Spirits in the Material World

by Lisa Shea

  I glanced down at mine. Somehow I had drawn the downward-pointing triangle. The symbol for water.

  Water and fire. Classic opposites which were somehow paired. The yin-yang of the paranormal world.

  Alex leaned forward further. Her glass was the mirror with the crossbar. Venus. Goddess of love.

  She batted her eyelashes. “When you finally said you’d be free for a visit, I can’t tell you how happy that made me. It seems I’ve been waiting my entire life to see you alone.” She blushed and waved a dismissive hand at me and Marc. “Well, nearly alone. What I mean is, I’ve attended every book signing and seminar you’ve given in the area. But that’s not quite the same thing, is it? To have maybe twenty seconds to say hello and to watch you sign your name. It’s not the same thing as actually having you in my house and sitting on my couch and drinking my Champagne.”

  Her cheeks flushed pink with the effort of saying so many words without breathing. She took down a long drink of Champagne.

  Bryane smiled that smile I knew so well and reached for the Champagne. He topped her glass off, emptying the bottle.

  Alex giggled. She said to me, without moving her gaze off of Bryane, “Amber, we seem to be out of Champagne. Maybe you’d be a dear and go get us some more? I think Roger put them in the fridge.”

  Bryane put his hand on my thigh to hold me in place. He lifted his voice to be more resonant. “Wilma? Please bring out another bottle of Champagne when you return. We seem to have run out.”

  Wilma’s voice echoed back in a heartbeat. “Of course, Mr. Browninge.”

  Alex frowned, a furrow of wrinkles appearing in her forehead, but she bravely rallied. “So, there is just so much to talk about! I hear that your latest plate series will be a full memorialization of every single accused individual who died during the Salem Witch Trials. Such a noble project! Everyone from Rebecca Nurse to Giles Corey to Sarah Good. I will be sure to collect every single one. How were you able to get images of their faces? Did you hold séances to see their ghosts? I know you’re one of the finest mediums in the entire world.”

  Bryane’s gaze went to hold Sarah’s; she was carefully peeking around Marc’s broad shoulders. Bryane smiled. “I have some small skill in interacting with spirits.”

  Sarah gulped and hid from view again.

  Marc’s glass of Champagne sat untouched before him. I saw that he had the downward facing triangle, similar to mine, but his had a stabilizing bar across its center.

  Earth.

  It was as if he were my foundation. My strength. My core.

  Roger and Wilma swept into the room, their arms laden with trays and bowls. Each serving utensil and dish was straight out of the Bryane Browninge collection. Wilma had brought the second bottle of Champagne, already opened, and she replaced the empty one with the new, full one.

  Somehow Alex’s glass had gone dry again and Bryane refilled it from the new, fresh bottle with a warm smile. “There you go, Alex.”

  She tittered at hearing her name on his lips, and she took down half of her new glass in one long swallow.

  Wanda was still standing with the empty bottle in hand. “I’ll just go put this empty back into the kitchen.”

  Bryane stood. “Actually, why don’t we all go into the kitchen. I heard that there were some unusual paranormal forces in play there recently. I’d be interested in taking a look.”

  Alex fluttered a hand to her breast in excitement. “You would like to see more of my home? I’d be honored! I’ll have you know that I followed every single instruction in your latest edition of A Proper Bryane Wiccan Home when laying it out. I even had to alter the position of the center island, but it was worth it!”

  Bryane put a hand down to me, and I took it out of habit. I was a tumult of curiosity and concern. Bryane had already kept quiet about Sarah’s presence, although for what reason I could barely fathom a guess. But Bryane, whatever his other faults, was indeed an expert on paranormal energy. There was no way he would miss the signs present in the kitchen. If anything, he would see far more than Marc or I would be able to.

  But I could hardly hold him back now, not without causing a scene that would be difficult to explain.

  Besides, I was honestly curious what he might find.

  We walked into the kitchen.

  His gaze went briefly to the line of drying herbs, arranged in careful alphabetical order. His brow creased and he absently muttered, “Garden sage should be before white sage.”

