The Fifth Sense Read online

  “It’s safe,” Lorna assured her. “Julia doesn’t mean us harm. If her magic sent you the ring, then she means for you to be here. She’s tied to this place, so I think that makes her stronger when we call to her here,” Lorna said.

  “I…” Sue wasn’t sure what she thought. On the one hand, she didn’t want to see Hank ever again—spirit or not. On the other, she didn’t want to call more ghosts into her life.

  “I know,” Lorna soothed. The woman definitely had a nurturing quality to her. She slid her hands off of Sue’s shirt to touch her forearms. The skin-to-skin contact connected them just as it had with Vivien.

  The prickling sensation of awareness started where they touched. It shivered over her and caused goosebumps to rise on her arms and legs. She felt her hair lifting like the effect of static electricity.

  “We know you’re scared,” Lorna said.

  Sue nodded. That was an understatement.

  “When this was happening to me, when I tried to get closure after my husband died, I was terrified. I wasn’t like Vivien or Heather. I was like you. I didn’t grow up knowing ghosts existed, or magic, or mediums, or any of this. It was a fantasy story or Hollywood movie. Heather sees ghosts like Julia. Vivien is psychic like her ancestors.” Lorna held up her ring. “Until I put this on, I was just a sad lady whose husband had cheated on her in the worst way.”

  Sue looked at her ring. “I didn’t ask for this.”

  “You didn’t have to.” Lorna leaned over to force Sue to look at her. “But Julia’s magic knew you needed it. You might not want it, but you needed it. And there are strange perks.”

  “Are you coming?” Heather called.

  “We need a moment,” Lorna answered.

  Sue put her hand over Lorna’s on her arm. She felt the woman’s sincerity. Her energy was different than Vivien’s. Lorna was gentle, a mother, a nurturer. Beneath that was an echo of her old pain. It would be a scar she carried with her, but it had dulled and healed over.

  “I’m not going to lie.” Lorna tightened her hands on Sue’s arms. “It’s going to break your heart to face this, but when it’s over, the healing is worth it. You’ll see life is not him. It was never meant to be like him. You were meant for more. I can feel that in you. You were meant to love and be loved.”

  “What did you mean by perks?” Sue heard Vivien coming back from the storeroom.

  “The rings amplify something inside us. For me, I desire to take care of others, my family, and my friends. It’s all I ever wanted to do. As a mother, I could always find anything in the house. I never thought of it as a skill, but with the ring, I have the natural magic to find lost things. And, as we talked about before, I’m a healer. I can transfer physical illness and injury from one to another or into myself. I don’t like that as much. I don’t like making those decisions.”

  Sue shook her head. “I don’t have any natural magic. I’m not good at anything.”

  “I don’t believe that’s true.” Lorna released her arm. “You might not see it yet, but you have something inside you.”

  “Come in when you’re ready, but do come in.” Lorna walked behind the curtain.

  Sue felt colder without the contact. She rubbed her arm where Lorna had touched her. She doubted she had natural magic. What was she good at? Keeping secrets? Following orders to avoid punishment? Cleaning?

  Magical punching bag maid, she thought in dejection.

  “Stop that nonsense,” Vivien whispered as she passed.

  Sue glanced at her in surprise.

  Vivien gave her a sad smile. “Never again.”

  Sue slowly nodded.

  “Good.” Vivien walked toward the curtains holding an armful of movie theater candy boxes.

  Sue checked the dark sidewalk beyond the glass door. Hank wasn’t there. How easy it would be to tell herself she imagined it.

  She wasn’t one to lie to herself, even when she’d justified her bad decisions. Would walking into the theater to perform a séance be another regret? Or would she regret walking away from the help and friendship these women offered?

  Beyond practical matters and fear, curiosity stirred. Ghosts? How often did a person get the chance to see proof of the supernatural, of an afterlife?

  Sue found herself walking toward the curtain. Although she knew it to be thick, hanging material, she felt it was more like a veil, another threshold between her past and her future. If she stepped through, it took her further away from who she had been.

