“If he hates ghosts so much, why don’t you do something to celebrate them? Isn’t that the premise of the precinct, at least in part? You’re in hiding when you shouldn’t be. You’re meant to help keep moving us into the light.”
Eve snapped her fingers, a solution hitting her. “That’s brilliant, Vera, thank you. Gran, will you lend me your newspaper friends?”
This clearly wasn’t the direction Gran thought the conversation was turning, and she sat back, raising an eyebrow. “I will connect you to whoever you need, provided you’ve a good reason.”
“I’m going to write an editorial in honor of ghosts. To reaffirm my purpose. The pressure has been building to reclaim it. I can feel it from within Sanctuary; I feel it in my head.” She rubbed the back of her skull where the pain resided. “We took our name off the door to placate threats. It did nothing to make us safer. Tonight, I’ll write a declaration. I want to publish a manifest of the beauty of spirit. The glory of ghosts. For all New York to see.”
“Wise. And the spirit world will rally to your cry. They will respond to your affirmations. Of all the challenges I thought you might issue, this is one I can get behind.”
Eve brandished a pen. “A spell must be cast, in the grand tradition of gentlemen writing letters in newspapers, defending their honor, I shall throw down a glove of spirit.”
She nearly ran out and up the main stairs to the next floors.
“I’m going up to the tower for all this, Gran,” she called back down. There was a heavy pause. Eve hadn’t been to “the tower” in years; left alone and unfurnished since her childhood. “I’ll bring it down when I’m done.”
Gran came back into view at the base of the stairs, visage steeled. “Very well. Mr. Godkin. Evening Post. I guarantee he won’t like it, but he’ll do it if I demand a place in editorial. I’ll leave his information on a Western Union envelope by the door. Slide it under the door when you’re done, and one of my guards will run it to him. I’ll call and lean on him for urgency. While you write, I’m going to check on the girls.”
“And keep them out of it.”
“That’s for them to decide. You may be their manager, but you’re not their mother. Besides, in every tale of woe and terror, keeping information from parties affected is the chief way in which people get hurt. You, of all the Gothic enthusiasts, should know that.”
Eve took in her words and sighed. “Still, remind them to stay back.”
“Let me handle it.” Gran stepped forward to the base of the stairs, pinning Eve with her sharp eye and commanding presence. “Where is the surveillance team?”
“There’s a key on my foyer table. The New Netherland. Sixth floor unless they’ve shifted to the fifth in hopes of a better angle.”
“Very good. I’m going to make some calls. Preparedness, and all.”
Eve snapped her fingers. “We’ll need to engage your odd friend Mosley again.”
Gran nodded. “I already planned on it. Disabling the Prenze mansion is key.”
“Yes. We’ll have to time that, because if we can throw him off, we can all act, Maggie too, wounding him with cuts all at once. But challenge first…” Eve trailed off, thinking about what to write. “It will have to be direct, precise, and invoking the spirit world. Ah! I need the help of another woman’s words.”
Descending again, Eve brushed Gran’s shoulder fondly as she maneuvered past, toward the cozy library of deep colors, rich stained glass, and tall, dark bookcases. As she searched for a specific spine she knew all too well, Gran followed her and stood at the threshold.
“I am loath to leave you…” Gran said mournfully. “I fear I’ve done too good a job of making you an independent lady at too young an age—”
“I’ll be fine,” Eve said, batting her hand. “I don’t plan to leave cloistered work. The tower shall be my abbey. Post guards by the door if you’re afraid I’ll sleepwalk.”
“I’ll do exactly that,” Gran said and kissed her on the forehead. “Once you’ve gotten your writing out, rest. Take sedative in your tea if need be; it’s in the master bath medicine cabinet. I’ll be back soon. Psychically reach out to me in any emergency. If you don’t”—Gran pointed a long, steady finger that had all the power in it of drawing a bow—“I’ll never forgive you, and you really don’t want to see me angry.”
“I know, Gran. Go on.” Eve blew her a kiss and waited until Gran turned away from the library to turn her attention to the books.
