When The Spirit Moves You

by Thomas DePrima

  "Get comfy," Arlene said. "We still have almost two hours until midnight."

  "I knew we shouldn't have come so early," Erin said reproachfully. "But as long as we're here, why don't we try now, as a sort of practice run?"

  "We already had a practice run yesterday," Renee said. "And I don't think that we'll have any more success tonight."

  "Let's do it right and wait until midnight," Arlene said, knowing that if a practice séance was unsuccessful, Erin or Renee might try persuading her to leave early. "At least we know that Jimmy isn't hiding under the table this time."

  "Of course not, he's too smart to come here," Renee quipped.

  "Anybody want some popcorn?" Megan asked, trying to hide her nervousness by ripping open the large bag she had brought. The delicious smell of freshly popped corn with creamy melted butter immediately filled the air, masking some of the dust odor and staleness in the room.

  "I need some water first," Arlene said.

  "I want a candy bar," Erin said. "I need my chocolate. You got 'em, Renee?"

  "Yeah, they're in my bag here, along with the bottles of water," she said, as she rooted around in a shoulder strap supported bag that almost rivaled a small duffle bag in size. "Here, Erin."

  Taking seats at the table after wiping off the dust Renee had disturbed, the girls spread out the food they had brought so everyone could help themselves. Erin knew that chocolate probably exacerbated her acne problem, but in times of stress she couldn't help herself. As they snacked and talked, their anxiety lessened, and by eleven-fifty they were laughing and giggling as if they were in their own homes. Arlene remained aware of the time, but didn't want to increase the uneasiness of the group so she suppressed the urge to look at her watch any more often than necessary.

  "It's almost time," Arlene announced a few minutes before midnight. A somber mood immediately descended over the room as the apprehension which everyone had felt earlier, resurfaced.

  "Oh, what am I getting so worked up about?!" Renee said. "Even if there are spirits around, Arlene isn't going to be able to call one. Let's get this over with so that we can go back to Erin's house and watch MTV."

  "Yeah," Erin said with a nervous little smile, "we've been here for two hours already and nothing spooky has happened."

  "Then let's get set," Arlene said. "Are you ready, Megan?"

  "I— I guess so."

  "Okay, let's clear everything off the table except the candles. Meg, leave a piece of your candy bar on the table to attract the spirit."

  When the remaining food had disappeared back into their bags, and the table was prepared, Arlene said, "Everyone place your hands flat on the table, pinkies touching, like we did at my house." As they complied, she made eye contact with each of her friends in turn. "Now close your eyes and try to see into the world beyond. I'm going to attempt to summon the spirit that purportedly frequents this house." Slightly increasing the volume of her voice, she said, "Oh mighty spirit of the Westfield house, hear my plea. We implore you to appear now and help us learn of our destinies."

  The room was deathly quiet and Arlene waited a full minute before repeating the chant. "Oh mighty spirit of the Westfield house, heed my call. We implore you to appear and tell us of our destinies."

  Over the next twenty minutes she tried again and again, without success. Not a single sound, other than her words and the natural respiratory noises of the girls, had disturbed the stillness of the room. The house hadn't even creaked once while they strained to hear the smallest of sounds.

  "I guess that I'm not strongly enough attuned to the spirit world," Arlene said finally. "I'm sorry, guys."

  "I knew that it wouldn't work," Renee said, her voice dripping with self-satisfaction for having been proven correct as she pulled her hands away and put them on her lap. She had been pressing so firmly against the table that her fingers ached. After flexing her hands several times, she massaged her forearm muscles.

  "Can we leave now?" Erin asked.

  "Might as well," Arlene said. "I'm sorry Megan, but I won't be able to tell your future with any certainty. I know that you really wanted to know."

  Forcing a bored expression to her face, Renee pushed back her chair and began to stand just as a breeze swept briskly around the room.

  "What was that?" Erin asked. "What just happened?"

  "Just a breeze," Renee replied nervously. She had stopped moving and was standing halfway upright, leaning forward with knees still bent. "Don't worry about it," she said from her frozen position, her trembling voice belying the calm she was trying to project.

