The Apparition Phase

by Will Maclean

  ‘Why would I do that?’ said Graham. He seemed genuinely baffled by the question.

  ‘We have to consider all the options,’ Neil said grumpily. ‘It was Tim who started it.’

  Graham turned to look at me, as if noticing me for the first time. ‘Hello, Tim! You’re back early! How is your mother?’

  I repeated the same explanation, mechanically, like a recording.

  ‘Well, it’s jolly nice to have you back. Even if you are, once more, casting doubt on what happened here.’

  ‘No!’ I said quickly. ‘I was just curious, that’s all. And I’m sorry if my absence from the séances held you up in any way.’

  ‘Well, the séances certainly felt somewhat reduced with only six of us. I’d like to try again as soon as possible, really,’ said Graham. ‘Now that we’re back to a full complement of volunteers.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ I said.

  ‘Well then,’ said Graham. ‘No time like the present.’

  I stared at him as if he had just sprouted antlers.

  ‘What, now?’

  38

  And so, once more, we took our places around the table in Tobias’s room. This would be the first session we had conducted at night, and I wondered if that changed anything. Graham started the tape recorder, the red rectangular light burning as the spools turned at their own leisurely speed, sampling time itself. The electromagnetic field detector and the voltmeter signalled that they were awake by trembling their needles in unison, and then settling back to zero. This time, at Graham’s almost defiant insistence, the electric lights stayed on. No candles with leaping, guttering flames, no pools of dark shadow, no place whatsoever for misunderstanding or suspicion to gather and multiply. The room was a cube of light, set in miles of pitch-black countryside.

  ‘Who’s going to conduct the session?’ I asked.

  Involuntarily, everyone looked to Sally.

  ‘I really don’t want to,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Graham. ‘Anyone else?’

  No one said anything. No one moved. Certainly, no one volunteered.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Juliet eventually.

  ‘Jules, are you sure?’ said Seb. There was a concerned, protective note in his voice I hadn’t heard before. It was almost sweet.

  ‘Yes,’ said Juliet, very definitely. ‘On the condition that, next time, someone else does it.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Graham. ‘In that case, shall we begin?’

  We each placed our fingertips on the planchette, making a circuit in our imaginations if nowhere else.

  Juliet nodded. ‘Right then!’ With her free hand, she scraped her hair back behind her ears. ‘Let’s see how this goes, shall we?’ Her voice was nervous. She glanced up at the tape recorder and took a couple of deep breaths. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer, more grown-up. ‘So – the usual crew are all here, seated around the table—’ She broke off, and looked from Graham to Sally. ‘Do I have to say everyone’s name?’

  Graham shook his head. ‘It’s fine.’ He cleared his throat and spoke over our heads, in the direction of the quietly whirring tape recorder. ‘This is Graham Shaw. Everyone from the last session is present, with the addition of Tim Smith, who’s returned to the group. Juliet Fields-Ray will be conducting today’s séance and acting as operator.’ He gave a nod in Juliet’s direction.

  ‘OK!’ said Juliet. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. After a couple of seconds, she opened them again and spoke.

  ‘Mr Salt,’ she said. ‘Are you there? Speak to us if you are.’

  Immediately, the planchette trembled, and the pencil scratched across the table.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she breathed.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Sally, tenderly. ‘It’s OK, Jules. Just let it come.’

  Under our fingers, the planchette danced. A series of loops and curls, not quite letters. Unexpectedly, Juliet uttered a small moan that was almost sexual.

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLL went the loops, as if resolving into language.

  ‘Mr Salt?’ said Juliet. ‘Is that you?’

  all

  Juliet glanced up at me, unsure, then addressed the pointer again. ‘Could you speak to us?’

  Leave

  ‘You want us to leave?’

  Yes

  No

  ‘You want us to stay?’

  NO

  Who

  Who is there

  Juliet leaned forward to address the planchette, as if it were a microphone. ‘Just the seven of us, Mr Salt. You’ve met all of us before.’