Eve let out a tense breath when the front door closed behind her. Vera must have escorted Gran out, for there were no other presences remaining with Eve. As pressure on her skull eased into a broader thrum rather than a spiking sting, she reached a breathing quietude from which she could more manageably pass through the auras of any forthcoming migraine.
“Focus on the work,” she commanded herself. “It’s the only thing you’ve ever been able to rely on your whole, weird little life.” Work was the only thing keeping her from an incalculable abyss of emotion and fear.
Alone in the library, Eve scanned the spines until she fell upon her treasure: Nineteenth Century Miracles by Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, a leading Spiritualist of the century.
Britten had recently died, near the beginning of their whole ordeal with Prenze, and Eve hadn’t even had time to process the fact.
“May your spirit be with me as I write, Mrs. Britten,” she murmured as she opened the cover, running her finger over the table of contents she’d practically memorized as a child. Nineteenth Century Miracles came out when Eve was three; she’d grown up with it. Gran suggested it as a way to understand and learn from gifted experiences other than Eve’s or her own.
A chapter on Spiritualism in the law and courts had been an important source of encouragement for Eve to start the Ghost Precinct; and she used it as precedent.
Some wars were won by swords, guns, and battles. This personal war would be won by the mind, pen, and spirit, working in concert.
Once she’d read a few of her favorite passages, Eve began writing from her heart:
“On the Importance of a Willing Spirit”
Greetings, dear reader, fellow New Yorkers, beings of spirit and life. I have tried all my life to bridge the eternal and the material. To make the antithetical helpful. To celebrate how much the dead teach us about life.
Emma Hardinge Britten writes in her Nineteenth Century Miracles that “Eternity and Infinity are the only words that seem, in our imperfect form of speech, to embody the conditions of spiritual existence. Time and space are equally opposite to the state of being we call ‘material.’ Whilst therefore, we essay to write of a dispensation which manifests the characteristics of the endless and illimitable, it must not be forgotten that we are yet denizens of a material sphere, bounded in on every side by the limitations of time and space.”
And so, the universe has seen fit to provide the world with Sensitives, those of us who can make polarities palatable and be the bridge between material and spiritual.
I began hearing the voices of the dead as a child. It was admittedly maddening, but with the help of other Sensitive souls and a keen desire to understand purpose in the gift, hearing patterns in the noise proved helpful for everything around me.
I am here to tell you that the spirit world is real. It is very active in this city. And I am here, with other positive spirits, to help this city. So can you. Your loved ones aren’t gone; they’re a memory away. Call to them in your heart and share a bit of love. Remember life. It will lift this city up, and that’s needed right now, not anyone or anything wishing to tear it down.
Leave room in your heart for the loving souls of the spirit world. You’d be surprised at what they have in store to show and share with you.
Those who wish harm upon innocent spirits, good souls lingering, I say to him: For shame. Celebrate life hand in hand with the echo of life. Otherwise the
finality of death is all that you’ll see.
Blessings,
E. H. W., Spiritualist, Advisor on Matters of Crime and Justice in the City, Director of the Ghost Precinct
P.S. To Mr. A. P., the gentleman returned from the grave who has threatened me and mine and all the ghosts of this city, I remain unafraid. The spirits will not go quietly. They go to peace on their own terms, not on your demand. You have been warned.
Eve put her pen down and looked at the words she’d penned. The spirit world murmured the truth of it; it was a bold, blazing dare.
She readied the envelope, sealed it, said a brief protective prayer over it, and slid the spell out the front door as Gran had instructed. What Eve could only see as a silhouette—one of Gran’s hired watchmen—stepped up from the shadows of the protective detail along Gran’s property line, tipped his hat to her, and strode briskly down the walk to relay the thrown gauntlet.
“Spirits help me, it’s begun,” Eve murmured.
The response from the spirit world was another crash of murmurs, a wave upon Eve’s mental shore, the pressure in her head cresting and receding.
