[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
It began to rain as I drove home from Martina’s funeral at the Greek Orthodox church in Watertown. She hadn’t wanted a wake, hadn’t wanted a repast. Just a Christian funeral and burial in consecrated ground, one last means of protection against the supernatural beings that had plagued her during her life. The emptiness of the church stung me. Just me and a few local Greek ladies with whom she liked to bake occasionally. To do this job is to be alone. Alone. Martina had worn it as a badge of honor. But then again, I think she had to have been one of the bravest people in the world.
I’m not brave. That’s why I’m back again, posting here. I don’t think I have it in me to be alone. I think—no, I know—that I can’t face it. I know it’s a cliche, but I am empty inside, so tired and so sick of grief. Don’t let yourself be alone, the spirits in Cottage 14 had said. Was it a warning? Or a prophecy?
I don’t care if my cottage is about to fall down around me; I haven’t been back to Cottage 7 since the police left that horrible night. I hated lying as the paramedics took her away, hated forcing myself to say a bear attacked us, inventing some story that the campground down the street had a litter problem. They checked me for a concussion. I refused a trip to the hospital. There was no sign of the thing that had attacked us.
At first, I was angry, the kind of anger that permeates through the entire body. I was paralyzed by it, wondering why, turning over in my head the utter injustice of it. It wasn’t in the notebook. It was supposed to be safe. Why? Why? WHY? I know. The world is unfair. Hardly breaking news. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I haven’t been back in the office, frozen as she left it with all her supplies that were carefully chosen in 1975. Most of the time I sit for hours on my couch, wrapped in her favorite cat blanket, bringing the cigarette-infused fleece to my face. When I close my eyes, I see her there, dead and bloody. I see my dad in his coffin after the embalmer cleaned him up. People shaking our hands saying how sorry they were, how great he was, whatever. I hated it at the time. But I wish someone did that for Martina. I had wanted to say a few words before the service, but Martina had specified in a hand written codicil to her will (in all capital letters) “NO EULOGIES.” She hated a fuss.
It was my fault. It had to have been. Not just the fact that I had made the flippant decision to reach out to touch that body. As Martina herself said, things around here were shifting, changing and not for the better. And the only thing different was me. I had to be the catalyst. The only thing keeping me from wallowing in self-loathing was the fact that Martina would hate it. Damn waste of time, she would say before suggesting we got on with the job. So I tried. I tried to eat, take a shower, walk around, I really did. But ultimately, I just found myself just back on the couch.
My favorite time of day is now the time I take to carefully consult Martina’s notebook. I trace my finger over her no-nonsense handwriting, written with her favorite blue ballpoint pen. I make sure that her meticulously drafted payment schedule is still current, trying not to smudge the ink with my tears.
Today was the first day I had to do a payment without her.
Number 4
Tin box of animal bones. Place at center of table. Attend the séance. Talking okay. Arrive promptly at 10:00pm. Don’t stay past midnight.
Payment schedule: Monthly
“That’s a new one,” I muttered to myself. “Seems a bit redundant for a supernatural entity to conduct a séance, but I guess I’ll see.” Truthfully, the idea intrigued me, in a macabre way. After all, there were plenty of dead people in my life that I would give anything to talk to one last time.
I had never attended a séance out in the real world. They seemed on the one hand to be unspeakably hokey and on the other hand absurdly dangerous. I tend to agree with my Catholic upbringing that calling out to spirits doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to summon something nice on the other side. At this point, however, I was certain that whatever would be doing the summoning and whatever was being summoned would be unpleasant.
My phone said it was six o’ clock in the evening. The sun had already set. I took a mental inventory of what I had consumed so far that day. Coffee, water, a few slices of toast. I thought it would be wise to fortify myself more if I was in for another long night. Unfortunately, my refrigerator was quite bare, but I did manage to collect ingredients for a sandwich that made me feel slightly more human upon consumption.
There had been a rusty tin box in the basement, I remembered. I conspicuously used the exterior bulkhead entrance to avoid the motel office. I found it in the corner next to the utility sink and gave it a shake, grateful to hear the rattling of bones inside. One less thing to gather. I opened it; there were bones of all different sizes and provenance. I assumed it was some assortment of chicken, turkey, and deer. The box itself was probably as old as the cottages, with some flecks of red paint advertising a product with a name long since faded away.
Still with plenty of time to kill before 10, I gathered the box of bones and made my way to my favorite spot on the property. The cottages sit on a soft lawn of grass interspersed with some flowers and bushes that have been sadly neglected. (It’s on my to-do list.) Towards the river, that grass gives way to sloping glacial rocks and the bank with its dock. Right at the edge of the grass is a wrought iron bench installed by my great-grandfather as an anniversary gift to my great-grandmother, the final, crowning detail of their beloved cottage park. I wondered how their dream became infested with so many nightmares.