  "But how?" Erin asked. "The door is closed and the windows are tightly sealed. I checked them when I closed the curtains to prevent the candle light from being seen outside."

  Renee sank nervously back into her chair, and said in an anxious voice, "Ar, is this some trick of yours?"

  "I didn't do anything," Arlene replied calmly. "I haven't moved from my chair."

  Again a slight breeze was felt, and the draperies wafted a bit before slowly settling down.

  "Somebody must have opened the window," Renee said. "The curtains moved that time."

  "Um— check it out, Renee," Erin said.

  "Me?" Renee said nervously. "Why don't you check it out?"

  "You're the one that doesn't believe in any of this."

  "There must be something else open; a chimney or something."

  "The fireplace has a cast iron plate blocking it off," Megan said. "A breeze couldn't have come from there."

  Another breeze, this one a little stronger, suddenly passed around the room. Erin screamed as the candle in the wall sconce was extinguished. The two on the mantle and the three on the table never even flickered.

  "All right, that's enough, Arlene!" Renee said loudly, no longer trying to mask her fear. "Stop it, right now!"

  "I didn't do anything," Arlene said, wide-eyed. "How could I? I haven't moved."

  "You came here today and rigged this up to scare us. You knew how to get in and where the parlor with the card table was. You led us directly to this room."

  "I didn't lead us. You guys decided the way by pushing me along. I swear that I've never been in this house befor…"

  Suddenly experiencing another vision of the house in earlier times, Arlene never completed her sentence. She again saw the room, bright and cheerful. But this time it was empty save for herself and the two very young children that played on the floor while she held a nursing infant to her bosom. As in the earlier vision, the clothes seemed to come from the distant past.

  "Let's get out of here," Erin said, in a terrified voice that left no doubt as to what she was feeling.

  Erin's words evaporated the vision and returned Arlene to the present. "No, wait," she said. "We came to find a spirit. I feel a presence now; a very powerful presence."

  "We came to find a spirit that would rap on the table, not one that blows out our candles."

  "A spirit is a spirit," she said, forcing calm into her voice. "Let's try to make contact again. We may never have another chance like this." She placed her hands flat on the table.

  The other girls, calmed somewhat by her demeanor, sat back down and did likewise, but all three were trembling and not one closed her eyes.

  "Spirit of the house," Arlene chanted, "we've come to ask for your help. Our futures appear murky in the tarot cards. Will you tell us of our destinies? Please rap on the table once if you can help us."

  A powerful breeze suddenly sent swirls of dust spiraling up from the sheet covered furniture in the room while the window curtains waved like flags for a second. Then the two candles on the mantle blew out.

  "That's enough of an answer for me," Renee said nervously, standing up. "I'm getting out of here. Coming Erin?"

  "Right behind you, girlfriend."

  As the two girls rushed to the door, Megan and Arlene stood up quickly and began picking up their stuff. Renee, reaching the door first, pushed down on the handle and tried to pull it open. It wouldn'
t budge.

  "It's locked," Renee screamed shrilly, after several failed attempts to open it.

  "It can't be," Erin shouted from right behind her. "Let me try."

  Renee moved out of the way so Erin could try to open the door, but she had no more success.

  "Arlene, do something!" Renee screamed.

  "What can I do?" Arlene said, as she dug through her bag looking for the flashlight. "I don't know what's wrong with it." She and Megan were still standing by the table, bathed in the yellow light from the candles.

  "You led us in here…" Renee said, stopping in midsentence as the breeze moved around the room again, extinguishing two of the three candles on the table. The third never even flickered.

  Erin screamed and then said tearfully, "It went right past me. It touched me. It's really cold. Arlene, help us."

  Beginning to feel the panic that the others were exhibiting, Arlene reached out with her free hand and grabbed a handful of Megan's tee shirt near her stomach, pulling her along as she moved towards the door. "Okay, let's get out of here. I don't think the spirit of this house wants us here." Raising her voice, she said, "We're leaving, Spirit! We're sorry to have disturbed you!"

  "But the door's locked," Renee said.

