Waiting Spirits (2 page)

“Perhaps we could take the girls to the movie over in Bridgeport,” suggested her grandmother.

“We've seen it,” said Lisa.

“Well, was it any good?”

“No.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Miles softly.

Lisa felt guilty again.

“Now listen, girls,” said Mrs. Burton sharply. “I know being stuck here in this weather hasn't been very pleasant. But it's not the end of the world. Nobody with any common sense and brains has any business being bored. There are all kinds of things you can do with your time. Read, write, draw—”

“For five straight days?” protested Carrie.

“All right. It
has
been a long time. We just have to make the best of it. Your father has waited six years for a chance to focus on this book. He's worked very had to take care of us during that time. Now it's time we turned around and showed him little consideration.”

Lisa felt worse than ever. “You're right, Mom. We'll try. But we really didn't mean to cause trouble. Honest. It just sort of happened.” Her mother's face softened. “I know, honey. And I know how bored you are. But it seems strange. Your grandmother spent quite a few summers here with no television or stereo, and she survived.”

“Well, what did you do, Gramma?” asked Lisa.

Dr. Miles looked surprised. “Oh, all sorts of things. Let's see. We did go to the movies a lot. Hmmm. That was only once a week, now that I think about it. That still left a lot of time open, didn't it?”

She didn't wait for an answer.

“What else? We listened to the radio, of course. And we talked to each other. I think we talked more in those days than people do now. And we used to play what they called parlor games. Monopoly was created sometime around then. But some of our games were more imaginative than that. We invented things. Used our minds.”

Suddenly her face lit up.

“I remember one of my favorites. It wasn't a game, really. It was a kind of—well, it was just something you did. It was like a seance. Really very silly. We called it automatic writing.”

“What's a seance?” asked Carrie.

“It's when people sit around and ask spirits to come and visit them,” answered Lisa.

Carrie looked at her grandmother with new respect. “You used to do
that?”

Dr. Miles laughed. “Well, we used to try. I was much younger then, and it was quite popular around her for a while.”

“Let's try it.”

Dr. Miles looked at her daughter. Mrs. Burton frowned slightly, then shrugged and said, “Oh, I don't see why not. Go ahead and set things up, Mother.”

Dr. Miles smiled. “I think you'll enjoy this,” she said enthusiastically. “Lisa, you pull down the shades—this works better if the room is dark. Carrie, help me set up the card table. Judith, would you bring some chairs from the kitchen?”

Lisa smiled. Despite the fact that her grandmother was older than most of the grandparents she knew (“Nearly eighty and proud of it!” as she liked to say), Dr. Miles had always seemed young as grandmothers go. But now she was almost like a child in her excitement. She bustled about, arranging this, shifting that, as if everything had to be perfect for the “phenomenon” to take place—as if the spirits, or the mind, or whatever it was they were trying to call on, wouldn't cooperate if the place was a little out of order.

“There!” Dr. Miles stood back and surveyed the room with satisfaction. “That looks just fine. Now, let's all sit around the table. Who wants to go first? Lisa?”

Lisa shrugged. “Sure, I'll give it a try.”

“Good. Carrie, you go turn off the lights.”

Carrie ran to the switch behind the piano. When she flicked it off the room went surprisingly dark. Carrie, Lisa, and Mrs. Burton took their places around the table while Dr. Miles got a candle.

“Well, at least it's not Monopoly,” whispered Carrie. “I was so sick of passing Go I thought I would barf.”

Lisa kicked her sister's ankle and hissed a quick “Shhh!” at her. She didn't want their grandmother feeling any worse than she already did.

Setting the candle in the center of the table, Dr. Miles looked directly at Carrie and said, “We must be very serious. Otherwise, it won't work. Lisa, put this in front of you.” She handed Lisa a pad of writing paper. “Hold the pencil loosely.”

Lisa did as she was told.

“Now close your eyes.”

Again, Lisa did as she was told. In spite of herself, she began to feel a little tingly. There was something definitely eerie about doing all this in such an old house, on such a dark, dreary day.

