Liminal: Week Three
What’s it like to hover between life and death? Between child and adult? This week’s collection explores the link between what we were, and what we’ll become.
Tea Party for Ghosts
By Melanie Terrill
It's a blessing and curse to have the ability to help the dead pass on to the afterlife.
There’s a purple shed in the backyard of a house by the state forest that has a path lined with blue and purple plastic tea lights. It looks like a landing strip for kid sized airplanes, and out the back door of the shed there's a path lined in orange lights.
If you squint enough so you can see between worlds you'll see a line of shapes floating toward the front door. Most of them are human shapes of all sizes and heights with a few cats and dogs trailing behind. The spirits pass through the doorway and disappear into the shed.
The shed has a window on each side, lit by fairy lights and covered in sheer curtains for privacy. Maisie sits on her meditation pillow, pouring cups of tea from her clear glass teapot. The tea is made of mugwort, chamomile, sage and cinnamon, and tastes like earth and flowers. Maisie takes a sip from her cup and gestures for the spirits around her to remain where they are. She closes her eyes and inhales mugwort and lavender incense. "Welcome," she says before blinking her eyes open, adjusting to the flames from tall black candles and fairy lights that surround her.
The spirits wait, watching her as she takes lapis lazuli and moonstone into her hands. She smiles, opening her palms to show off the smooth stones. "This night is for you, and you alone. It's for the curious, and for those who are ready to move on. If you are curious-"
There is a loud giggle from the front door, followed by another and a knock.
The spirits vanish.
"Trick or treat," two small girls say.
Maisie recognizes their voices as the Owens sisters who live two blocks away. She opens the door to find both Annabel, 10, and Clara, 11, wearing matching witch costumes, their eyelids painted in purple glitter. Despite being a year younger, Annabel is taller, her gauzy black dress only reaches to her calves. Clara pushes her tall pointy hat from her eyes and asks, "Can we come in?"
At Maisie's hesitancy, Annabel adds, "We've heard the rumors of what you do on Halloween."
"Samhain is a sacred pagan holiday," Maisie says, silently weighing her options. She knows why the girls are here. She almost expected to see them tonight. "You may come in, if you promise not to discuss this night to anyone."
"We promise," the girls agreed, holding their curved pinkies up for Maisie to shake with her own.
"Pinkie promise," Annabel smiles as Maisie links her pinkies with theirs.
"You can sit in the corner on the bean bag chair," Maisie instructs as she returns to her seat. "And you must keep quiet. Not everyone wants to be seen."
Maisie sits cross legged on her meditation pillow and begins again. "This night is for you, and you alone. It's for the curious, and for those who are ready to move on. If you are curious you do not have to cross over tonight. For those who are comfortable, you may show yourselves again. Our guests mean no harm."
The faint figure of a round old woman wearing a chunky crochet sweater appears, followed by both dogs - a Golden Retriever and a black lab mix - and a handful of other spirits.
"When you are ready, approach me and have a cup of tea. Speak any last words or sentiments you wish and then one sip of tea will guide you through the back door and into the beyond."
Maisie takes another sip of her tea and waits.
The children wait.
The process is long and drawn out as spirits take their time approaching Maisie, or remaining far away. There are some spirits who don't appear until they're at the tea. Some linger in the corners of the building. All of them stay away from the girls, except for the Golden Retriever, who nuzzles against them on the bean bag while the girls try desperately to hold in their giggles.
Finally, there is one more spirit who appears before Maisie. Mr. Owens looks exactly like she remembered him to look during all the years he helped her cut firewood and dropped off used books to the library where Maisie worked. His dark brown hair almost shields his eyes, and he's wearing overalls over a rusty orange plaid flannel. He was in an accident earlier this year. He turns to the girls in the corner, says, "I love you, girls" then takes a sip of tea and disappears.
Annabel and Clara burst into a fit of messy tears. They hug each other as they sob, and Maisie slips out the front door to give them privacy. When she returns with chocolate cake and chai tea, Maisie sets the treats down in front of Annabel and Clara. "You're going to be extremely tired soon. Eat up and I'll give you a ride home."
The sugar from the cake and the spices and caffeine from the tea temporarily perk up the girls, whose eyes widen and tears turn into sniffles soon after they finish their tea.
"We can walk," Clara promises when she hears the sound of Maisie's keys clinking in her hands.
"The passing of the spirits takes out almost everything a human has in them, for at least eight hours. You'll be ready to fall over snoring in about twenty minutes."
"What about you?"
