Death at a Seance

by Carolyn Marie Wilkins

  Against my better judgment, I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

  “Father’s sent me to school to become a lawyer,” he said. “He wants me to start a practice here for all his friends and cronies at the bank, but I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

  Sam leaned forward across the kitchen table. He was so close to my face I could smell the scent of apples on his breath.

  “I hate school. I hate Father’s business, his stupid money-grubbing friends. And most of all, I hate the bank.” Sam blew on the hot tea in his cup, then took a long sip.

  “If you don’t want to be a lawyer or a banker like your daddy, what do you want to be?”

  He put down his cup and pulled out a sheaf of papers from his back pocket. “I am going to be a poet. In fact, I’ve already started. Listen to this.”

  He picked up the paper and began to read, his voice hesitant at first but gaining confidence as he continued.

  How fine thou art

  To bid me well

  To hold me dear

  Upon the swell

  Of forlorn hopes

  That never die

  Two hearts entwined

  My love and I.

  “That’s beautiful,” I said. “A love poem?”

  “Oh yes,” Sam said, placing the poem on the table in front of me. As I traced the delicate looping letters across the page, he placed his hand over mine. “A love poem for you, my Indian Princess.”

  “You mustn’t say that again, ever,” I said, pulling my hand away. “If your mother found out, I’d be fired for sure.”

  I stood up hastily. Just as I did so, Teo walked into the kitchen.

  “Mornin’, young Sam,” she said. She couldn’t have missed seeing how flustered we both were and pretended not to notice as Sam hastily took his poems from me and shoved them into his pocket.

  “What on earth’s been keeping you, Carrie?” she said. “Mr. K wants his coffee in the sitting room. The missus is waiting for you to empty her slop jar. And I need you to get down to the market as soon as you can.”

  Blushing scarlet, I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Right away.”

  Later that afternoon, Teo sat me down at the kitchen table with a look that would have melted concrete.

  “You think I haven’t seen what’s been going on between you and young Sam? Your cozy little talk this morning? The way he looks at you?”

  As I began to speak, she put her finger to her lips.

  “Not one single word, Carrie McFarland. Now you to listen to me and you listen good. That white boy is gonna bring you nothing but trouble. And if the missus ever gets wind of it, you will be out on the street before you know what hit you.”

  “He don’t mean no harm, Teo.”

  “So he says. He told you he loves you yet?”

  I lowered my head and looked away. “He called me an Indian Princess, Teo. Nobody in my whole life ever called me that before. He even wrote me a love poem.”

  “Humph.” Teo’s derisive snort spoke volumes. “It’s a good thing the boy’s going back to college in a few days. I mean it, Carrie. If you’ve got an ounce of sense in that pea brain of yours, you’ll do as I tell you.”

  I nodded my head in agreement, but inside, I wondered. I’d always wanted a boyfriend. But because of my obvious shyness and clumsy country ways, the boys at Frederick Douglass Colored Elementary School had taken no interest in me. Was it foolish to imagine Sam could care for me? Could a white man be trusted to speak the truth?

  If Mama were there, she would have told me what to do. But Mama was up in Chicago and I was there alone, without a soul I could trust. How did I know Teo really had my best interests at heart? Sam Kerchal had opened a new floor in my house of being—a penthouse that promised vistas so sublime I couldn’t even imagine how beautiful they might become.

  When Sam slipped a me note asking me to meet him in the cellar later that night, I decided to ignore Teo’s advice. What did that dried-up old biddy know about love, anyhow? Had anyone ever written her a love poem?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The floorboards creaked under my bare feet as I crept out of my attic room and down the stairs that night. I moved in fits and starts, taking care to pause a long time on the landing next to Teo’s room. Only after I detected the sound of her steady snores rumbling through the door did I continue down the back stairs to the basement. Just the week before, I’d snuck into the sewing room to work on a new dress I planned to give Mama for her birthday, but tonight my mother was the last thing on my mind. I struck a match and lit the kerosene lantern I’d hidden away on the shelf next to the door.

