Chapter 139: 109. Witches Weres and Worse

"We are joined here in this place and at this time," Madame Celeste intoned as she stared at the chalice on the table before her, "United by a common goal. We seek communication, we seek knowledge, we seek to learn the truth."

When she spoke it almost sounded like a chant, she talked with a peculiar cadence that you wouldn't get in normal conversation. She also had a bit of an accent that I thought sounded European, but as usual I wasn't good with accents so I couldn't narrow it down any more than that.

The audience were all keeping pretty quiet which was nice, and between the candle light and the way the medium was doing her thing it was easy to get sort of caught up in the feeling of it all.

"I assume we're all watching this with our magic sight?" Kaylee whispered to me and the others.

Cerys and Melanie nodded, while me and Nina remained focused on the performance. My sight was on all the time anyways, but so far I still hadn't seen anything magical or spiritual. I assumed it was the same for everyone else.

Then Madame Celeste's eyes swept the audience, and as if in response to my girlfriend's question she stated, "A reminder to the audience, please remain silent. Those of you with the Sight are welcome to watch with those supernatural senses, but I ask you all not to interfere. Look and listen, but please keep your energies in check lest you disrupt the proceedings that are yet to unfold."

Kaylee cringed a little next to me, while I noticed the medium's assistant looked surprised at what Madame Celeste just said. It made me think she didn't normally make that sort of announcement to the crowd when she was performing.

Tom and Jeff exchanged a glance too, and their eyes swept the audience while the medium's focus returned to the haunted chalice.

"Spirits arise, awaken, join us here at this time and place," the older woman seemed to chant. "We welcome you to this table, we invite you to participate in this conversation. We ask only that you come in peace, to commune with us as our guests."

After that the whole thing seemed to get a little repetitive and kind of boring, over the next five or ten minutes Madame Celeste did the same sort of routine over and over. She varied the words every time she tried, but the message was the same. She kept inviting spirits to join us and communicate and stuff, but nothing ever really happened.

It was obvious I wasn't the only one who felt that way either, as there were some growing murmurs and whispers in the audience. Nobody was complaining or anything, and I figured everyone who paid money to see this was probably sympathetic or understanding about how it all worked and stuff. But still, you can only sit quietly in the dark watching nothing happen for so long before your mind starts to wander. So people were whispering to their friends, a few folks even had their phones out.

Tina, the medium's assistant, clearly noticed people were getting restless so she whispered something to her boss.

"Very well," Madame Celeste agreed. "We will take a short break before we try again to reach the spirits."

As the four people on stage let go of each other's hands Tina announced, "Madame Celeste is going to take a few minutes to meditate and ground herself, before we make another attempt to reach the spirits in the chalice."

Without missing a beat she reached out and put a finger on the edge of the silver cup as she asked, "Tom, Jeff, why don't you tell us a little more about this artefact while we're all waiting?"

I'd already forgotten which one was Tom and which was Jeff, but one of them nodded "Sure, but first I have to ask you not to touch it without gloves? It's pure silver and it tarnishes like crazy."

"Sorry," Tina apologized as she pulled her hand back.

Then the other guy began a little info-dump on the object, "Like Jeff said it's pure silver, and it was made in England in the late seventeenth century. We know this because there's actually a fairly clear hallmark on the base, and that made it easy to trace its origins. Unfortunately we don't really know what happened after that. There's no other markings or engravings to suggest it was part of some manor or estate, and we just don't have any way to get that information at this point."

He continued, "It's frustrating but basically there's a few centuries of history that's almost completely unknown to us. The story doesn't pick up until about five or six years ago, when a family acquired it along with a bunch of other odds and ends following the passing of a relative."

"We're being intentionally vague on a few of these details," the first guy added. "And there's some things we're leaving out since we're still actively investigating this thing. The family in question don't want any publicity and we're respecting their wishes. Suffice to say, Tom and I were called in after the haunting began, and working with the family we were able to isolate the source of the problems to this antique chalice."

