Black Wave

by Devon Glenn

  The hotel room that served as Emily’s bedroom had a flat-screen TV with plenty of channels, but she mainly watched videos from the internet. “How are the renovations going?” Emily asked as she connected her tablet to her television set. The whole family used to live together at Emily’s old house, with Sadie and her parents in the guesthouse, until Joan and Burt were able to open the Black Wave. Now Jenna and Brandon had the whole place to themselves—or at least they would as soon as Sadie left for college.

  “Your old house is a mess, so I’m staying here tonight,” Sadie explained. “Joan put me across the hall from you.”

  “How’d you get the beer? It’s not your birthday yet.”

  “One of the busboys hooked me up,” Sadie replied coolly. She was definitely ready for college. “Anyway, I found a whole bunch of stuff when I was cleaning out the attic. You’re going to die when you see this video.”

  “Is it on YouTube?”

  “Nope. Orbies.”

  “Why would you put it on Orbies? What is it?”

  “It’s our first séance.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Little balls of light

  After a scratchy burst, the image snapped into focus to reveal Darthilda’s original séance room at Emily’s old house. The furniture sagged beneath the mass of guests huddled across velvet settees and armchairs. Emily recognized a few of the regulars: Jen and Ron Pearson, Selena Jacobs, and Barbara Iglesias had gamely appeared for the séance and were eyeing the two young girls seated at a small table in the center of the room with amused apprehension. Jenna and Sadie’s father, Brandon, were busy pouring glasses of wine. Emily laughed at the point in the video when Hannah the Towel Lady dropped a large pile of wet towels in the laundry chute in the hallway before grabbing a chair.

  With a long robe, oversize jewels, and her hair wrapped in a turban, young Emily looked like a fortuneteller of old. Sadie had been the one to suggest the getup, and she had been right: within the armor of her costume—of her character—Emily had felt completely at ease. Sadie had donned a ghostly white leotard and tutu for the occasion, twirling a quill pen in one hand while resting her other hand on a stack of parchment.

  The camera suddenly swung to the corner of the room where a loose piece of burgundy wallpaper slowly curled away from the wall. The camera zoomed out to catch Joan sucking in her breath as she eyed the strip’s downward progress. On the wooden folding chair next to her sat teenage Elerick, staring intently at the performance. In the distance, a phone rang, and the camera jostled in response as Burt set down the camera and raced past the lens on his way to the unmanned front desk. The frame finally stilled, settling its focus on the two outlandishly dressed girls addressing the gathered party of adults.

  Emily smiled and shook her head as she gazed into the eyes of her younger self. Her own memory came alive in her mind, playing along with the footage.

  A grandfather clock inched toward the starting time of eight thirty. Sadie, who had never stayed up this late in her life, stared serenely at her audience as if she performed séances every night. Emily stared ahead into her crystal ball. It held no power for her, but it served as a focal point while she waited for the first spirit to arrive.

  The chime of the clock startled everyone in the room, who afterward laughed quietly and looked at the girls, waiting for the show to begin. Joan appeared ready to stand and introduce them, but Emily stopped her with her gaze.

  “They’re already here,” she said. In the doorway appeared two humanoid ripples in the footage, accompanied by a faint hiss. “They’re telling me—”

  “What is that?” Sadie turned her ear toward Emily’s screen and leaned in. Then she looked at Emily. “Sounds like…Dar.”

  “Presenting, Auntie Emerald,” young Sadie announced from the video, cutting young Emily off with her introduction. “I am her assistant, Sade,” she added, pronouncing the name Shawday. The audience clapped politely, skeptically, suppressing their laughter with swigs of wine and chunks of cheese.

  On the video, the humanoid distortions shuffled across the room, and Emily recalled the pirate Finn leading a nervous Beth by her elbow.

  “I know you see us, little miss,” Finn had said, waving his hand in front of her face. “You can’t leave the door open like this; you won’t be able to choose who comes in.”

  “Whoa, it’s like you’re looking in a funhouse mirror,” Sadie said, pointing to the screen, where a wave of transparent thickness passed before Auntie Emerald’s face.

