She turned to him and let him take her in his arms. She leaned her head on his chest.
“You’re shaking,” he said, rubbing her back.
Tears came, then. She tried to brush them away, but they were too strong. It was helplessness and frustration, too much for her to contain. She stood there and sobbed in Wyatt’s arms, as he held her and rubbed her back. He didn’t try to fix whatever was wrong. Didn’t even ask again. He just held her and gave her a safe space to let out the abject, primal fear that had formed into her tears.
She took a deep breath. “I think I need a tissue,” she said, her words swimming, no, drowning, in those tears.
No tissue in sight, Wyatt grabbed the roll of paper towels on the counter. This small gesture brought a chuckle to Tess’s lips. “Yeah, I might need all of these after that,” she said, peeling one off the roll and blowing her nose.
Tess sighed and sank down into her armchair. Only then did she realize her legs were shaking and might have buckled under her had Wyatt not held her up. He sat on the footstool in front of her.
“Can you tell me what happened? Is everything okay with your parents?” His face was a mask of concern and worry.
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been trying to call them off and on today. It always goes to voice mail. I didn’t think anything of it, but this phone call just now . . .”
“Who was it?”
“That’s the thing,” she said. “It sounded like my dad. But it was so strange, like he was calling from another century or something. You know those old radio broadcasts you’ve heard of something like FDR announcing the only thing we have to fear is fear itself? Which”—she blew her nose again—“I’ve never understood because we were in the Depression, and people didn’t have food to eat or any means and were losing everything—”
Wyatt couldn’t stifle his grin at this.
“But, anyway, it sounded like that. Crackly. Thin. First, I heard voices. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. But it sounded sort of frantic. Tense. Like they were arguing. But then someone else got on the line. Someone louder. It sounded like my dad. He said, ‘Let it go, Amethyst.’” She could barely get the words out. “You need to promise me you’ll let it go.”
She buried her face in her paper towel and let out another sob.
Wyatt was shaking his head. “I don’t know what to tell you about that, Tess.”
“I do.” It was Jane, standing in the doorway. “I hope you don’t mind, but you didn’t hear me knocking,” she said. “I saw you were upset, and I just let myself in.”
Tess nodded, slightly dazed. “No, that’s perfectly okay. Please—” She motioned to the kitchen table. Jane peeled off the shawl she had wrapped around her shoulders and took a seat.
“I heard what you said about the call,” Jane said. “I think you should contact your son and see if he’s heard from your parents.”
A darkness overcame Tess, then. “Why?” she managed to say.
“From what I heard, I think you received a spirit call.”
Tess gave Wyatt the side-eye. “Spirit call?”
Jane nodded. “They’re actually quite common,” she said. “Spirits—ghosts, if you will—somehow can use and manipulate electricity.”
Tess had actually heard of that before. “Okay.”
“And your landline is one of those perfect vehicles for communication from the other side,” Jane went on. “You said there was static on the call, right?”
“Right,” Tess said.
“And it sounded like they were talking from far away, even in a tunnel?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s a classic call from the other side,” Jane said. “Textbook.”
“But what are you saying? If it was my dad . . .”
“She’s not saying that, Tess,” Wyatt interjected. “Are you, Jane?”
“It’s possible,” she said. “Or it could’ve been someone else. It was a male, I’m assuming, right? And he knew your name?”
Tess’s eyes began filling up with tears. “That was my first thought,” she said. “It was my dad. I called my parents just now, and they didn’t answer. It went to voice mail.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
Tess stood up and went back to the phone. She picked up the handset and dialed.
“Hi, Mom,” Eli said.