FANNY VAN WYCK lived in an old farmhouse near Concord, and was renowned as the medium for the Banner of Light’s “Message Department”—a popular section of the paper devoted to publishing spirit-messages from the dead. Since the start of the Banner nearly twenty years earlier, she had been presiding over large gatherings in the paper’s ample offices. “The many invisible guests of these ‘Spirit Circles,’” one journalist noted, “throng the Banner’s rooms, which the editors of the paper open free to public crowds.”
The idea for the Spirit Circles had come from Fanny herself, who suggested that the Banner’s editors provide a venue for her spiritual pronouncements. “And there, as opportunity permits,” another journalist wrote, “the spirits pour forth, through the entranced organism of Miss Van Wyck: the tales of their earthly lives, their vices and errors, their bitter lamentation for time misspent, and messages of love and consolation to absent friends.” Fanny was known for performing all of this with such great voice, tone, and gesture, that witnesses “readily persuaded themselves that they were in the actual presence of the various characters.”
While the Banner’s Spirit Circles were free and open to the public, subscriptions to the Banner were three dollars per year, and so those who had a financial stake in the life of the paper regarded Fanny and her Circles as instrumental. During the war, Fanny’s republished messages from dead soldiers had become so prolific that the Banner couldn’t print enough copies to meet the demand—proof that the Circles exercised not only great influence over the Banner’s readership, but over the economic sustainability of the paper itself.
It was a sorry day for the Banner when an infirmity of the legs—something that Fanny had suffered with since childhood—finally prevented the famous medium from traveling into Boston. After the war, she began holding much smaller séances in her home—a change that forced Luther Colby, the Banner’s editor-in-chief, to dispatch reporters to cover these more intimate “circles.” In its apology for the suspension of the Spirit Circles in Boston, the Banner had assured its readers that the community had not lost its most vital medium: “Rarely can any mortal say more truthfully than she,” the Banner wrote, “that their burden is greater than they can bear.”
Seemingly her spirit is held to the body mostly by the sympathy and aid of other spirits—on the two sides of the separating veil. Thus frail, burdened, and saddened is the instrument for clear, strong, forcible, and correct enunciations. Who wields the instrument? Frail Miss Van Wyck alone? Let common sense make the answer.
Fanny’s house lay in a great meadow of lush, lilting grass—a field so vast that the house’s windows appeared as mere stars to nighttime visitors. On the north side, the house was protected by fine, old-growth timber, and on the south side the blue grass swayed and stood guard over the main approach. Restless loons and wood ducks sung the only lullaby of this place, sometimes aided by the lone cow that freely roamed the flat fields of Fanny’s property. The small apple orchard not far from the house hadn’t produced fruit for two generations—it was, as Fanny’s grandmother used to say, “disobedient.”
Fanny lived alone in the house, save for an old farmhand named Eli. Fanny’s father had taken him in years ago because people used to say that he was “queer.” The farm itself being dead, Eli had in recent decades become the only escort to Fanny’s guests, guiding them from the house’s large, spare entryway to Fanny’s more intimate parlor.
When Joseph and Moody arrived, it was indeed Eli who answered the door. They stated their business, and he disappeared for some time before returning to let them in. He said not a word as he led them down a hall toward the part of the house where Fanny’s parlor was situated. The taper he carried illuminated pictures on the walls—faded seascapes, etchings of birds, and silhouettes of Fanny’s ancestors.
Then at last the group arrived at a closed door. Eli knocked, and a voice within called “Enter.”
Joseph was initially surprised at Fanny’s appearance. There she was, in all her petite splendor, seated at a table with a dressing gown wrapped around her. Having read her “voice” in the “Message Department” for years, he had expected a large woman, with a powerful body and a thick neck from which would flow stentorian commands. But sitting there, with her two small hands upon the massive table, Fanny was much more finch than hawk—an elf with black eyes and a beak.
“So, Moody,” she said as the photographer took his seat before her, “still up to your old games I see. What do you mean bothering me at this hour?”
From behind Fanny, a taxidermy squirrel interrogated the visitors, its eyes as black and glassy as the medium’s.
“It has been many years, Fanny,” Moody replied. “Our spirit friends have taken good care of me.”
“They have done nothing of the sort!” Fanny said. “I can hardly go a week without someone bringing me one of those spirit pictures. You are doing unkind things, Moody … unkind things.”
No skin cracked around Fanny’s mouth as she spoke, for her face was as porcelain-like as a doll’s. That was one of the strangest things about Fanny Van Wyck—in the dark she seemed no more than a child, while in the light one might have mistaken her for an old woman.
“But I must confess,” she continued quietly, “that every now and then, one of them—”
And she paused, looking about the room.
“That now and then, one of them … cries out to me. I once told you that you possess some powers as a medium.”
Moody nodded.
