The Vanishing

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For Steve, my love

Havenwood, December 15, 1875

Something was wrong. Seraphina opened her eyes—the people were still around the table, eyes tightly shut, their hands joined together making an unbroken ring, just as they should be. The candles were flickering, their small, warm glow illuminating the darkened room, just as they should be. But not all was as it should be. Seraphina could feel it. There was a rumbling where a whisper should have been. And then silence, complete and utter silence. There were no spirits. Just a deep, dark void.

She closed her eyes and tried again, knowing she had been at the center of scenes just like this hundreds of times at the request of grieving families, desperate to get in touch with their dearly departed, or simply those who wanted proof of a life beyond this one—the curious, the ones who loved to feel the tingle up their spines when the candles were blown out in a whoosh, when the spirits started speaking.

Some people, when they had seen her perform on the stage or attended one of her séances, would ask Seraphina whether she was actually hearing the voices of the dead or somehow picking up on the wishes of the people around her—the mother desperate to know her child was still somewhere, anywhere but cold and silent in the ground; the widower needing to hear his wife’s voice again, gently telling him she would be waiting when his time came; the grown son unable to go on without knowing his mother was finally free of pain and happy. These skeptics wondered if perhaps she had
spoken to the people beforehand, asked them about their loved ones, or received the information in another way.

But Seraphina knew what she knew. She heard the voices whispering to her, at first soft in her ear, as though they were wafting on the air from a great distance to reach her. And then she could see them, the dead clinging to the living, hovering nearby, trying to ease their loved ones’ pain.

As the people held hands and concentrated, the voices would become louder and louder, the dead swirling around the table in a great jumble, everyone seemingly talking at once, wanting to be heard.
Tell him not to forget about the safety deposit box at the bank! I love you, Lillian! You must tell her! I’m always with you!
Seraphina could hear their words and also feel them, as though the swirling mass of whispers was a tangible thing, sizzling like a lightning strike through her skin.

It always happened that way. But not this time.

The room wasn’t the problem—she had conducted séances at Havenwood before, at the request of the house’s owner, Andrew McCullough, who was fond of bringing artists and writers and musicians and all manner of cultured souls to his magnificent home in the middle of the wilderness. She had amazed even the great Charles Dickens himself in this very room years before, he no stranger to the spirit world. And still, he had been dumbstruck by what she told him. They all came to see her, whether it was at Havenwood, or in the parlors of some of the finest houses in Paris or Vienna or New York, all of the people aching for a look behind the veil, all of them believing, or hoping to believe.

She did it for them because she could. There were so many charlatans out there in this age of Spiritualism, so many performers, bilking these poor people out of their fortunes and giving them only cheap parlor tricks in return. The levitating tables, the crystal balls, the knocking. As though spirits knocked.

No, Seraphina had always had the gift. And she didn’t need a table, candles, a dark room, and people holding hands to use it.
That was just showmanship, entertainment, an experience to give an audience. Her husband had created that part of it for her, and it worked. People really wouldn’t believe that she could simply look at them and know the depths of their grief and pain, but the fact was she could. Her gift was always with her. And she knew, with great certainty, that it was the grief of the living that trapped most spirits here on earth, kept them from going to wherever it was that they would ultimately go. The way Seraphina saw it, she was helping both the living and the dead by bringing them together around her séance table—helping the living to let go, which in turn helped the dead move on.

Her gift had never failed her, never once, until now. The silence at Havenwood surrounding the people so desperate to hear from their dead was deafening. She had to do something. She would call the spirits by name.

“John Martin,” she said, her voice loud and commanding, naming the husband of the woman sitting next to her, “I call you to join us. Lillian is waiting to talk to you. Celeste Mitchell. Sarah Gale. Mary Longpre. We are waiting to hear from you.”

She squeezed the hands of the people sitting next to her, eyeing her host, Andrew McCullough, across the table. His eyes were still closed, his lips slightly moving.

Unwilling to disappoint all of these people, she decided to try something new. Seraphina unclasped her hands and reached into the satchel she always kept by her side, slipping out a lacquered wooden box lined with mirrors that her husband had picked up in the Far East for her. She had never used it in her séances—she had never needed any sort of prop before—but this called for desperate measures. She intended to put a candle in the center of the box to reflect its light off the walls of the room—perhaps that would help set the scene. Perhaps it would call the spirits to her. She knew full well that the people around the table were grieving. She couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t see, or at least hear, their dead.

As soon as she set the box in the middle of the table, Seraphina began to hear the whispers. Finally.

Open the door. Let me out. I am here.

Were the spirits trapped somehow? Somewhere? Seraphina had never experienced anything like this. She opened the box and set the candle inside, and it illuminated the walls of the room with a thousand tiny dancing flames.

She cleared her throat and spoke again, this time in a tone not entirely familiar to her.

“I, Seraphina, who have called so many others, now call you to join us. I command you to join us!”

But instead of the whispers becoming louder and louder, as they had always done before, she heard that same rumbling she had heard earlier. Far away at first, and then closer, as though it were coming from an unseen animal that was stalking her in the dark, making circles around her before it struck.

