This Side of Jordan (38 page)

The farm boy swatted at a passing bee. “Talking ghosts?”

Walking over to the tool shed, the dwarf replied: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

 

At twilight on Beecher Street, dried summer leaves blew uphill along the old plank sidewalk. Lamps glowed behind curtained windows of the tall elegant homes obscured under magnolia and sugar maples and flowering oak. Cats hid in poison moonseed and peeked out through iron gates. Bluestreaking meteors raced across the cold black sky. Near the top of the street, the dwarf climbed the narrow stairs of a dark Victorian and rang the brass doorbell. Alvin waited by a garden urn on the brick walkway below. A shadow clouded the stained glass side panel as a young man in denim and suspenders came to answer the door. Summoned by the dwarf, the farm boy followed up the wooden steps and past the young man into the house.

Effluvium of incense and amber-lit gasoliers filled the entry hall. Turkish carpet runners of indigo and crimson ran the length of the house and up a dark-wood staircase to the second floor. All the walls were decorated in olivegreen anaglypta and Morris floral patterns, and the ceiling overhead was painted with golden sunbursts and wild roses. The scratchy phonograph recording of a nocturne by Chopin played in the front parlor to the left where the dwarf hurried straight off upon entering the house. Welcomed by the young man, Madame Zelincka's son Albert, the farm boy was shown through a knotted rope portière into a formal parlor illuminated by electric tulip sconces and oil table lamps. Seated next to the phonograph cabinet on a rosewood chesterfield in the bay window were an earnest little man and his wife, both in elegant evening dress as if out for a night at the opera. Across the room, the dwarf occupied a velvet easy-chair by the fireplace whose mantelpiece of carved marble resembled the entablature of a Greek temple. Behind him, the double doors leading to another room were closed. Mahogany bookshelves and potted palms flanked the arching doorframe.

“So, this is Alvin,” said the woman, her blue silver-beaded gown sparkling in the reflected light. “What a fine-looking boy.” She offered a warm smile. “Dear, my name is Edith, and this is my husband, Oscar Elliotsen.”

Oscar rose from his seat to greet the farm boy. His oiled-hair and thin-waxed moustache glistened as he crossed the carpet to shake hands. “Good to know you, son.”

“Yes, sir.” Alvin felt himself blush. They were treating him like a king. How come?

“I heard quite a lot about you this morning,” his wife added, leaning over to remove the needle from the phonograph as her husband returned to the chesterfield. “It's so extraordinary.”

“Thanks.”

Wondering what all Rascal had told them, Alvin took off his cap and sat down on a rose tufted sofa near the dwarf. It had been a long hike from Third Street and he was glad to be off his feet. Fresh gardenias in a crystal vase on the side table beside him gave off a delightful scent. He decided this was one of the swellest houses he had ever been in. But who were these people?

“Although my dear friend here is a confirmed materialist,” the dwarf remarked, putting his feet upon a stitched hassock, “I'm convinced he is more than fit for our kindred purposes.”

Edith smiled at Alvin. “Well, doesn't that sound familiar? Oscar was quite the skeptic himself, weren't you, dear?” She patted him on the knee. “Why, for years he was utterly persuaded that spiritism was jugglery of the commonest sort.”

“Pure imposture,” her husband confirmed, crossing his arms. “Pabulum for crack-brained lunatics.”

Edith added, “He believed that claims of spiritualist miracles were less violations of the laws of God and nature than fraudulent trickery.”

Oscar nodded, sternly. “Ingenious deception.”

“Well, ain't it the truth?” the farm boy blurted, maybe not so facetiously. He still considered this whole business of setting up a pow-wow with the spirit world a lot of hooey.

Edith gasped. “My heavens, no! Those of us still in the flesh may well be persuaded that our side of the veil is all there is, that our lasting purpose is merely seed for soil, yet how can that be when a living gate such as Madame Zelincka informs us how strong our ethereal link is to those who've already passed over?”

“Our departed loved ones grieve for us in the idyllic realm,” the dwarf explained, “longing to demonstrate the divine knowledge that death is not the end—”

“That light of perfect understanding,” Edith interjected.

“Whose message,” the dwarf continued, “brings comfort to the living and joy to the disincarnate spirit, finally unburdened of all regret and sorrow.”

