The Beautiful Lost

by Luanne Rice

  “You brought this food with you?” Richard asked.

  “Yes. I’d make a good survivalist, hiding out forever,” Billy said. I glanced over, knowing he was referring to lessons learned from his father.

  “So,” Morgane said, leaning forward on her elbows. “Tell us the real story, please. Why are two kids from Connecticut traveling the back roads of N.B. with the key to this magical place?”

  “You’re right, there’s always a real story behind the story,” Billy said.

  He and I sat beside each other. I gazed at his face, his freckles showing even in the firelight, his hair burnished reddish-brown, and his eyes more beautifully green-gold than ever.

  “Yes?” Morgane asked.

  “Yes,” Billy said. “We’re running away.”

  “Why are you on the run?” Morgane asked, smiling. “Are you in trouble? Desperate young criminals?”

  “Well, one of us is,” Billy said. “Sort of.”

  Morgane squinted at him, fully engaged and wanting to hear more. I had the strangest feeling that she knew more than she was letting on.

  “Tell me more,” she said, leaning in.

  “Nothing,” I said interrupting. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Why did you run away? Kids our age don’t just leave unless there’s a good reason.”

  Billy hesitated, and I could feel him weighing his words. Don’t tell the truth, I willed him. But he didn’t get the message.

  “Because Maia has somewhere to go. And I’m over the group home I’ve been living in for way too long. I guess you could say we’re on a mission together.”

  “Ooh, a mission,” Morgane said. “But still, there’s more. I can feel it. It’s coming through me, something about you being in a group home. Why were you there?”

  “She can be a little blunt,” Richard said.

  “I got sent to foster care after my parents … well, I couldn’t live with them anymore. My father did something … bad. And I helped him afterward.”

  “What did he do?” Richard asked.

  “He killed someone. And I’m the killer’s son,” Billy said, and I felt him wanting to shock them with his statement and defiant tone of voice. But the strange thing was, he wasn’t looking at them: He was staring straight at me, as if he wanted to see my reaction.

  “Who did he kill?” Richard asked.

  “Yes, tell us,” Morgane said.

  “I’m going to leave it at that.”

  “You tell us you’re the killer’s son, that’s too provocative. It’s unfair to just drop it,” Morgane said. “What did you do to help him?”

  “I didn’t stop him from getting away. And I went with him.”

  I stood, started clearing plates. Billy took them from me so I could carry the candle and illuminate our way into the kitchen.

  “You didn’t seem like you just now,” I said to him. “Why were you like that?”

  “It builds up,” he said. “I always acted like a jerk at the Home when I felt someone getting too close.”

  “Morgane was getting too close?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond, just clattered the dishes into the sink. Then he turned his back on me and returned to the living room. I felt confused and hurt by his sudden change. His anger seemed directed at me, and I couldn’t understand why.

  When I returned to the living room, Morgane was walking slowly in a circle, looking up at the ceiling, flickering with shadows from the firelight and all the candle flames.

  “Hello, Aurelia,” she said in a low, trembling voice.

  “Aurelia?” Billy asked.

  “My great-aunt,” she said. “I sense her now.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, following her stare up to the vaulted ceiling where spiderwebs glittered and an old chandelier caught the candlelight and threw prisms onto the dark oak floor.

  “My great-aunt was clairvoyant, and I inherited that from her. And I believe she’s here to help you and Billy.”

  Clairvoyant whales, spiritual frogs, and now a long-lost great-aunt here to help Billy and me? She sounded totally bogus. But an unwelcome eerie feeling went through me. Richard watched her, caught in a spell. Morgane stood still, staring as if she were seeing her great-aunt’s ghost.

  Outside, the tree frogs had let up, with only an occasional peep and croak, drowned out now by the sound of crickets and the snapping of firewood.

  “You’re getting weird again,” Richard said.

  “Yes,” Morgane said, giving him a warm glance.

  “Isn’t that an insult?” Billy asked.

  Morgane laughed. “Haven’t you ever read The Scottish Play?”

