by Dana Donovan
We all filed into the dining room where, as Lilith mentioned, she and Ursula had completed their pre-séance preparations. The candles were set just so, the chairs aligned and incense burning, making the room smell like jasmine. According to Lilith, jasmine makes a ghost feel welcome and invited. Personally, I think she used it to disguise the musty odor permeating from the wallpaper and spongy floors. If she thought we would not notice the living mold, she was mistaken, as we had our own canary in a coalmine in Dominic Spinelli, whose hypersensitive allergies can detect a plethora of environmental contaminates, ranging from atomized dust particulates to the more obnoxious molds, mildew and decomposing organics. Fortunately, Dominic had something for it. Throughout the evening, I spotted him tipping a prescription bottle and popping some pills that appeared to make him feel better. Funny, I thought, how his allergies seemed to worsen after his recent hospital stay. It made me wonder if he did not catch something while there. Carlos says I am always over thinking things. I suppose in that way I am.
Lilith set the mood by lighting the candles first. Of course, the candle colors were well represented, brown, yellow, white and so on; each positioned according to astrological assignments and compass points. Being a witch myself, I should know these things, but I do not. My apathy feeds my complacency in such matters. Sometimes, I think that Lilith would have made a better choice in ushering Spinelli through the witch’s rite of passage instead of me. He is so anal retentive at times, especially when dealing in the minutia of procedural formalities. Then again, neither she nor I knew Spinelli back then, which is all the better for me, because I am the one who gets to sleep with her now—not that he could handle her if he tried.
“Okay,” said Lilith. “The same rules apply as before. Remember, a séance is serious business. Reconstituting spirit energy can be a violent internal process for a spirit, so don’t freak out if we experience multiple S.M.D`s. The thing to remember is—”
“Wait,” I said. “What are S.M.D`s?”
Spinelli answered, “Spontaneous metaphysical disturbances.”
I cracked a half smile. “What?”
“He’s correct.” Lilith looked up and waved her hand in a broad sweep over the room. “All of this, all of what we see, it’s only a small portion of the world around us. The physical world encompasses all that we see and touch.” She drew our attention to the candles burning atop the table. “Light, a metaphysical property in itself, provides electromagnetic radiation that allows us the visual sensation to see these things. However, the metaphysical world is so much more than that. It is the integration of extreme forces void of material form or substance: forces invisible to us, yet no less real or powerful than all the tangible forces of nature. Trust me; I am not just talking about gravity, electricity or magnetism, but also more mysterious forces like quantum reciprocates, those dark matter particles of energy with bi-physical properties. These little fuckers can shift in and out of perceived existence as easily as you and I can blink. Coaxing a spirit through the paraphysical divide provokes disruptions in the delicate balance between competing forces of matter, causing spontaneous disturbances on both sides. To the layman, these apparent anomalies are attributed to manifestations of a paranormal nature, when in fact they are completely natural.”
“So what is your point?” said Carlos.
Lilith took her seat, spreading her hands out on the table, palms up and cupped slightly. “The point, Fidel, is that tonight we may experience greater levels of spontaneous metaphysical disturbances than before. I want you to be ready.”
“Oh,” he said, seemingly happy with that.
“All right, now. Everyone take your seats.”
We did, and after that she said, “Ursula, you seem to have the best luck with this. Do you want to give it another go?”
Ursula smiled timidly, her gaze shying down and away briefly. I remember thinking how odd the sight. Here she looked just like Lilith; the same eyes, brows, nose and lips, yet I had never seen Lilith smile like that. She projected a child-like innocence, the glow of the candles warming her cheeks softly. Such angelic features I had never noticed in Lilith, though most other people would undoubtedly have trouble telling the two women apart.
