They were talking about God. Even in their hoarse electric whispers, I must’ve gathered that much. That must have been why I thought of the padre and the verse in Isaiah. Something just below my hearing was heard regardless, and my brain filled in the rest.
It was a manufactured coincidence.
• • •
“THESE tent meetings are growing in popularity across the land—not only in the southern states.”
“Revival meetings, that’s what they’re called.”
“Revival meetings, as you like. A town or a church plays host, invites speakers, and might even pay for a guest or two, and—”
“And people pitch tents, you say?”
“Some of them must. There’s always at least the one great tent, to serve as a sanctuary.”
• • •
TENTS aren’t much, so far as sanctuary goes. I’d rather have Our Lady, or Cordero’s. Or the house I shared with Evelyn, even if it burns itself to the ground with me inside it.
• • •
“DID you know, it’s not just the Baptists and the Pentecostals who are doing this sort of thing.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh yes. In fact, right here in Florida we have one of the largest camp meetings dedicated to the faith of the spiritualists.”
“Largest where? In America?”
“In the world, I’d think. There’s a little place called Cassadaga—”
“So it’s a town? Not a camp?”
“A bit of both, from the sound of things.”
• • •
THE cabinet fizzed and popped, and the volume went up another notch. Now they were yelling at me. Or yelling to me—though their voices remained low and steady, chatty and cordial.
• • •
“PEOPLE live there year-round, and sometimes they invite speakers to hold workshops and studies.”
“And they camp?”
“There’s a hotel. But if the hotel is full, people can, yes—I think so. Set up tents and the like. I’m told that it’s quite popular with the northerners during these winter months.”
“I should think so. But what do they do? Hold séances? Talk to ghosts?”
“Something like that, I’m sure. They put out a bulletin once a month, articles and that sort of thing. It’s called The Sunflower, and those who are curious about their faith can learn more about it that way.”
“A faith, is that what they call it?”
“Well, that’s what it is. A faith in life after death.”
“That’s one way to put it. So do you believe?”
“In what?”
“In ghosts?”
“In ghosts?”
“In ghosts?”
“In ghosts?”
“In ghosts?”
• • •
THE volume crept up, notch by notch, until it rang in my ears and I couldn’t stand it another moment. I jumped from my seat and slapped at the cabinet, pushing all the buttons and turning all the knobs to no avail.
• • •
“IN ghosts?”
“In ghosts?”
“In ghosts?”
• • •
FRANTIC, I reached behind the cabinet, fishing about for the cord. I found the fat black plug, and I ripped it out of the wall.
• • •
“INNNNNN ghooooooosssssstttsssss . . .”
• • •
THE last whistling note from the last word’s last letters dragged through the parlor and was silent.
I stood there panting in my otherwise quiet parlor. The plug dangled from my hand like an anchor, or like a weapon, I don’t know—but the cabinet was quiet, and that was all I’d wanted. A brief, thrifty thought flickered through my head (I hoped that I hadn’t broken or ruined it) and was gone.
I smelled smoke.
I stared wildly around the room but saw nothing. I dropped the plug.
I checked the kitchen, the bedroom, the water closet. I checked the office, the hallway, the foyer. I smelled a bonfire, raging somewhere so close I could touch it—I could blister and burn myself if I put out my hands too far in one direction or another. An invisible fire, with invisible smoke, and a warm current of heat that went coursing through my little house.
The fireplace was empty even of ashes, for it saw almost no use at all—even in January. It was for emergency cooking and unexpected, unlikely weather conditions. It was for a curse or a miracle, and it was as cold as a tomb.
I ran my hands along the walls, feeling for some source of the warmth and the smell, and I found nothing, not anywhere.
I returned to the Edison cabinet. Under the wood, the tubes were cooling. The current was gone—my connection to the outside world, to the men and their voices—I’d cut it off on purpose, and I’d done the right thing.
I knew I’d done the right thing.
That one voice, the one asking about the ghosts . . . it’d changed, and warped, and become lower and slower; it’d stretched out longer and longer, into that single phrase. I did not believe for a moment that it had been a mere hiccup in the radio.
“Is this some kind of message?” I asked the parlor at large. “There is talk of ghosts, so I should make note of ghosts? Is that what’s causing these fires? A ghost?” I gazed warily around the room and into the hall. I stared from corner to corner, daring each shadow to present me with something beyond the pale. “Whose ghost?” I asked, barely any louder than a whisper. I was afraid of the answer. Any answer.
So nothing answered, except for the fading smell of smoke. It drifted into the background of my awareness until there was hardly anything at all—just a memory, a tendril of something burning. I stalked the room, then stalked the house again, my nose in the air.
I found nothing.
• • •
I cleared my plate, leaving it in the sink. I put the Bible where it belonged. I plugged the Edison cabinet back into the wall and sat on the couch, my whole body as tight as an Italian seam.
But when I called up the radio again, the station featured only one man talking. He was reading the news of the region to people like me—people who were sitting alone in empty rooms, twenty or thirty or fifty miles away from the man in his little booth, with his little microphone, reading the headlines off a little sheet of paper.
