Unseemly Pursuits

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4

Week 2, Instructor Calendar, September 1896

I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

I.i

Concordia was about to meet her first spirit medium.

Had someone told her last week she would be meeting a two-headed llama, she would not have been any more amazed. It was true that mediums had grown in popularity over the last decade, with some making their livelihood through stage performances in packed concert halls. Others, like Madame Durand, conducted private séances for the wealthy, and acted as “consultants” to grieving families who set store in such things.

So perhaps mediums were more plentiful than two-headed llamas, but Concordia had always expected her chances of willingly seeing either one were the same. Yet here she was, seated next to Miss Pomeroy in the quickly-filling dining hall of Sycamore House, where Madame Durand would address her first meeting of prospective members of the Spiritualist Club.

Sycamore House was the college residence for the president and other male administrators. It had been built, too, with social functions in mind: balls, recitals, and teas were often held in the capacious dining hall, or the smaller drawing room. A few years ago, the building had been updated with the most modern of conveniences: a telephone, electric wall lamps, steam heating, and a new coal-burning cook stove—which had produced no end of dismay among the kitchen staff as they tried to figure out the contraption.

Concordia wished she were here for any other occasion but this. It was Miss Pomeroy who had coaxed her to come.