Why curiosity kills the cat.
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*******TRANSCRIPT BELOW:**********
INTRO:
“Arthur, these things can be faked.”
“Harry, just because things can be duplicated, doesn’t mean the original possibility isn’t real.” Harry took a large breath of the ocean breeze.
“Harry, my wife is quite amazing with seances. I know you’ve spent so much time exposing fraudulence, but I also know some very very good and genuine people. Despite your denials you’ve shown spiritualism mastery yourself.”
“And each time Arthur I’ve told you, it’s just a trick.”
“And yet you’ll never tell me exactly how you did it.” Arthur then sat up and looked directly at Harry.
“My wife wishes me to extend an invitation to you Harry. Meet us in our suite this evening. Jean has asked to attempt contact with your mother. She sincerely wishes to be of assistance to you.” Harry looked at Arthur in surprise. He then took a breath and started to smile.
“I would be delighted.”
“Bully! I’ll go tell Jean. See you this evening.”
Harry bowed his head to Arthur as he picked up his beach towel trekking through the sand back to the hotel.
That evening, Harry arrived at the suite Arthur was staying at. The room had been lit by candles despite having access to electricity. A large table in the middle of the room was set with a pencil and stack of blank papers. Jean approached her guest clasping his hands in hers.
“Harry, thank you so much for coming, I know contacts like this can be difficult.”
“Thank you Mrs.Doyle.” Harry sat opposite of Jean at the table, and Arthur sat next to his wife.
“Are you ready my love?” She nodded as they both bowed their heads with a small prayer. Jean’s hand struck the table three times before falling into a trance.
Years later, Harry would write in his journal:
“I had made up my mind that I would be as religious as it was in my power to be, and not at anytime did I scoff during the ceremony. I excluded all earthly thoughts and gave my whole soul into the seance. I was willing to believe, I wanted to believe. It was weird to me and with a beating heart I waited, hoping that I might feel once more the presence of my beloved mother.”
Jean’s eye’s fluttered as the pencil in her hand slowly circled the blank pages. Her hand broke into a mad dash of words, violently pressing her pencil into the paper. Arthur immediately handed the filled out scrawl to Harry. Grabbing it, Harry anxiously read the first few lines, then curiously he thumbed the cross drawn at the top of the page. Harry became thoughtfully quiet as Arthur handed him the next page. Harry’s reaction worsened and his face sunk in angered disappointment.
The words poured out, on and on about her love for Harry, and her appreciation for the seance allowing her a voice, at last, to reach out to her dear boy. Page after page being placed in front of a silent Harry who now stared disparagingly at the table of filled text. When the seance concluded Jean sighed heavily and was brought out of her trance. Harry simply shook his head and left.
Harry went back to his own hotel room drained of all energy. Harry had placed so much faith in a dear friend allowing himself to sincerely open up his beliefs to the impossible, and it was just that… impossible. Harry was as alone as he’d ever felt, his mother could not have been in that room.
All the clues were obvious to Harry, yet unseen by Arthur. Ironic, as he was the man who created the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes. Today was Harry’s mother’s birthday, yet no mention of it during the seance. His mother was jewish, the cross drawn on the pages repeatedly is a falsity, it’s something his mother would have never done. Lastly, Harry’s mother was from Hungary. All the text written was in fine propper english. His mother could never write in english, and even if she tried to speak it, it was always broken.
How could Harry Houdini tell Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that his wife was a cheat and fraud to Spiritualism?
I’m Tasha Wheelhouse and this is CopperShock.
BODY:
“Want to go drive down the ravine?” He smiled at me.
We lived in a small town with little to do, but the “ravine” was a teenager classic. It was a long stretch of road that plunged downward before it ramped back up. If you went fast enough, you felt weightless for a split second. I put my hands up like you do when descending down a rollercoaster.
“Hit it!” Nate smiled to me then said.
“Hold on tight!”
The engine revved as we swooped downward. I squealed happily as I felt my body lift off my seat. Descending the car slowed, coasting a bit before we started to hit the bottom crescent. Just then, Nate hit his brakes so hard I felt the car shudder. My chest was thrown into my seat belt. Nate looked at me.