“Mental telegraphy is no humbug,” said Oscar, straightening up. He gave Alvin a fearsome look. “Why, Thomas Edison himself knew more about etheric forces than all the sensitives in America. Indeed, I've been told he performed experiments at Menlo Park which proved that electricity is itself simply the manifestation of disembodied spirits.”

Edith remarked, “Just last spring, my husband witnessed the use of an Ediphone to record spirit voices.”

“It is our own vital electricity,” Oscar explained, “our electrical emanations, that initiates the spiritual telegraph through which these trance mediums perform. There's no longer any recondite mystery about it. The science behind celestial guidance has become clear as day. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that anyone with the proper mental physiology should be able to achieve spiritual rapport.”

Edith agreed. “It's true, of course. I've communicated clairaudiently with my sister Sara for years. She passed over with typhus when she was just nine and I missed her terribly before I learned what a lovely purpose she has now among the spirit spheres and how beautiful everything is over there.”

The double doors parted behind Alvin, and he heard a woman's lilting voice issue from the back parlor: “Flowers whose fragrance lingers, whose bloom fades not, a summer's day of joyous youth.”

Oscar Elliotsen and the dwarf got up and Alvin looked over his shoulder to where Madame Zelincka stood under the mahogany archway dressed in a flowing lavender robe.

Edith grinned and clapped her hands. “Oh dear, I had a crystal vision of you just yesterday evening, materializing for me like this in gossamer silk, spirit-spun!”

Quickly, Alvin stood, too, having decided to keep any further opinions under his hat. He didn't want these folks to hate him. People were being friendly for once and he didn't want to foul it up. Besides which, he knew he had good reason to make friends with the dearly departed.

Madame Zelincka smiled as she strolled into the parlor. “Then it would have been infelicitous of the spirits not to have called us together this evening.” She surveyed the room. Her face was pale and lovely, her eyes blue as the sky. She was sober and statuesque, taller than her guests, and her brown hair, a graceful chignon of dark curls, hung down her back. “I'm so pleased you're all here.”

Alvin smelled a scent of sweet verbena as the medium drew near. She winked at him and he blushed. Why hadn't he worn a suit? He felt like a hick.

Oscar Elliotsen said, “I've been waiting all week to tell you that Mrs. Tingley's temple dome at Point Loma was even more beautiful than you promised.”

Edith said, “My husband's favorite shade is amethyst.”

Oscar added, “We joined a harmonial circle on our final evening with Dr. de Purucker that got over to Madame Blavatsky herself. As she spoke to us of her celestial life now, we were inundated by a wonderful sprinkling of fresh violets from the summerland.”

The dwarf remarked, “Oh, I've read that the pure dry air of California inspires the most startling manifestations.”

Madame Zelincka's eyes sparkled in the golden light from the shaded oil lamps. She nodded. “That's quite true. Contrary to our original theories of vibration and mental regions, spirit magnetism appears to be invigorated by atmospheric conditions that most closely resemble the radiant fountains of sunlight those exalted souls enjoy in the seventh sphere.”

“Madame Zelincka?”

A dainty older woman dressed in a white lace gown with a garland of pearls and a crystal pendant appeared under the archway. Alvin saw she had been crying lately, her powdered face drawn with tears of sadness.

The medium greeted her with a warm smile. “Lillian, come meet our friends.” To the others in the parlor, she explained, “The disembodied spirit of Lillian's late husband Joseph has survived in an etheric body for three years now without knowing he's passed to a life beyond our own. Because he's still able to see and hear his loved ones, he thinks he's dreaming, a not uncommon spiritual infirmity for those whose physical lives were crippled somehow by disease or discontent. Tonight, this mental agony of Joseph's, shared faithfully by his dear Lillian, will be addressed by our psychic circle and the purpose of his life in spheres above, revealed to him at last.”

Lillian remained in the doorway, her fingers knotted tightly together. “Can't we begin now?” Madame Zelincka polled her guests. When each nodded a willingness to proceed with the séance, she smiled. “Well then, perhaps we should retire to the spirit room.”

Edith agreed, rising from the chesterfield. “Indeed! There is no artifice to the odic flame. Mysteries will be revealed, enlightenment gained only when we commence our sitting.”

“That light of heaven beaming through to us,” the dwarf said, starting for the back parlor.

