The Witches of New York

by Ami McKay

  Mary Corday, Margaret Connor, Delia Cummings, Mary McCabe, Lizzie Moran, Margaret Campbell, Margaret Fagan, Mary Donnelly, Hannah Ward, Mary J. Heavey, Kate Cushing.

  The hotel’s head housekeeper, Mrs. Fisher, was conducting her Saturday morning inspection. She recited the scrubber girls’ names twice a day—each morning after making the daily roll call, each night after calling for lights out. Once a week she visited Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street to light candles in their memory. Her girls were never far from her thoughts, and always in her heart. How could she forget them or the terrible way they’d died?

  By the time she’d been alerted to the fire, the entire west wing of the attic was engulfed in flames, the streams of water from the pumper wagons failing to staunch the raging blaze. She’d stood outside, tears freezing on her cheeks as a chorus of screams howled from above. Firemen, mere shadows on the roof, dragged hoses this way and that as a group of brave porters pulled as many girls as they could through broken windows and skylights. Carriages rushed from all directions to take in the sight—liveried vehicles with ladies and gents inside, as well as a string of wobbly hacks crowded with fast women and their gallants, half drunk with the night’s dissipation. Pacing the ground floor of the hotel, Mrs. Fisher helped wherever she could—bringing hot tea to half-dressed ladies sitting on their trunks, shutting the door to the reading room so the laughter and cigar smoke of the businessmen crowded inside wouldn’t seep into the lobby. When the rescued maids began to scurry through the front door, she’d ushered them into a private parlour so she could count their heads. “Oh Mrs. Fisher,” they’d cried, sobbing and shivering while wringing their hands. “It’s a terrible calamity. The worst thing I ever saw!” Between curses and prayers, the trembling young things had taken turns recounting the horror they’d escaped and guessing what might’ve caused it.

  “The fire shot right up the stairwell—we had no way out.”

  “Do you suppose someone dropped a candle on her way up to bed?”

  “More likely Mary McConnell’s lover dropped his lantern on his way back down.”

  “The windows were shut tight, the bars fixed fast to the frames. If the boys hadn’t torn them out, we would’ve cooked in our beds.”

  “The gas jet in a laundry closet was missing its guard. It was only a matter of time before a pile of linens caught light.”

  “I hope they can get everyone out before it’s too late.”

  “Where’s Mary Katherine?”

  “Where’s Mary Margaret?”

  “I’ll bet Mary Grove forgot to turn down her lamp again.”

  “The smoke was black as pitch. We could barely find our way through it.”

  Nine girls had gotten trapped in the last two rooms on the corridor. Before the porters could reach their window, the timbers of the roof fell in, sealing their fate. The best anyone could hope was that they were already dead when it happened. Six were found in a heap by the window. Two more were huddled under a bed. One was in the middle of the room, her knees bent in prayer, a crucifix in her hands. Two others managed to escape through a skylight only to die at Bellevue later that night. Half of the girls were burned beyond recognition. There was only one staircase that led to their quarters, with no other way out. Hadn’t anyone ever thought of what might happen if a fire broke out? The wall between the men’s and women’s rooms was built like a fortress, and solid bars covered the windows—they’d been put there by the proprietors to protect the girls’ honour. Instead they’d served as a death sentence. Isn’t that always the way, Mrs. Fisher had thought, man’s fears causing him to do things that lead to far greater sins.

  In the dark of the night, the coroner had asked Mrs. Fisher to view the corpses, hoping she might tell him who was who. At the time she’d been in such a state, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it, but when first light had come, she’d made the daily roll call, noted which girls were missing, and found her way to the morgue. The sight she’d seen when she’d gotten to Bellevue was as alarming as the fire itself. The line for those who wished to have a look at the dead snaked down Twenty-Sixth Street and around the block. For every person who thought they might’ve lost a dear one, a hundred more were there to gawk. Visitors entered from the left and exited to the right, slowly moving past the dead as if dancing a strange, macabre reel. The girls’ bodies were hideous to behold—flesh burned off their faces and limbs, bones exposed and charred black. When it was Mrs. Fisher’s turn, she’d covered her face with her handkerchief and held her breath, not because of the stench, but because she was afraid the Reaper might be standing guard, waiting to choose who’d be next. Straight off she’d identified three of the girls—one by a ring on a finger, one by a cross around the neck, and one by what little remained of a face. The coroner had quickly drawn sheets over their bodies and set three wooden lids in place. Mrs. Fisher had never imagined she’d feel such relief in hearing a coffin nailed shut.

