Darkness Below

Mote It Be was one of the many New Age bookstores that clung to Miskatonic like barnacles to a ship. The university didn’t endorse these stores, but they didn’t discourage them either. The shops provided a smokescreen, a way for the public to indulge their curiosity of Miskatonic without bothering the university.

Ellen worked part time at Mote It Be. She kept it stocked with incense, crystals, and books. She was also the store’s resident psychic. She didn’t mind the job, except for the dress code. The owner insisted she wear long, sweeping dresses, a mixture of velvet and lace that screamed fairy-tale princess. Or earth goddess. She supposed that was the connection Norm wanted people to make.

Ellen hated it. The getup made her feel ridiculous.

“Excuse me.” A small hand tugged on her dress. She turned and saw a young girl with a backpack. Her face was solemn. Intent. A man in a suit and tie hovered behind her.

“What can I do for you?” Ellen asked.

The girl pointed at the owner. “That man said you could help me.”

Ellen looked at Norm. He didn’t normally let her work with children, but he gave her a nod of approval.

“I’d certainly like to try.”

“I’ve, I’ve been having these . . .”

“Don’t say anything else,” advised the man behind her.

“But. But I—” the girl spluttered. She looked at her companion in a way that made Ellen’s heart ache. Ellen was twenty years old, but she was close enough to remember the powerlessness of childhood.

“Your . . .” Ellen glanced at the man.

“Uncle,” he offered.

“Your uncle is right. It’s better if I know nothing about you. Except your name. I’m Ellen.”

She extended her hand. The little girl hesitated. Then she carefully shook Ellen’s hand.

“I’m Lindsey.”

“Nice to meet you, Lindsey.”

Ellen didn’t bother to ask the uncle his name. Hostility rose off him like heat from a freshly tarred road.

She stood and waved the girl to a back room. “Why don’t we go somewhere where we can talk?”

The uncle pulled Ellen aside as soon as Lindsey was out of earshot. “Look. I don’t believe in all this. And I don’t want to be here.”

“I can tell,” Ellen quipped.

“But she thinks you can help her, and if it makes her feel better . . .” He fixed her with a hard look. “I don’t want you to sell her anything. Understand?”

Ellen bristled at the accusation, but she held back her anger. You’re working at a New Age store full of potions and spells, she reminded herself. Can you blame him for being suspicious? “I just want to help her,” she insisted.

The last thing she wanted was to take them to the “consulting” room, but it was the only private place in the store. Behind a thickly beaded curtain and packed with the usual occult clichés—Ouija boards, crystal balls, candles, and maps of energy centers in the body—the consultation area was everything the man feared. As she led them inside, she felt his suspicion rise even more.

The tarot cards on the table only made things worse. They were from an adult deck. Ellen swept them aside before Lindsey noticed them.

“Don’t you need all of that?” the girl asked.

“Some people need them. I don’t,” she replied. She arranged the chairs in a semicircle and motioned them to sit. “So, Lindsey, how much do you know about what I do?”

“Mary says you get pictures in your head. Pictures that people send you. She told me you can talk to the living and the dead.”

Ellen glanced at the uncle. “Mary?”

“Her older sister,” he offered in a voice that made it clear that Mary was in trouble.

“Is it true? That you speak to the dead?” the girl demanded.

“Sometimes.”

“Aren’t you afraid of them?”

“They’re just people. Maybe a little sadder, but they’re still just people,” she reassured the girl.

Lindsey bit her lip, clutching her backpack like a shield.

Ellen leaned forward. “What is it? Why are you here?”

“I think I’m having someone else’s dream. A dead person’s dream.”

“Lindsey,” the uncle warned her.

Ellen ignored him. “What makes you think you’re having a dead person’s dream?”

“I don’t know. It’s just kind of . . . they’re not me. The things I see. And they’re faded. The color’s gone.”

“Do you usually dream in color?”

“Uh-huh.”

Ellen held out her hands. The girl looked at them anxiously.

“This is the way I see, Lindsey.”

“Is it going to hurt?”

“No, but my hands might be cold.”

Lindsey latched on to Ellen’s hands.

The world plunged into darkness. Lindsey’s hands were still there, but they jutted out of a dirt wall. Ellen looked around, at a deep, dark, damp world.

Underground, she thought as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. I’m underground.

Somewhere in the distance a light flickered, its glow strong enough to illuminate the walls.

Men. Everywhere she looked she saw men. Ellen’s eyes swept the walls, over the bodies trapped in the earth. Most of them were dead, but some, some . . . Some of them reached for her, their fingers rasping against the fabric of her shirt.

Ellen jerked as a wave of shock shot through her.

Nightmare. This is the nightmare I had last night.

