Thicker Than Water (27 page)

“Things are okay.” Kia smiled. “Getting there.”

“I heard about your mom. Sorry.”

Kia nodded. Virgil must have told Hecate that her mom had been moved into the hospice. It was getting a little easier to visit there—her mom was obviously being well taken care of, and there were family counseling groups that Kia sometimes dropped in on.

A powerful dance beat pounded out of the speakers as the song changed. Hecate grinned and started to move her pelvis to the rhythm. “Well, one thing's for sure. The music never did anyone harm.”

“True.”

Hecate tipped her head toward the dance floor. “Shall we?”

Kia allowed the driving drum and bass lines to enter her body. “I think we shall.” They wove their way through the gyrating bodies on the dance floor.

Kia shut her eyes, feeling the power, the pulse, shaking out the fear, shaking off the past, releasing all the tension inside her through the music.
Let it all go,
a voice said in her mind.
Leave it all behind on the dance floor so that you don't have to carry it around with you anymore.

She opened her eyes and smiled at Hecate. Hecate looked happy, sharing this moment of abandon with a friend.

Kia danced closer to Hecate and together they found a groove, laughing as they tried to outmaneuver each other. They giggled like giddy kids, stomping together and apart. They banged into people around them, but no one seemed to mind.

“There you are,” Virgil said, appearing behind Hecate. He had a glass of soda in one hand, wine in the other.

“Here you are too,” Kia said. She took her drink and tried to not spill it as she continued to move with the beat. Virgil smiled, nodded at Hecate, and knocked back his Coke.

“I give up,” Kia said, nearly pouring her red wine down the front of her dress. “Here, take this,” she said, handing the glass to a girl walking by. The girl looked confused, then shrugged and walked away with Kia's drink.

Kia spun around and around, letting the music fill her up so that there was no more empty space inside. She whirled to face Virgil again, who was moving from side to side in time to the music.

“I don't believe it!” she exclaimed. “Virgil is actually dancing!”

“Okay, now I believe anything is possible,” Hecate joked.

“Not
any
thing,” Kia said. She grabbed Hecate's hand and they danced in a ring around Virgil, who was now moving in ever stranger and more dramatic ways.

She shut her eyes again and could feel Hecate and Virgil near her, connected to her. Kia realized she could talk to Hecate about her mom. Hecate was older; she'd been through stuff. And she didn't know Kia's mom, so she wouldn't be sad about what was happening the way Carol and Aaron were. Hecate could probably even handle hearing about the cutting, which Kia was on the cusp of sharing with Virgil too. Now, though, she thought she might be able to let it out with dancing, with words, with painting. At least she would try.

She grinned at Virgil. He continued to dance dramatically.

“What do you think?” he asked, kicking his legs like a Rockette.

“Now you're scaring me,” Hecate said, doubling over, laughing.

“Oh, I don't know,” Kia said, forming a kick line with Virgil. “I think there's hope for you yet.”

Turn the page and step backward in time with Carla Jablonski's next novel

What a pack of fools,
Lucy Phillips thought as she smiled serenely at the sitters around the seance table.

The twittering, fluttering overstuffed guests at Mrs. Van Wyck's soiree made Lucy think of chickens.

Ooh
,
don't think about food,
Lucy warned herself. A loud gurgle would not give the appropriate ethereal impression of the spirit-contacting medium Lucy was posing as tonight. She placed a hand on her stomach, pressing against her corset as if she could squeeze the hunger out of herself.

If only Mrs. Van Wyck were less fashionable, then the dinner would have been served first. Instead, it wasn't until ten o'clock. At least Lucy knew that if she and her father weren't formally included in a meal, his way with serving girls would certainly gain them a couple of plates. But dinnertime was still several dead spirits away.

There was a lot riding on the success of this evening.

Peabody, her father's weasel-faced friend who had set up the seance, had intimated that if they performed well, this could turn into a regular moneymaker. That would be a relief. After their bad turn of luck over the last few weeks, Lucy and her father had been forgoing regular meals. In Harris-burg—or was it Hamilton? The locations were all blending together—the town fathers had taken their strongbox of cash when they'd confiscated their bottles of Dr. Poffle's Curative Elixir as evidence. In their haste to quit the town, Lucy and her father didn't have the chance to pack food or redeem their pawn tickets; they'd even had to leave behind a cameo of Lucy's dead mother, which her father dearly regretted.

Until Lucy was twelve, she had believed her father was a rich man. Lucy was born right after the War between the States, when so many families were missing members or had lost fortunes and were forced to find new ways to scrape together a living. Staying with one's grandparents, as Lucy did, was not an unusual circumstance. Her mother had died in childbirth, and when Lucy was small, she felt her mother's absence as just another thing that other children had but she was denied, like a porcelain doll or candy apples. When Papa came around, he seemed to have a never-ending supply of treats and toys. Obviously, he must be very rich indeed.

Now that she'd been on the road with him for the last four years, she knew different, ever since he'd arrived at the farm for her twelfth birthday and determined that an innocent-looking girl could be an asset in his various confidence games.

In Mrs. Van Wyck's drawing room, the air was filled with ladies' sighs, elicited by Colonel Phillips's charming, flirtatious manner. Corpulent gentlemen strained their silk-covered buttons laughing at Lucy's father's wisecracks and made sly glances at Lucy as they sucked their cigars. She kept her eyes downcast, her expression demure, her smiles soft, remote, and mysterious, all the while assessing the jewels, the dresses, the vases, even the floral arrangements. She might not be able to read, but she knew how to figure what things cost.