  Sue ran her hand along the red velvet, feeling the soft texture even as she detected the faintest hint of age and dust. She should want to run from her past, but the future scared her too.

  Everything scared her.

  She hated that fear.

  Sue wasn’t sure what she expected to see when she balled her fist around the material and pulled the curtain aside. Her eyes went first to the lit stage where Vivien, Heather, and Lorna waited, then to the theater seats hidden in the shadows. There couldn’t be more than a hundred cushioned seats, but she scanned over each one as she walked down the aisle, half expecting an audience of ghosts to stare back at her.

  She took several deep breaths before finally focusing on the stage. Lorna sat on the stage, digging through a messenger bag. They’d spread a blue cloth on the floor. When Sue went up the stairs along the stage’s edge, she saw that a thick, old book had been placed in the middle of the cloth. A symbol had been drawn on the fabric to match the symbol on the book’s cover.

  Lorna pulled out blue candles, dropped oil on them from a vial, and handed them to Vivien.

  “What are you doing?” Sue asked, approaching hesitantly.

  “Anointing the candles with basil oil. It’s for protection. And the blue will amplify our message to Julia,” Lorna suddenly frowned. “I don’t have blueberries.”

  “It’s just Julia,” Vivien dismissed as she arranged the four blue candles at the edge of the cloth but didn’t light them. “We’ll be all right.”

  “Blueberries?” Sue asked.

  “They help against psychic attacks,” Vivien said.

  “Antioxidants of the supernatural world.” Lorna went behind the theater screen and returned with four pillows tucked under her arms. She placed them on the floor behind the candles. Seeing Sue watching her, she chuckled. “For our backsides,” she glanced to Vivien and grinned, “padded as they might be with the extra sexy, age-positive poundage. My hips do not take kindly to sitting on hard floors like they used to.”

  “And the book?” Sue gestured to the giant tome in the center of the whatever-it-was they were creating.

  “Family heirloom.” Heather sat on a pillow. She suppressed a yawn, reminding Sue how late it was. “It belonged to Julia.”

  “I’m sorry, we haven’t thought about the best way to explain everything to people—not that we were expecting that we’d have to explain it, I guess.” Lorna frowned at the display. “This whole altar thing must look odd.”

  Sue nodded.

  “There’s a lot to this, too much to go over right now, but I’ll try to give you the fast version. We found the book hidden under this stage. It has directions on how to do seances, logs of people Julia helped, and ways we can protect ourselves—like the blueberries and basil oil.” Lorna gestured to encompass the design on the cloth. “This symbol usually locks the spirits inside. Not Julia, but others. See how the symbols look like our rings?” Lorna pointed at the fabric and then held up her hand to show her ring.

  Sue looked at her hand and then the cloth. She didn’t see her symbol but knew hers matched a pattern on the outside of the theater.

  “Without the cloth, the spirits become trapped on top of the book cover and aren’t able to move around.” Lorna took a seat next to Heather. “They don’t like it as much. This is better.”

  Sue had many questions but doubted the answers would put her at ease. Asking them would only delay the inevitable of going through with it.

  Vivien sat across from Lorna, leaving
one open spot for Sue.

  “Do we need to light the candles?” Sue sat on the pillow with her back toward the seats, thankful she wasn’t expected to stand.

  “Oh, here,” Vivien reached for the book and flipped the cover open. Handwritten in calligraphy, the word “Warrick” appeared on the title page. She took out a piece of paper and laid it in front of Sue. “You can read off that when we start.”

  ”This first part is pretty neat,” Heather said as she joined hands with the other two. Louder, as if to the entire theater, she stated, “We intend to talk to Julia Warrick.”

  Vivien and Lorna held their hands toward Sue. She slowly took them, completing the circle. At the contact, a zap of energy flowed through her from one set of joined hands into the other. Instantly, the candle wicks caught fire without anyone moving to light them.

  “Holy crap.” Sue gasped and tried to pull away but Vivien and Lorna, clearly having anticipated as much, held tight.

  “Consider that a warmup.” Vivien grinned.

