The Spirit Room (10 page)

Tonight Clara would pretend a trance for the first time. Clara had been begging to try it and, since Izzie wanted to be rid of that part of it, she convinced Papa that Clara’s charm would make her better at it than she was.

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AN HOUR LATER, the Spirit Room was prepared and Izzie and Clara were settled at the table with all their seekers ready, except for Sam Weston, who was late. As agreed, Izzie had taken Clara’s usual chair with the lever for the knocking device under foot.

Papa announced they’d begin without Weston and so Clara got up and dimmed the oil lamps on the fireplace mantel, carefully leaving just enough light to distinguish the letters on the alphabet sheet. Papa explained to everyone about the spelling and the rapping and the touching of hands.

Once recently, when Papa had taken off for several days, she and Clara had no secret information about their seekers. Since Papa’s secret source of knowledge was only known to him, Izzie got Billy to ask questions about the seekers at his job at Maxwell’s Nursery. “Be as casual as you can,” she’d told Billy. “Act like you are interested in knowing people around town since you’re new here.” He came home with just a tidbit but it was enough for them to entertain their seekers.

But this evening, Papa was here and prepared. Earlier in the day, he had come back to Mrs. Purcell’s and given them information about Mr. Isaac Camp who would be with them. Only two months ago, Camp had become a widower and his deceased wife was Jane. She had died in childbirth and the baby, a son, had lived. “That’ll make it as easy as cherry pie,” Papa had said.

A knock rattled the door and Clara swept over to open it. Sam Weston, dressed in a pale gray knee-length frock coat and a broad-brimmed Quakerish hat, came in holding a small paper-wrapped package. Smiling down at Clara, he removed the silly hat and presented the package to her sister.

“
This is for you, my dear, to wish you luck tonight with your spirit communications and trance. You may open it later.” He glanced at the table where everyone watched him and Clara. “I see I am late.”

Smiling, Clara accepted the offering and led him to his seat next to hers. Then she put the parcel over on the bookcase and returned to the table. Izzie tapped her foot nervously. Why hadn’t he brought something for her too? By mistake, she hit the knocker under the rug. It whacked twice.

“
Oh, no.” She covered her mouth.

“
Well now, the spirits want to start right away.” Papa began striding around the outside of the table. As he passed each seeker, he introduced them, even though some of them knew each other. There was Sam Weston, the latecomer, next to Clara, and Isaac Camp on her other side. There was Izzie, then an Edward Barnes and a Mrs. Mullen. Since the seekers had arrived, their banter had been cheerful and light, almost inane. They were brimming with anticipation, especially young Mrs. Mullen, with her thin lips and auburn hair braids wrapped in big loops around her ears. Mrs. Mullen looked to be about twenty and was observing every movement with the keen eye of a hawk.

This evening’s sense of expectation seemed more heightened than usual. Papa had told her and Clara that the word was beginning to spread throughout Geneva. The Benton Sisters were truly gifted, but it was all making Izzie weary. The more excited people were, the more she felt trapped.

As Papa spoke and spun his made-up stories about how the Benton Sisters were talented since birth, Izzie, feeling tired, was glad to rest quietly. Izzie noticed how Clara was taking the moment to stare at Isaac Camp, who sat between them. Camp was fair and young and handsome, but not handsome in a rough way. He had a lightness about him. Unaware of Clara’s intense stare, Camp kept his attention on Papa. She’d have to remember to let Clara know she must be more discreet.

“
Is everyone comfortable? Let me put another log on the fire before we begin.” Papa took a log, knelt down, and lodged it onto the flames. Then he stood and faced the group. “We may be in for something surprising tonight.”

“
My goodness, what is it?” Mrs. Mullen, in her handsome black wool jacket, lifted her shoulders and shook her head a little, feigning a shiver of exhilaration.

“
Yes. Tell us,” Edward Barnes said.

This was the already familiar, drawn-out monotone of the skeptic in the group. There was always at least one, one who was eager to find a fallacy. Tonight it looked like it would be old Edward Barnes.

“
Well. We can’t promise anythin’ and it ain’t right to get your hopes up.” Papa nudged his spectacles up the bridge of his nose.

“
Yes? Well, what is it?”

If he held back another second, people would be irked, and now even Clara herself dropped her study of Camp and turned to Papa in expectation.

“
Shall I tell them, Clara?”

Beaming at Papa, the firelight making her pretty face glow, Clara nodded eagerly.

“
Clara had her first speaking trance just the other day and we’re hopeful she’ll have another.” Taking his lapels, Papa showed his crooked teeth in a sweeping smile.

Though Clara shined, as everyone turned toward her and made soft sounds of exclamation, there was a little surprise in her eyes. She had probably not expected such a grand introduction.

“
My two girls have been developin’ their gifts, but Clara’s made a sort of jump deep into the spirit world.”

Succumbing to a little dizzy spell, Izzie grasped the edge of the table. As she steadied herself she noticed that Weston, with an odd smirk, was watching Clara intently. He never seemed to entirely believe the Benton Sisters, but he never challenged them either. With the oil lamp and firelight behind him, Weston’s narrow face was in shadow. His tired eyes looked like entries to black caves and he appeared to sway ever so slightly.

“
Let’s begin,” Papa said.

Papa walked away from them to the dim side of the room near his bell. All six at the table put their hands flat out and made a circle, little fingers touching, eyes closed. They sat in silence for a long time. Occasionally, outside on the street, horse hooves clomped, harnesses jangled, wagons rattled. In between, there was nothing to listen to but the fire burning and Edward Barnes breathing laboriously next to her. If Izzie had been producing the trance, she would have been spelling away by now, but Clara had to make her own choices. Izzie felt another spell of dizziness, this one stronger and longer. Wondering if she was becoming ill with something, she took a deep breath and blinked hard a few times. She wouldn’t ruin the circle or the mood before Clara had her chance.

