Muses

by Elizabeth Andre

The bed pushed away from the wall, its feet screeching against the hardwood floor. Julie had to jump out of the way to keep from being crushed. Other pieces of furniture—a dresser, a vanity table, its chair, and a TV—began randomly moving around the room, like bumper cars at a carnival. The dresser moved up and down the length of the bedroom, occasionally crashing into the vanity table. The vanity table’s chair flew as if it had been flung by someone with great strength. It crashed into the bed’s headboard and landed on the mattress with a thud. Penny ducked in the nick of time.

  Julie dropped to the floor to get out of the way and crawled the short distance to the foot of the bed. Shards of glass scraped her hands. She winced when the shards scraped against her skin. The darkness had become the sort of inky blackness that didn’t permit one’s eyes to get used to it. She kept blinking in hopes that eventually her eyes would grow accustomed to the dark, but each time it seemed like the room got darker.

  “Have you guys noticed how dark it is in here?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  Please say yes. She wanted desperately to know that she wasn’t going blind.

  Jason wheezed. “Yeah, it’s pretty frigging dark in here. I need to get whatever it is off my chest. Hard to breathe.”

  “Shit! I can’t see my hand! I’m holding my hand right in front of my face, and I can’t see it! What the hell?” Penny yelled.

  Julie reached out and felt the cotton fabric of the bedspread. Relief flooded her. The bedspread was something real and mundane in the midst of the chaos. She heard a sound like a body hitting the floor followed by Jason saying, “Ow.”

  “Jason! What happened?” She heard more wheezing and the sound of him taking deep breaths.

  “It picked me up and let me go. Damn. It hurts.”

  “What hurts?” Julie tried to pull herself up while gripping the edge of the bedspread. She worried that the bedspread would be ruined from blood from the cuts on her hands. Odd but it was surprisingly difficult to pull herself up. She pulled on the fabric until it seemed to slide across the bed and no longer gave her leverage. Her body felt very heavy. The air around her felt heavier, too. She could not get up.

  “My ribs. My chest. Like my chest was caught in a vise,” he said followed by a few more coughs.

  She heard him pound on the wall and then the door in frustration. Something heavy drop onto the floor. The thud it made as it made contact with the floor made it sound like whatever had dropped came from a great height. The atmosphere grew colder. It was the sort of arctic cold that seared the lungs. Then she realized that she hadn’t heard a peep from the normally chatty Penny in a few minutes.

  “Penny? What’s going on? How you doing?” yelled Julie.

  Silence. Penny’s silence scared Julie more than the darkness.

  “Come on, Pen. Don’t keep us in suspense.” Jason still wheezed a little.

  Julie heard a grunting noise followed by a muffled squeal. She heard shuffling feet coming toward her and then felt something—a foot?—butt up against her leg. Someone fell over her.

  “Jason? Is that you? Did you just fall over me?”

  “No, I’m over here by the door.”

  Julie felt hands—slender, feminine hands, on her arms and then on her face. She also heard the muffled squealing. It was Penny.

  “Penny, what’s wrong? Say something.”

  Penny placed one of Julie’s hands over her own mouth. Julie could feel Penny’s lips and could feel that Penny was trying to open them. She could hear Penny’s muffled squeals and screams. Panicking, Julie tried to open Penny’s lips.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” Julie said.

  “What’s wrong? Is Penny okay?”

  “Ghosts have sealed her mouth shut!”

  Penny’s squeals got even louder. She began flailing her arms at Julie who, while trying to pry open Penny’s lips, had to bat Penny’s arms away from her head.

  “I’m trying to help you, Pen. Ow! Stop it!” Julie cried. “Jason, get over here and help me!”

  “Keep talking. I can’t see a thing, it’s so frigging dark in here.”

  “I’m over by the bed, so you’re not far. Ow,” said Jason as he tripped over his sister and Penny.

  “Found you,” he said.

