by Chris Raven
“In the name of God, I demand that you identify yourself.”
Eloise’s voice is deep and loaded with such absolute security and authority that I am not surprised that the planchette begins to move, slipping slowly on the board. When I get to read the message, I feel that all my blood freezes:
“I laugh at your God, whore.”
Eloise utters those words in a slow whisper as if chewing them. I’m still waiting for her to react and put that spirit in its place when the planchette comes back to vibrate, harder and harder. The vibration is transmitted to the table, which begins to dance and bounce as if it were alive. In a few seconds, the tremor has spread to the whole room. It is so strong that I begin to think that it is not due to any supernatural phenomenon, but we are at the epicenter of an earthquake. Sprung from nowhere, a wind laden with a smell of moisture and rot floods the room. The smell is so strong that I begin to retch. Even though the ground seems to oscillate, I try to get up from the chair. I can’t stand it anymore. I have to run away from this place.
“Do not move. Don’t break the contact” Eloise screams.
I stick my ass to the seat again and I look at her terrified, pleading with my eyes so that she makes this nightmare stop. She moved her head backward, fixing her gaze on the ceiling.
“God Almighty, help me. Expel this ungodly being from your servant’s house.”
The wind becomes even stronger and it extinguishes all the candles, plunging us in the complete darkness. I’m not ashamed to say: I feel like crying, like curling up in a ball in a safe corner and praying for this to end. The only thing that keeps me sane is to feel the touch of Eloise’s hand next to mine.
“Exorcizamus te omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, in nomine et virtute Domini Nostri Jesu Christi eradicare et effugare a Dei Ecclesia, ab animabus ad imaginem Dei conditis ac pretioso divini Agni sanguine redemptis.”
Eloise’s voice does not convey the slightest fear or doubt. It’s the voice of someone powerful, who knows what she wants and how to get it. As her prayer begins, the soil vibration increases. The house’s wooden beams seem to moan, complaining of such ill-treatment, threatening to collapse and bury us alive. The wind gets even stronger and stinky, preventing me from breathing. And then everything ceases and remains calm. Eloise separates her hands and gets up from the chair. I hear how she moves in the dark around the room. I feel like begging her to come back to my side, not to leave me, but I can’t get any word out of my mouth.
I hear the rubbing of a match and I see the light of a candle in a corner. Eloise approaches, carrying a candelabrum that she lays on the table. We both remained for a few seconds looking at the Ouija board. It has split into two pieces as if someone had broken it tapping it against something.
“Is this what happened normally?” I can finally pronounce.
“No, it’s not. I had never encountered such a powerful spirit, so full of hatred.” Eloise collapses on the chair with a lost gaze. Even to the faint light of the candles, I notice that her face is pale and sweaty.
“You said it was all under control, that this place was safe. How could that sneak into you?”
“This place is safe, but I had to remove the protections.”
“Are you crazy?” Were you the one who let that thing in?”
“I had to do it for the session, to let the spirits in. Otherwise, it would have been like ordering food at home and not opening the door to the delivery person. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but you should have warned me. If I came to know this, I wouldn’t have stayed.”
“Well, I’m not the only one who hasn’t told everything. What story did the Spirit speak of?” I open my mouth to answer, but she raises her hand asking me for time. “It is better that you tell me later. Go out to the porch and wait for me there. I have to clean this place of negative energies and put all the protections back on.”
Eloise gets up, walks through the room and lights the ceiling lamp. As soon as I have enough light to move, I go to the door at a fast pace, delighted with the idea of getting out of this place. Just putting one foot out of the house, I feel the adrenaline abandoning me, leaving me exhausted. I collapse on the porch stairs and, with trembling hands, I look for the pack of cigarettes in the back pocket of my trousers. I turn one on and I just stare at the scenery. The street is quiet at this hour. I hear the cries of joy of some kids in a nearby park, the sound of a TV, a woman humming while hanging clothes... The sky is beginning to stain with pink nuances, announcing the arrival of another dusk.
It’s funny, but it only takes a few minutes for my mind to decide to retake control and try to deny everything that just happened. I’m beginning to wonder that everything I’ve seen cannot be real. It has to be a show organized by Eloise. I have seen some reports on the tricks used by mediums to deceive the unwary: lights that turn on and off, jumping tables, objects that move or fall... You only need a dark environment, a few cables and the credulity of a mind as easy to influence as mine. However, I do not quite believe all these arguments. There is something wrong: what reason would Eloise have to set such a spectacle for me? She didn’t ask for money. In fact, she has offered me shelter and food for the next few days. Nor can she be trying to scare me into quitting. By the little we’ve talked, she seems as interested as I am in getting information.
After half an hour, Eloise leaves the house and sits next to me on the stairs. Her long, black, wrinkled fabric skirt covers the steps like a withered flower. I hope she tells me something, but she just looks ahead, enjoying the sunset. She gets out a little, velvet bag. When she opens it, I see it’s full of rolling tobacco. I hasten to handover my back pocket to offer her a cigarette already made.
“Would you like one?”
“No, I don’t smoke those things.”
