The Spirits of Six Minstrel Run

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Whenever they do some simple domestic chore—like washing dishes—that normal people just do, they announce it like they’re about to singlehandedly charge a German machine gun nest.”

  “I’m a man. I deserve a back pat for performing any form of housework that doesn’t involve lawn care, power tools, or breaking my neck on a ladder outside.” He grinned at Mia via her reflection on the window over the sink.

  “The obvious sarcasm in your voice has saved you from my vicious reprisal.”

  “Oh?” He ran hot water and added dish soap. “What sort of reprisal?”

  “Something truly vicious… like leaving a candy bowl mixed with M&Ms, Skittles, and Reese’s out for you to find.”

  “Vicious.”

  “I am.” She examined her fingernails.

  While he scrubbed the dishes, Mia finally decided to sweep up the pancake mix, then headed into the living room. Adam looked around for a drying rack… and stared at the dishwasher. “Dammit.”

  “You finally noticed we have a machine, now?” asked Mia from the living room.

  Adam hung his head. “Yeah. That’s going to take some getting used to.” He looked up and finished scrubbing the baking pan. “Not like we generated many dishes tonight. No big deal.”

  Once he finished, he headed upstairs, changed into a T-shirt and shorts, and returned to the living room to recline on the couch next to Mia and enjoy the absence of shoes. She scrolled for a little while before putting on Zootopia.

  “This is a kids’ movie,” said Adam.

  “It’s supposed to be funny.”

  “Random inclination to put it on?”

  She glanced over at him. “I don’t think so. Just seemed like a good idea. They don’t have anything else on this thing that we haven’t already watched, looks lame, or is not my cup of tea.”

  “Fine.” He smiled. “It’s okay if you put it on for the kid.”

  Mia playfully elbowed him in the side, then snuggled against him. “Oh, it was so wonderful to only have a half hour ride to work. Having free time at home is such a bizarre feeling.”

  “Anything I say to that will result in revenge of some form.”

  “While you have had a short commute for your entire life, you did offer to move up here for me before you found a job. I’m the one who insisted we wait. So I don’t blame you.”

  He kissed her.

  The movie, though meant for children, did have its funny moments. It ended around 8 p.m., at which point, Mia tossed the remote to Adam to pick the next show. He started scrolling between dramas and documentaries, but paused at the soft thudding of footsteps. Adam glanced at the stairs, the apparent source of the noise, and stared at the ceiling as they passed overhead.

  “You heard that, right?” whispered Mia. “Sounds like someone’s walking upstairs.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sat up and nudged him. “Go check.”

  He stood. “You should come with me.”

  “Are you crazy?” She stared at him.

  “We have spent the past almost two hours sitting in full sight of the front door. Whatever is upstairs is most assuredly not any sort of living burglar. For interacting with spirits, you are far better equipped.”

  She whined out her nose.

  “Stay behind me, but you should come with.” He took her hand.

  “Okay, fine.”

  Adam crept across the living room to the stairs and eased his weight onto the first step with a minimal of creaking. Mia followed close. He spent a few seconds listening, but the upstairs had fallen silent. In an effort to make as little noise as possible on the way up, he placed his feet close to the sides of each step.

  “I hear something,” whispered Mia.

  Adam strained to listen, but the hallway above remained silent. He shrugged.

  Mia slipped around him once they reached the top. She tilted her head a bit to the side to put an ear forward and padded all the way to the bathroom at the far end, hovering at the doorjamb. Adam moved up to stand behind her, staring expectantly at her. He tried to ask ‘what do you hear?’ with his eyes.

  She glanced back over her shoulder and whispered, “Someone brushing their teeth.”

  He nodded.

  “Just stopped,” whispered Mia. She peeked in. “No one there… but okay, this is weird. I smell bubble gum.”

  Adam’s heart sank a little. “Kid toothpaste.”

  Mia frowned. “Night, sweetie.”

  They stood there listening and looking around for a minute or so.

  “I’m going to try to capture an EVP.”

