The Doorkeepers (11 page)

She unfastened the catch. From inside the box came a clicking, stirring sound, as if a collection of live crabs were trying to climb out. She hesitated for a moment, and then she threw back the lid. In a clattering rush, twenty or thirty keys hurtled out and stuck to Josh's right hand as if it were a magnet. He shouted out,
“Jesus!”
but it was out of surprise, not pain. He lifted up his hand and it was bristling with keys of all sizes and shapes – clock keys, padlock keys, trunk keys, music-box keys and some keys that were so old and blackened that it was impossible to tell what they might ever have opened.

Josh turned his hand this way and that, staring at the keys in disbelief. He shook it two or three times, and two or three of the keys dropped off onto the table, but they immediately jumped back onto his hand again. Ella grinned and shook her head in sheer pleasure.

“You must want those doors opened so bad,” she said. “Even that fellow who wanted his brother out of prison, the keys didn't stick to him like that.”

Abraxas barked once, but when Josh turned to look at him, he ducked his head below the edge of his basket. Josh said, “This is static electricity, right? This is a trick? Like Uri Geller or something?”

“Perhaps it is. Perhaps Julia's disappearance was a trick. We won't know, will we, unless we find out?”

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

“We do what you really came here for. We ask the one person who knows the truth.”

Nancy whispered, “You mean Julia, don't you?”

Ella shrugged.

“You want to hold a séance, is that it?” Josh asked her, sharply.

“
Moi?
Oh, no.
You're
the one who wants to hold a séance. You came here to see me tonight because you need
so
badly to find out what happened to Julia and you didn't know where else to turn. Why don't you admit how overwhelming your need is? Why don't you admit that you're willing to believe in anything and everything? The cards told me you were coming, the keys told me why. You might as well carry a placard.”

Josh took a breath. “We went to the library today and found out a whole lot more about the six doors. All kinds of different theories about what they were.”

“And?”

“There was one theory that the doors led through to a parallel world,” said Nancy. “A kind of alternative existence, like the Happy Hunting Ground.”

“So that's why you came here, instead of going to the police? You thought that I might believe you? Or at least, I wouldn't laugh at you?”

“Yes,” said Josh.

“And you thought that perhaps I could help you find out what the six doors really were, and if they had anything to do with Julia's disappearance?”

“Yes,” said Josh, irritably, even though he knew that Ella was provoking him only because she wanted him to ask for help. “Now how do I get these keys off?”

Ella plucked the keys off his hand one by one and dropped them into the box, quickly snapping the lid shut every time. “When that old lady spoke to you in the hospital, you knew that she was telling you something very important, didn't you? Oh, you tried to think of a rational explanation for it. But sometimes it's dangerous to rationalize. A whole lot of bad things happen in this life because people don't pay any attention when somebody gives them the warning.”

She took the last key off the end of Josh's thumb and closed the box and locked it. “If it tells us nothing else, it will tell us if you're right to go looking for the six doors, or if you're simply clutching at straws.”

“So what do we have to do?”

Ella took hold of Josh's hands. He could feel all the rings on her fingers, silver and gold and studded with stones. “First of all you have to realize that this isn't a game. You're going to be hearing from Julia, from the other side. You might hear her voice. You might even see her, in some form or another.”

“She's my sister. I'm not afraid of her.”

“The only thing you have to be afraid of is your own emotions. It's easy to say that you won't be frightened, but we're dealing with the dead here, Josh. We're dealing with people who have lost everything: their loved ones, their friends, the world they lived in. It's the sense of loss that's so hard to deal with. The grief. Even if we can manage to talk to them, they're gone, and they're never going to come back.”

Nancy came up and laid her hand on Josh's shoulder. “You don't have to do this, Josh. The chances are that it's only going to hurt you.”

“I have to know,” Josh told her. “Besides, what else am I
going to do? Sit in that hotel room all day, waiting for Detective Sergeant Paul to call me?”

“We could go back home.”

Josh shook his head. “Not yet. Let's try this first.”

