Things Half in Shadow

by Alan Finn

  “Hello? Mr. Pastor?”

  “Yes, Philip.”

  “There’s someone here,” the boy said. “Someone who would like very much to address a woman in your party.”

  The woman dressed in black perked up in her chair. “Gerald? Is his name Gerald?”

  “No, ma’am,” young Philip replied. “He frightens me, Mr. Pastor. I don’t want to let him speak.”

  “You don’t have to, Philip. As my wife’s spirit guide, you’re not required to do anything you don’t want to.”

  “I might not have a choice, sir.” The boy’s voice contained a palpable fear that sent shivers rushing across my body. “He says . . . he says he intends to hurt me if I don’t. Please don’t let him hurt me, Mr. Pastor. Please!”

  A strong, ice-cold breeze swept through the room. It felt exactly like the January wind that sometimes whipped off the frozen Delaware. I ran my hands up and down my arms in an attempt to warm myself. Others, I saw, were doing the same. Even Mr. Pastor had taken notice. He looked around the room with wide, frightened eyes, an act that produced a great deal of unease.

  Mrs. Pastor began to thrash in her chair as a new voice—male this time—emerged from her mouth. Only “emerge” isn’t the best way to describe it—it was more like a burst of sound, filling the room and shaking the instruments as they swirled all around us.

  “Jenny Boyd!” it roared.

  Next to me, Lucy Collins gasped. The silver cup she had been holding dropped from her hands and clanged onto the floor, splashing lemonade on her shoes and dress. She paid it no mind.

  “It’s me, Jenny,” the voice intoned. “Declan. Don’t say you’ve forgotten me, because I know you haven’t.”

  Lucy’s eyes were closed and her lips were moving, mouthing something I couldn’t hear. I looked to her hands, which contained a string of rosary beads. I hadn’t a clue as to where they had come from. Hidden in the folds of her dress, presumably. But now they rattled in her hands as her thumbs rolled over the wooden pearls.

  “I know you’re there, dolly,” the voice continued. “You can’t hide from old Declan. No matter how many names you use or cities you run to. You know I’ll find you.”

  I heard an intake of air, as if this Declan person was inhaling deeply. He sounded like a man who studied flora relishing the scent of a beloved flower.

  “I smell you, Jenny,” he hissed. “That’s how I know it’s you. You smell the same way you did the night I died. When you killed me.”

  Lucy let go of the rosary, dropping it into the puddle of lemonade at her feet. Her hands now free, she used them to cover her ears.

  “Make it stop!” she shouted. “For God’s sake, someone make it stop!”

  Her outburst, it seemed, was strong enough to silence the voice coming from Mrs. Pastor, for we heard it no more. In addition, the bitter cold dispersed with it. In its place was comforting warmth that seeped into the room, as if the entire house was being slowly submerged into a steaming bath. While a bit of the previous chill lingered at the base of my spine, I found myself soothed by this newfound heat.

  “Hello?”

  It was yet another voice, softly exhaling from Mrs. Pastor’s lips. A woman’s voice, as gentle as the warmth that had been brought with it.

  Only hearing it provided me with no comfort. Another shiver entered my body, far more violent than the previous ones. It made me start to tremble uncontrollably.

  I let out a strangled cry of surprise, which made Lucy take a moment out of recovering from her own bout of fear to notice mine.

  “Edward,” she whispered. “What’s the matter?”

  The shivering prevented me from speaking. Even if I had been able to talk, I doubt I could have explained my dread. The fear was so great that it seemed to take control of my bones, rattling them.

  For it wasn’t just any voice emanating from somewhere deep inside Mrs. Lenora Grimes Pastor.

  It was, you see, the voice of my mother.

  V

  Although fifteen years had passed since I’d last heard Annalise Holmes speak, I recognized her voice at once. How could I not? I had spent the first ten years of my life listening to it. It was the voice that had pointed out the Arc de Triomphe to me in Paris and gently encouraged me to ride an elephant in Bombay. It was the voice that woke me in the mornings and lullabied me to sleep at night.

