A Vision of Green (Florence Vaine #2) (32 page)

“
Nope. You've got one of the best auras I know, that's why I like having you as my friend.”

“
Oh shut up,” she laughs. “You'll give me a swollen ego. Ah, here we are,” she stops walking and stands in front of a medium sized house. It's very ordinary looking from the outside, not at all what I expected of Ingrid's home. For some reason I imagined her living in a big white mansion. We make our way to the front door and a middle aged woman with dyed blond hair and a heavy fake tan answers it. Her aura immediately reveals to me her grief and exhaustion. This must be Ingrid's mother, the one who contacted Bill to do the séance. Clearly the actions of a desperate woman.

She takes in the sight of me and Caroline standing there. “Oh hello, are you here for the um, what do you call it, the séance?” she asks.

“
That's right,” says Caroline with a pleasant smile.

“
Come on in, I'm Marla, Ingrid's mum. Bill said you girls are friends of hers from school?”

Caroline and I glance at each other nervously, I don't know what to say, but thankfully Caroline does it for me. “Yes, we're so sorry about what's happened.”

Marla brings us into the living room where she sits us down and practically tells us her entire life story. Her husband left three years ago and she's a single mother taking care of two girls, Ingrid and her younger sister Wendy. She's scared she's going to lose her job at the local estate agents because of all the time she's taken off since Ingrid's disappearance.

Looking around the room, I can tell that Ingrid's expensive clothes have probably all been bought with money from loans or credit cards. The furniture is mostly high end, but a little tacky, especially the massive flat screen television and the red leather sofa. It's clear that Marla is living well beyond her means. The thing that catches my eye though, and what seems to have caught Caroline's eye as well, is what's sitting on the coffee table in the centre of the room. I've never seen one before, except for in movies. A ouija board.

It's a big rectangular slab of wood with detailed carvings of a moon, a sun and stars that have been coloured in with midnight blue and gold paint. In the very middle of the board is a straight line of consecutive numbers, zero to nine, and in an oval around the numbers are all the letters of the alphabet, A to Z. In each of the four corners there are words, in the top left corner it says “yes” in the top right hand corner it says “no”, at the bottom left it says “hello” and lastly at the bottom right it says “goodbye”. An empty glass is turned upside down on top of the board.

“
I'm not sure about this,” Caroline whispers to me under her breath.

Before I can reply, Bill and Lucinda burst into the room. “Wonderful, you girls made it, now we can get started,” Bill declares.

“
Um, I didn't know we were going to be using a ouija board,” Caroline interjects. “I don't think I'm up for that.”

Bill shakes his head at her. “Nonsense,” he bends down and raps his knuckles on the board. “It's a harmless piece of wood, and I'm going to use this,” he holds up a canister of salt, “to ensure that only good spirits can make contact with us.”

“
Salt?” Caroline asks.

“
Yes salt,” says Bill, slightly annoyed at being questioned. “It's a very potent substance, keeps out all the bad stuff my dear.”

“
Salt,” Caroline repeats, this time sceptical.

Bill shakes his head, grinning at Lucinda and Marla. “She's like a broken record isn't she. Teenagers.” He gives a shrug of mock exasperation.

Caroline folds her arms across her chest. “I've heard that you should never use a ouija board because they give demons or evil beings a way to get into your life and mess with it. They only pretend to be the spirits of the dead so that they can fool you into trusting them, into thinking they're good.”

“
As I said,” Bill chirps. “That's what the salt is for.”

“
He's right,” Lucinda puts in. “We've done this lots of times before and nothing bad has ever come of it. We know what we're doing, trust us.” Lucinda has such kind eyes that I see she's winning Caroline over. I'm still sort of on the fence, but I don't voice my opinion. When Bill said that the salt works I didn't see anything in his aura to lead me to believe he was lying. Of course, there's also a chance he's misguided.

Bill instructs the four of us to sit down on the carpet around the coffee table and then he goes about pouring the salt in a big circle all around us. He dims the lamp and lights up a few candles that have been placed around the room.

“
It's a good thing I've got a Dyson,” Marla comments, making a half-hearted joke at Bill pouring salt all over her floor. Lucinda gives her a smile. Caroline and I stare at each other, probably with the exact same thought in our heads,
what are we getting ourselves into?

Once Bill is done with the salt he carefully steps inside the circle and sits down in between Marla and Lucinda. He hands Caroline a pen and pad of paper and asks her if she would mind being the one to write down what the spirit says, as the glass might move from letter to letter too quickly for us to remember each one. She agrees, and seems a little relieved to be taking more of a back seat in the whole thing.

“
I want everyone to go into this with a clear head, so whatever you're thinking right now, let it drop. You need to focus on the present situation. On the board. Now, everyone except for Caroline take their index and middle fingers and place them lightly on top of the glass.”

When all four of us are touching the upturned glass, Bill begins talking again. “I'm going to start calling on the spirits in a moment, what we should hope for is for someone to contact us who has been watching over Ingrid and can tell us what has happened to her. Marla, I know your mother has passed, so perhaps she'll come through tonight. Whatever spirit does come through, they will be able to wield a little bit of force in order to push the glass around the board, spelling out messages for us.”