  Alex paled in embarrassment. “Oh, I’m so so sorry, you’re right of course. I’ll fix that the moment you leave.”

  He seemed to have barely heard her. His eyes had latched onto the space before the refrigerator. Slowly, carefully, he walked toward it, as if drawing in his full array of senses with every motion.

  I had to admit, I admired the man when he got like this. The showmanship all fell away. The sizing people up and calculating his best opportunity for profit. He was with his true love now – the exploration of the other worlds. The connection of the dimensions beyond. His entire being was drawn toward just what energies existed in the space before him and who that person had been.

  Alex piped up, “Bryane, do you think –”

  Wanda snapped, “Shhhhh!”

  Alex went an even whiter shade of pale and clamped her lips together.

  Bryane put his hands out before him, and I could see it was not a show. He was not being theatrical. He had found a trace of something and was trying to draw it in. To get a better feel for what it was.

  His voice was low, from deep within him. “Anna was here. I can feel traces of her presence throughout this house, but this space, here, was one of her favorites. I sense a great connection with the image of Sarah on the fridge. Anna loved Sarah deeply.”

  Sarah gulped back a sob. “But what happened to her? What happened to my sister?”

  Bryane gave his head a soft shake, as if trying to get past a challenge. He twisted his fingers. “There was a … a struggle of some sort. It’s hard to make out. It’s almost as if …”

  He drew in a deep breath.

  He closed his eyes.

  I could almost see it. See the aura which began close around his body but then expanded, expanded, taking on a sphere shape as it grew out from him. Sarah gulped and closed her eyes as it moved out past us, but this was a different kind of energy than Marc had created when he had meditated. This was not a protective sphere. Rather, it was sensing, seeking, searching –

  Bryane’s eyes flashed open.

  He strode out of the room toward the stairs and headed up them. I ran after him, with Marc close on my heels. A tumult of footsteps was behind us.

  Bryane went straight for the study and pressed open the door. He walked in to its center.

  He stared down at Josephine’s chair.

  By now everyone else was crowded into the room. Alex was breathless from the rush. “What? What is it? Have you found Anna?”

  Bryane raised his eyes to me.

  It was as if only he and I were in the room. As if we were sixteen again, lying on a moonlit beach, sharing our innermost secrets and dreams.

  His gaze held shock. Shock, awareness, and a fierce protective concern for me.

  Alex’s voice rose high. “Is it Anna??”

  I gave the slightest shake of my head. Bryane couldn’t reveal the truth. Not now. Not with these people present. It was clear from his face that Bryane hadn’t known about Josephine’s murder until this very moment. For all I knew, he saw details that Marc and I had missed. That the police where wholly unaware of.

  Bryane held my gaze –

  He drew in a long, deep breath, nodding. I could see it happening. The sliding of his theatrical face over the authentic inner him. The lifting of the smile. The shimmer of confidence.

  He turned to Alex and Roger. “I, indeed, have found news of Anna. But rather than just tell you, I think I will offer you a special treat. For tomorrow night I had already set aside my grand Séance Roo
m for a time of personal meditation. It is the full moon, after all. I would like to invite you all to come join me. To learn my secrets and to participate in an event like no other.”

  Alex was having trouble breathing. She leaned on Roger for support. “Really? We can come to your home? Participate in a private event?”

  Bryane magnanimously nodded. “A personalized private event,” he promised. “But that means that I need to head home to prepare. There is a lot to do. A lot to research. A séance must be exactly perfect to work properly. As you know, of course.”

  Alex eagerly nodded. “I have all fifteen of your books on Step by Step Séance Mastery,” she enthused. “I’ll reread every single one tonight.”

  “Good. We will start at 8pm sharp.” He turned to me. “Make sure Mrs. and Mrs. McGillicuddy are there. We want everyone present.”

  I mutely nodded. I had no idea where he was heading with this, but I would do my part to help.

