The Gilded Age, a Time Travel by Lisa Mason Page A

a crystal decanter filled with sherry and five heavy crystal
tumblers. She scowls with disapproval, her black eyes flickering. She turns
down the gaslamp, makes the sign of the Cross over her breast, and flees,
shutting the door behind her.
    Madame
De Cassin generously pours out sherry in each of the tumblers. “To the sweet
spirits,” she solemnly toasts Jessie and seats herself, swirling her black cape
over her shoulder.
    “Well,
now. Didn’t know they nipped a tick before the mumbo jumbo,” Mr. Heald mutters
to Mr. Watkins with a wink. “No wonder the wife goes in for it.”
    “To
the sweet spirits,” says Mr. Watkins enthusiastically, tossing sherry down his
throat and reaching for the decanter.
    Li’l
Lucy noisily slurps, burps, and giggles.
    “To
the sweet spirits,” Jessie says passionately, ignoring the others’ disrespect.
They shall see! Madame De Cassin insists on the ritual imbibing of
spirits—spirits for the spirits, you see—which opens our mortal door to the
Summerland. The great spiritualist supplies this particular sherry to Jessie just
for this sacred purpose, and this purpose only. The sherry establishes a
certain sympathy with the madame’s spirit guide, Chief Silver Thorne, who
during his life on earth much favored the beverage. Jessie happily gulps the
smoky-tasting liquor, which warms her just as the medicinal benefit of Scotch
Oats Essence is beginning to fade. This particular sherry makes her head spin
unlike any other. “I want to speak with Rachael, Madame De Cassin.”
    “Of
course you do,” the spiritualist says. She sets her tumbler down, staring severely
at the other sitters. Even Mr. Watkins gets the hint, reluctantly relinquishing
his tumbler. Madame De Cassin makes long, sweeping motions with her gloved
hands, clearing the magnetic energy over the table. Her handsome face goes
slack in the candlelight. Her eyelids flutter and her pupils roll up, showing
the whites beneath them.
    “You
will all join hands,” she whispers.
    Jessie
takes the spiritualist’s left hand and Mr. Watkins’s right hand. Her heart
begins to pound and her head whirls in the perfumed darkness.
    Mr.
Heald sits next to the spiritualist on the right, Li’l Lucy blinks nervously
between the two gentlemen. They all join hands, and the circle is complete.
    Madame
De Cassin wastes no time going into a trance. She begins to moan and sway,
keening louder and louder till she leans over the black candle and, with a
chilling screech, blows out the flame.
    “Chief
Silver Thorne?” she calls out. “My dear friend in the Summerland, my noble
Cherokee chief, where are you-oo-oo?”
    A
shudder rocks the spiritualist, and Jessie trembles with fear and excitement.
She grips the spiritualist’s gloved hand. Lordy, her hand is so firm from
equestrian activities! Jessie cannot see a thing in the darkness. A ghostly
caress tickles the back of her neck. “Sure and I feel the chief’s hand,” Jessie
whispers, dread rushing deliciously up her spine. Shapes blacker than the
darkness reel and totter before her blinded eyes.
    From
the other side of the table, Mr. Heald makes little yelping noises.
    Madame
De Cassin lets loose a bloodcurdling yell, and a horn blows softly just above
Jessie’s ear. Then a bizarre masculine voice spills out in the vicinity of the
spiritualist’s mouth. “I am here, Rebecca.” The voice has a strange accent
Jessie can’t quite place.
    The
spiritualist’s cloak rustles as she sways and lurches. “Forgive me, Chief
Silver Thorne, but we have strangers with us today.”
    “Yes,
I sense their presence,” Chief Silver Thorne answers irritably. “Two gentlemen
who do not support woman suffrage.”
    Mr.
Heald sputters and says, “Well, I’ll be a fiddler’s bitch.”
    Mr.
Watkins says, “I certainly do not. Women suffer enough. Ha, ha.”
    Ghostly
caresses patter on the back of Jessie’s head. “Please, Chief Silver Thorne,”
she pleads. “Let us not discuss woman suffrage again.