This Side of Jordan (39 page)

A violet aura formed about Madame Zelincka.

She spoke aloud, “Ethan?”

The spirit lights suddenly fled and the farm boy felt his hair ruffled by another chilly breeze. A single bird feather wafted out of the darkness overhead, drifting and spinning slowly downward toward the sitters.

It alighted precisely in the center of the spirit table.

Madame Zelincka spoke again. “Ethan?”

A minute of silence.

Another feather.

Then, like a distant tinny voice over the radio,
“I want my milk and johnnycake.”

The medium asked, “Are you hungry, Ethan?”

“Yes, ma'am. I sit by the river everyday without catching so much as a tadpole.

The fishing is very poor in the spirit land.”

Changing slightly the timbre of her voice, Madame Zelincka told the sitters, “Poor Ethan is an orphan child who drowned in the Potomac the night our great President Lincoln was murdered, so his physical remains went unsought, his passing disregarded. As Ethan waits to be claimed, his tragic predicament summons other desperate souls to the gate.”

Madame Zelincka reached under her own chair and brought up a small paraffin lamp that she lit with a lucifer match and placed on the spirit table. Then she passed one of the blank cards to the dwarf, one to Lillian, and one to Edith. By now, Alvin had forgotten he ever had a fever.

Her violet aura dimmed by the lamplight, Madame Zelincka said, “I must tell you now that there are tramp spirits who infiltrate many sittings hoping to impersonate a familiar loved one for the purpose of instituting mischief. The messages from such beings only confuse true spirit teachings, like a ray of light deflected at its source. They can be hurtful and dangerous. Therefore, determining proof of a spirit's identity is essential. What I would like each of you to do now is to compose a thought or a question on your card that might only be addressed through direct writing by one who knows you best. When you've done so, place the card beneath your chair and leave it there until I ask for it.”

Madame Zelincka took the fountain pen and handed it to Edith. “Mrs. Elliotsen, would you please begin?”

“Surely.”

The medium raised her voice. “Ethan?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Are the others here?”

“Yes, ma'am. They each wish to speak. Shall I let them?”

“Soon, dear.”

“I learned a song by the river this morning. Would you care to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay. Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay.”

The farm boy heard a faint giggling echo race about the spirit room. He watched Edith pass the fountain pen to Lillian, who began scribbling onto her card. The flame within the paraffin lamp flickered. Alvin squinted nervously into the dark, but saw nothing. His legs felt numb.

Madame Zelincka said, “That's very nice, Ethan. Can you sing another?”

“No, ma'am. The water's very cold today. I watched three squirrels fight over a walnut. I think it may snow soon.”

“Ethan, may I please speak with Joseph Cheney?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Lillian handed the pen to the dwarf, and hid her message card. Oscar stifled a cough. The dwarf rapidly scrawled something and gave the fountain pen back to Madame Zelincka.

The medium extinguished the flame in the paraffin lamp, darkening the spirit room once again. She spoke softly, “Joseph?”

The sitters were each silent.

Alvin felt the barest prickling over his skin, but held his attention on the medium. For perhaps half a minute, Madame Zelincka gazed dimly into the purple shadows beyond the table.

Then, slowly, a green luminous effluence emerged from her eyes and ears and mouth, like a radiant fluid passing into the atmosphere.

“Emanations of ectoplastic strings,” the dwarf murmured in the gloom, his own eyes wide with wonder.

“Ghost serpents,” said Oscar Elliotsen.

“Pure etherium from across the veil,” Edith said, with a smile. “Essence of the divine.”

Alvin watched in awe as the glowing ectoplasm curled and floated about the spirit table, briefly caressing the stack of message cards, then winding in and out of the sitters, trailing away from Madame Zelincka like plumes of faint green smoke.

The medium spoke up, “Joseph?”

A man's husky voice echoed out of the darkness across the room.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Alvin searched quickly about for the source while Madame Zelincka said, “Lillian, please ask your question.”