  In the flickering light, I sat down at the sewing table to read Sam’s note for what must have been the hundredth time.

  Darling Bright Feather,

  My love for you will not be bound by convention or the dictates of this cruel and limited world. We are meant for each other, and I will not rest until I can rest in your tender embrace. Meet me in the sewing room tonight after the clock chimes one o’clock. Please come. If I cannot hold your precious body in my arms, I fear I will die!

  Yours Forever,

  Sam

  Could all those beautiful words really be for me? No one, not even my very own mother and father, had ever expressed such a depth of affection for me. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard footsteps approaching. As Sam pushed open the door, latching it carefully behind him, my heart trembled with anticipation.

  Silently, he took my hand, led me to a pile of old quilts awaiting mending in the corner, lifted my face in his hands and kissed me, first on the cheeks and then on the lips. As he pushed me onto my back and began to unbutton my nightgown, I felt a distinct buzzing in my left ear. This late-night rendezvous would not be a time of romantic looks and love poems. Instead, I was about to do something I’d heard the older girls talk about, something my mother had warned me about. Something from which there would be no turning back. Even as the inner alarm in my left ear continued to buzz furiously, Sam’s knowing hands were waking up something inside me—a force as powerful and inevitable as sap rising in springtime. I felt my body surrender to the moment, moving to the rhythm of an ancient dance I had not even realized I knew.

  Only when we heard the cock crow did we pull apart, hastily gathering our clothing, dousing the light, and stealing back upstairs as the first light of morning came stealing through the kitchen window.

  For the rest of the day, by a mutual unspoken agreement, Sam did not look at or speak to me. Even the smallest glance would have revealed our secret. But the following night found us once again in each other’s arms. Naked under that old quilt, we explored each other—the secret recesses of pleasure that only lovers ever see.

  “Be mine, Bright Feather,” Sam whispered. “Marry me.”

  As he spoke, my heart fluttered. “Do you really mean it? What about your parents?”

  “Who cares what they think?” he said, covering my face with kisses. After a few more caresses, I lost interest in more rational topics of conversation—or any conversation at all, to be honest.

  For the next three nights it continued thus. The cold floor under my bare feet as I slipped down to our basement rendezvous. The heat of our passion underneath that battered old quilt in the sewing room. The scrupulous propriety with which we avoided each other’s eyes during the day. The wanton hunger with which we devoured each other at night.

  On the fourth night, Sam met me outside the sewing room with a glum expression on his face.

  “I must return to Indianapolis in an hour,” he said. “My father wants me to look at some property he wants to buy.”

  Though I tried to keep my expression neutral, I felt as though I’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “I thought we would have more time,” I said softly.

  “Once we are wed, we will have all the time in the world.” Sam kissed me lightly on the cheek and smiled. “We’ll run away to California and strike it rich amid the golden hills.”


  “You mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it,” Sam said.

  “I don’t think I can bear being here in this house without you,” I said. He had already begun to turn away when I touched his arm. “Let’s go now, before anyone has a chance to stop us.”

  “That is just not possible, Carrie.” Though I couldn’t be sure, I thought I perceived a note of impatience in his voice. “My father has asked me to do this. And I’m his only son. I can’t say no. Surely you can understand that. I’ll be back in June, after I graduate. We can run away then.”

  “And you promise to write me?”

  Laughing, Sam pulled me to him and kissed me. “Every day,” he said.

  “Let’s be together one more time before you go,” I said.

  I took his hand and led him to the makeshift bed of old clothes. Pulling off my nightdress, I watched his eyes grow hungry as he doused the lantern and pulled me down on top of him.

  When we were done, I took a pair of scissors from the sewing table and cut off the end of the long braid I wore down my back.

  “Take this as a token of my love,” I said, placing it in the palm of his hand. “Now you. Give me a lock to remember you through all the dreary months until we should meet again.”

