Free Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan Page A

doorway, then vanishes into the darkness behind Elsie Thomas.
    â€˜My spirit guide will join our circle to open the door for us into the world beyond. But she will not show herself.’
    Elsie tightens her fingers on Non’s hand. Non is furious with Catherine Davies for using Elsie this way and with herself for going along with it once she realised what was happening. They sit in silence for what seems an interminable time. She should get up from her chair and stop the nonsense now, but she doesn’t. What am I afraid of, she wonders, or am I just so heavy with tiredness that I can’t make the effort?
    Madame stirs and announces that someone is there with them. Non experiences a frisson of fear and feels her own fingers tightening on those of Elsie and the medium.
    â€˜Billy,’ Catherine Davies cries, and Non can hear the longing in her voice. ‘Oh, Billy, speak to me.’
    â€˜No, not Billy,’ Madame says. ‘Please . . . quiet . . .’ Her breathing becomes slow and heavy. ‘But a B, yes – young – a boy. A child, yet not a child? Who are you?’
    Ben Bach? Surely not. This is nonsense, it must be nonsense. Has the room become colder? Non shivers.
    â€˜It’s Benjamin,’ Catherine Davies says, ‘it’s Ben, Elsie. Talk to him. Ask him if my Billy’s there.’
    Elsie’s breathing becomes squeakier. Does she understand what is going on here?
    â€˜Ben Bach,’ she says, her breath wheezing from her lungs.
    Madame slumps in her chair, sliding down on the seat, her chin tucked into her chest. Non thinks, She is a good actress, she is behaving just as I would expect a medium to behave. Will there be a spirit made of smoke appearing in a moment? Madame jerksNon and Catherine towards her as she draws her hands in to her chest.
    In the gloom Non sees Elsie’s moonface turn towards her and she squeezes her hand as reassuringly as she can given that she herself does not know what is happening. Elsie squeezes back. Elsie is not as silly as Catherine Davies, whatever Maggie Ellis may think.
    Non’s mouth turns dry when Madame lifts her head, her eyes staring, the whites gleaming in the dark room, her mouth open wide. Non’s heart thuds in her breast and she hears Elsie struggle to catch her breath as harsh noises come from Madame’s mouth, and then a voice, not Madame’s voice with its French accent, but a boy’s voice calling in Welsh, ‘Mam, Mam. Where am I, Mam?’
    Elsie struggles to stand up. ‘Ben,’ she calls. ‘Ben Bach, you stay where you are.’
    Catherine Davies slips sideways off her chair, falling on the floor like a sack of potatoes. Esmé appears from the darkness at the edges of the room and lights a lamp. As she rises to help her mother-in-law, Non scrabbles in her bag for the oil of thyme she always carries in case Osian has one of his rare breathless attacks, pulls out the stopper and hands the bottle to Elsie to sniff, then turns to Catherine Davies to see the child wave a singeing feather under her nose in an attempt to revive her. Just as Non begins to fear that it is something worse than a faint, Catherine starts to cough and moan.
    How on earth is she going to get the pair of them home? She does not know anyone in Port, she will have to hire a cart to get them to the station, she will need help to lift Catherine Davies. And what else? At least Elsie’s breathing has eased with the thyme. She has not counted on Catherine Davies’s sense of humiliation and shame. As her mother-in-law comes out of her swoon,coughing and spluttering at the smell and smoke from the feather, she looks at Non and says hoarsely, ‘Not a word of this to anyone, Rhiannon. Is that clear?’
    And during all this, Non realises, Madame has not stirred from her chair where she sits looking as astounded as Non feels at her powers to contact the dead.

12
    Every single morning this last week she has