The Spiritualist

by Megan Chance

“Almighty God, let us talk with the spirits tonight.”

  I kept my eyes closed; I felt the tension of the others as the silence grew.

  “Is there a spirit present?” Michel asked.

  His fingers stroked my hand, and I was too tired to protest. I was unthinking, cocooned, numbed. Moments passed.

  “If there is a spirit present, would it answer me?”

  His words were like buzzing in my ear, quiet at first, and then slowly the buzzing grew until I could no longer hear his words, until the sound filled my head, louder and louder until I felt I couldn’t stand it another moment, until I nearly opened my eyes to ask what it was, and to make it stop—but I couldn’t make myself open my eyes. I was so tired. Why was no one talking about that sound?

  Then, just when it became unbearable, it changed. It became a whisper, drawing me toward it, beckoning, pulling me. It was like falling into a dream. Come… .

  But I couldn’t move to follow it, and then there was a clatter, a sudden movement, and I felt a pressure beneath my hands, lifting them.

  I heard Michel speaking, garbled, nonsensical talk. He stirred beside me. His speech became a kind of chant inside my head, a song I could almost recognize. I’d heard it before. I knew it. A Creole song about a nun longing for love…

  Finally, he was silent, and I opened my eyes.

  They were all staring at me as if I’d gone mad.

  I realized two things: the circle had been broken, though I hadn’t been conscious of releasing anyone’s hand, and I was holding a pen so tightly my fingers cramped around it.

  I looked down in confusion. Before me was a bottle of ink, an open notebook whose page was filled with a nearly indecipherable scrawl. My hand was smudged with ink; there were blots and stains everywhere, as if someone had been writing very fast, meaning to get thoughts down before they leapt away. With a sick dread, I realized that someone had been me.

  Robert Dudley said, “Evelyn? Are you back with us?”

  I dropped the pen so quickly it sent ink flying, and I backed away from the table. But when I tried to rise, my head spun and I crashed back down again, too dizzy to move.

  “Is she all right?” Sarah’s voice seemed to echo as if it came from a very far place.

  “Evelyn?” Benjamin’s voice was equally distant. “Evelyn, are you all right?”

  “Anyone can see she’s not.” Dorothy now, brittle and loud. “Get her to a sofa.”

  Hands were on me, lifting me, and I tried to struggle away. “I’m fine. I’m fine. If I could just—” But the truth was, I did not feel fine. I wanted nothing more than to lie down somewhere, and so I stopped fighting them. I let them carry me to the settee. When I tried to open my eyes, the dim light seared into my head. I closed them again in pain.

  “We went too fast.” Jacob’s voice was a murmur.

  “No one suspected she would do this,” Grace Dudley protested.

  Benjamin said from beside me, “Good God, can’t you see she’s done in? She should be in bed.”

  I tried to protest, but no one was listening, and I was so tired. It was easier just to let them do as they would. It was easier to fall into darkness.

  PETER WAS WAITING for me in my dreams, his skin cold and clammy when he touched me. River water dripped upon my face as he leaned over me. “You know he’s lying, Evie.” He was so intent, almost vehement. “He’s trying to fool you. He’s trying to fool everyone—”

  I lurched awake. It took me a moment to remember where I was, and what had happened. It came back to me slowly: I had done spirit writing, and I had swooned. I didn’t understand. I’d had nothing to drink; I’d refused the liqueur. I’d eaten nothing. If Michel had somehow caused it, I didn’t see how. But what else could explain it? It had felt so real, but it could not be, could it? If it had been a hallucination, then the delusion was so overwhelming I must indeed be mad—but I could not think that. I refused to think it.

  It was simply that I was exhausted. Lack of sleep could do this to a person, couldn’t it? I hadn’t slept a full night through since before Peter had died, and that, along with the strain of the upcoming trial, and the effort of my pretense, left me exhausted. I felt myself slowly unraveling, and I was afraid, and all I could think was that I must try to understand what was happening to me before I ended up like my mother.

