The Spirit Room Read Online Free PDF Page B

head against the pink upholstery at the side of the chair, she smelled the concoction of rose water, jasmine, orange, and vanilla that Mrs. Purcell brewed to wash her hair with.
     
    Except for the sporadic crack of a beam or wall, or the ticking of the clock, the house was winter quiet, the street without horses, and the trees without wind. She tucked her feet, cozy in wool stockings, under her, and flipping the book over, opened the cover.
     
    She began to read, at first lazily, expecting to be lulled under. As the scribe turned to the biography of Andrew Jackson Davis, she struggled to keep her eyes open.
     
    “Neither father nor mother was particularly inclined to intellectual pursuits and hence felt no anxiety to bestow an education upon their son extending beyond the simplest rudiments that may be acquired in a common school…From early youth, therefore, until he entered his clairvoyance career, he was mostly kept at such manual employments as were adapted to his age, during which time his little earnings and affectionate attentions contributed greatly to the support of his immediate family connexions.”
     
    At least he’d gone to school for the “simplest rudiments,” she thought. She hadn’t even done that. She continued reading the biography. Davis was only nineteen when he started the book and he finished at twenty-one. He didn’t actually write it himself, but instead recited it to Mr. Fishbough while in numerous trances. Over a period of fourteen months, he was magnetized daily, fell into a mesmeric trance in which a spirit would inhabit him, then dictated the words of the spirit. One hundred and fifty-seven sessions later, he had created a tome covering the entire story of civilization and he claimed he had only read one book in his life.
     
    “The fact is, however, it is known to an absolute moral certainty to Mr. Davis’s most intimate acquaintances, that he was, while in his normal state, totally uninformed on all the great leading subjects treated in this book, until he perused the manuscripts of his own lectures.”
     
    Izzie laughed. Magnetic sessions. Oh, Mr. Davis. Ridiculous . She slapped the book closed and placed it next to the shiny daguerreotype of Mrs. Purcell’s husband, Richard, on the round table at her side. The photograph of Mr. Purcell made her wonder if there was a picture of Davis in the book. She snatched the volume back and thumbed through it until she found a plate depicting him. Huge black eyes, long nose and forehead, wavy swarthy hair, a perfect fuzzy line of beard from ear to ear, but no mustache over his thin upper lip. Fine coat and tie. Handsome.
     
    Picking up a handful of her long hair, she began to twirl it in her fingers. Well, maybe she’d try just the first chapter. Someone at nineteen, only two years older than she was, writing about spiritual leaders and astronomy and the origin of language and something he called the seven spheres had to be interesting, even if absurd.
     
    Curling deeper into the chair, Izzie poised the book under the light of the oil lamp and began to read. Every five or ten pages, she’d think about going upstairs to see if Billy had returned safely or getting up to lay more coal for the fire, but instead of doing those things, she turned the next page. Finally there was nothing else except the words before her. There were far too many of them, sometimes their meaning muddy, but she kept on.
     
    “Your fire is out.”
     
    “Oh.” Izzie startled at the voice, then saw it was Billy standing in the door, his coat collar up around his neck and his cap pulled low. Snow coated his cap, shoulders, and boots. His trousers were caked white half way to his knees.
     
    “It’s three in the morning,” he said.
     
    “Did Papa hurt you?”
     
    “Na, but he was about to. I got out before he could.” Billy took off his cap, shook the snow from it, then combed his red cold hand through his straight hair. Crossing his arms over his chest