The men abruptly halted. Only Prenze looked in her direction. Mahoney looked around. His ruddy face went white. Cora didn’t trust him, and his reaction to spectral interruption wasn’t helping.
“Help me!” Arielle cried out, looking around wildly. “Whatever is here with us, help me!” Her eyes didn’t focus on anything. Pressing her energy forward with all her might, Cora tried to loom between the distraught woman and the men who seemed hell-bent on controlling her.
A flurry of silvery white dove by Arielle, who shuddered violently. Perhaps the spirit had actually gone into her. Cora had her suspicions about what just happened, and she hoped she had bought some time.
“Take her back in, Mr. Prenze, I am telling you. Take her back in,” Mahoney insisted. “Something isn’t right here, and there’ll be a scene! She doesn’t wish to be sent away, and I will not disregard her wishes.”
Prenze growled but turned his sister around. Cora felt some relief that at least Mahoney was on Arielle’s side.
“You will leave me be, brother,” Arielle insisted with a newfound strength that Cora thought might have something to do with the spirit that had joined her.
Albert Prenze stormed ahead and flung wide his grand door, Mahoney bringing Arielle back in carefully, speaking soft words of reassurance to her. Going back in seemed just as tragic as going out. Cora’s heart went out to this woman, even if she did have a hand, somehow, in Prenze’s wrongdoings.
A scream erupted from Arielle as she crossed the threshold. Her form shuddered and shook again, and a second scream from another voice was heard in the street. A ghost peeled off from Arielle’s form and careened toward Cora’s projection.
Maggie. Yes, possessing the body of Arielle was Maggie’s plan, but whatever device was keeping ghosts out of the mansion and those imprisoned within trapped sent Maggie’s spirit right back out. She was lucky she didn’t get stuck, like those who remained imprisoned below.
The door to the Prenze mansion slammed, and as it did, there was a concussive effect on the spirits. Maggie floated into Cora’s projection in a collision of presences, and Cora felt her energy dissipate. In a dizzying whirl, she fell back into herself and wobbled on her feet, but Antonia was there, sturdy and steady as Cora regained her footing. She shuddered with cold as Maggie returned to the surveillance floor with her.
“Good job, Miss Dupris!” Mrs. Bishop applauded when Cora opened her eyes. The praise made Cora beam. “We could see your shadow. It certainly altered the course of the moment. Tell us about it from your perspective.”
Cora and Maggie explained alternately what had happened below. Clara moved to the other side of the room as Maggie spoke, tuning out the ghost for her own health.
“It worked,” Maggie exclaimed. “A possession. I can get in, just as I thought! I didn’t have time to get an actual assessment, but I think I can do good and turn the tide with her. As Dr. Font said in the séance, it all comes down to Arielle, the glue of the whole family. She’s gotten herself in deep; I can feel it: waves of guilt in her body as firm as her heartbeat. But I wager she’d like redemption. I need back in. But that house…it’s like burning oil on my incorporeal skin! Whatever is in that house…”
“That’s what Mosley is for,” Gran said. “My…electrically augmented acquaintance. He’ll act promptly on my call. Whatever device is blocking you, he’ll blow it to pieces. Your window may be narrow. But I want her safe.”
Gran whirled to the windows and shook her fist toward the mansion and roared. “Damned men committing a woman just because she’s become emotional, or gifted, whatever she’s become, it’s unforgivable!”
Everyone stared. It was very unlike the poised Evelyn Northe-Stewart to have an outburst. Cora had certainly never seen it, and from the look of it, neither had Clara Bishop, a longtime comrade in supernatural arms, whose green-gold eyes were wide. Whatever had caused the pique was old, deep, and had struck a tragic nerve.
Gran must have realized that all eyes were on her in the silence. Her elegant, defiant posture deflated. Jenny drew close, teary eyed, reaching toward her while signing a question.
Their cherished elder ran a shaking hand over the little girl’s braided hair. “What happened, you ask, dear heart?” She sighed heavily. “That warrants a story for another day. Let’s just say that…a woman being committed against her will…is a topic I am…most passionate about.”
