The Spiritualist

1 Open to the Possibilities New York City Thursday, January 15, 1857 The fog crept in at four o'clock. By seven it had blanketed the city so completely that the efforts of the lamplighters went for naught--the streetlamps were completely obscured, and no carriage lamp was bright enough to pierce the gloom. Beyond the misted windows of the brougham, it was as if the world had fallen away. I could almost believe my husband and I were the only ones left alive on this night, and that the muffled echo of our driver's shouts belonged to something otherworldly, as if the nightmares that plagued me had seeped past my watchfulness to follow me into my waking hours. But I said none of this to Peter. I was so happy that he'd asked me to come with him that I would have braved any element. I even--foolishly--harbored hope that tonight might be the start of some new understanding between us. I glanced across at him. His blond hair was bright even in the darkness, and he sat so still he could have been made of stone. I knew he was nervous--as was I--and I looked out the window and said as idly as I could, "Look how heavy the fog is. I wonder that Cullen can even see the road." "We'll be late," he said brusquely. "As will everyone else, surely?" He sighed. I tried to lighten his mood. "It's a perfect night for it, wouldn't you say? It already looks as if the world is full of ghosts." His wince was sharp enough that I felt it. "They aren't ghosts, Evie, as I've told you before." Another misstep. It seemed lately I made nothing but missteps. Quietly I said, "I was joking, Peter." "Perhaps I shouldn't have brought you after all. If you can't be open to the possibilities--" "I can be open--" "You promised not to be the investigator's daughter tonight." "And I won't be." I leaned forward, putting my gloved hand on his arm. With a twinge of dismay, I felt him stiffen beneath my touch. "I won't disappoint you. I want to see what you see. I do." He moved his arm so my hand slid away, and reluctantly I sat back against the plushly cushioned leather seat. He looked out the window. His voice was soft as he said, "You know, Evie, he's a miracle worker." There was something in his words that made me shiver. I moved my feet closer to the brazier and told myself it was due to the damp and penetrating cold, and not the disturbing reverence in my husband's voice. It was a tone I'd been hearing more and more often since his mother had died six months before, and though I'd told him the truth--that I wanted to see what he saw, if only because it would make everything so much easier--I could not hide my alarm that he'd fallen into this fashion of spirit rappers and table tiltings; he was a lawyer, after all, and I'd thought him too rational to believe in such things. Still, I knew too how irrational grief could make one, how all-consuming it could be. I should not be surprised now that he'd found comfort in the idea of his mother's enduring, communicating spirit. God knew he had not looked to me for solace, though I'd hoped desperately that he would. "We're here," Peter said. How he knew it, I didn't know--there was nothing outside to show we'd arrived. But then the brougham jerked to a stop, and the fashionably crenelated Gothic brownstone that was Dorothy Bennett's house appeared in the mist before us like some materializing spirit. I had not been to the Bennett mansion in some time, as Dorothy had withdrawn from society almost entirely in the last two years in deference to her invalidism. Now, the sight of it unnerved me. Every window was lit, reflecting against the fog, so the house seemed to stand alone on the block, pulsing with a weirdly macabre life. It looked as if it belonged to one of Mr. Poe's strange and eerie tales. The carriage door opened, and the fChance, Megan is the author of 'The Spiritualist' with ISBN 9780307406118 and ISBN 0307406113.