“So what happens now?” I ask.
“We open the door; invite Silas in. I’ll guide you through. Just follow my voice, okay?”
A sharp exhale from Amara. “Tobias the spirit guide. Splendid.”
Tobias doesn’t pay any attention to her, focusing on me. He takes my hand into both of his, squeezing my fingers. “This is up to you,” he says. “You’re the linchpin here.”
“Why me?”
“Because you two were kindred spirits. Silas always said that.”
“He did?” We might as well be in middle school and Tobias just told me my sixth-grade crush thinks I’m cute. Kindred spirits. Did Silas actually say that?
“If he senses you, he’ll come through. Can you try? For Silas?”
I nod. Yes—I can. Silas picked me. I’m the one who can bring him back. Time to summon my supernatural plus-one.
Tobias asks us to take one another’s hands. He closes his eyes, bowing his head. “Silas,” he calls out to the room. “We have come together to establish contact.”
This gives Amara and me an opportunity to take each other in without Tobias watching over us. Her eyes widen. Is that panic or laughter? Abandon ship, her eyes silently say to me.
Too late. Tobias starts again. “Can you hear us, Silas?”
“Is the séance talk really necessary?” Amara whispers.
“It helps channel our energy.”
“Energy. Right. How long before this shit kicks in, Mr. Leary?”
“Just give it time.”
Silence.
“Anybody else getting hungry?” Amara whispers. “I’ve got the Ouija munchies…”
“Please.” Tobias struggles to maintain his composure. Amara’s really getting under his skin. What’s even holding our circle—a triangle now—together? What’s the point of us?
“I think I need to peeee.”
“Amara,” I lazily snap. “You’re ruining the trip for the rest of us.”
“It’s not a trip,” Tobias corrects me. “We’re not tripping.”
“Fine. Haunting. Whatever.”
Something like a low-grade nausea begins to boil over in my stomach. I step outside of myself for a sober assessment of what’s actually happening here: three pals just broke into a half-finished house in an abandoned development, taking some off-brand ayahuasca in order to perform a séance to chat with their dead fuck-up phantom of a friend. If anyone told me a week ago I’d subject myself to something as ridiculous as this, I would’ve laughed. But look how quickly I tagged along for Tobias’s psychedelic walkabout, like some desperate Heaven’s Gater trying to toss back the vodka and phenobarbital before Hale–Bopp passes over.
“If you can hear us, Silas, give us a sign.”
Amara bites her bottom lip in silent laughter. Tobias has no idea what a laughingstock he is right now, eyes still closed, consigning himself to becoming the butt of every joke and jab from Amara for all eternity. “Silas—we’re here. We are standing by the door.”
I am so embarrassed at myself for believing this could bring Silas back.
“Erin is here. Can you feel her, Silas? Can you sense her presence? She wishes to speak with you, Silas. Show yourself. Make your presence known, Silas. Give us a sign, Silas.”
Each time Tobias invokes his name it feels like a nail in my chest. This is the type of bullshit reserved for old biddies wishing to hit up their dead husbands, the kind of pushovers gullible enough to do anything to say one last goodbye. They’ll dial up 1-900 numbers to chat with TV psychics, fork over cash to speak to storefront palm readers. Such easy marks, overcome by grief, blinded by loss, sitting ducks just waiting to be taken advantage of.
“Show us that you can hear us. That you’re with us, Silas.”
If there were hidden cameras installed around the room, a production crew hiding in the basement, filming everything—Surprise, you’re on Phantasm Camera!—I’d almost be relieved.
“Show us a sign, Silas.”
What the hell is a ghost supposed to be, anyway? The past still clinging to the present? A sinkhole that swallows us up? That’s what I bet it feels like to be haunted. Truly haunted. I’ve been consumed by a shadow in the shape of Silas—not his ghost. There are no real spirits. It’s just me. My selfish need to drag his dead ass back and absolve myself.
“We’re here, Silas. Erin is here. Amara is here. We’re all waiting for a sign.”
I can’t take much more of Tobias’s posturing. He might believe the crap spouting from his own mouth, but I’ve heard enough.
“Silas—please—show us…”
I have to get out of this house, this abandoned neighborhood. I need to leave. Now.
I start to pick myself up from the floor, but the wood ripples beneath me. Or maybe it’s just my legs. Nothing feels as solid as it’s supposed to anymore.
The emptiness of the living room suddenly feels endless. The surrounding shadows of the afternoon stretch beyond the dimensions of the space itself. How far does this darkness go? Is the room expanding?
My eye is drawn to the far corner by the window. A breeze presses against the clear plastic tarp, pushing the polyethylene forward.
There’s a light on the other side of the plastic. A soft glow seeps through the translucent seal. My mind immediately leaps to the obvious explanation: It’s a streetlamp.
But there are no streetlamps along the block. I remember noticing there weren’t any light posts outside—they hadn’t been installed yet. When the sun goes down and night sweeps over the street, there will be nothing but darkness surrounding us.
None of the houses have electricity.
Tobias’s lantern. It has to be reflecting off the plastic. Clearly that’s the answer. I turn to face Tobias’s lamp in front of me, just to make sure. Then I turn back to the window frame.
I’m sitting in front of it. My body is situated between the light and the tarp. There’s no way the lantern’s glow can reach the reflective surface of the plastic sheet—I’m in the way, and the beam isn’t powerful enough to weave around me and fill up the rest of the room.
So where’s this light coming from?
How is it growing brighter?
I realize the light isn’t on the other side of the tarp. It’s inside the house. Whatever the source is, the light is in the living room. It hovers a few feet from the floor. No wires, no plugs, no bulb. The glow is simply, inexplicably—there. Just a small orb the size of my fist. Pulsing.
My mouth opens to say something, but I stop myself.
The light is coming from me. My chest. The glow bounces off the clear plastic tarp.
My heartbeat picks up, mimicking the light’s pulse, thump for thump. I can feel the throb in my temples now. The temperature in the room has lifted somehow, even though there’s no heating. My face feels hot. My ribs glow white-hot like the filaments on a light bulb.
I glance at Tobias, blind to all of this. “Silas? Are you here?”
Amara’s chin dips to her chest. Not out of focus, but sheer bemusement. Her eyes are closed, stifling her smile. Her lips pinch. She wouldn’t believe me. I’m not sure if I even believe it. What’s happening here? What the hell is this?
A radiating globe of light peels away from my body and grows even brighter. Expands. Tendrils extend from its pulsing sphere, strong enough to cast shadows.
Looking at the far wall on the opposite side of the room, I see the silhouettes of ourselves—my shadow next to Amara’s thin frame, along with Tobias’s slumped one. We look like tenebrous monoliths against the living room wall.
There is a fourth shadow. A silhouette of someone who doesn’t belong with the rest of us.
Someone is sitting right next to me.
contact
“Damnit!” Tobias pitches Silas’s composition book across the room. The pages fan through the air, a marbled osprey struggling to take flight. It hits the wall behind my shoulder, nicking the plaster, then falls facedown on the floor, just a few inches away from my left knee.
“I did everything I was supposed to.” He drags the lantern closer, his shadow expanding as Amara’s and mine diminish. His silhouette looms over us, a sullen hunchback. “Just like Silas said…”