  As I cut a lock of his hair, we heard footsteps in the kitchen above us.

  “Mother’s looking for me,” Sam said hastily. “I’ve got to go.”

  He pulled on his trousers and hurried out of the room without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The night after Sam left for Indianapolis, I had a dream. I was on raft in the middle of the ocean. Winds howled and waves the size of mountains towered over my head. As my tiny boat tipped from side to side, a woman’s voice called out to me. I knew she was trying to tell me something—something that would save my life—but I could not understand a single word, no matter how hard I tried. As the raging sea broke my raft into a thousand pieces, I awoke with a start, my heart knocking furiously against my ribcage.

  Clearly, the dream was a message of some kind. Mama used to say that knowing about dreams, intuitions, charms, and spells was a “colored folks’ power,” necessary for survival in the white man’s world. If Mama were here, she could have told me what my dream meant. How I missed her. Wiping away a tear, I took my mother’s most recent letter from its place of reverence on my nightstand and read it for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  Dearest Carrie,

  Chicago is one fast town. The people up here talk fast, and they move fast too. But I’m learning to keep up. I got a job waiting tables at Skippy’s Diner. The pay’s not great, but with tips, it’s okay. I’m saving every penny, and God willing, I’ll be able to send for you soon.

  Love, Mama

  Three weeks later, the dizzy spells began. I felt like I had the flu, but without the fever. And though I was queasy, I could not throw up. It would have been easier to bear being this miserable if I had received a message from Sam. He had promised to write every day, but I had not received a single letter. The four weeks he’d been gone felt like four years.

  When my period failed to arrive by the middle of May, I asked Teo what she thought might be wrong with me.

  “You are pregnant,” she said bluntly. “No use denyin’ it, girl. You are with child, and we both know who the father is.”

  Terrified, I shook my head in disbelief. I’d had plenty of fantasies about Sam, but giving birth to his child had not been one of them.

  “It’s not what you think, Teo. Sam and I are going to get married. He told me so.”

  “Does he know about the baby?”

  I shook my head.

  “And you haven’t heard a word from him since he went back to school?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “No, but that doesn’t matter,” I said stubbornly. “He’s going to marry me in June when he is done with school. He promised.”

  “A man like that is after one thing and one thing only,” Teo said. “Marriage between white and colored is not even legal in this state. And even if it was, there’s no way his mama would allow it.”

  Though I could hear the logic in Teo’s words, my heart was not ready to believe her. “Sam loves me,” I insisted. “We’re gonna run away together. You’ll see.”

  Teo sighed heavily. “I don’t know why I like you so much, Carrie. Lord knows you’re a foolish girl, about to be in more trouble than you can imagine.” Taking a pencil and a scrap of paper from a kitchen drawer, she scribbled an address and thrust the paper into my hand. “Go to this address and ask for Sister Marie. Tell her I sent you. She will know what to do.”

  “I know about her,” I said, shoving the paper into the pocket of my uniform. “Mama used to call Sister Marie the best conjure woman in Churchtown. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll see her when I get some time off this weekend.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Teo said with an exasperated shake of her head. “Your situation is critical. You need to see Sister Marie right away.”

  As fate would have it, Mrs. Kerchal was visiting her sister for the day. With Teo’s blessing, I slipped out of the house and boarded a northbound streetcar to Churchtown. After I’d paid my fare, the conductor pointed to the rear of the car.

  “Nigras in back,” he said.

  “Why?” I said. “Last time I took this car, I sat where I pleased.”

  “Ya didn’t ride in my car,” the conductor said. “Git in back. Hear?”

  I glared at the man but did not budge.

  “This car’s not moving till you sit your black ass down,” he said loudly. “Now go sit in the back.”

  “C’mon, lady,” hollered a fat, balding man sitting in the front seat. “Sit down, will ya? I’ve got to get to work.”

