by Mary Bowers
Taylor let them fall into her hand and felt Wendy’s body-warmth in the little stones. She curled her fingers around them and said, “Thank you. I’ll take good care of them tonight.”
“I think . . . I think maybe they’re going to take good care of you,” Wendy Pissarro said. After a moment she put her hand against her chest as if she were missing the necklace already, but before Taylor could offer it back she smiled weakly and turned away.
* * * * *
The young man Taylor hadn’t been able to place turned out to be Tiffany’s boyfriend, Britt Bascombe. Taylor nodded at the introduction and gave him the once-over. Other than being obviously well-fed, well-dressed and well-trained, he seemed like a happy, healthy specimen who didn’t have any idea how he’d ended up at a Halloween séance, but was all set to be a good sport about it. She placed him as a doggy personality – cheerfully oblivious and ready to play.
Tiffany, by contrast, was tense, brittle, catlike. Her brother was a broody, looming presence, and at least for the moment, he seemed more concerned about his mother than his sister.
They all had wineglasses in their hands, and before Taylor could say anything to the group at large, Ed called out from the breakfast nook, “I told them not to overindulge. Alcohol at a séance! Completely irresponsible.”
Kent made a shrug toward the area behind the bar. “It’s all ours now, or it will be, once the courts get through with things. May as well drink the cheaper vintages while they’re young.”
“Until the estate is settled, you shouldn’t be taking anything from the house at all,” Michael commented mildly.
Taylor leaned in toward Kent and said, “He’s an incurable lawyer. I have to reprimand him about it all the time. It’s his only bad habit, though. We’re all on our first glass, right? Let’s stop it there, at least until after the séance. After that we may all be slugging it down straight from the bottles.”
Kent’s face lit up with a quick smile at the joke, and Taylor felt a warmth wash over her. She wasn’t interested in sweet young things as a rule, but some men could get a response from a fence post. This young man, she realized, had it.
The Haunt or Hoax? troupe was percolating in the background, and Teddy Force came forward and glad-handed Taylor and Michael, then, once the hand-shakes were over, he eased in close and turned his back on Michael.
“This is going to be our best episode yet!” he said right into Taylor’s ear. “We’re right up against the new-season roll-out, but I’ve decided I’m going to ditch the schedule we’ve got and shove this episode in first. A full two hours, at least. Last night was spectacular!”
“We don’t have a 2-hour time slot,” Carly pointed out.
“They’ll make room for this. It’s explosive! And if not . . . ever heard of ‘To Be Continued?’” Teddy said.
“What kind of results did you get Sunday night?” Taylor said, remembering Ed’s account.
“The whole enchilada, baby! Interference with the lights, sudden loud music, cold spots – this place is rippin’ with ghosts.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, hell yeah. Didn’t Ed tell you last night?”
“Uh, come to think of it, yes he did.” Taylor had always suspected Teddy of faking, but she didn’t think he had the organizational skills to pull off four or five hoax effects at once. She looked at Ed and he looked back with expressive eyes. “How many ghosts do you think you’ve got here?”
“There can only be two,” Roy Angers said. Taylor and Michael turned around, surprised at the sound of his voice. He had come in behind them, having obviously waited at home until he saw them arrive, and he must have been standing there listening for a while. “This was new construction for Alan. He and Jessamine are the only people who ever lived in this house.”
Teddy chuckled. “If you’d seen as many hauntings as I have, you’d know better. I’m Teddy Force, crypto-researcher, and these are my colleagues. We do this for a living. Ever heard of ancient Indian burial grounds?”
There were groans, and Roy guffawed and said, “Do tell.”
They started doing a nasty little argy-bargy, each trying to out-condescend the other, and Taylor disconnected and looked around just in time to see Kent Pissarro coming straight at them.
“That was cute,” he said directly to Roy.
Roy turned away from Teddy and wiped the smirk off his face. “Hello Kent. What was cute?”
