I hadn’t worn perfume in weeks because it hadn’t felt right. I’d awakened on the sofa, Rachel staring down at me, and smelled the last notes of the roses’ scent floating through the open garden doors. That was the perfume I would never forget.
Somewhere outside my thoughts, J.C. began to hum tunelessly, but it was a comforting sound. A welcoming sound, like an alien lullaby. I had never imagined something so soft coming from J.C. The song floated through my thoughts, and I felt the tissue of my breasts begin to numb and tighten in the way they did when I was about to nurse one of my babies, and the feeling filled me with melancholy, and I was certain I would never suckle another child.
I can hardly express the depth of that sadness. It was different from the knowledge that I had lost Eva forever. It was like the death of the future. The death of hope.
When J.C. stopped humming, I held my breath.
I wanted to speak, to at least open my eyes, but I was afraid.
“Without opening your eyes, I want you to break the circle and reach for the paper and pencil in front of you. Pick up the pencil and begin to write, letting your subconscious and the spirit world guide your hand. Don’t think of the words or the shapes, but just let the pencil move.”
A part of me felt ridiculous, even in that heightened state of awareness. I was blind, and, except for the scratching of the pencils wielded by the others, I could imagine that I was alone in a very small room. No one could see what I was drawing on the paper. No one cared. I hadn’t felt so free since the last time I’d painted, months before Michael was born. I imagined drawing and painting the animal figures on the ballroom walls, changing the strange and gloomy ballroom into a place of fun. As my hand moved across the page, my lips widened into a smile, and my heart lightened.
By the time I stopped writing, I felt excited and energized, dwelling in a state I hadn’t known existed before. My heart warmed to J.C. and everyone that was close to me. I felt I might even be able to forgive Press. Eventually. I look back on it now and recognize it as the same flush of well-being that one gets from being drunk on good champagne. I have never felt that way again.
J.C. began to speak, asking Jonathan and any spirits who might be around us to be kind, to reach out to us and give comfort to the ones around the table who were in desperate need of it.
“I ask the newly dead to hear us, to take pity on those of us who are bereft, like pitiful children.”
At the word children, I thought of course of Eva. Not the smiling girl I’d known, but the gaunt, wet waif who had visited me in Olivia’s morning room. And, oddly, of the boy who had been Press’s father. For he had, truly, seemed less like a husband than a sad, lost boy.
“Are you here, Zion? Helen? Who are the spirits who watch with us tonight?”
It was like St. Augustine’s prayer: Watch thou, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep.
Where were the angels watching over Eva?
I don’t know how much time passed. Had the others opened their eyes? Would the hall be different? There was a kind of light now inside my eyelids, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming from outside me or not.
“I can feel you here,” J.C. said. “I can feel how strong you are. Is that you, Zion?”
In answer, there was no sound, but a powerful smell of something sharp and sulfurous. Beside me, Rachel coughed, then began to make small gagging sounds.
“Breathe, my dear.” J.C.’s voice was reassuring, and calm. “Nothing will harm you.”
She continued. “Zion, is someone with you? Helen, perhaps? Helen, please speak to us. Give us some sign that you are there as well.”
We waited, but there was nothing. I felt none of the weakness or intense energy that I’d felt when I was in Olivia’s presence.
Then I heard the voice from somewhere above us.
“Mama? Mama, are you here?”
Press took my hand again, but he couldn’t have surprised me more than the sound of Eva’s voice.
“Keep your eyes closed,” J.C. said firmly. But there was excitement in her words. Eva’s appearance was what she’d told me we should hope for. “Don’t be alarmed.”
Was it Eva’s voice? Of course it had to be Eva’s voice. It was a little girl’s voice, and I was the only mama here.
“Eva, darling. Have you come to talk to your mummy and daddy?”
The voice had sounded so far away. I wasn’t sure if it came from above me, or behind me. In that strange, bright world of nothingness behind my eyes, there was no such thing as direction.
“I’m sleepy, Mama. Tell me what to do, Mama. Why can’t I see you?”
“Eva,” Rachel whispered.
It was Eva’s voice, Eva’s delicate, childish lisp that Nonie had been working hard to sharpen. Press had found it distressing, and worried that she would become ridiculous as an adult, but I hadn’t been concerned, believing she would grow out of it. Now it would never change.
“Tell her you’re here.” I knew J.C. was talking to me, but I found it hard to speak.
“It’s all right,” Press whispered. “She needs you.”