ohn Peacock was not a complicated person. He was a romantic person, which he kept to himself. He had moved through life without much difficulty, taking each step in stride as it appeared before him.
He loved his wife. He loved his daughter. He did not know the extent of this love until his daughter’s death.
She was such a small being, foreign to him. She cried and spit up. She caused all kinds of disruption and trouble. Yet, somehow all of his hopes had been bound up in this small package.
His daughter was dead.
It was usually the wife who called. Women became attached to the children of their wombs. The umbilical cord may be severed, but mothers kept a nurturing attachment to their offspring. When a child died, it was usually the mother who wanted to contact it.
Augustine was rather surprised to see this average-looking young man at her doorstep.
“You said,” he told her, “that you had a message from my daughter.”
“Come in,” she said. “You didn’t bring your wife?”
He looked uncomfortable, but he passed in the doorway and took the seat that was offered to him.
“No,” he said. “I thought I had better come by and check this out, without troubling my wife. You see, she is hard hit by this tragedy. I wouldn’t want anything to upset her.”
“I see,” said Augustine. “I understand perfectly. The last thing I would like to do is upset your wife, Mr. Peacock.”
“This is quite a blow to her.”
“Yes, I can see that. It must be.”
Gently, she led the discussion of his wife and daughter. He told her more than he was aware. Of course, an infant was the optimum subject for messages from the other side, since the child had not yet developed a personality and unique experiences that could be held as tests of the communication. Basically, an infant was a blank slate.
They made an appointment for a sitting the next week.
Melissa Peacock was not happy when she found that her husband had gone to the spiritualist.
“Why? Why do you want to torture me?”
“I’m just going to see if it’s true. If she really can talk to our Angel—”
“Of course she can’t. These people are all frauds. I’ve read it in the paper. I can’t stand the thought of that woman saying she’s talking to my baby—”
“Okay, honey, don’t cry. Sit down. Can I get you something? Some water or something? Don’t worry yourself. I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
John Peacock showed up for the séance twenty minutes early. He was twice as nervous as his last visit, practically jumping out of his boots when Augustine greeted him.
“This is Charlotte Rowe,” she said. “Perhaps you have heard of her great gifts.”
“No,” said John. “I’m afraid I haven’t. I don’t get around much.”
“How do you do?” said Charlotte.
He smiled awkwardly at the young girl.
“Charlotte will sit with us. She is a gifted medium,” said Augustine.
The séance began quite normally. After sitting in the darkness for twenty minutes, small ghostly hands appeared behind Augustine. John Peacock saw them, cried out, and jumped from his chair. The hands disappeared into the darkness.
“I saw them,” he said. “Hands. Baby’s hands.”
“I believe you,” said Augustine. “I know. It is a common form for spirit apparition.”
“Was it—my baby?”
“Yes,” said Augustine. “She is trying to come through to you.”
“What is wrong with her?” asked John. Charlotte did not move or speak, and seemed engrossed in her own world.
“She’s in a trance,” said Augustine.
A wind blew through the room. The candles on the table flickered, sending weird shadows across the wall, and then were extinguished.
“What is this?” said John.
“Be calm. Is there a spirit here? Is there a spirit coming through to us?”
A groan came from the room. In the darkness, it was hard to trace its origins. It was a slow, small groan, a creak. Perhaps it was a door grinding against its frame instead of a voice.
The sound grew louder and more complex. It took on shades and subtleties, as if it were multiple sounds, layered on each other, competing with each other. The layers dissolved and extended, coming together into a loud wail, a baby’s cry.
“Angel?” John Peacock said.
The cry drifted off into the darkness.
They waited in silence for a moment.
“Do you have a message for us?” asked Augustine. “Do you have a message for your father?”
“Yes.” It was a hiss, barely a word, traveling on the wind.
“Tell us.”
They waited in silence for a while, too long. Augustine relit the candles.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Peacock,” she told John. “It is difficult for the spirits to come through.” She looked at Charlotte, who still seemed unresponsive, trancelike. “Perhaps,” she said, “we should try another method.”
She sat in her chair and stared at Charlotte, but there was no response from the girl. “Charlotte?” she said.
John, too, stared at the girl.
“She’s still in a trance,” said John. “Does that mean my little girl is still here?”
“She is here,” said Augustine. “She is always with you.” She stared hard at Charlotte. “I will get a chalkboard, and we will try another method to reach her. She is trying to reach out to you. I can feel her.”
Augustine rose from her chair, and Charlotte’s eyelids whipped wide open, her head and body seized in a momentary fit. “No!”
Augustine sat.
“Charlotte?”
“No!”
John looked at the girl. “Angel? Are you here?”
Charlotte’s head cocked back at an unnatural angle. She lifted her arm, but her forearm and hand dangled off of it, as if she had no muscles there.
“Fa—ther.” This was rusty and quiet, and though it came from Charlotte’s vicinity, her mouth did not move.
“Angel?” said John.
“So unclear.”
“Angel?”
“Help. Strange. Nothing.”
“I think we have an interference,” said Augustine.
