The Medium

by Noëlle Sickels

  Helen couldn’t repress a wry smile.

  “What’s Lloyd got to say about all this?”

  “Nothing,” Helen replied, appalled. “We’ve never talked about it. Never even come close.”

  “And what about now?”

  It was the very question that had been dogging Helen since the last time she’d seen Lloyd, when she’d had that shameful desire to feel his arms around her. She kept pushing the question down, refusing to give it any berth. She felt guilty that it even arose. Now, agitated, she stood up and walked away from the chairs and along the fence a short distance. Rosie didn’t interfere. Helen returned to her seat.

  “There’s more,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Billy hasn’t … come to me yet,” she said hesitantly. “Not even in a dream.”

  “Is he supposed to?”

  “I keep wondering if he’s not coming because he knows that I was worrying about us. Oh, Rosie, what if he knew it before he died? What if somebody said something to him?”

  “I don’t get how these things work, Helen, but just because you haven’t seen Billy in a dream or anything doesn’t have to mean he knew you were trying to decide between him and his brother.”

  “I wasn’t! It wasn’t ever a choice between him and Lloyd—I could never, ever think like that. I was still gonna marry him. I wanted to marry him.”

  Rosie reached over to hold Helen’s hands.

  “Well, there’s your answer, then. You didn’t do anything wrong, Helen.”

  “But I feel wrong, Rosie. Even now, when I think about us getting married, there’s this scared lump in my stomach.”

  “Maybe that’s why Billy isn’t coming.”

  Bewildered, Helen made no response.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want you to be scared.”

  “Seeing Billy wouldn’t scare me. It’s my own feelings that scare me.”

  “Could be it looks the same to him. Could be he thinks you don’t want to see him. Do ghosts think?”

  The back door of the house opened, and Emilie poked her head out.

  “Rosie!” she called, crossing the yard. “I didn’t know you were coming over. Here, let me give you a good hug. You’re not too much of a soldier for that, are you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Rosie said, getting up.

  Over Emilie’s shoulder, Rosie shot an appraising glance at Helen. Helen made a gesture that said it was all right that their talk had ended so abruptly. Rosie had given her something to ponder.

  Helen had resisted going into trance to seek Billy. She’d wanted him to do the seeking. Even as part of her dreaded what he might say. But maybe it was a mistake to avoid trances and seances. She still preferred that Billy come without her sending Iris to find him, but she could let him know the door was open, couldn’t she? Shouldn’t she?

  Yes, she decided, only half listening as her mother and Rosie chatted, she’d hold a seance, or a series of seances, a fuller giving over to trance than she’d ever made before. She’d discard the careful rules and schedules she’d set up in the fall, after the materialization of all those faces had so unnerved her. She’d let anyone attend, allow any questions, give Iris free reign, welcome any spirit. She wouldn’t pull back no matter what she saw or heard.

  CHAPTER 37

  Iris brought every departed soul that every sitter requested, and more—people’s grandparents and distant relatives, children no one in the circle knew, and, always, at the end of each seance, one of Helen’s boys. But so far, after ten days during which Helen had sat five times, no Billy. Not that Helen had asked for him. As planned, she was simply putting herself at the disposal of the spirit world and waiting.

  The round of trances was influencing the intensity of Helen’s dreams. In them, she climbed long ladders whose tops she couldn’t see; she swam in still, green waters that had no shoreline; she watched, transfixed, as swarms of tornadoes headed her way; and always, she awoke before her exertions exhausted her, before calamity struck. Once, in one of the quieter dreams, she stood at a fruit stand piled with bright tomatoes and lemons, cucumbers and figs, utterly convinced that Billy was standing right behind her, only inches away, and equally convinced that if she turned around, he’d disappear. She felt him concentrating on her. His attention was as powerful as a touch. She smelled lemons for two minutes after waking up. She smelled him.

  “Today has only Mrs. Durkin and Miss Simmons,” Ursula told Helen as they walked to Mrs. Durkin’s house on the eleventh day of Helen’s campaign. Ursula had suggested a different room might produce different results.

