Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

  “We know that, Kate.” Marcus said.

  “Don’t you think we told ourselves the same thing?” Gina asked as she pushed a strand of Kate’s hair off her face. My mother used to do that, Kate thought fleetingly and her eyes filled with tears. “Who could believe something like this?” Gina said softly.

  Vinny’s chuckle was bitter. “Nobody but a priest.”

  Alex lifted his head then, and Kate’s heart froze for a split second because something was happening to Alex. The muscles in his face were twitching, his eyes so dark they looked black. “I didn’t believe it either,” he said and Kate could barely hear him. “I never believed in the devil.” He looked about to say more, then shook his head and lowered his eyes.

  She told them about the first time she and Bo had played Ouija alone, how she found Lucien in the crumbling bedroom, how he knew Bo’s name. And then she told them about how Bo begged her to use the board again, “to find out more. She was terrified of the fiery pit. Bo thought that meant she was going to hell and she wanted to find out if there was any way to change that.”

  “And what about you, Katie?” Gina asked. “Did you want to do it again?” The answer must have been evident by Kate’s expression, because Gina nodded and said softly, “I didn’t think so. She talked you into it.”

  “At first, she tried to do alone. She took the Ouija and tried to use it by herself, but nothing happened. She wouldn’t let it go and finally, I gave in. I thought…” her voice faltered and Vinny squeezed her hand. “I was still trying to convince myself that I’d dreamed the first time, that I’d had this weird nightmare, so I thought it wouldn’t do any harm.” Kate took a deep breath. “So we did it again.”

  **

  “I promise, Katie,” Bo said. “It’s going to be fine.”

  They were sitting on Katie’s bed, the Ouija box on the floor beside them. The sound of the radio drifted through the closed door. Katie’s mother had taken to opera, much to her daughter’s dismay. The sound of violins poured through the closed door, a woman’s voice soaring. Katie couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t matter anyway. From what she could tell, opera singers didn’t even speak English. Katie glanced at the box on the floor and then looked away quickly as if it pained her. “I don’t know about this,” she said. She picked at the weave in the pink bedspread. A breeze stirred the Swiss dot curtains. “I was thinking about it last night and I don’t think it’s such a good idea, Bo.”

  Bo shifted her weight and the bed moved with her. “Listen, I know you’re scared,” Kate started to protest, but Bo went on, ignoring her. “I’m scared, too, but Katie, that poor man is chained to a dead woman – and he knows something about me. About our future. We have to see him again.”

  “We?”

  “Well, yeah, we. I get to see him, kind of, through you.”

  “You do?”

  Bo nodded. “Kind of. Last time I thought I saw something.”

  “What did you see?”

  Bo picked at a thread. “Well, after a couple of minutes, when you were sitting there like a zombie, I thought I saw something flickering, behind you. I squinted because I wasn’t sure if I was seeing anything at all and then I saw him. A man, sitting next to a bed and there was something on the bed but I couldn’t make it out. It was like looking through a really thick fog. I could see shapes enough to know what they were, but not clear enough to see any details. And then just when I figured out it really was a man next to a bed, you started talking, only your voice was weird, not yours at all, and when I looked behind you again, the fog was gone and there was just the Forest Field.” Bo hesitated, picking at the spread. “It was almost like….”she stopped.

  “Like what?” Katie whispered.

  “Like a door opened right behind you and I could peek into the room, but couldn’t see it clearly enough to know what was in there.”

  Katie drew her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her calves. “You were lucky.”

  Bo shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. I’m not lucky – you are. You were able to see the whole thing.”

  “Like that’s a good thing.”

  “It is,” Bo insisted. “It means you’re connected to another world. You have power, Katie.”

  Power. If it was power Katie had, she’d just as soon give it up. The image of worms crawling over – through – the woman’s face flashed through her mind and she shuddered. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  “It has to be. How else will we ever know what happened? And how do you know it won’t happen again, when we’re not together?”

  Katie looked up, startled. “What are you talking about?”

  Bo took one of Katie’s hands. “There’s something inside of you that lets the Ouija work, Katie. You have some kind of power that lets spirits show themselves to you.”

  “But that’s not true! Someone just pushes that stupid triangle thingy and it lands on letters.”

  “The board didn’t do anything when Vinny and Gina did it, or Alex and Marcus. It only worked when you and I touched it and you were the one who saw everything. You were the one it talked to. I looked it up in the library--”

  “You did?” Katie asked, astonished.

  Bo nodded and her ponytail fell over one shoulder. “I went to the library and looked up psychic phenomena. You’re a medium, Katie.”

  “A what?”

  “A medium. That means ghosts can talk through you.”

  The idea appalled Katie. She crossed her arms over her chest, but before she could say anything, Bo went on, “Because you’re so young – eleven is wicked young, the youngest medium in the book I read was like twenty five—because you’re just a kid, I think you need the Ouija board to contact the dead.”

  “But I don’t want to contact the dead!”