The earth lurched under her feet. She heard a sharp crack, followed by the roar of thunder.

“Earthquake,” someone yelled.

Ellen blinked. The world was suddenly, painfully bright.

She was back at Mote It Be, holding hands with a frightened girl.

“What?”

“Earthquake,” Lindsey’s uncle repeated.

It took a moment for Ellen to feel the shaking, to realize the real world had bled into her vision.

“Under the table,” she ordered them.

“Did we do this?” the girl gasped as they huddled together.

“No, honey,” Ellen reassured her.

After a few seconds the tremor passed. As soon as the potions stopped jingling on the shelf, Lindsey’s uncle pulled the girl toward the door.

“Come on,” he barked. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“No!” The girl broke free and grabbed Ellen’s hand. “What did you see? Tell me what you saw!”

The owner of Mote It Be stuck his head in the door. “We need to go outside. There may be aftershocks.”

Lindsey refused to let Ellen go. She clutched her with damp hands as they headed outside.

The town square was already full of people. Some were confused, others frightened, another group was glad for an excuse, any excuse, to get out of work.

Ellen guided the girl to a bench outside the store. The uncle plopped down between them. The girl bowed her head, as if the decision was already made.

“You’re not going to tell me the truth, are you?” she whispered.

Ellen leaned over to talk to the girl. “You’re having dreams about men trapped underground,” she replied. “They’re stuck in the walls, trying to get out.”

Her uncle stiffened. “How do you know that? How could you possibly know that?” he demanded.

“I think you’re right, Lindsey. I think you’re having a dead person’s dream.”

“How do you know?” the girl whispered.

Because we’re having the same dream, she thought. Someone’s trying to communicate with us.

“I’m scared,” Lindsey whispered.

“Okay. That’s enough,” the uncle protested.

“Listen to me, Lindsey. Strange things happen in dreams. People drift in and out. Some are alive. Some dead. But you’re in control. You’re always in control. If you don’t like what’s happening, you can change it.”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s the most ridiculous thing you can think of?”

The girl scowled, thinking hard. “A hippo on roller skates.”

Ellen smiled. She liked the image. Maybe I’ll use it, she thought.

“Okay, a hippo on roller skates. When you’re in the middle of the nightmare and something is chasing you, when you’re running and you feel like your heart is about to burst, I want you to stop. I want you to stop and turn around. And what are you going to see?”

The girl giggled, the sound popping out of her like a soap bubble. “A hippo on roller skates.”

“Not just a hippo on roller skates. A hippo waving its hooves, rearing its head, and trying hard not to fall on its big, fat hippo butt.”

The girl’s giggle blossomed into full-blown laughter. Several people nearby turned and smiled.

“That’s it?” Lindsey asked once her laughter faded.

“That’s it.”

“I don’t need any potions or spells or anything?”

“You already have the most important weapon you need.” Ellen tapped the girl on the forehead. Then she offered her hand. “It was nice to meet you, Lindsey.”

The girl threw her arms around Ellen. The gesture took her by surprise. Ellen tried to avoid physical contact whenever she could. Physical contact told her things about people she didn’t want to know. But Lindsey was pure, full of goodness. The girl’s energy seeped into Ellen like spring water.

“Thank you,” Lindsey’s words were warm against Ellen’s dress.

“I’m glad I could help.”

The uncle shattered the quiet scene. “How much do I owe you?”

Ellen scowled at him for breaking the mood. “Nothing,” she insisted as she pulled away. “It’s nice to get questions other than ‘Is my girlfriend cheating on me?’ or ‘Does he love me?’”

Lindsey’s uncle stared at her like she was an alien. Most people assumed that psychics exploited their powers, draining the gullible every chance they got. That they would offer their services for free? Like a hippo on roller skates. Ellen walked away before the man could say anything else.

“You know, the idea of a store is that people buy things, Logan,” her boss grumbled when she joined him. He stood in front of Mote It Be, arms crossed, as if he expected looters to show up at any moment.

“Yeah, I know. You should probably fire me.” She fell silent, watching some of the shopkeepers close their doors. “I lied to her, Norm. I told her that everything was okay. That she could change things if she wanted.”

“Change what?” Norm asked.

Ellen didn’t hear him. She looked at the people huddled in anxious groups. “Something strange is going on,” she whispered.

“Something strange is always going around here,” Norm insisted. “Look, Logan, your shift’s almost over. Why don’t you leave early? I’ll probably close for the day. I don’t think we’ll be getting any more business.”

“You don’t have any potions or spells to prevent earthquakes?”

Norm shot her a sour look. “They’re too expensive,” he replied. “Now go on. Get out of here before I make you go inside and take inventory.”