The Dark

by Claire Mulligan

  “Gosh-it-all, Ma,” Maggie says. “You surely don’t believe that old-fashioned balderdash about your Nasty Littles.”

  “I might half believe it, what of it?”

  “Which half do you believe?” Maggie asks, her face solemn. Katie tries not to smile.

  “Oh, you young people don’t know everything, do you? No, you don’t.” Mother swats at the drapes with her broom. Eyes the corners of the room. The Nasty Littles is her term for a variety of mischief-makers: Hobgoblins. Sprites. Mommarts. Bogarts. Bobs. Rumplegeists. They dwell wherever people do. They are not lost souls, nor invisible spirits, nor vaporous ghosts. Though only the size of teacups, they are of solid substance, with pliant bones and shadow-grey skin, all the better to hide in cupboards, drapery folds, dark doorways. One need look askance to spy them, and then the sighting lasts only for a clock-tick. And, ah, the stories Mother loves to tell about these dreaded Nasty Littles. How they steal small household items: buttons, stockings, pegs. How they shape-shift into mice and voles or curious stones if caught in the hand. And how they can reach into a child’s yawning mouth and steal out a smidgen of their soul.

  “Ghosts can’t be the sole agents of all this ruckus, can they? No.” Such was what Mother said to Maggie just yesterday. Some secondary mischief is clearly at work, she meant, and Maggie could only agree.

  Maggie watches as Lizzie returns to the parlour. Calvin follows her. Apparently Lizzie needed him to get a notions box off a high shelf. Now she bids him sit in a wing chair and hold out his arms. He does so, doll-stiff, while Lizzie winds yarn skeins round his hands. Once done, Lizzie slides the yarn off and eyes Calvin through its oval. He is without a waistcoat and his shirt sleeves are rolled to his elbows. He picks up his cake plate, looking almost comical now. With those arms he could crush the plate as easily as he crushes his nut brittle. Maggie recalls how Calvin would play wedding with her and Katie when they were younger, how one of them would be the minister, the other the bride. They took equal turns. But when Lizzie joined them it wasn’t as much fun. She always wanted to be Calvin’s bride. Would close her eyes and look the silly goose when Calvin, chuckling, obliged her with a kiss.

  Leah sits at the parlour organ with her sheet music. She plays a churchy chord, then stops. “My heavens, an F? A yellow? Here? What was Mr. Bach thinking?”

  “Well, you know best,” Lizzie says tartly.

  Katie sighs and looks meaningfully at Maggie. Indeed. What is with Lizzie and Leah? They used to giggle together like intimate friends. Be of one accord. When Katie and Maggie groaned about their dithering and distracted mother, Lizzie would boast about her competent and gifted one. How Leah could have played piano for royalty if not for baby Lizzie (not that Leah ever minded, Lizzie insisted). Indeed, Maggie once wished Leah were her mother too. Not any longer. Now Maggie and Katie are quite happy with their own. Mother Margaret makes ketchup whenever they wish it, though it takes half the day. She sings to them lullabies when they cannot sleep for trepidation about the future. And she has purchased a lodestone, a small but costly item that she presses to their foreheads to draw out nightmares and any malignant forces that might be attracting the ghosts.

  Lizzie tosses her wool to the floor. She looks at Calvin with exasperation. “Why don’t I like the ghosts? Why?” She speaks loudly, as if intending Maggie and Katie to hear. “Crumb, because there’s plenty of alive people to talk to, that’s why.”

  “They don’t always come when commanded, Liz,” Calvin says. “You know that. They’re not pets, or, or recruits.”

  “Is that why you and Ma go walking in the cemetery and study gravestones? To help the spirits in case they forget when they up and died? Oh crumb, and, and merde too, it’s a farce, is what.”

  “Everyone goes strolling in the cemetery,” Calvin points out. “And, honour bright, the spirits, they don’t forget, it’s just—”

  “It’s courting damnation, that’s what. I knew it when our Ella died.”

  “Elizabeth Fish!” Leah calls over. “Whatever are you arguing about?”

  Lizzie gestures at Maggie and Katie. “My sweet little aunts. These two, it was all their idea and—”

  Leah crashes the organ lid shut over keys. “That is enough! I cannot say I like your tone, Elizabeth Fish. No. I cannot.”

  Katie leaps up. “Play for us, Leah. Please. We all need cheering. It’s such a bleak ole day. Let’s dance a bit.”

