Embers (27 page)

"
What
'
re you asking
me
for?
You
're
the parapsychologist in the family.
"

"
I thought you wanted to nail Camplin,
"
Allie protested, surprised.

"
Because I think he
'
s
guilty,
knucklehead, not because I
'
m afraid of ghosts. Because no one should be allowed to get away with murder. Because it
'
s the right thing to do!
"
Meg said passionately.

She threw her arm around her sister and sighed.
"
And, yes, because of Grandmother. Then or now, she deserves better.
"

After that, Allie went to her room to crash for a couple of hours and Meg agonized over whether or not to walk next door to see Zenobia. She didn
'
t want to do it. It was like having to go back and ask for directions after you
'
ve purposely thrown away the road map. She was still hemming and hawing when she saw a large group of departing guests, all with their bags, making their way to several cars parked behind the Elm Tree Inn. Zenobia was at the head of the pack.

In a panic Meg rushed out the back door and flagged down the spiritualist.
"
Do you have a minute before you go? It
'
s about last night,
"
she said, arriving at Zenobia
'
s car in a breathless state.

Luckily, Zenobia
'
s passenger was a laggard.
"
I have at least that long,
"
the older woman explained with a sigh as she dropped her leather bags in the trunk of her BMW. She turned and fastened her clear-eyed stare on Meg and said in her rich, warm voice,
"
But Tom specifically told me that you didn
'
t want to be bothered about it.
"

"
I didn
'
t. But I
do. Or I would. If I only knew — w
hat
happened,
Zenobia?
"
she burst out.
"
Were you responsible for my behavior?
"

"
You mean, did I perform a feat of ventriloquy?
"
Zenobia said good-naturedly.
"
Oh, no, dear. What we all heard was a trance voice.
"

"
Which is?
"

"
Which is when you allow an etheric-world intelligence to use your voice to transmit information.
"

Meg was scandalized.
"
I
didn
'
t allow anyone
—
thing
—
to use my voice!
"

Zenobia
'
s expression became troubled.
"
I
'
m sure you don
'
t mean that, Meg. I
'
m sure what we saw was not an
involuntary
intervention.
"

Meg, suddenly cautious, asked,
"
What if it was?
"

The silence that followed was pregnant with foreboding. Zenobia frowned and said,
"
When a psychic phenomenon occurs to someone who didn
'
t deliberately will it
—
well, that event is usually blamed on what we call
'
lower-quality entities
.'"

"
Oh? Are they like blue-collar ghosts or something?
"
Meg quipped. But her knees had begun to go wobbly again.

Zenobia looked sympathetic.
"
I see you have mixed emotions about what happened to you. You shouldn
'
t have, my dear. It
'
s a gift to be sensitive; most people function on only the most ordinary plane. They hardly tap into the universe at all. Be grateful that you
'
re able to see so much more.
"

"
But what about those lower-quality entities?
"
Meg persisted.

Zenobia
'
s shrug was no more than a lift of one eyebrow. She fingered the keys on the key ring in her hand and plucked the one for her BMW.
"
The lower-quality entities are just that: base, inferior entities of the etheric world. It
'
s true, they can be quite dangerous.
"

Meg felt the blood drain from her body; she wanted to sit down but she didn
'
t dare ask for the time to do it.

"
But you must understand,
"
Zenobia said with a reassuring smile,
"
that mediumship is based on the principle of like attracting like. A lower-quality entity will be attracted only to a medium of low morals and bad lifestyle, and that, my child, is clearly not you.

"
By the same token, no superior etheric intelligence would ever impose itself against a medium
'
s free will. Because of that, I deduce that you yourself must have been willing to have your grandmother
—
it
is
your grandmother?
—
communicate through you. On some level.
"

Zenobia
'
s logic seemed irrefutable. But Meg had never been keen on formal logic in high school, so how would she know?

"
So you think I
'
m a sort of natural-born medium; that I in fact willed my grandmother to appear?
"
Meg said it in a whisper, embarrassed even to be asking such an outrageous question.