Her eyes came to rest on her father. Colonel Phillips was entertaining with card tricks, easy sleights of hand that still wowed the ignorant. This was the introduction, Lucy knew. Preparing the audience, loosening them up, softening their suspicion, warming them to the handsome, debonair Colonel and his lovely daughter. He was letting the wine work its wiles, getting them in the mood to believe.

A bead of sweat trickled its way down Lucy's spine. The room was close, the air heavy with cigar smoke.
Why are the wrong people rich?
Lucy wondered, not for the first time. If she had Mrs. Van Wyck's money, she wouldn't crowd her rooms with such musty furniture, cover the walls with dark tapestries and darker paintings, fill the space to claustrophobic tightness with curios that gathered dust.

Nor, she thought, sneaking peeks at the guests from under lowered lashes,
would I entertain such a stuffy group of pretentious bores. Or if I had to, they would be more attractive.

Her father was by far the best-looking man there, a fact he was using to full effect. She'd seen him work his charm before, turning his lake blue eyes on each of the ladies present, eyes that twinkled when he was planning a con.
Maybe he's hoping to marry into this circle,
Lucy suddenly thought, watching him lean in close to each of the ladies as he asked them if the queen of hearts was their card. She scrutinized the women with new interest. This might be a scheme she could encourage.

Mrs. Van Wyck had pinned her thick, graying hair in a low bun and wore loose, flowing garments, not at all the fashionably seamed, tucked, and flounced attire Lucy would have expected from a wealthy society matron. Her double chin wasn't
too
pronounced, Lucy thought charitably, and she had a sweet, heart-shaped face that was probably once quite pretty.

There didn't seem to be a Mr. Van Wyck, and, significantly, he was not the person Mrs. Van Wyck wanted to contact in the spirit world.
Could my father . . . ?
No, it didn't matter how wealthy she might be; with her high-pitched laugh, her buxom, uncontrolled shape, her amateur dramatic gestures, Mrs. Van Wyck wasn't at all his type—Lucy stifled a giggle at the very idea.

The bohemian Miss Carlyle was also unlikely. Considered something of a poetess by the group, the middle-aged spinster was nearly as wide as she was tall. Gloria Buren, on the other hand ... Miss Buren was in her twenties and dangled so many jewels she blazed when she passed the candles. She was blond, terribly thin, and perfectly coiffed, but she was not at the soiree alone. Her escort was Jeffrey Von Clare, who had the reddish complexion of a drinker. He clearly thought Lucy and her father were frauds.

She sensed no trouble from portly Mr. Hanover, a professor of ancient languages who smelled of tobacco and dust. Mr. and Mrs. Holden were a matched pair, full of breezy chatter and name-dropping, and were a good deal younger than Mrs. Van Wyck. A Mr. Grasser rounded out the group. He called himself an impresario, and his sharp, pointed features reminded Lucy of a much more elegantly dressed Peabody.

Candles in chandeliers flickered, and Colonel Phillips used the stray breeze to remark, “Why, I do believe the spirits are eager to speak with us. Perhaps they sense the presence of my daughter. They are so terribly fond of her.”

Lucy fluttered her eyelashes shyly.
About time,
she thought.

“Will there be manifestations?” Mrs. Van Wyck asked tremulously. “Oh, I do hope so. Sara Schyler's medium produced the most glorious spirit manifestation!”

Her father's friend Peabody had warned them about this: because this was such a last-minute event and since they had no prior experience as mediums, they weren't equipped with the latest devices that produced the more-spectacular effects.

Colonel Phillips was prepared. He shook his head solemnly. “My Lucy would not writhe about in such an unseemly fashion, nor could I allow ectoplasm to defile her innocent flesh.”

Mrs. Van Wyck looked aghast and blushed all the way down her cleavage. A murmur rippled through the group, who were clearly surprised by the audacity of Colonel Phillips's reprimand and intrigued by his suggestion that other mediums were not so innocent.

“The dead speak to her and through her,” Colonel Phillips explained, “but have enough respect for her purity that they dare not touch her. But have no fear—the spirits will indeed make themselves known.”

Lucy's heart started pounding. Showtime. There was a lot at stake here tonight.“Shall we begin?” Colonel Phillips asked.

“Oh yes, please do,” Mrs. Van Wyck gushed.

“Lucy, are you ready?” Colonel Phillips asked.

She felt eight pairs of eyes on her, their attention warmer than the candle flames.
Yes
. She nodded.

“What do you want us to do?” Mrs. Van Wyck asked.

“Lower the lights,” Colonel Phillips instructed.

Mrs. Van Wyck pointed, and a servant girl adjusted the gas lamps. It took Lucy's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.

“Everyone shut your eyes,” Colonel Phillips instructed.

“If we shut our eyes, how are we to see the spirits?” Miss Carlyle complained. “I want to be able to capture the proper atmosphere in my next poem.”

“We've already been told that there won't be any manifestations,” Mr. Von Clare said. “So I'm wondering what the point of all this is.”

Lucy hated his disdainful tone, despite the fact that she and her father
were
shams.

“Oh, there will be things to see, if the spirits choose to visit,” Colonel Phillips assured him airily. He wasn't troubled at all by the man's challenge. “But they need the proper atmosphere. I'll tell you when to open your eyes again. First we must harmonize our energies, focus, and concentrate on opening the door between the worlds.”

Mrs. Van Wyck shivered beside Lucy.

Mr. Von Clare let out a snorting laugh. “Yes, let's fling open those doors.”

This is going to be very satisfying
, Lucy thought, gazing at Mr. Von Clare, who leaned drunkenly on one elbow.

Peabody had dug up a little gossip about Mr. Von Clare, nothing
too
scandalous, just slightly embarrassing. It seemed a certain “lady of the evening” had earned a sizable return on a stock tip given her by a gentleman customer—one who bore a remarkable resemblance to Von Clare.