Page 3 of Séance

The last time, he nearly killed me when I was caught.

I knew I wouldn’t get another shot.

I would either escape or die trying.

Unfortunately, my gift of communicating with spirits is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Spirits are drawn to me, and they will find me wherever I go. Although my shields block them for a while, I can’t maintain them twenty-four hours a day.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve been homeschooled for most of my life. Being around others is impossible without my abilities leaking through…not to mention my father doesn’t want to have me beyond his control and risk anyone witnessing the abuse.

He’ll never willingly allow his golden goose to leave.

I’ve become his new obsession.

He hates me as much as he loved my mother.

If he can’t have me, then no one can.

I crack the door open, intent on fleeing to my room before my father returns and finishes what he started, when a commotion at the door grabs my attention.

“I demand to see my granddaughter, you great buffoon. Now stand aside. I already called the police. They should be here at any moment.” As the imperious voice rings through the entryway, I peer around the corner.

An old woman wearing brightly colored clothing is trying to force her way into the house, swinging her cane at my father like it’s a dueling sword, and I crack a smile when she manages a few good blows.

Damn, she’s fast!

Father finally grabs the cane, a snarl of rage on his face, and I fear he’s going to whack her with it. One blow would kill her. I step out into the open, hoping to draw his attention away from her. “Father?”

The older woman turns toward me and gasps, a trembling hand covering her mouth. Tears fill her eyes, and her voice breaks when she speaks. “Tally-Rue? Goddess, what did that brute do to you?”

I blink at her, tilting my head at the familiarity of her voice, and my eyebrows furrow. “Do I know you?”

“No,” my father snarls, his rage so thick that it’s a living thing threatening to swallow me whole. “Go to your room.”

I instinctively take a step back, then I bite my lip to keep from doing as he instructed, not even wincing when fresh blood spills down my chin. If I leave, he’s finally going to succeed in what he’s been promising me for years—he’s going to kill me.

I turn eighteen in a few weeks, and he won’t legally be able to control me anymore. He’s been threatening to have me committed in a private hospital for years, where I’d be so drugged that I wouldn’t be able to defy him any longer. The asylum would be a prison where he would have unlimited access to do whatever he wanted to me twenty-four seven.

He’d keep demanding answers, and no one would care when he finally killed me…or I officially went insane. The drugs would fracture my mind, and the spirits would slowly consume me until I became just like my mother—batshit crazy.

I saw the documents on his desk just this morning, one of the friendly spirits showing me where he hid the commitment paperwork.

It’s basically a done deal.

“Tallulah, honey, I received your letter.” The old woman digs about her purse until she finds a familiar envelope, then she waves it around in the air like she won the lottery. “I’m your nan, and you’re going to come live with me now.”

A vein throbs in my father’s neck, one that means he’s about to lose his shit, and I fear for the old woman’s life. My father won’t let me go so easily. Thankfully, before he can react, the police pull up in front of the house, their flashing lights filling the entryway.

Father glares out the door, a tick near his eye, and I swear I can actually see his dark spirit hulking out of his body like a shadow, snarling and hissing with barely contained rage. The spirit wraps around him, and a mask descends over his face.

A jovial, good-boy countenance takes over his expression, and he smiles at the cops. “Thank goodness you’re here! You arrived just in time. This woman is trying to barge into my house. Please have her removed from my property. I’ll follow you down to the station to have a restraining order issued.”

My shoulders slump at his charm. He has fooled people for years. His money grants him a certain polish that makes people intrinsically trust him, and he uses his good looks to his full advantage, swindling people out of their money without a hint of remorse.

Shadows darken the room—a sure sign the spirits are stirring. A ghostly image of a man shuffling out of the darkness slowly takes shape, his hunched form twisted as shadows cling to him like a ragged cloak. Much like most of the dead I see, he’s a decrepit zombie of sorts.

The decaying body is barely clinging to life, if that’s what you want to call it. Maggots wiggle through his flesh, and little beetles crawl over his rotting corpse before they screech at the light and scuttle back below his tattered clothing.

The closer he gets to me, the more his body heals, like he’s pulling energy from the living. By the time he stops before me, his spine cracks as he straightens to his full height, and his body fills out, almost looking human. Decaying in reverse is horrifying. Liquid flesh becomes solid, and the raisin-like eyeballs inflate until the milky color turns a brilliant blue.

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