  Logic would dictate that hearing it again after so long an absence would have filled me with a sense of joy and wonder. It’s common, for example, to hear someone who has just lost a loved one say, “If only I could hear their voice one last time.” But there was nothing logical about the situation. It was strange, unexpected, and unknown, and I responded accordingly—with fear.

  All the while, the voice of my mother continued to emerge from someone who wasn’t her.

  “Columbus,” it said. “You are there, aren’t you, my dear, sweet boy? Tell me that you are.”

  I swallowed and tried to speak, but it was more difficult than you can imagine. My throat was so dry it felt as if I had just swallowed a bucket of sand. My voice, when it finally did emerge, was a hoarse, scratching sound.

  “Mother,” I said.

  “Columbus, it is you!” There was joy in my mother’s voice. Joy that I wished I had shared. But I was still too terrified to take any pleasure from our conversation. “My boy, my sweet boy, how I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said. “So very much.”

  “I know, dear Columbus. I know.”

  The more she spoke, the more my fear subsided. I felt it draining from me, as if it was retreating into the musical instruments floating all around. The fear swirled into the bell of the bugle and filled the top of the drum like it was a mining pan. Soon it was gone, replaced by a sorrow as deep and unfathomable as the sea.

  “Mother,” I said. “I wish more than anything that you were still here. I wish that I could at least have been able to say good-bye to you, but you were taken from me.”

  “But I’m here,” my mother replied. “I’m always with you.”

  Something touched my cheek, barely grazing the skin. It was light—so light I could barely feel it. And soft. More a puff of air than a touch. But its warmth, its gentleness made me think that it truly was my mother and not just some cruel parlor trick.

  I realized I was crying, although I had no idea when it began. My cheeks were soaked with tears, and when I tried to wipe them away, I noticed there was a handkerchief in my hand. On the edge of my vision, I saw Lucy Collins nod. Such a resourceful woman. Always prepared.

  “Tell me wonderful things, Columbus,” my mother said. “Are you well? And happy?”

  “Not without you. But I try to be. I truly do.”

  “Is there someone special in your life? Someone you love and who loves you in return?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Her name is Violet.”

  “Such a pretty name,” my mother replied with satisfaction. “Is she a pretty girl, too?”

  “Yes, she’s lovely.”

  “Have you wed yet?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Soon.”

  “Promise me you’ll always try to make her happy, Columbus. Make her happy and she’ll do the same for you. That’s all you need. Love and happiness. Your father and I always understood that.”

  I was stunned by the way she so casually mentioned my father. Did she remember nothing about how she died? Had she no recollection of the man who killed her?

  “I don’t want to talk about him,” I blurted out. “Not even with you.”

  “My sweet boy, why ever not?”

  I looked around the parlor, eyes darting among everyone else present. They all sat in rapt attention, probably by this time wondering who I really was and what I was talking about.

  Hoping not to give too much away, I said, “It’s . . . it’s hard to speak of him, Mother, knowing what he did to you.”

  I detected confusion in my mother’s voice. “Did to me? Your father?”

>   “Yes,” I said. “He killed you. In front of all those people.”

  In the furthest reaches of my mind, I understood that I was revealing my secret to everyone in the room. But I honestly didn’t care. In another part of my consciousness, they didn’t even exist. It was just my mother and I, speaking to each other as if nothing bad had ever happened.

  “Your father did this, you say?”

  “Yes, Mother,” I replied. “He destroyed everything. He took you away from me.”

  My mother’s voice grew concerned. “But that cannot be.”

  I wondered how much those in the afterlife knew about what was happening here on earth. Did she know, for instance, that my father was now rotting away in prison? Was she aware that I had renounced my given name out of anger and humiliation?

  “It is,” I told her. “I haven’t spoken to him since you left us.”

  “You must listen to me, Columbus,” my mother said. “You must listen closely and obey.”

  I leaned forward, twisting Lucy’s handkerchief in my hands. “I will, Mother. I will.”

  “You must see your father as soon as you can. You must speak to him and tell him of this meeting. He might not believe you at first. But tell him this word and he will.”

