Confession of a Medium: Chapter Three

The Case Files of Sheridan Bell #2

Welcome to The Case Files of Sheridan Bell, a fantasy-mystery webseries about an up-and-coming private detective in the city of Tamarley.

“They said they'll show you,” Celine Scott announced to her transfixed audience. Above the stage, an image took shape in the dark, starting as a blur of light and focusing into a field of wheat, its sky stretching outward into shadow. Murmurs rustled through the crowd as the stalks began to sway back and forth, as if caught by a breeze.

Despite the strange nature of the illusion, none of the sídhe in the audience raised their hands.

“Thank you, spirits, for this gift,” Celine called out. With her words, the image began to dim, on and on until the darkness overtook it. When the lamp switched on, no trace of the image remained. There was only the chandelier, solid and still. Celine listened for a moment before translating, “Today, you witnessed the fields of the Otherworld, where all spirits reside. The spirits want us to know it is safe and they are comfortable.”

The lamp switched on again. Celine listened.

“I had hoped to ask more questions of the spirits, but there is one here who is very persistent. She says that she has loved ones present, and it is a very important day for them. She was a mother, born in high society. If you think this spirit may be someone you know, please raise your hand.”

“Everyone here is high society," Renna whispered to Henry. “Not really narrowing it down, is she?”

As if she could sense the complaint, Celine called out, “She's giving me her name—I can't quite make it out, but I believe it begins with an A?”

In the front row, Miranda Brahm jumped to her feet. “Alisia? That's my mother!”

“I see now. Yes, she's asking for you, Miranda," Celine said. “Will you join me on the stage?”

“Yes, please,” Miranda said, hurrying up the steps so quickly she almost tripped over her dress. “Does she seem well? Tell her I miss her terribly, please, would you?”

Celine nodded and repeated the message into the phone receiver. When she was done, the lamp switched on, then off again. “She misses you too, Miranda. She remembers fondly the summers you spent together on the Blackrock Coast; she says the peace she feels now is much like the one she felt then.”

Miranda covered her mouth with both hands, the movement just visible under the dim glow of the chandelier. “Oh, it really is her! We used to stay in Airedale when daddy was busy with work in the city,” she explained.

Henry leaned forward in his seat to see how Senator Brahm was taking this. The lamp switched on just long enough for Henry to see his stricken expression and a hand clutched to his chest, then Celine continued, “She wishes you a happy birthday and is very sorry she can't be here. She's proud of the young lady you've grown into. Would you like to see her?”

“Can I really?” Miranda asked breathlessly. In answer, Celine turned to her table and lifted a pair of goggles, their lenses a vibrant crimson.

“The lenses of these goggles contain filters that bend the light waves around us. They will allow you to see beyond the veil, but be warned: you will only be able to see the spirit if they allow it. Some spirits are only able to manifest under particular circumstances, and others not at all.”

“Convenient,” Renna whispered, making Henry smile and the sídhe woman beside her hide a laugh behind a cough.

Miranda pulled the goggles on, taking a moment to situate them on her face, then cried out in surprise. “She's there! I see her!” she said, pointing toward the front of the stage, beneath where the wheat field had swayed. “She's waving to me! Hello, mother! How well she looks!”

“Senator Brahm,” Celine called, “Not only was Alisia Miranda's mother, she was your wife. I want to give you a chance to ask your questions as well. Would you join us on the stage?”

“I—yes, of course,” the senator said, rising and starting up the stairs somewhat more reluctantly than his daughter had. He stood awkwardly beside Miranda, casting nervous looks at where the girl had pointed, as if he might see his late wife there. Then he gasped and looked wildly around him. “Why, that's—I smell her perfume! It's unmistakable; she never wore anything else. Ms. Scott, this truly is incredible!”

“I smell it as well! I've missed it,” Miranda said wistfully.

“Miranda, would you pass the goggles to your father?” Celine asked.

Taking one last peek at her mother across the stage, Miranda removed the goggles and passed them to Senator Brahm. When he pulled them on, though, there were no exclamations to signal a happy reunion. His shoulders sagged. “I don't see her,” he said after a moment. “Why would she show herself to Miranda and not to me? She's my wife.”

Celine lifted the receiver to her mouth and asked, “Alisia Brahm, are you able to show yourself to your husband?”