Eloise sticks her hand in one of her skirt pockets and pulls out a dark wooden pipe. She is slowly crumbling the tobacco, throwing in the bowl and flatting it. As she does it, she doesn’t speak nor look anywhere else. Her movements are slow and precise as if she were doing an important ritual. When she finishes, she lights a match, she lets it burn for a few seconds before getting it near the bowl and then she moves the flame on the tobacco surface, while she takes a deep and slow puff. A vanilla-scented, blue puff of smoke comes out of her mouth.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”She asks me with a smile coming out of her lips. “Have you never seen a woman smoking in a pipe?”
“The truth is that I’ve seen very few people smoking in pipe. It looks that it is a lot of work, but it smells really good.”
“It has nothing to do with those cigarettes that you smoke: fast smoke for people who do not know how to enjoy life.” She takes a puff again and keeps looking at the thick and slow scrolls of smoke. “Smoking in a pipe is a slow process, it requires a preparation, a time to enjoy. I’ve got some old pipes stashed away. If one day you feel like it, I can teach you how to prepare one.”
I nod and, though after her words I feel a little inferior, I take out a cigarette. For a few minutes, we were silent, smoking, seeing as the sky is turning into a fire of reddish and orange tones. No one who saw us could imagine what we have experienced inside this house a few minutes ago. We just look like two normal people enjoying the light breeze that wakes up as the sun goes down.
“You know what I thought?”She asks me, taking me out of my thoughts. “I think, since we’ve been scared together, you can call me Eloise.”
“Have you been afraid? I thought you were an expert on these issues and nothing would impress you anymore.”
This time Eloise dedicates me a wide and sincere smile. Her dark eyes are surrounded by little wrinkles when she does. Before answering she takes a new puff to her pipe.
“There are people who say they are not afraid of ghosts: those who are foolish enough to believe that they do not exist. I know they exist, they’re rea
l. I have seen them, I have felt them, they accompany me in my dreams. I know what they are, the feelings they hide, how much their souls can be perverted, how much pain and hatred they can carry with them... And, as I know them, I fear them. Yes, I admit I’m scared. We should all be afraid of them.”
IX
When I wake up, it’s past ten in the morning. I find myself rested and calm. Eloise may be right to say that her house is protected from spirits and bad energies. I think I haven’t slept so well in months.
When I get down to the kitchen, I find Eloise sitting at the table, reading The Lake Crimes book. She looks very focused, she wears small metal frame glasses which are hanging at the tip of her nose. When she hears me come in, she leaves the book, she gets up and pours me a cup of coffee.
“I thought that breakfast was at seven and that I had already missed it.” I commented, amusing.
“Today we will make an exception, because yesterday was a day of many emotions and because I kept you up late for you to explain everything to me.”The woman cuts a huge piece of apple pie and puts it in front of me.“But don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t” I solemnly pledged, putting a hand upon my heart. “I didn’t imagine you cooking cakes.”
“And I don’t. It’s a gift from Mrs. Truman, the neighbor across the street. We’re partners in the church choir.”
“Nor did I imagine you in the church choir.”
“I like to sing. You should go see me on a Sunday.”
“I say it because of your hobbies and beliefs. They are not very consistent with Christian thought.”
She smiles and sits in front of me while watching as I finish off the apple pie for good. I feel a little uncomfortable. It always made me nervous that they watched me eat. I leave the fork on the plate and look at her, waiting for her to give me an answer.
“It may seem strange to you, but the truth is that I am a believer. I may not be a believer in the traditional way, but I am sure there is a God creator.”
“So, you’re a Christian?”
“I’ve never liked those labels: Christian, Muslim, Jew... I believe that there is one God for all, but that it is too complex for the human mind to comprehend. He has been appearing to some chosen humans to transmit them his truth, but this is so great that they could only comprehend it in part. The different religions are only partial interpretations of the true God.”
“See? That’s what I was talking about. I do not believe that the priest of the church you go to is very happy with that particular interpretation of religion.”
“I know. He had already tried to convince me that tarot cards and séances were only forbidden hoaxes by God and that I should leave those practices if I wanted to continue to go to church.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That the cards had warned me that he was cheating on his wife and that that was also against God’s law. He hasn’t bothered me since.”
I burst out in laughter to imagine the priest’s face when he heard those words. The truth is that, although at first Eloise scared me, I am starting to like her more and more. She gives me back the smile of a satisfied cat and reopens the book she had left on the table.
“What did you think? Have you found anything important?”
“I’ve read it several times and it seems to me that, as Peter told us, it’s all in the book. I think that there are clues that escape us and that surely, we will not be able to understand until we know something more.” She comments as she passes the story’s pages. I can’t help but feel disappointed. I was hoping she could shed light on this maze. “What seems clear is that we have two culprits in the case of your murdered friends: a real person who killed them and a spirit that forced him to do so.”
“Do you think there is a spirit involved in all this?”
“Well, the story makes it very clear and points to him as the main responsible.” Eloise closes the book and points out the childish drawing of a ghost with a white sheet that appears on the cover. “Besides, I think we’ve met this culprit yesterday.”