The second guy nodded, "We did enlist the help of a medium on that case, but this is the first time we've ever had someone try and communicate directly with the -"

At that moment the chalice suddenly tipped over on the table, spilling its contents all over the black cloth. It was hard to tell what was inside since the only light was from the candles, but it looked like a thick viscous fluid, and it definitely had a red colour to it. In fact it looked a lot like blood.

And at that moment the entire room went completely silent. Like nobody was even breathing, as everyone in the audience and on stage stared wide-eyed at the chalice.

I was positive we were all thinking the same thing. First off, who tipped it over? Nobody's hands were anywhere near the thing, it had been sitting in the centre of the table with the candles around it. And second, when did it get filled up? It had been on its side in the protective case, and we'd all seen Jeff handle it when he removed it from the case and placed it on the table. Nobody on stage had a cup or mug or bottle, there was no opportunity to fill it.

Then Melanie whispered softly, "That's real blood, nothing else smells like that."

Everyone on stage was quiet for a couple more seconds, but the silence was finally broken by one of the ghost hunters. Jeff looked at the camera man off to the left of the stage and asked, "You're recording this right? Tell me you got that?"

"We are not alone," Madame Celeste suddenly announced. She went on to sort of chant, "Spirit of the Chalice, arise, awaken, join us in this place. We invite you to commune with us, we ask only that you come in peace."

At that point Kaylee leaned closer to me and whispered, "This has to be stage magic. I haven't seen any -"

"Silence!" the medium suddenly stated with a raised voice.

I almost startled as I realized she seemed to be looking right at me and my girlfriend. Except she shouldn't have been able to see us, or anyone else in the audience. Not past the first row or two anyways, since the whole room was dark except for the candles up on stage.

Madame Celeste was still looking our way as she announced, "We are in the presence of witches, weres, and things even worse."

Hearing that sent a shock of unease through me, and I glanced back and forth at my friends. They all looked as surprised as I felt, like somehow this medium knew we weren't normal humans. Or maybe she could sense our energy or something like that.

Then I noticed that once again Tina seemed surprised at the stuff her boss was saying. The assistant stayed quiet though, so did the two ghost hunters.

After another second or two Madame Celeste focused on the chalice once more. She started doing the chant thing again, "The supernatural seeks that which is familiar, it senses energies similar to its own. Spirit of the Chalice, you are welcome here only if your intentions are peaceful. Negativity will not be tolerated here in this place and time."

By that point I honestly had no idea if this stuff was real or if it was a really elaborate fake. I was pretty much ready to believe it was real though, because if they were faking it then they'd done a really good job. Like in terms of entertainment, it was worth way more than what we'd paid to see it.

It felt like the rest of the audience was probably thinking the same thing as me, everyone was just staring at the stage with rapt attention. Nobody was talking or whispering, nobody was looking at their phones or anything else.

The medium was still doing her thing, calling to the spirit and inviting it to participate, when I finally saw something that I knew couldn't be faked. The mysterious blood that had soaked into the black tablecloth began to glow with the dull purple light of magic. A second later the chalice was glowing too, and soon the glow rose up off the table and formed into a sphere about ten inches across.

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Everyone else was staring at the medium or the chalice. Even the two ghost hunters on stage, their eyes were on the chalice. Madame Celeste's eyes followed the glowing orb. She could clearly see it, along with me and my friends. Then I noticed Tina the assistant was also looking up at it, she could see it too.

"It is here," the medium announced. "Spirit of the Chalice, identify yourself. What is your name? What are you called? How do we address you?"

The orb seemed to flicker or pulse, and a word entered my mind. I didn't know what it meant, or even how to spell it, but it sounded like deehenith.

At the same time the medium asked, "Dee something? Deanna? Is that your name?"

There was another pulse and I heard the same word again, more forcefully this time. I knew it wasn't anything like Deanna, for that matter I wasn't even convinced it was a name. About the only thing I was sure of was that the word came from the orb.

"Dee Kenneth," Madame Celeste announced. "That's your name, thank you. Can you tell us Dee, are you a man or a woman?"

I was positive that wasn't what the orb said, but I didn't want to say anything. I wasn't even going to whisper to my friends, since I was pretty sure the medium heard Kaylee whispering earlier.

