“Maybe. Her faint seemed genuine. I guess a trance state is a form of self-hypnotism.”
“Even if Roma did incorporate a bit of local gossip into the session, it’s not a reflection of her powers,” my aunt said. “I think it’s perfectly natural a medium might repeat information they’ve picked up. It’s probably unconscious.” She gave another of those little head shakes. “Artemus, I don’t see how you can dispute Roma’s extraordinary gift after everything that happened this evening.”
“I can dispute it because I don’t believe in what happened this evening. Speaking as a theater critic, I give tonight’s performance a C+.”
She sighed, pulled her hands free, and rubbed her temples.
I watched her for a moment. “Have you heard Ogden’s voice before during one of these séances?”
Aunt H. opened her eyes. “Yes, once before. In one of the first sessions.”
“Wait. Yes? You didn’t think to mention that before?”
Twin spots of pink appeared in her colorless face. “It never happened again—and we never actually saw him until tonight.” She leaned forward, clasping her hands tightly. “Do you realize what a miraculous thing that was?”
“You know, I hate to be a spoilsport, but that filmy figure could have been anyone.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“The voice, yes, I admit the voice sounded like Ogden. That figure was too…too nebulous to be able to identify with any certainty.”
“Artemus, you’re approaching this like a film critic objecting to the quality of a particular print. The point is not the aesthetic merits of the manifestation. The point is that tonight we witnessed a true manifestation.”
“Maybe we did. But isn’t the quality of the print—if you want to put it like that—part of how we can determine whether what we saw was real or—”
She didn’t let me finish. “Wait. I want you to really consider for a moment, Artie. With Roma’s help, Ogden not only materialized, it was managed without any apparatus. No spirit cabinet. No spirit slates. Roma didn’t use so much as her Ouija board!”
I made a face. “Does anyone use that stuff nowadays? Wouldn’t the special effects be done with lasers and wireless? The kind of thing you’re talking about was used to simulate a lot of hocus-pocus at the turn of the last century.”
“No. That’s not correct. Roma inherited her gift through her mother, who inherited her ability through her mother. In fact, the Loveridge women have worked as mediums since the heyday of the spiritualism movement. Very often Roma does use her great-grandmother’s old spirit cabinet to make contact. But early on she said Ogden’s presence was so strong, so vital, we might not need the cabinet.”
None of that reassured me. And the gleam in my aunt’s eyes reminded me all too much of Liana’s feverish glare.
“That first contact with Ogden—where you heard his voice—did that happen here or at Roma’s…place of business?”
My aunt wrinkled her nose in distaste at the idea of a “place of business.” She said, “Roma doesn’t have a shop in a strip mall like some sleazy fortune-teller, if that’s what you imagine. She invites people to her home.”
“Okay. She works from home. That first séance where Ogden—”
Aunt H. cut in, “Yes, the first time we heard Ogden speak, it was at Roma’s home.”
“I see.”
“Roma did use the cabinet on that occasion. The way I understand it, the cabinet affords the medium a dark, enclosed space in which to build up her power so that the ectoplasm—that’s that white, milky mist we saw tonight—can form. Even though Ogden did not appear that time, Roma said his spirit was so powerful—and it’s obvious her own gift is so strong—that moving forward we could dispense with the cabinet. Even so, it’s taken this long for Ogden to materialize.”
“Auntie H., do you honestly believe that…cloud…was Ogden?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation, her blue eyes meeting mine steadily. “I do. Do you honestly believe it wasn’t?”
I turned my head away and did not answer.
Until this evening, Aunt Halcyone had appeared to at least consider the possibility that some human agency was behind the “haunting” of Green Lanterns. Now she seemed to have bought in completely to the idea that Ogden had returned from the Great Beyond.
“Do you or don’t you?” Aunt H. repeated.
“I…” I let out a long breath. “I don’t deny I attended the séance with a certain amount of bias, and I’m still skeptical. But there was something…eerie in that room tonight.”
