The Spiritualist (38 page)

“At the next circle, I want you to bring Dorothy her sons.”

“I can’t control them that way—”

“You can,” he said. His long fingers went to the buttons on my robe. I watched him unfasten them, one by one; I could not move my gaze, and I felt the heated deliberation of his touch. “You can do whatever you please,
chère
, don’t you know it yet?”

F
orgive me for coming so early, my dear,” Benjamin said as Lambert showed him into the parlor. He glanced at Michel, who was lounging on the settee, a glass of bourbon dangling from his hand. “I’d hoped to go over a few things about your case. Briefly, of course.”

“Such dedication,” Michel said. “
Madame
is lucky to have such a loyal servant.”

Benjamin looked at me. “Is there somewhere private we might go?”

Michel rose, saying, “Never fear, I’ll remove myself. The others should be arriving soon. I’ll see to Dorothy.”

“Your own dedication, sir, is admirable,” Benjamin said.

“
Oui
, I am the best of sons.” Michel made a little bow, and his glance slid to me for just a moment. My stomach jumped, and he smiled as if he knew it, and then he left.

I took a steadying breath and turned to Benjamin. In his presence, I regained my footing—I was the Evelyn I felt I should be, calm, reasoned, with moral compass firmly in place. He took my arm, leading me from the doorway to the French doors at the far wall. “You look different, Evie. Are you well?”

I could not hold his gaze. “Better now that you’re here.”

“Is something troubling you?”

His concern only made me feel guilty. I knew I could not explain to him what I’d done with Michel; I could barely explain it to myself.

“Evelyn?”

I glanced out at the side yard, at the marble urns flanking the doors. Pale green shoots poked from the dirt beside them. Snowdrops, or crocuses. “I
am
troubled,” I admitted finally. “Dorothy told me that Peter meant to file papers committing her to an asylum. It was his way of stopping the adoption when Dorothy wouldn’t listen to him.”

“
Commitment
papers? When did he tell her this?”

“The night before he died. Michel said he thought Peter might be bluffing, but—”

“Jourdain knows you know this?”

“He was there when she told me. I couldn’t avoid it.”

“I see. Why does this trouble you, Evie?”

“Why would Peter punish Dorothy that way, when what he meant to do was prove Michel was a charlatan?”

Benjamin shrugged. “He would have done a great deal, I think, to keep Dorothy from adopting Jourdain, and bringing such a man into society. I wonder if Peter had those papers with him when he died?”

“I don’t know. Dorothy said he never showed them to her.”

Ben glanced behind us, and then he leaned close to me, saying, “If he did, then Jourdain may have them now. Can you get into his room again?”

I kept my expression as impassive as I could. “I think so.”

“I received discovery from the prosecutor this morning. The police report says Peter’s gun is missing. He carried it everywhere, but it wasn’t on him when they pulled him from the river. Nor was a cuff link. He was wearing only one. It was gold, about this big”—Benjamin rounded his fingers to show me the size—“with an opal. Quite distinctive.”

I didn’t remember such a set. “I’ve never seen those.”

“He hadn’t had them long. They were a gift.”

“A gift? From who?”

“Why, from me.” Benjamin’s expression became sorrowful. “He’d admired them in a shop window one day as we walked past. We’d just won the Ferguson case. It seems so long ago now.” He roused himself. “I’ll search the office to see if the commitment papers are there. I feel certain that if we find any of those things, we’ll have found the truth of Peter’s death.”

“You don’t think Peter was bluffing, then?”

“No, I don’t. But it’s to Jourdain’s advantage to convince you the papers were a figment of Peter’s imagination. They’re another motive; he knows what he’s about. The man fleeced half of New Orleans before he was run out.”

“He was run out?”

Benjamin nodded. “He went through the Creoles there like a house afire, but the crowning touch was when he tried to swindle Andre Bizot, one of the most ruthless men in the city. He took over ten thousand dollars from him before Bizot realized it wasn’t his wife’s spirit he was talking to, but a maid Jourdain had seduced into speaking through a hole in the wall.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’ve done some research of my own these last weeks. I wish I’d thought to do it before I urged Peter to go to him. I’d trusted what others said… .”