Lillian brought her card out from under the table. She spoke sweetly: “My husband Joseph was always quite a deuce with the girls. We first met during college at the Junior Promenade when I was on Reception Committee. Norris Webster introduced us to each other next to the coat closet where Joseph told a particularly clever joke.”

“Which three members of our esteemed faculty most resemble a camp breakfast? Bacon, Dunn, Browne!”

The dwarf laughed aloud.

Oscar Elliotsen stifled a cough.

Nodding, Lillian passed her card to Madame Zelincka who glanced at it briefly with a smile. Then the medium inquired, “Are you feeling well, Joseph?”

“I'm not sure. My wife believes I ought to take more exercise. When I was a student at the university, I threw the hammer on Field Day and never lost.”

Madame Zelincka smiled. “Joseph, do you know where you are now?”

“I see a table with chairs and a circle of people I've never met. Are you having a party? Was I invited? I suppose I must've been because I'm here, aren't I? Really, I can't quite remember.”

The medium asked, “Do you feel lost, Joseph?”

“I've had peculiar forebodings recently. I've been confused and I haven't slept well. There's a strange darkness all about. Is this the Mohonk Mountain House? Lillian and I were married in the Parlor Wing twenty-three years ago. It was my wife's idea to return for our anniversary.”

“Joseph insisted we make the same walk up to Sky Top cliff as we had when we were young,” Lillian told Madame Zelincka. “The trail was awfully cold in the evening, black as pitch, and quite treacherous coming down. I should have known there would be an accident. My husband suffered terrible ulcerations after his fall, yet refused a physical examination until he was unable to rise from bed at the end of the week.”

“I had an accident?”

“Don't you recall?” Madame Zelincka asked.

The husky spirit voice crossed the room.
“I have no memory. I can't think.”

Lillian said, “I prayed by your bedside and mopped your brow for thirteen days, my darling. I held you to the very end.”

Softening her voice, the medium told Lillian, “Your husband is gradually losing his earth memories. His mental life now occurs in spiritual darkness which he's experiencing as a form of wakeful delirium.” She spoke up. “Joseph?”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Do you know what year it is?”

“Of course I do. It's 1926.”

“No, it isn't,” the medium replied. “This is now 1929.”

“That's impossible!”

“Yet it's true.”

“Where have I been? Am I insane?”

The medium asked, “Do you believe you are?”

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

“This is no mental derangement or dementia. Three years ago, you passed over to the spirit side of life. You've lost your mortal body, Joseph. Your earthly life is finished.”

“I don't believe you. Why, it's utter nonsense. Now I'm sure this is all a silly dream.”

“You've been wandering in a twilight state for quite some time now, unconscious of the truth. Do you still need to eat? Do you feel the chill of autumn? We've gathered here in our circle tonight to wake you from this sleep of death that has blocked the spiritual progression which is your natural destiny.”

Alvin watched the tulip lamps briefly flicker across the dark. A slight breeze passed by the spirit table bearing a musky odor of shaving soap and cologne, but he saw no one. Were the other sitters not so calm, he'd have been utterly petrified with fright.

“Oh dear! Lillian, is this not some hideous nightmare? Am I really dead?”

“Darling, I've missed you so!”

Madame Zelincka said, “Joseph, nobody ever really dies. We simply pass on to an invisible world of higher mental spheres. The grave is not our final goal.”

Alvin heard the voice shift again to another corner of the spirit room.
“If I've died, why am I not in heaven?”

“Heaven is within you, Joseph, as it is with all of us. You're drawn here to the magnetic aura of the living perhaps because of a conscience stricken with discomfort over mistakes you made during your life on earth, or bothersome worries that should no longer concern you.”

“Have you considered the wisdom of disturbing the dead? Perhaps I'm an evil spirit. When I was a boy, I always thought I'd like to be a pickpocket or a highwayman. Perhaps I'm unfit for heaven of any sort.”

“Rubbish!” Lillian scolded. “Why, darling, you're the most decent, kindhearted man I've ever known.”

