Malefic

by Ambrose Ibsen

  I shared his trepidation, but shook my head. “We aren't looking for safety,” I replied. Pointing to the dash clock, I added, “Look here, it's almost 1 AM. We're soon to enter the witching hour. Between the hours of two and four in the morning, spirits tend to come into their own. If we hurry, we can have everything set up by two. There's no better time.”

  He navigated onto the main road with a groan. “Uncle Marcel, I really hope you know what you're doing.”

  I gave him a reassuring smile, but, “I hope so, too” would have been the more honest response.

  Sixteen

  I was all too happy to let my nephew lead the way inside. “It is your house, after all.”

  The two of us stood in the moonlit front yard in the shade of the Callery pear tree. The porch light gave the occasional flash as we neared the door, only to shy away and discuss our plans. I'd already torn the cellophane from the talking board's packaging and intended to set it up on the dining room table. Joseph would collect a few candles and, in accordance with tradition we would conduct our séance free of artificial light.

  The only stumbling block was in our having to actually enter the house; a thing neither of us really cared to do. Joseph had started his day in a fine mood—had begun to feel that the fear surrounding his new home may have been premature. Now that he stood before it in the dead of night with me in his ear, reporting the horrors I'd encountered therein these past two days, he was more than a little reticent to set foot inside.

  Where Joseph had been distant from the house for the past 48 hours, I had not shared this luxury, and unlike my nephew, my feelings regarding the foul spirits lurking inside had not thawed in the least. I'd been there this very night, had been chased out by the most intense supernatural manifestations I'd ever encountered. In the countless books I'd read on the subject of parapsychology over the years, I'd never happened upon an account of such malefic proportion as this.

  And now we were set to go inside and kick the hornet's nest.

  “Come,” I said, waving him on. “Let's go inside.”

  For a while there, he'd looked ready to set down roots beside the Callery pear and become a permanent fixture in the yard, but with a sigh he began towards the porch, rummaging in his pockets for his keys. Once he'd fussed over the lock, he threw open the door in a manner befitting an angry teenager and paused at the threshold, glaring all about the lower story.

  I joined him there, and for a time we only watched and listened.

  The house, doubtless seeking to lure us in with the false promise of normalcy, appeared peaceful and inviting enough. We entered, shut the door behind us.

  Joseph had only just moved into the living room when he began sniffing the air. With a grimace, he turned to me and asked, “W-What's that smell? You been keeping animals in here?”

  It took me a bit longer to notice it, but I found the air was laced with a powerful scent—something at once earthy and rank. We followed it to the kitchen, and found its source on one of the countertops, seizing with flies.

  Two days ago, I'd picked up some food to get me through my stay in the house. Fresh fruit, salad, frozen goods and more. The apples and bananas I'd purchased now sat in a semi-aqueous heap on the counter, their peels sagging around congealed cores and their juices home to scores of buzzing insects. A stream of viscous liquid seeped from the door of the refrigerator, and I didn't have to open it to know that every last item within had spoiled.

  “What the hell happened?” he asked, placing a hand against his nose to block the putrid odor.

  “The spirits decided to help themselves to my groceries,” I replied, turning my back on the kitchen. “I've read about this—food rot. Malign spirits will sometimes exert their influence upon a place to make food spoil.” My nephew looked on the verge of nausea as he followed me back to the living room. “The things in this house want to send a message. Think of them like children acting out to get a rise. Don't be cowed by them. Now,” I said, marching to the dining room table and setting down the talking board, “about those candles?”

  “Oh, right.” Pausing, Joseph looked to the stairs, his Adam's apple trembling. “Melissa always keeps candles in our bedroom, in case of a power outage. I'll just, uh...” He looked at the staircase as though its climb would be as perilous as Kilimanjaro.

  “You do that,” I said, nudging his arm. “I'm going to get this set up.” I checked my watch. “We've got about twenty minutes before we hit our window. Let's make them count, yes?”

