The Smoky Corridor

37

Madame Marie closed her eyes and clutched the edges of the miniature headstone.

“Speak through me, Mr. Cooper. Speak through me!”

She had already laid out her séance tools: candles, sketch pad, sharpened pencils, and her “spirit slates,” two chalkboards bound together that, when opened, would reveal messages written by those on the far side of the grave.

“I am here to be your voice,” said Madame Marie, releasing her grip on the stone and sinking deeper into her trance. Gazing off at some unseen middle distance, she sat cross-legged on the grass, placed the sketch pad in her lap.

Eddie handed her a pencil.

She gripped it in her fist without even looking at it and let it hover in circles over the first sheet of paper. “Let your words flow through me, Mr. Cooper! Speak through me now!”

Her pencil touched the paper. Seemingly powered by an unseen force, it scratched out rings of overlapping circles.

And then Madame Marie’s hand automatically wrote a single word:

CHILD

“Find a child,” she said in a faint, wispy voice that wasn’t her own.

The pencil spun out more circles.

“Young enough to communicate with spirits.”

The pencil scraped across the pad.

YOUNG

“Like Seth Donnelly.”

SETH

“A ghost seer.”

SEER

“For I cannot speak to you directly. But through the child you will find the gold.”

GOLD

The pencil point snapped.

Madame Marie’s eyes flew open. She gasped.

“Oh, my. What happened?”

“Nothing, ma’am. Although I believe you may have overexerted yourself. You passed out.”

“I am so sorry.” Eddie held out his hand and helped Madame Marie stand. “I felt certain I had made contact. I felt the tingling.…”

She glanced down at the sketch pad and saw the words she boldly scribbled.

“Gold?” she said. “Oh, my.”

Eddie didn’t need to call his boss.

He knew it was time for Madame Marie to have an accident.