Victoria Thompson: Murder On Waverly Place

“Perhaps that’s best. You do look worn out. Try to get some rest and put all of this behind you,” Sarah advised.

Mrs. Decker managed a small smile. “Of course I will. Thank you again for coming with me, my dear. I can’t imagine how I would have managed without you.”

“I’m glad you asked me. Get some rest now, and I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sarah said as the coachman opened the door.

Catherine was disappointed when Mrs. Decker didn’t come in for a visit, but Sarah’s promise that she would come tomorrow and bring a present mollified her a bit. Their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Ellsworth, had spend the morning with the girls, making cookies, and Sarah had to taste them. Eventually, Maeve took Catherine upstairs to play, leaving the two women alone in the kitchen, lingering over their coffee.

“Maeve tells me you went to a séance this morning,” Mrs. Ellsworth said casually, but she didn’t fool Sarah one bit. Mrs. Ellsworth had been the foremost authority on everyone else’s business since long before Sarah had moved to Bank Street. She’d spent many years of her life sweeping her front steps so she could keep her eye on everyone’s comings and goings, and nothing was too insignificant to escape her notice. Her keen observations had saved Sarah from disaster more than once, so she had long since forgiven her for being perhaps a bit too interested in Sarah’s business. And since Sarah had taken Catherine to live with her, Mrs. Ellsworth had proven herself more than a good friend to all of them, turning her full energies to teaching the girls housewifely skills instead of minding other people’s business.

“Have you ever been to a séance?” Sarah asked her.

“Heavens, no!” she exclaimed, surprising Sarah.

“Really? I would have thought…” She let her voice trail off awkwardly.

“Because I’m superstitious?” Mrs. Ellsworth guessed slyly. Her superstitions were legendary. “There’s a big difference between throwing salt over your shoulder and talking to the dead.”

“I guess you’re right,” Sarah admitted a bit sheepishly.

“What was it like?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly. “I’ve always wondered.”

Where to begin? “I know it’s all fake, of course, but-”

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Ellsworth challenged, quite seriously.

“Of course it is. Nobody can talk to the dead.”

“Are you sure ?” she repeated. “I’ve heard stories from people… regular people, not the ones who set themselves up in business, mind you, but people like us. An old friend of mine, her mother who’d been dead more than twenty years appeared one day and warned her that her daughter was involved with a terrible man. She was, too. My friend put a stop to it just in time.”

“I know things sometimes happen that we can’t explain,” Sarah said. “But your friend didn’t try to contact her mother, did she? She didn’t sit down in a dark room with a bunch of strangers and try to summon her spirit.”

Mrs. Ellsworth tapped her upper lip with her finger thoughtfully. “It does sound odd when you say it like that.”

“It was more than odd, I assure you.” She told Mrs. Ellsworth about arriving at the house and meeting the other people gathered there and then seeing Madame Serafina for the first time. “She didn’t look like she was more than twenty.”

“I would’ve expected a much older person.”

“She was a lovely girl, too. I can’t imagine how she became involved in this.”

“How does she contact the spirits?”

Sarah told her about going into the other room and sitting down around the table. “Then we all held hands around the circle, and she turned out the light.”

“You were in total darkness?”

“Oh, yes. I couldn’t see a thing. Then she calls for the spirits.”

“Just like that?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked in surprise.

“Well, I should have said that she calls for her spirit guide, Yellow Feather.”

“Yellow what ?”

“Yellow Feather. He’s an Indian warrior who died in battle,” Sarah explained with a smirk.

“How very odd!”

“He’s her spirit contact or something like that. The other spirits speak to him and he passes along what they say and asks them questions.”

“And she’s the only one who can hear him?”

“Oh, no, I forgot to tell you, he speaks through her.”

“How does he do that?”

“I’m not exactly sure how it works, but his voice comes out of her mouth, as if he were using her body.”

“How do you know it’s his voice?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked, thoroughly confused now.

“Oh, it sounds like a man’s voice. I could hardly believe my ears at first. Her voice changed completely. And when it was all over, she claimed she didn’t remember anything he’d said. When he’s speaking through her, she’s not really conscious, I suppose. That’s how she explained it anyway.”

“Good heavens. I never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither had I,” Sarah assured her.

“Why on earth did your mother want to attend this séance in the first place?”

Sarah sighed wearily. “She wanted to contact my sister.”

“Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“She died long before I met you,” Sarah said, wishing she hadn’t mentioned Maggie. She hated telling her story, even to kindly Mrs. Ellsworth. “She… she married a man my parents didn’t approve of,” she said, keeping to the bare facts.

“Just as you did,” Mrs. Ellsworth reminded her with a puzzled frown.

“She did it long before I did, and they disowned her for it,” Sarah said, the words paining her even now. “And then she died in childbirth. My mother has carried that guilt all this time.”

“And I suppose she wanted to ask for forgiveness,” Mrs.

Ellsworth said. “Poor thing. We tend to think that people who have a lot of money don’t have any troubles, but that isn’t true, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Sarah confirmed, remembering all the wealthy people who had been involved in murders that she had investigated with her friend Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police. “They don’t have to worry about putting food on the table or keeping a roof over their heads, but they have the same kinds of losses and disappointments that everyone else has.”

“I guess that explains why your parents didn’t protest too much when you married Dr. Brandt.”

“They weren’t happy about it,” Sarah recalled with a pang, “but they accepted it, just as they accepted my becoming a midwife.”

“Even though they would have been much happier if you’d given it up and returned to your rightful place in society after Dr. Brandt died,” Mrs. Ellsworth guessed. Sarah’s husband, Tom, had been murdered four years earlier.

“I think they’ve finally accepted the fact that I never will.”

“And do you think your mother was satisfied with the séance?”

Sarah had almost forgotten the original subject of their conversation. “I hope so. I reminded her that she’s wanted to apologize to Maggie and she did that at the séance. I don’t believe for a moment that Maggie’s spirit was there to hear it, but my mother believes it was, and so she thinks she accomplished her purpose. I hope that will satisfy her.”

“You don’t sound very sure,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

“Those other people at the séance, they’ve all been to see Madame Serafina more than once. They seemed well acquainted with each other, and I got the impression this was a regular event in their lives.”

Mrs. Ellsworth frowned. “I guess I could understand that, if I believed this Madame what’s her name could contact my dead loved ones. I’ve always wanted to ask my husband where he put his pocket watch. I wanted to give it to Nelson after he died, but I never found it.”