What did all four of these nights have in common? According to the Spiritualist woman, it was that they were nights when the “vibrations of the earth-plane were in harmony with the Higher Planes.” According to his grandmother, those were the nights when the boundary between the spirit world and this world thinned, and many kinds of creatures, both good and evil, could manifest. According to her, that was why Jesus had been born on that night—
Well, that was superstitious drivel. But the Spiritualist had an explanation that made sense at the time; something about vibrations and currents, magnetic attractions. Setting up the meal, with himself, and all of Elizabeth’s favorite things, was supposed to set up a magnetic attraction between him and her. The packet she had given him to burn was supposed to increase that magnetic attraction, and set up an electrical current that would strengthen the spirit. Then, because of the alignment of the planets on this evening, the two Planes came into close contact, or conjunction, or—something.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he see Elizabeth again. It had become a hunger that nothing else could satisfy. No one he knew could ever understand such a hunger, such an overpowering desire.
The hunger carried him through the otherwise unpalatable meal, a meal he had timed carefully to end at the stroke of midnight, a meal that must be carried out in absolute silence. There must be no conversation, no clinking of silverware. Then, at midnight, it must end. There again, both the Spiritualist and his grandmother had agreed. The “dumb feast” should end at midnight, and then the spirit would appear.
He spooned up the last bite of too-sweet, sticky cobbler just as the bells from every church in town rang out, calling the faithful to Christmas services. Perhaps he would have taken time to feel gratitude for the Nickleson’s party, and the fact that Rebecca was well out of the way—
Except that, as the last bell ceased to peal, she appeared. There was no fanfare, no clamoring chorus of ectoplasmic trumpets—one moment there was no one in the room except himself, and the next, Elizabeth sat across from him in her accustomed chair. She looked exactly as she had when they had laid her to rest; every auburn hair in place in a neat and modest French Braid, her body swathed from chin to toe in an exquisite lace gown.
A wild exultation filled his heart. He leapt to his feet, words of welcome on his lips—
Tried to, rather. But he found himself bound to his chair, his voice, his lips paralyzed, unable to move or to speak.
The same paralysis did not hold Elizabeth, however. She smiled, but not the smile he loved, the polite, welcoming smile—no, it was another smile altogether, one he did not recognize, and did not understand.
“So, Aaron,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper.
“At last our positions are reversed. You, silent and submissive; and myself the master of the table.”
He almost did not understand the words, so bizarre were they. Was this Elizabeth, his dear wife? Had he somehow conjured a vindictive demon in her place?
She seemed to read his thoughts, and laughed. Wildly, he thought. She reached behind her neck and let down her hair; brushed her hand over her gown and it turned to some kind of medievalist costume, such as the artists wore. The ones calling themselves “Pre-Raphelites,” or some such idiocy. He gaped to see her attired so, or would have, if he had been in control of his body.
“I am no demon, Aaron,” she replied, narrowing her green eyes. “I am still Elizabeth. But I am no longer ‘your’ Elizabeth, you see. Death freed me from you, from the narrow constraints you placed on me. If I had known this was what would happen, I would have died years ago!”
He stared, his mind reeled. What did she mean? How could she say those things?
“Easily, Aaron,” Elizabeth replied, reclining a little in the chair, one elbow on the armrest, hand supporting her chin. “I can say them very, very easily. Or don’t you remember all those broken promises?”
Broken—
“Broken promises, Aaron,” she continued, her tone even, but filled with bitterness. “They began when you courted me. You promised me that you did not want me to change—yet the moment the ring was on my finger, you broke that promise, and began forcing me into the mold you chose. You promised me that I could continue my art—but you gave me no place to work, no money for materials, and no time to paint or draw.”
But that was simply a childish fancy—
“It was my life, Aaron!” she cried passionately. “It was my life, and you took it from me! And I believed all those promises, that in a year you would give me time and space—after the child was born—after she began school. I believed it right up until the moment when the promise was ‘after she finishes school.’ Then I knew that it would become ‘after she is married,’ and then there would be some other, distant time—” Again she laughed, a wild peal of laughter than held no humor at all. “Cakes yesterday, cakes tomorrow, but never cakes today! Did you think I would never see through that?”
But why did she have to paint? Why could she not have turned her artistic sensibilities to proper lady’s—
“What? Embroidery? Knitting? Lace-making? I was a painter, Aaron, and I was a good one! Burne-Jones himself said so! Do you know how rare that is, that someone would tell a girl that she must paint, must be an artist?” She tossed her head, and her wild mane of red hair—now as bright as it had been when he had first met her—flew over her shoulder in a tumbled tangle. And now he remembered where he had seen that dress before. She had been wearing it as she painted, for she had been—
“Painting a self-portrait of myself as the Lady of Shallot,” she said, with an expression that he could not read. “Both you and my father conspired together to break me of my nasty artistic habits. ‘Take me out of my dream-world,’ I believe he said. Oh, I can hear you both—” her voice took on a pompous tone, and it took him a moment to realize that she was imitating him, “ ‘don’t worry, sir, once she has a child she’ll have no time for that nonsense—’ And you saw to it that I had no time for it, didn’t you? Scheduling ladies’ teas and endless dinner parties, with women who bored me to death and men who wouldn’t know a Rembrandt from an El Greco! Enrolling me without my knowledge or consent in group after group of other useless women, doing utterly useless things! And when I wanted to do something—anything!—that might serve a useful purpose, you forbade it! Forbade me to work with the Salvation Army, forbade be to help with the Wayward Girls—oh no, your wife couldn’t do that, it wasn’t suitable! Do you know how much I came to hate that word, ‘suitable’? Almost as much as the words ‘my good wife.’ ”
But I gave you everything—
“You gave me nothing!” she cried, rising now to her feet. “You gave me jewelry, gowns ordered by you to your specifications, furniture, useless trinkets! You gave me nothing that mattered! No freedom, no authority, no responsibility!”
Authority? He flushed with guilt when he recalled how he had forbidden the servants to obey her orders without first asking him—how he had ordered her maid to report any out-of-the-ordinary thing she might do. How he had given the cook the monthly budget money, so that she could not buy a cheaper cut of roast and use the savings to buy paint and brushes.