“If Gran had been there on that bridge”—Eve shuddered—“she’d have tried to put herself in the way. I am so glad she went to Sanctuary instead. Bless Antonia’s vision. It’s my hope that Sanctuary is playing a part in the protection of all spirits.”
“In the morning we’ll take a look at these,” Jacob said, reaching into his coat pocket and withdrawing two bound books. Arielle’s offering: Albert’s diary, and something else. “Before Zofia burst into my office,” Jacob explained, “I was given this casebook.”
Eve reached over and took the second book, reading Harold Spire’s letter to the detective. “Chief Inspector Spire! Gran worked with him; you’re wise to ask his advice. This will be an enormous asset. While I know Prenze will never be able to be tried for the torture and dispersing of souls, he can’t be let to abuse the living anymore either.”
As she eagerly began perusing the pages, Jacob chuckled.
“In the morning, Eve, not now. Prenze nearly made a dynamo out of you. You must rest.”
“I…” She looked up at him then at Rachel, who mirrored his stern look.
“But I am rather, energized…” she said with a sheepish smile.
Jacob groaned at her poor attempt at humor. “Drink some tea, at least, will you?”
“Yes, and an aspirin. They’re in a bottle by my bedside, if you don’t mind?”
Jacob went for them, and Eve blushed at the idea she was sending him off to her room, watching him go, savoring the look of him: determined and strong, striking in any state. The only thing that could pull her away from looking at Spire’s casebook and Prenze’s diary was the prospect of being alone in a room with Jacob Horowitz. Rachel was staring at her, looking bemused.
Gesturing after Jacob and back to Eve, Rachel inquired about the state of things. I was worried about you two after the Thalia gala. The Veils said you were very upset when you left. Did you and Jacob have an argument?
“It was a misunderstanding,” Eve explained. “When I saw Jacob with Sophie, so close and familiar, I thought they were courting and I just…panicked.…” Her face went bright red. Glancing at Rachel sheepishly, she added, in sign; Because honestly, I’m helplessly in love with him.
Rachel beamed. I know. At this, Eve bit her lip, her blush brightening. Rachel chuckled.
I remember them both, she continued, Jacob and Sophie, from my youth. Before I moved to the Connecticut Asylum to learn sign and our families lost touch. They cared deeply, but I knew, as did the spirits, that those two were meant only for dear friendship.
Eve welcomed Rachel’s reassurance, having thought she’d never be able to forget the sight of Jacob’s handsome face looking so lovingly at such a beautiful woman. But jealousy was a warped, foolish demon Eve wanted nothing to do with.
He loves you too, I can see it, Rachel signed. Confirming something the spirits said to me long ago, about you. About your future.
Before Rachel could elaborate, Jacob returned with two small white tablets, holding them out for Eve.
She took the pills from him and clasped his hand as she did, looking into his eyes, hoping her gaze showed him the truth of her heart: that she did want to go forward, fearless and with hope.…
Just then, a roaring, piercing pain struck Eve’s skull. A shriek awoke within her, and she didn’t know if the sound was hers or another soul’s cry that echoed in the room. All the pain she’d experienced at the bridge swept back over her body, starting with the crown of her head and overtaking her whole body with a vengeance.
“Prenze woke. I can feel him,” Eve ground through clenched teeth. “The anger…”
Albert, in his dread astral projection form, was looming over her head, reaching out for her neck as if he held a reaper’s scythe. “Get out,” she growled. Looking to the table where Rachel had lit candles, she focused on the tips of the flame as inspiration for her shielding; but his anger anticipated her, lashing out in his own swift, psychic blow. The aspirin rolled away as Eve’s eyes rolled back and darkness descended once more.
Chapter Eighteen
Evelyn Northe-Stewart had tried not to panic when her carriage sped away from the city and her granddaughter. The spirits were urging her toward where she needed to be; it was very clear. Antonia and Jenny had been supremely focused, quiet, listening on the journey. Gran was impressed with their studious fortitude. They’d discussed Eve briefly, as Gran tried to explain her strategy, though the vagaries clearly unsettled the trio deeply. Focusing on what they could control, they tuned themselves to the energy of the sacred space ahead.
