Nora explains she is a practitioner of magic called a harrower. Despite the disruptive or violent connotation of that name, apparently she harrows the dead generally for the benefit of either the dead being itself or one of its loved ones.

     Though she is vague on the details, her story is she has the ability to access another realm where the “dead that do not want to be dead” reside and she can pull them through to our “realm”—not sure why she doesn’t seem to be included in the “our”—and now my patience is being tested because I do not believe in this kind of crock, but I did tell myself I would hear her out so I agree to meet the two harrowed individuals.

     “Jones,” Nora says to the empty room. “Camille. I have brought you Raven, our company. Please take the time from whatever you’re doing to meet him.”

     Oh boy, I’m thinking. Where are the men in white coats when you need them? The room is e-e-empty-y-y!

     Then, a moment later, I see something stirring in one corner of the room. A chair begins rocking as though someone is sitting in it. A pillar of smoke forms in the chair that eventually becomes wider and morphs into the shadow of a man.

     “Come now, Jones,” Nora pleads. “No reason to be shy. Raven won’t believe you’re there if he can’t see you.”

     This woman really needs to stop reading my mind.

     In answer to Nora’s request, a second later a man sits in the rocking chair. He appears to be about sixty, mostly bald with some salt and pepper wisps of hair here and there on his head. He wears thick glasses, which immediately brings out the skeptic in me. What’s a dead man need with glasses? He is wearing a plaid shirt and overalls and looks as though he just came inside from working on a farm.

     “Oh, all right,” he sighs. I look at him quizzically. The inflection of his voice made it seem like he just now agreed to show himself, but he was already here.

     “Raven, Jones. Jones, Raven.”

     “Nice to meet you, Jones.”

     He just smiles and nods, and looks as if he is going to speak but does not.

     “Jones used to live nearby,” Nora informs me. “He called out to me. With Camille, as you will learn, it was the other way around. That is why she is probably playing hard to get again now.”

     “Pleasure’s mine,” Jones says suddenly. Then, it hit me again. The non-sequitur nature of his response. Like a delayed reaction.

     “Some of the harrowed come through with flaws.”

     “How did you? You read minds, I take it.”

     “Something like that. That will do for now. You were thinking of Jones’ response time, yes?”

     “You know the answer to that, apparently.”

     “You’ll get used to it.”

     “His delayed reactions, or you reading minds?”

     “Sorry for the delay. Nora’ll explain,” moans the old man.

     This was going to be fun.

     “Both,” Nora answers, predictably. Then she cries out: “Camille!”

     After more dead silence, Nora shrugs her shoulders. “She is stubborn. Come then, I will show you the rest of the house, and then before we talk more, I will make some food.”

     “That Camille is a stubborn one,” Jones says. He rises, apparently to join us, his knees pop and the floor creaks beneath him.

     Nora smiles at me and I find myself returning the favor. What else can I do? Even if I have walked into a house of assorted nuts, they don’t seem to mean me any harm so I might as well play this one through.

     As Nora shows me through the house and leads us finally to the kitchen, I learn a little more about Jones. He is not wearing his farmer’s outfit because he was outside gardening recently, but because ghosts apparently wear the clothes they wore when they died. Jones was a retired business man but he did own a farm in Sothern California and spent his later years as a reclusive widower and organic farmer.

     Organic farming has been impossible for a hell of a long time, I think, as he and Nora tell me his story but I don’t interrupt. I just keep it to myself, knowing it is more evidence these two or nuts. Neither of them is old enough for Jones’ story to hold water.

     The other important and surprising aspect of Jones’ nature is his involvement with hoodoo. He died suddenly of a heart attack one sunny afternoon in his fields, and he was in nearly perfect health, especially for a man sixty seven years old, so he suspects one of his enemies used their own powers to kill him.

     I let that go because I think all that kind of stuff is horseshit anyway. If Jones believed someone was out to get him with some kind of curse, the stress that created probably gave him the heart attack. I was more interested in bigger questions, like: “so how in hell did you—“

     Oh yeah, I forgot. Don’t have to say a word. Nora hears my thoughts and answers me as she is now at the stove, preparing some food.

     “To remain sharp, a harrower must constantly practice her craft. There are many exercises we can perform but there is no substitute for an actual harrowing. Traditionally, we are hired by—I believe clients would be your name for them. They have some kind of interest in bringing a recently departed soul back from the Realm of the Dead, either briefly or for a while.”

     She places a hot cup of coffee before me. Now we’re talking. I haven’t had a decent cup of slag in years. “Most often,” she continues. ”The client is mourning a loved one taken from them prematurely, but I have brought antagonistic spirits back because other clients had unfinished business with them. Of course, these harrowing are not always successful.”

     “Of course,” I say, sipping my coffee and shrugging, as though I am actually following along. If she wasn’t so damn gorgeous I would have hit the ground running a while ago. But she is, so I remain and listen.

     “The dead have to be freshly so, and either willing to cooperate or with a will weak enough for me to overtake them. But I have been alone for a while, so no such harrowings have been necessary. I have not had a client in a long time. Now, I often enter The Realm of the Dead myself. It is called Shinneh-Sirrah in my world. I encounter many creatures there, for it is no longer a sealed realm.”

