I don't know if I ever told you any of this, Connie, but I was born in Virginia, the second child of Atticus and Rose Gale. My brother Francis died of pneumonia three months before my birth and my parents had quite the difficult time with that.
Daddy came from money, the only son of the infamous Old Man Gale. You've heard me complain about how ornery my grandfather is, but I'd wager Daddy got a far worse side of him. An ex-Confederate Officer and railroad baron, Marcus Tullius Gale had urged his son into a military career in an effort to push him toward politics. Daddy never had the temperament for that line of work and, after he spent a few years abroad, married Rose and began a career with the Pinkertons. He didn't have to work, Old Man Gale's money would have seen to that, but I think he needed to. He needed to carve his own way.
Like many daughters with their fathers, I became the light of his life and he doted on me with whatever trips and presents I wanted. He recognized my fiery streak early on and, even when I was a toddler, said I was smart as a whip. He'd tell me ghost stories at bedtime and, as young as four, I'd complain that ghosts weren't real and poke holes in the tale. He encouraged my mind more than Old Man Gale cared for (I was a girl, after all) and there was always some tutor or another around the house helping me through my studies.
The tutors were also babysitters, I suppose. Rose had continued to slip into grief over my brother. Where Daddy found comfort with a new child, all Rose seemed to think of was Francis. It did not take her long to convert to Spiritualism. She became more and more obsessed with communicating with the dead, gone all day and night sometimes at her readings.
Daddy worried about me. A young girl should have her mother involved in her life, he'd say. After a few arguments, Rose started carving out time for these motherly moments. That time, however, was more often than not spent dragging me to whatever séance she attended. I was eager to please my mother and ecstatic at the time we were spending together, so it wasn't long until I began speaking to the dead myself.
Of course, as bright of a child as I was, I'd picked up on most of the tricks I'd seen all her psychic friends do. Reproducing them was easy. The mistake I made was when I claimed to channel my brother Francis. After that, Rose obsessed over nurturing my supernatural talent.
When I was twelve, she decided to move the family to Gallow's Grove. She felt that the money being spent on tutors for Literature and Architecture would be better used on ones for Palmistry and Astrology. Daddy didn't care for the notion, but he was thrilled beyond belief that Rose took such an interest in me. I was just as thrilled and, wanting to make Rose happy, I asked Daddy if we could go. He gave in, of course. He always gave in to me.
We spent two years in Gallow's Grove, Rose coaching me as I learned every trick of the trade. I assumed she knew it was all chicanery and showmanship and never thought twice about it. I became the star du'jour and, by thirteen, I packed every performance. Even the occultist Aleister Crowley sought me out for a series of readings and left believing I had real power. Of course, he was likely high as a kite at the time.
That was also when I first met Simon. They lived down the street from us, one of their "summer homes," as his mother called it. His Daddy was some commissioner or other then, always away in Albany, but his mother's family was old money and they had houses all over the place. She'd gotten into Spiritualism as most rich folk do, simply as a way to combat the boredom of a life without work.
Simon and I were inseparable in those days. First boy I ever kissed, though don't you dare repeat that to him.
Daddy hadn't seen any of my performances. He'd been away for half the year on some case or another, and when he came back to find I'd been turned into some sort of sideshow act, that was the end of it.
Rose pleaded with him, fanning out all the money I'd made that month, but Daddy just snatched up the cash and threw it in her face.
"This is fraud," he told her. "You're forcing her to be a criminal, for God's sakes."
Only Rose didn't see that way. She told Daddy it wasn't fraud because I could actually do it.
I didn't know what to say. I just wanted them to stop fighting. So I told the truth. I said it was fake. It was all fake.
The look on her face... I've never seen such a betrayed look again in my life.
"What about Francis?" She'd started to cry. "What about my baby boy?"
"I made all that up, Mama. I thought you knew."
She slapped me across the face so hard my mouth filled with blood.
"It should have been you," she said. "Francis should be here right now and you should have been the one to die." Then she turned to my father. "Go on. Take her. I never want to see her face again."
And that was that. Daddy took a job opening an office for his agency down in Montgomery. The tutors came again and I found myself happy to be back in the South, even if I did cry myself to sleep most nights thinking of what Rose had said. I checked the mail every day, desperate to find a letter from her apologizing and saying she wanted to come home. But that letter never came.
When we accepted this job, I honestly didn't expect her to still be here in town. That was so many years ago, after all. I wish...
Well, enough of the maudlin. What's done is done. I have to get dressed for dinner anyhow. You run along and clean up now, Connie. I'll see you at the séance in a few hours.