The man glanced at the photo, and back at Grace. “She has your eyes.” He shifted his gaze forward. “I’m hoping to speak to my dear departed wife. Dead seven years now. Love of my life.” He looked down at the floor. “Not sure if I believe, though. And you?”
“My daughter, Daisy.” Grace slipped the picture back into her pocket but continued to pet the edges of the frame with her thumb. “Five months this week.”
“So unfair.” The man tipped his head toward her. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“An accident.” The man nodded but said nothing, obliging her to fill the space. “Fireworks. Nine years old, may she rest in peace.”
“Heartbreaking,” he said, “just heartbreaking. So sorry for your loss.”
“For yours as well,” she replied.
“Did she suffer much?”
“Three days.”
“The horror of it.” He waited.
“Sang hymns. Called out to Jesus. Wanted to look brave for Him.”
“One of His angels, no doubt.”
“Amen.”
* * *
Daisy. Violet shuddered at the realization. Her mother had come to the theatre to talk to Daisy. Violet loved her sister and ached to be near her ever since she passed, but the thought of receiving messages from the grave terrified her.
Do nothing that you would not want to be doing
when Jesus comes.
Surely speaking to the dead was a far worse sin than sneaking into a minstrel show. Could anything Daisy had to say be worth the risk of eternal damnation? Violet pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, clasped her hands together, and began to pray. I love my sister, Lord, and miss her dearly, but if it’s all the same to You, I’d rather not hear from her. Not tonight. Not this way. Amen.
The electric bulbs dimmed, and the curtains slowly parted, quieting the audience as intended. A gentleman strutted to the center of the stage carrying a lighted taper in his hand. He wore a pencil-striped suit and a dark red bow tie. Without a word, he lit several more candles, all positioned on tables of varying heights behind a bloodred chaise longue suddenly visible in the light. Its angle afforded those seated in front the best view of the bulky wooden legs. Each had a carved face whose stunned countenance suggested the moment of death. Gasps rippled through the first few rows, and two or three people, who seemed frightened or repulsed, stood up to leave.
“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you’ll meet Rosalee, the famous medium known on every continent. She astonishes. She amazes. She speaks to the dead.”
Violet grabbed for her mother’s hand but found it still stuffed in her pocket. She settled for a fistful of sleeve. “I want to go home.”
“It was you who decided to come along,” Grace quietly reminded her.
“I changed my mind.”
“You can’t take a thing back once it’s done. You of all people should know that.” As soon as the last word landed, Grace covered her mouth. “God, forgive me,” she whispered against her hand.
Violet released her mother’s sleeve and burrowed into her chair.
“Before Rosalee takes the stage, she’s asked me to inform you that in order for her to receive messages from the other side, you must believe. Naysayers agitate the dead and jeopardize communication. She asks that all the Doubting Thomases remove themselves from the theatre at this time.”
Three more people slipped up the aisles and out through the doors.
“And a word to the faint of heart. Those who receive Rosalee’s gift are often overcome with emotion, some joyful at hearing messages from the dearly departed, others horrified at hearing truth spoken aloud. All who have entered, be warned.”
Violet squirmed in her seat, while Grace faced forward, the hand trembling at her mouth. Two or three more people stood up to leave.
“No doubt you are familiar with Spiritualism and its many forms of expression. Tonight you will meet Rosalee, a medium whose psychic magnetism attracts every sort of soul, from the moral to the depraved. She cannot control her spirit influences; she simply receives their messages through the art of automatic writing.” The announcer stepped to one of the small tables, pulled it alongside the chaise longue, and picked up a sheaf of blank stationery. He stepped to the front of the stage and held it out for inspection. “As those in the first few rows can attest,” he shuffled through the sheets with his thumb, “the pages are empty.” He removed a pen and small inkwell from his vest pocket, walked back to the table, and placed all of the items on top. “Without further ado, I give you,” he paused for effect, “Ros-a-lee.”
