‘What happened?’ asks Cecilia.
She is not sure herself what she thinks happened. The séance was a sick charade – she knew it would be. Penelope dallied in them once or twice when Cecilia was a child, and she can still remember the sickly smell of the medium’s heavy violet perfume, the obvious trickery of the performance.
There was something uniquely sinister this time. It began with the same old tricks, but this medium seemed to have some particular skill at deception – perhaps a background in the theatre – and her sleights of hand frightened Cecilia. She is angry at herself for not stopping Odette from going through with it, and it has only ended in heartbreak and horror as she feared.
‘I can’t talk here,’ says Odette. ‘Not – in public.’ Her hair is escaping its pins, and she is breathing too hard; they are drawing attention.
Cecilia nods, mouth tight, but loops their arms together, leadsthem into the station, buying two tickets so that they can go down to the platform and walk along to a quiet end. She sits on a bench, but Odette does not join her.
She does not pace, seemingly too fractured for even that much co-ordinated action. Instead, she flutters around, first holding onto a pole, then the back of the bench, then going right up to the edge of the platform and back again. As before, her gaze is always drawn back to someone Cecilia cannot see.
Cecilia does nothing, says nothing, hoping patience will go some measure towards reassurance.
Eventually, Odette stops before her. ‘What did you experience?’ she asks at last. ‘You promised me your true and honest account.’
Cecilia’s mouth twists – she has never been good at hiding her expression. A train rattles into the station, and she waits for the alighting passengers to thread their way to the exit before she speaks.
‘I am not sure what to make of any of it. It was quite – strange.’
‘Yes? What was strange?’
‘All of it. You could have warned me.’
‘If I warned you, would you have come?’
‘No.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You would have tried to persuade me not to go, at least, and I had to go because—’
Odette stares over Cecilia’s shoulder, face distorted with grief. Cecilia reaches for her hand, but Odette does not react when she takes it. It is as though Odette has stepped through to another world and left Cecilia all alone.
‘I understand,’ Cecilia says quietly.
Finally, Odette looks at her, eyes shadowed and glinting. ‘No. You do not.’
This again. Cecilia feels an unkind flare of frustration. DoesOdette really think she is the only person to have experienced a grief so devastating? Perhaps she meant it when she told Odette she was taking out her pain on others. It is blunt, but perhaps it is true.
‘They cannot—’ She stops to choose her words. ‘I do not believe they can reach your mother, if that is what you wanted to know.’
‘That is not what I wanted.’
Cecilia’s frustration boils over. ‘Then what was it? Why did you leave like that? I am trying to help you, but you will never tell me what is going on. You leave me in the dark.’
‘Answer me first,’ urges Odette. ‘What happened back there, for you? The truth – not what you think I want to hear.’
It is a low blow, a little too well observed, and Cecilia does her best not to crumple from it.
‘Nothing. Nothing happened. We went to a dark room, they did a few tricks, then you gave such an awful cry and ran away, and I thought someone must have hurt you, and now you will not tell me what the matter is.’ Cecilia pulls up short, a little breathless. ‘There it is. My honest account.’
Odette does not speak.
For a long while, they stay in silence, trains rushing into the platform, disgorging passengers and swallowing them up again. The day is cold, and Cecilia shivers despite her gloves and coat.
‘Then I have my answer,’ says Odette. ‘You cannot understand me. I am alone.’
Cecilia stands abruptly, unsure what to do with her anger. ‘Only because you choose to be. I am right here, Odette. I am not dead. I love you. But that does not seem to matter to you anymore.’
Another train pulls in. Cecilia loses her nerve.