Seances Are for Suckers Read online

  To make myself appear older and wiser than I really am, I’ve found it necessary to adopt the vocabulary of a Victorian schoolmarm, a task helped along by the numerous gothic novels I devoured in my teens. I also have to build up my appearance in layers. Ethereal layers, to be precise, the kind that float as I move through graveyards and down haunted hallways. My flapper-style shift dress is tied at the waist with a trailing wisp of gauze, and another scarf wrapped around my neck wards off the chills from all those extra air conditioners. My hair, which is so long it reaches almost to my waist, is pulled back in a series of coils that take a full hour to pin up in the morning—complemented, of course, by yet another scarf woven into the braid. Smoky eyes, deep red lips and fingernails, and a pair of T-strap heels I found at a vintage shop complete the overall aesthetics of my trade.

  “Well, he thinks I’m an exotic something,” I counter and apply myself to the first of my two margaritas. It’s sour and strong, two of my favorite qualities in a drink. “I take this to mean you won’t be coming with me on my all-expenses-paid trip to the Yucatán?”

  “What? You’re going to Mexico?”

  “Sí.” I wave my hand at the walls around us, my obsidian bracelets now incongruous to the setting. “What did you think all this was for? I bought us both tickets. We leave tomorrow evening.”

  “How dare you?” Liam slumps in his chair. “You know how much I love the beaches this time of year.”

  “And it’s nonrefundable, so if you don’t go, I’m going to have to ask someone else . . .” I look off in the direction Kevin wandered, but Liam’s too clever to fall for it. He knows I never sleep with strange men. I like them to be perfectly normal as compensation for my own oddities.

  “You know I can’t leave work on such short notice. I’m still trying to get the kids to understand the nuances of pickleball.”

  “Quit,” I say around a mouthful of salsa.

  “Ha-ha. Very funny. I’ll never be able to quit. I owe my soul to the student loan company.”

  I keep crunching my way through the bowl of chips. For some reason, I’m always ravenous after I’ve cleansed a house of its spirits. Liam thinks it’s psychosomatic on the basis that a real medium would be weak with hunger and fatigue afterward. I think he’s only partially wrong—fake mediums have to work hard to get results, too. Catching those rats wasn’t easy.

  “Stop it, Ellie.”

  “What? I’m hungry.”

  “I mean it—you know how I feel about this.”

  “About tortilla chips? They aren’t that bad for you. They’re technically a vegetable.”

  “You always do this, you know that?” He pounds the table for effect, but all it does is make me spill more of my margarita. “If you had any self-respect, you’d quit your job instead of encouraging me to quit mine. It isn’t right, what you do to those people. They trust you.”

  “Okay, fine.” I sit back in the booth and cross my arms. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation, and I doubt it will be the last. “Since it bothers you so much, I’ll pack it all up and turn to something more respectable. Of course, it’ll take me a few months to find a new job, especially given my lack of professional references, and even then, I doubt I’ll be able to find one that pays me as much. But that won’t be a problem, will it?”

  Liam’s face slumps in an unhappy frown, and I’m hit with a sudden pang of conscience. I do have one, all evidence to the contrary, and when it makes its rare appearance, it tends to hit hard.

  With a profession like mine, however, there’s not much else I can do. I can’t have money and morality. There isn’t room in my life for both.

  “I should be able to cover a few more months at the sanctuary, but we’ll need to come up with an alternate arrangement by the year’s end. I hear they might have a few openings at the state hospital. They’ve been working really hard to improve services lately. Only half the patients are abused now.”

  “Stop.”

  “Or we could care for her ourselves. Remember how well that worked before? She only almost died those three times.”

  “Ellie. Stop.”

  I don’t. I should, I know, because by this point, I’m not convincing him so much as I am convincing myself . . . and I’m a tough woman to sway. I have to be bludgeoned over the head sometimes.

  “But it’ll be fine, because at least you won’t feel guilty anymore—and that’s the most important thing, right? Making sure you’re comfortable with the life I’m forced to lead?”