The weight of this vague admission was heavy in the air. Cora looked over and caught Antonia’s wide eyes, her hand on her heart in empathy and horror, a deeply personal reaction to the idea of being institutionalized solely on account of differences. Cora wondered what private pain and isolation each of her colleagues had to endure before finding safe refuge with one another.
The tall, gilded clock at the center of their grand parlor room struck midnight, and Jenny jumped at the sound. She went to the tea cart, organizing a fresh setting and placing used items on the lowest shelf of the cart. Fiddling with business seemed to calm the child.
“We should rest,” Gran commanded, no doubt eager to change the subject.
Gran was right. Cora knew if Prenze was further provoked, into what Dupont had called the “great experiment,” none of them would likely rest for the foreseeable future. She hoped that Mahoney was trying to keep peace and safety among the family, maybe even collecting evidence along the way, if he wasn’t under Prenze’s thrall as she distinctly feared. This was the tense calm before the storm.
The team took to whatever surfaces appealed to them. Jenny doled out small cups of herbed tea with a relaxing root infusion. Valerian extract had never worked for Cora; her mind fought it off. She’d sleep eventually, but there was work to be done first.
Through the night, while the rest of the team rested their overdue turn in beds or settees or brocade chairs, Cora opened the briefcase she’d brought with her, and at the desk near the window, turning a small kerosene lamp high, she pored over paperwork turned over to Bishop by the British bankers and looked for proof of Prenze siphoning money from the company into his personal interests after his supposed death. Once she’d placed a penciled star on all the lines that might be evidence—Alfred Prenze would have to verify, should he survive this ordeal—she sat back in her chair, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose.
Confident that everyone else was asleep, Cora took to a settee by the window and reached out into the psychic ether. She reached out for Eve but felt only a closed door. The pain on the other side of that door was palpable, and Cora wished she could alleviate it. She knew Eve well enough to know what the pain was about: pain that her work had hurt the detective, pain of separation from him, and the distance she thought was necessary to keep them all safe.
Wistfully, Cora thought to the very first moment she’d shown up at Eve’s front door. Before Cora or Eve could introduce themselves, Cora led with her vision: “I had a dream I was working with a young woman and ghosts, our ears open on behalf of all those who can’t hear or who won’t listen. Are you looking for someone, Miss Whitby?”
Eve’s face reflected intrigue at first by an unexpected visitor; suddenly she beamed, her pale pallor luminous, and she exclaimed with an ebullience Cora wouldn’t soon forget:
“Why, you! I must be looking for you! Come in and tell me all about it.”
That kind of joyous welcome, without a moment of hesitation, skepticism or second-guessing, especially from a white woman, wasn’t something Cora had often experienced outside her family’s well-vetted friends. The closeness with which Eve had entrusted her, rarely holding back on a thought, a hypothesis, an emotional detail, seeing her capability and talent from the first moment, trusting her with mostly coequal responsibility, had made Cora feel like she was a partner to Eve in every way. Cora had to admit privately that she’d sort of made Eve out to be her whole world when that wasn’t fair. Both of their worlds were multitudes instead.
The psychic door between them felt impenetrable, and Cora hoped Eve was sleeping soundly rather than just inaccessible. She contemplated astral projecting to check on her but thought better of it lest it startle more than reassure her.
Cora never let herself be ruled by emotions, but she was well aware that when it came to Eve, everything got more complicated. The presence of the detective had only distanced Eve further. But the rest of the team had made up for it. Antonia in particular anticipated Cora’s every thought, hope, or need, somehow assessing all the puzzle pieces to become the right fit.
Looking out over the darkened park, an unsettling premonition ate at Cora and she wasn’t sure if it was the truth or her own heart playing certain tricks on her. She was sure that Eve closing herself off would put Eve in a greater danger than she realized. But perhaps it was just the pain of feeling that previously open channel torn away, absent, bricked up when it once flowed freely. Perhaps it was that she couldn’t abide the loneliness of it.
