“Being with child has given me a new perspective. One that aspires to be less petty.”
“Admirable as it may be, one can only rise to the level of one’s breeding.”
The smile that stretched across Sophie’s lips was clearly an attempt to keep her mouth shut. “Indeed,” she managed at last.
“Know this, Sophie McAuliffe. I am not here for you. I am only here for the invitation to sing for these other fine families who for reasons unknown have decided to grace you with their presence. Otherwise, I would not dream to be burdened with a woman so base and ill-mannered.”
And with that, Bessie moved on, joined by her followers and her fawning son George. Sophie stormed off in the other direction and I was left to stand next to Junie.
“What was that all about?” I asked her.
Junie drew me to the side for more privacy. “Oh, Miss Susannah. Miss Sophie and Miss Bessie don’t get along sumthin’ fierce. Dey been fightin’ for ages. Miss Bessie snub Miss Sophie, den Miss Sophie send a dead skunk to Miss Bessie, den Miss Bessie spread all kind of bad things about Miss Sophie.”
“My,” I said.
“Oh yes, dey has de same friends, Miss Susannah. Dey hate each other, but dey still competin’ for status. So when Miss Sophie throwed a party with all dose ladies, de other one don’t turn down no showing up cause she gonna have to defend herself.”
I frowned. “If their relationship is beyond such repair, I don’t see why Sophie didn’t just leave her off the guest list?”
Junie got that look like her tummy was going to be sick again, and stalked off.
The feast was wonderful. Roast pig and duck, corn and potatoes, plenty of wine. I ate so much I felt I would pop! Sophie ate small bites but was still about the tables, directing the slaves. In what was quite the peace offering, she even poured a glass of wine herself and had Junie take it to Bessie, who downed it with gusto.
Normally the dancing would have followed the meal, and indeed the musicians set up their tools of the trade on the small stage. But Sophie stood up in front of the crowd for an announcement. “My friends, it is my pleasure to inform you that the lady Bessie Devereaux has agreed to sing for us. We all know what a beautiful voice she has, and I am so grateful to her for her presence at the humble McAuliffe estate. Bessie, would you please?”
Bessie strode to the front like a queen, clearly enjoying being the center of attention. She conversed with the musicians. Then the fiddlers raised their bows and the banjo player strummed a few chords. The crowd grew quiet. And then she started singing, and oh my! She had the most gorgeous voice, one that belonged in an opera house or on stage! I sat mesmerized by the first song, then the second.
She was in the middle of Dixie when things got interesting. As her voice climbed for a particularly high note, an equal and opposite baritone trumpeted from her behind.
I looked over at Rufus. He looked over at Sophie. Sophie’s eyes were transfixed on Bessie.
Bessie wore an expression of concern but kept blazing forward. The show must go on, of course. When she aimed for another difficult note, the corresponding flatulence once again returned, louder, and Bessie only managed a few more words before she suddenly stopped singing altogether. Her face held puzzlement, then replaced by alarm.
Another tuba note sounded from her derriere, this time all wet and slappy due to the accompaniment of something more than just gas.
And then I knew.
The band stopped—a poor choice, as the next barrage had no other sounds to help mask it. Bessie bent over for the sequel and the next thing I knew, she let out a terrific groan as her insides exploded behind her. I suppose the banjo player was thankful Bessie wore a dress, as otherwise he would have been showered with a most unfortunate engagement, but nonetheless, at this point all the musicians scurried off as if a giant cannone shell had landed on the stage and was about to detonate. General commotion commenced, with the ladies placing their palms upon their chests in dismay, and the gentlemen exclaiming ‘my word!’ in horror. Poor Richard Devereaux dashed to the stage but seemed uncertain whether to draw Bessie off to privacy, or to simply, well, let her finish.
I was standing at this point, wondering how I might assist in the general cacophony that was taking place. Shouts for assistance and no small number of guffaws and scoffing filled the air. Uncle Rufus called to the slaves for a towel.