I wasn’t so much listening to him as letting him keep me company while a peculiar new thought rattled around in my skull. Cassadaga. That’s what the man had called it—the Florida place where spiritualists met for their seminars and séances. That’s where people go to talk to ghosts, isn’t it? A darkened room, a round table, a series of clasped hands all in a circle . . . it’s how they adjust the knobs, how they tune in to whatever weird station is broadcasting from beyond the grave.
Now that I thought about it like that, I wondered how I might find this place, or speak with someone who teaches there—in case what I have is not an electrical problem, or a religious problem, but a spectral problem (if that’s not too silly to say, with regard to such a serious subject).
I can still smell the smoke, though. Do ghosts burn? Do they set fires?
Would Evelyn?
I can’t imagine that she would. She loved this house, and she loved me. No, if this is Evelyn (and I am jumping to conclusions, oh, such terrible conclusions), I do not believe she’d try to harm me, or the house. If it is her (and I should pray for her soul to be beyond this), if it is her, then she would only be trying to communicate—only trying to divulge some message, or some warning.
Didn’t Daniel see the letters of flame burned into the wall of Belshazzar’s palace? I almost drew down the Bible again, that I might look up the story and refresh my memory, but I remembered the words closely enough: You have been weighed in the balance and found in want.
Thes
e fires of mine might be a warning. So a warning of what, I must ask myself.
Clearly, I required some assistance—and while Valero had made me feel infinitely better in the short term, I needed to seek counsel beyond his expertise.
So this morning, after stopping by the shop to warn Emilio that I’d be missing for an hour or two, I stopped by the local library, and with a bit of help from the periodicals lady, I found January’s edition of The Sunflower.
• • •
AND I thought of the kitchen window. I thought maybe Evelyn’s last bouquet was made of sunflowers. Another coincidence, unless it wasn’t.
• • •
ACCORDING to the line below the title, “As the sunflower follows the light, so must we.”
I took the slim document to a seat by the window. It was only twenty pages long, folded like a brochure more than bound like a magazine, and it mostly featured listings for speakers, workshops, and services. Some of the workshops sounded interesting: There was one on sharpening one’s intuition with help from the spirits, one about the uses of crystals in healing and divination, and one related to physical mediumship. I gathered that this last lecture had something to do with producing physical evidence of spiritual visitation, a prospect I found both repulsive and compelling all at once. Was that what was happening in my house? Physical mediumship? Surely ashes and flame must count as physical evidence of something.
• • •
I found short articles on individual mediums and on guest speakers, a welcome notice for a new medium named Alice Dartle, and a note from the town’s pastor—who is apparently a woman. Likewise, a number of their mediums are women as well, though for some reason that’s not such a surprise. I wonder why that is . . . unless it’s quite simple. Everyone has heard of the Fox sisters and their uncanny abilities. Everyone knows that women have talked to the dead.
What a peculiar faith. What a peculiar church.
What a peculiar name, Alice Dartle. I’m not sure why it stood out to me, but it did—veritably leaping off the page, as if it was trying to attract my attention.
On the last page there were advertisements for a hotel, a theater, and a bookshop, as well as an address for general delivery. I made note of the address, thanked the periodicals lady, and went back to the shop, with Alice Dartle’s name occupying my thoughts the entire time. So while Emilio measured a client and Silvio ran an errand, I sat down in the little back office, which was scarcely the size of a closet. I took a piece of paper and I began to write.
Dear Miss Dartle,
First, it would seem that congratulations are in order. I saw the announcement in The Sunflower, declaring that you had been added to the community of mediums at Cassadaga. I hope you will be happy there, and that you will find the work you do fulfilling. And I hope that perhaps you can help me.
Please allow me to explain. My name is Tomás Cordero, and I have a strange situation that might benefit from your insight. I do not know where else to turn—I have tried the church of my fathers, and found some measure of comfort there, but little in the way of practical suggestion.
For you see, I am being haunted. That’s the only way I can describe it, though it’s not the kind of haunting one reads about in the dreadfuls and magazines. On the contrary, I am being haunted by fires. Small fires, except for the most recent one, which very nearly consumed my home (and perhaps a neighbor’s, too). They appear in unlikely places with no source or cause to be found, and I’ve come to notice a pattern: These fires leave behind images, drawn in soot. These images are fingerprints and handprints, and once, a woman’s face.
I lost my wife to the influenza while I was away at war. If this is her, struggling to communicate with me from beyond, it is imperative that I understand her before some irreparable damage is done, or lives are lost to these unusual infernos.
I am afraid she might be in hell, and I do not know how to help her. I do not know if I can help her. I do not know if I should.
I sat back, pencil trembling in my hand. Well, this was the meat of it, wasn’t it?
