A Sanctuary of Spirits Read online

  Gran clapped her hands, ready to get back to business and all the loose ends that surrounded them. “What’s this about the Prenze family, then?”

  Maggie again described what had gone on: that she’d been drawn into the mansion by the ghost of a child, saw the child’s face in a slew of postmortem photographs she sent flying across the parlor during a dinner party, and then was driven out by blinding light before being cast into utter darkness, only to be saved by Sanctuary.

  Eve jumped in to explain the latest Prenze mystery. “Detective Horowitz was investigating the odd death of a Dr. Font, who happened to be the presiding physician listed on the Prenze twin’s death certificate. Dr. Font was found dead recently in the Dakota, in a room with no furniture. He didn’t live there; he was just there. A relative says he was ‘scared to death’ but wouldn’t say what about. The detective had a bottle of tonic examined that was in Font’s effects, what with poison a possible cause of death. A label was recovered from within the empty bottle. One side read Prenze, as it was a Prenze company tonic. Two words were scrawled on the other side: Isn’t dead.

  There was silence as Gran pieced the label and the note together. “Prenze isn’t dead?”

  “That’s what the clue indicated, that the twin might not have died after all.”

  “Do you think that’s who could be behind the threats to the Ghost Precinct?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Eve replied. “I wish I did.”

  “Well one of the twins tried to snuff out my spirit,” Maggie said. “That’s for certain. Blind me into nonexistence. It’s bad enough to be killed once. But twice—”

  “Horrific,” Gran exclaimed. “My poor girl. How have I failed you so?”

  “Auntie, you’ll miss the truth of things if you keep clinging to the past,” The ghost replied with a sudden vehemence and passion. “Half the time, mortals can’t hear what the divine asks of them because their ears are stuffed full of the voices of their own insecurities. They can’t see the divine path ahead because they’re blinded by guilt, jealousy, or any mortal failing that gets in the way. Auntie, please, let go of a past we cannot change, or I cannot help you in the future.”

  Gran blinked back tears. “My wise girl.”

  “How can we find out more about the Prenze family? Safely?” Eve asked. “They’re powerful. I don’t know how to do this without bringing more trouble down on my head.”

  “I’ve an idea,” Gran assured. “I think I can gain access. I met Alfred, the living twin, at his family soiree, and it’s he who maintains an outward social life. If the other twin is alive, he’s in hiding. I’ll reach out to see if Alfred Prenze would like to sponsor a charity function. Under the guise of society chatter, I’ll see if I can get more out of him. We’ll convene again soon. Let me get to work.”

  Gran kissed Eve on the head and reached out to pass her hand through Maggie’s outstretched palm, looking at her with a complicated expression before exiting toward her library. Eve could read everything about her elder, her mentor, and best friend: heavyhearted but her powerful mind whirling, spirit churning, plans being set in motion.

  * * * *

  Eve stepped up to the door of her home, a townhouse adjoining her parents’ townhouse, catching the reflection of her weary eyes in the oval glass etched with phantom flowers. Turning a beautiful silver scrollwork key in the ornate plate of her lock, she leaned her full weight against the hardwood door and strode into the entrance hall, Maggie bobbing along behind her. At the sight of them, the cluster of spirits that often lingered in Eve’s side of Fort Denbury squealed in delight at the base of the stairs.

  The sound of rejoicing ghosts drew Eve’s mediums into the hall to see what the disturbance was all about. Once everyone saw who had come home, little Jenny joined in, celebrating by waving her arms delightedly at her ghostly elder sister. Cora and Antonia both wiped a tear from their eyes and maintained stoic composure.

  “Maggie, Maggie!” little Zofia screamed, lifting her spectral arms in the air, and soon she and Maggie were twirling about in laughter and delight. Even Olga, who usually chose to visit only for a séance, had to greet Maggie’s homecoming, wafting in for an embrace.

  “I’ve missed you, my little button!” Maggie declared to Zofia, touching her nose with a fond tap, reaching out to Olga and grasping her hand before turning to Jenny and bopping a luminous finger on the tip of her nose in turn. “And you, my bonnie lass!”

