It was the following Saturday afternoon, sunny but wet after two days of rain, when armed with a fair sum of money in my purse from Mrs. Barrowmore, I went to the curio shop in search of new props to adorn the séance room.

I nodded politely to the shopkeeper, who recognized me from previous visits. His dimly lit shop held a special charm for me. It was unlike other such stores I have had the misfortune of entering, with their haphazard array of items, piled any old which way.

Here, around the central wooden counter with its behemoth gilded cash register, shelves held long disused objects—lamps, dolls, books, dishes, and myriad curiosities—all organized into categories and furnished with small white tags attached with twine. Artifacts of the past--catalogued, arranged and neatly labeled. I found it deeply pleasing.

As I was perusing a collection of candlesticks, I heard the bell over the door ring. There was the clack, clack of hard-heeled boots on the wooden floor and the shopkeeper's greeting, "Good day. Are you looking for something in particular?"

"Someone," a female voice replied.

I turned to see who had given this odd answer and was immediately thrown into a state of unease. It was the auburn-haired woman from the séance two nights prior. She wore a tailored suit this time, in grey and chestnut brown. "Ah!" she exclaimed and raised a hand to me, as if catching sight of an old friend. She then clack-clacked over to me directly.

"Just the woman I was looking for," she whispered conspiratorially as she came up beside me.

"I can't imagine what you mean," I managed to whisper back, wary of her motives. Then with a realization, "Did you follow me here?"

She avoided my question by asking one of her own. "Can't you read my mind?" Her eyes twinkled. They were green with flecks of brown. I quickly looked away and began to study the candlesticks again as if they were the most interesting items in the shop.

"Of course not. I commune with the spirits of the dead, when the mood strikes them. That is how I get my information. I'm sorry if you think otherwise, but—"

"Nonsense!" she said loudly and I hushed her. Dropping back to a whisper, she added, "There are no spirits of the dead poking about and telling people things. You and I both know that."

So, she was trying to expose me as a fraud! I shoved a silver candlestick back onto the shelf and began moving away from her. "I am sorry to vehemently disagree with you," I said firmly over my shoulder.

She kept doggedly by my side. "If you are trying to show me up as a fake, you will be sorely disappointed." I moved past the teapots, cups and china, and stopped before a display of jewelry. I pretended to be very interested in some beaded necklaces and hoped she would leave me alone if I ignored her.

 Quite to the contrary, she leaned ever closer and whispered into my ear, "Would you like to know what I think?"

"No."

She slid from her wrist a gold bracelet set with squarish amethyst stones and showed it to me. "I think ..." and she abruptly thrust it into my hand.

The darkness descended on me suddenly and my first thought was that I'd somehow gone blind or was about to faint. I was still standing, though, and I felt the woman's warm hands gripping me about the shoulders.

She helped me sink to the floor as a thin shaft of light entered my vision with a foggy glow, like moonlight coming through a window. I heard the sound of a child crying. It was all around me, and yet coming from me too, throbbing in my ears. I was clutching the bracelet, turning it over and over in my hands as I sobbed on the floor in the dark, overwhelmed with despair.

Then I felt someone ease the bracelet out of my hand and like a veil being lifted, the darkness dissipated hurriedly, leaving me in a heap of skirts upon the floor, tears in my eyes. I do not exaggerate when I say I was terrified at this complete loss of command of my sensory faculties.

The shopkeeper had hurried over and I heard the woman, Charlotte, explaining that I had not eaten lunch and had experienced a bout of light-headedness. With a few more assurances, she was able to shoo the shopkeeper back to the front desk.

As I recovered from this episode, I began to muster up some ire. "What did you do to me?" I demanded.

"I did nothing." She slipped the bracelet back onto her own wrist. "You read its memories," she said, tapping the stones.

She held out a hand to help me stand up, but I refused her, and managed to rise on my own. I still felt quite out of sorts after this strange experience though, and was unsteady on my feet. "That's ridiculous! Objects don't have memories."

She linked her arm with mine despite my protests and began leading me to the front of the shop. "Now it is my turn to vehemently disagree with you."

