Chapter Thirteen
DEAR MISS LILITH STONE,
It is with regret that I inform you Mr. James Hillman passed away. Before he died, he received considerable funds from his sodium nitrate venture, and wrote a legal will the day before his death that leaves you partial beneficiary. I am sending details through our New York office so that you may receive the funds, which total several hundreds of thousands of dollars. My condolences.
Sincerely,
Mr. Juan Barcos de Ferrerra, Esq.
Lilith's screams brought half the household staff running. The sound of shattered glass made them back away as Lilith ran into the formal dining room and systematically found each prized goblet from her father's grandmother's collection and shattered them against the stone mantel, one by one, until the front of her dress and hands were dotted with glass dust.
“Coachman!” she bellowed, running down the hall, glass crunching from her skirts long after she left the room.
“He's not in, Miss. Took your father to a business appointment.”
“Then I shall walk.”
The shabby townhome in Cambridge hadn't changed in the year since she was last here with her mother and the Beacon Hill Biddies. Early morning activity near Harvard meant that progress was slow, but Lilith managed to walk steadily from the underground station. Taking the subway scandalized her mother, but these days nothing bothered Lilith. All was a blur, a mindless, tasteless, bleak, unfocused flurry of nothingness that thrummed a painful phantom pain, like an amputee whose leg still hurt though it had gone missing long ago in a field surgical hospital.
Lilith's phantom limb was buried somewhere in Chile.
Three quick raps on the door and then Lilith settled in for the wait, her face stinging. A shuffling, then the thick, oak door, varnish bubbled and faded from the elements and time, opened an inch.
“You!” The word was a long, drawn out hiss of shock and anger.
“Yes, Miss Wolf. Me. I've come for a séance of one.”
The thick oak door slammed shut, nearly flattening the end of her nose.
Angry, but more shocked by the poor manners, Lilith knocked on the door with great vigor.
No answer.
Exasperated, Lilith exhaled through widened nostrils and said in a loud, firm voice, “Miss Wolf, I know you're in there, and I know you are in need of fees.”
The door opened a crack. “Please leave.”
“Why? Because I believed you to be a fraud?” Lilith's laugh was sharp and mocking.
“No. Because you are a dangerous creature and I've no desire to poke the dark world.”
Slam.
Dangerous creature? Dark world?
“Miss Wolf, has my father been filling your head with tales about me?” Lilith ignored the neighbors' servants, all poking heads out of windows and opening doors to watch the spectacle Lilith was making.
“I have never met your father. Go away, you restless spirit! I've no unfinished business with you! Leave me be.”
“You said I was a conduit. For a whole soul. Which is an oddity. Are you saying all other souls are broken and unwhole? Shall I tell everyone I know that you think this of people?” Like a barker at a carnival, Lilith projected her voice and added a touch of the grandiose.
Evangeline Wolf opened her front door, dressed only in a threadbare nightgown, hair in a cap, and roughly grabbed Lilith's upper arm, dragging her in. Miss Wolf slammed the door behind her, leaving Lilith breathless.
“How dare you? I'll be bruised by you – ”
“How dare you.” The medium spat the words out as if possessed by a spirit, voice rough and pebbly. “Whatever soul does possess you is a Loki, bent on wreaking havoc. Have your say and then leave.”
Outrage and self-righteous anger battled with need and dependence. Miss Wolf was the only person who might help her, damn it. Need overrode pride. “Can you help me to reach someone who is dead.”
Miss Wolf flinched and turned green. “No. Never.”
“Because you are unable?”
“Because I value my life.”
Mad with grief, Lilith grabbed the medium's hands. Ice cold. “Please help me. James died. I need to talk to him one last time. When we saw each other for the last time I didn't know. I didn't know it would – ”
Flinching, the medium wrenched her hands from Lilith's. “This is exactly as I feared. You're doing another soul's work. If I intervene, then I may become its target. You must go.”
Dark sobs filled Lilith's throat and mouth. “How can you be so cold?”
Miss Wolf's eyes softened, the yellowing corneas ringed with pink lower lids that sagged like ungartered stockings pooling at the ankles. “If I seem cold, I apologize. In a few more cycles, though, you will understand. This lifetime is all you think you know. There will be so much more. Think in centuries and not in years.”
“I can't even think in seconds! My heart is broken. Each breath is shattered glass.”
“All the more reason to think in centuries, Miss Stone.” She looked deeply into Lilith's eyes with great kindness tempered by a guardedness, as if Lilith were an injured animal who could do damage if unleashed. Opening the thick door, Miss Wolf guided Lilith to the front step.
A stray kitten appeared from a bush adjacent to the steps and began brushing against Lilith's ankle. A little brown tabby, the kitten was scrawny and underfed, with a brown beard and mustache.
Lilith hated cats.
Against all instinct, though, she picked him up.
“A sign,” Miss Wolf whispered, then shut the door quickly.
Cradling the kitten in her arms, Lilith petted the small creature. Purring, it nestled into her arms. All she could think to do was walk, soon finding herself breathing in concert with the kitten's purr, her legs taking her to the Unitarian church where she and James had shared their first kiss.
She stopped, closed her eyes, and inhaled, the moment frozen by memory and loss.
“Miss Stone?” A warm male voice interrupted her reverie. She opened her eyes.
Dr. Burnham.
“Hello,” she said, hearing death in her voice, yet not caring.
He tipped his hat. “Good day.” Glancing back at a group of men and one woman, with whom he was obviously socializing, he asked, “Would you like to join us?”
“Oh. No. Thank you,” she said thickly, her throat small and laboring.
“I trust your...issue is resolved?” His eyebrows rose slightly.
Stammering, she answered, “Uh, well, yes.” A stroke of the cat's fur. “Yes,” she sighed. “It is resolved.”
“Very good to hear. I hope to see you at my next lecture,” he said.
“I fear that will not be so,” she replied. “I leave for Toronto tomorrow.”
“For a short trip?”
“No. To settle. My mother's family is from the city.”
“David!” shouted a tall, rakish-looking man. Dr. Burnham glanced at him, held up one finger to ask for more time, and then doffed his hat.
“Good day, then, Miss Stone. I wish you well in your new city.”
“Yes. Good day to you, and thank you. For everything.”
And with that he walked away.
Lilith leaned down and kissed the kitten's head. “You need a name, kitten. I think I shall call you James.”
THE END