With the hem of her golden skirt dusting the floor, Rosalee seemed to glide onto the stage. The man in the pencil-striped suit raced toward her with his arm extended and led her to her seat. She reclined against the tufted arm with her legs stretched across the length of the cushion, and pulled the table toward her as a writing desk.
The announcer bowed once to the psychic and disappeared into the wings, leaving her alone on stage. The crowd held its breath, leaned forward, and waited.
Rosalee set the sheaf of paper onto her lap, dipped the pen in the ink, and, without a word, began to write. After what seemed to be enough time to fill a page, Rosalee pointed a finger and said, “You, in the second row with the silk forget-me-nots in your hair.”
A pixie of a girl sat at attention and listened to the psychic’s oiled tongue.
“Your name?”
“Eleanor Langan.”
“That’s right. I’ve a message for you, Ellie.”
“Papa? He’s the only one to call me that.” Eleanor removed a handkerchief from her sleeve.
“Yes, dear one. A message from Papa. A warning. Stay away from that boy. You know the one.” Rosalee watched as the girl’s hand briefly touched her head. “Him that gave you the flowers.”
“How did you . . . he . . . ?”
“Spare yourself the heartache. Wait for the one who is true.”
Rosalee dipped her pen into the inkwell, dropped her head, and started in on writing again. A minute or two later she called out, “Jefferson Lawrence.”
A handsome gentleman in the middle of the sixth row sat up.
“Where might you be, Mr. Lawrence?”
“You ought to know,” he called out, and the audience laughed nervously. “Perhaps a crystal ball would help!” The timid laughter rose again.
Rosalee looked down and read what she had written. “Quick with the tongue, he is.” She looked up. “Or so your dear grandmother says.”
“Quick with the tongue? A dead grandmother? You’ll have to do better than that.”
Rosalee offered a close-mouthed smile, more suggestive of satisfaction than joy. “Such foolishness. Such pride.”
“Such rubbish,” Mr. Lawrence responded, forcing a chuckle. This time the audience remained silent.
“Your evil ways will take their toll.”
“I’ve had enough,” he said as he stood to leave.
“That harlot from the brothel, for one.”
He stopped halfway up the aisle and turned toward the stage.
“Did you think I wouldn’t see? And now, it courses through your veins, the French Disease, the Great Pox. It’ll be the ruin of you.”
Every eye fixed itself in Mr. Lawrence’s direction. He paused to gather his thoughts and eventually shouted, “All lies!” but his denial came too late to be convincing. He continued up the aisle, yelling, “Lies! Lies! Lies!” as if repetition were a proper substitute for sincerity. His words of protestation could be heard as he stormed out the door and through the lobby. When the audience finally turned back toward the psychic, they found her writing again.
Rosalee called out to a white-haired woman whose husband had been hit by a train. He’d been uncoupling cars at the railroad when the engine backed up over him. The signal man had given the wrong sign to the conductor. Several men dragged him off the track, placed him in a wagon, and carried him to the hospital. As
one of the attendants started to cut off his trousers, the woman’s husband had warned, “Be careful, boys. My legs are with them,” and died. That’s how Rosalee told the story, and the man’s wife nodded in her seat. Evidently he’d shown up at the theatre to tell her he was sorry for an argument they’d had the morning of the accident.
“It’s about time,” the woman said, and the crowd laughed. “Wanted to buy us a pair of bicycles. I told him he had another think coming if he thought I’d ever set foot on one.”
“He’s here now to ask forgiveness,” Rosalee explained again.
“Imagine, bicycles at our age!” The woman puffed up and looked around the audience for sympathy.
“And he’s sorry for that,” the medium said, reading from her paper. “So truly sorry.”
“Of all the crazy ideas. No telling what might have happened if—”
Rosalee interrupted: “So will you accept his apology and give him peace in the next world?”
“Well, of course I will. What kind of wife do you think I am? He’s my husband, God rest his soul . . . until I get there.”