“And if this doesn't work? If you still don't know what happened to Julia, one way or another?”

“Oh, you'll know,” said Ella. “I guarantee it. One hundred and ninety percent.”

She switched off all of the lights but one – a standard lamp draped with a beaded crimson shawl – and she lit an odd selection of differently colored candles, some of them scented with vanilla and myrrh and strawberries.

On the table beside her she set a silver dish full of salt.

“In Africa, salt is the sign of deepest friendship,” she said. “A bowl of purest salt must always be offered to your guests when they arrive. It is an offering to the spirits, too. A token of affection. It is also a token of grief. Many people believe that we shed tears to dissolve all of the salt that we have accidentally spilt.

“Salt also protects us from evil. You should always keep a bowl of salt by the door or any other entrance that demons might use. When you walk through the house at night, you should always carry a handful of salt. If you see a demon lurking in a corner, you can throw salt in its face to blind the evil eye.

“Tonight I'm using this salt to encourage Julia to come to talk to us. A gift of purity.”

She stood in the center of the room and offered a hand each to Josh and Nancy, and told them to hold hands, too. Abraxas stared at them pensively, but didn't make any attempt to join them.

“He's behaving himself,” Josh remarked.

“He doesn't like séances. They spook him. If he wasn't a dog, he'd be a chicken.”

“Don't you sit around a table for séances?” asked Nancy.

“That's always a mistake. Almost every medium makes it. How do they think a spirit is going to manifest itself in the
middle of them, if they're all sitting around a piece of solid wood? Wood is a non-conductor, and spirits are formed of electrical energy. You might just as well have a television with a wooden screen, and expect to get a picture on it.”

“Do we have to close our eyes?” Josh wanted to know.

Ella smiled. Her skin gleamed in the candlelight like polished bronze. Her eyes shone white. “All you have to do is relax, and breathe deeply and gently. Think about the times you spent with Julia, the really good times. Try and picture her face. See it as clearly as you can. The color of her eyes, her eyelashes, every detail of her skin. Any freckle, any little wisp of hair. Try to imagine that she's living and breathing, living and breathing, just like you are. Her body's warm and her lungs are going in and out, in and out.

“Her eyes are closed; but her eyelids are fluttering because she's dreaming, Josh. She's dreaming of you. She's dreaming of coming back and talking to you, and telling you where she's been. Can you see her now, Josh? Can you
smell
her now? Remember that perfume she always used to wear?”

Nancy, beside him, took a deep breath, and suddenly said, “Anaïs Anaïs.”

“What?” said Josh, with a prickling feeling all around his scalp.

“Anaïs Anaïs. That was the fragrance that Julia always used to wear. Can't you smell it?”

Josh sniffed. He could vaguely detect a light, floral scent, but he couldn't be sure that it was Julia's. “I don't know … it could be the candles.”

Ella said, “She's close, Josh. The spirits are always close, especially when they've only just left us. She misses you, Josh, as much as you miss her. She wants to talk to you. She wants to touch you. She wants to tell you what happened to her.”

Josh glanced at Nancy. He was beginning to feel that they had made a bad mistake, coming back here to Ella's. As if she could really bring Julia back from the dead. Julia had been hung and mutilated and dumped in the Thames and that was all there was to it. Ella was simply fueling his grief, so that she could exploit him. He wondered how
much money she would ask him for, once this “séance” was over.

“Nothing,” said Ella, without blinking.

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“I'm not going to ask you for anything. This is all about faith, not money.”

Josh felt himself flushing. “Jesus. I wish my bank manager could tell when I was thinking about money.”

“It's all right,” said Ella. “It's all right to doubt. If nobody doubted, then belief would have no value at all. But remember that Julia was more than your sister. She was a friend to many, many people; and she was
my
friend, too … Now,” she went on, “let's bring her closer, shall we? Let's feel her living and breathing, living and breathing. Let's see her face, the way we remember her best. The way we loved her.”

Ella raised her eyes to the ceiling and her grip on Josh's hand tightened so much that her long fingernails dug into his palm. She was hurting him, but he guessed that she was doing it on purpose, to concentrate his mind.

