writing_shadows | My Mortal's Background

My grandmother was a medium. So was her mother. When Nan and Nana were “growing into their powers” the sudden interest in spiritualism – seances, ouji boards, ectoplasm coming out of people's mouths, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hunt for his dead beloved and the furore around the Cottingham fairy photographs. Well of course now we know that the Cottingham fairies were fakes (although the girls involved still insist that they saw fairies). So were most mediums. Rolled up cotton rags for ectoplasm, tricks and plants, good empathy and leading questions to convince the audience that they really were speaking to the dearly departed – and photography, seemingly unfakable in its infancy – provided further “proofs.”

During Nana's lucid moments (she suffered from Alzhemiers) in the last years of her life, she would scoff at the fakes. “Cheats and charlatans” were the nicest names she called them. She'd accuse them of being no better than parasites, predating on people's hopes and fears. She'd tell stories of how she'd inserted herself into such meetings, and unveiled the psychic as a fraud. The shame of it was that the audiences often rose up against Nana; they'd rather be fooled into believing that Great Aunt Ada was speaking to them than be revealed as gulls.

She was in a nursing home by then, and the nurses loved her stories. Of course when she started talking to people long dead in front of them it was simply dismissed as part of her illness. How little they realised. Nana's stories always missed out the small fact that the reason she knew that the mediums with their followings of adoring fans were fakes was because she was listening to the departed. And ninety percent of the time the departed didn't have nice messages to pass onto their loved ones.

When Nan had her children she was relieved to discover that there were about as psychic as the average lettuce. She brought them up despite grandpa's “help” (he'd died in a mining accident the year after mum was born) and made sure the front step was scrubbed, the nets were bleached brilliant white and supper was served unfailingly at six every evening. She owned a little grocers shop that sold necessities to the local community at prices and amounts they could afford, and if she was invited more often than the local vicar to people's death beds, no one really said anything. It was just the “done thing” and understood, Nan brought comfort to the dying and living that the church just didn't managed to provide.

So mum and her siblings had an uneventful childhood, and Nana and Nan were the undisputed matriarchs of their community. Nothing odd or unusual coloured mum's memories to make her think that the paranormal existed outside books and films. In the seventies mum met dad; a man who, if the photos are to be believed, had a safety pin through his nose and bright green hair. Apparently he'd been worried his appearance would shock Nan when they first met, but she presented him with a signed photograph of Aleistair Crowley and told him “this man has been more anti establishment than any of your foolish musicians, and he asked me out once.” Dad was apparently highly impressed, and the house was suddenly filled with teenagers rebelling against the establishment whilst being fed my Nan's fruitcake and shortbread.

The wedding photos show mum in brilliant white, dad in a smart grey suit and the family of the bride dressed in pale blue and green, proud smiles on Nan and Nana's faces. Dad, despite his rebellious teens actually became a policeman; whilst mum became a civil servant. I was born two years after he got his first promotion.

Three years after my sister Angela was born, dad was shot dead by a drug dealer. Mum rarely wore anything but black after that. When I told mum (I was about seven at the time) that I still spoke to dad she just smiled indulgently and said “of course you do dear. I do too.” and left it at that.

When I told Nan though, she went as white as a sheet and then into close conference with Nana. Together they performed a load of tests; tests that at just turned seven I thought were just games. Eventually they concluded that I had also inherited the family gift (or curse depending on how you look at it I guess); and my training began in earnest. Simple fact; Nan and Nana didn't hold with meddling in the occult because they knew how dangerous it was; and so they armed me the best way they knew. Tarot cards, diving, dowsing, meditation and trance work; they gave me practical skills as well as patience, strength and caution.

When I was nine Nana died, leaving me her dowsing pendulum – a piece of rock on a chain rather than some fancy silver thing. When I was twelve Nan decided to move into a nursing home and I inherited more of her tools. Angela inherited her dressing table set; but Angela was already jealous of how I was Nan's favourite and I ended up rescuing it from the bin. Angela, like mum, was a psychically talented as a stick, but it didn't stop her seeing such things through rose tinted glasses. I ended up hiding Nana and Nan's diaries from Angela, and kept the other things in a locked chest when I wasn't using them. It was the only way to stop Angela from trying to use them.

I did well in my exams and went to university to study psychology and sociology. I joined the university newspaper and after a term I added journalism to my studies. Mum carried on her own career up the civil service ladder; spending long hours in meetings about the future of Birmingham as a city. The fact that mum was spending less time with both of us seemed to escape Angela though, and she continued to harbour a resentment and a less than accurate idea that I was the best loved.

So she decided to rebel, by becoming initially a goth. She took to hanging around street corners dressed in a corset, and quoting Edgar Allan Poe at us. Mum was worried about her of course, but any comments about her friends ended in a blazing row with Angela storming upstairs to sulk.

One day I came home from university early and found Angela and her friends in the middle of a séance, complete with Nan's ouija board and my tarot deck. I was furious, especially when Angela told me one of her friends was a psychic and a witch, and was going to teach her. My room was a wreck as Angela had broken into the chest to take everything, and no one uses another's tarot deck without permission anyway. No one who knows what they're doing at any rate. Candace proved to be a charlatan and a fraud, and challenged me to a magical duel. When I laughed in her face and told her she'd been reading far too much Pratchett she decided to threaten to tear apart a teddy bear I happened to have in my room.

Big mistake. The bear wasn't mine, it belonged to a young girl called Tammy who'd been murdered a few months before. Candace came face to face with a real live ghost screaming at her. She ran from the house, taking my sister and the rest of her friends with her. Tammy on the other hand was kind enough to help me tidy up the living room.

I'd like to say that this was the end of my sister meddling in the occult, and that she went on to get her qualifications. Unfortunately that was the last time I saw my sister alive. She and Candace went somewhere; I'm still not sure exactly where, and ran into another set of denizens of the night, who definitely believed that they had a use. Two days later I identified her broken body.

Why I ended up with both her and Candace haunting my house I'm still not sure; maybe it was a punishment for something from a former life. Angela, seemingly unable to understand why Mum couldn't see her, argues with Tammy constantly and still behaves like a spoilt brat. Candace seems to think that I should be fighting the armies of darkness or something. Unfortunately the result was Mum going off on long term sick and me ending up as her primary carer. Somehow I managed to keep working for the student paper, and pulled of a 2:2 in my degree.

Two weeks after graduating someone pushed a local paper through my door. There was an advert in it, for the Birmingham Augury; a paper I'd never heard. Still I applied for it, reasoning that a job as a reporter would be reasonably flexible. The interview was interesting to say the least. Believing in the paranormal is a bit like believing in tables; you know that they exist so enough said, move on. Working for a paper which investigates the paranormal, well that's possibly a bit too public for Nan's tastes, but she hasn't actually come back to say she disapproves yet. And I'm not sure about Mr Calthorpe, he referred to humans as mortals which means that there's more to this than meets the eye. Still, it's a job, they know about Mum and my home situation and I can always quit if things get too interesting for me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Your Nan and my Aunt Mabel - sisters?

A family of mediums. We just neither of us know it.

And does it require approval to have any kind of background links across venues?

That's kind of what I was thinking

And yes, it will require approval, I'm looking into it though.

Top I think.

My Mortal's Background

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