Spectra’s hands shake as she opens the mysterious envelope. She nearly ruined it with the dirt from her shoes. It is on the floor as she enters the Victorian flat she shares with her aunt in Notting Hill. Someone must have hand delivered this?
She slips the opal tipped silver letter opener, a gift from her alma mater, the British Academy of Paranormal Investigation, like a surgical instrument under the seal to preserve the wax and the image stamped on it. She holds the seal to her nose and sniffs the wax, detecting hints of chestnut and merlot. Squinting, holding it close, she can make out RSMMI in curly cursive letters surrounded by scrolling whisps resembling spiderwebs.
Her heart beats in her chest matching the tolling bells from All Saints Church a block down the road. The deep booms echo through the neighborhood muffled by the blanket of fog that has descended along with the setting of the sun. She peers out the window and scans the street for any sign of strangers. Her eyes rest on the blurred burnt orange maple tree outside and the neighbor Georgia with her miniature poodle Luna actively fertilizing the perfectly trimmed hedge.
The envelope is addressed to Spectra Skye, no return address. Inside the envelope there is an invitation on antique cream-colored cardstock. Could it be? She tries to hold it steady as she reads the lettering inside the gold gothic arches:
Royal Society of Magical & Mystical Investigations
Join us
for a Samhain celebration
October 31st
11pm to 1am
The Witchery
Edinburgh, Scotland
RSVP 020 7111 4467
Costumes optional
At last, the invitation she has been waiting for. Her feet dance a jig of their own accord. She pumps her right fist in the air and waves the invitation in her left. Yes, yes, yes.
***
On the eve of Samhain there is a new moon. The light from the streetlamps block out the starlight. Spectra boards the train from London King’s Cross station to Edinburgh’s Waverly station. She elbows past witches, goblins, ghouls, and vampires to train car number three on platform thirteen. She has packed in a weekend carpet bag she inherited from her mother. Holding the worn leather handle in her hands feels like holding her mother’s hand. The faded velvet chenille in deep shades of red contrast with Spectra’s attire. She is wearing gauzy white sweeps of cotton strips covered by a woolen gray hooded cloak that partially obscures the pale makeup on her face.
She peers down at her ticket searching for her seat number and finds her place in the first-class compartment. Spectra gently places the carpet bag in the luggage compartment above her head where she can keep an eye on it. As she settles in, she scans the seats around her. Her eyes linger on the grim reaper two seats ahead, across the aisle a witch with striped leggings in the window seat, and sitting diagonally facing her, Sherlock Holmes. Eyes wide in disbelief she studies the detective more closely. She knows those blue eyes, that dimpled chin, that swirl in the stubbled beard.
“Oliver?”
He looks up from the London paper he is reading and replies, “Spectra?”
It feels like her body is placed in a vice, a trickle of sweat beads on her forehead. She has avoided Oliver for over two years. She has put her life back together and moved on. Exasperated she says, “Please tell me you are not going to the Samhain celebration at the Witchery?”
He looks miserable and his discomfort makes her feel less alone.
“I am” he admits under his breath.
Spectra overheats like a steam kettle. She crosses her arms in front of her body in an act of self-preservation. Involuntarily she lets out a huff and puffs air across her protruded lower lip elevating a whisp of her bangs.
After a long silence he asks, “Do you want me to move?”
Spectra excuses herself. Lunging out of her seat she nearly trips over the grim reaper’s plastic scythe on her way to the loo. Safely inside the tiny cubicle lavatory, she slides the latch to the lock position and proceeds to hyperventilate while talking to herself. Which she often does to help herself out of difficult situations.
This is what you are going to do. Spectra, pull yourself together. You’ve got this.
Breath in, 123. Breath out, 12345.
It’s just Oliver. She bangs her fists on the sink to the beat of his name. Bloody damn Oliver.
Just breathe.
Oliver Goodman and Spectra had attended the Academy together. An instant rapport had grown between them. Oliver had sat next to her that first day of class and asked her, “Why did the ghost need a Band-Aid?”