  She patted his shoulder. “You do that. I’m going to watch something.”

  While Mia returned downstairs, Adam grabbed a digital voice recorder, turned it on, and hovered in the corner between the bedroom and that bathroom.

  “If there are any spirits here, can you say something in this little box I’m holding?” He waited ten seconds. “What’s your name?” He waited another ten seconds. “How many spirits are here?” He waited about fifteen seconds. “Did you die in this house?”

  Mia screamed.

  “Crap.” He ran down the hall to the stairs. “Mia?”

  “I’m okay. The TV turned itself off. Startled me.”

  “Oh.” Adam laughed.

  A few seconds of ‘cop dialogue’ came from downstairs, but cut off.

  “Ack! It did it again.”

  The TV came on… and died.

  Adam descended the stairs.

  Mia shook the remote at the TV. Law & Order appeared on the screen, but the TV shut off four seconds later. “What the hell?”

  Adam held the recorder up. “Are you doing something to the television?”

  Mia turned the show on again, but the set crapped out in four seconds to a black screen. “Grr.”

  He stopped recording, rewound thirty seconds, and pressed play, listening to the device close to his ear.

  “Are you doing something to the television?” asked Adam’s voice from the recorder.

  Two seconds later, a scratchy rasp answered.

  “Ooh!” Adam gasped. “There’s a response.”

  “What did it say?” Mia looked over at him.

  “Not sure. Gotta replay it.”

  He rewound ten seconds and hit play. Mia turned the TV on again, but it died.

  “Atime,” rasped a toneless voice.

  “Sec, hon. Let me hear.”

  Mia folded her arms, still holding the remote, waiting for him to listen before she resumed her war with the TV.

  He rewound and replayed, straining to listen.

  The phantom voice spoke fast, still a blip of a whisper that sounded like ‘time.’

  “Anything?” Mia cocked her head.

  “One sec. Let me try replaying this at eighty percent speed. Spirits are on a higher frequency.” He tinkered with the speed setting, backed up ten seconds, and hit play again.

  “…omething to the television?” asked Adam from the recorder, his slowed-down voice low and nearly demonic in pitch.

  Two seconds of silence passed.

  “Bedtime,” whispered a child.

  Mia covered her mouth with a hand.

  “Might as well go to bed then.” Adam smiled.

  “It’s only 8:30.” She tried to turn the TV on again, but it switched off. Mia leaned back, staring at an empty spot of floor. “Okay… okay…”

  Adam took a step toward her. “What?”

  “I… think the kid’s getting angry with us for being up past our bedtime.” She set the remote down on the coffee table. “Okay, okay. Bedtime.”

  “What?”

  Mia stood and hurried over to him. “A feeling. Like they’re standing there glaring at me. I felt a distinct sense of annoyance. Besides, I don’t want to spend the next hour fighting the TV.”

  “I’m picking up a distinct sense of annoyance, too.” He tapped her on the tip of the nose. “From you. That the TV won’t stay on.”

  “Come on. L
et’s just go upstairs. You can still try to talk from bed.”

  Adam checked both front and back door locks, then followed Mia up to the bedroom. “How’s that for backward? The kid’s sending us to bed.”

  8

  Contact

  Tuesday, August 28, 2012

  Mia awoke to the sensation of the bed moving, as though a cat crept up from the foot end between her and Alan.

  As she didn’t have a cat, she froze still while her heart raced. Too terrified to open her eyes, she waited as the inexplicable motion passed her knees, coming closer. Bedding tugged at her from weight pressing down, the mattress compressing in the space between her arm and Alan’s chest.

  A semisolid mass pressed on her shoulder, another near her hip. Mia couldn’t bring herself to move, her fear deepening at the realization it felt as though a small child had curled up beside her.

  Why am I scared?

  Mia swallowed the saliva that had built up in her mouth. It’s a kid. I shouldn’t be afraid of a child… but what if it’s a demon? All the horror movies she’d ever watched with creepy killer children came back to torment her with what the entity beside her might want to do.