  The four women were experienced at seances, and each had her own wishes for this one. Mrs. Durkin was hoping for another materialization, she didn’t care of what or whom. Miss Simmons was worried about her fiance, Mr. Howard, who was in the Aleutian Islands, which had been recaptured from the Japanese last summer. Ursula wanted Billy to contact Helen. She was beginning to be concerned about the strain the girl was subjecting herself to.

  Helen, too, wanted Billy to come, but that was no longer the only thing driving her. The close succession of trances had left her in a constant state of heightened awareness, as if she were a simmering pot. What, exactly, was simmering in her she couldn’t say, but she felt during each trance that something was coagulating, gathering strength and momentum, and that it would soon be revealed. She understood that it was a force or message or spirit unrelated to Billy. She was opening herself to it as much as to him.

  She entered trance calmly and automatically, but she soon sensed that today something was different. The usual detachment from her surroundings had set in, the usual feeling of being in a featureless antechamber, but Iris was not there to greet her, which was not usual.

  As she paid closer attention, she discovered some familiarity about the state. It was reminiscent of the day in front of Mc-Cutcheon’s when she’d had the vision of Pearl Harbor, except that she felt none of the fear and confusion she had that day. It was similar, too, to the certainty she’d encountered when she’d looked at the Life photo of the children in the trench shelter. Then she knew. There’d be no spirits today. She was going to receive a premonition.

  Helen found herself looking down at a beach at night, as if she were hanging above it in a hot air balloon. It was absolutely quiet except for the barely discernible whoosh of the waves. She could see a broad area of shingle at the water’s edge and an open swath of sand stretching to the base of high, steep cliffs. A deep, V-shaped ditch had been dug into one section of beach, and concrete walls had been erected elsewhere. Only by filling the ditch and downing the walls could anyone pass easily from the water to the cliffs, though Helen did spy a few funnel-like avenues of access.

  Large concrete structures sat on top of the cliffs. Helen recognized them from newsreels as gun emplacements. Planted on slopes below them were machine gun nests, angled so that, together with the artillery in the concrete emplacements, they could cover every inch of the beach with firepower.

  All at once, the air filled with the deafening roar of big guns from the water. In flashes, Helen picked out an armada of battleships and destroyers bombarding the cliffs and the concrete walls on the beach.

  Then, for a split second, Helen was encased in an inky darkness thick with noise. Added to the naval gunfire were blasts from the big guns on the cliffs, the loud chatter of machine guns and the answer of rifle shots, the shriek of whistles, the rumble of explosions. And tangles of screams, so many screams—men shouting to one another, men crying out in agony. Helen put her hands to her ears, but she couldn’t block the sounds. Her chest was vibrating with them.

  Suddenly, dawn-like light obliterated the darkness. But the light hadn’t arrived softly, like a normal dawn. It had leapt instantaneously into being, as if by the flick of a switch.

  The exposed scene was seething with horrors. The beach teemed with soldiers. Soldiers running and crawling, soldiers falling, soldiers spinning and flying, hit by bullets or mortar shells, thrown and t
orn by land mines, cut in half by machine gun crossfire, writhing wounded with no one to evacuate them, men scrambling on their bellies over the dead bodies of their comrades. Some men staggered to their feet after being hit, only to be hit again and fall again. Even then, some of them got up and pressed on. There were flamethrowers and smoke, sand bursting up in sprays from bullets and hand grenades and mines, beach grasses on fire. The soldiers were heading for the cliffs via the funnel openings Helen had noticed earlier, but it was a deadly route, peppered with land mines, tangled with barbed wire, and strafed by machine gun fire.

  Helen saw landing craft disgorging yet more soldiers, some of whom sank out of sight, never to reach the beleaguered beach. The water between the landing crafts and the beach was red with blood, and churned by gunfire, shell fragments, drowning men, and the detonation of underwater mines.