She had shrugged, too shy to answer.
He leaned toward her and whispered, “He had a boo boo.”
Spectra had let out an embarrassing snort that had the whole class staring back at her and her face turning beet red. After class he had apologized and asked her out for a coffee. The late study nights turned into something more than studying. Spectra found herself for the first time in her life understanding the word soul mate. Spectra dreamed up a whole life with Oliver. They had planned to form their own agency, Goodman and Skye investigations. Until the night that everything changed. It had been their first field assignment, and it went horribly wrong. Oliver never talked to her after that night, Beltane May 2023. He never even answered her texts.
Graduation had been an awkward affair. Since that time, she had seen Oliver twice but never spoken to him. Spectra started her own business – Skye Paranormal Investigations. She helped clear spirits from haunted buildings. She was the best in the business. She liked to think of it as helping her ghostly friends move on. Oliver, she had heard, worked in debunking paranormal phenomenon.
When she can breathe normally, Spectra exits the loo and returns to her seat. Oliver is gone. Spectra feels relief mixed with anger. Oliver always takes the easy way out. He disappears.
***
Spectra walked alone from Waverly Station up the Royal Mile to Candlemakers Row. Taking a detour on her way to the Witchery to wander through Greyfriars Kirkyard. The sixteenth century cemetery attached to Greyfriars Kirk sat under the shadows of Edinburgh Castle. Entering under the iron gates she ambled up the hill past the cement skulls and gargoyles protruding from the gravestones and mausoleum doors. Serenaded by crickets and the whoosh of the wind through nearly bare tree branches. The leaves under her feet crackled and gave off an aroma of earth and nutty must.
In the darkness Spectra’s arms glowed. A trait she normally hid, but on Halloween night there was no need to hide. Spectra was born with this peculiar trait, not a birthmark exactly but something more inexplicable: on her arms beneath her skin neon green flowed. Not veins but a twirling pattern, a Celtic weave that appeared when she was around spirits. Tonight, it came in handy. It lit her way.
Greyfriars was filled with spirits, a crowd, thousands gathered, hovering near their graves. Spectra could see each sharp feature on the ghosts. Their appearance nearly tangible on this eve of the thin veil between worlds. Spectra’s favorite Greyfriars spirits were Bobby, the Skye terrier and his owner John Gray, the night watchman. A portly fellow with a navy-blue uniform and brass buttons. John and his devoted little dog even in the afterlife took their job seriously and escorted Spectra safely all the way to the opposite gate.
Spectra ventures through the narrow close that leads to the Witchery as the St Giles Cathedral bells toll eleven. Invitation in hand, the first to greet her are a tall gentleman in a clunky full suit of armor Sir Richard Watson, President of the Royal Society of Magical and Mystical Investigations and his assistant Miss Martha Mariwether. Miss Mariwether appears to be dressed as Mary Poppins, a turn of the century suit with a long skirt, a smart black hat with a globe thistle and an umbrella in hand. Martha checks the guest list, welcomes Spectra mentioning something about Spectra’s last name and lineage and hands Spectra her name tag.
The darkly paneled restaurant is dimly lit. Wreaths and garlands of autumn leaves hang from every nook. Inside it smells like spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and a sweetness that Spectra can’t identify. A mist lingers along the floor boards around the edges of the room. Spectra circulates getting a green smoking drink off the waiter’s tray. She studies the attendees shrouded in the curling smoke. A cluster of spectral beings, a coven of witches, a circle of demons, a sasquatch, and Deacon Brodie and the demon grocer. The characters all blend; Spectra had not anticipated having trouble distinguishing the real from the other worldly. She is beginning to feel lightheaded. She searches the room frantic for an anchor. There. She spots someone she knows to be real: Oliver. He is in the corner in deep discussion with an elegant red-haired woman in green woolen dress with a tight bodice, beautifully embroidered in an autumn leaf design. Spectra grabs another two mystery beverages off the passing waitress’s tray. Drinking one all at once then placing it back on the tray.