Through it all, Aunt Sophie stood resolutely, her gaze never leaving Bessie’s prostrate form. And I had no doubt that the expression on her face was one of victory.
The sleepiness was kicking in. Nate yawned, put aside the journal, and turned out the light. As he started to drift off, he genuinely wondered what weird sort of dreams he was going to have now.
21
Despite Nate’s reluctance, go-time for the séance was seven p.m. Elvira showed up an hour early with all the needed accouterments including a big, round table that could seat a dozen people. She put a velvety purple tablecloth on it and lit so many candles around the living room that Nate swore she was creating more danger from a fire hazard than that from an angered spirit. The twilight outside crept in as Anna, Shelby, Tobey, Matt, and Elvira took their seats next to Nate. Desiree was there too. She sat next to her mom, bright-eyed and smiling at this new adventure.
Matt was dressed like he was attending a dinner party. Nate was impressed Matt even owned a suit, and how he held aside his blue tie every time he spit Copenhagen into his Gatorade bottle.
As they began, Matt leaned over to Nate and whispered, “I don’t remember you having this table.”
“It’s not mine. The witch lady brought it.”
Matt raised an eyebrow. “Who brings their own table to a séance?”
“A shyster, that’s who.”
“Silence!” Elvira commanded.
Quiet descended on the room except for the gentle breeze through the windows. “Silence—please. Welcome, friends. We have come here today for a very important task. This house, once the home of Edna Beatrice McNair (God rest her soul) is in turmoil. Your help is needed to summon the spirit that infests this place so that we may communicate with it and understand its intentions. Once we know why it is clinging to the world of the living, only then can we strive to release its grasp and send it on to the ever-after, and peace.”
She reached into a large insulated cooler bag from Walmart.
“First, we must condition the aura of this place.”
Elvira produced a small pouch. Loosening the drawstring, she stuck in her fingers and pulled out a pinch of what looked like oily, ground-up grass. What followed next was the creation of an elaborate pattern on the tabletop as Elvira sprinkled geometric shapes on the purple velvet. It started to look like a great big wagon wheel, with each person at the end of a spoke.
“Is this how crop circles are born?” Nate asked.
Anna shot him a disapproving look.
“Behold!” Elvira bellowed, and she lit a match and set the end to the design. Instantly the wheel went up in a burst of blue flame. Des squeaked in surprise and ducked under the table. Nate felt the wave of heat against his cheeks.
Then came the—
“Holy shit, that stinks!” Matt said for all of them. “What the hell is that?”
“It is an old voodoo recipe,” Elvira said in a lecturing tone. “That odor conditions our local plane of existence so that it is more conducive for conversing with the spirit world.”
“Well, it smells like shit.”
Elvira waved her hand. “Not surprising. It does contain pig feces—as well as chicken feet, snake intestines, and dried apricots.”
Apricots?
“NOW,” Elvira continued, “we must summon the spirit. Did you bring the item?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Nate fished out the old portrait photograph of the Civil War officer he had found in the journal. Part of Elvira’s interrogation earlier in the day had included demands of providing items that might be linked back to ‘the spirits’. Elvira took the
photo and placed it on the table. Tobey, who never got a word in with his chatterbox partner Shelby around, cocked his head and looked oddly at the photo.
Elvira cleared her throat. “Let us all join hands.”
Everyone around the table linked their hands so that they made an unbroken chain. Nate and Matt fumbled around who was putting whose hand into whose. Matt seemed to be eyeing his Gatorade bottle as if he was nervous about having to spit at some urgent and inopportune time.
“Let us bow our heads.”
Everyone leaned forward. Nate peeked around and saw Des looking wide-eyed back at him.
Elvira began to moan and make weird noises. After a few moments, she broke into a chant.
“Oh, Great Spirit! We, the living, have sensed your pain and discomfort! We feel your anguish. We feel your restlessness! But this is our domain. You are lost and clinging to a world in which you do not belong. Hear us! Make your presence known. Show us a sign that you are here!”