  Joseph left my side with a whimper. I heard him ascending warily, turning on every light within reach.

  While he procured the candles, I unpacked the talking board. For ages ten and up! declared the front of the box. I snickered at this as I unfolded the thing—made from a sturdy chipboard—and got a feel for the plastic planchette. Setting the pointer down on the board's open face, which was done in a generic “antique” style, replete with smiling suns and frowning moons, I thought back to my previous readings on the subject of seances and tried remembering the proper etiquette.

  It'd been that estimable volume by J. Kelly Thompson I'd read some hours earlier that had touched on the subject of talking boards and their use in communing with the dead. As best I could recall, a proper séance was comprised of three phases: The salutation, the recitation of clear and concise questions, and the sign-off. One began the ritual by calling out to the spirits on the premises. When the nearby spirits had presumably taken notice of the callers, the next stage began. Questions were then asked of the gathered souls—necessarily short and concise to eschew confusion and ensure pertinence. Lastly, one had to say goodbye and effectively close the ritual. This latter step was a device much abused in fiction, deemed crucial lest the spirits remain and the session continue long after the living had walked away from the board. In truth, signing off at the end was—in Thompson's view—merely good manners.

  Upstairs, Joseph could be heard to shuffle about. I heard him speak as he went looking for the candles and supposed he was talking on the phone. “Oh, hey. Just a second. I think I found them.” A few minutes later, he returned downstairs with a fistful of tapers, a box of matches and a knotted brow. He paused at the foot of the stairs, staring at me intently, and asked, “How the heck did you get down here so fast?”

  I shrugged, motioning to the board. “What do you mean? I've been sitting here, getting the board ready.”

  His laugh rose obnoxiously in the silence, but he soon quieted down. “No, I... I was just upstairs, in my room. I was looking for the candles and I saw you standing out in the hall. I thought you'd come up to help me look...” He was pallid by the end, and glanced up the stairs, to the upper hall.

  I shook my head. “It wasn't me. I've been sitting here.”

  “Then... who—”

  “Doesn't matter,” I blurted, trying my best to hide the shiver that rode my spine. “The house will do everything in its power to distract and frighten us. Pay it no mind. Come, sit. But first put out the lights.”

  I planted the candles in a couple of glass candlesticks and lit them with the same match. One by one, the electric lights in the house went off, until Joseph finally emerged, grey and shuddering, from the darkness and took his seat across from me. He looked awful in the candlelight, and I'm sure I looked just as haggard.

  “Have you ever toyed with one of these before?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even and instructional. “It's really quite simple.” I extended a shaky finger and touched the top of the planchette. “This is our pointer, you see? We are each to maintain one finger upon it—a light touch—throughout the duration of the séance. Don't let go, and don't press too hard. Understood?”

  He nodded dumbly. His sharp, quick breaths sent the flame of the nearest candle wavering. “What are we going to ask them?” he whispered.

  “Let's see who's in attendance first, shall we?” I placed a finger on the planchette and invited him to do the same. When we'd both set our pointer fingers on the thing ligh
tly, I drew in a deep breath and began, eyes closed. “We seek to make contact with the spirits inhabiting this house.” I paused. “If you're listening, we'd like to speak with you, to know more about you.”

  I felt Joseph's hand tremble as he waited for me to finish.

  For a time, I watched the flickering of the candles. The lit wicks cast our shadows across the walls, and in their bobbing there was an element of motion superadded to their long and incongruous shape. Glancing past the shadows, I surveyed the darkness for signs of new arrivals—signs that someone had come to the table to take us up on our invitation. When a minute had ticked by, I decided to ask for some sign that someone was listening. “If you're here, let us know. Give us a sign.”

  I was so preoccupied with listening that I didn't at first notice the widening of Joseph's eyes, nor the quiver of his lips. It was only when he gasped and nearly let go of the pointer that I looked up at him and found his panicked gaze centered on the dining room window to our left.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  His jaw tensed. “T-The window... I see faces in the window.”

