We Hear the Dead Read Online Free PDF

ghastly noise by day, and the spirit knocked long into the night. We were exhausted.
    Kate’s health had always been fragile. She was prone to severe headaches, which made her violently sick to her stomach and left her weak for days. One afternoon, after a bad spell of vomiting, she fell to the floor like a stone and became stiff and insensible. I screamed for help, and Mother and Lizzie came running. Mother cast me out the door, bidding me run for the doctor.
    Run I did. I banged loudly upon the door of Dr. Knowles. His daughter-in-law opened the door and, finding me frantic with worry, called for the doctor. I begged him to come attend my sister.
    We arrived back at the house within minutes, the doctor having taken pity on me and broken into a run beside me. We found Mother and Lizzie anxiously standing over the bed in which they had placed Kate, wringing their hands and alternately moaning and praying. Kate was still stretched out to her full length, with her feet extended and her head stretched back on her neck. As we watched, her limbs began to shake and twitch. A commotion of snapping and cracking sounds rang out from the bed, and to me it seemed obvious that they were coming from Kate.
    It was obvious to the doctor, too. He quickly surveyed the situation and said, “She is having a seizure. We must make certain she does not bite her tongue, or worse, swallow it.” Swiftly, he removed his belt and began to force it between her teeth.
    As quickly as it had come upon her, the fit ended. All her limbs relaxed and went limp. Her head rolled back to its normal position, and the sounds all stopped. She suddenly broke out in a sweat, and her eyes fluttered.
    â€œKate!” I sobbed, climbing up on the bed beside her and putting my arms around her. She moaned and clutched at her head.
    The doctor sent Lizzie out of the room and drew Mother aside. He was a very hesitant and soft-spoken man. He had never come to our house to hear the spirit rapping, but he must have known what had been taking place six houses down from his own. He questioned Mother gently regarding Kate’s headaches and looked at the tonic that we usually gave her when she was ill.
    â€œThis would be good for her to take now. It will relax her muscles and help her to sleep. I think…today’s seizure was perhaps a result…that is to say, the activities in which she has been engaged may have brought on too much excitement.” The doctor spoke in half sentences, looking over Mother’s shoulder at Kate on the bed. He seemed loath to say what was on his mind. As I listened, burying my face in Kate’s hair, I knew that he was about to give us away.
    Mother, meanwhile, asked if communicating with the spirit had made Kate fall ill.
    The doctor shook his head. “Too much excitement for a young girl…I can’t account for the noises, exactly…I mean, I haven’t heard them…unless you count today. I think…that is to say, I suggest that a manipulation of the joints or muscles of her fingers and toes…that could be a cause. I would suggest rest for her…away from all of these activities. This medicine has morphine in it. That should prevent…that is to say, make unlikely another seizure.”
    It was clear to me that the doctor had betrayed us. My guilty mind heard his accusation, and I waited all afternoon for my mother to confront me. My dread turned to bewilderment when she said nothing at all but sat down beside me to hold my hand and watch over Kate’s sleep. It was later that I realized that she had listened to the doctor and heard only what she wanted to hear.
    When my father returned home that afternoon, Mother informed him of the doctor’s opinion that the excitement of the spirit rapping had made Kate ill. She needed to be removed from the house and kept under the sedation of medication to prevent another fit.
    Far from being persuaded that her daughters were causing the