A Handy Magic Trick

What happens when a seance goes off the walls?

It was impossible. Mary counted one more pair of hands face down on the seance table than there were gathered people..The hands began to move. They rose without an attached body, clenching their fists, then pointed at her.

“What do you want?” There was a quiver in her voice. The others around the table pushed their chairs back, wanting to get away from the spectacle. Wide-eyed. Mary stood as the hands beckoned her to follow.

“Everyone stay calm.” In all the years she had led a seance, this had never happened before. It had to be some kind of game that someone was playing. She knew her craft. She’d tipped tables, made bells ring with invisible fishing line, made secret noises with her feet or props.

Her favorite was turning a mixture of jello, egg white, and soap into pulsing ectoplasm shaped like a face. “There is a message here, always a message. Follow me if you want to find out what it is. It may be for any one or all of you.”

The hands waved at her to stop. Mary stood near her front door as one hand reached down, turned the knob, and opened it. “No way,” Mary muttered to herself. The seance group behind her pushed her on.

Outside, there was a hazy full moon floating in the sky. A gathering cold wind moaned through nearby trees that rustled like alarmed rattlesnakes. The floating hands wrung and twisted themselves together.

That was when Mary recognized the wedding ring misplaced on the left hand’s little finger. It was small and tightly embraced by the flesh. It was Cindy’s ring, the one given her at her mother’s funeral when her best friend was thirteen years old.

Cindy had disappeared six months later. It had broken Mary’s heart. Cindy’s father had never given up looking, and offered a reward for as much as he was worth. Even at that young age, she had a good intuition about people.

It was a gift, knowing things she wasn’t supposed to know. There was something wrong with Cindy’s father. He was too emotional about what happened to her. They’d never been close. The man was too controlling. When Mary’s mother passed away, that buffer zone disappeared.

“It wants us to wait.” The two floating hands had stopped at the first corner. The parade behind Mary piled up. Whispers became questions. “Where are we going? I have an appointment in an hour I have to be at.” That was Marcy Thomas, Mary’s best paying customer.

“You can all go. This appears to concern only me. I’ll explain in next week’s seance.” She had to persuade a couple of lingerers but finally she faced the floating hands alone.

“Good trick, how do you do it?” The stranger was a handsome looking man about Mary’s age. “I’m a magician. Amateur really. It’s hard to make money at it. I’m a cop by way of trade.”

He reached out to shake hands with one of the two floating before him. “Name’s Henry Miller. You just practicing? You look a little pink around the edges.”

The hands began spelling letters using sign language. It had been Mary and Cindy’s secret way of communicating at church functions or other places where they wanted private conversations. “Let him come,” Mary spoke the letters aloud.

“Say. That’s really good. How do you do it?” Henry started walking by her side as the hands moved into motion. At the strained look on Mary’s face he faltered, “Sorry. I must sound like a geek. I know a professional rarely shares their secrets. Thanks for letting me tag along. Where we going?”

Mary was wondering that, too. She found her own hands picking up the old habit of signing back. It took some effort, not having done so in years. She spoke the words as she made them in the air, “Where are you taking us?”

Henry nodded his approval at her keeping up her act. “You’re going to be a great success on America’s Got Talent. That is the one you are auditioning for?”

“Hush. I’ve got to concentrate.” Mary gave him ‘that look’ which withered any opposition.

In the time while Henry talked with her, she’d gotten the distinct impression they had met before. “This isn’t the first time you’ve seen me,” she said aloud to herself.

Henry took a step back, waving his own hands in the air to show he was harmless. “You are on my beat. I was curious why you got the same crowd knocking at your door at the same time every week. I like to keep tabs on the neighborhood. I checked you out.”

He was checking her out now, his eyes trailing over her figure. “What you do isn’t illegal but it is on the shady side, don’t you think?”

Now was not the time to explain herself. She cut him off with, “I help people. I get intuitions. I started out doing fortunes with Taro cards and crystal balls. Usually I’m right on the money. Seances offered a more steady customer base.”

