Varden looked at her in puzzlement.  “Did you wish to investigate elsewhere, then?  There might be something set up in an adjoining room.”

            Anna smiled quickly, grateful for the idea.  “Let’s look into that.”

            “We shouldn’t be noticed while everyone is distracted with the mumbo jumbo,” Varden said.

            Just then Pumphrey entered, looking ridiculous in a starry robe and a silly hat.  “Welcome, friends, fellow travelers in this earthly realm.  Tonight you have come seeking for a deeper truth, a better understanding about the universe, and perhaps answers about what lies beyond the great veil.”

“That is our cue to leave this nonsense,” Varden whispered, guiding Anna around the table toward a side door, while the room’s attention stayed on Pumphrey as he rounded the table on the opposite side.

Pumphrey took his place and lifted his hands to the air.  “I ask that everyone open their minds to the spirits and release all strong, unyielding, or negative emotions. These will only interfere with the spirits’ resonance and block the flow of energy within our spectral guests.  Know that we humans are not alone.”  Upon this pronouncement, the already dim gas lights flickered and lowered further, amid gasps from the crowd.

“And that certainly wasn’t the effect of a servant outside turning the key on the gas line,” Varden murmured.  “No one shall see us slip out.”  Together they fled into a side corridor.  The lights here were lit.  No servants or gas lines were visible, though more rooms opened off the hall further along.

Anna drew a breath and let it out slowly.  Maybe it was the lack of perfume, but the air here seemed cleaner.  “I’m glad to be clear of that room.  I was beginning to feel quite uneasy.”

“And who wouldn’t, hearing that absolute rot from a man in a shiny tin hat?”

“Tin covered felt I think.”  Anna ventured a shaky smile.  “Purple felt, to match the robe.”

“I confess I am trying to forget the robe.”  Varden matched her smile with a firmer one, and she felt heartened.  There were moments when his easy arrogance made her wince, but now was not one of those times.  In the midst of strangeness, she was glad to have him near, though she would have been even happier, she realized, to have Tam about, with or without his mallet.

Moving softly on her toes—not an easy feat in these ladies’ shoes—Anna explored down the hall to the first door, and listened at it.  She tried the handle and found it unlocked.

“That’s probably a maid’s quarters,” Varden said.  “I think we’re in the servant’s wing.”

Anna eased the door open and found the room dark.  Light from the hall fell on the dim shapes of a bed, a cabinet, some other furniture further back in the shadows.  An odd pattern of dark marks on the walls seemed out of place.

“I think I have a light.” Anna fumbled at her skirts and remembered with annoyance that her new frocks did not have the large, useful pockets of her dig clothes.  How did ladies make do without having pockets?

Varden produced a match case from an inner pocket, and struck one.

The walls, visible in the brief flickering light, were scrawled over with lines of symbols, some in chalk, and others in something dark and reddish.  Dark liquid filled the washbasin, and a strange smell mingled with the fresh sulfur from the match.

“These are pictograms, from Narmos.”  Varden leaned closer to look, and frowned.  “If it was meant for a rite of supplication they got it quite wrong.  These aren’t even proper words.”  He gestured to a line of scrawling marks that stretched down one wall toward a cracked mirror.  The mirror still hung in place, reflecting Varden’s face in odd fractured slivers.

Anna draped her hands in a fold of her skirt, lifted the mirror, and nearly dropped it at the sight beneath.  The image of a screaming face had been scorched onto the wallpaper.

“That looks almost like a photographic transfer, don’t you think?” Varden asked after a long tense moment.  “It must have been done with some sort of chemical.”

“You’ve better nerves than I,” Anna said, admiring.  “That is a chemical scent, probably from what’s in the wash basin.  Did they press a fresh washed negative to the paper, and perhaps use a perfume bottle or orchid mister to transfer the image there?  I wonder how they managed to not leave any drips.”

            “They probably used cotton absorbent,” Varden said.

            “But why put on another show like this, somewhere no guest could be expected to see it?”

            “We’re seeing it,” Varden pointed out.  “But you’re quite right.  This is going rather far to overcome wandering skeptics.  This must be meant for some particular audience or event.”

            Anna replaced the mirror, feeling an odd lurch in her stomach, as she had when the lights at the séance had first dimmed.  “I think he’s up to no good,” she said.

            Varden was still frowning at the letters.  “What I don’t understand is how a man in that hat could set up a lurid freak-show like this.  Narmos’ mythology seems utterly inappropriate for Pumphrey’s, ah,  rather sparkling sensibilities.”

            Anna nodded.  “I agree.”  In fact, that was exactly what she’d been saying earlier.  “Blood sacrifices for power aren’t terribly benign or full of deeper truth.  Nor is calling down plagues and things on one’s enemies, or becoming possessed in order to wreak destruction in time of war—”

            “Now I’m quite worried that you’ve read my papers,” Varden said apologetically.  “Such things are hardly fit—”

            “If you say ‘for a lady’ we shall have a quarrel,” Anna interrupted.  “Let’s leave this room.  The smell is enough to give one a headache.”

            “As you like.” 

            They left the room and continued on through the hall, finding nothing more sinister than a set of stairs going down.

            “The gas lines will be that way, most likely,” Varden said, just as the lights flickered and dimmed up and down the corridor.  “Quick!  Down the stairs at once and catch them at it!”  Varden dashed to the stairs, and Anna followed.  Halfway down, disoriented in the wavering light, Anna felt a terrible plunge of vertigo and nearly sat down on the stairs to avoid falling.  The feeling passed, and she bolted out through the door on Varden’s heels.  She nearly ran into his back.  He had stopped dead, frowning in confusion down a hallway lined with windows.  Anna looked out the windows and saw why.  There were clearly on the second story.  Outside, Anna could see the lights of the city beginning to gleam, and the line of carriages waiting down on the street.  She could pick out the hotel’s borrowed carriage among them, but saw no sign of Tam.  Turning toward the stairs they had just left, Anna saw only steps going in entirely the wrong direction, down instead of up.

            “Something is gone quite wrong here,” she said to Varden.  “I think we should get out.”

© Ruth Lampi 2010