by Tim O'Rourke
So I sat in the room at the window until the sky had turned indigo in colour. As I sat and debated whether now was the right time to leave my room, there was a knock at my bedroom door. I got up from my seat. The door swung open and Tom stood in the doorway.
“Are you hiding from me?” he asked, trying hard to sound carefree.
“Erm… no… I had a shower then fell asleep on the bed,” I lied. I couldn’t tell him I was too embarrassed to leave my room and face him.
Tom took another step into the room. He wrung his fingers anxiously together. “Look, Kiera I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if I…”
“You have nothing to say sorry for,” I said, snatching up my coat and heading past him toward the door. “Let’s just forget it.”
“If you’re sure,” I heard Tom say as I left the room and headed along the landing and toward the stairs.
Tom
How I wanted to dig a big hole and climb inside it. I knew that Kiera had been hiding in her room in fear of me taking her in my arms and contemplating kissing her again. Why had I been so stupid! I had made her feel so uncomfortable that she had shut herself away in her room all afternoon. What sort of a friend would do that? Some friend I was turning out to be. And in my heart I knew that if I didn’t get my feelings under control – and soon – I might scare Kiera away altogether. She had made it perfectly clear to me on more than one occasion that all she wanted from me was friendship and I had to respect that. Jesus, I was behaving like a horny fourteen-year-old.
I followed Kiera from the room and along the landing. She had asked me to forget what had happened in the kitchen, so I would. I didn’t want to cause her any more embarrassment or discomfort. I just wanted to have a fun evening with my friend.
Friend! Friend! Friend! Friend! Friend! May as well drum it into your thick skull, Tom, because that’s all she wants. So get over it, I told myself.
Reaching the hallway, I picked up the cake I had made, which now sat in a plastic container on a nearby chair. I opened the front door and we stepped out into the cold. It had started to rain again. “Shall we go in my car?” I asked her. “There’s no point…”
“That will be fine,” Kiera cut in, heading quickly through the rain to my car.
I pressed the key fob with my thumb and the locks on the doors opened. Kiera climbed inside. I got in beside her and started the car. We drove in silence down the gravel path and back out onto the narrow road.
“So you finished the cake?” Kiera asked. I doubted she was really interested in my baking skills. She was just trying to fill the silence.
“Yep,” was all I could think of to say.
“It smells good,” she sighed.
“Let’s hope Mr. Splitfoot’s spirit guide thinks the same, or this is going to be one big waste of time,” I said.
We reached the pub just before seven. It wasn’t a long drive from my parents’ house and eventually the conversation between Kiera and me had become a little less difficult. By the time I’d parked the car in front of the pub, it was like the embarrassing incident in the kitchen had never happened. I felt a massive sense of relief that my schoolboy behaviour hadn’t damaged our friendship.
Together we ran the short distance through the rain and into the pub. The name of the pub was stencilled above the old oak door, but most of the lettering had fallen away. The only visible word remaining was Steam. Above this was a painting of a black steam train, thick clouds of smoke spewing from its dark funnel. I pushed the door open. Kiera slipped under my arm and I followed her inside. There was a group of people gathered at one end of the bar. Most of them were elderly and each of them clutched a Tupperware box or cake tin under one arm. Kiera saw them too. Glancing back at me, she smiled.
“Want a drink?” I asked, taking one of the ten pound notes I had found in the cookie jar from my pocket.
“Just a Coke,” Kiera said.
The bartender was a bony man with a bald head, and glasses that sat perched on the end of his nose. From over the top of them he eyed the cake box under my arm. “With that lot, are you?” he said, nodding in the direction of those gathered at the other end of the bar.
“Yes,” I said then ordered our drinks.
“You don’t look the type,” the bartender said, pushing two Cokes across the bar at me.
“Type for what?” Kiera asked him.
“A séance,” the bartender said.
“It’s just a bit of fun,” I told him.
