The Spiritist Read online

  “Someone murdered me,” he said.

  Damn it! Aerilyn gulped. There could be no doubt regarding the authenticity of his statement. Thomas was murdered. It hadn’t been a suicide as everyone believed. A feeling of dread settled into the pit of her stomach, heralding the storm of trouble that would soon overtake them all. What had she gotten herself into?

  God help the mother now. God help them all!

  “Please tell me the name of the person who did this, Thomas?” she said, fighting to keep the terror out of her voice.

  The boy shook his head. He raised his hand towards his mother, his fingers barely a few inches away from her cheek. He longed to touch her – but the laws of the underworld forbade it.

  Suddenly, the apparition disappeared. For a moment, Aerilyn didn’t move, hoping he would come back. But when nothing appeared, she sighed and removed her hands from the stone. “You can open your eyes now.”

  “Did you see him?” The mother’s voice, tense and eager, wavered. Tears pooled in her eyes and threatened to spill. “Did he say something?”

  “I…” How could she blurt out such a thing? This moment, catastrophic in its magnitude, left her shaken and speechless. This was a nightmare; not only for the mother, but for her also. Knowing that she would need all her wits to manage this situation, Aerilyn took a deep breath to calm down. She couldn’t afford to panic. With trembling hands, Aerilyn reached towards the white, wooden shelves nailed to the wall closest to her and grabbed an artist’s sketch pad. With deft fingers, she drew the young man’s face as clearly as she could remember. “Is that your son?” She turned the sketch towards Joan.

  Joan gasped. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She picked up the sketch and gazed at the roughly drawn portrait. “That’s him. That’s my Thomas. Did you see him? What did he say?”

  Aerilyn gulped in an attempt to free the words stuck in her throat. Sometimes spirits conveyed things that soothed the family, but on rare occasions, the spirits brought more pain and suffering into the world of those he left behind. She had no facts, no evidence except the words of a dead boy. And yet, Aerilyn knew she couldn’t shirk her duty. She had to tell the truth as she heard it, even if it pained her to do.

  “He said that he hadn’t wanted to die,” she said, pushing back the edges of her long, blonde hair. “He also said that he was murdered.”

  Silence reigned in the room. Joan sat rock still, the expression on her face betraying her shock.

  “Murdered?” she whispered.

  Aerilyn wrote the questions and answers that were exchanged during the séance down on the back of the sketch so that she would not forget. Knowing the seriousness of the claim, she couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. She handed it over. “That is what he said. He disappeared before I could ask anything else.”

  Joan read the exchange. After putting the sketch down, she covered her face with both hands and cried. Aerilyn stood. She gave the woman a hug. Not knowing what else to do, she walked over to the table on the far corner where a carafe of water and an empty glass sat. She poured water and brought it over. Joan drank it, rivulets of tears spilling down her cheeks. Her hand shook as she placed the glass back on the table.

  She wiped the tears off her face with both hands. “I knew it. I sensed it. My boy wouldn’t have taken his own life. He could never do that. He was murdered. Someone murdered my child.”

  Aerilyn hugged her again, knowing that she could offer little comfort. How did one deal with the death of a loved one? How did one come to terms with such a devastating revelation? Joan’s nightmare had begun all over again. Thomas’s statement would turn her world upside down. Such instances, despite their rarity, made Aerilyn hate what she did. The dead rarely brought comfort in the life of the living. But she had been unable to deny the old woman this last hope to get some answers. And now it seemed there were more questions than answers.

  Knowing that Joan needed some time to process it all, she picked up the empty glass and walked back to the table from where she’d picked it up. She marshaled her own thoughts together as she sat.

  “Did you suspect something like this?”

  “No.” Joan lifted her head. Her swollen, red eyes gleamed with anger. “I only knew that my boy had every reason to live. Why would he kill himself? At barely twenty, he had a whole life ahead of him. It wasn’t his time to go. He was my youngest, you know.” Taking a tissue from the box Aerilyn put on the table, she wiped her face. “The sweetest, gentlest boy you ever knew. As a child, he was a hellion. Always in motion. Oh, the things he broke.” She smiled.

