Resonance

by Chris Dolley

  He stepped into the hall closet, fumbled in the darkness for the Hoover and lifted it out. He was just unwinding the electrical lead when he looked towards the front door.

  Both suitcases had gone.

  Seven

  He pulled open the front door and looked outside.

  Nothing.

  He ran to the gate. No Annalise. No car racing off into the distance. No person struggling with heavy luggage.

  He ran back inside.

  "Annalise?"

  Silence. He ran upstairs, wondering if he was overreacting, what would she think if he knocked on the bathroom door?

  He didn't have to knock.

  The bathroom door was open.

  No one was inside.

  He felt the towels—they were dry. He checked the sink, looking for something—anything—a lipstick, a toothbrush, a hairbrush. She couldn't have unravelled. Not again. Not so soon.

  He looked behind the door, he ran onto the landing. "Annalise!"

  Silence.

  He checked his bedroom, the storage room. He hovered by his parents' door, his hand fluttering a few inches above the handle, hope and foreboding mixed in equal measures.

  He grabbed the handle, turned and pushed. He had to find out. An empty room stared back. No Annalise, no mother, no father.

  He was alone.

  Again.

  He checked his jacket pocket, pulled out the note and read it.

  Nothing had changed.

  Same job, same room, same address.

  Only Annalise had disappeared. Though he wondered for how long? Was she out there somewhere now? Sitting in a shop doorway, or boarding a flight for Heathrow?

  And what of ParaDim and the men in the black car? Were they waiting for him on Westminster Street or lying forgotten on a discarded thread of possibility, never to return?

  Graham did not want to think about it.

  He walked slowly around the house, proceeding from room to room, cataloguing what he found, checking what had changed this time.

  Very little had. A few books, a few items of clothes, a vase that his mother had broken ten years earlier had reappeared—pristine and filled with flowers.

  He checked the kitchen window, looking for signs that it had been broken.

  It hadn't.

  He rummaged through his drawers, looking for any notes he might have written to himself. Anything that mentioned ParaDim or Annalise or expressed concern about his safety.

  Nothing.

  He ate his evening meal in silence, broken by the muffled sound of next door's TV and the hum of passing traffic. Occasionally, he looked up when he thought he heard someone walking past. But it was never her.

  By eight o'clock he'd lifted his jigsaw down from the top shelf and had started sorting out the edge pieces. By nine he'd forgotten about everything except fairy wings and the jagged silhouette of a woodland glade.

  * * *

  The next day saw him back inside his fairy glade—kneeling on the lounge floor, the huge frame of the jigsaw in front of him, pieces scattered around him; sorted by color and shape.

  Late Saturday afternoon he dragged himself away, there was shopping to do, housework and the garden needed attention.

  He mowed the back lawn, dead-headed the roses, tied back the shrubs that were flopping over, weeded the patio. He vacuumed, he dusted, he . . . stopped.

  The brass candlesticks on the lounge mantelpiece were not where they should have been. They'd been switched. The one on the left had a slight scratch. It should have been on the right-hand side, a thumb's width in from the edge.

  He switched them back, carefully aligning them with his thumb. He looked at the clock in between. It was centered correctly but it was too close to the wall. He should have been able to push his index finger between the clock and the chimney breast.

  He checked the other ornaments in the lounge: the vases, his mother's figurines, the holiday souvenirs. They were all slightly out. An inch here, a quarter inch there. But they should have been placed exactly. Every ornament had a home. He measured them precisely, using fingers and thumbs and reference points; the edge of a tile, the tip of a leaf on a wallpaper pattern, a knot in the wood.

  Had the last unravelling knocked everything askew? Or had someone searched his house?

  He put all the ornaments back, carefully sliding them into position. And wondered what else had changed? If someone had been inside his house, would they have taken things away? Maybe removed any notes he'd written to himself?

