Lisa’s skin began to prickle. Looking at Brian intently she said softly, almost angrily, “What do you mean?”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me! I’m just telling you what people say. I don’t know if the place is really haunted. But it does have that reputation.” He paused, then added, “You mean you really didn’t know?”
“No.” Lisa glanced at the house. “But I could have guessed.”
She wondered briefly why her grandmother hadn’t said anything, then realized at once that the answer was simple: Dr. Alice Miles was far too scientific to believe in ghosts.
“Reality may be weirder than you think, Gramma,” she muttered.
“What did you say?” asked Brian.
Lisa blushed. “Nothing.” She turned to him. “Do you still want to come in?”
“Sure. It’s only quarter of eleven. I’ve got plenty of time before I turn into a pumpkin. Besides, we can’t very well have a seance in the car.”
Lisa forced a small laugh. She was sorry now that she had raised the idea of a seance. There was no sense in stirring things up any further. But now she couldn’t think of a way out, at least not without looking totally dweebish.
A shot rang out as they entered the kitchen.
“Carrie!” yelled Lisa automatically. “Turn down the TV!”
Instantly Carrie’s face appeared around the edge of the door. “You’re back!”
“No, we’re still someplace else. This is just a mirage.”
“Hey, give her a break,” said Brian gently. “Hi, Carrie. How are you?”
Carrie shrugged. “Okay, I guess. It’s been kind of dead around here. Gramma went to bed a half hour ago, and this television program is so stupid I could puke. I wish this place got cable.”
“Why don’t you just turn it off and read a book?” suggested Lisa.
Carrie stuck a finger in her mouth and made a gagging gesture.
Lisa turned to Brian. “See what I have to live with?”
He smiled. “I have four younger sisters.”
“Oh, you poor boy!” cried Lisa. “Here, have a seat. You need to conserve your energy.”
Brian laughed and took a place at the kitchen table. “We’re going to have a seance, Carrie. Do you want to join us?”
Carrie looked at Lisa nervously. “What are you going to do that for?”
Brian shrugged. “Lisa was telling me you had some luck with it yesterday. I just want to see how you do it.”
Carrie hesitated, and Lisa almost suggested they forget it. But she was afraid she’d never see Brian again if she did.
“Sure,” said Carrie at last. “I’ll get the stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Oh, paper and pencils,” said Lisa, as Carrie left the room. “Can’t do automatic writing without them, you know.”
“Here we go,” said Carrie trotting back into the kitchen a moment later. She carried a pad of paper, a handful of pencils, and a candle in a holder. “I figured we could use this when we dim the lights,” she said, lifting the candle.
Lisa looked at her little sister with respect. Whatever fear she had felt she had overcome pretty quickly.
“So what do we do?” asked Brian.
“First light the candle,” said Carrie, taking charge. “Then we’ll take our places around the table.” She was standing by the door, waiting to hit the light switch. As soon as Brian had lit the candle, she darkened the room. “Now, you have to be very serious,” she said as she returned and took a seat. “Otherwise it won’t work.”
Brian gave Lisa a wink. He was obviously enjoying Carrie’s businesslike manner.
“All right, who wants to go first?” Carrie asked.
“I do,” said Brian. “I’m not sure I trust the two of you not to pull some stunt on me. Maybe tell one of those ‘socially necessary little whites.’” He smiled at Lisa, and she felt her cheeks flush.
“Okay,” said Carrie. “Here, put this in front of you.” She handed him the pad. “Now, pick up the pencil and hold it as if you were ready to write. Then just relax.”
Brian did as Carrie instructed. He kept a perfectly straight face, but there was a merry twinkle in his eye. Lisa found it very attractive, even in these uncomfortable circumstances.
“Now, you have to close your eyes,” said Carrie. “Lisa and I are going to hold hands. Then each of us will put a hand on your elbow to complete the circle. All right?”
Brian nodded.
Lisa looked at Carrie across the table. The flickering candle made the shadows on her childish face shift and change. Her eyes were shining with excitement.
Lisa glanced around the kitchen. With nothing but candlelight to break the gloom, it suddenly seemed very spooky. She told herself it was simply because the place was so old-fashioned. The cupboard, the big stove, the door to the cellar—each of them was out of date enough to create a feeling of age that she found unnerving in this situation.
