Read Online Speed Dating With the Dead by Scott Nicholson - Free Book Online

even ask Burton to call an ambulance. Apparently he was used to her spells, or what he had called “stepping through.”
    “Angel in the clouds,” Amelia said.
    Burton lifted his head from her breasts and studied the swirled gypsum patterns in the ceiling. With a little imagination, or the appropriate hallucinogenic drugs favored by visionaries around the world, then the random patterns could be fitted into whatever shapes the viewer desired. Might as well be angels as anything.
    “What’s her name?” Donald asked, edging closer.
    Amelia lifted a trembling arm and pointed to the table. “Ask the board.”
    A yellow legal pad was on the table beside the Ouija board. Now that Amelia had stabilized, Burton turned his attention to the words written there.
    “Nancy. 1922. In the stone garden.”
    It was like a supernatural game of “Clue,” only instead of the butler in the study with a candlestick, it was Nancy in the garden, from an era long enough ago that she was almost certainly deceased. However, Amelia hadn’t addressed the angel as “Nancy,” so her dream image must have been someone else.
    “Help me lift her,” Donald said, and Burton took one shoulder and arm while Donald lifted her head. They were struggling to get her into a sitting position when Wayne came panting through the door.
    “How is she?” Wayne asked.
    “We had an episode,” Donald said, full of pride.
    Wayne visibly relaxed. He glanced at the three guests, who kneeled around the coffee table like adolescents who’d been caught playing Spin the Bottle.
    “Your medium room is above average,” Amelia said, and the bad pun broke the tension. Burton had heard it before but laughed anyway.
    “The planchette,” Donald said.
    Amelia reached forward, her hands still shaking, and cupped the wheeled triangular device. The three guests knelt at the coffee table, penitents before a shrine, though they must have sensed that Amelia would be flying solo on this particular ascension to the Great Beyond. Burton found himself kneeling as well, though he’d never ascribed much mystical power to a concoction of cardboard, glue, and ink manufactured by Parker Brothers.
    Still, intention was a powerful thing.
    Wayne approached the table, eyes shining as if infected with the contagious enthusiasm that filled the room. Burton knew Wayne also put little stock in the Ouija board, but his boss believed in giving the people what they wanted. If they paid good money to sit in a room and consult a trademarked oracle, then more power and Godspeed to them.
    “Are you here, Nancy?” Amelia said.
    The surrounding observers were silent as the planchette gave a squeaky roll toward the “No” corner of the board. Burton’s take on the divination tool was that the operator unconsciously manipulated the wheeled mechanism. It was difficult to tell fakery, but if you believed all of it was fake, then you didn’t have to waste time detecting sleight of hand.
    “If you aren’t Nancy, then who are you?”
    Burton met Wayne’s glance. No doubt Amelia had researched the hotel’s history and knew all about the legend of Margaret Percival, the suicidal Frederick Weinstein, and the honeymoon heart-attacker Erwin Henderson. Since Margaret was the most notorious of the cases, Burton expected the planchette to slide toward “M.” Donald squatted beside his wife, pen poised over the note pad to record the letters.
    Amelia closed her eyes and allowed the planchette a visible tremor. Then it slid toward the “O,” hesitated a moment, and settled on the “N.” “N,” Donald called out, scribbling it down
    “Nancy,” whispered one of the bystanders, a pinch-faced man with an oily strand of hair plastered across his bald spot.
    The planchette rolled again, locking on the “O.”
    “N-O,” Donald said. “ ‘No’ the slow way.”
    “Not Nancy,” whispered Baldy.
    Amelia’s face was calm but her eyelashes fluttered as she concentrated. Burton noted her breathing was