Sky Parlor: A NOVEL

by Stephen Perkins

  A haunting shadow fell over the president’s sallow cheeks as he drew in a long breath.

  “I have heard those rumors,” Lincoln acknowledged, growing wistful once more. “But in politics, one way to neutralize your enemies is to never shrink from their presence and to even pretend they are your friends,” he added.

  Abigail felt a jolt of warmth as the president’s pale face again flashed with vibrant color.

  “Besides, young mistress,” the president’s tone became strident, “I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to witness firsthand the conjuring of one of your glorious, grand illusions. As for the actor Booth, would it not be quite disarming to observe the target of his rebellious ire unabashedly staring down from Ford Theater’s high balcony, like Zeus from the legendary mountaintop?”

  Abigail’s mind grew torn, between encouraging the president’s clever, conspiratorial scheme and wishing to beseech him to remain in his office as a shining beacon, exalting mankind’s higher virtues to the world.

  “It may take some time, Mister President, to program the cube, to properly formulate an animated hologram that will adequately persuade those of your closest administrative confidants and the world at large. Truthfully speaking,” Abigail drew closer to the president and spoke in a hushed, confidential tone, “the cube produces animated three-dimensional holograms primarily based upon detailed photographic images. Before my performance at the Vanderbilt estate,” a reluctant Abigail went on, “I was able to bribe a servant into providing the necessary materials.”

  A burst of smiling radiance animated the president. He tipped back his long, delicate neck and Abigail delighted in the raucous chuckle rumbling forth.

  “What a truly wondrous machine you have in your possession, young mistress.” The complimenting president’s voice rang like the jovial song of a lark. “And, you needn’t worry,” Lincoln added, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper. “Any of your trade secrets revealed here this evening shall remain safe with me.”

  In the distance, the full moon, like an omniscient watchman, hovered over the icy runnel before the majestic obelisk. The wind began to howl, chilling gales that shattered the placid water’s dark mirror. Ominous peels of moonlight cast down upon the resolute monument’s alabaster spire, settling about the surrounding apron of smoothly laid red bricks like a congregation of ghosts ringed in silent communion.

  Still torn – and although she had no reason to doubt the president’s veracity – but nonetheless, while detecting traces of sorrow emanating from an otherwise determined demeanor, Abigail felt stricken with the notion, perhaps this revered man might be concealing secrets of his own.

  “I shall give the audience something they’ve never seen,” Abigail promised. “They shall wonder in awe as I produce a perfect three-dimensional animated hologram – right there on the stage. Later, after the first intermission and – given appropriate arrangements have been made well in advance – you’ve long stolen away to make an escape back to your rural farm in Illinois, I shall return to the stage to delight the audience in creating an exact, animated replica of you, Mister President,” Abigail detailed. “At the conclusion of Booth’s final act, it should be a simple enough matter for your three-dimensional hologram to return here at the White House, to finish out the short remainder of your term in office.”

  The wind calmed, and the clear evening sky’s glimmering panorama of stars began to burn with greater fury.

  “No one must know of our plans, young mistress de Orleans,” the smiling president’s barreling baritone commanded. “No one must know, not Secretary Stanton nor especially I fear, General Grant.”

  With that, the president turned to depart from the portico. Softly, he settled his lanky arm around Abigail’s shoulder.

  “You shall have my absolute word, Mister President,” Abigail assured.

  “A pity it is, young mistress,” Lincoln said, “the likes of your abundant nobility are so few in number.”

  Abigail noticed the entire plane of the president’s face ignite with intuition’s torchlit flame. “However, something indicates an ancient soul’s vast wisdom may bely your youthful and, dare I admit, comely appearance?”

  Abigail’s wild eyes widened with subtle surprise.

  “Allow me to say, Mister President,” she replied as a sly smile grew across her cherry red lips, “that a practicing magician must never divulge all of their mysterious secrets. However, you should know, that our meeting here this evening was not a matter of coincidental chance.”

