Steven's Belief Is Shaken

by amahra

(Chapter Five)

“What the hell attacked me?”

“Nothing attacked you,” she said.

“Oh, I suppose I cracked my own skull and crushed my own ribs?”

“You have a slight concussion and bruised chest. No bones are broken,” Reece assured him.

“And you know this how?" Steven said sarcastically. “What did you do…conjure up some dead doctor from the other side to come and examine me?”

“We found you with a gash on your head and a very heavy file cabinet on your chest.”

“Oh…so it was a file cabinet that attacked me?” he said with a smirk.

He tried to lift himself, but felt dizzy and plopped back down on the bed.

“Now don’t exert yourself,” Debbie warned. She tried to give him another sip of Brandy. But he waved it away.

“You still haven’t said what you were doing in the basement," Reece said.

“Alright,” Steven said boldly, seeing that he was caught. He strained to sit up again; his chest and head thumped when he stirred.

“I don’t like you,” he managed to say.

Reece raised an eyebrow as he continued.

“You’re a phony and a crook.”

“Now wait one damn minute,” Debbie snapped. “Why... you ungrateful son of a…”

“It’s ok Debbie,” Reece interrupted, calmly.

Steven went on to tell Reece how he felt about her getting her hooks into people with her phony psychic contacts. He mentioned, particularly, his friend (not calling her by name) and the money she was spending on this farce of her talking to the dead. He said this obsession his friend had was ruining her life and her relationships.

“And this person you’re trying to help…doesn’t believe you?”

“No, no they don’t.”

“So what exactly did you hope to find digging around in my basement?”

“I don’t know–something…anything that would have helped me prove you were a scam artist."

“Well, that’s an improvement,” Reece grinned, “I’ve gone from a phony and a crook, to an 'Artist,'” Reece joked, emphasizing the word.

Debbie and the other assistant chuckled.

“I don’t think you’re funny,” Steven snapped.

“Look you bastard,” Debbie said angrily, “you need to thank Madame Reece for not letting you bleed to death on the basement floor. I wanted to call the cops…haul your scrawny little ass off to jail, but she stopped me. And another thing….”

“Debbie,” Reece interrupted, “you and Linda go in and help Marcie with getting supper started. I want to talk to Mr. Crane alone.”

When the women had left the room, Reece sat on the side of the bed and gave Steven a sympathetic look.

“May I call you Steven?” Reece asked.

“Why not?”

"I don’t know what you expected to find down there in the basement, but had you come to me, I would have answered any questions you had. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know how you do it. I was right there and couldn’t see a thing.”

“You mean the Séance…no strings on flying objects or contraptions hidden under the table. Stuff like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might be legit?”

“No. Hell no.”

“Let me hold your hand.” Reece held out her hands to him.

“What for?” he asked with a suspicious frown.

“Just give me your hand.”

Reluctantly, he laid his hand in her hand; with her other hand, she cupped it.

Her body moved slowly from side to side. He smirked at her nonsense, but didn’t remove his hand. She spoke in another language and moaned as her head slowly circled in motion. She moaned louder and he watched her rock to the rhythm of her moan.

He continued to smirk until a light fog entered the room and something flashed inside of him; then a mysterious cold gripped him, like it had while walking to the house and again in the basement. He smelled the same odor, but this time…it didn’t matter. He welcomed it. Reece kept speaking the strange language and he found himself moving with her.

His eyelids grew heavy; he felt light, as if he were on a flying carpet suspended in mid-air. He kept his eyes closed and moved with the flow, while inhaling the odor. Each gulp of it, took him deeper and deeper inside of himself. Their bodies were as two cobras dancing in a wicker basket.

“Who do you want to speak to Steven?” Reece whispered loudly in another voice that was deep and husky.

“Speak?” he said like a drunken man.

“Yes, tell me, who is it that you long to speak to from the other side?”

“Speak to?” Steven’s voice trailed off.

“Yes.”

In this stupor, he remembered an old childhood friend who was struck and killed by a car when he was twelve. The two were playing in the street. He had seen the whole thing. It had always bothered him.

