Seances Are for Suckers

by Tamara Berry

  “Ooh, a feeling. I bet that’s thrown you into all kinds of disorder.”

  His gaze meets mine and holds it for an uncomfortably long time. I want to shift and struggle against the heat of it, but I’m trapped. A deer in headlights, if you will. Or one mounted on the wall.

  “You have no idea,” he finally says.

  I force myself to blink and stay focused on the task at hand. “At least tell me this much,” I say, “do you think he was the one responsible for last night? ’Cause I gotta say—I like Rachel for this one.”

  “Hmm. Because she didn’t come into your room to investigate?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “She’s young. She might have been sneaking out with a boyfriend.”

  “True. She could have also been escaping through the hidden passageway leading out of my room to cover her tracks.”

  He doesn’t miss a beat. “What makes you think there’s a hidden passageway out of your room?”

  I don’t—or, rather, I didn’t. But the quick response and lack of eye contact coming from Old Nick over there have me rethinking my position. I place a hand to my temple. “The vibrations from the house . . . They’re telling me something . . . If only I could confirm . . .”

  Nicholas coughs. “Nice try, Madame Eleanor, but I’m not about to give up the house’s secrets that easily. Not unless you give me one in return.”

  I look at him in alarm. He already knows I’m not really a medium. What more could he want? “What are you talking about? I don’t have any secrets.”

  “Everyone has secrets.” He pauses, his head cocked sideways as he watches me. I don’t know what it is about that quiet, intense look of his, but I’m finding it more unnerving each time he pulls it out. I have to fight the urge to adjust my hair and posture, to retreat behind the ethereal façade he already knows is a fake. “Like why an otherwise intelligent and beautiful young woman believes in magic, for example.”

  “I don’t believe in magic,” I protest. “I don’t believe in anything. Well, except for science. And money.”

  He shakes his head ruefully. “I don’t buy it. You can’t be this convincing as a medium without buying a few of your own lies. Admit it. There’s a part of you that thinks all this flitting-through-the-afterlife nonsense could be real. Part of you believes in the possibility of . . . the miraculous.”

  I rise to my feet, my heart thumping at the implication. He’s wrong. He’s wrong on so many levels. My belief in the miraculous died the day I realized that no miracle, no mystery, no anything was ever going to reach the place where Winnie now resides.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “You brought me here because I don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”

  “Did I?” he muses, watching me with the intensity of a wolf and its prey. “I’m starting to wonder.”

  Instead of calming my heartbeat down, his response only causes it to pick up in earnest. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “It means, Madame Money, that you’ll have to find any hidden passageways for yourself. You are the expert, after all.”

  It’s enough to make all his blessed saints of Europe swear. “You know, if you want me to exorcise your demons, you could be a little more helpful.”

  “I could, couldn’t I?”

  Gah. I don’t know why I bother. I’d have better luck trying to pry blood from a stone.

  “You and your family have some serious problems, you know that?” I don’t expect a response, so it’s just as well I don’t get one. Instead, I rinse my empty plate in the sink and drain the last of my tea. “But I’m going to get to the bottom of this—don’t think I won’t.”

  He holds his coffee cup up and nods once. “I expect nothing less. And if you don’t already have plans for the morning, might I suggest you explore the grounds? The garden is particularly nice this time of year.”

  I do have plans for the morning—lots of them, including another search for secret passageways and installing a video surveillance system under the guise of electromagnetic field resonance—but I don’t mention them. Considering my growing suspicion of this man, the less he knows about my activities, the better.

  Besides, given how late it is in the year, the garden isn’t likely to yield anything except permafrost. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds as though someone is trying to get rid of me for a few hours.

  “Thanks for the tip,” I say blandly and, almost as an afterthought, “and for making me breakfast.”

  He nods once and turns his attention to his plate. I can sense the dismissal in his silence and beat a hasty retreat. I don’t mind. For now, my stomach is full and the house is silent.

