room is heavy with the scent of lavender oil and incense and candlewax.
Yes! Just the way Jessie likes it.
Next Mariah sets out a crystal decanter filled with sherry and five heavy crystal tumblers. She scowls with disapproval, her black eyes flickering. She turns down the gaslamp, makes the sign of the Cross over her breast, and flees, shutting the door behind her.
Madame De Cassin generously pours out sherry in each of the tumblers. “To the sweet spirits,” she solemnly toasts Jessie and seats herself, swirling her black cape over her shoulder.
“Well, now. Didn’t know they nipped a tick before the mumbo jumbo,” Mr. Heald mutters to Mr. Watkins with a wink. “No wonder the wife goes in for it.”
“To the sweet spirits,” says Mr. Watkins enthusiastically, tossing sherry down his throat and reaching for the decanter.
Li’l Lucy noisily slurps, burps, and giggles.
“To the sweet spirits,” Jessie says passionately, ignoring the others’ disrespect. They shall see! Madame De Cassin insists on the ritual imbibing of spirits—spirits for the spirits, you see—which opens our mortal door to the Summerland. The great spiritualist supplies this particular sherry to Jessie just for this sacred purpose, and this purpose only. The sherry establishes a certain sympathy with the madame’s spirit guide, Chief Silver Thorne, who during his life on earth much favored the beverage. Jessie happily gulps the smoky-tasting liquor, which warms her just as the medicinal benefit of Scotch Oats Essence is beginning to fade. This particular sherry makes her head spin unlike any other. “I want to speak with Rachael, Madame De Cassin.”
“Of course you do,” the spiritualist says. She sets her tumbler down, staring severely at the other sitters. Even Mr. Watkins gets the hint, reluctantly relinquishing his tumbler. Madame De Cassin makes long, sweeping motions with her gloved hands, clearing the magnetic energy over the table. Her handsome face goes slack in the candlelight. Her eyelids flutter and her pupils roll up, showing the whites beneath them.
“You will all join hands,” she whispers.
Jessie takes the spiritualist’s left hand and Mr. Watkins’s right hand. Her heart begins to pound and her head whirls in the perfumed darkness.
Mr. Heald sits next to the spiritualist on the right, Li’l Lucy blinks nervously between the two gentlemen. They all join hands, and the circle is complete.
Madame De Cassin wastes no time going into a trance. She begins to moan and sway, keening louder and louder till she leans over the black candle and, with a chilling screech, blows out the flame.
“Chief Silver Thorne?” she calls out. “My dear friend in the Summerland, my noble Cherokee chief, where are you-oo-oo?”
A shudder rocks the spiritualist, and Jessie trembles with fear and excitement. She grips the spiritualist’s gloved hand. Lordy, her hand is so firm from equestrian activities! Jessie cannot see a thing in the darkness. A ghostly caress tickles the back of her neck. “Sure and I feel the chief’s hand,” Jessie whispers, dread rushing deliciously up her spine. Shapes blacker than the darkness reel and totter before her blinded eyes.
From the other side of the table, Mr. Heald makes little yelping noises.
Madame De Cassin lets loose a bloodcurdling yell, and a horn blows softly just above Jessie’s ear. Then a bizarre masculine voice spills out in the vicinity of the spiritualist’s mouth. “I am here, Rebecca.” The voice has a strange accent Jessie can’t quite place.
The spiritualist’s cloak rustles as she sways and lurches. “Forgive me, Chief Silver Thorne, but we have strangers with us today.”
“Yes, I sense their presence,” Chief Silver Thorne answers irritably. “Two gentlemen who do not support woman suffrage.”
Mr. Heald sputters and says, “Well, I’ll be a fiddler’s bitch.”
Mr. Watkins says, “I certainly do not. Women suffer enough. Ha, ha.”
Ghostly caresses patter on the back of Jessie’s head. “Please, Chief Silver Thorne,” she pleads. “Let us not discuss woman suffrage again. You know I don’t approve of giving women the vote or a role in politics. It ain’t ladylike.”
“Yes, my dear chief,” Madame De Cassin implores. “As always, Miss Malone wishes to speak with her beloved Rachael.”
“Very well, Miss Malone,” Chief Silver Thorne says. “I will see if I can find Rachael in the Summerland if you will promise to treat Li’l Lucy with continuing kindness. She has been ill, Miss Malone, has she not?”
Jessie clucks her tongue. Chief Silver Thorne is forever going on about equality for women, rights for Negroes and for the heathen Chinese, and showing kindness toward the girls she’s got under contract. Why should a Cherokee chief