The Time Traveller's Almanac

by Ann VanderMeer

  It was the secret of her profession, after all.

  “Are you not also alone and afraid?”

  Nothing.

  “Let me put it another way.”

  She pressed down on the planchette, and manipulated it, spelling out in his own language.

  R U NOT ALSO ALONE AND AFRAID

  She would have added a question mark, but the ouija board had none. Spirits never asked questions, just supplied answers.

  *

  IRENE D was sharper than he had first guessed. And he still knew no more about her. No matter.

  Boyd rolled over to the next keyboard.

  U TELL HIM GRRL BCK OFF CREEP

  IRENE D: Another presence? How refreshing. And you might be?

  CARESS SISTA.

  IRENE D: Another spirit?

  Presence? Spirit? Was she taking the piss?

  UH HUH SPIRT THAT’S THE STUFF SHOW THAT PIG U CAN STAND UP 4 YRSELF

  IRENE D: Another presence, but the same mode of address. I think your name might be Legion.

  Boyd knew of another netshark who used Legion as a log-on. IRENE D must have come across him too. Not the virgin she seemed, then. Damn.

  His search still couldn’t penetrate further than her simple log-on. By now, he should have her mother’s maiden name, her menstrual calendar, the full name of the first boy she snogged at school and a list of all the porn sites she had accessed in the last week.

  He should close down the Room, seal it up forever and scuttle away. But he was being challenged, which didn’t happen often. Usually, he was content to play a while with those he snared, scrambling their heads with what he had found out about them as his net-noose drew tauter around them. Part of the game was to siphon a little from their bank accounts: someone had to pay his phone and access bills, and he was damned if he should cough up by direct debit like some silly little newbie. But mostly it was for the sport.

  In the early days, he had been fond of co-opting idents and flooding his playmates’ systems with extreme porn or placing orders in their names for expensive but embarrassing goods and services. That now seemed crude. His current craze was doctoring and posting images. If IRENE D was married, it would be interesting to direct her husband to, say, a goat sex site where her face was convincingly overlaid upon an enthusiastic animal-lover’s body. And it was so easy to mock up mug shots, complete with guilty looks and serial numbers, to reveal an ineptly-suppressed criminal past (complete with court records and other supporting documentation) that would make an employer think twice about keeping someone on the books. No one ever bothered to double-check by going back to the paper archives before they downsized a job.

  Always, he would leave memories to cherish; months later, he would check up on his net-pals – his score so far was five institutionalisations and two suicides – just to see that the experience was still vivid. He was determined to crawl into IRENE D’s skull and stay there, replicating like a virus, wiping her hard drive.

  URSULA W-D: Do you know Frank? Frank Conynghame-Mars.

  Where did that come from? Still, there couldn’t be many people floating around with a name like that. Boyd shut off the fruitless backdoor search, and copied the double-barrel into an engine. It came up instantly with a handful of matches. The first was an obituary from 1919, scanned into a newspaper database. A foolish virgin had purchased unlimited access to a great many similar archives, which was now open to Boyd. A local newspaper, the Ham&High. He was surprised. It was the World Wide Web after all. This hit was close to home – maybe only streets away – if eighty years back. He looked over the obit, and took a flyer.

  DEAD OF FLU

  URSULA W-D: Yes. She knows Frank, Madame Irena. A miracle. Have you a message from Frank? For Ursula?

  Boyd speed-read the obit. Frank Conynghame-Mars, “decorated in the late conflict’, etc. etc. Dead at thirty-eight. Engaged to a Miss Ursula Walter-David, of this parish. Could the woman be still alive? She would have to be well over a hundred.

  He launched another search. Ursula Walter-David

  Three matches. One the Conynghame-Mars obit he already had up. Second, an article from something called The Temple, from 1924 – a publication of the Spiritualist Church. Third, also from the Ham&High archive, her own obit, from 1952.

  Zoiks, Scooby – a ghost!

  This was an elaborate sting. Had to be.

  He would string it along, to give him time to think.

