Page 38 of The Unknown

I pause and listen, waiting for whatever trick Brad and Ronan have cooked up for us next. I can just barely see them in the dark corners of the room, like shadows themselves. Neither of them has moved, so I try again.

“Is there a spirit present who would like to commune with us? If so, please make your presence known.”

Across from me, Susie immediately straightens in her chair. “Did anyone else feel that?”

“Feel what?” I say.

“A chill. Just now.”

Next to me, Julianne pipes up. “I feel it, too.”

“So do I,” Violet says.

I feel nothing. Then again, I’m in full skeptic mode. Even if I had felt something, I’m sure my brain would have denied it. I’m surprised, then, when Heather does a startled shimmy in her chair.

“There it was again,” she announces.

I start to feel something myself. Not a chill, exactly, but something close to that. A frisson of anxiety I haven’t experienced in twenty years. That doesn’t mean it’s real. It wasn’t then, so it can’t be now. But then one of the framed butterfly displays drops from the wall, hitting the floor with a bang and a sickening crunch of broken glass. All of us at the table jolt to attention.

“Brad, was that you again?” Violet says.

“No,” he says, still motionless in his corner. “I swear.”

That is clearly bullshit. It has to be more of Brad’s handiwork, although I can’t tell how he did it from the other side of the room. I’m trying to figure it out when the drinking glass on the table suddenly moves beneath our fingers.

At first, the nudge toward theYESstartles me. Wasn’t expecting that! Yet once the initial shock wears off, I realize it was inevitable. Fake or not, it’s what we’re here for. More important, it’s what Ronan and Loretta want from us. I suspect that, more than anything else, has prompted this collective moving of the glass across the table until it finally reachesYES.

“Thank you, spirit,” I say, playing along. “We invite you to move more freely, if you are able. We have many questions for you.”

Beside me, Violet whispers, “Ask who it is.”

“Spirit, kindly tell us your name.”

The glass we’re all touching moves again. Those imperceptible muscle movements Brad talked about are now hard at work. I even know where we’re heading as the glass slides closer to Violet, zeroing in on the letter right in front of her.

A

It then zips right, to the letter that’s last in the alphabet but, due to the circular layout, directly beside theA.

Z

The glass keeps moving to theR, and I have to stop myself from sighing at the predictability of it all. Sure enough, it finishes by sliding back to Violet and the letterA.

Azra.

I guess the others have decided to fake it as well.

“Is this the same Azra who was on New Avalon in 1926?” I ask, despite already knowing the answer. When the glass slides to the inevitableYES, I toss out another question. One for which there is no obvious answer.

“Azra, are you a man or a woman?”

Because Daisy’s diary never specifies Azra’s gender, I’m curious to see what the others subconsciously choose. The glass sits motionless, as if no one can quite decide—or mentally guide the others in that direction.

A second goes by.

Two.

On the third, the glass abruptly glides to theNOtile.