Margo met me at the door herself, which was not done—but then neither was it done for such as I to appear there as a guest, escorted through the green-papered halls to the same library where Gus and I used to hide. I wore my only mourning dress—it had been passed down to me by one of my mother’s old employers when they heard of her death, and I’d hastily altered it to fit me better. I hadn’t done a very good job, and I felt shabby and conspicuous among the whispering muslins of the women gathered there. Gus hadn’t seen me since the night my mother died, and he nearly lunged across the room and stood in front of me like a bulwark against the pressing stares.
“Catherine,” he whispered, “they wouldn’t let me go to you! I’m sorry—”
His mother interposed herself before I could answer. Gertrude Farrow was as fair as her son but handsomer, with an aquiline nose and eyes the same ice green as his, set off by the pale green embroidery on her collar and sleeves.
“Miss Bildstein. How good of you to come.” She delivered these words in tones so flat, and held herself so stiffly, that it clearly conveyed to everyone present that I was no true guest. What then? “Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Hobson. She will be our conduit with the spirit world this evening.”
A slim, diminutive lady, perhaps sixty years old, held out her hand to me. Her face was round and rather boneless, nested in lilac frills, but her look was acute. She was assessing me, but for what purpose? I murmured as politely as I could, and she patted my arm with unctuous familiarity.
“I understand your dear mother recently passed over. I feel certain that tonight will bring you consolation far beyond any words I could offer!”
I could hardly say that the consolation I hoped for was her complete and humiliating failure. Gus was still close beside me, watching everything. I thought of feigning illness, perhaps pretending to faint; anything to escape from this atmosphere of cloying expectation. Dr. Lewis and his wife were there, both staring at me; Margo fixed me with a complacent smile; and Mrs. Farrow kept up a cold and quizzical vigilance as if she thought I might at any moment dissolve into a wave and drown the company.
Then something happened that saved me from my agitation: Margo approached me, leading Reverend Skelley. He was exactly my height, so rather small for a man, and his presence was so soft, so cloudy with gentleness, that at first I had the impression more of a haze than a person. “Miss Bildstein, a pleasure,” he said, so simply that I was almost at my ease for the first time since I’d arrived on that doorstep.
It was a mercy nonetheless when the proceedings began in earnest. The long, heavy library table had been pulled to the center of the room, with chairs arranged around it. Mrs. Hobson settled in one at the table’s head, and Dr. Lewis bound her wrists to its armrests, her ankles to its legs. A thick pad was shoved beneath her feet to muffle any attempt at tapping. If it disturbed me to see how the cords cut into her, the general ruffling as guests approached her and inspected the knots at least drew their attention away from me.
A bell was placed in the table’s center. Beside it was a closed slate, which the company was invited to inspect to prove that it was quite blank, and a pewter speaking trumpet. The curtains were drawn tight, cutting off the moon, and the guests were placed with men and women alternating. Mrs. Farrow, of course, kept Gus far away from me, so that I found myself between Dr. Lewis and Thomas Skelley, the reverend’s son. He was as wispy and unobtrusive as his father, and I hadn’t even noticed him until he was seated directly on my right. Taller than his father, very thin, with eyes and hair the color of clotted dust; there seemed to be little about him worth noticing.
“Link your small fingers with your neighbors’. Every hand must be accounted for!” Dr. Lewis said; much as I disliked Mrs. Hobson, it was still disappointing to see how this bullish man took charge of an occasion that supposedly relied on her talents. Margo extinguished the only lamp, and darkness covered us as intimately as water. “Soft singing will bring the company into a state of harmony conducive to manifestations. We may have to wait for some time.”
Margo crooned the opening phrase of “Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway!” and soon nearly everyone joined in—though I did not hear Gus’s voice, nor add my own.
The voices seemed to blend with the darkness into a new and unknown substance, warm as molten wax. It was as if our senses seeped from our bodies and mingled with that rich plasma, becoming just as soft—just as impressionable—
“Why should the beautiful ever weep? Why should the beautiful die?” The song hovered all around me, patting and stroking as Mrs. Hobson had done.