Antonia, quite brilliantly, had taken a quiet initiative, after seeing how their foes affected spirits via electrical manipulation, to learn about the power lines and what companies serviced what area in the boroughs and beyond. When they arrived at Clara Bishop’s house to apprise her of the Spiritualist guard they were keeping not far from her property, Antonia suggested Ambassador Bishop call the local service company. Under the guise of contracting digging and construction in the surrounding acreage, he bid the power company shut down nearby lines for the remainder of the day, encouraging any affected parties to contact him directly. He’d pleasantly mesmerize anyone concerned into not minding any inconvenience.
Once the mechanical threat was neutralized, it was their purview to tend to the spiritual.
Now they were outside of the Sanctuary arch, and everything was very quiet. Unnaturally so.
The three had brought a picnic to the arch that Clara had packed them while her husband cajoled with the local utilities. She remained home, as getting that close to a parting of the veil was a guaranteed epileptic seizure. But she promised to listen for disturbances and to pull positive ley line energy, routing a different kind of “wiring” than Prenze could ever have fashioned, compensating with ancient light if things grew dark.
For most of the day, as they picnicked before the arch and listened to the chatter of any passing dead, all of it was general murmuring, familiar to any Sensitive. But then there was a distinct shift. A rush of noise and then nothing, just as they’d had the last of their tea cakes. Even the dead leaves on the rustling trees had gone silent.
Too quiet, Jenny signed to Gran, who nodded.
She rose, still in the black widow’s weeds from earlier—it suited their mission—and placed her hand on the arch.
Gran’s fall was swift and instant.
All she could hear was “She’s here! Our benefactress! The one whose heart built the door!”
And then she lay on the floor of a beautiful cathedral. Above her head soared innumerable Gothic arches.
Joyously she realized it looked like the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine was meant to look. A behemoth Gothic wonder that hadn’t yet been completed, it was just getting started in upper Manhattan, the mere hope and darling of her heart, the life’s work of so many, here made manifest. She gasped in delight. The nave was enormous, the altar expansive and bordered by carved wooden choir rows, the front rose window huge and blue, each petal signifying one of the Beatitudes. The rear ambulatory let in more light, the chapels of patron saints all lending their stained-glass glory to the Gothic whole.
“How is this possible,” Evelyn breathed, and music answered.
Angelic sound swelled around her: all women’s voices, a sacred tune Evelyn recognized as that of the great Hildegard, inspiration to women who sought to be seen and heard. The light, the living light of her twelfth-century visions, brightened around the great space poised to become one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world. Long after Evelyn would pass from this mortal coil.
A woman in a blue Episcopalian deaconess habit peered down at her before helping her up from the stone floor. “Evelyn Northe-Stewart, the legend herself,” the woman said, guiding her to a nearby pew and sitting down. “Hello, I’m Lily Strand. I imagine Eve may have mentioned me.”
“Yes, I’m so gratef
ul to you, and for this place to look like my church…” Tears flowed down Evelyn’s cheeks. “I knew I’d never live to see it finished! Thank you...thank you for this.”
“It was your steadfast faith, even when everyone else in your childhood hurt and rejected you, that created this portal. The least we could do is let you see this future.”
“I fear for the present,” Evelyn said gravely.
“Don’t. You’ve done well to protect us by shutting down the wires. What you’ll need to do is shield yourself and your psychic friends. Because we’re going to fight back.”
“And Eve?”
“She’ll survive—”
Evelyn shot to her feet. “What do you mean, ‘she’ll survive’?”
The deaconess rose too, walking Evelyn toward the vast front door of the ponderous space. “I mean exactly that. I’ve checked on her. She’s not alone.”
“But she’s still at the house—”
“What’s important now is the protection of a whole city’s worth of spirits, making sure the psychic wave Prenze created stops here with us, the levee. We strain at capacity, but we will hold for safety.”
“Where are all the spirits of this Sanctuary, then?”
