Victoria Thompson: Murder On Waverly Place

Mrs. Burke took the hint and quickly introduced her to Sarah and her mother.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” Mrs. Gittings said, although her expression betrayed no pleasure at all.

Sarah was beginning to think her coming was not just an uncomfortable situation for her but a genuine problem. Should she offer to leave? Or simply to wait in another room during the séance?

“We might as well sit down,” Mrs. Gittings said before she could decide. “Mr. Cunningham hasn’t arrived yet, and we can’t start without him.”

“He’s always late,” Mr. Sharpe observed with disapproval. “The young have no manners.”

“He’s an orphan, Mr. Sharpe,” Mrs. Burke reminded him too brightly.

“He’s only fatherless and his father died when he was twenty-two, Mrs. Burke,” he reminded her right back. “That was plenty of time to learn propriety.”

Sarah wondered if the missing Mr. Cunningham wanted to contact his late father, but she didn’t ask. She wasn’t quite sure what the rules of etiquette were for séances. Was it rude to ask whom one wished to contact? Would Madame Serafina ask them outright or would she just know?

Mr. Sharpe turned back to the window, and the ladies took seats around the center table with the tea things on it.

“Would you like some tea while we’re waiting?” Mrs. Gittings asked them, almost as if she were their 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.