  Aerilyn allowed the woman to reminisce. It would do her a world of good to let it all out. No mother should have to lose her child. No mother was strong enough to bear that burden – and if only Aerilyn could offer some reassurance, some small hope, but she could do no more than what she had already done.

  “Why didn’t he tell you who killed him?”

  “He didn’t seem to know.”

  “How is that possible? How can he not know who killed him?”

  Aerilyn gathered her thoughts, knowing that words alone were sometimes not sufficient to explain death. Most people thought that spirits acquired all knowledge about everything after death. The reality was far from this assumption. “Spirits don’t know everything. Imagine an old person who dies in his sleep. If you ask his spirit about the cause of death, he wouldn’t know what exactly killed him. Had it been a stroke or heart attack? Similarly, people die in an accident, and they can’t recall the last few seconds. And sometimes seconds matter. Someone is going in a high-speed car. They have a crash and die instantly. They don’t know how they died. If you ask them to recall their last memory, they will tell you that they were driving really fast.”

  “But a murder is different. How can Thomas not know the identity of his murderer?”

  Aerilyn sighed. She stood and paced the room. “I am not sure, Joan. This isn’t a usual occurrence in my line of work.”

  “Do you think it bothers him that he doesn’t know who killed him?”

  “A spirit is a conscious being, Joan. But from what little I understand, most spirits have only two feelings; they are either happy or unhappy. Being curious, angry, or sad is not in the nature of a spirit that is residing in the otherworld. When I call a spirit through the veil, they sometimes experience strong feelings when they see their loved ones, but beyond the veil, when they are in the otherworld, they don’t feel those emotions.”

  “So Thomas is happy?”

  Aerilyn grasped her hand, feeling a connection with her client. “He is happy, Joan. But when he comes to see you, and if you’re sad, then he feels distressed because it’s hard for him to see you like this.”

  Joan wiped the tears off her face. “I don’t want my boy to feel any pain because of me. When you call him again, I will be…happy.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you grieving. If you put up a brave front, he will go back happy.”

  “Do you think he will be able to tell us more in the next session?”

  Aerilyn shook her head. She didn’t want Joan to have unrealistic expectations. “I wish I could tell you more…but at this point, there is little else to go on.”

  Joan grasped her hand. “You have already done more for me than you realize. You have offered me hope. My son will never come back, but now that I know he didn’t take his own life I can find out why someone murdered my child.”

  Aerilyn squeezed her hand. She had to tell the truth without any sugar coating. “Joan, you might think that you’ve stumbled on to something concrete, but in this world, truth must be backed by evidence. If we don’t have any evidence to prove his murder, no one would believe us. They will call us liars, or worse.”

  “I’m not scared of what anyone might think or say. What can be worse than what I have already gone through? I am going to fight for my boy. Justice has been denied.”

  People who were sticklers for rules, the cynics, and those who prized practicality above all co
uld drive a person to a state of hopelessness. Aerilyn knew that well enough, and she hoped that Joan wouldn’t have to undergo the pain of convincing people when she didn’t have the proof to back her claims. “There is no guarantee that we will find any evidence, Joan. What if you never find out the identity of the murderer?”

  Joan’s gaze was steely. “Could there have been a mistake while you talked to Thomas?”

  Aerilyn knew her craft well. Lying was beneath her. “No. There was no mistake. But as I explained to you earlier, spirits don’t exactly convey what they mean. Maybe he meant something else?”

  Joan leaned back, a determined look on her face. “Murder is a murder. Thomas would not have said it unless he meant it. Now there is no option but for me to find out more. How can I let the murderer of my child get away? Despite the investigation and the coroner’s report, I never believed, deep down in my heart, that my child committed suicide. He had everything to live for; good friends, family, a future. We were planning a vacation to Thailand. He was studying journalism. It was his dream to become an investigative reporter. Even as a child, he ferreted out information that he had no business knowing. Oh, the number of times I caught him reading his sister’s diary. He just wanted to know everything.” Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “You have given me a reason to live.”

