Burial (18 page)

‘You're the genuine goods, aren't you?' I told him.

‘I do my best,' he said, without much of an effort to sound modest. ‘Now, if we could be left alone …?'

With obvious reluctance, Michael and Karen left the dining room. Karen gave me an intense, anxious look, and blew me the smallest of kisses, and then closed the door behind her.

Naomi whispered, ‘I'm worried … I'm worried about dying in my sleep … I'm worried they'll take my chair …'

Martin laid a hand against her cheek. ‘Don't upset yourself, Naomi … You're not going to die in your sleep. Before you know it, this will all be over, and you'll be able to put your chair any place you want to.'

‘Really?' asked Naomi, in almost pathetic hope.

‘Really,' he smiled. Then he turned to me and said, ‘First of all, I'm going to try to contact that spirit guide of yours, Singing Rock? I want to find out exactly what he was trying to warn you about … and whether it's connected with Naomi and Greenberg and what's been happening here.'

‘All right,' I agreed. ‘If you have to.' I didn't like the sound of this at all. It gave me a cold, dreadful feeling that I hadn't felt for twenty years; and which I had hoped that I would never feel again.

‘Harry,' said Martin. ‘If there was any alternative …'

‘I hear you,' I told him.

‘Spirits don't warn you for nothing. They don't make phony alarm calls.'

‘All right. I said all right, all right?'

‘All right, fine.' Martin sniffed, and looked around. ‘Do you smell that?'

‘I don't know. I have rhinitis.'

‘Do you smell herbs, and maybe smoke?'

I sniffed loudly. ‘Kind of, yes.'

‘Did you ever visit the prairie?'

‘Any special prairie?'

‘I don't know, sagebrush, prairie, that's what this smells like. Sagebrush and balsam-root And outdoor fires.'

‘Don't tell me. We have a spirit who barbecues.'

Martin ignored that remark. He must have learned by now that my first response to anything frightening was to laugh. If you go to a horror movie, you hear people laughing, and not because they think the film is funny. Laughing is one of the first things that human beings do to chase away the devil.

‘Singing Rock was an Opie, right?' Martin asked me.

‘He was an Indian, yes, an Oglala Sioux. He ran some kind of insurance business. But he was a medicine-man, too.'

Martin sniffed again, and thoughtfully closed his eyes, but he didn't say anything more.

‘Will we see him again?' I asked, at last. ‘Like we did with the book?'

Martin opened his eyes. ‘That's what the water's for.'

‘Oh, sure, yes. I nearly forgot about the water.'

Martin approached the wall where all the furniture was heaped, and cleared aside two chairs so that he could reach it. He stood staring at it for quite a long time. I stayed where I was, trying to smile at Naomi, and glancing at the bowl of water from time to time. Nothing had happened yet, except that the surface was faintly rippled. That could have been caused by nothing more than the draught under the door, or Martin's footsteps jarring the floorboards as he walked. Quite honestly, I felt embarrassed about looking at it. I had never heard about spirits and water; and I didn't have the slightest idea what to expect. Martin made me feel even more like a charlatan than Karen; and that was saying something. Karen had always come to me with such earnest pleas for help — with such
belief
in my psychic abilities — that I almost hated her for it. But you couldn't really hate a girl like Karen. Well, I couldn't, anyway. She was so trusting, so child-like, so darn
defenceless
.

Martin raised both hands and pressed them flat against the wall. This seemed to agitate Naomi, who jiggled and swayed in her chair, although it was obvious that she wasn't going to leave it, no matter what. She stared at me, wide-eyed, and begged, ‘What's he doing? What's he doing? Tell him to stop!'

I laid my hand on her shoulder. ‘Ssh, don't worry, Naomi. Martin really knows what he's doing. Like, he's the Craig Claiborne of spiritualism.'

‘Tell him to stop,' Naomi repeated, in a voice like glass.

‘Naomi, sweetheart, we're trying to help you. We're trying to find out what's made all your furniture move, and we're trying to get rid of it for you. Come on — don't get anxious. Don't fret. This is all going to work out good.'

‘But the shadows,' Naomi fretted. ‘What about the shadows?'

