“THERE’S MILLIONS OF Georges in the world,” Michael said. “And how is she to know that your George is a lady?”
Yeats waved him off. He placed a hand on the medium’s shoulder and leaned in close, unspooling a list of names and then places where his wife might be found: Georgie Hyde Lees. George Yeats. France, London, the tower at Thoor Ballylee, Dublin.
None of it made sense to Michael. Even if the psychic could hear Yeats, how was she supposed to make sense of the poet’s babbling? Yeats looked like one of the old priests barking into the mouthpiece of the seminary’s candlestick telephone. “And our host is not going to board a ship to France,” he said, “simply because some barmy psychic told her to find George.”
“You saw her studio,” Yeats said. “She’s packing for a journey. Who’s to say we weren’t drawn to her for exactly this reason? The spiritus mundi—”
“Enough about the spiritus mundi,” Michael said. “You said a decent medium could practice psychical healing. I’d like some of that, please.”
GEORGE? LILLY DIDN’T know any George.
Eudoxia looked wildly about the room. Was it her daughter, sullen in the kitchen, seeking a child’s revenge by interfering with her mother’s work? No, it was clearly a man’s voice. “I heard George,” she said. “Does this mean something?”
Tell them nothing, her mother had said, and that was easy enough. She did not know a George.
Eudoxia closed her eyes again, placed her palms on the table, and began her deep breathing, faster and more ragged this time. A presence crowded close to her and with it, once more, the voice. Less distinct than before, but still palpable. Eudoxia tried to calm her breathing, to quiet herself. France? Francis? Yes, another name: Francis.
“George and Francis,” she said. “George or Francis? So it is romance—”
Lilly cut her off. “Your spirits are confused. I don’t know a George or a Francis. Perhaps this was a mistake.”
“No!” Eudoxia reached out again and trapped Lilly’s hand beneath hers. “Stay! I—I am hearing a voice!”
“Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”
“Not like this,” she said. “Never like this. Please, stay.”
“WE’LL TAKE CARE of you soon,” Yeats said to Michael. “But this is important: George’s ability to contact the world beyond was crucial to my work. My vision was our vision, jointly. We undertook the task together, and I need to tell her that changes must be made for the next edition. She must amend those chapters that my current experience supports or disproves.”
“Do you think she cares about that?” Michael said. “Her husband is dead. She has children to tend to. Don’t you think that’s uppermost in her mind right now? And not correcting the number of angels on the head of each pin?”
“You clearly know nothing of my work,” Yeats said.
“Your work?” Michael had to speak up to be heard. The sound of the medium’s breathing swirled around the room, like the beating of a moth’s wings against his ears. “You said that a medium could provide me with answers, but all you’ve done is shout directions to advance your own interests.”
“Madame Antonia would have been able to help you.”
“Bah!” Michael said. “You only think of yourself. You don’t care about me or our host—you didn’t even peek at her question, and now there’s nothing left of it.”
Yeats sighed, exasperated, and poked through the ashes. “It’s in German,” he said. “‘Should I return to—Prague?’”
“Prague?” Michael said. “That’s not a German city.”
Yeats put his lips close to the medium’s ear and spoke in loud, clipped syllables. “No, no, and nein.” He stood and straightened his back, then spoke before Michael could object. “She’ll never find George in Prague.”
Michael closed his eyes and covered his ears, but the whooshing continued. Then, slicing high above it, a voice he was certain he recognized: Michael! His eyes snapped open, but it wasn’t Yeats who had called him. Yeats remained at the medium’s shoulder and her breathing had become more regular. The ebb and flow of the sound’s tide resumed.
Michael!
EUDOXIA RECLAIMED HER pen from Lilly, reached for another sheet of paper, and began scratching madly. The voices had grown less distinct but continued to dictate to her. One moment, the words were as close as a lover’s breath on her neck; the next, farther off, as if shouted from a train as it pulled away from the station. She had dashed down what she could: George, Francis, London, the tower…
Though Lilly couldn’t make out a word of it, she watched with interest as the medium alternated deep breathing with bouts of intense scribbling. “Excuse me,” she said. “But does any of that answer my question?”
Eudoxia looked up from the page, and at that same moment the ashes in the dish began to stir. If Lilly had been interested in debunking so-called psychics, this would have been the time to peek under the table in search of some contraption—a foot-operated pump and tube, a small electric fan—that troubled the ashes and made them swirl and rise. Instead, the two women both stared at the dish, unable to move, until Eudoxia broke the spell: “No!” she said. “No, no, and nein!”
Though he had taken his eyes off the candle, the boy seemed consumed by some invisible goings-on around Eudoxia. He looked intently at her, then to her right, then back to her, then to her right, as if he were following a heated argument. But as the No, no, and nein poured out of her, he clapped his hands over his ears and screwed his eyes up tight.
IT WAS HIS father’s voice. He imagined his da on the hill above their cottage, under the night sky, calling out to him. Did he know that Michael had left the seminary, undergone some cruel change, and found himself in a far-off city? Had his father played some part in dispatching Francis to New York to reunite the brothers and seek help for Michael? But how was it that his father’s voice could reach him now? Could the cry of a father for his lost son travel on this celestial frequency?
Michael shook his head as the clutter within grew louder. He heard the hazy static of a wireless, the muffled chatter of voices, the singsong of a children’s rhyme in a language he could not name. All of it threatened to drown out the cries of his father.
“Mr. Yeats, can you hear this? I’d swear it’s my father’s voice.”
Yeats rubbed his chin, pensive. “I suppose that’s possible,” he said. “He is on my side, you know.”
“Your side of what?”
“Of life. Of death,” Yeats said. “He crossed over just—hello, that must be it. You said you’d been summoned from the classroom one morning, given some bad news. That must have been when you found out.”
“I don’t believe you,” Michael said, but already the fact of it had seized him.
“It’s not a question of belief,” Yeats said. “It simply is.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve only just put it together myself. I’ve had quite a bit of—”
“My God,” Michael said. “Da. Da is gone.”