Margaret's Nocturne (Full Story)

“Mr. Leatherwood! So good to see you!” the woman’s voice rang out, addressing me.

I looked up from the small pamphlet. Margaret Moulin’s beaming smile and pale blue eyes returned my gaze with genuine happiness. She was dressed in an elegant red gown. Even when she wasn’t trying, her eye for color and design shone through. In complete contrast, I wore the same brown jacket from our meeting this morning and hadn’t even thought to shave. Yet, she still smiled at me with a special warmth that reminded me of home and of moments shared between the two of us now long past. We hadn’t spoken in years until I received her letter asking me to come and participate in this event and write about it for the Star. I returned her smile and stood to greet the man who accompanied her. He was tall, taller than me, but with a mousy face and slim shoulders. His dark hair was combed back and he wore large spectacles.

“Mr. Crimworth, may I introduce Mr. Leatherwood? He is sitting in on tonight’s events,” Margaret said with admirable diplomacy. Her words created a congeniality between us, even if it was fake.

Crimworth and I traded polite smiles and nods, but his eyes pierced right through me. He obviously knew who I was. I tried my best to remember if I had seen his face before, perhaps at a similar party. I concluded that I would remember features like his. Still, I recognized that look of his, one I had seen often in the past few months. It was somewhere between disgust and curiosity, the type of curiosity that only a true believer can give someone who doubts. I had been a consultant at many seances but I was still amazed at the lack of fear. I held the fate of his society’s popular reputation in my hands, yet he spoke to me as if I were just another person. I guess that was the power of true faith.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing. The sun had started to set and as the dusk crept in through the large, fashionable windows, so did a sense of anticipation that inhabited the room like another guest. It was as if every guest had been snapped out of a waking coma and were now being beckoned by the north star of the large adjoining sitting room. I hesitated for a moment, not knowing if I was supposed to sit separately or follow the group. It dawned on me that I had been enjoying being part of the group, even for a brief moment. I had been just another face in the crowd, simply sitting and observing. But as I reassumed my necessary distance, a small sadness crept into me. Reaching into my pocket, I grasped the leatherbound notebook and pencil. These were familiar items, tools of my trade. They were a comforting reminder that I was here for the truth and nothing else.

I had been working for the Evening Star for about six months. In that time, I had attended three seances in which I had apparently talked to five spirits. In that time, I had developed a reputation as a bit of a skeptic, perhaps because I wrote for a notoriously skeptical newspaper. All I did was write my observations. It wasn’t my fault if they pointed to one conclusion or the other. I liked my job and appreciated the freedom it afforded me. Spiritualism was a mystery to me, one that beckoned like a siren. Something about the people enamored me. The more I wrote, the more I got requests to sit in. I had heard the phrase “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” but never imagined it would be this true.

As I stood, awkward and alone, in the foyer, Margaret emerged from the main sitting room and walked over to me. I hadn’t even noticed her depart with the group She still had the same warmth in her eyes, and I couldn’t help but admire her. I hadn’t known she claimed to be a medium until my editor told me, and hadn’t believed it until I met her at the door. Standing next to her, I noticed she had changed into a black dress that matched her raven hair. A heady smell washed over me, one that I had trouble placing. It was like jasmine mixed with some sort of incense. No matter the source, it filled my head with a haze that made it hard to think.

In fact, I barely reacted when she said: “Horatio, you’re to sit wherever you please. Anywhere you can observe effectively is yours.”

I nodded and walked through the fashionable black door that separated the foyer from the large sitting room. The room had been rearranged to accommodate the 18 or so guests, who were now mostly seated and speaking in hushed tones, as a polite audience does. Placed prominently at the front of the room was a box of sturdy oak large enough to fit an adult. I recognized it almost immediately as a spirit cabinet. A lamp burned in the back corner of the room. However, the space was far from bright. The light had been covered by a strange, semi-translucent shade that cast an eerie gloom about the place. Even more oppressive was the same smell as before, which leeched even further into my brain. I eventually chose a seat in the back corner, as it was the only place with any sort of light. I noted the use of heavy perfume and darkness in my book. I had seen these sorts of tricks used before, it was the psychic equivalent of sleight of hand. I finished my scribbled note just as Margaret strode proudly to the front of the room, accompanied by the shuffling Mr. Crimworth.

Clearing his throat loudly, Crimworth announced with admirable volume for a man of his stature: “My dear friends! Tonight, we are to witness a profound experience like no other. The wonderful Ms. Margaret Moulin will conjure for you a visible spirit of the dearly deceased!”

I sat up straighter in my chair. This was news to me. I knew Margaret was a medium but had no clue she claimed to be able to embody a full spirit. Most would-be psychics took the Fox sisters’ approach and produced nothing more than sounds. They must have been confident to invite me to such an event. The eerie light made the audience look like ghosts themselves, and the room was like a sort of purgatory. Margaret appeared to float to the cabinet doors and stepped inside. Instantly, any whispers stopped as if queued by a maestro. Crimworth and another man in similar dress draped the cabinet in chains with a sense of finality. To my surprise, the faint sound of piano music from another room meandered into my ears. It was one of Chopin’s nocturnes, as I recall.

“Ms. Moulin focuses much better with the music,” the voice of Crimworth explained to me with a note of pride.