"
Oh, yes, definitely. As I say, you
'
re clearly not what we call a medium for trivial communications. But you must be very careful of your ability, Meg,
"
Zenobia said seriously.
"
I
'
ll tell you exactly what I told Tom: You need to practice self-discipline. It would help to develop your psychic abilities in a more formal way. I understand there
'
s a trained medium in the area with whom you can meet regularly.
"

Meg
'
s jaw fell open.
"
You
'
re asking
me
that?
"

Zenobia sighed, and then she smiled.
"
Please be careful, dear,
"
she said, laying her hand gently on Meg
'
s forearm.
"
Be very careful,
"
she repeated.
"
If you need advice, feel free to call me anytime. Would you like my card?
"

"
No
...
no, that
'
s all right. I
'
m sure Julia has your address,
"
Meg added, not to be rude.
"
There
'
s just one other thing. Did you understand what
...
what was said in French?
"

"
Oh, yes,
"
answered Zenobia.
"
The voice said,
'
Why won
'
t you leave me alone? This is so wrong; I
'
m a married woman and I have two sons. How can you do this to me when you know I need this position? Please don
'
t do this to me.
'"
Zenobia said it with the unshakable calm of a UN translator.

"
I see,
"
said Meg unhappily. The statements were all very consistent with what Meg already knew
—
or guessed. They didn
'
t prove or disprove anything. The facts weren
'
t nearly as much of a problem for Meg as the French.

Zenobia opened the door of her silver sedan and tossed her Gucci handbag in the back, then slid into the driver
'
s seat.
"
You can learn to use your ability to achieve quite astonishing things, Meg,
"
she said through the open window.
"
I do mean that.
"

Meg wanted to know what someo
ne like Zenobia could possibly
consider astonishing.
"Well, thanks," she said with a
wan smile.
"
I suppose it could c
ome in handy when the
phones go down in winter storms.
"

It was a shade too irreveren
t for Zenobia; she gave Meg an
impatient look, waved to he
r passenger who was packed and out of the inn at last, and
turn
ed the key. "Good luck, dear,"
she said.
"
You surely will need it.
"

T
he evening was wet and foggy, not much good for anything. Wyler, feeling aimless and bored, tossed his book aside and decided to wander over to the Inn Between, for no other reason than to hang out.

Hang
out.  He
despised the very expression. Hanging out was what mall rats did, and street gangs, and bums with no real purpose in life. For the last twenty-five years Wyler had made a point of
always
having a purpose in life, whether it was going to night school or learning to play the sax, mastering the game of chess or becoming a force on the basketball court. Even today, he made himself read a work of nonfiction after every work of fiction.

And yet here he was: hanging out.

What the hell am I doing?
he wondered as he knocked on the kitchen door of the Inn Between.
I know this can'
t go anywhere.

But he was drawn to the warmth of the Atwells family like a cat to a radiator. They had
...
something. Something he
'
d never quite experienced first
hand, although he
'
d read about it plenty of times in novels. And
...
they had Meg.

But it was Allie who came
running to get the door. When
she saw him, her face lit up with what he could only call
a
triumphant smile.
"
Tom!
Great!
We
'
re playing Monopoly, but
Comfort would really rather knit. You can take her place. Hey, everybody! Look who I found!
"
she called out, dragging him by the hand into the front room.

On their way there, she turned and whispered in his ear,
"
I
'
ve missed you. Why haven
'
t you come around?
"

Simple question; too bad it didn
'
t have a simple answer.
"
I
'
ve been boning up on a case,
"
he said in an easy lie.

"A case!"
she said, shocked.
"
This doesn
'
t mean you
'
re going
back
soon?
"

"
Eventually,
"
he admitted, greeting the rest of the family with a sweeping
"
Howdy, folks.
"
His glance settled on Meg, her face flushed with color, sitting opposite Lloyd at a Monopoly board.

For the last several days Wyler
'
s thoughts had drifted back to her constantly. Whatever she
'
d experienced at that bizarre memorial service had been intense and unforgettable. And yet when he
'
d called her the next day, she
'
d acted as if she
'
d forgotten all about it.