Ghost Mirror

I don’t know why they have me doing this tour as a journalist. It’s me and the PR rep, Sally, showing Donna from the Los Angeles Times around our facilities. Sally said she chose me because I was well-spoken and that would make my English teacher would cackle because I failed her class. Sally just needs someone who can smoothly run the equipment for this journalist so we can sell more tickets for this.    

“So what does your work day look like, Sasha?” She asks me, holding a recording device in her left hand and staring at me with her head half-cocked and eyes wide. Her large brown eyes are filled with wonder but also, her lips have a smirk that makes me think, she knows something.  

“Yeah, so I… I come in, and first thing I do is check how many guests are going to be coming in. I review the files and then set up my station.”

“Can you show me how you set things up?”  

“Sure, my workspace is down here,” I lead her to my space while Sally inserts her PR lines.

“Sasha here is one of our most talented mediums. She really knows how to connect people to the other side. Here at Spiritius, we focus on connecting humanity. Living and deceased.”

“How long have you been a working medium, Sasha?” Donna redirects towards me, ignoring Sally’s attempts to color the report in marketing taglines. 

“This has been my only medium job. Before this, I worked out of a coffee shop. Then my car broke down and I was like, I better get more money,” I laughed which made Sally side-eye me as we all sat down at my workstation. “So this is my laptop for notes, this is the portal mirror that the guest sees their loved one, and I have to go to the other side of the room to sort out who is coming in.”

“How does that work? How does that look?”

“Yeah it’s pretty simple, we conjure the spirits the day before let them know they have an appointment, and confirm the times. So they are like there half the time. Ghosts don’t have a great sense of time because you know, it’s all eternal to them.”

“Fascinating! Do you see anything else? Demons, fairies, shadow people?” As Donna’s eyes are getting wider with curiosity Sally’s eyes are getting wider with fear. Fear that I’ll spill the news that, yes, there’s plenty of shit waiting on the other side. And in fact, this whole setup is a recipe for a demonic takeover. But I smile, and I lie, because like I said, I need a new car. 

“Oh my goodness, what an imagination. No demons aren’t real. Fairies are definitely not real. And shadow people are just a trick of light. Spiritus wouldn’t put people in danger if there was even a tiny little eensy chance of that.” Sally’s shoulders soften. Donna takes a few notes and starts filming on her phone the setup. Meanwhile, in my peripheral, I see Hanna, my personal ghost, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. This little judgy ghoul has been trying to keep the demons at bay but they're busting from the seams and she thinks, along with some other choice spirits, my sorry ass should come clean. But like I said, I really need a new car. So I’ll be a puppet for a pay bump. 

“Can I film you getting my childhood friend?” Donna asks. This was not on the itinerary at all. Usually a session costs, $450 for an hour. We don’t like giving that time away for free. 

“Um, I didn’t know you wanted contact,” I say nervously. There’s a whole process that I wasn’t even prepared for. 

“We really need time to prepare,” Sally says.

“How can I prove to people it’s real if I don’t experience it?” I look to Sally. She takes a deep breath.

“Sasha, do you think you can do it?”

“I can try but it can take a few times to alert a spirit to even show up. Do you have anything of theirs?”

“Yeah a photo,” Donna readily presents to me. I go to the back with the photo. Hanna tags along. In the shrine room, I place the photo on the altar, light a candle and Hanna pipes up.

“Why can’t you just out of this possession factory, right here?”

“Can I be moral after I pay off a new car? I’ll get a used Honda or some shit but I gotta survive.”

“That lady killed her whole family after a little visit here. Get a backbone.”

“Fuck Hannah, I’ll get a backbone once I get a car. You are so high and mighty but you’re dead. You don’t have to live in this world and survive.”

“I watch you be pathetic every day. I think I get the idea.”

“Fuck, bitch shut up and let me work.”

“Corporate whore.”

“I’d be a real whore if it didn’t require so much talking, shut up!”

I call on the spirit, Anna Garcia. And a dark shadow starts to creep into the room.

“No, you cannot use the portal!” I yell. Trying to be authoritative. I light a palo santo and it smacks out of my hand. It touches me and chills go up my spine and a sharp pain through my chest. I fall to the floor. And I wake up when I’m being shaken by Sally.

“Sasha! Sasha!” She screams as Donna films on her iPhone.

“I’m fine…” deep breath. “Donna, I can’t find… Anna. We need more…. notice. She wasn’t coming through.” I try to orient myself and get grounded by pulling myself up from the floor. 

“Then what did?” Donna says filming the room that looks like a satanic shrine with all the witchy paraphernalia.

“Nothing, I just…. I’m dehydrated,” we all know I’m lying. 

“There’s Reddit that thinks this is welcoming evil.”

“Calm down, good and evil are relative.” And of course, Hannah wanted to make a point, grabs the candle and throws it against the wall. Sally and Donna scream. We all leave the room. Donna sprints away with all her audio and video of this shit show. Sally whips around.

“I should have never let you even try! What the fuck was that?” Her face is red in anger knowing this article might shut the whole place down.  

“A demon, Sally, like I reported and you said to keep quiet. What do you think?”

“I should fire you!”

“For existing next to your exploitative technology? Why don’t you fix it? All of the mediums are having problems. Christ, a woman killed her family and everyone is blaming mental illness because you deleted the paper trail of her visits. You think it’s one and done?”

“Sasha, you’re fired!” I throw my hands in the air while Hannah does a happy dance. I start adding up all the debt I’ll need to start paying off. 

“Smart. Real Smart,” I say walking off, snatching my purse from my workstation. And what do I see in the parking lot? Donna smoking a cigarette. She looks over at me and motions me to come over.

“Are you okay? What are you doing out here?” She looks understandably shaken up. 

“I just got fired,” I say and her jaw drops. 

“Wow, so you wanna do a real interview?”

“I’m under an NDA and what does it matter?”

“Lizbeth Keating’s family gave me access to everything. I know she came here once a month. She spent all her money coming to see her dead husband. She went into debt then she kills her kids and sister? Was it mental illness?”

“I can’t say shit. But I can pose this, what is mental illness? What is a ghost? What is anything and how does it coexist? We don’t know. I can tell you there are levels of consciousness and portals to different realities. Science can prove that. How does one thing affect the other? We haven’t scratched the surface of what exists beyond the physical. 

“Does Spiritus take precautions to ensure evil spirits don’t come through?”

“Yes, they do. Is it enough? But I don’t know. I don’t know what is out there and how anything works. I just wanted a new car so I could go places sometimes.”

“Okay, I respect that answer,” she laughs at my very real response.  

“Does Anna even exist?” I ask, wondering if she was really trying to find out if the technology worked. 

“She did. And I’d really like to tell her I miss her.”