A Signal Shown

by Yvonne Montgomery

  Rose ran into the nearby bathroom and swung the door closed behind her. Choking, gagging sounds soon followed.

  When Rose rejoined them, Noreen had moved to the couch to sit beside Aura Lee, and was patting her shoulder. Noreen was still deeply shaken, but her eyes were alive with excitement. She noted Rose's pallor. "Are you all right?"

  "Oh, sure." Rose wended her way through the clutter of furniture, catching her long gray sweatshirt on the curlicue of an art deco lamp. Finally she sank into the gold damask chair opposite the sofa. She looked at Aura Lee. "Are you in any shape to talk?"

  Aura Lee had stopped crying, but she was trembling helplessly. Brass-colored hair tumbled around her pasty face. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes."

  "What happened in there?" Rose glanced over her shoulder at Aura Lee's bedroom. "It sounded like the hounds of hell."

  Aura Lee gulped and quavered, "Don't say that."

  Noreen was shivering, rubbing her arms to warm them. "I've never heard anything like it. You must have conjured up something incredible this time."

  "I didn't do anything." Aura Lee's voice shook. "I was reading a book, that's all." At the disbelief in Noreen's gaze she blurted, "I was doing research. That's all." She sobbed once, and covered her mouth with both hands.

  "No chants?" Noreen asked brusquely, but her eyes were kind. "No appeals to the Great Beyond?" She shuddered again in spite of herself.

  Rose stood up and headed for the door to the main kitchen. Within moments she was back with a bottle in one hand and three teacups rattling from the fingers of the other. Lining up the cups on the coffee table, she poured brandy into them and handed them to Noreen and Aura Lee. "Slam it," she directed and carried out her own instructions. Eyes watering, she coughed sharply, but her shoulders relaxed.

  Aura Lee sipped, made a face, and gulped the rest.

  Noreen's wrist-flick and brisk swallow were efficient. She caught Rose's half-smile and said, "I was headmistress at a girls' school."

  Rose sank back into her chair. "Some days I think mainlining the stuff is the only way I'll survive this job."

  The three women sat quietly, each lost in her own thoughts. Finally Rose straightened in the chair. "I have absolutely no idea what happened here. I know you're upset, Aura Lee, but you have to tell us what you were doing."

  Aura Lee explained how she'd been searching for ways to strengthen the connection with Caldicott. "I didn't try any charms or spells," she declared. "I was too afraid to."

  Rose lifted a hand. "I believe you. Tell me what happened next."

  Aura Lee's brow puckered. "It began when I went to the window to adjust the drapes."

  "Why did you do that?" Noreen interjected.

  Aura Lee blinked. "Because sunlight was coming through and I wanted to darken the room. That's when the humming began. I turned to look for what was causing that and I saw the tray beginning to glow."

  Noreen's eyes widened. "That would be the—"

  "The tray where I have my perfume bottles." Aura Lee's hand shook as she brought it to her forehead. "Cottie gave it to me on my silver anniversary at Wisdom Court. She wrapped it in Irish linen." Her lips trembled and her voice died.

  "You showed it to me," Rose said gently. "It's quite lovely."

  Aura Lee nodded. "I went over to the tray to see what the light was. I thought maybe the sun had hit it just right." She shook her head. "It wasn't the sun. Light was moving around inside it. And the humming was getting louder. It was when the hand moved inside the tray that I got scared. The humming was so loud it hurt my ears, and fingers broke through the surface... I tried to get out but the door wouldn't open..." Aura Lee was breathing faster, and her cheeks were bloodless.

  Noreen's color was little better. "Fingers came out of the tray?" She and Rose exchanged an appalled look.

  "F-fingers were transparent and the shrieking was so loud that I couldn't, I couldn't—"

  Rose sloshed brandy into her cup and shoved it toward her. Aura Lee swallowed it down and her labored breathing eased.

  Noreen rubbed her arms, still trying to get warm. "I heard those sounds. Something not of this world was in that room with Aura Lee."

  Rose shivered. "What are we up against? I thought, after Andrea, everything was going to be okay. But these, these manifestations are more terrifying than before, like something's growing stronger."

