Monthly Bonus #3 - Nate Autumn Scenario Special - "Séance" (Patreon)

Moonlight cuts silvery shafts through chill smoke that permeates across the doorway. A doorway that looms in front of me, the wood gleaming black, and the golden ornate door handles shined to perfection.

There is a bite to the air. I shiver beneath the chill, wrapping my arms around myself as I shudder…though it’s not completely from the cold.

A wooden sign with flowing script reads, ‘Séance here tonight. Please ring the bell.’

My gaze slides through the shadow to the tasselled cord attached to an actual bell.

Overhead, a crow screeches at me from the rooftop.

What am I even doing here?

The question has been swirling around in my head since I got out of my car and headed up the driveway of the estate.

Do I really want to contact my father that badly?

My heart screams ‘yes’ loud enough that I reach out and tug on the cord without any more hesitation.

The bell chimes with a haunting clang.

The door creaks open.

A very average-looking man stands in the doorway with a bright smile that completely throws off my expected experience of a creepy gothic house.

“Hello!” he chimes, his voice bright and bubbly as he bounces on the spot. His sky-blue cravat, tucked into a satin waistcoat, is the exact colour of his piercing eyes which stare out at me expectantly.

“Oh, hi,” I reply, fidgeting on the spot. “I’m here for the séance.”

He beams a smile. “Of course you are.” He steps aside, opening the door wider and gesturing into the dark wood-panelled foyer. “I’ll be assisting in tonight’s calling. Do come in.”

I make to do just that when someone calls breathlessly from behind me.

“Am I late?” The voice is rich and velvety with just a hint of gravel, sending an unexpected, but very pleasant, shiver to slide right through me and make my toes curl.

I turn around, delighted to find a face that matches the voice.

A dark, smooth gaze finds mine as the tall man stops in the doorway next to me. His lips are parted around laboured breaths after running down the driveway, yet I notice his chest doesn’t heave the way someone truly out of breath would be.

But the stranger’s lingering gaze distracts me from that fact, drawing me deeply in. I almost forgot where I am completely when he smiles. It’s like being enrobed in a blanket that I never want to leave.

“Hi,” he says, his smile making me wobbly.

“Hi,” I reply. The words only just make it out. My lungs seem to be struggling against the frantic beat of my heart.

He nods in towards the foyer. “Are you here for the séance?”

“You both are!” the assistant interrupts with the same sing-song tone as before. “Come this way.”

We follow the assistant down the hallway, the oppressive wood-panelling continuing all the way down the corridor.

As we go, the other séance-goer shoves his sleeves up to his elbows and rakes his hair back from his eyes. I almost forget how to walk.

“If it’s not too private to pry into…who is it that you’re hoping to speak with tonight?” he asks.

My stomach clenches, my gaze dropping to the floor. “My father.” I drag my focus back up to meet his eyes. “You?”

He nods. “My brother.”

“I am so sorry for your loss,” I murmur.

He attempts a smile. “For yours as well.”

I try to mirror his expression, which is made a little easier as his focus lingers on me again.

“Just in here,” the assistant who’d been leading us says, standing to one side as he gestures a hand into an open doorway. “You’re the last two we were waiting for.”

“Thanks,” the stranger says, dipping under the doorway into the room.

I make to pass, when the assistant places a hand on my arm to stop me.

He smirks. “His name is Nate.” He then leaves.

Nate, I say silently. It makes a nice shape in my mouth.

“Nate.”

“Yes?” Nate swings around to face me, his brows raised.

Panic erupts in my chest. I didn’t think I’d said it aloud that time either.

I clear my throat. “Oh. Sorry. I just—”

“Ah. Everyone is here!” a woman calls, clapping her hands together, a selection of gem-encrusted bangles glimmering with the motion. “Let’s take a seat around the table to begin.”

We do as she says, taking the wooden chairs in a circle around the table. The ivory lace tablecloth is pristine, shifting a little as we all tuck further beneath it, though oddly the candles atop it don’t budge at all.

There’s only four of us here: me, a younger man with slicked back blond hair, a middle-aged woman with tattoos adorning every inch of skin, and the painfully attractive stranger I now know is called Nate.

Nate decides to sit next to me.

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth to stop a pleased smile forming.

“Now then,” the woman leading the séance, Polly Withers, says. Her brunette hair is streaked through with vibrant purple that glimmers in the low light. Only a few wall sconces are lit. The warm glow of them pools across Nate’s features like sunlight over canvas.

