The Diviners

At half past nine in the evening, Evie woke with a desperate thirst. She wobbled to the kitchen for water and saw that Uncle Will’s light was on. The door was ajar, but she knocked softly anyway.

“How are you feeling?” Will greeted her.

“Better.” Evie settled into an uncomfortable chair. It seemed to have been designed so that a visitor would not stay long. “What happened today, at the end?”

“You established a psychic link with him. You could see him, but he could also see you. That is the danger of your gift: You may open yourself up to the other side.” Will templed his fingers and bounced them gently against his chin. “Are you familiar with the story of the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York?”

“Are they a radio quartet?”

A smile flickered briefly on Will’s lips. “There was no radio in the mid–eighteen hundreds. The Fox sisters lived in Hydesville, New York, in a house that was rumored to be haunted. The youngest Fox sisters, Maggie and Kate, claimed to be in communication with the spirit world. They would ask questions and the spirit, whom they called ‘Mr. Splitfoot,’ would answer by rapping.” Will knocked on the desk for effect. “They became a sensation during the Spiritualism movement, conducting séances for many famous people.”

“This is what happens when there’s no radio,” Evie said.

“Yes, well, later on, the girls had a change of heart. They became religious and confessed that their communication with spirits was all an elaborate fraud, that they had produced the raps by the cracking of their toes. The sisters fell on hard times. They became drunks; some said they drank to dull the phenomena.”

Evie stared at her big toe as it noodled a spot in the rug. “Is there a point to this tale?”

“A year later, Margaret Fox recanted. She had a change of heart. She told everyone that it had all happened just as they’d said. I believe her. I think the sisters were frightened, and so they stopped and renounced it all. It was as if they said to the restless spirits, ‘Be gone. We are closed to you.’ And long after the girls had died, a human skeleton was found in the basement of their home in Hydesville.”

Will shuffled the newspaper clippings on his desk. He’d probably been looking at them for hours, Evie guessed.

“Why is this happening now?” Evie asked.

Will templed his fingers again. “I don’t know. Something is drawing the likes of John Hobbes. Some energy here. Spirits are attracted to seismic energy shifts, chaos and political upheaval, religious movements, war and invention, industry and innovation. There were said to be a great many ghost sightings and unexplained phenomena reported during the American Revolution, and again during the Civil War. This country is founded on a certain tension.” He pressed his fists against each other. “There is a dualism inherent in democracy—opposing forces pushing against each other, always. Culture clashes. Different belief systems. All coming together to create this country. But this balance takes a great deal of energy—and, as I’ve said, spirits are attracted to energy.” He let his hands rest on the desk.

“Can we stop him?”

“I believe we can.” Will offered a hint of a smile. “In the morning, we’ll drive to Brethren and exhume his body and take the source of his power on this plane—the pendant.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll bring it back to the museum, where we can create a protective circle. Using the incantation, we’ll trap his spirit in the pendant and then destroy the pendant before Solomon’s Comet passes through.”

Will was looking at her with a new appreciation, Evie felt.

“You were very brave today, Evangeline.”

“I was, wasn’t I?”

“The bravest. Family trait, you know.”

Evie felt much better for Will’s reassurance. Her stomach had settled and her head was lighter. She found her gaze drawn to the only photograph on Will’s desk—the mystery woman she’d seen when she’d held Will’s glove that day, just over a week ago. Was it only a week? It seemed like years.

“Who is she, Unc?”

Unconsciously, Will stroked a finger across the woman’s face. “Rotke Wasserman. She was my fiancée for a time.”

“Why didn’t you marry her?” Evie asked, and immediately realized her mistake. What if the woman had jilted Will at the altar? What if she’d left him for a man with more money and position?

“She died,” Will said softly.

“Oh.”