Intersections Read online

  "Examine it," she said. "Tell me if you find anything out of the ordinary."

  For the next fifteen minutes, I poured over that table with a fine-toothed comb. "It's clean," I said.

  She turned to a large metal box on a shelf. Wires jumbled all around it and one of the vacuum tubes stood tall from the top. "Now observe."

  She turned a dial and it began to hum. The table, too, made the sound. It vibrated, rattling the floor, and then the planchette moved.

  It slid over to the letter "C" as Persephone worked her little machine. Then "O," then "N." She spelled my entire name from the other side of the room.

  "Radio signals, Connie. That's how they did it."

  She walked over and fiddled with the table. A section pulled out from beneath the top. I'd looked it over and I swear there was neither crack nor crease.

  Inside iron nails had been tied into place, each wrapped in copper wire.

  "What are these?"

  "Ferromagnetic cores," she said. "When a charge is passed into the copper wires, it creates a magnetic field in the iron nails." She handed me the planchette. "The legs are filled with iron as well. Radio receivers built into the legs of the table allow me to open and close the circuits remotely, turning on the magnets needed to pull the planchette where I want it to go."

  "What powers it?"

  She pulled another hidden drawer out to reveal a dozen A and B batteries strung together.

  "Everything they'd need can be hidden right here in this table. Any illusionist worth his salt can build hidden compartments."

  "Wait. You searched their table."

  "But I didn't know what I was looking for yet."

  I stepped back and took it all in. Try to remember, this was the early nineteen twenties. For the teenage me, radio control and electromagnets might as well have been rocket ships to Mars.

  "This is amazing, Seph," I finally said. "Really it is."

  She turned the machine off. "But?"

  "But it's so loud. The humming and the rattling."

  "There's some kind of shock absorption they've used. I haven't figured that out yet. But I will."

  "Okay. So that might explain how the table didn't rattle itself apart. But what about the humming from the equipment?"

  "The wind and the shutters rattling. The door slamming open. It was all misdirection, sure, but it also hid the sounds."

  "You're telling me they made the wind blow?"

  "No, no. It hit me after being in the old library." She shuddered thinking of it. "They could have used a Victrola. After all, we never saw the shutters smacking against the house because the curtains were drawn. We never saw the wind."

  "What about the door blowing open? And who ran the radio thingee to send the signal that spelled out the words?"

  "Well, they obviously have assistants, don't they?"

  "I guess there's one way to find out. Now that you know what you're looking for, you can check their table again."

  She waved it off. "You think they'll let me in a hundred feet of that thing again? Besides, I don't need to prove they did it this way. I simply need to prove they could have."

  I almost repeated what Doyle had said when he hired us: Just because a painter can mimic the image of a sunset does not mean the sun never leaves the sky. But I knew better than to argue with her. Besides, who was I to disagree? I'd never spent so much as a single day in a classroom.

  The table was shipped back to Manhattan and she returned to it a few times over the years, but I never felt she ever really reproduced what had happened that evening. I'm not saying her sister summoned an honest-to-God ghost. But whatever had occurred during that séance, Persephone's table was one of the rare times where she missed some piece of the bigger picture, even if she did use it to debunk another dozen mediums who dabbled in radio science over the next few years.

  Sir Doyle's response to her assessment was much as I expected when she showed him her table, but he made good on his debt to us anyway. Ghosts or no, he felt horrible about what had happened to Seph. When her face had healed, he arranged for the Times to run the story about how she solved Caitlin's murder. They snapped a picture to go with it and I still have a copy of it framed in my study. Doyle was very impressed with her for solving the crime. Houdini too.

  Me? I was always impressed by Persephone Gale. Even now, decades after she's gone, I rarely think of her without feeling as though she were a comet. Vibrant and bright and exceedingly rare.

  I miss her.

  At the train station the next morning, no one waited to see us off. Rose had booked an early morning reading for Neph with a bunch of Wall Street eggs. Any goodbye there wouldn't have been able to top our day in the cemetery at any rate.

  As Persephone argued with a porter about our seat assignments, I caught sight of a red Lancia Lambda parked several yards away.

  I raised my hand to wave and it drove off.

  Once we were seated, Persephone let out a sigh. "Back to civilization. Thank God."

  A loud hiss and the car jerked forward.

  "You did give Nephthys our address, didn't you, Connie?"

  "No. I didn't think about it."

  She pulled a nail file from her purse and went to work on her hand. "A shame. If we keep your studies up, you'll be reading and writing letters in no time. You two could have stayed in touch."

  I could have hit myself. I slumped back into my seat and chewed on a fingernail.

  She made a show of sighing again. "I suppose I can write her and provide our contact information. Poor girl needs a logical voice in her life anyway."

  Grinning, I said, "Yeah, she could probably use a big sister."

  "I hate that term. `Big sister.' Makes me think of gargantuan opera singers. Let's use the word `mentor,' shall we?"

  "Whatever you say, Madame Persephone of the Spirits."

  She smacked my shoulder and laughed. “I should have never told you that.”

  The train rocked down the tracks and Gallow's Grove disappeared from view.

  "I have to say, Connie, I am thrilled beyond belief to know that I will never set foot in this town again."

  Only she was wrong about that. That wouldn't be the last time we'd visit Gallow's Grove and it sure as Hell wouldn't be the last time we found ourselves knee deep in trouble.

  But that's a story for another day.

  Brad C. Hodson

  Born in Tennessee, Brad C. Hodson currently hangs his hat in sunny Southern California. He's worked on the screenplays for a dozen movies you've never seen and a couple you might have. His first novel DARLING is currently being adapted to film and he co-created and co-edited the shared world anthology MADHOUSE. When not writing, he stares through your window at night and watches you sleep.

  Find out more:

  @BradCHodson

  brad.c.hodson

  www.brad-hodson.com/bibliography

  The Next Big Thing

  Sèphera Girón

  I’m trying to get this down as quickly as I can just in case there’s no other opportunity to share this warning.

  Quickly I’ll note that I’m on one of those million-mile bus rides from Toronto to Boston. By car, it’s about eight hours. By bus, try about twenty-three.

  It’s hell sitting here, literally. I’m sweating to death and I’m lucky that I’m rather small. I’m wedged between two rather large men who have already succumbed to the lurches and sways of this behemoth we’re strapped into for the next thousand years.

  * * *

  It was my petite frame that drew him to me. That I knew for sure. I lured all men and ladies with my oddly thin body and exotic pale face. I’ve been this way for a couple of years now so I know that my seat mates are appreciative as they snore in the darkness. A regular-sized woman would have made this leg of the journey a sweaty crowded nightmare.

  However, I’m grateful to be in the middle, kind of squished around while dudes are snoring on either side of me. I have a flashlight pen so that I don’t wake up