Page 71 of Everything Lost Returns
Act two, scene new,
roses blooming all around the place.
Cast, three. You, me,
Preacher with a solemn-looking face.
Choir sings, bell rings,
Preacher: “You are wed forever more.”
Act two, all through, every night the same encore.
Opal had always paused at the phrasesame encore. She’d never heard a more accurate description of her marriage: a show she was stuck performing, day after day.
And yet, here she was, playing a new act altogether.
As darkness fell, the spectators took their seats. Someone extinguished the electrical lights and lit the lamps. The atmosphere softened.The crowd hushed on its own, sensing the start of the show. Opal’s eyes adjusted to the dimness.
She wasn’t sure how this would end, only that it would.I worry about endings, Madame de Fleur had written.
The table. The stage. How far she had come from Gallipolis. She settled her weight against the bookshelf. She told herself again that it’d be over soon, that she’d done this before. Her ankles swelled inside her boots. She told herself this would be a story to tell toM. Just a story.
The mayor rang a bell. “Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen, and please direct your attention to the committee assembled before you.” He waited for the final chairs to be occupied, for all eyes to obligingly settle upon him. He took from his breast pocket a piece of paper and unfolded it. He began reading. “We have gathered to witness Madame Doucet as she proves, or disproves, her practice and abilities as a medium capable of communing with the spirit world.” The crowd murmured, then hushed. The windows offered a consoling darkness. The room was a tomb. The spirits would soon awaken. “Madame Doucet behaved unlawfully in producing dangerous pharmaceuticals. Comet Pills, so named. Beyond that, we’ve learned she’s prescribed various remedies with neither permit nor licensure. And, yet, the woman claims to commune with the spirit realm.”
“A crime!” someone yelled.
“A sin!” yelled another voice.
“To test the veracity of her claims,” the mayor continued, gesturing toward that box, “we’ll be using scientific monitoring devices specifically designed to capture the frequencies of the astral plane. Leading the experiment will be none other than Colonel Davis Bloodworth, a trained medical doctor known internationally for his cadaverous brains experiments, who has published and lectured widely on the workings of the human mind.” The committee members took their seats, except for the Colonel, who remained standing, arranging the wires and nodes. “I’d now like to announce Madame Doucet,” the mayor said.
A handful of people in the audience clapped, but most pitched forward in their chairs, waiting to lay eyes on the Witch of Walnut Street.
The only way forward is forward. Opal stepped out of the shadows of the stacks and into the center aisle. The crowd turned toward her, expecting to see a real witch: a pointy hat, a cauldron and broom. She registered their surprise at her appearance, at her simple dress, at the demure way she curtseyed before walking toward the men at the table. The Colonel adjusted and readjusted wires. He opened the headband piece, a strap of leather that buckled like a belt.
The room was stifling. Tuttle and the mayor had already removed their suit jackets and hung them on the backs of their chairs. They loosened their neckties. Opal lifted her skirt and took a few steps forward, slowly, a one-woman procession.
She proceeded to the table at the front of the room, where Colonel Bloodworth occupied himself with manipulating wires, pushing buttons, readying his gauges, adjusting the strap that Opal knew would be fastened to her head. She walked slowly, not wanting to suggest fear or alarm, not wanting to reveal that her heart was a clock wound too tightly. The Colonel motioned her to sit, and so she did.
As she turned to face the crowd, Bertie caught her gaze. She placed her finger to her lips, like that statue near the door.Silence.
The Colonel stood behind Opal now, fitting the strap onto her head. He began attaching and tightening the rubber nodes to Opal’s forehead, twisting small clamps so that she felt a grip that didn’t hurt but made her feel uncomfortably tethered. At that moment, she remembered the eclipse box Oren had set over her head the day they met. She’d tipped forward with the weight of it, and he gently righted her, and they’d grasped hands for a brief, searing moment before he again leveled the box on her head and told her where to look.
“This machine—a Mind Box, I call it,” the Colonel said, “can measure the frequencies of the brain. It would be expected that when Madame Doucet embodies the mind of… of…”—he stuttered—“from the astral plane, the frequency will shift dramatically toreflect such a change.” His hands moved quickly, working to adjust the contraption on her head. “Does this feel uncomfortable?” he asked her. “It shouldn’t cause any pain.”
“I’d rather hearwon’t,” she said. The audience’s laughter eased her nerves; she drew energy from it.
The Colonel was momentarily wounded; she could tell by the way he lifted his foot and tapped the toe of his shoe against the floor. He took his seat at the table, the box in front of him. He adjusted a few knobs and took notation of the meter, a leaning needle. “It is ready,” he said.
Someone extinguished the remaining electrical lights. Another lit a candle. The committee joined hands. To her right sat Jenkins, whose palm was a dead fish in her own. The Colonel sat to Opal’s left. He squeezed her hand three times—a code? A reassurance? Either way, silence fell upon the room like a tangible thing. A candle illuminated her face for all to see.
Opal closed her eyes. The darkness comforted her, released the grip of tension in her head. Were she to make a commotion, throw her voice, perhaps she could create a disturbance enough to make it to the elevator. At that very moment the elevator dinged again, and Opal could hear footsteps and chairs scraping against the floor.
Opal began to hum. She hummed for several minutes, for she was safe here, in this moment before the moment, as her lips buzzed. The leather band squeezed her head; wires fell like hair down her back. Medusa could turn enemies to stone.You are stone, Opal thought.You are stone.
She sensed the restlessness of the crowd. She tried to listen, like Madame de Fleur had instructed before she’d pulled her so close their hip bones were touching. The thought of the woman settled into her memory, and she warmed, then grew hot, then angry. Why were the things she wanted always out of reach? Her pleasures only fleeting? Why couldn’t she seem to hold on to anything? Opal swiveled herneck, as far as the contraption on her head allowed her to move, then she pounded her fist on the table.
Sound carries quickly in a silent room; the thud echoed from the back wall as it bounced. The crowd gasped. Opal heard the shifting of bodies in seats. Though her eyes were still closed, she heard a few people shuffling out of the room, their legs moving quickly, then the ding of the elevator—they’d seen enough. Opal considered the elevator sitting empty on the ground floor. An empty box. How long might it take to call it back? Certainly there must be stairs—but where?