  U WIL BE 2GETHER AGAIN 1952

  The article from The Temple was too long and close-printed to read in full while his formidable attention was divided into three or four windows. It had been scanned in badly, and not all of it was legible. The gist was a testimonial for a spiritualist medium called Madame Irena (no last-name given). Among her “sitters”, satisfied customers evidently, was Ursula Walter-David.

  Weird. Boyd suspected he was being set up. He didn’t trust the matches. They must be plants. Though he couldn’t see the joins, he knew that with enough work he could run something like this – had indeed done so, feeding prospects their own mocked-up obits with full gruesome details – to get to someone. Was this a vengeance crusade? If so, he couldn’t see where it was going.

  He tried a search on “Madame Irena” and came up with hundreds of matches, mostly French and porn sites. A BD/SM video titled The Lash of Madame Irena accounted for most of the matches. He tried pairing “+Madame Irena” with “+spiritualist” and had a more manageable fifteen matches, including several more articles from The Temple.

  URSULA W-D: Is Frank at peace?

  He had to sub-divide his concentration, again. He wasn’t quite ambidextrous, but could pump a keyboard with either hand, working shift keys with his thumbs, and split his mind into segments, eyes rolling independently like a lizard’s, to follow several lines.

  FRANK IS OVER HIS SNIFFLES

  Among the “Madame Irena”/“medium” matches was a Journal of the Society of Psychical Research piece from 1926, shout-lined “Fraudulence Alleged”. He opened it up, and found from a news-in-brief snippet that a court case was being prepared against one “Irene Dobson”, known professionally as “Madame Irena”, for various malpractices in connection with her work as a spirit medium. One Catriona Kaye, a “serious researcher”, was quoted as being “in no doubt of the woman’s genuine psychical abilities but also sure she had employed them in an unethical, indeed dangerous, manner”.

  Another match was a court record. He opened it: a declaration of the suit against Irene Dobson. Scrolling down, he found it frustratingly incomplete. The document set out what was being tried, but didn’t say how the case came out. A lot of old records were like that, incompletely scanned. Usually, he only had current files to open and process. He looked again at the legal rigmarole, and his eye was caught by Irene Dobson’s address.

  The Laburnums, Feldspar Road, Highgate.

  This was 26, Feldspar Road. There were big bushes outside. If he ran a search for laburnum.jpg, he was sure he’d get a visual match.

  Irene Dobson lived in this house.

  No, she had lived in this house. In the 1920s, before it was converted into flats. When it had a name, not a number.

  Now she was dead.

  Whoever was running this on Boyd knew where he lived. He was not going to take that.

  *

  “This new presence,” said Miss Walter-David. “It’s quite remarkable.”

  There was no new presence, no “Caress”. Irene would have felt a change, and hadn’t. This was one presence with several voices. She had heard of such. Invariably malign. She should call an end to the seance, plead fatigue. But Ursula Walter-David would never come back, and the husbandless woman had a private income and nothing to spend it on but the beyond. At the moment, she was satisfied enough to pay heavily for Irene’s service. She decided to stay with it, despite the dangers. Rewards were within reach. She was determined, however, to treat this cunning spirit with extreme caution. He was a tiger, posing as a pussycat. She f
ocused on the centre of the board, and was careful with the planchette, never letting its points stray beyond the ring of letters.

  “Caress,” said Miss Walter-David, a-tremble, “may I speak with Frank?”

  “Caress” was supposed to be a woman, but Irene thought the first voice – “Master Mind” – closer to the true personality.

  IN 52

  “Why 1952? It seems a terribly long way off.”

  WHEN U DIE

  That did it. Miss Walter-David pulled away as if bitten. Irene considered: it seemed only too likely that the sitter had been given the real year of her death. That was a cruel stroke, typical of the malign spirit.

  The presence was a prophet. Irene had heard of a few such spirits – one of the historical reasons for consulting mediums was to discern the future – but never come across one. Could it be that the spirits had true foreknowledge of what was to come? Or did they inhabit a realm outside time and could look in at any point in human history, future as well as past, and pass on what they saw?

