Chapter 7

Roberto, Lucretia, and Mia arrive in a flurry of decidedly unspooky fervor, no mention of specters or tarot cards from any one of them. Lucretia is wearing all black, but by now, Saoirse is inclined to believe this is her usual attire. Mia is in a taupe-colored cashmere sweater, her brown hair parted down the middle and pulled into a low, Dickinsonian bun. She carries the large black drawstring bag she’d had with her a week prior. Roberto’s navy long-sleeve T-shirt and jeans establish him as the least horror-writer-looking member of the group.

“I brought dessert,” Lucretia says and thrusts a platter of large chocolate-frosted cupcakes at Saoirse. “They’re vegan. And gluten-free.”

“Oh. Okay.” Saoirse looks around, unsure what to do with them. “Do you usually ... I mean, do you want to eat them now? Or are we going right downstairs? How does this work?”

Roberto laughs. “Relax. There’s no schedule. But I just had dinner. I couldn’t possibly eat one of Lucretia’s experimental cupcakes now.”

“They’re not experimental! I followed the recipes.”

Roberto sighs. “Combining recipes from two different cookbooks does not mean they’ll come out twice as good, Lu.”

“I’m sure they’re delicious,” Saoirse says before the two of them can continue with their banter.

“Will you try one?” Lucretia asks.

Saoirse hesitates, but there’s such childlike excitement on Lucretia’s face, she doesn’t have the heart to say no. She unwraps the foil liner, breaks the bottom portion off, presses it into the frosting to avoid making a mess, and takes a bite. It’s good. A little bitter, but she imagines any baked good without dairy products might be.

“What’s the verdict?” Roberto asks.

“They’re great.” Saoirse fixes Lucretia with an appreciative smile. “Thanks again for bringing them.” She pushes the last large bite into her mouth. “I’ll put the rest in the kitchen. Does anyone want something to drink?”

Mia shakes her head, and Roberto holds up a glass bottle of Coca-Cola.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Lucretia says. Saoirse goes into the kitchen and returns with two cans of seltzer. Lucretia opens hers, guzzles half the can, and burps quietly.

“Gross,” Roberto says, and Lucretia sticks out her tongue.

“Now what?” Saoirse asks, at the same time Mia says, “Let’s head downstairs.” As Saoirse leads them through the walkout to the basement door, more emotions—excitement, pleasure, nervousness, a sense of camaraderie—compete for space in her body than have done so in close to a year. It’s exhilarating. And frightening. Saoirse’s pulse quickens, and she makes a conscious effort not to blurt out the rapid-fire thoughts in her head.

At the bottom, Mia hands Lucretia the drawstring bag. Roberto turns and looks back at the stairs. “Is it ... cleaner down here?” His features scrunch.

Saoirse blushes. “I was bored.”

Roberto raises both eyebrows. “Girl, we’ve got to get you back into writing.” Then, with none of his previous sarcasm, he adds, “Seriously. I think it would be good for you.”

As they cross the basement and approach the table, Saoirse’s anxiety increases. “I added a fourth chair,” she says, her words clipped, a little manic. Why does she feel so weird? Is she this out of practice in being around other humans? A fly slices through her periphery, and she resists the urge to swat it. “I hope that’s okay. Maybe you’d prefer me to stand to the side or something? Or add the chair after the three of you start? I’m not sure how you want this to go.”

“This is perfect,” Mia says. “Whichever way you did it is exactly how it’s supposed to be.”

Roberto and Lucretia take the seats that correspond most closely to the positions they were in the previous Friday. Mia eyes Saoirse, then nods at the table. Her intent is clear: Saoirse’s decision will dictate where both women sit. A little panicked, Saoirse watches as Lucretia opens the drawstring bag and places the Ouija board at the table’s center.

When the planchette, too, is in place, Lucretia removes an hourglass, two small gold candelabras, two handfuls of chime candles, a brass teapot, a stack of old books, a crystal ball, the daguerreotype of Sarah Whitman, and a gorgeously ornate, old-fashioned telephone. Roberto moves to situate each item, then lights the candles. In front of one open chair is the teapot, far more sinister-looking than any teapot has a right to be; the other open chair is closest to the antique phone. Lucretia removes the final items: a jar of ink and a black quill pen, a crystal chalice, and a pendulum mantel clock. How everything fit into that single black bag is a mystery Saoirse cannot begin to solve.