Several other spirits appeared to Rosalee. Among them, a mother who had died in childbirth; a fiancée who’d taken her own life; a son who’d gone out to California in search of his fortune and had not been heard from since.
The candles started to sputter as the performance neared its end. Rosalee thanked the audience for its attention and stood to leave.
Relief washed all traces of dread from Violet’s face. She unlocked her arms and dropped her legs to the floor in front of her.
In the midst of deafening applause, Rosalee swooned and fell into the arms of the announcer, who stepped out of the shadows in time to catch her. He immediately laid her back on the chaise longue where she picked up her pen and began writing again. The crowd held its breath. Panicked, Violet folded herself into her seat and braced herself for disaster.
“This is a child spirit,” Rosalee announced to the hushed audience.
Grace leaned forward.
“Not fully bloomed.”
“My pet!” Grace cried out as if the child were in front of her.
“She’s telling me a name.” Rosalee went back to writing for a moment, then looked up. “Daisy.”
“Yes, yes!” Grace moaned. “My sweet baby!”
Rosalee returned to her paper and read. “Are you proud of me, Mama?”
“Yes, yes. Mother is proud of you. I’ve always been proud of you.”
“I’m with Jesus, Mother. I’m surrounded by love.”
“Oh, thank God. Thank you, God. My baby is safe with Jesus!” Grace began to cry, and someone a few rows back passed a handkerchief to her. It smelled of lavender, like the scented water used to wash Daisy’s body, and Grace sobbed even louder.
“I don’t feel any pain.”
“Praise be to God!” Grace elbowed Violet. “Her burns are healed.” She grabbed hold of her daughter and hugged her hard.
Violet tried to shake the feeling that all of this would come to no good, but fear dug in its heels and refused to move along. Her mother wrapped her arms around her more tightly and pulled her in.
Rosalee looked directly at Grace and recited the words she’d written: “My death was not an accident.”
A gasp blew through the auditorium like a wind storm. Rosalee went back to writing. Violet peered up at her mother in horror. Grace dropped her arm from around her daughter’s shoulder and hissed, “What did you do?”
Ever since her sister’s death, Violet had seen this look in others’ eyes, but never recognized it in her own mother. Until that moment, she’d always told herself it was grief she was seeing, not blame. Shuddering, she searched her mother’s eyes, hard blue stones, and saw Daisy looking back.
After a minute or so, time enough for the full weight of her words to settle, Rosalee looked up. “My death was not an accident,” she repeated. “It was part of God’s plan for me—His intention all along.”
Confusion settled into the folds of Grace’s brow. She stared at Violet, but cocked her ear in Rosalee’s direction.
Violet buried her face into the collar of her coat, but she could still see the scorn in her mother’s eyes, Daisy’s eyes.
Rosalee smiled. “My death was decided long before I was born. No one is to blame. My time on earth was always meant to be brief.”
Grace sank back in her seat, exhausted, unable to organize her words into sentences.
Violet tried to grab hold of the absolution Rosalee had offered. No one is to blame. It withered and died in her hand.
Rosalee began to sing in a childlike voice that had none of the music of Daisy’s:
A sunbeam, a sunbeam,
Jesus wants me for a sunbeam . . .
Violet’s eyes sprang open and her hands flew to her ears. Daisy’s voice echoed in her head:
A sunbeam, a sunbeam,
I’ll be a sunbeam for Him . . .
Grace leaped from her seat and ran onto the stage. She dropped to the floor beside Rosalee and rubbed the hem of her golden skirt against her cheek. “My Daisy,” she cried. “My Daisy. My beautiful Daisy.”
The announcer rushed forward, took Grace by the hand, and led her back to her seat. Rosalee glanced in the direction of the milky-eyed man who, upon seeing Grace, had stepped deeper into the shadows off stage. Seemingly unfazed, Rosalee smoothed her skirt and picked up her pen for one more message. “She says to name the baby Lily since she’ll be born so close to Easter.”
