“I should see about a meal, for myself and Felipe. We ought to make an early evening of things, after such a long and difficult day. Please excuse us.”
He did a little bow that broke my heart, and walked back to the hotel.
I waited for him to turn around and give me one last look, so that I could blast him with a meaningful apologetic stare, but he didn’t. Only Felipe peeked his nose out from under Tomás’s elbow, and that was as close to a second glance as I got.
• • •
I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.
I wasn’t hungry anymore, if I’d ever been hungry in the first place—when I told him we should get some supper together. I wished that my clairvoyance worked the way Tomás seemed to think it did, and all I had to do was close my eyes and see the truth.
I tried it, just in case. But all I saw was darkness, and all I got was a big surprise when Dr. Floyd tapped me on the shoulder.
“Alice?”
“Ma’am!” I jumped half out of my skin. “I’m sorry!”
“For what?”
“For yelling at you!” I barked in almost precisely the same tone. Then, more quietly, I said, “I’m just sorry in general. How’s David?” I asked suddenly. “Please tell me he’s all right.”
She looked old in a way she had never looked old to me before. “He’s not all right, but he might be, later on. The ambulance will be here soon.”
“How soon?”
She held her hands up, bent at the wrist. “Who knows? A few minutes, and no longer—or so I hope and pray. He’s breathing, so there’s that much to suggest he’ll survive.”
“Thank Spirit for that,” I said. It felt odd in my mouth. I said it again anyway. “Thank Spirit.”
“Indeed.” She wiped a tendril of loose hair from her eyes and folded her arms. She glanced toward the hotel, and then it was her turn to change the subject on a dime. “What happened to your friend?”
“He’s very tired. It’s been a long day’s travel for him and the little dog, so they’re turning in early for the night.”
She got right to the point. She skewered me with it. “David was talking to your friend, wasn’t he? What do you think he saw before he collapsed? I was watching you from where I was sitting. Your face went so red that I could see it, even in the dark.”
It wouldn’t accomplish anything to lie. I took a deep breath. “I think he saw something large and dark standing behind Tomás. Whatever it is, Tomás brought it here with him.”
She took the next words right out of my mouth. “Well, he didn’t mean to. He came here looking for help.”
We both stood there, silent for a minute. Around us, the worried crowds muttered and whispered, discussing what had happened at the reading and wondering about David’s condition. While we loosely huddled together, an ambulance pulled up to the campground entrance and squeezed between the pillars. Edella Holligoss ran up to it and leaned in the window to offer directions to the pavilion.
Dr. Floyd and I got out of the way and encouraged others to do likewise.
The ambulance rolled down the hill at what looked like a crawl. I willed it to move faster, but my will didn’t do a damn thing. It crept and crawled down the ragged, sandy street until it came to a stop beside the church in its own good time.
I stood up on tippy-toes, trying to see if they were bringing David out, but it was too far away and too dark, and there were too many people blocking my view.
“We must have faith that he’ll recover,” Dr. Floyd said.
“I do. I have all the faith in the world.”
“But he’s the second one to fall onstage in as many weeks.” She looked at me. “Let’s hope this is one thing that shouldn’t come in threes. Something is terribly wrong in Cassadaga these days. Don’t you feel it?”
I responded as honestly as I could. “I feel a lot of things right now: worry for David, concern for my friend Tomás, pain in my arm because I need to change this stupid bandage, and yes—I think there’s something strange going on.”
“What do you think it looks like?”
“What? The creature with Tomás? I told you already.”
She rephrased the question. “No, I’m sorry. I mean . . . there’s always a shape to these things, some kind of pattern. What’s the center of it? What’s the thread that ties it all together?”
Before I could stop myself, I said the only thing that made any sense to me. “Fire.”
“The one at the Calliope?”
“Fire in general.” I looked back and forth and realized we were loud enough and other people were close enough to overhear us. “Walk with me, please? We can go sit on the hotel porch. Let’s get out of this crowd.”
