Chapter Eight

 

I surfaced from my shocked thoughts to hear Ogden still speaking in that faraway voice. “Is Halcyone there? Are you there, my dearest?”

Aunt H. spoke so faintly, I’m not sure her words were audible to anyone but me. “I’m here.”

“I miss you, my dearest. I’m so lonely here without you.”

Liana chimed in. “I miss you too, Ogden. So much.” Her voice was filled with yearning. Embarrassing and unnerving.

“Dearest Liana. My two best girls…”

Whoa. Rein it in, Artemus. That had to be a recording. Right? Yes. Absolutely. That was the only reasonable explanation. So far “Ogden” hadn’t said anything that couldn’t have been preprogrammed.

But when would such a recording have taken place? Why would it have taken place?

Someone said, “What do you want?” in a hard, flat voice. I realized it was me.

It wasn’t that I expected an answer. I was just thinking out loud, but after a pause, Ogden’s disembodied voice spoke again.

“Who is there? Who is speaking? Is that you, Artemus?”

Jeez, couldn’t he see through the blackout either? I mean, come on. This was farcical. It was ludicrous. And offensive—although apparently, I was the only one who thought so.

Yet even as my rational mind rebelled against what we were witnessing, I knew part of my anger and outrage stemmed from fear. Because his response to me had not been—could not have been—prerecorded. And the voice was Ogden’s. I had a good ear, and as faint and faraway as that disembodied voice sounded, I still recognized it, like it or not. And I did not like it.

I could barely bring myself to respond but managed a terse, “Yep. It’s me.”

“Artie.” Aunt H. gulped. I could see the gleam of alarm in her eyes.

“What’s he doing?” Liana gasped from across the table. “What is he saying? Artemus, what are you doing? You mustn’t speak like that to…him.”

Everyone’s eyes were open now, and they were all looking my way with various degrees of dismay. All but Roma, still shrouded in her black lace, head bowed forward as though she had dozed off.

Ogden chuckled, and I felt my hair stand on end.

“Same old cynical Artie. You spoiled him, my dearest Halcyone.”

Aunt H. murmured protest, but Liana burst out, “Oh, Ogden, why? Why did it have to be you? Why did you go out that terrible, terrible day?”

Ogden soothed, “Dearest Liana. How could you guess? It wasn’t your fault. I know that now…”

If my hair wasn’t already standing on end, it would have prickled like porcupine quills at that. I didn’t think I misheard that faint inflection on “it wasn’t your fault.” Meaning it—he—thought the accident was someone else’s fault?

I studied the outline of Roma’s limp figure. Her head lifted a fraction from its forward position, but there was no movement of her throat, and her lips were still. Anyway, even if she was the greatest mimic ever, the voice wasn’t coming from Roma. In fact, it didn’t seem to be coming from any fixed direction. It seemed to float as if Ogden’s spirit was slowly circling the table.

Pretty creepy, in all honesty. My eyes ached with the effort of probing the gloom. My heart skipped. Was there a darker shape standing behind Liana’s chair?

My thoughts were disrupted by Aunt H.’s sudden, faltering, “It was an accident.” She repeated more steadily, “An accident.”

I said, “Of course it was an accident.”

“Halcyone, dearest…don’t. Our time together is too short…”

What the hell did that mean? Was this supposed spirit about to accuse Aunt H. of knocking off Ogden?

I wasn’t the only one thinking it either. There was a shocked quality to the profound silence that followed the drone of Ogden’s words. The room seemed to grow even darker, as though a black veil had settled over all of us.

I shivered at the chilly gust of exhalation against the back of my neck—it felt like someone standing behind me had moved away. But no one had been behind me.

“Ogden!” Liana’s cry pierced the hushed silence. “Ogden! Are you here? Please, don’t go! Don’t leave me!”

“I will return…” Ogden’s voice sounded very faint.

Liana moaned, a sound that was echoed by Roma. I glanced at Roma but was distracted by Betty’s gasp. The sound was one of pure terror. I looked around in time to see a cloud of milky-white substance drifting behind Tarrant.

Tarrant stayed rigid and still in his chair, as though afraid to look over his shoulder. “What is it?” he whispered.

