Witch House (14 page)

“In the meantime, are you two going to have a
word with Sergeant Powell?”

“No….” I looked to Carlos and could tell that
he had not thought that far ahead either. “We have plans
tonight.”

“What kind of plans?”

“We’re going to some stupid séance that
Lilith wants to conduct. I told her we don’t have time for it, but
you know Lilith.”

“Will Ursula be there?”

“Yes, but—”

“Can I go?”

“What?”

“I want to go. Can I?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Dominic. We will be doing
this some place where we are not supposed to be and I…. That is, we
won’t….” I watched the expression on his face turn painful.
Unconsciously or not, he began rubbing his chest where only last
year he had taken a bullet for Lilith and Ursula before saving
their lives at the hands of a mad witch hunter. I did not suppose
that Lilith would mind his presence, and suspected that Ursula
would prefer it, and so I told him, “Fine. Take care of that thing
we talked about, and you can go with us. We will meet you back here
at seven-thirty.”

His eyes tapered like the Sharpie lines on
his flip chart. Even his smile stretched unnaturally thin, forming
a crisp horizon across his face that seemed to track all the way to
his ears. To say he was happy would be an understatement. To guess
that he was in love would explain it.

When Carlos, Spinelli and I drove up to the
supposed haunted house, we found Lilith and Ursula standing out
front, waiting. I thought they might scold us for running late,
Lilith especially, as she has the patience of a pissed off
Doberman, but that was not the case. Her excitement for the
upcoming séance had her flying high and feeling good. Naturally, it
is understandable how one might have misinterpreted that excitement
as hostility. Right away, I inserted my body between hers and those
of my colleagues.

“Now listen here,” I told Lilith. “It’s not
our fault we’re running late. You know how Carlos needs to eat
before an assignment. The fellow at the drive-through screwed up
our orders and we—”

“Tony, I’m not angry.”

“You’re not?”

She smiled, which made me think it was a
diversion to get me to let down my guard. “No, I’m just anxious to
get started. Look.” She pointed to the eastern sky. “The moon is on
the rise. It’s nearly full. We couldn’t ask for a better
night.”

I looked. The moon was nearly full, eclipsing
the timid streetlight out front of the house, its dull orange glow
merely a shadow of its lunar counterpart. I turned and gestured
toward Spinelli. “We brought Dominic along. It that all right?”

Spinelli smiled tentatively. “Hello Lilith.”
He leaned around her some and his smile broadened. “Hi Ursula. You
look nice tonight.”

Ursula thinned her lips shyly. “Good
eventide, Master Dominic. Thou art looking handsome this night, as
well.”

He nudged Carlos and me aside and came around
to take her hand. “You look cold. Would you like my jacket?”

“Me thanks, kind sir. I was but chilled for
the moment till thee touched my hand. That which warms me now doth
not a jacket fit.”

Lilith stepped in. “All right, enough of this
drivel. Let’s go in, shall we?”

“Wait,” I said, pointing at the house, which
I thought resembled something from a horror movie. Two leafless
white oaks stood as bony bookends, framing the wood-lath structure
like petrous sentries at the gates of Hades. Finger veins of
English ivy wrapped the pillars and swallowed the porch roof in a
creeping exodus from the garden that had long since overgrown its
claystone boundaries. It did not matter that she thought the place
was haunted. Even in my dreams, I could not have pictured such a
scary place to hold a séance.

“Lilith, please tell me you aren’t buying
this house. I’d rather sleep on hot coals than live here.”

She blew me off. “Come, Ursula. Shake your
tail. The boys will follow.”

She did, and we did, showing up at the door
in a matted bunch like a nest of rats, holding onto one another and
waiting for the first signs of paranormal paralysis to set in and
seal our fates. Lilith stood closest to the door, I behind her,
Ursula and Spinelli spooning me, and Carlos crowding the rear.
Already, I could feel the house coming alive. It knew we were
there; what we wanted and how we would find it; it just did not
know why. I do not suppose anyone but Lilith knew that. She put her
hand on the doorknob and it opened without her trying. The hinges
creaked. I knew they would; I expected it. Who wouldn’t have?