  As the car erupted in a growing chorus of angry voices telling me to stop arguing and sit down, I marched to the back of the car. But in that moment, the full weight of my predicament descended upon me. In Sam’s eyes I may have been an Indian princess, a beauty worthy of poetry and praise. But to the rest of the world, I was a nigra, plain and simple. Someone without the right to sit next to the foulest, most unkempt white person on a public conveyance. Perhaps Teo was right, after all. The ordinary world was stacked against me. I needed to find this Sister Marie and see what she could do to help.

  It was raining when I got off the streetcar, a gloomy drizzle that fit my mood perfectly. As I hurried past the tumbledown shotgun tenements on Lincoln Avenue, a rising wind sent piles of trash scudding along the street. Horse dung, broken bottles, and heaps of discarded furniture decorated the sidewalks. Despite the rain, desperate women huddled in doorways, offering to sell their bodies to anyone with two coins to rub together.

  Hunching my shoulders against the wind, I picked up my pace until I came to a small tarpaper shack that had been added onto the rear of a larger tenement. To be honest, the building looked more like a shed than an actual home. As I raised my hand to knock, the door swung open, seemingly of its own accord.

  “Sister Marie?” I called out, peering suspiciously into the shack’s dark interior.

  “Come in. I’ve been waiting for you.” The speaker was a woman with a voice as rusty as an old hinge. “Come in.” She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me inside. “You’re letting all the heat out.”

  As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light in the room, I saw that Sister Marie was tiny, no more than four feet tall. Her frizzled white hair stuck out at all angles from underneath the red gingham scarf she wore tied around her head. She released my arm and waved a gnarled claw in the direction of a battered kitchen table and two chairs in the corner of the room.

  “Another couple weeks and that baby’s gonna be showin’, sure as you’re born.”

  Shocked, I sat down on the rickety straight-back chair next to the table. “How do you know about that? Has Teo been talking to you?”

  Sister Marie smiled, revealing a mouth full of yellow, broken teeth. “Don’t nobody need
to tell me nothin’. I got the Sight. If we do some work today, there’s still a chance I can help you.”

  “Work? What work?” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  My head felt like it was encased in cotton. The tiny shack was entirely too warm. Not only that, the place smelled funny, a combination of musk and perfume that somehow was making me feel dizzy.

  “Teo just said you could help me. She didn’t exactly say how.”

  “How old’re you?”

  “Sixteen,” I said. “Seventeen at the end of the month.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Carrie McFarland. Maybe you might remember my mama, Annie. She used to read tea leaves.”

  “Of course I remember your mama. How’s she doin’ up in Chicago?”

  “All right, I guess,” I said. “I sure do miss her.”

  “I can tell,” Sister Marie said. “Got no other people in Aronsville?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Sister Marie sighed and took my hand between hers. Her skin was so dry, it felt like sandpaper.

  “Your story’s as old as dirt, Carrie McFarland. White men takin’ what they want, leavin’ the colored girl pregnant and destitute. He force himself on you?”

  “Oh no,” I said. “You’ve got it all wrong. Sam and I are gonna get married, soon as he comes home from college.”

  “Lots a pretty white girls in them colleges,” Sister Marie said. “How you know one of them won’t catch his eye?”

  “I just know,” I said stubbornly. “I love him, and he loves me. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth.”

  “Only ‘truth’ here is that your mind’s made up, and no amount of common sense is gonna change it.” She studied me in silence for a moment. “But you’ve come to me for help, so I’m gonna give you something. Wait here.”

  She picked up her cane and hobbled to a small cabinet over the sink. Though the cabinet was small, it was secured by the largest padlock I’d ever seen. Muttering to herself, the old woman fumbled in her apron for the key and inserted it into the lock. Inside the cabinet was a mysterious assortment of bottles containing liquids of various colors. I got a quick glimpse of what looked like a skull inside one bottle before she removed an envelope from the cabinet and closed the door, locking it carefully behind her.