When Paul had reached her, Ena Mason agreed to come to the house, but not until the following weekend. Her clients kept her busy and there were bookings for months ahead. But Paul insisted and offered to double her usual fee.
“It isn’t the money,” Mrs. Mason said. “I have obligations to these people. They have been waiting a long time to see me, but I promise I will come on the first available day. You will have to be satisfied with that.”
Finally the weekend came and Ena Mason arrived promptly at eight p.m. as she had promised. Mrs. Mason was in her sixties, and she was of stately appearance, very poised and obviously in full control of her abilities. She arrived driven by her husband who left and promised to return promptly two hours later.
“Two hours!” Paul exclaimed. “Do you think you can finish this in two hours?”
“Yes, I can,” Mrs. Mason replied. “I have done this sort of thing before.”
With that she entered the house and began to walk around slowly, as if to take in the atmosphere first.
“Terrible, terrible,” she mumbled, more to herself than to her hosts. “This house has very bad vibrations—killings, death all over the place.”
“Yes, we know that,” Paul said, somewhat impatiently. “This is the DeFeo murder house, you know. It’s pretty famous.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Mason said. It was obvious she had not given it a thought or perhaps she didn’t even know about it. Paul would not accept the latter explanation. As far as he was concerned, everyone must know about the house, including Mrs. Mason. He was so obsessed with 112 Ocean Avenue and the treasure it might contain that he felt everyone must feel as he did. He didn’t realize that a busy medium such as Mrs. Mason couldn’t care less about one more haunted house. To her they were all part of her job.
Slowly she went up to the third floor, looking into every room, followed closely by Paul and Sybil. “The vibrations in the house, as I said, are very bad. Their presence is here, all over the place; people who have been killed and cannot find rest. We must release them.”
“Well, now,” Paul said and there was an edge to his voice, “that’s all well and good, but the real reason …”
“Shush,” Sybil said before he could go any further.
“Of course, we understand,” Sybil said to Mrs. Mason. “If there are any unhappy souls hanging on in this atmosphere, by all means, let us release them.”
More and more Paul’s insistence on finding the treasure did not sit well with her. Sybil was no longer skeptical about the occult. She felt sorry for the spirits who had remained behind in the atmosphere of their passing; she felt the suffering and the terrible feeling of being lost between two worlds which they brought with them, and it troubled her a great deal.
“Well, now,” Mrs. Mason said, “let us sit down somewhere and begin.”
They went back to the ground floor, and in the living room Mrs. Mason took a comfortable easy chair near the fireplace, sat back in it, removed her shoes and closed her eyes. Paul and Sybil sat opposite her, waiting for what would happen next. They had never been to a seance. They had never been in the presence of a medium of the stature of Mrs. Mason and all this was quite new to them. But somehow they felt they were getting nearer to the solution of their quest and that there would be some movement at last towards the finding of the treasure. Perhaps they would also learn about other things they had not counted on, but which were part and parcel of the atmosphere in the house.
For the first time Sybil felt afraid. Paul, however, was so engrossed in the treasure hunt and what it meant to him, that nothing else mattered.
After several moments during which Mrs. Mason seemed to fall asleep, followed by heavy breathing, her body shook violently and she sat bolt upright. Her face was seemingly possessed by another personality, although her eyes remained closed. When she spoke, at first in a faint, trembling voice but gradually gaining in strength, it was in a man’s voice.
“This is my land. You are intruders. Go or I will kill you.”
“My God!” Sybil exclaimed, her hands reaching for her throat. “What is this?”
But of course Mrs. Mason could not answer them. She had left her body and allowed it to be taken over temporarily by an entity from the past. From the facial expression that now confronted Paul and Sybil it was clear that it was an Indian who was using the medium to communicate. Sybil remembered the research they had done about the area. Again the strange voice came from the lips of the entranced medium:
“Go while you can. This is my land. No one will stay here and live. No white man shall be on this land. This is my land.”
Paul could not contain himself any longer. Not having been prepared for this nor having had any training in how to act in such circumstances, he jumped up and said, “I must find the treasure. I must find it. That’s why I came here!”
The voice coming from the lips of the entranced medium was even more tremulous now, and there was a tinge of anger in it. “Treasure not yours. Whoever touches treasure shall die. Beware! You have been warned!”
But this only enraged Paul further. “Nonsense,” he shouted. “I have a right to find it. I have worked hard for it. That treasure is mine!”
Once again the Indian spoke through the medium. “Beware, white man, or you shall die.”
