The skelephone

Madame Trudeau insisted. Everything in the room had to be as pristine as a dew drop. The windows had to be so transparent birds might crash against them. What for if the sessions were at night and with all the drapes on? Not that I knew what those sessions were for.

I wear the black dress with the white apron since five morning and scrub. Scrub the floor until it was like a mirror. Scrub the windows until bird corpses fell on the small orchard filled with grenades and peaches. Dust the bric-a-brac of different shapes like cats, dogs, horses and humans. There’s even a castle. Behind this garbage, there’s a book bound in black lace. I think it is to me

Now the table is shining… Except for that spot around the skull of Sir Randall Powell. You can tell the rest of the room is clean even without cleaning it; cause that skull has dust on it. Madame once said he had been her husband and that she would rather have the skull left untouched. The previous maid to me had cleaned it and… that’s how I came into this house.

Friday evening. All the house is clean and sparkling. Madame Trudeau said I can go out or accompany them in their session. Spirits? Can they steal money from a living?

I sit apart. The chairs are heavy and the table round. This table allows everybody to sit around. Some whore here feels put of place. Must be me. I place my chair outside of the circle. Madame tells me to become part of it. It’s all set.

A bird crashes against the window and enters the room but… The window is still in one piece. Madame Trudeau takes the bone under the skull, she has the bird perched atop n her right index. I can’t believe my eyes when she speaks to the bone as one speaks to the phone.

—Miss Vinca Être ?

That’s my name. I play dumb cause that’s not the name madam knows.

—Miss Vinca, someone from the hereafter wishes to talk to you — Madame Trudeau calls a second bird from the dead.

That’s it. I charge against the skull. Madame resists with all her weight. Superior to mine, it is not enough to counter her lack of reflexes and she hits herself against the table and I make haste of the confusion. My fingers close in the spine of the book.

I guess I can’t just get out of the window… I can see all the dead of her life and mine.