  Aerilyn remembered the details Joan had told her, and what she had gleaned from old newspaper reports. Thomas had been found in his room in his own apartment, hanging from the ceiling fan. The coroner’s report confirmed it as death by hanging, due to lack of oxygen, brought by his own hands. No one could figure out what compelled the young man to take his own life. His excellence in academics, his popularity with his inner circle of friends, and his fun-loving nature made him an unlikely candidate for suicide.

  And yet, there hadn’t been any clues to indicate otherwise. Aerilyn didn’t doubt the spirit’s claim, but getting any further information from Thomas would prove to be time consuming and fraught with difficulties. And, maybe even impossible.

  She sighed. “If you’re determined about it, we will need to conduct more séances.”

  Joan leaned forward eagerly. “Can we call him again today?”

  Aerilyn wished she could do so, but laws of magic bound her power. Spirits couldn’t be summoned repeatedly. It took time and effort to communicate with one. She could only talk to them in short bursts of time, and that too only if the spirit remained willing.

  Aerilyn put her hand on Joan’s. “We can’t do it today. It’s a difficult journey for a spirit. He needs time to recover. We can try it again tomorrow if you wish. But I must warn you, as I have warned you before, we may never get the answers you seek. Communication as we know it is not the same for the spirits. Once they are on the other side of the veil, they lose that connection with life, and with the everyday stuff we take for granted.”

  Joan pressed her hand. The earnest, eager look on her face squeezed Aerilyn’s heart. If Aerilyn turned her down, she had no one else to turn to. “But you will try?”

  Aerilyn didn’t have the heart to say no. How could she deny a grieving mother this last chance to get to the truth behind her son’s death? She wished she had said no from the beginning, but right now she was smack in the middle of this calamitous milieu. “We will try tomorrow evening,” she assured her client.

  Joan’s lips lifted in a smile. “Thank you, dear. You don’t know how much it means to me. I’d given up hope of ever knowing what happened to my boy. I talked to him the day before his…death. He had been eager to come home for the holidays and looked forward to the end of his semester. There was absolutely nothing wrong in his life. Someone stole his life from him, and I am going to make sure that person pays for his or her crime. ”

  “Come by around seven. We will try again,” she said. Aerilyn stood to open the door. “You must not jump to conclusions, Joan. Let us keep our minds open to all possibilities.”

  “Of course.” Joan nodded eagerly. “I look forward to seeing you again.”

  “Can you bring something of Thomas’s next time? His clothing or something he kept with him?”

  “I didn’t bring much with me when I came here, but I have his wallet. I kept it with me…” Her voice broke. With an effort, she pulled herself together. “Should I bring that? Would it help you to see better?”

  “Yes, I think it might,” said Aerilyn. After Joan left, Aerilyn sat on the chair once more to gather her thoughts together. The client never knew how much energy it took for her to pierce the veil and summon a spirit. While Knight leapt up to sit on her lap, she drank two glasses of water and ate a few cookies she kept in the room for just this purpose.

  As if reminding her of his presence, Knight nudged her hand with his head.

  “Oh, all right, you greedy animal. But it’s not good for you.” She gave him a few crumbs as he purred happily. “That didn’t go well now, did it, Knight? That boy is going to cause us a lot of trouble.” Aerilyn ran a hand down her cat’s body, her fingers running through the soft, black fur. The turmoil in her heart conflicted with the thoughts in her mind. “I really should tell her that I can’t do this anymore. It’s not going to do her any good to know more.” Knight purred as he licked her hand. “Oh, get off, you gluttonous cat. No more cookies for you.”

  As the cat leapt off her lap on to the carpet, she stood. What had she gotten herself into? The spirit’s claim made Aerilyn nervous. Although her sympathy lay with the young man and his mother, she sought to find a way to extricate herself from this uncomfortable situation before it got way out of her control.

