Chapter 14 -- "The Séance Continues"

The spirit of Edmund Grey stood directly in back of Opal in living color, looking hale and hearty, a half-smile playing on his now not at all ghostly face.

Brooke fainted.

"Edmund!" Maria gasped.

"Glory be!" Opal exulted. "I knew I could do it!"

"Why, it's Edmund!" Stuart said for them all. "Glad to see you!"

"Hello, Edmund," Marian managed. "It's been a long time."

"Daddy!" Maddie cried out, rising from her chair in a mixture of shock and joy.

"Dad!" Sam gasped, at last taking his eyes off of Lily.

"Edmund!" Maria moaned.

"Edmund, you're here!" Lily laughed. "I mean, you were always here, but now everybody can see you! I'm so glad! Now we can start finding out where the time machine is before it's too late! Do you think anybody here knows anything about it?"

"Personally, I love that kid," Zartz opined to his fellow popcorn kernels. "I'm almost gonna hate seeing her disintegrate along with everything else when the time machine blows."

"Time machine?" Sam asked. "Lily, what are you talking about?"

Before Lily could fill him in, Brooke regained consciousness and started screaming.

Everybody covered their ears except the popcorn kernels, who wished they had ears to cover.

"Brooke, it's me," Edmund told her, walking over. "You're not dreaming. You're not crazy. I'm real. Everyone can see me."

"And you can walk now!" Stuart observed.

"I've been able to walk for some time," Edmund admitted. "That was a secret I kept from too many of my friends."

"Edmund!" Maria groaned.

"How?" Brooke breathed.

"Through the wonders of Galioscian technology," Zetz explained, although of course nobody could hear him except Zift, Zartz and Edmund.

"How doesn't matter," Edmund told her. "We have to concentrate on why."

"We do?" Brooke asked hollowly, knowing the only thing she could concentrate on was Edmund, not ten inches away from her, as virile and handsome as ever he was. She loved him completely.

Suddenly remembering the reason for the séance, Maria collected herself. "Edmund, I need to ask your forgiveness."

"Go screw that soccer coach again," Edmund replied mildly. "Then ask the Wal-Mart bag boy to forgive you."

"Edmund!" Maria gasped.

"Edmund, remember what we decided about second chances," Stuart reminded him gently.

"By any chance would that Wal-Mart bag boy be Arnie?" Marian asked Maria.

"No, Brad," Maria replied as steadily as she could. "Arnie is his grandfather."

"Slut!" Sam and Maddie called Maria in unison.

"Edmund, I think Maria's plea for your forgiveness is heartfelt," Opal said against her better judgment.

"For the children," Maria said huskily. "I need the children's respect. Edmund, we need to heal as a family."

Edmund was not won over. "Right," he said bitterly, "You need to heal as a family so you can move on. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Whom do you plan to move onto, Maria? The Lacy's shoe salesman?"

"All of us need to heal," Brooke said brokenly. "All of us need to move on." But she knew that doing either was impossible for her. She wondered if he knew that as well.

"Brooke, I was such a fool to let you go," he told her now, meaning it.

"I may gag," Zetz revealed.

"Brooke, do you have any idea where Edmund hid the time machine?" Lily asked as a point of information.

"You were a fool to let me go?" Brooke echoed. "NOW you tell me?" She blinked. "What time machine?"

"The time machine Edmund used to get here from the future. He's forgotten where he put it and what it actually looks like. We have to find it because it's set to bring matter together with antimatter. Does everybody know what happens when matter meets anti-matter?"

"Boom?" Sam guessed, remembering what he'd read on the subject in comic books.

"Daddy, you never told me about a time machine!" Maddie whined.

"I didn't remember it," Edmund replied truthfully. "At least not for a long, long time. But during my last days on the Show, in those last wretched episodes –"

"Edmund, cut to the chase!" Maria broke in. "Can I or can't I have your forgiveness?"

"Forgive her, Edmund," Opal pleaded. "For old times sake!"

Edmund thought it over.

"Get stuffed," he told Maria.

"Also, Edmund's come back to find out why he was dropped from the Show. I don't really understand what that means, but finding out seems extremely important to him."

"He'd kill us if he ever found out the truth," Zift predicted.

"We had no choice," Zartz reminded them. "He was beginning to remember the time machine. If we hadn't had him killed off, he'd have found it by now. And that would have ruined everything."

"You have your heart set on the destruction of all material reality, haven't you, Zartz?" Zift had to ask.

"Yes," Zartz answered simply.

"Edmund, I was your wife!" Maria appealed to him. "I am the Mother of your children. Can't you find it in your soul to forgive me? What can I say, what can I do to redeem myself in your eyes?"

"You can help us find the time machine!" Lily suggested before Edmund could reject his widow's plea.

"She could?" Stuart had to ask. "How could she do that?"

Luckily, Lily had an idea.

"Maria could show us the inventory from the Estate Sale. Maybe one of Edmund's possessions is really the time machine!"

Marian couldn't agree. "Lily, I'm sure Maria or Brooke or somebody would have noticed if something as big as a time machine were in Wildwind's Main Ballroom waiting to be auctioned off!"

But Lily stuck to her guns. "I've been thinking about that. Nobody said the time machine has to be big. Maybe it's the size of a paperclip! Or –"

"A Pulitzer Prize!" chorused Edmund and Brooke.

What happens next? Could Edmund's Pulitzer Prize really be the time machine? Will Edmund find it in his heart to forgive Maria? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!