  Miss Walter-David was still impressed. But less pleased.

  The planchette circled, almost entirely of its own accord. Irene could have withdrawn her fingers, but the spirit was probably strong enough to move the pointer without her. It certainly raced ahead of her push. She had to keep the planchette in the circle.

  IRENE

  Not Irena.

  DOBSON

  Now she was frightened, but also annoyed. A private part of her person had been exposed. This was an insult and an attack.

  “Who’s Dobson?” asked Miss Walter-David.

  SHE IS

  “It is my name,” Irene admitted. “That’s no secret.”

  ISNT IT

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  HERE THERE EVERYWHERE

  “No, here and there perhaps. But not everywhere.”

  This was a strange spirit. He had aspirations to omnipotence, but something about him was overreaching. He called himself “Master Mind”, which suggested a streak of self-deluding vanity. Knowledge wasn’t wisdom. She had a notion that if she asked him to name this year’s Derby winner, he would be able to furnish the correct answer

  (an idea with possibilities)

  but that he could reveal precious little of what came after death. An insight struck her: this was not a departed spirit, this was a living man.

  Living. But where?

  No.

  When?

  “What date is it?” she asked.

  *

  Good question.

  Since this must be a sting, there was no harm in the truth.

  JAN 20 01

  IRENE D: 1901?

  N 2001

  URSULA W-D: I thought time had no meaning in the world beyond.

  IRENE D: That depends which world beyond our guest might inhabit.

  Boyd had run searches on “Irene Dobson” and his own address, independent and cross-matching. Too many matches were coming up. He wished more people had names like “Frank Conynghame-Mars” and fewer like “Irene Dobson”. “Boyd Waylo”, his birth-name, was a deep secret; his accounts were all in names like “John Barrett” and “Andrew Lee”.

  Beyond the ring of monitors, his den was dark. This was the largest room in what had once been a Victorian town-house, and was now divided into three flats. Was this where “Madame Irena” had held her seances? His raised ground-floor flat might encompass the old parlour.

  He was supposed to believe he was in touch with the past.

  One of the “Irene Dobson” matches was a .jpg. He opened the picture file, and looked into a small, determined face. Not his type, but surprising and striking. Her hair was covered by a turban and she wore a Chinese-style jacket, buttoned up to the throat. She looked rather prosperous, and was smoking a black cigarette in a long white holder. The image was from 1927. Was that when she was supposed to be talking to him from?

  WHAT DATE 4 U

  IRENE D: January 13, 1923. Of course.

  Maybe he was supposed to bombard her with questions about the period, to try and catch her out in an anachronism. But he had only general knowledge: Prohibition in America, a General Strike in Britain, talking pictures in 1927, the Lindbergh flight somewhere earlier, the stock market crash a year or two later, Thoroughly Modern Millie and P.G. Wodehouse. Not a lot of use. He couldn’t even remember who was Prime Minister in January, 1923. He could get answers from the net in moments, though; knowing things was pointless compared with knowing how to find things out. At the moment, that didn’t help him.

  Whoever these women were – or rather, whoever this IRENE D was, for URSULA W-D plainly didn’t count – he was sure that they’d have the answers for any questions he came up with.

  What was the point of this?

  He could get to IRENE D. Despite everything, he had her. She was in his Room; she was his prey and meat and he would not let her challenge him.

  I C U

  *

  I C U

  I see you.

  Irene thought that was a lie, but Master Mind could almost certainly hear her. Though, as with real spirits, she wondered if the words came to him as human sounds or in some other manner.

  The parlour was almost completely dark, save for a cone of light about the table.

  Miss Walter-David was terrified, on the point of fleeing. That was for the best, but there was a service Irene needed of her.

  She did not say it out loud, for “Master Mind” would hear.

  He said he could see, but she thought she could conceal her hand from him.

  It was an awkward move. She put the fingers of her left hand on the shivering planchette, which was racing inside the circle, darting at the letters, trying to break free.

