The shadows now seemed to flit with lights but some, she knew, were in her own eyes. The next time, however, they all saw it. Floating near the floor, in front of the medium, was a glowing mass which seemed to unwind from nowhere. It took form and rose before her and for a moment obscured her face.
It grew brighter and Mrs. Peabody made out the features of a young girl. “Caroline!
The whisper was gentle and caressing. “Mother. Mother. Mother.”
It was gone. Mrs. Peabody took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. At last Caroline had come through to her. The perfect image of the child! They seem to stay the age when they pass over. That would make Caroline still sixteen, bless her heart. “Carol-don’t leave! Don’t go, darling! Come back!”
Darkness. The oil lamp sputtered, the flame died down and pitch black enfolded them. But Mrs. Peabody did not notice it. Her eyes were tight shut against the tears.
The Rev. Carlisle spoke. “Will someone turn on the lights?”
Orange glow leaped out brilliantly, showing the reverend still sitting with his hands on his knees. He rose now and went to the medium; with a handkerchief he wiped the corners of her eyes and her lips. She opened her eyes and got to her feet swaying, saying nothing.
The spiritualist steadied her arm and then she smiled once at the company. “Let me go upstairs,” she said breathlessly.
When she was gone they crowded around the Rev. Stanton Carlisle, pressing his hand and all talking at once from the release of the tension.
“My dear friends, this is not our last evening. I see many more in the future. We shall indeed explore the Other Side together. Now I must go as soon as Miss Cahill is ready. We must look after our medium, you know. I will go up to her now and I shall ask all of you to remain here and not to say good-bye. She has been under tremendous strain. Let us leave quietly.”
He smiled his blessing on them and closed the door softly behind him. On the hall table was a blue envelope, “To our dear medium as a token of our appreciation.” Inside was Mrs. Peabody’s check for seventy dollars.
“Ten bucks apiece,” Stan said under his breath and crushed the envelope in his fingers. “Hang on to your hat, lady; you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Upstairs he entered Mrs. Peabody’s room and shut the door. Molly was dressed and combing her hair.
“Well, kid, we laid ’em in the aisles. And with the light on every minute and the medium visible. The robe business was terrific. Jesus, what misdirection! They couldn’t have pried their eyes away even if they’d known what I was doing.”
From under his clerical vest he drew two papier-mache replicas of a man’s hands and two black mittens. From a large flat pocket inside his coat came a piece of black cardboard on which was pasted a picture of a movie actress cut from a magazine cover and touched up with luminous paint. From his sleeve he took a telescopic reaching-rod made of blue steel. Bundling all the props into the white robe he stuffed them into the valise which he had brought upstairs. Then he lifted his shoe, pulled a luminous-headed thumbtack from the instep, tossed it in, and shut the bag.
“You all set, kid? You better endorse this before I forget it. It’s only seventy skins, but, baby, we’re just starting. I got it fixed so we can slip downstairs and out without a lot of congratulations and crap. Baby, next time we really turn the heat on the old gal.”
Molly’s lip was trembling. “Stan, Mrs. Peabody’s awful sweet. I-I can’t go on with this sort of stuff. I just can’t. She wants to speak to her daughter so bad and all you could do was whisper at her a little.”
The Rev. Stanton Carlisle was an ordained spiritualist minister. He had started by sending two dollars and an affidavit, saying that he had produced spirit messages, to the United Spiritual League, and had received a medium’s certificate. To get his Minister’s certificate he had sent five dollars and had been interviewed by an ordained minister who turned his rostrum over to Candidate Carlisle for a few minutes one Thursday night. Messages were forthcoming and the new minister of the spiritualist gospel was sworn in. He was now entitled to perform marriages, conduct services, and bury the dead. He threw back his head and laughed silently.
“Don’t worry, kid. She’ll hear from her daughter. And in something louder than a whisper. And she’ll see her too. This routine with the lights on and the medium in view all the time was just the convincer. The next time we work with this bunch we’ll work in a regular dark seance or a curtain over the cabinet. And do you know who’s going to give Mrs. Peabody the big thrill of talking to her daughter? See if you can guess.”
“No. Not me, Stan. I couldn’t.”
He was suddenly steely. “You don’t want me to let on to all those nice old folks down there that I have been deceived by a fraudulent medium, do you, sugar? You’ve got ’em eating out of your hand, my little kooch dancer. And when the time comes- you’re going to be one ghost that talks. Come on, kid. Let’s beat it out of here. The sooner I ditch this bag of props the rosier life will get. You think you’re the only one in this show that ever gets the shakes?”
The guests stayed late for a buffet supper. Mrs. Peabody had rallied from the shock of recognizing her daughter and was fully launched in praise of the new medium and her mentor, the Rev. Stanton Carlisle. “You know, I got a definite psychic flash the moment that man touched the doorbell, the very moment. And when I opened the door there he was with the light shining on his hair-just like a halo in the sun, it was a perfect halo effect. He’s like Apollo, I said to myself. Those were the very words.”
When the other sitters had gone Addie Peabody was too excited to sleep. At last she drew on a housecoat and came downstairs, feeling constantly the unseen presence of Caroline beside her. At the organ she let her hands fall on the keyboard in chords, and they sounded so spiritual and inspired. There was certainly a new quality about her playing. Then from beneath her fingers a melody took shape and she played with her eyes closed, from memory:
CARD IX
THE FACE floated in air, unearthly in its greenish radiance, but it was the face of a girl and when it spoke Addie could see the lips move. Once the eyes opened, heartbreakingly dark and empty. Then the glowing lids closed again; the voice came:
“Mother… I love you. I want you to know.”
Addie swallowed hard and tried to control her throat. “I know, darling. Carol, baby-”
“You may call me Caroline… now. It was the name you gave me. You must have loved it once. I was so foolish to want a different name. I understand so many things now.”
The voice grew fainter as the face receded in the darkness. Then its glow changed and diminished until it was a pool of light near the floor. It vanished.
The voice whispered again, this time amplified by the metal trumpet which had been placed in the cabinet with the medium. “Mother… I have to go back. Be careful… There are bad forces here, too. All of us are not good. Some are evil. I feel them all around me. Evil forces… Mother… good-bye.”
The trumpet clanged against the music rack of the organ and tumbled to the floor. It rolled against the leg of Addie’s chair and stopped. Groping for it, she picked it up eagerly but it was silent and chill except at the narrow end where it was warm as if from Caroline’s lips.
The raps which had disturbed them on the last two evenings now began and jumped from the walls, the organ, her own chair back, the floor, everywhere. They rapped in the mocking cadences and ridiculous rhythms that spiteful children use to torment a teacher.