  Jenny reached out hands to cup the vaporous sides of Maggie’s face, whispering a welcome home.

  Vera, their oldest spiritual asset, a painter who had spent most of her life in upper Manhattan, was curiously absent. This gave Eve a distinct, disturbed chill. It wasn’t like her not to be lingering in the parlor, her bony fingers sketching on the air.

  “I’ve a great deal to catch you up on,” Eve explained to her mediums. “I hope, Antonia, you’ve been so kind as to leave me some dinner?”

  “We’ve already eaten, but of course, I anticipated you’d be late. Come eat and we’ll have tea. Tell us how you brought our Maggie home!”

  Eve turned to the celebrated ghost. “You rejoice with your colleagues,” she said, gesturing to the other spirits. “Catch them up, and I’ll do the same with my living darlings.”

  The ghosts swept into the parlor. Even spectral Cyrus, their resident angel of music, had shown up at the piano, and he was at the keys immediately, with gusto and joy, the ivory faintly moving in a whisper of the full force that a human hand could wield, but it played soft and sweet and bouncing. His dark skin in life was a beautiful deep grey in death, and he was still an expert at the keys.

  It was a beautiful scene of so much life from the dead that Eve was reluctant to cross with the living into the dining room, sliding the pocket door shut behind them. Once seated, Eve looked around at her colleagues.

  “So?” Cora asked, her arms folded.

  Eve explained everything as best she could, from Maggie’s reappearance in Union Square Park all the way through the trip to the Sanctuary arch, leaving out the near kiss between her and the detective. But the way little Jenny was staring at her, squinting a bit, she wondered if the little girl intuited it anyway—one of the rare moments she resented the intrusive gifts of a curious Sensitive.

  “That’s… That’s quite an experience,” Antonia said softly. Eve nodded.

  “Would you like to hear about our day?” Cora asked. “Or are you too preoccupied?”

  Eve didn’t rise to the edge in Cora’s tone. It was true her colleagues felt abandoned by her taking off with the detective on various whims, but she couldn’t help that. What she would do was be patient with Cora, who in particular didn’t want to be displaced.

  “Please,” Eve entreated. “I would have no precinct without you, dears. Of course, I want to know everything. I always do.”

  Before any of them could question Eve’s loyalties further, little Zofia manifested nearly on top of her, and the smell of smoke that was the cause of her death accosted Eve’s nose, a residual sensory trauma.

  “It wasn’t me,” Zofia stated. “Today, at the office… It wasn’t me. Or Olga. It was other children.”

  “We know,” Cora said with a sigh. “Go back in with the others. Celebrate the return of your big sister, please. Let us tell Eve what happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zofia said, sounding like she wanted to cry. “I’m just worried. Things feel strange, and now we can’t find Vera.”

  “What do you mean?” Eve pressed.

  “I think she may be gone like Maggie,” the little girl said, floating back to the door. “Maybe Maggie saw her, coming and going.” The spirit disappeared through the wall, the precinct colleagues looking after her, baffled.

  “I hope not. I don’t know that I can go after another missing ghost,” Eve said, feeling nauseated at the thought, sitting back heavily in her chair. “Go on, dears, what happened at the office today that has everyone so rattled?”

  “We sat down to begin a séance,” Cora said, her words as crisp and efficient as her work ethic, “just to see if we could gather information on the threats. To see if we could find out what all that equipment during the abduction was for.”

  “We started, but soon, it was like the spirit world blew open,” Antonia explained.

  Then the temperature dropped, Jenny signed.

  Eve nodded, understanding sign. She’d been taught by her mother who had suffered from the same condition of selective mutism as Jenny did, and Natalie taught Jenny in turn when the ghosts of the Friels brought their surviving child to Eve’s door in hopes of safe refuge. Cora and Antonia were trying to learn sign and often were able to intuit what the girl meant and always gave her a moment to communicate as she wished.

  “Then the file cabinets came open. All at once.” Cora took up the narrative, hands shooting out as if to demonstrate. “Flew open or slid gratingly, it was all so startling.”