“My sleepless, tireless wonder, heavy with the cares of the world.”
Whirling around, Cora saw a handsome, luminous, slate grey face staring back at her, floating on the edge of the settee in a fine suit coat with a neatly knotted cravat.
“Quiet, Uncle Louis,” Cora whispered. “Let’s not wake anyone, especially your former paramour.” She nodded across the room to where Mrs. Bishop was curled up upon a circular velvet pouf like a bird in a nest.
“Ah, yes”—he sighed, matching Cora’s whisper—“my Clara. I died when she was still my sweetheart. Though I let her go with my blessing, to the man she also always loved, she’ll always be my heart. I always know where she is. Though we stopped speaking long ago, for the sake of moving on, I often watch over her. But the dirge of your heavy heart drew me to you.”
Cora explained her concerns about Eve and what might be next.
“I don’t think she’ll weather well alone,” Louis agreed. “Might be the death of her. If it’s what I fear, this Prenze devil wants her like a key: to open a psychic, spiritual door. Using her against the ghosts. The spirit world can fight back, on her behalf, but you’ll have to as well. I know she shut you out thinking she’s keeping you safe, but that man has a read on you too, Cora. Whatever he tries on her will flow to you, and to Evelyn if you aren’t careful. Shield well.” Cora glanced worriedly at the sleeping form of Gran, tucked in on a rollaway bed. “It takes both parties to close a channel. Pry Eve’s open if you must. You’ll know when.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I haven’t spent so many years a haunt not to be right,” her uncle said, touching a cold fingertip to the end of Cora’s nose. She giggled. “I saw what you did before the mansion; your manifestation was brilliant! The Dupris line, full of invention and celestial power!”
Cora beamed. The astral projection was thrilling, and making her elders proud felt divine. “I wish Eve had been here to see it. We should be fighting side by side through this.”
“Let me go to her to share your unwillingness to be set aside, circumstantially and psychically. You are her equal, as much the leader as she. She’s said so. That means being as much in danger as you want to be. This life isn’t for the faint of heart. I gave mine for it.”
Cora reached out to his phantom hand and ran her palm over the incorporeal chill. “You did. In a fight I can only imagine was far worse than this one—”
“Different. Each metaphysical battle is of its own importance, and each of its own time. I heard my Clara say that Prenze is cracking open the tensions of the whole spirit world. It’s been darkening for some time. The Corridors between life and death are murky. Polluted. Spirits have begun to be paralyzed by fears and anxieties, tensions of the coming century. We don’t know what will happen when the clock strikes midnight, 1900. Many of us fear we will simply fade away, the products of a bygone era and century.”
“No, of course not…”
“Think of it: your most potent assets, the precinct ghosts all are from this century, not before. The eighteenth century and earlier are no longer full-consciousness spirits, truly only shades at this point, lost to the contexts of their time, while you hold our contexts with you and thusly, we are held more fully in your living minds. You give us power to be fully realized.”
Cora had never thought of it this way. She and her team still had so much to learn about the dead and their properties. The idea of losing even an ounce of her uncle’s potency going into the next century sent her nearly into tears; she had to blink them back to retain the composure she sought to cultivate in his presence. Their bond was sacred. “How can we protect you?”
“We spirits are discussing this, in the ways that only we can speak and know. But it will be up to you to protect us. That’s why Prenze being an enemy of ghosts is so troubling. If he starts to eliminate ghosts, much like one fright on a landing that causes a stampede, there will be a spiritual panic. I can’t pretend to know what will happen. The Corridors we travel between life and death have never felt so unstable.”
“Does Eve have any sense of this?”
“Perhaps. I thought Maggie and she might have discussed it, but…”
“Maggie is focused on possessing the living in this case; she may not see a bigger picture. You must tell Eve, uncle. She’s allowing spirits by her side, just not us.” Cora clenched her fists.
“I’ll visit, going with my heart tied to yours. We are all a web. Only binding our threads will keep them strong. She may fall through a spiritual void, and our web must catch her.”
