The Curfew Circle

by Nina Dreyer

  Late that night, John Kilcoyne sat in the innermost parlour of the Salon, a black velvet pouch in one hand, a crystal brandy glass in the other. Charlie and Georgie observed him intently over the greasy glasses and bottles cluttering the spindly mahogany table. Candlelight illuminated their rapt faces. Above them hung rows and rows of gilt-framed photographs of renowned mediums from past decades. John glanced up at them, one eyebrow raised. Some of them had gone legendarily mad. But that had all been in the wild Seventies and Eighties, when the fashion at seances had been for levitating tables and exploding gas fixtures.

  Rain needled the shuttered windows, but the crackling fire in the grate warmed John’s back, and brandy glowed in his chest. The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight. He smiled and slipped a pendulum from the pouch.

  ‘It’s like this. You have to hold your hand completely still.’ John held out his hand, clasping the thin silver chain between two fingers. ‘See?’ The obsidian pendant turned slowly, then came to a dead standstill. ‘Like this.’

  ‘How does he do that,’ said Georgie, clasping his brandy glass under his chin, ‘that’s mad, how does he do that?’

  ‘Soldiers’ hands,’ said Charlie breathlessly, ‘soldiers’ nerve.’

  Georgie kicked him under the table and shook his head, wide-eyed.

  John ignored them, keeping his gaze fixed on the unmoving pendulum. The pendant hung suspended over the dead centre of a thick, red card. Two black lines formed a cross, yes and no printed at the end of each axis. You could make the dead communicate with this. Simple, archaic, almost like an interrogation. Up and down for yes, left and right for no. Yes, no, yes, no, left, right, left, right. Soon he would find a way to get better answers. To hear the true voices of the dead. He closed his eyes and turned the precious thought over in his mind.

  ‘We shouldn’t be drinking while we’re,’ Georgie burped into his plump hand, ‘while we’re, while he’s doing that. The spirit realm might take offence.’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘They drank while they were alive, didn’t they? They won’t mind. Probably miss it. Unless they were nuns.’ He grinned, a wheezy laugh. ‘Although maybe not, I had this teacher, Sister Martha, she was a right one for the liqueur-’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said John quietly. ‘The dead can’t see you. They can only see me.’ Shifting light from the fireplace glinted in the thin silver chain.

  The others fell silent for a moment. Georgie darted a glance around the dark room, away from the little circle of light at their table, holding his glass close to his chest.

  ‘You’ll never guess who we saw earlier, John,’ said Charlie. ‘Just this morning.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘That foreign one, Miss Horn. Hahn. Whatever. You know your one, the one with the owlish face. The one who dresses like a mad spinster from a Vaudeville play.’

  ‘She certainly is a peculiar woman,’ said Georgie, dabbing some brandy from his chin, ‘that she is, alright.’

  ‘Creeping around haunted houses all night, it’s not right, but she’s got her comeuppance now.’

  ‘How so?’ John poured himself a drink. Candlelight glowed in the amber brandy.

  ‘Well, apparently,’ Charlie leaned over the table and smiled conspiratorially, ‘she frightened the living daylights out of Miss Smythe, with her hauntings and her Poltergeists and what have you, so now Miss Smythe has quit the Salon because of her, and Sid is in a right rage.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Smythe,’ said Georgie sadly, blinking his moist eyes, ‘she was so pretty, so pretty. Little yellow ribbons in her hair.’

  ‘That Miss Hahn, they should put her in a comedy musical,’ Charlie grinned, his thin lips stretching over uneven teeth, ‘dress her up in a little admiral’s uniform, with little knickers and a little sabre, the way she strides around and orders people about.’

  John took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it in a fluttering candle. He’d seen Miss Hahn, slipping in and out of the shadows in the outer rooms of the Salon, but he’d never been able to speak to her. She had a strange tendency to appear briefly and then just vanish into the darkness, trailing faint scents of violets and ashes. A glimmer of black crystals, the shining of an eye, then gone. Like a spectre. He smiled at the irony.

  ‘Mrs. Hurlihy is her great friend,’ said Georgie, nodding into his brandy glass, ‘so she can’t be all bad… if Mrs. Hurlihy likes her. Mrs. Hurlihy is so kind. And so good, with her lovely little picture cards, what do you call them, the Tarotte.’

  ‘Tarot,’ said John.