She followed me, then drew up alongside me. I was walking at a pretty good clip. “What do you mean?”
I didn’t answer until we’d taken up chairs and pulled them into a corner, away from the gaslight fixture that otherwise lit the porch and the double front doors. I leaned forward and said softly, “It isn’t just the Calliope. I found a little fire in my room just the other day. I didn’t start it—I woke up to it. It was nothing serious, except that it happened spontaneously—in my washroom sink.”
“Good heavens . . . ,” she said. I’d expected her to exclaim something about “Spirit,” but I was disappointed. I was still figuring out how to use the expression.
“And then there’s my friend Tomás—”
“Who you just met today.”
“We’ve exchanged letters.” I did not exactly tell the truth. It was close enough to the truth, and I didn’t care if she knew I was standing on the cusp of lying. “In those letters I learned that he had also been”—I fibbed again—“experiencing fires. Small ones, and larger ones, too.”
“But what does that have to do with you fainting last week?”
“I fainted because I saw something terrible and hot. It was a suffocating kind of heat,” I tried to explain. “You remember how I tried to get someone’s attention? Someone who wouldn’t answer me? There was a spirit, and I thought it couldn’t hear me. Then it did, and it answered me when I asked it a question. But it was too far away to do much more than scare me, because it was still with Tomás, in Ybor City.”
“And now it’s here.” She didn’t ask it as a question. She didn’t have any more questions for me at all. “That’s what you saw in the open reading. What did you ask it? What did it say?”
I told her the same thing I’d told Mabel and Dolores, how it’d called itself the hammer. “That’s all it said. Honestly, I’m glad. I don’t think I could have stood its presence much longer.” Then I practically whispered, “Please, Dr. Floyd—Tomás wouldn’t hurt anybody. He’s gentle and kind, and he’s afraid. We can’t just send him away. Like Mr. Colby told me, if we can’t do some good in the world, then we don’t deserve to be here.”
“I wouldn’t dream of sending him away, but we have to contain this problem before someone else gets hurt. You could’ve been hurt. David could’ve been . . .” She wanted to say “killed.” I know she did. I did, too, but he was on the way to the hospital and neither one of us wanted to jinx it. So she said, “Even more seriously hurt.”
That was as close as she could come to admitting he might live or die, and nobody knew which.
I cleared my throat. “Lately I’ve been told there are . . . certain protections on this side of the tracks.” I tried to keep any note of accusation out of my voice, even though I really felt like someone should’ve told me sooner—and I shouldn’t have had to hear it from Dolores and Imogene.
“That’s true, but those protections are only . . .” She bobbed her head back and forth, considering how to phrase it for me. “Well, they’re more than superstition, but their usefulness is uncertain. In this case, it would seem that they’re not strong enough to keep the church—or anyone in it—saf
e from whatever it is you saw.”
“So what’s the point in having them?”
“These days? I’m honestly not sure.” She hesitated. “Many years ago, Mr. Colby was friends with a woman who joined the camp from eastern Kentucky. She practiced what some would call root magic, or conjure magic. Now, strictly speaking, spiritualists don’t believe in magic. But we do believe in spirits and their influence, and we are prepared to accept that one man’s ghost is another man’s divine guide. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Just because you don’t understand it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.”
She looked briefly relieved. “Correct. As much as anything, we considered the woman’s efforts a case of ‘can’t hurt, might help.’”
“Is she still here?”
“Oh no, she crossed over ages ago—and I don’t think anyone’s heard from her since. Her name was Agatha Bloom. She used to travel with Mr. Colby as a secretary of sorts.”
“So you don’t know what she did or how she did it?” I pressed.
Drolly, Dr. Floyd said, “All we know for certain is that it didn’t work.” She might’ve said more, but a man I didn’t know approached us begging our pardons, asking if Dr. Floyd could come and speak with the police—who had apparently arrived while no one was looking.