I braced myself against that drowsy influence. Some draft must have disturbed the curtain, I thought, because a curl of moonlight like a cupped hand showed near the window.
No. It was visibly a child’s hand, cast in vaporous light. Around me the song dropped away.
“Reverend Skelley,” Dr. Lewis said, too loudly, “I have perfect command of Mrs. Hobson’s right hand. Do you have hold of the left?”
“I do.”
“And is the circle unbroken, so that there can be no question of an accomplice?”
Thomas’s pinky tightened on my right, Dr. Lewis’s on my left. Their grip was hard enough that I wondered if I were under suspicion, though I had never met Mrs. Hobson before.
“It is,” Reverend Skelley confirmed softly.
Meanwhile the luminous hand wheeled over the company, and in its light each face was faintly drawn in turn on that perfect darkness. Wide-eyed, awed.
When it passed Gertrude Farrow, I saw two reflective streaks shine below her eyes. That gelid woman was weeping in the dark, and the hand had exposed her tears!
The hand then sailed to the speaking trumpet, and visibly struggled to lift the heavy metal cone. The device toppled with a dull clank and the hand vanished, casting us back into flawless night. A whisper rustled from somewhere nearby, sad and urgent, but it was too quiet to make out the words.
“My guide tells me that I’m not the right sensitive to give voice to this particular spirit, and the speaking trumpet is too heavy for her. But there is one here who can help. Will everyone give their assent?” Mrs. Hobson was speaking at last, in a sort of lethargic moan.
There was a murmur of agreement. Even in that darkness, I could feel how Dr. Lewis’s attention cocked in my direction, waiting for me to agree as well. Something brushed my shoulder. A moment’s hesitation, and I gave in.
“Yes.”
“Mama?” a childish voice said, so faintly that I strained to hear. A breath later, and I realized it had come from my mouth. “Please don’t cry! Evelina and Sylvia and I are together, and so happy, except when we see you sad.”
Gertrude Farrow let out a shocked cry, but Dr. Lewis spoke sternly over her. “What is your name, spirit?”
“I’m Viviana Farrow,” I felt myself say in piping tones, and nearly gagged on them. I could feel the voice stuck in my throat; it was oily, invasive. “My sisters and I visit often. Is Mama still there? I can’t see her anymore.”
“I’m here, darling!” Gertrude Farrow keened. “Always, always!”
“Mrs. Farrow,” Dr. Lewis reproached her. “Remember that, to ensure an orderly investigation, only the control should speak directly with the spirits.”
Something was using me, but I did not think it was a ghost. If my skepticism at this juncture seems incredible, well, remember how recently I had seen Old Darius perform magic far more impressive than this dark display.
I could not have said why, but something in the voice felt wrong to me—not childish, not innocent. It was more as if my tongue was tugged about by an unseen puppeteer, definitely adult.
“And are there other spirits present?” Dr. Lewis pursued.
“Yes, many,” the voice chirped. “Our cousin Walter—”
Margo gasped.
“Our cousin Walter is here, but so far he cannot manage to speak through the veil. He wishes me to tell Auntie Margo that he is now a man grown, and that he watches her and loves her always.”
I hadn’t known that Margo had lost a child, but now she gave a small, sharp cry.
“Walter, my love, my shining boy! Can he hear me?”
“Please, Mrs. Farrow!” Dr. Lewis interjected. I was gratified to see that his grasp on the proceedings was slipping. “I will ask the questions!”
A long pause followed. When the voice came back it was fainter. “Yes, he hears.”
At this I rebelled—though why my fury surged at this moment and no other would be difficult to say. It was one thing, I suppose, to witness Gus’s mother broken into her component griefs, but I was fond of Margo and did not like to see her played with. I thought the voice was an impostor, and I wanted it out.
The sinuous presence that had risen in me on the day of Darius’s firesnakes—I sensed it reasserting itself, a flick and probe low in the back of my skull.