  “You’re don’t have to call it that here,” Richard told her. “It’s bad luck to say ‘Macbeth’ in a theater, but you’re in an old inn.”

  “You’re right. In Macbeth, Shakespeare called them the weird sisters, but they were witches,” Morgane said. “They had powers, second sight …”

  “And you’re a witch?” I asked.

  “She says she is,” Richard said.

  “Of all people, you should know,” Morgane said to him. “Haiti is a true center of magic, of Vodou.”

  “My mother—my birth mother—didn’t believe in black magic. She told us to stay away from it,” Richard said.

  “Well, this is good magic; it’s not my fault I was born this way. It runs in our family, and I’m named for Morgane le Fay.”

  “Who?” Billy asked.

  “Enchantress from King Arthur,” she said, just throwing it out as if it was simultaneously no big deal and incredibly impressive. “My great-aunt is standing right there.” She pointed at a spot beneath the chandelier.

  Billy was silent for a minute. He stood up and walked over. I watched him pass his hand through the air as if trying to touch a ghost.

  “Can you talk to her?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And other spirits, too?”

  “If they want to be contacted,” Morgane said. “Should we have a séance?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “We should.”

  Morgane pulled a notebook from her backpack and ripped out a few pages. She wrote the alphabet, large letters on each page.

  “A homemade Ouija board,” Richard said. “She should probably carry a real one wherever she goes. It’s bizarre. We’re both planning to be science majors at McGill in the fall, but she’s really into the magic-spirit world.”

  “Bite your tongue, not scientific!” Morgane said. “You know there’s proof. I’ve spoken to both your parents, Richard.”

  He didn’t respond but sat very still, staring into the fire.

  “Proof of what?” Billy asked.

  “The next life. And that spirits return to us,” Morgane said. “Just because you can’t see gravity, does it mean it doesn’t exist? Does it make sense that you can plant a dry, old bulb in October and have a daffodil sprout the next spring?”

  “It’s not the same,” I said. “And by the way, whales aren’t clairvoyant.”

  “They speak. They communicate very clearly,” she said. “And they see what we cannot.” She drifted into the kitchen, moving as if working herself into a trance. Eventually she came back with a dusty wineglass.

  “This will have to do for a planchette,” she said. “The Ouija board pointer.”

  We sat on the floor around the pages of letters. The fire was dying down, the red coals throwing shadows on the walls and everyone’s faces. Billy seemed fixated on the alphabet.

  “Okay,” Morgane said. “I will talk to Aurelia first. She will guide us forward. Richard, please write down the letters as they come. Billy—is there someone special you hope to talk to?”

  “My m—” he began.

  “Will Aurelia really answer?” I asked quickly, cutting Billy off, not wanting to give Morgane any clues.

  “Let’s see.” Morgane turned the wineglass upside down, then placed her fingertips on the base. She
closed her eyes, arched her back, then straightened her spine. She licked her lips with the tip of her pink tongue.

  “Spirit,” she said, her voice deepening an octave. Lame and stagy, I thought, looking around to see if Billy and Richard agreed. But they both had their eyes glued to her.

  “Are you Great-Aunt Aurelia?” Morgane asked.

  The wineglass spelled YES. Stunner!

  “I love you, the whole family misses you,” Morgane said. “Is there anything you can tell me that I should know?”

  It took forever for ol’ Aurelia, aka Morgane, to spell out YOUR GIFT IS GREAT. DO NOT SQUANDER THE POWER AND HONOUR.

  “Nice touch, the ‘u’ in honor,” I said.

  “That’s how it’s spelled in Canada,” Richard said, and my shoulders instantly flew up to my ears. I felt stupid.

  “Shhh,” Morgane said. “No conversation.” Then, “Thank you, Great-Aunt Aurelia. I do not want to take too much of your time …”

  TIME DOES NOT MATTER IN MY REALM.

  “Of course not,” Morgane said. “My new friend would like to contact a spirit. Can you tell us if one is near, has sensed his desire for contact?”