Inside looked like a bomb had gone off.
Furniture lay askew; books, pictures and knickknacks littered the
floor, scattered as if gathered on a swell and deposited on a
receding tide. In the center of the room, a line of candles formed
a runway of sorts, leading from the front door, down the hall and
to the dining room, the path between them clear and litter-free. I
leaned into Lilith from behind and whispered, “Nice touch. You
shouldn’t have.”

She whispered back, “I didn’t.”

I drew my weapon. “Then stay here.”

I ushered her and Ursula off to one side
before motioning for Carlos and Spinelli to join me in sweeping the
entire building from top to bottom. It only took a few minutes, but
when we reconvened on the first floor, we found that Lilith and
Ursula had already set up shop at the dining room table and were
awaiting our return.

“Jesus, Lilith!” I swear I could have killed
her. “What the hell! I told you to wait outside on the porch.”

“You what?”

“I told you.… I mean, I asked you to wait
outside on the front porch. What happened?”

“I got excited. I couldn’t wait. Besides, it
was cold out there, wasn’t it, Ursula?”

Ursula smiled with complicity. “Aye, `tis not
fit this cold for such fair maidens. Wouldst thou haft pleasured in
mine the loss what frosted nates?”

“What?”

Spinelli said, “She was freezing her ass
off.”

“You understand that?”

“Sure.”

Carlos said, “Yeah, Tony, I got that,
too.”

I pushed them both into the room. “Can we get
this thing started?”

Besides the mysteriously placed candles
leading us into the room, there were others, which Lilith had
placed and lit herself, positioning them as before in the corners
of the room and on the table, forming a triangle with the incense
burning in the middle. She instructed Carlos to get a chair from
the kitchen, since Dominic had grabbed the end chair and pulled it
alongside Ursula. Once we all gathered around the table, Lilith
started us on instructions.

“I don’t know what you all know or think you
know about séances,” she said, “but this is serious business.
Spirits are, by their nature, confused souls. The fact they are
here, trapped between the layers of abstract dimension and the
physical world, indicates their vulnerabilities. They do not want
to be here, yet they cannot move on. Their situation is a
predicament, and the longer they stay, the angrier they become.
That is what makes séances so dangerous and unpredictable. So,
forget what you think you know, forget what you have seen on TV or
in the movies.

“The reconstitution of dark energy is a
grievous affair of the soul. A spirit in a state of reconstitution
risks eternal desolation, should its particles defragment
prematurely with some measure of energy dispersing on this side of
the spiritual divide and the rest on the other. Once that happens,
it is impossible to fuse the mixed energy together again, and the
spirit is essentially dead. This, my friends, is the true meaning
of a lost soul. In some Indian cultures, they believe you can hear
the remnants of these souls howling in the winds. They cry to find
their way back to the ones they love, but it shall never be. So
take this as seriously as any matter you have taken before. Bear
what pain you might, should it come to that. Assume what stress
abounds and endure the worst if the burden arises. Remember it is
not simply a life you save if called upon, but eternal afterlife.
Do for this soul what you can, for I have no doubts that you would
wish nothing less for yourselves.”

I do not think any of us had expected such a
bombshell from Lilith. The way Carlos and Dominic’s mouths hung
slack, you would have thought the echo in the room would resonate
indefinitely. The silence broke when Dominic swallowed first and
asked, “You think he’ll try to hurt us?”

Lilith answered truthfully. “He might.”

“Will he kill us?” This from Carlos.

“Probably not. He is angry; he is not
vengeful. Think of him as a kid throwing a temper tantrum. If we
talk to him nicely, he should remain calm.”

“What if I shoot him?”

“No Carlos, you can’t shoot him.”

He soured his face some. “Rats.”

“Are there any more questions?” No one had.
“Good. Let’s begin.” She snapped a twig from a potted ficus that
had spilled half its dirt and placed it across two of the candles,
allowing their flames to ignite at each end and begin a slow march
towards the middle. Next, she put her hands upon the table, palms
up and opened. I sat on her right, with Ursula on mine; Dominic, as
I mentioned, sat beside her with Carlos between him and Lilith. We
gathered hands and gazed reflectively upon the candles. “Join me,
now,” she said, “and fear not, for the spirit moves at our beckon
call.” She began.

