by Mary Bowers
I pulled up in front of Whitby House and gave it a good, long look. It seemed like nobody was home, and in the dark of night, it wasn’t very inviting.
Even though it was going to be Halloween in a few days, I was having a hard time getting myself up for this. I tried to imagine the house staring back at me, being foreboding or something, but it was just a house. About that time, Ed opened the front door and motioned to me impatiently, so I hove out of the car muttering, “Never again.”
“You’re late,” he fretted. “We’re already set up in the dining room.”
I followed him back through the now-empty foyer. The gallery railing running around the second floor seemed to set a boundary; above it, shadows loomed. I could just barely make out the pattern in the high oval of stained glass set over the foyer, but only because I already knew what it looked like. Up in the shadows, the lead between the bits of colored glass formed snaky lines that began to ooze when I squinted my eyes. I was standing in the precise spot where three people had met violent deaths. Whether or not they were going to emerge and start expressing themselves during the séance seemed a much more serious question now than it had earlier, when I’d been talking it over with Ed in the sunshine. I was happy to move on to the dining room.
Rita had taken the extra leaves out of the dining room table, and now it seemed far too small for the room. Purity had placed a candle in the center of the table. Otherwise, there was no light. When Edson closed the door behind us, the room became a sealed box.
By some trick of the light, a gold statuette on the buffet seemed to emanate a quiet glow. I recognized it. It had the body of a woman and the head of a cat. After my friend Vesta had died, her collection of Egyptiana had been donated to Girlfriend’s, and everybody in town seemed to have bought something from it. That statue of the goddess Bastet had been Vesta’s. It struck me as ironic, and I wondered if Ed had noticed it, but I certainly wasn’t going to mention it.
Purity was already in character, and she didn’t acknowledge my arrival. She was wearing white, and looked like an oversized doll. Her long blond hair fell straight down her back, and her overlong bangs obscured her eyes. Rita looked up and gave me a nervous smile, shifted her eyes to Purity, then stared down at the tabletop.
As soon as I was settled in the chair opposite Purity, she murmured, “We begin,” without opening her eyes. Her high, childish voice and her doll-like appearance suggested something unnatural, like a toy that comes to life in a horror movie.
She let her hands fall open on the table, and Ed took one, Rita took the other. I folded my fingers over their free hands, and we were joined in a circle. I tried to look solemn. I was gazing down at the gloss on the tabletop, thinking about how we could run a safe Halloween night in town, when Purity suddenly animated, opened her blue eyes wide, stared at me and said, “Stop. Your words are in the air all around me, chattering, bouncing back from the walls. They confuse me. Empty your mind now. Events in the future will arrange themselves. For now, be empty. Let me fill the air with my own power, as I reach out for my guide.”
Well, sure. Sorry I was thinking so loud, I thought, but it did disconcert me. She didn’t accuse anybody else of thinking too loud, but Ed shot a quick glance at me, and I did my best to empty my mind.
I had taken part in one of Purity’s séances before. That time, she had begun by singing. This time, for some reason, she did not. She kept silent for so long that the rest of us began to shift uneasily in our chairs. Then, suddenly, she told us that we must pray. I shot a confused look at Edson, and he gave me a wise look, closed his eyes and lowered his head. I waited for her to lead us, but she didn’t.
Suddenly, it all seemed natural to me. I let my eyelids drift down and thought, “Violet lived a good life. Now she’s tired, and perhaps she doesn’t understand what has happened. Let us know what to do for her. She’s beloved. Let her see that love and let it shine upon her and hold her safe. Give us the wisdom to know what she needs, and grant us the knowledge to comply.”
There was a round of “amen” going around the table just as I had finished formulating my little prayer. I added my own amen just after the others. I began to feel good about what we were doing. Thinking up that prayer seemed to clarify things for me, and after that, my mind was naturally calm and quiet. I began to drift.
I began to hear a rhythm, and even though my eyes were closed, I knew lovely things were around me. Golden glimmers in the velvet dark, and graceful, slow movement. The scent of Purity’s candle was overtaken by a spicy perfume, something ancient and forgotten. Something precious that was only burned in the presence of priestesses and pharaohs, gods and goddesses. I had smelled this perfume before.
She came.
She stood in the darkness and lifted her arms, and the rhythm came from within her like the pulse of her being. The scent was the scent of her skin, and the music was the sound of her life force enduring through the ages to touch me in these new and ridiculous times. How complicated we had made things! How we glossed over life with our silly toys and our confused emotions. It was all very simple, really. Time was a river, and we floated along it, keeping our hands and minds busy with trivial things, and perhaps, if we were fortunate, we could accomplish one or two important things, in all the time that we were given.
“One of my own has transgressed,” she said. I heard, but there was no sound. “I will have vengeance. My power has been used for evil.”
“Who is the evil one?” I asked without speaking.
“Others have been led into the darkness and immersed in sin. I will have it stopped. I will punish.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“Go beyond the obvious. The truth is not there; it lies buried beneath a false love, and it has destroyed a bond of love to hide its crimes. One who kills will plead that murder was done for many reasons, but the only true reason is selfishness.”
“Who has killed?”