“Cutting yourself into this situation.” He gestured around with a sour look on his face. “I had an exclusive on Dr. Darby-Deaver, so you went behind my back and hired the medium instead. I’ll have to remember how creative you can be.”
“Nothing creative about it,” Roy snapped. “I need information, and I’m running out of options for getting it. I decided to try another angle, that’s all. I didn’t realize that you were a believer in the occult,” he added with a touch of irony.
“You’ve known me all my life,” Kent replied. “You know I’ve always had an open mind. I’m always ready to try something new. I keep going until I get what I want.”
There was a menacing undercurrent to the conversation, and Taylor, feeling like the bone that a couple of dogs were fighting over, backed away and drifted over to Tiffany and her boyfriend. He was the only one in the room that seemed to be looking forward to this as a kind of party game, and Taylor was drawn to him.
She briefly introduced herself, forgetting to be mysterious and medium-like, and the young man responded cheerfully with their own names, making Taylor wince when he added, “My girl,” when he presented Tiffany.
“You two look tanned and happy,” Taylor said.
“Spent the day on the river,” Britt told her. “Kayak. A bit much, for Tiff, here, but I love it. Sculling’s what got me started. For the old alma mater, you know. Not that it’s anything like kayaking, but pulling for the old maroon and white gave me a taste for being on the water. Upper body work; abs. Really tones you up. Did a picnic on a dab of an island out there, just the two of us. A jug of wine and thou,” he quoted in a syrupy way, ogling his girlfriend.
Tiffany looked tired. In her mid-twenties, the pinky edges of a sunburn only enhanced her prettiness, but her eyes were weary.
“I just want to get this over with,” she said quietly. “Britt took me out and kept me out all day, trying to distract me, but nothing could make me forget what was going to happen tonight. I don’t know what I’m going to say to my dad. If you get him, of course. Now that I’m faced with actually communicating with him, I don’t know what I want to say, other than . . . and as for Jessamine . . . .”
Britt put an arm around her shoulders and give her a little bounce. “It’s going to be all right, Tiffy. Chin up, darlin’. I’ll be right beside you. You’re not going to make any trouble about that, are you?” he said to Taylor. “Because I’m telling you here and now, you won’t get anywhere if you try. I’m sitting next to Tiffany and that’s that.”
“Fine with me,” Taylor said. It reminded her that the moment was coming, and she began to think about how to begin her performance. She was going to have the troubadour, she reminded herself. Mark. Mark would be her spirit guide; a nice guy with a sad history and a poetic soul. Mark Smeaton.
Wayne and Elliott from the Haunt or Hoax? crew had disappeared, and Taylor missed them for the first time.
“Ed?” she said. Something about her voice punched a hole in the gathering, and everyone who had been talking stopped and turned toward her.
Ed came hurrying up and said, “I’m here.”
But she didn’t look at him. She was looking through the glass wall; the windows beside the French doors beside still more windows, all wrapped around the back of the house, overlooking the pool. “The lanai,” she said.
“What’s wrong with her?” Tiffany whispered.
“Must be doing her medium thing already,” Britt said in a slightly louder version of his usual jolly voice. It was off, somehow, and only made him seem nervous.
&nb
sp; “No no no no no,” Ed said to Taylor. “I told you already, we cannot hold a séance outdoors.”
“He’s already there,” Taylor said, and she found herself walking away, hearing whispers grow more distant behind her, crossing the boundary between one place and another.
She stepped out into the night and it welcomed her. And Mark was there, waiting.
He smiled. Sadness came toward her in waves.
* * * * *
“Most irregular,” Ed said, finally bringing to an end a solid twelve minutes of protests.
The light and sound crew had already set up in the media room on the second floor, and had been waiting for them. Ed had his recording equipment ready to go up there. They had spent over an hour in the afternoon doing sound checks and testing the lighting effects. Since the room had no windows and no source of ambient sound, they had been able to get everything perfect. Then Taylor went rogue on them.