After a while, Izzie felt Edward Barnes’s fingers twitching slightly on the table and heard him shifting about in his chair.
It had better be now, little sister
.

“
There’s a spirit here. She wants to speak to Isaac.”

Finally. If Clara had waited another minute, they would have lost all the enthusiasm at the table.

Izzie opened her eyes. Pushing her chair back, Clara stood and crossed her hands over the dark green stripes of her dress bodice.

“
It’s a female spirit.”

Clara left her seat and walked smoothly and quickly past the fireplace, past everyone at the table. Izzie twisted around to watch. What in
tarnation
was Clara doing? She wandered to the far corner of the room, near Papa. She stood a moment in the corner, her back to the room. Arms crossed, Papa smiled and kept still a moment, but as soon as Clara was on the move again and all eyes were on her, the bell tinkled from behind the patched-on wallpaper.

Eyes turned toward Papa. To show he had nothing in his hands or attached to them, he held his hands up over his head. Clara suddenly dashed across the room to the opposite corner by the windows. She spun and faced everyone. The bell jingled. Every which way, the seekers darted glances, at Papa, at each other, at Clara, Izzie.

“
I am hearing a name with a “J” sound. Is that someone you know, Mr. Camp?” Clara said.

“
It could be my wife.”

“
Jane. Is that her name?”

Clara’s timing was excellent. He had nearly given it to her.

“
Yes.” Camp’s eyes narrowed and his mouth crimped.

“
Just a minute.” Clara returned to her ladder-back chair, but rather than sitting on it, she climbed onto the flat seat and stood towering over all. Surprised, Izzie gulped, which left an odd burn in her throat.

Clara swayed slightly from side to side. What the dickens was she going to do next? Whatever it was, Izzie decided to join in. Digging her heel into the lever, Izzie rapped off eight or nine knocks in a random sequence. The clunking wrenched everyone’s attention to the area where the knocker was buried under the floor.

“
She is here. She is a strong spirit. Wait.” Clara leaned sideways and cupped a hand over her ear. “She is telling me to go to sleep so she can speak directly to you.”

Shutting her eyes, Clara loomed motionless high above them. Weston and Camp arched their necks to watch her as though she were an angel. She seemed only to be missing the halo, the white gown and the little harp. Slowly, Clara elevated her arms part way and reached out toward the table.

Izzie struck the lever a few more times with her heel, the first strike thumping solidly, the others lighter. Young Mrs. Mullen flinched. Swiveling toward Izzie, Barnes glared at her rather than dwell on Clara the angel. Had he sensed her effort making the knocking? If she wanted to flex her heel again, she’d need to hold her upper body as still as a tombstone and keep her hands steady on the table.

Now Clara extended her arms straight up over her head and began to twirl gradually on the chair seat. Like a little child, she was almost silly, but she had everyone, even Barnes, gawking at her as though she were a death-defying act in the circus.

“
Isaac. Isaac.” Clara stopped spinning and lowered her arms.

That was a relief. The twirling was making Izzie lightheaded again. Clara went rigid and sat down. Then she began to breathe heavily, caving in, blowing up, caving in, blowing up. Izzie carefully pressed the knocking lever, but only once before Barnes could tear himself away from Clara’s theatrics. The bell jingled.

“
Is she all right?” Mrs. Mullen leaned toward Sam Weston.

“
She seems fine.”

Her brown eyes fixed in the air, Clara settled, then said, “Everyone, hold hands, please. It will help me speak to my beloved husband.”

Splendid. Clever. My beloved husband. Everyone’s hands came quickly back up on the table and clasped all round, Izzie taking Barnes and Camp.

“
I was in pain when I left earth, but I am not in pain now, dear Isaac. It is beautiful here. I am in an advanced sphere, a place close to perfection.” By deepening her voice, Clara sounded older.

Camp looked at Izzie. “How can I know it is really her?”

“
I assure you. Clara is momentarily gone. This is your wife. Ask her a question,” Izzie said.

Grinning ear to ear, Papa suddenly appeared by the fire behind Barnes and Mrs. Mullen.

“
Yes, ask her a question,” Barnes said.

Barnes’s hand was cool and dry, whereas Camp’s was growing hot and damp.

“
Are you with your father over there?” Camp asked.

“
Not a question like that, Camp. Ask something to test Miss Benton.” Barnes bent forward.

“
Let him speak to the spirit like he wants,” Papa said.

Izzie was stunned. Papa had never come to the table before and he rarely spoke during a spirit circle. It was better that all attention be on the famous Benton Sisters, he’d always said.

Clara was tranquil. That was best, but now Camp’s gaze was fixated on the table as though his head was stuck between the spokes of a wagon wheel. Perhaps it was all too painful for him. If he didn’t want to speak to his wife, the séance would come to a dead end. Izzie rammed her heel into the foot lever as hard as she could. Bang. Through the rug, the floorboard vibrated under Izzie’s foot.

Tick, tick, tick. Izzie looked over at the mantel. The broken clock had started up. The old clock that Clara had found and put there on the mantel, which had never worked, even though they had wound it and cleaned it and begged it, now suddenly tick-tocked off the seconds.

“
The clock.” Weston, who knew it was stuck at eleven o’clock since his first spirit circle, studied Papa.

“
Oh, husband.” With Camp’s hand in hers, Clara shoved aside the alphabet sheet in front of her.

Then she drew their clasped hands towards her and dropped her head to rest her face on the back of his hand. Camp did not withdraw, but gazed down at Clara’s brown hair collected in a knot just above the back of her neck. There was so much anguish in his eyes that Izzie could scarcely look at him herself.