Read Reckoning of Boston Jim for Free Online

crowd gasps. She is rising. She is suspended in midair, not limp, but as if she were made of stone. The men point furiously and reassure each other they are witnessing the same thing. The Professor lets her gently down. She rises to loud applause.
    â€œMiss Frielan, ladies and gentlemen, has a sensitive soul. She is clean of sins. It is only for this reason she can float like an angel. But, and this my friends is a truth, she also attracts spirits by her gentleness and purity, the way a warm hearth attracts the living after a day of wind and rain. They pass through her, whispering messages for those who are still among the quick, for those, perhaps, who are here this night.”
    â€œA post office, is she?” someone shouts. There is laughter of a nervous sort. Miss Frielan looks sorrowful. The Professor grimly searches the crowd.
    â€œI must ask for total silence for this, our final marvel. I must ask that each and every one of you retain his breath until I shout ‘Release.’ Only then will the spirits visit us.” Professor Hinkeman counts to five and all in the crowd gulp the air, all except for Boston. He sits while ’round him cheeks bulge and eyes grow round. Spirits are of no use to him; it is hard enough to navigate among the living.
    Miss Frielan begins to tremble. Her limbs jerk. Her eyes roll upward.
    â€œRelease!” the Professor shouts. He feigns a stagger at the force of the exhalation. He raises his cane. “They are here!” The audience gasps in its next breath, and such a gasp it is. The air is of a sudden thinner, colder. There is a shift from jocularity to unease. It is as if a threshold has been crossed. Boston knows the feeling from the winter festivals of the People. He does not like it.
    â€œOh, Frank, you’ll be striking riches,” Miss Frielan says, her voice querulous and high. Then in a voice deep and manly: “Thomas, my son, you have my blessing for your journey.” And so it goes. She speaks in French, Italian, German, in the accents of England and Ireland and America. She is the voice of lovers, mothers, sons, and friends, all who have concerns and advice, premonitions and warnings for Amos and John, for Jacques and Antonio and Wilfred.
    Of all the tricks this is the most simple, and yet the one that draws the most excitement. For here is the suggestion that the future has a discernible path. Not too late? For what? The pronouncements are vague enough to apply to anyone with those names, which are all common enough.
    â€œAh, Jim, do not forget your obligations. You will regret it mightily if you do.” Miss Frielan says this in a flat, unsexed cadence. It is the voice of no one Boston has ever heard. Trickery, damned trickery.
    After a time more of this, the Professor taps Miss Frielan on the shoulder. She starts and flutters her hands as if troubled by butterflies. Professor Hinkeman and Miss Frielan bow and curtsy. The crowd claps and cheers. The piano plays a rollicking tune.
    â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆ
    Boston walks into a night that is moonless and smells of rain. The theatre crowd jostles past him. In a nearby alley a lantern swings in the dark. Someone is tunelessly whistling.
    â€œI once knew all the words from the Dovecot Lovelies ,” the Dora woman said. “I’m not jesting. I could sing them at the drop of your hat. And I did, too, when we was invited on board the Grappler . Surely you’ve seen the Navy men all got up in their splendid uniforms. Such brass buttons! Such bearing! After I sang, the sailors played the fiddles and accordions and Mr. Hume sang ‘The Rat Catcher’s Daughter’ in his fine baritone. And later we watched a burlesque of Babes in the Wood . Oh, but I couldn’t stop laughing. The sailors they looked so funny in their bonnets and skirts. And we had ginger beer and apple cakes and we danced until the sun was rising. How I love to dance. How I love music. And here