She spun her head around—now it was behind her. Now it was in front of her. Now it was to the side.

One of the women across the table screamed in pain and jumped up from her chair. The man sitting next to Seraphina stood and let out a roar. Another woman jumped up and fell to the ground. A third began coughing violently, her face turning scarlet, as though someone was choking her.

“Get your hands off me!” she shouted between gasps.

“What is the meaning of this?” Andrew McCullough cried out. “Seraphina, what is happening here? Do something to stop this!”

Seraphina looked around the room and realized these were not the spirits of the dearly departed. This was something else, something dark and evil and monstrous, something she had never before encountered.

She stood up and raised her arms, shouting, “I cast you out! I cast you out! I command you to leave this place! You are not welcome here!”

But it was too late.

Havenwood, present day

When I awakened that first morning at Havenwood, for a moment I had no idea where I was. As sleep receded and I drifted back from wherever one goes in dreams, I sensed I wasn’t in my own familiar nest of pillows. When my eyes fluttered open and I caught sight of the dark red walls, not the subdued yellow of my bedroom at home, I shot up and looked around, trying to get my bearings.

The bed where I lay, and had presumably spent the night, had an ornately carved wooden headboard and a thick, embroidered comforter. A matching dresser with a pink marble top stood on one wall. My gray sweater was slung over a chair in the corner. A bank of windows was draped with a heavy curtain, and in the fireplace across from the bed, coals were still smoldering from the night before. It all looked vaguely familiar, but distant, as though I had dreamed about this room in another place and time.

I curled back down under the covers when I remembered that these sorts of blackouts were not a new sensation. I’d forgotten conversations, events, even whole days since the scandal and its horrible aftermath took over my life. And, truth be told, even before that.

It began to come back to me, bit by bit, as I knew it would. Images, like a slide show in my mind. Jeremy. A gunshot. The funeral. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to hold back the flood of memories. Wasn’t the medication supposed to help with this? That was its purpose, wasn’t it? To muddle the mind, to blur the
edges of reality just enough to make life endurable despite all manner of horror and heartbreak.

I shook those thoughts out of my head and roused myself, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand before padding across the thick woolen carpet to the windows. I drew back the curtain and felt the warmth of the morning sun shining on my face despite the chill coming from the panes. Outside, I saw the remnants of a manicured garden, now covered by new-fallen snow, and a wide expanse of yard spilling into a forest beyond. The green of the enormous pines contrasted with the whiteness that blanketed everything as far as the eye could see. Cutting through it all, a road followed a river that meandered out of sight. Somehow, it felt like home, even though it was no home I had ever known.

I had been on that road the night before, I knew with sudden clarity. In a car. After the flight!
Ah, yes
, I thought.
I remember
. A wave of excitement washed over me when I remembered whom I’d be meeting, in just a few minutes. I could scarcely believe I was here.

Mr. Sinclair had arrived on my doorstep a few days earlier with an invitation. Now, as I recall that first meeting, shaking his hand for the first time, I remember the feeling of warmth when his skin touched mine, a fiery glow illuminating his eyes with a definite familiarity, though he was a stranger to me. Or maybe my memories are colored by what happened after that day, by everything I know now. Time and experience have a funny way of altering one’s recollections of the past.

There was a quick knock at the door. I snapped my head around to see a woman entering the room.

“Oh, ma’am! You’re up! I was just coming to wake you for breakfast.”

Had I seen her the night before? I wasn’t sure. Her round, smiling face, gray hair, and kind blue eyes might have belonged to anyone, and her gray maid’s uniform seemed to be something out of Central Casting.

“If you’d like to freshen up before joining Mrs. Sinclair downstairs,
towels and everything else you need are in the bath.” She pointed to a door I hadn’t noticed.

She crossed the room and opened the closet to reveal my clothes, all hanging in neat rows. “Is there anything I can lay out for you?”

I looked from her expectant face to my clothes and back again. “No, I can manage, thank you—” I said, grasping for her name. I couldn’t bring it to mind.

“Marion,” she said.

“Marion.”

She gave me a quick nod. “Right, then. Please be in the breakfast room in thirty minutes. Mrs. Sinclair likes things on a schedule; that’s one thing you should know right off.”

“The breakfast room?”

“Oh, of course. It was quite late when you arrived last night, and this house can be so confusing for… newcomers.” She opened the door and gestured out into the hallway. “Follow this corridor around to the left until you reach the grand staircase. Take that down to the first floor. You’ll see the living room on your right and the foyer in front of you, with the archway to the dining room on your left. You’ll find the breakfast room adjacent to the dining room.” She hesitated a moment. “You’re on the third floor here in the east wing,” she said. “The Sinclairs’ suite of rooms is on the second floor in the west wing. I’d advise staying away from those. Mrs. Sinclair likes her privacy when she’s in her rooms.”

I thanked her, perching on the edge of the bed as she closed the door behind her.

Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. I struggled, trying to unlock the memory. I knew this game—I was supposed to think of the last thing I remembered to help piece it all together. I played it often enough throughout my life. In a flash, I remembered rummaging through my travel kit on the plane looking for my bottle of pills. Had I taken too much of my medication? Was that the reason my memories of the night before were so fuzzy? I shuddered at the thought of it.