  “How is that possible?” Eve asked, sitting back in her chair. “We don’t even have all the keys! I’ve only been able to get one set from the chief, and even that was an argument.”

  “Has a poltergeist happened in the office before, Eve?” Antonia asked. Eve and Cora, the first to have worked in that office, shook their heads that it hadn’t. “After the movement of file cabinets and desk drawers, with no visible forms attached, a swarm of voices begged us to ‘come find them.’” Antonia, passed long fingers over her angled face, tapping at her temple as she spoke, her keenly empathic ability to feel the spirits’ angst was clear in her rueful tone. “It was very chilling, unlike anything I’ve experienced, this mass of voices all seeming to beg fr
om the same point of strife.”

  Another spirit wafted in from the rosewood wall paneling, a face appearing in the flocked wallpaper and manifesting directly behind Cora’s high-backed dining room chair.

  “Bonjour, ma cherie,” a tall, handsome greyscale man said. He wore a fine dark suit, and his light ashen face held the same lovely, distinct lines and Creole heritage as Cora’s light brown skin.

  “Hello, Uncle Louis,” Cora said, her generally stoic face breaking into a beaming smile. “Ca va?”

  “Bien. I’ve come because I felt a disturbance,” Louis replied. “I wanted to be sure of what I sensed. I was enjoying a beautiful ritual along the river, but as I am tied forever to both New Orleans and New York, you won me over.” He smiled. “Illuminate me, niece.” The spirit reached out a luminous hand toward her kerchief-swathed head. “Why did I feel what I did?” He looked between Cora and Eve with equal weight and expectation.

  Eve explained Sanctuary to Louis Dupris, who had fought preternatural foes alongside Gran and the Bishops when Eve was just a baby. He was a source of great wisdom and comfort for the precinct. He nodded and rubbed his chin, thoughtful.

  “That’s fascinating,” Louis said with genuine interest.

  Cora hung on her uncle’s every word, hovering at the edge of her seat as if trying to be nearer to his plane.

  “I wish I’d have known of Sanctuary when I died,” the ghost continued with distinct pain. “But then again, I was put right to work solving the crime of how I died, and perhaps that’s why. It seems this Sanctuary is only for those who have nowhere else to turn.”

  “I was also warned that due to this century’s increase in séances,” Eve began, expressing Sanctuary’s concerns, “that the spirit world is being ‘polluted’ by the energies of the living. It’s vulnerable to the baser energies of the living tromping through its spiritual boundaries.”

  Louis thought a moment and Cora stared at him with a warm, gentle patience Eve knew she reserved for no one else. A strong and stoic young woman whose soul seemed infinitely older than her eighteen years, Cora had a bond with Louis that was radiant and pure, revealing the depths of her spiritual fortitude and capacity. Her hands were folded primly in her lap, atop her immaculate blue calico dress, her wide brown eyes sharply focused.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Louis said gently, “other than to take great care with every séance. Sanctuary must be unduly sensitive. Mortal fears carry more weight in a space designed for the dead by the dead. They’re guarding their own walls without any thought to the benefits of what séances offer the living.”

  “But what if I can’t undo damage done inside?” Eve said, feeling an enormous responsibility not to make a delicate place dangerous.

  “Then it may be up to ghosts to clean up,” Louis said with a shrug. “I’ll ask your spectral assets. There are some things only ghosts can talk about. Some things only we understand.”

  Eve frowned, hating being left out even if it wasn’t her place to help or fix. Ghosts had always made everything her business. They’d always made her feel desperately important to them, so it was baffling to her to hear that there were some things she couldn’t be privy to.

  “It’s best that everyone maintains their own worlds sometimes, Eve, and holds close to their own divine mysteries,” Antonia reassured. With a knowing smile, she added, “You can’t be responsible for everything.”

  Dark-haired, angular and statuesque, decked in muslin and lace, Antonia spoke with a cultivated softness that, like her peers, was older than her seventeen years. Of them all, Antonia had lived the most difficult life, coming to the precinct in search of refuge. Expert at reading energy and emotions, Antonia wielded unmatched empathy and intuition as the heart of the group.