“Close your eyes,” said Carrie. “Concentrate!”
Lisa did as she was directed, giving Brian’s elbow a little squeeze.
Carrie began to speak. “O spirits from the other side, if there are any here who wish to communicate with us, now is the time. Give us your message!”
Lisa was impressed. As near as she could remember, those were the exact words her grandmother had used.
They sat in silence for a moment. Suddenly Lisa felt a cold draft on her neck. She shivered and tightened her hand on Brian’s elbow.
Now she began to hear something. It started so softly she was hardly aware it was there. Slowly it grew more distinct. It was the voice of a woman, weeping quietly, yet sounding as if her heart would break.
Lisa opened her eyes and looked around. The voice seemed to come from somewhere above them. Carrie’s eyes were pinched shut. Brian’s face showed nothing but intense concentration.
Couldn’t they hear it?
“Carrie!” she whispered.
“Shhh!”
Lisa shuddered. They didn’t; they didn’t hear it at all.
And it was still getting louder!
Suddenly the cupboard door behind her swung open, then slammed shut. With a yowl, Smokey dashed out of the room. Carrie’s eyes flew open. She was about to say something when the table lurched and Brian’s hand began to move across the paper.
The candle flickered wildly, and the cupboard doors began to slam. Starting at the far end of the wall and moving down the length of the kitchen, each of them flew open and then banged shut.
Lisa gasped. The candlestick had started to float! Heart pounding, she watched it rise until it was hovering about a foot above the table.
She became aware of Brian’s hand, scratching across the paper. She looked at the pad, trying to read the words, and choked back a cry of fright. On the first line was a series of exclamation points. Printed in bold letters on the next line was a single word: DANGER!
As she watched, Brian printed the word again. DANGER! Then he added: LEAVE THIS PLACE AT ONCE!
Behind Lisa the last cupboard door was slamming back and forth. Suddenly the flame on the candle shot up, roaring to several times its normal height, almost like a blowtorch. The voice of the sobbing woman changed, the sorrow replaced by anger. As the woman let out a horrible scream of rage, Lisa pulled back from the table, breaking her contact with Brian and Carrie.
The flapping cupboard door slammed shut so hard it rattled all the dishes on the shelves. The candle flew across the room and smashed against the wall above the kitchen sink, spattering wax in all directions. The pencil in Brian’s hand burst apart, disintegrating in a fury of splinters.
Brian’s eyes flew open. He looked at Carrie and Lisa as if he were on the verge of a heart attack. In a voice that sounded like rustling cornhusks, he whispered, “What in God’s name is going on here?”
The same words were shouted almost simultaneously by an older, sharper voice. Dr. Miles came rushing into the room, her robe flapping, her long white hair flying behind her. For a moment Lisa thought her grandmother looked like a ghost herself.
Brian clearly thought so too. He started back from the table, then relaxed just a hair as he realized who it was.
“We were doing automatic writing, Gramma,” said Carrie, her voice soft, scared.
Dr. Miles’s eyes widened, and she was clearly furious. Turning to Brian, she said—quite politely but in a voice sharp as a knife’s edge, “I think you had better pick yourself up and head for home.”
That made Lisa feel awful; Brian was so clearly shaken up that it didn’t seem fair to send him out into the night all alone.
Dr. Miles seemed to sense the same thing, for she immediately relented and asked him to stay for a little while. “You can help us clean the place up,” she said tartly. “Which I would like to have done before Lisa and Carrie’s parents get home.”
There wasn’t that much to clean up, really. Two or three dishes had slipped out of the cupboards and shattered on the floor. There were splinters from the pencil, and wax where the candle had struck the wall. The wax was the only real problem. It had left grease spots on the wallpaper that wouldn’t come out, no matter what they did.
“Leave it,” said Dr. Miles finally. “Sit down. I want to talk to you. All three of you.”
When they had gathered at the table, Dr. Miles glanced up at the wax stain and said, “It almost blends into the wallpaper anyway. One of the virtues of having a busy pattern.”
Lisa felt the tension ease a little. But if her grandmother was less angry, she was no less serious. “I’m not going to say this again,” she said sternly. “So pay attention. What you did tonight was foolish. I would be angrier, but it’s my own fault this all began. I doubt I have ever done anything more mindless than teaching you girls about automatic writing yesterday. But I was desperate for something to distract you, and I didn’t really think things out.”