*****

We went to a tea room a few doors down, where women in fashionable hats gossip about their husbands, their neighbors, and especially their neighbors' husbands. Perhaps I am being too flippant, for the tea rooms also provide a place for women to speak their minds out of the prying company of men.

We took a table near the back with a lovely view of the small flower garden out the window. Under other circumstances, this might have been an enjoyable luncheon with an amiable new acquaintance.

As it was, I was uneasy and cross with Charlotte, but my need for answers drove me to accept her offer of lunch and tea. Besides, I was dizzy and didn't trust myself to make my way home right away.

"The human mind," Charlotte was saying, "stores impressions of our experiences through the use of electricity and chemicals within our bodies, yes?" She did not wait for a reply from me. "Is it not possible that some objects do the same, under the right set of circumstances?"

Despite my discomfiture, I was fascinated by this rather scientific line of inquiry. "What sort of circumstances are you alluding to?"

"Tragedy," she said, pouring tea into one of the two small teacups that were decorated with grape vines and gilded leaves. "Other strong emotions? Or maybe it's something else entirely. Something due to its physical surroundings. I don't know for sure."

I stirred two sugar lumps into my own tea and she frowned. I noticed she took only cream. The gentle laughter of ladies around us and the tinkling of spoons seemed in sharp contrast to the strange conversation we two were engaged in. "What does that have to do with me?"

Charlotte eyed me appraisingly yet again. Was she like a spider with an invisible web, drawing me into something that I might better wish were avoided? "Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe you can read people's memories." I said nothing, neither confirming nor denying it. "That is what I witnessed the other night at your séance."

She leaned back in her chair and lifted her teacup. I noticed the offending bracelet resting against her wrist and wondered why it had no effect on her as it had on me. Part of me was tempted to try touching it again. Perhaps it had been a trick, or a coincidence. Touching the bracelet had been like losing hold of myself and being somewhere, and someone, else.

She saw me looking at it. "When you held the bracelet, you experienced its memories, what it experienced in the past."

"Do you know what I saw?" I thought back to the darkness, the intense sadness. "And felt?"

A cloud passed over her features. She gazed over the crowd of women in the cafe and stayed quiet for a long moment. "I don't have your gift. Few do. That's why I need your help."

"My help?"

"With a case I'm working." She leaned closer to me over the small table and dropped her voice. "I work as an investigator for a large psychical research firm. For wealthy clients, we discreetly deal with what a layman might call hauntings. Hauntings caused by objects..." she seemed to search for the right word, "...releasing their memories so strongly that even the ungifted can sense them."

As if she'd said nothing out of the ordinary, she then began to spread orange marmalade on her toast. "These manifesting memories are, of course, mistaken for ghosts."

She took a bite of her toast and this momentary diversion allowed me to study her more carefully. Her green eyes were alternatingly thoughtful and expressive. Her skin and hair were darker than my own, and though her nose was a bit sharp, she was pretty in an unconventional way.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked after a moment and I hoped she hadn't felt that I was staring.

"Can I stop you?"

She smiled then. A genuine smile, it seemed to me. "Does it bother you? Lying to people like you do? Whitewashing their pasts?"

I was taken aback, but her face showed a calm and curious expression that I could not read.

"I don't consider it lying," I protested. "I offer a service, which they desire and pay for, I might add. All of us should be so lucky to have someone smooth over the pains of our past and put our minds at ease." I perhaps spoke a bit too strongly. A lady in a feathered hat turned around to look at me curiously.

"Is that what you want?" she asked pointedly. "Someone to smooth over your past?" I didn't like the tone of challenge in her voice.

I poked aggressively at the last of my salad with my fork. "I don't dwell on the past. Surely nothing good has ever come of doing so."

She raised an eyebrow. "That's odd, coming from a medium who claims to speak with the dead."

I felt she was judging my profession, and for some reason her disapproval bothered me more than I thought it should.

"Listen," I said. "Doesn't everyone crave a bit of comfort and reassurance? Even in this age of science, people want what they already believe in."

Charlotte leaned forward and grabbed my hand. "I don't."

"What do you want?"

"The truth."