  Leah eyes Lizzie, and then stretches her fingers. The tune begins simply enough. Katie’s unbound hair capes her shoulders as she dances. She kicks off her slippers. Turns in her red stockings, faster and faster yet. Leah watches Katie instead of the music sheets. Her tune quickens to match Katie’s dancing. Though, it is not really a tune, Maggie realizes, more like the rainstorm come within. Katie flails her arms and stomps and twirls and laughs and claps. Maggie can’t stop herself. She stands and claps and sways.

  Calvin follows suit. Mother looks up, worried. “Oh, but this is unseemly, isn’t it?”

  “Katie!” Lizzie shouts. “All of you. Stop this, for Christ’s sake.”

  Leah ceases midway through a crashing chord. Calvin jolts as if stabbed. Katie stops dancing and breathes harshly into the sudden quiet. She draws her hair away from her face.

  Lizzie hurls her sewing basket to the floor. “Listen. All of you. Listen. The spirits have to go away.”

  “The spirits will not be going anywhere,” Leah says. “What is this, my girl? And how dare you curse. I did not raise you to speak so.”

  “Someone will be hurt. Katie will be, with these, these ghastly fits.”

  “I wasn’t having a fit at all. I wasn’t!”

  “No? Then you’re behaving like you’re … like you’re possessed. Don’t any of you worry about damnation? Aren’t you terrified about being called a fraud and having to live in utter disgrace?”

  “Take care what you say,” Leah says mildly. “You might well offend the spirits.”

  “Crumb, I’m not afraid of your stupid little ghosts. And I won’t go to the Grangers’ tomorrow for a stupid sitting-around-thing. I won’t, is what!”

  The Grangers, those Methodist friends of the Bushes and the Posts. Maggie had nearly managed to forget. A pain begins at the bottom of her skull. There is to be some kind of test. A skeptic will be in attendance, a Methodist minister yet.

  “You shall come,” Leah says. “And there shall not be another blasphemous word out of your mouth, in any language. Honestly, you are becoming so troublesome.”

  “Troublesome! What about Maggie and Katie? They’re trouble incarnate. I’m just trying to save this family from ruin.”

  “Please, darling, I need you,” Leah says, her voice gentling. “We need you. And this family shall never face ruin or disgrace if we stay as one.” She embraces Lizzie, says into her hair, “You shall put on your best behaviour for the Grangers, then? Make your best manners?”

  Lizzie sniffles. Says she will. After a moment of calm, adds, “Séance.”

  “Oh, is that one of your French words, my dear?” Leah asks absently. “From your lessons?”

  “Yes, and it’s what you should call your tedious sittings.” Lizzie talks about the Paris salons where ladies once held court, and about long sessions in French government. “And they’re both called séances because they’re about people sitting around and talking about nothing, over and over again.”

  How can Lizzie brave Leah so? Maggie wonders.

  Leah raises her brows. “Séance? I should think promiscuous circle or spirit circle are better choices. They sound more American and thus more wholesome. And more … honest.”

  “LIZZIE, POOR GIRL,” my patient said. “Alas and such. She only wanted to do the right thing. She was brave. Yes. And I was not. I couldn’t fathom defying a hair on Leah’s head. And I suppose I didn’t wish to either. And by the time I did? Well, I was so too far in. What I regret is that Katie was swept along, perhaps more than any of us. Here is the question, Mrs. Mellon: If you be
lieve in something strongly enough, does it then become the truth in some fashion?”

  I unravelled a bobble; it would have looked ridiculous on the hat.

  “No,” I said. “That is all chalk and nonsense. And bullshit, to boot.”

  “Ah, but you are Practicality incarnate, dear Mrs. Mellon.”

  “An improvement on being Death incarnate, I suppose.” My patient found this exchange most amusing, as did I on second thought—“Death incarnate” being what she called me when first we met.

  “The Grangers’, that was my chance, but I was too much the coward.” She seemed agitated, even angry. I set aside my knitting and measured out her laudanum. More than yesterday; more than the day before. Her tolerance for laudanum, spirits, for stimulants of any kind exceeded, to be frank, any I had ever known.

  “Now tell me of this Grangers sitting,” I said, so as to distract her from distress.

