Saturday Night Séance

by S.J. Drew

lines. They moved underneath a clear, crystalline surface. The Collector had some sort of instrument in its hands that looked like it might be an astrolabe or a compass of the type used in geometry. It wrote something down on a piece of paper, put down the odd brass instrument, and picked up a crystal pendulum. The pendulum swung around wildly, and it made some more notes.

  Isabella quietly backed into the living room and examined the birdcages. She didn't have a lot of knowledge about birdcages, but the locks looked like what she expected. She wanted to try to talk to them to find out if she could and determine how easy the rescue would be, and she guessed the phoenix was probably Maryann, so she floated over to the raven and dove and finally settled on the dove, whom she guessed was Leah.

  "Leah," she whispered.

  The dove opened one beady eye and looked around as much as it could without turning its head.

  "Leah," she said again.

  The dove did look around, and reached through to the raven's cage and pecked at it.

  "Hey!" the raven said in Nora's voice.

  "Shush," Isabella said.

  The raven looked startled but lowered her voice. "Um, okay, mysterious voice."

  "It's me. I'm invisible."

  "Yes, clearly," the raven said dryly.

  "Seriously, Nora, it's Isabella! Tell me everything you can."

  "Oh! Okay, well, I can talk, and Maryann can, but Leah can't. I'm not sure why. That, I don't know, creature? Spirit? Child? Thing? Anyway, it's been in that room since we woke up. It came out once to tell us to be quiet, and then put Maryann to sleep or something. We took the hint."

  "Okay, then we'll move quickly. I'll get you two and then try to get Maryann. Hopefully I can wake her up quietly. Do you think there are alarms or anything on these?"

  "Well, we didn't see that thing set any kind of alarm, but you know more about magic than we do," Nora replied.

  Leah was flapping her wings irritably.

  "She'll explain more when we get out," Nora sighed.

  The dove looked annoyed but was still.

  "I'll get you out and then follow me."

  "You're invisible," Nora said, and Leah nodded vigorously.

  "Oh, right." She concentrated a moment and felt a tingle of heat, and then she could see herself.

  "Huh," Nora said. "I feel like I should know what you are. Anyway, better hurry since I don't know how long that thing will be busy."

  Without opposable thumbs the locks were not easy for Isabella to open, but the task wasn't impossible. She opened Nora's first and there was no sign of alarm, so she let Leah out. She turned invisible again to be less noticible as she went to Maryann's cage. She found to her irritation no amount of poking or prodding through the bars seemed to wake her up.

  "I can't use magic," she thought. "The collector will almost definitely notice." She unlocked the door and with a lot of trouble managed to pull Maryann's unconscious body onto her back. The phoenix form felt uncomfortably warm against her fur and flying was nearly impossible. She unsteadily flew back through the window with Nora and Leah following her and half-fell to the ground.

  "You know, I still hate heights," Nora said. "Now what? It's clear you can't carry her like this."

  Isabella turned visible again and performed another guidance spell to find the exit. Several leaves were kicked up by an unseen wind and floated around in a tight circle, waiting to be followed.

  "And how are we going to get back to normal?"

  "One thing at a time," she replied somewhat irritably. The phoenix body was too heavy and too awkward to carry, so she decided to risk some magic. "Be prepared to run."

  Leah looked at her feet and pumped her wings.

  "Of course she meant fly," Nora said. " Honestly."

  Isabella cast a dispell and Maryann abruptly woke up.

  "What's going on here?" she cried, trying to stand up but finding she had all the wrong body proportions and flailing uselessly instead.

  "You're a bird, Maryann," Isabella said firmly.

  "I-I, what?"

  Isabella's ears pricked up and she thought she heard a faint cry of surprise from the treehouse. "We need to go. Follow me."

  Maryann shook off the disorienting side-effect and took to the air, her wings and tail edged with fire, with Leah and Nora to the side.

  The forest suddenly grew dark and threatening. Isabella ran, then flew with the others, focused completely on the guiding leaves. She pulled out in front of the others knowing she'd have to open the door.

  "It's after us," Maryann said.

  "No kidding!" Nora retorted.

