Breathing deep into her belly, she was aroused beyond anything she’d felt before. Waves upon waves floated through her pelvis, her back, her legs. She moaned and moaned. And just as the waves subsided, Mac called out “Izzie, Izzie, my love.”
They lay still for a while. He stayed sweetly inside her. Then he withdrew and she nestled into him. She listened to his heart beating and then, when she heard his light snore, she drifted off.
At the gray light of dawn, Izzie woke and found that Mac was sitting up in bed next to her. She reached an arm around his waist. He leaned over and kissed her head.
“We’ll go tomorrow. I have train tickets. I want to visit Trall today and see his New York Hygieo-Therapeutic College on Laight Street. I’d like you to come.”
“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I’m staying to look for Clara and Euphora.”
“Yes, but rather, did you hear me? I said you have no idea where they are. When they can, they’ll send word to Rochester, because that’s where they think you are. They don’t think you are here. What if they were to show up there today? You are making it all more confusing than it needs to be.”
This was the most obstinate thing she’d ever heard from him. She locked her jaw and thumped herself up against the bed board next to him.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Be reasonable, my love. I beg you. You are not thinking clearly. You’re worried. It’s clouding your mind. And you are withering away.”
“I’ve been worried for months. If I had acted instead of stayed home and let you wrap me in a sheet like a sausage twice a day, this might not have happened.”
He took her hand, but she yanked it back. She reached for her shimmy on top of the quilt, tugged it on, then crawled out of bed.
“You haven’t told me about the voices yet,” he said.
Shivering from the chill in the room, she plopped down in the chair by Anna’s writing table, and said nothing. Mac got up and rummaged in his bag. He lifted out his brown wool robe. That color had always been handsome on him. It reminded her of their nights at home. He put it on and tied the sash around his waist.
“Do you have your robe here?” he asked.
“In the armoire.”
He found it and brought it to her, then helped her into it. Why did he have to be considerate in these little things, but not be able to understand the greater things? Delicately, he took her chin in his hand and attempted to raise her face up, but she refused him. She didn’t want to see him close, his bushy brow, his brown magnetic eyes, the sweet purple scar on his chin, his mussed wavy hair. She might lose her resolve.
He returned to the bed and sat. “What about the voices? Are they still disturbing you at night?”
“Why? Why do you want to know about that? So you can take me home and wrap me in the wet sheets?”
“I am only trying to care for you.” He sounded calm.
Sighing, she rose from Anna’s chair and stood by the desk. “A few times. They’ve disturbed me a few times, but not every night.”
Locking his jaw, he nodded quietly. Drat. Why did she tell him that? Why did she tell him anything?
“That seems like an improvement. Perhaps the water-cure wasn’t the right path.”
She was trembling inside, but he seemed completely unruffled.
“No, I don’t think it was.”
“If you return with me, we can explore other remedies. Perhaps pure rest.”
“Stop it.” She stood. “Stop. I will only say it one more time. I am staying here to search for my sisters.”
He came close to her, took her hand. “Izzie, please.” She tried to back away from him, but he wouldn’t release her. “You must see it is best for you at home. You must.”
“No.” She wriggled her hand from his and crossed her arms. “It is not best.”
“You are my wife.”
“Does that mean I am not a sister too?”
“It means I am first.” A growl slipped into his voice.
She grabbed a book from Anna’s desk and thrust it at him. He flung his arms up to shield his face. The book hit him and dropped with a thud. Watching her carefully, his face flushed, he brushed his hair back with both hands.
“Not only am I staying here, but I am going to try a trance tomorrow,” she said.
As her words spewed out, they surprised her. She hadn’t said such a thing to herself yet. But she was ready. If there were any possibility she could hear Mamma, or anyone on earth or in other spheres who might lead her to her sisters, she would try it. If there were truly spirits, then they could see Clara and Euphora, and if they could speak through her, she could find her sisters. And if she lost her sanity altogether, so be it. So be it.
“But why? Have you changed? Do you believe this Spiritualist nonsense now?”
“You are always experimenting with ideas, Mac. Now I must experiment with the spiritual realm. I must.”
“Can’t you leave it to Mrs. Fielding and Miss Santini? What if your voices become more than you can bear? You shouldn’t encourage this aspect of yourself. It’s dangerous. You may end up in the State Lunatic Asylum in Utica.”
“I have to try.” She turned from him, stepped to the window, and drew the curtain back. Snow was falling in the dull light of dawn. The deserted street was already covered in white. “Then I will know once and for all about myself, and you will too, and if I am very fortunate, I will find my sisters.”
Two riders on a black horse, a man and a boy, approached from the east.
“It’s perilous,” Mac said.
“How?” She spun from the window and looked at him.
“The voices you hear have already made your mind vulnerable.” His brown eyes were concerned, not angry.