“Is it?” the bartender said, cocking an eyebrow at us then turning away.
I handed one of the Cokes to Kiera and picked up the other. I turned away from the bar and stopped. Someone was leaving the pub I thought I recognised.
“What’s wrong?” Kiera asked me.
“I thought I just saw someone…”
“Who?”
I looked a Kiera. “I thought I just saw Constable John Miles leaving the pub.”
“Sparky?” Kiera frowned. “Are you sure? What would he be doing all the way out here?”
“More importantly, what if he saw us and tells Sergeant Phillips? We’re not meant to be together,” I reminded her.
With Coke in hand, Kiera went to the door. Pulling it open she peered out into the dark. “I can’t see anyone,” she said. Kiera closed the door and came back, standing at my side. “You could’ve been mistaken. And besides, he might not have seen us. And even if he did, why would he tell Sergeant Phillips? It’s only us who knows that we shouldn’t be together.”
“You know what training school is like,” I sighed. “If he did see us together all the way out here, then he might think that there is something going on between us and spread gossip. That would soon get back to Phillips.”
“Well there is nothing going on and it was probably someone who looked like Sparky,” Kiera said, “Let’s try not to worry about it.”
“I guess,” I said thoughtfully. I did only get a fleeting glimpse of the guy as he left the pub, so perhaps Kiera was right and I was worrying about nothing. I took another sip of my drink.
Kiera
Standing at the bar next to Tom, I looked at the gathering of people who had come to take part in the séance. They were mostly pensioners. Perhaps Tom was right and they did come to such events to try and make contact with those they had lost. I guess there comes a time in our lives when we’ve lost more people close to us than we have left. I had lost my father, but I knew that no psychic with a sweet tooth would ever be able to raise him from the dead. It was just a lot of tricks and nonsense and that’s what Tom had wanted me to prove. Most psychics used a stooge to pass amongst the crowds gathered before a séance or reading. The stooge would engage some in conversation, telling some heart-breaking story how he had come to the séance in the hopes that he might make a connection with his sister who passed just a few weeks before. The stooge would casually ask others who it was they hoped the psychic was going to make contact with. What did Aunt Mildred look like? I bet she was a sweet lady. She loved to knit, did she? How wonderful. Married to Brian, who passed just a month ago, how tragic.
Just like Tom had said, nothing but a big con, but who was I to judge? I suspected I might see how the trick was done, but as I had said to Tom, I would only share that secret with him. As I stood and sipped my drink and watched the group, I saw a man come from a narrow passageway beside the bar that I hadn’t noticed before. Just like the others, the man carried a plastic box under his arm. He was younger than the others, about thirty-five, and wore a dark suit as if he was attending a funeral. He was thin in the face with a neatly trimmed goatee beard. He caught my eye and smiled. I glanced away, fearing he might think I was watching him. From the corner of my eye, I could see him heading across the bar toward me and Tom.
“What have you brought?” he asked, eyeing the box Tom had under his arm. “Cake, is it? Thought as much. That’s why I made cookies. Thought I’d do something different.” The stranger pulled the lid back off the box he was holding. I caught
a sudden whiff of almond cookies. They did smell delicious. What a waste. No little girl would be eating them tonight. He replaced the lid but it hadn’t fastened securely. The lid was open all along one side of the box. I was just about to point this out to him when he started talking again. “I’ve never been to a séance before. Have you?”
Tom shook his head and opened his mouth, but before he’d had a chance to say anything, the man started to talk again. “No? Ah, well. I’ve heard this Mr. Derren Splitfoot is meant to be rather good. Some say sensational. I’ve heard rumours that his spirit guide – a little girl named Alice – actually talks, and some say they’ve even seen her. I hope the rumours are true.”
“Why?” I asked as the man paused to take a breath.
“Because I’m hoping she will be able to make a connection with my dear wife. Susan loved children. Never had any of our own. Susan sadly died before that happened.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tom said.