“Absolutely, I’d be happy to. Could you give me one moment, please?”
He agreed and said they’d be down at the pavilion, if she’d care to join them.
“The police?” I whispered nervously.
“They’re only doing their jobs, I’m sure. They’ve probably come out of curiosity, or concern. This is the second time they’ve been summoned in as many days.”
“Second time?”
“They came about the fire, remember? Cassadaga is beginning to look like a perilous place.” She sat across from me, wearing a thoughtful expression and not quite looking at me so much as past me. Eventually she said, “I want to do a bit of research tonight and see what I can turn up. I’ll ask my brother if he has any thoughts. I want you to do the same.”
“Talk to your dead brother?” I said before I had time to soften my response.
She didn’t mind, or if she did, she didn’t show it. “Use whichever paths or methods work best for you, but find a way to talk to the spirits—though you must be careful which ones you listen to. They’re as bad and as good as living people. Some will be helpful; some will not.”
“I’m still learning how to tell the difference.”
“Learn faster,” she said, and it sounded like a warning. She rose to her feet and smoothed her skirt. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
She left me there alone, and I stayed long enough to watch the ambulance leave with David in it (and maybe his father, too). I wondered where his mother was, if she was alive or if she’d “crossed over.” I’d never heard anyone mention her.
It was getting late. Not terribly late, but late enough that there wasn’t anything to do except consider heading to Candy’s, decide against it, hit up the hotel restaurant instead, and go to my room after I’d finished eating. I walked past Tomás’s room on the way. I paused outside the door but didn’t hear anything—and then I felt guilty for standing there, eavesdropping, so I hustled back to my own temporary residence.
I let myself inside, closed the door, and leaned back against it.
I sniffed the air. Nothing but the smell of the soap I’d used in the bath, and the perfume I’d left on the dresser (lilac and orange blossoms). No sign of smoke.
• • •
I remembered Tomás asking me if I smelled it, when there was nothing to smell. Was it just him? Was it just the thing that followed him?
• • •
THERE was nothing untoward to whiff in my room; of that I was reasonably sure. I locked the door behind me, turning the deadbolt wheel and drawing the chain for no real reason except that I was anxious on principle.
Something was terribly wrong in Cassadaga, and now I was not the only one who knew it.
I thought about stripping down and changing my bandage immediately, for my arm was smarting something awful; but then I remembered I still had some bourbon in my trunk, and I figured I might as well take advantage of it. I pulled the top and took a big swallow, right out of the bottle. Removing the bandage still hurt, despite my medicinal efforts. Applying the ointment hurt, too. Wrapping it up again hurt, as well. Everything hurt. But I had bourbon, so I drank some more of it.
Couldn’t hurt. Might help.
The bandages stuck to the burn, and my miserable skin screamed when I pulled them off. Another swallow. I put the bottle down on the back of the sink. Another swallow, another tug, and finally my whole arm was exposed to the air. One-handed I managed the ointment jar, and one-handed I rewrapped myself like an Egyptian mummy. Another swallow. I brought the bottle with me and swirled its contents to measure them. Maybe a third was left. It was enough for one very good night’s sleep, burn or no burn.
A third of a bottle and I could sleep through anything, even the searing pain of a drizzled burn that looked for all the world like a devil’s initials, if his name started with an “H” and ended with a “K.”
I changed into my nightdress and sat down cross-legged on my bed. I tried to think.
I had a pack of cards and some candles. Spirit(s) like warm light. (And some of them like fire.) I dragged myself off the bed again, pulled out the tapers I’d bought from the bookstore, and set them around the room. (I lit them up; I struck matches and melted enough to seal their bottoms onto coasters and plates, so they would not fall over.) I fished my cards out of my trunk, and I got back onto the bed, sitting cross-legged once more.
I took one more swallow—a smallish swallow. I had markedly less than a third of the bottle to keep me company.
