Temporal Exploring 101 - Cultural Immersion

II.11 Trying to make sense of spirits and of Mallory Carmichael

In the aftermath of the séance, we were all a bit shaken up. All around the clearing, alone or in small groups, girls were trying to make sense of what they had just witnessed. I was by myself, with a bottle of beer in my hand, standing at the edge of the clearing, halfway hidden from the other girls by the low-hanging branches of trees. Trying to understand what had happened.

I did not believe in séances and stuff like that, but it was obvious that these 'messages' supposedly relayed from spirits of the dead by Erin Morgan contained a certain amount of bona fide information about some of my classmates. I did not believe that Erin had consciously made up those messages. Ndemba was the Welsh girl's roommate and her best friend, and I regarded it as highly improbable that Erin would deliberately scare the black girl like that, by telling her she was going to die horribly if she ever went home.

On the other hand, if the Welsh girl had truly been in trance, it was conceivable that Erin's subconscious had fabricated those messages, creating them out of pieces of information about her classmates she had picked up in one way or the other.

For instance, she might have overheard a conversation between the Turner twins where Jen and Deb had revealed their plan to go into show business together after they finished school. Or, considering the message relayed to Mallory, Erin could have listened as Mallory talked about a friend named Robin to another girl, possibly to Natty, and expressed concern about Robin's well-being.

Other messages had been formulated in a suitably vague manner: Barnett was going to 'surprise herself', and Helen was going to 'be rejected'. It would be surprising indeed if Barnett was never going to surprise herself in the near future, or if Helen would never experience something that could be described as a kind of rejection.

The oracle's message passed on to Natty was not so easy to understand or to explain. What reason might Erin have to tell my roommate that Natty 'could be the game changer'? The Welsh girl could not possibly be referring to the Red Notebook and its future impact, or could she? Also, even if she somehow knew about that, she would not have used the word 'could', would she?

"Hart." The amused, faintly mocking voice was unmistakably Mallory's.

"Carmichael."

I watched her walk up to me, mentally preparing myself for yet another round of what appeared to be my ongoing spar with Mallory Carmichael.

"That was kind of creepy, wasn't it?" Mallory offered.

"I don't know. I mean, do you believe any of that stuff? About communicating with the spirit world, and all that?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, really. Anyhow, it was kind of intense."

I nodded. "You looked pretty spooked when Morgan gave you that message, about somebody named Robin wanting you to know that they were doing fine."

"Yeah." She made no further comment about it, but I saw her shudder.

"You are spooked about that, even now," I observed. "Care to tell me what this is all about?"

I was fairly certain that she would not tell me a bloody thing. I had forgotten that one of Mallory's defining qualities was her inherent unpredictability.

"When we were little, my brother Fabrice and I liked to play pretending we were Robin Hood and his merry men. Fabrice would be Robin, and I ..." She broke off and grinned self-consciously. "Well, I used to be a bit stocky, back then. Anyhow, I used to play Friar Tuck."

"Truly? You, as Friar Tuck?" It was hard to imagine Mallory Carmichael ever having been 'stocky'. I told her as much.

"I shall take that as a compliment, Hart." She cleared her throat. "Anyhow, that was long ago, when we were little. So Fabrice was Robin, and I was Tuck. Robin and Tuck became our secret names. Names we only used with each other. We never told them to anybody, not even to our parents. And I certainly did not tell them to Erin Morgan."

"So, you think ..." I felt a sudden chill pass over me. "You think that Morgan, or the oracle, was relaying to you that your dead brother wants you to know that he ... is doing fine?" I shivered.

Mallory nodded. "Creepy, huh?"

"You think it actually was a message from Fabrice?" I shook my head. "That's impossible though, isn't it?"

"I don't know." Suddenly, Mallory Carmichael looked very small and forlorn.

Acting on impulse, in a clumsy attempt to comfort her, I put an arm around her shoulder.

She raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised, but did not pull away.

Through the fabric of her blouse I could feel the warmth of her body. Unbidden, a memory came to me, of that moment when she had kissed me. That time when she had confronted me about my fake background story, asking me questions about my alleged hometown Omaha in an effort to trick me.

I had thoroughly enjoyed that kiss. It occurred to me that I would not mind terribly if she kissed me again.

Mallory was looking at me sideways. She smiled.

"Once again, you are looking extremely kissable, Hart."

My face grew warm. It was as if she had been reading my thoughts.

Mallory half turned to face me, her lips very close to mine. "How about it?" she whispered.

My cheeks were burning.

"Uh, here?"

We were shielded from view from the rest of my classmates, but only barely so.

Mallory nodded. "Where else?"

I opened my lips, and we kissed. It was even better than the last time, with the tips of our tongues probing, exploring, and with our hands in each other's hair.

The sound of raised voices could be heard from the clearing. Mallory and I let go of each other.

"That was ... kind of nice," I ventured, trying to catch my breath.

I had to remind myself that there was a good chance that Mallory was messing with me, playing games with me, perhaps even trying to manipulate me. Or maybe she wasn't.

"That's certainly one way to put it, Hart." Mallory laughed softly. "Let's see what the others have been up to," she suggested.

Our classmates had gathered around Morgan and Ndemba.

"Are you sure that I told you that, in those exact words?" the Welsh girl was asking her friend. She sounded thoroughly distressed.

"Yes, you did. Don't you remember?"

"I never remember any of the things I say when I am in trance," Erin explained. "That's what makes it so scary. It feels like someone or something is using me to relay those stupid messages. That's why I hate to do this." She shuddered. "Eunice, I am truly sorry I told you those  things. I should never have agreed do another séance."

"But that wasn't even you who spoke, Erin," the black girl replied. "And even if it were, the oracle only tried to warn me. It's just that ..." She broke off and took a deep breath. "I will have to go home eventually, won't I? I can't just stay here in England forever, can I?"

Mallory cleared her throat.

"Sure you can," she told Ndemba. "There are a million reasons for you to stay here, and this is just an additional one."

"Perhaps you are right." The black girl frowned. "But my parents are not going to like it."

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A / N :  In this chapter we have followed Cathy's reasoning in her attempts to understand what has happened and what is going on.

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