  As dishonorable as it seemed, I had no intention of seeing my father, despite what she was saying. Deep down, I knew it was something I’d never be able to do. Still, I asked, “What word is that?”

  “Praediti.”

  A rush of air swooped from the back wall toward where Mrs. Pastor was reclining. It was a forceful gust, reminiscent of a breeze in early March, before lion has been replaced with lamb. The instruments, still suspended, spun in this strange wind, careening off one another and crashing into the walls. Many of the lamps were snuffed out, plunging the room into a web of half shadows.

  I stood, the wind pummeling my back and trying to propel me forward in wicked, brutal shoves. I resisted, my heels scraping across the floor as I shouted to be heard over the gusts.

  “Don’t leave me yet, Mother! Tell me what that means!”

  Accompanying the wind was a watery, sucking sound. Upon hearing it, I looked to Mrs. Pastor, barely visible in the new dimness. She was sitting up, eyes open wide, mouth agape. She looked terrified, and rightly so, for it appeared that the wind was being swallowed into her mouth.

  Everyone else in the room responded to the gusts the only way they could—by tightly gripping the seats of their chairs and holding on for dear life. The woman in purple let out a frightened yelp that got instantly swallowed by the breeze. More lamps were extinguished until only the one next to Mr. Barnum remained lit. It flickered perilously as the last bit of wind rushed past.

  Just like that, the breeze was gone, leaving the room in an all-too-brief stillness. Mrs. Pastor closed her mouth. Her eyes followed suit as she fell backward into her chair. The instruments over our heads immediately ceased their movement.

  Then they fell.

  This time, there was no gentle glide similar to the way in which they had been raised. Instead, they rained down all around us. The tambourine plummeted once more onto the table. The cowbell flew past my head so quickly that I felt the brush of wind its fall produced. The harp, lightweight only a moment before, smashed deep into the floor and sent splinters of wood flying.

  All of us covered our heads, trying to keep from being hit by both instruments and debris. I grabbed Lucy and tossed her onto the floor, covering her body with my own while using my arms to shield my head.

  Mr. Barnum tried and failed to duck out of the path of a falling violin, and was struck on the head. He fell from his chair, knocking over the table and lamp next to him. The lamp shattered, sending a stream of oil across the floor that quickly burst into flames.

  Someone—I had no idea who—screamed at the sight of it. As the fire grew, I saw someone rush to Mrs. Pastor, visible only as a darkened form standing between her and the flames. By that point, all of the instruments had landed, giving me the chance to tear off my jacket and pound out the fire now running across the floor. Lucy, I noticed, had rushed to Mr. Barnum’s aid, using the handkerchief I had dropped to blot a bloody mark on his head.

  It wasn’t until the fire was fully smothered that a realization crashed over me, one more heavy and crushing than the harp that shattered the floor.

  My mother was gone.

  I sat up, listening for her voice and trying to detect the familiar warmth of her presence. I sensed nothing. She had been taken from me a second time. Once again, I hadn’t been given a chance to say good-bye.

  But losing her now didn’t hurt as much as the first time. Shortly after her death and my father’s arrest, I read an adventure story in which the villain fell from a cliff, grasping at nothing before meeting his doom. It was supposed to be a triumphant moment in the story, the happy ending such tales require. Yet I had felt nothing but sympathy for this villainous man. I knew what it was like to be in continual descent, helpless and frightened.

  This time around, there was no dizzying fall. All I experienced was the moment of impact, which left me breathless and aching. In my mind, I heard the voice of my younger self crying out to her.

  Come back! Please, come back!

  Only it wasn’t my voice doing the shouting. It belonged to someone else, and I wasn’t the only person who heard it.

  Lucy and Mr. Barnum relit one of the fallen lamps and held it aloft to brighten the room. Its glow fell upon Mrs. Pastor, still sprawled in her chair. So shocked was I by the depth of her trance that it took me a moment to notice her husband standing over her and shouting, “Lenora! You must come back!”

