Page 1

Chapter

One

May 1889

Madison, Wisconsin

The disappointed silence was always the worst part. Magdalene Cruthers slitted one eye open, heart sinking as she watched the elderly woman wringing her hands in her lap, absently twisting a gold band around her ring finger.

“Did you not hear what you wished?” Maggie probed, opening her eyes wide.

The older woman shook her head. “I’m afraid not.” Her smile was weak. “Michael was not much of a God-fearing man, so hearing him use so much pious language …” She shook her head again. “I suppose it isn’t far-fetched to imagine one changes after crossing over.”

Shit. The client wore a rather ostentatious cross around her neck, leading Maggie to imagine she was deeply committed to the Lord. Devout women seldom wed men who differed.

“I have found,” Maggie said gently, “that it isn’t unusual for the departed to find comfort in the Lord after they have passed.” She smiled as the woman relaxed her tense shoulders. “Perhaps your Michael has seen the light.”

There it was. The woman’s mouth widened in a smile as she nodded. “I believe you are right, Miss Cruthers. I knew he would, eventually.” Her smile flickered. “Though it would have been nice if it had happened while he was alive.”

Maggie coughed delicately to cover a snort. “Men can be frustrating,” she offered.

The woman rose from her chair. “Thank you, Miss Cruthers. You cannot know—” She cut herself off, swallowing. “Thank you.” She reached into a small leather bag at her side and withdrew several coins, plunking them onto the table before leaving the room in a flurry of skirts.

Maggie leaned back in the chair, rubbing her eyes. She felt like a wrung-out dishrag and didn’t look much better when she caught her upside-down reflection in the crystal ball set in the middle of the table. Even at this angle and with dim lighting, she could see how tired she was – the bags under her eyes, the dullness of her skin. The little room was stifling even in the dying light, sweat gathering along her brow and dripping down her too-long nose. Her mouth, normally her favorite feature due to its pert heart shape, was turned down and bracketed with wrinkles.

She should have been all right—good, even—sending the widow off with renewed buoyancy. When she had started in this … profession, she’d felt no compunction whatsoever about lying to people, even delighting in her successful deception, but it was getting heavy now, and more often than not she felt gloomy at the end of a busy night. Over the past few months, she waved off invitations from her cohorts, Bridgers and Tom, to get a bite and a drink, in favor of tromping to whatever rooms they had rented and collapsing into a dreamless sleep. She thought of her bed in their current rooms and almost sighed at the memory of sinking into the soft mattress, which was why she jumped at the sound of the door opening. She swept the coins into her pocket and turned, an eyebrow raised.

A man ducked into the door, almost knocking his hat askew. “I beg your pardon,” he said, removing it from his head and giving her a nod. “A, ah, Bridgers told me you’d be willing to, ah …”

Her other eyebrow raised.

The man cleared his throat and shuffled his hat around in his hands, and Maggie felt a pang of sympathy. “Bridgers sent you in for a reading? Perhaps a peek into your future?” She glanced at the crystal ball again. It stared blankly back at her.

He nodded. She indicated the seat on the other side of the table and he sank into it, a grateful expression crossing his face. “Thank you,” he said, his voice a bit raspy. “This wasn’t my idea; my brothers wanted to come see you and they … Well, they wanted me to ask if perhaps you could …”

She sat in her chair regally, arranging her skirts. The old widow was supposed to have been the final client of the evening, but this man looked fragile. She had a soft spot for fragile men. Even if they did smell faintly of beer.

“Who did you lose, sir?”

“Theodore,” he replied, putting his hat on the floor. His simple clothes were a bit dated but clean, and he had a faint shadow of stubble dotting his jawline. Tired eyes, weary. His shoulders were slightly slumped. This man was exhausted.

“His name was Theodore?”

“My name is Theodore. My wife, Sarah.” He shifted. Uncomfortable. Unaccustomed to acknowledging her absence. Newer death. “She passed having our little girl, just about eighteen months ago.”

Oh Christ. “I’m so sorry,” Maggie said sincerely. “What would you like to say to her?” She had never been good at deaths involving a child. Nausea roiled in her stomach and she briefly wondered if vomiting during a séance would expose her as a fraud or make her appear more legitimate.

“I-I don’t know.” He twisted his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry, this is probably a waste of time.”

Maggie pursed her lips, breathing deeply to calm her stomach. “I sometimes find it helps if you simply speak to her as if you could see her,” she suggested. “She is here, after all.”

Theodore glanced up from his hands. “I don’t really have anything to say, I suppose. I just want to …” He swallowed, considering his words as he lifted a hand to tap nervously on the table. “I want to …” Tap tap tap. “I want to make sure she is all right.” Tap tap tap. “Wherever she is.”

Maggie paused. “Surely she went to the place of light, Theodore.”

He frowned. “I hope so.”

She studied him, the faint twitching under one eye, those restless hands now limp on his thighs. The corners of his eyes were wrinkled prematurely, deep lines carved by sorrow or laughter, maybe both. His lips were thinned, and grief rolled off him.