Evelyn Northe-Stewart fought back towards consciousness.
There had been a troubled woman she’d invited into her parlor for a Spiritual counseling and medium session. She’d been dressed to the nines in mourning, thick veil and all. Said she’d been recommended, came to her door fully in tears and expressive suffering.
Or so she’d thought.
The woman who had given her name as Mrs. Calvin was unfamiliar to Evelyn, though admittedly she didn’t lift the veil and she didn’t get a good look past the thick layers of muslin trimmed at the edges with black lace. That should have been a warning sign, that she hadn’t gotten a good look at who she was making herself vulnerable for . . . Since when did she set aside her own life-long rules?
There had been a compelling feeling about the morning, she recalled, trying to sift herself back to consciousness, when her body felt stiff and uncooperative. A shooting pain went up her back. She was sitting in a hard chair. She tried to move and found she was in constraints.
Panic flooded her and the rush of terror cleared the fog from her mind and senses, only to find she was still impaired. She couldn’t open her eyes—there was a blindfold. She couldn’t scream—there was a gag. Something cold and metal was attached to each of her temples and she felt supremely dizzy.
A strange sound emanated from behind her head somewhere, in this cold place she was trapped in, like the sound of a phonograph needle hissing over the silent moments of a cylinder disc or record. The sound dissipated into the darkness of a large space with a cool draft that was a distinct feeling from the wake of spirits.
This was a far more insidious chill.
What had happened . . . ? Her mind felt disjointed. She’d invited the woman in, then what . . .
Don’t invite anyone in . . .
The warning. The spirit world had warned her granddaughter Eve, had warned her, but she’d flat out ignored it and was now paying the price. Her mind might not have been working at its best capacity but she was certainly quick to chastise herself; her self-censure was in perfect order while her body was hampered.
She vaguely remembered the conversation with Mrs. Calvin—something about a dead child. The most evocative of situations, meant to arouse empathy and aid. Because of Eve’s recent cases, Evelyn, who of course was most keen on helping anyone through the loss of a young soul, perhaps gave more attention to this than she would have otherwise, in hopes it might actually relate and be helpful in Eve’s present ventures. She overextended.
The haziness suggested to Evelyn that she had somehow been drugged. The heaviness to her body was unnatural, the effects of some noxious paralytic. Trying to connect missing pieces Evelyn grasped having needed fresh air. Either she had suggested it or the woman had, but she did recall leaving the house and that the autumn day had been warm. She recalled looking at the brightly turning leaves of a beautiful maple tree along the low Central Park stone wall.
Then nothing.
The woman centered in this mystery had been clearly in need. Evelyn felt confident in that; she could usually spot an insincere mourner a mile away. Perhaps someone had put the mourner up to this trap or perhaps what Evelyn had taken for sincere grief was instead a troubled soul in need of intervention of the law, not spiritual guidance. She couldn’t know the intent—all she could do now was try to send some kind of distress signal.
Perhaps spirits could help illuminate what had happened and how to get out.
In the forced shadows of the blindfold, Evelyn closed her eyes in ritual and tried to reach out for spirits. Her psychic channel felt raw, bloody, as if someone had been rooting around in her soul and breaking off branches from her inner tree of life.
There were spirits nearby. Not inside but in the vicinity. She herself was near the water. Her channel did best near rivers and estuaries. She must be downtown—she knew the feel of this air very well.
The device somewhere behind her whirred slightly as she silently pleaded to any spirit that might be listening. She bid the dead heed the plea of the living, and there was a faint scratching sound, like fingernails or a pen on paper.
Please she said internally, trying to swallow. Her mouth was dry and the corners of her lips bloody from the gag. I need your help. Any of you who can hear me . . . Send for my soldiers . . .
There was a fluttering, a movement out of the corner of her third eye, a white-silver leaf floating through darkness towards her. The whirring of the hissing cylinder, the mysterious machine sped up.
“Hello,” a spirit responded, too far away for Evelyn to see them in her mind’s eye.
There was a loud zap and a hiss, and Evelyn cried out in pain.
An electrical charge. The spirit was gone.
Evelyn tried reaching out again. The machine was whirring at its same sound and pace. The movement coming towards her, ethereal light in shadow, was even more hesitant than before.
“I’m trapped—” Evelyn begged the spirit world to hear and she cried out, hampered by the gag, as the lashing sting of a jolting shock coursed through her body. She shook in the chair. A wisp of smoke curled up from the lace around her throat and she smelled the singed fabric.
She was alone again.
In the bare room there was no presence, no spirits—just her, the dim light beyond the blindfold, and the infernal machine. Her reaching out to spirits seemed to set off this device to maim her, set there so she could communicate with no one but herself. So that she could not call for help.
Perhaps God. Hopefully a simple prayer would not cause her pain. This was not the first time she’d been kidnapped or in danger. Mordantly she thought about how it had been a bit of a habit for a time in her life, as mentor and fellow soldier to those who had fought vile, greedy psychopaths courting demons as charges. But that was when Eve was just a baby and she was a much younger woman.
For a moment, her fear seemed shoved aside by a hum. She thought she heard a familiar voice. Calling her name. Reaching for her. But then quiet again. A mental and spiritual void.
She didn’t dare try her medium skills again. God only knew what repeated exposure to electrical charges could do to an old heart, an old body, an old brain.
For the first time in many, many years, and never in quite so much terror, Evelyn Northe-Stewart wept in fear for her life.