Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (68 page)

 
          
"Rainbow
said the new tenants are all moved in to Alison's house
—
I suppose we're going to
have to stop calling it that eventually, but it
is
hard
—
as of last week. Not a
family; a woman and her sister. The woman is some kind of counselor
—
I think she stopped into the
shop a few months back, but I couldn't say for sure
—
she's running a practice out
of the house. The sister's a music student at the conservatory. Rainbow said
she'll be bringing the younger sister with her tonight, so we'll get to meet
her."

 
          
"Is
the girl interested in Spiritualism?" Colin asked curiously. It wasn't a
path that attracted many young people, at least in urban areas like the San
Francisco Bay Area.

 
          
"No,"
Claire admitted. "But she's young, and curious, and interested in making
new friends. Apparently she's already made quite a hit with Frodo."

 
          
"Well,
that's a point in her favor, certainly," Colin said. He picked up the
heavy percolator filled with water and carried it over to the table. They'd
plug it in later, just before the first medium began to sit. "I'm looking
forward
—
"

 
          
The
doorbell chimed.

 
          
"Someone
must be here. I'll get it," Claire said, wiping her hands clean on a
towel.

 
          
"Colin,
this is Emily Barnes. Her sister Leslie has just bought Greenhaven,"
Claire said.

 
          
Emily
Barnes was a tall slender teenager with the grace of a black swan. The way she
held herself bespoke years of training in classical dance, but Claire had said
she was studying music. Rainbow and Frodo were with her, along with a couple of
the other local Wiccans.

 
          
"I'm
pleased to meet you, Emily. I'm Colin MacLaren." He held out his hand, and
Emily took it, with the caution of one whose art was concentrated in her hands.
He shook it gently, and saw her relax.

 
          
"Hello,"
Emily said shyly. The light of an old soul shone from her dark eyes, but Colin
did not sense any Call to awaken it.

 
          
Emily's
eyes flickered from Colin to Claire, and widened slightly at the sight of the
store. "Wow! You've got more books than my sister does."

 
          
"We
try to sell them," Colin said, smiling. "But they keep piling
up." Another knot of people gathered at the door, and Colin moved away to
open it.

 
          
Kathleen
Carmody entered with another woman^apparently the other medium for tonight's
seance.

           
Colin had known Kathleen and Edward
for a long time, having come into their lives on an occasion when a legacy from
a distant relative had brought with it a good deal more trouble than anyone
could have expected. It was then that Kathleen had discovered her gifts as a
psychic, and she and Edward had gone on to work closely with Alison in the last
years of the older woman's life.

 
          
"Hello,
Colin. This is Rhonda Quentin."

 
          
Ms.
Quentin wore a voluminous Egyptian-print caftan and a great deal of jewelry,
including a six-inch-long quartz crystal pendant carved artificially into a
point. Her eyelids were painted a deep bruise-purple from lashes to browline.
She was several years older than Kathleen
—
in her late fifties, Colin
would hazard.

 
          
"Ah,
you are the friend of whom Kathleen has told me so much," Ms. Quentin
declaimed in a throaty voice. "I see that you are an old soul, who has
trod the Path through many more lives than this. But your aura seems somehow
clouded
—
"
She put her hand to her forehead in a theatrical gesture.

 
          
Colin
pegged her as a harmless crank
—
who might even actually be psychic. That particular
ability, like a gift for singing or sharp eyesight, carried with it no
particular guarantee of mental stability or even common sense.

 
          
"I'm
pleased to meet you, Ms. Quentin. All legitimate followers of the Path are
welcome here," Colin said tactfully. He turned away to greet another
guest, and out of the corner of his eye saw Kathleen turn to Rhonda Quentin and
begin whispering to her.

 
          
Kathleen
worked first, sliding quickly and untheatrically into a trance state and
reaching those on the "other side" whose message she had to convey.
To Colin's surprise, there was a message for Emily Barnes from her grandmother,
but it was something essentially harmless, and the girl did not seem upset by
it.

 
          
Kathleen
worked in a very modern style; though she asked the sitters for quiet and to
place their hands upon the table, she did not dim the lights nor engage in any
prayers or exhortations. She also dispensed with the embarrassingly-implausible
spirit guides that characterized both previous generations of mediums and that
New Age phenomenon, the "channeler."

 
          
While
it was true that "spirit guides" were only another mask for the self
—
the ritual magician often
encouraged the division of his personality into various magickal
"personas" which could perform the tasks he set them without the
additional burden of twentieth-century rationalism
—
it was one that had led to
much ridicule and misunderstanding over the years.

 
          
When
her turn came, however, Ms. Quentin proved to be a medium in the grand old
tradition. She'd arrived carrying a large carpetbag, out of which she drew a
large pillar candle and a heavy brass ashtray into which she placed several
pieces of cone incense.

 
          
"It
clears the vibrations, my dears. So much unhappiness in this world is due to
blocked or clogged auras," she pronounced grandly.