“Are you ok? Tell me you saw that.”
“I didn’t see anything?”
Nate relaxed into his seat breathing slower. Looking out his driver side window he pointed his hand up.
“Hey, that dirt road is open.”
“What?” I looked over his shoulder.
“Look there.” He pointed out his window again. I myself have driven by this dirt road dozens of times when we going through the ravine, but a metal farmer’s gate was always blocking access. Tonight it was propped open. Nate turned to me with a grin.
“Let’s go explore it.”
Before I could protest he put his mustang into gear and turned into the dirt road. The vegetation was thick. Hanging leaves brushed the top of his car, weeds and bushes hugged the tires, and there was definitely not enough room to turn ourselves back around.
“How are we going to go back?” I said.
“We’ll reverse if we have too…. But I don’t think we’ll have to. Look!” His headlights swept over a margin of open area. A river drizzled through the middle with a little wood bridge that crossed it. The tree branches looked so untouched. I felt like I was transported to the middle of some vast forest instead of standing in the middle of town. Nate left his engine running with the headlights pointed at the wooden bridge. Getting out of the car, he and I left our doors open as we walked forward.
“Man this place is cool.” I said.
Putting his hands in his pockets. Both of us walked in front of the headlights casting shadow giants. We goofed around for a second dancing our shadows over the tree leaves.
Footsteps came from the road behind us.
Both Nate and I turned to look.
“Hello!?” Nate called out. I took a step closer to Nate. Squinting my eyes I tried to see past his car headlights, but they shone directly into our face.
“Hello?!” Nate called again. I could sense someone looking at us from behind his car. Standing in the middle of our only exit.
“Nate what did you see on the road before you hit the brakes?” I whispered and grabbed his arm. I could tell he was trying to act calm. In the middle of that blackness, I thought I saw a small burning light, then it blinked out. We stood there quiet for a moment.
The car creaked as it dipped down, the headlights shuffling and shaking to show someone sat down inside his car.
“You saw that?” Nate asked me. I nodded my head.
“What do we do?”
“No idea.” He admitted. We sat there for what felt like 8 solid minutes of staring at the headlights waiting for them to move again. Nate finally started to walk toward his car slowly, blocking the headlight beams with his hand as he got closer.
I stood crossing my arms, waiting.
“Nothing’s in there. Come on let’s go.” He called back.
I ran toward my door shutting it. Nate turned the car around in the small area and sped as fast as he could out of this dirt clearing and back onto the ravine road. Eventually our silence broke and began to talk about how weird that was. After which we changed the subject to school. On the way home, I looked up from my phone as Nate started pulling through an intersection. I saw a man standing there, holding a cigarette and leaning up against a light post. His face was, absent of light. As though the Streetlight over him didn’t reflect of him right, that he just absorbed it. He took a long drag from his cigarette. And as he did, his right black iris filled with a gold fire, lighting in time with his breath. And he was looking right at me.
I began to cry quietly. Nate looked me up and down confused.
“Please take me home.” I begged. Nate gave a nod, and sped up the car.
Pulling up to my house I reached for the door handle, and felt my stomach twist. A gut feeling that I should not get out of the car.
“You ok?” Nate asked. I broke down crying again finally telling him about the man at the light, and the feeling I had just now, that I should not open that door. Nate and I were both religious, and I plead with him to say a small prayer together before I left. Nate’s eyes passed over his rearview mirror, something changed in his face. Folding his arms and bowing his head, he began the prayer for both of us.
The moment we concluded it. We felt weight in the car shift and lift. Someone had gotten out of the back seat. I looked in his rearview and I saw the man’s face pass over it. Black eyes and standing outside of the car. I blinked and he was gone. My sickly stomach calmed. Nate started screaming
“Is he gone?! Is he GONE?!”. I asked him if he saw the man. Nate pointed to the rearview mirror.
“Just before the prayer. He was sitting in the seat behind us.” It took me another 20 minutes just to work up the courage to open my car door.
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