  I C U ID

  I C U R FRIT

  She slipped a pocket-book out of her cardigan, opened it one-handed and pressed it to her thigh with the heel of her hand while extracting the pencil from the spine with her fingernails. It was not an easy thing to manage.

  U R FRIT AND FRAUD

  This was just raving. She wrote a note, blind. She was trusting Miss Walter-David to read her scrawl. It was strange what mattered.

  “This is no longer Caress,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Have we another visitor?”

  2TRU IM SNAKE

  “Im? Ah-ha, “I’m”. Snake? Yet another speaker of this peculiar dialect, with unconventional ideas about spelling.”

  Miss Walter-David was backing away. She was out of her seat, retreating into darkness. Irene offered her the pocket-book, opened to the message. The sitter didn’t want to take it. She opened her mouth. Irene shook her head, shushing her. Miss Walter-David took the book, and peered in the dark. Irene was afraid the silly goose would read out loud, but she at least half-understood.

  On a dresser nearby was a tea-tray, with four glasses of distilled water and four curls of chain. Bicycle chain, as it happened. Irene had asked Miss Walter-David to bring the tray to the ouija table.

  “Snake, do you know things? Things yet to happen?”

  2TRU

  “A useful accomplishment.”

  NDD

  “Indeed?”

  2RIT

  There was a clatter. Miss Walter-David had withdrawn. Irene wondered if she would pay for the seance. She might. After all, there had been results. She had learned something, though nothing to make her happy.

  “Miss Walter-David will die in 1952?”

  Y

  Back to Y. She preferred that to 2TRU and 2RIT.

  “Of what?”

  A pause.

  PNEU

  “Pneumonia, thank you.”

  Her arm was getting worn out, dragged around the circle. Her shoulder ached. Doing this one-handed was not easy. She had already set out the glasses at the four points of the compass, and was working on the chains. It was important that the ends be dipped in the glasses to make the connections, but that the two ends in each glass not touch. This was more like physics than
spiritualism, but she understood it made sense.

  “What else do you know?”

  U R FRAUD

  “I don’t think so. Tell me about the future. Not 2001. The useful future, within the next five or ten years.”

  STOK MRKT CRSH 29

  “That’s worth knowing. You can tell me about stocks and shares?”

  Y

  It was a subject of which she knew nothing, but she could learn. She had an idea that there were easier and less obtrusive fortunes to be made there than in Derby winners. But she would get the names out of him, too.

  “Horse races?”

  A hesitation.

  Y

  The presence was less frisky, sliding easily about the circle, not trying to break free.

  “This year’s Derby?”

  *

  A simple search (+Epsom +Derby +winner +1923 -Kentucky) had no matches; he took out -Kentucky, and had a few hits, and an explanation. Papyrus, the 1923 winner, was the first horse to run in both the Epsom and Kentucky Derby races, though the nag lost in the States, scuppering a possible chance for a nice long-shot accumulator bet if he really was giving a woman from the past a hot tip on the future. Boyd fed that all to IRENE D, still playing along, still not seeing the point. She received slowly, as if her system were taking one letter at a time.

  Click. It wasn’t a monitor. It was a ouija board.

  That was what he was supposed to think.

  IRENE D: I’m going to give you another name. I should like you to tell me what you know of this man.

  OK

  IRENE D: Anthony Tallgarth. Also, Basil and Florence Tallgarth.

  He ran multiple searches and got a cluster of matches, mostly from the 20s – though there were birth and death announcements from the 1860s through to 1968 – and, again, mostly from the Ham&High. He picked one dated February 2, 1923, and opened the article.

  TYCOON FINDS LOST SON.

  IRENE D: Where is Anthony? Now.

  According to the article, Anthony was enlisted in the Royal Navy as an Able Seaman, under the name of T.A. Meredith, stationed at Portsmouth and due to ship out aboard the HMS Duckett. He had parted from his wealthy parents after a scandal and a quarrel – since the brat had gone into the Navy, Boyd bet he was gay – but been discovered through the efforts of a “noted local spiritualist and seeress”. A reconciliation was effected.