  “That man’s voice came through you, Katie, because we had the Ouija board. But what happens if this ghost – or some other ghost – decides it has something to say and you’re around? There aren’t that many mediums, Katie. They’re wicked rare. It’s probably really, really hard for ghosts to find one, but if they can talk to you now, and you’re just a kid, think what’ll happen when you’re a grown up! And you probably won’t even need the Ouija anymore. Someday you could be riding your bike down Blood Hill and a ghost will want to tal--”

  “Okay, okay,” Katie was suddenly dizzy. Her stomach felt funny, all loose and hot. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that the man with the black hair would try to use her again. What if Bo was right? What if she was a medium? What if that man could find her, without the Ouija? Oh no, she thought in panic, Maybe he’ll never go away! Maybe he’ll always try to—

  Katrenjia.

  She jumped and looked at Bo, her heart thudding so hard it was a beat against her eardrums. “Did you just whisper my name?”

  Bo’s eyebrows drew together. “No.”

  Katie got off the bed and walked to the bedroom door on rubber legs. She opened the door and opera music, muffled before, filled the air with the clear sound of grief in high notes. Katie poked her head into the hallway, but no one was there. She walked into the corridor and peered over the railing. Her mother was sitting in the high-backed chair in the parlor. Her long blonde hair tumbled over the back.

  “Katie?” Bo was behind her. “Are you okay?”

  “I thought I heard someone calling me.”

  Bo’s eyes grew wide. “Maybe it was the spirit!”

  The hairs on the back of Katie’s neck rose, her skin was tight and tingly.

  “He can do it without the Ouija!” There was awe in Bo’s voice. “I was right! You are a medium!” For a moment, Bo looked triumphant and then her expression changed and she took Katie’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay, Katie.”

  But Katie shook her head. “No, it isn’t! It isn’t okay at all!”

  “Listen, maybe we can tell him that we’ll unchain him only if he promises to go away and leave you alone forever.”

  “B
ut Bo,” Katie said, blinking back tears. “I’m afraid.”

  Bo nodded solemnly. “I know. I am too. But it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  But how could Bo promise such a thing? She didn’t know what it was like to close your eyes in one place and open them in another. She didn’t know how it smelled, how the room was full of smoke and the odor of rotting flesh—

  “I promise he won’t hurt you.” There was something in Bo’s voice, something strong and commanding and Katie’s heart beat a little faster. Bo led the way back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, wriggling until her back was against the wall. Kate sat opposite her, the bed shifting under her weight. She looked around her room, at the dolls lined up on the shelves over her desk, the pretty pink and white wallpaper, the floral prints and she felt a little better. Safer.

  Nothing bad could happen to her here. Her mother was right downstairs, her father was in his workroom. This was her house.

  Bo leaned over the bed, bending at the waist. She picked up the Ouija box with both hands and set it on the bed between them. She lifted the lid, pulled out the board and laid it on their knees.

  “Okay,” she said, locking eyes with Katie. “We don’t have a lot of time. Vinny, Alex and the other kids will be here soon.” Katie lifted her hands, but Bo stopped her. “One more thing. In this book I read, it said mediums can refuse to let spirits work through them. If anything bad happens, take your hands off the triangle and say something like, ‘I am not willing.’ That way, the spirit will know you don’t want to play anymore and you’ll come back.” Bo wriggled forward and put her fingers on the triangle piece. The board, resting between them, looked innocent.

  A child’s game.

  “Ready?” Bo whispered.

  Katie put her fingers on the planchette and Bo’s fingers trembled. Katie was about to tell her to stop wriggling when the piece flew across the board so fast it looked like a streak and landed on the YES. Katie looked across at Bo and saw that Bo’s mouth had opened in a tiny O of astonishment but before Katie could say a word, her room faded into gray and black and the fog was so thick she couldn’t see anything at all and for a second, she felt like she was drowning in darkness but then her vision cleared and she was in the decaying hallway, right in front of the splintered door.

  As before, light flickered through the cracks and Katie could smell candle wax and rot. The smell was worse this time, heavy and cloying.

  The woman, Katie thought, she’s rotting and that’s what stinks.

  Something brushed against her leg and Katie let out a small shriek. A rat as big as a cat was trotting down the hallway. As she watched, it darted into the ruined parlor. Katie clamped a hand over her mouth to hold in the screams. Rats. Sewer rats. Forget it, she thought, I don’t want to know what the stupid spirit wants and I don’t care if he can talk through me and I don’t want to be a medium—

  Katrenjia

  Her heart leapt into her throat. Her stomach lurched and then flipped over and she had to pee so badly her insides cramped.

  Open the door.

  Katie recognized the voice. The man in the nightmare, dressed in Gone With the Wind clothes.

  Open the door and I will answer all of your questions.

  “How do you know I have questions?” Her voice was small and afraid.

  There was no reply at first, but when he did answer, Katie realized she was hearing his voice out loud, and not just in her head. “They always have questions.”

  Katie screwed up her courage. “Am I a medium?”

  “Open the door. I will answer any question you have.”

  I can refuse, I can refuse, I can refuse moved through her mind, a litany, syllables banging in perfect time to her heartbeat. Katie touched the door with the tip of her finger and it swung inward, even though she didn’t put any pressure on the wood at all.