  "It didn't start with Andrea." Aura Lee said with certainty. "It was when Cottie died. I've known since then that she's here and she's trying to tell us something."

  The lines on Noreen's face had deepened. "Are you saying the thing that made those sounds is Caldicott Wyntham?" Her voice shook. "That she's the one who is—who is—"

  "Haunting Wisdom Court?" Rose rubbed her forehead. "What are we going to do?"

  Tears tracked down Aura Lee's cheeks. "I don't know if it's Cottie doing these things. She was—is—my friend. She was never anything but kind to me." She looked miserable. "I'm so afraid during these visitations. Twice now I've been so scared I couldn't accomplish anything." She dug for a tissue in her caftan pocket. "What's the point of trying to contact her if I fall apart when she shows up?"

  Rose let out a deep sigh. "The sounds I heard coming from your room would terrify anybody. They scared the hell out of me. How can you maintain your cool when you're up against something like that, something so abnormal?" She leaned against the back of the chair, face weary. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to stop trying to contact Caldicott. The toll on our nerves is getting pretty steep."

  "She has a point," Noreen agreed. "I can't imagine wanting to keep up your efforts after this."

  With effort Aura Lee propelled herself off the sofa. "It's important that you listen to me. I didn't try to contact Cottie. I was reading a book I borrowed from a friend. It has a section about summoning spirits, but I didn't act on it. I didn't do anything. Whatever it was didn't need my help to appear."

  "You mean whatever did that—the sounds and the fingers through the tray..." Noreen's voice died.

  "Was acting on its own." Aura Lee glanced from Noreen to Rose, eyes filled with fear. "We need to find someone to help us. I can't deal with whatever is doing these things. I don't know if it's trying to tell us something or if it means us harm. I'm scared." She made her way to the bathroom. The click of the lock was loud in the hushed room.

  Rose and Noreen looked at each other in dismay.

  Chapter 12

  Cold water trickled down Kerry's neck and her eyes shot open. The blurry figure filling her vision sharpened into Max, who frowned down at her. He shifted the sopping washcloth in his hand to the floor, trailing drops across her shirt. "Are you all right?"

  Kerry's eyelids drifted shut as she tried to figure out why she was lying on the living room rug.

  "Can you hear me? Kerry, answer me!"

  "Yeah." Her voice sounded far away, even to herself. "What's going on?" she added with more force. She stirred, and Max held out his hand to her. She grasped it, and he pulled her to her feet.

  "Come sit down." His arm was solid around her shoulders as he guided her to the sofa, bracing her as she sank onto it.

  Kerry's ears were buzzing, and her head floated somewhere near the ceiling. "Did I pass out?"

  "Yes." Max examined her and then looked around the room in irritation. "Do you have any spirits—brandy, whiskey?"

  Kerry riffled slowly through her scattered thoughts. "What?" she murmured. "You didn't like the tea?"

  "Oh, for God's sake." Max bent over her, one hand lifting her chin until her eyes looked into his. "Not for me—for you. You just fainted! I'm trying to revive you."

  With some difficulty Kerry focused on his face. He looked... harried, that was the word. "In the kitchen, maybe." Max straightened and headed out of the room, his limp pronounced.

  Kerry shut her eyes. She could hear cabinet doors slamming. Evidently Max was having a hard time finding any booze. This pleased her for some reason, and a smile curved her lips. But as the fuzz
iness in her mind subsided, the smile died. She'd been making the tea... they'd been talking about Caldicott.

  He'd found that piece of paper. Kerry shuddered. The writing was Caldicott's, no doubt about that. The paper was something she'd never seen before. Where could it have come from?

  Max came back into the room, bottle in one hand, teacup in the other. "Drink this." He held out the cup.

  Her nose wrinkled at the fumes as she took it. She considered the cup with suspicion. "What is it?"

  "Slivovitz." Max looked impatient at her grimace of distaste. "Don't blame me, it's all I could find. If you hate it so much, why do you have the stuff?"

  "It's not mine. Somebody left it behind."

  "In any event, drink it down." When she didn't immediately comply, he growled, "Drink it!"

