Ghosting

By Mike Schoch

We converted to Wicca after an apparition resembling my Catholic grandma materialized in the living room, making a lewd, licking gesture and telling us that Satan was going to do even lewder things to us in the sulphury back alleys of hell. 

We never figured out why the apparition took the form of my grandma, who was neither dead nor evil, but rather a curmudgeonly former nurse living in Port Jervis. 

My mom warded it off by brandishing a wooden chopstick like a wand and incanting the words, “get off my property” because she didn’t know any whimsical languages, like Latin. 

It worked.

This experience prompted us–my mom, really–to accept the awesome power of wood, trees, nature. So, a few evenings later, she went to the strip mall and bought a half dozen books on Wicca, along with a Psychic Circle.

The Psychic Circle™ is a family friendly alternative to the more notorious Ouija board that is still sold at major retailers. It is an 18 inch by 18 inch board with 8 concentric rings, which contain zodiac signs, keywords, letters and numbers, and colors, among other symbols. My mom informed our family–my two brothers, her boyfriend, Todd, and I–that we were going to hold seances on Fridays, during which we would consult the circle for guidance about our future, our happiness, and, potentially, winning numbers for the Powerball. 

My older brothers were starting high school and too cool for Wicca seances. Todd, who left for his work as an electrician before sunrise each morning, tried his best to participate, but often fell asleep mid-meditation. That left my mom and I. 

My mom could not initially get the Psychic Circle to work. We would sit there with our index and middle fingers on the plastic indicator (a lens that magnified whatever part of the board you slid it over), our eyes closed, directing our questions about Powerball numbers to the ether. After a few sessions, my mom lost interest, calling it another scam. 

“What do you expect from Walmart?” 

I kept practicing, less because I believed in Walmart’s quality assurance, and more because I was especially motivated to make contact with metaphysical forces. 

You see, I had no friends. I knew from a young age that I would find few companions in the world of flesh and money, and held out hope that “my people” as they were, existed on the other side of the veil separating our world from that of the spirits.  

I prodded and played with the Psychic Circle, trying to catch the subtlest whiffs of a signal from beyond the veil. Finally, with practice, the indicator began to tremble beneath my fingers, then to move, and eventually, to spell out messages using the letters and symbols on the board. I didn’t tell anyone that I’d unleashed this power, not even my mom. I kept it to myself because I had an important but intensely private question to ask of the spirit world.

Late one night, I finally felt I had the skill and courage to ask that question. So I brought the Psychic Circle up to my bedroom closet and sat cross-legged beneath a pair of my school corduroys, with a penlight between my teeth. My trembling fingers felt as though they were dipping through the plastic indicator into the very substance of the veil.