The lamp switched on, remaining on for nearly a minute before going dark again. In that short period of illumination, Henry took in as much of the stage and Celine's setup as he could, from the high table to the receiver box to Miranda Brahm's waiting, expectant expression.

“She says that she is, but she will not,” Celine said, slowly. “She's afraid it won't be good for you. She wants you to know that she's happy, and that you deserve to be happy as well. You've been holding yourself back for her memory, but you don't need to. She says to 'Find happiness, puppy, wherever it comes from'.”

The nickname evidently meant something to Senator Brahm, for he started violently. The lamp flickered on again before he could respond, and Miranda reached for his hand even as it went dark again.

“Mrs. Alisia Brahm is no longer among the gathered spirits,” Celine announced. “Miranda, James, thank you for your participation. Once you've both returned to your seats, we may continue our questioning.”

The smell of a woman's perfume, which even Henry had begun to smell in the second row, faded as Miranda and her father left the stage. Renna and Henry shared a look.

“Now, then,” Celine began, pausing when the lamp switched unexpectedly on. Before it turned off, Henry saw her frown and scan the crowd, her gaze landing directly on Renna. “It seems there's another spirit looking for an opportunity to speak,” she called in the dark. “His connection to our world is still strong; he must have become a spirit recently. He was a powerful man in life, as he is in death, and was very dear to someone in this room,” Celine said. Already, people were turning to look at the one person in the room in mourning dress.

“Renna,” Henry warned, seeing Renna prepare to stand.

“Don't worry about me, Hen. This'll be good for a laugh,” Renna whispered back. Before Henry could object, she stood and called, “I believe you're looking for me.”

“Not me,” Celine corrected, kindly but firmly. “The spirit.”

“Yes, the spirit of my dead husband, apparently,” Renna repeated. “Can you tell me his name, or will you only give me a letter, too?”

The lamp switched on, then off.

“He says his name was Peregrine Hale,” Celine answered steadily, “But he was known to his friends as Perry. Perry calls to your spirit, Urenna Hale. Will you come join us?”

“I will,” Renna said. Henry couldn't see her face as she climbed to the stage, but before Celine could begin, she interrupted: “By the way, I came here tonight with an old friend of Perry's. They were as close as brothers, back in the day. Would it interfere greatly with the proceedings if he joined us?”

Celine hesitated while Henry sank lower in his seat. “N-no, I suppose it wouldn't,” the medium said, sounding unsure. She didn't take her eyes from Renna, her brow furrowing the longer she stared.

“Wonderful!” Renna chirped. “Come on, Henry! Aren't you excited to speak with your old chum again?”

Henry imagined all the colorful words he'd say to Renna later as he made his way up to the stage. He and Peregrine Hale hadn't been unfriendly, by any means, but they certainly couldn't be called brothers. Henry had frequently wondered whether Perry even liked him.

The wood creaked under his feet as he climbed the platform steps, and he studiously avoided looking at the audience, all those unblinking eyes fixed upon him. He scowled at Renna as he stepped up beside her, but when she took his hand, he felt it tremble. Annoyance immediately forgotten, he gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Hello again,” he said to Celine Scott, who tore her eyes from Renna just long enough to smile at Henry. Begrudgingly, Henry added, “Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.”

“Of course,” Celine said. “Mrs. Hale, do you have anything you would like to ask your husband?”

“He's the one who dragged me up here. Shouldn't he have something to say to me?”

Celine hesitated again before raising the receiver to her mouth, but the lamp switched on before she could utter a word. “He says he's proud of you, and—”

Renna cut Celine off with a laugh, which seemed louder than usual in the dark, quiet ballroom. “My Perry?” she asked. “He would've been furious I didn't go to the grave with him. If he wanted to tell me anything, it would be to take good care of his business.”

“I—,” Celine began, unsure how to respond to that.

“Ms. Scott, I'd love to believe my husband is in this room with us. I don't care what anyone here thinks of me for it; it's true,” Renna continued, more earnest than Henry thought he'd ever heard her. “So please, prove to me he is. Give me something real, because I want so badly to believe you that it hurts.”

“I…will do my best,” Celine promised, earnest in return, so earnest it made Henry question whether she did believe all of this. Never breaking eye contact with Renna, Celine said, “Mr. Hale, if you truly are with us, please give your wife proof. Tell us why you're here.”

