A Sanctuary of Spirits Read online

  “A warning?” Eve touched the cool stone as Maggie had done. It was as ice-cold as a spirit, but it seemed to vibrate, full of life and magic.

  “Our modern practice of Spiritualism, of holding séances to contact the dead, is a boon for all it has done to bring comfort to the grieving and to affirm the existence of spirits. However, the Corridors that connect life and death are being polluted by clumsy living souls rummaging around and leaving their anger and fear behind.”

  Maggie had been pacing before the stone, but when Eve gasped at the word “polluted” the ghost stopped and turned to her, wavering before the arch, her eyes wide and shining.

  “That must be why the Corridors between life and death were so dark and murky,” Eve exclaimed. Gathering her skirts, she sat upon a small rock to the side of the arch, looking up at the wavering specter.

  “The Corridors changed when I went in to find you, Maggie. It wasn’t just the long, warm, worn hallway between life and the beyond I’m accustomed to in a séance or a trance; it was pitch black, and I could gain nothing from that space. It used to be full of life, energy, and visual moments from which I could glean insights and predictions, but now it’s as if there’s a dark smog inside, damp and devoid.”

  “Yes,” Maggie said sadly. The trees rattled dried leaves in a passing breeze as if in agreement. “And in time, that cumulative pollution of mortal woe will make the living sick in ways we can’t understand. All the Sanctuary was buzzing with this talk, and fellow spirits agreed I had to bring this to you so that you might begin to strategize how to help the Sanctuary stay sane and keep mortal troubles out.”

  “I’m very glad to know about this place,” Eve said, rising excitedly to her feet, “this force of nature that rescued you! I want to see it protected and unpolluted. I certainly don’t want Spiritualism’s mortal séances to have a negative effect. All I want to do is be a help to those here, there, and in between.”

  “Of course, dear. I hope Sanctuary will learn to trust you, even if it can’t trust the tradition of Spiritualism in general,” Maggie said gently. “But before I left Sanctuary’s light and beauty, it looked like a storm was coming. The Sisters began to shutter the abbey against it. Whether that’s metaphoric or literal, time will tell.”

  Eve glanced at the detective. His expression was far away, his brow furrowed. Matters of one’s spirit were so difficult to speak about when they were often the most intimate things a person could feel or think. She didn’t press him, especially since his traditions were different from hers and she wanted to be respectful in every way.

  “It’s getting darker,” he said quietly. While Eve knew he was indicating the day, it felt like he was commenting on Maggie’s experience.

  “Yes, indeed,” Eve agreed. “Now, Maggie, it’s too late for me to return to the offices, but I need you to stay with me. There’s someone else who needs to see you, and you know it.”

  The ghost sighed wearily.

  If Maggie was Eve’s dearest dead friend, her closest corporeal friend, the woman to whom Eve owed everything was her namesake and grandmother, Evelyn Northe-Stewart. Fondly known as Gran.

  Maggie was Gran’s niece, and while Gran hadn’t made a big fuss over Maggie’s spectral disappearance, Eve knew it was breaking her heart, as their relationship had been complicated and strained during life, a fact that had haunted Gran deeply since Maggie’s untimely death two decades prior.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Maggie said finally. “Lead on, to Fifth Avenue.”

  The detective gestured ahead of him, leading the way back out of the wood, glancing once back behind him at the archway, brow still furrowed, lost in thought.

  A spattering of poetry played through Eve’s mind, regarding woods, paths, and hearts.

  But Maggie’s revelation of storm clouds encompassing beauty was something out of Poe’s imagination, and it was a new concern for the dawning of a new century.

  Detective Horowitz kindly took his leave at Grand Central depot, giving his colleague and the ghost an overwhelmed smile. “I don’t really know what to say, so… Until next time?”

  “Until next time, Detective,” Eve replied, adding sincerely, “Thank you for your company.”

  “And you for yours. Ladies.” He bowed his head to Eve, then in the direction he likely thought, due to the distinct chill, must be Maggie. He was almost on target, and Maggie waved even if he couldn’t see it.