“I want you to witness my trance. Will you?”
“I beg you not to try this. Come home with me. I’ll find a treatment for you.”
She remembered the wet sheet, cold, damp, and constraining around her.
“Will you witness my trance, Mac?”
He was silent. She looked out at the snow again. The riders and horse had passed below her, leaving the snow disturbed. She wouldn’t look into his eyes. She might give in. She might get on the train with him and go home—their new home together.
“Yes.”
Finally, she looked at him. “You won’t interfere with whatever Mrs. Fielding and Anna do?”
“No, but my promise is only good for tomorrow.”
She went to him then, took his hand and pressed his cool palm against the side of her face. “I was hoping you would be with me.”
Forty
AS IZZIE AND MAC WAITED FOR MRS. FIELDING and Anna in the parlor to attempt the trance, Izzie was so nervous, she felt faint.
“Will I die?”
“What do you mean?” Mac asked.
“If I let the voices in, will I lose myself completely? They’ll take my soul.”
“I don’t know. You won’t die, though. You’ll still be in there.” Smiling, he tapped her forehead gently as though knocking on a door.
She glanced at the parlor doors again. Anna and Mrs. Fielding had said they’d be here at noon. They were late.
“I may faint.”
“I’ve never seen you this way. Please change your mind, Izzie.”
“Don’t ask me that again.”
He nodded, then paced away from her through the outer parlor toward the front door. She was spinning a bit and grasped the fireplace mantel to steady herself. The house door clicked open.
“We’re sorry to be late.” Mrs. Fielding was suddenly at the door with Mac.
“Izzie is quite rattled. May we get it over with?”
Mac’s sentiments weren’t very different from her own. She desperately wanted the trance over with as well.
Beaming, Anna came in and walked directly to her and touched her hands. “It’s all right. You won’t be harmed.”
Looking down, Izzie saw that her own hands were clasped so tightly th
at her fingers had turned red, her knuckles white. Mrs. Fielding was moving with purpose about the room, setting out four chairs around a small marble-top table, closing the maroon damask curtains, and lastly lighting a candle. When done with her tasks, she joined Izzie and the others by the fire.
“You are awfully pale, my dear,” Mrs. Fielding said. “Anna is telling you the truth. You won’t be harmed. If you hear or see anything you don’t want to hear or see, you just ask the spirit to leave. They are usually respectful.”
“They aren’t, though,” Izzie said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve only told Mac this.” Izzie glanced at Mac, then looked back at Mrs. Fielding. “I hear voices, many voices, at night, in the dark. I tell them to leave and they don’t unless I have light.”
Mrs. Fielding’s mouth dropped a bit as she exchanged looks with Anna. “You’re clairaudient. Then, we must teach you how to listen and how to not listen.”
“You can do that?” Mac crossed his arms.
Nostrils flaring, Mrs. Fielding threw back her head and looked up to Mac’s face looming down. “It is a skill all mediums must learn. Izzie has a gift, but she has much to learn.” She swept her arm toward the daguerreotypes on the wall. “Your wife is about to join the famed Spiritualists of our time. Mr. Fishbough. Mrs. Eliza Farnham. Mrs. Emma Hardinge. Miss Cora Scott. Mrs. Edgeworth from your own Rochester. Our dear friend Mrs. Kellogg.” Blue eyes aglow, she looked directly at Izzie. “And soon, after a little training, I suspect we’ll be taking Isabelle down to one of the daguerreotype studios on Broadway so that we can add her portrait.
“I only want to find my sisters, Mrs. Fielding.”
Mrs. Fielding shot another look at Anna. “Yes. Yes. One step at a time. I’m sorry, dear. I do get carried away.”
Mac’s jaw stiffened. “She may be a Spiritualist, or she may be playing with delusion. You’ll promise me that we will stop your exercise if she seems endangered.”
“Of course, but there is no danger. You’ll see her talent for yourself. It has been obvious to me since we met in Geneva.”
Izzie swallowed. She was ready to go on, ready to listen to her voices. She was at the top of a high river ledge, ready to jump into the flowing water. Now or never. She had to jump now or she would back away. She had to find her sisters.
Izzie felt Anna’s arm slide around the back of her waist and start to steer her toward the chairs. Lowering his voice to a snarly whisper, Mac continued to speak to Mrs. Fielding. Izzie heard snippets. “Delusion.” “Fragile.” “Fear.”
“Breathe in slowly, breathe out slowly, in slowly, out slowly.” Like lapping waves at the edge of a lake, Anna’s voice soothed her. Anna took Izzie’s hand and began to stroke it.
Izzie directed her thoughts to the pictures on the wall, the women in their broad, hoop dresses and men in their cravats and black coats. Somehow they comforted her. There were so many who had all done what she was about to do, who had all done in earnest what she and Clara had done in jest. Mrs. Fielding brought an alphabet, paper, ink, and pen to the table.