“Eerie! I think tonight’s manifestation qualifies as something more than eerie!”
“Okay, spooky. I’ll give you spooky. It wasn’t just the dark or the silence or the weird atmosphere, although all those things were part of it, of course. There was something…not right.”
Aunt H. opened her mouth, and I said, “Yeah, I don’t mean that, though. I mean I could feel a tension, an undercurrent in that room.”
Menace.
I had felt a strong sense of menace. From whom or toward whom, I was unsure, but I was not unsure in my belief that something malignant was at work. Call it instinct, call it intuition, but I was sure something—no, someone—intended ill.
“I will never rest until you have paid for what you did.”
Until that moment, Ogden’s comments had been fairly innocuous. But that final declaration—and the venom in the spirit’s tone—had been very different. That had been a threat. Plain and simple. It could have been directed at Liana, but I didn’t think so. I didn’t think I’d imagined the hints the ghost had dropped about Ogden’s accident. Motor oil on the floor of Liana’s bathroom or not, the ghost had pretty much cleared her of suspicion tonight.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
The “ghost” had been standing behind Tarrant at the time, so maybe the comment had been directed at Tarrant, but I didn’t think so. And I didn’t think anyone else at that table thought so. Was Aunt H. really oblivious to what had been suggested during the séance? Or did she not want to acknowledge the implied accusation?
Or—
No. I refused to consider that possibility. Refused to consider the idea that the “ghost’s” veiled accusation hadn’t registered with Aunt H. because…it was true.
I said, “Maybe there’s life after death, maybe not. But you’d think if Ogden had something important to say, he’d spit it out. If he thinks his accident was no accident, why doesn’t he just say so? If he blames someone for his death, why not speak up?”
She bit her lip. “You take such a…a utilitarian view of the afterlife. It isn’t like this world. It takes so much energy to cross over, and, after all, a spirit doesn’t have an actual brain to reason with.”
“No comment.”
She frowned but, much like one of those overextended denizens of the afterlife, didn’t seem to have the energy for another scolding.
“Have they all gone to bed now? The still-living attendees, I mean.”
Aunt H.’s gaze was puzzled. “Yes. I suppose so. Why?”
“I want to examine the dining room for myself.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing there. You know there isn’t. What could there be? A hidden projector? A hidden microphone?”
“Maybe.”
“When would Roma have planted them? Especially since you had the locks on the doors and windows changed.”
“I don’t know, but I want to look that room over. There’s got to be a scientific explanation for what we saw tonight.”
My aunt nodded once, solemnly, granting permission. She remained motionless in her chair by the unlit fireplace as I went through to the dining room.
The room seemed strangely unchanged.
Yes, the chairs were in disarray, the crystal carafe had been moved to the table. A half-filled goblet sat beside it. In the old days, I had never seen so much as a side table out of formation. That wasn’t the kind of change I meant
.
After the events of the evening, I was expecting, well, not ectoplasm dripping from the chandelier, but something to confirm the weirdness of earlier. But beyond the scattered chairs and water carafe, there was nothing to indicate anything untoward had occurred.
I studied the long room as though seeing it for the first time. Gilt-framed oil paintings lined the walls, the brocade draperies were still drawn across the windows. The furniture was the same rickety antique tortoiseshell stuff Bancrofts had been dining on for generations.
There were no convenient alcoves, nooks, or cubbyholes to conceal recording devices or a fog machine. No closet or cupboard someone could hide inside.
I went to the windows and drew back the drapes, looking out at the moonlit terrace. Half the garden was still overgrown and wild. The other half was efficiently if not elegantly chopped back into submission.
I tested the new bolt on the window frame. It held firm. No one had gained access from outside.