  The rush of emotion coming at her from the other women was almost too much. Her heart beat faster, and she found herself trying to catch her breath. At the same time, her own fears and pain seemed to leave her, flowing out of her into her new friends as if they tried to take on some of her burdens. The energy built until the static charge caused her hair to lift from her shoulders. She looked at the others, seeing they suffered the same effects.

  As she looked at them, the feelings deepened. Sue began to understand these women as if they were part of her.

  Vivien ran headfirst into life, embracing every second. With her psychic abilities, she had a built-in defense mechanism. She detected danger and avoided it. She also used her powers to fiercely protect the people she cared about.

  Lorna had a softer energy. Her compassion was anchored deep to the point she would put everyone else’s needs before her own. She’d give her last dollar to a stranger in need.

  Heather had been a more challenging read, but the connection opened the woman up a little more. She carried her emotions close, hiding behind a mask to hide the pain she carried, burying it in endless work. It was an old pain, one she’d accepted, but that still radiated with an ache that could never go away.

  Sue gasped, trying to catch her breath. She’d worked so hard to hide herself, never to let anyone see her waver. With the rush of emotions in, it only stood to reason that her feelings went out. As she understood the mysteries of those around her, so too were they reading her secrets. A tear slipped down her face. She waited to feel their judgment.

  Why did she stay with Hank?

  How could she not have known the man she married?

  How could any self-respecting woman put up with so much?

  “That son of a bitch,” Vivien swore.

  Heather stared at her from across the circle. “Trust me. When we’re done talking to Julia, we’re going to come up with a plan to summon that pitiful excuse for a human and give him an ass-kicking deep into a hell that he won’t ever escape.”

  “No one would have been able to see that kind of evil,” Lorna said. “The devil is good at hiding himself, Sue. It’s not your fault, none of it.”

  Sue cried harder, nodding.

  They didn’t judge her. They supported her. They believed her and she hadn’t needed to say a word.

  No one had ever believed her.

  For so long, everyone saw what Hank wanted them to see. They loved him. They looked at her like she wasn’t worthy of such a good and charming man. If she tried to talk about something even minor that he’d done, they’d frown in censure and accuse her of being dramatic.

  “Thank you,” Sue whispered, the words catching.

  “Let’s do this,” Vivien said.

  “Our intention is to talk to Julia Warrick,” Heather announced again. The bright lights over the stage flickered. Sue looked up and then around.

  “It’s okay. Spirits need energy to manifest,” Lorna said. “It’s better she takes it from the lights than from us.”

  Lorna nodded toward the paper on the floor in front of Sue.

  The three women said in unison, “Spirits tethered to this plane we humbly seek your guidance. Spirits search amongst your numbers for the spirit we seek. We call forth Julia Warrick from the great beyond.”

  Sue read along silently. Vivien squeezed her hand and nodded that she should speak.

  ”Spirits tethered to this plane,” they began again, and Sue joined in, “we humbly seek your guidance. Spirits search amongst your numbers for the spirit we seek. We call forth Julia Warrick from the great beyond.”

  They all paused and glanced around.

  “Heather, do you see her?” Vivien asked.

  Heather shook her head in denial. “No, I don’t know where…”

  A tiny giggle sounded from the theater seats, followed by running footsteps.

  “Did you all hear that?” Vivien asked.

  “Yeah,” Heather said.

  “How did a kid get in here?” Lorna broke hand contact and stood. She walked to the side of the stage. “Hello? Who’s there? Come out, please.”

  Heather stood. Vivien let go of her hand, and Sue turned to look behind her. The pillow turned with her as she remained on the ground.

  “I said come out, please,” Lorna stated in an unmistakable mom tone. She placed her hands on her hips. Lorna and Vivien joined her. Sue stayed on the pillow, nervously watching. The lights continued to flicker.

  “Shit, you don’t think we stirred a lost child spirit, do you?” Vivien asked. “I hate when they’re young. It’s always so sad.”

  A cool blast hit the side of Sue’s neck. “Your soul is dusty, and you smell like death.”