  Perhaps there was something in the words I’d written, some clue, some way to divine the truth of how it had been accomplished. There must be a rational explanation. Michel had mesmerized me; the writing was not mine; something. Once I saw it, I would know. I was certain of it. It was not madness.

  I climbed from bed and pulled on my dressing gown, driven by the compulsion to see the words, by my hope of an answer.

  I went to the door and pressed against it, listening. I had no idea what time it was, or how long I’d slept, but the hallway was silent, and it felt late. I opened the door, stepping out, shutting it quietly behind me. It was very dark, and a bit cold—I had grown used to Dorothy’s jungle temperatures, and the central heating had been banked for the night. I gathered my dressing gown more tightly about me and went as quickly and quietly as I could to the stairs. I meant to go to the second-floor parlor first, to see if the notebook had been left there. If it had not… if it had not I did not want to think about where it might be.

  I grabbed the banister and tried to make out the stairs in the darkness. Cautiously I felt for the step.

  The door to Dorothy’s room opened.

  I froze, holding my breath, cursing inwardly when I saw him come out. I had some notion that if I were still enough, quiet enough, he would not see me in the darkness, even though I was only a few feet away.

  But, of course, he was canny, almost preternaturally so. I wasn’t surprised when he stopped, when he turned toward me, when he said, “Looking for something, chère?”

  Nervously, I said, “I—I was hungry. I thought I’d go to the kitchen—”

  He took a few steps and put both hands on the railing opposite from the one I clutched. “A good idea. Perhaps I’ll join you.”

  I noticed he wore a dressing gown, and that his feet were bare, his hair loose. It was only then that I registered where he had come from. Dorothy’s room. In repulsed dismay, I said, “I wouldn’t want to interrupt your assignation.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the door. “She’s asleep now.”

  “Won’t she miss you when she wakes?”

  “Jealous, chère?”

  I ignored him and began going down the stairs.

  He was beside me in a moment. “Having nightmares again? Spirits haunting you in your dreams?”

  Steadfastly, I kept going.

  “What do they say to you, these spirits? Do they tell you how to get an old woman to trust you? How to pretend to hear their voices so you can write their words?”

  I stopped, turning on the stair to face him. “I leave such manipulations to you.”

  “How clever you are. I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t see it, though I should have after what you said at our lesson. Spirit writing… ah, very smart. To say what you want without taking the blame—how could a woman think such things, after all? It isn’t you who plants doubts against me; it’s the spirits who malign me—”

  “It’s not so very hard to do,” I snapped. “Given that you deserve to be maligned.”

  “You would take from a dying woman her last comfort?”

  “If that comfort were a lie, yes.”

  “And then what? What does it leave her?”

  “Isn’t it enough not to be thought a fool?”

  He shrugged. “Not everyone cares what others think.”

  “Maybe not. But I must live within the world of those who do.”

  “Even if it blinds you?”

  “Blinds me? To what?”

  “To the lie of your own life.”

  “What can you possibly know of my life?”

  He leaned close. We were in darkness, but his expression was pla
in to me: the sharp caginess, the small, mean smile. “Look at where you are, chère, the things that are left you. Do you think he didn’t plan all this?”

  It was not what I had expected. In bewilderment, I said, “Who? Plan what?”

  “Your husband. He left you the house, knowing his family would oppose it. Do you really think he didn’t plan on leaving you destitute?”

  Ben had said much the same thing, but that Peter meant to disinherit his family, not to leave me with nothing. The idea was horrible. Its very meanness was so unsettling I couldn’t fathom it. “Of course he didn’t. The house is worth a great deal of money. He left me everything.”

  “What’d you do to him, Evie, hmmm? How did you disappoint him?”

  “I never disappointed him. I was the wife he wanted—”

  “But he resented you.” Michel’s voice was only a whisper. “In a way, he even hated you. You loved him and he didn’t return your love. With your eyes you never let him forget it. Do you think that didn’t fester?”

