The Curfew Circle

by Nina Dreyer

  ‘It’s going to be like a cold sitting,’ said Eilis, ‘is that alright, Marion? You just sit there in the dark now, and let us know when someone wants to come through you. Alright?’

  Marion nodded. The veil felt heavy, stifling. She closed her eyes more tightly. Burst of light twirled behind her eyelids. After a moment, the swirling pinpricks of light in her retinas imploded. She sank into the blackness of a starless night.

  ‘We invite the realm of light into our circle now,’ said Eilis, her voice softer and deeper now, ‘anyone at all who might want to come through now, give us a sign to show you’re among us.’

  ‘You mean she doesn’t use a control,’ whispered John, ‘that’s not-’

  ‘I’ll thank you to be quiet now, John,’ Eilis whispered.

  They fell silent.

  Marion heard a clock ticking in some distant room. Her heartbeat began to slow down, thick as molasses.

  Nonsense phrases, half-words and gibbered syllables flickered across her waking mind like a broken gramophone, whirling and whirring and hissing and fizzing until finally … quiet.

  Marion leaned her head back and sank deeper into the black void. It was risky, of course, even potentially dangerous to go into the outer darkness, and to call up the dead like this. You never knew what haggard faces you might attract, or what ragged, lashings longings or hatreds they brought with them to the threshold of your mind. Impostors were frequent, the dead masquerading as someone else just for the briefest moment of light and human warmth. But this was how Marion had always worked, since that first morning many, many years ago, and she could always tell an impostor. It was a question of seeing the heart of their desires, which was a talent, Marion had once thought, rather like a sommelier or composer of perfumes. Essences and subtleties.

  Stillness.

  This must be what the bottomless ocean felt like. Black and heavy. The thought slipped across the surface of her mind, her last waking thought. Then the darkness closed over her.

  The clock stopped.

  No thought. No light and no colour and no form and no breath.

  Nothing but perfect, endless darkness.

  Then, slowly, presence formed.

  Marion felt it at first as a deep rushing sound behind her left ear, a bone-deep chill and a gurgling sound. A weakness came over her.

  Her breathing became strained. She felt a pressure on her chest, like a heavy boot. The rushing sensation behind her ear grew louder.

  ‘Has anyone joined our circle?’ It was Eilis’s voice, barely audible, strange and distorted and drifting towards her as if through deep water.

  The presence solidified, glided closer, trailing a smell. Something sharp and metallic. Blood. Cordite and wet wool. Burnt bone.

  Something was wrong.

  A violent death.

  Marion saw his form before her now. An outline blurred by tears. A young man, slender as a snapped willow branch. She held out a hand to him in the darkness. Open hand, palm up. An invitation. The presence slid closer.

  She opened her mouth to let him speak through her.

  She could not hear the words. All she could hear was the deep gurgling sound. The voice of the dead man burned through her throat and mouth like acid and bile. Her tongue and jaw muscles hardened as words not her own rose from her throat.

  Oceans away, she heard the faint scratching of a fountain pen on paper.

  ‘How did you pass over?’ John’s voice now, distant and distorted.

  Marion felt the dead man’s voice struggle through her aching throat. She was breathing too deeply now, too slowly. Her hands and feet tingled and grew numb.

  The presence blurred and bled in the dark. He drew closer and raised a dim, dead hand towards her, twisted and smudged.

  The left side of his face.

  Gone.

  Blown off.

  Marion glimpsed a splinter of his nose bone, a glint of splintered teeth, a gleam of shattered, stripped eye socket. She could smell the burnt flesh. Her gut screamed for her to raise a her arms to her face, to ward herself. But the young man was crying. He began to draw back, to dissolve. Marion wanted to grasp him, to hold him, to stop him fading. The gurgling sensation in her left ear grew stronger. Her blood, she thought, her brain, was gushing and gurgling down the rusty grate of the gutter, and over rain-swept cobblestones. The young man began to fade.

  She reached deep into the in the dark and grasped him. She spoke to him with her mind’s voice. Show me the last image in your mind.

  The images swirled between them like fog on the sea.