  This time, he was the first thing she saw.

  He was dressed in the same tattered clothing: the puffy sleeved shirt ripped at the left shoulder, the drawstring neck untied. His dark hair gleamed in the candlelight and when he smiled at her, the firelight flickered in his eyes. Almost against her will, Katie looked down at the bed and shuddered.

  She hadn’t imagined it. She hadn’t dreamed up the dead woman in the gown, the bugs crawling—

  “Don’t think of it again, I beg you.” He had an accent, his voice was soft and pleading. She looked up at his face and he smiled at her. “Please. Sit down.” He motioned toward a chair opposite the bed and Katie noticed how easily he moved, so graceful, like the ballet dancers her mother loved to watch and her father called fagolas.

  Katie took the seat he gestured to, clutching at the arms. “Before anything else, I want to know how I got here.”

  The man’s smile was nice, a genuine smile and a little piece of Katie’s fear faded. “It is not that you got here, it is more that you allowed me to come to you.”

  “How?”

  “The magic board.”

  “The Ouija?” Relief flooded through her. She could just throw it away. Toss it right in the garbage and never have to worry about seeing—

  “Ouija?” the man said, his accent tripping over the word. “Is that the name of the magic board?”

  “It’s not magic. It’s just a stupid game.”

  “It is not a game. It is a doorway. And you, Katrenjia, are the key.”

  “What if I don’t want to be a key?”

  The man’s smile dipped a little, like it pained him. “But you are.”

  Katie lowered her head and studied the arm of the chair. The fabric, tattered now, had once been embroidered in reds and blues. She realized it was a tapestry, a word she’d heard from Sister Francis, the art teacher at St. Stand’s. “What is this place?”

  “Don’t you know it?”

  Katie shook her head. The man sat back in his chair. The chains around his wrists rattled and Katie involuntarily followed them with her eyes to the dead woman.

  “Perhaps you will know it in time.”

  “How did--”

  The man held up one finger. “We have not yet been properly introduced. I know you, but you do not think you know me.”

  Katie opened her mouth to ask but before she could, a name popped into her head.

  Lucien de Bosvilhoska

  She stared across the dim room, trying to make out his expression. Had he spoken?

  “Your gifts are great for one so young.”

  “My gifts?”

  The man waved a hand again. The chains rattled. “You are here, are you not?”

  Katie didn’t think being in this place was a gift. It was a punishment.

  The man chuckled. “Punishment?” Katie realized that his accent was Polish or maybe Romanian like the man who opened the fish market down on Broadway. “Being here unchained is not punishment. Being here chained, that is punishment.” He pointed at the bed. “My companion, Magdalena, thought so.”

  Katie looked at the bed. The woman’s body was as it had been before, one arm crossed over her chest, the other dangling at her side. Katie could make out more of the details now; the woman’s dress was made of silk, the lace fine and delicate.

  “Would you like to see her?” Lucien asked. “A painting of her, as she once was?” When he stood up, he was taller than Katie expected. His shirt billowed open, exposing his chest, smooth and muscular. He walked a few steps from the bed, the chain pulled taut so that the woman’s arm was stretched out straight, as if she were pointing. He opened a drawer in a tall cupboard. He lifted out a candle and walked back to the bedside table, lighting the taper from the one burning at his side. He lifted it high. Katie twisted in her chair to follow where his finger led and saw a picture on the wall above the fireplace. “Take a candle,” he said softly.

  Katie licked her lips. “I want to know what’s happening. Why it’s happening to me.”

  “You will,” Lucien said. “You shall know it all. But first, look on her face, as it was.”

  Kati
e picked up a burning candle, surprised at how heavy it was, and carried it to the fireplace. She lifted the candle so that the flames lit the face in the portrait. The painting was of a woman dressed in burgundy silk, the bodice of the gown cut low, her dark hair curling over her shoulders. Her eyes were large and blue, her nose straight, her cheekbones high. “She’s beautiful,” Katie whispered.

  “Yes,” Lucien said, and Katie thought he sounded pleased. “She was the most beautiful woman in all of the new world.”

  Katie studied the woman’s face, taking in the proud tilt to her head, the strong cut of her jaw. She wasn’t smiling in the portrait. “She looks sad,” Katie said.

  Lucien didn’t answer. Katie turned away from the painting and faced Lucien again, “Okay. I looked at her. Now how come I’m here? What do you want? Why did you say Bo was going to die in a pit? Why did--”

  “Sit down and I will tell it all.”

  Katie hesitated. She thought about Bo sitting on the bed, the Ouija on their knees. She pictured her mother resting in the parlor chair, her eyes closed as opera music lifted her heart. She thought about her father, dressing the dead and then she looked at Lucien.

  I have to do this now, she thought. I might never have the courage to try again. I might truly throw the board away but then Bo won’t be able to stand it because she has to know….

  “Yes. She has to know. She has a right to know.” Lucien said. “I do not have much time. It was told to me that you – and Bosauvia—would set me free.”

  “Told to you by who?”

  “Sit. I swear you will not be harmed. There is nothing to fear. I mean you no pain. Sit and I will tell you the story of how this came to be.”