Suddenly Mrs. Mason fell back into the chair, almost collapsing. Paul jumped to his feet. “Don’t touch her,” Sybil said, remembering having read somewhere that you should not touch a medium while she is in trance. The two of them stood there waiting for Mrs. Mason to recover. After a moment of heavy breathing, she opened her eyes, seemingly unaware of what had transpired.
“Are you all right?” Sybil enquired, a little worried, because she had never witnessed anything like this.
“Of course I am all right,” the medium said tartly. She rose from the chair, stretching and yawning, as if she had just slept for many hours. Paul and Sybil were not aware that this was how a trance medium usually felt after a heavy session.
“This was really terrifying,” Sybil said. “I mean, the Indian and all that.”
“Indian?” the medium enquired. “What Indian?”
“You mean you don’t remember anything?” Paul asked incredulously.
“As a rule I don’t,” the medium replied, “because I am not really there. You see, when I go into a deep trance state, my true self, my personality, is absent from my body. It sort of lingers on in the immediate vicinity connected with the body by a thin rod of energy made of something parapsychologists call ectoplasm. You can’t see it, but it’s there just the same. If it were severed, I would die instantly.”
“I see,” Paul said. “While you are away, what happens to your body?”
“The whole point in deep trance mediumship,” Mrs. Mason explained patiently, realizing that she had a neophyte on her hands, “the whole point is that you lend your body, as it were, to an entity, to a spirit, who wishes to communicate through it with those in the flesh, such as you and your lady. There are very few of us deep trance mediums around because it is a very exacting, very tiring kind of work. Also, you really have to know your business and you have to learn to relax completely so that there is no interference with the entity wishing to come through. Of course there are times when it is undesirable because the entity is dangerous, disturbed, or otherwise not in a position to operate the body of the medium properly. There are always dangers involved, you understand. But since I have done this for some thirty odd years, I have learned to cope with any potential dangers or problems.”
“Then when you are outside your body, so to speak,” said Sybil, more and more engrossed in what she had heard, “how does the stranger, I mean the spirit, enter your body and speak through you?”
“That is pretty simple, really, if you look at it from their point of view,” the medium replied and sat down again. “It is as if they were putting on a shirt or a suit, slipping into the top of my head, where one of the principle solar plexus is located. The other one is in the stomach region. Once they are in the body, they will then operate it very much the same way a driver operates an automobile. Naturally it seems strange to them at first, and sometimes they have difficulties adjusting to my particular vibrations. But by and large spirits learn to adapt to the new surrounding, the new body, pretty well. Usually there is a guide present—a superior spirit who is in charge of the communication, and who helps if there are problems.”
“Pretty well arranged, isn’t it?” Paul said and smiled. “I really didn’t know any of this. I’ve read a little about parapsychology, but the way you present it, it sounds all so simple.”
“It’s far from that, young man,” Mrs. Mason said sternly. “It is much more complicated than I make it sound. It’s just that I am so used to it that to me it seems natural, which it is, and uncomplicated. But I wouldn’t suggest that anyone not properly trained should attempt to do what I do.”
“Not a chance,” Paul said and shook his head. “I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It looked pretty scary, what went on. Of course, you don’t remember any of it, do you?”
Mrs. Mason shook her head.
“Do you want me to tell you about it?” Paul said.
Again Mrs. Mason shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. As long as you remember everything that came through and draw your own conclusions from it.”
“I have,” Paul replied, becoming more businesslike about the whole thing now. “What do we do next?”
“Well, now,” Mrs. Mason said, “you are, I believe, looking for something in this house.”
“That is entirely correct. In fact it is an understatement,” Paul said.
“Has the entity who spoke through me been helpful at all?” Mrs. Mason enquired.
“Helpful? Far from it!” Paul shouted. “In fact, he threatened us if we didn’t leave this place.”
“That’s too bad,” Mrs. Mason replied, matter of factly, “but it sometimes happens, especially when Indians are involved …”
“Now what do we do to find what I am looking for? Is there any way that you could use ESP?” Paul asked.
“Indeed there is,” Mrs. Mason replied with a nod. “Apart from being a deep trance medium, I am also a very accurate clairvoyant.”
“How does that differ from what we just saw?” Sybil inquired.
“Well, when I do deep trance work, I am not really there, you understand. An entity uses my physical body to manifest itself: it speaks through me; it answers questions as if it were still in the physical world, although it’s no longer a part of it. When I awaken from such a state I usually do not remember anything that has come through me during the trance. In this situation the entity speaks for himself, or sometimes a guide personality, that is to say, someone who supervises the contact to make sure that the instrument-that-is-I is not hurt or misused, will explain things to the sitter-that-is-you. In clairvoyance, on the other hand, I am fully awake, as myself, and use my extrasensory faculties to learn things, either from the past or sometimes in the future or things that are hidden.”