“Spirits, yes, you are my help, and I know you will lead the way,” she said. “So please do.” Instinctively, she put her left hand to her heart, her right to her mouth, and gestured both forward, signing a thank-you in advance, the gesture like a benediction.
An invigorating wind whipped around her body as if she had stepped into a vortex. She was heard. For all the time in her young life she had chafed against the spirits so constantly talking at and around her; she sometimes forgot she could talk back, bid back, request back.
“My good girl,” Vera whispered before floating back against the wallpaper.
“I have always wanted to be,” Eve whispered in return, in a small voice that put her in mind of the first time she’d retreated to the room she was climbing to now.
Eve climbed narrow sets of stairs to a jutting dormer corner, a square battlement in sandstone at the top of Gran’s house, carrying the weight of Gothic tradition in her wake; the heavyhearted heroine withdrawing to her peak. But in those old tales, the woman withdrew as a victim. Here, Eve readied in her war room.
The tower was an isolation, which would normally have rattled her. Eve had to be content that this was what she’d asked for. She was not in danger here. Not physically. Not yet. But there were other ways in. And there would be other ways to get her out.
She took the sedative Gran gave her, thankfully not a Prenze tonic, and curled up on her childhood cot, letting the memories enswathe her in all their torment and triumph.
In the morning, her words would be published, and Albert Prenze, feeling the direct sting of it, and a city renewed in spirits, would come collect.
Chapter Ten
When Cora, Antonia and Jenny took to the surveillance rooms that same night, they were warmly greeted by Rachel, and Jenny was able to sign with her about the latest.
According to Rachel’s report, painted statues were being placed into the Prenze yard one by one and hauled away, each of them some angel or devil in extreme poses of vengeance or damnation. Cora thought of Dupont’s stage sets and wondered what the next drama would be. The team’s arrival then allowed Rachel a bit of rest in one room and Fitton in the opposite.
Sitting with a cup of tea, Cora felt a gargantuan wrestling in her heart, the scope of which put her in mind of the biblical story of Jacob and the angel, only part of the struggle came from the stirrings of her own heart, caught in the middle of difficult discernment about what she expected from this work, from Eve, and from herself. Most of it were the forces and presences around her trying to determine what was best for those they loved.
Being at the hospital and unable to do anything was a particular agony for Cora, who felt put on this earth to fix things swiftly and efficiently. Cora chafed at being held at arm’s length from the case. None of the team felt able to abide by it. Heading to the surveillance outpost in the New Netherland, Cora had left a coded note of their whereabouts on their side of Fort Denbury.
Never so aware of all the large personalities foundational to their work as now, Cora was unsurprised when Gran walked in the door of the surveillance outpost, shown there by a rather baffled bellman who wasn’t sure what all these odd fellows had to do with one another.
Behind Gran walked Clara Bishop in a dark green walking dress with a wool capelet and a knot of crepe flowers and tulle on her head that she unpinned and set by the door.
“Why hello, Mrs. Bishop!” Cora said in surprise.
Clara smiled as she entered, her gold-green eyes piercing Cora first before sweeping the rest of the company. “Call me Clara, please, friends. I heeded Evelyn’s call immediately. Since this man ‘read’ you, Cora, she was afraid surveillance may be foiled by Prenze sensing you and intercepting. So, I thought I’d do what I could to lend aid.” She gestured around herself. “I’m psychically loud. Through the years I’ve learned to make myself louder. I can provide a certain cover. But you’ll have to remember your training. I can’t shield all of you.”
“Of course,” the girls replied at once. “Thank you for coming,” Cora continued.
The moment the door opened, Antonia was clearing off the chaise so that there were more places to sit as their company grew. Ever the consummate, attentive hostess, she queried, “Clara, how can we best protect you from an epileptic episode?”
“Leave that to me, friends. The sooner you’re able to find evidence against this man, the better. The tension he’s causing you and the spirit world has become audible—a distant keening coming closer, magnifying fears and anxieties of the coming age. The turn of a century is easy on no one, least of all the Sensitive. If he harms the spirit world, woe to all of us.”