  “Pleasure, Detective. It’s lovely having you on our adventure! Do call again soon!” the ghost said with genuine warmth, ever the welcoming socialite even in her spectral state.

  After watching him go, Eve turned to stare a warning at Maggie, a look she hoped was sufficient to instruct that not a word be said until the gentleman was well out of sight. Eve held her head high and gestured uptown.

  “We’ll walk,” Eve declared. Maggie bobbed along for a bit as they exited the noisy depot filled with steam and the squeals of steel, but the ghost broke into a little giggle once they headed north along the avenue.

  “Well, well, well,” Maggie said.

  “Not you too,” Eve muttered.

  “Me too what?” the ghost responded coyly.

  “You’re at me about the detective too?” she murmured. New York didn’t seem to mind someone who appeared to be talking quietly to themselves; seemingly discreet madness was fine. The city just didn’t appreciate it when it was an interruption to everyone else’s busy day.

  “Well, why wouldn’t I be?” Maggie exclaimed. “He’s handsome, smart, and kind! Haven’t we spent several years now, gossiping about beautiful people together?”

  “Because I don’t want a suitor, Maggie, not—”

  The ghost folded her arms and floated directly in front of Eve, forcing her to step right through Maggie, a frozen blast across her face.

  “We have agreed upon a courtship as a ruse,” Eve clarified, “to placate our respective parents. Goodness, isn’t it an obvious ploy and nothing more?”

  The ghost grinned. “Ah. A ploy. Of course. Yes. Clearly. A ploy and nothing more. Quoth the raven,” the ghost said, tittering a laugh.

  Eve set her jaw and charged forward. “You have to explain everything to Gran, you know.”

  “Yes, yes, Auntie will be cross with me I’m sure, for charging into the Prenze mansion without securing your Preventative Protocol,” Maggie declared. “You and your blasted precinct paperwork! But Auntie will see the worth. She taught me to judge a higher calling. It’s why I felt confident in giving my life to a worthy cause and why I make a good fighter between realms.”

  Eve nodded in appreciation. “That you do, my friend. You should be considered a decorated hero. I have missed you, you know.”

  “Of course you have,” the ghost said with jovial haughtiness.

  “The girls will be so excited to see you, none so much as Zofia. She was inconsolable when you left.”

  Zofia, a regular Ghost Precinct haunt who died in a garment district fire and now spent her spectral life looking out for other vulnerable souls in danger, had taken to Maggie like a sister.

  Maggie put a transparent hand over her mouth. “My girls,” she exclaimed, tears glittering at the corners of her bright silver eyes. “For those of us who can never be physical mothers, the power of our found family rises above all. My bond to all of you is what kept me from being entirely torn apart.”

  Eve put a hand to her heart. The sentiment was overwhelming. There would be time to regroup and recover, all of them, as Eve’s side of the “Fort Denbury” townhouses had become a refuge for the living and the dead.

  The Ghost Precinct mediums lived in Eve’s townhouse communally and their best ghostly assets pleasantly haunted their halls. The reunion would be quite an event, but there was a hierarchy to attend to first and Eve wanted to make that point quite clear.

  “We’ll all be home soon to
celebrate you, my friend. But for right now, we must attend to the woman to whom we owe everything,” Eve said, leading Maggie up the walk to Gran’s door and crossing the threshold of the grand matriarch’s home.

  Evelyn Northe-Stewart’s Fifth Avenue townhouse was an elegant bastion of splendor firmly planted in the styles of Art Nouveau and the Tiffany Studios, Gran having been a fan of the designer long before he’d become the talk of the town in luminous stained-glass interior design with its spectacular effects of pattern and iridescence.

  Eve let herself into the foyer and unpinned her small felt hat, leaving it on a peg by the entrance hall mirror and taking a moment to note her reflection in the mirror. Windblown black hair and flushed cheeks made her sickly, pale complexion far less bleak. All the blushing she’d been doing since working with the detective was doing her pallor some good. It helped sell the ploy, she reminded herself. The ghost floating behind her in the mirror, transparent and still holding back a grin, seemed to say otherwise—that she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “Gareth, is that you back from the museum already?” Gran asked from the parlor.

