“
I’m sorry for those things I said to you yesterday.” Izzie squinted as though feeling a burn. “I’m sorry, Clara. You are my dear sister and I love you. I will love you always no matter what you choose to do with your life.”
Even though Clara had managed not to cry until now, this broke her and tears flooded out.
“
Change your mind and come with us. Please,” Izzie said.
Clara took Billy’s red bandana from her pocket and held it over her mouth. She couldn’t go. She shook her head.
“
You can change your mind later. You are welcome anytime. Euphora and I will keep a place for you and Billy too, if he comes back.”
“
And Hannah,” Euphora said.
Clara embraced Izzie and held her a long moment, then Euphora. Her two sisters turned together and climbed onto the train, then looked back at Clara with tear-soaked faces and waved. It was as though the three of them had one heart, one big broken heart. Finally they disappeared into the rail car.
She decided to stay there on the platform by the rails to see if she could see her sisters through the window. In a moment or two, the train would hiss and whistle and clang away along the tracks. It was more than she could bear. She spun and ran away. Heart beating hard, she shoved and dodged her way through the throngs of passengers and well-wishers until she was out on the street. She ran to Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-Seventh, Twenty-Sixth, then slowed to a walk. The sky was gray and sullen. Breathing in the smell of the river, she decided to walk south along Tenth Avenue and then West Street.
Ships lined the docks and slips as far as she could see. She started to count sails. Three on one ship, five on the next. Eight total, then eleven total, then fifteen. At four hundred and ninety-four, she ran out of ships. She looked around her. Where had she been? Where was she now? That was Brooklyn across the East River. Without realizing, she had followed the ships all the way down the Hudson River to the Battery then along South Street to the East River.
Lawks
. How had she done that?
Izzie and Euphora were on their way to Rochester, she thought. They were sitting close together on the train, leaning into each other and telling each other about the past year. Clara felt like someone was squeezing her heart in a double-handed grip. She coughed.
A small sailboat slowly rowed out of its slip and drifted by her sailing into the East River. She watched it until it was out of sight. She thought about Billy on his ship to China. Was he safe? Would she ever see him again?
Then it seemed it must be time to walk back to the parlor house and see Hannah. Hannah would just be waking up with the rest of the girls. She’d sit with Hannah in her room and tell her everything that had happened since Izzie had arrived. She’d tell her that she was staying. Then in the afternoon, they’d go to the Atlantic Ocean.
Forty-Nine
“THE CHANGE CAME WHEN I DECIDED
not to be afraid of the voices. Once I let them talk through me, my own soul calmed down and I was able to listen to them in an orderly way. Usually orderly.” Izzie laughed.
“
You must at least write an article, perhaps a book. Have you read mine?” Isaac Post asked.
“
I have.”
“
What did you think of it?”
“
I am interested that all the spirit voices that you transcribed were of famous men, like Benjamin Franklin. All the spirit voices I hear are simple, ordinary people in the other spheres.”
“
I invited those men to speak through me. I selected them.”
“
My voices select me, I think.”
Post rose from his chair and took his straw hat from the rack near Izzie’s office door. “The editor of the
Banner of Light
is a dear friend. He’s visiting in two weeks. I’ll bring him by. Perhaps we can hold a special circle when he is here, a Grand Circle.” Post grinned. “I’ll bring my wife, Amy, and invite Mr. Stebbins and Mrs. Edgeworth.”
The term “Grand Circle” reminded Izzie of the terrible moment at Ada Coan’s when she broke down into a blithering, screaming idiot. She silently cringed with embarrassment.
“
Wouldn’t a Grand Circle be superb? And perhaps we could even bring in a few of the other really well-known mediums from Boston or New York,” Post said.
She nodded. Perhaps it would be different than her last Grand Circle. Perhaps if she wasn’t obsessed with finding her sisters, it would be interesting, even exciting.
“
Good. I’ll write to a few of our medium friends. And you must start writing now about your experience with hearing voices. Include the story of your mother, too. When my friend comes, we’ll show him what you are working on.”
“
You really think people would be interested?”
“
That’s precisely what I am telling you.”
After their chat, Izzie walked Isaac Post out to the front door and waved to him as he departed in his carriage. She stood a moment in the driveway and watched him ride away. The September sun was already low in the sky, but the sunlight was crystal clear and strong and it shimmered on red and orange leaves along the street. She breathed in the cool air.
It wouldn’t be long before the ground froze. Her tulip bulbs were bundled by color in burlap sacks near the new side garden, the one visible from Mac’s office. How lovely it would be for those staying at the Upper Falls Water-Cure to stroll among red, white, and purple flowerbeds in the spring. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour or so. She had time to do a little planting.
She rushed upstairs to change into her homespun gardening dress, apron and shawl. Once outside at the garden beds, she pulled on her heavy cotton gloves and opened the sack labeled “white.” She reached inside and grabbed a handful of bulbs. Mac’s aides had helped her with the beds, a circle divided into quarters with paths cutting across. In the center of the larger circle was another smaller one where a wood bench would rest.
She studied the design. Should she plant each quarter section all one color or blend them? It would be too mundane to make them all the same by quarter, she thought. It should be more random than that, and something with curves, and she wouldn’t count the bulbs out in tidy rows like Clara or Billy would. She stepped into the loose soil in one of the sections and bent down. Then she began to set the white bulbs in the shape of a droplet. After the droplet was done, she took purple bulbs from their sack and set them on the ground in another droplet shape cradling half the white. On the other side of the white she laid out red.
As she picked up her trowel from her wooden toolbox, she glanced up at Mac’s expansive office windows. He was there watching her. He waved and smiled. She returned the gesture, then he vanished into the dim of his office.
