The Spirit Room by Marschel Paul

politely, saying she was not feeling her best. As she turned to leave the table, she took one last look at Mamma’s chair then left with a rain cloud over her head that Clara could almost see.
     
    “And was there more?” Mary mole asked.
     
    Trying to ignore Izzie and her rain cloud, Clara went on describing the third and fourth lessons, how she and Izzie could become true mediums, how they’d behave with the seekers, how they could go into trance by draining their minds and breathing deeply. While people finished eating, she told everyone how to organize seekers in circles using the principles of electricity with men positive and women negative, how to use trances for large audiences, and how to help just one person at a time, and finally, how some mediums could look inside a person’s body and actually see their ailments.
     
    She’d been standing and talking for a long time and no one had budged or spoken or even looked away from her. They weren’t even eating their hash. So she went on.
     
    “During the final lesson, Mrs. Fielding did nothing but talk for two hours without stopping. I thought she was practicing for her lecture in Rochester. She strode about the room.” Clara began to march around the table, imitating Mrs. Fielding and trying to make her voice vibrate. “Spiritualism is the only religious sect in the world that recognizes women as the equal of men. Mediums communicate the divine truth because they can hear what the spirits say to them.” She stopped behind the Mary Janes. “Every time Mrs. Fielding said ‘divine truth’ her voice quivered like that. Divine Truth.” She continued around toward Mrs. Purcell. “Spiritualism itself is proof of the immortality of the soul and because the proof is spreading far and wide,” Clara shot her arms straight up, “...the entire world is on the cusp of a new era.”
     
    Clara returned to her seat and tried one more time to make her voice quiver like Mrs. Fielding’s. “Divine Truth!”
     
    She bowed. Everyone was smiling like sunrises at her.
     
    “After the lecture, Mrs. Fielding gave Izzie a journal called The Spiritual Telegraph and told her to subscribe to it when we made enough money and Izzie said, ‘Even if we believed in Spiritualism, wouldn’t Clara and I be just like the Davenport Brothers if we practiced being mediums but had no gift?’” Clara pretended to be Mrs. Fielding again. “‘Not if your gift is forthcoming, my dear, and you are preparing for that day.’“
     
    “Mrs. Fielding told Izzie she could come to New York City and observe their circles and maybe even go on a tour with them someday. They didn’t offer all that to me.”
     
    “But you said they thought you might both be true mediums didn’t they?” Mary Mole asked.
     
    “Mrs. Fielding said if I used my intuition, I would be able to more or less know what the spirits might say rather than actually hear them say things. She said I would be good at that.” Clara grinned. “Like a gifted actress.”
     
    “Yes, I believe she was right about that,” Mrs. Purcell said. “Would anyone like apple pie?”
     

Six
     
    CLARA POINTED AT THE HATS in the milliner’s window. “This is the place. Papa said upstairs, above the hat shop.”
     
    A black flat-rimmed bonnet with a large bow the color of over-ripe cherries held Clara’s attention. Then she glanced at the others—the blue silks, the red velvets, the shining delicate brown feathers. There were twelve in all. She longed to go inside and try every blessed one of them on.
     
    “Come on, Clara. Papa is waiting for us. I’m freezing.” Arms tucked under her plaid shawl, Izzie had gone ahead to the stairwell door and was leaning against it, holding it open.
     
    They climbed the dim stairway to the first floor landing. What on earth did Papa have to show them? Clara wondered. While Izzie knocked, Clara rose up and down on her toes. She felt like a kettle about to boil over. On the way here this