Saturday Night Séance

in a hotel and driven out here without bothering to borrow Leah's grandmother's RV."

  "Yeah, I know, but right now it's kind of inconvenient to have fans finding us."

  "Okay, so we go incognito for the afternoon," Leah said. "If we don't figure out what's going on, at this rate there won't be a working stage for us to play on."

  "You're right," Nora sighed. "Still, this seems like such a waste of time."

  They changed out of their costumes and back into their regular clothes, reapplied sunscreen, and headed back into the blazing afternoon heat.

  Now that they were not in identical costumes (or as close as possible), the four young women could hardly have looked more different. Nora wore a light blue summer dress, fashionable sunglasses, and as always looked cool and put together. Isabella wore practical khaki shorts, a light gray t-shirt, a floppy hat to keep the sun off of her fair skin, and of course sunglasses. Maryann wore an orange t-shirt, a red skirt, cheap plastic red sunglasses, and a 1950s-style straw hat. Leah wore demin shorts, a light green t-shirt, cheap sunglasses, and a baseball cap.

  The afternoon didn't go much better than the morning. The crowd was agitated by the heat and the problems with the festival. The people in charge were even more agitated. They still got glimpses of the shadowy creatures but couldn't get close enough to try to stop them.

  "Well, that was pointless," Nora said sarcastically as they took a dinner break in the RV. "All damn afternoon and nothing to show for it. And I need a shower so bad."

  "I don't know what to say," Isabella sighed. "It's obvious now those things are causing all the problems.and things are getting worse. The Bedlam Stage is totally out of commission and one of the amps is out on the Chaos Stage. At this rate, they're going to shut down the whole festival."

  "But why?" Maryann asked. "This is the last day."

  "Assuming that's what they're doing," Nora said dryly.

  "Is there any way to talk to them?" Leah asked. "Chasing them isn't working. Can't you use a spell or something?"

  "Not a spell," Isabella said slowly, "but I have an idea. These things are breaking stuff."

  "Oh, no," Nora interrupted. "No, no, we are not putting out our instruments for bait. Anyway, these things are going after the big things. Why would they bother with our stuff?"

  "I said it was an idea," Isabella retorted sharply. She sighed again. "I'm sorry. I can't think of anything better."

  "Well, we might as well try," Maryann said. "What do we do?"

  "Rehearse," she replied.

  "Oh, we should do that anyway."

  The other three kind of rolled their eyes. After dinner, Isabella and Maryann tried to inconspiciously draw some magical protections around the RV. Given the other commotion, they didn't have to worry too much about drawing attention. They pulled out their acoustic instruments and started to rehearse. And after an hour, they could see a shadowy creature approaching the RV. They had deliberately positioned themselves away from the door, and the creature slipped inside.

  Maryann dropped a chord. "Okay, that worked!" she said, and they rushed inside.

  They could see a spirit standing near their amplifiers and looking confused. It was as tall as a human but wore a black hood and cloak. It turned around and they could see an approximately human face. It looked a lot like a living anime-style cartoon character; a ten-year old girl with dark purple, short hair and bangs, overly large dark purple eyes, a tiny nose, and an even tinier mouth. Its skin was light gray.

  "Um," Leah said.

  It raised a long finger to what would have been its mouth in a gesture that clearly meant, "Hush."

  "I trapped it in a circle," Maryann said in a low voice.

  It shook its head again and made the gesture.

  "So now what?" Nora asked.

  The spirit rolled its eyes and started to draw symbols in the air. These turned visibly silver and into English. "You must be quiet!" it wrote. After a few seconds, the words vanished.

  "Then, um, how do we communicate with you?" Maryann asked.

  It looked thoughtful for a moment, then wrote. "Very well, but speak softly and only as you must."

  "Why are you ruining the festival?" she asked.

  "So it does not wake."

  "Wait, wait," Isabella said, before Maryann could ask another question. "Why don't you tell us what's going on here? That'll probably be better and save some words."

  The spirit nodded and continued to write. "I am one of many you may call the Noiseless. We are guardians, or perhaps keepers is a better word, of an ancient monster, a creature of destruction. I dare not even write its name, lest it that catch its attention and wake it. Long ago it was put to sleep and imprisoned within walls of silence. The prison drifts all through the worlds and we maintain the walls of silence."