  "Okay. Jeez." Kerry put the cup to her mouth and tossed back the clear liquid. It burned all the way down her throat, and heat radiated through her chest. She coughed miserably.

  The lines across Max's brow eased as she sat up straighter. "That appears to have done the trick."

  Kerry shuddered at kick of the alcohol. "Ugh, it's awful. What's it made of, lighter fluid?"

  "Plums." Max removed the cup from her grasp and set it onto the coffee table. He sat down, turning toward her. "Now that you're back amongst the living, I want to know what just occurred."

  Kerry slumped back into the sofa cushion, closing her eyes again at the stern note in his voice. "Why do you always sound like you're wearing a three-piece suit?"

  "I beg your pardon."

  Wincing at the umbrage in his voice, Kerry sighed. "Never mind. As to what just occurred, I am damned if I know."

  He searched her face, clearly unsettled. "Do you mean you don't remember, or—"

  "I remember." Kerry leaned forward, resting her head in her hands. "I mean I don't know what happened. I don't know where that paper came from." She turned toward him. "I don't know how in the world that scrap of paper got into the book—your book. Is that clear enough for you?"

  Max scowled. "That doesn't make any sense."

  "Ya think?" Kerry sighed. "I don't even know where to start to make sense of this. It's like I told you, I've been beating my brains out trying to find anything I could about Caldicott's personal life." She waved a hand in a defeated gesture. "Brick walls, Max, nothing but brick walls. And today, out of a book I'd been reading as recently as yesterday comes a page torn out of something else, and it has Caldicott's handwriting on it." She shook her head helplessly. "It beats the hell out of me, Max. No kidding."

  "Well." Max sat for a moment, and she wondered what he was thinking. He reached for the bottle of slivovitz, and carefully refilled the teacup. He set the bottle on the table and swallowed the contents of the cup all in one go.

  Kerry was obscurely pleased at his convulsive gasp.

  "Bollocks," he croaked when he was able to speak. "That's gruesome."

  Kerry nodded morosely. "Yeah."

  * * *

  The scent of pine teased Brenna's nose. The sluggish afternoon air had been pushed east by the twilight breeze sliding among the trees, rustling through the brush along the trail. Day's end edged the hills above her, casting tree-shadow fingers pulling the hillside toward the deepening gloom. She snapped a shot, hoping she'd get at least a suggestion of the effect, wishing for her sixteen-millimeter camera with its wider lens. That's what I get for using the digital to scout the lay of the land. The flash on her camera blinked, the light disappearing into the dusk.

  She turned back toward Wisdom Court. She'd already spent a couple of hours with her own thoughts after the fiasco at Images and Dreams. If she went to the communal dinner, she'd have to talk to the others, and making chitchat would be more work than it was worth.

  The longer she thought about seeing stars swirling in the ocean waves in her film, the more ridiculous it became. God, she'd sounded like an idiot telling whatshisname about it. She was lucky he hadn't called the nearest mental health center.

  Brenna realized she was panting for breath, and stopped at the edge of Baseline Road to rest. A slab of granite roughened with lichen caught her eye, and she snapped several shots. Up close the scalloped edges of the gray-green growth resembled an alien forest, and she considered using it as a special effect. A shrill bird cry split the air and when her gaze swung upward, she could see a hawk on the hunt for its evening meal.

  Dink had asked her what she was smoking when she told him about the altered film. He knew she hadn't touched weed since before her grandmother died. But the whole thing did sound like either a bad dream or a bad trip. Gyrating stars, for God's sake—those would've been weird enough all by themselves. But then she'd gone and added the mystery of the mythical fortune cookie. Her cheeks burned. Talking about it out loud only made her look stupid. Irritably she took several shots of a stand of pines crowding the edge of Gregory Creek.

  Brenna heard footsteps behind her, along with heavy breathing. She turned sharply as a runner pounded past her, his flashlight shooting a cone of brightness over the trail. She watched the light bounce along as he thundered into the shadows ahead of her. It was getting dark faster than she'd realized. Hikers chatting on the way down from the upper paths greeted her as they passed her on the road beside the creek. The breeze had picked up, and the cooling edge of it brought out goose bumps on her arms. Dying grasses on the hillside waved slowly in reminder that winter would arrive before long. Out across the valley she could see the lights of Boulder flickering like fireflies.