“Do you think he’s the one who showed up at the Ouija session?”
“Yes. He seemed very interested in us stopping talking to Peter and intruding in his affairs. He even broke the board, so we couldn’t get back in touch.”
“For me, he can be at ease. I have no interest in meeting him again. What am I supposed to do? Stop a ghost?”
“Don’t worry about it now.” Eloise extends her hand over the table to squeeze mine. “I’ll try to find information and find out how we can stop him. You focus on the earthly plane, to try to discover the man who killed your three friends.”
“I don’t think that’s too easy. I have no idea where to start.”
“Well, we have a name: Peter Anderson.”
“But that’s not the name of any of the victims.”
“He told us he was with Anne. He has to be related in some way.”
“Doesn’t he ring a bell to you?” Eloise shakes her head in denial. I sigh, I finish my coffee in a sip and I get up.“All right, I think I have to spend the morning researching in the library. I hope to find something.”
“Remember that lunch is at one and you’ve already spent today’s joker.”
I pick up my backpack and leave the house. The sky is so blue and luminous that it seems to invite me to take a walk in the village, to sit on a bench of Marble Mill or to go to the lake to swim a little. Unfortunately, I have to go and lock myself in a dark library to try to find some information about this Peter Anderson without having any idea where to start. I decide not to think about it anymore, I get on my bike and I’m on my way to First Street.
As I expected, when I enter the library I find it almost empty. I only see a couple of old people reading the newspaper and a young man using the computers at the bottom of the room. The librarian looks up from the book she’s reading when she sees me approaching her counter.
“Good morning. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes, I was wondering if you had filed the local newspapers of the recent years.”
“Of course. In our archive, we have saved all the copies of the St. Albans Messenger since 1861.” The woman answers with a wide smile, as proud as if she had collected those specimens one by one. “What year do you want to consult?”
“The truth is that I do not want to consult any in particular. I just wanted to take a look.”
The woman’s smile is immediately erased. It seems that it is not funny that someone wants to put their hands on her magnificent collection without a good reason to do so. Still, she takes a key from a drawer and tells me to follow her. She opens a door at one side of the library and invites me to pass. When she turns on the light and I see all the boxes stacked, I feel the soul falling to my feet. Checking all this until finding an answer could be a work of years.
“Here are the newspapers of the fifties; here, those of the sixties; here, those of the seventies...” The librarian goes pointing at the different shelves. “I hope that would be of any use to you. Those before the fifties are not available to the public without a strong reason, because overuse could spoil them.” The woman points at a table in the center of the room. “You can work there. I’ll leave you alone. If you need anything, you will find me at the reception desk.”
I thank her, and I sit down while she comes out, closing the door behind her. During the first few minutes, I just look at the rows and rows of stacked boxes, thinking that I will never make it, that I am doomed to spend the rest of my life looking at one newspaper after another without even being sure that the answer I seek is here. Although I fear that all my effort will be in vain, I get to unblock myself and I get the first box of the year 1950 to start working. I can’t go back to Eloise’s house without even trying.
When I have the newspaper on the first day of that year in front of me, I ask myself again what the hell I’m looking for. I can’t read all these whole newspapers looking for the name of
Peter Anderson. After reflecting for a few seconds, I realize what is the only useful fact I possess: I know Peter Anderson is dead. I open the newspaper near the back and go through the pages until I find the obituaries section.
Little by little I’m gaining practice and checking the newspapers faster. Even so, by noon I have only been able to check them until the year 1953. As I suspected, this is going to be eternal. Besides, I’m getting a horrible headache. I decide to go out and smoke a cigarette to clear myself. As I went past the desk, the librarian lifted her head from her book again and smiled at me:
“How are you doing? To be just taking a look, you’ve been in there a long time.”
“I’m doing well.” Her open smile and my complaining desires make me stop and talk for a while. “I think, at the rate I’m going, I’ll get it done before I retire. I hope you don’t mind having me around here for thirty or forty years.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for? Maybe I can help you...”
“I am looking for the name of a person that I think died in Swanton, but I don’t know the year, so I’m looking at the obituary pages of all the newspapers since the fifties.”
The woman bursts in laughter that resonates in the library. I am surprised at this very improper behavior. Aren’t the librarians supposed to be in charge of keeping quiet their domains? It takes her a few seconds to control herself. She even wipes a tear that has escaped her.
“I’m sorry. If I don’t get to ask you, you might have died in there.” She throws a couple of chocked giggles more in front of my bewildering face. “There’s no need to look at the newspapers one by one. The St. Albans Messenger files are scanned and can be searched on their website. You can consult them on the computers at the back. It’ll cost you a dollar an hour, but I think it’ll be worth it.”
I accompany her to the tables at the back, trying not to look at the mocking smile that, although she is trying to suppress it, continues to pop up on her lips. I’m sure I’m the laughing stock at lunchtime at her home: the dumb-ass who has spent two hours looking at old newspapers because he has not realized that the Internet exists. I sit down at the computer, determined to ignore the librarian. After all, I’m so glad I don’t have to spend days locked up in the archive room that I don’t care if I’ve made a fool of myself.