An Unhappy Medium

by Dawn Eastman

  I decided to drop in on Neila later in the morning and see if she could help make sense of the dream. I also needed to talk to Grace. The past few days combined with the dream had me worried that maybe Grace was right. Maybe Derek had been killed by mistake.

  * * *

  The clearing around Neila’s house was quiet, but I heard the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker farther in the woods and a cardinal calling to its mate. The cottage was nestled far enough into the trees that the smell of earth and old leaves and new life combined into a heady mix.

  I raised my hand to knock and the door swung open.

  “Hello, dear,” Neila said. She smiled up at me from the gray gloom of her entryway. The only room I had ever seen in her house was the warm and cozy kitchen. The rest of the space lay shrouded in shadow. She led me to the back as usual and placed a plate of cookies and a mug of tea in front of me.

  “You knew I was coming?” I asked.

  Her mouth twitched up at the corners and she lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “I had a feeling.”

  She settled herself across the table from me and waited.

  I wrapped my fingers around the warmth of the mug. “I had another dream and I need your help.”

  She nodded encouragement.

  I described the dream as well as I could remember it, focusing on the music, the smell of the flowers, the empty casket and my own panic.

  As I told her the story, she grew very still and when I told her about Amazing Grace following me to the door she went very white.

  “Neila? Are you okay?” I stood and rushed to the other side of the table.

  Her eyes glazed over and her breaths came quick and shallow. I worried she was having a stroke or a heart attack. Selfishly, I fretted about what I would do if anything happened to her.

  She finally focused on my face and patted my hand.

  “I’m fine. Just give me a moment.”

  She sipped her tea and closed her eyes. She seemed to shrink into her pile of shawls.

  I stood nervously next to her chair.

  “Go, sit.” She waved in the direction of my seat.

  Neila took a deep breath and let it out. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

  “The dream you just described is almost exactly the vision I had all those years ago. The one that sent your mother down the hill and out of my life.”

  The same hollow, shaky feeling that I associated with my fear of heights spread across my chest. I cleared my throat and tried to focus.

  “What part was different?”

  “In my vision, I saw your mother in the church and she knew who was in the coffin. I just never knew if it was you or your sister.” She reached across the table and took my hand. “I still don’t know.”

  I gently pulled my hand away and put it in my lap. Panic rose and I felt dizzy. Recently, if I had a predictive dream, it came true fairly quickly. Neila had predicted that my mother would attend a funeral for one of her children at some point in the future. My dream made it seem that the future was now.

  “I was trapped, Neila.” My voice shook. I clasped my hands together in my lap to keep them from shaking. “The door felt like wood and metal combined. I couldn’t get out and I was alone.”

  Neila’s eyes filled with tears. “That doesn’t mean it was your funeral. It may just mean you will feel alone. But the other possibility is equally as terrible for your family. It could be Grace’s funeral you saw.”

  I remembered the haunting strains of Amazing Grace following me through the church. I thought of Grace’s fear that Paul had been the intended victim when Derek was killed.

  I stood quickly, shaking the table as I bumped it and causing the tea to slosh over the sides.

  “I have to go,” I said. I hurried to the front door. I didn’t know where I was going, just that I felt trapped and suffocated and had to be outside. I heard Neila shuffling along behind me.

  “Clytemnestra,” Neila said.

  “I’m okay, really,” I said. I took her hand. “I’ll be back, I promise. I just need to think. Thank you for telling me about your vision. I hope we’re both wrong.”

  I wrenched open the door and strode to my Jeep. When I looked back at the house, the small gray figure raised a hand and then faded into the dark interior before the door swung closed.

  18

  Mom: Come quick! We need you!

  Seth: Prepare yourself

  Vi: I thought you would be here by now.

  Dad: 10-96

  All four texts greeted me when I picked up my phone from the passenger seat. I sighed. What new drama was happening at my parent’s house?

  I closed my eyes and took deep, slow breaths. Neila had never specifically described her vision, she only said she had seen that my mother would attend the funeral of one of her children. The prediction had understandably frightened Mom. She had avoided Neila ever since, as if the messenger could somehow cause the message to come true. It also explained why my mother had always pushed me to develop my own talents. She had hoped they could protect me. And she had hated the idea of me becoming a police officer. Between my own dream, Derek’s murder—which may have been meant for Paul—and Grace’s heightened anxiety, I was starting to think my mother had been justified in her fears. I, on the other hand, would not avoid the messenger.

  Still feeling worried and anxious, I maneuvered the Jeep around in Neila’s small clearing and drove back down the driveway out to the street. I had promised Mom that Mac and I would come over for dinner tonight. I’d have to evaluate the new urgent situation with my family and decide whether to drag Mac into it.

  It only took three minutes to drive to my parents’ house. Not quite long enough to calm my racing thoughts. I took a deep breath and pushed my fears into a little box in my mind. I’d deal with it later when I was alone.

  My foot had just touched the top step to the porch when the door opened.

  “Finally! What took you so long?” Vi said. She had one hand on her hip and the other wielded a finger in a threatening manner.

