Strong Spirits [Spirits 01] Read Online Free

there? I’ll probably see Edie.” Edwina “Edie” Marsh was one of my friends from high school. She worked as a housemaid for the Kincaids, and we always had a good time trading gossip when I conducted séances the mansion. “And I’m sure there will be some of Mrs. Kincaid’s rich friends there. Oh, and her sister, Mrs. Lilley, I guess, since it’s her son we’re trying to reach.”
           “That’s horrible,” Billy said in a low voice.
           It was, kind of. I’d never say so. “Maybe, but it pays the milk man and the grocer.”
           Without another word, Billy pushed his chair around and rolled out of the room. I turned and watched him go, my heart aching. Thanks to my work, we’d managed to get him one of those newfangled chairs with wheels big enough so that Billy could maneuver himself around without help. That was some kind of blessing, I guess, because he felt helpless enough without having to have an attendant push him every time he wanted to, say, go to the kitchen or, worse, the bathroom.
           Not for the first time, I was glad America had climbed aboard the water wagon. I could envision poor Billy, bitter and incurable, turning to the bottle for escape. Life was hard enough for us already. We didn’t need the Demon Rum living with us, too. I worried a little about the morphine the doctor prescribed for him, but without the drug his pain was too great to bear. In other words, there wasn’t any happy solution to the Billy problem.
           Poor Billy. Great God, but I felt sorry for him. Ruthlessly, I swallowed the tears swelling in my throat. I reminded myself that lots and lots of women were in a state similar to mine, with their husbands dead or crippled. I was fortunate, I told myself, because I had a skill I could use to earn a fair income.
           Blast and heck, it was more than a “fair” income! Why, I’d bought a little bungalow on South Marengo Avenue for my family with my earnings. That was more than a lot of men could do, working at their so-called “normal” jobs. It hurt like fire that Billy didn’t appreciate me and how nobly I was contributing to the family’s welfare.
           Father Frederick, the Episcopal priest who often visited Mrs. Kincaid and whom I’d met at her house, had told me to go easy on Billy because he felt diminished as a man. I could understand that and agreed with him, but it sure was hard not to be resentful sometimes.
           I liked Father Frederick, and not only because he was a genuinely kind man who offered helpful advice, such as the above. He also never looked at me askance because of what I did. Some religious folks were scared of fortune tellers. Even more of them were of Billy’s opinion and considered what we did sinful. Although, in fairness, Billy’s criticism wasn’t based so much on religious belief as on bitterness.
           But Father Frederick wasn’t like that. His soft brown eyes always appeared a little sad, as if he wished he could cure the world’s ills and knew he couldn’t. I understood that, all right. Shoot, I couldn’t even cure my own husband.
           Darn, but life was hard sometimes.
    # # #
           The air outdoors was fresh and balmy, the spring evening cool and slightly breezy, and the San Gabriel Mountains loomed large to the north, evoking a majesty that those of us who bore the name Majesty couldn’t come close to projecting. The pure spring weather and the enchantingly sweet aroma of orange blossoms emanating from the tree growing beside the back porch went some way toward soothing my battered spirits.
           Sometimes I picked sprigs from the orange tree and put them in a vase in the living room, even though the blossoms never lasted more than a day. The dark glossy leaves and the tiny ivory flowers, not to mention their intoxicating scent, cheered me in a way nothing else could, probably because they reminded me of my wedding and