by Nicola Marsh
The redhead’s probing stare swept over the table’s occupants before landing on me. “I’m Tabitha, the society’s leader.”
Tabitha? Seriously?
I stifled a giggle, thinking if she spent less time watching Bewitched reruns and more time with her buddy Seth they probably wouldn’t be so angsty.
Her stare bore into me. “Do you know what we do here, Alyssa?”
Hoping my mouth wouldn’t twitch into a smile, I shook my head.
“We contact the dead.”
My urge to smile at her truism name vanished.
“Communicate with the world of spirits and ghosts.”
Like I needed the clarification.
She steepled her fingers and squared her shoulders. Way to go with trying to command a room. “The best results happen when a talented medium is present. That’s me.”
Good to know her clichéd name didn’t detract from her massive ego.
“Moving glasses is the simplest technique for contacting spirits, especially with a newbie in our midst.”
I wanted to ask a thousand questions, like who she would be contacting and how did she know one spirit from another and how the hell I could get out of here without offending anyone, when she produced a piece of paper covered in the alphabet, the numbers one to nine and two words: yes and no.
I didn’t have to participate in any zealous spiritual circle to know what those words were for.
Yes, I was borderline insane for doing this.
No, I wouldn’t be back in a hurry.
No-one spoke as she placed the paper flat on the table surface and an upside-down glass in the centre.
“Now each of us places an index finger on the glass.”
I’d seen kids muck around with this kind of stuff at Broadwater High, and had scoffed at their goofiness while steering clear after an episode I’d rather forget.
Kelsey, my BFF, had a bunch of girls over for a slumber party on her thirteenth birthday. I went along with everything they did, trying my best to fit in. No-one in town knew Mom was a witch—they just thought she was odd—but that didn’t help my feelings of alienation. I’d always tried to blend into the crowd, not draw attention to myself to make up for Mom’s uniqueness as she strode down Main Street in her floral flares and macramé micro tops. Sadly, the night Kelsey pulled out the Ouija board for a séance, my days of blending in took a serious beating.
The girls had moved the glass with their fingers, I anticipated that, but I had no idea how they’d filtered those spooky voices into the room. When I’d freaked and demanded they turn them off, they’d stared at me exactly the same way they stared at Mom: Who the hell is this crazy person?
I’d been too embarrassed to push the issue and discover how they’d done it, so had happily switched from séance to watching horror movies. The rest of the slumber party had been uneventful but to this day, I remember Kelsey’s uncomfortable brush-off when I’d asked her about it and I still had no idea how or why they’d spooked me like that.
Now I was willingly taking part in another séance. What the hell was I thinking?
“We all need to concentrate and I’ll call a spirit.” Tabitha fixed me with a glassy stare that chilled my blood. “Is there anyone specific you want to invite to join us?”
“No,” I murmured, foreboding clogging my throat.
Curiosity about that dead body might be consuming me but memories of Kelsey’s séance had put me in a funk. Last thing I wanted to do was call on some nebulous spirit. I wanted to protest, wanted to bolt, but Tabitha’s eyes were focused on the glass along with the rest of her impressionable cronies.
I shot Seth a concerned glance but he’d closed his eyes, though his defensive posture hadn’t changed. He looked ludicrous propped there, arms crossed, one knee bent with a foot pressed against the wall. Then again, he probably didn’t want to rattle Tabitha, closing his eyes a partial concession to stuff he didn’t believe in.
Had he been to any of these séance meetings before? Was this his first? Is that why he was late and Tabitha was pissed? Did she have to coerce him into attending this because he’d dragged me along? Did he believe despite saying he didn’t?
Doubtful. I couldn’t imagine Seth sitting still long enough for any spirits to reach out to him.
“Concentrate, people.”
Considering my wandering thoughts, I guessed Tabitha’s order was directed at me.
Yeah, like she could read minds.
“I’m feeling a presence,” she said, her tone eerily flat.
The hairs on the back of my neck snapped to attention but I couldn’t hear anything beyond the deep breathing of my fellow spirit-hunters.
“Does anyone have a specific question to ask?”
I bit my lip to prevent me blurting my first question: Is this crap for real?
Nothing happened for a good thirty seconds. Then the glass vibrated. Probably the guy stifling a fart, but it definitely moved.
“If there are no questions for our spirit, perhaps we can start with who our friend is here to see?”
What a load of—
The glass moved so violently my finger almost slipped off as it shot directly towards A and hovered there.
The chills on the back of my neck spread, shimmying down my spine, tap-dancing on each vertebra along the way as I silently prayed the others at the table were named Anna, Agatha, Antoinette and Alan.
“Do you have something to say to this person?”
The glass shot forward again, directly to “yes”, my disbelief as shaky as my hands.
“What’s your message?”
I knew the drill by now, wondering why the rest of the table occupants were buying into this. Didn’t take a genius to figure out Tabitha was moving the glass, trying to impress her gullible audience.
This time, the glass moved slower, gliding across the table.
M. A. D.
“You’re angry?”
The glass shot to “no”.
“You’re insane?”