  Sue yelped and hurried away from the voice. By the time her eyes managed to focus, she was stumbling to her feet. A young girl in an extremely out-of-date dress stood on the stage—or rather, maybe she floated on the stage since Sue could see through her transparent figure. Dark brown hair had been curled in ringlets and tied with a red bow.

  “There you are,” Lorna said, leaning over to be more on the girl’s level even though she was several feet away. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  The girl’s face scrunched up in defiance. “It sure as hell ain’t sweetheart!”

  Lorna gasped and stood up straight.

  “Grandma Julia,” Heather said, her tone wry. “Would you mind growing up a little?”

  “Do I look like a grandma to you?” the ghost challenged. She might be wearing a cute dress, but she looked ready to throw down in a fight.

  Sue tried to remain calm. This was a ghost.

  A freaking ghost.

  A real live—well not live—ghost.

  Crap. Breathe, Sue, breathe. Don’t freak out.

  In. Out. In. Out.

  “Fine. Julia,” Heather said, her tone exasperated. “You do not look like a grandma right now. I thought we talked about this. When I séance you, I need you to come to us older and more mature.”

  “I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not my mother. I come as I need to come.” Julia laughed, a creepy, ghostly sound, as she began hopscotching invisible squares on the stage. She got to the end and turned back around to do it again.

  Vivien reached a hand to Sue on the ground to help her up. “Yeah, sorry about this. Julia sometimes manifests younger than she died. I’ve never seen her this young, though. Heather will try to get her on track for us so we can talk to her.”

  “That’s, ah, that’s…” Sue pointed weakly at the spirit.

  “A ghost, yeah,” Vivien said. “Freaking awesome, right?”

  “Ghost,” Sue managed to finish her breathy sentence.

  “She’s a quick one,” Julia teased.

  None of this is what Sue had expected.

  “Julia, please, we need your help. Older you,” Heather pleaded.

  “The clues are there, so simple,” Julia answered, her voice singsongy. She stumbled to a stop. “You make me lose m
y place!”

  “Why don’t you tell us the clues if you’re so smart,” Lorna challenged the spirit. “Or is it you don’t know?”

  “Good one,” Vivien said under her breath.

  Julia began skipping around the stage, circling Lorna. “You smell me with your nose. You taste me with your tongue—”

  “Is this some kind of riddle?” Lorna asked.

  Julia moved from Lorna to Heather, circling her as well. “You hear me with your ears.” She then skipped around Vivien. “You see me with your eyes.”

  “Thanks for stating the obvious,” Vivien said.

  Stopping, Julia looked at Sue and hunched over. She curled her fingers and took stuttering steps toward Sue. Her transparent body flicked with the lights. Her tone darkened and became raspy, “But when I touch you, you’ll know the feel of death—ahh!”

  Julia lurched toward Sue, blasting over her like a cold breeze.

  Sue lifted her arms to block the attack, but when Julia moved through her, she felt as if her insides froze. She let out a pained whimper. Her breath escaped her in a puff of white.

  “Julia!” Heather scolded. “Enough!”

  “What?” Julia giggled. “I’m only playing with her.”

  “Grow up, or I swear I will ignore you until the end of time,” Heather threatened. “I’ll lock up this theater, board up the windows, and no one will ever come in again. See how boring everything is then.”

  Shivering, Sue turned to see child Julia shimmer into sparkling lights before she disappeared.

  “Damn, Julia was a brat as a kid,” Vivien said. “I don’t believe in spanking, but—”

  “Don’t make me curse you, Vivien,” a woman warned. “Don’t judge until you walked a mile in my childhood slippers. It wasn’t easy for a girl at that time, especially a girl who saw ghosts and wanted to be more than a socialite wife.”

  Sue swung around to face another Julia ghost. The young woman wore high-waisted trousers with a button-down shirt and vest with a dangling gold chain coming from a pocket. The clothes combined with the wavy bob and red lipstick said she was dressed for the 1920s. She lifted her hand and a lit cigarette appeared at the end of a long holder. She brought it to her lips and the smoke seemed to swirl lightly within her translucent chest.