by Dan Dillard
Chapter 18
“If we can’t see them, why should they see us? Spirits may be no more cognizant of us than our flat screen TVs.
Maybe they are aware of our presence and feel we are haunting them, and who’s to say we’re not? That would account for their avoidance of living beings. Our reality may only be one of vast possibilities.”
-Ethan Jacobs, Electronic Journal entry #52
..ooOOoo..
Ethan thought he would give Max a call to see if she had any new or different information. Her shop was rarely busy, and he figured she passed the free time reading everything in there. She seemed especially interested if it dealt with sex, murder, or haunted houses.
They had discussed his theories about electricity and spirits and she found them interesting. He dialed a number from a bookmark she’d given him. It doubled as a business card and looked like a long skinny parchment, rolled on each end with the pertinent info in the middle. He had stuck it inside a copy of Book of Lies, by Aleister Crowley. He pressed the green ‘Send’ button and the phone began to ring.
“Olde Scroll, what can I do for ya, hon?” a voice said in his ear.
Her voice sounded wonderful to him. He wasn’t certain that she’d remember him, but he hoped she might.
“Max, this is Ethan, I’ve been in your shop a few times asking for books on ghosts and spirit encounters. Do you have a minute?”
He pictured her connecting the dots.
“I've got nothin' but time, sweetie, and I remember you.”
There was an awkward rhythm to her voice, like she was short of breath. He thought she might be uncomfortable with the telephone. She’d mentioned being afraid of evil traveling through wires. He’d seen her ride a bicycle to work. She even said she had never owned a television. Max’s bookkeeping and receitps were all handwritten. No computer, or even a cash register.
“What did you want to talk about? Still hunting for Casper the electric ghost?” she said.
“I am. I was wondering if you had any more suggestions. Some strange things happened this week and thought you might have some insight.”
“Oh, really—strange how, hon?”
“You ever hear of EVP?”
“Of course, hon. Recording the dead? Creepy stuff, why?”
“I’ve been recording in my apartment for a couple weeks,” he said.
“You hear any voices?” she asked.
“No voices, but I have one recording that sounds like the drawer in my night stand opening on its own. I could’ve done it sleepwalking, I guess, but the sound is unmistakable. I checked it about fifty times.”
“So…you sleepwalk?”
She asked this question like a seasoned attorney going in for the kill.
“No, never, that I know of,” he replied, happy with the anticipation that she was going to confirm his diagnosis.
“Then you got a spook!”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said.
“Excellent!” she said. “Now, how you gonna keep people from callin' you a fraud?”
“I hadn’t planned on telling the world. Not yet, anyway. I'm keeping all the original files along with anything I filter, so it won't look like I doctored the results.”
“Good,” she replied.
“Is it okay to ask questions of spirits? I’m a bit nervous.”
“What you got to be nervous about?”
“I’m not sure which is worse, not being answered … or being answered,” he replied.
This was met with a long pause. Ethan could practically hear her gears turning.
“What were you doing before this happened?” Max sounded concerned.
Ethan was glad she believed that he did, in fact, have something on the recording, but her tone of voice took some of the wind from his sails.
“I was asking questions, trying to get a response on the recorder. I laid out a pad and a crayon to see if I could get a written response.”
He felt silly telling her these things, the same way he'd felt talking to the air in his apartment. Max may have been little more to most folks than a leftover hippie, but Ethan thought she might be the only one who would take him seriously.
“What type of questions? Didja ask it to show itself?”
Concern changed to disappointment. He hadn't listened to her advice.
“I did. I was reading some stuff about demonolatry and it said…”
Ethan pictured Max's old wrinkled face turning pale and her right eye twitching as she gasped and interrupted him.
“Oh, don’t go to that place, sugar. It’s a dark, dark place that people get lost in. Good people! Just peekin’ in the keyhole can get you grabbed and gone on t’somewhere terrible. Someplace you might not come back from. You need to come in so we can talk. I need t’see your eyes.” There was a new tone to her speech now, the same tone he used to hear when his grandmother—a God-fearing, puritanical woman—would preach to him about doing wrong. The same tone his father used when denouncing the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. It was a no-nonsense-and-no-arguments tone.
“I have no intention of trying to summon a demon. I...I was just wondering if you knew of some way to speak with those who have passed on—some way to get a regular-people ghost to show itself. I’m not sure if I'm ready for the big leagues yet”
He smiled convincingly, a gesture that was wasted on the phone. Her reply was cautious.
“We can talk about that, sure, hon. Come by anytime so ol’ Max can set you straight before you get on the wrong road.”
Ethan grinned. Max continued, “In the meantime, don’t ask ‘em to show. It’s like a telephone conversation with a stranger, baby, you never know exactly who you’re talkin’ to. Some things out there have real horns.”
Her voice was back to the relaxed Maxine he was used to, the one with the odd beat to her speech pattern.
Ethan explained to her that he’d been sick and didn’t want to infect her.
“Don’t worry about that. I take herbal medicine every day and have a cast iron immune system.”
He imagined those herbs were smoked, and not the over-the-counter type.
“I'll be over this afternoon,” he said.
“I’m here 'til eight, hon,” Max said.
The words sounded a bit like the last line of a commercial.
He thought about loading up on cold medicine and going out there for an hour or so. Some narcotics might put him in the same frame of mind she was in and allow them to communicate more efficiently. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had a ghost squirreled away in a little glass jar. He also bet she had been to a séance or two in her time. Max would be invaluable in his studies.