Gran had awoken and knelt by Cora, gazing at Louis fondly, and spoke softly.
“Thank you, Mr. Dupris, for being such a valiant soldier for seventeen years. What Eve plans to do, in her editorial piece in the morning papers, is send a sweeping dose of love to the spirit world, to open the city’s heart to it, bolstering and strengthening it, a challenge directly to Prenze, meant to provoke him. She hopes to create a psychic wave; you’ll know when it hits. If you can be alert with us, we’ll do whatever it takes to protect the living and the dead.”
“Then you keep watch here, I’ll do so there. Vigilance is our only friend right now, in your plane and mine.”
Chapter Eleven
Dressed in her most voluminous nightdress, a gift from Gran when she was sixteen, indulging Eve in what she had dubbed a phase of “Ann Radcliffe–level Gothic devotionals,” Eve settled in on the small bed she’d tossed and turned in as a child, lying in a pool of satin, muslin, and lace layers. She’d taken drops of tonic in her tea as Gran had suggested and stared out the window to the park beyond, branches climbing into a night sky heavy with storm clouds.
When psychically tied to others, one takes for granted never truly being alone. But when Eve closed her psychic doors to her colleagues, a push-and-pull before an echoing internal slam, it drove loneliness home in a sharp spike to the soul even though it was what she’d demanded.
Cora proved a particular struggle. She could feel her dear friend’s indignance, demanding Eve not go too far. So loyal and steadfast, Cora was such a good woman. Eve hoped Cora knew how valued she was. Separation at such a crucial time was no rebuke of their talents.
Agonized, her thoughts inevitably turned to Jacob, wishing for all the world she could further indulge in the passion they’d just begun to allow themselves. The love she’d declared, demonstrated, allowed herself to feel despite all else… It had made them each too vulnerable. The joy of it wasn’t wise.
Tears poured down her face. She didn’t know what would lie ahead, if they could rekindle that passion again. If he’d ever be allowed to see her again. If he’d be willing to defy every urging of their separation. There was no assurance he’d be there for her when all of this was over, to kiss, to hold, to pleasure, to promise.… Not when she’d shut him out without any sense of when she’d dare let him back in.
Tossing and turning again, th
is time not from the torments of spirits but from the longings of her soul and body, just as she was about to achingly call Jacob’s name solely for the delight of saying it, a cold wind enveloped her and a face came through the wall.
Eve’s moan became a cough, and she wrapped the quilt around her to hide, her nightdress open at the collar. “Mr. Dupris!”
The spirit’s greyscale face, generally a pleasant, handsome neutral, grinned knowingly.
“I can tell a fellow lovelorn spirit when I see one,” he exclaimed. “Welcome to our distinguished club. Hold on to love, hope, and what you’re living for, Eve Whitby. I come to reassure you and to warn you about what lies ahead in equal measure.”
Louis Dupris explained to Eve what he’d discussed with Cora. They talked strategy and theology. Eve was both inspired and duly cautious. She drank tea and allowed herself to relax in his presence. There were certain spirits that, during her first awakening to mediumship, would just keep her company and ward off all others who wished to yammer at her. Perhaps this certifiable mystic was doing just that, because she forgot for a moment how truly scared she was and didn’t remember dozing off.
Chapter Twelve
Cora woke from a deep sleep with a sudden start, freezing hands on her cheeks and a transparent face next to hers. No matter how one had grown accustomed to ghosts, they still liked to startle, and none so much as Maggie Hathorn.
“Good Lord, Maggie,” Cora muttered, rising, wiping the grit of sleep from her eyes. “Don’t be creepy.” The spirit did nothing to adjust the lack of personal space between them. Cora folded her arms. “What?”
“I know Eve doesn’t want the detective involved!” Maggie blurted, as if she’d been holding back a scream of gossip. “But he has to know why. He can’t just think she’s shut him out because she doesn’t care anymore. I don’t want what happened the last time at the soiree, when there was that terrible misunderstanding and everything was stupid—”
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