  It’s too much for him to take. I knew it when I got started on my tirade, and I know it now as I watch him spring out of the booth and reach for his coat. He shoves his arms through the sleeves before extracting a few bills from his wallet and throwing them on the table.

  I immediately move to return them to him, but he stops me with a sigh. “Let me have this much dignity, okay? I can at least pay for your celebratory dinner.”

  “I’m not celebrating. There’s no need to make me out to be worse than I am.”

  “No? Expensive drinks, whirlwind trips to Mexico, laughing in the face of other people’s misery . . . What part of that isn’t a celebration, again?”

  I shouldn’t fall for it. It’s always wrong to rise to my brother’s provocation, even worse to say her name out loud. But despite my costume and my profession, I’m still just a weak, fallible human being. I don’t have the answer to this world or the next.

  “The part where I have to leave Winnie in that stinking, sterile place,” I say. I think I might be yelling, but I’m not sure. “The part where we get to go on living while she slowly wastes away.”

  * * *

  “Hello, Eleanor. So pleased you’re back.”

  “Ellie! You haven’t been here in ages. I swear, you look younger every time I see you. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “No boyfriend in tow? One of these days, I expect to see you waltzing through those doors with a husband on your arm. You’re too pretty to stay alone for long.”

  “She’s out on the observation deck, love.”

  This last one is said by my favorite of all the nurses at the Happy Acres Sanctuary. She’s an efficient, bustling woman in her fifties named Peggy. These places tend to have a fairly high turnover—it’s depressing, taking care of people who either cannot or will not acknowledge your presence—but Peggy’s been here for the entire four years that Winnie has. “It’s a bit chilly this morning, but she seems to prefer the sunshine, so I wheeled her out first chance I got. You can take her an extra blanket, if you want. Grab one for yourself while you’re at it. That way you two can settle in and have a comfortable visit.”

  “I’ll do that, thanks,” I say, and stop at the linen cabinet on my way to the wide veranda set out behind the facility.

  It’s a nice veranda and even nicer facility, which says a lot from someone who dislikes institutionalized atmospheres as much as I do. All of them—from schools to the DMV—set my pulse racing and force me into a cold sweat, which is why I have only a high school diploma and drive without a license. When Liam told me he’d chosen teaching as his one true calling, I spent the entire first year he was at college believing it to be some kind of elaborate hoax.

  But Happy Acres isn’t so bad, despite the banality of its name. It is situated on a nice expanse of acreage in upstate New York, though whether or not anyone is truly happy here is a subject that’s open for debate. I doubt it’s seen many joyful moments. In its early years, it served as a home for rich consumptives, which means the views are nice and the rooms spacious, but you can’t change the fact that hundreds of people shuffled off their mortal coil within its walls.

  It gives me the creeps, to be honest. And yes, as a ghost hunter, I’m aware of the irony.

  “Hey, Winnie,” I say as I step through the French doors to the white marble terrazzo. I keep the blankets pressed against my chest for comfort. As is usually the case, my sister is the only resident out getting some air this early in the day.
Her catatonic state means she’s not likely to wander off, so she gets some pretty nice perks out of the deal. “Peggy wanted me to bring you some blankets, but the sun is so bright here, I doubt you need them.”

  I take her soft hand in mine to make sure I’m right. Her fingers feel warm to the touch, and I relax. I wish I could say I relax only because I don’t have to worry about her being too cold, but the reality is that I need that touch, those ninety-eight-point-six degrees, to reassure myself she’s still alive.

  Well, mostly alive. I often wonder if there’s anyone really living behind those blank, beautiful eyes of hers.

  “You always were the good-looking one of the bunch,” I grumble as I pull one of the Adirondack chairs closer to hers and settle myself in it. “Liam’s the smart one, you’re the pretty one, and I’m the one no one quite trusts after dark. I’d hate you if I didn’t think I got the best deal out of it. You have no idea what a relief it is not to have to live up to anyone’s expectations.”