  “That’s not true.” I pushed past him, and he stopped my flight with a hand on my arm. For a moment, we stood, staring at each other, and I thought he would kiss me, and I was stunned by a terrible longing—

  But he only said, in a voice so low I could hear it only because of our proximity, “If you’re really seeking the truth, you need to see him for who he was, Evie. Just as you need to see yourself. And me.”

  “I see you clearly enough.”

  “You think I murdered Peter.”

  “Didn’t you?” I twisted away from him. “You have Dorothy wrapped around your finger. My God, you’re even her… her—” I swallowed, unable to say the word. “Peter was going to spoil everything. It’s a great deal of money to lose.”

  “I think you’ve been blind a long time, chère. I’m wondering, when will you open your eyes?”

  “You speak in riddles, and I’m not some mad old woman to fall for them—”

  A door opened. Both Michel and I went still on the stair. From above came the creak of a footstep, a quiet “Mr. Jourdain, sir? Is that you?”

  Michel said, “I’m here—what is it?”

  “It’s Mrs. Bennett, sir. She’s awake again, and calling for you. She’s in a bad way.”

  “I’m coming.” Michel glanced at me, and then he was moving quickly again up the stairs. I heard him murmur something to the nurse, and the two of them went into Dorothy’s room. I heard the door click shut.

  I stood there on the stair, shaken and angry, strangely disappointed that he was gone, and dismayed that I felt so. I was truly losing my mind to be so affected by him, to believe anything he said at all. I nearly raced down the remaining stairs to the closed doors of the second-floor parlor. I pushed them open and went inside, closing them again behind me.

  The room was dark and full of shadows. The drapes were open, and though there was no moon, the streetlamps on Fifth Avenue lent a dim and unearthly glow. As I moved toward the table, I thought I saw a movement at the corner of my eye, and I stopped, gasping, until I realized it was the statuary looming like men in the pale darkness. I was alone except for the ghosts of the spirits who visited us here, the lingering echo of their visits. What seemed benign and amusing during the circle suddenly felt creepy and a bit threatening.

  I hoped that during the confusion of my fainting spell, the notebook had been forgotten. I went to the table, and though I had doubted I’d find it, I saw its shadowed rectangle on the tablecloth, with the inkwell beside it, and an abandoned pen.

  I stared at it incredulously—how easy this was. Too easy. I could not believe that Michel had forgotten it if it truly maligned him as he’d said. But I grabbed it, and in my haste, I knocked over the inkwell and the pen fell to the floor. Quickly I righted the bottle, breathing a sigh of relief that it had been capped, and set the notebook down again so I could recover the pen, which had rolled beneath the table. I knelt, then went down on my hands and knees, feeling along the carpet, crawling beneath the table while the tassels fringing the tablecloth caught in my hair. My fingers brushed against crumbs, and then I felt the pen—

  RAP.

  I started, jerking up so I banged my head against the bottom of the table. I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain, and froze, apprehensive, waiting.

  It seemed I waited forever.

  “Is someone there?” I whispered, but all I heard was my own breathing in answer. I grabbed the pen and began to crawl out—

  RAP.

  I sat up again, careful this time not to hit my head. “Is someone there?” I asked again. And then, in a quavering voice that did not sound like mine: “Is there a spirit come to speak with me?”

  Nothing.

  I gathered myself in tighter, turning so I could peer out into the room from beneath the fringe. I put my hand down and leaned to look beyond the chair leg.

  RAP.

  This time, I felt the give beneath my hand, as if there were a spring in the floorboard. I lifted my hand, frowning, and then, deliberately and hard, I pressed down again.

  RAP.

  And again.

  RAP RAP.

  And I knew: this was one of Michel’s tricks, the lever he used to make the raps during the circle. I crawled from underneath the table. I wondered what else he had hidden in the walls and the floors. What other ways had he thought to delude decent people? To delude me?