  NO

  EIGHT

  I looked nervously about the room, at everyone else. For a split second, I again considered the thought I had promised myself I wouldn’t think, that Mr Henshaw had explicitly warned against. To push it aside, I forced myself to picture our notebook, signed by both of us, lying open on the words THERE IS NOTHING. But if that were true, how could anyone return to inform me of that fact?

  ‘Who else is here, Tobias?’

  Not here

  Gone

  ‘They have gone?’

  Yes

  Juliet frowned. ‘Who has gone?’

  You Know

  ‘Who?’

  LUCY

  Juliet gasped as if slapped.

  LUKE

  LUCY

  Juliet raised a hand to her face and emitted a loud and violent sob.

  ‘What is it, Jules?’ said Seb. Momentarily, his eyes sparkled with something I thought might be fear.

  LUCY

  LUKE

  Juliet bit a knuckle. The colour had drained from her face. Seb’s frustration bordered on rage. ‘Jules, what is it? Do you know these people?’

  Juliet merely sobbed once more.

  Oh YES

  ALL GONE

  ‘No!’ said Juliet. ‘Why – why would you—’

  ‘Shall we stop this?’ said Neil. ‘Let’s stop this.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ said Graham. ‘Mr Salt, did you mean lucky? Is that what you meant?’

  GONE NOW

  NO MATTER

  ALL GON

  ‘NO!’ Juliet shouted. There were tears running down her face, but her voice was angry and defiant. ‘NO!’ She leapt to her feet, her chair tumbling over behind her, flung the door open, and ran.

  Seb got to his feet and started after her. Neil grabbed his arm and pulled him back, and Seb was, for a second, unable to process the idea that Neil might lay a hand on him. He recovered, and shoved Neil roughly aside. Neil lost his balance and sprawled on the floor. Seb headed after Juliet, the stairs thundering as he ran up them.

  Graham signalled for Sally to stop recording.

  ‘What just happened?’ said Polly. ‘What was that?’

  Neil picked himself up. His face was drawn and pale.

  ‘Neil?’

  ‘I – don’t know!’ said Neil. His glasses had come off and he patted the carpet until he found them. ‘It tried to needle Jules, though. Very – deliberately.’

  ‘Who’s Lucy?’ I asked. ‘Who’s Luke, for that matter? Are they people she knows?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Neil said caustically, as if I had been the one who had shoved him to the floor.

  ‘You know her better than we do,’ I said. ‘Do you recognise those names? Has Juliet ever talked to you about those people?’

  But Neil simply shrugged. ‘No. I don’t know anybody by either of those names.’

  Polly looked down at the paper, filled with inexplicable writings in a hand that wasn’t any of ours. I looked too. Hard, definite marks, forming block capitals that made words that shouted and taunted. With their perfectly plumb lines and sharp corners, the neat letters gave a strange impression of great strength, barely controlled. Her lips pursed in thought.

  ‘Well, Juliet certainly knew who they were.’

  ‘What the hell was that?’ said Seb, crashing back into the room. ‘What did you do to her?’


  ‘Is she OK?’ asked Sally.

  ‘No. She’s more upset than I’ve ever seen her. Who the blazes are Lucy and Luke? Were you trying to upset her?’

  ‘We didn’t do anything!’ said Sally, her voice strained.

  ‘Juliet briefly became a conduit,’ said Graham. ‘She was merely the instrument by which—’

  ‘Yeah, I know how it’s meant to work, Graham,’ said Seb venomously. Graham’s teeth clamped down on his pipe with an audible click, but he said nothing.

  ‘And you,’ Seb said, turning to Neil. ‘Don’t you ever put your hand on me again.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by—’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Awful. I’m tired of you, moping around, shadowing me and Jules. You think I don’t know what a pathetic little crush you have on her?’

  Neil flinched a little, but said nothing.

  ‘Oh, you honestly think I didn’t know? That I hadn’t noticed?’

  Neil, reddening, looked at the table.

