I know the color. I can picture his chilled complexion.
Look how far this woman has come. Look at the lengths she’ll go, the depths she’ll descend to. She has nowhere else to turn. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but I hug her. Marcia’s shoulders stiffen at first, but she eventually relents, her body softening against mine.
“You’re going to be okay,” I lie right into her ear.
* * *
—
Tobias asks me to sit in on Marcia’s session. She’s nervous and could use a friendly face, so I’ve been tasked with holding her hand through her first séance.
I watch Marcia’s eyes wander around the living room, anxiously taking in the empty space and its cave drawings as Tobias lights the candles. She hasn’t said a word since we sat, forming our triangle. I can tell she’s nervous, so I squeeze her hand and offer a warm smile.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right here.”
She smiles back, but it quickly fades from her lips. I can’t help but think about what’s brought her here, the kind of grief that could lure a woman this far off the beaten path of her everyday life. Could Marcia tally all the hours of therapy, the antidepressants, the counseling with her estranged husband—everything she’s about to forsake, just for a chance to see her son? I try to imagine how many memories were created between Marcia and her boy during the life they shared. It was so short. Not even a year, she said. Barely enough to fill a calendar. Her boy’s belongings could fit in a single trunk—bath toys and tennis shoes and baseball caps smaller than your fist, soft-padded picture books and neatly folded T-shirts still crisp. And yet, it’s more than enough to hold on to. Of course she’ll do anything—anything—to see her son one last time. Who could blame her for being here?
Who would fault her for wanting to get haunted?
Tobias hands us each a dose of Ghost. I nod and Marcia swallows her pill, chasing it with a gulp of bottled water. I pretend to take mine but I pocket it instead.
“Marcia,” Tobias begins. “It’s very brave what you’ve done. Your love, your connection to your son is so strong, you’re willing to reach beyond the veil to find him. To bring him back.”
Marcia nods, lost in his words. It’s unclear to me if she believes him or not, but his voice is drawing upon her desperation, luring her in. She wants—craves—this connection so badly.
“You’ll need that strength for this to work, okay? Can you be strong? For your son?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now…I want you to start by picturing the room where you last saw your boy. See that space in your mind. Can you see it now?”
“Nursery,” she says. Her eyes are closed, while mine remain open. Already I feel the itch to get haunted, but I want to watch Marcia’s mystical experience with as clear a head as possible, see someone else go through Tobias’s parlor games for myself.
“Tell me about that room. Show me the nursery.”
Marcia opens her mouth to speak, but the words aren’t there yet. It takes a moment for her to gather her thoughts, but I can tell the room manifests itself in her mind’s eye. “We painted it just for him. Ships on the walls, dinosaurs. He’s in his crib…I see him…”
“Good,” Tobias says in a soothing tone. “Focus on the crib. I want you to bring that crib here. Into this house. Can you do that for me? Imagine one of the rooms here in our house becoming your son’s nursery. You have to root Sean here, within our walls.”
The muscles in Marcia’s jaw slacken. She’s drifting, slipping into the cavern of her own mind, with all its shadows and self-doubt and grief. Her eyes race back and forth behind their lids, as if she’s already lost in the depths of REM sleep. “Yes…”
But Tobias won’t let her go. He holds on to her, his voice luring her along. “Focus on the wooden slats. The railing. I want you to run your hand over the mattress. The sheets. Everything is so smooth and soft. Can you feel it?”
Marcia’s free hand extends out before her. I watch her fingers glide along the invisible surface of the mattress and oh god, I nearly see it too.
“Yes.” She tightens her other hand against mine, squeezing.
It feels so bizarre, watching someone else—a stranger—go through the motions of their own séance. I want to believe my experience contacting Silas is somehow exceptional, that no one else has the same experience as me. My ability to connect to his spirit is different, special. But watching Marcia wander through her own trip snatches that feeling away from me.
“Marcia,” Tobias says. “Listen closely. With all your heart, all the love and strength you have, I want you to fill that space, fill the crib with all the joy your son gave you.”
“Yes…”
“That crib is a receptacle for everything you hold dear in this world. Everything you love is right there. Inside it. So much love. You have so much love to fill it up with. Can you feel it?”
“Yes…”
“Just when it feels like the crib is going to break from all that love, just when you think there’s no room left to fill it up with any more, just when you think you’ve given every last drop you have to offer, you see something at the very center of the mattress. Can you see it?”
“Yes…”
“It’s taking shape now, isn’t it? Can you see it, Marcia? Can you?”
“Yes, I…I can see…”
“Someone’s there, right? Someone small? So small, they fit right in your hands…”
“Sean…”
“Ssh. He’s sleeping. Don’t wake him. Let him rest. Can you see how peaceful he is?”
“Yes.” A complex tangle of emotions plays across her face, joy and pain intertwining, rippling across her features.
“Don’t let go of him. Keep him there. In his crib. In your heart. Your son is resting now. He’s been resting for a long time, but he’s ready to wake…Are you ready to wake him, Marcia?”
“Sean, baby…” Her grip tightens against my hand, squeezing so hard I feel the bones in my fingers press into each other. Her back extends to the hilt as a flower reaches for sunlight.
“Your son’s getting ready to open his eyes. See him wake.”
“Sean…”
“See him open his eyes.”
“It’s…It’s you.”
“See him, Marcia. See your son.”
The air gets caught in her lungs. “It’s—”
“See him—”
Marcia vomits a stream of yellow bile. It erupts suddenly, but instead of striking the floor, it curves up and twists above our heads. The thin sliver of ectoplasm spindles into a bundle. It’s so small, a contorting newborn, slick and slippery with phantasmal afterbirth.
Marcia gasps as the last of the viscous substance slips from her lips and coils into the air, an umbilical cord of ectoplasm. Her eyes fly open to take in the pulsing knot floating above her head but they’re completely glazed over. Her consciousness is elsewhere, even as her body remains rooted to the floor. The euphoria in her face is unnerving, the look of wonder so overwhelming.
“Sean.” Marcia lets go of my hand to reach for her ectoplasmic newborn, to take it in her arms, to embrace her boy.
“Sean, baby, baby…Mama’s here…” Marcia lowers herself onto her back, pulling her son down like a cloud from the sky and bringing him to her chest.
“Mama’s here.” She’s smiling, truly smiling, the ecstasy radiating across her face as she cradles her son.
The wet knot of ectoplasm struggles in her grip, the fluctuating coil reminding me of a maggot as it wrestles against Marcia’s loving embrace. But she won’t let it go. “Sean…”
Then the tendril of ectoplasm ruptures and spills all over Marcia’s face—nothing but bile now, the partially digested remnants of her last meal. The look of ecstasy on her face never diminishes, though. Marcia is still blissfully lost in her haunting, her hands still holding on to the negative space of her son. “Sean, my baby…”
Tobias turns to me. It’s the first time he’s looked at me during the session, a grin playing across his face that might as well say, Told you so.
“You mind cleaning up, Erin?”
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