It was as if she brought a storm with her words. A lightning strike flashed across the park.
Gran gestured to the telescopes. “So, tell me, what do we have here?”
“There’s been some struggle,” Antonia explained, gesturing for Gran to come close and have a look in. “It’s clear Prenze is trying to keep his family sedated, incapacitated. There seems to be no other staff anymore. We saw a woman in what looked like a maid’s uniform, with a carpet bag, flee earlier. The overwrought statues of angels and devils have been exiting the house regularly.”
Rachel entered from the set of rooms on either side of their surveillance area, and Gran rushed up to greet her. She signed to Gran, who explained to the team. “Rachel says she can’t sleep for the feeling everything is coming to a head.”
Rachel went to the telescopes as Antonia handed fresh tea to Gran and Clara. Snapping her fingers, Rachel gestured the team to the second telescope. The lights had been turned on. Cora watched as two men in dark coats and trousers were wrestling with a now upright Arielle.
Rachel gasped. She kept her eyes on the target but signed to Gran, who translated.
“The younger Miss Prenze is overwrought. Something about taking her away. Something about an asylum…” At this, Gran’s tone went deathly cold. “Damn these men. She’s struggling. God, she’s so frail, gaunt, hardly the picture of stunning life I saw at her party. We need to help her.”
Cora watched in concern as Arielle Prenze was being helped out the door, Albert Prenze on one side, Mahoney on the other.
The air stirred. Cora could feel a shift in atmosphere, the spirit world reacting to Arielle exiting the house, disrupting the barrier Prenze had put in place.
“God if only I could get closer, to tell them to stop,” Cora exclaimed. “By the time one of us runs down there, they’ll be off.”
“Astral projection, Cora,” Clara reminded. “You’re good at it already. Tell them to stop.”
Turning to look at her, Cora was sure unease was written on her face as Clara continued.
“Coming from you, Cora, it will be a powerful message, directly f
rom the police. This is a legitimate investigation and domestic disturbance. If you fear the risk of our venture here being revealed, I’ll shield this location with my own psychic noise.”
“Yes. I can do it.” Cora’s desire to prove herself far outweighed any fear of failing.
Closing her eyes, the urgency of Arielle’s state focused her. She imagined peeling away a layer of herself, sending a shade ahead. Praying for Uncle Louis to guide her, she murmured an ancestral benediction. Louis’s tie to Clara Bishop, his long-lost love, might sharpen the power of the moment, though she’d never say that aloud to either of them.
Cora’s vision doubled, the darkness behind her eyes and the room beyond. She turned and looked; she floated outside herself a moment. Trying to fly forward, to cast herself down to the scene; she balled her fists in frustration as the world flattened. Stuck, she could move no further forward. Falling back into herself, she shuddered and her eyes refocused on the hotel outpost. Damn.
“Try again,” Clara said patiently. “It isn’t easy. Took me years to get the hang of it and even then, it’s inconsistent. Think of what makes you strongest.”
Cora thought about the quiet, intense moments before a séance. She called upon the strength of her ancestors who had survived so much for her to be present, wielding power, today. And suddenly, she surged forward; she was a star hurtling in a sky. She was a bird over land. She was an unfurling tendril of les mystères, an instrument of the unknowable Bondye and His justice, His freedom.
A scene focused before her in a sharpening image like a blurred, old amateur daguerreotype exchanged for a crisp studio-made photograph. She had projected outside the Prenze mansion, across the street from the struggle. The house loomed behind the struggling trio, the brazier lamps on either side of the front door like burning eyes in a dark, foreboding face.
Two men fought over a struggling woman who clearly didn’t want to be overcome by them, and this, too, made Cora’s energy into a manifest force.
Cora flung a hand forward. The voice that came out of her was rich, resonant, the product of mighty matriarchs who stood their ground. “Stop. I warn you. In the name of the law, stop!”
A Summoning of Souls Page 18