“Tell me,” the mysterious voice commanded.”

“Mackey,” Steven answered. “Where–where’s Mackey?”

“Mackey, come forth!” Demanded the deep mysterious voice.

“Stevie,” he heard the twelve year old voice say.

“I’m here. I’m here, Mackey," Steven said excitingly.

Mackey giggled.

Steven struggled to open his eyes but couldn’t.

Mackey told him about the time they both agreed to steal money from their parents and go on a shopping spree. He told him where they had buried the merchandise they bought, so they could dig them up and play with them at any time. They called it, their buried treasure. It was a secret Steven never revealed and Mackey took to his grave. Steven shouted to him.

“Where are you…I want to see you.” He struggled again to open his eyes. A more masculine voice told him it was too dangerous. But Steven wanted to see his friend; and he opened his eyes to Mackey’s voice coming out of Madame Reece. Her face had aged twenty years; her eyes were a milky white color, and drops of blood streamed from one ear.

He snatched his hand from her and shouted.

“Get away from me! Get away! Get out!" He kicked wildly at her; the covers flew in all directions. Madame Reece collapsed as she often did.

The women, hearing the commotion, came storming into the room. Steven was hysterical. After a few moments, they decided to hold him down, and inject him with a sedative. After he was calmed, they collected Reece and took her from the room.

He floated through a fog, then found himself on the dark road, he, the raven and Mackey. Only the raven wasn’t a bird anymore. They were arm in arm, skipping along and humming Madame Reece’s moaning tune. He opened his eyes and found himself alone in the room. He struggled to get up, but still felt groggy. He pulled himself together; he put on some clothes, grabbed his flashlight and camera, and headed for the hallway.

Unlike the basement, which was pitch black, a dim light lit the hallway. Steven roamed around trying to find something interesting to snap, when he felt something behind him; he put his flashlight in a defensive position and whirled around. Debbie stood with her hands on her fat hips.

“Damn! You scared me," he told her.

“I’m not even going to ask," Debbie said. “Get back to bed. Reecie don’t like people roaming around the house at this hour.”

“But I’m not sleepy," Steven said playfully, "why can’t I just stretch my legs if I want to? Afraid I’ll find something?”

“Suit yourself,” Debbie said while heading back to her own room, "but I’d watch out for that file cabinet if I were you.” She smirked as she closed the door.

Steven didn’t think that was funny. Looking over his shoulders then up the dim hallway and back, he scrambled back into his room, and locked the door.

The next morning, he politely excused himself from joining Reece at breakfast and prepared to leave. His chest and head stopped hurting, and everyone acted as if the basement and séance never happened. Steven really didn’t want to focus on it anyway. He had a millions questions and no answers. He hadn’t finished with Madame, but realized he was no match for her either. He needed a more sophisticated approach, like the one he and Doc Connelly had talked about. He wasn’t quite ready to believe all that stuff Doc had told him about demons and gates of hell openings and the like; but he was convinced that Madame Reece was no phony. And more than ever, he had to keep Esther away from her.

As he bid Reece and her staff good bye, he never dreamed he’d be leaving her house by the front door. As he was fastening his seat belt, he looked over at the house; up on the second floor was a young girl peering through the window. She looked about sixteen or seventeen years old. She was dressed in a dingy pink oversized sweater and a wool scarf wrapped much too tightly around her neck. She never moved or waved. Steven drove off.

When he got back to his house, he called Doc and told him everything that happened at Madame Reece’s home.

“You damn fool, you could have been killed,” Doc scolded.

“Ok, you got that off your chest.”

“This is serious. You get over here right now, we need to talk”

“Can’t. Meeting Esther for dinner.”

“Don’t mention anything about this to her.”

“I won’t," he promised.

“Oh and by the way, that thing that attacked you in the basement and the young girl you saw in the upstairs window is one and the same. Have a good day. Bye.”

“Son of a bitch,” Steven said, as he dropped his hand still gripping the phone.

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