Unhappy Medium (10 page)

“But … surely this isn’t … I’m not in the Summerland, am I?”

I shook my head.

“You haven’t crossed over, Madame Serena. Something is connecting you to the Mountain House. And I think I may know what it
is.”

Madame Serena looked at me eagerly.

“Oh speak to me, Simple Cat,” she said.

I grinned.

“You came to the Mountain House and lived in this room,” I said. “You had been holding séances here for months when Maggie
Fox made her public confession that all of Spiritualism was a fraud.”

Her face darkened.

“Dreadful day,” she said. “Loathsome woman. How could she have done it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But not too long afterwards, people stopped coming to see you. They didn’t believe anymore.”

“They called me a hoax monger and a deceiver,” Madame Serena said, her voice wavering. “You see all, Simple Cat, so I know
that you see the truth about me. During all my séances at the Mountain House, I have never successfully made full contact
with the spirit world. But I never pretended to — I never lied! Never rigged tricks like that dreadful Madame Diss De Barr
and her loathsome deceptions. I only persevered because I came so close — because I truly believed that I could contact the
spirit world, under the right conditions.”

“I know you aren’t a liar,” I told Madame Serena. And I was secretly relieved to learn that she wasn’t a fraud. I had grown
to like Madame Serena very much.

“In the end, only the Colonel’s wife stood by me,” Madame Serena said forlornly. “Poor creature — losing Loretta almost destroyed
her. She needed me. And I would not have led her on, Simple Cat, but that we came so close so many times to succeeding. The
door would begin to open — I would sense that Loretta was approaching. But always, Simple Cat, always something happened that
caused Loretta to flee.”

“What would happen?” I asked.

An expression of fear crossed Madame Serena’s face. She leaned closer to me. I could feel the energy coming off her — like
a field of static electricity that made my hair stand on end.

“I hardly know how to tell you,” she whispered. “But it always came the same way. I would begin to sense Loretta, then the
darkness would roll in, like a storm cloud. Like a thunderhead.”

A black cloud.

“Could you see this thing?” I asked her.

Madame Serena nodded.

“Somewhat,” she said. “It was as if an area of darkness was moving through the room. It had a powerful sense of evil about
it, Simple Cat. So much so that each time I felt compelled to cut off contact and end the séance immediately.”

Just hearing Madame Serena describe the thing gave me the chills. I recalled all too vividly the sensation of being pushed
roughly toward the window. My heart began to race, and my palms grew cold and damp.

I realized all at once that it was no mere memory causing the shivers running up my spine. It knew, somehow. It had heard.

The black cloud was coming.

The black cloud was here.

“Away!” I heard Madame Serena shout. “Simple Cat, protect yourself! Close the portal!”

“I don’t know anything about a portal — I didn’t do anything!” I cried.

Everything seemed to happen in a blur. Something was coming into focus by the foot of the bed, an inky entity that buzzed
like a swarm of flies and seemed to suck the light and the life right out of the room. And just as it had happened in the
hall last night — during what I now realized was not a dream — I became paralyzed.

I couldn’t move a muscle. I understood perfectly well that I was in terrible danger, that when Madame Serena told me to protect
myself she meant it quite literally. But I couldn’t move a muscle. There wasn’t a thing I could do to help myself.

Then Madame Serena was moving past me — I had no idea a woman of that age and size could move so fast even in spirit form
— and she seemed to be throwing herself between me and the black cloud.

Though it was shapeless and eyeless, it had intelligence, and it had understanding. Right now, on the bed where I was sitting
frozen like an icicle, the thing could see me. And it didn’t like me.

It didn’t like me at all.

When Madame Serena put herself between me and the thing, the spell of paralysis was broken. Somehow I got myself out of the
room and into the hallway. My mind was reeling. So much was happening at once.

Madame Serena had seen the black cloud.

The black cloud had seen me.

Madame Serena had provided the power to help me break free.