  The memory bloomed in her mind’s eye like a breath of mould. A small patch at first, then it spread. A tall man in a black coat. He raised a gun. Moonlight glinted in the muzzle. Smoke curled around his fingers. A metal badge gleamed on his lapel. Thin mouth, thin lips, hatred shining in his pebble eyes.

  Turn.

  Run.

  You must run.

  A sharp, deafening, blinding burst on the left side of her head, a cracking, a gushing, then cold. Life seeping from her, over the cobbles, into the gutter. Colder and colder, heavier and heavier.

  Darkness.

  A shove. Marion jolted. Something was pummelling her, pulling at her. Distantly, coldly, she decided that she didn’t really care. She wanted to be still, very still, to sink deeper down. The shouting only reached her then, as if through wet earth.

  ‘Marion, no, no! For Christ’s sake, no, Jesus Christ, wake up!’ It was Eilis, screaming.

  The black veil was torn off her, and the blindfold ripped from her face. Marion keeled forward, heaving for air. Blinded by the light of the red lamp, she pressed her hands to her face and retched dryly, bile and burning and pain.

  The room swayed and she felt herself pulled up. She rolled her head back, and her cheek rested on John’s shoulders as he carried her in his arms from the room. She heard Eilis shouting behind them, ‘what are you doing, stop that, put her down!’

  John carried her to the outer parlour and gently set her down on the sofa by the grumbling fire.

  Eilis pushed past him and sank down in front of her, clasping her wrists. ‘No, wake up now. Come on. Breathe, Marion, breathe.’

  Marion opened her eyes slowly, wincing in the low light.

  Eilis pressed her hands over her mouth and turned her face away. Her shoulders were shaking. Marion thought she was weeping. She had never seen Eilis weep.

  All colour had drained from John’s face, but his eyes shone. ‘I’ll need to,’ he cleared his throat, ‘I’ll need to carefully reference what’s been said this evening. This may be the most evidential sitting we have seen at the Salon for years.’ He paused for a moment, stroking the back of his neck. ‘Miss Hahn… Marion. I don’t know if you know this.’ He reached out to touch her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t tell her!’ Eilis slapped his hand away.

  ‘She deserves-’

  ‘This is not some spiritualist bloody experiment anymore.’ Eilis pounded a table with a closed fist. ‘That lad died mere days ago, right out there, right out there on the streets, would you like to turn that in to some sort of exercise, John, would you?’

  John pulled out a battered silver case, took a cigarette from it and lit it, the flame briefly illuminating his dark eyes. ‘Eilis,’ he said slowly, exhaling smoke. ‘Listen to me. If the spirit was who he said he was, then this is evidence of the continuation of life after death.’

  ‘Life after death? Life after bloody murder, more like! It’s all so sterile to you, isn’t it?’

  Marion opened her mouth to speak. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The words would barely emerged from her ragged, burning throat. ‘Not so loud. Please.’ She gingerly pressed a hand to the side of her aching head.

  John and Eilis turned to look at her.

  Marion tried to steady her breathing. ‘Tell me what he said.’

  Eilis began pacing, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

  John glanced at his notes. ‘Young lad. Ga
ve his name. His address. Details of his life. And an account of his passing. All facts that can be referenced.’

  ‘Yes, thanks for that, John, you forgot to mention how he cried for his ma.’ Eilis rubbed her eyes. ‘That’s not evidential of anything other than-’

  ‘We won’t tell anybody about this,’ said John, ‘for now. I mean it. Nobody should hear of this. Not until we’ve had a chance to think.’ He snapped the notebook shut and slipped into a pocket.

  Eilis sighed. ‘John is right, for once. We’ll sleep on it. You can both come to supper at my place tomorrow. We’ll talk then.’ She glanced at John. ‘You can go away now, John. Marion needs to rest.’ Eilis tugged gently at her elbows. ‘Come along, pet, we’ll go to the back rooms now and loosen your corsets, have a little lie-down, a little sweet tea.’

  Marion closed her eyes and pressed her hand to the deep ache on the left side of her head. She winced. Moonlight gleaming in the muzzle of a gun. Blood on rain-slick cobbles. ‘I saw his murderer,’ she whispered.

  They both turned to stare at her.

  Chapter Five

  The air in Eilis’ dining room was heavy with the smell of lamb’s fat and rum pudding. Long, white candles glowed on the table, glinting in wine glasses and fine bone china plates smeared with sauce and gristle.