I breathed deep to a count of ten, and cleared my mind as best I could. I am not good at clearing my mind, but Dolores Brigham has been helping me learn how to do it with careful breathing and meditation, so I got my mind about as clear as it was going to get. (Clear-ish, except for the pain, and the warm buzz of the bourbon. I know spiritualists are supposed to be teetotalers but I think that’s silly. I think the bourbon helps. It definitely doesn’t hurt.)
I took another long, shuddering breath and went to a ten-count one more time.
That was better. In with the coolness and calm, out with the jitters and nervousness.
The gaslamps were off, and I had nothing but the candles to set a mood.
I’d never tried to reach any specific spirit before. Usually, they come to me as they like—and none of them have ever come to share a message with me personally. In my experience, all they want is to pass along a word to someone else.
Dr. Floyd and Mabel had asked me if I’d ever sought out a spirit guide, and I’d told them no. Until I came to Cassadaga, I didn’t know there was any such thing. Now, since studying here, I’ve gotten the impression that they’re like guardian angels, and you either have one or you don’t. I don’t think you can just recruit one and demand its assistance.
But maybe if I just asked somebody to come on in, sit down, and have a word—with no commitment implied—I might have more luck. It was worth a try.
“Andrew Floyd,” I said on my next exhalation. I thought he was as good a guide as any, and I knew that he sometimes spoke to his sister. Maybe he could lend me his ears, too. Or whatever spirits have instead of ears.
One of the candles flickered, but that might’ve only been a draft. I said the name again, closed my eyes again, and counted to ten again. Nothing.
Another name sprang to mind. “Agatha Bloom. How about you? You tried to protect the town. Can you help me protect it now?”
I heard a flutter of wind, and it startled me enough that I blinked my eyes open and saw my candles flutter, their flames rattling around on their wicks. The room got
colder with every count. To ten. Until I could see my breath. I watched it swirl and billow like the smoke inside the Calliope. I watched the soft whiteness of it spinning and twisting, and I tried to stay calm.
“Agatha? They tell me you worked root magic.” A breeze blustered against my face. It felt like it came from an icebox. “I’m not sure what root magic is, but I have an idea. I hear you were from Kentucky, and I’m not—but I’m from Virginia and I know what granny magic is. If that’s what Dr. Floyd meant.”
With the next breeze came a laugh, light and almost childish. It was not what I’d expected from a granny worker who traveled with a spiritualist for years. I looked left and right and watched my breath spin silk in the air.
“Hello?”
Granny magic indeed, you sweet summer child.
Every frosty exhale gave her a little more shape, a firmer outline, a few inches from my face. I sucked in deep and breathed out slow—giving her as much frost to work with as she felt like using. She gave me the impression of a young woman . . . or I guess that’s how she felt, once she crossed over. I liked her style. If I’m ever as old as the hills and I show up as a ghost, I plan to look as young and lovely as I am right now, goddammit.
“Agatha? Is that you?”
Truly and fully, with none other along for the ride.
“Thank God. Spirit. Sorry. I’m still learning, but I have to ask, because you set up protections around the camp: What were they? How did they work? How can we make them stronger?”
Oh dear, no. Those were just little charms, honey. That’s all. I put them into the ground in threes.
“What kind of little charms?”
Bottles for good neighbors, planted at the boundaries. Her mouth moved with my mouth, and she breathed back into me as she spoke. Five-finger grass for keepin’ out no-goods and protecting travelers. Horehound to shoo the beasts away. A little salt to seal it up, but not too much. That kind of thing.
“Is that all?”
She nodded, and the frozen mist moved around her. Most of the charms I know—the ones what passed down—they protect against haints and haunts. But I couldn’t use those, now, could I? What if they worked? I sensed her smile more than I could see it. I heard her girlish little laugh, though I could hardly see her lips move. The lips were all for show, I think. She did it for me, so I’d have something to look at.