  Julie’s eyes finally started to adjust to the inky darkness. She thought she could just about make out Jason trying to hold Penny’s arms down. She could feel Penny squirming and heard her exhaling loudly, frantically through her nose. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped. The room was still in darkness, but the heavy blackness left. The temperature went back up.

  “Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!” Penny screamed as her lips suddenly unsealed. “Goddamit!” She flopped down onto the floor.

  Julie found her flashlight and switched it on. Bits of shattered light bulbs covered the floor. Penny lay gasping for air while Jason gingerly rubbed his chest.

  “That’s gonna bruise,” he said.

  Julie examined her hands by the light of the flashlight. She saw several little shallow cuts on the palms of her hands. Blood, not very much, was smeared across the pale flesh. She went to the en suite bathroom to wash her hands. The cool water felt soothing. Standing at the sink and gently rubbing her hands helped calm her down.

  Penny got up and looked around for her video camera. She found it sticking out from under the bed. She looked through the playback screen. “I actually got some pretty good footage before everything went nuts.”

  “Fantastic,” Julie said. “That should get us a lot of views.”

  “Yeah, I can’t wait to upload it.”

  The door to the hall opened with a loud creak.

  Jason said, “Let’s get outta here.”

  Julie put the hand towel back on the rack before picking up her flashlight. “You read my mind, little brother.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Escaping the study

  Maya’s phone was yanked out of her hand, and the study went dark and cold. The beeps and whines of Steve’s EDI meter got loud and high pitched and then the machine went silent, like it had been squashed.

  “Steve? Eddie?” yelled Maya.

  Eddie started mumbling. Maya couldn’t make out the words. She wondered if he was attempting to cast a spell, even if he or Steve weren’t willing to admit he could do that and possibly more.

  Those words were squashed as well.

  She heard a thud. Then she heard another.

  The lights flashed on again, and she saw the two men writhing on the floor pulling at their mouths before the room went dark again.

  “Steve! Eddie! Lily! Julie! Anybody!” Maya realized that she didn’t expect Julie and other others to hear her shouts, but she felt obligated to try anyway.

  All at once, stuff started whizzing through the air. What was probably a sofa cushion hit her in the back. Something hard walloped her shoulder. She fell to her knees and flattened herself out in hopes of ducking the various objects, many of them probably books, flying through the air. Still, the ghosts didn’t talk to her, not in the way they usually did. She heard howls but no words. They were everywhere. She heard keening sounds, strangely muffled. It wasn’t a ghost.

  “Eddie? Steve? What’s going on?”

  Again, she heard the keening sound. It made her skin crawl. What had happened to Steve and Eddie?

  Just as abruptly as it began, it all stopped. The lights flickered back on. The sudden quiet was more unsettling than the chaos that preceded it.

  Maya rolled onto her back and tried to calm herself. Books and papers were everywhere. All of Lily’s hard work was undone.

  “You guys okay?” She tried to catch her breath.

  Steve, breathing heavily, said, “Yeah. I’m okay. I hate it when ghosts seal my mouth. I never know what they’re sealing it with. Eddie?”

  Maya made a mental note to ask Steve about the other times ghosts had sealed his mouth. He’d never mentioned that possibility before. It sounded awful.

  Eddie stood up slowly. He o
pened his mouth as if he’d never opened it before. He moved his jaw side to side, up and down. A sneeze interrupted his exploration of his newly opened mouth.

  “Wow. What the fuck?” he said.

  “Indeed.” Steve got up from the floor and gave Eddie a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You okay, honey?”

  “Yeah. That was incredible. Everything was so vivid, but it’s like when I dream,” Eddie said.

  “What do you mean?” Maya went over to the door. Cold was no longer radiating from it. She reached her hand forward. The knob was normal temperature again, and, more importantly, the door opened. “At least we’re not trapped in here anymore.”

  “Whenever I wake up from a dream, in the minute or so after, I can remember the dream in detail, every vivid detail, and then it starts fading fast. I try to hold onto the details, any details, but it’s like they’re being snatched away. It’s frustrating.” Eddie stretched his arms up and lengthened his back. He rotated his head, triggering a crack from his neck.

