Darker Still Read Online Free Page A

Northe said sharply. Maggie snapped her mouth shut. “Not to mention that your mother would never forgive me for teaching you anything about it in the first place. She already is convinced I’m going to Hell.”
    “She is not…” Maggie rallied, but unconvincingly.
    Mrs. Northe turned to me with a smirk, signing: “But I’m rich enough to be considered redeemable. Amazing how wealth buys salvation.”
    I bit my lip to keep from grinning. I didn’t want Maggie to feel left out of the joke, but she was looking out the window and pouting about having been put in her place in front of me. Mrs. Northe’s jovial honesty about her position, her money, and her faith was quite refreshing.
    I recalled Sister Theresa at the asylum once railing about spiritualism being the Devil’s work, which had made me immediately curious as to how and why. Father isn’t much of a churchgoer, being descended from lapsed New England Congregationalists, but Mother, a devout German Lutheran, never missed a Sunday at Immanuel near our home. In her honor, I attend services regularly.
    I find the ritual of faith a comfort, and thankfully the Lutheran congregation is rather stoic. They don’t much care that I can’t speak, and the service is almost all in German. Is it more tragic that I understand two languages that I don’t speak? Regardless, if Sister Theresa was right about the Devil’s work, I can’t have Mother turning in her grave.
    Perhaps Mrs. Northe read my mind, for she was quick to clarify. “Now to be sure, I am an Episcopalian Christian. But my experiences in spiritualism have only expanded my faith, strengthened my commitment to the Lord, women’s rights, and the rights of all people, and enriched my delight in the Divine Mystery of the universe.”
    That sounded grand.
    “What you may have guessed,” she added, her tone suddenly weary, “is that not all persons interested in the discipline come to it purely for spiritual growth, enlightenment, or education. Some become involved because they think somehow they will gain power. Influence. An other-worldly advantage,” Mrs. Northe said bitterly. “And these people quickly fall away from spiritualism to make their own orders and sects as their egos see fit.”
    “Do you know such people?” I signed.
    “Unfortunately, I do,” Mrs. Northe said. “Ah. We have arrived. Come, dear, are you ready to meet him?”
    I grinned.
    “You’ll just die , I tell you!” Maggie crowed, and she took me by the hand and dragged me into the building.
    The Art Association was a lovely edifice on Twenty-Third Street with floors full of fine art, though the grandiose Metropolitan had spoiled me to the extent that nothing could possibly compare. Mrs. Northe swept me expertly through the various rooms, passing under numerous carved wooden arches. She nodded to all she passed in cordial greeting, and Maggie parroted her with the same firm confidence, though she did so with a bit more haughtiness to her step and her head held slightly higher. Clearly they were in familiar territory here, and my task was to keep up.
    We at last came to an unassuming back room where the lamps were trimmed low and a distinct chill hung in the air.
    Mrs. Northe gestured for me to go ahead.
    I turned the corner and held my breath.
    Would it be a horribly clever redundancy to say I was speechless?
    If Mrs. Northe spoke to me in those first moments, I never heard her. I was lost in the music of him .
    I’d never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. His eyes were impossibly real. Bright, shocking blue, they burned with cerulean light. They cried out from the canvas, desperate for more show of life than brushstrokes, as if simply two dimensions were an insult.
    He was tall and sure, broad shouldered and fit, with his hands clasped behind his back. He had jet-black hair that was neat around his ears but fell in gentle curls. He looked firm and authoritative, master of his domain.
    The masculine lines of his face