  ‘It’s pathetic, Audle. You’re pathetic. With your sneering and your damp handshakes and your bogus intellectual superiority.’

  ‘Seb—’ said Graham.

  ‘You know what, Audle? Juliet tolerates you. You amuse her. Like a pet. Like a lame old dog, one that you can’t quite bring yourself to have put down. Think about that next time you leap in to defend her, you weird toad.’

  ‘Seb,’ said Graham. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Neil said quietly.

  ‘Oh, what was that?’ bellowed Seb. ‘You think you know Jules better than me, is that it? Just because you’ve been moping around after her for years?’

  Neil looked up at Seb. I saw defiance in his large, wet eyes.

  ‘You really don’t know her at all,’ he said.

  Seb glared at him for a second, and I thought he might lash out and strike Neil. I had no doubt that Seb could obliterate Neil if he so desired. Instead, however, Seb simply threw up his hands, made a half-shout of frustration and left the room.

  In the silence, the ticking of the clock was suddenly very loud. I counted a dozen ticks before Graham got up out of his seat, slapping his hands on his thighs.

  ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘I think we should probably call that a night.’

  Once again, I found myself in the single bed in my room, staring up into darkness. I suppose I should have been worried about my mother, between life and death, and my father, trapped in his own purgatory, with no map to orient him, but I wasn’t. I was most afraid that Juliet’s distress and the growing animosity between Seb and Neil meant that the ghost hunt at Yarlings was at an end. It was still the best thing in my life; an escape. I needed it. At least for a while longer.

  It was very late by that point, or very early, but still sleep did not come.

  After a while, I wandered out into the emptiness of the long corridor, where the starlight fell through the leaded windows in ingots of dull silver. I was aware that the only mind there was my own, alone, forever alone, utterly unable to understand or really communicate with other minds, other souls, even those closest to me. Maybe I was the ghost, I thought. Maybe we were the ghosts, trapped in this house, deluding ourselves that we left from time to time, engaged in some meaningless quest that would occupy us for all eternity.

  At the end of the corridor, I was surprised, although not greatly, to see Abi. She was calm. She appeared to be talking, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. She carried something in her hands that glimmered and shone, but I couldn’t see what it was.

  39

  ‘That’s about it,’ I said. I was careful to remove any mention of Abi from the dream. I didn’t want to talk about her at Yarlings, where I could still pretend I belonged to a version of history where my recent past hadn’t happened. I could lose sight of it all here, pretend that back home there was normality to return to.

  On the other side of the breakfast table, Polly’s eyes narrowed. ‘So – just a weird bright light?’

  ‘That was all that was there,’ I said.

  ‘Hmmm. It’s funny, because I had a strange dream last night too,’ said Polly. ‘About you.’

  ‘Really?’ I looked at her but didn’t stop digging around in a jar of marmalade with a knife as I listened. ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Well, it was you, but it wasn’t you. You were thinner and wearing different clothes. And you were –different. It’s hard to explain. You had two other people with you, but I couldn’t see either of them clearly. But you were definitely here, in this house. And that’s the weird thing.’

  ‘What?’ I said, through a mouthful of marmalade and toast.

  ‘The house … wasn’t the house. I mean, it was, but it was totally different. It was blue and yellow, all the way through, painted to look … I don’t know, like a ship or something, but it hadn’t worked. Like putting clown’s make-up on a seriously ill person.’ She caught sight of my expression and smiled, pulling her long sleeves over her hands. ‘I know it sounds daft. But it felt real.’

  ‘So did mine,’ I said.

  ‘What do you think will happen today?’ she asked. ‘I mean, after last night?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But my guess is that Graham will be forced to shut it all down.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘You saw how Seb was with Neil last night. They could barely be civil to each other beforehand; it seems very unlikely they’ll be able to even manage that now. That, and Juliet reacting so violently.’

  ‘So we’ll be going home today?’