“
Hear ye, spirit, announce thine name,
come show thy self upon this flame; come hither thou where light
burns yonder; embrace what fires now make thee stronger.”

Ursula joined in then.

“
Hear ye, spirit, announce thine name,
come show thy self upon this flame; come hither thou where light
burns yonder; embrace what fires now make thee stronger.”

By the third verse, the boys and I got it,
and soon a hushed chorus rang in unison.

“
Hear ye, spirit, announce thine name,
come show thy self upon this flame; come hither thou where light
burns yonder; embrace what fires now make thee stronger.”

I would like to say that this mantra
continued for only a dozen verses or so, but the truth is that I
really do not know. It may have continued for much, much longer.
After the fourth or fifth go around, I found myself strangely
consumed by the process. My body felt lighter than air. My mind
fell into a state of hyper-concentration where all I could do was
channel my thoughts towards this one goal. I tried to pay attention
to my surroundings, but found my focus narrowed to only the flames
creeping along the ficus twig, and beyond that, Carlos, who seemed
every bit enchanted as I.

At some point, Lilith stopped the incantation
first, though I did not realize that until Ursula stopped, too.
After I stopped, Spinelli stopped, and a single verse later, so did
Carlos. We looked up then. The fire burning along the twig had
died. Only a charred bark-less stick bridged the two candles. I saw
Lilith look toward the ceiling and I followed. What I saw made my
heart skip a beat.

“What is your name,” said Lilith. The others
were also now watching the apparition hovering above us. He looked
not quite solid, but not transparent either, his facial features
blurred and undistinguishable.

I had, on one privileged occasion, the
opportunity to see something similar, though not exactly, when I
witnessed the manifestation of a paranormal event unequaled until
then. It involved the apparition of a young woman metaphysically
transported through an out-of-body experience called bilocation, a
phenomenon where the conscious entity leaves the body temporarily
and then returns. Unlike death, however, this entity leaves the
life essence with the body so that it does not die, thus coexisting
in only one dimension, but in separate places. It was the first
time I had ever witnessed anything so utterly awe-inspiring, and if
not for that, I do not know if I could have believed it now.

“Will you tell us your name?” This again from
Lilith. “We want to help you. Please talk to us.”

Still, he would not respond, and I wondered
if it was because he had not fully reconstituted. He had no
recognizable face, unlike the woman I knew who could bilocate. In
her case I could make out every detail, every subtle nuance, even
her tears. However, this was different. From what I could tell, I
believed that he could hear us. Though he looked around at us all,
he returned his attention to Lilith when she spoke. I think Ursula
noticed that, too, as she tried her hand at coaxing his
attention.

“Kind spirit,” she said, “be not lost so
sorely in thy grief, for I know what sorrow your heart doth
shed.”

The ghost turned to Ursula. I saw Spinelli
squeeze her hand tighter, and in doing so, squeezed mine as well. I
said to him, “Easy, boy, she knows what she’s doing,” and his hand
relaxed.

Ursula continued. “I think not of those what
hath wronged me now. `Tis thine fate they seal not mine. Look upon
my face, good man, see whence I came. I know what pain doth cripple
thee, for thou and I hath tread the dark alike. See what scars upon
my neck bear witness to; that my collar sees not what wounds thy
rope makes, doth not my wounds heal. What knave fellow hath done
this I ask not, and thou should ask not as well.”

The ghost responded unpredictably, I think.
Perhaps Lilith and Ursula expected what happened next, but I sure
did not. He fell away in a shifting cloud, sinking lower and taking
on a more solid form, though still not entirely recognizable.

We continued holding hands, as he floated
around the room, all of us watching his movements to the extreme we
could without turning our heads. Only when he passed through me and
went around Carlos, could I see what likely killed him. I have been
a cop a long time and have seen many unfortunate things, though
none as unfortunate and disheartening as finding an otherwise
healthy young man dead of a gunshot wound. Such was the case with
our ghost friend now, for low and centered on his back was a hole
the size of a grapefruit, the kind of hole a shotgun blast makes at
close range. Lilith said the ghost was pissed. Now I could see
why.