The Medium Has a Message

Jeremy and I knew that it would be a charade if not an outright con but we agreed to join the séance to please grandma Edna.

She lost her husband Cedric ten years ago and has been waiting to hear from him ever since. Holding a séance in order to raise his spirit has become a yearly ritual.

So here we are, friends and relatives, sitting in semidarkness,  at a round table and waiting for the medium to go into a trance.

Her name is Cora and of the same age of granny, who is 92, but she looks much frailer than Edna. Her voice, though, is quite forceful when she imperiously says:

“Join hands!”, and we obediently oblige.

I am enjoying myself, holding the silky-smooth hand of Pamela, our young neighbour, but sense the reproving glance of Jeremy who, I suspect, fancies her.

We have no time to indulge in fripperies as the spiritualist has begun her routine, with drooping eyes as if going to sleep.

“Is anybody there?”, she asks the spirits' world, “and is the blessed
Cedric among you?”

It doesn't look that he is; possibly out of the madding crowd, smoking his pipe. Gran reckons that it was tobacco that caused his demise at the age of 101.

Despite grandpa's absence, there are other souls eager to communicate. 

“Has anyone recently lost a relative named Timothy?”, asks Cora,
“He has told me that he has important news to impart.”

I just manage to stop laughing aloud: my pet cat, Tim, died last week. Could this be him trying to contact me?

As it happens, aunt Hilda claims to be the bereaved relative.

“Timothy claims to have been murdered”, says the channeller, “ and that the killer is among you.”

We are all aghast and agog, waiting for the culprit to be unmasked.

Is it possible that there is an assassin amid this god-fearing assembly or is it a sick practical joke?

The question remains unresolved.

The medium opens her mouth wide and with a gasp falls to the floor, dead.

© Luigi Pagano 2022