  “No, Gran, it’s me, not Grandpa,” Eve said, stepping up to the parted pocket doors.

  “Ah, hello, dear, come in. Your mother’s here.”

  Eve and Maggie stared at one another a moment.

  “Should I go?” Maggie whispered. “I doubt your mother wants to see me.”

  “She’ll want to know your spirit is well,” Eve replied. “We were all worried.”

  It was no secret that Natalie, Eve’s mother, had long wanted the paranormal aspects of her youth left behind. The fact that Eve had inherited the spectral world as her own was a constant source of family tension.

  “What’s that?” Gran called. “Do you need something? Ring for one of the girls if you do. I’ve got my arms full of unwieldy wildflowers doing battle with a vase.”

  “Gran, Mother, I’ve brought someone by,” Eve stated, stepping inside the well-lit parlor decked in lace curtains, gilt trimmings, colored glass, and brocade upholstery. Maggie wafted in behind Eve.

  “Hello Auntie Evelyn,” Maggie called. “I’ve missed you!”

  The ever-elegant Gran lost a few wildflowers that tumbled to the fine Persian carpet as she whirled around to face the ghost calling her name, her peridot silk day dress edged in emerald beads whooshing and clicking as she turned. Maggie floated closer to both women, who stared at the presence before them.

  “And hello, my dear Natalie, I’ve missed you too, if you don’t mind my saying so,” the ghost added, addressing the pretty, auburn-haired woman in a simple linen dress of a rich plum color with lace trim. Natalie’s eyes were less focused; she couldn’t see spirits as well as Gran, but she felt the presence.

  “Hello…old friend…” Eve’s mother said haltingly, shifting toward the center of the room where Maggie floated. “I’m…so relieved you’re safe,” she said earnestly, tears glittering in her green eyes. “All I’ve ever wanted is for your peace—”

  “Oh, you darling! Your dear daughter brings me all the peace I need, thank you,” Maggie said brightly, wafting over and placing cool drafts of a kiss on each of her friend’s cheeks. Natalie tucked an errant auburn lock the ghost had unsettled back into a loosely braided coiffure.

  Maggie’s shimmering greyscale form then floated toward Gran, whose hand was on her mouth, tears glittering on her cheeks. Eve wasn’t sure the guilt Gran felt about her niece’s death would ever be fully healed, and the spirit’s disappearance had only heightened old wounds.

  “I know, Auntie,” the ghost cooed. “I love you too.”

  Statuesque and compelling even when taken aback, Gran sputtered a chuckle amidst tears.

  “Would you all…like to talk business?” Natalie asked awkwardly. “I’ll go.”

  “No, stay,” Maggie stated. “Three generations should hear what I have to say, as it’s for the good of us all. There’s no stopping Eve from being involved.” She wafted forward a step and added, with gentle sternness, “You might try not to fight it for once, Natalie.”

  Eve was glad the ghost said it, not her. Natalie opened her mouth as if to retaliate but, after a moment, clenched her fists and sat in a high-backed chair near the window.

  Gran picked up the wildflowers from the floor and set the ones that hadn’t managed to fit in the vase on a side table beside her stepdaughter’s chair before taking a seat next to Eve, patting her granddaughter’s hand as she looked up at her ghostly niece.

  Maggie explained Sanctuary and its benefits as well as the potential danger Spiritualism posed if the pollution of mortal energy left behind was not more carefully controlled. Gran was rapt, Natalie wary.

  “How did you get out?” Natalie asked.

  “Sanctuary is hesitant to allow a spirit to return to the living unless they’ve mission and focus.” Maggie floated along the farthest wall, the flocked brocade wallpaper creating undulating patterns behind her transparent skin. “I fit that bill, and Sanctuary wanted to relay the message about mortal pollution. It was Eve’s deep dive into the Corridors that drew me out. When she went after little Ingrid from her case, searching for me too, her efforts reconnected my spirit to the mortal world—almost at a perilous cost to Eve.”