  Two conditions I intend to put to excellent use.

  * * *

  I spend the next hour setting up a network of simple audio-visual recording devices in the most obvious places for a castle haunting: the yellow bedchamber, the parlor, Cal’s armory, and the main foyer. The two hours after that are spent placing more sophisticated equipment in less obvious, but much more important places. This includes the hallway where our bedrooms are located, all the entrances and exits to the castle, and, because I’m still curious about Thomas’s fall on the stairs, at the landing where the steps turn into the kitchen.

  The obvious devices are mostly for show. I use these huge black boxes with pentagrams drawn on them, and I always fabricate some evidence, whether it’s spilled ectoplasm or scratchy moans interspersed in hours of white noise. People love this murder mystery type stuff, even if it doesn’t help me solve anything in the end.

  Which is why I also have the hidden mini camcorders and spy gear. I only hope Nicholas didn’t see me as I inserted a surveillance device in the wall across from his room. I thought I was alone in the hallway, but he started talking about the pattern on the wallpaper while I was still trying to get the pinpoint camera into the swirling stem of an artichoke, leaning against the wall as though he’d been there the entire time.

  Which, for all I know, he might have been. The man makes about as much noise as a ghost when he walks.

  Because of the ungodly hour of my morning wake-up call, all of this has been accomplished before ten o’clock, when the rest of the family can finally be seen stirring to life around me.

  “Good morning, Madame Eleanor,” Vivian says pleasantly when I wander into the dining room to find the promised tea and fingers of dry toast. “I hope you were able to get some sleep after your intrusion last night.”

  “Enough, thanks.” I sit down and accept a cup of the ice-cold brew, and I even manage to nibble a few bites of the toast. “I hope you don’t mind, but I set up some technological equipment around the house to see if we can get something concrete on Xavier’s activities. EVP has come a long way in recent years.”

  “Has it?” she murmurs vaguely.

  “Electronic voice phenomena,” I explain, even though she doesn’t ask. I rarely miss an opportunity to show off. “Xavier could be communicating on frequencies inaccessible to the human ear. By setting up recordings, we might be able to tap into more than what he tells you.”

  “Of course, of course. Do whatever you think is best.”

  “And if there’s anything like a library, somewhere old family documents might be kept that could shed light on his origins . . .”

  Vivian tips her head to the side, her brow furrowed. Today’s attire is some kind of hunting and/or racing outfit. Possibly both. Jodhpur pants have been layered with a tweed jacket, and she has a pair of galoshes on her feet. Against all reason, the look seems to work for her. “I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to Nicholas about that. We used to have a well-stocked library, with first editions of Romantic poetry and everything, but he moved most of the materials to the village museum a few years ago. He felt that the dampness of the house was ruining the integrity of the materials, though I don’t see what a few more years of moisture are going to do when they’ve been sitting inside this tombstone for centuries.” />
  I’m on Nicholas’s side for this one—eighteenth-century books of poetry in this decaying icebox?—but I nod my head in agreement so as to avoid Vivian’s bad side. “I didn’t know there was a village museum.”

  “Every village has a museum. Some just know better than to call themselves by that name. I suppose ours is better than most. There were some interesting Roman ruins here back in the day, and you’ll find several of the coins and examples of pottery on display. Dusty pottery and moth-eaten books. What a treat for you.”

  “Is it within walking distance?” I inquire politely. “I’d like to go there and look around, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No more than a mile or two, provided you cut across the cow pastures.”

  “That sounds lovely.”

  “It’s not. It’s mostly manure. Here.” She reaches down and slips the galoshes from her feet before plopping them unceremoniously in my lap. “You’ll want these.”

  As much as I generally dislike wearing other people’s recently discarded footwear, I suspect I’ll want the boots, so I nod my thanks and finish my second breakfast.