Charlotte rose from her chair. Her eyeballs rolled back into her head, until all that was visible were eerie, blind whites. The wind rose in the room again, whipping her hair back. She reached toward John with her hands, and vomit suddenly spewed out of her mouth.
Augustine and John shot back from the table. Charlotte’s arms seemed to be bending backward from the elbow. Gurgling noises came from her.
“Charlotte!” said Augustine. She went to the girl and tried to shake her.
“What is wrong?”
“Go, now,” said Augustine. “Go in the other room to wait. I will be there shortly. Go!”
John left, and Augustine turned her attention on the girl.
“What are you doing? What are you doing?” she muttered under her breath.
Charlotte collapsed on the floor, insensible.
Augustine struggled to lift the girl, cleaning her up the best that she could, as quickly as she could, and depositing her on a sofa. “Charlotte?” she said. The girl did not answer her.
When Augustine came into the room where John sat, she had made herself relatively presentable.
“Mr. Peacock?” she said.
“Yes? What is it? What happened?”
“I’m afraid we cannot complete the sitting today.”
“My daughter—I saw her.”
“I know. She is trying to come through to you. She wants to speak with you. She has given us a message, and I want to assure you that she is at peace.”
“But that—what was that?”
“I must explain to you that sometimes there are forces from another plane, forces that interfere with our communication. I’m afraid that Charlotte is ill, and that this has allowed an ill-wishing being to break off communication with your daughter.”
“That was not my daughter?”
“No, of course not. You must come back, perhaps tomorrow? We will have a sitting without Charlotte, since she is unwell. I will sit with you, and you will be able to communicate with your Angel. I feel her force around you. She is with you very strongly.”
“I see,” said John.
“I must see to Charlotte. She is really unwell. But you will come back tomorrow?”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” John left the house, upset and unsatisfied.
There was a bright light and the feeling of sorrow. I was floating through the blank emptiness, just floating. I didn’t see the baby, Angel, at that time.
I only saw Nanette.
She was cleaned. Her hair was washed, and she was holding her own baby to her breast. She lacked any feeling of self-consciousness, breastfeeding in front of the doctor. He, clinically, accepted this as natural. He was speaking words to her, showing her objects.
The doctor held up a fork. “Fourchette,” he said. “Fourchette.”
“Four—chette,” stumbled Nanette, sounding unnatural and foreign.
“Bon,” said the doctor. He gave her a piece of candy from the table. She giggled like a child, holding her own baby to her breast. Then, he picked up a spoon. “Cuillère,” he said. “Cuillère.”
The baby made a gurgling noise, and Nanette looked down. She rocked back and forth in her chair.
“Nanette,” she said. “Nanette.”
The doctor sighed. He lifted the spoon. “Cuillère.”
“Nanette, Nanette,” she said, then quietly she began to sing. “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines, Ding, dang, dong! Ding, dang, dong!”
She paused and looked up at the doctor, beseechingly. “Frère Jacques,” she said.
“Cuillère,” said the doctor.
“Frère Jacques,” said Nanette, again, petulantly.
“Cuillère,” said the doctor, shaking the spoon.
Nanette sighed. “Cuillrr,” she spit out. Then, “Frère Jacques.”
The doctor shrugged and dropped the spoon. Nanette smiled and began again to sing.
The doctor joined in round, following her singing with her own, to Nanette’s delight. His deep and grumbling voice joined in with her young and elevated tones. The simple tune took on a new depth, a new meaning, as it turned in upon itself, combining with itself in new and strange ways, creating a möbius strip of music, running around and around onto itself.
In Charlotte’s head, the music ran around and around onto itself. A baby, at its mother’s breast. A baby, in its mother’s care. A baby, protected and loved through the deep-seated animal instinct of motherhood. A puppy, to be fed from the breast, to grow and live and create more babies; who will be fed from the breast to grow and live and create more babies; who will Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines, Ding, dang, dong! Ding, dang, dong!
Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Baby mine, baby mine. Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing. Ding, dong, ding. Ding, dong, ding. Wake up. Wake. What is wrong? Why don’t you wake? Why won’t you wake up? Wake up, wake up!
Charlotte lay ill for three weeks. She was unresponsive most of the time, but they were able to feed her water and soup. The doctor looked at her and was unable to find the cause of her suffering.
“A nervous attack,” he said. “I know that she works with that woman, and it can’t be good for her.”
“This is not a nervous attack,” said Professor Rowe. “These are physical symptoms.”
“Perhaps it is a spiritual illness,” said Miriam, and both men frowned at her.
They cared for her the best they could.
During the time of Charlotte’s illness, John Peacock went to four séances with Augustine. The first of these was much less troubled than the previous sitting. To John’s joy, his daughter was able to communicate with them, in ghostly form, through both spirit writing and table turning. The baby, Angel, assured him that she was at peace, and that, in the afterlife, she had gained a great spiritual understanding.
“Such a short time, short time, on that plane for me, a child, since my soul was ready, born in a state of advanced light, not long for the world, but bound for better things.”
He did not tell his wife about these meetings, but at the last of them a message came through from Melissa’s father.
“He is proud, very proud, wants to speak to her, wants to give her his blessing.”
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