To whomsoever may find these words after I am gone: do not, for your own well-being, attempt to contact me. You will not like what you encounter should you succeed in finding me.

 

I had first become interested in the Spiritualist's art after the untimely death of my youngest brother Charles at the hands of some bearded Hussar in Crimea. He and I had always been close, and before he went off to fight the Hun I gave him my St George and admonished him to come home safely.

Obviously the saint's protection failed him.

Upon receipt of the news of his killing, I flew into despair, borderline madness, and the comforting arms of Lady Opium. I'm not proud of my behaviour at that stage of my life; there are many burnt bridges behind me; many so-called friends who will rightfully never speak to me again; many family members that spit at the mention of my name. But out of my time in London's dens I retained one faithful and steadfast companion: Cecil Findlay.

Cecil was a self-modeled psychonaut, whose substantial living was devoted almost entirely to his explorations in the less-travelled regions of the human experience. At the time of our meeting in one of Whitechapel's more notorious dens, he had turned his attentions to the Chinese Vice. He was a truly perceptive man, even through the haze of the poppy, and saw past my own despair to the man within. After his survey of opium was completed, he dragged me out of the den with him and aided in my recovery with not only a kind and sympathetic ear, but with a variety of exotic substances obtained in his travels abroad. By the time I had dried out from my dissolution and felt quite myself again, our friendship had been quite cemented as the most meaningful one of my life. I will never be able to repay Cecil's kindness.

It was after my recovery that Cecil suggested that we visit a séance to attempt to contact my dear departed brother. We found a well-regarded local practitioner in a fashionable part of town. This was, of course, the formerly respectable Nigel Fawkes, and our adventure in his sàlon I will detail below so as to contextualise the main events of this narrative—those which concern my present circumstances.

We had arranged to attend Fawkes' performance several weeks in advance.

The evening we attended Fawkes' frankly laughable display began with the utmost solemnity. Fawkes answered our knock in a silk robe embroidered with stars, a Turkic fesz perched on his skull. His pinched face and thin frame resembled nothing so much as a fakir's trained monkey.

The man ushered us into his parlour with funereal whispers to join the four other guests gathered around his large circular table, its velvet cloth obscuring whatever lay underneath.

Before we could comment on the matter, Fawkes took his seat in front of the fireplace and intoned sepulchrally that we were to close our eyes and join hands. He began chanting in the same lugubrious voice with which he welcomed us, stopping only to exhort whatever spirits might be about to show themselves. His rheumy eyes rolled up in their sockets, his bony shoulders arched up to his ears and fell, his square write teeth shone in the firelit darkness.

Fawkes' spasmodic movements escalated in in intensity, until, abruptly, they stopped altogether. It really would have been an impressive performance were it not so gauche. I confess myself to have been quite taken in by the display, though Cecil maintained an air of cool detachment.

Fawkes uncovered a large crystal ball at center of the table, previously shrouded by heavy velvet of the same make as the curtains and tablecloth adorning his sàlon. He made a great show of peering into the ball's depths while intoning questions, distorting his long, mobile face to define sorrow, now fear, now joy in the communiques he received from “beyond the veil.” It wasn't until he “contacted” one of the other guests' dear departed husband that Cecil straightened from his disinterested slouch and began to take notice.

Fawkes and “the Spirit” communicated through a series of table rappings with the likes of which my reader is no doubt familiar. An image of mustachioed older gentleman, shot of any of life's natural colour, appeared warped in the crystal ball.

Poor Mrs Huxley, second from my left after Cecil, burst immediately into tears.

“Oh, Albert, dear Albert,” she cried,”Dear, dear man, are you happy on the Other Side?”

One knock for yes.

“The children and I miss you terribly, do you miss me?”

Again, a single knock.

The image of the face in the ball kept shifting, as though whatever were projected there were having some difficulty maintaining its visual form.

“O, Albert, I love and miss you so, how am I to go on?”

There was a long stretch of silence before Fawkes shuddered and rolled his eyes back down before intoning that in the most gentle, casual voice we'd yet heard issue from him that Dear Departed Albert was content in the Spirit World, comfortable, and that he longed fro the day that Mrs. Huxley would join him on that gauzy plane.

The face in the glass shifted in and out of focus as Fawkes continued.

Dear Albert, the medium reported, had appeared tonight to report that all was well and that the missus and children were greatly beloved. He wanted to tell his wife that she must only carry on to the end of her life but that she should rejoin her husband and all her departed friends on the Other Side, where they'd all be together and happy forever and ever, amen.

It was at this moment that Cecil stood and whipped the heavy velvet tablecloth from the wooden surface. The crystal ball, apparently affixed to the table, tore the fabric as it was pulled away.

Down amongst our knees was a dwarf holding a daguerreotype above an oil lamp, which explained the projection and luminescence of the ball. It was he who had been knocking in response to Fawkes' probes, and he responsible for the shifting face in the orb!

Needless to say, Fawkes and his accomplice were discredited and fell precipitously from favour.

 

Cecil and I were profusely praised for having exposed the charlatan, but the newspaper headlines did not seem to please him. On the contrary, he fell into a state of anxious depression.

When I asked after the reason for his despondency, he said “I just want it to be real, Eugene.”

“Whatever do you mean,” I asked. 'The Séance?”

“The Afterlife,” he replied listlessly. “You know of my experiments with substances from my travels, of course. More than once have these experiments with, ah...concoctions from foreign shores brought me through measureless astral space past the furthest reaches of the most enlightened Shaman on this or any other continent. I have communed with being from other Planes of Existence, Eugene, I have stood atop the highest plateaus and rearranged the stars to spell out my name. I have shouted light into the most Stygian depths of our Oceans, and yet, despite all this cosmic exploration, despite breaking my shaow-self's back over my knee at the peak of Kilimanjaro, would you believe I still don't know whether our consciousness continues after the death of our bodies?”

“It does rather seem the kind of thing your voyages would have answered for you.”

“I know!” He banged his first against the side table by his divan, upsetting a tepid cup of Darjeeling onto his Turkic rug, “I know, Eugene. The Ultimate Question, forever eluding my grasp!”

At this he sank back into his cushions and would not be roused.

Eventually, I took my leave and did not call upon him for several weeks. Unusual for men of our closeness, I know, but his depression recalled the dark days of my relatively recent past, and I found myself unable to resist the pipe for a week or two.

I had pulled myself away from opium for a moment when at my morning tea I saw the advertisement in the Daily for Mme Howitt's services.

“DEPARTED LOVED ONES CONTACTED,” it read. “VEILS PIERCED in welcoming group séances. MME HOWITT, Spirit Medium, will guide adventurous souls through the Afterlife to make contact with lost Wives, Husbands, Children, Parents, &c. ENQUIRE at HARRISON'S SUNDRIES, COLMORE ROW, PORTLAND PL.”

A plan formed in my mind, and I hailed a cab to return to Cecil's.

He was much as I had left him, in irretrievable doldrums, but seemed to perk up at the mention of a diversion from his misery.

“What say,” I asked, proffering the advertisement to him, “We give this street market fakir a taste of the Infinite?”