The room was silent. Everyone remained seated while they waited. After about a minute, Nate glanced around to see what the others were doing. They all had their eyes closed.
“Spirit!”
Nate jumped at Elvira’s hackle. Then he saw her reach into the Walmart sack and take out some kind of crazy wooden box with a handle sticking perpendicularly out the end. She twirled it around, filling the air with a ridiculous carnival-like clatter.
“Spirit, we beseech you! Your pain is great. We have seen it! From the heights of Nirvana to the depths of Pandemonium, we have seen it. But this is not your world. We must communicate so that we can find you your way back home. Come forth! Come forth and be recognized!”
Clack-clack-clack went the wooden clacker.
“Is it working?” Des whispered.
“Shh,” Elvira said. “We must concentrate. Think hard, dear. Let the words I’ve intoned echo in your head. The thoughts will amplify if we allow them.”
Des closed her eyes and bowed her head.
Nate bowed his head as well, but it was mostly to keep Anna from seeing the cynical smirk. He closed his eyes. A moment later, he heard Matt leaning forward and doing a hands-free dip spit into his bottle.
☠ ☠ ☠
The ghost of Rufus stood in the corner, stunned as he watched the proceedings.
“This is the most asinine thing I have ever witnessed.”
Gilligan sat perched on the nearby windowsill. An abrupt trill signaled that he too was at a complete loss.
“I mean, what in tarnation is that stupid clacker for? It certainly has my attention. In a bad way.”
Meow.
“I know! Stupid does not begin to describe.”
Now the old woman was standing and making gestures in the air. Strange guttural sounds began to emanate from her throat. Rufus was reminded of the gurgling sound a turkey made when it had its head chopped off. As if that horror was not enough, the woman started to shuffle back and forth in some kind of interpretive native Indian dance.
“I suppose the object of all this is to annoy me into submission?” Rufus said. “Since I can’t die and end the misery that way. Maybe I’m supposed to flee the premises from revulsion? Seriously, Cat, I don’t know how you put up with these people.”
Meow.
Rufus thought for a moment. “You want a fish?”
Gilligan stretched and looked at him.
“I’ll fetch you one from the creek if you go take a dump on that table.”
Meow.
“No, right now. Has to be in front of the hag.”
Meow, meow.
“Oh, come on. I don’t think the little girl will mind. She’ll probably tell her friends.”
Meow.
“What do you mean, stage fright?”
Meow, meow-meow.
Rufus put his finger to his lip with a thoughtful pause. “Huh. No, I guess I never really thought about why cats don’t relieve themselves while someone’s watching. But I suppose that’s fair.”
A breeze floated from outside through the window, making all the candles flutter.
“Did you see that? Did you see that?” shouted the old voodoo lady.
The idiots around the table were looking at each other with furtive glances.
“The candles! They flickered. It’s a sign! Now I must solidify the spirit’s connection with us!” The woman rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small box. She opened it and was suddenly holding a fat pond toad over the big candle in the middle of the table.
“Now what is she doing?” Rufus scowled.
The voodoo lady started waving her hand over the toad’s head.
Rufus looked at Gilligan. “Come on. Two fish.”
Gilligan walked in a circle and squawked.
“No? Not even for two? Just—right in front of her, quick and easy.”
The cat stared at him. No.
“Fine. You’re no fun. Nor is this stupid spectacle being put on by this charlatan. I certainly hope none of these morons are paying for this little experience. I—”
With a great trilling shout, the voodoo lady grabbed the toad with both hands and squeezed with all her might. A loud popping noise was followed by a spray of frog guts all over the table.
Rufus recoiled. “Oh, good gravy, did you see that?”
The flappy old man with the mustache dry heaved from his chair.
“My Lord, what’s next, rolling up a squirrel with paper and smoking it? Cat?”
Meow.
“Fine. If you won’t do it, then I’ll put a stop to this buffoonery. Stand aside.”