Saoirse takes a step toward the teapot, then changes her mind and sits in the chair by the phone. She is unnerved by the table’s contents, having prepared for the séance by envisioning last week’s spread of amethyst chunks, the cast-iron cauldron, and crushed flower petals. But there’s no time to worry about the purpose of these new items, for Mia has taken her seat and closed her eyes.

“Whitman House,” Mia says, and Lucretia and Roberto join hands. Lucretia reaches for Saoirse on the other side, and Saoirse takes her cold, many-ringed fingers in hers. She glances at Mia, but both of Mia’s hands remain flat on the black-crepe tablecloth.

“Whitman House,” Mia says again. Without opening her eyes, Mia reaches for the hourglass and flips it. Red sand flows through the narrow neck from one bulb to the other like a flood of tiny carapaced beetles. “We sit within you and reach back through time to your one true inhabitant.”

The second hand on the pendulum clock shudders forward. Each individual candle’s small, flickering flame stretches toward the ceiling while also seeming to borrow strength from the flame beside it, and from the reflections of the flames in the silvery daguerreotype, the prisms of the chalice, the stormy, milky glow of the crystal ball. The effect is that the room appears both darker and brighter, the dirt floor and the walls behind them dropping away, while their faces, the candelabra, the whorls and coils of the latent, expectant telephone receiver seem lit by an internal—and indefatigable—source. Mia continues:

“Vainly my heart had with thy sorceries striven:

It had no refuge from thy love,—no Heaven

But in thy fatal presence;—from afar

It owned thy power and trembled like a star ...”

Before Saoirse can fully process the inherent eeriness of the words, Roberto takes up the poem, and then, Lucretia.

When they’ve finished, Mia opens her eyes. Saoirse drops her gaze to the crystal ball on the table. Was the globe like one of those garden torches, designed to leach power from a secondary light source? How else to explain the growing illumination, the ethereal, infernal, exponential glow emanating from it? Despite the surrounding darkness, Saoirse sees flies in her periphery. She closes her eyes hard. When she opens them, her head aches, but the flies are gone. Without warning, Mia clutches her hand on one side and Roberto’s on the other, locking them in a circle. Saoirse feels the air around them grow warmer, as if the crystal ball is emanating not only light but heat.

“We bring you a fourth, dear Sarah,” Mia says, “strengthening our commitment to you. We want only to share our love for you and your work, to change our destinies by honoring yours.” The words are currents of water that flow through Saoirse’s mind, smoothing the banks of her thoughts, filming everything with a layer of silt, refusing to be stopped by the normal dams of rationality and expectation and reality.

“Saoirse White has taken up residence in your home,” Mia continues. “Like us, she seeks to uncover the truth through words, through a lens that many never pursue, preferring to experience the world in black and white, in everyday moments without reflection. But also, like each of the seekers at this table has experienced at one time or another, she is stuck. She needs her ability to see restored. A cosmic rainstorm to wash her lens free from the grime of the past.”

At Mia’s disconcertingly accurate analysis, a blip of the old Saoirse breaks through: This is the placebo effect, right? I’m experiencing odd thoughts and psychic phenomena because of the power of suggestion? But is this the voice of reason or that of her depression, that inner monologue, which habitually sucked every last bit of fun and magic and forgiveness from her psyche over the last twelve years? Before Saoirse can decide, the voice is eclipsed by the sudden ringing of the telephone on the table. The antique, obsolete, disconnected telephone.

It rings once, then stops, though the discordant chime echoes in Saoirse’s head, increasing in volume and chaos like a microphone picking up interference. In response to the single, haunting ring— And had the others even heard it? For if they had, they hadn’t reacted —the air grows warmer still, and coalesces, so that the warmth becomes a physical presence, a floating witness to the impossible. As if to drive home Saoirse’s intense uneasiness, a splintering sound comes from the side of the table closest to Mia.

The glass at the top left corner of the daguerreotype of Sarah Helen Whitman has cracked.