I decided to go for it and just finished the first chapter in Part 1 “Come Together” in Anne Rice’s “Witching Hour”. It’s funny how certain phrases, even in a fictional work, can stand out for you.
In the Witching Hour, Arrin Lightner tells a doctor at the end of chapter one that he shouldn’t tell anyone else his ghost story because people won’t believe him unless they’ve experienced something like that for themselves. “Isn’t that the truth though in the nonfiction work we call life?”
I’ve done things I have a hard time believing when I look back. So, is it any small wonder that people have trouble believing me when I recount some experiences?
Mom believed me though. I have no doubt about that.
“Mom, I was taught Kinesiology at a Nature’s Sunshine Products meeting and they tell me I’m quite accurate with it.” Her answer? “Come to the house and test your father.”
“Mom, I found out in therapy that I’m having precognitive dreams.” Mom’s response? She goes and tells my brother about it, offering it as a possible explanation for why I’ve conveniently turned into a ghost he couldn’t find. When I finally decided to surface at Mom’s behest, “He damn near crashed his truck when I told him how I came to be standing at the top of Drew Mountain Road with my arms folded and Seeing Eye dog sitting at my side when he pulled up.” Bro was working quite the irregular schedule in those days. “He never spoke of it again.”
“Mom, I’m astral traveling.” Mom never even flinched during those conversations.
When she called me in the beginning of 2023 to tell me about her experiencing the sensation of someone being in the room with her when no one was in the house but her, that’s when I began to suspect that maybe what runs through my veins ran on the Sedlack side of the family. Looking back on my interactions with Mom when she was alive, I can’t help but think she knew more than she was letting on. She never once criticized or doubted my ability in that realm. “What did she know?”
Now, once again, hear I am reading a book centered around witchcraft. For some reason, the Mayfair series resonates with me despite some of its creepier aspects. I’ll probably reread the trilogy a few hundred times before I set it aside for a while. “I don’t know why.”