The Spirit Room (9 page)

Clara felt a big smile break out on her face and craned her neck to see Papa. He pushed his hand into the air toward Weston, as though shoving him, but didn’t say anything.

Then, by making her face as blank as an empty wall, Izzie showed how serious she was and she waited like that, wall-faced, until it was quiet again.

“Now, once the spirits are here, it’s not as important to keep the fingers linked just so.” Izzie raised both her little fingers in the air and wiggled them like tiny snakes coming up for a look. “Clara and I will have to move about. Everyone close your eyes until one of you wants to ask if there is any spirit here who wants to speak to you. The spirit, if there is one, will use my pointing finger to spell words on this alphabet paper in front of me.” Izzie rested her hand on the large sheet a moment, then touched Payne’s little finger again, snake nose to snake nose. “Clara will write the letters down and we’ll see what it spells as we go.”

Taking a huge, deep breath and releasing it, Izzie closed her eyes. Clara did the same, but then Clara tilted her head up and slowly, carefully, slightly raised her eyelids to see if everyone really had their eyes closed. Weston, with too much stinky pomade in his hair, had his eyes half open and was staring right at her.
Double rot
. He was going to ruin the whole thing. Just as Clara was about to say how important it was to be still and concentrate the way Mrs. Fielding had taught them, she heard Papa.

“Weston, come on, now, shut your dang eyes. I told you I’d buy you drinks later.”

Everyone opened their eyes and looked over at Weston. He chuckled and apologized. While everyone did as they were told this time, eyes closed, fingers touching, Clara waited impatiently for one of them to ask for a spirit and for Izzie to perform. The fire crackled. Now and then a carriage or a wagon jangled by outside. Then Clara felt Weston raise his pinkie finger and tap it around randomly on hers. That wasn’t right.

“Couple a sissies.” Payne’s voice was gruff and loud. “I’ll ask for the spirit. Any spirit here want to talk?”

Well, if there were any spirits coming by, he’d have scared them off with that kind of tone. Weston’s finger settled down.

Izzie kept rock still, eyes shut. Finally, oh finally, she got going. She started breathing heavy and rotating her head just so. Clara wanted to burst she was so proud of her sister. She wanted to stand up on her chair and say, “Papa, look! She’s just like Mrs. Fielding! Like Anna!” But she didn’t. She held her arms stiff, her back straight, and looked down at her paper, pen, and ink, ready to break from the circle and begin writing at the perfect moment.

After a while, Izzie raised her right hand ever so slightly, shook it around in the air, jittery, then let it fall back like a dead bird. Now everyone’s eyes were open and watching the show. Izzie did this with her hand, not two or three times, but ten. That was too many. These men were going to want to go get their free drinks if she didn’t get on with it. At last, she popped open her eyes and snapped out her pointing finger in a funny jerk and swept it over to the H in one rapid-fire move. Scrambling for her writing tools, Clara dipped the metal tip pen into the inkwell, and wrote the H. She knew the rest already. It was Hilda, Payne’s dead wife. She had to wait for Izzie, though.

I-L-. Before Clara even wrote the D, Payne smiled. “Ah, Hilda.” Grinning, the Norwegian looked over at Papa. “Frank, a big surprise, it’s my wife Hilda here come to talk to me.”

Clara stayed with her ink and paper, didn’t turn around to see Papa this time.

“You can ask her questions, Mr. Payne.” Clara said.

He tapped his fingers on the table. “You all right over there, Hilda?”

Y-E-S, then J-O-H-N.

“You got something to say to me, dearest?”

I-A-M-S-O-R-R-Y. Izzie paused while Clara finished.

“I’m sorry,” Weston, leaning toward Clara, read it out. But, that was her job. She’d have to speak up faster.

“What for?” Payne’s smile simmered down. Now he watched Clara’s paper.

S-T-E-A-L-I-N-G

“Stealing,” Clara blurted out before inscribing the G, proud to get it so quickly. But Hilda Payne stealing wasn’t anything Papa had told them about. It was supposed to be something like “Sorry for leaving you so early.” Izzie was going to get Papa hopping mad for this stealing business. Clara’s temples grew moist. Their first try at being mediums and Izzie had to go in her own muttonhead direction.