  The artillery noise and the shouts and screams were even louder than they’d been during the short spell of blaring darkness. Bombers and fighter planes howled overhead. It was a huge, hellish pageant of gore and clamor. Helen’s heart felt like it might explode, and her stomach was in knots, yet she could not look away.

  Slowly, words insinuated their way into her cringing mind. Festung Europa. Fortress Europe. It was what Hitler arrogantly called France and the other German-held lands. Another word was tapping at the edge of her mental grasp, an English word. An American, not a European place. Omaha. Could that be right? Yes, it was clear now. Omaha. But what did land-locked, placid Nebraska have to do with such a field of slaughter?

  As soon as she was sure of the name, Helen felt herself begin to slip out of trance. The sickening vision and the din evaporated. Everyday sounds met her ears—a car horn outside, the creak of Mrs. Durkin’s chair as she shifted in her seat. Helen’s neck was tight with tension. She opened her eyes. The friendly faces of the three women at the table filled her with relief. At the same time, she wished they weren’t there. How could she tell them what she’d seen? What description would be adequate? Her hands were trembling and would not stop.

  “Helen?” her grandmother said. “There was no one today?”

  Helen looked at each woman in turn.

  “I saw a terrible battle,” she said. Her voice felt throaty and unused.

  “Where?” Miss Simmons asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe nowhere …”

  “Nowhere?”

  “It felt like … like it hadn’t happened yet.”

  “A presentiment,” said Mrs. Durkin, impressed.

  Helen sat on her hands to calm them. She turned to her grandmother.

  “I think I should tell someone, Nanny.”

  “You are telling us.”

  “No, someone official. Like Captain Fitzpatrick.”

  Mrs. Durkin and Miss Simmons looked at Ursula for explanation. Ursula sat up straighter, letting them know by the set of her shoulders that they wouldn’t be getting one.

  “It’s her duty,” Mrs. Durkin said, in an attempt to remain included.

  “It might save lives,” Miss Simmons offered.

  “First, Helen must think some more,” Ursula declared.

  “Yes,” Helen agreed. “There were some things about it that were puzzling.”

  She was trying to placate her grandmother. She shouldn’t have brought up Captain Fitzpatrick in front of the others. Also, putting herself under her grandmother’s direction prevented Mrs. Durkin and Miss Simmons asking more questions.

  But she knew she didn’t need to think anymore before taking her information to Captain Fitzpatrick or someone like him. Nor would she ask her family’s permission. It didn’t matter that the vision had been indefinite as to time and place. It didn’t matter that she didn’t understand why she’d heard the incongruous name of an American city. Those were things for the captain to figure out. Mrs. Durkin and Miss Simmons were right. She had a duty, and if she did it, lives might be saved. Plus, if she told someone, as she hadn’t done with the Pearl Harbor vision, she might be spared nightmares later on. She never wanted to see that beach again.

  Helen set out early for New York. She didn’t have an appointment with Captain Fitzpatrick, and she wanted to have the whole day in case she had to wait to see him. Additionally, she couldn’t count on how long it would take her to get there. Because of gas and tire rationing, more people were using public transportation. Military personnel had first call on tickets, and there were always military personnel on the move. Train cars and buses were sometimes packed shoulder to shoulder. And troop trains had priority on the rails, requiring civilian trains to pull off onto sidings and let them pass, which could take an hour or more.

  The train to the city was crowded but on time, and Helen had to wait only half an hour to see the captain.

  “You’re in luck,” his WAC secretary told her. “Some days, he doesn’t come to the office at all.”

  Captain Fitzpatrick stood up when Helen entered his cramped office. He indicated a chair in front of his desk, and when she’d sat down, he resumed his own seat. He rested his folded hands on his blotter. Papers were stacked at the desk’s corners like miniature sentry towers.

  “You told my secretary, Miss Schneider, that you had some vital information for me,” the captain prompted. “Is it something about mediums? Some bunko artist? We had to throw a hypnotist off Camp Shanks just the other day.”