  THE REVEREND LEMUEL CLARKE is overlarge, with a glowering eye and a face like a boiled ham. He is a particular friend to Mr. Lyman Granger and he is affronted, he announces, by the mere suggestion of palavering ghosts. “Scandalized even,” he adds, and studies Maggie as if she were a clockwork curio he’d like to disassemble and spread all over the petit point rug.

  “How’s your head? Nasty still?” Katie asks Maggie in a whisper.

  “Dandy-fine. Sterling,” Maggie replies. She did have a grievous head-pain, but thanks to a cocainated head remedy of Isaac’s, the pain has transformed into a cool, tack-sharp light.

  “I’m just real glad you’re here, Mag,” Katie says. “We got to stay together.”

  “Well, yes,” Maggie agrees. How could she not come after Lizzie’s strange behaviour? How could she allow Katie to stand alone between Lizzie and Leah and the havoc that is sure to follow? At this thought Maggie looks to where Lizzie waits separate from them all, arms crossed.

  “Liz can’t win over Leah. She really, really can’t,” Katie whispers to Maggie.

  “Shhh, I know it. I’m considering.”

  “I sure wish I could disappear,” Katie says, and closes her eyes as if expecting to do just that.

  “Come, Leah, Abigail, girls,” Adelaide says. “Watch the planks and nails. We’re having a larder put in. It’s so costly these days. Worse than robbery.”

  Maggie sighs. Adelaide Granger would tell a grocer her troubles, which are, in fact, considerable. She follows dutifully as Adelaide leads them to her daughter Harriet’s bedroom. Adelaide holds the hand of her other daughter, Betty, a poke-faced creature of ten. Betty is the one who opens the door to Harriet’s bedroom, who shows them the last daguerreotype of her older sister. In the image Harriet looks peaceful, even thoughtful, propped there in an armchair, eyes shut as if napping. Around this momento mori are candles of beeswax, jewellery made of Harriet’s pale hair, her needlework sampler. Maggie peers at this last. A is for Amble. B is for Baton. Or balderdash, Maggie thinks, which is what I would choose.

  Adelaide says to Leah, “I so long to speak with Harriet again. Will she manifest? Her very form? Is such a thing possible?”

  “Manifest? No, our spirit friends are not called the Invisibles for nothing. It does no good to look for them. Listening with one’s eyes shut is best. The raps are how our spirits make their presence known. Come, we should begin before the hour draws late. Katie, are you with us?”

  Katie doesn’t answer. She is peering at Harriet’s death image. Maggie tugs her elbow. “I’m all here, don’t be a worry-all,” Katie says, though more to Harriet than to Maggie.

  Back in the Grangers’ parlour, Leah directs who should sit where around the large cherry table. First it is Adelaide and Lyman Granger and their one living daughter, then Katie and Lizzie and Maggie. Then Mother Margaret. Calvin Brown. Abigail Bush. Leah. The Reverend Lemuel Clarke.

  Leah says to the reverend, “I must warn you, sir, the spirits are not interested in those who disrespect them. Indeed, they can be quite silent around those who profess disbelief.”

  “Is this true, Leah?” Mother asks. “I’d not thought so, did I? I’d thought—”

  “It is true, Mother,” Leah interrupts sharply. Mother falls silent.

  “I shall show no disrespect, nor outrage,” Reverend Clarke says. “But my powers of scrutiny are known to many and thus any devils I see may get a thrashing.”

  “You have my permission to thrash any devils you find,” Leah says. “Come, let us begin our spirit circle.” She emphasizes the word circle and glances at Lizzie.

  “Not séance?” Lizzie mutters to Maggie. “Merde, she won’t even give me a word.”

  “Shush, Liz,” Maggie whispers. “Don’t say anything at all and you’ll be all right.”

  “Girls!” Leah calls.

  The lamps are dimmed. Lyman Granger sets out the alphabet board, as expectant as a boy at Yuletide. Leah directs everyone to hold hands. “To optimize the spirit chain,” she explains. “Now, we always commence with the Lord’s Prayer. Would you be so kind, Reverend?”

  Reverend Clarke agrees to be so kind, but his prayer is cut short by a thump that rattles the candelabra. He snorts. “I am insulted. Offended even.”

  “The peddler. He has returned,” Leah says, as one does of an uninvited guest. “I know him by his crude, thumping sound.”

  Adelaide asks, “Is Harriet here also? Harriet? Darling?”

  Light, womanly tappings now, so different from the peddler’s great thumps.

  Adelaide sobs with joy.

  “I have a question,” Reverend Clarke announces.

