ESOTERIA

Kittens play meanderingly with string, but no one has any idea where the string comes from. We sit in a circle, and no one has yet used the word séance. Ouija fingers shiver. Hair hangs down in prescient ways; I try to read the old hag’s features like tealeaves. She uses the darkness, of course, to her advantage: shadows falling with mathematical precision. When her eyes do roll back, when her limbs shake and a low moan comes right out from the base of her throat, I feel unnerved, in that deep part of me that is still raw with imagination. The hag starts to speak, and it's a voice none of us know, that none of us have ever imagined hearing. Somewhere, up above, the light fittings shake.