  The young medium cleared her throat and addressed her audience. “The ghosts are telling me to close the door,” she said. The crowd stayed silent, waiting for her to elaborate. Without a word, Elerick got up to close the door, but Joan stopped him with her hand.

  “It’ll get too warm in here,” she whispered.

  On the video, Elerick’s movement had brought with it traces of light that trailed him to the door. Emily remembered seeing a trail of white rosebuds rising from the ground at his feet as he moved.

  “What is that?” Sadie asked, pointing at the flickering light.

  “Flowers,” Emily said. “My grandfather came in right after this, remember?” Emily had never met her grandfather in life, but she had recognized him from old family photos by his wire-frame glasses and white beard.

  “I think so,” Sadie said. “What’s happening now?”

  As Elerick sat down, a flickering light appeared behind his torso. “That must be Grandpa. He was standing behind Elerick.”

  “Grandpa’s here,” Auntie Emerald said to Joan. Sade raised her eyebrows; Joan furrowed hers. “He’s holding white roses.”

  “We don’t know what that means, Eminems,” Jenna said, shaking her head.

  “Auntie Emerald,” Sade corrected.

  Auntie Emerald wasn’t deterred. She could sense that her grandfather’s presence was comforting to her sister, and her grandfather’s spirit was growing brighter as Jenna warmed up to the idea of making contact. Even then, Emily knew how to use the emotions from her guests to open a place in her consciousness for spirits to whisper their secrets.

  Grandpa made a motion like he was writing, nodding toward Sade. His voice sounded far away, almost underwater, but Auntie Emerald could read his lips.

  “I think I’ll need Sade to help me write this down,” she said. Sade took up her quill and smoothed out a sheet of parchment. She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly from her diaphragm.

  As Sade swirled loops across the page, Auntie Emerald’s grandfather stood behind Sade and guided her hand from left to right, top to bottom, until she had filled the page. Auntie Emerald watched his lips for instruction.

  “It felt like my arm had its own agenda,” Sadie said, shuddering at the memory. “I thought I was imagining that.”

  “Grandpa has something for us,” Auntie Emerald translated. “I don’t think he can give it to us himself, but he wants us to have it.”

  “What is it?” Elerick asked.

  Grandpa nodded to Sade, who immediately dropped her pen. She held up her paper, staring at the only legible word she had written.

  “Candy!” she exclaimed.

  Elerick grinned and shook his head. The adults relaxed into their seats.

  Joan sighed. “Sade, I’m not sure how you found out about the bag of candy in my tote bag,” she said, “but I’ll give you and your grandfather the benefit of the doubt and allow you to have them now rather than after the show.” Joan took a family-size sack of miniature chocolate bars, ripped open the bag, and passed them to Elerick. “After you’ve shared them with the other guests.”

  Elerick took two candy bars and tossed them to the girls before passing the bag.

  Mr. Pearson straightened in his seat, clearing his throat. “Is there any other treasure hidden in the room?” he asked.

  “Some gold doubloons, perhaps?” added Mrs. Pearson. />
  Auntie Emerald shook her head, wondering if her grandfather had led them in the wrong direction. Sade, who was having the same thought, swallowed the last bite of her candy bar and prepared to redirect the conversation.

  “We are your guides to the spirit world,” she said. “We can’t lead you to treasure, just to the ghosts in your attic and the monsters under your bed.” Sade leaned forward in her seat, the light from the chandelier falling across her face and into her lap, illuminating her small hands. “Auntie Emerald knows why your dolls blink at night and who said your name when you were in your bed asleep and woke you up.”

  Auntie Emerald could feel the room tingle with electricity. Other spirits, older ones, were watching her with unseen eyes, waiting to cross through. “Do any of you believe you are haunted?” she asked.

  Selena raised her hand. “I thought I heard someone say my name last night,” she said. She tied back her long black hair with a black rubber band as she spoke, and her voice cut through the room with the precision of a stage actor’s.

  “She’s trying to upstage us.” Sadie chuckled at the woman on the screen. “She was so jealous of you after that night.”