  I got to my feet, setting the pen back onto the table. Ben had been right—Michel was more than capable of creating some mechanism to shoot that gun during the first circle I’d attended. No doubt the “misfire” had happened exactly as Ben suspected. I glanced up into the corners of the ceiling, searching the shadows for some evidence of where such a mechanism might have been, though I guessed whatever trick he’d used had been removed long ago. It was too dark now to do much exploring, but it was clear this room should be the focus of my next search.

  I grabbed up the notebook, unbuttoned the bodice of my dressing gown, and shoved the notebook beneath it, pressing it to my breasts as I left the parlor and started back to my room.

  This time, I paused at the landing, listening for any steps, any movement at all on the third floor. When I knew it was quiet, I sped up the stairs on the balls of my feet, trying to make as little noise as possible. Then, once I made the hallway, I raced to my room, closing my eyes in relief as soon as I was inside.

  I went to my bed and lit the candle on the bedside table. Then I pulled the notebook from my bodice and opened it.

  The pages were blank except for the first few, and those held the writing I remembered, the hasty scrawl, words abbreviated, blotted out. In some places, the nib had torn through the paper.

  You are running from what you know to be true. Liars lead you astray—do not be tempted. The truth is not alwys what you want to believe. Those who say they know the truth seek to blind you. There is nothing but darkness ahed of you & folly all around. Follow yer path heedlssly & death will be your guide & you will feel the hands about your throat, the knife in your side. Will you be a fool or wise?

  You have forgotten yer skill & you will be lost without it. Close your eyes to our cries for vengeance & you will be swallowed by them. The truth waits & you must tell it to all & beleve it. Trust those sent to guide you. Know the others or be condemned forever.

  I stared at the pages for a long time. Liars lead you astray. Do not be tempted. These words were more pointed than before, and frankly threatening. Whoever had written this grew angry with my incompetence. That was hardly a surprise; I was frustrated with myself. Surely that was an argument for the writing being simply a product of my own mind, my own disappointments made manifest, as it were. There was no divine knowledge here, was there? I remembered Michel’s words upon the stairs, his protest that the words had maligned him. They did seem to do so, and he had been truly angry with me tonight—I had not imagined that. If he’d engineered the spirit writing, surely he would not paint himself in such a compromising light? If he had ca
used it to be done, why not make himself the hero he had already convinced Dorothy he was?

  But if he had not done it, then how had it been done?

  18

  __

  A STRANGER TO MYSELF

  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1857

  The next morning one of Dorothy’s nurses came to tell me that Dorothy wished to see me.

  My mind felt muddy and unsubtle after my sleepless night, but I followed Charley down the hall to Dorothy’s room. When I went inside, it was to find her sitting up, though the curtains were drawn and the gaslight low. She looked as pale and haggard as I felt.

  “Child,” she said as I sat in the chair next to the bed. She reached limply across the coverlet, grabbing my fingers, squeezing feebly. “I’m afraid it’s not one of my best mornings.”

  “I understand you passed a sleepless night.”

  “Sometimes the pain is worse than others,” she said. “If not for Michel’s hands…”

  I resisted the urge to pull away. “His hands?”

  “I told you, child, he has the hands of a healer. If he ever left me, I don’t imagine I’d want to continue on.”

  “I doubt he’ll leave. Not with the reward that’s waiting for him.”

  She turned on the pillow, frowning at me. “Don’t you lecture me, Evelyn. I told you, if that’s what it takes to keep him, it’s little enough.”

  “I wonder”—I took a deep breath—“I wonder if perhaps he’s worse for you than you think.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “The schedule he keeps you on for your cordial, for example.”

  “Evelyn.”

  I ignored the warning in her voice. “And though I’ve no doubt he’s very good with his ‘hands,’ as you say, I wonder if perhaps you don’t need him as much as he tells you you do. They say such… physical… habits can weaken our moral resolve. It can even lead to madness—”

  She tore her hand from mine. “This isn’t why you’re here. I wanted to talk to you about the spirit writing.”

  “It’s the spirit writing that makes me speak to you this way. Last night, I found—”

  “I don’t care,” she said.