We Hear the Dead (16 page)

It had been a session of rapping like a hundred others that I had done. I was accomplished at my task and used to disconcerting men of intelligence who did not believe I could outwit them. There would have been no reason to remember this man above any other, if he had not turned to me while Mother was bustling toward the door, taken my hand, and looked me directly in the eye.

“This is no life for a young lady,” he said, and I recognized in his frank gaze that he had clearly seen through my deception.

“Good afternoon to you, Dr. Kane,” Mother chirped merrily from the door, having heard nothing of what he said to me. “And may God grant you respite from your sorrow.”

“Good day to you, Mrs. Fox,” the gentleman replied, tipping his hat to her as he departed.

I was startled and a little disappointed that I had been unable to fool him. However, I had no idea on that afternoon that I had met a man who would change my life forever.

Maggie

When we received Dr. Elisha Kent Kane's note on the afternoon following his first visit, my mother was delighted and flattered. Mr. Simmons was quick to advise us on how honored we should be to receive his invitation to a carriage ride in the city. For my part, I had no wish to spend the afternoon with a man who had mocked my efforts the previous day. But Mother insisted that we accept the gracious invitation of the very important Dr. Kane.

I stumped my way down to the entranceway of the hotel with some ill grace, sulking and petulant, but nonetheless dressed in my finest frock. I recalled the good doctor as slight figured, rather sickly, with a too-high forehead. This description did fit him superficially, and yet did not in any way account for the manner in which his personality illuminated him from within. He met us at the door of the hotel with a smile that sprang naturally to his face and bowed us out onto the street toward his waiting carriage.

I was startled at the sight of him, while recognizing him at once as the same man who had come to us the previous day. But he looked different to me somehow. Yes, he had a high forehead but also rich, waving dark hair. His eyes were fiery and intense. He was a man whose attraction came from his personality, and in the absence of his presence, you could forget how remarkable he really was. When he boosted me into the carriage with a hand upon my arm, I could feel the strength of him, and the sudden flush of warmth to my cheeks startled me.

He was not the sort of man who interested me. Any flirtation on the previous day had been solely for the sake of the spirit sitting, to unbalance him and acquire information. So why, then, did my heart beat so rapidly?

A second man was seated inside the carriage, and for a moment I was frightened. Before the incidents at Troy, I would never have so easily taken affright, but my constitution had been sorely tested, and I recoiled in shock at the sight of him. But then he smiled affably, and Dr. Kane stuck his head into the carriage to introduce the gentleman as his cousin, Mr. Patterson.

“I humbly beg your forgiveness,” this new person said as the four of us settled into our places, “for my intrusion on your excursion. Heaven knows that I have no need to visit the sights of the Quaker City, but I am in Philadelphia only for a day and have not laid eyes on my cousin in nearly five years. Fearing he might hare off on another excursion to the Arctic before my next visit to the old hometown, I foisted myself upon him for the day, and, as it turns out, upon you.”

“I keep telling my cousin that he is no burden,” Dr. Kane murmured with a slight smile, “unless he continues to apologize so loquaciously, in which case we might very well expel him from our tour.”

“Land sakes, Dr. Kane,” my mother simpered, her plump cheeks flushed with the exertion of climbing into the carriage, “we certainly do not mind Mr. Patterson. We are just so grateful and honored that you have extended your hospitality…”

“Are you intending to visit the Arctic?” I inquired, firmly interrupting Mother's rambling discourse before she could embarrass us. I did not want these gentlemen to think we were languishing in our hotel for lack of company!

“Just returned, in fact,” replied Dr. Kane with another soft smile, accompanied by a flash of his remarkable brown eyes.

“From the Arctic?” I repeated. “How curious! Whatever were you doing in the Arctic? It is not a typical destination for travelers.”

“No, it is not,” he admitted, “although it is beautiful nonetheless, and if not so deadly, it would be a worthy addition to any serious wayfarer's itinerary. I was lucky enough to be a member of the Grinnell Rescue Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin's ships and crew.”

I blinked at him thoughtfully for a moment and then asked, “Do you mean the English explorer who vanished some years ago?”

It was his turn to gaze at me in momentary discomfort, and he said, “Exactly so,” as if he was surprised to find that I knew this.

“It seems unrealistic to launch a rescue at this late date,” I remarked with unwitting coldness. “What has it been, five or six years? Surely Sir Franklin and his crew are dead.”