  With a wave of her hand, she extinguished the candles and swept out of the room. It would be foolish to pursue this any further. An explosive claim such as this one would leave in its wake a trail of bloody and broken hearts. She had no option but to tell Joan after the next séance that she simply couldn’t continue anymore. She didn’t want to be caught in the middle of this potentially volatile situation.

  Aerilyn didn’t approve of cowardice as a personality trait, but it sure beat being foolish. And only a fool would open a murder investigation without any tangible proof or evidence. She went around the shop, adjusting the wares, her mind half on Joan and half on Mrs. Becker. Both matters were important, and would require a delicate hand if she wished to be successful.

  Her mind made up, she locked the shop, put Knight in his carrier and left. Tomorrow, everything would be better.

  Chapter Two

  Cole Hudson, the CEO of Hudson Security, a multimillion dollar company, frowned in frustration at his Deputy Head of Administration, Joan. Even though he realized that Joan had taken the death of her youngest son hard, it had never occurred to him that she would delve so deep into depression that she would seek the aid of a spiritist.

  What the hell was a spiritist anyway?

  A petty charlatan, that’s what. How dare she tell such lies to Joan? Murder, indeed. How could she make such a strong accusation without any evidence? No doubt, she intended to use Joan’s grief and the subsequent lapse of judgment to her advantage.

  Cole considered himself to be an open-minded man. He could tolerate many things, but he abhorred, above all, people who used other people’s misery to further their own gain. He had a good idea to give this woman a piece of his mind, but only after he’d talked some sense into Joan.

  “The police did not leave any stone unturned in their investigation, Joan.” His tone didn’t reveal the frustration he felt. He’d never felt so helpless before. His inability to help this woman who had served his company so loyally for the past nine years wrenched his heart. His duty, his sense of moral obligation, urged him to ensure that she didn’t waste her life and time by falling into the hands of this trickster who claimed she could talk to dead spirits. “I read the initial probe report prepared by our own investigating team. Thomas’s death was a suicide. There was no hint of any foul play. It was certainly not a murder. Please believe me, if you carry on this path, it will bring you not
hing but pain.”

  Joan didn’t look up from the picture of her dead son held in her hands. “Thomas didn’t commit suicide. He had no reason to end his life. I knew my son. He had a zest for living. It was a murder.”

  Cole knew all too well that young people hid many facets of their lives from their parents. Thomas could have been depressed because his girlfriend dumped him or he could have been taking drugs. Perhaps he couldn’t bear the pressure of his studies anymore. Although the police had not managed to unearth any reason that explained as to why the handsome twenty-year old would take his own life, it didn’t mean that it was anything more than an act of desperation.

  Cole stood. He paced the narrow, sparsely furnished sitting room of the suite Joan occupied in the local inn at Alby. The bright green cushions on the couch and the soft green rug did little to alleviate the gloomy atmosphere. The plain, brown curtains drawn across the windows prevented the sunlight from filtering in. He longed to turn on the lights and cast out the darkness, but knew Joan wouldn’t like the intrusion. He wanted to help her, not turn her against him. More than the fact that he missed her efficient presence in the office, he had genuine feelings of affection for her. Over the past many years, she had worked hard with determined loyalty to ensure that his vision regarding the business came true. He owed her more than his patience and understanding.

  He sat with her and put his arm around her shoulder. She didn’t move her eyes away from the picture of her son. The picture showed Thomas standing next to Joan against the backdrop of a park or wooded area. Looking at the spirited, happy face of the young man, Cole found it hard to imagine that he no longer lived and breathed.

  “Our team talked to the police. We studied the room…where he took his life. Nothing indicated that it was anything but a suicide. I know that it’s hard for you to accept, but you have to believe that Thomas wouldn’t want you to waste your life. Whatever his reasons for taking that fatal action, he would want you to go on, to move forward in life and to be happy,” Cole implored, trying to make her see reason.