“The one who hides in plain sight. You must make the acolytes tell you the truth. They have lied. They do not understand. They lie to protect the very creature who feeds upon them, not knowing that they grow ever weaker while the creature grows stronger. Find the master; you will know the crime.”
“’The master?’”
“The one who was the first to sin.”
A memory came back to me. An impression. Charles Dickens. Now I understood. I tried to nod, to show Bastet that I understood, but I was too drained to speak, too relaxed to move.
She saw that I had absorbed her wisdom, and she melted into the shadows. A piercing light flooded from the statuette on the buffet, hurting me, and then all was dark in my mind. When I opened my eyes, the candle was lit again and the room was just a box, and even the light from the candle seemed too bright for my eyes.
“Wasn’t she wonderful?” Rita gushed.
I inhaled sharply, suddenly coming out of my trance. “Mmmm hmm. Yes.”
Rita must have meant Purity, I thought. How silly. I knew that nobody else had seen what I had seen; they had all missed what had been truly wonderful. Then I really woke up.
Ed was still holding my hand, and he tightened his grip and shook my hand gently. “Taylor? Are you all right?”
“Of course. Congratulations, Purity.” I didn’t know what she had done, but she was preening herself, so I figured she’d put on a good show. “So, what do we do now? About Violet, I mean.”
Rita laughed. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Purity made a mock frown at me. “Weren’t you paying attention? We have found Violet, and I have explained everything to her very patiently. She has chosen to stay. With her granddaughter’s permission, of course. And Rita has granted it. So nothing further needs to be done. We have been successful. Well . . . we have been successful in our main goals.”
“What else was there?”
“I’m sure you’re as disappointed as the rest of us that Violet does not know who has pushed our dear little Eden beyond the veil before her time. We did so
hope. Ah, well. I do thank you for your help in forging the circle, Taylor.”
“Any time,” I said. My head was still clearing, and I blinked and looked around. The statuette was just a golden ornament now, reflecting the flickering candlelight.
Edson went to the light switch, produced a blaze from the chandelier, then dimmed it.
Purity leaned forward and pursed her glossy pink lips to puff out the candle.
I got home late. Heading away from Whitby House, I drove up to Tropical Breeze’s only stop light, where Locust dead-ends at State Route A1A, and turned left. My route home took me past both Kendra’s apartment building and Chrissie’s little cinderblock house, only a couple of blocks further along. It was the last place Eden had lived. Most of her things were probably still in there. I could almost feel them.
Passing by had an effect on me, and I had to turn my car’s heater off and roll my window down. I needed fresh air. Chrissie had one of the small bungalows facing the ocean, just big enough for a divorcee and her daughter, and maybe the occasional guest or roommate. Or a sister. It was painted a pale, feminine lavender and had a single attached garage. Asia’s Jeep was parked in the driveway in front of the garage door, and the house was dark. They must have been sleeping; it was past midnight by then. I remembered that lavender was one of the traditional colors of mourning.
I never allow myself to be maudlin; it’s weak and annoying, I’ve always thought. But it was that dead hour of the night when you’re not yourself, and it was hard not to let lowering thoughts close in around me.
When I got to the turnoff to Cadbury House, I found myself driving past it and continuing north. I needed to drive. I headed up A1A and drove along beside an ocean glittering coldly in the moonlight. The moon had been full the night before, and it was brilliant that night, though high and small in the sky by that time. Before I realized it, I was almost all the way to Edson’s house in St. Augustine.
I had been swimming up through the layers of my trance, and the realization of how far I’d driven brought me to the final level of awareness. I did a U-turn across the empty lanes and headed home, arriving after 1 am.
I tried not to wake Michael as I got into bed, but after a moment, he stirred and said, “How was the séance?”
“I think it worked. Whatever Rita wanted out of it, I think she got it.”
“And you? Did you get anything out of it?”
“Actually . . . I think I did. Michael, have you ever read Oliver Twist?”
The next morning, I called Edson. He sounded tired and told me he had been up all night transcribing his notes on the séance. When I asked him how much sleep he’d gotten, he said that actually, he hadn’t been to bed yet.
“Séances always set my pulses racing,” he said. “The smell of the candles, the touch of the other sitters’ hands, the flickering light and the press of another world closing in around us. I find it very stimulating.”
“They have the opposite effect on me. I come out of them groggy and confused.”
“I saw you driving south on A1A as I drove north to get home last night. Did you go to my house?”
“No. I just . . . drove. I didn’t feel I could go home yet. I needed to come out of it.”
“You had a separate experience from the other sitters, didn’t you? I seemed to notice it at the last séance, too. It’s possible you have some mediumistic powers of your own, Taylor.”
It was a shot in the dark, and I forced myself to shut up. Then I said the first thing that came into my head.
“Did Purity know Eden O’Sullivan at all? Did she know whether or not Eden was serious about being a fortune teller?”
“Apparently her open eyes were quickly closing,” Ed said, going back to his insiders’ jargon about psychics. “Naturally, both of them being native to the area, they knew one another from childhood. Purity has always been a bit superior about her own gifts, but even so, I thought her assessment of Eden was – harsh. She even said she’d been keeping an eye on Eden since she’d come back to Tropical Breeze, worried that she’d set up shop and begin fleecing people.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Worried about the competition?”
