Read The Shadow in the North for Free Online Page B

..."
    "Oh, never, Charles! Never!"
    "I am with you night and day, my dear. Tell Filkins in the shop to mind his cheese."
    "Mind the cheese—^yes—"
    "And pay heed to our boy Victor. I fear he may be falling in with low companions."
    "Oh, dear! Charles, what can I—"
    "Fear not, Ella. The blessed light is shining—the golden land beckons, and I must depart. Remember the cheese, Ella. Filkins is not sufficiently careful with his napkins. I go ... I depart..."
    "Oh, Charles! Oh, Charles! Farewell, beloved!"
    A sigh, and the spirit of the grocer departed. Mrs. Budd shook her head as if to clear it; Mrs. Jamieson Wilcox wept discreetly into a black-edged handkerchief, and then the circle was resumed.
    Frederick looked around. In the dimness it was impossible to make out anyone's features, but the atmosphere had changed: people were excited now, tense with expectation and ready to be convinced. This woman was good. Frederick had no doubt she was faking, but he hadn't come here to listen to dead grocers talk about cheese.
    And then it happened.

    Mrs. Budd gave a convulsive litde shudder, and began to talk in a low voice—her own voice, this time, but brimming with fear and horror.
    "The spark... ," she said. "There's a wire, and the counter going round—hundred and one, hundred and two, hundred and—no, no, no . . . Bell. Bells. The bellman. Such a pretty ship, and the little girl dead ... It isn't Hopkinson, but they're not to know. No. Keep it in the shadows. Sword in the forest—oh, blood on the snow, and the ice—he's still there, all in a glass coffin . . . The Regulator. Three hundred pounds— four hundred—North Star! There's a shadow in the north ... a mist all full of fire—steam, and it's packed with death, packed in pipes—steampipes—under the North Star—oh, horrible ..."
    Her voice trailed away, with infinite sadness, into silence.
    This was what Frederick had come to hear, and though he didn't understand it, her tone made his flesh creep. She sounded like someone in the toils of a nightmare.
    The other spiritualists sat with reverent attention. No one moved. But then, with a loud sigh, Mrs. Budd woke up, and took charge again.
    A loud chord resounded from the piano. Everyone jumped, and the three silver-framed photographs on the top vibrated in sympathy.
    A fiirious rapping came from the center of the table.

    Heads jerked in surprise, only to be lifted upward toward a pale, tremulous glow that was materializing on the ceiling. Mrs. Budd, eyes closed, seemed to be at the center of an invisible storm. Frederick was aware that she was controlling it all, but it was still impressive: the curtains waved, the strings of the piano jangled wildly, and then the heavy table under its damask cloth began to heave and sway like a boat on a surging sea. A tambourine on the mantelpiece jingled once and then fell with a crash onto the hearth.
    "A physical manifestation!" cried Mr. Humphries. "Keep still, everyone! Observe the phenomena! The spirits will not harm us—"
    But evidently the spirits had other intentions regarding the electrodermograph, because there was a sudden blinding flash from it, with a loud crack and a smell of burning. Mrs. Budd cried out in alarm, and Frederick leaped up hastily.
    "Lights! Lights, if you please, Mrs. Wilcox!"
    As the hostess, in all the conftision, turned up the nearest gaslight, Frederick bent over the medium, unfastening the wires from her wrists.
    "Wonderftil result!" he was saying. "Mrs. Budd, youve surpassed all my expectation! An unparalleled reading—^youre not hurt? No, of course you're not. Machines broken, but that doesn't matter. Couldn't take the reading! Went right off the dial! Marvelous!"
    Beaming with triumph, he nodded at the bewildered

    spiritualists, who were blinking in the light. Jim disconnected the wires from the battery while Mrs. Budd rubbed her wrists.
    "Sorry and all that, Mrs. Wilcox," Frederick went on. "Didn't want to break up the seance, but d'you