I found myself suddenly envying Spinelli. He and Ursula were not yet a couple, but I could see in her eyes that would change soon. It is the difference most stark between her and Lilith. Lilith’s eyes give nothing away. I tell myself it is that mystery that keeps us together; when likely, it is the very thing that may one day break us up. She does not express to me what she feels, and without her eyes telling me, I am forever guessing. It is only my knowledge that Lilith does what she wants, when she wants with whomever she wants that keeps me believing she loves me. Otherwise, I would not be with her. Ursula, I feel, would not keep a man guessing.
In time, Ursula did look up, and her smile morphed into something else: thin pink lines dimpled at the ends by hollowed pushpins. She looked at Lilith, and then to Dominic and back again. Lilith reassured her with just a nod. She straightened her back and shoulders and said to her, “`Tis with humble measure I shall try, my sister, though I know not by what powers I am made so able over thee. Dost thou wish to yield mediatory ascendance?”
“Yes,” said Lilith. “I do. You handled yourself well the last time. That is if you don’t mind.”
“Nay, thou art mad to think it. If I mind I am blind.”
“Great, then whenever you are ready.”
Ursula closed her eyes and rocked her head back. I watched her chest rise and fall in rhythmic pace, her blouse stretching thin across her breasts and relaxing again as her exhale teased the candle flame closest to her. Dominic was watching, too, his voyeuristic gaze fondling the nape of her neck, gliding gently down the slender slant around her shoulder, spilling into her cleavage and riding the swell of her breath like an ocean wave. Lilith must have observed him as well. She cleared her throat from across the table and Dominic straightened up promptly. He had not noticed the way Ursula’s hair flowed past her brows in bangs that begged brushing aside with caressing fingertips, or her earlobes, untouched by piercings, how they glistened like honey in the candle’s warm glow. He took in neither the faint impression of her pulse beating softly against her neck, nor the supple sculpting of her nipples pressing tightly against her blouse upon inhale. I found my thoughts tangled in the curious paradox that Lilith and Ursula represent; how two souls could be so different, yet so alike, and how an amalgamation of the two might make for one perfect woman. It was Lilith’s tattoo, or more precisely its location, that had me thinking of Ursula in ways I should not have been, when Lilith cleared her throat once more, this time for my benefit. I looked up and found her drilling me with her stare. Carlos caught the entire embarrassing episode. I could tell from the gotcha smile on his face. If there were any redeeming facets to the moment, it was that Dominic remained ignorant to my idle indiscretions.
Ursula took a final deep breath before rocking her head forward and presenting her palms so that we might all join hands. Lilith placed a fresh twig across two of the candles. With her eyes still closed; Ursula began reciting the verses that have unlocked the doors to another dimension for hundreds of years.
“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.”
No sooner had the words left her lips, than the room came alive, that familiar shudder rattling the walls as if a convoy of tanks were rolling by our window. Lilith joined Ursula on the second verse; and then Carlos, Dominic and I jumped in on the third.
“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 fifth or sixth verse, the rumbling beneath our feet sent the table, the hutch and even the chairs we were sitting on skirting along the floor in a nervous shimmy. In the living room, chunks of plaster fell from
the ceiling in panels the size of manhole covers. Upstairs, the old claw-footed bathtub came crashing down onto the stove in the kitchen. It soon became clear that everything we thought we could expect from a séance went right out the window. My gut told me to get up and get everyone out of the house as fast as I could, and I almost did, but in that instant, the tremors ceased. Ursula stopped reciting her mantra and the rest of us trailed off in quick secession. The house fell silent, but for the creaking of old timber contracting in the rapidly chilling air.
We thought it had gotten cold during the previous séance, but already the chill nipping at our flesh proved colder than anything we had experienced before. Steam stirred from our breaths, fluxing in short bursts and evaporating quickly. Carlos gestured toward the windows where frost had moved in, devouring the glass and obscuring all but a wink of the streetlight outside.
