Psychic Tales: Fact or Fiction?

Tale One: The Sign

I had an hour to kill before our new customer, a dentist office in Bishop, would allow me to start cleaning. My sister, Tess, and I owned a small cleaning company and although it was her night to work, one of her sons had a baseball game. I had no children, husband, or pets to worry about, so I often picked up extra shifts. But I had no issue with helping her out. She was phenomenal with marketing and was the reason we even had a new customer. At this rate, we were considering hiring an employee.

To wait out the hour, I sat on the plush carpet in my living room with a hand carved wooden box in front of me. I had a new toy tucked safely in the box. I was hesitant to use the charm, but I had a strong urge to handle it. I turned the arm on the clasp up and unlatched the lid. The box was filled with trinkets I had acquired over the years: a rock that nature had perfectly chiseled into the shape of a heart, an arrowhead, three shark teeth, a small deck of tarot cards, a picture Christmas card from two years ago when my fourth nephew was a couple of months old, my aunt’s memorial card, and my newest addition—a pendulum.

I pulled the drawstring on the small black velvet bag where the divination tool was housed since I purchased it a month ago. I was nervous to use it. Not because I was afraid of the pendulum itself or because I thought it was evil, like Tess would surely think, but because it was an extension of my power or lack thereof. It was the “lack thereof” that frightened me. I was afraid to get confirmation that it was all nonsense.

The woman at the mediation store, North Star, had explained to me that like other divining tools, a pendulum was merely a magnification of a power within my own self. Unto itself, it held no ability to make predictions or answer questions. Did that mean if I had no innate power, I would get nothing from the orange stone at the end of an eight inch chain?

All my life, I had experienced unexplainable episodes of forecast and was privy to information I had no right knowing. Tess chalked it up to coincidence and an overactive imagination. But our Aunt Celeste would listen to my stories with her head slightly cocked to the side and her lips pinched in seriousness. She had raised us from the time I was four and Tess was six when our parents never returned from a cruise. Their bodies were just two of hundreds that were never recovered. She was an intelligent, quiet woman who worked as a professor of astronomy. With her science background, I doubted she ever believed my stories. But she listened all the same. I missed her terribly.

Three hours before Aunt Celeste slipped into a coma after a brief battle with brain cancer; she looked at me, grabbed my shoulders with a fierce intensity, and said, “Believe in yourself, Tina.” That moment in my life’s thirty-two years was the one playing through my head as I emptied the bag’s content into my hand. The stone was buffed smooth into an upside down cone. To me, it was beautiful and one-of-a-kind.

My heartbeat elevated just enough that I could feel my pulse in my neck for a few seconds. I took a deep breath. The store saleswoman said I had to train the pendulum to respond to me. I reached into the box and extracted the second purchase I had made when I bought the stone. She said I didn’t need it but it might prove useful. It was a square piece of black velvet with a white embossed circle in the middle. On one side of the circle was the embossed word “Yes” and on the other side of the circle was “No.” Each word had a mirror image of itself upside down so no matter which way I placed it, the words could be to the right or left of the circle. It was my decision to have yes or no to the right or left, whichever I was comfortable with. I placed the cloth on the floor with “Yes” to the left.

I raised my hand with the ball at the other end of the chain clutched between my thumb and forefinger and aimed the tip of the cone over the center of the circle. Suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow through. What made me think I was special or that I had a gift? It was a conceited thought, wasn’t it?

The pendulum began to swing, not from side to side but in small circles. Although the slight motion was mesmerizing, I deduced it was vibrational. My sister’s voice chanted in my head, “This is nonsense.” The circular motion expanded into a wider globe, too wide to be a manipulation of undetectable movement on my part. I studied my hand; concentrated on keeping it steady.

Again, I wondered if it were conceited of me to think I could possess any such ability as communicating with the universe. Although my mind’s eye was focused on my insecurity, I caught sight of the pendulum swaying to the left. “No.” Was that an answer?

Just try it, I encouraged.

I cleared my throat and said too loudly, “Is my name Tina?” I concentrated on yes. The pendulum ever so slightly hovered back to the center of the embossed ring and then pulled to the left. “Yes.”

Was this for real?

I collected the stone into my free hand. Was I imagining this? I leaned into the sofa behind me and closed my eyes. I gripped the orange pendulum tightly and asked for guidance. I don’t know who I was asking, but a single thought popped into my head. Aunt Celeste.

Aunt Celeste. Aunt Celeste. It was as if no other words existed. All I could hear and think and see was Aunt Celeste. I opened my eyes and leaned toward the mat again. I dropped the pendulum from my clutch with my fingers still pinching the ball. I dangled it over the circle, quietly demanding it to stay still. Within a few seconds, it became perfectly still, almost like it was frozen in place. It was eerie and cool at the same time.

“Aunt Celeste, can you hear me?” I waited for what seemed like forever, until the pendulum shifted to the left. The chain was straight like it was a stick rather than perfect little metal ovals linked together.

“Holy shit,” I said. The pendulum dropped squarely down into a horizontal line. The connection was broken.

I shook my wrists as if I were shaking water from them. Then I resumed the stance. Pendulum over the circle. “Do you have a message for me, Aunt Celeste?” The stone wasted no time in answering yes. I wanted to say, “What do you have to tell me?” but I knew it was a futile question since there was no straight forward yes or no answer. I tried to rephrase the question but nothing came to mind. The pendulum went lax. I was getting frustrated, when in my head, I heard Aunt Celeste say, “Look for a sign.”

“Look for a sign?” I said out loud, my voice sounding amazed even to my own ears. Again, the pendulum swung to the left. “A sign? Look for a sign?” It didn’t waver from its position, pointing to “yes.”

The stove timer buzzed, alerting me to the fact I had to leave for work. I was to meet the office manager of the dentist practice at six PM. She was going to show me around and together we were going to finalize the services they required. I couldn’t be late for the first visit. I rushed to put my box back into order, but carefully slipped the pendulum back into its protective bag. I hurriedly said a thank-you to the universe, just in case the whole experience had been the real deal.

The drive was no longer than fifteen minutes. Tess said the customer was in a stand-alone brick building on West Main Street, just passed the second right turn after crossing Route 27.  On the way there, I played out the scenario in my head over and over again. Did it really happen the way I envisioned it? What kind of sign did Aunt Celeste intend to show me? It was ridiculous, I knew. My hopes probably manipulated the whole situation. There was something comforting in believing Aunt Celeste was still with me. I wanted to believe it with all my heart but my logical self won the volley by the time I reached Route 27. I decided that although it had been fun and exciting, it was an impossibility. I should know better.

I crossed Route 27 and glanced to the right, half focusing on the white stripe painted along the edge of the road. It was dusk and hard to see where the side roads were. I passed the first road on the right, the stripe arching into the curve, signaling the turn. Not too far up ahead, I saw the second bend. The building should be directly after it. My concentration shifted from bouncing between the white stripe and the traffic in front of me to the green street sign of the second turnoff. The name of the road was Celeste Drive.

“Oh my God,” I breathed more than said the words. It was the sign she wanted to show me. She could hear me.

“Believe in yourself, Tina.” Aunt Celeste words were as clear as that day in the hospital.