Payne took his hand off the table and scratched the back of his neck. He was quiet a minute. The others were waiting for him. It was like one of the card games Papa used to let her watch when she was a little girl. No one was going to say a word until Payne played a card.

“You mean stealing my heart, dearest?”

Then Izzie started up like lightning crackling on a hot night. Clara’s heart raced as she wrote the large letters.

N-O-S-I-L-L-Y.

“Noisily!”

Patting Clara’s hand, Weston leaned close again. “I believe it says, No, Silly.” Then he gently pointed toward Izzie who was at it again.

F-R-O-M-Y-O-U-R-F-A-T-H-E-R.

Clara read the words more quietly this time and looked at Payne. What was he thinking by now? He scratched his neck at the same place as before, but much longer and harder. Then suddenly he slapped the table and started laughing like it was a big joke.

He looked toward Papa in the corner, then stood up. “Awh, Frank, it’s gibberish from the girls. No one is going to believe any of this. It’s a little parlor game, is all.” He tucked his chair against the table. “Fellers, I’ve got to get back to the saloon. Tom can’t handle it more than a short while. You stay on and talk to your spirits without me.” He chuckled, but he gave the back of his neck a good hard scratch.

Once more, Izzie made that empty as a wall look and watched Payne. When Payne turned to walk out, Izzie stood up and rushed toward him.

“It was my first time, Mr. Payne. I apologize if my communication was wrong. Maybe my trance wasn’t deep enough to get her true message.”

Well, that was splendiferous. Her true message. Holy rolling Moses. Izzie was born to this.

“Come on, then, Johnny, give the young ladies another chance. We want to hear about Hilda and your father.” Greasy hair Weston reached toward Payne.

“No, boys, I don’t have time for parlor games. I’ve got to get back to the saloon.” He turned and left.

Clara twisted around to see if Papa had instructions for them now that the spirit circle was broken. He strode out of his dark spot and into the lamplight.

He had one of his big Papa grins on, but his eyes were squinty behind his spectacles. That meant the opposite of happy. “Come on, Sam, Herbert, let’s go with him. I’ll buy you them drinks.”

Weston and Washburn thanked Izzie and Clara on their way out, but Papa wouldn’t even look at Izzie. After he closed the door behind them, their low men’s voices rumbled away down the stairs.

When Izzie returned to her place at the table, Clara got up and slid into the chair near her.

“Izzie, what in tarnation were you spelling about the stealing? Mrs. Fielding said the first thing above all else was the spirits had to make the people feel good.”

Izzie cocked one eyebrow and smiled like a fox that just had a hen supper.

“I thought the smartest thing to do was to give the impression of having a real spirit message come through. That kind of thing would get people more interested in us, the Benton sisters. If you want to really be a famous medium, Clara, I don’t think you can just make people feel good.”

Now, out of nowhere,
Lawky Lawk
, Izzie knew more than Mrs. Fielding.

“But where did you get that about the stealing?”

“I found it out on my own.”

The sound of footsteps running hard and heavy up the stairs drew Clara’s eyes to the door. It flew open and banged something fierce against the bookcase. It was Papa. He was at Izzie’s side in less than a breath. Grabbing the seat of her chair underneath herself, Clara stiffened, ready for war.

“If you wasn’t my own daughter, I’d knock you down.” His right hand was shaking in a knuckle-tight fist.

Scowling back at Papa, Izzie bolted up so fast it tipped her chair over behind her in a terrible crash. “You strike me and you’ll never see me again. This Spiritualism hoax is your idea, Papa, not mine.”

He got close to Izzie, staring straight into her eyes, but she stared right back. She seemed almost as tall as he was too. He swung his arm toward the door, pointing.

“You made Payne crawl out of here like a wounded critter lookin’ for its hole. Is that stealing nonsense how to git the customers to pay you and Clara?” Nostrils flaring, Papa got his face up close to Izzie’s. “Where’d you git that anyway?”