I ran down the hallway, down five flights of stairs, and through the lobby, never stopping to catch my breath. I didn’t so
much as slow down until I came to a door leading to one of the many small covered porches on the first floor.

Somehow being outdoors, even if I was only ten feet from the door, made me feel safer. I sat down heavily in a chair, gasping
for breath. Thought after thought raced through my brain.

I had to keep calm and figure out what was happening. I couldn’t deal with the situation or protect myself until I understood
it better. After I caught my breath, and my heart rate slowed, I tried to go over the puzzle pieces in my mind, and to fit
them together one by one.

The black cloud could attack living people. No, not all living people. Living people who could see it or sense it. Somehow,
the black cloud must operate on sensitive humans like water did in a tiny chink in a dam. A little would get in, then a little
more, until the way in was blasted wide open. That was it.

Madame Serena had lived in room 505.

A woman had been murdered in room 504.

Think,
I told myself.

I was a medium. Madame Serena was one, too. She believed she had failed as a medium, but in reality I knew that wasn’t true.
She had seen the black cloud. It had somehow interfered with her attempts to contact Loretta. So, Madame Serena was the real
deal after all.

She’ll be so happy when I tell her,
I thought.

So the three of us — me, Madame Serena, and the murdered woman in room 504 — had a common link. I knew what I had in common
with Madame Serena: we were both sensitive to the spirit world. How did that relate to the woman in room 504? The black cloud
couldn’t kill a person.

Could it?

I couldn’t think this out, and I didn’t have enough experience to get any further. I needed help.

I pulled out my cell phone. I only had one bar of reception. And only two bars of battery power. Hopefully that was enough.
I dialed my home number.

No answer. My mom wasn’t home, or she was in a session. And she didn’t have a cell phone.

But I needed help
now.
I’d gotten away from the black cloud twice. Who knew if I’d be so lucky the next time it came for me? And I couldn’t stay
outside all day.

I pulled up the contacts list on my phone menu, and found Orin’s number. I selected it and hit send, taking a deep breath
and hoping this wouldn’t be too weird for him.

Orin was an old friend of my mom’s who’d recently come back into her life. He was a healer and really smart about supernatural
stuff. He was also pretty cute.

Orin had been really helpful to me when I’d started suffering spirit-induced panic attacks in the spring. Since I’d come into
my spirit sight, I’d attracted quite a following of ghosts who wanted my attention. When I realized I had a virtual village
of spooks surrounding me at all times, I freaked out. But Orin had been able to teach me how to create a private space of
energy around me that they couldn’t penetrate.

Maybe he’d have some insight into the black cloud.

“Hello?”

“I’m really sorry to bother you,” I said, without identifying myself.

“Kat?” Orin asked.

“I can call back later if you’re busy.”

“I’m not busy. Is everything okay? Are you still with Jac? Did something happen?”

It was kind of nice that he sounded so concerned. I found it a little comforting. Especially given the fact that Jac and I
had a huge fight, and were probably not speaking to each other.

“I’m still at the Mountain House, yeah. I just — I need some advice, Orin, and I can’t get hold of my mom.”

“What’s up?” he asked.

I told him, as concisely as I could, about the black cloud. When I finished, there was a long silence on the phone.

“Orin?” I asked. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here, Kat,” he said. “I’m just processing what you’ve told me. I think you need to be very, very careful.”

That much I had already worked out, thank you.

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

“I’m guessing, because I haven’t seen it. But there are other types of entities than ghosts, Kat. Things that have never been
human. Some of them are light beings that have a relationship with humans in order to help them. Some people call them angels,
or guides.”

“Right,” I said.

“But some of them are dark. They look for vulnerable people, or people who give them some kind of opening, so they can get
in.”

“Get in and do what?” I asked.

“Leech on to an individual. Steal energy. Maybe even take over the person, turn them to their purposes.”

“Orin, what are you saying? What is this thing?”

“I think based on what you’ve told me, it could be some kind of negative entity.”