In the summer, the bench is a prime location for boat watching, from the smallest kayaks and power boats to the to the massive tankers and container ships sailing down the river and locks to the Great Lakes. This time of year, the locks are closed and few dare a boat trip when the river is mostly filled with moving chunks of ice. Except, of course, our desperate guest who had the misfortune to check in on tax day. The man’s boat was still tied up at the dock, bobbing empty. He probably thought he had been lucky navigating the ice with success. Little did he know he was already damned.
At ten o’clock I was at the door of Cottage 4, which dramatically opened despite there being no one visible inside. With a sigh I stepped in and the door predictably flew shut behind me. I gagged, the interior smelled like mothballs and dusty fabric with the undertones of a sickly-sweet floral perfume. The same table and chairs present in every cottage were in the center of the room. Encircling the seating area were unlit candles, hundreds and hundreds of candles of varying heights with pendulous rivers of wax fusing them together into an imposing mass. The interior shutters of the windows were tightly closed, snuffing out the meager moonlight.
I carefully stepped over the candles and sat in a chair, placing the tin box in the center as the notebook instructed. The candles erupted into flame and the temperature in the room plummeted. The animal bones began to rustle, flinching into the air then clattering back down, the tempo gradually increasing, bones knocking against each other more violently. Rapping sounds began under the table, joining the clattering bones in a cacophonous rhythm.
A force pulled my hands away from my sides and on to the table. A searing pain pierced my wrists. To my horror, skeletal hands with elongated and sharpened finger tips were holding me, drawing blood. The owners of these hands soon materialized.
They were three women dressed in black hoop skirts draped in crepe with decrepit lace sleeves, black hair parted down the middle and swept back into a chignon, with the exception of the woman directly across from me whose black hair hung in long black braids. Though the hands they held around the table were nothing but bones, their faces appeared to be an approximation of a living human’s face with thick black veins snaking across their corpse-hued skin. They each grinned at me exposing black teeth and tongues. Their eyes were equally ghoulish—completely white as though permanently rolled back in their heads.
The rapping increased, as though multiple entities were knocking on the wooden table. The women cocked their heads at me, as though conducting an examination, grins somehow getting wider.
“Girl, new girl,” the woman to my right hissed. The voice sounded as though echoing from underwater, with a disconcerting delay between the movement of the thin black lips and the arrival of the muffled sound. “Girl, would you seek communion with beyond? Will you join the circle?” The three leaned forward, eager for my answer.
“I would,” I said, trying to sound resolute. Not like I have a choice.
“So sweet and young. Pretty. So nice and new,” said the woman with the braids.
“Welcome, welcome,” the woman on my left whispered. “We are the sisters Kane. I am Margery. There is Margaretta,” the woman to my right nodded. “And Mina, the youngest.” The three cackled.
“Uhhh, hello. My name is Nora.”
More laughter. The sisters threw their heads back in ecstasy.
“Oh great spirits of the celestial ether, come join us beyond the veil!” Margaretta moaned. “We feel your presence, yes, yes, we hear your knock. The rapping increased to almost a frenzied pace. “Come, come, we welcome you!”
The women began to levitate, rising from the ground, bringing me with them while not breaking the circle. Peeking underneath their wide hoops were skeletal feet, bones cracking together creating the agitated rapping.
“The spirits are here! They’re here!” Margery cried.
With a sudden thud, we plummeted back to our seats. I groaned with the impact. The sisters slumped in the chairs and the rapping ceased. A momentary silence descended over us and I was grateful to be released from the din. The relief was short-lived. An icy breeze caressed the back of my neck.
Margery gasped as though all the air had been drawn out of her lungs (if she had any). She turned her head towards me with that awful grin.
“Hey there, honey.” My father’s voice sounded from her lips. “Nora. I miss you so much.”
Of course, it had been the deepest desire of my heart to hear him again. To have them say those precise words. But if there’s anything that I had learned, if there was anything that Martina had taught me, was that things were not always what they seemed. I didn’t trust these entities. I didn’t trust this thing grinning at me, my father’s voice escaping from her blackened teeth. And it made me mad. If they had not been physically pinning my hands to the table, I think I would have slapped her.
“You’re not my father,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Nora, it’s me. Don’t you recognize your own father?”
“If you’re my dad, tell me what I was for Halloween when I was five.”
Margery’s grin faltered for a moment.
“I don’t remember. But I do remember how much I love you.”
“That’s a lie. My dad loved Halloween. He’d help me plan my costume months in advance, take me trick or treating…” I trailed off, unable to wipe the tears from my eyes. Hearing his voice again, in this way. It was unbearable.
Margery’s face fell, the grin now gone.
“You hateful child,” she growled. “You have no respect for the sacred gift of channeling.”
Margaretta laughed. “More intriguing than the last one, she is. Better than that old hag.”
Margery nodded; enthusiastic grin replenished. “That old one. Arguing with her mother in Greek for the entire session!”