  Baxter pushed past her and wiggled out onto the porch. I rubbed his ears and wished I had Seth’s talent, just for a moment, so the dog could tell me what was going on.

  “I had some errands and I wasn’t checking messages,” I said.

  “Why do you even have a phone if you aren’t going to check messages?” Vi followed me into the dining room where Mom, Grace, and Paul sat.

  I stopped abruptly in the doorway and Vi bumped into me.

  “Clyde! I’m so glad you’re here.” Mom rushed toward me, but I had already spotted the pendulum and the box that held my grandmother’s crystal ball.

  Grace sat quietly at the table with red-rimmed eyes, leaning into Paul.

  “What’s going on?” I said. “Where are the kids?”

  Seth couldn’t resist any form of fortune-telling. He loved the pendulum and the crystal ball.

  “We didn’t want them to hear about our suspicions, so we sent them to the mall with Frank,” Paul said.

  “What suspicions?” I said.

  “We told Mom and Vi everything,” Grace said. “About the money and the men who are following us. About Derek and how he was probably killed by mistake.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  “Mom read my cards,” Grace said. “It’s all there.”

  Mom nodded solemnly. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “Paul?” I turned to my brother-in-law. “I can’t believe you’re going to get all worked up over some tarot cards.”

  “It’s not just the cards,” he said. “There’s been a threat.”

  I looked from Mom to Vi and then to Grace.

  “What threat?”

  Grace took a deep breath. “It was after we left the police station yesterday. There was a black rose on the hood of our car
.”

  I shook my head. “Someone must be playing a joke. No one sends death threats.”

  “The cards are very clear, Clyde.” Mom crossed her arms.

  “Okay.” I held my hands up. “What are you going to do?”

  “We need you to sign those papers,” Grace said.

  “Of course,” I said. “Mac will sign as well, but I don’t think they will ever be needed. Should we go see Rupert tomorrow?”

  Paul shook his head. “He’s coming here in about an hour. He’ll notarize the papers and then Grace and I can at least rest easy that the kids will be okay.”

  I thought it was overly dramatic to drag Rupert here on a Sunday, but the combined anxiety of my mother and my sister were too strong for me to argue against. I wasn’t surprised that Dad had taken the kids to the mall. No wonder he’d sent me the 10-96 text. It meant psych patient, but Dad had co-opted it long ago as a “red-alert psychic activity” warning.

  “I’ll text Mac and make sure he can be here in an hour.” I pulled out my phone.

  “Wait, before you do that, have you had any . . . visions?” Grace asked.

  This was certainly an abrupt change of heart after our last conversation. But I didn’t want to tell them about my dream. It would only fan the fire and might push Mom right over the edge.

  I shook my head. “No, nothing.” I focused on my phone, hoping none of them would pick up on the lie.

  “Let’s ask the pendulum,” Vi said. “You do it, Clyde.”

  “How many times have you already asked it?” I said.

  Vi glanced at the velvet case that held the pendulum, then at Grace. “A few.”

  That probably meant twenty. Vi was nothing if not persistent with the pendulum when it didn’t give her the answer she wanted. I suspected she could browbeat even the pendulum into going along with her plans.

  “Mom said you used Grandma’s crystal ball last fall and you saw a man who was about to be injured,” Grace said.

  I nodded, remembering the sick feeling of falling into the crystal’s depths and the dizzy spinning as I pulled myself out.

  Grace pushed the wooden box toward me. “Would you? Please?” Her eyes were imploring and it brought back memories of childhood antics that always ended in tears.

  I took a step back and crossed my arms. While I was committed to learning how to use my psychic abilities, I didn’t like scrying. At. All. Theoretically, scrying uses a reflective surface to focus the psychic antenna on the future. Mirrors, shallow bowls of water, and crystal balls have been used for this purpose for centuries. I had even once seen a vision in a bonfire. But the aftermath was rough. Nausea and headache as well as a ferocious hunger seemed to follow what Vi would call a successful session.

  “It’s too bright right now,” I said, clutching at any excuse. “Maybe we can do it later.”

  “We’ll go to my apartment,” Vi said. “I have blackout shades in there for when I’m dealing with a nervous client.” Vi had converted part of the main floor of the Victorian she shared with my parents into a small apartment with a bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom. She shared the kitchen, even though Mom did all the cooking.

  Paul, Grace, Mom, and Vi stood and ushered me down the hallway to Vi’s quarters.

  Purple walls and a dove-gray couch dominated the room. Decorated in bright, cheerful colors, it was almost as chaotic as Mom’s living room, but with less fringe. An orange-and-fuchsia area rug anchored the room and Vi had covered the couch in bright orange, red, and pink pillows. Vi’s knitting basket sat next to her rocking chair. Bright balls of yarn spilled over the sides and fell onto the floor. She had four dog beds scattered on the floor of the small space for her animal clients as well as a tall cat maze covered in lime-green carpet. I hoped, for her clients’ sakes, that it was true that animals were color-blind.