Then it attacked. I felt a clash, the serpentine twisting of force on force. There was a rattling, humming sound: the heavy table was vibrating so hard that its legs drummed on the floor. I reeled back in my chair, pushed by a sort of boiling recoil with no clear source.
The luminous hand reappeared, tumbling over my lips. It flew across the room like a dove pursued by a hawk, whirled around the ceiling, banked, dove again. The room burst into cries. I heard a chair shoved back.
“Compose yourselves! Maintain the circle!” Dr. Lewis shouted, though he himself sounded distinctly discomposed. The hand dashed through the table’s surface and disappeared, dousing us again with darkness, and at the same moment a dull glint stirred as the bell lifted up and began ringing frantically.
Under that manic chiming I heard a scrape from the table’s center. The heavy tone of metal on wood. My eyes had now adjusted sufficiently to the darkness that I thought I saw a shape ascend.
“The speaking trumpet!” Margo gasped. “It’s flying! Oh, Walter, my dearest, my only—”
“We came to you in good faith,” a voice boomed—very clearly issuing from somewhere near the ceiling. It was deep, bad-tempered, male. “We have strained with all our might to show you proof of our glad tidings. Why do you deny us?”
“I beg your pardon?” Dr. Lewis asked in baffled tones. “We are striving—most sincerely striving—to meet all your conditions. We—”
“Walter?” Margo put in, though doubtfully. “If you only knew how I’ve longed—”
“In life my name was Henry Kirk,” the voice interrupted coldly. “And I am dissatisfied.”
I do not suppose this record will be read by posterity. But if it is, allow me to recommend, very strongly, against ever holding a séance in a library.
To do so gives the spirits—or whatever is passing itself off as the spirits—far too much ammunition.
On all sides a scrape, a hiss, a leathery pattering sounded. There was the susurrus of disturbed air, and a thousand whistling currents.
Then something slammed the back of my head with force enough to throw me facedown on the tabletop. Though I was stunned, my head ringing with pain, it was an advantage to be low: the air rushed with books, hurtling at terrific speed. It would have been impossible to light a lamp under those conditions, but someone had the presence of mind to tear back a curtain—light was said to weaken ghostly activity. The flocking books and cowering company alike were awash in moonlight. I saw Gus yanking Margo under the table, felt myself similarly pulled into its shelter. I caught a glimpse of Thomas Skelley gazing at me with concern, his lips moving—was he asking if I was badly injured?—before all the books slapped against the walls in unison and fell in a thumping cascade. It was some moments before that flapping fall resolved, leaving no sound besides the gasping and whimpering of the company. I could dimly make out the huddled confusion of limbs and spreading skirts all around me, the legs of toppled chairs.
It was only then I remembered that Mrs. Hobson had been tied to her chair, unable to protect herself. I scrambled to get out from the table, and Thomas caught at me.
“It’s not safe, Miss Bildstein! What if it starts up again?”
“But Mrs. Hobson,” I said, or more exhaled. Thomas’s eyes went wide and he scrambled with me.
We need not have worried, or not about her. We emerged to find Reverend Skelley, that frail and mossy man, slumping onto his knees. His face was horribly battered. A moment’s confusion and I understood that, with no time to undo Mrs. Hobson’s complicated knots, he had resorted to bending over her and shielding her with his own body. Dr. Lewis, of course, had been on Mrs. Hobson’s other side, and he was over six feet tall and as solid as a stump. But he had crawled under the table with the rest.
I might have thought that Mrs. Hobson herself had been knocked unconscious, except that she was snoring: eyes shuttered, her chin on her frilled chest. To all appearances, she’d slept serenely through the whole episode.
“Father!” Thomas cried, and ran to lift him up. Tears streaked his face. “Oh, I should have been the one—”
“You had Miss Bildstein to protect, Thomas, and you did so admirably. I saw you pull her to safety after she was struck. Besides, nothing is broken.” Then his father’s voice caught on a hiss of pain. “Or—perhaps I may have cracked a rib. Never mind, it will heal soon enough.”
I found myself envying the obvious affection between them, and wondered for the first time what loss had moved the Skelleys to come in search of spirits. With no Mrs. Skelley in evidence, there was a likely candidate.