Magaretta gasped and dug her nails in deeper. “Another spirit approaches!” She croaked. She threw her head back and this time my Uncle Jim’s voice escaped her lips.
“Nora. I’m so sorry. So sorry about everything. I should have never left all of this to you. You’re not ready. You’re too young.”
“Okay, if you’re my uncle Jim, what did you buy me for my sixteenth birthday?”
“The gift of your dreams!”
“Not really. It was neat, though. Tell me what it was.”
“I would rather say how much I love and miss you.”
“Liar!” I shouted, rattling the table and its box of bones.
Margaretta’s face twisted into something hostile.
“You do not honor the dead, foolish girl. Perhaps, once you become one of us, you will understand.”
“Yes, yes, let’s teach her!” Margery cried. They leaned towards me menacingly.
A great cry erupted out of Mina, who until this moment had still been slumped over across from me. She began to choke as if something were trying to escape her. The other sisters’ dead eyes widened with alarm.
“Enough with this racket!” A familiar scratchy voice shouted. My heart leapt.
“Martina!”
“Listen, kid. I don’t have much time.”
“What is this! What is this! Begone spirit!” Margery wailed.
“Shut up, you fraudster!” Martina yelled.
Margery gasped at the insolence. Mina swung her head back to me, just as astonished as her sisters at the voice coming from her throat. It was obvious this was not another attempt at mimicry.
“Listen, Nora. First, enough of this moping around. I’m dead. It’s okay. Had to happen sometime. I’m fine. More than fine, actually. I understand things now. And I need to tell you. You’re in danger. I know, news of the week. But there’s something here that is running the show and it isn’t you.”
Margery and Margaretta began to wail, their terrible muffled voices keening in anger.
“Silence! Silence!”
Mina shook her head, braids flapping in agitation, desperately trying to keep her mouth shut. But Martina’s voice pried its way through.
“It’s old and powerful and full of hate. She wants to destroy you.”
“Martina, I can’t do this without you. I can’t do this alone!”
“Quit your blatting! It’s time to toughen up. She’s a nasty piece of work and she’s coming. Very soon.”
“How dare you speak of the mistress!” Margaretta shrieked. She tore her claws out of my arm, broke the circle, and lunged at Mina. Margery did the same. They wrapped their bone hands around her neck and shook.
“Nora!” Martina’s voice rasped. “It’s midnight!”
I jumped up, cradling my bleeding wrists, remembering the notebook entry. Don’t stay past midnight. The sisters’ heads turned towards me in mechanical unison. The grins were back. They laughed. I scrambled towards the door, stumbling on the ring of candles. They leapt towards me, Margery sinking her claws into my foot, pulling me backwards. I held fast to the doorknob, pulling myself forward with all my might. With my free foot I swung wildly, kicking the spectral hand holding me. I mentally thanked Martina for the steel toe boots she had gotten me for my last birthday. Margery yelped and hissed, releasing my foot.
I dove out of the front door and scrambled off the rotting porch before collapsing onto the brittle, frozen grass, chest heaving. The wailing inside the cottage continued, rising to a primordial roar, beyond the sound of human or animal. And then it ceased in an instant, as though someone had pulled the plug.
I limped back to my cottage and examined my wounds. Luckily, they weren’t anything that needed further attention. I washed them carefully and wrapped them in bandages. My heart was still pounding; I was sure that once the adrenaline drained off I’d be a lot more sore.
I went to the dresser in my bedroom and opened the top drawer. Pushing aside my underwear, I lifted out the real gift my uncle had gotten me for my sixteenth birthday, a beautiful Bowie knife. My parents had thought it was a gag—as I’ve said here before I was hardly an outdoorswoman. Uncle Jim had laughed along, but I knew he meant it sincerely. I know now that this must have been his way of preparing me, warning me. I was the only kid in my family, but at the time I never thought about death or inheritance.
Now both were staring me in the face. I gripped the handle of the knife and thought of those I had lost. My dad and my uncle. Martina. Toughen up. Perhaps one day there will be a time to properly grieve. I moved the knife from my bedroom to the front of the cottage, placing it in the drawer of a side table next to the couch.
The notebook had once defined the code of conduct between the entities and their caretaker. Follow the notebook and no one gets hurt. Now all bets were off. Was I ready to face this future alone? Absolutely not. But I had to. Somehow, I had to.
Surprisingly, I fell asleep quicky and without conflict that night. By the time I awoke the next day, the sun was already setting. I was horrified, but also strangely refreshed. Sometimes our bodies take what they truly need, I guess. I treated myself to a long, hot shower, put on clean clothes and then forced myself into the kitchen.
Unfortunately, sixteen hours of sleep hadn’t replenished my empty fridge. I found a block of cheddar and began to cut it up. Halfway through my task, something caught my eye. I put the cheese down and stood at my sink, looking out the window.
There was a light on in Cottage 7.