Apparition Trail, The by Lisa Smedman Page B

occult: crystal balls, tambourines and trumpets, beeswax candles, or even a human skull. But it was as ordinary in appearance as my own — although it did contain more luggage. Chambers was well appointed when he traveled. I noted two large steamer trunks and three valises, in addition to two hatboxes: they must have tallied well in excess of the hundred pounds luggage permitted each passenger. A shaving case, pocket mirror and clothes brushes were neatly laid out on a shelf near the narrow cot that served as a bed. The room smelled of Brilliantine; an open jar of the stuff sat on the counter.
    Chambers placed his kerchief-wrapped cards inside one of the smaller bags, then pulled something from the valise. He turned and presented me with a calling card. Printed on it, in small, neat letters, were his name and that of an organization: the Society for Psychical Research. The card was otherwise unadorned, and its reverse was blank.
    “I’ve not heard of your organization before,” I said to Chambers.
    “That does not surprise me,” he said with a smile. “Our society was formed just two years ago, in Cambridge, and our journal, while highly regarded, is not widely circulated in the Dominion — it’s no wonder you are ignorant of it. Very few of our members have traveled to Canada, and I am the first to visit the North-West Territories.”
    “And what does your society do?” I asked. “Other than play ‘parlour games’ with cards, that is.”
    “We investigate the paranormal in all of its myriad forms, in a scientific manner, without prejudice or presupposition,” said Chambers, as if reciting the society’s mandate by rote. “Our members study mesmeric trance, apparitions, faith healing, spiritualistic phenomena, thought transference, automatic writing, communication with the dead, perceptions beyond the sensory organs, and premonitory warnings.”
    I glanced sharply at him, to see if he’d meant to imply anything by the last item on the list. I was starting to wonder whether this gentleman had heard about Q Division, and about my premonitory dreams and hunches. But his eyes were innocent of ingenuity. I yearned to ask him if he knew whether it was actually possible to heal by faith alone, but was already wary at the degree of attention he’d paid to my use of a painkiller. I didn’t want any word of it to reach my superiors.
    “You listed a number of topics that the society studies,” I said. “Are there any among them that you yourself have special knowledge of?”
    Chambers stroked his beard and gave me a coy expression. His eyes lingered momentarily on the bulge in my jacket pocket where the bottle of painkiller rested. “I know very little about faith healing, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    I quickly changed my angle of approach. “You mentioned something you called ‘thought transference.’ What is that?”
    He took a deep breath, like a lecturer about to speak. Even though we were both standing, and both about the same height, I felt as if I were seated in an auditorium and looking up at him.
    “Thought transference is the ability of one human being to communicate with another, by means of thought alone,” Chambers said. “Whenever I travel, I amuse myself by testing the psychical abilities of the people I meet. I choose an individual at random and attempt to contact that person via thought transference. All human beings are capable of it, to a limited degree: simply focus your attention on someone long enough, and eventually he will sense it and turn his head. The more quickly and frequently a person responds, the greater his potential psychical ability. Later, when you were guessing at cards, I was using thought transference to send you the correct answers.”
    “How does it work?”
    Chambers’s eyes gleamed as he warmed to his subject. “Human beings exist both on the material plane and on the astral plane. You and I may have been silent as we sat at the card table, here in the