“What baby?” asked Grace.
Rosalee nodded.
“A baby?” Grace looked down, placed her hands over her swollen belly, and wept.
Words crashed inside Violet’s head. No one is to blame. Sunbeam. A baby? She tried to stand up when the others applauded, but her legs gave out and she fainted.
* * *
When Violet came to in her mother’s arms, the onlookers let out a collective sigh of relief. Grace thanked a doctor who had come forward, placed Violet on her feet, and led her out of the theatre.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ON CHRISTMAS EVE, Owen went back into the mines for the second half of a double shift. The fire boss assigned him and a fellow by the name of John Roberts to the last chamber off to the left of the lowest gangway. Both men had mine butties to assist them, two Lithuanians, a month off the boat, who spoke very little English.
Owen had been working doubles almost every day since Hattie had informed him of Grace’s condition.
“Better than five months along,” she had said, “as near as Doc Rodham can figure.”
Closer to six, Owen had thought, assuming the baby took hold the last time he and Grace had lain together.
Owen had known better than to trouble her that night. She’d had enough to do with Daisy’s baptism the following morning and the picnic that afternoon. But he couldn’t help himself. Grace looked so pretty standing by the sink, her pale face reflected in the window pane. Such beauty. He never could figure out what a woman like her saw in a man like him. He thanked God every night for his good fortune.
She had been washing the dishes, when he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“The children,” she scolded, though Owen could see her smile reflected in the shaving mirror, propped on the window ledge.
He glanced at his pocket watch on the cupboard. “Asleep an hour already.” He pressed his body against her back and hugged her longingly. “I mean to take what’s mine,” he said, “just as the good Lord intended.” He reached up and removed the pins from her bun, allowing the dark locks to rest on her shoulders. He buried his face in her curls.
“The good Lord never intended for you to put pleasure before obligation,” she chided, but she pushed her hair off to the side, revealing a slice of neck.
Owen grabbed hold of her again, harder this time, and ran his lips down the porcelain flesh. Trembling, she closed her eyes and rested her arms on his. He felt the dampness of her sleeves as his hands
traveled up toward her top buttons. He opened one, then another, and before she could gather her thoughts, he cupped her breasts inside each palm and circled her hardened nipples with his thumbs.
“The neighbors!” Grace’s eyes flashed open in front of the uncurtained window.
“Then you best follow me, woman,” Owen whispered in her ear as he took her hand, and led her toward their bedroom.
And now, six months along, Owen thought as he drove a wooden prop into place between the chamber’s ceiling and floor. Pillars of unmined anthracite actually supported the roof, but he knew the props were just as important, since they usually groaned or cracked in advance of a roof squeeze. During a collapse, such warnings spared many a life underground.
With the timbers in place sooner than expected, Owen and John Roberts set about drilling the wall in preparation for the explosives that would loosen the coal.
* * *
At seven p.m., parishioners gathered at the Providence Christian Church for the Christmas Eve service. Betty Leas, the director, had been working with the choirs since the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and the music promised to be the high point of the evening.
Much to Violet’s surprise, her mother had not required her to participate in the program, in spite of Adelaide’s protestations.
“Grief aside, the girl should be doing the Lord’s work,” the missionary had told Grace.
“When you know my grief, then you can tell me where to place it,” Grace had finally said. “Until then, she’ll not perform, and that’s the end of it.”
Adelaide never broached the subject again with Grace, but that didn’t keep her from discussing it with anyone else who would listen.
Though gas lights had been installed in the sanctuary years before, each person received an unlit taper upon entering. This had always been a candlelight service, and the elders had decided to continue the tradition, in spite of the building’s advancements. Tapers glowed from nests of evergreen branches on windowsills, tabletops, and even the pipe organ. A circle of four advent candles burned brightly on the ledge of the baptistery, symbolizing hope, peace, joy, and love. The Christ Candle stood unlit in the center, ready to announce the birth of Jesus later in the service.
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