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” I said quietly, feeling more guilty and torn than ever.

Ben spoke bitterly. “Who else should I blame? I introduced them. Peter believed I was sending him to a reputable medium. My God, we’d known each other at Harvard, and the first thing I do when I see him again after so many years is lead him to this—” His voice broke. He paused, as if to recover himself. “All I can hope is that I haven’t led you equally wrongly.”

He took my arms and said urgently, “In the end, it doesn’t matter what Peter meant to do about Dorothy. He was killed. Now we must prove Jourdain did it.”

As he’d spoken, his voice had grown both softer and more venomous, until his fingers tightened painfully on my arms. I tried to pull away.

“Ben, please. You’re hurting me.”

He inhaled deeply, dropping his hold, stepping back, passing his hand over his face. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I’m not myself when it comes to this case. I’ve put you here, into Jourdain’s hands, just as I put Peter… . The days are passing quickly. You will hang if we don’t prove that Michel is the true villain, Evie. Don’t forget that.”

“Believe me, I can’t forget it,” I said.

The others arrived. I heard Michel greeting them in the hall, and soon Benjamin and I went upstairs to meet them in the parlor. Dorothy looked wan and tired, but when I walked into the room I saw the way her eyes riveted to me, I saw the hunger on her face, and I understood Michel’s directive to find her sons tonight. She was starving for them.

“Evelyn’s here,” she said in a loud voice. “Let’s start. It’s past time.”

Benjamin pressed my arm and gave me a conspiratorial smile as we separated to go to our respective places. Then the lights were lowered, and we joined hands.

“Her sons,” Michel reminded me in a whisper. Then he raised his voice to begin the prayers and the invocations. As the hymns started, his fingers moved on mine, a subtle stroking, and it was that touch that brought me back to his bed, and I found myself falling into that rhythm again—the rhythm of lovemaking, the soft, drowsy satisfaction of afterward, the surrender of my will.

The dream was easy to bring. I felt the call, the
shooshing
pull of myself into the fog, the peace it brought, the sense that everything was as it should be, that the present and the past and the future were all combined, and that I was one with all of it.

But then the peace was gone. I heard her voice in my head.

Didn’t you feel me before? You must let me in when I ask.

“Spirit, are you with us?”

I felt the stirring, the force against my throat, and then the satisfaction. “Yes.”

Dorothy’s voice, too eager. “Is this Johnny? Or Everett?”

The spirit was angry. I felt her impatience in the way she pressed against my skin, as if she meant to feel everything my body felt—the press of Michel’s thigh against my skirts, the warm moist curl of fingers.

“They are not my errand. Why do you care for such trivial things?”

“Trivial?” The gasp came from Dorothy.

I felt as if I were floating, watching from a distance, from above, as Michel gave Dorothy a warning glance.

Soothingly, he said, “We wish to speak to Johnny or Everett Bennett. Bring them to us, and we’ll hear your errand after.”

I felt her twist with anger, pounding against the frame of my bones. I saw the things that came into her mind as if they belonged to me. I saw Michel leaning over her. Kissing her, touching her. I felt her longing and her anger. But she obeyed him. I felt the change within me, as if she’d stepped back to make room for another. A boy—no, a young man. He was not strong, but once inside he gasped, “Mama?”

I saw Dorothy pale and clutch her throat. “Everett?”

“We’re here, Mama. Johnny and me. He tells me to remind you of the gray scarf.”

“The gray scarf?”

“You remember it? He wants you to look for it.”

“Oh, my dear boy—”

“There’s something there. He won’t tell me what. Look for it, Mama.”

“I will. Oh, I promise I will.”

“Don’t forget.”

“No. Of course not. Oh, my darling…”

“We worry over you, Mama.”

“Are you well, Everett? Are you and Johnny well?”

