Free The 'Geisters by David Nickle

plain white case from the table. “What can I say? I’m an old woman. They really did a fantastic job of it. I couldn’t wait.”
    Ann shook her head. “I can’t believe you flew all the way down. Couldn’t you just upload it onto YouTube? Send it by courier?”
    Ian’s eyes widened and he clutched at his chest theatrically. “YouTube? A courier? Heathen! This is special stuff! You don’t just fling it on the internet, give it to some lackey. It’s a treasure!”
    Ann and Michael shared a glance themselves at that.
    “Why don’t we watch it,” said Michael, “right now.”
    “Excellent idea,” said Ian. He looked out the open French doors. “It’s about dark enough.”
    It certainly was getting dark; the sun had pretty much set—there was just a tiny line of purple at the horizon. Stars were emerging overhead. But Ann didn’t see what that had to do with watching a video and said so. Rickhardt laughed.
    “You didn’t think I was going to show it to you on the TV set they’ve got here.” The TV set being an old 27-inch Toshiba that occupied a corner in the living room. “I’ve set up something special,” he said, and got up.
    “What—” Ann began, but Michael put a hand on her arm.
    “It’s all right,” he said, “Ian told me about it while you were in the kitchen. Speaking of which—Thea?”
    “Yes?” she called from the kitchen.
    “You can finish up,” he said and they stepped around the kitchen to the living room. Ian was already there, unzipping a black nylon case and pulling a laptop computer out. As he plugged it in, and pulled out what Ann recognized as a projector, Michael lifted down a framed lithograph of a tall sailing ship and set it aside. The frame left a faint outline on the white wall.
    “You’re projecting it,” said Ann, “like a presentation video.”
    She’d done this more times than she cared to admit in the service of Krenk & Associates.
    Ian nodded. “Full cinema experience,” he said. “Nothing but the best.”
    Thea popped in to say goodnight as she left, and patted Ann on the shoulder where she sat.
    “Funny ideas,” she said, so only Ann could hear. “Don’t let ’im spoil things.”
    And then she was gone, and Ian slid the DVD into the side of his laptop and said, “Enjoy.”
    Michael set an open beer down in front of her and flicked off the lights.
    And their wedding began, anew.
iii
    A black screen.
    A cool, descending bass line for a few bars, and then a trumpet joined in, blowing all over the place. The screen shifted to blue—the sky, over the Rickhardt Estates winery, two weeks ago—while on the soundtrack, Louis Armstrong put the trumpet down and wondered what good melody and music was without swing.
    “Did you pick the song, Ian?” asked Ann.
    “Hey, be thankful,” said Ian. “Michael wanted Sinatra. ‘Love and Marriage.’ Or was it ‘The Tender Trap?’”
    Michael barked a laugh as Ann punched him in the shoulder.
    The camera came down on the treeline, then the rooftop, and then the milling guests outside Rickhardt’s winery. The image faded to sepia and froze, and the title faded in.
    THE JOINING OF TWO
    And there was a date, and a location, and their names, and then the whole picture swam out of focus.
    Literally.
    As the trumpet faded out, it seemed as though the picture spun—as though Ann were spinning herself, dizzily reeling in a dance across the floor of Rickhardt’s winery. She couldn’t say how he did it—the screen simply shifted from a sepia exterior to an interior pan across a row of inverted wine glasses, a fiery stand of maples seen through a window.
    And yet . . .
    “Wow,” she said, and looked down and took a sip from her beer.
    “Wow,” echoed Rickhardt, softly.
    The camera was moving along the floor now, or near to it, past
rows of guests seated in front of the dais where she and Michael would say their vows. Michael was at the front, hands crossed in front of him, smiling in genial terror. She would