"I can hold off my sleep for a tiny bit longer, I've been able to resist the big sleep a bit. And I don't want you two falling asleep in the middle of the road, or on someone's haystack. Don't forget your pillowcases, did you get enough candy?"
Annabel and Clara pick up their pillowcases and shake their heads.
"One second." Maisie disappears into her house and returns with two bags of assorted Halloween candies. She empties a bag each into their pillowcases. "Your mom will question why you don't have any candy, if you've been gone this long and return without any," she explains.
The radio inside Maisie's black Volkswagen Beetle plays staticy music from the 1950's. Maisie makes sure each girl buckles up before making the trip down the street. It's close to midnight, and most kids have vacated the streets to count their candy loot and sort it into favorites.
After pulling into the driveway, she looks in her rearview mirror and makes eye contact with each girl. "Your mom has fallen asleep and doesn't realize how late it is. When you wake up in the morning you'll remember this as a dream."
"Yes, Miss Maisie," both Annabel and Clara nod before climbing out of the car.
Annabel circles to the driver's side, and Maisie opens the door without question. The ten year old leans into the car and hugs Maisie around the neck. "Thank you," she whispers.
Clara does the same, lingering tears wetting Maisie's neck. "Thank you, and we'll be here again next year, so we can have another dream."
"Sleep well, girls," Maisie says as she hugs them back.
It's a blessing and a curse to have the power to help the dead pass. Tonight, Maisie decides, it was a blessing.
Ghosts of Tomorrow
By EnigmA Jade Thorne
Haunted
By Juniper Avery
The word “liminal” comes from Latin limen, meaning threshold. We often see liminal spaces depicted as vacant and forlorn—the abandoned playground, the empty waiting room, the dimly lit subway platform. But I’m a maximalist and a young adult novelist, so to me the ultimate liminal space is a teenage bedroom. Talk about a threshold—an entire lifetime of accumulated objects cluttered together in one space, a space that is temporary, with its occupant destined to leave. Things are added and removed on a whim. Baby blue wallpaper peeking out from behind a collage of band posters. I’m obsessed. I always look at bedrooms in teen movies and have a running list of favorites in the catalog of my mind.
But, of course, my teenage bedroom was the best of them all. When I was thirteen, my family moved from a single wide trailer to a two-story house and the massive back bedroom upstairs was all mine. My previous bedroom was the size of a closet, with pale pink walls and itchy brown carpet. In my new bedroom, my parents let me choose a dark purple plush carpet and my grandma surprised me by painting the walls lavender. My mom even let me order a bedding set from the delia*s catalog.
Everything was perfect. Except for one problem.
There had to be a ghost.
I’d never lived anywhere with “history” before and I knew our 70’s built barn-shaped house must have acquired some sort of spirits during its thirty years of existence. Surprisingly, my first six months in the house were uneventful. I lay in bed at night waiting to hear the floorboards creak on their own, and squinted into the dark, looking for figures on the other side of the room. Nothing.
Then one night, it happened: A GHOST TOUCHED ME! It was late at night, and I was lying in my pink metal daybed, surrounded by Red Hot Chili Peppers posters and the warm glow of the lava lamp when I felt the very distinct sensation of someone running their finger across my belly. I was lying on my side with the blankets over me and it was a quick swipe from hip to hip. Just a light, ghostly touch that sent shivers down my spine. I froze and looked around the room, but I was definitely alone. I slept with the light on that night and kept a close guard. Nothing happened for a long time, but then a few months later, it happened again! A fast finger trailing across my stomach. I told no one about it—figured they’d all think I was nuts. And the ghost wasn’t hurting me or anything, just a little handsy with my midriff area—he was probably reliving his 1970s disco roller rink days when all everyone wore back then was crop tops like some undead version of Matthew Mcconaughey’s Dazed and Confused character.
A few weeks later, it occurred a third time. Happening more frequently—things had to be escalating. I leapt out of bed, determined to get to the bottom of it. And, speaking of bottoms—that’s when I realized it was not a ghost. It was my pajama bottoms. Specifically, it was the drawstring on my pants. When I rolled from one side to another, it was getting temporarily hung over my hip opposite of the side I was now lying on, but gravity would eventually cause it to fall, dragging the string all the way across my stomach as it went.
Now, twenty-five years later, I live it a 109 year-old home that was previously owned by a mortician. If anything is filled with ghosts, it’s this gotta be this place. So, I squint into dark corners of my bedroom, looking for faces in the void. There’s nothing there to haunt me but a pile of dirty clothes.
Fucking pajama pants.