  I rushed to Mr. Pastor’s side and grasped him by the shoulders. “Does it usually take her this long to awaken from her trance?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong. This has never happened before.”

  Mr. Barnum joined us, also looking worried. “Perhaps she fainted.”

  Robert Pastor knelt before his wife, lightly slapping the back of her hand before moving on to her cheeks. When that failed to rouse her, I reached for her free hand and touched the inside of her wrist. Feeling nothing there, I asked Mr. Pastor for permission to check her heart.

  “By all means, check,” he said.

  I pressed an ear against Mrs. Pastor’s chest. She was so tiny that I felt like a child playing doctor with a rag doll. And just like that doll, Mrs. Pastor failed to produce a heartbeat. For one final test, I placed my open palm in front of her nose and mouth. I waited, hoping to feel the slightest hint of breath on my skin. When a count of twenty passed and I felt nothing, I knew the worst had happened.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “She’s no longer with us. Mrs. Pastor is dead.”

  BOOK THREE

  After the Sudden Death of Lenora Grimes Pastor

  I

  Once I announced Mrs. Pastor’s fate, her husband sent the servant Stokely to fetch the family physician, Dr. Whitman. Within minutes of the good doctor’s arrival, he confirmed that Mrs. Pastor was indeed deceased. That, in turn, brought a policeman by the name of Queally who, seeing a thoroughly ransacked sitting room, a group of strangers, and one corpse, quickly summoned an inspector.

  That inspector just happened to be my old friend William Barclay. When he swept through the door and saw me, his face was so wonderfully shocked that I almost wished Lucy’s photographer friend Mr. Brady had been there to preserve it. Yet Barclay didn’t betray his emotions to the others. He merely nodded in greeting before moving directly to the body of Lenora Grimes Pastor.

  While he inspected the scene, Queally gathered the names of all the witnesses to Mrs. Pastor’s death. Just as she had wished, the introductions were made after the séance had ended.

  Queally began with the deceased’s husband, Robert Pastor, who took a good deal of time to provide the most basic information. When Mr. Pastor spoke it was in a dull murmur—clearly the result of shock. As for the séance guests, Queally asked all of us to p
rovide our names. The woman dressed in black at first only identified herself as Mrs. Gerald Mueller. When Queally asked her to clarify, she also gave her first name, Elizabeth. Next were the woman in purple, Leslie Dutton, and her husband, Eldridge. They were followed by Mr. Barnum, whose name elicited in Queally a reaction similar to what mine had been.

  “P. T. Barnum?” the policeman asked.

  “Yes, that is my name.”

  “The P. T. Barnum?”

  “The very same, my boy.”

  For a moment, Queally was in awe. “I enjoyed your museums very much, sir.”

  “Many thanks,” Barnum replied. “It’s a shame they keep burning down.”

  Queally then moved on to Lucy Collins and me, asking us to identify ourselves. As I spoke my name—Edward Clark, not Columbus Holmes—I noticed Barclay momentarily look away from Mrs. Pastor’s corpse and give me a disappointed stare. I had no doubt he wished I were anywhere but there.

  Once all the introductions had been made, Stokely led Mr. Pastor upstairs so he could grieve in private. The rest of us were whisked to the dining room to sit and await further questioning. A pall quickly settled over the room, bringing with it an oppressive silence that was occasionally broken by the sound of the women weeping. Mrs. Collins, I hasten to add, was not one of them.

  Whether in tears or not, everyone present was in a daze, myself included. Between conversing with my dead mother and watching Mrs. Pastor die before my very eyes, I was surprised I could still sit upright. Glancing in the wide mirror adorning the wall opposite my chair, I saw a slack-jawed and chalk-skinned man staring back at me.

  Similar expressions could be found on most everyone else at the table. Lucy looked to be lost in thought, her eyes dim and lifeless as she stared at the white tablecloth in front of her. The Duttons sat side by side in such a stiff manner that they brought to mind two candlesticks. When Mrs. Dutton began to weep again, her husband made no motion to comfort her. In fact, he appeared to be on the verge of tears himself, looking forward while absently caressing his gold watch.