  "Move out of the way," Arlene commanded as she and Megan reached them. Handing the flashlight to Megan, Arlene pushed down on the handles of both doors and yanked on them, hard. They opened so easily that she would have fallen over backwards if not for her tight grip on the handles. "I guess that the spirit just wanted us all to leave at the same time," she said. Taking the flashlight from Megan, she said, "Let's go before it turns nasty."

  "Nasty?" Megan said nervously. "You said that they were just vapory images."

  "Uh— I might have downplayed their attitudes a little so you wouldn't be so frightened, but most are supposed to be benign."

  "What's benign?" Megan asked as Arlene half pulled her into the hallway.

  "It means friendly," Arlene said, as she shone her flashlight ahead to light their path through the twisting corridor and back to the ballroom.

  "Like Casper?" Megan asked, referencing the friendly ghost of cartoon fame.

  "Uh, yeah hon; like Casper."

  Unlike the frightening journey to the parlor, the trip back to the ballroom was at a running pace and took no more than ten seconds. Leading the way because she had the flashlight, Arlene reached the ballroom entrance first. She immediately stretched out her arm and pressed the handle of the right door downward. The door refused to budge. She then tried the other, also without success.

  "What's going on here," Renee screamed fearfully. "These doors weren't locked before. And didn't we leave one wide open?" Gripping both handles as Arlene took a step back, Renee used her shoulder to push hard against the doors while holding the handles down as far as they would travel.

  "The spirit must want us to take a different path out," Arlene said. "Maybe it wants us to see something."

  "Well I'm not going to do what some lousy spirit wants," Renee said. "Let's go back to the parlor. I'll break a window out with a chair if we can't get one opened."

  Turning, the small group swiftly retraced their route back to the parlor, but neither of the doors into the room would open now. Both Renee and Erin slammed the full weight of their bodies against the doors while holding the handles down.

  "These are closed and locked now?" Erin said, with real terror in her voice.

  "This spirit is really pissing me off," Renee shouted, feigning anger to conceal a fear approaching panic.

  "Perhaps the spirit wants us to go upstairs," Arlene said uneasily, sweeping the beam from the flashlight up the majestic marble staircase. The dusty carpeting that covered the marble steps yielded enough of its blood red coloration to reflect off a bronze balustrade with polished bronze handrail as it disappeared up into the blackness of the second floor.

  "I am not going to leave this floor!" Erin shouted. "Look how high the ceiling is. We'll break our necks if we try to jump out an upstairs window. Let's try the other doors in the hallway."

  "There it is; I see it!" Megan screamed suddenly, pointing back down the hallway to where a luminous cloud was coalescing. The terror being exhibited by Renee and Erin had infected Megan, and her own fear was now increasing exponentially. As the variegating shape began to move slowly towards the front of the house where the girls were standing, Megan screamed, "It's coming for us! Arlene, do something! Stop it!"

  The visible manifestation was too much even for Arlene. With her three friends hanging onto her arms while trying to conceal themselves behind her, she backed away slowly from the glowing cloud as it moved silently towards them. Their retreat was halted when they suddenly found themselves against the enormous oak entry doors. Renee released her grip on Arlene's arm and wheeled, pulling frantically on the left door with all her strength. Arlene's flashlight was knocked from her hand and rolled across the floor as she pulled away from Megan and Erin, and tried to help, yanking on the handle of the right door. But both doors were securely fastened and she wasn't any more successful.

  Without means of escape, the frightened girls again turned to face the approaching luminous entity. It had begun metamorphosing into a definite shape as it closed with their position. And the closer it came, the more distinct the shape. All four girls were quaking with fear, and Megan was sobbing loudly as she tried to bury her face in Arlene's back.

  As Arlene stared at the spirit with fear widened eyes, it morphed into the ghostly apparition of a man in his late forties or early fifties, wearing clothes that made him appear like a character from a nineteenth-century portrait. When it had almost reached the quartet of girls, now pressed tightly against the massive front doors, the mansion's dark entrance hall abruptly brightened. One second it was a gloomy corridor, smelling of dust and stale air, and the next it was brilliantly illuminated by gas lamps mounted on the walls, and chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. The powerful smells of cigar smoke, bay rum, and heavy perfumes filled the air. People in fancy dress began to noisily materialize in the hallway as classical music issued from the ballroom at the back of the house.