  ‘But you’ve got to admit, this haunted houses business,’ said Charlie sourly, ‘it’s all very unnatural, if you ask me. Mrs. Hurlihy or no Mrs. Hurlihy. Morbid. Unladylike.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts or hauntings,’ said John, drawing deeply on his cigarette, ‘we all know that. Superstitious nonsense. Sid should put a stop to the whole thing.’

  Charlie perked up. ‘Right? I’ve been saying so all along, actually, John, and I think-’

  ‘But you’ve got to say one thing for our Miss Hahn. At least she’s brave enough to break the curfew.’ John trailed a finger along the sharp rim of his glass. ‘That’s more than can be said for either of you. Isn’t it?’

  The other two fell silent.

  ‘Town has surely become a dangerous place,’ said Georgie, shaking his head sadly, ‘sure I can’t even remember the last time we went to see a play, or a concert. It’s awfully sad. D’you remember,’ he reached for the bottle, nearly knocking it over, ‘when we all used to go to the Abbey Theatre every Friday, before the war-’

  ‘I’m not afraid to go out after curfew,’ said Charlie, cracking a walnut in a silver nutcracker.

  ‘Really?’ John clicked his fingernails on the table. ‘Is that so, Charlie?’

  ‘So it is.’

  ‘Then let’s go out right now.’ John downed the rest of his brandy and grinned. ‘Come on. We’ll make a game of it. First one to get arrested loses. I’ll bet you ten pounds.’

  Charlie drew up his narrow shoulders. ‘Sure, but this is, well, this is my good suit.’ He ran a thin thumb along the lapel. ‘Bespoke. Actually.’

  Georgie burst into tears. ‘Here, don’t argue, lads. Everything’s become so ugly, so fearfully ugly.’

  John patted his shoulder and sat back down again. ‘Don’t fret, Georgie-boy. The rebels will all be rounded up and shot at dawn. Over before you know it. Over before they know it, too.’ A cold draft shivered down his neck. He smiled stiffly and shook himself.

  ‘And it’s not as if it has anything to do with us,’ said Charlie, angrily uncorking another bottle, ‘it’s like Sid always says, we’ve got important spiritualist matters to attend to, proof of survival after death etcetera, we’ve nothing to do with politics, there’s no politics in the afterlife.’

  ‘He does say that a lot, the old man, doesn’t he?’ John gazed thoughtfully at the cluster of candles flickering in the draft. Sid, a threadbare old ostrich with his head buried deep in the silt. A gust of wind rattled the window shutters and howled mournfully down the chimney shafts.

  ‘And anyway,’ said Charlie, ‘she’s not as brave as you fancy, John. Your little Miss Hahn. I heard this from Sid himself, she was lurking around some haunted house or other, just the other night, this was after she frightened poor Miss Smythe, in search for knocks and bumps, and what do you think happened, only that the house was raided by the Tans.’ He set down his glass with a resounding clink. ‘And she ran away, hell for leather. Not brave at all.’

  John thought of her, Miss Marion Hahn, gliding around in the shadows, whispering, stretching out her pale hands in the darkness in search of the lonely dead. He sipped his brandy and wondered what she had felt when she’d seen the Black and Tans coming.

  Georgie leaned his thick arms on the mahogany table and began singing softly, swaying from side to side. ‘The harp that once through Tara’s halls the soul of music shed, now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls as if the soul were,�
�� he hiccoughed, ‘fled… ah, lads.’

  Charlie rolled his eyes and glugged a sip straight from the bottle.

  John picked up the pendulum again, held it over the red card and stilled his hand. ‘Should I rescue Miss Hahn from the terrors of the Dublin night,’ he asked, half-smiling.

  Charlie and Georgie turned to stare at him, breaths held.

  He looked at the card, focusing his mind. A familiar otherworldly chill spread from his shoulder joint down his wrist to his fingers.

  The pendulum began to swing, gently at first, then more and more forcefully back and forth. Left-right-left-right, no, no, NO, NO. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ll see about that, won’t we? I’ve actually arranged to sit in on a seance with her tomorrow night.’

  Charlie coughed. ‘You’ve what? But why?’

  John smiled, slipping the pendulum back in the black pouch. ‘To see what she can really do. I’ve a feeling I might be surprised.’