The leaves of the eucalyptus trees glinted and glittered in the moonlight like silver coins. Through the wind-tossed trees I spotted the light shining from the chauffeur’s quarters over the garage. I fingered the brocade curtains for any telltale lumps made by wires but found nothing. I turned away from the cheerful twinkle of the carriage-house windows.
From there I moved to the table, crawling beneath and checking for bugs—the listening-device type—wires, speakers, anything. There was nothing. No hidden drawers, nothing taped to the underside, no hollow legs. Same with the chairs. They were just ordinary…dining room table chairs.
I crawled out from under the table and went to examine the sideboard and twin servers. The drawers and cupboard doors all seemed solid and well made. I couldn’t find any wires or electronic devices.
I dusted my hands and rose. I was starting to lose hope, but no way was I ready to give up yet. I moved to the walls of the room. If there were hidden doors or secret passages at Green Lanterns, I’d have surely discovered them during my Hardy Boys phase. But it was still worth a try. The house had been built in the late 1800s by Alexander Bancroft, a wealthy coal baron from Victoria, British Columbia, as a wedding present for his American bride. It had plenty of nooks and crannies, so maybe a long-lost secret passage wasn’t out of the question. A lot of wealthy families had built hidden rooms during Prohibition to conceal their private bars.
I ran my hands over the smooth, forest-green walls, seeking… Well, honestly, I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for beyond a seam or edge where one didn’t belong. Sadly, there was no handy bookshelf with a fake-book lever or a faux fireplace with swiveling andirons. I could find no suspicious cracks, no ridges, no hidden hinges.
Pulling my shoes off, I climbed onto the table and checked every arm of the chandelier. I felt around the ceiling medallions. Nothing. There was no ceiling trapdoor, no access panels.
Strike three. Or possibly eleven.
The only thing left was the floor. I started at the far end of the room and went over the parquet floor, square by square, running my hands around each and every groove. I shoved the table and chairs to the side of the room, rolled the faded green-and-gold silk Isfahan rug out of the way, and went over that section of floor too, but there were no loose blocks, let alone a hitherto unnoticed trapdoor.
Defeated, I climbed wearily to my feet. My hands were filthy, and the knees of my jeans were dusty. There was a tickle in the middle of my forehead as my sinuses began to protest breathing all the dirt and dust accumulated over the months while Betty had been left to try and deal with the entire house on her own.
I pushed my damp hair back with a grimy hand. So that was that. Whatever the hell was going on, the room had not been rigged. It was disappointing, but not really a surprise. Wiring the room for sound, setting up projectors, would have required the cooperation of someone inside the house, and that was nearly as hard to believe as Ogden’s spirit wandering the halls of Green Lanterns, pointing the finger of suspicion at all and sundry. All and sundry being Aunt H.
I wandered back to the windows, gazing out at the light still shining through the trees. After a moment, I pulled the curtains.
What if I was wrong? Was cynicism blinding me to one final possibility? The possibility that Ogden Hyde really had come back from the dead?
As I let the idea sink in, a chill went through me. It was a completely atavistic reaction. Even when you don’t believe in ghosts…well, you can’t know for sure. No one knows for sure. I don’t believe in demonic possession either, but the Catholic Church apparently does, and they’re a pretty big, well-established organization. So there you go.
For a few seconds I stood motionless, just…absorbing the feel of the room. It seemed cold for a summer night, and the sense of menace I’d felt earlier was back. But was that the room, or was that imagination getting the better of me? Because it was all too easy to start imagining something lurking in the shadows, watching us with hollowed eyes as we stumbled around in panic. I could almost visualize a grinning skeleton standing across the room from me.
Ohhh-kay. Enough of that.
I went to the French doors, slid the bolt, and pushed the doors wide. The summer breeze wafted in, dispelling the stale scent of dust and old candles and furniture wax. A distant pale balloon floated past the moon and disappeared behind the trees. The night smelled of eucalyptus and sounded like a symphony of crickets and frogs. Moonlight gilded the ornate iron furniture—and picked out the gleam of eyes of someone standing in the shadows.