The young man’s power was wavering. I felt his weakness. He could not keep my heart beating, or my lungs filling. I felt his distress. “I must go. I’m happy, Mama. It’s so beautiful… .”

I saw my head sag forward. My breath stopped, my heart faltered, but from where I watched, it all seemed so unimportant, so distant. I saw Michel lean forward, frowning.

The other spirit, the woman, gained control again. My head snapped up. My breath came in a whoosh.

“I brought you your son. Are you satisfied now?”

There was so much rage in the voice. And something else: smug satisfaction.“ Who are you, spirit?” Robert Dudley burst out.

Her laughter was harsh and bubbling in my chest. “Don’t you want to know my errand?”

“What is your errand?” Michel asked.

“Why, to see you again.” The spirit bent my body toward him. The voice was flirtatious and angry at the same time.

You see? He did not expect this. You see how he starts? How he pales? He knows who I am. He knows what he’s done. He played to your weakness, didn’t he? He’s done it before. He did it with me.

“To see Jourdain?” Wilson Maull asked. “Why?”

“It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Why are you here, spirit?” Dudley’s voice again. Sterner, a little angry. “Who are you?”

“Quiet,” Michel said softly.

And then her memory danced again before my eyes. It was dark—night, late—and she was running and breathless, racing through streets in a city I didn’t know, though she did. She knew her way and was unerring even in her panic, past the gaslit part of town into the darker warren of wharves and storehouses where the smell of the river—ice and stinking mud and rotting fish—was strong, past drunken men who tried to catch her with tarstained, rope-burned hands and who called out as she went by, “Hey, girlie, don’t run away! Care for a fuck?”

She cursed them because they gave him a trail to follow. The street was narrow, rutted and slippery with frozen mud and snow, and she lost her footing in her thin boots, falling hard enough to jar her breath. The satchel she held went flying, skidding across the road, and she lost precious time battling her skirts to climb again to her feet, slipping to grab the bag again with fingers too numb with cold to curl around its handle. She turned to look over her shoulder, and there he was—dear God, she had not lost him after all; she had not escaped him, and he was still so angry, so much angrier than she’d imagined. She had never expected to be afraid of him, but now she knew she’d pushed him too far at last. Her fear filled me until I would have screamed to ease it. But she did not scream. Before her was a light, a tavern. If she could just reach it before he reached her…

You see now, don’t you? Don’t forget. Never forget.

“Spirit, will you answer us?”

“Don’t you know who I am?” The voice—my voice—was colder, more needling. I felt the danger of her. I started across the divide; I wanted to stop her.

Grace Dudley’s voice was high. “No, spirit, we don’t know. Please, you must tell us. Why have you come to us? Who are you?”

The mist grew thicker, the veil stronger. She was trying to keep me out. She was laughing.

I was past the veil. I was pushing in.

Not yet. Not yet.

“Spirit, are you there?”

“I am here,” said my voice, but it was thin as I tried to wrest control from her.

Let me speak. Listen to me. You are my errand.

She was taking up too much room. I could not get past her. And yet the danger I felt was increasing every moment.

“Who
are
you, spirit?”

Too late. Too late.

“My name is Adele.”

I saw Michel’s shock in the moment before all thought left me.

W
HEN
I
OPENED
my eyes, I was myself again, and they were all staring at me as if something astounding had just happened. I felt as if I’d struggled loose from a dream, still hazy, loopy, too groggy to think. From somewhere, I heard a quiet sobbing.

“She’s back,” Dudley said. “Evelyn, is it you?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

Michel was not beside me. He was kneeling at Dorothy’s side, and she was clutching him, crying softly into his shoulder while he comforted her.

“Who is Adele?” Wilson asked.

“You must know, don’t you, Michel?” Sarah asked. “She said she’d come to see you.”

He lifted his head to look at us. “
Madame
Atherton seems ready to swoon.”

The echo of the spirit’s voice was still in my head; I felt her enmity toward Michel—an enmity colored with longing. I thought I heard a whisper. I jerked around to see who stood behind me, but there was no one, and I pressed my hand against my temple in sudden wooziness.