Theresa Weir - Bad Karma

“Count me out,” Daniel said. “I’m just the wheels. I’m just here to haul Miss Clara Voiyant around.”

“You have to stay,” Jo said. “Cleo said we need four men.”

“You know how I feel about this stuff.”

“So what if you don’t believe in it?” Jo said. “I don’t think that’s a requirement.” She looked at Cleo for help. “Is it?”

Cleo smiled, while inside she was seething about the Clara Voiyant business. “No. We just need his presence.” There was no way she was letting him leave, not after hauling her back here.

“That’s all you’re getting,” he said. “A body.”

Cleo drifted close to him and whispered, “I never wanted your mind anyway.”

Before he could answer, before she could even see his reaction, she swung back to the group as they waited patiently and solemnly for instructions.

“Pull the shades,” she told them. “We want it as dark as possible.” While they scrambled to darken the room, Cleo lit the candle and put it on the floor.

Jo’s friends clapped their hands and giggled in excitement while the men shuffled their feet and looked nervous, all except Dr. Campbell, who kept smiling.

“Now we’ll sit cross-legged around the candle and hold hands.”

“Ooh, a séance,” Jo said.

“For chrissake,” Daniel muttered.

“A séance?” Dr. Campbell asked, his smile wavering.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Harvey said, echoing Daniel’s sentiments.

There wasn’t a peep out of Parker.

“Not really a séance, but kind of like one,” Cleo explained, ad-libbing as she went. “It’s the same principle. I will be the lightning rod, and we’ll use our combined concentration to set up an energy field that I hope will bring me a vision.

“Okay: man, woman, man, woman. We want to alternate.” They joined hands and made a circle around the candle, with Daniel somehow ending up on her left, Harvey on her right. They spread out, dropped hands, then tried to sit down on the floor.

“I don’t believe I’ve sat cross-legged since I was a child,” one of the twins said.

“Sitting cross-legged channels the energy better, but if you can’t do it, that’s okay,” Cleo said, taking pity on the women. “In fact, it might be a good idea to not have such a strongly knit circle.”

That let the twins off the hook, and they both decided it might be a little more ladylike to sit with their knees together, legs bent to one side. “My mother always said ladies don’t sit with their legs crossed. It’s vulgar. Oh.” She put a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to imply people here were vulgar.”

“Everybody join hands and concentrate on the key,” Cleo instructed. “Stare at the candle flame and visualize the key in your mind.” She looked around the circle. Everyone was staring at the candle flame-everyone except Daniel. He was staring at her. She gave his hand an impatient squeeze and nodded toward the center of the circle. “Everyone stare at the candle.”

His eyebrows drew together and he pursed his lips, adequately conveying his contempt for the entire project. But he turned his face toward the flickering flame.

Cleo let her voice become low and hypnotic. “Just watch the flame and think about the key. Visualize the key in your mind. When you’re ready, let your eyes fall closed. With your eyes closed, you should still be able to see the flame. And within that flame…the key.”

Cleo hadn’t tried to hypnotize herself in years, not since she’d lived in Madison. Today, actual hypnosis was the furthest thing from her mind. She only intended to use the basic technique to give everyone a thrill. A ceremony that involved candles and sitting cross-legged on the floor seemed the very thing Daniel would despise, so it was the very thing she was using to get him back.

But instead of being the one in control of the situation, the candle flame took over. It pulled her in, sucked her in, swallowed her. It wasn’t like the time in Madison. She didn’t feel transported. Instead she felt incredibly heavy.

Her eyelids drifted shut, her breathing became even and rhythmic. And suddenly she was asleep. Asleep while awake.

Walking down a road.

Barefoot.

There were her red toenails. And the bump on her middle toe, a souvenir of the time she’d broken it playing softball with no shoes.

A barn.

A big red barn.

With a rusty weathervane at the top.

Weathervanes were cool, but for some reason she didn’t like this one.

The weathervane was shaped like a pig. It creaked and turned, even though she could feel no breeze against her skin, or hear any rustling of dead weeds along the side of the road.

The dream changed.

Suddenly she was inside the barn.

Part of the roof had been ripped away, leaving a gaping, jagged hole. Through the hole, she saw dark, churning clouds.

Wake up, she told herself. Open your eyes. All you have to do is open your eyes and it will stop. All you have to do is open your eyes and you’ll be safe.

She couldn’t open her eyes.

Someone pressed against the back of her head, making her look at something on the ground. A shovel materialized in her hand. She was supposed to dig in the spot in front of her bare feet.

She didn’t want to, but she had no choice.

The shovel hit something solid.

She peered into the dark pit. At the bottom of the hole was a pumpkin. A broken, smashed pumpkin.

She gasped and flung herself away, smacking the back of her head on something hard. And then everything turned black.

Cleo regained consciousness in slow stages. First came a gradual awareness of her surroundings, followed by the far-off drone of voices, a drone that slowly became more distinct until she could finally distinguish one person from another.

There was Jo’s voice, breathless and worried, coming from nearby, as if she stood directly over Cleo. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Give her some air. She just fainted.” Dr. Campbell.

And the twins, shocked and puzzled. “Is she supposed to do that?”

Another voice she couldn’t quite place. Parker? “I don’t know if we should have stopped holding hands. It might not be a good idea to break the circle.”

“For chrissake.” It was Daniel. “Can’t you see she’s putting on a damn show? What the hell’s the matter with you people?” His voice shook with frustration and anger. “The woman’s an accomplished actress. A con.”

“How can you say that?” Jo again. “Look how pale she’s gone.”

“She’s always pale. And it’s so damn dark in here. Somebody blow out that candle while I open the shades.”

He moved away, his heavy footfall shaking the wooden floor under Cleo’s cheek. The hard surface gave her a sense of location.

Egypt, Missouri. The police station.

With Daniel Sinclair raving like a lunatic, making her head hurt even more.

She smelled smoke, the kind of smoke a candle makes when it’s blown out. That sensory stimulation was followed by one of sound-of window blinds being angrily pulled open. Through closed eyelids, Cleo perceived the room changing, becoming bigger, brighter. She felt a breeze on her face. She moaned and slowly opened her eyes.

Jo was leaning over her, fanning Cleo with a magazine. “How are you feeling?” Jo asked. “Better?”

Cleo nodded. With Jo’s help, she managed to sit up. Wrong move. Her stomach churned. An acid taste gathered in the back of her throat.

“Bathroom,” she managed to whisper.

Immediately grasping the urgency of the situation, Jo shoved a wastebasket in Cleo’s face. Cleo wasn’t going to throw up in front of an audience. That wasn’t going to be part of the show.