I almost jumped out of my seat in surprise. Just a moment ago he had been in the front of the room but now here we was, standing beside my chair. I’m not particularly skittish, but his pride and eerie smile gave me a strange sense of foreboding. The music continued, filling my head and mingling with the heavy perfume. The two danced in my brain, leaving dense numbness in their path. Was there something beyond music floating through the air? I could not tell.

The music floated on, and my gaze landed on the cabinet. Margaret was inside. I knew it intellectually yet I couldn’t help but separate the woman here from the woman I knew as a child. It was as if I was meeting an impersonator who was close but not quite the real thing. Something about her manner felt off. The longer I looked at the cabinet, the harder it became to remember her face. I tried to picture her blue eyes, or were they brown? Barring my small corner, the room was slowly being engulfed by the shadows of the early evening. The lamplight had somehow become even less bright, and the piano reached its haunting end.

Silence filled the room. In the dark, I had only one thought: I was being watched. I became aware of how exposed I felt as if I were alone in the void. The invisible eyes looked straight into mine. Or were they gazing hungrily at my neck, waiting to pounce? It was both and neither at the same time. When I was young, I would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night, a cold sweat covering my body. I would stare frantically, scanning for the intruder that had interrupted my rest. Yet the only thing that stared back at me was the darkness. Since then, I had never experienced true gloom like that until I sat in this room waiting for the seance to begin.

After what seemed like an eternity, a pale green light began to break the shadows. I believed another lamp had been lit somewhere. I turned my head to the lamp next to my chair, only to find it had gone out. Looking at my notebook, I could read my notes clearer than before. I even noticed the small errors in the letters caused by writing in the dim light. The hands of shadow that had been wrapped around my neck had gone away, replaced by a sense of serenity for a brief moment.

I felt its presence before I saw it. A woman stood, no, she floated at the front of the room. Her frame reminded me of a skeleton I once saw at a university lecture. I blinked twice and swallowed hard, yet she remained. I had never seen anything like this. My experiences with seances thus far had mostly been “disembodied” voices and vague knocking sounds. Her long black hair was draped over her eyes. At first, I thought she was an actor hiding her face. But I couldn’t explain the floating nor the sickly green light. My early fear turned to fascination as I stared. Breaking free of my entrancement for a moment, I rushed to scrawl a few notes. My natural curiosity wrestled with my professional duty as I looked from the apparition to my notebook, then back again. I had never seen a specimen like this, but there was still more to see.

I needed to see her face. This was the ultimate mystery, and I’m not the sort who leaves mysteries alone. As if a cord connected us, I stood from my chair as she floated towards the back of the room. All were deathly silent, save for the audience’s almost catatonic breathing. I had stopped breathing at this point, my entire being fixated on the thing approaching me, whatever it was. Her form was close enough to touch, though I didn’t dare try in case she was wiped away like fog on a window. Her head bowed down, the locks of hair parting slightly. There was no turning back.

It was my mother’s face, or at least a cruel imitation of it, that peered back at me, but my small instant of joy turned to horror as I looked at her eyes. My mother’s eyes were deep green and full of kindness, but this thing had no eyes, only leathery skin stretched over hollow sockets. When I was a boy and would wake up in the middle of the night, alone and terrified, my mother would sing me back to sleep without fail. Yet here I felt the same terror and knew that this creature was not my mother. Yet there it was, close enough to strangle me. I desperately wanted it to do something but all the apparition did was stare. Then, in an instant, I was left with only the complete dark which enclosed me like a jail cell.

The roar of the crowd’s applause reminded me of where I was. My mind and body were numb to the core. I fell back into my chair as Crimworth stood to make his final trip to the front. His triumphant smirk flashed across at me before he turned to unlock the cabinet. Margaret emerged, the same woman as before, and gracefully stepped down onto the floor. She was mobbed almost instantly by admirers who clamored to hear every word she uttered as if it were gospel. She looked over them and met my eyes, beaming. My expression told her everything she needed to know and her smile soon vanished. My legs were like lead and gelatin at the same time as I stood up and exited the house as quickly as possible.

I hurried down the dark path towards the gate, holding my coat around me with a death grip. I knew she was following me but desperately hoped I wouldn’t have to turn around.

“Horatio? Are you leaving?” Her voice asked.

I turned and attempted a half-baked smile. “I had hoped to draft my article tonight,” I replied.

“What did you think? Spectacular, wasn’t it?”

I swallowed hard. “Simply amazing.” I fought desperately to keep the shaking out of my voice. “I’m eager to get to work. I thank you for the invitation, Ms. Moulin. It was an experience I shan’t forget.” Turning away from her disappointed expression, I hurried into the night, my panicked breathing creating a veritable sky of clouds in the cold air.

There are many things I do not know about that night, even to this day. I have no idea if what I saw was real or a figment of my imagination. Was it a cruel fabrication designed to hurt me? It couldn’t have been. Margaret and I hadn’t met until after my mother’s death. In fact, I do not even remember what I wrote about that night. Its article is purposely missing from the personal collection of my work. All I know is that I did not lie to Margaret. I have never forgotten that night in her parlor. There are nights, unfamiliar since my youth, where I wake up in a panic. Someone is in the room with me, yet I cannot see them. The unbridled terror of youth rises to the surface as I search desperately for those hollow, dead sockets. Those nights, I feel their gaze on me from the shadows, yet I can do nothing to stop it. Some may call me bedeviled. I would call myself an insomniac.

-Fin