  Turning so that I might better inspect the pane, I studied the glass for signs of these faces, and what I found nearly sent me spilling out of my chair. Nothing was certain in the low firelight, mind you, but reflected in that glass were a number of amorphous shapes that, taken from a certain angle, almost looked like faces. Gaseous, shadowy and no fewer than five in number, the undulating silhouettes were seen to possess features that more or less corresponded to eyes and mouths. They stared with dead, empty sockets; let their cavernous maws droop.

  Shaking now, I looked back to the table. Though I'd gotten my desired result, I found I wanted nothing further to do with the talking board and struggled to remain in my seat. Joseph's eyes hadn't budged from the window, and he'd have kept staring into the glass all night if not for my order. “Look at the board!” I commanded him. “T-The house will try and distract us. It's enough that we know the spirits are here. They're listening. Don't let it distract you. It is, after all, what we wanted.”

  Lips pursed, he looked straight ahead at the planchette and waited for me to continue.

  “OK...” I cleared my throat and raised my voice. “I want to know how many of you are here. How many are joining us tonight?”

  Joseph and I both held our breath while waiting for the planchette to move.

  In response to this question, it never did. It was possible that the ghosts didn't care to answer; equally so that my nephew and I, in our terror, had pinned the pointer to the board and rendered it immovable.

  Moving on, “Well, does anyone want to talk?” I chanced. “If so, please introduce yourself.”

  We waited.

  Leaving my finger on the planchette so long had led to my arm tensing up, and a slight ache radiated all the way up to my shoulder as I waited for some reply. I forgot all about this pain moments later when, through no conscious effort of my own, the pointer began to shift across the glossy board. “A-Are you doing that?” I whispered across the table.

  Joseph shook his head.

  It was as though someone had stepped up to the table, taken a seat, and begun nudging the planchette towards the rows of highly-stylized letters. The first was “H”, the second “U”, and in short order, “L-L-O” followed. “HULLO.”

  We'd made contact with something. Now that we had them on the line, I hurried to think of another question to ask. I wanted to make it a good one, to ask a question whose answer might shed some light on the root cause of the haunting, but was so flabbergasted at the unnatural shifting of the pointer that I scrambled to come up with one. I settled on, “What's your name?”

  We had to wait only a few moments before the planchette began a slow crawl around the board. My eyes followed its every movement, piecing together the letters that showed up in the clear plastic bubble at its center. When it finally stopped moving, Joseph and I looked to each other.

  “Bradford from Annapolis?” asked Joseph. “Who's that?”

  I shook my head. “All right... so, your name is Bradford. And... you're from Annapolis, are you? Well, it's nice to meet you, Bradford. Tell me, what brings you here to this house?”

  With more speed now, the pointer began spelling out a response. I muttered the letters under my breath as they turned up.

  “I JUST WANT TO TALK SARAH”

  Joseph looked to me with evident confusion, giving a weak shrug. “What's that mean? Who's Sarah?”

  “Erm... Bradford, I'm afraid I don't follow. What do you mean? Who's Sarah?”

  Again, we waited.

  This time, the wait was long, and at the end of it there came no reply. At least, not from the board.

  Both of us were startled by the sounding of a loud creak from the foot of the stairs. Looking into the darkened lower story, we found the candlelight did not penetrate quite so far as that.

  “It's the house settling,” I assured my nephew.

  Another minute elapsed, and I took it to mean that our connection with “Bradford” had been interrupted. I decided to invite someone else to the table. “All right, is there anyone else in this house who'd like to talk?”

  The point of contact between the planchette and my finger had grown sweaty. With a sudden gust, the wind found its way in through the nooks and crannies of the house and wreaked havoc on the candles. For a breathless instant, I thought they were all about to go out at once. As the draft dissipated however, they were all returned to stability and my attention was called back to the board, where a new message was being spelled out.

  “F-I-O-N-A”

  “Fiona,” uttered Joseph. “T-That's the girl who used to live here, right? The one you think is haunting the place?”

