by Katherine Nabity

The planchette slid across the Ouija board. To Millie, it sounded everything like canvas in the wind.

#

Millie hadn’t realized she’d married an aeronaut until it was too late.

“I must fly,” he’d told her, many times, before she stood on a hillside watching as so many men prepared her husband’s craft. She didn’t understand about loft or propulsion or why earthbound things couldn’t be enough for him.

“There is a possibility I won’t be able to land,” he’d told her the last time he’d kissed her. “Don’t worry, I’ve prepared for that.”

The wind on the hillside was vile, tearing at her skirts and threatening to make a mess of her carefully pinned hair. Despite that, Millie’s heart fluttered like a bird that would rather be free than remain caged in her chest.

The machine creaked to life and her husband soared. When the aero-plane began to break up, he pushed away from it with his strong legs. The parachute opened as it should and brought him back to earth. But her aeronaut husband wasn’t done flying. Despite the hands of those so-many men, the gale wouldn’t let go. The sky took him back leaving only the sound of canvas in the wind.

They never found her husband, the aeronaut. All those smart men had calculated where the air currents might have taken him, but there was no trace.

On one cold-bedded night, window panes shaking, Millie decided to seek knowledge through other venues. Gravity, drag, and lift were as invisible to Millie as spirits. Her husband, the aeronaut, had called them frauds, but the aeronaut was gone.

#

Just two fingers were all that was needed on the planchette. Millie’s touch was no heavier than a sparrow. Neither the medium nor the other sitter seemed to push or pull the pointer.

Millie had wanted a private seance, but realized that she would have to be conservative with her funds. The other sitter was a nervous spinster in mourning purple for an aunt and a missing annuity. Her aeronaut would have said this woman was an ideal mark for spiritualists. Someone too willing to be led. The medium was a steely heavy-set woman who was, of course, willing to lead them with her stories of the unseen. The fourth person in the room was a mousy man with a tablet of paper. He did not put his fingers on the planchette.

The medium breathed and tranced and asked the usual questions. Was there a spirit here? Did they have a message?

And the planchette sailed across the board with its hiss and shush, the same sounds as the wind in canvas. The man took note of the spirit’s answers. When all was said and done, by the medium seen and spirit unseen, only one word was spelled out: SAFE.

“A short message,” said the mousy scribe, “but poignant.”

The spinster seemed happy with it. “There must be a safe I’ve overlooked.”

“Certainly,” said the medium.

“Nonsense,” said Millie. Her aeronaut would have smiled. “The message is vague. It could mean anything. Why not tell you where the safe is? Why not tell me where my husband is? This is all fraud. If the police aren’t interested, maybe the church or the local entertainments association will be.”

The medium only smiled sweetly. “You’re right. This,” she gestured to the table, the board, the man and his tablet of messages, “isn’t going to be of help for your problem. You need a completely different manner of clairvoyance.”

Millie’s suspicions were grounded by the weight of hope. “What do you suggest?”

#

The wind tore at her skirts and threatened to upend her pinned hair as she stood on top of the bank building. The medium had been there when Millie arrived.

“Cloud-mancy,” she proclaimed. It made more sense here atop a building than it had in the gloomy parlor. “We need to seek your husband where you saw him last.” She moved to the edge of the roof. “Come, dear.”

Millie followed. The city spread out to the horizon. Millie didn’t fear heights, but she knew of the Imp of the Perverse.

“Don’t look down. We know that down isn’t where you’ll find him. Look up.”

Millie lifted her chin, lifted her eyes. The sky above them was gray with clouds, darker ones racing for position against thin bright ones.

“Lift your head,” whispered the medium. “Look hard. Can you see?”

Millie tilted her head further back, leaned back, until the only thing she saw was the sky. Her eyes swum with the plainness of it, but she searched. For a word. For a clue. For him.

“Can you see?” The medium’s voice was the whisper of canvas in her ear.

“What am I looking for? Millie asked.

If the woman answered, Millie didn’t hear. The wind tore at her skirts, threatened her hair, pushed her from behind.

“Entertainment associations indeed,” the wind hissed.

Millie fell forward and wondered if her husband the aeronaut had been right, that flying was more important than anything else.

“No,” a breeze whispered and stroked her cheek. Canvas rustled and snapped.

Millie found her feet under her, far enough from the edge that no Imp could tempt her.

She stood alone on the roof of the bank building. A crow wheeled in the white clouds.

Millie never bothered looking for the aeronaut again.

END