Madame Zelincka said, “Don't be downhearted, Joseph. This outer darkness you're experiencing is only the tomorrow of death from which each of us rises, sphere to sphere, in our spiritual progression to immortal realms.”

“I seem to have forgotten everything I ever knew about life. I feel so blue. I just want to sleep. Perhaps I'm better off dead, after all.”

“Joseph, a spirit never dies. These sorrows you've known on the earth plane will all pass away while the flowers you once discarded will bloom again in the summerland. The hour for sleep is done.”

“Will I go sit up in a tree somewhere with Jesus and eat figs?”

Madame Zelincka answered simply, “Where your treasure is, Joseph, there will your heart be also.”

“I hope to be with my dear Lillian again one day.”

“You will. Do you see the spirit guides waiting for you beyond the veil?”

“Oh, yes! Now I do! Great Scott, I hadn't noticed before.”

“You've awakened at last,” Madame Zelincka said. “Joseph, it's time for you to go.”

“Is there sympathy beyond the grave?

“Yes, indeed.”

“Thank you.”

“Good-bye, darling,” Lillian said, her soft eyes bright in the green ectoplasmic glow. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

The husky voice faded away. A chilly gust of air raced through the darkened spirit room and was gone.

Alvin fixed his gaze on the medium who seemed to be drowsing in her chair, both eyes shut, her lovely aura shimmering beneath errant strands of luminous ectoplasm. Was she done now? He was already frazzled and worn out. How long was this sitting supposed to last?

The tulip lamps appeared dimmer still. Madame Zelincka spoke again, “Ethan?”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Is Dena Elliotsen willing to speak with us?”

“Yes, ma'am. She's right here.”

“Please let her do so.” The sitters waited. Soon the farm boy felt a peculiar disquiet in the violet darkness.

He heard a rustling of petticoats somewhere close by, and thought he smelled a scent of rosewater wafting through the spirit circle. Again he searched the dark and saw no one. He almost coughed, but stifled it quickly.

“Mother?”

A girl's dulcet voice.

Edith Elliotsen straightened in her chair. “Sweetheart, is that you?”

“Mother?”

Madame Zelincka spoke to Edith, “Take the card, dear, from under your chair and read to us now the question you chose, then confirm the answer written beneath it.”

“Mother?”

The phantom voice rose in pitch, a strange inflection of urgency. Under a pale glow of writhing ectoplasm, Edith retrieved her message card and stared at it through her reading glasses, then gasped.

The girl's voice echoed across the spirit room.
“Mother, are you there?”

Edith spoke aloud: “Is kitten in the closet, dear?”

“No, ma'am, she's in father's drawer.”

“Oh, dear me!” Edith cried, “It's her! My little darling!”

Alvin watched Oscar Elliotsen take the card from his wife and read the ghost script beneath Edith's handwriting. When his chest heaved forth a sob, Edith gently placed a hand on her husband's coat sleeve.

Madame Zelincka spoke into the gloom: “Dena Elliotsen?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Can you see your mother here across the gate?”

“No, ma'am, it's still so very dark.”

Edith explained, “My daughter was blinded by typhoid fever the week of her fourteenth birthday. The poor little dear. It broke our hearts.”

“Yet it was I, Mother, who bore the burden of sightlessness thereafter, confined to the downstairs of the house on Porter Street like a helpless infant when my soul so desperately sought the ardor other girls my age already knew.”

“That deceiver of tender youth,” Edith cautioned, “from which our only wish was to protect you.”

“By hiding me away from that most beautiful sorrow? Oh, Mother dear, have you never learned? Desire is the blood of life! Alone at night with my knitting, I hungered for the glow of youthful love and plotted my flight to Boston with no fear that I recall. How often these long years I've wondered if the courage I found to board that train came unexpectedly from my blindness, apart from which I might not have dared enter that vile garment factory on Lincoln Street nor the cold flat I took alone. Yet now I see how the remnants I sorted morning till night all that winter long were woven scrap by scrap into a tawdry lace that came to be my own design.”