  I nodded. “Are we speaking to Fiona now?” I asked loudly.

  Suddenly, the planchette skated to the “NO” on the upper right quadrant of the board.

  “Oh...” I said. “So... who are we speaking to, then?”

  A pause. “NOBODY”, the thing wrote.

  I forced a chuckle. “Right. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nobody.” I sighed. “Do you know Fiona? Did you want to tell us something about her?”

  The planchette slipped to the “YES”.

  “OK,” I asked, “what is it? What can you tell us about her?”

  Unexpectedly, the planchette began jumping between letters. The whole sequence, which ran for some time, spelled the following message:

  “FIONA W. ADOPTED GIRL. BROUGHT TERRIBLE THINGS. FROM ANNAPOLIS. DONT LET HER LEAVE. NOT AGAIN.”

  I had trouble following these staggered thoughts. “You're saying that Fiona Weiss was adopted? And that she brought something terrible with her from Annapolis?” The last bit proved most confusing. “Don't let her leave? The house, you mean?”

  The pointer shot to the “YES” on the left, and did not budge as I asked this series of questions, leading me to believe that they were all answered in the affirmative.

  “OK, thank you for that,” I began. “But... who are you?”

  For the first time in the last few minutes, the planchette remained stationary.

  “Are... are we still talking with Bradford?” I asked.

  The planchette crept back to the “NO”.

  “So, who? Who is this we're speaking to? Please, give us your name.”

  Once more, there was no reply. Mr. Nobody was done with us, it seemed.

  “How do you know all this?” Joseph asked, leaning forward in his chair. “How do we know we can believe you?”

  Something happened then, which drew our eyes away from the board. The candle to my immediate right began to go out. It wasn't the draft laying waste to the flame this time, however; for an instant, the fire grew very small. And then, when it had shrunk into a mere column of embers, it went out with a hiss as if pinched between two wet, unseen fingers. A shudder crashed through me, and I nearly let go of the pointer.

  My messenger bag, which had been sitting on a
n empty chair beside me up to that point, suddenly began to shift. I watched it from the corner of my eye as it began to move very slowly to the edge of the seat. Then, with a thump, it struck the floor and was dragged off swiftly towards the living room. I watched it get dragged into the darkness by an unseen hand, and heard—moments later—its contents being spilled out on the floor.

  Joseph stiffened like a board and met me with his horrified gaze.

  “Don't pay it any mind,” I warned him. “It's trying to frighten, to intimidate. Don't let it. Just focus on the board.”

  Minutes had begun to tick by, but still there came no reply to our questions. The spirit we'd been chatting with had no interest in disclosing its identity—or else was unable to. I tried thinking of other questions about the enigmatic Fiona Weiss, but before I could ask any of them, the planchette began to sway.

  The movement caught the two of us by surprise.

  It was so sudden that we accidentally removed our fingers.

  Before we could touch the thing again, we found—much to our horror—that it was now moving of its own accord. Guided by an invisible hand, the triangular pointer began rotating in a perfect circle.

  We watched it make its hypnotic circuit in awe, backing up our chairs.

  “Why's it doing that?” asked Joseph, his voice barely audible.

  “It... could be that we're speaking to someone new.” Easing myself back into the chair and wiping the sheen of perspiration from my face, I attempted to call out calmly. “Are we speaking to someone else, now?”

  The pointer halted, then jumped to the “YES”.

  “Sit down,” I told my nephew. “We aren't through yet. Let's see what this one has to say.”

  Joseph leaned back towards the table—albeit hesitantly—and looked down at the board, seasick. No longer daring to touch the planchette, he began working over one of his thumbnails with his teeth. “Who... Who are you?” he asked.

  The pointer swiveled a few degrees and then began gliding over the board. The letters came up so quickly that we could barely keep up with them. Joseph and I repeated them aloud as the spirit spelled out its message. “D-E-E-P-I-N-T...”