Izzie knelt down and jammed the trowel into the ground. She lifted the earth out in several clumps, placed a bulb in and covered it over. The work was easy and fast since the soil had already been turned. Even so, by the time the first droplet was planted, the sky was just beginning to glow with pinks and reds. Soon it would be dark. She had promised Euphora she’d help her with a dozen apple pies for tomorrow’s supper so she clapped the soil off her gloves and trowel and closed the sacks up.
As she collected her things, the rumble and clatter of a carriage on the stone drive drew her attention away from her garden. Drawn by two black horses, a closed carriage approached the Water-Cure Institute entrance. Mac or his aide would greet the new arrivals, she thought. No need to run over there a dirty mess to welcome arriving patients.
A moment later, with her garden toolbox hooked over her arm, Izzie started down the path that led around the back of the building where the shed was.
“
Wait! Izzie!”
Lawks
. It sounded like Clara. Two women hustled toward her from the direction of the carriage. Was it? Izzie set the box down and rushed toward them.
“
Clara?” Izzie cried.
As Izzie got closer, she saw that the other woman was Hannah, or at least she guessed it was from Euphora’s descriptions of Clara’s blond friend. She threw her arms around Clara and held her tight a long joyous moment, but as she held Clara she felt her sister seemed too slender, too frail. She could practically feel her ribs through all their clothing. There was no flesh at all on her.
“
Are you visiting? You didn’t write me,” Izzie said.
“
No—we’re staying. That is, if it’s all right with you and Mac?”
“
Yes. Yes. Lawks. Yes. Oh my, Clara, yes.” Izzie turned to Hannah. “And you’re Hannah. You’re welcome, too.” She reached for Hannah.
As Izzie received the warm clasp of Hannah’s two hands, she noticed the shape of Hannah’s dress draped over a large belly.
“
There are three of us,” Clara’s lips grew taut, her brow pinched. “Is it all right?”
From the quiver in Clara’s voice, Izzie sensed her sister was weary, even afraid.
“
Of course. We have plenty of room and plenty to do.” Izzie beamed at them as hard as she could, but Clara’s expression stayed worried and pinched and she was very pale.
“
Come on. Let’s go find Euphora. She’s in the kitchen. She’ll be ecstatic that you are here.” Izzie linked arms with Clara to lead her back toward the front entrance.
Izzie began to chatter cheerfully about how she had just been making a garden and how Clara would have counted the tulip bulbs if she had been there. But while Izzie spoke, she became aware that Clara– whose arm felt boney interlocked with her own fleshy forearm–was almost dragging behind her. Then, even as Izzie was happily describing which bedchamber the girls could stay in, her mind was racing ahead. Clara might not stay very long.
Some part of her beautiful sister had disappeared. Was there a way to get her back? Clara had seen and done things Izzie couldn’t imagine. Why was she so skinny and pale? And how could Clara ever want to stay in a Water-Cure Institute after a fancy, fast life in New York City with champagne and theatre and gorgeous dresses? Izzie turned to catch Clara’s eye, to see if she could find a hint of what was to come, but Clara’s thin face was pointed down toward the path. Izzie glanced over her shoulder at Hannah, whose blond hair had the soft pink of sunset on it.
Was that a slight, hopeful gleam in Hannah’s blue eyes? Perhaps Clara would stay because of her friend and the child. That child of Hannah’s won’t be born for a few months and then there will be an infant to care for. Clara would stay a good long while for that. Wouldn’t she?
Trying to slow her thoughts, Izzie inhaled deeply. She shouldn’t let herself leap so far ahead with notions about what Clara would do or wouldn’t do. She was here.
She was here
. Squeezing Clara’s arm as tightly as she could, she led the girls into the Institute, their new home, and directly to the kitchen.
When she drew open the heavy kitchen door, she called, “Euphora! Come see what I’ve got.”
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my fine writer friends who gave me the gift of their insights while I developed
The
Spirit Room’s
story and characters — Daniel Becker, Stacey Bennetts, Sherry Brummel, April Caron, Lynn Dixon, Michelle Furtado, Florine Gingerich, Gabrielle Herkert, Betsy Herring, Ed Ratcliffe, Carla Saulter, and Harold Taw. Also, thank you to Pam Goodfellow and Skye Moody for inspiring and guiding me. A special thank you to Barbara Bailey, Thatcher Bailey, and Phil Kovacevich who provided me with many “writer retreat” days and nights, as well as delicious sustenance, at Chevy Chase Beach Cabins in Port Townsend. And thank you, of course, to Margaret, my beloved, who has always believed in, and supported, me.
Hundreds of places, references and resources provided me with the detail and inspiration for this novel. I am particularly grateful to the Rochester Public Library and the Geneva Historical Society for use of their archives and collections and to the following authors for their excellent non-fiction work about women in the 19th century: Barbara Goldsmith,
Other Powers, The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1998; Christine Stansell,
City of Women, Sex and Class in New York
1789-1860, University of Illinois Press, 1987; and Janet Farrell Brodie,
Contraception and Abortion in 19th-Century America
, Cornell University Press, 1994.
A mid-19th century work,
New York by Gas-Light and Other Urban Sketches,
University of California Press, reprinted 1990, by George G. Foster, a reporter for the
New York Tribune
, was invaluable for its detailed portrayal of New York life during the era.
About the Author
The Spirit Room
is Marschel Paul’s first novel. Born in New York City, she lived the first part of her life in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York. Though she is still a Yankee at heart, she currently lives in Seattle with her beloved partner.