I made my way into the bathroom, where I did indeed find a stack of fluffy towels on the vanity, just as Marion had said, along with my own travel kit. I dug up the pill bottle, then considered pouring its contents down the drain. But instead, I put it right back where it had been. Blackouts might be a troubling side effect, but sometimes forgetting is a blessing. What is it they say about ignorance?

After standing under the stream of hot water washing away the night’s sleep, I dried my hair, quickly pulled on jeans and a black turtleneck, and opened the door out into the hallway slowly, wondering what awaited me.

The hallway was so long and dark, I couldn’t even see the end of it.
This house must be massive,
I thought, following the corridor as it turned left, then right and right again. As I began to descend the “grand staircase,” as Marion had called it, I saw a living room on one side of the stairs and the archway leading into the dining room on the other, just as Marion had described. The rooms in my view were filled with heavy antique furniture, overstuffed chairs and ornate lamps that looked like they had been standing in their places forever. The whole effect reminded me of a museum, or a palace, and it smelled vaguely musty, as though the ghostly memories of other lifetimes hung in the air.

As I walked on, I saw that the ceilings were sky-high, and the walls were lined with paintings in gilded frames, portraits, mostly, of people from another time: women in long dresses, children sitting beside them; men in suits or hunting clothes. The largest portrait, which hung above the mantel of the floor-to-ceiling fireplace in the living room, was of a man wearing a kilt, bagpipe in his hand, a wolflike dog curled at his feet. He was standing in a landscape of rolling hills and heather. Something about this man’s eyes entranced me, and I stood there for longer than I should have, lost in imaginings that dissipated in my mind as soon as they formed.

I shook my head. How long had I been standing there? I was expected at breakfast! I couldn’t be late on my first day, so I hurried along, my footsteps echoing on the foyer’s marble tiles. Where was
this so-called breakfast room? I stopped and turned in a circle just in time to see a man—Mr. Sinclair—descending the staircase. His face broke into a wide smile.

“Julia!” he said as he finished the last of the stairs. “How did you sleep? Your room was comfortable, I trust?”

His grin was so welcoming that I couldn’t help but smile back.

“My room was lovely,” I said, sliding my arm into the crook of his when he offered it. “Thank you, Mr. Sinclair.”

“I thought we had dispensed with that ‘Mr. Sinclair’ rubbish yesterday.” He patted my hand.

“Adrian,” I said.

He led me through the dining room, down yet another hall, and, finally, through a doorway to the breakfast room, where an elderly woman was sitting at a round table in front of a wall of paned windows. Outside, the creek was babbling along, not yet frozen by the cold temperatures, and the sunlight was bouncing off snow-laden pine trees. A pair of bright red cardinals flew into view and perched on a snowy branch. The whole effect reminded me of a Currier and Ives Christmas card I had received the previous year.

“Mother, this is Julia,” Adrian said, motioning toward me. “You were asleep when we arrived last night—the flight was late. And the drive after we landed was quite something, with this new snow. I really must put the Bentley away for the winter. It’s time for the Land Rover, I’m afraid.”

“Julia, dear,” the woman said, folding her hands and beaming at me. “What a pleasure to see you at last.”

I took a deep breath before speaking. I could scarcely believe I was in the same room with this woman, let alone conversing with her.

“No, the pleasure is all mine! It’s such an honor to meet you. I’m thrilled to be here!”

I took a seat across from her and fumbled with my napkin, not quite sure of what to do or say next.

Adrian poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the
sideboard and gestured to me. I nodded, and he poured me a cup as well.

I could see the resemblance between mother and son immediately. Two dots on a timeline, with nearly the same face, one generation apart. They seemed familiar to me somehow, in the way that sometimes happens with complete strangers. Adrian was older than me—late forties, early fifties, perhaps. His dark hair was graying at the temples, and fine lines around his eyes betrayed years of laughter. He wore a dark, tailored suit and a yellow tie, dressed for a workday.

His mother seemed at once utterly ancient and completely youthful. Her deeply lined face, powdery makeup, and rather haphazardly applied lipstick contrasted with her dancing, bright green eyes. Late seventies, early eighties? Older than that? I couldn’t tell.

She reached one hand across the table and covered mine with hers. “I’m thrilled as well, Julia, dear,” she said. “It will be a wonderful treat to have you with me at Havenwood when Adrian takes his leave today. We have so much to talk about!”

My stomach was doing flips, but I managed a smile as I savored my first sip of coffee. A maid, not the same one who greeted me in my room, clattered through the door carrying a tray, set it down on the sideboard, and began serving a breakfast of eggs, sausage, oatmeal, fruit, and toast. Seeing all of that food made me realize I was famished, and I wondered when I had last eaten anything.

As we took our first bites, Adrian chattered on about the new snow and his hopes that the gardener had turned the roses. Suddenly, the enormity of what I had done seemed to settle in. I realized, as I sat there eating my breakfast with these two relative strangers, that my life, on that morning, was completely different from what it had been the morning before. What my future held, I had no idea. But I knew one thing for sure: I was here at Havenwood to stay.