  He checked the other rooms. A similar picture; items slightly out of place or rotated. Even the freezer compartment of his fridge wasn't immune. Someone had put frozen peas on top of the beef burgers. Something he'd never do. He always kept his vegetables on the left and meat on the right.

  Why would anyone want to search his fridge?

  And should he care? The rate the world was unravelling at the moment it was unlikely that anything would last more than a few days. All he had to do was sit out the weekend and everything would change. Once these ParaDim threads worked themselves loose, the world would settle down—a thought that kept him content all the way through to late Sunday night.

  He yawned, stretched and staggered to his feet. His knees were killing him and he was starting to see fairies in the wallpaper.

  He picked up his cup and carried it to the kitchen, stopping by the light switch to flick it on. The fluorescent light flickered once before humming into life.

  She sat on the floor between the fridge and the back door—Annalise, with long black hair this time—leaning back against the side of the fridge, her knees drawn up. She grinned, placed a finger to her lips and held out a slip of paper.

  "Don't say a word," it read. "Your house is bugged."

  Eight

  Graham stared at the note and then at the girl. She was wearing a long, pale green dress. And she looked younger again. Or was that the hair? Long, straight and fringed at the front.

  She rummaged in an embroidered canvas bag on her lap and brought something out, something black, the size of a small radio. She extended the aerial and switched it on, a red light pulsed slowly. She pointed it at the door and then slowly brought it around until it pointed at Graham. The pulse changed frequency. She handed the detector to Graham along with another note.

  Red light = bug. Fast pulse hot, slow pulse cold.

  Find bugs, stomp them. All bugs dead, make coffee.

  He looked at the detector slowly flashing in his hand and then at Annalise. Maybe he was tired and seeing too many fairies but he couldn't understand why Annalise was sitting on the floor behind the fridge.

  Annalise must have noticed his confusion; she took the note from his hand and scrawled two words on the back—hidden cameras!

  Graham immediately swung round, looking up at the ceiling above his kitchen cabinets, wondering what he should be looking for—a black dot, a video camera, a strange box that shouldn't be there?

  And then he remembered the detector in his hand and felt foolish. The red light pulsed slowly. He slipped the note into his pocket and took hold of the detector with both hands, sweeping the room in a slow deliberate arc. The pulse increased when he pointed it towards the kitchen table. He moved the detector over its surface, the light flashing fastest over the far left-hand corner. He set it down and felt underneath where the leg met the top. There was something there, shaped like a bolt.

  He swung down and peered under the table. There was a piece of metal, the size of a small button, attached to the wooden corner brace. He tugged at it, dug his fingernails between the metal and the wood and pulled. It came away. A small button of metal with three tiny spikes protruding beneath.

  He placed it on top of the detector and the red light flashed continuously. Someone had bugged his house. He stared at the transmitter in his palm, wondering how long it had been there, trying to remember what it might have recorded. The sound of water running in the sink, the clink of glass and plates. Was someone really
recording all that?

  Annalise waved at him and tapped at her watch. He looked back at the transmitter and rolled it between his finger and thumb. It didn't look that easy to crush.

  Annalise beckoned him over and held out her hand. Graham gave her the transmitter and stepped back.

  She rolled it around in her hand for a few seconds before placing it carefully on the floor beside her. She took a stick of chewing gum out of her bag, unwrapped it and folded it into her mouth. Graham watched transfixed. Was she going to soundproof the bug with chewing gum?

  Annalise tapped her watch again and pointed at the kitchen door. His work hadn't finished.

  Graham checked the rest of the house. Every room had at least one bug, even the closet under the stairs. Some were like the one he'd found in the kitchen, spiked and pushed into crevices in the woodwork. Others were concealed inside electrical sockets. He had to turn the electricity off at the mains and unscrew the sockets by torchlight.

  And then there were the cameras. One in the lounge, masquerading as an electrical junction box. And one in the hallway, in the light fitting, directly above the spot he'd found the small pile of dust on Friday night. The instant before Annalise had disappeared.

  Or had it been the instant after?