“Now, Maggie,” muttered Mother.

“Do you know of this through your spirits?” inquired the cousin, Mr. Patterson, brightly.

“Merely common sense,” I demurred. “I have no direct knowledge through the spirit world, but if they lived, they would have returned to civilization by now.”

“Not necessarily, Miss Margaretta,” Dr. Kane replied, and I felt a startling thrill as he spoke my name. My eyes were drawn helplessly back to his own, as though magnetized. “Ships can be lost and, if warranted, abandoned. But there is game to be found, and a living to be made in those lands, if you are determined. Perhaps you have heard of the Eskimo?”

“Of course,” I said. I would not stand for being thought ignorant. “I know that Indians live in the Arctic lands. However, if this Englishman and his crew survived, whether by living like savages or not, wouldn't someone have encountered them by now? Did you find any signs of him on your voyage?”

“Sadly, no.” The doctor's eyes remained strangely alight. His mouth was curved upward while delivering his unfortunate statement, as though he was greatly amused by the conversation, if not by the subject. “Our ships became trapped near Baffin Island, and we were unable to continue our search.”

“Trapped?” chirped Mother. “How does a ship become trapped? Do you mean run aground?”

“No,” he said, breaking our gaze and turning to Mother. “The sea around the ship froze into solid ice, preventing us from moving forward or backward and trapping us in our place.”

“How horrifying!” she gasped. “You must have been terrified!”

Dr. Kane broke out an unexpected grin. “Surprisingly, Mrs. Fox, the opposite is true. It was the tedium that horrified, for we were perfectly safe, but fixed fast and unable to escape for months. Terror would imply immediate danger, and our circumstance was more on the order of slow, torturous boredom!”

“Only my cousin Elisha,” interjected Mr. Patterson, “would complain that being icebound in the Arctic for months was a trial of boredom! Mind you, I imagine that after you've explored a volcano, all else pales by comparison!”

“Has he explored a volcano?” I asked innocently, darting my eyes first at Mr. Patterson and then back to his cousin in an invitation to tell more.

“He has,” asserted Mr. Patterson proudly, while Dr. Kane continued to grin sheepishly, murmuring, “It is a foolish story.”

It was a matter of moments to convince him to tell us the tale. He made a weak effort to resist, directing our attention out the carriage window to the graceful arch of the Schuylkill Bridge. But we persisted, and with a sigh and a modest shake of the head, he acquiesced, saying mournfully, “The tale does not paint me in a very flattering light.”

“All the more reason for us to enjoy it!” quipped his cousin.

“I was in the Philippines,” Dr. Kane began. Mother interrupted to ask where that was, and I darted her a look of consternation that she would so cheerfully display her lack of education. But the doctor patiently explained that the Philippines were islands south of China, in the South China Sea. “I was a member of a diplomatic mission to China,” he continued, as mildly as if remarking that he had made a journey to the state capital. “From there, I was dispatched as part of an auxiliary expedition to Manila—which is a city in the Philippines,” he added for my mother's benefit, “to inspect a cache of military supplies. While in Manila, I met a young German peer of the realm, the Baron Loë, who was an adventurer and traveler—a rather brash fellow known for taking appalling risks with his life.”

“Nothing like you, then, cousin,” interjected Mr. Patterson, winning a sidelong glance and a devilish grin from Dr. Kane.

“When I met the baron,” he went on, “he had arranged an expedition to the volcano at Taal Lake, bribing some native guides with a ghastly amount of local currency. The natives viewed it as a sacred place, you see, the home of angry gods. Before I knew it, I found myself embarking on a thirty-mile hike into the jungles of Luzon with a crazy German peer and a handful of cowering, untrustworthy natives apt to run off with the money and abandon us.

“The jungle was a miserable place, abominably hot, with insects as large as my hand. Taal Lake, however, was magnificent, awe inspiring, with jewel-blue waters and a fog-wrapped shroud over the volcano that rises from its center. The natives paddled us across the lake in the dugout canoe that we had carried—with some difficulty—upon our heads on our jaunt through the jungle. Then we ascended a thousand feet up the side of the volcano itself, onto the rim of the crater, a vast ring two miles in circumference. Looking down from the height of the rim, we could see the most amazing sight of all, a second lake within the crater, surrounded by a beach of volcanic ash and steaming as if the whole thing were part of a tremendous witch's cauldron.”

