by Etta Faire
“Order your nanny to do it, Henry, or I’m walking out right now. And I ain’t coming back. Now or ever.” Richie’s eyes were beady and red as they fixed on Henry’s.
Eliza stood and Henry nodded to her.
“Henry, you of all people know I won’t attempt to stop this. Indeed, you know very well I can’t stop you from going down a crooked path. But remember, all paths have destinations.”
Even James perked up when she said this, sitting on the edge of his seat. “Does that mean you are about to do this?”
“I will oblige, but only after you all realize what you are entering into. It will be a contract of a different kind. One you cannot back out of. If you go down this crooked path, you will not be able to return. You will be entering into a generational curse.”
Richie laughed heartily. James did too, only under his breath.
Eliza was not fazed. “Maybe I can explain it better with a fable. Perhaps you are familiar with the fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm about the dog and the sparrow? It was originally published in German, so perhaps not. Der Hund und der Sperling?”
They all shook their heads. “And if you make me listen to it now, I’m gonna need another drink,” Richie said. Eliza motioned to Mrs. Harpton who got up even quicker than when Henry beckoned her to do something.
It was like watching myself in a home movie, something I was never comfortable with. My voice. My mannerisms. The awkward way my hand hung down when in a relaxed position. It was weird and uncomfortable.
Eliza’s face brightened, which actually looked just like my face, as she spoke about the fairy tale. “In the story, a dog and a sparrow became friends. The dog, having been mistreated by his master, was very hungry and needed food. The sparrow helped him find some. But in a most criminal way. They stole food from many shops, and the dog prospered from this immensely. When he was full, the dog grew tired and laid down to take a nap in the road. Not long after he fell asleep, a man driving a horse-drawn cart headed straight in the dog’s direction. Although there was plenty of room around the dog, the man in charge of the cart decided he shouldn’t have to move. He should be allowed to go wherever he pleased.”
The men all sipped their drinks, with bored chuckles.
Eliza continued. “Of course, the sparrow tried to stop him. She yelled to the carter, ‘Stop! Or it will be the worse for you.’ The carter looked at the sparrow and laughed. ‘What harm can you do me?’”
Richie leaned forward. “Look, lady, save it. I know you’re trying to tell us all about the power of birds, that birds can kill, or whatever. But the bears won the last war. And we will win any other wars. We’re stronger and smarter than the birds.”
James coughed, furrowing his eyebrows.
Eliza went on, her voice pleasant, cheerful almost. “You’re missing the point of the story. I’m merely reminding you that no one has control over your actions except you. I can only tell you what will happen if you continue on your crooked path. The path heading for needless death and destruction after you’ve been duly warned to turn away from it.”
“Yeah, Richie. You’re forgetting all about that curse.” Feldman smiled. I could tell by the way his lip spasmed just a little, he believed Eliza more than he was letting on.
Eliza continued. “But I’m not finished. Don’t you all want to hear what happened to the man in charge of the cart?”
Richie rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. The bird killed him.”
“I suppose in a way, she had a hand in it,” she said. “Because she kept warning him that ‘thy cruelty shall cost thee thou life yet.’ But once again, she had no control over the actions of others. In the end, the carter instructed his wife to kill the sparrow, and while the woman was trying, she ended up killing her husband instead.”
“A surprise ending. Great. And now that we’ve all been duly warned in the most random and pathetic of ways about something no one here knows what the hell it’s about, let’s get on with the peep show. Or I am quite certain this shall cost thee thy lives yet,” Feldman said, trying to make his voice sound ominous.
Eliza turned to us. Looking deep into Feldman’s eyes, like she was seeing right through them to me on the other side of his consciousness, she said, “Sometimes, when you think you’re in control, you’re not. And vice versa, I’m afraid. Never forget that.”
Was she talking to me?
Feldman’s lip spasmed again.
“Feldman,” I yelled in my head. “I don’t want to see the rest. I know what I look like naked, and I know what’s going to happen next. Take me home now,” I demanded in my most confident and controlling voice.
He didn’t respond.
“You have a camera, right, Henry,” the Feldman in the memory said. “ A rich man like you has to have a camera. I think this is a moment we’ll want to remember.”
I will not see the rest. I will return home now.
This time, I was telling that to myself, and not to Feldman. I was the one in control.
I focused in on Feldman’s breathing in the channeling. In and out. In and out, all the while picturing myself on the couch in my time, looking at my wallpaper. Finding my own breath, searching for my own clock noise.
I let my mind go blank as I searched for the familiar in a stream of darkness, of whiteness, of the flickering of dark and light that happened to my eyesight whenever I had hallucinations. I reached for that.
That’s when I heard it. My clock, softly ticking away.
I opened my eyes and blinked around my living room. It was dark now. The air seemed heavy and thick. Looking to my left, I saw Justin slumped over, asleep on the couch beside me, his phone timer buzzing in his hand. I turned it off and snuggled into him, sniffing at the faint scent of cologne along his neck, kissing him softly.
I was home. And I was back in control. Or was I? Sure, I had won one of the battles. I was pretty sure I could get myself out of the channelings now, but I needed to win the war.
