hostess.
“Nothing for me,” Mrs. Decker said. Sarah figured her mother’s stomach was tied in knots, just as hers was. Sarah also declined. She didn’t think she could swallow a thing.
“In any case, it’s nice to see some new faces,” Mrs. Gittings remarked in an attempt at small talk.
“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Burke said with forced enthusiasm.
Sarah could stand it no longer. “Is there something we should know before… before it starts?”
“Oh, my, no,” Mrs. Burke assured her. “Madame will explain everything. There’s nothing to worry about. The spirits want to help us, don’t they, Mrs. Gittings?”
“I’m sure they do,” Mrs. Gittings replied with studied neutrality.
“Yellow Feather does, in any case,” Mr. Sharpe offered from his station by the window.
“Yellow Feather?” Sarah repeated in surprise. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Madame Serafina’s spirit guide,” Mrs. Burke explained eagerly. “He’s an Indian warrior who passed away over a hundred years ago. He-”
The sound of the front doorbell ringing surprised them all, and every head turned toward the doorway to see if Mr. Cunningham had arrived at last. They saw the Professor pass by on his way to answer it, and then heard a young man’s voice making apologies for being late. In another moment, he appeared in the doorway.
He couldn’t have been much older than twenty-two now, so Sarah judged he couldn’t have been “orphaned” very long ago. He was tall and gangly and rather plain, although his manners were just fine as he looked around the room, greeting everyone he knew by name and offering his excuses for being late.
“A terrible tangle at Madison Square,” he was saying. “A wagon overturned and no one could move an inch down Fifth Avenue for an hour! I finally gave up and walked the rest of the way. Hello, do we have some newcomers today?”
Mrs. Burke hastened to make the necessary introductions.
“Pleased to meet you,” he told both Sarah and her mother. “I know Madame can help you. She’s helped me more than I can ever tell you,” he added earnestly.
Sarah wasn’t sure how to reply to that and neither was her mother, so they simply smiled politely.
Cunningham walked over to where Mr. Sharpe stood and began inquiring after the older man’s health. Sharpe had only a moment to reply before something caught everyone’s attention, and they all fell expectantly silent. Afterward, Sarah could not remember hearing anything, but she must have. Something had warned them all and compelled them to look up just in time to see a figure clad entirely in black step through the open doorway. In an instant, they were all on their feet.
Sarah needed no one to tell her this was Madame Serafina, and she was nothing like Sarah had imagined. First of all, she was very young, hardly more than twenty if Sarah was any judge. She was also strikingly attractive. Not conventionally beautiful or merely pretty, but her large, dark eyes shone with an intensity that was almost magnetic. Her fair, flawless skin seemed to glow, and she wore her glossy dark hair pulled severely back into a chignon, a style that truly flattered few women but which actually accentuated her marvelous eyes.
“Good morning,” she said. Her voice was as soft and sweet as Sarah had expected from one so young.
“Madame,” Cunningham exclaimed, coming toward her eagerly. “I’m so glad to see you.” He looked more than glad, and for an instant, Sarah thought he might take her in his arms, but he stopped just short and took her offered hand instead.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, sounding not even a tiny bit more than politely pleased. Her gaze touched him only for a moment before moving back to Sarah and her mother. “You must be Mrs. Decker,” she said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Decker said in a feathery voice Sarah hardly recognized. The determined Mrs. Felix Decker had vanished once again in the face of the amazing Madame Serafina.
Madame reached out and took both of Mrs. Decker’s hands in hers, then closed her eyes for a few long seconds. “I sense pain,” she said without opening her eyes. “Great pain. You have suffered a terrible loss. Someone very close to you. Someone who… A child.”
Mrs. Decker gasped and snatched her hands away.
Madame Serafina opened her eyes and said, “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“No, no,” Mrs. Decker assured her, clutching her hands to her breast. “It’s just… I wasn’t expecting…”
“I know, I know,” Madame soothed, then turned her implacable gaze on Sarah. “I am so pleased you brought your daughter with you today.” She smiled mysteriously, to Sarah’s great relief. Sarah thought she heard Mrs. Burke sigh with relief of her own. “That will make us seven at the table. A lucky number.” She continued to stare at Sarah for a long moment, until Sarah began to feel uncomfortable. Then she said, “I sense that you don’t believe in the power of the spirits.”
Someone made a small sound of protest, probably Mrs. Burke, but Sarah refused to contradict her. “I’m skeptical,” she admitted.
Madame nodded knowingly. “But you came because your mother asked you,” she guessed, although she didn’t sound the least bit unsure about her assumption.
“Will her presence hinder you in any way?” Mr. Sharpe asked with some concern.
Madame released Sarah from the power of her gaze and turned it on Sharpe. “Not at all. I am not a consideration, in any case. I am merely a tool the spirits use to communicate. If the spirits choose to speak, they will speak. If they do not choose to speak, they will not.” She looked around again, as if making sure everyone was present. “Shall we move into the other room?”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and was gone, as if she were a spirit herself and could vanish at will. Mr. Cunningham stepped aside so the ladies could pass, although Sarah sensed he wished propriety didn’t constrain him from following at Madame’s heels.
“This way,” the Professor said from where he had been waiting outside the parlor door, and led them down the hall. The room they entered was in the rear of the house. It was smaller than the parlor and had no windows. A gas jet burned in a sconce on the wall as the one source of illumination. The only furniture in the room was a round table in the center and a large wardrobe against the far wall. Seven chairs had been placed around the table, and a black tablecloth hung nearly to the floor.
Madame Serafina directed everyone where to sit. Mrs. Decker was to sit to her right, then Mr. Sharpe, then Sarah, then Mrs. Gittings, then Mr. Cunningham, and lastly Mrs. Burke on her left. When everyone was settled, Madame took a moment to look at each person in turn, her dark eyes seeming to penetrate their very thoughts. At least Sarah thought they could when Madame was looking at her. If so, she knew that Sarah was on the verge of bolting from the room. What had ever possessed her to do something so ridiculous?
“Because we have some new guests with us today, I will explain what will happen,” she began, her voice sounding even more hypnotic in the stillness of the dimly lit room. “Before we begin, we will hold the hands of the person on either side of us. This creates a bond between us and makes it easier for the spirits to communicate with us. Then I will turn out the light and close the door. The room will be very dark. When I have taken my seat again, I will call on my spirit guide, Yellow Feather. He was an Indian warrior who died in battle many years ago, and he is the one who actually speaks to the spirits, not I. In fact, he speaks through me. If he chooses to appear today, he will actually take over my body. You will know because you will hear his voice and not mine when I speak. If any of the spirits have a message for someone here, they will convey it to Yellow Feather. Do you have any questions?”
Sarah had a million questions, but she didn’t want to speak any of them aloud. Her mother had no such hesitation. “Should we tell you if there’s a particular person we want to contact?”
Madame smiled kindly. “It’s usually better if I do not know. In fact, I won’t even be conscious during the seance. But you may ask Yellow Feather questions, if you wish, and answer his. Is there anything else you wish to ask?”
Mrs. Decker couldn’t think of anything, so Madame showed them how they should hold each other’s hands. Each person in the circle would use his left hand to grasp the right wrist of the person next to him. Mrs. Gittings readily took hold of Sarah’s right wrist, but Mr. Sharpe gave Sarah an apologetic glance when he offered her his own wrist. She took his right wrist gingerly in her left hand, finding it oddly uncomfortable to be practically holding hands with a man she’d only just met, but no one else seemed concerned with the arrangement. They had done this before, after all.
When everyone was properly clasped together, Madame disengaged her own hands and rose from her chair.