  "And this prison is near a music festival?" Maryann blurted.

  They all looked at her sternly, including the spirit.

  "Sorry," she said in a small voice.

  "Yes, so it seems," the spirit wrote. "The prison was made to always move and to stay away from noise, for change is all that is permenant in the worlds, and what was silent when we settle may change into the cacophony of civilization. So we drift. Perhaps even in slumber it desires freedom and its power moves it here. There is an unfavorable alignment that brings us here, to this place, especially since we understand the music is only meant to be temporary." It sort of hung its head for a moment. "But," it continued, "we have tried to move, and we are unable to cast ourselves away from whatever holds us here. All of this wears down our walls. We do not wish to bring harm or misfortune on anyone, but since we cannot escape the festival, we must stop the music! We must stop the noise or it will be released. There is no saving you, or us, or anyone, if it is freed. So we have been trying for three days and yet we cannot effect enough. Your ingenious, noisy, loud devices are resilent, as is your will to celebrate and sing. There. Now you know. Had we realized there were any humans here with the power to see us and learn our motives, we would have reached out in the first place."

  "How do we know its telling us the truth?" Leah asked immediately.

  "Go in that direction," it said, pointing away from the festival. "Walk for one-thousand heartbeats to the jagged rock and you, with your gifts, will be able to see the prison, and the prisoner, and judge for yourselves if you want to risk trusting us."

  "Maryann, will this hold?" Isabella asked.

  "Yes, for a little while."

  "Then let's go for a walk," she said. The others followed with Leah and Nora looking the most uncertain about the idea.

  "You sure it's safe to leave that thing in the RV?" Leah asked. "I really don't want it to get trashed. I mean, really don't want that."

  "Or our instruments," Nora added.

  "Of course it's a bad idea," Isabella said, but she didn't sound angry. "But I'm out of good ideas."

  "Have you ever heard of the Noiseless?" Maryann asked. "I haven't."

  "Me neither, but there are so many spirits out there I'm usually more surprised when I've heard of one than when I haven't."

  "Do you think it was being literal?" Leah suddenly asked. "I mean, about the heartbeats? Do we actually have to walk the amount of time it would take for one of our hearts to beat a thousand times? Or did the spirit thing mean, just walk a mile or so? Whose heart, anyway?"

  Nora rolled her eyes but the other two looked thoughtful.

  Isabella finally answered, "It's hard to say. Sometimes magic is really literal."

  "When we get there," Nora said, "how do we know if what we're seeing is real, or the truth? Maybe these things can make illusions or something. And even if what we see is real, are we going to know what we're looking at?"

  "I don't know," she admitted. "But we'll look anyway."

  "I hope it's not Friedle-goth," Leah said. "'A creature of destruction' sounds like it could be a Lovecraftian horror."

  "I
t could be an ordinary horror," Maryann replied.

  "Yeah, that's so much better."

  They walked in silence until they reached a very large and jagged rock sitting on the otherwise barren landscape.

  "That's-that's not right," Leah gulped.

  With Isabella's spell, they could see a sphere of purple energy superimposed over the rock; the rock was not real but an illusion to hide the sphere. The sphere was clearly trapping a huge, black, shapeless creature. It didn't look very pleasant, but it didn't seem particularly dangerous either. Suddenly two more Noiseless appeared in front of them. They looked exactly like the one trapped in the RV. They both started to write in the air.

  "You have come to see for yourself what it is we guard," they wrote, with one writing one part of the sentence and the other finishing it. "Our walls contain all its malice and destructive energy. But if you wish to test this for yourself, touch the walls at your own peril."

  "Oh, that's nice," Maryann said irritably. "We want to help."

  "We understand which is why we're warning you."

  The four looked at each other, and touched the purple sphere. They very nearly screamed and yanked their hands away quickly.

  "Was that the prison or the thing?" Nora asked in a whisper.

  "Thing," Maryann and Isabella answered immediately.

  The two Noiseless shook their heads. "We did warn you," they wrote.

  "What did you see?" Isabella asked. "I saw cities being wiped out by hurricanes and typhoons."

  "I saw cities being drowned by tsunamis," Nora said.

  "Raging infernos," Maryann said.

  "Earthquakes," Leah said.

  "Then