  When we were younger, I wasn’t quite so blasé about my position as the last triplet—in birth order and in terms of importance—but twenty-eight years have settled us into our roles fairly well. William, the responsible older brother. Winifred, the peace-loving middle sister. And me, Eleanor, the baby of sorts, usually up to some kind of trouble.

  “Liam is sorry he couldn’t make it,” I lie. Since the outburst at the restaurant last night, my conscience has once again resumed its natural, static state, so I don’t feel too bad about the falsehood. “He sends his love, but he’s been really busy at school lately. He’s also mad at me, so if you need someone to blame for his absence, I volunteer for the role. I said some pretty mean things to him, poor guy. I sometimes forget how much harder this is for him.”

  I sigh and settle more comfortably in my chair. The sun really is nice out here. In the summer, it’s unbearable, beating on these white tiles and baking the terra-cotta walls, but in the late fall air, it’s refreshing.

  “I wish I could have your patience with him. You know how much he hates that he can’t do anything to fix you. Part of him still thinks you could just snap out of it, if only you’d apply yourself.”

  I release a soft snort of laughter at that. I’m no expert on traumatic brain injuries, but I’ve learned enough over the years to realize that Winnie’s unresponsive wakefulness isn’t a personal choice. She’s been stuck in a place between life and death for over a decade, and no amount of medical or spiritual intervention can reach her.

  Believe me—I’ve tried. A hack of a psychic medium I might be, but at least I came by my expertise honestly.

  “But then, that’s the burden of being the smart one, I suppose,” I add with a sigh. “He can’t help himself. Give me a wilting intellect and bitter sense of self any day.”

  “The bitter sense of self I might be able to accept, but I hope the wilting intellect part isn’t true.” A voice, deep and male, arises from behind me. “Please forgive the intrusion, but you are Eleanor Wilde, are you not?”

  Although I’m startled by the interruption, I don’t turn to glance at who’s accosting me. There’s no need. The way my name trips easily over the man’s tongue, his clipped British accent rattling off the syllables with no fuss, gives me a good idea who he is.

  The answer? Yet another specialist, come all the way across the pond for a chance at greatness.

  It’s no real surprise. Winnie’s case is unique enough that she’s visited every few months by a medical researcher hoping to make a name for himself. I used to let them, assuming any progress was good progress, but not so much anymore. After the first few failed attempts, I couldn’t. Optimism isn’t a renewable resource—at least, it’s not for me. I ran out of the stuff years ago.

  “That sounded suspiciously like a compliment,” I say and twist to peer at him.

  I’m not sure what to make of what I see. If the man is indeed a doctor, he’s unlike any I’ve seen before. He bears the height and wide shoulders of a man who spends more time hefting heavy objects than staring through a microscope, but those features are offset by a perfectly sculpted swoop of brown hair and an air of languid grace. He also carries deep lines of dissipation on either side of his mouth, which means he either spends a large amount of time laughing or frowning. Based on his dark suit, which is as somber as my ghost-hunting attire, I’m guessing it’s the latter.

  Not that it’s an unattractive face. Harsh gray eyes and a forceful chin aren’t traits everyone can pull off, but this man seems to make it work to his advantage.

  “That’s because it was a compliment.” He steps forward but doesn’t make a motion to sit. I know, without quite understanding why, that he’ll wait until he’s invited. “I’m buttering you up because I want something from you.”

  Of course he does. He wants access to medical records, a few pints of blood, maybe a CT scan or two. I should start charging for them. I could make a fortune.

  “Then by all means, don’t let me stop you.” I motion at the chair on the other side of me. “And sit down. You’re making Winnie nervous hovering around like that.”

  “How can you tell she’s nervous?” He folds himself into the chair. It can’t be easy for such a tall, loose-limbed man to lower himself into a low-seated Adirondack, but he manages to accomplish it with grace. “She looks fine to me.”