  Here it comes, I thought, and it did: She’d caught that m.

  I SENSE TWO MOTHERS.

  “Two mothers?” Morgane asked. I could tell she was genuinely surprised, and that made me sit up straighter.

  ONE FROM MY WORLD AND ONE FROM YOURS.

  Morgane opened her eyes. She reached for Billy’s hands, one after the other, and directed him to place them on the wineglass’s base. Then, to my shock, she reached for mine. “We’ll do this together,” she said. “You ask the questions. Keep your fingertips very lightly on the glass.”

  “But my mother’s alive,” I said. Then my heart skipped—what if she wasn’t? What if something had happened to her since she wrote that last email?

  “Maia, she clearly said one of them is from our world,” Morgane said gently.

  “How do you know she’s not talking about you or Richard? About one of your mothers?”

  “Because Aurelia is staring at you.”

  I kept my fingertips on the base of the wineglass. What could my mother say to me? Even if ghosts could talk through mediums, how could my mother, alive—I had to believe she was—get through?

  “Who wants to go first?” Morgane asked.

  Billy and I exchanged glances and he nodded at me.

  “I have to,” I said. “Is my mother … in your world or ours?”

  The planchette moved slowly at first, then darted to each letter:

  YOURS.

  “So she’s not here?”

  NO.

  “Then how can you speak to her?”

  SPIRITS CAN READ HEARTS.

  My fingers started trembling so hard, the planchette veered left, right, up, down.

  I felt Morgane’s hand on my wrist. “Breathe deeply,” she said with true kindness and gentleness in her voice. “This can upset those who’ve never done it before. Why don’t you take your fingers off for now and let Billy ask his questions. We can return to you later.”

  Almost reluctantly I let my hands drift away from the glass, dropped them to my sides. I found my gaze darting to the place where Morgane had said Aurelia stood. There’s no way this is real, I told myself.

  “Okay,” Billy said. “I feel dumb doing this.”

  “Your mother is in the room,” Morgane said. “I doubt she would want you to feel dumb. Close your eyes. Talk to her.”

  “Okay,” Billy said, squirming. “Uh, Mom?”

  HELLO MY DARLING.

  Billy hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Um, that doesn’t sound like you, Mom. ‘Darling’?”

  I AM NOT USED TO SPEAKING IN THIS REALM. FORGIVE ME.

  “Okay.”

  “Ask her some questions,” Morgane urged. “She has come to answer whatever you want to know.”

  Billy nodded. He opened his eyes for a second, glanced around at all of us. I tried to keep my expression from communicating what a crock I thought—hoped—this was.

  “Mom,” Billy said. “Did you know Dad meant to …” His voice got gravelly and he had to stop. He coughed, covering up the fact that he couldn’t talk. Suddenly my heart was pierced; no matter whether this was real or not, Billy was gripped with intensity. “Mom, were you scared?”

  YES.

  “Could it have been an accident?”

  NO. HE HAD A PLAN.

  “What did he plan to do?” he asked sharply. No movement for a whole minute, and I thought it would all stop right there, but the glass inched forward, then sped around the letters.

  KILL ME.

  “He pled guilty, but that was to protect me. I can’t believe …” Billy said.

  “You can’t contradict the spirit,” Morgane said quietly. “This is as traumatic for her as it is for you.”

  Billy raised his hands from the glass’s base and bowed his head. Then his fingertips touched the glass again.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he whispered.

  YOU DID NOTHING WRONG, BILLY. KNOW THAT. I LEAVE YOU NOW WITH MY LOVE FOREVER.

  My mouth dropped open. I wanted to hold Billy, to reassure him somehow, to say this was probably a horrible charade. But he kept looking down, his face hidden. I wanted to say that maybe his questions had given Morgane the clue for the “spirit’s” answers. But he wouldn’t look at me. The hurt I’d felt in the kitchen deepened.

  “Would you like to try again?” Morgane asked me.

  I shook my head no.