  Marion laid her hand flat on the brocade tablecloth, scratching a nail over a darkening wine stain and casting sidelong glances at the others. They had eaten in silence, the stillness broken only by the clink of silverware and the rustling of the maid in her stiff white apron. John had attempted small talk once or twice, Eilis had smiled sourly at him while chewing briskly, and Marion had tried not to gulp down her dinner too quickly. You got stomach cramps when you ate too quickly after hours of hunger.

  She darted at glance at John and saw him lean back, gazing pensively at her through the haze of candlelight. Behind him, the dark windows were sweating in the heat of the smouldering fireplace.

  Marion quickly dropped her eyes and fingered her lace cuffs under the table. She was wearing the last of her fine shirts, ivory silk with mother-of-pearl buttons and Austrian lace at the throat. But here, in this bright candlelight, it looked yellowed and worn. She hoped John wouldn’t notice. Not that she’d worn it to impress him, of course. She reached for her wine glass, heat rising in her face.

  Eilis ran a finger along the gilt edge of her plate and licked it. ‘Cranberry. I do love cranberry.’ She smiled, her lip glistening.

  ‘Why are you whispering,’ said John, ‘we’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing secret.’ He took a cigarette from his silver case and tapped it on the table.

  The maid began to clear the table, clattering the dishes and silverware. Eilis flapped a hand at her. ‘No, no, leave the bottles.’ She leaned her elbows on the table and sighed, smoothing a finger along her arched eyebrow. ‘So. I suppose we should broach the topic of the trance seance.’

  John lit his cigarette and nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘We’ll speak without the servants present.’

  Marion glanced at him. He was so urbane, so sure of himself. She would have just said, send out the girl.

  The maid lumbered out the door with her tray.

  ‘As I was about to say,’ Eilis said, ‘first things first. Sid will never allow this to be published.’ She slid a silver knife through the flesh of a peach. ‘You know the rules, John. He won’t allow things of a,’ she pursed her lips, ‘of a political hue. Not in his Salon. Always said we could take ourselves off elsewhere for that.’

  ‘He always did like to take the safest road,’ said John.

  ‘Which makes sense, considering-’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what Mr. Sidney will think of this.’ Marion dabbed her lips and let the white napkin fall to her lap. ‘I already know what he’ll say. He won’t even allow me to do visitations any longer. I went to speak to him.’

  ‘So I heard.’ John leaned back and breathed smoke at the stuccoed ceiling. ‘What did he say, exactly?’

  ‘I thought it made sense, what I told him. I was the only one who would help, the local priests will only come and sprinkle holy water, and only during the day, and so people send for me to-’

  ‘On with the story.’ Eilis rapped the table. ‘Let’s have it.’

  ‘Yes, well, I thought he could help me,’ Marion swallowed, ‘with the gunmen. After the curfew, you can’t go anywhere without being threatened. They might see me. Mistakes are made in the dark. They might shoot me.’ She dug her nails into a rubbery strip of orange peel.

  ‘It’s not the gunmen you should be worrying about,’ said Eilis, ‘it’s the British soldiers, more like. Brutal bastards, the lot.’

  ‘Of course, but nobody can do anything about them, whereas-’

  ‘What did Sid say to that?’ John stroked his jaw.

  ‘I asked him to approach the Dáil Eireann for me. To see if they would issue a special permit. So I could pass at night.’

  ‘God love you,’ Eilis laughed, ‘you said that to him? Oh, how I wish I could have seen the old man’s face. Mr. George Augustus Sidney, Emissary to the Dáil! We should get him a special hat. With an ostrich feather in it.’

  ‘He didn’t take kindly to your request, then?’ John tapped his lighter on the table.

  ‘He said that I was insane. And also, a banshee.’

  Eilis burst out laughing. ‘A banshee! What a culchie thing to say!’

  Marion smarted. What a pitiable fool she must have looked. She glanced warily at John. He sat perfectly composed, slipping his silver lighter around in his fingers. He wasn’t laughing. ‘Well it’s an honest mistake,’ he poured Marion a glass of port. ‘It’s hard to know whose side people are on these days. Especially for a foreigner. No reason to be so harsh about it. Wouldn’t you agree, Eilis?’

