Superstition

by David Ambrose

  There was a pause. Then the pointer slid firmly across to “No.”

  “Is there any particular reason why not?”

  The question came from Ward Riley. The pointer pulled back just far enough to take another stab at “No.”

  “Is there anything you can do to impress us?” Barry asked with good-natured impatience, and flashed a look of amused anticipation around the table.

  The pointer moved with stately slowness back to the center of the table, and there remained still. They waited. Joanna could sense that they were wondering whether to stay as they were or sit back or say something, or take it as a sign that the session was over, or whatever.

  As the indecision lengthened, there was a sudden bump from underneath the table as though someone crouching there had tried to stand up. It jolted them. They drew back sharply, and the table moved again. Nobody was touching it as, very slowly and steadily, it began to rise from the floor.

  Joanna's eyes didn't leave the screen as the table rose, the upturned faces of the group following it. Impressive though the image was, she couldn't help thinking of remarks that both Sam and Roger had made at different times-about how nothing on film or tape could ever look wholly convincing. Decades of cinematic special effects had made people blase. Everything was possible because nothing was real. She thought of the faded sepia photographs from around the turn of the century that she'd seen, usually showing a trance medium surrounded by “spirit faces” and even fairies. To a modern eye the pictures were such patent frauds as to be laughable. Now, paradoxically, only the truth was laughable. True miracles had been rendered impossible by technology. Only the people sitting around the table she could see on screen, and she watching them, would ever believe that what was happening was real. It was an impasse from which there was no escape. Suddenly she realized with utter clarity that whatever she wrote about the Adam experiment would amount to no more than another curiosity, a footnote amid the endless chatter about the great unsolved, and probably unsolvable, mysteries of existence.

  She glanced sideways at Sam, and saw the weariness she had detected in his voice reflected in his face. She knew that he was thinking at that moment the same thing she was thinking. And it wasn't telepathy that told her that. There was no need of it. It was too obvious.

  Meanwhile the table rose until its feet were level with the heads of those around it. Then it revolved slowly in the air-a full hundred eighty degrees, until it was totally inverted.

  As though of one mind, everyone around the table pushed back their chairs and got to their feet-not just because what was happening was so breathtaking, but because the heavy Ouija board and pointer were still on the table and must surely fall.

  But nothing fell. The Ouija board stayed where it was, as though glued in place, as the table continued to rise until its four feet were planted firmly on the ceiling in a grotesque and surreal defiance of gravity.

  No one spoke, no one moved-until Maggie, out of some impulse that she herself perhaps neither understood nor anticipated any more than she could control, made the sign of the cross over herself.

  As though a magnetic current had been turned off, the Ouija board and pointer fell from the tabletop and hit the floor with a clatter. The table itself followed. But it didn't fall. It shot down, as though pushed by some violent force, and smashed into the floor and shattered into fragments. The last image was of the members of the group leaping to safety and turning their backs against a lacerating spray of wood splinters. Then the screen abruptly went blank.

  “A chunk hit the camera,” Sam explained, stopping the video. “We'll have to replace it. Luckily nobody was hurt. Spectacular, hmm?” He looked at her and waited for a reply. She realized that his question was more than rhetorical; he needed to know what she thought.

  “What do you think happened?” she asked.

  “Oh,” he made a sweeping, open gesture with his hand, a gesture almost of self-parody, “I think it's obvious what happened. We lost our collective nerve. We made the damn thing float up to the ceiling and turn upside down, and suddenly the rational side of ourselves said, ‘This is physically impossible, it can't be happening,’ and so it stopped.”

  “What about Maggie making the sign of the cross like that?”

  He shrugged. “We talked afterwards. She couldn't explain it, said it just came out of her.” He paused, looked grave. “She also says we ought to discontinue the experiment. She can't explain why she feels that way, either, but she says it's been building for a while. She says she won't come to any more sessions unless their purpose is to dematerialize Adam and start again. She thinks he's evil.”

  Joanna looked at him steadily. “What do you think?”

  He hesitated, like a man who has thought about some problem for a while and has made a carefully balanced decision, but one that he has not yet announced to anyone else and isn't sure how it will be received.

  “I think,” he said, “that Maggie was a bad choice for this experiment. It may be better if she goes.”

  23

  Sam left for Riverside Drive about eleven. It wasn't just Joanna's flu that muted their enthusiasm for sex; their hearts and minds weren't in it either. When they kissed and his hands stroked the warmth of her body through the layers of cotton and nylon fiber she was wrapped in, she felt a rush of adrenaline that miraculously cleared her sinuses and quickened her breathing. But there was too much on both their minds to sustain the moment. He kissed her a last time at the door.

  “Are you sure you wouldn't like me to just, you know, stay?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I'm fine. If you have no objection, I'm going to call Maggie in the morning and get her side of all this.”

  “Sure-it's your story. Write it the way you want.”