  And for good reason. Selena had been the family’s go-to medium until her parents realized how much better Emily was at channeling spirits. Emily was about to reply to Sadie when the tape sputtered, and a fuzzy shape appeared behind Selena’s back.

  Auntie Emerald shook her head at the hulking blur. “It’s no one you know,” she said apologetically. The shape didn’t feed her images, words, or even emotions. It stood.

  “Can you see who it is?” asked Selena.

  Auntie Emerald squinted to get a better look, but the shape behind Selena never seemed to hold on to one form long enough for her to see a face. There was only a shadow—a man’s shadow.

  “It’s a gray man,” Auntie Emerald said. “I can’t see his face.”

  “The Gray Man.” The woman nodded. “When I woke up this morning, he was standing at the foot of my bed.”

  Auntie Emerald stared into her crystal ball and passed her hands over its smooth surface, hoping that the ghost—any ghost—would say something to her if she waited long enough. She stared at her own reflection: a young girl in a costume. Auntie Emerald watched her irises fade to gray and her features mature until it wasn’t her reflection anymore. Darthilda, whose lacy collar and perfect ringlets reminded Emily of her dolls, stared back at her with urgency. “Boundaries,” she cried.

  Auntie Emerald looked up from the ball and back at Selena. “He can’t get you if you tell him he can’t come in,” she said. “You have to tell him to go away.”

  “But who is he?” Selena pressed.

  Auntie Emerald stammered. “I don’t know.”

  Selena crossed her arms. “Just as I thought,” she said snidely. “This is a children’s play, not a psychic reading. It’s OK, sweetheart. You can go back to your script.”

  Joan, as well as the other adults in the room, turned to give Selena a silent warning. But Elerick gave Auntie Emerald a nod of recognition. “That’s sage advice, Auntie Emerald,” he said. “She shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

  Joan led the crowd in applause. Sade stood up to take a bow, extending her arm to Auntie Emerald, who nodded but stayed planted firmly in her seat.

  Auntie Emerald looked at the door again, hoping to see another relative or maybe one of the old society ladies who occasionally stopped by the tearoom with stories or old toys.

  Without warning Sade’s shoulders stooped, her face turning toward a place on the wall behind Selena’s head. “I’m covered in feathers!” she exclaimed.

  Auntie Emerald momentarily forgot the Gray Man, staring at Sade’s look of horror at what she had just said. At that moment, she saw the shape of an older woman in a feathered hat slink out of Sade’s body and chase the shadow away. Young Emily silently introduced herself, hoping the woman would explain what had just happened. She said her name was Elva, and then disappeared through the wall without another word. Sade plopped back into her seat and lost her composure, the two girls laughing over the crystal ball.

  “It’s so weird how that just popped into my head,” Sadie said, pausing the video to look at Emily. “I don’t even know what that means. Do you?”

  “Nope.” Emily grabbed the remote. “Let’s see what Auntie Emerald had to say.”

  “That was Elva. She used to live here in the olden days. She used Sade to tell you about her feathered hat,” Auntie Emerald improvised. “I think she liked it.”

  Barbara Iglesias shook her head and started to say something, but the Towel Lady stopped her with her hand. On the other side of the room Elerick straightened in his seat.

  Finn materialized in the doorway. He held up his pocket watch, and then walked to the center of the room where Emily and Sadie still sat. He rested his hands on the table between them and took in the setup. The video pixelated and broke, chunks of the image disappearing, the whole screen going black before the jagged pieces fell back together and the entire scene—the table, the chairs, and all the guests—went before the funhouse mirror.

  “The ghosts are telling me it’s time to go,” said Auntie Emerald, turning from Finn to watch Beth in the doorframe.

  “Who is in the door this time?” asked Mrs. Pearson. “Are they the ghosts who haunt this room?”

  Emily shook her head. “No, they’re usually in the foyer closet,” she explained matter-of-factly.

  “What do they do in there?” Mrs. Pearson continued.