 
          
About
half the people here tonight were older women, with short permed hair and
strings of beads around their necks. They nodded, agreeing with her, while the
younger ones
—
and even in her late forties, Kathleen Carmody was one of
them
—
looked
pained and politely noncommittal.

 
          
Colin
glanced at Claire. She had the expression of a woman who has bitten into a very
sour lemon and is doing her best not to show it.

 
          
So
she suspects as much as I do,
Colin thought wryly.
Well, let's see if
Ms. Quentin has anything novel in her bag of tricks.

 
          
For
several minutes the older medium bustled about the table, rearranging her
audience for "proper energonic flow." Colin wasn't surprised to have
been seated as far away from her as possible, with Claire a couple of seats to
his right. Kathleen must have warned the woman that Colin didn't tolerate
frauds here; he hoped she'd heeded the warning.

 
          
The
medium lit the candle and the incense, then turned out all the lights,
requested everyone to clasp hands tightly, and led the group in several rather
Christian prayers.

 
          
This
didn't go down too well with the Wiccans there; Rainbow looked rather
embarrassed, Frodo determinedly polite, and Emily Barnes looked actively
stricken, much as if she'd been suddenly called upon to handle live snakes. In
the eighties, "freedom
of
religion" seemed to have become
"freedom/row religion" for many people; the girl might well never
have been in a synagogue, mosque, temple, or church in her entire life.

 
          
Ms.
Quentin entered trance with a great deal of moaning and head-rolling, and then
produced a spirit guide named Yellow Bear.

 
          
Moving
slowly, Colin brought the hands of the people on either side of him toward each
other. When Ms. Quentin had asked them all to clasp hands, he'd kept his hands
close together in front of him, precisely so he could do this.

 
          
Without
demur, the people on either side of him clasped hands, their whole attention
caught by the dialogue between Ms. Quentin and Yellow Bear that was taking
place at the top of the table. Moving as noiselessly as possible, Colin crept,
crouching, to the back of the room
—
and waited.

 
          
As
he'd expected, soon Ms. Quentin began to emit faintly glowing streams of
ectoplasm, that material every good medium was supposed to be able to generate
at will from her own body, in order to form actual shapes of the dear departed.
Ms. Quentin was putting on quite a show, and Colin could feel the level of
tension in the room rise expectantly.

 
          
He
turned on the lights.

 
          
Ms.
Quentin screamed.

 
          
In
the glare of the harsh overhead florescents, a length of sheer fabric daubed
with luminous paint could plainly be seen. It was suspended in the air by an
ingenious mechanism composed of thin bamboo strips which Ms. Quentin held
between her toes.

 
          
"She's
a fake!" Emily Barnes burst out, and then began to giggle in nervous
relief. Several of the others joined her.

 
          
The
lattice of bamboo strips clattered to the floor. In the open carpetbag beside
Ms. Quentin's chair, Colin glimpsed the rest of the paraphernalia of the fraud
psychic: several different bells, a clicker, a length of rope, and a small
stoppered bottle containing a fine granulated powder.

 
          
Ms.
Quentin burst into tears. "No! You don't understand! It's real! It's all
real!"

 
          
"Oh,
Ronnie," Kathleen Carmody said reproachfully. "I
trusted
you!"

 
          
"Why
don't we all go get something to drink?" Frodo suggested, practical and
businesslike. He put a hand under Emily's elbow, steering her toward the other
room. Most of the others, as embarrassed to have witnessed the bogus medium's
unveiling as she'd been to be exposed, followed them.

 
          
Claire
moved to the head of the table, to where Ms. Quentin crouched, weeping, her
hands over her eyes.

 
          
"There,
there, dear," Claire said, motherly and practical. "You must have
known you'd be caught sooner or later. Here's my hankie. Now put on your shoes,
and have a nice cup of coffee. And I think you ought to apologize to all these
people."

 
          
"I
didn't do anything wrong," Ms. Quentin said belligerently, still weeping.
Her mascara made muddy tracks down cheeks soft and seamed with age, and wiping
at it with Claire's soft linen pocket square only made matters worse. "The
Astral Plane is real
—
it
is
—
but people aren't content with that. They want signs and
wonders."

 
          
"But
you can't give them to them, you know," Claire said, still soothingly.
"Not by trickery. It's wrong. Not everyone is a materializing medium, and
you must never pretend to carry messages from Beyond that you haven't received.
Who knows what mischief you might do? Come on now; why don't you wash up and
put on some fresh lipstick? You'll feel ever so much better."

 
          
Ms.
Quentin nodded, and Claire put an arm around her shoulders to help her to her
feet. But just as she straightened, the woman's knees buckled under her, and
Claire sagged under her weight.

 
          
Colin
rushed to help.

 
          
"She's
out cold
—
and she's not faking," Claire decided, as Colin helped
lower her to the floor again. "Best to let her come around naturally
—
I'll go get a blanket."

 
          
Colin
took off his jacket and bundled it into a pillow to place beneath her head. As
he did, he realized that behind closed lids, the medium's eyes were darting
back and forth, as if she were deep in REM-sleep. He took her hand, disturbed.