Seance with a Skull from my Gothic Novel Erosion

October is the perfect month to read Gothic fiction. Here’s an extract from Erosion, my novel that was published earlier this year. This scene is when a group of friends attempt to contact the spirit of an ancient skull:

Seance with a Skull

We didn’t have a Ouija board, but we knew how to improvise. Baz brought a flat board with a smooth surface from the caravan park, Charlie had a Scrabble game she used to play with her grandmother, Jo brought a wine glass with a short stubby stem from the flat. We put the board on the table and on it stuck a circle of Scrabble tiles from A to Z, ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’. 

When we were ready, we inverted the wine glass and put that in the middle. The lights from the cottage’s stove and oil lamps were always dim. There was no electricity. Charlie reverentially took the skull from her shrine and placed her at one end of the table, facing the board, with a lamp next to her. We sat around the other three sides and put our fingers on the foot of the wine glass. There was a pregnant silence before Charlie spoke.

“Is anybody there?”

At first, nothing happened. Silence except for a few natural sounds from outside: the wind, distant waves and the creak of trees in the wood. Inside the cottage there was darkness all around the circle of light from the lamp, which cast the skull and us, with our fingers outstretched on the spirit board, into a sharp chiaroscuro of dark and light. The empty eye sockets were pools of blackness although I stared into them to see if I could sense some flickering of spirit within. 

“Is anybody there?” Charlie repeated. “If there is, guide our hands.”

Slowly, the glass seemed to move under our fingers. I know I wasn’t pushing it. I’m not sure if anyone else was. It didn’t seem that way at the time, it seemed as though the glass just started to slide of its own volition across the smooth board, slowly, slowly, towards ‘yes’.

It stopped. We looked at each other, but no one said anything for a moment, until Charlie spoke again.

“Are you the spirit of the skull?”

The glass moved slowly back towards the centre, then stopped, then started gently, gradually, circling. Surely no one could be making it do that? Surely? 

“Are you the spirit of the skull? Are you the Bone Mother? Please say yes or no.”

The glass started to move straight again, straight to ‘yes’, then rapidly back to the centre. It stopped. I think we’d all been holding our breath, but felt we could breathe again, deeply, as our heart beats quickened, our eyes still fixed on the glass and our fingers pressing on it. 

“Who are you? What is your name?”

The glass started to move again, tentatively, circling at first, then outwards towards a letter – ‘R’ – then back to the centre. It stopped, then moved again – ‘O’. Back again, then tentatively to ‘S’, then more quickly to another letter – ‘M’. Then it sped up more. Quickly, decisively, the glass went to more letters, ‘O, R, T, A’. Then back to the centre, stopping. 

“Rosmorta,” whispered Zoe.

“Is that a name?” asked Jo, quietly.

“Shhh…” whispered someone, I don’t remember who, but Charlie addressed the spirit again.

“Rosmorta, we welcome you. We welcome you as our guest. But we know this land we are on is yours too; was yours long before it was ours. We ask that you allow us to be your guests too. We wish to honour you, our ancestor of this place, Rosmorta. Will you accept our invitation, and our company, in all goodwill?”

The glass started to circle, slowly at first, then picking up speed. We were struggling to keep our fingers on it, leaning over the table as the glass circled wider and wider and faster and faster. Then as though the circle could no longer hold it, it spun outward, clunking into the tiles stuck on the board, and off the table into the darkness, where we heard it smash against the wall. I looked down. The letters it had crashed through, loosening them as it went, spelled ‘yes’.

We looked at each other, stunned, not knowing what to think, but it was Charlie who gained composure first and spoke.

“Well, I think our invitation was accepted. I think Rosmorta is here to stay.”

I wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing.

Where to find Erosion

My publisher is Moon Books, an imprint of Collective Ink. You can find Erosion on its website via this link: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/our-books/erosion-novel

Treadwell’s Bookshop stocks signed copies of Erosion, as well as my Pagan Portals titles Candle Magic, Scrying, and Poppets and Magical Dolls. Pop in to Treadwell’s Bookshop at 33 Store Street, Bloomsbury London, WC1E 7BS. Here’s the website: https://www.treadwells-london.com/

Erosion can be also be viewed on Amazon. 

(Note: I earn commission for some links.)

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