The voodoo lady was holding her hands up in the air. “Spirit! I command and beseech thee! Hear our call to you and respond! Show us a sign that you hear us!”
Rufus stalked over to the edge of the table. He glared at this fool of a woman for a moment, wondering where all of her made-up rituals came from. Then he flicked some of the candles out.
The little girl at the table squeaked. “Look! The candles!”
The voodoo lady took on a triumphant expression. “It has heard us.” She raised her hands again. “Oh spirit, we must communicate with you. I beseech you for your cooperation.”
She rummaged through her Walmart bag once again and produced a stiff two-foot-long rectangle made of heavy card stock. Sweeping the chunkier frog parts off the table, the lady unfolded the rectangle and placed it open-faced on the table. It was covered in the letters of the alphabet.
“A Ouija board?” the mustached old man said. “Now-now, isn’t that interesting.”
A smirk crawled onto Rufus’s ghostly face.
“Nate,” the voodoo lady was saying, “you are the homeowner. You and I will channel the spirit’s words. Put your fingers on the Ouija shuttle with me.”
“I don’t think this is—”
“DO IT NOW.”
Nate complied.
The voodoo lady also touched the little plastic shuttle and began to move it in a brisk figure eight pattern. “Spirit, we must ask you some questions. We must know why it is that you haunt this place. Why, oh why, are you restless? Why do you cling to the land of the living? I ask this so that you may answer.”
“Look it’s stopping!” said the little girl.
The shuttle paused over the letter E.
Faces around the table looked on in wonder as the shuttle went from letter to letter, pausing for just a moment before continuing to the next. It didn’t take long for the message to come across under Rufus’s careful hand.
“What does ‘Eat Me’ mean?” the little girl asked.
The voodoo lady gave an accusatory glare toward Nate. “You! Did you do this? Are you trying to make this into a joke?”
“No! I didn’t do anything.”
“Nate,” hissed the cute, brown haired woman.
“I didn’t! I swear it!”
The little girl pointed. “Look! The wee-jee thingy is moving again!”
All eyes turned to the table.
“It stopped on the G
.”
“Now it’s E!”
“This is amazing, now-now.”
“It’s a T.”
Rufus manipulated the shuttle in front of his captivated audience. The voodoo lady seemed stunned her little charade actually had taken on a life of its own. A minute later, Rufus completed his message. He moved the shuttle in front of Nate and forced it to a gentle stop so that it was pointing at him.
“It says, Get Out You.”
All eyes around the table turned to Nate.
Rufus let his message sink in. But being a ghost was tiring, and this stupid little ritual even more so. The time to end it had come. Rufus stretched his arms out in front of him before giving a big, broad ectoplasmic wave, sweeping the flame out of every candle in sight. The room plunged into darkness. Then, to punctuate his disfavor, he sent another wave out that slapped the Ouija board up into the air.
Everyone screamed.
Good, Rufus thought.
22
The next morning, Nate was standing on his front porch arguing with Matt.
“I’m really sorry, Nate. I’m done. I can’t go back in that house.”
“Yes you can,” Nate maintained. “Come on, man. I slept here last night and everything was fine. That junk with the séance? It was just a scam, a rip-off. You don’t believe any of that was real, do you?”
Matt stared at the ground as he spit dip into his morning Gatorade bottle.
“Look, man. We talked about this when we were sitting next to each other. Elvira’s a fake. Magic powders and Ouija boards? Candles that snuff out when the spirits get angry? Give me a break.”
“But you said yourself you weren’t moving the shuttle on that Ouija contraption.”
“Well … maybe I was. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“My head got a little fuzzy after she lit that stinky crap on fire. Maybe there was pot in it or something.”
“Didn’t smell like pot. Smelled like shit.”
Nate waved off the protest. “I guess the point is, last night was weird, but that doesn’t mean there’s a ghost who wants to kill all of us. We got taken by a professional con artist if you ask me.”
The House That Jack Built: A Humorous Haunted House Fiasco Page 14