“Carrie, Judith, join hands with me. Carrie and I will put our hands on Lisa's elbows, to close the circle.”

Lisa felt the pressure of their fingertips at her elbows. She found it oddly reassuring.

“Now, you two also close your eyes. Close your eyes and concentrate.”

For a moment there was silence. Then Dr. Miles said, “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 felt a shiver skitter down her spine. Then she heard Carrie trying to hold in a snort. She could almost sense her mother's look of disapproval. She wondered how she could do that with her eyes closed.

“Carrie,” said Dr. Miles. “Please concentrate.”

Lisa sat with her fingers loose, her hands resting on the pad. Suddenly she let out a little gasp. She had felt a terrible chill, as though a cold hand had been placed on her neck. Next she heard a loud knocking, like someone banging on the table.

She tried to open her eyes, and found that they were sealed shut!

The table began to vibrate.

It lurched forward.

Without her willing it to, Lisa's hand began to move.

Chapter Two
“Welcome Home”

Lisa tried to make her hand stop moving.

She couldn't.

“It's working!” Carrie whispered in awe. “Gramma, it's working!”

“Mother!” Lisa cried. “Make it stop!”

The table lurched again. Lisa felt faint—distant, as if she were far away from everything that was happening. From somewhere she heard her mother's voice calling her. The words sounded as if she were speaking through a pile of pillows. “Lisa! Lisa, open your eyes!”

Lisa tried to do as her mother told her. It was useless. She couldn't force the lids up. Somehow, she didn't care.

“Lisa!”

She sensed, with a detached sort of interest, that her hand was still rolling across the paper. Suddenly another hand slammed down and closed over her wrist. For a moment there was a tremendous struggle as Lisa's hand tried to continue moving and the other hand, strong and sinewy, tried to make it stop.

“Lisa, open your eyes!”

It was her grandmother. Again, Lisa struggled to do as she was told. Suddenly she felt another moment of intense cold. She breathed out, and her eyes snapped open.

Her hand was lying limply on the table. Circling her wrist, still tightly clenched, were her grandmother's fingers. The pencil, now broken in half, lay on the paper.

Lisa looked around the table. The others' faces expressed varying degrees of shock and fear. Her mother was staring at her with nervous intensity. Carrie's face was glowing, her eyes shining with fascination at whatever it was that had just taken place. Then Lisa looked at her grandmother and caught her breath. Dr. Miles wore an expression that fell somewhere between longing and fear. But she was not looking at Lisa. Her eyes were focused on the paper beneath her hand.

Lisa looked down. Underneath her fingers was a set of intricate curlicues, tight and impossibly precise, more ornate than she could have ever made with her eyes open. They formed a frame around the edge of the paper.

In the center, in large, formal letters, was the message

WELCOME HOME!

Lisa shivered. She knew
those
words had not come from her. They represented the last thing in the world she felt about this place.

Before she could speak the lights came on. Almost immediately they went off again. It happened three times. Then there was a loud snap and the lights went out and stayed out. Dr. Miles tried the lamp standing next to her. It didn't work. “Obviously a farewell gesture from our visitor,” she said, attempting a laugh.

“Visitor?” cried Lisa. “Gramma, what was going on here? Was I in contact with a spirit?”

“A ghost?” asked Carrie eagerly.

“Mother?” Mrs. Burton's voice was soft and worried.

Before Dr. Miles could speak her son-in-law appeared on the stairwell. “What is going on down there?” he bellowed. “Carrie, have you been playing with the switches again?”

“It wasn't me!” cried Carrie, her voice full of indignation.

“I imagine it was the storm, Martin,” said Mrs. Burton soothingly, her voice far calmer than Lisa would have thought possible under the circumstances.

As if to reinforce her point, lightning flickered outside, followed closely by a massive crash of thunder. Judith Burton smiled at her husband.

“Well, all that yelling wasn't caused by the storm,” he said sharply. “Could you please keep it down? I can't concentrate with all this going on.”