‘I don't know,' I told her. ‘What about the shadows?'

‘They bit him. They
bit
him!'

‘They bit him? Who?'

‘Naomi nodded wildly toward the left-hand side of the wall. ‘He was there and they bit him!'

‘The shadows bit him?' I asked. How can a shadow bite anybody?'

‘They — ‘Naomi began, but Martin turned around and said, ‘Quiet,
please
. Transplanary trance is difficult enough, without you talking all the time.'

‘Sorry,' I told him. ‘Sorry.' And when Naomi tried again to tell me how the shadows had bitten somebody, I said, ‘Shush, shush. Tell me later.'

‘But I should tell you
now,
' she hissed. ‘Before it's too late.'

‘
Please,
' Martin asked us; and I pressed my finger tight against my lips so that Naomi couldn't possibly misunderstand me.

‘He's doing something very complicated,' I whispered. ‘Something that needs his complete concentration. We mustn't say anything, because he's going into a special kind of trance; and if you break somebody's concentration when they're in this special kind of trance, it can be really dangerous. You can leave half of their psyche in the spirit world and half —'

Martin said, with huge self-restraint, ‘Harry, do you mind, please, shutting up?'

‘Oh — sure,' I said, and gave him my obliging
Columbo
style salute. ‘Anything you say. I was just telling Naomi that — well, never mind. You go ahead. You go right ahead. Don't pay any mind to me. I'm just helping.'

‘Is that it?' Martin asked me. ‘Is that the end of the conversation?'

I nodded, and saluted again. It has always amazed me, how much concentration other people need. I can go for weeks and never have to concentrate once.

Martin turned back to the wall and pressed his hands flat against it.

‘I am summoning a spirit called Singing Rock … a spirit from South Dakota, a wonder-worker from the Sioux. I want to feel his presence; I want to touch his hand. I am summoning him to help me; to guide me through the levels. I am asking him to show himself, so that he and I can hunt down the spirit who has possessed this room.'

We waited for four or five minutes; although it seemed more like four or five years. The room remained chilly and silent, except for the distant cacophony of traffic, and the thumping of rock'n'roll from the Bensons.

Naomi began to hum; and then to sing that high, keening song that I had heard before, although not so loudly this time. Martin stayed where he was, his head bowed, his hands still pressed against the wallpaper. I had no idea whether he was angry, bored, or simply waiting for Naomi and me to stop making distracting noises.

‘I am summoning a spirit called Singing Rock,' he repeated. ‘I am asking Singing Rock to help me.'

Again, there was no obvious reply; although Naomi continued to keen and ullulate under her breath. ‘
Aye-aye-aye-aye-wejoo-suk,
' she chanted. ‘
Aye-aye-aye-aye-alnoba-na'Iwiwi.
'

I wondered whether Michael had managed to record any of this singing, and I was just about to stick my head out of the dining room door and ask him when Martin suddenly said, ‘I hear you. I see you.'

‘Excuse me?' I asked him.

‘I want to talk to Singing Rock,' said Martin. His back was still turned. ‘A Sioux Indian called Singing Rock. He came across — Harry, when did Singing Rock die?'

‘What?' I said, confused.

‘When did Singing Rock die?'

‘I, uh — seventy-nine, summer of seventy-nine. Lake Berryessa, California.'

Martin repeated this information as if he were talking to somebody else on the telephone. I stared at him in perplexity.
Was he really talking to the spirit-world? To
dead
people? It all seemed incredibly casual. Why did everybody make such a fuss about dying, if you could get in touch with the living as easily as this? Next thing we knew, the dead would be sending us faxes. Having a great time, wish you were here, Uncle Chesney.

‘I can hear you,' Martin repeated. ‘I can see you, too, but not very clearly.'

I edged back slowly to Naomi's side, watching Martin all the time. Naomi was chanting, ‘
Aye-aye-aye-aye-wejoo-suk.
' Then, ‘
Aye-aye-aye-nayew
.'

‘Shush,' I told her. But she kept on singing and rocking on her precious chair; and in the end I decided that she wasn't worth worrying about. I was much more interested in what Martin was doing. He seemed to be talking to somebody — quite fluently and cogently — even though his face was turned to the wall.