Great. Just what we needed, a crazy ghost.
The glass didn’t shift off “no”, just gave a vibration for emphasis.
“Someone else is mad?”
The glass slithered across to “yes” and I refrained from rolling my eyes—just.
Considering a bunch of us were sitting around a table with a pseudo-witch called Tabitha, our resident ghost was none too bright in assuming we were all mad.
“So someone here is in trouble?”
The glass quivered over “yes”.
“Batting mental health problems?”
Another positive quiver.
Tabitha’s glowing gaze zeroed in on me, her fanaticism spooking me more than her imaginary ghost.
“So this A is going mad?”
Definitely a case of the cauldron calling the kettle black. Yeah, yeah, mixed metaphors, but hey, those intense eyes of hers were freaking me out a little.
The glass didn’t budge off “yes” and I’d had enough, then her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Identify yourself.”
My finger almost slipped off the glass as it shot across to N.
That’s when my earlier dread blossomed into panic.
I tried to yank my finger off the glass but it stuck. I tried to push back from the table but my feet skidded on the floor, unable to find purchase.
Icy tingles ran up my arm like razors: sharp, painful, cutting. My chest constricted and I gulped huge lungfuls of air, trying to ease the spots dancing before my eyes.
On the verge of hyperventilating, I watched in horror as the glass glided across the board.
N.
O.
A.
H.
With a yelp, I snatched my finger off the glass.
My chair toppled and slammed against the floor in my haste to escape.
I ran.
CHAPTER NINE
MY TREMBLING FINGERS fumbled with the front door lock as I fought tears.
&nb
sp; Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Maybe if I mentally swore long enough I’d obliterate that freaky upturned glass and the last word it had spelled.
“Wait up.” Seth leaned over me and flicked the lock open, his other hand on my shoulder.
“Fuck off.” I shrugged him off and yanked open the door, catching my foot in the process and increasing my cussing tenfold.
“Hey. You said you didn’t believe in that stuff, so why are you so freaked?”
My chest heaved with the effort to stifle sobs and I stumbled out into the dusk, desperate to get as far away as humanly possible.
“I have to go.”
He grabbed my arm and I tried to wrench free but couldn’t.
“You’re hurting me.”
His fingers dug into my flesh for a second longer before he released me. “Sorry, I just don’t think you should go running off the way you are.”
I stepped into his personal space and thrust my face into his. “What way’s that? Mad, because your friend and her stupid glass plaything say so?” I spat the words at him, my soul-deep fear giving way to anger, a slow-burning fuse that quickly escalated.
“You brought me here. You said this could help. Well screw you!” I planted my palms on his chest and shoved, hard.
He barely moved and I clenched my hands into fists, ready to pummel him. As I raised my fists he captured them effortlessly, lowering them to my side and releasing them as the fight drained out of me.
“Who’s Noah?”
Noah…oh my god…
The sobs I’d been battling spewed forth in a torrent, bursting out of me in ugly splendour. My eyes burned and my heart contracted as the tears I hadn’t shed at Noah’s funeral ran unchecked down my cheeks.
I wanted Seth to hold me, to comfort me, but he just stood there, awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot, his hands hanging uselessly by his sides.
“Let me walk you home.”
“No.” My head snapped up, his expression inscrutable through the haze of my tears.
“You shouldn’t be alone—”
“I won’t be.”
I needed to be held and with Angie at a seminar until midnight, I knew where I had to go.
I strode into the descending darkness, desperate to put as much distance as possible between that stupid magic shop and me.
I HAD NO idea how long I sat on the top step outside Ronan’s apartment. An hour? Two? Didn’t matter, because I wasn’t budging until he came home. I’d called, left a message and texted him three times, knowing he’d be jamming with the band and not able to hear his phone.
When he picked up that sax, nothing else mattered. Normal people would put their phone on vibrate and slip it into their pockets in case of emergency. The kind of emergency I was now having.
Running the twenty blocks between 666 and here hadn’t dampened my raw agony.
Noah had tried to contact me.
Freaking nuts. I had to be crazy to contemplate for one second what had happened at that shop was real. But what other explanation was there for it? No-one in that room knew me. They were a bunch of random strangers who believed in ghosts.
Apparently one of those ghosts had been my dead ex.
The irony finally seeped through my befuddled head. I couldn’t tell Ronan any of this. He already thought I was on a one-way track to Loonyville after what had happened last night. How the hell would I explain this?
I couldn’t, and that’s when I stood, shaking out my numb legs and hanging onto the railing so as not to trip down the stairs.
I didn’t believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe in spirits or the afterlife or the demons that plagued my mom. But in the few seconds it took for that glass to spell out my dead ex’s name, I wondered if I could.
I hustled down the stairs and had reached the bottom step when I spotted Ronan strolling towards me, sax case in one hand, a satchel with sheet music sticking out in the other. He smiled when he saw me and tried to wave, half-laughing, half-grimacing when the sax case slammed into the side of his thigh.
My plan to flee had been scuttled, so I switched to Plan B.
Faking it.
