The stairs level out, and the rope takes them through another doorway and to a table.
Odette fumbles into a chair, and there is the brief press of an arm against her shoulder as Cecilia takes the chair to her left.
‘Odette?’ whispers Cecilia, and Odette realises she is not beside her after all, but across the room. A flare of panic grips her.
‘Let us join together,’ says Mrs Weston, from somewhere in the darkness. ‘Take the hands of those each side of you.’
Odette bites her lip. The hand to her left is unfamiliar, childlike and clammy – the assistant, Rosina’s, she thinks, not Mrs Weston’s. To her right, she hopes to feel Cecilia, but instead the hand is cold and smooth and bony. This must be Mrs Weston – though she was sure from the sound of her voice that she was somewhere more distant.
‘I call today upon the dear spirit of Arabella, my guide, poor soul, poor unloved soul. Arabella, will you come to me again and open the way between the worlds?’
There is a pause, and then a gentle tremor across the table.
‘Will you introduce yourself to the kind people who have joined us today?’
The table rocks in rhythm with the subtle motion of the assistant’s foot – Odette can feel the movement to her left, and she is so disappointed. Mrs Weston is nothing but a fraud. Of course she is. Of course this was a stupid idea. It is like going fishing with a stick and a length of string and hoping to catch a shark.
The next time Mrs Weston speaks, her voice is high-pitched and childlike. ‘Oh, Mrs Weston, it is cold today, so cold I can’t rightly get warm no more.’
Odette hears a snort that can only come from Cecilia.
‘Darling Arabella is my spirit guide,’ says Mrs Weston, in her own voice. ‘She has been with me many a year – haven’t you, my darling?’
‘So cold, madam, and so dark, down at the bottom of the water.’
‘Drowned in the Serpentine,’ Mrs Weston explains. ‘Dear girl, we have come here today hoping that there might be someone waiting to speak to the young lady at this table. Is there any such spirit?’
Odette wants to sink down out of sight, though there is no hiding in the dark. She has done this foolish thing, and Cecilia is here to witness the depths to which she has fallen.
‘It hurts,’ says Arabella’s voice. ‘It presses all about me like needles.’
This is hateful.
‘Try harder for us, little one – let the door open! Throw it wide!’
The air turns icy, as though a window has been flung open – and perhaps it has, but it is not so cold outside today; it is unnatural. Odette frowns. Is there a block of ice brought in, a fan to send frigid air across them?
‘Yes – yes – she is here,’ says Arabella. ‘Oh, she is so angry. Soangry.’ The word twists with a sound that must pain Mrs Weston awfully to make, the high-pitched child’s voice dropping into an animalistic snarl.
There is a sudden spattering of rain droplets across Odette’s forehead, as though the roof were open to the sky.
Something is turning. She doesn’t like it; in some unspeakable, confused way, it feels wrong. She can hear her own breath coming too fast, the pulse in her wrist pounding.
‘We long to hear her,’ says Mrs Weston. ‘Go on, Arabella. Let her through.’
There is an unexpected note of ill-ease in Mrs Weston’s voice, and in response, the table jerks violently, scraping along the bare boards before slamming back into place hard enough that it catches Odette across the stomach.
‘She remembers!’ The snarl tears its way out, Arabella’s sweet voice now like gravel. ‘She sees! She will not forgive!’
There is the touch against her ankles, something fleshy and warm, patting along her legs up to her knees – and then at once, it is gone. A pressure builds in Odette’s head. Her ears are muffled. For a moment, she is underwater, an immense weight pushing down on her, her ears and nose filled up – and Mrs Weston’s voice comes through distorted, anxious.
‘Restless spirit, take pity on us – this is – too much,’ she says, voice shot through with panic.
The hand to the right is gripping hers so hard she can feel the bones in her fingers grind together, and her breath is strangled in her throat.
‘Stop it – this is a cruel joke,’ cries Cecilia. ‘Stop it at once.’
The hand to Odette’s right yanks her sideways, ripping her other hand from Rosina’s grasp and almost pulling her out of her chair. She grabs at the table with her free hand – and then, as suddenly as it moved, the bony grip is gone.