She paused, and looked each of them in the eye. “You’re young. You may not want to be reminded of that fact, but it’s true—sometimes painfully so, to someone of my age. Now, automatic writing can be fun. But it can also be dangerous, especially for young people. Poltergeist activity like you saw here tonight, rare as it is, usually occurs in households where there are teenagers. Your minds are still developing. The subconscious is in chaos. Automatic writing is a way to tap that subconscious. But it’s uncontrolled.”
She stared at Lisa. Lowering her voice, she said intensely, almost urgently, “The mind has powers we don’t yet understand. You can do yourselves great damage. Please, use some common sense. Let’s not stir anything up again. All right?”
They all nodded their assent.
Dr. Miles smiled. “Good. Now, I’d just as soon your parents didn’t know about this. So if you’re willing, we’ll keep it to ourselves for the time being.”
Lisa blinked in surprise. It wasn’t usual, at least in her experience, for grown-ups to hide things from one another. But she respected her grandmother, and was willing to do as she asked, despite how odd it seemed.
A few minutes later Brian got up to go. He still looked somewhat shaky, and Dr. Miles wouldn’t let him leave until he had assured her that he felt solid enough to drive home.
Lisa wondered if she would ever see him again.
Lisa opened her eyes. The bedroom was dark. It was still the middle of the night.
What had woken her?
She lay still, listening, then shivered. It was that woman. She was crying again.
Where was her voice coming from?
Lisa glanced over at Carrie, who was sleeping peacefully next to her. No point in waking her.
Lisa lay still, listening, and thinking. She wanted to go back to sleep herself. But she couldn’t, not with that woman’s sorrow penetrating her the way it did.
Finally she slipped from between the sheets. Trying not to wake Carrie, she groped in the dark for her robe and slippers. She had a book of matches in her robe pocket, for the candle that rested on the table next to the bed. (One of the quaint touches her mother had added to the house.) She lit the candle and watched it sputter for a moment before settling into a clear, steady flame.
“All right,” she whispered. “Let’s see if we can find out what’s bothering you—whoever you are.”
She crept into the hallway. Holding her robe closed with one hand, she lifted the candle with the other, so that it cast its light in a wider circle. She looked in both directions. Nothing in the hallway.
She was frightened, of course. But it was not an overwhelming fear. And the fact that she was going to look for the voice gave her a sense of control that made her feel safer.
She tiptoed along the passage, the thick carpet almost completely muffling the sound of her movements. She stopped at the other two bedrooms, listening intently for the crying. It did not come from behind either of those doors. Not that she had expected it to. But she had figured she should make sure.
Several times she considered turning back. But the crying was so haunting, so compelling, that she couldn’t. It was clear that something was desperately wrong. Lisa felt the woman’s sorrow, felt a great compassion for the pain that caused her to weep so deeply. Somehow she had to help.
She had always been that way. When she was only three she had been notorious for carrying caterpillars away from busy streets and chasing cats away from bird feeders. Her father often referred to her as “the bleeding heart of the Burton family.” He said it jokingly, but she knew he took a certain amount of pride in her compassion. It was that compassion that drove her on now, in the face of fear, along the empty hallway in search of the sobbing woman.
When Lisa reached the end of the hall she stopped at the stairway that led to the first floor. Holding the candle before her she stood motionless, trying to see what was down the stairs. It was no use. Yet it seemed the the sobbing was definitely louder in that direction.
Lisa tiptoed down the stairs, trying to move as quietly as a spirit herself. The candle shook in her trembling hand.
The woman was on the couch in the living room. She had flung herself down so that her face was buried in the cushions. Her shoulders were shaking.
Lisa could see the couch right through the woman’s body.
Hesitantly, she took another step forward.
The sobbing stopped, as if the woman had become aware of Lisa’s presence. For a moment she remained perfectly still.
Then she turned and looked at Lisa.
It was the same woman who had walked through their bedroom door the night before. Her hand flew to her mouth, as if she was terrified at seeing Lisa. Without a word, she vanished.
Lisa stood for a moment. Then, feeling oddly disconsolate, as if the woman’s sorrow had transferred itself to her, she turned and trudged back up the stairs.