  “Please ask,” Leah says.

  “Has God sent the spirits? Does he have some grand purpose in doing so?” His tone is accusatory yet hopeful. Hope. Maggie easily senses its presence now. As Katie does. As Lizzie must. And Leah, certainly. Hope; it is ever the Achilles’ heel.

  Raps. Loud and rapid. The alphabet board is brought forth. The reverend’s question is found to be presumptuous. He must ask another.

  All this takes a long while. Maggie is already getting tired, even with the head remedy working its quotidian magic. Katie, however, is keen and cheery. “It’s like I’m all-threaded with energy when the spirits are about,” she has confided to Maggie. “It’s like I’m more my own self.”

  Reverend Clarke musters outrage. “This is a mockery. A travesty even! Turn up the lamps this instance.”

  “It may offend the spirits,” Leah warns.

  “Indeed? I ask again. Turn up the lamps. I must investigate.”

  No one stirs. The reverend is left to do it himself. He peers under the rug, the table. Opens the drapes to a salvo of daylight. Presses his ears against the panelling. Admits at last that he is puzzled.

  Calvin, quiet until now, asks, “Would Reverend Clarke like to see the table move?”

  “Move? Indeed, I should like to see an object move by spirit power alone. Yet first I must ask all to push their chairs away from the table. Excellent. Now raise your hands and now—” He stares at the table, which trundles towards him, past the seated party, the tea board, the organ. Leah snatches the candelabra as it tips. Maggie, Lizzie and Katie all shift their feet out of the table’s path.

  “Great heavens!” the reverend shouts. He sidesteps. The table halts. The reverend drops to his knees, peers again under the rug, then runs his hands over the curved table legs, apologizing to the ladies as he does so. The table nudges him. He stumbles back with a hoarse cry, swipes at his brow. “Never have I seen …” He trails off at the sound of sawing and hammering. “And what is that wretched noise? What?”

  “Perhaps a spirit coffin is being made,” Leah suggests.

  Reverend Clarke shudders.

  Lizzie whispers to Maggie, “Or perhaps it’s just the men working on the larder. How obvious need it be?”

  Maggie ignores her niece.

  Leah says, “Yes, a spirit coffin, Reverend. The spirits, you see, are reminding us that we are mortal, that we could go to our Maker any moment. That disaster looms large for
us all. One never knows when it may strike.” She eyes Lizzie, adds, “Now, do ask another question, Reverend. Ah, but first let us link hands again. A moment … there, as I said, it does help the spirit chain.”

  “Spirit chain?” Lizzie mutters as Leah talks on. She shifts her foot along the floor. “There’s your spirit chain.”

  “Liz. No,” Katie whispers.

  Yet why not? Maggie thinks. What is the worst that can happen? She poses the question, then realizes the answer: Ruination. Damnation. Just as Lizzie herself said back at Mechanics Square.

  Leah raises her voice. “Linking our hands not only helps the spirit chain, it also lets disbelievers know that none dare work mischief in the dark.”

  Reverend Clarke looks chastised. He holds Adelaide Granger’s hand on one side, Leah’s on the other. He clears his throat. “Can God be known? That is to say, understood even? If one strives enough?”

  Maggie thinks it a curious question for a reverend. He should know, if anyone does. Anywise, the answer will make a believer of him. He is at the tip-point. Maggie knows this. As Leah must. As Lizzie should.

  Leah’s turns her chin to the left.

  Under the table, out of sight, Lizzie pinions Maggie’s leg with her own. Atop the table she squeezes Maggie’s hand in a claw grip. Maggie squirms furtively. Silence grows large in the room.

  Don’t, Lizzie, Maggie thinks. DON’T!

  “Spirits?” Leah asks.

  Nothing. The minutes stretch. Leah asks again. Then demands.

  Leah looks at Maggie. Maggie hesitates, then dips her head towards Lizzie. Such a small movement for such a large betrayal.

  Leah glares at Lizzie. And Lizzie? She meets her mother’s eyes with pure rebellion.

  Leah stands and points at her daughter. “You! Elizabeth Fish.” And then … fury, the like of which Maggie has never seen. Not from Leah. Not from anyone. “You’ve done this. You! You wicked, wicked girl. You’ve grieved the spirits. You’re the cause. The sole cause.”

  Lizzie is slack with shock. The entire party glares at her. Some stand. The Reverend Clarke looks on, appalled.