  Lincoln’s feet shuffled to a halt. While his irises gleamed with traces of wonderment, the president turned directly toward Abigail.

  “Tell me honestly, young mistress,” the president wondered, “are you indeed, some sort of sage, perhaps even a god?”

  “Perhaps you are unaware, Mister president, there is a war not only between the states,” Abigail revealed, “but a war rages in the spiritual realm…a war for the destiny of your immortal soul and for the collective soul of mankind.”

  The lines etched above Lincoln’s brow became more pronounced.

  “You must beware of those closest to you,” Abigail warned, “for I fear that even now, they may be conspiring to deliver the destiny of your soul into the clutches of my most cunning enemy in the spirit realm. For Artemis knows, you’re the first in the history of mankind with the potential to escape his lunar soul trap, to ascend and shine with me as an immortal sun, forever banishing his nocturnal spell from the heavens.”

  Lincoln’s features collapsed into bewildered confusion.

  “And here it was,” the president replied, “I thought negotiating the end of this earthly conflict was difficult to comprehend, young mistress.”

  As they descended a winding staircase, Abigail observed Lincoln drumming his thin fingers in a frenzied rhythm along the contour of the wooden banister. His expression constricted as if the skin had been tightened by a curtain’s draw strings.

  “If you can, tell me more – why is it, that I…?”

  “Artemis knows, after the trial of several incarnations,” Abigail explained while their shoes slowly tapped on each marble step, “your soul has acquired the requisite knowledge. It has therefore acquired the proper light frequency to transcend the cycle of life and death. It is no accident; you have assumed a great leadership position in this lifetime.”

  As they approached the very bottom of the long, winding stairs, Lincoln again halted. Intrigue spanned the dark-bearded plane of his face.

  “You mean to say – Artemis – transcend life and death – light frequency, young mistress?”

  The president’s lips pursed. In vague recognition, his pale chin began to wag.

  “I regret that I cannot explain more now, Mister President,” a patient Abigail began to explain. “For I must take my leave to make the necessary preparations to program the machine.”

  Lincoln’s face colored with fascination at the small black cube positioned in the center of Abigail’s palm.

  “Suffice to say, Artemis, my mortal enemy in the spirit realm, knows you have accessed the higher mind and is beginning to realize…”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and with solemn faces, turned to face one another.

  “Though you may not be at liberty to explain everything now,” Lincoln empathized. “Please, go on, young mistress?”

  “You have endeavored to free the slaves here on earth, which means you are nearing the karmic light frequency of spiritual ascendance and permanent escape from the cycle of death and rebirth in this material realm, over which he presides. Artemis knows, you may wish to free all of your fellow man from the fleshly bondage of life and death, to teach them that they have the power to govern themselves, that they too, can raise their light frequency, eschew the dark energy of his earthly authority and, regain their free will to choose their own destinies and become immortal, to build heaven on this earth. Unfortunately,” Abigail opined, “it is unlikely he will ever wish to give up
his reign over the moon’s soul trapping prison. The dark energy he has derived from souls suffering through the chaos of the material plane represents the spiritual ambrosia he has fed on for centuries. This recent Civil War has created a thirst-quenching oasis from which he drinks daily.”

  Lincoln turned and shuffled toward a portrait hung high on a far wall of the nation’s first president, George Washington.

  “I take it then, this enemy of yours in the spiritual realm is displeased that I have feverishly endeavored to end this chaotic war of strife and division,” Lincoln said while appearing to study the portrait.

  Abigail waited for the president to finally turn away from the portrait before offering her reply.

  “I can assure you, Mister President, “Abigail said while drawing closer to Lincoln, “he is here now, as I am, disguised in the flesh and, within the proximity of your inner circle. He was here this evening in your very midst, disguised as your commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant.”

  The president’s feet shuffled. Wobbling unsteadily, he reached out a tremulous hand of the strong, wooden bannister for ballast.