  He turned in place and strode out, heading down the stairs. Another moment and we were all by the front door, saying our goodbyes. And then he took my hand, and it was again as if the other world fell away. If it were him and me.

  He murmured, “Until tomorrow.”

  And then they were gone.

  Alex was beyond the moon. She was perhaps out in the orbit of Venus, her namesake planet. She practically spun around the room in delight. “Our own private séance! And he loved the house! Except the white sage and garden sage, of course, but that was a mistake anybody could have made! Oh, this is absolutely perfect, perfect, perfect!”

  Roger plunked down into his chair, taking up his glass. I saw now that he had the ankh symbol on it – the ancient Egyptian symbol of life The looped top circle represented the path of the sun as it went in its voyage around the sky. The vertical cross-bar was the horizon, into which it vanished from sight.

  He took a long drink. “We did a whole lot of cleaning for practically nothing,” he pointed out.

  Alex was glowing with an inner light. “Nothing?” she laughed. “He loved everything about the house! He loved me! He’s going to see me again! This was absolutely perfect!”

  Roger sniffed and took another drink.

  I gathered up my glass along with Bryane’s and Marc’s. The two men had barely touched their Champagne. Wilma’s, on the other hand, was empty. Her symbol had been the wadjet. The Eye of Horus, with its descending teardrop and curled outer line.

  I hooked it with a spare finger.

  I stood.

  Marc looked around. His eyes came to mine with concern.

  I stood in confusion –

  I froze stock still, the Champagne spilling from the two full glasses.

  Sarah was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I nearly dropped all four elegant engraved Champagne flutes.

  Marc was at my side in a second, taking them up from me, bringing them into the kitchen. I scrambled after him. Fortunately, Alex and Roger had no interest at all in coming with us. Alex was too busy basking in the glory of Bryane’s visit and Roger was drowning his sorrows in a fresh bottle of Champagne.

  I looked around in a panic. I hissed, “Sarah! Sarah!”

  Marc said, “I’ll go upstairs.” He took them two at a time.

  My heart thundered against my ribs, and I strove to calm down. Surely I was overreacting. Sarah was worried about Anna. She was probably just poking around the bedrooms of the house. Looking to see if she could get a sense of what happened to Anna.

  My hands were trembling.

  Marc came back down to me, his face creased with worry. “I can’t find her. But she’s a spirit, of course. She doesn’t follow the normal rules of physics.”

  Distress filled me. “She could be in a closet. In the ceiling. Why would she hide from us?”

  He stepped toward me and took my hands.

  Tension eased out of me. It was as if he were a rock in a storm-tossed sea. He was the place of safety. Of calm.

  He nodded. “Close your eyes.”

  I did.

  His hands grounded me. The scents of the herbs around us – rosemary, basil, white sage – filled my nose. I could feel the energy of Anna in this room. The lost plaintiveness, the joy at seeing her sister, and then the troubled chaos of whatever had happened at the end.

  Marc murmured, “Reach out.”

  I did.

  I felt my aura expand, ripple, and form into a sphere. It merged with Marc’s, and somehow it became stronger. It was as if my blue-green energy shimmered into his loam-brown to create a melding of interlacing bands. The sphere grew, lifted, and encompassed the house.

  I could feel keenly now the energies from Josephine’s study. The power of the emotions resonating there. I wondered that I hadn’t felt it before.

  But there was no strong trace of Sarah. Just the drifting tendrils where she’d entered and walked. Wafts of lingering smoke. But clearly she wasn’t here any more.

  I blinked my eyes open and looked at Marc in concern.

  He gave my hands a squeeze. “All right. We start the search again. We know the routes. We try to find her.”

  He glanced toward the living room. “But we don’t let the others know. Just in case.”

  I hesitantly nodded. We could use the extra manpower right now, but Marc was right. We couldn’t know who to trust.

  I brought my calmest face on as we headed back into the living room, but I needn’t have bothered. Alex appeared to be on her fifth glass of Champagne and was giggling uncontrollably. Roger was morosely turning his own flute around in circles on the table, eating one of the pastries. Neither one seemed to notice or care as we waved goodbye and headed out the door.