“Kevin Barker,” the man said, holding out his hand.
“Tom Henson,” Tom said, taking his hand and shaking it. “And this is my friend, Kiera Hudson.”
Nice one, Tom, I thought. Now the stooge knows our names. Kevin Barker, if that was his real name, was obviously the stooge. He would now start asking us questions and feed the answers back to Mr. Splitfoot. God, it was all so easy.
“Pleased to meet you,” the stooge said, taking hold of my hand.
I smiled. Now what could I see about this man. I could see plenty. I saw the splashes of water first on his sleeve.
“Your sleeve is splashed with water,” I said, taking my hand away.
Barker looked at it. Drops of water glistened up his right sleeve. “Rain,” he said, looking at me. “It just never stops.”
“I know; it’s awful,” I said, playing along. There was so much more I could see, but I would save that for later.
“So who are you hoping to connect with tonight?” Barker asked us.
“No one special. What do you do as a living?” I asked, changing the subject completely.
Barker’s eyes narrowed. The question seemed to take him off guard in some way. “I’m a jeweller,” he said. “I have my own shop in Chesterfield.”
“Do you have a business card?” I asked. I doubted if Barker was really a jeweller. He was really employed as Splitfoot’s accomplice.
“Why do you want my business card?” he asked.
“I was hoping you might be able to give Tom discount when he comes looking for a ring in the near future.” I looked at Tom coyly and fluttered my long eyelashes.
Tom looked at me numbly. “A ring?”
“Oh, I see,” Barker smiled, reaching into his jacket pocket and looking at Tom. “Thinking of popping the question, are we? I do have a lovely range of engagement rings.” Barker held out a small white card. I took it from him.
“Engagement?” Tom said as I inspected the card.
It looked genuine. So perhaps Barker really was a jeweller and moonlighted as the psychic’s stooge? I placed the card in my pocket.
Barker looked at Tom. “So, are you hoping to connect with someone special tonight?”
“I don’t know anyone who’s dead,” Tom said, shrugging his shoulder.
“Then why are you here?” Barker asked, baffled.
Before Tom had a chance to answer, a bell was jangled behind us. I looked back to see the bartender standing at the entrance to the passageway. He was holding a small brass bell in his hand.
“Those of you who are here for the séance, if you would like to follow me,” he said, turning and disappearing into the passageway.
I looked at Tom and he looked back at me. Kevin Barker followed behind us as we made our way down the passage and toward the room where Derren Splitfoot awaited us. On my right I could see two doors fixed into the passageway wall. One had ladies written above it, and the other gentlemen. At the far end there was another door, which was open. The group of elderly men and women shuffled inside.
Tom
In the centre of the room there was a large round table. It was covered with a white cloth. The lights in the room had been switched off. The only light came from a candle positioned before a man sitting at the head of the table. This I guessed was Derren Splitfoot. Behind him was a closed window and rain beat against it. On the opposite side of the room was another table, this was smaller. On it, those in the group had placed the cakes and the sweets they had brought for Splitfoot’s young spirit guide. I put the cake I had made on it. Kevin Barker brushed up against me as he placed the box of cookies he had brought with him onto the table. I noticed that the lid was open and I caught a whiff of almonds.
I went back to the large table and sat down next to Kiera. Barker sat in the spare chair on the other side of her. Including Splitfoot, there were thirteen of us gathered around the table in the near dark room. I guessed the darkness added to the whole illusion and gave camouflage to the trickery that was about to take place. I looked at Kiera, who was staring up the table at the psychic. The light from the solitary candle before Splitfoot lit up his face in gold and orange glow. It was Halloween all right, and he was the pumpkin. His face was plump and round and his eyes were small and dark. Bags hung beneath them in deep folds. He had thin, wispy, black hair that hung from the side of his head like rattails. The room fell into a hushed silence. The bartender appeared from the shadows and passed around a scarlet sack made from velvet. The old men and women gathered about the table placed ten and twenty pound notes into the bag as it was handed to them by the bartender. Was he part of the scam, too? I wondered.