  “Uncle,” Cora asked quietly, reaching out a hand to the ghost, “will you sit by the fire with me and tell me how Mama and Papa are faring? Then when I retire to sleep, you can talk to Maggie all about the Sanctuary. She’s reuniting with her little sisters, but if anyone could help the Sanctuary if it needs help, it’s you,” she said.

  The ghost beamed with pride. “With pleasure.”

  “Will you look out for Vera?” Eve added.

  “We hope she hasn’t disappeared as Maggie did. Perhaps she found Sanctuary too,” Antonia clarified.

  Louis Dupris nodded and gestured to his niece to follow him fireside.

  Cora looked at Eve. “Good night,” she stated, and walked away. Jenny and Antonia followed suit, bidding a warmer good-night.

  Boundaries had been hard to set in a house filled with psychics and Sensitives. Doors had to be shut. Eve sensed she’d just been given a taste of what Cora might have felt, being tied to Eve before Eve had gone off with the detective. There was a constant dance of energies—and very often, if Eve wasn’t careful, when a ghost or a colleague would leave her, it would feel like they were pulling on her skin, or the corner of her shawl, tugging on a lock of hair. She had to remind herself to detach. At the core of the precinct, she was the center of a wheel, but she needed not to be constantly spinning.

  Her legs felt extremely heavy as she ascended the stairs and turned a few paces down the hall to her second-floor room.

  As she undressed and hung her skirt and jacket, she absently brushed her hand along the hem to wipe off lingering traces of pine needles. From a peg inside her tall wardrobe, she withdrew her nightgown, a beautiful, layered confection in soft muslin, lace, and satin. She wasn’t one for frills or fanciness, but she allowed this indulgence in her nightclothes, her private romanticism. As she slid into the nightdress and tied it closed, then slowly shut the wardrobe, her reflected form in the door’s interior mirror moved, the image looking for all the world like a ghost.

  She glanced across at her vanity; that reflection too was another specter in the rising moonlight. Wisps of ghosts were always visible out of the corner of her eye, so she often mistook reflections of herself—pallid complexion, dark circles below glassy eyes—as just another ghost. She wondered if anyone else who saw ghosts as much as she did appeared so haunted.

  Moving to her bed, floorboards creaking below the plush runner between the bed and wardrobe, she crawled under the quilt of roses made by her mother. Restless, she lay awake for hours, listening to the whole house settle in for the night, ghosts and all, until only the sounds of sleepless New York were heard far beyond her window. Her eyes must have drooped into a half sleep, because they fluttered open in a sequence of flashes before focusing on the small, delicate glass light fixture above her bed, its bulbs of fluted flowers in need of a good dusting.

  A distinct prickle of unease swept up her arms and raised her hair beneath the thin muslin gathers of her nightdress. Looking at her tin-stamped ceiling and the concentric patterns of geometry and tracery that made the surface decorative, her mind played cruel tricks, shifting the circles into faces with teeth.

  A dark spot at the corner of her eye had her turn to the window. The raised hairs went ice-cold. Terror swept her body.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling a scream. Scrambling back against her headboard, with her knees clutched to her chest, she closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping what she’d seen outside her second-floor window was a trick of the trees outside.

  It wasn’t.

  A man hovered at her window as if he were standing on a platform outside. But there was no such ledge.

  This man was not a ghost. At least not as Eve had ever experienced one in her nineteen years of life, sixteen of which had been beset by haunting. One of her first memories was of playing with a child and crying when her hand passed through theirs. Ghosts had always been luminous silver and made of gorgeous mist. This apparition had none of the luminous, greyscale transparency she had come to expect of spirits that showed themselves to her. He was solid. Impenetrable shadow, dressed in a long, black coat.

  The wide brim of his hat shaded his eyes from view, but light glinted through the corner of thin, wire-rimmed spectacles. A clean-shaven, clenched jaw was illuminated by the moon. He looked slightly familiar, but Eve couldn’t place the section of face. Lips turned half down into a serious frown.