I needed my ex- husband back at Gate House and Feldman out.
And I still couldn’t believe I needed that first part.
Chapter 21
Openings
I woke to the smell of eggs and bacon. Items I didn’t even know were in my fridge. I got up from the couch and shuffled my way into the kitchen where Justin stood over the stove, spatula in one hand and my “Kiss the Cook” apron draped across his broad chest.
I kissed the cook on his scratchy cheek then leaned against the island.
He motioned toward the pan. “My big apology breakfast. I’m not exactly sure what happened last night. I must’ve fallen asleep as soon as you did your seance thing.”
“Channeling,” I corrected him.
“I never heard my alarm, which is weird because I never have my alarm set to vibrate. And I never fall asleep right after dinner, not even on Thanksgiving.”
It wasn’t something I was going to try to explain to my skeptical boyfriend, but I was pretty sure it had been Feldman, stronger than I ever gave him credit for. He must’ve somehow put my boyfriend to sleep and put his phone on silent in an attempt to show me just how in control he was.
But he’d actually done me a favor. “So, you never saw me mumble or drool?”
“Darn,” Justin said, playfully snapping his fingers. “I missed the best part.”
He poured some scrambled eggs onto a plate and handed it to me. I grabbed a handful of bacon from the paper-towel-lined area on the side of the stove and sat down at the dining table, not even stopping at the sink on my way.
Normally, after a channeling I am so thirsty I just run the tap water straight into my mouth then hobble around in an achy state. And that thirst had grown even stronger whenever I’d channeled with Feldman. But not this time.
I took a bite of my eggs and moved my neck left and right. A little stiff in the shoulders, but overall, I felt pretty good. And not even a tiny bit parched.
Maybe in the other channelings I’d given up too much control, not knowing w
hat I was doing with the ghosts. I was pretty sure that hadn’t happened last night. Or not as much.
Justin took the spot next to me, and again we sat in silence. There were so many things I wanted to talk to him about, like the meeting I overheard at George’s barbershop with what I believed to be bird shapeshifters. But then, he was a bear shifter, so I didn’t think it was an appropriate topic to discuss.
I also wanted to get his take on the Donovan-led task force to find Bobby. I had no idea what could possibly have been the motive behind that.
But, we never talked about things like that. Not a word about the grouse pin or if there were any leads on Bobby. I was just about to rip the bandaid off once again and point-blank ask him when he pointed to my answering machine.
“Light’s blinking,” he said, like he knew he should change the subject even though I’d only just opened my mouth.
With no cellphone coverage at Gate House, I had to rely on old-school technology to get by: a landline and an answering machine. Still, very few people called me here unless it was an emergency, or they were my mother. I hurried over and clicked the button.
“First unheard message,” the automated voice said before the beep.
“Carly, pick up. Where are you? Carly! Carly, pick up!” It was Rosalie, her tone unusually frantic. “Louis wore my special demon-protecting rings into the basement last night. He’s in the hospital now. Ohhhhh, damn it. I feel so damn guilty…”
She ought to feel guilty. Those rings weren’t meant to do anything except line her pocketbook, and we both knew it.
I grabbed my purse and fed my dog on the way out as Justin kissed me good-bye.
The hospital was right in the main part of Landover where businesses and shops still spanned out, most already displaying beach towels, anchors, and lighthouses in their window store fronts. Now that we were in spring and expecting our bread-and-butter tourists at any minute, we all needed to be ready to pounce on their money.
The hospital was a weird contrast to the rest of the area with its generic orangish red bricks and decor that was little more than a flag out front.
Just the kind of roach motel you’d expect to never leave from.
I tried not to think about that as I made my way through the sterile-smelling hallways that would always remind me of my grandmother.
In her last days, my mother and I visited her every day after she caught pneumonia. Funny, even as she laid there dying, machines doing most the breathing for her, I thought she was going to make it. That she’d be home soon, complaining to my mother about how it’s not good to put too much salt in everything, especially because it made her feet swell.
As a medium, I knew my grandmother was still here. All I had to do was ask her to come talk to me, and she’d probably hang out for a while.
Thing is, I never did this. I guess with some people it’s enough just having them there. Plus, I already knew I used too much salt. And my career was going nowhere. And I probably should stop “with the dead people, already.”
The hospital room was quiet and it smelled a little too much like pee mixed with the chemicals designed to mask the smell of pee.
Mr. Peters lay in the bed asleep, tubes all up his nose, his face half covered in bandages. Rosalie stood by his side, wringing her hands together.
“What in the world happened?’ I asked her as soon as I entered.
“The doctor said he should be okay.” She looked down at her hands as she squeezed them together. “I might’ve oversold Louis on the powers of the rings a little.”
“You think?”
She wrung her hands faster. “One of the waiters found him in the basement unconscious, and they saw something else there too.” Rosalie plopped down on the sad, scuffed-up, probably-used-to-be-green recliner in the corner of the room. She threw her dreadlocks into a scrunchie then looked at me. “We may have a problem.”
