The Dark Sacrament by David Kiely Page B

participants, each accusing another of cheating, of sneakily moving the glass. But everyone protested their innocence.
    â€œWho are you?”
    The second reply came as swiftly as the first, even though the spelling out of the word took a little more time. The glass glided about the table again.

    S-E-A-M-A-N

    Julie frowned. It was the last thing she had expected.
    â€œYou’re doing that!” one of the younger children accused another. “Mom, he’s moving the glass.”
    â€œAm not!”
    â€œChildren, behave.” She did not know what to make of the strange message—if a message it was.
    â€œWhat kind of seaman are you?” Gordon asked. He had the usual boy’s fascination with the sea: the romance of it.

    N-E-L-S-O-N

    Gordon was perplexed. He was about to ask for clarification when, seemingly of its own volition, the glass progressed across the tabletop again. Five pairs of lips quietly vocalized each letter it paused at.

    H-M-S V-I-C-T-O-R-Y

    And so began an eerie communication. Although the “visitor” did not identify himself by name, he gave the family to understand that he had once been a lowly seaman on board Admiral Nelson’s celebrated warship. The glass sped rapidly over the dining room table, spelling out the letters of each word communicated by the man who claimed to have lived and died centuries before. He related how he had fought in a number of sea battles, and how he had perished at Trafalgar in 1805, when Nelson himself lost his life. And, throughout the telling, the mysterious mariner used an antique English, peppering his “speech” with “thee” and “thou” and phrases such as “It be said.”
    The children were delighted. It was Treasure Island and Horatio Hornblower come to life.
    â€œI remember when the Ouija was telling us those things,” Julie says, “a coal popped out onto the hearth, and we all jumped. And I thought at the time that I shouldn’t be dabbling in such things. As a practicing Christian I’d been brought up to believe that fortune-telling, like tarot cards and tea-leaf reading and the like, was wrong. But I didn’t really believe it was dangerous.”
    Nonetheless, she packed away the “game” and called it a night.
    But the next day it rained again, and the children—her younger son and daughter especially—persuaded their mother to repeat the game. With some reluctance, Julie cleared the dining room table, Gordon helped distribute the pieces of paper, and they settled down to another session of fortune-telling.
    Almost immediately, they made “contact.”

    J-E    M-A-P-P-E-L-L-E    D-U-B-O-I-S

    This time it was no English seaman but a Frenchman, who went on to identify himself as Pierre. Pierre Dubois; it was the French equivalent of John Smith. An alias? No one could say. But the visitor almost immediately lapsed into simple English, full of misspellings. He had, he claimed, died at the time of the French Revolution. Without being questioned at all, the glass continued to move from letter to letter, spelling out what the newcomer wished to tell them about his life.
    Julie and the children learned that he had been a blacksmith in a small town called Lessay in northern France; he communicated details of his family life, and “spoke” of matters relating to his era. It was all very absorbing, but Julie still had her reservations. Then, without warning, the messages being transmitted via the glass began to address themselves to her alone.
    â€œJulie,” the glass spelled out, “I like stay here with you.”
    She was shocked. Yet she plucked up the courage to ask why. The glass explained.
    â€œI am tired wandring and need rest…. I was with relations in Suth Africa but not wanted there.”
    Julie did not know what to make of it. And she remained skeptical, still believing that either Gordon or his