  In the absolute stillness of her bedroom, Mia lay frozen in dread, as though she shared sleeping space with a lion that could snuggle as readily as decide it wanted to tear her apart. Gradually, she became aware that the small gathering of substance between her and Adam swelled and shrank… as if breathing.

  Mia pictured a head resting on her shoulder and a knee on her leg. The footprints in the pancake mix didn’t look that small, so this poor kid couldn’t have been a toddler. She hadn’t been around kids much since babysitting for the neighbors as a teen. Between the size of the footprints and the feeling of substance beside her, she guessed the spirit to be between five and eight years old—if in fact it had been a real child.

  Bedding near her left collarbone squeezed inward with the distinct sensation of small fingers.

  The sorrow of a child that young being a ghost chipped away at her fear, though if that pastor’s persistence meant anything, there might be a darker entity in the house. Other than her body’s primal reaction to being around a paranormal entity, she didn’t pick up any sense of dread… not the way the house had hit her at first sight.

  There has to be more than one spirit here. This kid isn’t a threat.

  Still too frightened to open her eyes, Mia slipped her left hand out from under the blanket and reached up as if to pat the head leaning against her shoulder. Only a cloud of cool air lingered between her and Adam, her fingers brushing at nothing.

  Her fear lessened, blooming into an inexplicable sense of security.

  Mia’s eyes snapped open. The fear wasn’t mine… I’m somehow feeling this kid’s emotion, like I did in the bathroom. She gingerly turned her head to the right. A faint impression in the top of the comforter hinted at the form of a child, one leg curled up and resting on Mia, the other straight. Slight weight across her chest felt like an arm, the hand clutching the bedding by her neck.

  “Hi there,” whispered Mia.

  The weight pressing into her vanished, and the comforter shifted as though the child had simply floated straight up off the bed.

  “It’s okay. You don’t need to go.” Mia waited a moment, and when nothing happened, she sat up to look around.

  Her bedroom appeared normal, nothing out of place, no feelings of being watched.

  She let out a long, sad sigh.

  Years ago, Mia decided the whole heaven or hell thing had to be a myth, partially because her parents insisted on force-feeding her religion, partially because she kept finding contradictions everywhere. For example: who would ever wind up in hell if God forgave anyone who asked for it? Even if the greatest sin imaginable was for someone not to believe in him, how could a ‘loving’ god not forgive that when he’d allowed the person to live their entire life without ever showing proof of existence? Upon death, and seeing God in person, only a complete idiot would refuse to ask for forgiveness, and the ‘loving god who always forgave everyone’ would do so. Therefore, twelve-year-old Mia had concluded hell had to be a lie told by men to control the behavior of other men. A true, loving god would never send anyone to a place like that.

  A child ghost lying beside her threw her mind spinning back into some of those same old quandaries. It seemed unlikely for a kid so young to not be innocent, so why wouldn’t they have been welcomed into heaven if it existed. Adam had always been fascinated with the paranormal, ghosts primarily, and at least one out of every four haunts he talked about involved kids. Mia, naturally, took that as a strong sign that no benevolent deity watched over humanity. While there might be something ‘out there’ arguably considered a ‘god,’ it didn’t bear any resemblance to anything described by most organized religions. Surely, such a being wouldn’t permit children to be murdered at all, much less slam the ‘pearly gates’ in their faces and leave them out of paradise.

  She drew her legs in and wrapped her arms around them, chin on her knees. Her father’s shouting echoed in her memory, such cruel things he’d screamed at her brother. He’d only been fourteen then, Mia sixteen. That had been the final straw for her about religion… and all the proof she needed that her parents’ talk of ‘love’ had been lies. Their beliefs had nothing whatsoever to do with love.

  Mia hugged her legs the way she’d hugged Timothy later that night when she found him in his room trying to keep her from noticing the bottle of pills in his hand, and wept. She knew without a doubt, had she not been there for him, he’d have taken his own life.

  “Hon?” whispered Adam. “What’s wrong?”