  It’s my intention to make the sojourn to the village with nothing more than my notebook for company. However, as I exit the dining room, Rachel comes bounding through the door. As was the case yesterday, she’s dressed for arctic temperatures in several woolen scarves and sweaters, the top layer of which is old enough to be eaten away in several places. I assume, from the size and state of them, that they belong to her grandmother. Mrs. Hartford must have heaps of those ratty clothes tucked away. At least I know no one here will die of frostbite.

  “Oh, are you heading into the village?” she asks somewhat breathlessly, catching sight of the boots in my arms. Then, as if suddenly thinking of an alternative, she wrinkles her nose. “Or are you one of those outdoorsy people who takes a morning constitutional?”

  “I’ve never taken a constitutional in my life,” I promise. “Your grandmother was kind enough to point me toward the village museum. I thought I might stop by and see if there’s anything related to your ghost there.”

  “Like what?” she asks suspiciously.

  “An old journal that references Xavier—either as a living man or as a ghostly presence. Folklore about the area.” Castle blueprints, I don’t add. I’m going to find a secret passageway if it’s the last thing I do. “I’d like to get a feeling for your family’s history to see if I can discover whether Xavier has any direct ties. He might be more willing to open up to me if I can make a personal connection.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  Visions of my plans to uncover all the Hartford secrets disappear in a flash. “Of course,” I lie. “I’d love the company.”

  “Brilliant. Just give me a second to get rid of some of these.” Her last words are muffled, as the these in question are the top three or four layers of sweaters. It’s a sad state when the English countryside in November is warmer than someone’s home.

  “There. That’s perfect—and this way, I can show you how to get there.” She winds her arm confidentially through mine, and I resign myself to her cheerful company. At least I might be able to discover what she was doing last night when Xavier hit. “I’ll also show you the tea shop just on the edge of town, if you want. They make the most heavenly pound cake. You can treat me to a slice.”

  I stifle a laugh at the true motive for her generosity and agree to her plan. What else can I do? It seems that Nicholas and Cal aren’t the only ones with a few culinary tricks up their sleeves.

  * * *

  “Of course, there’s nothing to do here, and all my friends are in London having the time of their lives, but Mum refuses to leave while Uncle Nicholas is in residence. She says he’s trying to steal her birthright out from under her nose, but there’s that—what’s it called, again? I read it in a book once, where the eldest child gets to inherit everything? Oh! Primogeniture.”

  Rachel, as it turns out, is not the type to refuse to sing for her supper—or breakfast, as the case may be. No sooner had we shaken two miles of mud from our boots and seated ourselves inside the tea shop than she became all smiles and chatter, much of which was helping to cast light on the family situation.

  Nutrients will do that to a person, apparently. Who knew?

  “I thought primogeniture died out centuries ago,” I say and make a motion for the waitress to pack up an additional pound cake to go. I get the feeling we’re going to need it. “Surely they’ve improved the inheritance laws since the Middle Ages.”

  “Yes, but it’s always been our family’s custom to leave the property intact.” She takes a huge gulp of sweet, milky tea. “That’s why it’s one of the only estates still under private ownership. The firstborn gets the property and all the income associated with it. The rest of the children have to go out and get jobs.”

  “Oh? And what does your mother do?”

  “She’s an actress.”

  “Of course she is.” The sarcastic words are out of my mouth before I can help them, but Rachel nods in agreement.

  “You’ve seen her work?”

  “Um, I believe I saw her in . . .” I fumble for a vague reference to a movie. Television show? Stage production? Oh, dear. What if it was a commercial? “It was a few years ago. She played the romantic lead.”

  “Well, it’s nice of you to call it a lead, but she was only onscreen for twenty minutes. And she only had those three lines. It was very romantic, though, wasn’t it? When he died of cancer and the shop girl who’d been in love with him all that time adopted his five children?”

  That sounds quite horrible, actually, but I don’t say so out loud.

  “Of course, she retired as soon as she started dating Cal. I think it’s disgusting, don’t you, the way men demand that the women in their lives stop working like that? As if my mum’s sole job should be catering to his needs, day in and day out.”