  She locked the door after him, then went back to bed and replayed the tape that he'd left with her. Occasionally she jotted down a note as some thought struck her that she might use in her piece. It was after one a.m. when she drifted off into a surprisingly dreamless sleep. She awoke at seven and went immediately to her computer, where she spent over an hour getting her material into order and sketching out an introduction to the story. Afterward she realized that not only did the flu symptoms seem to have almost vanished, but she felt as energized as if she'd had a week's total rest instead of just a day's illness. She breakfasted on coffee, juice, and cereal, then took a leisurely bath, got dressed, and put on a little makeup. She looked and felt herself again. Then she dialed the home number that she had for Maggie.

  The phone was picked up on the second ring. The voice that answered wasn't Maggie's. It belonged to a younger woman, and there was a hesitancy in it that told Joanna that something was wrong. “Is this Maggie McBride's number?” she asked.

  “It is.” The voice broke slightly.

  “Could I speak to her, please? This is Joanna Cross.”

  “I'm afraid that isn't possible, Miss Cross. My mother passed away during the night.”

  Heather McBride was in her mid-thirties, slim, and somewhat severely elegant in the way that career women in New York, and especially on Wall Street, tend to be. But there was also, Joanna recognized at once, a gentleness about her that made her Maggie's daughter. It was oddly moving to sit with this composed but clearly heartbroken woman in Maggie's spotlessly tidy living room at the back of the vast apartment on Park Avenue where she had been housekeeper.

  “My mother had suffered from a heart condition for ten years,” she said. “She'd come to terms only recently with the fact that she was going to need open-heart surgery in the near future. But she was on medication, and her doctors didn't think there was any immediate danger.” She paused, drawing in a slightly unsteady breath. “Obviously they were wrong.”

  “Will there be an autopsy?”

  Miss McBride shook her head. “I've spoken to my brother, and we don't think it's necessary. He's on his way now from Portland, Oregon,” she added, as though feeling the need to explain why he wasn't present with
them as they spoke. “May I ask, Miss Cross,” she said after a moment's hesitation, “just what your involvement with my mother was? I don't recall her ever speaking of you.”

  Joanna told as much of the story as she felt she had to, and as little as she thought she could get away with. Heather McBride listened, gazing mostly at some point on the carpet in front of her chair, occasionally nodding thoughtfully. “I know my mother was interested in that kind of thing,” she said when Joanna had finished. “I'm afraid it's all rather alien to me. We never discussed it much.”

  There was a ring at the small door at the back of the apartment that was Maggie's private entrance. It had taken Joanna some time to find it even after Heather's careful instructions over the phone.

  Heather got up to answer it, returning a moment later with a tall, thin-faced man in his forties wearing the black suit and stiff white collar of a priest. “This is Reverend Collingwood,” she said, “minister of the Unitarian Church here that my mother attended.” She introduced Joanna as a friend of her mother's and they shook hands.

  “I have to say, Miss Cross, I've heard your name,” he said. “As recently as last night, in fact, when Mrs. McBride came to see me.”

  Joanna sensed Heather's interest pick up as sharply as her own. “Last night?” she said. “Do you mind if I ask what time that was?”

  “She telephoned around nine and asked if she could come to see me. I could tell that there was something worrying her. It was unlike Maggie to make a drama out of nothing, so I invited her to come over right away. She arrived fifteen or twenty minutes later.”

  “Can you tell us what she wanted?” Joanna asked, then immediately darted an apologetic glance in Heather's direction. “I'm sorry, it's really not my place to ask these questions.”

  Heather McBride made a brief dismissive gesture. They were questions she wanted answers to herself. “That is if you're able to tell us, Reverend,” she said.

  He smiled thinly. “We're not a confessional religion. We have no strict rules on these matters. Confidentiality is respected if requested and when appropriate. Your mother made no such request last night, and I see no reason not to answer your question.” He turned his gaze on Joanna. She sensed an element of accusation in it that made her uncomfortable. She could see the suspicion building in Heather McBride's face that she, Joanna, bore some responsibility in Maggie's death that she had failed so far to be open about. She was acutely reminded of the sense of responsibility for Murray Ray's death that she had not even now wholly thrown off.

  “Maggie told me all about your experiment to create a ghost, Miss Cross. I must tell you that in my view it is a misguided and possibly a dangerous endeavor. Maggie, too, had been coming to think of it that way for some time, so she told me. The events of last night, which I imagine you are familiar with, only confirmed her in that belief.”

  Joanna held up a hand. “Can I say something before we start making any accusations? Maggie was a willing volunteer and knew exactly what she was doing. I'm more sorry than I can say about what's happened. I was very fond of Maggie. The whole group was. But this was a properly run and monitored experiment, and anyone was free to pull out whenever they liked. In fact, although I wasn't there myself last night, I understand that this was what Maggie had decided to do.”

  “Miss Cross, I'm making no accusations. Maggie's death appears to have been from physical causes arising out of a known clinical condition. But if you will allow me to say so, I think she and the rest of you involved have gotten yourselves into something deeper than you'd bargained for. If you'll take my advice you'll stop now, before anything else happens.”

  “I'm sorry, I have to be clear about one thing.”

  They both turned to Heather McBride, who had spoken.

  “Are you saying that my mother's death was from natural causes brought about by this ‘experiment’?” She gave the last word an emphasis that made it both suspect and somehow preposterous.