  Eilis glared at him, her smile souring. ‘Being harsh is the least of it, John. It was Sid’s idea to have Marion traipse along at night, going to abandoned houses where nobody else will set foot. It’s a waste of her talents. He’s never given her a fair chance.’

  ‘Abandoned?’ John frowned. ‘I thought they were people’s homes?’

  ‘Most of them have stood empty for years.’ Marion took a deep sip of port. ‘Once it’s said that a house is haunted, nobody will go near it.’

  ‘She’s going to get arrested,’ said Eilis, ‘or shot. And then that old sod called her a banshee and a lunatic when she asked for help.’ She shook her head and licked a slice of peach from the blade of her knife.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be very safe now,’ Marion said bitterly, ‘very safe indoors.’

  ‘Well you won’t be useful to anyone if you get arrested or shot.’ Eilis patted her arm. ‘Sid’s right about that, at least.’

  Marion tightened her fist on the table. ‘He is a bit like Emperor Nero, I think.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Fiddling while Rome burns.’ Emperor Sidney, she thought. Kaiser Sidney. She frowned.

  ‘Ah now,’ said Eilis, ‘the man has his faults, to be sure, but he does stand by his convictions. Not like our spiritualist brethren in Cork. Have you heard that they’re now pretending to be an association of what, starfish fanciers?’

  ‘I’m surprised to hear you standing up for him,’ said John.

  Eilis pressed her lips together. ‘Defend him yourself then, he’s your relative.’

  Marion inhaled sharply. ‘What? I’m sorry, I didn’t-’

  John just shrugged. ‘Not the easiest man in the world, my good old uncle Sid.’

  Marion rubbed her forehead and sighed. She thought of the old man in the street, the bright red blood in his thin white hair, the soldiers with their distorted faces, slick with rain. Perhaps the old man had been beaten to death. Perhaps he’d had a heart attack. Perhaps he would come to her at their next seance, with a broken face or a burst heart, to reproach her for her cowardice. A shiver prickled down her neck. She straightened herself. ‘We shouldn’t be talking about Mr. Sidney. This is not about him, i
t’s about that poor young man who was murdered. Think about it. You saw him too. Or, well, you heard him too. At the trance seance. He was in very great pain.’ She tried to keep her voice from cracking. ‘That happened right here in our city, and we should be using our skills as interlocutors with the dead to help.’

  John and Eilis turned to her slowly.

  At that moment, the maid trundled in from the side door and began to set out the coffee things, rattling with the cups and spoons and humming softly to herself.

  They sat in stony silence until she left.

  John loosened his black tie and gazed at the stained tablecloth with a thoughtful expression. Eilis chewed her lip. They carefully avoided looking at one another.

  The clocked ticked loudly on the mantelpiece.

  Marion crossed her arms. Why were they so silent? It was is if nobody wanted to understand her lately, even though she was so careful to pronounce each English word with precision.

  ‘This city is awash in pain,’ she said. ‘I was glad to do visitations to the distressed dead. Others in the Salon laughed at me. No Eilis,’ she held up a hand, ‘I know they did. They made sure I overheard them. Saying it wasn’t fine work, not dignified, it was like being a bin man, I heard them say that. But I was helping, not just sitting in comfort with a Ouija board. My work helped. Now he has banned me from doing that. But I intend to help, still.’

  ‘What are you on about,’ said Eilis, laying down her knife.

  ‘I lay awake all last night thinking about it, and I’ve made my decision. There’s only one right thing for me to do now. I’ll use my skills to help the recently murdered.’

  John stared at her while his cigarette, forgotten in the ashtray, crumbled to ash.

  ‘You will do no such thing,’ gasped Eilis, her face reddening, ‘you’ll get-’

  ‘What a remarkably laudable aim,’ said John, as if Eilis hadn’t spoken. His eyes gleamed darkly. ‘And how do you propose to help the recently murdered?’

  ‘I’ll find them. Try to soothe them. They always come when they sense a sympathetic presence. They hunger for it.’

  ‘And tell me this.’ John smiled as if he was merely asking her if she cared for yachting. ‘Do you always attract a lot of violent deaths?’