“Hiding,” Strand said. “Those who enter here will first see the sacred space they most want or expect to see. The truth of this place lives in the recesses. We’ve not time for a tour. Go, sit with your fellows. Keep watch like all the women who have kept watch since time began. Go with our heart and our thanks, and when the trumpet sounds, brace yourselves.”
Lily Strand flung open the great door, and light beyond blinded Evelyn. With a gentle shove from the deaconess, Evelyn fell back, but as she did, the world opened.
For one brief moment she thought she glimpsed every shadow of Sanctuary, and beyond, into the Corridors, past the Corridors into a more ancient place even deeper into a stone purgatory, into the land some called the Whisper-world, all the levels and layers and labyrinths open to the dead. One yawning, gaping moment when everything seemed vulnerable. But it had to be an illusion. One could not get to the mythic Whisper-world from Sanctuary. She had been expressly told by spiritual agents she met in her youth that those gates were shut.
And yet, the whole of the spirit world had become to Evelyn’s eye a great, yawning maw, a widening scream and at the center of it, a terror. A hulking, undulating shadow that filled Evelyn with dread. As it pulsed, so did it grow. The spirit world feared it too, and Evelyn’s empathetic Sensitivities were overwhelmed. Her heart faltered in her chest. She was no longer the young warrior she once had been. She didn’t want to die like this, falling away from the Heaven she’d been so desperate to see finished—
“Wake up.” A whisper fluttered over Evelyn’s eyelids, and she felt as though she struck ground. With a moan, she opened her eyes to see Jenny staring down at her, Antonia at her elbow.
And then there was a loud, clarion trumpet blast. Evelyn couldn’t be sure who or what heavenly host sounded it, but she knew the onslaught was coming.
“Shield!” Evelyn cried, bolting up to grab and cover Jenny with her body as if blocking her from a blast, cradling the child as she’d done over Eve when first embattled with her gifts.
In a freezing immersion, the forest clearing was gone and the women were drowning in spirits.
Chapter Nineteen
“Take me home,” the tintype had whispered to Maggie, seeing through Arielle Prenze’s eyes near the mouth of the bridge, once she’d given the detective Albert’s journal. The edge of the metal plate was bloodied from Arielle catching it roughly during the tumult on the bridge.
The mouth of the stern woman in the image actually moved, and Maggie realized what had happened. Mrs. Prenze had gone into the object, what was left of her. She wasn’t the manifest whole spirit, but there was enough of her to command attention and possess an item with her essence. Perhaps, Maggie and Arielle thought in tandem, the blood made for that much more of a spell. It wasn’t the first time that woman had drawn blood, Arielle admitted to herself, and to Maggie, and the weight of abuses twisted knots in the woman’s stomach.
Arielle Prenze, possessed by Margaret Hathorn but not entirely overtaken by her, as the two had reached an accord of companionship within one body, returned to a darkened house as her mother bid. Maggie wasn’t done with the Prenze family or the mansion yet. Arielle turned on the gas lamps in the front hall, and glass sconces leapt to a frosted golden life, the pipes still installed and at the ready. Even though electricity had been implemented, many fine homes maintained both, just for good measure. As she took to the stairs to find Alfred and see if he had recovered from Albert’s drugs and toxins, a great wailing roar took over the sky and the temperature around her plummeted drastic degrees.
What looked like a wave of silvery light swept over the house, a tsunami of eerie, luminous vapor. Arielle’s hair was blown back, her body wracked with shivers.
“What’s happening?” Arielle asked the spirit within her, terrified.
I think the spirit world is taking revenge, Maggie replied in Arielle’s mind.
“Will they come for me?” Arielle said in a panic. “I did help Albert in the beginning. I did think I was doing the Christian thing, by trying to move spirits on, but I see now it was torture. I see now it’s best to let spirits be. I’m sorry…” she cried to the air.
If they’re not causing harm, that’s usually best. But it is complicated, as I can see that there were tortures you and your brother lived through, in life and through your mother’s spirit. I can’t say I wouldn’t have wanted her gone too. But the way he went about it… I wish you’d all have called an exorcist instead. I know a very good and handsome one.