  “I’m not a hypnotist,” Helen said, bristling.

  Hypnotism was a current craze. There were hypnotists on the radio, and hypnotists giving public demonstrations in nightclubs, in lecture halls, even at schools. Lindbergh’s admiration of the Nazis before the war was blamed by some people on his having been hypnotized when Goering pinned a medal on him. But now Lindbergh was teaching American pilots and flying combat missions in the South Pacific.

  The captain sat back in his chair and waved his hand vaguely. Clearly, hypnotism and mediumship were all the same to him.

  “I had a vision, Captain,” Helen said. “I saw a large, very violent battle on a beach.”

  “Half this war is being fought on beaches,” the captain said. “It’s no wonder you had such a dream.”

  “Not a dream, a—”

  “Let’s not quibble over terminology, Miss Schneider.”

  “It was a European beach, I believe,” Helen continued, businesslike. “And there were an awful number of men getting killed. I thought you ought to know about it, that maybe something could be done, because, you see, this battle hasn’t happened yet.”

  Captain Fitzpatrick narrowed his eyes.

  “Miss Schneider,” he said heavily, “men do get killed in battle. I’m regularly at staging areas all over New York and New Jersey, and I see men leave every day who will most certainly face death. I’m sorry you had such a frightening dream, but I really don’t have the time to—”

  “Omaha,” Helen said.

  The captain started.

  “What did you say?”

  Helen knew he had heard her clearly.

  “I don’t know what it means,” she said, “but it has something to do with the battle I saw.”

  “Wait here.” The captain got up and left the room.

  He was gone twenty minutes. Helen was just about to ask the WAC in the outer office about him when he returned. He had two young corporals with him, both wearing bifocals, which explained their stateside posting. They were also wearing MP armbands and shouldering rifles.

  “You will have to go with these men, Miss Schneider,” he said.

  “Go where?”

  “For tonight, you can bivouac at Ellis Island.”

  Astonished, Helen stood up.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “I’m not at liberty to explain further. Tomorrow someone from the Counterintelligence Corps in Baltimore will talk with you. Until then, you are not to repeat anything that was said here today.”

  “If you let me go home, I promise I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “These men will escort you to
Ellis now.”

  The captain went around his desk and sat down. He took the top few papers off one of the stacks and picked up a pen. The corporals stepped closer to Helen, one on either side of her. At the threshold, Helen stopped and turned.

  “My parents …” she said.

  “We’ll notify them,” the captain replied without looking up. “Someone’s already on their way there.”

  CHAPTER 38

  JUNE 1944

  The next day, Helen sat nervously on a hard chair in a small room while Captain Fitzpatrick and another man, Major Levy, looked through some papers on a bare table set under an open window. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, and she felt unkempt, despite having washed up in a basin as best as she could that morning. Her stale appearance, especially in contrast to the two crisp military men, increased her nervousness. She wished she’d been issued the standard khaki shirt she’d seen all the internees wearing. At least it would be fresh. She hoped the fact that she hadn’t been given one was a sign they didn’t expect her to be staying.

  She shifted her position, trying to relieve a stiffness in her back. For most of last night’s long hours, she’d lain tensely awake on a narrow iron bed and listened to the other women in the dormitory—their snores, their turnings, their coughs. Once some dreamer cried out a few unintelligible words. The dormitory was off a balcony above the huge registry room where the internees spent their days reading, playing cards and chess, knitting, carving eidelweiss from deer horn or doing other crafts, and writing letters. Whenever during the night someone walked across the empty, cavernous room, his steps echoed up to its arched, tiled ceiling and from there into the dorm. Near dawn, Helen had dropped off for two hours, but she was far from rested. The insides of her eyelids felt grainy.

  She was beginning, too, to regret her empty stomach. A Border Patrol Agent had escorted her to the dining hall for breakfast, but she’d taken only a cup of black coffee. He’d directed her where to sit, well out of conversation range of anyone who might decide to be friendly, and he’d stood close by while she drank her coffee.