  He carried everything back to the kitchen, taking extra care with the cameras, placing a finger firmly over each lens.

  Annalise covered both lenses with chewing gum and then took everything out into the back garden.

  Graham watched from the doorway, the light from the kitchen spilling out across the lawn. Annalise stood in the shadows by the back fence, tossing bugs into the night. Some to the left, some to the right, some into the gardens of the houses in back. A few must have hit stone, Graham heard the slight crack and skittle as they bounced.

  * * *

  "How did you know the house was bugged?" asked Graham as he filled the kettle under the tap.

  "A spirit told me," said Annalise, sitting on the kitchen table, swinging her legs back and forth. "I'm a medium."

  Graham turned off the tap, he must have misheard with the noise of the running water.

  "A medium?"

  "With two hundred spirit guides all called Annalise. Go figure."

  He knew he had his mouth open but he couldn't help it. Annalise was a medium? He turned his head to see if she was joking.

  "What?" she said. "Is there something in my teeth?"

  "No, sorry," he looked away hurriedly, swung the kettle over to the stove and switched on the gas.

  "Ever heard of the De Santos case?" asked Annalise. "Teenage heiress goes missing? Big news last year, all over the Midwest."

  He shook his head. He never watched TV, never read a newspaper. The only news he ever picked up was second-hand—snatches of conversation he overheard at work or travelling on the tube.

  "September last year, Des Moines, Iowa. My home town. Kimberly De Santos, aged twenty, went to a party, never came home. Headline news everywhere. Police didn't have a clue. No ransom, no witnesses, no clues, no motive."

  Graham took two clean cups from the near cupboard.

  "Anyway, one night I'm communing with my spirit girls and I ask if anyone knew what had happened to Kimberly. One answers. 'You mean the girl who got shot in the bungled kidnapping?'"

  She paused for effect, looking directly at Graham.

  "Her exact words, the girl who got shot in the bungled kidnapping. Spooky, right?"

  Graham nodded as he spooned coffee into the two cups.

  "'What bungled kidnapping?' I asked. 'The one outside the Park Hotel,' she said, 'the one where the off-duty cop shot the ringleader.'"

  Annalise stopped swinging her legs and leaned forward. "Now, I knew the Park Hotel was where Kimberley was last seen. But no one said anything about a shooting or one of the kidnappers being shot.

  "Now this is where it gets really spooky. I asked this spirit Annalise if she knew the name of the guy who got shot. She didn't, but she said she'd get back to me. And when she did, she gave me the names of the whole gang. The one who'd been shot and the two who'd got away but were arrested later."

  "How did she know?" asked Graham, leaning against the sink.

  Annalise smiled and tapped the side of her nose. "The dead know more than you think. They don't spend all their time on the astral plane, you know. They come back and visit. They're drawn."

  Graham nodded. That was very true. Dead people came back a lot.

  "So, public spirited medium that I am I gave the names to the police. Told them it was a kidnapping. They didn't want to know so I phoned her father. And kept phoning until someone put me through. 'These are the guys that took your daughter,' I said and gave him their names. 'Have you told the police,' he said. 'Sure,' I said, 'but they're not interested.' Daddy was not impressed. 'We'll see about that,' he said and slammed down the phone.

  "Next day it's all over the papers. Kimberly freed, kidnappers caught. The day after that I'm hauled down the police station to explain myself. How did I know so much? Was I a witness who should have come forward earlier or an accomplice looking for a piece of the reward? 'Neither,' said I, 'I'm a medium.'"

  Annalise grinned and started swinging her legs back and forth again. "Which went down like shit at a picnic. Then the press picked up the story and suddenly I'm famous. For three whole weeks. I even had my own show on cable. Didn't last though—couldn't contact enough dead people." She put her hands on her hips. "You'd think two hundred spirit guides could dig up enough stiffs to fill a fifteen-minute daily show. I know I did."

  The kettle began to whistle.