  Mom and Paul sat on the love seat, while Grace folded herself onto one of the larger dog beds. Paul raised his eyebrows in surprise, but Grace’s intense expression quieted any commentary. Vi placed the box containing Grandma’s crystal on the wooden coffee table and pushed me down onto a soft round ottoman. She hurried over to the window and pulled the shades, sinking the room into a gray gloom.

  Mom got up and lit some candles while Vi set a couple of them on the coffee table. The reflective light from the candles was meant to help the scryer see into the crystal.

  Mom settled herself on the couch again and Vi pulled her rocking chair close to the ottoman where I perched uncomfortably.

  My knees touched the edge of the table and I reached forward to pull the box closer. It had been worn soft at the edges and corners but the black metal clasp clicked open smoothly. I lifted the lid and carefully removed the clear glass ball with the black velvet that covered it. The small stand nestled underneath, and Vi removed it from the box and placed it in the center of the table.

  Mom held out her hand for the ball. I had only used it once in my adult life. After Mom caught Alex, Diana, and me trying to find out who would ask us to the prom, she took the ball and hid it. She had brought it back out last fall during a different investigation.

  After buffing the nonexistent fingerprints off of it, she placed it carefully in the stand and surrounded it with the velvet. The purpose of the cloth was to minimize any reflections other than that of the candles and whatever was hidden in the depths of the crystal.

  Paul and Grace leaned forward and looked from me to the crystal.

  “I don’t see anything,” Paul said. “Do you?” He turned to Grace.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I only get the stock market listings.”

  Vi shushed them and put her hand on my shoulder.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and looked deep within the glass. Vi squeezed my shoulder to urge me on.

  At first I only saw the flickering candles and their jittery reflections. Then the mist appeared. The smoky haze turned a gray foggy color and swirled inside the ball. The pain started right in the middle of my forehead and a wave of nausea almost made me look away. But I knew it would pass, so I kept my eyes focused on the mist. It felt like a long time. Unlike the pendulum, where you ask it a specific question and in that way control the messages, the crystal always seemed to have its own agenda. It would decide what message to give.

  I continued to stare at the fog and tried to see past it. Tried to will it to clear and show me its secrets. Vi had stopped squeezing and I was glad to have her comforting hand on my shoulder.

  The vapor dispersed and I saw a long alleyway leading into the gloomy distance. A thin figure walked toward me. Blonde hair and a long skirt—I thought at first it was Grace and felt dizzy. But as she got closer, I saw that it wasn’t my sister. It was Tatiana and she was crying. She seemed to see me and walked quickly in my direction. She was trying to speak but no sound came out. In my mind I reached out to her, but before I was able to touch her, the fog swirled again and she disappeared. Then I saw a figure lying on the ground. It was wearing the pirate zombie costume but as I got closer, I saw that he wasn’t wearing the zombie makeup. He lay quietly on the ground, not moving, not breathing and when I looked at his face I pulled away from the crystal breaking the vision.

  I shook my head to clear it and opened my eyes to the same face—Paul’s.

  19

  “I knew it!” Vi said. “I knew she’d see something.”

  “Vi, give her a minute,” Mom said. “She looks kind of green.”

  “Is she okay?” Paul said.

  Talking about me as if I weren’t there didn’t help my mood.

  Surprisingly, it was Grace who stepped in to take control.

  “Vi, go open the curtains,” she said. “Paul, go get her some water, please.” Grace turned to me. “Unless you want something stronger?”

  I shook my head no.

&
nbsp; Mom clasped and unclasped her hands and seemed to vacillate between wanting to stand up or sit down.

  When Paul returned with a glass of water, I gratefully drank the whole thing. The four of them hovering and watching me made me feel almost worse than the crystal ball had.

  I gestured for them all to sit.

  “Well, what was it?”

  I decided not to tell them about seeing Paul. I didn’t think it would help anyone and I didn’t know what it meant yet. That was always my problem with my premonitions. It often took a while to understand them and by then it was too late.

  I cleared my throat, which felt dry even after the water. “I saw Tatiana,” I said. “She was walking toward me down a dark alley and she was crying.”

  “Who is Tatiana?” Grace asked.

  “Is that the palm reader?” Mom asked. “She took over Tanya’s shop?”

  I nodded. “She took over the shop and she moved in across the street from me yesterday.”

  “You guys weren’t there, at the Founder’s Day evening,” Vi said to Paul and Grace. “But Lloyd let her light the bonfire. It’s a big honor, but then she disappeared.”

  “What does she have to do with us?” Paul asked, with an impatient edge to his voice.

  “I don’t always see what I expect to see and it doesn’t always connect directly with my own concerns,” I said.

  Paul huffed. “Well, that’s hardly useful.”

  I had to agree, but I saw Vi puffing up her chest in preparation for a rant about psychics and their gifts. Grace saw it as well and put her hand on Paul’s arm.

  Fortunately, the doorbell rang, startling us all.

  “That must be Rupert with the papers,” Grace said. “We’ll get it.” She grabbed Paul’s hand and dragged him out of the room.

  Mom and Vi fussed over the crystal ball and shined it up again before carefully placing it back in its box.