  “And that’s what’s happening now?” Maya asked. “Are you really forgetting what just happened?”

  “Yep. It’s fading.”

  “Well, if you need a refresher, just ask me. I never forget this stuff,” Maya said ruefully. She went into the living room. Julie, Jason, and Penny, looking disheveled and stunned, came ambling down the stairs.

  “Thank God, you guys are all right!” Penny said.

  Steve grinned and cocked his head toward Eddie who still looked like he was waking up. “Define all right,” Steve said.

  Penny bounded toward Steve and wrapped him in her approximation of a bear hug, an odd sight since she was at least a foot shorter than Steve.

  Then Maya heard it, a sound like soft crying. It was coming from the direction of the kitchen. “Lily!”

  Maya led them all into the kitchen. They found Lily sitting in a chair at the table sobbing.

  “Lily?” Maya spoke softly as she rested one of her hands on the woman’s left shoulder. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “It was like watching a movie,” Lily said at last. She looked up at Maya. “And I’m so tired. So much to do. So little sleep.”

  Maya gave Lily’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  “They showed me something,” said Lily. “I don’t know why they wanted me to see it, but they may need our help. None of this seems quite right.”

  Lily told them what she had seen, and the others shared their adventures in the cold and the dark.

  Maya was fascinated. The ghosts had shown a story to Lily. They silenced Penny, Eddie, and Steve. They tossed Jason around, and they kept them all in the dark.

  They couldn’t stay in the dark any longer.

  “We need to talk to the sisters. Follow me.” Maya grabbed Lily’s hand and helped her to her feet.

  Chapter Twelve

  Calling the ghosts

  The group moved to the living room. Maya started pushing the furniture and boxes against the walls. She needed more space to do what she wanted to do.

  “Pentacle?” asked Steve.

  Maya nodded. “You know it.”

  Steve, in his ongoing role as her mentor, had taught her how to use pentagrams and pentacles in the past week. He said they would be useful for those times when ghosts couldn’t or wouldn’t speak to her. He warned her to be cautious. It was possible to summon demons with those things as well. She had promised she would be and was glad for an opportunity to use her new knowledge so soon.

  “There’s enough room in here to do it. We just have to move more of this stuff out of the way,” said Eddie as he helped clear more space.

  Jason, who had been sitting on the sofa rubbing his chest and other body parts bruised by his recent ghostly encounter, said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? They seem pretty angry.”

  “It’s the only way we’ll find out why they’re angry,” said Maya.

  They rolled up and pushed away the oriental area rug revealing the hardwood floor below. Steve pulled a piece of chalk from his bag and drew a circle on the floor. Within the circle, he drew a pentagram. Eddie sprinkled salt on the circle’s outline.

  Penny checked her video camera, making sure it was still working and ready to go. Fortunately, she’d invested in one of the tougher models. The kerfuffle upstairs had left her with a few small cuts on her left hand, but had only added another scratch to the camera’s black finish. There was no other damage. She kept opening and closing her mouth, apparently making sure she still could.

  Lily watched all this with great fascination while Julie assured her they knew what they were doing and that everything would be okay.

  Maya hoped Julie was right. She was growing to like Lily.

  When they were gathered around the circle, Maya began chanting a summoning spell. She’d had a feeling since her visit to the house that there was more than the sisters behind the goings on. Based on her research she knew the sisters had lived in the house. There had been rumors of them haunting it. The level of violence over the past few months, including today, however, was new. There had to be a reason why they were behaving the way they were.

  She thought it might be Lily’s uncle, that he had done something, but she hadn’t mentioned that possibility to Lily. She wanted to be sure first.

  As she chanted, she felt a shiver run up and down her spine. The air changed. There was a crackling sort of energy, a chill, and searing heat. She saw her breath as it escaped her nose and mouth. Gradually, indistinct shapes began to manifest inside the circle. She heard a gasp behind her and assumed it was Lily.

  The shapes became more distinct. Three were feminine. The fourth was a seriously disgruntled male.

