around the bookcase. The air in the room shifted. My forehead dripped with sweat as a cold chill ran up my spine.

  “Ah, it is home. No need for questions or answers. You may leave now,” Natasha said as she led me to the door. I shouldered my knapsack, trying to find the words.

  “My friend, my partner...he’s a magician. He’s...trapped inside the Ouija board,” I said as Natasha held the door open.

  “That’s too bad,” Natasha said. “Nothing good ever comes from letting in evil.”

  “How do you know he let in evil?”

  Natasha laughed.

  “He’s trapped in the Ouija board, isn’t he?” She taunted me as she practically pushed me out the door.

  “But...I need to help him,” I said as the door shut in my face. As I stood staring at the brass lion’s head door knocker, the small kernel of a plan began to formulate in my mind. I walked down the stairs, sea salt air thick on my tongue, and wandered along the streets. The plan grew.

  * * *

  There’s a funeral parlor in Hermana called A Hearse of a Different Color. I’d read about it long ago and walked by it a couple of times on my last visit. I figured out a plan, but wasn’t sure if it would work.

  In the dark of night, after three o’clock because God knows what goes on in this wacked out town during the witching hour, I broke into the house and stole the Ouija board and planchette again.

  Then, I broke into the morgue. Sure, A Hearse of a Different Color had a gorgeous Gothic-styled show room and chapel but those were just the set decorations, the façade for the ugliness that lay underneath. The air was thick. There were shadows and mists in every corner. Tiny little balls of light, orbs, flew by my head. Some hovered around me, hanging in the air like colorful bubbles.

  I used my cellphone as a flashlight as I made my way through the hallways and down a set of stairs. My stomach rolled with a rumbling, hollow sensation.

  The basement was where all the real work happened. There were walls of steel-doored freezers and five long steel surgical tables. Lots of shiny instruments, basins, and tubes swung, hung, and were stacked all around. My heart was pounding as I set the bag with the board and planchette on one of the steel tables.

  I opened a few freezers. They were empty. At last, I found one with the body of a young man. He looked as if he were sleeping. He was a nice-looking boy. I wondered why he died. There was a loud bang from the hallway. I stopped what I was doing. A wall of mist rolled into the room and it grew colder. As I pointed my light at the mist, it thickened and grew taller. I shone my light around the room until I found the light switch. Security cameras be damned, those lights were going on.

  When the lights snapped on, the mist was gone. So were the orbs and shadows. Of course, I knew they weren’t really gone. It was just an illusion. A bowl crashed to the floor. And then another. Maybe it was a security set-up instead of a poltergeist. A deterrent for body-stealers such as myself.

  I found a scalpel and petri dish, ignoring the noise as some tubing spiraled loose, knocking more metal instruments to the floor. I carved off a little piece of flesh from the dead man’s upper arm so I wouldn’t have to open the freezer too far. I scooped it into a little dish.

  I pushed the freezer drawer shut.

  I went over to the Ouija board. I cut away the piece that Meredith had pointed out and put it into a petri dish. I glued the cadaver’s flesh onto the board with the surgical glue that was on one of the trays that had been flung to the floor.

  As the dead man’s flesh pressed against the Ouija board, there was a loud groaning noise. So loud that everything rattled and more stuff flew to the ground. There was another groan and then shrieks. Loud, shrill shrieks. The noise went through my bones. The screams were all around but there was no one there.

  I grabbed the board and the planchette. Something tried to grab the board from me. The planchette fell out of my hand as I wrestled the board from unseen hands. I kicked the planchette closer and was able to flip it into my knapsack. I still pulled at the Ouija board.

  “Let go! I need to take this home!” I screamed. The thing released its grip and I almost fell backwards from the sudden release of tension.

  Using the last of the battery power from my phone to light the way, I ran through that place like it was one of those haunted Halloween mazes, as invisible things touched me and pulled my hair. The window where I had entered had slid shut while I was downstairs. It wouldn’t open no matter how much I pushed and pulled at it as the screams of the damned echoed behind me. I had to use the door, which set off the alarms, if the window hadn’t already. Loud beeping buzzing alarm siren sounds melded in with shrieks and groans as I ran down the stairs and out into the street.

  * * *

  I returned the Ouija board and planchette to the house and put the petri dish into my knapsack. I didn’t even have to go inside. I just opened the window a crack and the board flew from my fingers back into the house. The planchette flew off as well. There were shadows that slipped and slid around the house and through the windows. I told myself those dark jagged things were tree shadows but I know they weren’t.

  * * *

  And now, I’m on a bus once more, leaving Hermana behind and heading for Toronto. This time, the air-conditioning works. I have a window seat with two empty spots beside me. They gave us free bottled water, mini pillows, and blankets. There’s a really cute guy across from me. And I just got a text message from Danny.

  Call me. Gotta tell you about the crazy dream I had last night. Mr. Peepers says, “hello!”

  I’ll call him back when the phone gets proper reception at a service centre. As for secrets to the universe, yeah, I think I’m one step closer. However, I still have to figure out the next great act for me and Danny. Oh, and the cute guy is asking me something. I just might show him a
card trick or two.

  Good Bye.

  Witch Upon A Star

  The Next Big Thing takes place in the world of The Witch Upon a Star series. Our main character, Felicity, goes to Hermana, which is where she meets a few characters from the Witch Upon a Star series published by Riverdale Avenue Books. Hermana is a fictional town on the East Coast that was founded by witches. The character, Natasha, has her own book, (Capricorn: Cursed), as does Toni, (Aries: Swinging Into Spring). The book Taurus: A Hearse of a Different Color (featuring the Taurus witch Dorothy who is not in The Next Big Thing) will be published in May 2017. The Next Big Thing is a peek into a much bigger, mystical world where anything can happen.

  Capricorn: Cursed

  Aquarius: Haunted Heart

  Pisces: Teacher’s Pet

  Aries: Swinging Into Spring

  Taurus: A Hearse of a Different Color

  Sèphera Girón

  Sèphera Girón is an award-winning author of several horror novels and short stories. She has been published by Leisure, Conari, Weiser, Orion, Masquerade, Darktales, Samhain Horror, Crossroads, and many others. Currently she is working with Riverdale Avenue Books with her Witch Upon a Star series. Sèphera has been the Ontario Chapter Head of the Horror Writers Association for about twenty years and continues to run monthly meetings as well as explore opportunities for horror authors. She is one of the founders of the Great Lakes Horror Podcast. Sèphera is a professional developmental editor and always looking for new clients. She also is professional tarot reader and paranormal investigator. Sèphera lives in Toronto.