The Face in the House

19

She bowed elegantly. Malcolm shuffled his feet, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Owen elbowed him in the arm and they both bowed to the girl awkwardly, legs twisting and bending in all the wrong places.

"Uh, I'm Owen," he heard his brother say. He quickly followed his lead.

"And I'm Malcolm."

Malcolm detected a smile on the girl's red lips, just for a moment, but it was gone so fast he couldn't be sure he ever saw it at all. With a sweep of her arm, she led them further inside the house.

The room was dark, lit only in warm, flickering candlelight. It was a small room, but decadently furnished with a large table, a floral loveseat and a scattering of odds and ends. The walls were lined with portraits of people with dead stares and slack mouths. Dead people, Malcolm thought.

He followed the ethereal girl to the table, where they all took a set.

"Have you brought your payment?" Theodora said.

Malcolm's faced burned. "Oh, of course. Hold on let me just . . ."

He produced a handful of cash from his pocket. The girl laid out a hand, palm up. As he laid the cash in her hand, he realized his hand was shaking. She scared the shit out of him, he realized. He wiped a speckle of sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

"Very well. Let us begin, shall we?" she said. "Let me start by asking you this, Malcolm and Owen . . ."

She looked in each of their eyes as she said their names. Malcolm's chest pounded at the sound of his name on her lips. It sounded like a curse.

"What feeling does this house bring you? What energy called to you as you stepped through the doorway?"

Her words trickled like honey through her lips, slow and smooth.

Malcolm gulped. He tried to think, to come up with an answer, but his mind was a spiral of thoughts.

"Darkness," Malcolm was surprised to hear his brother's voice, quiet, almost choked. "Darkness and . . . and warmth."

Owen shook his head. He seemed to regret having spoken at all.

Silence followed, a beat too long. Then, as if collecting her thoughts, Theodora smiled.

"Ah," she said, nodding to Owen. "You are intuitive."

"This house," she continued, her voice renewed with strength, "stands between worlds. The world as we know it, and the world of the dead."

Candlelight flickered, casting strange shadows over her face. Malcolm shivered. Something seemed to shift in the room. It could've been a draft, but it felt, unmistakably, like someone had just walked by.

She produced a small velvet pouch. She reached inside and spread a handful of white powder over the tabletop.

"As a medium, I am at my most powerful where the lines between this world and the next blur and twist. This is an ancient substance, known for its unique chemistry."

She touched the powder, pinched it between her thumb and fingertip.

"See how I can manipulate the substance with my physical form? Those on the other side can too. Tonight, we will use it to contact the spirit world, and the beings that reside there."

She smoothed the powder evenly across the table.

"Now, let us join hands. Take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Try to clear your mind. Focus on the sound of my voice."

Her hand felt startlingly cold in his. He reached across the table to take Owen's hand on his right. He tried to hone in on the strange girl's voice, to clear his racing mind, but all he could think about was how sweaty his palms were.

Malcolm watched as the girl closed her eyes and raised her face to the ceiling. Her breaths were deep and loud, her chest visibly rising and falling against the lace on her bodice. They watched her silently for what felt like too long. Malcolm realized he was bouncing his knee, bursting with energy. He felt the cold hand squeeze his, hard, his knuckles practically grinding together.

Then her grip loosened, her breathing slowed. She slowly brought her head down to face them once more. She opened her eyes and stared vacantly somewhere behind them. Through them.

"Spirits, join us at the table."

Malcolm's breath caught in his throat. Around him, the room came to life. Candlelight flickered, the floors creaked. A chill swept from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his skull. He couldn't shake the sensation that someone had entered the room and sat down on the empty chair beside him. When the chair creaked he started to stand, the urge to run overtaking his senses. The girl's ice cold grip tightened.

"Spirits, we welcome you. Thank you for joining us tonight."

Malcolm whipped his head around, looking for something, anything to explain the presence that had just filled the room. A whimper emitted from where Owen sat. Malcolm watched his brother's eyes go wide, his mouth drop open in horror. He followed Owen's gaze to the surface of the table. The white powder was . . . moving before his eyes. It was impossible, everyone's hands were clasped together, visible above the table.

He watched in horror, he couldn't look away. It was as if someone was drawing a message in the powder with the tip of their finger. One line, then two, then three . . . letters appeared on the table.

H E L L O

Malcolm wanted to scream as he watched the word appear out of nowhere. Theodora's grip remained a steel chain and Owen's warmer grip had become just as tight. He was stuck. There was nowhere to run.

"Who do you seek, Malcolm and Owen?"

Her glassy eyes never moved as she spoke. Her voice was quiet, just above a whisper, but it still held the same deep power.

Malcolm locked eyes with Owen. He looked wild, eyes red and bulging.

"Tell me a name and we will call to them."

Owen cleared his throat.

"We would like to call on William Allan," Owen said, his voice low, trembling.

Malcolm screamed as a dark figure appeared over the medium's shoulder. He pushed his chair back from the table with all his might, knocking over candlesticks and obscuring the message in the powder. He saw the figure only for a moment before it disappeared, but he had seen its face, had heard its voice.

"Who?" the word seemed to echo off the walls.

The girl stood, righting the fallen candlesticks. Her hands shook and Malcolm saw her brow was furrowed. She was surprised, Malcolm realized. This was not how things were supposed to go.

"Spirits!" she called, her voice faltering, the power it once held fell flat. "Leave us. Return to your world and we will return to ours!"

With that, she blew the remaining powder off the surface of the table. The room fell still. For once, the strange girl didn't seem to have a line. She'll have to go off-script, Malcolm thought.

"What was that?" Malcolm demanded. "How did you do that?"

"When you invite spirits into your home, you never know what they'll do," she said.

The answer wasn't good enough for him, but he didn't know what answers he needed, or what questions to ask. Half of him wanted to leave, to breath the cool night air, the drive away and never come back. The other half wanted to stay and stand in the darkness. He thought about Edward Poole, how he had stood in this very room centuries ago.

Owen looked deathly ill, Malcolm noticed. Even by warm candlelight, his brother's skin looked nearly blue. His eyes were dark, ringed with red. It was enough to pull Malcolm back to reality. He placed a hand on Owen's shoulder.

"Let's get out of here," he said, and they made their way to the door.