  “This soldier’s disguise, he has adopted many times before, throughout human history – Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Vlad the Impaler, and even Napoleon. Long ago, he was Julius Caesar and, I was Servilia, a Roman noblewoman who became his mistress. But once again, as so many times before since our first time here, my love could not turn him away from his lustful desire for earthly power once he acquired an unquenchable taste for it. When he chose to forsake me and tore the Roman Republic apart with civil war, much as he is doing to your nation now, I convinced my son, Brutus, to defend my honor on that fateful day he went to the Roman senate on the Ides of March. I know he has never found forgiveness for it and, though he no doubt still seeks mortal revenge, it is still my hope we may someday reconcile and end the oppressive suffering that has, for so long, plagued mankind.”

  Abigail studied the president, then bowed her head. Men such as the president are often at their best, she observed while living in the material realm, when things are at their worst. The president’s swan-white countenance twitched as he remained steadied by the winding stair’s oak banister.

  “My god can this be true,” he stammered. “I’ve always believed in a higher power or a prime mover of some sort, but this, though I fret it is scarcely conceivable and yet, I deeply sense its veracity.”

  Abigail focused her pleading gaze on the president.

  “The dark energy,” she went on to reveal, “created by all of this great suffering derived from centuries of war and human slavery has become as nourishing to Artemis as food and drink are to you. Your success in ending this war and freeing the slaves and perhaps all of humanity from physical and spiritual bondage is something, I fear, he will never allow to happen. But you must never relent.”

  3

  Presidential Bedchambers

  From his bedroom window, the president watched as Abigail’s carriage pulled away from the White House, traversing the banks of the winding Potomac amid the hodge-podge of encamped army tents marking General Grant’s strategic headquarters. Upon the cries of arctic gusts, he sensed the guttural, painful moans emanating from a nearby makeshift infirmary for the scores of Grant’s wounded troops sent back from the front lines of the war. Stretching his gaze, the president observed the gloomy silhouettes of the encampment fires etched upon the dark night’s unforgiving black slate.

  “Come to bed, dear.” He heard the voice of the first lady stirring from underneath an ocean of thickly quilted cotton blankets. “You mustn’t fret so about the soldiers,” he heard her soft voice counsel, “I’m certain General Grant has things well in hand keeping the boy’s spirits up.”

  Watching the white mare that led Abigail’s carriage become enveloped by the grasping darkness, Lincoln turned from the window while his mind buzzed with contemplation.

  “I’m afraid, Mary,” he began, exhaling a brief sigh, “General Grant is displeased with my efforts of negotiation with Jefferson Davis and General Lee to end the war. He seems more determined than ever in his headstrong progress to march all the way to Richmond and perhaps beyond,” the president murmured, glancing toward the bed, “which means more suffering, reckless pillage and wanton destruction.”

  From beneath the rustling of heavy quilts peeked the first lady’s scrimshaw white wool nightcap. Her prim hands pulled back the layers of blankets. Her piercing, emerald eyes squinted to adjust to the light cast from the plethora of candle lamps yet to be extinguished.

  “You’ve often told of his stubbornness,” Mary Lincoln said, hoisting herself upright against the bed’s dark oak headrest. “But you are the president,” she implored. “In the end, he is your servant. Must he not comply with your edict of peace and reunification?”

  To steady his twitching hands, the president settled them behind his back and in deliberation turned once again toward the window. Howls of icy winds spiraling off the Potomac careened against the frosted pane. The distant fires of Grant’s encampment seemed to ignite with greater intensity. Pillars of white smoke plunged forth into the soaring blackness like calipers plucking the very stars from the heavens. As a student of history, the president knew that men such as the general, with the power of mighty armies at their command, should never be underestimated when it came to consider their potential for treasonous treachery.

  “You’re correct, Mary,” the president finally said, “Which is why, despite his stubborn intransigence, I must see Grant immediately – to inform him that I intend to never relent in peacefully ending this divisive conflict soon, once and for all.”

  The bedroom door hinges wheezed. As the door crept open, the sheepish soles of a pair of polished black leather shoes lightly treaded in.