“Like a demon?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“That’s just a word, Kat,” Orin said. “Not everyone would call it that. I don’t even know if I believe in demons. This is
a negative entity of some kind. It’s not your friend. It’s not something that has ever been human. An entity like this can
go after a person in two ways. If the person is weak for some reason, the entity could gradually take control of a portion
of their personality. It could encourage that person to behave violently. Everyone has free will, mind you. But if the entity
could find someone weak — someone who didn’t need too much of a push to become a violent person — it would try to take advantage
of that person. Take control.”

“You mean possession, don’t you,” I said, the very word sending a chill up my spine. “You’re talking about an entity that
can posses a person.”

“Possibly. There’s no black or white, here, Kat. A person couldn’t just be taken over completely against his or her will.
The violent impulses have to be there already. But in a subtle way, yes. I’m guessing this is the kind of entity that could
have a powerfully persuasive force on a vulnerable human being.”

“So the woman in the room wasn’t murdered by the black cloud.”

“Not directly, no. She was probably with someone else. Someone who was already unstable, and the entity knew it and brought
it under its control. Urged it to harm her. That would be one way for it to feed.”

I swallowed. “What would the other way for the entity to feed be?”

“The other way would be through someone who is psychically open to the spirit world,” Orin said very quietly.

“A medium,” I said. “Me.”

“There was a pretty famous case once … this reminds me of it. An entity based in the top floor of a house in Connecticut.
These things don’t seem to travel — they’re specific to a certain location, and they have to take what comes. And they tend
to stay exactly where their last host left them. An entity could wait for centuries for a vulnerable human to cross its path.”

“But in a hotel …”

“A much bigger selection, yes,” Orin said. “This thing in the Connecticut house, it had been thought by some to be responsible
for the previous owner’s madness. The man had always been unpleasant, but one night he went over the edge. The next owner
of the house, a lady who turned out to be very slightly sensitive psychically — just felt there was something wrong with the
bedroom. She felt sick when she was there — she got headaches and felt on edge.”

Like Jac’s mom,
I thought. Which meant she was slightly psychic too. And she didn’t even know it.

“So she called in a medium — I know the guy, actually. He could sense the entity, and the thing knew it. It went straight
at him in a full-out attack. Because he had opened himself to receive spirit energy, the thing was able to jump right into
him. Tried to get him to throw himself down a staircase.”

I had a chilling memory of the black cloud pushing me toward the window. I told Orin about it.

“So did that really happen to me, or did I dream it?” I asked.

“Both, I think,” Orin said. “You were already in tune with the thing, and sensing it in your sleep. Human spirits can leave
their bodies during sleep — it’s very natural — most of us do it all the time and never know it. You would have been incredibly
vulnerable to it, Kat, if you were in that state, out of your body on the astral plane, and it came at you.”

“But it didn’t get me. I used the energy blocks you taught me, and somehow I got away,” I said, my voice wavering.

I wanted Orin to tell me that I was safe now. That I had proved my power — that I wasn’t in danger.

“Kat, this thing has seen you, and come at you. It’s got you in its sights now. Because of your psychic abilities, you’re
directly vulnerable to it, and I’m not certain you have the full power to protect yourself every time it attacks. I’m not
sure any living person does. And I do believe it will be back.”

“What about someone who
isn’t
living?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

I told him about Madame Serena.

“She threw herself at it and suddenly I could move again,” I told him. “That’s how I got away the second time.”

“Interesting,” Orin said. “Here’s the thing. An entity like this feeds by manipulating a living human — through their body.
Madame Serena is no longer living. So she can sense the thing and fight it, and it isn’t as good fighting her off, because
she doesn’t have a physical form to manipulate.”

“So she can protect me.”

“She did once. Who can say if she can do it again? It sounds like it comes after you, not her. What if she isn’t around the
next time? Kat, I’m very concerned. I think we have to get ahold of your mother. I don’t want you to take this on alone.”