As the luminous wash of spectral energy passed over Arielle, the tintype of her mother began to glow, and the form of Mrs. Prenze lifted from the frame, a dimensional projection of the face below.
“I should have found a way to care for you better,” Mrs. Prenze whispered. “I see that now. Can that possibly be enough?”
“It helps,” Arielle said.
“Will you tell him that? Albert? It may ease him. It may not. I would like to be done with this anger. With this restlessness.”
“I will tell him.”
“I would like to rest.”
As the spectral tide flowed, Mrs. Prenze, the wisps that were left of her, lifted from the image and into the current.
“Goodnight, Mother,” Arielle called.
“Goodnight, Elle,” replied a whisper that blended into the wash.
The tintype went still. Arielle bowed her head. She set the tintype on the mantel of the parlor and said prayers over it, for herself and for the spiritual river flowing past her. A cold caress of luminous silk as it passed over her, the flow of the dead in an airborne torrent was uncannily beautiful, profound. Something she’d never forget. Whenever it reached Albert, he’d have far less of a peaceful time of it, but at that point it would be justice.
* * * *
In Eve Whitby’s parlor, Jacob dove to catch Eve’s falling body lest she strike her head against the wooden arm of the settee.
“What’s wrong,” he cried, cradling her. “Is she under a psychic attack again?” He looked around as Rachel did, but even to her trained eye nothing was there.
Rachel lifted a finger to tell him to give her a moment and closed her eyes, reaching out her hands in front of her as if she were feeling for a wall. As Jacob held Eve, Rachel bent near Eve’s head, looking up at Jacob, and nodded. She gestured toward Eve’s mind and made a motion as if something was trying to get in.
“The Bishops taught us shielding. Maybe we can shield for Eve too?” Jacob offered.
Rachel nodded eagerly and stood, pulling a hand-shaped pendant from around her neck, clutching the hamsa as she mouthed a prayer. He joined in the Tefilat HaDerech with her, a traveler’s prayer, as g
ood as any, as Eve’s mind was indeed traveling uncharted waters.
Jacob wrapped his arms around Eve’s shuddering body tightly, clutching her head against his. “Come back, Evelyn Whitby,” he demanded. “I’ll not have you taken again. No one shall have power over this mind but herself!” Jacob declared to the air around them. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and released it slowly.
Rachel held her hands out as a shudder of power and fortitude expanded through Jacob; she could feel his energy lifting up Eve, enswathing her.
“Wake, Eve,” he urged. “Return to us. To your power. Your control. Come home.”
The response was immediate.
Eve sighed as her eyes fluttered open, and she stared up at the man she adored. “My brilliant love…your light and strength pulled me from the depths!”
Jacob beamed. “I’m so glad it helped.”
“You always do,” she sighed happily, reinvigorated. “Thank you both,” she said, making sure Rachel knew she was just as appreciated, their efforts both helped her fight back the clutching darkness she hadn’t wanted to fall victim to again. “I could feel Prenze trying to slither back into my consciousness. But he was weakened by the day. He’d gone so long without censure I’m sure he thought he’d just slip back into the shadows again after all this.”
With a deep breath, Eve sat up and cried, “I renounce thee!,” pushing her hands up as if shoving away unwelcome presences. The gas lamps flared as if directly responsive to her calling forth elemental forces, and Eve felt certain the collective shielding did exactly what it was supposed to do this time; a muse of fire.
“Finally.” She tapped the center of her forehead. “A bit of peace and quiet!”
Zofia appeared before Eve in a sudden sweeping motion, all cold air and moonlight in her ethereal form.
“Dearest little one!” Eve cried, reaching out and through her as if to hug her.
“Fondness soon, Eve, but now, right now, plug your spectral ears,” the girl exclaimed anxiously, and motioned to Rachel the instruction, tapping the center of her grey, transparent forehead just as Eve had done and then putting fingers in her ears, signaling the need to block and protect her third eye and all Sensitivities. Rachel nodded.
A Summoning of Souls Page 27