They were walking again. “Intuitions like what?” Henry sounded skeptical. His eyes had turned into hardened slits before he shook himself back into open curiosity.

“You like me. You were waiting for a way to approach and invite me on a first date. You were thinking of joining my seance group when this opportunity arose.”

“Well, will you go out with me?” Henry pounced.

“I’m a little busy at the moment. We’ll decide later?”

The floating hands began clapping then formed, “You’ve already decided.”

“What did they say?” Henry wanted to know.

Mary was amazed. Even the floating hands mannerisms were Cindy’s. The same two fingers would flick and nervously twist the ring on the pinky finger. She was already becoming accustomed to treating them like she was with her childhood best friend.

She became aware Henry was waiting for a response. “We’ll do lunch sometime, after I finish practicing my act.”

Henry felt like he was floating on air, much like the hands were doing. “Good. I’ll let you do your thing. My interrupting you is distracting.”

“No. Please. Stay.” The hands were signing again, Mary was their interpreter. She found her hands grasping Henry’s muscular arm.

His hands reached for hers, fingers embracing them. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, unable to answer. “We have to catch up.” The floating hands were way ahead up the street. They stopped in front of Cindy’s shuttered old house. It was said to be haunted now. Not even the homeless invaded its privacy.

“Sorry, we can’t go in there,” Henry spoke to the hands as well as Mary. “It’s private property. I’ve had to chase off graffiti vandals scared half out of their wits before. Don’t know what’s going on but whatever it is, ain’t good.”

The floating hands weren’t listening. They floated up to the warped front door and knocked. Cindy came out, a changed and very grown up Cindy. “Let me explain,” she laughed at the stunned expression on Mary’s face.

“It’s all right, officer. I own this place. My father recently passed away and I just returned. I couldn’t come back before, Mary. My dad never gave up hunting me, wanting to control me. I shouldn’t have left him that note about why I was leaving him.”

“Why the hands?” Mary signed, naturally falling into the way Cindy was communicating.

“I’ve been keeping track of you and your career. I adopted it early on as a way of keeping bread on the table when I was too young to do anything else.” Cindy reached out and picked the hands out of the air. “A.I. and drone magic in the shape of hands. Pretty good, don’t you think?” Cindy said, winking at Henry. “Come inside. I want you both to see something.”

“You always did have a warped sense of humor, darling.” Mary smirked, shaking her head as reality took back its familiar form.

Cindy turned on a flashlight to show the way towards pulled up floor boards. “Daddy was a bad boy.” The beam shown down on stacks of neatly folded cash. “The 2021 Union Bank heist. Daddy did it. I saw him bury that here. Most is still there. I had to check before I reported it.”

Henry whistled in surprise, took out his phone and dialed into the precinct. The three got better acquainted while things were sorted out. There was a handsome reward still standing for information and the return of the bank's money.

The two girls shared seance stories, and decided to team up. Cindy talked about fixing up her home and moving permanently back. Henry made the police procedure smooth and easy. When the last report was signed, he turned to Mary. “What do you see in my future?” he asked.

Mary turned to Cindy, “Judging by the way you’ve been flirting with him. I see I’ve got some competition.”

“How about we go into business together?” Henry was serious.

“What?” Mary wondered if she’d heard him right.

“How?” Cindy wanted to know.

“Your reward money and my life’s savings would be enough for us to start a detective agency. Mary’s intuition about people would be a plus in that business. The three of us like the feeling of helping people and preventing harm to others. It’s a natural fit.”

He especially liked the idea of getting the two girls out of the shady side of doing seances for gullible customers. Their trickiness would be exercised in new and unusual ways in stopping crime.

Henry, Cindy, and Mary shook hands on the deal. The air around them grew colder as a whispered voice uttered, “Yes.” Windows rattled. Cindy’s floating hands rose from her pockets and waved goodbye.

The lights turned on and off leading the way to the front door. "it's not me!" Cindy was still fighting with the controls as the floating hands opened and shut the door leaving it behind.