Prologue
“Don’t worry,” Maggie said, “he can’t hurt you. Not while I’m here.”
She held the girl’s hand, and even though she’d forgotten the girl’s name, she could hear it locked away somewhere in her thoughts: Eris.
“Eris, I need you to focus.”
But Eris shook her head madly. Her entire body wrenched from side-to-side. The chair legs squealed beneath her weight, skipping across the floor.
“It’ll be alright, Eris.”
“Don’t call me that!” she screamed. “I don’t like this—get me out.”
Maggie exhaled. What were the chances she would be able to avoid a refund?
People ambled around them. Pale-skinned corpses of the dead. Some bloated, others bloody, a few with defined bruises. They were decrepit beings. Anxious things with milky eyes.
They wandered around the table, weaving in and out of sight through the darkness. Except, it wasn’t darkness. Not really. It was a veil Maggie had created. A blanket over a parrot cage to obscure the horrors that laid beyond their séance.
“It’s okay,” Maggie yelled over the din of chattering voices. Clamorous spirits trying to forgo obscurity. They didn’t want to be forgotten, lost to the perils of time. They would tell their story to anyone and everyone. They would do anything to remain as alive as they could be.
Eris tried to raise her hand from the table, from the circle drawn in chalk, but Maggie had her pinned. She had cycled through the different rules and regulations at least three times before they began. One of the most important rules being to never take your hand out of the circle until you’ve closed the connection.
“Please,” Eris begged. There were tears in her eyes.
She had lasted less than three minutes here. At first, the girl had been giddy, excited even. Through the mental link that Maggie had with most people, she could tell how life-changing this was supposed to be for her. Something that would completely turn everything around for her. But the moment the bald man appeared, it was no longer time for fun and games.
He had oily-black skin as if doused in hot tar. There were corded veins running across the surface of his face like exposed muscle tendons. On the left side of his head was a second face. A frail woman with empty eyes.
Creepy, Maggie couldn’t deny that, but it was harmless in her presence. Like a shark at the aquarium.
“We can leave,” Maggie said. “You just have to say it. Can you say it?”
Eris looked at her with her tear-streaked cheeks, red and puffy skin swallowed her eyes. She nodded.
“We’ll do it together.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve seen enough,” they said in unison.
Suddenly, the voices silenced. The rotten corpses disappeared. The black mist surrounding them, protecting Eris from the horrors beyond was replaced by the guttering candlelight at the center of the table placed equidistant between the two chalk circles. The words Come and See were written across the formation. What archaic things they were. Something from old tomes that Maggie had discovered when she first learned about what she was, and the lineage of many that had come before her.
“Did you get what you were after?” Maggie asked.
Eris jerked her hand away and stood. Snot trailed from her nostrils. She was out of the shop before anyone could say, refund. Maggie smiled smugly. Not that the girl deserved trauma, but just desserts were better than any other snack.
She leaned close and blew out the candle.