  “I am saying,” said the Reverend Collingwood, picking his words with ponderous care, “that she believed something had been started which had to be stopped. She also believed that she was the one who was going to have to bear the main burden of doing that.”

  “But why, for heaven's sake?” Joanna protested. “There were eight of us.”

  There was a lugubrious piety in Collingwood's long face as he turned to look at her.

  “She didn't believe that the rest of you were prepared to take the danger as seriously as she.”

  24

  Sam phoned the members of the group to tell them of Maggie's death. Their weeks of sessions together had created a sense of family intimacy that left them all deeply affected by the news. When they met again three days later, it was a sense of personal loss that remained uppermost in their minds more than any thought of Adam or the rights and wrongs of the experiment. Drew and Barry both shed a tear when they entered “Adam's room” and saw the group there minus Maggie. Even the normally reserved Ward Riley was visibly moved.

  A new wooden table had been furnished to replace the broken one. When they were all settled around it Sam addressed them soberly. “Obviously I've written to Maggie's son and daughter expressing our sorrow. I have to say there was a hairy forty-eight hours when it looked as though the university might become the subject of a court action. Maggie's son, pushed by her local pastor whom she'd talked with the night of her death, wanted to hold us liable. But the daughter, thanks largely to Joanna's persuasiveness, would have no part of it. So the only thing we have to face now is the question of whether we go on with the experiment or not. If any of you have any thoughts, anything you want to say…”

  Joanna cleared her throat. “I'm the only one who missed that last session, but it looked pretty astounding on tape. It was also clear that Maggie was deeply alarmed at what was happening, and there's no escaping the fact that it almost certainly played some part in her death. On an emotional level, part of me says okay, that's far enough, let's just drop this whole thing right now. The experiment was set up for my benefit, to give me something to write about, so I feel a personal responsibility…”

  “But you shouldn't,” Sam interrupted her. From the murmurs of agreement around the table it was obvious that the others all felt the same way. “The experiment was set up as part of the research program of this department,” Sam continued. “If we hadn't done it now with this group, we'd certainly have gotten around to doing it sooner or later with some other group. If there's any responsibility, it's mine. If I'd known Maggie had a weak heart, I'd have dissuaded her from taking part in the experiment. Unfortunately she never told me, nor did I ever think of asking. But there's no point at this stage in breast-beating and crying ‘mea culpa.’ Maggie's dead and that won't bring her back. What all this does bring us face to face with is a question that's central to a great deal of what we're trying to do in this department. That question is: What are we to make of phenomena that defy our criterion of rationality? We've all seen things in this room that do that. My belief remains firm that these phenomena are created by our own minds and by nothing else. Maggie, it appears, had become convinced that there was some outside agency at work. What I'd like to ask is do any of the rest of you feel this way?”

  There was a silence as he looked around their faces one by one. Barry shook his head as though summing up the feeling of the whole group. No one dissented.

  “You know what might be interesting?” Roger said, pulling thoughtfully on one side of his mustache. “Why don't we talk to Adam-find out what he thinks about all this?”

  Sam gave a faint smile. “It's what I was going to suggest, but I'm glad somebody else came up with it first.” He looked around the table again. “Everyone agreed?”

  There were nods and murmurs of accord.

  “All right. Adam, are you there?”

  There was silence. Joanna noticed that they were all sitting with their hands in their laps, with the exception of Sam, who was leaning on the table, and Barry, who had o
ne hand resting on it curled into a loose fist. Sam became aware of the same thing simultaneously. “Maybe we need to go back to square one,” he said, “everybody hands on the table, palms down.”

  Everyone did so. Then Sam said, “All right, let's try again. Adam, are you there?”

  The silence lengthened until Pete said, “Maybe he can't hack it with the new table.”

  “Adam, we'd like to talk with you,” Sam said. “Please respond this time. Are you there?”

  They all felt as well as heard it: two sharp raps for no.

  “In my neighborhood that's what they used to call a Polish yes,” Barry said, looking around the table. “No offense to anyone of that extraction.”

  Ward Riley frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps it means that someone's there, but not Adam.”

  Joanna saw Roger's eyes dart from Ward to Sam, who was careful to avoid their gaze. She knew what he was thinking, what they were all thinking. Because she was thinking it too.

  “Is that right?” Sam said quietly. “Someone's there, but not Adam?”

  A clear, firm rap for yes.

  Keeping his voice deliberately calm and seemingly casual, the way she'd seen him do all along when things got tense, Sam asked, “Can you tell us who you are?”

  The scratching noise that came from the table wasn't like the one they were used to. It was lighter, the product of a different wood fiber. But it came, they recognized at once, from within the wood itself, not from anywhere on the surface, neither on top nor underneath. It was the sound that Maggie had correctly identified as Adam wanting to write. Now someone else wanted to do the same.

  “We should have thought of this,” Sam muttered. “The Ouija board's in pieces and we haven't got a replacement.”

  “I'm on it!” Pete was already out of his chair and heading for the table by the wall. “This worked when I was a kid,” he said. “No reason why it shouldn't now.”