“Hidden!” Paul exclaimed and jumped to his feet. “That is exactly it. Something is hidden in this place and I am trying to find it!”
Mrs. Mason seemed undisturbed. “Yes, I know,” she replied very calmly, while Paul felt a bit foolish, having been so emotional about it.
“What do you think is my chance of finding what I am looking for?” Paul said, sitting on the edge of his chair.
“Well, I think your chances are excellent, but we will have to do some work, won’t we?”
Both Paul and Sybil nodded.
“I am going to try to relax my body sufficiently to allow impressions to come through. This is not a trance, mind you, but simply a form of low-level research. We call it traveling clairvoyance and it can be effective in locating missing persons or missing things, anything like that. Do you understand?”
While Paul and Sybil watched breathlessly, Mrs. Mason leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and seemed to go into a light sleep. But her eyelashes indicated that her eyes were moving under the lids, and her breathing was regular, not as it had been prior to the onset of the trance before. Mrs. Mason was not asleep but was in a state somewhat deeper than normal wakefulness. After a few moments, which seemed painfully long to the couple, her lips began to move and she spoke in her own voice. At first she was hardly intelligible, but gradually her voice became stronger and inarticulate sounds were shaped into words.
“There is something hidden in the ground on this land,” Mrs. Mason began, “something terribly important and valuable.”
“Yes, yes,” Paul said and leaned forward in the seat.
Mrs. Mason paid him no attention, as she continued. “It appears that a long time ago something was put into the ground, something that belonged to a man who has left this earth, also a long time ago. I get a name like Peter, Peter, maybe Pedro. Yes, it’s the Spanish version of the name. He is connected with this. I feel there is a great deal of violence involved. Someone is being killed by another man. It’s terrible. It’s terrible! Of course this happened a long time ago. Somehow I feel there is a connection between this murder and what has been put into the ground. I can see it. It is a box—a rather large box, dark-colored. It is deep in the ground.” By now beads of sweat stood on Paul’s forehead; the excitement had gotten to him. Sybil, on the other hand, seemed unusually calm. She was more fascinated by Mrs. Mason and the work she was doing than by the prospect of finding the treasure at last.
“Where is it? Where is it? Where should I look?” Paul finally said, unable to contain himself any longer.
“In the ground, deep in the ground,” Mrs. Mason replied, her voice strong now, but her eyes still closed.
“But where in the ground? Where exactly should I look?” Paul said, trying to calm himself.
“Not far from the house,” Mrs. Mason replied, “not far from the house, deep in the ground. You will be able to locate it.”
“But why was I unable to find it? Why did my metal detector not work?” Paul asked; after all, he had searched everywhere with all the latest state-of-the-art equipment—he should have found anything which was there.
“You could not have found it,” Mrs. Mason said, “because you were using an instrument that would not show it.”
“What! There has to be metal there,” Paul replied, taken aback by this.
“Yes, there is metal,” the medium said. “There is a box of wood and inside there is lead—a leaden container of some sort. That is what I see, deep in the ground.”
Of course, Paul thought. How stupid of me! If there had been a lead container, the instrument would not have found it. To discover lead and other very dense metals in the ground, he would have needed a different kind of detector. So there was hope after all.
“But why lead? Why would anyone want to put a leaden box into the ground?”
“To keep vampires away,” Mrs. Mason replied without hesitation.
“Vampires?” Paul asked. “Are there such things as vampires?”
“No, there are not,” Mrs. Mason replied. “There was an ancient belief that there were such things as vampires, and those who had buried whatever is in the ground thought that there might have been vampires coming after it so they took all the necessary precautions that they knew about in their time. This is a long time ago, my friend.”
Vampires, indeed! Paul thought and smiled. Of course there were no such things, even though he had read in a local newspaper about a man who was going around holding himself out to be a “Vampirist,” giving fancy lectures about creatures that only existed in man’s imagination. But then a lot of people in this world follow their fancies and enjoy it, even though the creatures they talk about never existed.
“Will you lead me to this site?” Paul said eagerly, perhaps too eagerly.
“I will try,” Mrs. Mason replied, “I will try.”
But suddenly she opened her eyes and took a deep breath. “I am very tired,” she announced, and yawned. “This has been a lot for me. Perhaps we should continue another day.”
Paul, of course, was keenly disappointed, yet he knew that if the medium was too tired to carry on, the results might not be what he wanted them to be. He readily agreed to end the session for tonight and have Mrs. Mason come back the following night. He thanked her profusely for what she had done so far, and escorted her back to her car outside, where her husband had been waiting patiently for over an hour. He bade her good night and returned to the house.