“So I will take this opportunity to chastise you once again for abusing your most precious gift.”
“The spirits,” Moody said. “You know as well as I that we cannot control when or to whom they choose to appear.”
“And you know as well as I,” Fanny glared, “that spirit appearances are sacred, and no earthly being should be tampering with them!”
Moody bowed his head. He had never formally “confessed” to Fanny, but the mood between them had always seemed to be one of complete disclosure.
“And you—” Fanny said, turning abruptly toward Joseph. “I see you’ve come here for the same reasons. You don’t own the answers—yours are the same as his.”
Joseph remained silent. He did not want to provoke the medium.
“Fanny,” Moody said, “I am in need of your assistance.”
Fanny raised a thin eyebrow and spread her claw-like fingers on the table. The air was close about Joseph and Moody, and the portraits of Fanny’s ancestors scowled down on them.
“I need you to tell me …”
“Hand me the photograph,” she said.
“Yes,” Moody said, removing the negative from his coat. “As I’m sure you’ve already gathered, my questions have to do with—the woman.”
Fanny took the case from Moody, removed the negative, and held it up to the lamp. Then, with no trace of a ripple in her voice, she said:
“Ah, Edward Moody—you’ve finally met your match.”
Fanny studied the negative, tilting it back and forth so as to scrutinize it in varying shades of light.
“Your people,” she said, glancing at Joseph, “their cries are amongst the most pitiful coming from the spirit world. I have heard them, over and over again. They cry, for there are no great reasons for them to stop.”
There was sadness in Fanny’s voice. Perhaps it was a genuine sign of her sympathy.
“This woman is crying out,” Fanny said. “Crying out for justice. There is great sorrow here—anger too—and her cries are loud.”
“Crying!” Moody exclaimed.
Then, collecting himself, he asked calmly:
“What happened to her? Where did she go?”
But Fanny did not answer him. She stood up, holding the negative.
“Give me a moment,” she said.
And she moved out from behind the table.
“But—”
“Please, Moody!”
Her shout silenced the spirit photographer—a wicked mother scolding a child. Was she moving toward the door? Would she leave with the negative? Moody was about to stand up.
Then Joseph set his hand firmly on Moody’s arm.
“Edward,” Joseph whispered, “she will not leave the room.”
“How can you be certain?”
“I am certain.”
Indeed, Fanny was not making for the door, but rather walking ever so slowly toward the other side of the room. As she retreated from the table, the walls of the parlor stretched, and the two men had the sense that Fanny was traveling a great distance. The ticks of the grandfather clock resounded steadily, though the swing of the pendulum remained hidden behind its case. There was something wrong about the clock—while the hour was correct, the moon dial above its face displayed a tall ship in the sunlight.
“She is—” Moody said.
“Yes, she is trying to reach the spirit.”
“It’s not right,” Moody returned. “It is unusual for her to leave the table.”
Fanny appeared far away to them now, and shuddered with barely perceptible tremors. The clock hands descended, but the hour’s progress remained slow. Fanny lingered beyond their reach as time’s passage seemed to fail.
Then the sound of papers fluttering sang throughout the room, though none of the windows were open, and there were no papers anywhere to be seen. The medium turned and faced them.
“It’s as I have always told you,” she said, “but you refuse to listen.”
Her eyes were bright black gems, and soon she was back at the table.
“You refuse to listen, even when they speak. Your tricks, Edward Moody—your tricks! This woman … the spirits. You have stirred up great anger. There is great anger coming from this spirit—and pain. The pain is …”
Fanny released the negative onto the table, and leaned forward as if losing her balance. Before falling, however, she inched back into her chair. Then Joseph and Moody heard a sound unlike any they had ever heard before. It was guttural—something between a low growl and a moan—and it vibrated uncomfortably in their ears.
The strange groan came from Fanny, as her lips quivered in the flickering light.
“The spirit—” she rasped. “The spirit—”
Then she moaned again, louder this time, before collapsing deeper in her chair.
“I see now—she cannot tell you,” Fanny said. “She … she cannot speak!”
Fanny’s hands pressed the table.
“She wants to say that she is not here. No, she is not here. She is … she cannot speak.”
“Who cannot speak?” Moody demanded. “Who?”
“It is the girl,” Fanny said. “It is the girl who cannot speak.”
“Isabelle!” Moody gasped. “Isabelle, is it you to whom we speak?”
Fanny began weeping.
“Isabelle!” Moody repeated.
But Fanny’s mouth remained closed, her lips curled inward as her tiny body shook with muffled cries.
Beside Fanny, not far from the lamp, was a black slate and a white piece of chalk. Joseph extended his arm across the table and pushed the chalk and the slate toward her.
“Where are you?” Moody said. “Why did you leave?”
Fanny stopped shivering, and took the chalk in her hand. She was no longer whimpering, but sitting erect, the front of her body now close to the table.