Meanwhile the orb was pulsing and flickering again, but I wasn't aware of any words or anything else this time. If anything I almost got the impression it was angry or frustrated.

"It's trying to communicate," Madame Celeste stated. "Talk to us Dee, we're listening. Tell us your story, we are here to help you."

So far nobody else had really seen anything, they were just watching the medium as she did her thing. People were still probably a little freaked out by the chalice tipping over on its own, but nobody else could see the orb. And I assumed no-one else heard that weird word either.

Then something new happened, and this time everyone saw it. The four candles on the table, and all the other candles on the stage all suddenly surged and flared up, as if they'd become torches or little flame throwers or something.

The four people at the table all pulled back and raised their hands to shield their faces from the heat, while everyone else was squinting from how bright the candles were. Then just like that all the candles went out, we were all left blinking as we waited for our eyes to adjust.

"It's gone," the medium announced in the darkness. "Dee has left us, the door is closed."

She was right, the orb had vanished. I glanced around the room for any sign of magic or spirits, but it seemed like the show was over.

Someone brought the room lights up just enough for everyone to see, while Madame Celeste thanked the spirit for joining us and sharing its name. Then she thanked the audience for their participation, and thanked the ghost hunter guys for letting her work with such a 'fascinating subject'.

The two guys still looked a little shaken, but one of them thanked the medium while the other put his gloves back on then carefully picked up the chalice and put it away in the special case. Then they said something about taking the tablecloth with them to get it analyzed, to find out what that liquid was that spilled on it.

It seemed pretty obvious that the seance was over by that point, as Madame Celeste and Tina both disappeared backstage. Meanwhile the ghost hunters moved the candles out of the way then started folding up the black tablecloth while they talked about sending it to a university friend. And finally the room lights came on all the way, and a new woman came onstage.

"Well that was a little more excitement than we bargained for. Sorry for the abrupt ending folks," she said. I figured she was one of the show staff or something as she continued, "On behalf of the fair I'd like to thank you all for attending, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your evening."

At that point just about everyone in the audience started talking, like to their friends or whatever as they all started getting up and heading for the exit. The five of us stayed where we were though, to talk a bit more while the others were all leaving.

Kaylee asked, "What did you all make of that?"

"There was definitely some kind of spirit," Cerys replied quietly. "And it looked like it came out of the cup. I guess it's the real deal after all?"

Up on stage the ghost hunters were talking to their camera guys, they were looking at the camera screen, reviewing what they caught on the recording.

Then Melanie asked, "What should we do about it?"

"We can't just leave a spirit bound to that chalice can we?" Nina asked softly. "That doesn't seem right."

"So should we go and try to talk to those guys? Ask if they'll let us examine the chalice or something?" Melanie asked.

"That medium seemed to know about us," I pointed out. "She practically called us out at one point. If we're trying to keep a low profile maybe we shouldn't get involved."

My girlfriend agreed, "Good point Cass. And from the sound of it the chalice is probably going back east with the ghost hunters, after the fair's over. So it's not really a Club Luna thing."

Cerys was about to respond when our teachers stopped by our seats on their way out of the lecture room.

"What did you girls make of all that?" Ms. Hughes asked. "It seemed very realistic didn't it? Almost makes you wonder how they did it? Or maybe knowing would spoil the fun."

It was pretty clear the history teacher was convinced the whole thing was a show or an act. It was harder to tell what our English teacher thought of the experience, Ms. Fields stayed quiet but she had a thoughtful look on her face.

"I think you're right," Kaylee agreed with Ms. Hughes. "It might be interesting to know how they did it, but it's probably more fun to keep the mystery."

Ms. Hughes smiled, "I agree. You girls have a good evening, see you all at school next week."

"You too Ms. Hughes, Ms. Fields, enjoy the rest of your weekend," Kaylee replied.

After the teachers left we were the last of the audience in the room, then one of the staff came over and asked us to exit as well so they could start setting up for the next lecture.

As the five of us headed back out into the exhibit hall Melanie commented, "Well at least it wasn't boring."