  For some reason, I find the easy confidence with which he addresses me and my catatonic sister unnerving. Most people— most doctors, even—tiptoe and speak in hushed, reverent tones when confronted with the devastation of our tragedy.

  “I can sense it,” I lie. I place a tentative hand to my temple and feign solemnity. “Due to her condition halfway between this world and the next, her emotions come through the ether perfectly. It’s as if our souls are connected by an invisible umbilical cord. Right now, she’s upset at having our visit interrupted by a stranger.”

  Instead of finding my declaration odd, the man unfolds himself from the chair again. “How terribly rude of me,” he murmurs.

  I watch in some surprise as he presents himself at Winnie’s feet, going so far as to bend at the waist in what I swear is a formal bow.

  “I’m Nicholas Hartford III,” he says, still in that smooth voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I sincerely apologize for barging in on your privacy like this.”

  He says privacy with an emphasis on the priv, as in privy.

  “I’ll only take up a few minutes of your friend’s time, if that’s not too much to ask.” He turns to me with a slight upturn of his lips. I can’t decide if it’s a smile or a sneer. “What’s her response? Does she approve?”

  I close my eyes and lean back in my chair, pretending to be able to read the emotional umbilicus of my sister’s catatonic state.

  “She reserves the right to withhold judgment. She’s only just met you.” My eyes snap open again as his words penetrate. A medical researcher come to seek my signature on a release form wouldn’t call me Winnie’s friend. “And she’s not my friend. She’s my sister. Her name is Winifred.”

  I can tell, from the way his dark eyebrows lift, that he wasn’t previously aware of the relationship between us. It’s not a revelation I find comforting. If he’s not here for Winnie, then what does he want?

  He recovers quickly. “She’s lovely.”

  “I know.” I shrug. “People in comas never seem to age. Some girls have all the luck.”

  Nicholas hesitates, as if unsure how to respond in a way that will remain true to his chivalrous leanings, so I give him an out. “That was a joke, by the way.”

  “Ah.” He nods. “You’re not very good at those. I expect you don’t get much practice in your line of work.”

  I blink, wondering if I could have possibly heard him correctly, when he nods once again—this time in Winnie’s direction.

  “I can return in a few hours if you’d prefer some time with your sister first,” he says. “I wouldn’t have come at all, but I didn’t know how else to find you. T
his is the only listed business address for Eleanor’s Cleansing Service.”

  Yes, because I don’t have a real business address. It’s not good for a woman of my profession to stay too rooted. I’m a nomad, airy and drifting and, more importantly, untraceable by the FBI. Most of the time, I either sleep in the back of my converted hearse or on Liam’s couch. Happy Acres is the closest thing to permanence—to a home—that I have.

  Of course, that doesn’t mean I invite all the ghost-seekers of the world to find me here. If anything, I actively discourage it.

  “My clients know they have to call to set up a consultation,” I explain, somewhat icily. “They also know I work by referral only.”

  He doesn’t seem to notice the shift in my tone. “I apologize for the break of protocol, but I find myself in urgent need of your services. I’m in something of a bind.”

  “Aren’t we all? Unfortunately, you caught me at a bad time. My services aren’t currently available. I’ve got a hearse full of suitcases and a flight to Mexico to catch.”

  “Fleeing the country?” he asks with a lift of one brow.

  I choke. “Fleeing adult responsibility.” And then, because I’m starting to get the impression I’m not going to shake this guy easily, I add, “Would you please sit down? I’m getting a headache from squinting up at you. You’re directly in the sun’s path.”

  He apologizes with apparent sincerity and once again settles in next to me. I perform a quick check to make sure Winnie is tucked in and comfortable—she hasn’t moved except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest—before I resume my interaction with Nicholas Hartford III, potential client and man of mystery. I haven’t yet figured him out, but I suspect he leans more toward foe than friend. He claims to want my services, but the sudden appearance, the questions, the dark suit . . . if those things don’t scream suspicious authority figure, I don’t know what does.