  Nearly eight years on, the fearful, living maids who worked under her supervision would come to her in the middle of the night, scared and begging not to be sent back to their beds in the attic. “Oh Mrs. Fisher, don’t make me go back there. One of the Marys is floatin’ over my bed, ready to wrap her sooty fingers around my neck!” On any given night, a handful of frightened chambermaids or scrubber girls might smell smoke when there weren’t any fires lit, see handprints on frosty windowpanes, or hear voices wailing in the stairwell.

  Truth be told, Mrs. Fisher had had her fair share of run-ins with the spirits as well. She’d felt their presence wax and wane over time, their powers growing greater as daylight grew shorter and winter drew near. During the recent full moon they’d seemed especially restless, rattling the doors of her linen closet, and sending the pitcher next to her washbasin crashing to the floor. The mere thought of it raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She tried her best not to speak of these things to anyone, especially not the guests. She’d given the maids strict orders to follow suit. Still, from time to time, one or more of them would try to make contact with the ghosts, by asking them to blow out a candle or to play with a needle tied to the end of a string. Whenever she caught wind of such activities, the housekeeper would pull the guilty maids aside and say, “I don’t want to hear of you doing that again. Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.”

  —

  As Mr. Stevens’ ghost resumed his watch for his wife, and Mrs. Fisher went about her business of checking for dirt and dust, a steady stream of guests came and went from the lobby. A parade of maids (some living, some dead) scurried down the corridors, arms laden with baskets of roses and fruit. A trio of men from Mr. Knox’s hat shop appeared with tape measures in hand, ready to fit top hats and derbies (silk, felt or beaver) to the crowns of eager heads. A bevy of well-dressed ladies gathered in the main entryway, keen to begin their morning promenade through Madison Square Park. A boisterous throng of gentlemen poured into the reading room, their brows waggling with speculation and wagers concerning bears, bulls and horses—new and old, lame or dark. They’d embraced Friday night with open eyes, ears, arms, legs, thighs, lips, tongues, mouths. They’d seen the sights. They’d eaten rich food. They’d met interesting strangers. They’d drunk too much. They’d witnessed a theft, a threat, a pursuit, a fight. When Saturday morning came, they’d woken up (with or without companionship), unaware that the hotel was filled with ghosts.

  SCIENTIFIC GOSSIP

  Turin, Italy. Neuro-Scientist Dr. Angelo Mosso has announced that he is currently constructing a machine to weigh the soul. Based on a principle he calls the “human circulation balance,” he hopes to document his findings within the year.

  Paris, France. During a course this Winter at Salpêtrière, M. Charcot is to produce new instances of cases like those troubles regarded in the Dark Ages as caused by demonical agency or cured by witchcraft.

  The Amazing Dr. Brody.

  DR. QUINN BRODY copied the items from the morning edition of the Times Gaz
ette into a small leather-bound journal. Clean-shaven and bespectacled, he sported a Newmarket coat because he didn’t wish to bother with the numerous buttons of a double-breasted Albert. Holding the journal steady against a tottery table in the corner of the gentlemen’s reading room of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, he whispered to himself as he wrote, his one hand made of wood, the other of flesh. It’d been seventeen years since he’d lost his right hand and forearm in the war, yet he still wasn’t quite comfortable writing with his left. He could’ve saved himself time and effort by tearing the notice from the paper and shoving it in his pocket, but the newspaper didn’t belong to him, so he felt he had no right to it. Even though he’d already paid the room’s attendant for two cups of coffee, he wasn’t a paying guest.

