The Seance

                                                 The Séance…

 

When I was young, around 12-13, our parents were getting a D.I.V.O.R.C.E! (I still dislike Tammy Wynette for that darn song) Anyway everyone was leaving this sinking ship of a family. Dad moved from our house in Northern California and had relocated to Phoenix Arizona. Older brother joined the armed service and Deb my older sister of 16-17 got married and moved out. So, that just left me, my little brother and sister and mom. 

Well one late summer’s evening me, mom and sister were watching late night TV. We watched a couple of BAD old horror movies then got board with the last half hour of, “The Tonight Show” mom turned off the TV. 

“Do y’all kids know that Patty D. died in a car crash!?

I went to school with her daughter Cathy. We’d chatted as we’d both waited for the bus to school, last semester. They lived one street over and her dad and ours were buddies. Mr. D. Had an old-fashioned gas station back when they pumped your gas, clean the windows and checked the oil, as well as car repair. This neighborhood family seemed happy, but the divorce of my parents triggered a dissolution of that marriage as well. Sad, also I’d heard that Patty blamed my folks for her divorce.

Mom continued with her story…

“Now this is what I heard from my friend Delia who worked dispatch for an ambulance service. So, Patty had been given a red firebird for her last birthday and it was one sweet ride! It was cherry red and looked like a race car with stripes down the center and everything! She was out cruising and apparently drinking from a flask of bourbon. She was of course speeding and wound up wrapping herself ‘around a light pole not far from where her ex-husband now lives in Pleasant Hill. My idea is, why don’t we have a séance and see what she’s up to now?” Mom said,with a weird glint in her eye.

Sylvia, little sister, who’d appeared to be sleeping, jumped up and said, “That sounds like fun!” 

I went into the kitchen breakfast nook and set up the tiny table. I put in the very center a white candle and we all sat down and held one another’s hands with eyes tightly closed, as mom tried to summon Patty from “the great beyond.”

We all sat in silence waiting to see what happened next. Suddenly little sister screamed and ran to her room, jumped in bed, pulled the covers over her head and was crying and shaking in fear! 

Mom and I followed closely, worried what had caused this response as she’d been so excited to do the séance in the first place! 

Me, “What’s wrong with you? Hey sis please, tell us so we can help!”

She slowly and quietly lowered the blanket. 

“I opened my eyes and looked at mom, (her eyes widened) mom’s eyes were glowing, I saw it they were glowing.” she whispers.

I smiled and explained, that mom’s eyes were a remarkable color of pale, greenish blue and due to there being only one white candle to illuminate the room, that candle was reflecting in mom’s eyes. This placated her. (Although we were all supposed to have our eyes shut) Then we all just went to bed. *edit* (Mom confided to me later that she in fact had never opened her eyes)

I rambled off to my room to put on my jammies, go brush my teeth and finally crawl into bed for a good night’s sleep. Later as I was dosing off. I heard someone crying. I listened closer, it could’ve been baby brother, maybe, or little sister still scared? Just when as I was getting ready to get out of my bed to investigate the source of the sound, I see…

An ethereal image of Patty walking through the bedroom door (she Was opaquely kind of see through and passed by with a bit of smooth floating as the door was still closed) hands covering her face as she wept and repeated over and over, “My poor children! My poor children, my poor,poor children.”

I then screamed in fright myself, leaped up and ran to my mom’s room. I found little sister had beaten me to it, so I cuddled up on the foot of the bed and eventually went to sleep.

The morning comes and mom awakes to all of us being in her bed! “Silly frady-cats!” Mom says in frustration. “I’d have never played the séance thing if I’d known y’all were gonna be such babies about it all!” You are gonna sleep in your own rooms tonight!!”

However, that very evening as bedtime rolled around the same visitation from Patty repeats. She comes in through the CLOSED door with face in her hands crying, “My poor children, my poor children, my poor, poor children.” (Such a very sad lament. I could actually feel her sadness and grief. Yet while considering what’s happening right at that moment, it scared the heck out of me.)

Once again, I leap from my bed, grabbed my pillow then I go intomom’s bedroom to sleep in her king size bed. I’m so frightened and don’t know what else to do!

The very next morning I awake to mom yelling at me. “You are NOT going to come into my room tonight! My boyfriend Cliff is coming over for a sleepover and I’m restricting you to your room for the next few days so I can enjoy my time with him. She said as she scowled at me, “I’m serious as a heart attack. Absolutely no exceptions but the bathroom and dinner table.”

Later that morning Cliff called, he told mom not to worry about dinner because he’d just returned from a fishing trip and those fish were biting! He was coming over after 3:00 or so with 12 cleaned and prepared fish filets ready to be battered and fried. 

Unluckily, we were out of mayo for the tartar sauce, and we could use some baking potatoes, sour cream, butter, lettuce and tomatoes for a salad and last but not least sourdough bread! Yummy! I was volunteeredto walk the blocks to the Lee Brothers market to get necessities. When, I had arrived home, I was told to put away the groceries and get back to my room. I was apparently still on restriction. 

Cliff came over and made a wonderful dinner. Well, he battered the fish and fried them in oil. I was pushed into service and dealt with the potatoes, salad and warmed the bread to make it a pretty tasty dinner. 

After clearing the dining room table I was then pressed into washing the dishes. Thinking that all of my work had paid off I assumed I was off restriction but of course not. When I quietly sat down on the couch to watch whatever crappy western Cliff was watching, mom yelled at me to get back to my room as I was still on restriction! (I don’t think mom had any idea what restriction meant)

I sat on my bed, nearly board to tears when Sylvia came in and brought our little record player. I hadn’t seen it in a while and thought it was lost. We played our Monkees album more than a few times. Sister decided it was bedtime and went to her room. I did the same thing. As I was laying on my bed, I heard the sobbing again! 

Patty walked her see-through form right through my bedroom door while crying, “My poor children, my poor children, my poor, poor children.”

I couldn’t leave my room again. Mom was insistent that when I’d used the bathroom last that was it till morning, she did not want to see me till breakfast! 

Patty just keeps sobbing; I’m scared witless and not knowing what to do. Finally, I just say, “I’m so sorry we called you. I am also very sorry that I cannot help you, after all I’m just a kid!”

The apparition lowers her hands from her face and looks right at me. I’m 5’6” and was often mistaken for an adult. She looks closely as I see whatmay have been a spark of recognition.  Then she simply disappears. “Poof,” and she was gone. (I hope she moved on to her happily-ever-afterlife) 

That was that, I’ve never seen her again. 

 

               Original Story by: Maighread Birdsong