  “Uncle Richard,” whispered Lily. He looked much like the pictures Lily had shown them of her uncle. His cheeks and jowl had a slight sag. His face was rectangular and framed with a salt and pepper beard. His head was shaved.

  And, like the female ghosts, his eyes were seemingly bottomless black holes that shimmered.

  “I’ve seen the others before, I think. They look different, older,” said Lily.

  Julie asked, “Where did you see them?”

  “When I was in the kitchen. I recognize the one in the middle.” She pointed at the one standing in the center with long black hair in a braid.

  “Do you know which one that is?” Steve asked.

  Maya said, “It might be the oldest sister. Honestly, it’s hard to tell.”

  “I think you’re right,” Lily said. “I saw her, too.” She pointed at the female ghost on the right. This one had light brown hair, but it was piled on top of her head. “She was in the kitchen. And she brushed her hair on my bed last night.”

  “I think that’s the youngest sister,” Maya said.

  “I haven’t seen the one on the left that much,” said Lily, pointing to the ghost. “And I don’t see the other ghost I saw in the kitchen,” Lily said.

  “Another ghost?” Eddie said. “Was it a woman?”

  Lily nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think she’s a sister. She didn’t look like those three.”

  “And none of them have tried to use you to communicate?” Eddie asked, looking at Maya. So far, her ability to draw ghosts to her hadn’t worked with this sisterly trio or with Richard.

  Jason, who had also moved closer to the circle, said, “They all look kind of unhappy. Maybe they were busy and don’t like being interrupted while they plan their next assault on us.”

  “Hey! Where’d he go?” Penny exclaimed. Richard faded away, but the sisters stayed.

  Maya made a note to herself to talk to Steve about how she could improve her ability to hold onto ghosts once she had brought them out.

  “Well, maybe we can get him back later. I want to see what I can find out from these three right now before they decide to skedaddle, too,” said Eddie.

  Julie took this as her cue and stepped up to the edge of the circle. “We mean you no harm. We want to learn more about you, so we can help you.” Th
ey hung in the air like gossamer. Their eyes blinked, but Maya wasn’t sure what they saw with the black, shimmering holes that were where their eyes should have been.

  And then the whispers started.

  The sounds emanated from inside the circle. Maya glanced around at her teammates and noticed that they heard it, too.

  This must be the ghostly version of talking amongst themselves, she thought.

  The whispering got louder, although no words were distinct, and then it suddenly stopped. Penny roamed around the circle with her video camera. Steve had taken charge of the audio equipment to see what they could pick up.

  “They’re still moving their mouths,” Jason observed. He roamed around the circle as well, although he moved in the opposite direction of Penny and Steve as he scanned the atmosphere with his EDI meter.

  “Hopefully, we can pick up whatever it is they’re saying on tape,” Steve said. “And then analyze it to identify what they’re saying.”

  The sisters began moving away from each other toward the edge of the circle. They reached out to the circle’s perimeter. They recoiled and reached out again.

  Lily whispered, “What are they doing?”

  “They’re trying to see how strong the barrier is between the inside of the circle and the outside of it,” Julie said.

  Maya moved closer still to the circle until her nose was right at the barrier between her and the ghosts. The oldest sister came to the edge of the circle again. She seemed to stare right at her for a moment. Maya wondered why she couldn’t get the ghosts to communicate with her directly, like she had been able to previously. She was tempted to smudge some of the chalk and salt line and let them spill over into the here and now. She decided against that because she suspected that would give them license to wreak havoc again.

  “That guy’s back,” Eddie said.

  Sure enough. The male figure had reappeared. He seemed more aimless than the sisters. He no longer looked disgruntled as much as he looked just plain lost. The female trio seemingly took no notice of him.

  Lily got closer to the circle. “Uncle Richard,” she said.

  At the mention of that name, the male figure turned his head toward Lily, but he wasn’t looking at her, at least not directly. His head moved back a forth like a baby whose eyes weren’t yet able to focus.