Her light blue eyes seemed especially light, pale almost. And they were giving me a look I didn’t recognize at first because I so seldom saw it from Rosalie. Remorse. She picked up the flowered cloth sack that was sitting by her feet and quickly rummaged through it, bringing out one of her big books of paranormal recipes and definitions. She set it on her lap and gripped its cover. “I think we may have unintentionally opened the gates to the hosts of evil.”
“Come again?”
“Now, don’t freak out.”
I looked around for a place to sit, but Rosalie was in the only chair. “You cannot seriously tell me not to freak out after you just told me we opened the gates of the hosts of evil.” I lowered my voice, remembering we were in a hospital. “I don’t even know what that means, but it cannot be good.”
She bit her lip and opened the book. Then with the calming voice of a therapist unsure if her patient might be armed, she said, “I have to check my book, but it seems to be more like a vortex from what the waiter described. Of course, I can’t say for certain because I haven’t seen it myself. But the waiter said there’s something in the middle of the basement wall, right where we all saw the words ‘die, die, die.’ A dark, black hole that doesn’t seem to lead to anywhere human. Air was sucking in and out of it like lungs…”
“So help me God, if that book says one of us needs to go in that hole, I will shove you in there myself.” I said, pacing the room as I talked, wiping my sweaty palms on the same jeans and t-shirt I channeled in last night. “This is your fault.”
“Me? You’re the one who opened those gates,” she said. She clutched at her obsidian necklace like she was clutching at pearls.
“Except that the sapientia formula was your idea. And I told you that opening gates to the hosts of evil was a possible side effect. But you said not to worry. No one really got a 12-hour boner. What would you call this?”
Rosalie took a deep breath and seemed to think this through. The gentle sound of beeps from one of the machines droned on in the background. “You might be right. But I think it might also have to do with your channelings with Feldman. Every time you do them, things get worse at the speakeasy. For example, did you channel last night with that awful, rooting ghost?”
I sat down at the edge of Mr. Peters’s bed. “Yes. And I’m not sure for how long either. Maybe there is a connection. Maybe it was both things combined.” I put my head in my hands. “Please say your book has a solution.”
While she searched through her book, I turned on my phone and googled, “How to close the gates of hell once you’ve opened them.”
As a former click-bait writer, the search wasn’t even the strangest one in my browsing history.
I stared at the results. They were mostly just how-to guides for fantasy video games.
Mr. Peters moaned and Rosalie sprang from her chair. Her hip, which normally gave her problems, didn’t seem to bother her too much today as she darted to his bedside, adjusting the sleeves of the cute, black flouncy top I never saw her wearing before. “Louis, are you all right?”
He blinked at the florescent lights overhead and around the room, moaning even louder.
“Here you go,” Rosalie said as she handed him his glasses from off the tray table. He focused on her and smiled. She smiled back.
And even though their goofy smiles made me feel like I should leave the room, I couldn’t give these possible lovebirds their privacy, not when there was some sort of a vortex to hell we all needed to be more concerned about.
“I think I’m okay,” he said in a whisper.
“What happened?” I asked. “One of the waiters found you unconscious in the basement of your restaurant.”
He turned his head to the side, puzzled almost, and scratched at the bandages sitting along his balding head. The machines beeped around him, taking over the silence. “I… I was wearing the rings, the ones you guaranteed would keep me safe.”
“I don’t think I ever used the word guarantee,” Rosalie corrected him, then seemed to think better about it. She patted his arm. “But regardless, I’m just glad you’r
e okay, and I’m sorry the spirit in your basement is very unusual. I think I may have mentioned it might be beyond our usual scope.”
He nodded. “I think it might be. There were noises in the basement, unusual ones. That’s why I went down there, thinking I’d be safe with my rings on…”
He paused to look at Rosalie, like he was waiting for a second apology. She didn’t give him one, so he went on. “And that’s when I noticed the strange sounds were coming from the wall where the three-D image used to be. A hole about the size of a large door had been torn into the bricks. My bricks. Is insurance going to cover that?”
“A vortex to hell?” I shrugged. “Maybe All-State.”
Mr. Peters chuckled at my joke, but then stuttered over his words at the realization. “Is that really what th… that was? A vortex to hell?” He shivered. “That I went near?”
His voice had a faraway quality to it, like a man stunned by the impossible. He giggled, but not in a good-natured way. He was giggling like a man losing it.
Rosalie took her therapist tone again. “Honestly, we don’t know what it is. We haven’t seen it yet,” she said, like we were experts on vortices to the underworld and we just needed to do a quick inspection to determine things. “Let’s not worry until we have something to worry about. You used to say that to me, Louis. Do you remember?”
He stopped giggling. “Yes, when we worked together at the bookstore. You were so cute coming in without any shoes.”
I coughed. “But let’s go back to the vortex and what happened. You went to the basement where there was a hole and…”
He looked at me with the wide eyes of a man unsure of life anymore. Like he was questioning everything he knew to be true. “Yes. Yes,” he said. “And as I got closer, I realized the sound I was hearing was wind, or breathing. More like breathing, very loud, and slow. But it couldn’t have been breathing, could it? Walls don’t breathe.”
“No, not normal ones,” I began. “But you might have been hallucinating.” I said this like hallucinating was a hopeful diagnosis.