  “Shall I extinguish your evening lamps, Mister President?” the president’s chief steward enquired.

  The president balled his fists and, squaring his shoulders, his jaw jutted forward like a ship’s iron-plated prow.

  “Fetch my coat and scarves and ready my carriage, Clarence,” the president ordered the steward. Mary Lincoln emerged from the bed, straightening her lamb white nightgown. “Must you go now, this very minute, dear? Morning light shall be dawning shortly,” she beseeched, grasping the president’s hand.

  “Yes, I must go, it is time for the idea of peace to dawn on this turmoiled nation. I’m afraid the general must be persuaded, once and for all, to abandon his headstrong path.”

  The steward quickly reentered the room and stood patiently by with a heavy, dark wool coat and a pair of cotton scarves draped over his arm while the president bussed the first lady’s cheek.

  “As I made you aware, before we first arrived at the White House,” the president warmly reminded Mary, “politics is a wild beast that never slumbers.”

  After the president’s steward assisted Lincoln while he donned his heavy wool coat and scarves, the president rushed down the long winding stairs and outside to his awaiting carriage, heated with a small brazier. The driver signaled the team of horses with a quick shake of the long reins. The president swiftly rubbed his bare hands over the grates of the tiny brazier filled with smoldering coals placed near his feet and, into the swirling winds the carriage sped away. From above, roiled by pangs of consternation, the first lady peered out the bedroom window.

  Approximately a mile onward, the carriage began to slow as it approached Grant’s headquarters encamped near the banks of the placid Potomac. Pulling aside the coach’s curtain, Lincoln noticed Abigail’s horse and carriage had stopped near a patch of withered trees. A gaggle of tents perched well within the wide circumference of a deeply entrenched defense moat surrounded a roaring bonfire. Nearby, a pair of sentries armed with bayoneted muskets huddled under thick shawls. Beneath shimmering spills of moonlight, the president observed several men standing around the bonfire, alternatively smoking hand rolled cigarettes while sharing a pot of hot coffee spiked with drops
of General Grant’s favorite brand of liquor, Old Crow whiskey.

  Lincoln debarked from the carriage and, as he approached the pair of guards standing before the moat, he noticed both snapping to attention as they straightened their slouching postures. Gusts of frostbitten breath flew from their ice-stricken mouths and nostrils and meandered in the arctic air like wandering phantoms while in sheer desperation, they tried to appear not to shiver from the merciless wind’s onslaught.

  “Good evening, Mister President, sir,” Lincoln heard the adolescent voice ring out. Before offering his reply, the president looked over the callow face upon which, despite wartime’s sorrows, some traces of hope managed to remain.

  My God, he can’t be more than eighteen, Lincoln mulled in silent lament.

  “Good evening soldier,” the president replied, “I’m on my way to see General Grant, whose headquarters, I understand, are further up the road. But first, I happened to have noticed that familiar looking carriage stopped over there,” he detailed.

  “She said her name was Abigail,” the other guard eagerly spoke up while attempting to stifle shivers and chattering teeth. “Abigail de Orleans – I believe she’s the famous stage magician that’s in all the papers.” The pitch of his youthful voice seemed to modulate with wonderment, as if he had uncovered some mystical secret.

  Both soldiers noticed a pleasing grin begin to crease across the president’s dark whiskered chin.

  “She’s helping one of the medics with some of the wounded, sir,” the guard who first greeted Lincoln revealed. “And quite frankly Mister President,” he went on to explain, “with the numbers of broken up boys in blue that have been coming in from the front lately, Doc could use all the help he can get.”

  The soldiers around the bonfire cried out in terror and lurched back to avoid a towering shower of cinder’s wild sparks. The president craned his long neck and saw that the interior of one of the surrounding tents had alighted with a myriad of swirling colors. Trading curious glances with the young guards, the president’s gait hastened over the makeshift wooden bridge that extended across the deep moat and beyond the barrier stockades. Tearing back the flaps of green canvas covering the entrance to the tent, Lincoln quickly became privy to a most incredulous sight.