  By the time she reached the Wisdom Court boundary, Brenna was shivering. She sidled through the break in the hedge around the yard, her footsteps silent on the grass. Wood smoke drifted through fluttering aspen leaves, and the acrid scent reminded her of childhood campfires and ghost stories whispered in defiance of surrounding darkness. She paused to aim the camera at the main house. It might already be too dark to pick up much, but she hadn't taken any shots of the back of the house. She walked across the yard, pausing again to take an angled shot of the attic window high above her.

  She glanced over her shoulder, pinpricks of awareness tingling between her shoulder blades. Something was in the dark with her. She increased her pace, her eyes straining to see the lawn's surface, on the alert for any obstacles.

  She was nearly running when she rounded the side of the house. The electric lanterns above the doors of the two associate houses, as well as the yard lights along the fountain at the center of the circular driveway, illuminated the cobblestone expanse. The murmur of the water and the thud of her shoes against the bricks were the only sounds.

  Swiftly Brenna leapt up the steps to her building, key in hand. Moments later she was jerking open the door to her flat, slipping inside, turning the latch. The reach for the light switch was instinctive. In the silent living room she heard her rapid breathing and felt the pounding of her heart. What had just happened? She was frightened, but of what? She'd seen no one, had heard nothing threatening.

  Brenna went to the sofa and settled onto it. As she put her camera onto the coffee table, it rattled against the glass top, and she saw her hands were trembling. Had it been a panic attack or had she'd picked up on something wrong?

  Slowly her breathing evened and she stopped shaking. Pushing herself off the sofa, she went to the kitchen. When she faced the bank of uncovered windows, she stopped in the doorway. Dammit, stop acting like a scared kid! She hurried to the cabinet over the counter and yanked a glass off the shelf. Tugging at the cork, she tilted the Bailey's bottle over the glass, knocking it against the rim only twice before the glass was full. Turning her back on the blank panes, she snatched up the bottle. When she reached the living room, her hands were trembling again. She gulped a healthy swig of the liqueur.

  Brenna set down the glass and bottle, then sank onto the couch, snagging the green plaid throw from the arm, wrapping it around her shoulders. She didn't have to think about it right now. Probably be better if she didn't. Too much weird shit going
on. She fumbled for the camera, nearly knocking it off the coffee table before she curled her fingers around it. She'd gotten some shots—enough to warrant going back with the sixteen-millimeter. The lighting would be a bitch to get right, but it'd be worth it to try.

  Flicking the switch to run back through the photos she'd taken, she reached again for the glass. Sipping the creamy liqueur, she saw a decent snap of the lichen on the rock, and a stand of pine saplings that wasn't too bad. She'd caught the look of interdependence in the way the spindly young trees leaned against each other, as if too many strong winds had come their way.

  When she came to the image of the finger-shadows extending down the hill, Brenna sighed. No way could the small lens capture the impression of claws, but she'd hoped for more than she'd gotten. The dark areas dominated the square screen, with the trees themselves showing up as only lighter vertical shapes. The flash had illuminated the nearest trunks, but that served to focus on the pines rather than the shadows. How would she manage the contrast?

  She moved on to the shots of the house. Her gaze sharpened. A whitish shape was under the roofline, near the attic window. Brenna gently rubbed against the screen with a corner of the throw, but she couldn't make out what it was. No way to tell without more detail. She levered herself off the sofa and headed for the studio and her laptop.

  Downloading the snapshots onto the hard drive, Brenna sipped more of the liqueur. She was feeling better. Nothing like a little alcohol to even out the bumps. Bumps in the night, no, things that go bump in the night.

  Glancing down at the laptop screen, Brenna saw the download had been completed. She clicked through the shots, stopping at the series she'd taken of Wisdom Court. Another click enlarged them, and she bent over the first shot to check for the anomaly. There it was. She jerked back in shock, and the glass slipped out of her hand onto the rug. "Holy shit."