“If a spirit comes to you, I’ll ask the questions.” Sitting next to her, Mrs. Fielding took Izzie’s other hand. “You are the medium. That means you are the vessel or instrument for one of us to speak to the spirits. I’ll ask about Clara and Euphora and where they are.”
Still breathing deeply and slowly with Anna’s guidance, Izzie nodded. Mac took the seat across from her.
She smiled at him. “I’ll be fine.”
Blinking rapidly, he scratched at the purple scar on his chin. “I’ll be patient but not too patient.”
“Close your eyes, Isabelle,” Mrs. Fielding said. “Allow your breathing to relax now. Clear your mind and listen for a voice.”
The sensation of both her hands being held and caressed pacified her. Gradually, peacefulness descended over her like light snow. Izzie concentrated on the snow, but not the snow here on West Twenty-Fifth Street. She saw the snow covering a great wide empty field like she had seen from the train window. Empty. White. She moved over the snow field, not trudging in the sinking depths of it but floating above it, flying over the field, over partly frozen rivers, to another white field, and another.
“Can you tell us where Clara and Euphora are?” It was Mrs. Fielding’s voice, far away, across several of the snow-covered fields.
“I’ve drowned. I’m dead. My steam ship has gone down. It’s called the Hungarian. About a mile off the shore of Nova Scotia.” A man’s distant voice spoke to Mrs. Fielding.
“Clara and Euphora. They’re sisters of the one you speak through. Are they in Summerland with you?”
“I’m not in Summerland. It’s foul and cold here. Tell my brother I’ve drowned.”
“What’s his name?”
“John Child.”
“I’ll try. Is there anyone else there who can speak about the Benton sisters?”
“I’ll leave you. Tell my brother.”
It was quiet then. Izzie lay on the snow and looked up at the blue sky. A few small clouds drifted by. Someone was gently lifting her right hand, putting a pen in it.
“Keep your eyes closed and write. Let the pen do as it wishes.”
Izzie felt the familiar sensation of her hand sliding over paper line after line. Her other hand began to move as well in a similar way, but without a pen. Then she felt a pen in her left hand as well and paper underneath. Both her hands glided on and on, letters, words, flowing, leading to other words and to others.
When the words stopped, her hands froze in place.
“Can you hear me, Izzie? Izzie?”
It was Mac calling her back from the snowfields. She floated toward his voice, then opened her eyes. He was next to her, kneeling beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his forehead pressing against her temple. “Izzie, please.”
She inhaled. The smell of lavender filled her nostrils.
“Do you smell the lavender?” she asked.
“Yes,” Anna said. “It’s the woman who was writing through you.”
Izzie looked at the table in front of her. There were two stacks of paper. She reached out and flipped through them. There were eight or ten sheets in each pile filled with large script.
“What is all this?”
“You wrote two different letters, one with each hand,” said Anna.
“What do they say?”
“They’re from two different spirits.” Mrs. Fielding, eyes bulging, looked nearly wild. “The left-handed one is in another language.”
“I don’t know any other languages.”
Anna stood next to her with an enormous grin. “Are you all right?”
“She must rest.” Mac bolted up from his knees. “Come my dear. I think you should lie down. We can talk about all this later.”
“Was there anything about my sisters?”
The three of them were silent, trading sharp glances back and forth.
“Nothing that we could see or hear, but you have proved you are a great medium.” Mrs. Fielding grasped her hand.
“But how can I be great if I can’t use my gifts to find my sisters?”
“There are many things the spirits cannot tell us about our own lives, Isabelle.”
“Izzie is right.” Mac glared down at Mrs. Fielding. “None of this is useful to her or anyone else. No more trances.” He snatched up one of stacks of paper and tossed it out into the room, pages flying out and landing on the sofa, chairs, and rug. “It may not be dangerous for you and Anna, but it is dangerous for Izzie.”
“You’re wrong, Doctor MacAdams,” Anna said. “She is gifted and can be of true service. She must develop her talents.”
Everyone was pulling hard at her. She’d done what she had to do. There was no clue to help her find Clara and Euphora. All these weeks she’d been marching about the freezing streets of New York City with raw, blistered feet, never finding a hint of the girls. Now it seemed there was no hope at all.
“I’m
cold and very tired,” she said.
“Yes, come over to the fire.” Mac reached for her hand, then looked at Mrs. Fielding. “Leave us, please.”
“We’ll go over the letters with you later, Isabelle.” Mrs. Fielding kissed Izzie’s forehead.
“That was beautiful, Izzie. I’m extremely happy.” Anna kissed her as well and left with Mrs. Fielding.
The Spirit Room Page 42