As I make to leave, something shifts behind me.
I turn and find a clear plastic tarp stapled over the exposed window frame, flexing in the breeze. The loose sheet of polyethylene expands and contracts with the wind, breathing almost, a gray translucent lung. When I walk back into the hall, faster than I need to, I hear the tarp contracting from over my shoulder, billowing from the draft and pulling taut.
In and out. In and out. In—
—out.
séance
The gloaming sun retreats through the tarpaulin enclosing the window frames, its colors dulling to a bruised purple. Tobias lights a Coleman camping lantern before we join him on the floor, crossing our legs. He positions the lamp in the center of our triangle. The exposed beams cast their shadows. Our limbs spindle across the ceiling like daddy longlegs.
There’s such a slumber party vibe to all this, as if we’re kids spending the night in our sleeping bags and telling each other ghost stories. Next up: Light as a feather, stiff as a board.
“What if I told you there’s a way we can contact Silas?” Tobias brandishes Silas’s marble composition book once more, keeping its secrets from us—from me. Since when did he become the executor of Silas’s literary estate?
“How did you get his notebook?” Amara asks.
“Silas asked if I’d do this for him. He wanted us here. Together. It’s all laid out here.”
Maybe I’m just jealous Silas trusted Tobias with his words over me. Maybe I’m still holding out hope that, hidden within his notebook, there’s something written about me.
I reach for the composition book. “Can I see?”
Tobias pulls back. “Silas was very clear. He wanted me to walk us through this part.”
“To do what?” Amara asks.
“Okay. Hear me out.” Now or never, Tobias…“Religious movements have been built entirely around the belief that the living and dead can communicate with one another.”
Amara snorts. “Silas had his own brand of hipster spiritualism? Hipsteritualism? Nice.”
“We’ve gotten haunted houses all wrong. It’s people who are really haunted.”
“But isn’t that just the memory of Silas, though?” Amara is ready to wade into this phantasmagorical debate. “That’s not a ghost. Memories and spirits aren’t the same thing.”
Tobias points at me like I’m Exhibit A. “Do you feel like Silas is with you right now?”
The tarp sealing the windows respires, flexing just over my shoulder. “Yes.”
“Do you still feel connected to him?”
We’re in my apartment. In my bed. I can’t remember which epoch of our relationship this is—it could be the first era, it could easily be the tenth. Silas has nestled behind me, wrapping his arms around my chest, so that his chin slips over my shoulder. We’re playing a game we always play, debating our future together. If I die first, I say, I’d want you to meet someone else. I’d be okay with you moving on. Falling in love again. Silas huffs. If I die first, he says, you better believe I’m haunting your ass.
“Yes,” I say. There’s the gauziest logic to what Tobias suggests. Real ghosts transcend a particular place; trauma transfers to the living. I’m the one who’s haunted, not some house.
“That’s where we start,” he says. “We need that personal connection to draw him in.”
“Draw him in.” I repeat the words. “Draw him in how?”
Tobias holds up a white gelcap. “This will unlock our spirits.”
“What the hell’s that?” Amara asks.
“Ghost.”
“Never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have. This is something new and old at the same time.”
“Très chic.” She turns to me, suddenly suspect. “Wait. Did you know about this?”
“Not really,” I half lie.
“I needed to get you both here first so I could explain. Shamans believe they can open a portal to elevated levels of consciousness by taking ayahuasca, which is sort of—”
“So you want to trip?” Amara interrupts.
“It’s not tripping. It’s a haunting. Ghost brings us even closer to the dead. It allows us to communicate with them.”
“So…I’m sorry.” Amara just won’t let up. “Is this a séance thing? You dragged our asses out here just to perform a séance? Seriously?”
“Don’t get caught up in words like séance. This isn’t some Victorian parlor game. We make contact as a group. We can look after each other while we’re haunted, make sure we don’t—”
Amara gasps. She seizes my arm, squeezing tight, and I can’t help but feel infected by her panic. She spins her head around the room. “Do you hear that? Silas? Is that you?”
There’s a moment—just a breath—where I believe her.
Amara busts out laughing. “Sorry…I just had to, sorry.”
Tobias isn’t impressed. “You done?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m done.”
“Let me see,” I say, holding out my hand. Tobias drops the pill in my palm. Two translucent shells, the cap and body, sealed together. The upper shell has a slightly larger diameter than the lower. The gelatin casing captures the lantern light in a crystalline sheen.
“Where’d you get them?” I ask as I roll the gelcap around my palm, watching the off-white powder tumble inside. It looks like ashes in a pill-sized urn.
“Does it matter?”
“Um, yeah,” Amara chimes in. “Pretty safe to say I’ve taken a fuck-ton more drugs than both of you combined, and I never ever take anything before I know what it is.”
“The dead are always inside us. Think of your mind as a doorway to the other side, but it’s locked and our ghosts can’t get through. We need a key.”
I take in the emptiness of the room, the wooden cavities of the house. There’s nothing here, I think, this place is completely hollow. “Is Silas here? Right now?”
“He’s trying to find his way back. If our connection is strong, we can make contact. That’s why it’s best to use a house that’s not already haunted. There’s less interference, less static.” Just as a pitcher is filled with water, he explains, all a ghost wants is to be contained. The feeling of enclosure. Of walls. A home. “And we’ve got the perfect vessel. It’s clean. We don’t have to worry about any external interference. We’ll be the first to haunt this house.”
With Silas—like planting a seed.
“Fuuuck.” Amara golf claps. “That’s some intense necromantic mansplaining. Where’d you learn all this?”
“Look, I didn’t believe him at first, either. Silas told me he made contact with his mother. His mother. I thought he’d lost it, but then I saw for myself…”
What if it’s all complete hocus-pocus bullshit and we’re just making fools of ourselves out in here in the middle of Hopewell? It’s not like anyone else is around to notice.
And if it works? Actually works? What if I can talk to Silas—say I’m sorry?
The gelcap is still in my hand. I can feel my palm starting to sweat. The gelatin clings to my skin. I’m suddenly worried the capsule will dissolve and burst and I’ll ruin the dose. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it before I start to second-guess myself and lose my nerve.
“I’m in.”
“I don’t know,” Amara starts.
I bring my hand up to my mouth. Amara notices, her eyes widening. “Erin, wait—”
I pop the cap. The plastic shell rolls over my tongue, tumbling down, down, and I—
“Don’t!”
—swallow.
“What the fuck’re you thinking? You don’t even know what this shit is!”
How many times had Silas handed me something and I just took it on blind faith? From his hands to mine, I’d pop whatever he offered. How is this any different?
Silas says take this.
Silas says try this.
Silas says I want you to find me.
And Tobias just handed me a key. “You in?” he asks Amara, holding out a pill for her.
“Fine.” Amara sighs and grabs it. “Fuck it. Let’s get haunted.”
She pops the pill into her mouth. She sips her water before jerking her head back and swallowing it all down. “If anything happens to me? If I die or go crazy, my parents will sue your scrawny ass into poverty.”
Tobias seems genuinely happy to be sharing this experience with us. He swallows his cap, drum-rolling his palms on his knees. “Here we go…”