Mrs. Lewis came out into the open and began busily lighting every lamp and candle she could find with trembling hands. The speaking trumpet was still levitating, awkwardly alone, but with the influx of light it crashed down on the table next to the dented bell.
“Catherine!” Gus was at my side. “Catherine, are you all right?”
Thomas Skelley shrank in on himself like a salted snail and stared at the floor.
“I think so,” I said, and realized that I was wobbling on my feet. “Only my head hurts.”
That flying book—it had caught me at the base of my skull. In the very spot where I’d felt the sinuous something unwind itself to oppose the voice possessing my lips. The blow had seemed intentional, vindictive, but of course I did not say so.
Gus led me to a couch and cleared away the fallen books. I stretched out gratefully, glad to be left out of the ensuing consternation, the endless rehashing of what everyone had seen and heard. I watched the full moon lifting higher, far into the sweep of night. Did Gus really think that Darius traveled there? The throb in my head and the racing of my heart synchronized, then gradually slowed, and I imagined chasing the moon’s streaming light on wide pale wings.
It was rare for me to be so fanciful.
Perhaps the blow to my head was responsible. Or perhaps I was simply determined to think about anything but what had just happened.
I was not allowed to seek refuge in daydreams for long. Shadows stirred along my right—the side away from the window—and I turned to see Gertrude Farrow and Margo, Mrs. Hobson and Dr. Lewis, standing in close and menacing formation.
“I’m afraid I can’t delay my return to Boston any longer,” Mrs. Hobson said. She seemed if anything pleasantly refreshed by her nap. “But now that you have a sensitive of your own, your investigations can continue very well without me. Miss Bildstein, allow me to congratulate you on the appearance of your gift!”
I tried to sit up. Vertigo immediately forced me back. “I don’t—”
“Tonight was a signal success,” Dr. Lewis agreed. It struck me as a very callous formulation, in view of Reverend Skelley’s injuries, and I might have favored the term disaster. “I’ll send a report of it to the Spiritual Telegraph as soon as possible. I’m sure there will be considerable interest in, ah, Miss Bildstein’s abilities.”
I’ve mentioned that ours was an age in which young women were especially suspect—though in this it was hardly unique. Seen from another angle, however, suspect became useful.
“Please do no such thing!” I managed, just as Gertrude Farrow put in, “Premature publicity would be very ill-advised! I’d prefer you keep tonight’s events quiet.”
Our eyes met in surprise at our agreement. Just for a brief moment, since neither of us enjoyed that shared regard. Later I understood: she’d meant to keep me for herself.
“To be frank, I expected it,” Mrs. Hobson continued. Rather too pointedly, I thought. “As soon as Margo Farrow mentioned you, my guide let me know that you were attractive to the spirit world. Much as I regretted the necessity of troubling you in your bereavement, it was essential that you come here tonight. I told both Mrs. Farrows as much.”
The subtext of her words ran deep—positively subterranean—but I still caught its vibrations.
Setting myself up as a medium would provide me an income, independence, a chance to travel. It would even give me power of a kind, over Gertrude Farrow and her ilk. My profile met the requirements perfectly: for a girl young, poor, yet known to be intelligent, mediumship was becoming almost obligatory. I understood all these considerations at a blow, and knew that Mrs. Hobson was telling me that I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain—that she was sure I could produce such manifestations on my own—
Gus and the Skelleys crowded in with the rest. It bothered me to be so low while everyone stood above me, and I managed at last to sit upright, though my head was still spinning.
“Of course I’ll help with your development whenever I can manage a visit,” Mrs. Hobson added, in what was presumably meant as an encouraging tone. But since she had already shown her readiness to punish me, I heard something more threatening.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said. I was still dazed, unguarded. “But I have no intention of taking part in a séance, ever again.”
Gertrude Farrow gave an abrupt half turn away from me, as if she meant to walk off in disgust. I saw a quiver in her shoulders, her arms compressed against her sides.
Then she pivoted and slapped me with all her strength across my cheek.