Free The Confabulist by Steven Galloway Page B

physicians immediately.”
    The audience laughed, but the energy in the room was different. Where before there was a tension between life and death, a cultivated air of mystery, it now felt as if we were being let in on a secret.
    “I am familiar with a great many of the methods of these human vultures. I think it is an insult to that scavenger of scavengers to compare such human beings to him, but there is, to my mind, no other fit comparison. Their stock-in-trade is the amount of knowledge they can obtain. It is invaluable and they will stop at nothing to gain it.”
    Clara wasn’t paying attention. She was staring down at her hands, which were clutched on her lap. I put my hand on hers and she looked up and smiled at me. The way she looked at me was different, and I couldn’t tell how. Had she seen something in me up in the coatroom, a revelation of my nature she hadn’t known? I wondered if she regretted what we’d done.
    “Mr. Bernard Delacroix, I have a message from the spirits for you,” he called. “Are you there?”
    A man stood up in the audience.
    “Your aunt Genevieve wishes me to tell you that she desires foryou to call on her son, your cousin, who has been unwell. He has always been a sickly boy and wants to thank you for being so good to him.”
    The man appeared shocked and sat down. Houdini called the names of a half-dozen people and gave them messages from beyond. They each responded with disbelief, then confirmation that the information was indeed accurate. I thought about what I might say, if I were on the other side, that might be of any consequence to those still alive. What would there really be to say? You might describe what it was like, and maybe give some insight into what it was like to die, but beyond that it was difficult to imagine how death could fix whatever you’d done in life. If you were a fool in life, why wouldn’t you be one in death?
    “Myra Goldfarb, your mother is here and tells me that her leg no longer bothers her. She is dancing every night with your father and brother.”
    A woman in the audience cried out, “Is she really here?”
    “No, madam, I’m afraid she isn’t. None of what I’ve said tonight was gained by any method beyond the ordinary ability of man. Through spies, bought information, and trips to the graveyard I’ve been able to gather everything I need to convince you I can speak to those who have departed. These mediums, these bloodsuckers, do the same thing, but they do not tell you so. For that they cannot be forgiven.
    “Nor can those who support them, those like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a man capable of creating a character as intelligent and analytical as Sherlock Holmes but incapable of seeing through the trickery of Margery Crandon, the witch of Beacon Hill.”
    He went on to show how mediums manipulated the tables during a séance, how they manifested ectoplasm, how they rang the bells and chimed the triangles and blew the trumpets. He gave a demonstration of slate writing, showing us in clear view how he did it. It was fascinating, I suppose—the entire theatre was riveted—but I had a hard time paying attention. I could not shake the feeling that I’d done something I could not take back. But I knew that everything had changed.
    One summer morning when I was about ten I was in the kitchen with my mother. My father came in and announced that Charlie, the family dog, had died. That dog had been with us since I was born, and was as much a friend to me as anyone. A boy and his dog, that old story. My reaction to hearing this news should have been shock, grief, almost anything other than what happened.
    “So what,” I said, “he was a stupid animal.”
    This was something my father would have said, I thought, or maybe there is more of my father in me than I know. It is inexplicable to me why I said it. But I did, and an instant later I was on the floor with my head buzzing and a throbbing jaw. My father stood over me, his fists tight at his