  My thoughts and concerns skipped wildly as we walked the familiar path. I looked into every corner and stoop, just as last time, but now the concern was higher. Maybe Sarah had seen something in the study which had frightened her. Maybe she’d realized something about Josephine’s death. Maybe it had terrified the young girl so much that she’d run, fled, and was now –

  Mark said, his voice rough, “Wilma had a box.”

  My thoughts screeched to a tumbling, chaotic halt. I stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk, alongside a wrought-iron fence. “What?”

  He turned to me, his gaze hollow. “When Bryane and Wilma arrived at my mother’s house, Wilma was holding a wooden box.”

  I thought back to that scene. Alex had been trying to shoo us out of the house, apparently so that she could have Bryane all to herself. Alex had been surprised to find Bryane and Wilma already waiting on the front porch. Bryane had been in that black silk shirt of his, fully prepared to make a strong impression, and Wilma –

  I sucked in my breath. “You’re right. She had a wooden box in her hands. Dark wood of some sort. Sort of shoe-box sized.”

  He nodded. “I don’t remember what happened to it after that. I don’t remember if she brought it into the kitchen with her, when she went to help Roger.”

  I tried to think back. Somehow I couldn’t remember it, either. I was more focused on Bryane and Alex.

  Coldness sucked the air out of me. “Do you think it was some sort of a dybbuk box? And they captured Sarah in it?”

  His gaze was steady on me. “Do you think Bryane is involved in this somehow?”

  I gave that serious thought.

  I’d known Bryane when we were both young. Bright-eyed. He’d clearly changed over the years. Maybe life had worn him down. Maybe he’d grown cynical, coming up against shysters and liars.

  But would he actually do that to a spirit? Jam them into a tiny space bounded by energies they could not cross? Doom them to a life of isolation and despair?

  I shook my head. “I just can’t think he’d do that. He cares too much about his craft. That’s what really has meaning to him. Not the money. Not the fame. I think if the rest faded away and he was just left with his gift that he’d be content.”

  Marc nodded. “I got the same sense. The way his body lang
uage changed when he moved into the kitchen. It was as if the pretense fell away and he was his true, authentic self.”

  “So is Wilma working alone on this?”

  “We don’t know what was in the box,” he pointed out. “Alex is absolutely infatuated with Bryane. Maybe Bryane had brought her a present. A new, limited-edition lead-crystal goblet or something like that. He just forgot in the chaos that ensued to present it. Or he figured the timing would be much better to do it at this special ceremony tomorrow night.”

  All of those options made far more sense to me than that of Bryane deliberately crafting a dybbuk box in order to capture and lock away a young girl’s spirit.

  I pressed my lips in determination. “We keep looking. Until it gets dark. Just in case.”

  He nodded. “Let’s get going.”

  The sun eased down, we crossed and criss-crossed the streets, and we didn’t see a single sign of Sarah. It was as if she had utterly vanished from Salem. At last the sun had truly set and it was clear we had to give up for the night.

  Marc took my hand. “Come on. Let’s go see Gertie and Prudence. We should let them know Sarah is missing. Just in case Sarah comes back to them. We don’t have to tell them about what we know about Josephine. There’s still a lot of things to figure out.”

  I nodded.

  We headed out.

  My mind was a muddle by the time we reached the white picket fence. And my mood wasn’t helped any by She of the Golden Tunic who lounged on the porch in the lingering sunset afterglow. Somehow this tunic was almost translucent, and the lingerie she wore beneath it left little to the imagination.

  Dalilah breathlessly put her hand to her breast. “There you are. Poor Gertie and Prudence have been agitated all day. I just can’t imagine about what. I knew you would come back to ease their souls.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure you have done your best to help them out.”

  She beamed. “Of course I have! Anything at all I can do to be there. That’s just the way I am.” She fluttered her lids up to his. “You still have my card with you? In case of emergency?”