Dominic leaned forward in his seat, removed his jacket and placed it around Ursula’s shoulders. “Take this,” he said, though I knew she could not hear him. Her eyes were open now, affixed on the twig, the flames crawling steadily along its bark glimmering in the depths of her pupils. I realized then, that was the key, a fuse of sorts, for the closer the two flames grew, the colder the room got.
I turned again to Carlos and caught him looking down at the floor where a swirling fog had rolled in underfoot. Already, it was knee deep and thickening, and the cold it brought with it had begun making my feet numb. I whispered to Lilith for her to look, but she shut me down with a stare.
“Bastard!” Ursula shouted, startling me almost as much as the wall of fire did that erupted along the ficus twig when the two flames met. It had gone up in a flare like flash powder, burning brightly for only a second or two and then dying completely.
Across the room, a sixth chair swung up to the table on its own and scooted in at the end opposite mine. Carlos addressed the chair as though someone were already sitting in it, smiling at its invisible occupant and nodding politely. Overhead, footsteps thumped along the ceiling in a runner’s trot. I instinctively reached under my jacket for my weapon, but Lilith put her hand over mine to stop me.
“There is no one up there,” she said, and in her voice, I found a strange sort of comfort.
“Yes,” I said, “of course.” I holstered my weapon and folded my hands upon the table. Carlos and Dominic were not so reassured. I could see them giving me a look as though maybe I should reconsider, especially when we heard those same footsteps starting down the stairs in slow precession. What Carlos and Spinelli did not know was that I could see into the cracked china hutch mirror across the room, and its reflection gave me a clear view of the staircase down the hall. Though we heard the footsteps, I saw no one coming.
“He is here,” said Lilith. She motioned toward the candles on the table, their flames spewing a phosphorous green smoke. It spiraled high in unnaturally thick columns, gathering at the ceiling in layers, each swirling in directions counter to the other. It appeared more viscous than gaseous; and more so after Spinelli reached up and collected a handful of it, balling it up and shaping it like taffy.
“What is this stuff?” he asked.
“Put it back,” Lilith snapped. “It’s plasma.”
“Whatma?”
“It’s our ghost!”
He dropped it as though it were on fire. I watched in amazement as it hit the table, splattering like spilled jelly and dripped against gravity up to the ceiling where it merged seamlessly with the rest of the substance. By then, the candles had stopped smoking green. The plasma began congealing in a more concentrated mass, centering itself over the sixth chair between Carlos and Ursula. It had not taken on human form; however, I felt it was trying. Knowing it wanted a chair made me sure of that. I turned to Lilith and saw her untying the knots of a witch’s ladder, realizing she had fashioned it using the drawstring ripped from the window curtains earlier. Already, half the knots were untied. I looked back at our ghost. His progression in materializing seemed directly coordinated with Lilith and her knots. Slowly, and with her help, this green, semi-translucent, glowing blob, which should have scared the crap out of us but did not, lowered itself into the chair.
“You are in my house again,” it said, although the words came from Ursula’s lips. They seemed forced, as if speaking through her took incredible effort.
Lilith said, “What are you going to do about it?”
The form morphed into an animal shape resembling a wolf. It snarled at Lilith, its teeth as long as lion’s fangs. Not to be out done, Lilith shape-shifted into a creature more hideous than Hell’s gargoyle; two heads with long pointed snouts, hob-nailed lizard skin, stubby horns, serrated teeth and eyes like emerald boot spurs—sort of what she looks like before coffee in the morning, but not as mean. She hissed at our spirit host with forked tongues slipping serpent-like in and out of her mouth as if tasting the air around him. Then she reeled her heads back and let out a shriek to peel the paint off the walls. Carlos, Spinelli and I pushed away from the table so quickly that we nearly fell out of our chairs. When we bellied up to the table again, she had transformed back into herself.
“Don’t fuck with me, Buster,” she snarled. “I’ll out-shape you any day; you understand?”