The chalk made painful screeches as Fanny scrawled on the slate.
NO
“No?” Moody said. “Are you not here?”
And then he added:
“Have you not returned to me—my love?”
Again, Fanny scrawled the two terrible letters.
NO
“The pain,” Fanny whispered. “It is the pain of your silence. Your suffering—your sacrifice. Tell him. You must tell him what he wants to know.”
Then Fanny’s hand moved to the center of the slate. Again she wrote the two letters, but this time with something more.
NO—I HAV RETURND.
“You have returned,” Moody said. “You have returned.”
And again, the words were dry within his throat:
“You have returned.”
Silver lines of tears moistened the base of Moody’s eyes, while Joseph felt his own muscles tighten.
“No,” Joseph said. “This is not right.”
An owl-like shriek blared from the squirrel behind Fanny. Outside, the wind combed through the meadow’s pliant grass; the cow moaned once … a tree branch snapped and fell.
Then the swirl of the room came to a stop, as Fanny opened her eyes, and looked at them.
“Find her.”
Moody, Joseph, and Fanny remained quiet, until Moody finally mumbled:
“Find her—find her where?”
But Fanny did not reply.
“I am weak—” she said, rising. “And now I must retire.”
Moody nodded, and as if by summons, Eli appeared in the parlor.
“You are welcome to stay the night,” Fanny said, “but I will not consent to that photograph remaining in this house. Eli will show you to the barn, where there are comfortable-enough beds of straw, and room for both your horses.”
HOURS LATER, JOSEPH Winter finds himself standing before a great field of sugarcane, the tall green blades waving back and forth in strange unison. As they bend, the blades rub against one another, gently, like saws. The air is heavy; the smell of the earth strong and humid. Joseph’s body grows hot, for there is no doubt about where he is.
But there is no one else here this time—no fellow workers, no overseer. No one at the edge of the long field behind him, poised near the trees with a gun. There are not even any buildings nearby to remind him of others. There is just the sugarcane swaying languidly in the wind, bending away from him as if it were crying.
He is not too close to the cane, maybe a hundred feet away, and so the entire breadth of that tall, green ocean spreads its waves out before him. The cane rolls, stopping abruptly in front of him where the flat ground meets its borders.
He sees her the moment she appears.
She is dressed in gauzy material—white—not the working clothes of a laborer. And her head is uncovered, her black hair loose and rippling over her shoulders, as undulous as the cane fronds themselves.
It is her—he is sure of it. The face more beautiful than he remembers.
She raises an arm and he walks toward her. Then she turns her back to him and disappears. The cane has swallowed her. She is lost to the billowing green folds.
There is a swath cut away from the edge of the cane, right at the place where she had been standing, and upon reaching it he can now see that it narrows into a kind of path. He steps into it and walks along, the cane forming dense green walls on either side of him. Then he spots her again—ahead of him in the cane, her dark eyes beckoning him to follow.
It had not been like this the last time.
The feeling of her closeness—the closeness of freedom—is so great, that he almost whispers her name aloud.
But he does not know her name. He never learned her name.
At points the surrounding cane stalks are so thick that their leaves arch together above him and form an interlaced canopy. Even in the darkness of this impenetrable jungle, he can still see her ahead of him—always ahead of him, never close enough to approach.
He continues through the sugarcane, curling his shoulders inward to avoid the sharp branches and blades. He walks for what seems like miles, the air growing ever hotter as he moves on.
Up ahead, there is a shock of light where the path through the sugarcane ends. He runs toward this opening, which at last leaves him standing in front of a long stretch of land. The land fans out in all directions before him, extending toward the banks of a mighty river. The crystalline reflections off the water almost blind him, and amidst those diamond-like flashes, she stands.
Now he will go to her. She will save him.
He tries to lift one foot, then the other, but neither moves. They are rooted in place as if the mud has sucked his boots to the ground. He struggles to lift his legs, but remains anchored in place. He looks down: heavy chains are binding his ankles.
Why is she so far away?
Then he hears the hounds, and the thunder of a horse’s gallop. The crashing of stalks, and the beat of heavy footsteps. An unbearable blast of heat washes over him. He gasps for air. And in the heat, a terrible pair of hands grabs his shoulders.
The horses are whinnying all around him, their black hooves scraping the earth.
He cries out, and thrashes his arms, but the hands are firm upon him. He cannot move his feet, and he cannot escape the hands.
“Joseph!” a voice yells.
And again—“Joseph!”
He cannot shake off these hands of fire—the hands are determined to keep him.
Then a third time: “Joseph!”
JOSEPH OPENED HIS eyes to see Edward Moody. All four sides of the barn were ablaze with fire, and the horses were screaming in their stalls.
“Someone has bolted us in!” Moody yelled.