The 2-man crew hastily scrambled everything together and ran for the lanai, where conditions were completely different. Out in the night air, with landscaping lights artistically dotted around, up-lighting plants and reflecting off the pool, and a fountain happily splashing away, it was a completely different technical situation, and the crew just had to do the best they could. Ed substituted his little pocket recorder for his lovely digital equipment with the mixers all set to just the right levels. It was beyond frustrating, and throughout it all, Taylor was infuriatingly serene. Ed fussed and grumbled, and Taylor simply didn’t hear him. Or anybody else.
By the time they were all seated and quiet, everyone was staring at Taylor as if they expected her to levitate.
She was seated at the head of the large, oval, wrought-iron table. At the last moment, Carly came running with the fat pillar candle they’d placed in the media room, and once it was on the table and burning, it cast a yellow, flickering glow across the glass tabletop and threw wavering shadows onto the pavers below. The faces around it picked up the yellow illumination, etched by purplish shadows and wide, shining eyes.
Taylor seemed to wait, suspended and patient and silent. Occasionally she nodded, or uttered mono-syllabic acknowledgements of things nobody else could hear.
Britt, still trying to keep Tiffany calm, loudly whispered, “She’s good.”
“No,” Taylor said.
“Sorry,” Britt told her immediately. “Didn’t know you were listening. You really are, you know, though. Good, I mean.”
“You sit there,” Taylor said, ignoring him and instructing Roy to take the opposite end of the table.”
Dobbs, who had been sitting there, got up and exchanged places with Roy, who had been sitting beside Taylor.
“It should be round or square,” Ed fussed. “All sitters equal. I’ve never heard of a séance at an oval table.”
“Ed, shut up,” Carly said from somewhere back in the dark. “She’s already in a trance. Just go with it.”
Taylor smiled. In a trance! Funny. “I don’t go into trances,” she thought to herself, but she was lazily unwilling to say anything out loud. She’d laugh about it later.
When there was a general settling and a feeling of waiting in the air, she looked around the table at the light ovals of the faces. Michael had decided to hang back with the TV crew, but Ed was at the table at her left, holding her hand. Nice. It was nice to hold Ed’s hand. He was a good friend.
Dobbs was now at her right. Taylor smiled. So he’d managed to get himself into the show after all. She couldn’t believe Teddy had allowed him to take a seat, but she didn’t really care about that right now. Dobbs. Dobbs and Jessamine together. Someone Jessamine knew; someone to attract her. Or repel her. Somebody she’d loved? Or simply liked?
Yes, Dobbs could stay.
She might need Dobbs.
Next to him was Tiffany, and on her other side, Britt, gripping her hand and mumbling to her, keeping his eyes on Taylor all the time.
Opposite Tiffany, next to Ed, was her mother, and beyond Wendy was Kent. Taylor dropped her gaze. Strange. Kent was gripping Wendy’s hand as tightly as Britt was gripping Tiffany’s. Protective. Worried? Sweet.
Bastet.
Where was Bastet?
She’d been there in the family room, stalking around, but she hadn’t followed them out to the lanai. And her spirit guide? Mark. Mark liked Bastet. Bastet was leery of Mark. Strange, Taylor thought, but not important.
Mark was hanging back for some reason. Maybe she’d made a mistake, summoning him. Maybe he was one of those who should be left alone. Too battered. Too disillusioned.
Taylor submerged herself in a wonderful sense of peace, grateful for these moments away from the heaviness of living. As soon as the spirit came, she could just give herself up and rest, away from the action for just this little while, in that funny little room she’d found just around the corner from the living. But before she could leave, the other must come. She angled her head, catlike, opened her lips and said, “Mark?”
“I’m here.”
“Will you do this for us?”
“I – I shall try.”
“Are you all right?”
“I am.”
“Are you at peace?”
“Peace? No.”
“I’m sorry. Will you find someone for us? It’s a man, someone who just crossed over recently. His name is Alan. Alan Pissarro. Is he there?”
“He stays in this house. He will not come here. The out-of-doors – it’s hers.”
