A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [30]
Maud obeyed. The table had been draped with two cloths: a dark green brocade that reached to the floor and an overcloth of creamy lace. Maud crawled underneath and sat with her knees close to her chest. The table was nearly three feet in diameter, with a single pedestal that poked into her behind.
“Can you see me?”
“No — not a bit. What about you? Can you see out?”
Maud squinted. “I can see where it’s lighter and dark, but that’s — ouch!” She had shifted position and sat on something hard. She pulled up the tablecloth to shed light on what it was. “What’s this?”
Hyacinth took the funnel-shaped tube away from her. “It’s an ear trumpet. You’ll be using it at the end of the séance. If you speak into it, it makes your voice echo.” She turned the trumpet so that the wide end was at her lips and half whispered, half sang. “Farewell, my only love! Farewell!”
Maud felt her skin crawl. Hyacinth’s voice sounded exactly the way she imagined a ghost would sound.
“You try,” ordered Hyacinth. “I’ll be doing most of the talking, but I think I’ll have you join me for the final farewell. Go ahead.”
Maud tried to imitate Hyacinth’s singsong. “Farewell, my only —” She giggled, and a cascade of eerie laughter came from the end of the trumpet.
“Maud.” Hyacinth’s voice was very firm. “You may not giggle during the séance.”
Maud tried to control herself. She managed to gulp back the giggles, but her mouth twisted in a smirk.
“A little giggle is understandable during rehearsal, but unforgivable — unforgivable — during the séance. Do you understand?”
Maud’s smirk vanished. “Yes, ma’am.”
Hyacinth laughed. “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me! That’s for Judith and Victoria.” She held the green cloth between her thumb and forefinger. “There’s a little slit here, under the lace. Once the lights are out, you put the small end of the trumpet through the hole. The room will be dark, remember.”
Maud searched for the open seam. Carefully she tilted the trumpet, guiding the small end through the hole. “Farewell, my love!” she whispered.
“Perfect. Very good. There’s something else.” Hyacinth lowered herself to sit on the floor. She took Maud’s hand and guided her fingers to the pedestal. “Feel that nail, Maud? And the other one, with the thread wrapped around it?”
Maud was already unwrapping the two threads. She pulled one, which had a wooden bead at the end. She was rewarded with a faint tinkling sound.
“That’s the chandelier.” Hyacinth pointed to the ceiling. “See, there’s a thread that goes up the chain of the chandelier, and across the ceiling to an eye-screw” — she pointed — “where the ceiling meets the wall. Then the thread goes down the wall, through the cloth, and under the table. If you pull both ends of the thread, you can make the chandelier swing back and forth. Burckhardt will think the spirits are moving it.”
Maud experimented with the threads, entranced by the movement of the big chandelier. “Won’t Mr. Burckhardt see the thread?”
“No. Remember, it’ll be dark. Besides — you didn’t notice any threads when you came in the room, did you?”
“No, but I wasn’t looking.”
“Neither will Burckhardt be looking.” Hyacinth tapped Maud’s left hand. “Let go of the end without the bead.”
Maud released the thread. Hyacinth took the other end, winding the thread around her palm. “There. After you play with the chandelier a little, you let go of one end, pull, wind the thread round your fingers, and tuck it away. If anyone wants to examine the chandelier after the lights come back on, there will be no thread to find.”
Maud raised herself to her knees, gazing at the ceiling. A fluttery feeling had come into her stomach. To creep downstairs at the right time, to make the chandelier sway without tangling the threads, to speak into the speaking trumpet . . . What if she could not manage it? She pointed to the eye screw at the edge of the molding. “What if Mr. Burckhardt notices the screw? Won’t he wonder why it’s there?”
Hyacinth shook her head. “He won’t. For one