The befuddled poltergeist settled into a distorted form resembling a man’s body, but with no distinguishable features. It reached for Ursula and touched her hand. She gasped, as if coming up for air after a prolonged spell under water. Dominic skirted his chair closer and placed his arm around her shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“She is fine,” Lilith answered. “Let things take their course.” To our ghost she said, “Talk to us. Who are you? Are you John? Are you the one we saw earlier?”
He replied through Ursula, “Why are you in my house?”
Lilith shook her head. “It is not your house any longer. We told you that. You died and left it to earthbound inhabitants like us. Do you see we are different?”
I watched the spirit recoil, its featureless face molded like a rubber mask over a marble silhouette. At times, the body of the thing seemed fluid, its molecules bound as if gathered in the vacuum of space. I imagined I could reach out and touch it, and its surface would respond by rippling, the way a reflection in a pool might ripple upon contact. Others times, I believed the mass more gaseous, its green smoke swirling within the confines of a clear glass sculpture. Never did it present itself in a solid defined form the way I imagined it would.
“You are not welcome here,” the spirit said.
“And you are angry,” said Lilith. “You are not at rest. We want to help you.”
“Fuck you. I don’t need your help,” he said, the vulgar words sounding strange coming from Ursula’s lips. “I don’t need anyone.” He appeared to face Ursula. “But I do like this little filly.” Ursula turned toward the spirit form as if summoned. I looked down at her hand where his touch made her skin grow pale and cold. At once, the viscous green mass began flowing into her body through contact. It happened quickly. Dominic tried grabbing at it to stop its migration, but it filtered through his grasp like smoke. Even Lilith seemed surprised and unsure of what to do next. We watched, angry and embarrassed, as Ursula slipped one hand up under her blouse and began fondling her breasts. “Yeah,” she said, again in his voice. She eased her head back against the chair and savored a deep breath. “That’s right nice, you betcha.”
“Stop that,” said Dominic, wanting to snatch her hand out from under her blouse, but not knowing how to go about it. “You make her stop that, Lilith!”
“Let her go,” she said. “He’s trying to piss us off so that we will leave.
“But Lilith….”
“You heard her,” I told him. “Turn your head if it bothers you to watch.”
He did, and it was a good thing, too. He would not have wanted to see the things the poltergeist within her made her do after that, though I supposed he could have guessed. The sounds she made; the moaning, the gasps and the shrill pitched
squeals that made her bite her own lip were all sounds I am sure he had only imagined her making with him. I will spare the details, saying only that Ursula was never in a position of harm; and even enjoyed herself from what I could see. In any case, she did not remember any of it later. I suspect the only person feeling violated at the time was Dominic, and for that, I felt sorry.
“Are you done now?” Lilith asked, drawing her collar against the cold around her neck. The temperature in the room had leveled off at the frost point after things got started. Now it was dropping again. None of us had come prepared to deal with the chill we were facing. Only Ursula seemed immune. She was just buttoning up her jeans when Dominic finally looked at her. Her belly, exposed to the cold, appeared warm and pink. She sat up straight in her chair and pulled at her blouse until it met her beltline. Dominic turned away once more, disappointed.
“Yeah, what the hell, I’m good now,” she said, or he said.
Lilith asked, “Who is the bastard, Spirit?”
“What?”
“You said it a minute ago. You called one of us a bastard just before you showed yourself.”
“He is a Bastard.”
“Someone here?”
“It’s not me,” said Carlos. “Is it?”
“No.”
“Me?” I asked.
“No.”
Carlos laughed. “Oh, then it’s Dominic.”
“No!”
“Then who?” said Lilith, “René Landau?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what was that money in the casino bag doing in your cellar?”
“Money? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In that bag,” she pointed, “by the door.”
Ursula turned her head. “What door?”
I followed Lilith’s surprised gaze. The door had disappeared. Wallboard and chair rail now ran the length of the room completely from corner to corner, filling the gap where the door had been. “Cute,” she said, smiling. “Now bring it back.”