What am I thinking? I drag my focus away, frowning to force my attention onto the reason I’m here.

But the task is made a little more difficult as I can feel Nate’s gaze sliding to me regularly. Our thighs brush together—mostly by accident—as I shift on my seat, sending an excited flush zipping through me.

I let out a slow breath. Nate smiles, watching me beneath his thick, dark lashes.

“We will take turns to contact those who have left us,” Polly says, her tone appropriately sympathetic as she offers each of us a look. She places her deep brown hands onto the tabletop and spreads her fingers. Her nails shimmer with metallic nail polish embedded with symbols of moons and stars. “Who wishes to join us first?”

I gasp as the table shudders.

“What was that?” the young man exclaims, almost jumping out of his seat.

Polly grins. “It seems we have an eager visitor at our table tonight. Come!” Her attention swings around the empty room. “Join us in safety, my friend!”

My heart thuds as a gust of air whooshes through the room, extinguishing all but one candle. The young man lets out a small shriek. The tattooed woman barely makes a reaction.

Nate’s hand finds mine under the table. “Are you ok?”

My gaze falls to the touch, and he disappointingly releases my hand.

I don’t get to respond as Polly speaks again.

“There is someone. Someone…I see water.” She squeezes her eyes shut and waves a hand through the air. “Ships.”

Nate snaps taut beside me.

Polly smiles. “I can smell salt.” Her expression plummets into a frown. “I smell blood.”

“Milton?” Nate breathes out the name.

Polly’s eyes snap open as she looks at Nate. “Your brother.” She doesn’t frame it as a question before frowning. “When did he pass?”

An uneasiness suddenly has Nate twisting his hands together on top of the table. “…Some time ago.”

I look over at him with a brow arched. He doesn’t look that old. Perhaps it was when they were young? The thought makes my heart squeeze in my chest.

Without thinking, I reach out to rest my hand over his in much the same way he had to me.

He takes the offered gesture of comfort eagerly.

Polly has her eyes closed again, her head moving around, like she’s looking through a window we can’t see.

We both flinch when she snaps open her eyes, only to narrow them on Nate. “Just how long ago?”

He levels her with a gaze. They seem to be locked in some silent conversation, before Nate finally purses his lips without giving a spoken response.

Polly draws in a breath. “I will not summon those who have been at rest in the ether for so long.”

Nate stands, spreading out his hands, a mistiness overcoming his eyes. “Please, I just—"

“No!” she snaps, standing as well, her hands slamming down onto the table. “I will not allow you to tear the rest from a poor soul who has taken so long to come to peace. Especially for someone who should not even be here.”

Then that’s it.

Polly storms out of the room in a waft of violet-perfume and frayed denim clothes, and the assistant is kicking us all out before I can even register what’s happening.

-

“Wait!” I call as the assistant shoves me through the doors with the others. “I didn’t get to—”

“Full refunds will be issued. Thank you for coming!” he calls through the narrow slice of open doorway before it slams completely shut.

I frown, resting my forehead on the shiny wood as my body deflates. “I don’t want a refund. I want to speak with my father…”

Fingers slide onto my shoulder, drawing me out of the emotions that strangle my chest.

I turn to look at Nate.

“I’m sorry. That was…my fault,” he mutters, his gaze fallen.

“What was all that about?” I ask.

A small hollow forms in my stomach as his hand drops from me, but we at least walk down the bleak darkness of the gravel driveway side-by-side.

“It’s not a story to be shared walking along a stranger’s pathway,” he says, the strength still sapped from his voice.

I chew at my lip. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No. It’s not that.” He pauses as we reach the iron gates, rubbing a line down the length of his long nose. “…I may know someone who is actually willing to help us speak with those we lost. If you’re interested?”

I don’t know which I want to jump at more: more time with Nate or the actual chance to speak with my father.

“You do?” I ask.       

He nods, the smile returning to make his eyes glimmer with more radiance than the stars twinkling in the sky above us. “Why don’t I give you my number? Then, if you’re interested, you can let me know. And I’ll set something up.”

I half-smile with a sudden bubble of confidence. “Interested in the séance, or interested in you?”

A smirk slides across his lips that sends my stomach into a roaring burst of butterflies. “Either. Though I admit the latter is my main hope.”

He jots his number down on paper, even though I offer him my phone to type it straight into, before he waves a final time and heads away into the darkness.

I watch him go.

Considering I came here tonight because of an ending…it suddenly feels like a new beginning might be opening up.