<—Part 8
Amy shifted the heavy bag from her left to her right shoulder, giddy with excitement. She’d gone home from work the other day, buzzing with ideas and excitement, as well as an underlying need to connect with someone else.
The journal girl wrote about a seance, and in the quiet breadth of space Amy existed in when reading the journal, she felt what the writer felt. She desperately wanted to be part of it.
Amy had mulled over what girls in the 1800s would use to reach out to the dead. While a spirit board had proven useful during Vi’s housewarming party, it didn’t feel authentic enough for this. If she were part of that world, part of the group, what would she use?
She’d spent much of last night poring over the internet, and even looked up the Fox sisters and Madame D’Esperance. Much to her delight, they were still fairly well known historic figures and regularly discussed in certain circles. Fleetingly, she wondered if she could use this as part of her school project.
After forum stalking and several back-and-forth questions to a very helpful woman down in Cassadaga, Amy had finally decided on index cards, a teacup, and some candles. All things she currently had in her apartment.
Before going to bed, she’d spent an hour carefully cutting the cards in half, and then scrawling across them with the alphabet and the numbers zero through nine. On a whim, she decided to scrawl out four more half-cards with yes, no, hello, and goodbye. No sense making simple things tedious for the ghost. What if they hated spelling and refused to even make initial contact? She’d miss out on any chance of connecting to whatever spirits lurked in the building.
Splaying the cards out across her bedspread, Amy had smiled, delighted. The light from her bedside lamp caught the sparks of glitter in the ink of her faerie marker set, which she felt added a necessary touch of ethereal whimsy to the impromptu seance cards.
She wished she had something pretty and delicate for the teacup. Vi would have had plenty of options. But, the unicorn teacup would have to do. Its rounded small bowl formed the body. The handle was a little rainbow tail, and on the opposite side was a gold gilt horn. Cartoonish large eyes and an upward curve below that formed a cute smiling face. Not exactly Victorian, but it would do. Surely even ghosts loved unicorns?
Amy now stood at the entrance between the two spaces, nervously shifting her bag to the other shoulder again. She’d prepped all she could last night. She wished again that things were better between Vi and her. She could really use a friend who understood ghosts. But mostly, she just wanted that sisterhood back. Laughing over books, going to the movies, friendly banter at work—she missed it all.
Excitement winning over the sadness, she felt the smile tug at her mouth. No time like the present. Or the past, really. Laughing at her own joke, Amy pushed back the tapestry and stepped through to the Parlor.