  Eve remembered that moment when Ingrid Schwerin’s spirit was being ushered toward the light and the child gave Eve a message for her mother, Greta. Enraptured by the light, Eve had wanted to follow that beauty no matter where it led. But Maggie’s spirit had shoved her back with a loving scold, and Eve had fallen away into two days of unconsciousness.

  “Pushing Eve away from death’s door,” Maggie continued, “propelled me toward the living, and I finally tumbled out in Sleepy Hollow at that archway.”

  “Where… Where did you say that unfinished monument was?” Gran asked quietly.

  Eve shared the exact location and Maggie told the story about the unnamed young woman who had wanted to build a meditative abbey there and how her commitment to peace had tethered access to the Sanctuary there.

  Gran sat back in her chair, and the tears rolled down her cheeks once more.

  “What…” Eve reached out for Gran’s soft, veined hand. “Did you know that woman?”

  “I… I was that woman. That was me!” A shaking hand went to her hair, the crest of her silver coiffure adorned with a peridot hairpin that had come loose during her reaction. She adjusted the shimmering green stones as if realigning a crown. “I never knew what had sprung up in my long-lost hope’s place!”

  The room sat, and floated, all stunned by this powerful revelation.

  Gran had lived a long life filled with adventures, battles, stories, and glories untold, and Eve knew only a fraction of them. There were so many ongoing, unfolding mysteries of Evelyn Northe-Stewart that Eve wondered if she’d ever know all of them.

  “It was…you?” Maggie finally murmured in awestruck reverence. Spectral tears glistened on the ghost’s luminous cheek. “The spirits said the door to the Sanctuary had been set by the heart of an unusually powerful living spirit. Oh, I’m so proud!” She clapped her hands, the sound to mortal ears merely an echo of applause.

  “The spirit world gives me too much credit,” Gran said, waving a hand. “No wonder the Sanctuary rescued you; it must have known you were family,” Gran said quietly. “I never knew what happened. After my parents foiled my attempt at a woodland chapel meant for the weary traveler and halted construction, that arch was the only evidence of the dream I abandoned. There were…other complications at that time in my life. Infinite cruelties I don’t want to talk about. I have all of you darlings now, my recompense.” She looked at the generations of women who considered her a mother figure. “I have no complaints,” she said, glancing upward as if making sure the heavens knew she was a grateful soul.

  “The veil between life and death is thin there, by Sanctuary,” M
aggie said, wafting close to Gran and placing a luminescent hand on her silver head, “because of your love and faith, imbued into that solitary arch. You have always connected our worlds.”

  Gran nodded. There was so much Eve wanted to ask, about her past, about all the things she didn’t know and perhaps had been too self-absorbed to ask. One never fully knows their loved ones, not truly, especially not those who had lived as fully and as bravely as Gran. But Eve remembered there were pressing reasons why she had come and current cases that depended on Gran’s help and insight.

  “Now, there’s business to discuss,” Eve said and shifted the tone. “Beyond what happened with Maggie at the Prenze mansion, which confirms our suspicions that something is rotten in that house, there’s a new development with the family. Just before Maggie returned to us, the detective and I were closely discussing…” She felt the words fall away as she thought of their near kiss in Union Square Park. She stammered to recover. “We were…talking, and he showed me a paper related to the dead Dr. Font whose body was found in the Dakota—”

  Eve’s mother rose. “Here’s where I draw the line. While I’m glad the Sanctuary can be a refuge for spirits in need, when it comes to case details and dead bodies, that’s your world, Eve, not mine. Just see to it that you’re safe. No more kidnapping of either of you, or I’m going to take this family far away, never to speak the word ghost again. Thank you for the tea, Evelyn.” Doling out a kiss on the cheek to her stepmother and to her daughter, Natalie paused at Maggie’s floating form. “It is good to see you, dear. Don’t disappear on us without warning again. I don’t think our fragile hearts can take it.”

  “Why, you sentimental darling!” Maggie cooed as Natalie walked away.

  “Don’t press your luck,” Natalie said from the parlor door and continued out into the balmy dusk to return home. Her unceremonious rebuttal got a chuckle out of Eve. For all that her mother didn’t like what she did, Eve had learned her stubbornness, fortitude, and occasional cutting wit from her.