Clara’s heart was beating fast. There wasn’t anything Papa hated more than Izzie or Billy outsmarting him.

Backing away from him slowly, Izzie walked over to the fireplace. Good idea to get some distance from Papa. But when he followed Izzie so quickly, Clara’s heart banged even harder. She slithered off her chair and eased around to the other side of the table where she’d be safe from any blows.

“I asked around town.”

“Asked around town? Who on earth do you know in this town? We ain’t been here that long.” His nostrils kept flaring, but he let his tight fist relax.

Sighing quietly, Clara fell into a chair. It was bound to happen sometime. He’d let that fist fly right into Izzie’s face. Then Izzie’d run away. Clara felt her eyes well up. How could a girl of seventeen run away though? If anyone could figure it out, it was Izzie. Good thing Papa wasn’t drunk tonight. She wiped her eyes with her dress sleeve.

“Our new neighbors on William Street. Mrs. Purcell. The baker across from here. Mrs. Beattie, the milliner, downstairs. It’s not a very big town. People know things.” That little fox smile crept back to Izzie’s face.

Finally, Papa simmered down. He lifted his arm onto the mantel and leaned into it. “It’s true, then, about Hilda, the wife, stealing from Payne’s father?”

Izzie nodded.

Papa looked over at Clara. “Did you know about this?”

Clara shook her head. “I thought Izzie might be getting a real spirit talking to her.”

He smiled and pushed his spectacles up on his nose. He studied Izzie a moment, then raised a scolding finger at her. “Don’t ask around town for secrets anymore. The whole town’s gonna know how it is your spirits’re so smart. I’ve got someone who knows everything in town and won’t snitch on us.”

“Who?” Izzie asked.

“None of your business.”

Papa winked at Clara. “Weston thought you were purty. I always told you that, Little Plum. It’s gonna help us. People’ll want to come by our Spirit Room. You’ll see.”

Clara bent over the table and spread her arms out straight across the smooth surface. Everything was all right. There wasn’t going to be any fist fighting, or bruises, or anyone running away. Papa walked around to her side and patted her on the head. Feeling like a fat old cat getting a good scratch, she almost purred.

Then he left to go and drink with his friends at Ramsey’s Saloon.

Eight

1859

IZZIE READ THE SIGN FOR THE THIRD TIME as she stood on the snow-covered sidewalk. “The Benton Sisters. Talented Genuine Mediums. Private Consultations and Spirit Circles. First Time Free. Inquire Second Floor, 28 Seneca.” Papa had a big stack of these handbills printed on the press at the
Geneva Gazette
office and got Mrs. Beattie, the milliner landlady, to let him put one up on their street door. Then he got himself a bucket of glue, took Billy out, and the two of them plastered the bills all over town, on walls, in alleys, everywhere.

Even before they started being mediums, she and Clara were famous because of Papa. The Benton Sisters. Talented Genuine Mediums. It didn’t matter that they weren’t actually genuine. She hoped that would never be true, but Mrs. Fielding said girls often became true mediums once they began to conduct spirit circles. Their gift would just show up one day. Izzie wanted to be done with the spirit circles before that ever happened.

She looked up and down Seneca Street. It was busy with bundled-up men and women in scarves and muffs and coats and double shawls, walking briskly, and with carriages rolling and sleighs sliding on the icy street. Eventually, some of these people would be their customers. They’d had half a dozen circles already and didn’t really need Papa’s friends to come anymore, although Sam Weston liked to come and had been at every single one of their séances. Papa called the customers “seekers” because they were seeking answers to the great questions of life.

Mrs. Fielding had explained all that to them, too. Some people wanted to know for certain if there was immortality of the soul and some people just wanted to know if their dead brother or mother was in pain. No matter what the facts of eternal life might be, the answer she and Clara were supposed to give people was always the same, yes to the immortality and no to the pain. Mrs. Fielding believed in these answers, but to Papa it was business plain and simple. Give the seeker what he wants. That was the rule of all rules to live by, according to Papa.