The lamp switched on. It was unsettling, seeing the audience from this perspective now that he could actually see: they were enrapt, entranced, and Henry could see by their expressions that many of them—even the sídhe—had been convinced.

“Mr. Hale asks...that your pour a glass of Château Saint-Ouen at the Bamsey for him,” Celine said, finally. Renna squeezed Henry's hand so hard he felt one of his fingers crack. When he glanced at her, he saw something in the lamplight that looked suspiciously like tears pooling in her eyes. Before she could speak, though, Celine continued, “He also remembers fondly your wedding at Saint Catherine's, where you exchanged vows before your dearest loved ones.”

Renna drew in a sharp breath, dropped Henry's hand. Some in the audience murmured soft sympathies, but it wasn't grief Henry saw on Renna's face, now. He took a discrete step away from her.

The medium had made a mistake she wouldn't come back from.

Renna tipped her chin higher, her face as cold as chiseled marble. “You were so close,” she said. Her voice was soft, deceptively gentle, but she might as well have been shouting, for the way it filled the room. “If you had left it at the Bamsey, I might have believed you.”

Celine quailed under Renna's cold anger, trying to back away but only bumping into her table. The lamp switched on. “What do you mean?”

“Few knew how much we enjoyed dining at the old Bamsey. Even fewer knew our favorite vintage,” Renna explained. Her lip curled in disdain before she continued, “My husband hasn't been dead ten months, Ms. Scott. I would thank you not to disgrace his memory further with this farce, nor flaunt intimate details about our relationship for the entire room to hear.”

“It's not—,” Celine began, shooting a nervous look at Senator Brahm. “Mr. Hale told me that information himself.”

“Enough!” Renna snapped, the room painfully silent but for the whir of Celine's machines. Everyone waited to hear what Renna would say next. “The wedding at Saint Catherine's was just a show for the public. Perry and I married six months before, in a private ceremony held at Thornapple Hall. Of those in this room, only Henry and myself were in attendance. If Perry was really here, proving his identity to me, don't you think that is the ceremony he would've mentioned?”

“I-I cannot say why the spirits wouldn't—”

“No, you cannot. Because you are a fraud,” Renna said, simply. “You saw a woman in a mourning gown and assumed—like everyone else here—that I'd be so desperate to see my husband again I'd surrender my dignity and swallow whatever you fed me.” She turned to the audience, to Senator Brahm. “I'm sorry for this, James, but it can't be helped. You'll thank me, once I've removed this blight from your home and reputation. Henry, if you please.”

Henry sighed. “I'm not your attack dog, Renna. Maybe we should do this in private?”

Renna whirled on Henry, and in the lamplight, it was difficult to miss the hurt behind her eyes. So again, he sighed. “Ms. Scott, I will give you another chance: admit the truth and end this demonstration here, or I'll do it for you,” he offered.

Celine didn't respond, but she tipped her chin up defiantly. She was cornered and she knew it, but she did not bend. Henry respected that, at least. He glanced at the audience; they were just as enrapt as before, if not more so. Perhaps it wasn't the truth they sought—perhaps it was merely a compelling show.

“Your lamp, Ms. Celine,” Henry pointed out. “You forgot to turn it off. Unless the spirits have been speaking all this time?”

Collectively, everyone looked to the lamp at the front of the stage. Sure enough, it still glowed. Celine's hand twitched toward her table, but whatever it was she wanted to do, she could no longer do it without everyone seeing.

“By all means, turn it off,” Henry said. He waited a moment before continuing, “If you won’t, then I suppose you won’t mind if I do the honors?”

When the medium didn’t object, Henry picked up the telephone. As he suspected, there was a switch built into the receiver, which would have been cleverly hidden by Ms. Scott’s hand as she held it. When he flipped it, the lamp went out. Amidst the crowd’s startled exclamations, Henry heard Renna let out a triumphant “Ha!”

Holding the receiver up for all to see, Henry switched the lamp on again.

“At first, I wasn’t sure how she was pulling it off. There are no wires attached to the lamp, but that part was simple,” he said. Crossing to the lamp, he ran his fingers down the stand until they found a break in the metal. Pressing on it revealed a hidden compartment, a line of zinc-carbon batteries neatly hidden inside. “As for the actual activation of the lamp, Ms. Scott's talk of frequencies reminded me of an interesting technology that debuted at the Benfir Exhibition last year, a new teleautomation lever that uses radio waves to activate devices from a distance. Using the excuse that spirits communicate on a different frequency, she was able to keep her controller in her hand at all times.” He paused and turned to Celine. “O’Cadhla’s original design for the remote controller was much bulkier, as I recall. Did you adapt the schematics yourself?”