  Chapter Four

  The following evening, Marion stepped into the Salon on a breath of fog. She crept silently through each successive room, glancing around to make sure Mr. Sidney wasn’t there, looming in some corner. With her breath held, she inched her way into the inner parlour. Logs crackled and hissed in the great marble fireplace, casting a warm glow in the deep shadows.

  By the fire sat Eilis, lounging in a gown of indigo silk as lustrous as a clear-skied winter midnight.

  Marion approached, hands clasped. Eilis looked regal, like a priestess-queen of the ancient world, with gleaming Celtic knots of silver at her throat. Marion bit her lip and glanced down at her own fraying cuffs of faded green damask. She’d done her best to brush and mend it, but rainwater had splattered the hem of her skirt. She didn’t even look fit to be Eilis’ maid, much less her colleague.

  ‘My pet, I thought we’d lost you to the night.’ Eilis rose and gathered Marion close to her in a tight hug. ‘Jesus, how cold you are. Chilled to the bone.’ Eilis’ hair carried the scent of night-blooming flowers, heliotrope and jasmine. ‘Green is a wonderful shade on you.’ She smiled, stroking Marion’s back. ‘You should wear it more often. And it’s well that you look your finest. I want you feeling strong and confident tonight.’

  A log collapsed in the fireplace, whirling a burst of sparks into the gloom. Marion pulled back. ‘I can’t do the sitting. I wanted to tell you myself. Mr. Sidney has said-’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense.’ Eilis took Marion’s arm and brought her away from the glow of the fireplace. ‘Of course you can do the sitting. I’ll be looking after you each step of the way. I really think you’ve got a great talent for the Ouija board, just think how well it went when we tried in my house last Thursday.’ She fluttered a hand. ‘I don’t care what old Sid says, we have to nurture our talents, Marion.’

  They passed through a tall doorway and into a shadowy corridor, illuminated by a single hissing gas lamp.

  ‘No, Eilis, Mr. Sidney has fired me. I shouldn’t even be here.’

  Eilis turned to her. ‘We mustn’t bring worldly concerns into these rooms. I want you to quieten your mind,’ she smiled and squeezed Marion’s shoulder. Her eyes shone. ‘Shut out the living world now, Marion, with all its squabbling and worry.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘You can tell me all about it afterwards, pet.’

  They reached the heart of the Salon, a small octagonal room, perhaps once the private retreat of some Georgian lady with powdered hair and sugared breath. This was the inner sanctum reserved for the most senior mediums, the ones who did not flee from knocks in the dark or crackling voices from the void. Marion glanced around. She’d never been allowed anywhere near this room before. The only window had been covered with a heavy length of black worsted fabric. The yellow wallpaper was ancient, crumbling at the edges, and painted with swallows tumbling in flight.

  Eilis closed the double door behind them with a soft click.

  A gleaming oak table stood in the middle of the room, laid out with all the equipment. A Ouija board inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ebony. A red crystal oil lamp. Two blindfolds, two heavy black veils. A coil of thin rope. A brown apothecary phial of laudanum, a jar of smelling salts and a small tin with bandages and iodine, in case something went wrong.

  ‘Are you feeling well, Marion? Are you feeling strong?’ Eilis clasped Marion’s shoulder and gazed at her, solemn and serious, as though Marion were about to go over the top.

  ‘Yes, thank-’

  ‘Oh,’ Eilis glanced over her shoulder, ‘you’re already here then, are you? Grand. I forgot. Marion, someone wants to meet you.’ She pressed her lips together and turned her back.

  Deep in the hushed darkness, a man stood leaning against the cold marble fireplace, twirling a silver pendulum on a delicate chain through his fingers. He was tall, with sharp, angular features and dark, deep-set eyes. His ink-black hair was swept back one side in a parting as sharp as a white scar. He sauntered closer.

  ‘John Kilcoyne,’ he said, clasping Marion’s hand.

  ‘Pleased to,’ Marion swallowed hard and glanced up at him, ‘to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kilcoyne. I’m Marion Hahn.’ She’d seen him before, admiring him in stolen glances as he strode through the Salon parlours with his retinue of friends. But he’d never spoken to her before.

  ‘Oh, I know who you are.’ He gazed at her a little too intently, as if he was trying to memorise her features. ‘Call me John. You won’t mind me sitting in, I hope. Your reputation precedes you.’ He stepped into the small circle of light from the flickering lamp. ‘I wanted to see for myself.’ He glanced at the table, running a thumb along the coil of rope, the black blindfold. Then he smiled at Marion, a crooked grin. In the weak light, his eyes were pure black. A faint harelip scar puckered his upper lip.