Spectra lurches away from Oliver toward the coven, breaching the circle. A familiar feeling draws her. The aroma in the air is lavender cookies. She knows that smell. Underneath the pointed hat, frizzy wild pig tails, the familiar apron. There she is: a young version of her mother. Her mother who has been dead for ten years. Her mother who has not had the decency to haunt her.
“Hello dear,” her mother greets her tilting her head sideways at an excessive angle. Spectra feels herself falling. Helpless, she crumples to the ground.
***
As the clock strikes midnight on Samhain the veil between the worlds is completely open. Spectra wakes in a mist. The party has disappeared. Only her mother is above her, calling her name, “Spectra, Spectra, wake up.” Her mother’s voice echoes in her head like it had when she was being called inside for the night as a child.
Spectra sits up with her mother’s assistance. Her mind is foggy. Disoriented, she doesn’t know where she was or when she was. She feels so small. Her mother’s young face hovers so near she can see the freckles that had faded from her adolescent memory.
“Mom?” Spectra’s voice croaks, she was trying to hold back tears. “What are you doing here? Where are we?”
There’s an urgency to her mother’s voice, “You have to get up Spectra.” She holds Spectra’s elbow as she helps her to her feet. “Hurry. You need to meet your father.”
“My father?” Spectra asks puzzled. “You mean Gerald?” Gerald was the man who raised her all on his own since her mother’s death when Spectra was fifteen. Gerald was her stepdad, her adopted father, a schoolteacher.
“No Spectra, your real father.”
Now Spectra is really confused.
“Listen, we don’t have much time. The veil is slipping.” Her mother takes her hand and leads her down a dark paneled hallway to large heavy ornate double doors that opens into an intimate ancient library that smells of dust and cigar smoke. There is a fire crackling in a stone fireplace and behind a large mahogany desk there is a man. Half of his face is lit by the fireplace. It is ethereal, both strong jawed yet light. His long reddish brown hair shines with the orange from the fire.
Her mother presents her, “Spectra, this is Finmarra.”
Spectra has heard of Finmarra, King of the Faere. He has the same scrolling neon glow along his arms that Spectra has hidden on her own arms all her life. He examines her with an emotion Spectra cannot read well; curiosity blending with fondness.
“I have something to give you,” he tells her, his voice a deep hypnotizing melody. “You will need it when you go back to Earth.”
He walks over to her and hands her a small gray stone etched with runes. Bending down to her level, he closes his hands over hers and looks her in the eyes.
He explains, “It is the stone of truth. It will protect and lead you. Use it to detect truth in others.”
***
Spectra wakes up to the clock tolling one a.m. on a red velvet couch in the lobby of the Witchery Hotel. The air is frigid, the door wide open. Her skin forms goose bumps and she shivers. She is so cold. Miss Mariwether and Oliver stand nearby with a look of concern on their faces. Oliver wraps her in his jacket.
“Did it happen again?” he asks her. His arms around her. She has missed that. She is scared to admit it. She doesn’t want him to desert her again. She doesn’t want him to disappear.
Spectra sits up and accepts a cup of tea from Miss Mariwether. She searches her pocket and there it is – the stone.
“If I tell you the truth, are you going to ghost me again?” she asks Oliver. She really wants to know.
His face looks appalled. “You ghosted me!”
She is holding the stone in the palm of her hand. Nothing happens, no vibrations, no heat. She knows he is telling the truth.
Is it possible two grown up people could ghost each other without even knowing it?
She fumbles in her carpet bag which is lying on the carpet next to the red velvet couch to locate her phone. She pulls up his contact information. In bright red lettering, there it is: unblock caller.
Carolyn Olson is an emerging writer. She lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She has a B.S. in Biology from Northern Michigan University and a M.D. from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, hiking, and swimming in the Great Lakes.