“Yes,” Celine admitted.

“It’s impressive. You are clever,” Henry said.

“Henry,” Renna scolded.

“See here,” Senator Brahm interrupted, standing. “I can excuse some light skepticism, but this really is too much. If this is all fake, how did Celine know so much about my Alisia?”

“The same way she knew about the Bamsey, James,” Renna said coldly. “I said not many people knew our favorite vintage, but I seem to recall inviting you and your family to dine with us on more than one occasion.”

“Are you accusing me of collusion? I told her nothing!” the senator protested, looking back at the audience to see if anyone was believing this. They watched him warily, the same way they watched Renna and Celine. Their minds were not made up, not yet. “What of my wife’s perfume?”

“The work of either Ms. Scott or an accomplice,” Henry said with a shrug. “I suspect that if we begin searching pockets, we’ll find a vial of the perfume in question.”

 “And who would have better access to Alisia's perfume than James? Didn’t the scent only begin to spread after he’d taken the stage? Ms. Scott is staying in his home, under his roof. He would have had time to prepare her. He also would have known that I, a grieving skeptic, would be in attendance; what better way to prove the worth of your medium than to win me over?” Renna asked.

“Mrs. Hale, this is absurd,” Senator Brahm pleaded. “What of the Otherworld? The image the spirits presented to us? Do you believe that was false, too?”

“Allow me to explain,” Henry said. He crossed to examine the receiver box on the table, Celine stepping despondently out of the way as he did. He found several dials hidden along the side—right where Celine had leaned against the table to steady herself, just before the illusion began. Henry stood on the tips of his toes to watch the top of the box as he turned the first dial. As he'd suspected, a metal plate slid aside to expose a lantern within, its projection redirected by angled mirrors. The wheat field appeared again above their heads.

“It's a cleverly hidden magic lantern, that's all,” he explained. When he turned the second dial, the wheat appeared to move. “The image has two lenses; when you rotate between them, it creates the appearance of movement. Ms. Scott photographically printed images onto the plates; it was done recently, too, if the stains from the silver gelatin emulsion on her fingers are any indication.”

He crossed to the very front of the stage and, standing right at the ledge, looked up. He jumped, reaching an arm up as he did, and his fingers brushed against a waxy fabric, sending the wheat illusion rippling. “It's all just a projection on a wax screen,” he announced. “A clever trick, but a trick nonetheless.”

“There, see?” Renna asked. “There's nothing that's been done that Henry didn't easily disprove. I'm sorry to ruin the party, but I can't stand the thought of this woman preying on more poor souls. How about we bring back the dancing, instead?”

Even with the lamp on, the light couldn't reach the dark, arching ceiling. Henry watched the sheet ripple, then heard something behind him: a strange, slithering hiss, a voice he couldn't quite make out. He turned to look for the source, his back to the audience, and Celine chose that moment to spring at Renna and grab her by the arm. “Listen to me!” she cried. “There really are spirits here! They're saying you're in danger!”

Renna tore her arm free, a look of disgust on her face, but Henry wasn't looking at her. He was looking up at the chandelier, which shook and swayed, its crystals clattering and chiming as they knocked into one another.

Behind him, in the crowd, a sídhe called, “There's magic being used!”

One crystal fell, and then two, shattering as they hit the wooden stage. Henry dropped his gaze from the chandelier to Renna and Celine, standing directly beneath it. Before he could shout even a word of warning, there was a loud snap above them.

The chandelier began to fall.

Henry wanted to run toward Renna, but his traitorous feet betrayed him and he took a step backward, instead. But he'd forgotten how close he stood to the edge of the stage; there was no ground to meet his foot, only air. So he fell, watching the chandelier fall with him.

Instead of hitting the ground, he was caught by two strong arms just as the chandelier hit the stage in a terrible crash. Whoever held Henry twirled him away, blocking him from flying shards of crystal with their back. Henry looked up into a pair of glowing red eyes, and then he was set down.

“Celine!” Senator Brahm called, his voice cracking.

“Renna,” Henry breathed, peering around his rescuer to look for his friend on the ruined stage.

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