  Most men wouldn’t have given a second thought to committing the trivial crime of ripping a small article from the paper. In fact most men wouldn’t have thought it a crime at all, but they weren’t Quinn Brody. The middle-aged doctor was far from being without sin, but he liked (no, he needed) to feel that the things he did and said and thought served to subtract from the overall chaos of the world. There was enough nonsense to go around these days without him adding to it. Besides, who wanted to open the morning paper and find a hole torn out of its middle?

  His fellow alienists liked to explain men’s foibles, rants and rages as “occasional surges of masculinity.” Nothing was wrong, per se, nothing a bit of cattle roping, rough-riding and hunting out West couldn’t fix. If those prescribed activities couldn’t be arranged, then just about any strenuous activity would do. The male mind was, after all, resilient, bold, daring, quick, meant to be taxed. It was built to be elastic and forgiving, especially during the most difficult of times, in the most trying places—from the examination halls of Yale and Harvard, to the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam. Still, if Quinn Brody had learned anything during the War Between the States, it was that men’s minds, even those of the strongest, brightest and most even-tempered, could come unhinged when faced with unspeakable horrors. A few of the soldiers he’d known had gotten past their tribulations, but many had remained irreparably damaged by what they’d experienced, their hearts and minds changed forever. Still others, unable to put their demons to rest, had—by rope, pistol, knife or poison—taken their own lives.

  With the loss of his arm in that war, Brody had been forced to grapple with demons of his own—memories, hallucinations, nightmares. Lying in the Stump Hospital day after day, he’d sworn he could feel a variety of strange sensations in the limb that was no longer there—the pain of his wound, the curling of his fingers, the touch of a gentle hand. One morning during rounds, the famed neurologist Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell had diagnosed him with “phantom limb,” a common ailment among soldiers who’d lived through an amputation. What the doctor hadn’t mentioned was whether there was a cure for the condition or how long it might last. His only advice had been, “Don’t let it make you less of a man.”

  Mitchell’s words had served as little comfort to Brody, who until then had served admirably as an assistant surgeon in New York’s Fighting 69th. One minute he’d been tightening a tourniquet around the leg of a wounded soldier in preparation for amputation, and the next he’d been reeling from a deep nick in his arm caused by the head surgeon’s overreaching scalpel. Three days later, when gangrene set in, the surgeon had amputated Brody’s limb too. Everything that’d come after had led him to his current occupation.

  Although he’d lost the ability to slice and saw and cut, he’d gained an intense fascination for deciphering the human mind. Like the mountains and canyons of the Wild West, the lobes and folds of the brain provided vast spans of uncharted territory to explore. What wondrous secrets the mind held within it! What curious, inexplicable tasks it could perform! Closing his eyes, he put his own brain to the test, contemplating the limb he’d lost. In an instant he was overwhelmed with the feeling that his arm had been restored, so solid and perfect, he was sure he could reach out and grasp anything he wanted—a ripe red apple, a tankard of beer, a beautiful woman’s breast. It was maddening and miraculous all at once. How could something that had disappeared so long ago still persist?

  “Hallo there, Brody!” a gentleman’s voice boomed, breaking the doctor’s reverie. “Old friend, is that you?” Dressed in a brown checkered suit, the man limped towards the doctor’s table, aided by a silver-handled walking stick: Bartholomew Andersen, formerly Private Bart Andersen of the 20th New York Infantry. The two men had spent several months together at the Stump, in adjacent iron cots amidst the rows that stretched down the length of the recovery ward. Andersen had saved a dozen of his fellow soldiers from certain death at Fredericksburg, then taken a Minie ball to the left shin. The men had all lived, but Andersen’s leg hadn’t stood a chance.

  Brody replied, “Andersen, my good man. You look to be in fine fettle.” For obvious reasons, he did not offer the hearty handshake and clap on the back customary between veterans.

  Andersen exclaimed, “I knew it was you!” Pulling up a chair he added, “How goes the fight, St. Nick?”