I raised my hand in a welcoming wave, hoping my smile didn’t wobble.
I’d never met a guy who could look so ruffled yet cool at the same time. It was more than the sexy sax thing. Ronan had an inner confidence most people hadn’t acquired by thirty, let alone their twenties. And while it attracted me, I envied him. I’d never been poised or self-assured, my public persona as fake as my life.
At Broadwater High I’d pretended to be hip but kids saw right through me. Everyone knew what I lived with at home—the alcoholic part, not the rest—and after a while I grew immune to the constant stares and whispers.
The only way to combat my isolation was get involved in everything. From the school newspaper to cheerleader tryouts, I did it all. Never succeeded at any of it but I’d been front and centre at every school event, daring people to say to my face what they said behind my back. They never did and somehow my bravado had worked, gaining admiration over smirks.
Then Noah had died and I’d gone right back to the start, being mocked, ridiculed and slandered at best.
Ronan propped his case on the step, his warm smile chasing away some of the chill invading my soul.
“A phone call and three messages. I’m guessing you want to see me real bad.”
Hoping I could pull this off, I flung my arms around his neck. “You guessed right.”
He nuzzled my neck, his nose tickling the soft skin there and I tightened my grip on him. When he eased away, I wished I could hang on and not let go. There was something solid and comforting about him, despite the fact I’d thought he was a psycho last night for planting that body.
Now, after my brush with the “other” side, I realised I was probably the psycho.
“How did you pull up at school today? Stay awake?”
“Just.”
I carried his sax case as he wolf-whistled. “You make a hot roadie.”
I wiggled my butt and he swatted it, some of my fear dissipating. I could do this; pretend I’d dropped by for a visit, not to dump the sorry 666 saga on him.
“You sounded a little strung out on the phone?”
My bubble of illusion popped.
“Bad day,” I said as he let us into the apartment and I laid his sax case on the floor as carefully as a newborn.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nah.”
I wandered around the apartment, trailing my fingers over books and magazines and CD covers, wondering how long was a polite time frame to stay before escaping.
Then again, since I’d sighted Ronan, I hadn’t thought of Noah once.
“Want something to eat or drink?”
“No thanks, I’m good.” The easy lie popped into my head. “Early dinner with Angie, I just dropped by to say hi.”
When he didn’t answer I strolled into the tiny kitchenette to find his head deep in the refrigerator.
“But don’t let that stop you,” I deadpanned as he straightened with arms laden.
“I’m starving,” he said, his grin bashful as he dumped a loaf of sourdough, some pickles, cheese, tomatoes and ham on the bench.
“I never would’ve guessed.”
He laughed and dropped a kiss on my nose, the ease between us scaring me as much as the events of the last twenty-four hours.
“Are we going out?” I muttered, needing to establish clear boundaries in one area of my chaotic life.
“Staying in,” he said, being deliberately obtuse if his wink was anything to go by.
I snatched the sourdough off the counter and held it ransom. “I need to know where we stand.”
He screwed up his eyes pretending to think, before snapping his fingers. “I know. We’re standing in the kitchen.”
I tried to whack him with the sourdough and he snatched the loaf out of my hands.
“Hey, I just lost my leverage.”
He kissed me.
Nothing like our public pash last night. This one snatched my breath and clouded my brain and made me melt against him in a puddle of longing.
I liked making out. Liked the buzz and the heat and the promise of something more. But kissing Ronan took the experience to a whole other level, one that tantalised and teased and titillated.
While his tongue did wicked things inside my mouth, he captured my wrists behind my back, allowing my body to arch into his unimpeded. Tiny zaps of electricity made my skin prickle as a slow burning heat ignited in my pelvis, making me strain towards him, demanding more.
“Whoa,” he said, breaking the kiss when I subconsciously started rubbing against him.
“That’s supposed to be my line,” I said, my breath ragged as I sucked in air.
“Plenty of time for that.”
He released my hands and I immediately delved them through his hair, savouring the silky softness tickling my fingertips.
“You’ve got awesome hair,” I said, an honest assessment and not another come-on.
“Thanks.”
His adorable grin twisted my heart. A heart that had been beating overtime since I got spooked.
That thought was enough to bring everything crashing back, effectively dousing my desire for Ronan like nothing else could. Making out may have temporarily blocked out that stupid séance and its repercussions, but losing myself in Ronan couldn’t change facts.
My dead ex might be trying to tell me something.
I didn’t want to know.
I untangled my fingers from his hair with regret, my palms cupping the side of his face momentarily before sliding down to rest flush on his chest.
“Angie’s probably holding dinner for me. Guess I better hit the road.”
“Okay.”
He rested his forehead on mine and I hoped some of what I was thinking wouldn’t transmit by osmosis.
When we broke apart, I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Regret? Yearning?
With a squeeze of his bicep, I headed for the door.
“Lys?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m cool with labels like boyfriend and girlfriend.”
A jubilant grin tugged at my mouth as I glanced over my shoulder. “Me too.”
I let myself out of the building and it wasn’t until I was halfway down the front steps that I remembered not once had he asked me about last night’s dead body.