Trelawny glared sideways at William. “The first incentive I offer,” he said, “is the life of your sister. Forfeiting that, you’ll find I can bring further incentives to bear.”
“I have another idea,” Christina said.
CRAWFORD HOPED SHE DID. The Rossettis’ mother was in some nearby room preparing tea, and Trelawny might very well be capable of blowing Christina Rossetti’s head off right here in the parlor.
Crawford’s ears were ringing as if in anticipation of the shot, and Trelawny was too far away across the carpet for Crawford to hope to spring up from the sofa and catch the old man’s arm before he could shoot, and William’s chair was on the other side of the sofa from Trelawny.
“My sister, Maria,” said Christina evenly, “died three months ago. Two months ago a friend acquired her ghost for me. It’s in my room upstairs.”
“And your idea is…?” grated Trelawny, not lowering the gun barrel.
“Maria always claimed — that is, she never denied — that she had found a way, in her studies, to stop our uncle. She would never tell us what it was, because it apparently involved us committing some mortal sin, and she didn’t want to be a party to us damning our souls.”
William, almost as pale as his shirt, nodded jerkily. “That’s right.”
Christina’s face had somehow darkened and sagged since Crawford had last seen her, but when she smiled, it was the face he remembered. “She had scruples, do you see?” she said. “While she was living. But ghosts don’t have scruples.”
For several seconds the clock on the mantel ticked and no one spoke. Then Trelawny lowered the pistol and tucked it back under his coat.
“Three months? Not too diminished, then. We’ll bank on that, God help us, and I can certainly commit one more mortal sin.” He frowned at Christina. “I could not have shot you, Diamonds. I abjectly apologize for pretending that I would.”
The couch and chairs creaked as the Crawfords and Rossettis began hesitantly to relax.
Christina closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “You pretend very well,” she said; then she opened her eyes and gave him a frail smile. “But I can respect your concern for your grandchild.”
She got unsteadily to her feet. “I’ll fetch the bottle,” she said, and she made her way to the hall; soon they could hear her shoes bumping on stairs. Crawford reflected that she looked much older and gaunter than the intervening seven years could justify.
Johanna nodded. “A drink first would be a splendid idea.”
“The bottle contains the ghost,” said William, slumped back in his chair and rubbing his face. “Edward,” he burst out, “all this will make further literary consultations between us mightily awkward.”
“I don’t see that as necessarily so,” said Trelawny, who seemed shaky now himself. “Friends do have disagreements.”
Crawford barely had time to dig out a handkerchief and wipe his forehead, and exchange wide-eyed glances with his wife and daughter, before they heard Christina clumping with painful haste back down the stairs.
“Paper and pencil, William!” she panted as she reappeared in the parlor doorway. She was holding a corked glass bottle full of some pale brown liquid. “I told Mama not to bother with tea, and that we’re not to be interrupted.”
William stood up from his chair and crossed to an old slant-front desk against the wall. A framed picture hung over it, and he muttered a curse and flipped it around to face the plaster, then grabbed a paper and pencil and hurried back to the others.
Christina had pulled the low table closer to her chair and more squarely under the chandelier, and now she took the pencil and paper from her brother and laid the paper on the tabletop beside the bottle.
She sat down and waved Trelawny into a chair, and then she started to write a series of capital letters on the paper; but her hand shook too violently, and she pursed her lips and gave the pencil to William. He hiked his chair forward and quickly finished the row of letters.
“Silence, now,” said Christina, “everyone.” Then she lifted the pencil and said, “Maria, are you there?”
Crawford jumped then, and felt Johanna beside him twitch too, for there was some furry little thing in the bottle, and it had moved. The half-dozen gas jets on the chandelier overhead made a fan of the bottle’s shadow, and the thing in the bottle glimmered like mother-of-pearl.
But after a few moments, Christina frowned. “Are you there, Maria? We need you.”
William was looking uneasy. “No knocks,” he whispered.
The room seemed distinctly colder. Crawford exhaled but couldn’t see his breath.
“Maria!” Christina went on. “Communicate with us, please! This is your sister and your brother asking!”
The overlapping shadows of the bottle on the table were waving slightly back and forth across the wood surface.
Johanna had shifted around on the sofa, and when Crawford glanced at her, he saw that she was looking toward the hallway arch.
Then she turned to Christina. “Did you lock the door?”
“Shh,” said Christina. “Maria, let us know you hear us!”
A loud, wavering buzzing distracted Crawford now; looking up, he saw a wasp looping through the air around the gas flames, and the chandelier was swaying on its chain.
Trelawny saw the wasp and struggled to his feet, pulling the heavy revolver out of his coat again.
“What now?” exclaimed William, shoving himself back from the table in alarm.
“This time,” Trelawny wheezed, “I blow off his damned block and tackle!” He took a step to catch his balance, bumping the table.
“Yes,” agreed Johanna in a high-pitched voice as she stood up and drew a knife from inside her blouse.
Everybody was leaping up in confusion, and the table went over with a bang — the ghost jar was rolling across the carpet, and the swinging chandelier threw bobbing shadows across the walls.
“He can’t actually get in,” said Johanna, watching the windows. “He hasn’t been invited.”
The air in the parlor was now very cold, and drafty, and carried the smoke-and-horse smell of the street. Crawford heard scuffling in the hall and the clattering bang of a framed picture hitting the floor.
He shot a glance at Christina, and her brown old face was a mask of dismay.
“You have invited him in!” he exclaimed incredulously. He could see the steam of his breath now, and wasps were darting back and forth around the rocking chandelier and through the streaks of glowing dust sifting down from new cracks in the ceiling plaster.
“He was my,” Christina choked, “his soul was my child, before it was Lizzie’s!” She was wringing her gnarled hands and blinking around at her shaking house. “I baptized him!”
“You blinded me!” came a musical voice from the hall, and then the thing stepped into the parlor.
It was tall, and made to seem taller by the silk hat on its narrow black head, but its arms were so long and slack that its white-gloved hands crouched on fingertips on the floor like crabs. Its face was covered with tarry black paint, shiny in the lamplight, and its eyes had been painted over so thickly that there was scarcely any indentation between the eyebrows and the cheekbones. “I have to paint my face to hide the baptism stains!”
The floor was moving back and forth, and bits of plaster were falling from the ceiling now.
“You promised!” shrilled Christina, rushing at the thing. “You promised—”