     Again, she blows past all this like I know what she’s talking about.

     “But even though the fractures have allowed access to other entities, Shinneh-Sirrah remains largely a place for the restless dead. Jones and Camille are simply two such restless ones willing to come back to this realm for a second chance. More time. Jones asked me. Camille, well, she I had to convince.”

      “Here I am,” we hear another voice coming from the doorway to the kitchen.

     Standing there was a young woman that seemed as out of time as Jones, a blond about six inches shorter than Nora with piercing brown eyes. Camille looked like a movie star from the twentieth century and, in indirect contrast to Jones, she had died dressed to the nines.

     “You have finally arrived, dear,” says Nora. “Come meet Raven.”

     She does not move. “I’ve seen his image often enough in your colobash.”

     “Crystal ball for lack of a better explanation,” Nora explains.

     I nod dumbly as I have at all the day’s revelations.

     “In time, then. In your time.”

     “That’s how I work,” says Camille and shrugs. She is as uninteresting to me, in nearly every way that I am allured by Nora. But I know, looking at her now, she is the kind of woman used to men groveling at her feet. Silver spoon and all that.

     Camille vanishes and Nora shakes her head and smiles. “She’ll come around.”

     “No worries here. I am used to people hating me.”

     “Camille, have a seat,” Jones chimes in hopelessly, immediately disgusted with himself. “I don’t know I bother trying to speak anymore.” He sighs, closes his eyes and looks like he could nod off any moment.

     “Quite an interesting couple of houseguests, Nora.”

     “Yes, well, as I was saying. I found Camille, as I did Jones, lonely and depressed in the Realm of the Dead. But she didn’t want to take my offer right away. I—“She pauses, looking for the correct word. “Well, seduced her.”

     I nearly spit up the last of my coffee. One thing I did not expect was that Nora was a lesbian.

     Nora turns down the flame on the stove and covers the pot she has been stirring. As she walks over and sits across from me at the table, I wonder what will come next. Of course she has read my mind again and understands my confusion.

     “In my realm, whether one is male or female, human or not, is of little importance. That part of my life with Camille has long past, Raven. She tries not to loathe me now, and desires to return to death, but that I cannot do. I cannot send anyone back. In any case, she can’t help but be jealous of the obvious chemistry brewing between you and me.”

     I smile so broadly I feel I could almost blush. This is getting ridiculous. I am a hardened soldier. I don’t do this. “Oh,” I try to be coy. “Is there something happening here?”

     “Funny, Raven. You aren’t very good at this, are you?”

     “Of course not.”

     “I will make it fairly easy for you.”

     “Ah.” I drink more coffee and just look into her eyes, trying to take in more of her mysteries and see if I can come back out of the spell with anything that makes any sense at all. I have come across plenty of crackpots, like that reverend and his flock who brainwashed Jenny into taking a Murmurer’s hand. Somehow, today seems different. Nobody has come up with a clear explanation of the Turning yet. Maybe here, in the most unlikely of places, I am closer to the truth.

     Or Nora is some kind of witch putting a spell on me.

     She brings me some of the food she has prepared. Unlike the stuff I create on fires out in the open, it is piping hot, and I burn my tongue on her savory stew of tender meat and vegetables.

     “This is great,” I tell her, taking a sip of my cooled down coffee. “Thank you.”

     “The Watchers bring me food they gather in the forests and I also have a small garden near the house. I manage.”

     I eat the food quickly, trying not to look like an animal but I have not had a real meal in a very long time. Nora brings a bottle to the table. There is no label but it appears filled with red wine.

     “This is Onavuhr,” she says. “It is not of this realm.”

     “Wine.”

     “It is, in essence, wine. It has a similar production process, yes. But the fruit that begins that process is what is important. The Ona vine. It is only found in my home world.”

     “Okay.” What else was I supposed to say when she paused long enough as though she expected a response? “So---“

     She sets two wine goblets on the table as she speaks. “I want you to drink some, but you must understand the nature of the Ona first. Ona is what my people call a Tremohr plant. There are several Tremohrs found in my home realm. They are the plants that, if prepared properly, can cause any person to see visions, whether they are predestined to such behavior or not.”

     “So when I drink this—“

     “I don’t know for sure what will happen. Ona is the most unstable and unpredictable Tremohr, especially once it is distilled into Onavuhr. I know for sure that drinking this will help you understand who I am, why I am here and why you are important to me. All in a more vivid way, and much faster than if I just talked to you all night long. Also, you are more likely to believe if you see some of it for yourself.”

     “Well, if you know me as well as you say you do, you know belief in--this kind of thing—is definitely a problem for me. But if you’re saying my mind will be altered, why won’t I just believe I imagined it all?”

     “The Onavuhr does not distort reality in the way you are thinking of it. This is not a drug. It opens your mind to the truth, not to illusions.”

     “Enough talk, then. I’ll agree.”

     “Good. But eat some more food and then you are probably dying for a real bath.”

     “A what? I haven’t had one of those in a very long time.”

     “Of course not. So eat, bathe, relax. No more questions for now. Enjoy my hospitality and then, tonight, the Onavuhr will open your mind to new possibilities.”