Chapter Ten
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
The sharpness in my tone couldn’t quite conceal the fear. Mostly, I was just startled—especially after the evening I’d had—but not entirely. My nerves were not as steady as I’d have liked, and I did feel an instinctive and irrational flash of alarm at the glimpse of that shadowy, unknown figure.
Except, embarrassingly, I did know—or at least was pretty sure—who had to be lurking outside on the terrace, even before Seamus said quietly, “It’s me, Artemus.”
He stepped into the long oblong of light from the dining room, and—unnervingly—I had the strangest, strongest urge to throw myself on his manly chest and pour out my tale of haunted happenings so that he could wrap his muscular arms around me and assure me there was no such thing as ghosts.
Which I already knew, and which would be pretty weird since I didn’t know or trust the guy as far as I could throw him.
I reacted instead by shouting, “Jesus Christ, you scared the life out of me! What are you doing out here?”
Seamus answered, “Watching you search the dining room.”
“You… What? How were… Huh?”
“What happened tonight?” he asked. “What were you looking for?”
I snapped, “How is that any of your business?”
He closed the distance between us with a step, pulled me to him, and covered my mouth with his.
That’s not the kind of thing that happens to me, and for a very long second or two, astonishment held me openmouthed and wordless as Seamus’s firm, warm lips pressed insistently against mine. Everything seemed to stop. My heart. My head. The very breath in my lungs. Nobody had ever kissed me like that. I didn’t know there were kisses like that—sweet, hot, hungry—outside of movie theaters.
Then I came back to life with a jolt, like a surgeon had slapped defibrillator paddles to my chest and jump-started my heart. I felt the piercing, unexpected delight of that kiss in every fiber of my being—right down to the unraveling threads and overstrained seams.
Like the hymn says, Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve; and press with vigor on.
And holy smoke, I did indeed want that vigor to press on. My lips parted, my hands—flattened against the broad planes of his chest—slid caressingly up to lock behind Seamus’s head to pull him still closer. I molded my lips to his, kissing him back with a passion I didn’t think I still possessed for anything outside opening night on Broadway.
I w
as thinking about dragging him into the rose bushes, when somehow, from somewhere, sanity reasserted itself. I stopped pulling, started pushing, and Seamus let me go with a suddenness that sent us both staggering.
“Sorry,” he said huskily. “I didn’t plan that.”
“That would be some plan,” I agreed, equally unsteady.
“It’s just—” He broke off.
“Exactly,” I said. “Twelve months at sea is a very long voyage.”
He blew out a hard breath and shook his head like a punch-drunk boxer, then asked in a brisk, businesslike tone, “Are you going to tell me what happened here tonight?”
Was I? I was tempted to—though I wasn’t sure why. Or rather, I knew why I was tempted, but not why I thought giving in to that temptation would be a good idea.
Instead, I hedged, “What makes you think anything happened?”
“I saw the Loveridge woman tear out of here like demons were after her.”
“Happily, demons were not part of the evening’s festivities. At least, I don’t think so.”
“She held another séance?”
“No, no. She dropped by for dinner. It turns out she strongly dislikes apple crumble for dessert.”
Seamus made a sound that fell somewhere between amusement and exasperation.
“Artemus.”
“Seamus.”
“You know, you can trust me,” he said.
I was momentarily distracted by the sight of another colorless balloon—actually a pair of them—drifting toward the tall wall of eucalyptus. Weird.
I turned my attention back to Seamus, who was waiting for me to say something. “Unfortunately, I don’t know that,” I replied. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t been entirely honest with either me or my aunt.”
He seemed surprised. “Didn’t my references check out?”
“Yes, your references checked out.”
“Then I’m not sure what the problem is.”
“Neither am I,” I admitted.
Seamus said lightly, “Do you think maybe I faked my résumé?”
Seance on a Summer's Night Page 9