At least the evening started off well.

After avoiding a cheese sandwich at dinner due to a repulsion toward anything edible at the moment, Lucy changed into fresh attire with her sister as the clock ticked closer to eight o'clock. Rosaline pulled a pink lace and organdy dress out of her wardrobe for Lucy and curled the girl's frizzled hair into ringlets with a hot iron, encircling her head with a beaded band.

"See, it's just like preparing for a party," Rosaline told her, wiggling into a white dress with a full skirt and thin straps, her curves spilling over the dipped neckline.

A married couple with engaging laughs and dancing eyes entered the home first, and Rosaline took their coats and their sitting fee as she introduced them as Mildred and Herman Beveridge. Mrs. Beveridge wore an ugly dark necklace and a yellow gown; her husband's Adam's apple bulged above a bright-blue bowtie.

"Lucy, how nice to meet you," said the missus, her weathered face similar to Mrs. Applebaum's from Topeka. "What a lovely girl you are. Has anyone ever mentioned you could pass for Lillian Gish?"

Lucy's heart surged at the comparison to the brunet cinema beauty. "No, of course not. Lillian Gish is so pretty."

Mrs. Beveridge chuckled. "What a silly girl you are. Has anyone ever mentioned that?"

"Yes, ma'am. Many times."

Mrs. Parr arrived a minute afterward, followed by a heavy-set gentleman in his forties who apparently just joined the circle in recent weeks. After the dollar-per-person fee was duly collected, Rosaline gathered her guests in the living room and pampered them with plates of cheese and crackers, sliced apples and oranges, hot tea, coffee, and a pound cake prepared with sweetened condensed milk by a bakery adapting to the rationing.

With a cup of steaming tea in hand, Rosaline seated herself next to Lucy on the sofa and touched her sister's arm with heated fingers. She spoke in a hushed voice as everyone else chattered and gorged. "The newer gentleman is Robert Dressel, who lost his wife, Adelaide, to pneumonia last spring. Good old Brawley, my spirit control I was telling you about, talked him into plans for erecting a shrine to the poor woman to steer his grief into something useful. The Beveridges' son, Charlie, died in battle at the Marne. And of course, you know about Mrs. Parr."

Lucy gazed at the small gathering, latching her lips together to avoid appearing stunned, wondering how each one of the sitters---even the recent widower---managed the strength to laugh and feast and squeeze pleasure out of a chaotic world ailing with war and disease. How were they able to summon such joy when they pined for loved ones who left them behind?

"There are a few rules I must mention," continued Rosaline as Mr. Beveridge related jokes from a downtown burlesque show. "First of all, the spirits despise light. We'll be sitting in complete darkness, and even if you're frightened, do not leap up and open the door. Even the smallest rays could either terrify or damage our visitors."

Lucy nodded, her neck hairs bristling as if someone had just opened a window, allowing the nippy night air to trickle down her back.

"Second, if you see a limb-like object seep from my body, do not touch it. The substance is called ectoplasm, and from it flows spirit hands, voices, and, God willing, entire bodies."

Mrs. Parr overheard the last few words and patted Rosaline's wrist. "Don't worry, dear, you'll produce a full manifestation one day. No one thinks any less of you."

Rosaline cast her eyes down to her teacup. "I know---I keep telling myself the same thing." She sniffed---was she fighting back tears? Clearing her throat, she peered back at Lucy with watery eyes. "As I said, you must never touch it. Because ectoplasm is such a delicate substance, and because it stems directly from me, anyone who places her fingers upon it could badly bruise my body and possibly cause my death."

Lucy's breathing ceased. She saw Mrs. Parr nod, her mouth pinched into a no-nonsense knot that verified the gravity of the situation.

"Third... " Rosaline blinked away any tears that might have plagued her and wiggled a smile to her face. "Enjoy yourself. You're going to have heaps of fun."

When the party meandered into the séance room and everyone took seats around the walnut table, it wasn't terribly hard for Lucy to summon some small shreds of bravery, for the same jovial temper of the living room soirée traveled in with the guests.

"I'll have to tell Edmund the fig tree is blooming," said Mrs. Parr as she wrapped her wintry fingers around Lucy's right hand.

"Remind me to mention to Adelaide that I've ordered the marble for her monument," remarked Mr. Dressel, whose thick paw gripped Lucy's left hand.

Rosaline shut the door and turned down the kerosene lamps, snuffing out the scents of bayberry oil and leaving a short crimson candle the sole source of light, which merely illuminated the sitters' clasped hands around the table. She placed a white, cone-like, papier-mâché device resembling a megaphone a foot away from the flame, turning it in a way that Lucy could see three dots of green phosphorescent paint along the side.

"That's the voice trumpet, dear," explained Mrs. Parr in a whisper. "The spirits find it easier to speak through the device than in the empty air."

Lucy nodded, nearly forgetting to breathe.

"Does anyone want me to be bound in the cabinet, or should I join you at the table?" asked Rosaline, hovering over the small gathering.

"Please, join us. Please, please," was the resounding response by all, save Lucy, who stared at the twitching candle, hoping its reassuring glow would bring some shreds of safety into the darkened room.

"All right." Rosaline sat in the empty chair between Mr. Dressel and Mrs. Beveridge. "Then let's begin." To Lucy's consternation, Rosaline immediately blew out the flame, submerging the room in a chilling blackness. The temperature dropped by at least twenty degrees. Rosaline then murmured a prayer, asking God to open the portal to the spirit world, thereafter telling her guests to take some moments of meditation while she slipped into her trance.

As her sister inhaled and exhaled in a deep, audible rhythm, Lucy scrunched her eyes closed and clung to Mrs. Parr and Mr. Dressel, consumed with a debilitating fear that a hand would reach out from the darkness and grab her neck or ankles.

Rosaline's steady breaths soon transformed into heightened pants and moans, causing Lucy's neighbors to flinch in anticipation. Her groans grew louder; they erupted throughout the room, rumbling into the walls, and, to Lucy's horror, they seemed to cause the table below their hands to hum and shake from side to side. Suddenly, Mr. Dressel, who held Rosaline with his left hand, jerked with an erratic movement, slammed into Lucy's shoulder as though someone had shoved him, and nearly knocked Lucy off her chair.

And then a bleak silence settled over the air.

Lucy's heart fought to keep up with the blood churning through its chambers, the turmoil within her chest the only trace of life within the room---as though she were the only person left in the darkness. Such barrenness must have lasted for at least two minutes, during which Lucy nearly swooned twice, rising out of unconsciousness whenever her neck snapped her drooping head upright.

"Oh, look, there it goes," cried Mrs. Beveridge from the other side of Mrs. Parr.

The glowing dots of the voice trumpet shot into the air, causing Lucy to grind her nails into her neighbors' skin. A tense chorus of anxious breaths surrounded the table.

A soft clicking, similar to the flicks of the tongue used to set a horse into motion, started up in the corner of the room, not far from the cabinet region. And then, from within the depths of the blackness, a male voice called out: "Good evening, ladies and gents."