  "So, they cut my show. I drifted back into roach-infested obscurity and Kimberly De Santos inherited a new beach house. Life's a big fat bitch."

  Graham stirred the coffee and thought about the blonde-haired Annalise and the voice in her head. The one that told her to come to England. Was that a spirit guide? Maybe the one that had told this Annalise about the kidnapping?

  "Is that how you found out about me?" he asked. "Did a spirit tell you to come to England to find me?"

  "No way, I found out about you through Kevin Alexander."

  "Who's Kevin Alexander?"

  "The Canadian guy I came here to tell you about."

  Nine

  They moved through to the lounge. Graham sat in an armchair, nursing his coffee, while Annalise flitted about the room—picking up ornaments and photos, examining them, putting them back down. Graham watched her progress—realizing he'd have to realign everything before he could face going to bed.

  "So, last month," said Annalise, waving a candlestick to emphasise her words, "I got this phone call from the cable network. This guy was trying to contact me, he'd seen the show last year and wanted to meet—real urgent. He was like leaving ten messages a day and the network weren't sure if he was for real or some whacko stalker. So they passed his number on to me. I called him up and we arranged to meet."

  Annalise inverted the candlestick and scrutinized the base for a few seconds before putting it back on the mantelpiece.

  "Needless to say I chose a very public place. Big coffee house downtown. Turns out he was on the level. Kevin Alexander, a Canadian guy working for ParaDim."

  "ParaDim?"

  Annalise moved over to the sofa and sat down on the arm, a few feet away from Graham.

  "I see you've heard of it. Anyway, he was real interested in the De Santos case. Real interested I said the ringleader had been shot by an off-duty cop. 'How'd you know that?' he said. 'My spirit guide, Annalise, told me.'"

  Annalise's head moved from side to side and her voice changed as she reenacted the conversation. "'Your spirit guide's called Annalise?' he said. 'They all are,' I said.

  "At which point he starts looking at me real excited. He had these big hands which he held out in front of him, fingers spread wide." Annalise mimicked the encounter. "And he like pumped them up and down as he spoke. 'How many Annalises are there?' he asked. 'Two hundred at the last count.
Spooky, ain't it? Must be a real common name on the astral plane.'"

  Graham sat back and listened, mesmerized by her performance. She had such an easy way about her. She didn't seem to weigh up her words or wonder what anyone might think. She just launched into her story and out it all came.

  "Anyway, he's sitting there, mouth open and big hands stuck out in front like some kinda freaky Canadian lobster guy and he wants to know how I can possibly have two hundred spirit guides all with the same name. How can I tell them apart?"

  Annalise rolled her eyes. "'We have a code,' I said. 'I'm Annalise One. Then there's Annalise Two. Get the drift? We've all got numbers. And those that fight over the same number agree on a letter—eventually—so there's Annalise 9a and 9b.'"

  Annalise stopped and looked round. "Where did I put my coffee?"

  Graham pointed at the cup on the coffee table behind her. She leaned back, reached out and scooped it up in one flowing motion. Graham held his breath as the full coffee cup teetered precariously over his clean carpet.

  "So, this guy—still excited, still pointing those enormous hands at me—asks if I do private consultations. He'd pay, money no problem. He needs to contact some friends on the other side. 'No problemo,' says I, 'but I'll need a hundred up front. Some of these dead guys don't like to be found.'"

  Annalise took a sip of coffee and gradually brought the cup into the conversation. Graham watched the liquid lap from side to side.

  "'Not a problem', he says and hands me two fifty-dollar bills, just like that. Then he says how important it is that his friend gets his message word for word. 'Verbatim,' he says, 'exactly as I dictate or it's no good.'" She rolled her eyes. "These scientist guys. Anyway, I agreed and then he says something really spooky. 'Tell your spirit Annalise that she has to speak to my friend in person—no phones, no faxes, no emails.'"

  "They have faxes on the astral plane?"

  "Believe me, they have everything on the astral plane. Just 'cause you're dead don't mean you can't live."