The carriage continued to rattle along on its prearranged tour of Philadelphia, but the sights passed unremarked as we sat mesmerized by Dr. Kane's every word.

“Loë and I speculated on the chemical composition of the lake inside the volcano, and I became convinced that it must be sulfuric acid. Loë disagreed, however, and suddenly I announced that I would descend to the basin of the crater and acquire a sample of it to prove my theory. Even the baron was shocked by such a foolish suggestion, and I am afraid that I became all the more resolved to my course in the hopes that I would impress this seasoned adventurer. Of course,” he said, turning to us and smiling ruefully, “it was a dreadfully stupid thing to do. It was, in fact, almost the death of me.

“Loë quickly rose to the spirit of the thing and helped me create a makeshift rope out of bamboo fibers. I directed the natives to brace themselves to support my weight as I climbed down. Thus, I soon found myself descending into the crater, a rigorous venture that I came to regret.

“The basin was a desolate place, humid and ill smelling, and the lake itself was foul. I wandered about for a moment, awestruck by the otherworldliness of the place, when sudden shouts attracted my attention. Loë had attempted to follow me down, but the fellow was fully six feet tall and half as wide across the chest. The fiber rope could not support his weight and had begun to unravel, nearly dumping him into the crater before he managed to grasp an outcropping and clamber back up. At this point, the natives experienced a sudden reprise of their superstitions and, deciding that the volcano god was angered by the invasion, abandoned their positions and scrambled down the side of the volcano, leaving me stranded inside and Loë unable to haul me out by himself!

“Oh, look!” Dr. Kane interrupted himself, suddenly pointing out the window of the carriage. “There is Congress Hall. Surely, ladies, you would like to alight here and see this prestigious building.”

Mother and I shook our heads, hardly noticing the bustle of the city square outside. “An historic building or two can hold no appeal over a volcano in the middle of a lake on an island in the South China Sea,” I breathed. “Please, Dr. Kane, do not leave us thus, or we shall conclude that you perished there, and that the man before us is only a phantom!”

Mr. Patterson gave a rich laugh, and Dr. Kane's eyes twinkled with amusement as he gazed upon me. “I would be lucky to have such a lovely medium conjure me if I were a spirit, but as you may have surmised, I survived. The baron, thinking quickly, tore through my travel pack until he located my service pistol and fired a shot into the air, halting the natives in midflight.

“In the meantime, I was pacing the length of that beach of ash, trying to find a good line of sight to make out what was happening above. To my great surprise, I found myself growing dizzy, and after a moment of disorientation, I was even more astonished to find myself upon my knees and hands. You see, there were noxious fumes rising from the lake, and because of the bowl-like structure of the crater, these gases were trapped inside, as was I. Awakening to this danger, I struggled to my feet, resolving to climb up the side of the crater by hand, if need be, in an effort to rise above the gases. Alas, this effort was fruitless. I did not even reach the wall of the crater before I found myself facedown in the warm ash, unable to rise at all.

“The baron at once saw my predicament and, with brute force of will, coerced one of the native guides at gunpoint into descending to retrieve me. This fellow tied the bamboo rope around me, and then hung on behind as Loë and the remaining guides hauled us up with as much speed as the frayed rope could bear. The fibers were snapping and curling away as we ascended, and it was a lucky thing that the native and I together didn't weigh as much as Loë did, or we would never have made it to the top.”

“Oh, Dr. Kane!” Mother cried. “I would never have imagined you to be such a daring and fearless soul!”

I arched an eyebrow at the doctor, asking, “And was the lake composed of sulfuric acid as you thought?”

Our host colored with embarrassment, and his cousin guffawed out loud, exclaiming, “This is a young lady who expects results, Elisha!”

“Alas,” Dr. Kane told me meekly, “I failed to obtain my sample. And now, ladies, I must insist that you pay some attention to this beautiful city and this fine day, and leave off teasing a poor man about his foolish days of reckless youth!”

The rest of our excursion was spent admiring the sights and enjoying the humorous banter of the two gentlemen. I found myself fascinated with the doctor, who by his slight appearance seemed unequal to the feats of daring he had recounted to us, and yet I did not doubt a word of it. The fire in his eyes when he spoke compelled me to see the strength of his spirit. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, and I felt sincere regret when the carriage returned us to Webb's Union Hotel.