  “I have a hard time imagining Cal making that sort of demand,” I muse aloud. “He seems to really care for her.”

  She puts her teacup down sharply, filling the air with the clang of china. “You shouldn’t believe everything you see, Madame Eleanor. I would have thought a medium knew that already.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I loathe him,” she says with all the aggressive certainty of youth. Her violet eyes turn cold. “And even though he pretends not to, he loathes me right back.”

  I’m tempted to ask her to elaborate, but I know enough about teenagers to keep my questions to myself. Nothing pushes them away faster than honest human interest—or hugs. Rachel reminds me a lot of myself at that age, actually. At least, she reminds me of myself before the accident. Between planning my mom’s funeral and becoming Winnie’s power of attorney, there wasn’t much time for ordinary angst.

  “Where do you go to school, Rachel?” I ask instead.

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh? Are you a genius?”

  “No. I’m delicate—or at least that’s what Mum tells the school board so I don’t have to attend.” She makes a moue of distaste. “But Uncle Nicholas makes me have private tutors so I can still go to university. Mum tried to fight him on it, but no one fights him for long.”

  “A born autocrat,” I say with a nod. I recognized that about him from the start. Autocrats always try to stifle free spirits like mine.

  She shrugs. “He’s in charge—or, at least, he will be once Grandmother dies. That means he gets to make the rules.”

  I mentally fill in the rest of that statement: it will be once Grandmother dies or is carted off to a group home in Crawley. He never denied it in so many words.

  “What does your uncle do, exactly?” I ask. “For work, I mean. He doesn’t talk much about it.”

  She shrugs again. “Runs the estate, mostly. And manufactures educational materials? I remember there being something about educational materials.”

  It’s not much to go on, but it’s more information than I had when I
woke up this morning, so I count it as a win. Besides, I’ve already spent too much time on the practical details. If I keep this up, Rachel will realize I’m a fraud before the day is over.

  “That would explain why he and Xavier are natural enemies,” I say. “The business world and the spiritual world rarely mix. It’s like combining hydrochloric acid and holy water. More tea?” I hold up the pot.

  As I’d hoped, the mention of unpleasant liquids causes her to lose her appetite. “No, thank you,” she says, still polite, her good breeding ingrained so deeply I doubt she’s aware of it. “If you don’t mind, I’ll head back to the house now. The museum is just at the end of the street. You can’t miss it.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I say, pleased at the prospect of exploring the museum on my own. A few hours of uninterrupted research is exactly what I want, especially now that I’ve gained some more insight into the inner family workings.

  Rachel doesn’t care for Cal Whitkin—and more importantly, she doesn’t care for Cal Whitkin leeching from her mother, though I suspect it’s actually the opposite that’s taking place. I recognize a sugar daddy when I meet one. Add that to Fern’s wish to inherit the castle in place of her brother, Nicholas, and Nicholas’s desire to wrest the house from out of his mother’s hands, and the mysteries of Xavier the Ghost are starting to unfold quite predictably.

  Ah, haunted houses. At their core, they’re really all the same.

  “Thanks for the company, Rachel,” I say as she takes the extra pound cake I ordered for myself and stows it under her arm. “And try not to worry too much—there hasn’t been a family yet I haven’t been able to help.”

  She casts a look back over her shoulder, wearing a mocking smile so much like her uncle’s, it’s uncanny. “True. But then, you’ve never met a family like ours before, have you?”

  Chapter 8

  I’m accosted almost as soon as I walk through the museum door.

  “So, it’s not as if I’d be asking you to do anything to him that’s cruel or hurtful,” says the woman following me through the rows of Roman pottery shards, her voice loud in the way of people who try—and fail—to whisper in public places. “Or even anything he hasn’t already done, although it’s been at least ten years since he’s looked at me that way. You know what way I mean, don’t you? When his eyelids grow heavy, and he can’t seem to stop himself from—”