  Andersen had made a point of assigning ridiculous yet apt monikers to every man he’d encountered at the Stump. He had branded a young soldier from Cincinnati who’d been fitted with a glass eye, Buckeye Jones, and Brody, St. Nick. How long had it been since they’d last seen each other? More than a decade, Brody guessed. He’d lost everyone he loved since then—his wife, his mother, his brother, and most recently, his father. Not wishing to recount past miseries, he only replied, “I can’t complain.”

  “Good, good,” Andersen said with a smile. “So what brings you to the Fifth on this fine morning, business or pleasure?”

  “Business,” Brody answered, figuring “pleasure” would lead to more questions. “And you?”

  Tugging a large gold watch from his pocket, Andersen made a show of checking the time. “Business, like you.”

  “Your business is clearly more profitable than mine,” Brody teased, responding to Andersen’s obvious cue.

  “Can’t complain,” Andersen said, flashing a toothy grin. Polishing his watch on his lapel, he asked, “Are you living in the city, or just passing through?”

  Brody wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. He’d returned to New York at the start of the summer after being away in Paris, and found his father was gravely ill. Much of that season had been spent in a daze, the hours alternately racing or crawling past as he tried his best to help the frail man navigate the passage from this life to the next. There’d been hands to hold, sheets to change, names to remember. Then letters to write, arrangements to be made and promises to keep. The funeral had been a lovely affair (as far as those things go), attended by two hundred upstanding citizens from New York and beyond, chief among them the members of the Fraternal Order of the Unknown Philosophers.

  The dozen or so members of the group had been of great comfort to Brody, congregating every Wednesday evening in his father’s optician’s shop to carry on with the work of the order—the pursuit of the unknown. Brody had closed the shop to business, but had left the sign hanging over the door: MR. TOBIAS BRODY, OPTICIAN. IMPORTER AND MAKER OF PHILOSOPHICAL INSTRUMENTS, SINCE 1834. He hadn’t given much thought as to what he was going to do with the place, or whether or not he was going to stay. The Philosophers were so happily consumed with planning their upcoming symposium; he hadn’t had the heart to turn them away. He’d actually grown quite fond of them these past few weeks, especially Mr. Alden Dashley, a man who wasn’t afraid to admit he didn’t know everything about everything. Brody had been surrounded by arrogance (intellectual and otherwise) while in Paris and he’d almost forgotten what it was like to move among forthright peers and good friends.

  “I’m living here,” Brody finally answered, thinking it might be time he made up his mind to stay.

  “Same here,” Andersen said, nodding. “I’ve got a little place over on Twenty-Sixth. How about we team up tonight, for old times’ sake? We can play so
me Faro, take in a boxing match, paint the town red. I hear there’s a house in the Tenderloin with girls who cater to stumpies. You keen to pay it a visit? Excepting the gambling, I’ll happily foot the bill. It’s been a good week.”

  Shaking his head, Brody replied, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got other plans.” He’d been looking forward to spending a quiet evening in front of the fire—browsing through old issues of Scientific American and reading a novel he’d picked up at Brentano’s Books called Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process, about a doctor who develops a mechanical method of eradicating painful memories from his subjects’ brains.

  Andersen persisted. “Send your regrets and come out with me instead. I promise it’ll prove more entertaining than whatever you’ve got planned.” Leaning forward on his elbows he lowered his voice and said, “How about I take you out to Blackwell’s Island to dance with the lady lunatics.”

  Brody stared at Andersen. “Surely you jest.”

  “Not in the least,” Andersen replied, raising an eyebrow. “The place boasts several inmates who are young and fair and not too far out of their heads. It’s Manhattan’s best-kept secret. Whole parties of gents take a ferry out there on Saturday nights to have a waltz or two and tour the asylum. The musicians that play for the dances are some of the finest in the city, on par with the little orchestra that plays at Delmonico’s.”

  “Sounds like quite the outing,” Brody said, attempting to hide his disgust.

  “Remember the nurse who used to look after us at the Stump?” Andersen asked.

  “Nurse Fitch,” Brody said, the haggard woman’s face looming in his mind. Most of the men had been terribly unkind to her, so foul he’d wondered why she hadn’t poisoned their pabulum.