  Marion felt herself blushing. She put a hand to her throat and glanced at Eilis. ‘My reputation?’ She thought of Charlie Kavanagh, smirking maliciously at her. Her skin prickled. She thought of Mr. Sidney, dismissing her with a scowl and a wave of the hand, as if she was some misbehaving chambermaid to be flung into the street.

  She tightened her fists at her side. ‘I have an idea. I want to demonstrate something to you both.’

  ‘What’s that, pet?’ Eilis pulled out a leather-bound notebook and laid it on the table.

  ‘A trance seance.’

  Eilis turned to look at her, eyes wide. John raised his eyebrows. ‘A trance seance? What do you mean, a-’

  ‘Let her talk,’ Eilis snapped.

  Marion pushed back her shoulders and raised her chin. ‘I can do it. Let me show you.’ Her throat felt dry. If she could manage this, if she could impress Eilis and John Kilcoyne, then Mr. Sidney would-

  ‘Why, what a grand idea,’ said Eilis, smiling haughtily at John, ‘I was indeed just saying that my Marion has a special talent. A grand experiment, sure why not, we don’t have enough of those. Now, what will you need, pet?’

  ‘Nothing. Just the blindfold. The black veil. Darkness.’ Marion stared at the shining table and tried to still her heartbeat. She could do this. She would do this.

  ‘You don’t really know what you’re doing, Eilis, do you though?’ John tapped the table with a fingernail. ‘You know that nobody has attempted a trance seance in decades. Maybe there’s a good reason for that.’

  ‘Just because you’ve never seen it done before doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, John.’

  ‘Oh, I have seen it done. Once, in Paris. Just after the war. The medium tried to claw her own eyes out in the end. Had to be tied down.’

  ‘Don’t be telling Marion things like that,’ said Eilis, ‘she’s not one of your Parisian charlatans. You’ll see. You’ll be eating your own words soon enough. I’m sure of it. Marion has a magnificent talent.’ She took the Ouija board and put it away.

  John stroked the black blindfold and gazed at Marion. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to attempt this, Miss Hahn?’

  ‘Of course she wants to do it, John, you just heard her say so, di
dn’t you?’ Eilis flicked off the lights, blew out the candle and lit the red crystal lamp with the sulphurous scrape of a match. ‘Just think how astonished everyone will be when you pull it off, pet! It’ll be your great triumph, and Lord knows you’ve earned it.’ The room descended into darkness, illuminated only by a small red glow.

  Marion nodded curtly. She sat down on the leather chair and laid her hands flat on the cold table. Her heart was pounding. She was usually never nervous before a seance. She’d performed hundreds of them, after all. Thousands. But not here. Not in front of Eilis and John Kilcoyne. This felt like a final test, a last chance. ‘Let us begin.’

  John picked up the length of rope and curled it around his knuckles, still gazing intently at her. ‘I will restrain you if I have to, Miss Hahn,’ he said quietly. ‘For your own good.’

  ‘Jesus, don’t be so bloody morbid,’ Eilis snapped up the blindfold and laid it over Marion’s eyes, binding it tightly at the nape of her neck.

  Everything went dark.

  ‘Now, you take the notebook there, John,’ said Eilis, ‘and make sure you’re ready. No, you can’t smoke, put that out at once. I’ll be watching over Marion, and you can take notes, and pay attention, because it might be difficult to understand what the spirit realm is saying when it speaks through Marion.’

  Marion inhaled deeply. ‘May I have a glass of water?’

  ‘Better yet,’ said John, ‘a stiff drink.’ She heard a gurgling sound, glass clinking, and started when John took her hand and pressed a cold glass into it. She lifted it to her lips and drank deeply. Whiskey burned through her chest, peaty and smoke-soured.

  ‘Alright,’ said Eilis, ‘enough of that.’ She laid the black veil over Marion, rustling it in place from the crown of her head to her knees. Perfect blackness. Not the slightest chink of light came through. Marion held her breath to still her pounding pulse. She felt like she was falling backward, into a gaping abyss.

  She heard Eilis pull her chair closer, and felt the floorboards creak as John moved behind her.