‘I want you to bring me Singing Rock. Yes. He knows me. He's seen me with Harry Erskine. Tell him Harry Erskine wants him here.'

I stared at Martin in fascination; and as I did so, I saw shadows appearing on the smoothly-plastered wall. One of them danced and skipped very quickly and lightly; another was taller and thinner and much more hesitant; a third was huge-headed and silent.

Naomi rocked wildly backward and forward, screaming, ‘
Aye! Paukunnawaw! Aye! Wajuk! Aye! Nish! Aye! Neip
!'

‘Martin,' I cautioned. ‘Just take care of yourself.' But when I stepped closer, it suddenly became obvious that he was no longer with me. He was with me in body but not in spirit. His hands were pressed so firmly against the wall that his knuckles were spotted with white; his cheek-muscles were rigid; his teeth were gritted together. His eyes were open but he wasn't looking at the wall. He was focused on something way beyond it. He was still talking — and, better
still, he was still breathing. But when I walked around and stared at his face, I didn't see the man I had brought into Michael Greenberg's front door, smiling and nodding and packed to the ears with
joie d'ésprit
His face looked like a death-mask, greasy and unreal, as if it had been moulded from yellow-ochre wax. And there was the faintest of auras around him; a foggy veil of dim blue light; a
phosphorescence
, as if he were dead already, and rotting. You know what they say about rotten herring, shining in the dark.

‘Martin,' I said, with huge uncertainty.

‘I want to speak with Singing Rock,' he said; but he certainly wasn't talking to me.

‘
Martin, talk to me! Are you okay
?'

Martin turned his head sideways and stared straight in my direction, but his eyes didn't see me at all. ‘I can see you clearly. I saw you before; in my book. I have to know what you want.'

‘Martin, this isn't funny. How can I help you if I don't know what the hell's going on?'

Martin nodded, as if he had understood me. But then he said, ‘Why?'

‘Why?' I asked him. ‘What the hell do you mean, why?'

Martin said, ‘I'm not afraid, no. He's only a spirit, after all; just like you are. There isn't a spirit in God's creation who can hurt me.'

‘Martin,' I appealed to him. ‘Who are you talking to? There's nobody here!'

‘I want his name. I want to know where to find him.'

I was about to say something else; but then I knew for sure that Martin could neither see me nor hear me. He was in a trance, talking to spirits, talking to dead people.

It may be hard to understand, but at that moment I was jealous of him. Jealous of his sophistication, jealous of his culture, jealous of his psychic sensitivity. He could do for real what I could only pretend to do — and, brother, didn't
the difference show. More than anything else, I was jealous because he was talking to dead people, as plainly and clearly as if they were standing right in front of him. He was talking with people who might have fought with Grant; or talked to Lindbergh; or simply lived in America when there were log cabins and hard winters and marauding Indians.

They survive someplace; the dead survive. Their ashes enrich the earth, and their spirits enrich the air. They're always with us, all around us, but it's a rare talent to be able to talk to them. Martin Vaizey had that talent, and yes, I admit it, I was jealous as hell.

I could only stand helplessly next to him while he walked through worlds that I had never even seen, and never would.

All the same, I surprised myself. I could feel some presence in the room, even though my own perception was very blurry, like trying to see moving figures through a frosted — up window-pane. I could sense their movement. I could even
hear
them: not as distinct voices, but as soft blurtings and rustlings.

I glanced back at Naomi. She was still clinging to her chair, rocking and dipping her head, although she had stopped chanting for the time being.

‘I want to talk to him,' Martin repeated, even more insistently than before. ‘We have much to discuss.'

‘Martin,' I asked, ‘are you okay?' I very much doubted if he could hear me, or even if he wanted to answer me. But I was supposed to be his anchor-man, and I thought that the least I could do was let him know that I was still here, still watching him.

‘Yes, parley,' he said; and this time the eeriest thing happened. He spoke without moving his lips, like a ventriloquist. I heard his voice quite clearly but I swear to God that he didn't move his lips.

‘Martin?' I urged him. ‘Is everything okay?'