Intersections Read online

  Grabbing another hat, she spared my reflection a glance in the mirror. "Is that what you're wearing?"

  "Wearing? To what?"

  She sighed and tossed that hat across the room as well. "To the reading. While you were out, Madame Nephthys sent word that we may attend her afternoon reading. Ah!" She snatched up another hat and tenderly lowered it onto her head. It didn't look much different than the other two. "Perfect."

  "Don't you want to know about the murder?"

  "Told you," she said as she fanned out a half dozen tiny hand purses. "You can inform me on the way. Now get dressed."

  "What should I wear?"

  "I don't care. Just not that."

  Looking in the mirror, I knew she was right. I looked like a newsboy with my suspenders and cap. I rushed to my room and threw on a sweater she'd bought me and spit shined my shoes. Spit shined my hair, too, which almost took care of my cow-lick. Seph still grabbed me on the way out and messed with my hair herself, a grimace on her face all the while. She took good care of me, don't get me wrong, but she had a strong distaste for anything that made her feel at all motherly.

  On the walk through town, I filled her in on everything I'd learned. She didn't ask any questions, simply nodded and pursed her lips, her brain sorting and processing the information. When I told her the victim was a seventeen-year-old girl, she exhaled slowly as though she were relieved. I didn't know why, but was about to find out.

  "The Salon of Madame Nephthys, Oracle of the Spirits" was one of the larger homes in town though, unlike the others, this one did not also have a "Room For Rent" sign. She did more than enough business with readings and séances to not need an additional income. I wondered what the other psychics in town thought of that.

  Inside the parlor, two dozen people sat quietly in folding chairs, a single empty chair in the front facing them. A vacant seat in the back had a sheet of paper hanging on it. "Miss Gale," it read.

  "Where am I supposed to sit?" I whispered.

  Everyone in the room turned to glare at us.

  "Sorry," I said. "Didn't realize we was in a library."

  "Stand in back," Persephone said as she took her seat. "And be observant."

  She said that as though I often wasn't. Irritated, I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

  After a few minutes, a door on the opposite side of the room opened and an older woman stepped through. Dressed all in black as though she were in mourning, she walked over in front of everyone and crossed her hands on her abdomen. Here we go, I thought. Madame Nephthys is on.

  The woman scanned the room and something about her seemed familiar. Her piercing eyes and button nose struck me. Even surrounded by crow's feet and fat starting to sag on her cheeks and neck, she had a ferocious beauty. Where had I seen that before?

  Holy shit. It hit me just as her eyes found Persephone. She trembled slightly and took a long breath. I looked to Seph and she sat on the edge of her seat, her back to me but the tension in her shoulders obvious.

  Was that Persephone's Mom?

  "Good afternoon," the woman said. "We welcome all of you to the Salon of Madame Nephthys, Oracle of the Spirits and Intercessor with the Dead. She will be opening herself up soon to the spirits and so we ask that you do not interrupt her or ask any questions of her. The spirits will provide her with information that she will pass on to you. Madame Nephthys cannot control what information they provide in these readings. You may not understand what is said to you here, but if you do not rest assured it will make sense in the coming days. Thank you."

  The woman looked to Persephone again before lighting candles placed around the room. Then she closed the door next to me, shooting an irritated glance my way for standing. Persephone often shot me that same look. She then stepped over to the window and closed the curtains. Black flooded the room, the only light the flickering glow of the candles.

  A door creaked open and another candle passed into the parlor. Held at arm’s length, it almost looked like it hovered through the room. The door closed and the candle floated over to the seat. Only when she sat did the bottom half of Madame Nephthys's veiled face come into view. Small and slight, her features delicate against the black cloth, I did not expect such a powerful voice when she spoke.

  "Hear me, O spirits," she said, her words filling the room. "We gather here today to offer voice to you. Your loved ones have come, some from great distances, so that you may once again speak to them. We open ourselves to your presence and I offer myself as a conduit for you to be heard once more."

  Silence. Nephthys cocked her head to one side as though someone whispered to her. She nodded.

  "There is someone trying to speak to me," she said. "Someone who died after a long life. I... I have a horrible... this tightness in my chest. Like something squeezing my... They want me to mention the apron."

  Someone in the audience gasped. There was always a gasp.

  "It's an M name. Mary or Marty or..."

  "Marian," an old man said.

  "Yes," Nephthys answered. "She says that’s right. It's Marian."

  "She died of a heart attack," he said.

  "That explains the chest pains. What is the significance of the apron?"

  "I bought her an apron for her birthday. She wore it every day when she cooked. When I think of her, it's always in that apron."

  "She wants you to know she loves you," Nephthys said and the man burst into tears. "She's gone. But now I'm getting someone else. A child. Someone with an R name... Ralph or Robert or... No, wait. It's not R. It's P." She traced the letter in the air with one finger, reminding us all how similar it looked to an R. "Patrick or Paul or..."

  "Peter," a woman said.

  "Yes, Peter."

  And on she went. She spoke to fifteen ghosts that afternoon, each with a family member in the audience relieved to talk to them one last time.

  The technique, known as "cold reading," was a staple of most carny acts. If this was her big trick, Sir Doyle disappointed me in his sleuthing skills. Though I had to admit, Madame Nephthys was far better at it than most of the hucksters I'd seen. She even threw me for a loop about halfway through the whole act.

  That bit unnerved me, I have to be honest. It didn't fit the usual shotgun approach to cold reading statements. Persephone always told me that cold reading was like fishing. You dangle some bait out there, trying to keep things as broad and vague as possible, and then let the fish do all the work. But this was weirdly specific.

  She looked into the back of the room, right where I was standing even though it was pitch black. She stared my way for a moment before saying, "She's sorry she gave you up, you know. She wishes she could have raised you herself but she's happy you're in good hands. You don't remember her, but she loved you very much."

  And then she went right back to fishing again.

  I never knew my mother. I've always wondered about her, who she was, why she left me at an orphanage in Brooklyn when I was two years old, what it was that was wrong with me that made her split. There's no way this woman could have known about any of that, even if she did know that Persephone had taken me in. And the statement was just too specific to work as part of a normal act. She didn't wait for a response, just went right on to the next one. I mean, the rubes validating whatever nonsense the medium spews is how the act works. But not for this one. Not for me.

  It rattled me. Still does, truth be told. I try to tell myself that's exactly how cold reading works, that I'm the one who made the proper connections and put the emotional weight behind it, but that doesn't feel right. It never has. Especially with everything that came after.

  When the hour was up, she stood and disappeared into the dark, her candle again floating over to the door and out of the room.

  The woman opened the curtains and the door, standing beside me thanking everyone as they left. When they were gone, Persephone approached her.

  A smile on her lips, tears filled the woman's eyes.

  "I see you're st