I do not know if spiritualists believe in such a place, and I am not sure why I have chosen to write to you—only I saw your name and it spoke to me, in some strange way. Perhaps it is a sign from the saints or the dead, that I should approach you with my questions. Or else it is a ridiculous coincidence, and I am seeing patterns where there are none, and assigning significance to meaningless happenstance.
But your name spoke to me, and now I am asking to speak with you. I do not know if I am able to leave my business long enough to come visit you, but we could exchange letters, or even a phone call if the stars align correctly. In all honesty I do not know where Cassadaga is, or how far away—though I intend to find out. If it’s near enough for a day trip, or a brief visit on a weekend, by train, I might be able to see you in person. Does that matter? I do not know how mediums work. I do not know what you need from me, in order to give me guidance. I have a bit of money, and can pay you for your trouble.
Please, Miss Dartle, respond to this letter if you are willing or able.
Thank you for your time, and your consideration.
Signed, Tomás Cordero Ybor City, Florida (Very near to the Tampa Bay, and Saint Petersburg)
I looked the letter over a time or two, or three, or four, and before I could talk myself out of it, I folded it up and stuffed it into an envelope. I addressed my message to the mysterious Miss Dartle, care of Cassadaga’s general delivery, and I left it for the postman.
I hope I did not choose poorly when I chose Miss Dartle. She is new, and maybe young, or untrained, or untested. I hope I did not choose poorly when I chose to write the town at all, for I’m sure Padre Valero would look askance at me asking for assistance in a camp of witches. I’m sure that’s what he would call them, and he might bring up an anecdote about Endor and Saul.
I remember more of those Bible stories than I thought.
Well, the padre made me feel something close to glory when he told me about the Frenchman and his flames . . . but I must be realistic with myself. Even if the notes by fire have happened before to others, and will happen again one day to someone else, they are happening to me right now—and they are a danger to me. They might be a danger to everyone close to me, by friendly companionship or mere proximity.
I hope I chose as well as I think I did, when I picked Miss Dartle’s name off the page. I hope I’m not daft and delusional to think that she’s the one to help me—if anyone in that town is able to do so.
• • •
LISTEN to me. I am grasping at straws.
• • •
BEYOND the office I heard Emilio cooing over the single-breasted day suit he’d freshly applied to Mr. Sadre. I looked around the corner and saw him stretching the measuring tape tight between his fingers. He crouched and fussed at the hem of the pants. “Maybe just half an inch . . .”
I left him to it.
I retreated to the workshop and the new fabric, pristine and stacked in tidy bolts. For irrational and nonsensical reasons, they comforted me. I liked the feel of them, the fine fabric beneath my hands, so smooth and blank. I closed my eyes and thought of what might be made from them, considering what cuts, what lines, what styles, might best be suited to each ream. I breathed the soft, clean scent of linen freshly washed and pressed, the faint odor of detergents.
I opened my eyes and saw that the newest bolts had been placed atop the Egyptian cotton order, the one that will turn out at least ten good shirts before I’m finished with it. The fabric was crushed beneath the stacks of linen and wool, and thoroughly rumpled.
I frowned, sighed, and plugged the small tailor’s goose into the wall. Ironing has never been my favorite activity, but Emilio was busy, and the fabric was unusable until it was smooth. I’d take care of it myself.
When the goose was cooked, I brought it to the cotton. The
fabric was off-white with gray pinstripes, something nice for fall—or what passes for fall in the bay. I let the weight do the work, pressing the wrinkles loose with a burst of heat that wafted up into my face. It was relatively cool in the workshop, and I didn’t mind—not like I minded in the dead of summer, when you could almost press fabric by laying it flat on the sidewalk. The heat was dry and comfortable; it was pleasant on my palm, where I held the handle curve that gives the thing its name.
• • •
DID Evelyn have something precious that she often wore? There was a hair comb that came from her father’s home, on that other island; it was tortoiseshell with a very fine carved edge. She wore it often, and always out of the house—never on days when there was no reason to run an errand. The ring I gave her when I proposed . . . that would not count. It was a diamond, but a very small one. She said it was perfect. Yes, but it was small. She was always beautiful. I saw how men looked at her, and I saw how the women looked, too. Her hair was the color of the espresso they sell in tiny white cups at the stands downtown—and her eyes were precisely two shades lighter, so that they looked nearly amber when the sun caught them.
And her smile . . . it was enough to light up the world. Never mind what she used to say about the one crooked tooth (on the top, a little left of the middle). I never understood why she held her hand over her mouth when she laughed. It was such a tiny thing. I wonder who ever told her it was ugly, or a shame. It was neither of these things. It was divine. It gave her character.
She smiled quite often. At children, at animals. She never met Felipe, the horseshit enthusiast, but she knew and loved his predecessor—Amelie. She was always slipping the old dog bites of banana or cheese, fattening the little thing up one slice at a time.
It was inconceivable to me that Evelyn might be in hell.
I was told there had been a priest, and that she confessed what meager sins she might have offered before the end came, despite not truly sharing his faith . . . But it could’ve been a kind lie, told to soothe my feelings. (Who would lie about such a thing?)