  Auntie Emerald heard the sound of scratching on parchment. She looked over at Sade, who had picked up her pen and started scribbling. When she stopped, she seemed dazed, quizzical. She passed Auntie Emerald the parchment, confused. “What does this say?” she asked.

  Auntie Emerald read the word and turned back to Mrs. Pearson to repeat it: “Heroin.”

  “I don’t remember writing that,” Sadie said, pausing the video to squint at the letters on the page. “How did I even know how to spell that word?”

  When Sadie hit Resume, Barbara and the Towel Lady gasped, the Pearsons laughed quietly, and Selena looked dark. Joan put her hand over her eyes and sighed. Elerick shook his head.

  “I think we’re done here,” Joan said. “Thank you all for coming. Sade and Auntie Emerald need their rest, but feel free to stay and finish off the wine and cheese. The ghosts can’t help us with that.”

  The adults applauded, some getting up from their seats to refill their glasses and mill about the room, while others picked up their purses or coats and headed down the hall and up the stairs to their own rooms for the night. Each thanked the girls on his or her way out, though the girls looked red-faced and uncomfortable under Joan’s scrutiny, sensing that they had somehow misbehaved.

  Burt returned from the front desk to retrieve the video camera that he had abandoned. He looked like he was about to burst with pride at how happy the guests looked when Joan pulled him close and whispered in his ear. He didn’t have time to stop recording. Burt and Joan talked in voices that were too low for the camera to pick up as he held the device at his side. The footage wobbled between his pant legs, to the carpet, to Joan’s high heels for a few awkward moments while Joan briefed Burt on what she had just witnessed in the séance room.

  The footage trailed through the hallway and off to Emily’s bedroom, where Burt set the machine on the nightstand and kneeled beside Emily’s bed so he could talk to his daughter face-to-face. Emily sat up against the headboard, lifting a glass of water from her nightstand and taking a sip before looking up at her father with wounded eyes. “Sadie and I didn’t practice the last part,” she said. “We didn’t practice any of it. It just happened.”

  Burt sighed and patted her on the back. “I suppose it’s my fault for raising you in a bed-and-breakfast. You must hear all kinds of things that someone your age shouldn’t hear
,” he said to himself. “Did you or Sadie hear one of our guests talk about drugs?” he asked Emily.

  “Sort of,” she responded.

  Burt nodded grimly. “Just because you hear an adult say something doesn’t mean it’s OK to repeat it.”

  “OK.” Emily sniffed. “Can we still do the séances?”

  “Well, I think you’re done for this season, but I’ll talk to your mom about trying again next year.”

  Emily’s lip quivered.

  “Come on, it’s not that bad.” He laughed. “I know you and Sadie worked hard on it. You obviously did some good research in the library, because you found Elva, a client of the woman who used to live here.” Emily cracked a half smile. “And I hate to admit it, but Barbara and Hannah seem to believe that you’re actually psychic. So it looks like against all odds, you two were a hit.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “That sounds like the doorbell!” Burt announced. “Better make sure our late arrival gets in safely.” He kissed his daughter on the forehead and left the room, leaving the door ajar.

  Emily looked at the floor, where a long shadow had formed alongside her bed, along with a creak in the floorboards. Soon Elerick appeared in the doorway. Even then, his looks were striking, causing a few of the guests to turn around and stare, but his hair was longer, and he had a rounder, more boyish face.

  He sat on the end of the bed and looked at the little girl with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

  “You know what you did wrong, don’t you?” he asked.

  Emily sighed. “I was being inappropriate in front of adults.”

  As they watched the video, Emily and Sadie burst out laughing at this response. At the time, Emily didn’t think she had done anything wrong, but she had heard that specific complaint from her parents many, many times during her childhood.

  Elerick shook his head. “No. You and Sadie were too focused on that Halloween stuff. You can’t go inviting angry ghosts into your home. All of those people there, whether or not they believed in ghosts, were hoping to speak to a dead family member or friend. Next time, you’ve got to concentrate on the people who are already in the room and allow only friendly spirits to come through for them—not the junkie ghosts, and definitely not the Gray Man.”