  Isabella saw the door as a ring of light in front of them. She performed a kuji-rin in mid-air and opened the door to their world. As soon as they crossed through, they reverted to their normal forms, which meant they crashed into a heap on top of each other. Isabella awkwardly cast a spell to close the door while the others extracted themselves from her back with much cursing.

  "I can talk again!" Leah said.

  "That's great," Nora replied dryly.

  "Well, I've seen some weird stuff with you guys, but I'd say that ranks at about a 9.5 out of 10. So, Isabella, you're Tails?"

  "I'm what?"

  "Did none of you ever get a hand-me-down Sega Genesis?"

  Suddenly, the collector appeared in front of them, looking just like it had in the spirit realm, only now they could see its eyes. It didn't have any eyes, or even bare eye sockets. Where its eyes should have been were portals to an infinite abyss. "Where do you think you're going?" it said in a high-pitched voice. "You go back into your cages. That's how it works." It sounded exactly like an irate young child.

  "No, we're not," Nora snapped.

  "Nora, please, let me," Isabella said, and stepped forward. The abyssal eye-holes were extremely disturbing. "I know what you are, and what you want. But you can't collect sentient beings."

  "Sure I can. Almost no one does it either, so I got lots to choose from."

  "Sentient beings don't want to be collected, and will fight back, and escape, like we just did."

  "Stupid fox thing," it said, crossing its arms. "Next time I'll just kill anyone who isn't what I need."

  "What?" Maryann blurted.

  Isabella held up her hand. "It doesn't matter. There will be fights and escapes and you'll be set back and maybe even have to start all over."

  "I already am," it said sullenly.

  That was a great relief to Isabella who had been worried if anyone else had been captured. "Can't you pick anything else?"

  "No!" it said, stamping its foot. "There are only so many things, and I have to collect something no one else has. I like animals because they keep me company, but I wanted to find something that wouldn't take forever and ever and ever, so I picked birds. But there are so many birds! So I picked bird-shaped souls. That seemed good. Yes, there would be lots, but not endless, and I'd have company."

  "But people are being born every single day," Leah interjected.

  The collector rolled its lack of eyes at her. "You don't understand how it works."

  "You don't either. Any sentient beings are going to be more trouble than almost anything else you could pick," Isabella said.

  It abruptly sat down on the grass and tears started to well out of its non-eyes. "But-but I have to collect something! Or I'll be empty forever and ever!" Then it started to cry.

  "Isabella, please be explaining quickly," Nora said in a low voice.

  "The collectors collect one thing and all of one thing to complete themselves, or so they believe."

  "Oh, it is empty," Maryann said. "That explains the, um, eyes, I guess. Or, lack of eyes."

  "Hey, kid," Leah said.

  "What?" it asked sullenly.

  "Do you have to collect something no one else ever has collected or just something no other collector has collected?"

  "No other collector," it answered. "You don't know anythin
g."

  "Wait, that's a good point," Isabella said. "There's a lot of stuff humans collect and maybe you could pick one of those things. And then you'd have people to talk to about your collection."

  "Humans collect things?" it asked, looking puzzled. "But you are not incomplete. Why would you do this?"

  "It's fun," Leah said.

  "This is not fun! This is my very existance!"

  "Um, well, why couldn't this be fun?" Maryann ventured. "I mean, this is your existance, so shouldn't you enjoy what you're doing?"

  It seemed to consider this a moment. "And you collect the same things as other humans?"

  "Sure. Sometimes anyway. And we'll talk to each other and help each other find things too."

  "You help each other?" It stopped crying. "We never help each other. We don't have time. We must complete ourselves."

  "Listen, how about this? How about we show you some other things you could start collecting that aren't sentient beings?" Isabella said.

  "Well, I guess," it said, "but if I don't like it, I'm going to put you back in cages, except for you, fox-thing."

  "Er, well, we'll deal with that when we have to."

  They spent a very strange afternoon with the collector showing it the things that sparked their interest. They got odd looks everywhere they went because they didn't have time to change out of costume, and the collector was also strangely dressed, although it seemed most people didn't notice its non-eyes. It was quite dark when they ran out of places to take the collector.

  "I have made a decision," it said.

  Leah had aleady grabbed the emergency kit from the van. Isabella and Maryann were mentally readying spells while Nora stood next to Leah ready to draw out a weapon from the kit.

  "I will not collect bird-shaped souls, or any sentient