No one answered. We all stared as the nebulous form continued to swirl behind him, growing larger and denser. It took on a phosphorescent glow like the figure I had chased downstairs two nights earlier.

“What is that?” Betty gulped.

Liana breathed, “Oscar?”

Oscar?

That was almost funny. Were there supposed to be two ghosts in the house now?

My aunt said nothing. Her breathing sounded faint and shallow.

The roiling white mist gradually resolved itself into the indeterminate outline of a man. The arms, the shoulders, fuzzy as if seen under clouded glass, emerged…and at last, the head began to form.

Ogden Hyde.

Shock—which was three parts unadulterated irrationality and one part primordial fear—held me frozen. I did not believe in ghosts, and in particular, I did not believe in Ogden Hyde’s ghost, but there was no pretending that for a few vital seconds I was no longer Artemus Bancroft, sometimes cynical and occasionally witty theater critic and man about town, but a blue-painted primitive crouched in my cave, trembling at an approaching horror. The dark on the other side. Death.

The manifestation spoke, but the voice was no longer Ogden’s. It was hoarse and weirdly vicious, a stranger’s voice. “I will never rest until you have paid for what you did.”

“Ogden…” my aunt breathed.

I pulled free of her and Roma both, shoving my chair back and starting around the table toward the ghostly figure.

The misty outline was already beginning to fade.

Liana wailed, “Ogden, don’t leave me!”

Before I could reach it, the mist seemed to evaporate and vanish. I stumbled to a stop, then jumped at a strangled shriek—followed by the thud of a falling body.

My instant and instinctive fear was for Aunt H. “Get the lights,” I ordered Tarrant.

He must have already been in motion because he half rose, backing his chair into me. The wooden leg planted heavily, painfully on my foot.

I yelped, swore, pushed the chair and Tarrant away, and dived back around the table where everyone still sat babbling and turning this way and that.

Tarrant was also swearing. In Russian.

“Whatever’s happening? Whatever’s going on?” Betty cried.

Liana was still wailing for Ogden or Oscar or whoever—whatever—the hell that had been.

With relief, I heard Aunt H. call above the din, “It’s Roma, Artie. I think she’s fainted.”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course, dear,” she replied staunchly, betrayed by only the smallest wobble in her voice.

Tarrant finally bumbled his way to the light switch. The chandelier blazed on, and the gabble of voices cut off as though a switch had been flipped on them as well.

Liana breathed, “Oh no. No. Roma…”

Roma lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Her eyelids were twitching, her face had an alarming greenish cast.

Aunt H. knelt beside her. “Water. Artie, quick. Get some water.” She began to chafe Roma’s long, pale hands.

Liana came to stand over Aunt H. and the fallen medium. “Is she…” She looked at me, and her gaze sharpened with accusation. “You did this. You broke the circle, Artie! You must have known it’s very dangerous!”

“None of that now, Liana,” Aunt H. said impatiently. “Roma? Roma, can you hear me?”

I turned to the sideboard, but Betty was there before me. With a shaking hand, she poured water from the carafe and passed me the brimming goblet, which I brought to my aunt. She was still kneeling beside Roma, rubbing her hands and speaking quietly to her.

Roma’s eyelids were half-open, the whites staring blindly up—pretty unnerving, frankly.

“Does she have a pulse?” I asked.

My aunt’s head jerked up, her eyes wide. “Of course she does!”

I could feel the others staring at me. I wasn’t sure why I’d said it. Why the idea had popped into my head that Roma must be dead.

Aunt H. raised Roma’s lolling head and put the glass to her bloodless lips.

After what seemed like forever, the color came back to Roma’s face. She stirred, choked down a sip of water. Her eyes fluttered open.

For a moment she stared up at us. No one said anything. Roma’s gaze traveled from face to face. She licked her lips, said faintly, “We made contact, then?”

“Yes.” Liana’s expression was…well, worrying. Her eyes were too bright, her face too red. She looked exultant. “You did it, Roma. You brought him back to us.”

“Did I?” Roma murmured. I thought there was a hint of speculation in her eyes.

Liana clasped her hands together. “Yes! Ogden was here. Not just his voice. Ogden. Ogden was here!”