  Morgane stood. She walked over to the spot where she said Aurelia stood, and Morgane seemed to listen.

  “Yes, Aunt,” she said and seemed to listen again. “I understand and will ask her.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “Are you an only child?”

  “Yes,” I said. Morgane nodded, as if that meant something to her. She turned back to Aurelia.

  “Thank you, dear aunt, and farewell for now. All love and peace to you.”

  I stared at Morgane. I felt torn up inside but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of asking any questions.

  “Maia, Aurelia said that because your mother is in her body and not a spirit, she could not transmit direct questions. But she read her heart, and these are the words that came up: missing, waiting, child, and song.”

  “She’s waiting for me?” I asked, my voice tight.

  “I can only assume. The word child seemed to indicate she holds you strongly and forever in her heart, and that she treasures the maternal bond.”

  “She does,” I whispered. “She always said her leaving had nothing to do with me …”

  Waiting. My mother was waiting for me.

  Suddenly my emotions overtook me. Communicating with ghosts and hearts, Billy’s coldness—all of it felt like too much. I stood up, and my legs quivering, I grabbed the flashlight Billy had brought in from the truck. I walked across the room, up the stairs with their fancy, tooled wooden banister. I felt like an apparition myself.

  I swept the flashlight around and saw that the second floor was full of bedrooms. One was a three-room suite with an ornate marble fireplace, a big brass bed, and a curved window overlooking the dark lake. There were tiny rooms, too, with single beds and tiny dressers. I wandered through them, feeling unsteady.

  The beam lit a narrow path, and I found a back staircase, steeper than the front one, with no light whatsoever. Instead of a handrail there was a heavy, rough rope that seemed to be strung through metal fittings along the right-hand wall, and I used it to guide myself up another flight.

  The third floor was the turret—a round room with windows looking in every direction. Not one wall was straight, and they rose to a pointed tower overhead. Darrah was right—there were creaky and broken floorboards. Starlight came through the glass, and I stepped carefully over to the bed and clicked off the flashlight.

  Missing, waiting, child, song. I was exhausted and lay down in the total dark on the ancient mattr
ess, the collapsing bed. Springs creaked as I turned over, lay on my side. The iron had so thoroughly rusted out, the frame had broken in the middle, and the mattress sagged into a deep V.

  I closed my eyes. It was almost as if Aurelia had read my heart, too. I had yearned for my mother all these years. The wait was nearly at an end.

  When I was depressed, I missed my mother so badly I thought I would dissolve. That my body was too weak to contain the unbearable longing I felt for her. One major symptom of my depression had been staying in bed. There were days I couldn’t make myself get up, when my father, or the staff at Turner, had had to literally lift me out from under the blankets.

  People suffered with love, but they also rose with it—it might take time, and come when you least expected, but it could lift you up to a place you never thought you’d be. That’s what I was on my way to, and Billy was taking me there. I turned my head to look toward the window and thought of how far he and I had come, how he’d promised he’d take me to my mother, and how that promise was coming true.

  “Hey.”

  At the sound of Billy’s voice, I turned my head to look. The room was so dark, but I could make him out. He was standing in the doorway to the turret.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. He sounded gentle again, not hostile. But my throat still ached from how hurt I’d felt. I didn’t answer.

  “The frog people went … back out to search for frogs,” he said, still standing in the doorway. “They have their nets and flashlights out.”

  “I thought maybe you’d keep talking to your mother,” I said. “Through Morgane.”

  “Did you think I believed that?”

  “You didn’t?” I asked.

  “I wanted to,” he said. “But the minute I heard ‘darling’ I knew it was fake. My mother never would have said that.”

  “Why did you keep it up?”

  “I wanted to see how far Morgane would go,” he said.

  “She went pretty far.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And it got me for a minute, hearing ‘kill me.’ I knew that was Morgane, not my mother, but it still punched me in the stomach. I was really mad at myself for asking real questions. Like if he meant to do it. I mean, I’d given Morgane enough clues when we were talking before. That’s how she kept up the con.”