  Arlene suddenly felt as if she had been immersed into a tank of ice water, and before her very eyes the ghostly spectre changed into a live human being with arms outstretched towards her. She heard a scream emanate from deep within her own throat and felt herself beginning to collapse. She willed herself to remain upright, but the sensation of falling continued as a black curtain of unconsciousness descended over her.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  Arlene awoke violently, a peroxide-like pungent odor assailing her nostrils! She was consumed by the overwhelming need to refill her lungs with air, yet the chemical smell was so overpowering that she clamped her eyes tightly closed, held her breath, and thrashed about in a vain effort to distance herself from the noxious vapors.

  The pressure of something held against her lips lessened as she heard a male voice say, "She's coming around. You can take away the spirits of ammonia, Mrs. Thompson."

  The irritant removed, Arlene was able to get a deep breath of air before attempting to open her eyes. Her vision was blurred, and her mind was no more focused than her eyes as she considered the words she had just heard. 'What's that? Who's coming around?' Blinking several times in quick succession, her sight began to clear. She was startled to find herself lying on a bed, with several very oddly dressed people leaning over her. This had to be the most vivid of the visions yet. Although she'd heard voices and sounds in the previous visualizations, there had been no sense of touch involved. She willed herself to return to realty, but the vision persisted.

  What she'd felt pressed against her lips was the woman's coarse hand as it held a small unstoppered bottle beneath her nose. Young men, one on either side of the bed, were restraining her arms to prevent her from injuring the woman during her reaction to the powerful chemical. They relaxed their hold now as the woman holding the ammonium carb
onate formulation firmly pressed a cork into the small brown-glass bottle.

  "There, there, Miss Amelia, be calm," the woman said comfortingly. "You merely fainted. Entirely understandable after what you've just been through. The other girls were overcome as well, but everyone is doing just fine now. This will be your bedroom for your visit. You just lie there quietly. We're going to leave you alone now to get some rest. The doctor will be back to check on you when he's finished with the others, and Miss Anne will return shortly. She just went to fetch you some warm milk."

  Arlene, too frightened to say anything, nodded numbly as the woman rose from the bed and the two men released her arms and straightened up. She didn't recognize any of them, and she continued to stare after them as they moved towards the door because of their peculiar clothes. The woman wore a servant's uniform like those Arlene had seen in old movies about the nineteenth century. Over the very plain, floor-length black dress, she wore a starched white apron that all but obscured the front of the garment. A mobcap concealed most of her brown hair, and Arlene didn't detect the slightest hint of makeup on her face. The men, both wearing dark tweed suits with strangely cut lapels, sported thick moustaches. One had a mutton chop beard, while the other was otherwise clean-shaven. It seemed to Arlene as if they were actors, dressed for a play, or perhaps they were preparing for a masquerade party. The man with the mutton chop beard left willingly enough, but the other, a handsome young man with blond hair, couldn't stop staring at Arlene and had to be physically herded from the room by Mrs. Thompson.

  Alone in the room with poignant anxiety and a head full of confused thoughts, Arlene again tried to separate herself from the visualization, but to no avail. During each of the previous visions inside the house, she had been brought out of the trance when one of her friends had spoken. Why wasn't someone talking to her now? Had they left without her? No, they wouldn't do that. She knew that Megan would remain by her side no matter how fearful she became. As she tried to remember everything that had happened, the memory of cowering in the entrance hallway of the Westfield Mansion as a spectral being approached them, came to her. She distinctly remembered seeing the spectre suddenly adopt human form just before a new visualization of the mansion began, and then— everything went black. She supposed that she must have fainted because she couldn't recall a thing after that until she awoke on the bed. Perhaps that meant this wasn't a vision. But it surely couldn't be real. Could it be a dream? No, it didn't feel like a dream. Everything felt too real.