The bag reached me and I took two twenties from my pocket and placed them into the bag. I paid for Kiera. Okay, it was money I had taken from the cookie jar in my mother’s kitchen, but it was the least I could do. After all, Kiera had paid for me to stay at the Railroad Inn back in Ripper Falls. I handed the bag to Kiera and she, in turn, handed it to Barker. He placed his money into the bag and then handed it to the bartender. The bartender left the room, closing the door behind him. I glanced around and could see that the door was the only way in and out of the room, apart from the window in the wall behind Splitfoot, and that was closed too. If a little girl really was going to appear, she had to be in the room already, and I didn’t believe in ghosts any more than Kiera did.
The room was so silent I could hear the howl of the wind as it bashed against the side of the ancient pub. Then when the sound of my own heartbeat had become almost deafening, Splitfoot spoke.
“Welcome,” he said. His voice was soft, calm – almost soothing. “Please join hands around the table.”
I felt Kiera’s slender fingers curl around mine.
Stop it, Tom!
My other hand was suddenly gripped. I looked left to see one of the elderly ladies had taken hold of my hand. Her hair was snow white and her face lined with age. She winked at me and I gently squeezed her fingers with mine. I glanced to my right again and saw Barker take hold of Kiera’s free hand with his left.
Splitfoot raised his head slowly. Seeing that all of our hands were joined, he said in that dreamy voice, “Whatever happens. Please don’t break the circle. To do so might break the connection with Alice. It might scare her.”
He was good. This was going to be worth every penny of my twenty pounds. Splitfoot let his eyes close and he slowly tilted back his head. I could hear his breathing and it sounded laboured, like he had just taken a long run. The flame before him flickered, threatening to go out, then swelled with light again.
“Are you there, Alice?” Splitfoot said in that oh-so soothing voice. “Come out of the shadows if you are there, Alice. There is no need to be afraid. The people gathered around this table have come to connect with you. You have no need to fear them.”
The flame flickered again as if caught in a draught. Splitfoot lowered his head, but kept his eyes closed.
“There you are, Alice,” Splitfoot whispered. “I can see you now.”
I felt the old woman grip my fingers again. I glanced in the direction Splitfoot was facing but couldn’t see anything other than shadows.
“Hello, Derren,” I heard someone whisper. The voice was soft like that of a child. A young girl.
Although I knew this had to be some kind of an elaborate hoax, my skin still turned cold with gooseflesh. I glanced at Kiera and she hadn’t taken her eyes off of Splitfoot once.
“Thank you for coming through tonight, Alice,” Splitfoot whispered.
I watched his mouth to see if he was doing some kind of ventriloquist act and throwing his voice.
“You’re welcome, Mr. Splitfoot,” the little girl’s voice came again.
Splitfoot’s lips didn’t move once. In fact, the girl’s voice sounded as if it had come from behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder. Was there a secret recorder hidden? Did Splitfoot always say the same lines so they matched what had previously been recorded by a young niece or friend onto a recorder of some kind? I glanced again at Kiera and she was still staring at Splitfoot at the other end of the table.
Splitfoot spoke again, his voice barely a whisper, eyes closed, and facing front. “Have you brought anyone over with you, Alice?”
“Yes,” she answered, her voice now coming from the other side of the room. The old man sitting across from me glanced back, just like I had done. A murmur fluttered around the table.
“Please remain quiet,” Splitfoot insisted. “Alice scares easily.”
And so did the old woman sitting next to me as she squeezed my hand tighter still.
“What is the name of the person you have brought over with you?” Splitfoot asked Alice.
The candle flickered again. There was a sudden waft of Kevin Barker’s almond cookies, followed by what looked like the shadow of a young girl go running around the outside of the table toward Splitfoot.