“Not really. At least I don’t think so. I think she worries about the reputation of her profession in general. She’s sensitive about fakes. Now,” he said, mustering himself for another charge. “I understand that these – feelings – are new to you, Taylor. You may not understand what happened to you at the séance last night. If you would describe it to me, as best you can, perhaps I may be of some help. I’m what you might call a veteran of séances. I’ve seen mediums of every stripe. I know one when I see one.”
I started to blurt out a denial, but this was Edson I was talking to. He may not have detected many actual hauntings, but he was a sharp observer, and he’d been in the business for a long time.
“I found myself drifting off on my own,” I said vaguely.
After a pause, he said, “Would you be willing to share your vision? Off the public record, of course. You realize I would have to make a private memorandum of anything you say, but without your permission, I would never publish. I think you know you can trust me.”
“Why don’t you tell me first what Purity saw?”
He sighed. “I think her quick recap last night said it all. Fortunately, the only spirit to speak to us was the one Purity was calling. You will remember at the first séance you attended, she used the Princess as her guide.”
“The Princess?” I said, rubbing my eyes. I was sitting at the desk in my office having my first cup of coffee for the day and looking at the river through the French doors.
“Princess Bright Water. You know, the native American child? She attracts her by singing her favorite song. You haven’t read any of Purity’s books?”
“Nuh uh,” I said, taking a swig of coffee.
“Really, Taylor,” he muttered. “I’ll explain. Purity uses several spirit guides. She chooses among them by considering the spirit she is seeking. As you know, Purity is a physical medium. Her peculiar physical energies are such that they may be accessed and manipulated by spirits who normally cannot touch the living. Most of us are oblivious to them, even though they reach out for us.”
“Uh –“
“Let me make a real-world analogy. Think of it as a fax machine handshake – that funny electrical whine you hear on your end of the phone when you start sending a fax. My fax machine sends a signal out in the direction of your fax machine, your fax machine suddenly wakes up and says to itself, ‘Wait a minute! I think this guy is speaking my language,’ and it begins to speak too, and in their excitement, they combine and give off an excited series of yips, and they’re off. Communication has been established. Information is exchanged.”
“So Purity’s a kind of fax machine?”
“In broad terms. Instead of sending out an electrical whine, she happens to have an accessible form of energy which the spirits recognize. Spirits are naturally attracted to her because of it. She may agree to allow them access – the excited yips in the fax machine analogy – or she may refuse. I once saw a medium throw the séance table across the room in terror when an aggressive spirit tried to seize him. But if the medium and the spirit trust one another – if they have their handshake – then the medium surrenders her body for the use of the spirit. With a physical medium, the spirit may use her energy to produce ‘apports’ – physical manifestations – such as ectoplasm or a luminous aura, or sounds. If unable to communicate any other way, the spirit may prove it is present by playing a musical instrument.”
“I always wondered why pictures of séances had trumpets sitting around.”
“Exactly. Sometimes they used mandolins or bells, but I’ve never seen them used in modern times. They seem to have become passé. The spirit may also produce raps or knocks or, as in Purity’s case, actual speech. Naturally, physical mediums are careful about surrendering their bodies to just anybody, though, and they rely upon their spiri
t guides to warn them of dangerous intruders – evil entities masquerading as harmless ones. Last night, we were looking for Violet Allen, an elderly lady who might have found Princess Bright Water annoying. She’s – ah – mischievous. So for this séance, Purity engaged Henry as her guide. She doesn’t often use Henry,” he added, musingly.
“Let me guess. Henry Flagler? Our own local Gilded Age tycoon?”
“Good grief, no. I believe his last name is Henderson.”
“Henry Henderson,” I muttered, closing my eyes again.
“Henry is an elderly gentleman, with courtly manners. He would not be off-putting to a lady like Violet.”
“So Henry came through, and Violet said she wanted to hang around with Rita. Was that the gist of it?”
I could tell immediately that I had offended him, and there was a long silence before I said, “I’m sorry, Edson. I’m just tired. Damn it, you were right. Something did happen to me last night at the séance, and I was kind of out of it while the rest of you were chewing the fat with Violet. I never heard any of it. I think it was because there was a familiar statuette in the room.”
I could actually feel myself pressing against a mental obstacle, unable to move it yet. I didn’t really want to talk about it. When my cat, Bastet, chose that precise moment to scratch at my office door, I nearly screamed. She usually didn’t come into the office with me, but suddenly she wanted in – now. Once inside, she leapt onto the desk and sat down very close to me, staring.
“I noticed the statuette, too. Bastet,” he said, the way people usually say “Aha!”
In my office, Bastet’s green eyes glowed.
“She . . . came to me,” I said.
“Do you mind if I record this?”
“Oh, go ahead.”
I told him about my visitation, or rather, my experience, and he was intensely excited, trying to work out what Bastet had meant. While he groped for meaning, I lifted my hand and gently touched my cat’s head, caressing her ear, then stroking down her shoulder and back. Her gaze softened, and she closed her eyes once, then opened them again.