  I nodded. It was depressing hearing someone else say it. I would have to crawl home, to face Dad, and apologise for what he would no doubt call ‘over-reacting’ to something I found unforgivable. Then he would, of course, apologise to me, and I would hate him even more. And then at some point we would go and see Mum and she would be much as she was the last time. It was as bleak a prospect as I could imagine.

  ‘Wow,’ said Polly. ‘It will really be an end to it, then.’

  ‘You sound genuinely sad.’

  ‘Yes,’ Polly said. ‘It’s just … I thought we might get some answers, that’s all. I think something’s definitely happening here. Something we can’t see in full, yet. I just want to see it through.’

  I nodded. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

  Polly gave me a serious look. ‘Tim. Do you want to see me again? After today?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if this truly is the end, we’ll never see each other again, unless we make the effort.’

  I looked at her. My face must have displayed enough confusion that she felt the need to clarify. ‘And I do want to see you again, Tim. I do want to make the effort.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, in a deadpan tone.

  ‘Oh, right, I was forgetting. Sally.’ Polly spoke the name in a childish, sing-song voice. ‘You like Sally.’

  I didn’t speak, but the embarrassed silence I returned was answer enough.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Polly. ‘Poor Tim.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Poor Tim. Be careful there, won’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you can’t see it, I can’t help you. But be careful.’

  At the time, I assumed this was the kind of wily, cryptic statement a woman who had been spurned could be expected to throw back at the object of her affection. A pre-emptive curse to sour the prospect of any possible rival, or to sound like a bell in the mind years later, if any possible romance went awry, so that the object of that affection would then say, Ah, but she tried to warn me, that one. The one that got away. That good and true one.

  Now I can see that this was vanity and stupidity, and that Polly really was trying to warn me. And that I should have listened.

  Inevitably, Sally clattered in soon after, with Graham. They both carried binders full of notes – their own individual record of events at Yarlings. At the sight of Sally, I blushed a little
.

  ‘Morning, you two!’ Sally said cheerfully. ‘Is there toast? Gosh, I’m famished!’

  Polly shot me a bemused glance across the table as if to say, This? This is what you want? The secret love child of Aleister Crowley and Enid Blyton?, but I ignored her and smiled up at Sally.

  ‘Well, I must say, you two seem very chipper, for two researchers whose pet project has come to a premature end.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Graham, pouring himself a cup of tea. ‘Whatever do you mean, Tim?’

  ‘I mean after last night. We can hardly go on as we were, not with Seb and Neil … the way they are. With each other.’

  Graham grinned, sitting himself down next to me. His eyes all but twinkled. ‘Oh Tim, honestly. That was yesterday. I promise you, it’s all fixed this morning. Water under the bridge. Are there any cornflakes left?’

  ‘Fixed?’ said Polly. ‘How? They were ready to murder each other yesterday! How can they possibly be—’

  Seb and Neil trooped into the room.

  ‘Morning,’ said Seb, and coughed furiously.

  Polly squinted at them both quizzically. ‘How are you two doing?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Seb. ‘We’ve all had words. And whilst Awfu— Neil and I are hardly going to be best pals, we’ve agreed to put our differences aside, for Juliet’s sake. Then, we’ll take a view on things.’

  ‘How is Juliet?’ asked Polly. ‘Can we bring her anything?’

  ‘She’s sleeping,’ said Seb. ‘She just wants to be alone to rest. That session yesterday really upset her, for some reason. Of course, Neil thinks he knows why, but he won’t tell me. Which leads me to think he doesn’t.’

  ‘Think what you like,’ said Neil. He seemed less intimidated by Seb today, more like the relaxed version of himself who had emerged at Rollright.

  ‘Now then, you two,’ said Graham. ‘Pack it in. Before it even starts.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Neil, sitting down, ‘Juliet made it clear that she could tolerate being here if Sebastian and I were civil to each other. She wants to see the experiment through. She really does.’

  Seb sat down too, at the opposite end of the table. ‘She just needs a while to rest.’ It was as if they were competing to bring us the most urgent update on Juliet’s wellbeing. ‘A day or so without doing a séance.’