by Dianne Day
I would not have liked to have someone who sounded like that for my father!
The hesitant voice acquired more vigor. “Dad,” she said, “we didn’t come to talk to you, we came to talk to Mother. To make sure she’s all right, and to see if she had something to say to us, since she died all sudden-like.”
Somehow I got the feeling this was not how séances were supposed to go. Patrick apparently agreed with me, for he said, “Leave us, Laughing Spirit! You are not wanted here. Mrs. Locke wishes to speak to her control, the boy named Toby.” In an aside to the woman I still could not see beyond the man next to me, Patrick added, “Don’t worry. Toby will come through and take control. He died when he was just a boy, you see, but he’s a good, strong soul and he’s devoted to our Mrs. Locke.”
I did not find Patrick’s words particularly reassuring. The older I grow, the more experience I have had, which causes me to question the commonly held belief that good will in the end triumph over bad, or evil. I watched the medium—she was having a time of it, as if to prove my point. No more of that harsh laughter came from her throat, but she had begun to growl. Yes, growl, and snarl, like a dog. Her mouth simply hung open and the sounds poured out of it. The extreme oddity of this gave me the shivers. Her eyes were open too, fixed on nothing. Her head slumped in an unnatural posture against one shoulder, as if her neck had been broken, and a shudder passed through me as I remembered that awful pop!
I closed my eyes, concentrating, willing the boy-ghost Toby to come through. But it was no use, Frances distracted me with her rocking and besides, the medium began to bark! A fierce, raucous barking that might have been funny but it wasn’t. My eyes flew open. The barks apparently had jerked Mrs. Locke out of her slump; at least her neck wasn’t broken. But now she was being tossed about like a rag doll, held in her place at the table only by her hands still linked to Frances and one of the terrified middle-aged women. This was most bizarre!
Madame Blob wheezed uncontrollably—I was becoming alarmed for her. The middle-aged sisters gawked at the medium’s antics less with terror now than consternation, and Patrick called out: “Break the circle! Drop hands immediately! Our dear Mrs. Locke is in trouble!”
There was a good deal of gasping, plus a terminal-sounding wheeze from Madame Blob, while hands were dropped all around the table like hot potatoes. The medium continued to bark, sporadically now, and with less ferocity. But Frances would not let go my hand, nor Mrs. Locke’s. Frances still was rocking, and I whipped my head around to regard her in alarm.
Her eyes were screwed shut, and the strain I felt in her iron grip on me was written on her features. Above the lace of her collar, the cords of her neck stood out. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a grimace, and her chin thrust forward. Suddenly, on the forward apex of her rock, she went rigid.
I thought: She is in trance!
The candle flame trembled and came dangerously close to extinguishing itself—although there was not a breath, not a whisper of moving air in the room.
The medium let loose another flurry of barks.
Patrick came hurrying around the table to plant himself between the medium and Frances, urging sotto voce, “Let go! Something has gone terribly wrong, you must let go!” He attempted to pry my friend’s fingers from Mrs. Locke’s hand, and I did not know what to do. I worried that somehow his interference might injure them in some way, as they now seemed both to be in the same unnatural state, but what did I know of these things? The very air was charged, and my skin all over little prickles. I hadn’t the slightest idea what was going on.
As I fretted over what to do, Frances opened both her eyes and her mouth, and a deep, rough voice, not at all like her own, came from her throat: “Lazarus, come away from there!”
This caused more gasping all around. The medium whined once and fell back on her chair, Frances fell forward onto the table all of a sudden limp as a wet noodle, and I had my hand back. So, one assumed, must Mrs. Locke.
Sounding the paragon of reason, at least to my own ears, I remarked, “We need more light to help us ascertain what has happened here.”
“A moment, a moment.” Patrick hovered over Mrs. Locke, but I could not see what he was doing because his back was to me. As no one else volunteered to light the wall sconces, we still had no illumination but the one candle. I did not want to leave my friend’s side. With Patrick so solicitous of his own friend, employer, mistress—perhaps she was to him all three—I turned my attention to Frances as best I could in the near-dark.
I placed my hand on the center of her back below the shoulder blades, and found that she was breathing slowly and regularly. Somebody said, “Oh, dear,” and someone else said, “Well I never!” and the man next to me rumbled, “We oughter get our money back if that’s all there’s gonna be to it.” I put my head near hers and called softly, “Frances, can you hear me?” I repeated this several times, with no result whatever.
Mrs. Locke, however, had recovered and was holding a whispered conference with her solicitous confederate. He straightened up and said, “Mrs. Locke requests that you all keep your seats.” Then he went about relighting the candles in the wall sconces. I reflected, as I rubbed Frances’s back, how much simpler it would be if they had electric lighting in this place. Or even gas, though now that I have been away from it for a while I daresay gaslight smells rather unpleasant.
The sense of disturbance around the table subsided somewhat, and I became gradually uncomfortable from everyone’s staring at me and Frances. Everyone except Mrs. Locke, who had her hand to her head, obscuring her eyes, in a pose I thought overdramatic. My skepticism had returned; I wondered if some piece of elaborate chicanery had gone wrong, injuring an innocent in the process—for Frances was still out cold. My suspicions made me bold, and I addressed the medium directly, for surely if anyone was in charge it was she!
“Mrs. Locke,” I said, then waited until her hand descended from its pose. Except for the fact that some of her hair had escaped its pins, she seemed none the worse for her recent experience. The blank expression had reclaimed her face; she looked like a life-size doll. She did not look at me or in any way acknowledge my address, but I went on nevertheless: “Perhaps you can tell me what to do for my friend? She seemed to go into trance along with you. Surely we must bring her around!” Slowly, and a little jerkily, like one of the automatons in Mr. Sutro’s palace, the medium turned her head upon her neck—just her head, the rest of her body did not move a jot—until her face met mine. I watched anger build up in her dark eyes, which she then proceeded to unleash on me and poor unconscious Frances.
“Get out!” Mrs. Locke shrilled. “Get out of here, the both of you! How dare you come to one of my séances under false pretenses! You have caused a disruption on the etheric plane, disturbed the vibrations, and made a breach with my contact in the spirit world. You must go. Now!”
If you enjoyed Fremont Jones’s third adventure,
THE BOHEMIAN MURDERS,
don’t miss Dianne Day’s fourth
Fremont Jones mystery,
EMPEROR NORTON’S GHOST.
Look for EMPEROR NORTON’S GHOST at your
favorite bookstore.
But in the meantime, turn the page for
an exciting preview.
EMPEROR NORTON’S GHOST
A Fremont Jones Mystery
by DIANNE DAY