“I'm sorry, dear,” said Mrs. Burton. “I think we'll go shopping—get out of your hair.”

“The price of silence,” said Mr. Burton, grumping as he always did when the subject of money came up. Lisa didn't take it too seriously; she had figured out long ago that it was a role he played. Muttering to himself, he stomped back up the stairs and headed for the room he was using for his office.

“Nice work, Mom,” said Carrie.

“Hush!” said Mrs. Burton. “Lisa, are you all right?”

Lisa stopped to think. She hadn't had time to consider her condition since she had opened her eyes. “I guess so,” she said. “A little shaky, maybe. What happened?”

“You tapped into the world beyond,” said Carrie, trying—without much success—to make her high, piping voice sound spooky.

“Carrie,” snapped Dr. Miles. “Don't be absurd.”

“Well, how do
you
explain it?” asked Carrie.

Dr. Miles looked uncomfortable. “Well, there is a distinct possibility that Lisa was having a little joke at our expense—”

“I was not!” said Lisa indignantly.

Her grandmother raised her hands in a placating gesture. “I'm just trying to be scientific here, Lisa. The next most likely possibility is that your subconscious mind took over. That is the ultimate answer in most psychic phenomena. When you create the right mood, part of your brain—the part that dreams—can take control and do things you are not aware of. There's been quite a bit written about it.”

Lisa felt a little tingle of fear. Not because of what her grandmother said, but because it was clear that the old woman was lying. Lisa could read it in her eyes, her voice, and she found it far scarier than what had just happened with the automatic writing. What was her grandmother hiding?”

“Okay, if the message came from Lisa's dream brain, then what did it mean?” asked Carrie.

“It was probably sarcastic, reflecting Lisa's unhappiness at being here,” said Dr. Miles.

Lisa was about to object, but Dr. Miles placed her hand on Lisa's forearm. “Oh, come now. I know how you feel about all this, dear. And I'm terribly sorry. I was being selfish when I arranged it.”

“No, Gramma. I—”

“Hush, child. Learn to accept an apology when it's offered.”

“Well, it was fun, whatever it was,” said Carrie eagerly. “Can I try next?”

“No!”

If Lisa had had any doubts that her grandmother was hiding something, they were dispelled by the tone in her voice when she answered Carrie.

“Why not?” asked Carrie.

“Because it was a bad idea in the first place,” replied Dr. Miles. “I shouldn't have brought it up. I can remember seeing something like this once when I was a girl. I had forgotten about it until now. Some people are more sensitive to this kind of thing than others—the subconscious is closer to the surface in them, I guess.”

“You mean Lisa has a weak mind?” asked Carrie gleefully.

“No! Now listen. It's possible to get swept up in this and think you're actually receiving messages from somewhere else. You're not. It's just a display of the power of the subconscious mind.”

Mrs. Burton had been glancing back and forth from her mother to her daughter, as if she were trying to figure out what was going on. At Dr. Miles's last words she said firmly, “That makes sense. Let's put these things away.”

Lisa and Carrie exchanged a glance. They both knew there was more going on than the grown-ups were willing to talk about. Lisa's subconscious might have provided that message, though she didn't think it was likely. But unless she had more powers than she was willing to believe, it sure hadn't made the table move!

She couldn't wait until she could get Carrie alone, so they could compare notes.

Between the shopping trip and dinner, it was late that night before the two girls had a chance to talk.

“Tell me about what happened today,” whispered Carrie, when they had both climbed into the big old bed they had been forced to share.

Lisa didn't answer right away. The rain had stopped and their bedroom window was open. She lay on her side, watching a soft ocean breeze whisper over the sill making the white curtain flutter in a ghostly way. Finally she said, “It's hard to say; it was as if I wasn't there—like I had stepped into another room or something.”

“Do you think the message came from a ghost trying to communicate with us?” asked Carrie eagerly.

Lisa shivered. “I hope not. I like Gramma's explanation better.”

“You know that wasn't true!” said Cara fiercely. “
She
sure didn't believe it.”

“I know,” said Lisa. “That's what really scared me.”