So—it had not been her after all.
Still dazed, Joseph jumped to his feet, and grabbed the beam that was securing the doors of the stalls. Moody seized the beam’s other end, and hugged it close to his side. Could such a thing even penetrate these walls? The smoke was thick and gathering all around them.
Moody motioned his head toward the farther end of the barn. He was sweating, and clenching his teeth.
“Over there, I think—” he said, struggling to move the beam. There was no telling how long Moody had been awake.
Then the stall doors swung and crashed, and one of the horses broke free. The horse circled furiously in the center of the barn.
“He is blocking the way!” Moody hollered. “I cannot—”
And again he was cut short, this time by something—impossible. The horse had let out a terrified scream and charged through one of the burning walls.
Now there was an opening in the blaze … vaguely discernible through the smoke.
The other horse, as deranged as the first, stood inexplicably still in its stall. It brayed and heaved as the smoke continued to gather, its muscles rippling beneath its sweat-soaked coat.
Joseph dropped the beam and dashed to secure the stall door.
“Take the horse,” Joseph said. “He will charge through the opening as soon as I release him.”
Moody hesitated.
“I cannot leave you.”
But there was no time.
“Go!” Joseph shouted. “I will meet you on the other side.”
Moody entered the stall and climbed upon the animal. Then Joseph yanked open the unsecured door, and the horse leapt for the gap in the fire.
Moody tugged the reins. The horse screamed and wrenched its neck.
“I will not leave you!” Moody shouted.
Joseph grabbed ahold of the saddle and lifted himself up onto the horse. The smoke had become so dense that they could barely see their escape. They hurtled through the opening—beams and boards crackling all around them—crossing over into something that washed over them like a dream. A burst of cool air … a star-studded sky. The drooping grass had collected its dew.
They had not even cleared the heat of the fire when they saw him. He was mounted atop an enormous black horse. The fire’s glow was absorbing a circle of the darkness, but he sat just beyond the edge of it, waiting. He was one with the horse, tall and unmoving—a misshapen monster, gathered up in the gloom.
The rider’s horse snorted, then began a slow trot toward them.
“Go,” Joseph whispered.
Moody gave a kick, and they galloped toward the road. The rider followed, his horse panting as it increased to a steady charge.
“Go!” Joseph repeated, louder this time.
He was holding onto Moody, but also fumbling with his sleeve.
“Who is the man?” Moody said.
But Joseph did not answer. He now held a derringer in his hand.
Behind them, the rider’s steed was heaving and blowing, its breath growing louder as it gained ground with great speed. Moody urged their horse on—it was all that he could do—as Joseph gripped the handle of his gun.
The barrel gleamed in the moonlight. Joseph turned and prepared to shoot.
And then—
Silence. A shadow. Or no shadow left at all.
Perhaps it was a trick of the nighttime … one of those late summer illusions that belonged to another realm. More distant now, the barn burned in Joseph’s vision, and the dark pursuer had gone.
“Is he gaining?” Moody asked.
Joseph looked through the gloom into the trees.
“Is he gaining?”
The meadow’s edges would not reveal the man. The trees kept secret what they had seen.
“He’s disappeared,” Joseph said. “But for the life of me—do not stop!”
Moody kicked again … and away they dashed through the endless, enveloping countryside. They spoke little as the moonlight guided their way. Moody wondered about Fanny—had the rider gone to ravage the house first? Unless … Fanny. Could she ever have betrayed him like that?
They traveled at full tilt for nearly an hour, stopping only when they had gone as far as Westborough. There, the old inn leaned—still asleep and quiet—offering its porch as a place to dismount and rest.
“It is not safe to stay here,” Joseph said. “The sun will be up soon, and we now know that we’re being hunted.”
“But how—” Moody said.
“These men, they have their ways. I know them—they hunt. That was no man of the law. It’s now clear that they are not trying to detain you. They will not stop until you—and that negative—have been destroyed.”
“Garrett—” Moody said.
“Again, as I told you … the spirit’s power over him is great. For him to go to such lengths to destroy the negative—”
“If Garrett harmed her,” Moody sputtered, “if he had anything to do with her—”
“Calm yourself, Edward,” Joseph replied. “You have no power here—and we must go. We are in danger as long as we are within Garrett’s reach.”
Moody considered Joseph. There was a strange knowingness to everything he said.
“Joseph … I am the fugitive here. You should not put your own freedom at risk.”
Joseph’s expression darkened, and he glared at Moody with an almost malevolent eye.
“I am not doing it for you,” Joseph said. “You are not the only man who loved her.”
Moody blinked, bewildered, as if everything he had ever believed in turned untrue.
“You—” he gasped. “Joseph, you—”
“Yes, Edward. I knew Isabelle … and I loved her too. And now I finally know, after many years of searching, where I can find her again.”