  She wiped her tears on her hand. “Just being maudlin for nothing. Oh, we had a visitor.”

  “Visitor?” he asked, sounding slightly more awake.

  “The ghost crawled into bed with us. I said hello, but they left.” She patted the space between them. “Curled up right here.”

  Adam rolled onto his side, facing her, grinning. “That’s awesome!”

  “Not even a scrap of doubt?”

  “Nope. I gravitated to this house originally because I found a post about it on the spirit forums. The low asking price only reinforced what I suspected. No one sells a house this size for so little without there being something genuine going on—or a serious physical problem. When the inspections came back clean, I felt pretty sure the place had to be a legit haunt. And the stuff we’ve been seeing these past few days confirms it.”

  Mia blinked. “You chose a haunted house on purpose. Who does that?”

  “Me.” He smiled weakly. “You should use your gift and try to make contact.”

  “I thought I did that by saying ‘hello.’ The kid took off.” She ran her hands up over her head, combing her fingers through her hair. “Please tell me our new home isn’t an experiment to you.”

  “No, it’s not only an experiment. I have every intention of us staying here for the long term. If I thought of this place as purely a research project, I’d be looking to leave as soon as it’s finished. But, that’s not the case.”

  She groaned into her knees.

  “Hey…” He sat up and put an arm around her. “I can’t really explain it, but something told me we’re needed here.”

  Mia chuckled. “Aren’t I supposed to be the psychic here? And this house filled me with dread more than anything on first sight. But maybe you’re right. The first time we came out here to look at this house, it scared me to death but it also felt right somehow.”

  “I’m sure you picked up on latent emotional energy. Places take on imprints if highly-charged events happen there. Hey… try this. Close your eyes and concentrate on clearing your head.”

  After sighing at him, she sat up straight, crossed her legs under the blankets, and rested her hands on her knees. “I’ve never been good at meditating. Clearing my head is hard. There’s a lot of crap rattling around in there.”

  “Picture an open void of nothingness
. Just black.”

  Mia closed her eyes and tried to tune out her thoughts of her brother, the ghost, the house, the alarm clock that would be going off in four hours…

  Adam waited a moment, then spoke in the voice of a hypnotist. “There’s nothing but void.”

  “Working on it… not quite there.”

  “Picture a distant spot of white in the black field.”

  Mia briefly thought of a train coming at her in a tunnel, but reframed it to a single star in an overcast night sky. Gradually, she imagined away the clouds until she had only a glowing dot. At that point, she nodded once.

  “The speck of light is gliding closer to you, growing. Soon, you realize it’s not a star, but a closed fist.”

  Mia focused on the image of a disembodied hand clenched into a fist and rotating clockwise, floating in a vast void of emptiness.

  “The hand is your psychic potential. Your mind is relatively closed,” said Adam in a soft, soothing tone. “As soon as you desire the hand to open, your mind will open. See the fingers relaxing, the fist softening. The thumb moves away, unfurling. Fingers stretching… an open palm.”

  In Mia’s mind, the too-white hand bloomed like a flower, but flickered back and forth between gradually opening and a flat palm, fingers splayed. She forced herself to slow it down, stop it from jumping to fully open. Over the next fifteen seconds, she imagined the fist uncurling without the alternating snapping image. Finally, she stared at an open palm.

  “It’s open,” whispered Mia.

  “The hand is open to your eyes. Your mind is open to the world. As your ears bring sound, your eyes bring sight, your mind brings awareness beyond perception. Listen only to that sense for now. What do you feel?”

  Mia sat in silence for a minute or two, waiting tentatively, reaching outward with a desire to read her surroundings. Amid the blankness, the faint notion of feeling ridiculous started to sneak in, but she brushed it aside. Adam had coached her with the ‘hand opening’ thing several times before, but it had always struck her as silly. She could never take it seriously. For whatever reason—perhaps truly believing she’d read emotions from the painting at work, or maybe that a ghost had touched her—she managed to convince herself it might actually be real.