When he's stopped talking, I ask, “Can't you just d-do a r-reading for Marla like you normally do, and contact her mother in that way?”

“
No, no, no, you don't understand,” Bill replies. “When I do a one on one reading it's like a direct line telephone to the deceased relatives or loved ones of the person I'm working with. For our purpose here, we need to widen the boundaries. With a séance it's more like we're making an announcement to the spirit world over a speaker phone. So if we can't get Marla's mother as we want to, we might stumble upon another spirit who has useful information for us.”

“
Oh,” I say. “I suppose that makes sense.”

Bill's face turns smug, like he's put me in my place. Bit of a wanker. I try to ignore the less pleasant aspects of his personality in order to focus on the board.

“
So, any more questions before we begin?” Bill asks. We shake our heads no.

“
Very well then,” he closes his eyes. There's a deadly silence for several beats, then my heart almost jumps out of my chest when Bill starts talking again, because his voice has turned into a low monotone. It's a little freaky. Caroline cocks an eyebrow at me and smirks. I struggle to hold in my laughter. Say what I might about Bill, he's certainly entertaining.

“
We have gathered here tonight to seek information about Marla's missing girl. We welcome only those with pure intentions, no malevolent spirits will be accepted.” He stops and seems intently focused, before speaking again, “Is there anybody there?” he asks, then repeats, “Is there anybody there?”

I'm half tempted to put a bit of pressure on the glass and spell out the message: Bill. You. Are. A. Dickhead. He continues to repeat the question over and over, “Is there anybody there? Come to us, we mean you no harm.” Nothing happens. If Alex were here the glass would be zipping across the table I'm sure, spelling out any number of swear words and insults.

A couple of minutes go by, and when Bill repeats his question once more, the glass shakes and a candle in the corner of the room flickers.

“
Oh God,” Caroline whispers. “Did that just happen?”

“
Who's there?” says Bill. “Don't be frightened, speak to us.” A second or two ticks by and then the glass judders and slowly moves across the board. Nerves seize my chest. My heart is in my throat as a rumbling sound vibrates around the room, the movement of the glass against the wood. All our eyes are glued to it, eager to see where it will go. It stops when it gets to one corner and lands on the word “hello”. I never realised how frightening a moving glass could be. For some reason it hitting that one word makes my entire body break out in goosebumps.

“
Tell us your name,” Bill says, his voice still low and weird. I wish he'd stop using that tone, it's creeping me out.

The glass starts moving again, and my fingers tingle with the knowledge that some other being, some spirit is using a strange force to transport it across the board. Normally I'd suspect someone of moving it, but its progression is too smooth, too fluid.

It's close to the alphabet now, it touches on the letter “B” then “E”, followed by “A”, “T”, “R”, “I”, “C”, and “E”, spelling out the name “Beatrice”. Caroline quickly scribbles down the letters.

“
Is that your mother's name?” Bill asks, looking to Marla. She shakes her head, not breathing a word. “Do you know anyone by that name who's passed? Think carefully dear.”

“
I don't,” Marla answers, tears catching in her throat. All this must be a lot for her to deal with.

“
That's okay, don't worry,” Bill reassures her. “It could be a friendly spirit who wants to help us. Beatrice, do you know anything about the missing girl Ingrid? Can you tell us where she is?”

The glass glides toward its answer, a simple “Yes”.

“
Tell us then Beatrice, what do you know?” Bill prompts.

The glass glides directly to the other corner of the board, landing on “No”. We all let out a collective gasp.

“
Why won't you tell us?” says Bill.

Now the glass starts zipping between letters and numbers, spelling out a collection of words that combine to make up the sentence, “Need U 2 do something 4 me 1
^st
.”

“
What's that Beatrice?”

The glass spells out three words this time. “Break the salt.”

“
We can't do that,” Bill says fervently, his voice shaking ever so slightly. He definitely wasn't expecting this to go the way it's going. I'm assuming this Beatrice spirit wants the circle Bill made around us with the salt to be brushed aside. I'm just not sure why she would want him to do that.

“
Do it,” Beatrice spells out, while Caroline simultaneously writes down the words.

Marla's eyes shoot to him, they seem desperate. “She knows where my girl is Bill, break the God damn salt for her, what's the worst that could happen?”

“
I told you,” says Caroline shakily. “Bad spirits use these boards to get their claws into you. Don't touch the salt, Bill.”

Marla completely ignores her, “Please Bill you have to.”

Bill pulls on the collar of his shirt, and I can see beads of sweat trickle down his forehead. “It's not a good idea Marla,” he replies, trying to sound sympathetic.

“
Bill!” she screeches. “My daughter could be in the hands of some sick killer and you won't brush away a bit of salt, this is ridiculous.”

Bill is about to say more when Marla suddenly kicks out with her leg, making a break in the salt circle.

“
Oh no,” Lucinda whispers.

The glass immediately begins spelling out, “Thank you.”

Something shifts in the atmosphere. The air swooshes around us and seems to make an audible sigh of relief. I feel weird, my heart is beating a mile a minute but I can't tell why. It's only a circle of salt, breaking it can't have done anything too monumental. The furniture in the room starts to shake, but after a minute it settles down. Still, something is
not
right here.