“The great truth,” Oscar Elliotsen added, crossing the carpet arm-in-arm with his wife.

“There is no death,” Edith affirmed.

The farm boy waited briefly by a potted palm on the side of the doorway where several unshelved books were stacked casually atop the flanking bookcase:
Scientific Basis of Spiritualism, Thirty Years Among the Dead, Gleams of Light and Glimpses Thro' the Rift, Somnolism and Psycheism, Proofs of the Truths of Spiritualism,
and a thick blue volume with the odd title
OAHSPE
. He hadn't seen any ghost pictures yet.

As Madame Zelincka entered the back parlor, her son Albert increased the illumination in order for everybody to see where they needed to go. The spirit room was a perfect octagon draped in burgundy silk at each wall, divided by bracket gas lamps with tulip shades tinted pale heliotrope, yet barren of furniture except for the round spirit table and six mackintosh chairs. Persian rugs covered the floor while the entire ceiling above shimmered with golden stars on an indigo sky.

The sitters took their places at the table with the dwarf seated between Lillian and Madame Zelincka, the farm boy to Lillian's right, Edith next to Alvin, and Oscar Elliotsen between his wife and the medium: a proper balance of men and women around the spirit circle. Once everyone was comfortable, Madame Zelincka placed a fountain pen and a stack of blank message cards on the table, then motioned to Albert who departed through the front parlor, drawing the mahogany doors shut behind him. Tulip-shaded gaslights were reduced to a faint purple glow and the sitters became still. The darkened spirit room was cool and the air dry and clean. Alvin remembered how his sisters had played with a Ouija board planchette and automatic writing when they were younger. For half a year, Mary Ann claimed to be clairvoyant and told everyone in the family she had received personal messages on a slate hidden in her closet from a ghost named Agatha. Both Amy and Mary Ann learned how to crack their toes like the Fox sisters and imitate spirit rappings under the dining room table. Only Grandma Louise was fooled. No one in Alvin's family had ever mentioned attending a genuine séance.

He heard Madame Zelincka's melodic voice speak out of the gloom: “Please place your hands on the table, palms down.”

She waited a few moments for the sitters to comply, then began, “By the constitution of our universe, each of us exists in the all-pervading ether as pure spirit until we are born into the material world, which is itself the beginning of our individuality that persists after physical death when the spirit quits the body once more to join celestial spheres. Those of us who remain earthbound give off thought-rays that attract beings of an ethereal order to the gates between life and death. Because even the long-departed remember earthly pleasures, many would gladly forsake the highest realms of eternal glory for the joy of seeing families gathered together again for Sunday dinner or watching a belovéd child at play once more. This insistence upon revisiting the earth-plane is achieved by the attracting odylic energies of a sympathetic medium, which permit direct communication with spirits across the veil much like electricity is filtered through a galvanic battery. These spirits experience a séance like a blissful afternoon dream, a pleasant interlude. They yearn to be called.”

Madame Zelincka became silent.

After a few minutes, the farm boy felt a strange chill in the air, not unlike the dark draft in the Palace of Mirrors. His fellow sitters were barely visible across the spirit table, but the ceiling sky of stars seemed luminescent, floating gently in the gloom high overhead. He heard a faint tinkling nearby like the ringing of a tiny bell. A brief vibration rattled the table. Lillian drew a sudden breath. Alvin felt a mild breeze pass through the darkness behind him while the jingling increased to a delicate melody from a music box some garden fairy might possess. The spirit table shuddered and tipped. He heard Edith whisper to her husband. The table shook hard and the farm boy's arms tingled as if stung by electricity and the spirit table trembled and began to rise ever so slightly from the floor. Lillian squealed and briefly pulled her hands away. Strange knocking sounds circled the room. Raising his eyes, the farm boy saw an apparition of fireflies mingling with the stars. It sent a cold shiver up his back.

“Spirit lights,” Edith murmured.

The table rose to a foot above the floor and hovered silently. Higher in the dark, the spirit lights glowed blue and flew about the room like burning phosphorous on a spectral draft. Alvin heard the ticking of a metronome somewhere and the beat of a snare drum. He held his breath as the table tipped precipitously toward Oscar Elliotsen who grunted but stayed in his chair. Then the music faded away and the spirit table descended slowly to the floor.