TAKE THIS

I was standing in cabin number six, the candle flame dancing madly, weaving wild patterns of light and shadow around me. The man in the black suit brought the machine gun up and pointed it at my chest. "Where's the fucking paisley wrap?" he said. "I don't know," I yelled. He pulled the trigger. I winced in expectation of a loud, rapid report and the pain of hot lead ripping through me. Instead, I heard the sound of a phone ringing. I opened my eyes into the darkness of the living room and sat up on the couch. It took a second for my head to clear, but it soon came to me that the phone in the office was actually ringing. I had no idea how late it was, but morning hadn't yet come. I pulled myself to my feet and went around through the kitchen.

I wasn't sure how many times it had rung and was anticipating that whoever was on the other end would hang up before I could lift the receiver. When I finally answered it, though, I heard a voice say, "Schell?" It took me a second to place the inflection: Barnes. "Schell, is that you?" he asked. I was resourceful enough to put on my Ondoo accent.

"One moment, sir, I will summon Mr. Schell," I said. I gently put the receiver down and went to the Bugatorium. When I flipped the light on, I was surprised to not find him lying on the couch. I made a quick check of the other rooms, flipping the light switches on as I went. Finally, I gave up and went to his bedroom door. When I knocked, he answered, "What?"

"Barnes is on the phone," I called.

I heard the sound of the bedsprings squeaking as he got up, and a few seconds later, he was at the door, wrapping a robe around himself. He glanced briefly at me as he passed, and I couldn't help but smile. Then he was gone down the hall to the office, leaving the door open halfway. Morgan Shaw's pallid body verily glowed in the dark. She lay, sleeping, completely naked, atop the blankets, her hair fanning out like a corona of sunlight around her head. That momentary glimpse of her burned my eyes, and I shifted my gaze, quickly pulling the door shut.

The phone conversation lasted all of five minutes. From where I waited in the kitchen, I could hear the low murmur of Schell's voice but was unable to make out his words. Finally the receiver landed in the cradle, and he appeared. Taking a seat across from me, he said, "Barnes wants a sйance."

"What did you tell him?" I asked.

"I said we'd be there."

"Did he say why?"

"He thinks if we communicate with the dead, they'll tell us who murdered Parks and his daughter. He told me he'd seen his daughter's body, and he doesn't buy the strangulation story. He thinks Kern is innocent. Every attempt he's made to have the authorities launch a new investigation has been blocked."

"We could be taking a big chance going out there," I said.

"He promised me no cops. I told him to invite everyone on that list he'd given me."

"You still think it's someone he knows?"

"Not necessarily," said Schell, "but I'd like to see their reactions."

"When?"

"Tomorrow night…or I suppose I should say tonight," he said, glancing at the clock over the sink, which showed the time to be 2 A.M.

"Better get some sleep," he said. "We've got a lot to do. This has got to be a flawless performance."

"What happened to the couch?" I asked. "Too buggy in there?"

Schell stared hard at me for a good thirty seconds. I couldn't read his expression, and I was unsure if he was amused, angry, or perhaps even hurt by my taunt. When he finally opened his mouth, a pale muslin bombyx flew out and fluttered in a spiral up toward the light. He stood and left the kitchen. "Sleep tight," he said once his back was turned. He flicked the switch off as he went by, leaving me to sit in the dark by myself. The bright moth flew in erratic circles around the entire room three times before landing in my hair.

When I got up, I didn't return to the living room couch but went to my room. Isabel awoke when I climbed into bed beside her. Suffice it to say, Schell's advice to get some sleep went unheeded, but when we had settled down and both lay back with our heads upon the single pillow, Isabel said, "You were nearly killed tonight when you went to the cabin."

"I'm trying to forget it," I told her.

"Did you ever think your luck has turned bad because you mock the dead by what you do?"

"I never really thought about it quite as mocking them," I said. "Besides, what do the dead care once they're dead?"

"Your Mr. Schell has taught you to doubt the power of the dead?"

"Well, he doesn't believe in spirits, if that's what you mean. And his argument is very convincing."

"But he's seen the ghost of a girl, no?" she said. "Isn't that what drew you all into this?"

"You have a point," I said. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"ЎClaro!" she said.

"Have you ever seen one?"

"No."

"Then you believe only because you want to believe or you've been taught to believe?"

"No seas tan condescendiente," she said. "When I was five years old, my father came to me one Sunday afternoon and said, 'Come, I want to show you something.' 'What is it?' I asked. 'Something to help you live your life,' he said. He took me by the hand, and we left the house. We walked to the end of town and then out across the meadow and up the large hill, nearly the size of a mountain that watched over all our lives. 'Where are we going?' I asked. 'To the mines,' he said. I knew that he worked in the silver mines, but I'd never been to them.

"There were no workers at the mine on Sunday, only a guard, who we found sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of the mine office, fast asleep. My father woke him and told him we were going to take a walk in the mine. The guard smiled and nodded. 'You're taking her to number three?' asked the man. My father nodded. 'I took my boy only last month,' said the guard, who gave us a helmet and lantern.

"A few minutes later, we stood at the opening to the silver mine, a huge dark hole framed by timbers. Just inside, in the shadows, I could see a train track and a few cars, but my father told me we would be walking. He held the lantern up in front of him and I wore the helmet, which was far too big for me, and we walked down into the ground, as if we were being swallowed whole by a giant snake. As we walked, he started talking. 'Some years ago,' he said, 'there was discovered in tunnel number three, a very rich vein of silver. The discovery made everyone very happy. Five men were sent to work there. They began mining the silver, the purest quality, and so much of it.'

"All the time he talked, we continued to descend. The air got thin, and it became very warm. Still we kept walking. When we reached a place where the main tunnel split, we headed right. Then the tunnels split and split until if I had been alone I could never have found my way back to the surface. 'One day, while the five men were working in tunnel three,' he said, 'there was a terrible cave-in. Something shifted in the earth, and hundreds of tons of rock and dirt collapsed into the tunnel. There was too much debris for us to try to dig through. We called out to the men on the other side of the wall of rubble, but nothing came back, not a single word, not a whisper. They had all died.'

"Eventually we came to a particular tunnel and turned into it. It ended abruptly, though, and when my father held the lantern up, I could see it was choked with large rocks. 'Step up,' he said, 'and put your ear to the rock.' I did. 'Listen hard,' he said. Immediately I heard a sound that seemed to come from inside the pile of rocks. Many voices, screaming, yelling. I couldn't make out any words, but their sound was so frantic and frightening, I could not listen for long, for the lament chilled me to my soul. 'Now they know we are here,' said my father, and the sound of the voices grew so that we could detect them clearly even standing back.