“Jessamine’s? Is she here?”
“Yes.”
“May I speak to her?”
“I shall ask.”
Taylor’s head dropped. She seemed to be asleep. Britt began to say something and Ed nearly jumped over the table at him. “For once and for all, Britt, shut up,” he growled. “Dobbs, control him.”
Dobbs looked down at his hands, the one holding Taylor’s and the other holding Tiffany’s. “I can’t break the connection,” he said. “Can I?”
“No. But if he says anything else, go ahead and take him out.”
There was a hesitation before Dobbs faintly repeated, “Take him out?”
“By force if necessary.”
“Britt, be quiet,” Tiffany said, and her boyfriend glared around the table and sat back.
“I loved you,” Taylor said in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. The change, especially after the bickering around the table, was electrifying.
Ed cleared his throat and carefully asked her, “Who are you?”
“Jessamine.”
There was a sharp uptake of breath, and somebody giggled, then hiccupped into silence.
“I loved you and you killed me,” Jessamine said. “I did everything you told me to do. You said we would have it all.”
There was an eruption at the other end of the table as Roy’s heavy chair fell back with a monumental clang. His hands were both being gripped by young men, though, and neither Kent nor Britt would let him go. Somebody from the TV crew scuttled forward and set the chair upright again, and Roy awkwardly dropped back into it.
Somewhere in the shadows, someone whispered, “I knew it!”
“I came to tell you that I know you now,” Jessamine said, “and I’ll be waiting. Waiting for you.”
“Jessamine, don’t go,” Ed said. Wendy cried out, telling Ed to stop crushing her hand. He muttered an apology and loosened his grip, but didn’t let go. He quickly turned back to Taylor. “Who did you love?”
“I tried to love you all,” Taylor/Jessamine said in a loud wail, sweeping the table. “I tried to be a good stepmother. I tried to be a good friend. I did what I could.” Taylor’s eyes turned blindly toward Tiffany. “You hated me.”
“Of course I did,” the girl said furiously. “And I hate you even more now.”
Taylor made a sob.
“I just wanted a life of my own. A world of my own. A home of my own. Can you blame me for getting it the only way I knew how?”
“Yes I can,” Wendy said viciously.
“Because the only way you could get what you wanted was to take everything I had. You stole my life, and now you want me to feel sorry for you? You got just what you deserved.”
Back in the shadows, disconcertingly, Teddy’s voice said, “This is great! Are you getting this, guys?”
Nobody answered him.
Faces looked back to Taylor, but she was quiet now, empty-looking. Her head had drooped, and her mouth had opened slightly.
When she looked up, opened her eyes and inhaled, the heads of the other sitters moved back slightly.
“I have to go now,” she said childishly.
“What?” Ed said, still trying to grip her hand.
She arose, breaking away from Ed and Dobbs, and began to walk back into the house.
Behind her, people stared around wildly, then stood up and scrambled after her.
She recoiled slightly at the sound of the door alarm, and when Ed ran up to hold the door for her, he heard her murmur, “It’s alive.”
Chapter 19
“Set it up here, set it up there, run down the hall, follow that ghost,” Elliott Billington, the sound man for Haunt or Hoax? was muttering as he stomped through the house. For the lanai segment, he’d had to resort to a mic and boom, and it was like trying to run with an extended fishing pole.
Ahead of him, Wyatt Wayne moved silently and smoothly with the video camera, trying not to miss anything. Around them, before them and after them were the sitters from the séance, along with Carly, Teddy and Michael. Bringing up the rear were Roy Angers and The Marvelous Dobbs, looking shocked and bumfuzzled, respectively.
“Should we be running around at a séance?” Dobbs asked his mentor when he caught up with him.
Ed answered him with a fierce look and tried to keep the others moving.
“This way, this way, as quietly as you can. She’s going to the media room,” Ed said, stating the obvious. “She doesn’t even know where it is.” Then he stopped dead as he entered the room and saw Bastet sitting at the far end of their original séance table, staring at them.