She was silent for a long time. Her breathing was deep, with a slight rasp in it. The candle flames dipped and swiveled and all kinds of distorted shadows danced in the corners where the sloping ceilings met the walls. Outside, in the night, Josh could hear the ceaseless muttering of London's traffic, and for the first time since he had arrived in England he felt very far from home.

Ella released Nancy's hand for a moment and took a pinch of salt out of the silver bowl. She threw it into the center of the room between them, and chanted, “Three angels came out of the east. One brought fire, one brought frost. The third brought the spirit we seek.”

She took another pinch of salt and threw it in a crisscross pattern over the candle flames, which flared up bright blue. “Three maidens once going on a verdant highway. One brought bread. One brought wood. The third brought the spirit we seek.”

Now she took hold of Nancy's hand again, and closed her eyes. “Julia Winward, Julia Winward, Julia Winward. Thrice
the candles burn by me. Thrice our hearts shall broken be.
Pchagerav monely, pchagerav tre vodyi.”

Josh took a deep breath, and this time he could smell Julia's perfume quite distinctly. The air in the flat began to grow cold, and somehow everything seemed blurry, as if they were being shaken by a distant temblor.

“Julia Winward, Julia Winward, Julia Winward,” Ella chanted, her voice rising every time she called Julia's name.

The temperature dropped and dropped, and the smell of perfume grew so strong that it was almost overwhelming. They heard a creaking sound, too – very faint at first, but gradually growing more distinct.
Creak,
pause.
Creak,
pause. It reminded Josh of Julia sitting on their grandfather's rocker, on the porch in Sausalito. Her hands covering her eyes, to shield them from the setting sun, her bare toes swinging, her blonde hair alight.
Creak,
pause.
Creak,
pause.
Creak,
pause.

Suddenly, they heard a soft, desperate tumbling noise. Something appeared right in front of them, in the air. A pale, flickering shape, like the images seen in an old-fashioned zoetrope. The movement was frantic, but the creaking continued at the same measured pace as before.

Creak,
pause.
Creak,
pause.

Ella dug her nails so deeply into the palms of Josh's hand that he almost expected blood to come dripping out. “Julia Winward!” she called, her West Indian accent very strong now.
“Juli-a Win-ward!”

The tension in the flat was almost unbearable. Josh felt as if the air pressure were increasing as the temperature plummeted, and his eardrums popped. The flickering shape in front of them became brighter and brighter, and at last Josh realized that it was two legs – two bare legs – pedaling like a cyclist in mid-air.

“Julia?” he whispered. Then, much louder,
“Julia?”

Gradually, the image brightened even more, and grew, and Josh looked up at it in growing horror. Nancy said, “Josh – what is it? Josh, speak to me, for God's sake –
what is it?”

Ella babbled, “Save us. Name of the Father, name of the Son, name of the Holy Duppy, amen.”

They only saw her clearly for a split second, but that split second was more than enough. Julia was hanging naked from the ceiling, her hands clutching at the noose around her neck, her legs wildly kicking. The rope was swinging slowly from side to side.
Creak,
pause.
Creak,
pause. Julia's eyes were bulging and her tongue was lolling over her chin, but there was nothing that she could do to claw it free.

Josh shouted,
“Ella!”
but Ella was ahead of him. She picked up the bowl of salt and threw it at the struggling vision of Julia in the air. With a sharp
crackle-crackle-crackle
every grain of salt flared into a tiny pinprick of sparkling blue light. The vision vanished immediately, leaving nothing but a thin swirl of bitter-smelling smoke. Abraxas let out a defiant bark, but still didn't venture out of his basket.

“God, that was scary,” said Nancy, her eyes wide and her voice shaking. “That was so, so scary. My grandfather raised the spirits. Shadows, invisible finger-writing in the sand. But nothing like that.” She pulled out one of Ella's chairs and sat down, while Ella herself leaned against the table, dabbing her forehead and neck with her scarf.