Against my better judgment, I agreed. I was always too critical of Charles and since coming to Jersey had been trying to be more supportive.
We made what I anticipated to be our last attempt on the afternoon of September 11.
At dinner that night we hosted Delphine, August Vaquerie, General Le Flo and Pierre de Revenue. All dined on roasted chicken, herbed potatoes, tender asparagus and an apple tart. A good red wine was served, but I drank little of it. Since I was going to sit at the table, if anything did happen, I wanted to be aware and receptive to it, and wine muddles the brain and causes bouts of sleepiness. Instead, after dinner while Delphine set up the séance, I indulged in some postprandial hashish to stir the brain, encourage my awareness and aid in my receptiveness.
Our house at Marine Terrace in Jersey overlooks the Channel and the window opens on the sea. That evening she was eloquent. Her ceaseless waves crashed on the shore, filling the silence with angry music as we arranged ourselves at the table. It was a restless song, I thought, as if the sea too were anxious with impatience, waiting for something to occur.
And it did. The fourth séance was terrifying and joyous. Frightening and beautiful. Powerful in a way that no man, no beast, no God can protect against. Another world opened up that night, one beyond the sea, the sky, even beyond the stars.
We discovered a crack in the wall that separates the present from the past. When the wind blew through our parlor windows on the evening of September 11, 1853, it blew in the unthinkable. A portal opened. The sea howled in rebellion. And a humble man was tempted with a gift that might have proved his ruin, and yours.
“Put your fingertips on the stool’s top,” Delphine instructed.
Charles did as she suggested.
“Keep your fingers there no matter what occurs. François-Victor, when the stool’s leg begins to tap, take careful notes. One tap for yes, two for no. Remember what I told you, words will be spelled out one letter at a time, the number of taps corresponding to that letter in the alphabet. We can decipher the conversation later.”
We sat in a circle around this twenty-five-centimeter-high centerpiece on our card table. Adults playing a parlor game. All curious, but one with a desire so strong it must have extended out into the ether, to the spirits. It gave off sparks. And shone.
As I watched, I allowed how profoundly I wanted this trick to be real. I desperately wanted to speak to the dead. On the last day of the week of the anniversary of Leopoldine’s death, I longed to speak to my daughter.
“Open your minds,” Delphine instructed us all. “Let the spirits in. Make them welcome and allow them to speak.”
Nothing happened. With each passing second, I felt my hope ebbing. Then after almost a full minute, the little stool began to move. One of its legs tapped. And then again. And again.
“Is someone here with us?” Delphine asked, the excitement in her voice rising like bubbles in a champagne glass. “Are you here?”
Tap, tap.
I will never forget the reverberation of that wood against the table. It was no different from the sound of a tree branch snapping. Of a door shutting. Of a box lid closing. An innocent sound, I thought then. But how wrong I was, because with each rap, another seed of madness took root in the fertile soil of my mind. The tapping was wicked, degenerate; it was depraved.
“Is someone there?” my wife cried out, clearly unnerved.
The taps continued at a slow pace. François-Victor diligently made notes, but I was certain they would prove to be random and inconclusive knocks. From the expression on Delphine’s face, I could see she thought the same.
Another effort, another failure, I thought.
And then the rhythm changed. The tapping sounded more determined.
As François-Victor laboriously recorded the number of taps, I somehow anticipated the word being spelled out as if I were having a conversation with a ghost; I was able to understand these whispers of air. Ah, this is difficult to explain, even for me. So much of this adventure is. But believe me, during that séance and those that followed, our spirit guests spoke to me. Not out loud so others could hear, but not in my imagination either.
I am here. I am with you.
Then the tapping stopped. The stool ceased to move. This time it remained still for two full minutes. I was ready to push my chair away when it finally started up again. The stool appeared agitated. Jittering. Sliding a bit, then pushing back. Was Charles doing this himself?
“Are you the spirit who was tapping before?” Delphine asked.
Two taps.
No.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The stool tapped four times. Then stopped.
D.
Then one tap.
A.
Then a long flow of even taps. Charles counted twenty-one. Then a stop.
U.
Then seven taps.
G.
It had taken me one second to hear what it took the stool several minutes to spell out. One word, Daughter.
Then it stopped for a slight pause before starting up again. Immediately the stool tapped out four more taps.
D.
Then five.
E.
Then one.
A.
I knew this word too, long before its last letter tapped out. I put the two words together.
Daughter. Dead.
“Who are you?” Delphine asked once more.
The spirit identified herself this time by tapping out her name. Letter by letter.
L.E.O.P.O.L.D.I.N.E.
“Is it truly you, Didine?” I asked. “Is it you?”
I did not have to wait for the tedious taps. I knew. Nevertheless a single tap confirmed it.
Tap.
Yes.
“Are you happy?”
Yes.
“Where are you?”
Light.
“How can we be with you, my dearest?”
Love.
“Do you watch over us and see our unhappiness?”
Yes.
As a student of human nature, I have trained myself to read faces and see what is in someone’s heart regardless of the words they use. As that stool tapped out its answers to the questions we were asking, I watched those present for chicanery and guile. Was Charles exerting some kind of pressure upon the stool? Could he have been so desperate as to make it move out of grief? Or so cruel as to make a joke of such a somber occasion as this?
I asked him outright and he assured me he wasn’t manipulating the stool. Were my other children in on it somehow? Or my wife? She claimed to suffer because of my dalliances, but she didn’t hate me enough to punish me like this. No, Adele was not capable of such a hoax. In fact she was sobbing and our daughter, her mother’s namesake, was crying with her.
No, this was no prank. Sybil’s tripod had come to life.
Outside the wind picked up, sending plaintive pleas to the sea, who answered with roars and splashes. Nature communicates all its attitudes better than any man’s words.
I asked Didine one last question.
“Will you come back to talk to us more?”
One glorious tap. The yes I had yearned to hear.
And so, in a matter of moments, a life changes.
I who had never been haunted, who had been skeptical of visitations, suddenly accepted all possibilities. Or as a priest would say, in that moment, I allowed the devil into my life.
But the priest would be wrong. I did more than allow him in. I gave the devil a warm hearth and a hospitable place to rest for as long as he wanted one. I gave him access to my very soul.
Two
AUGUST 14, THE PRESENT
UPSTATE CONNECTICUT, USA