Censored Angel

She will not be silenced!

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Excerpt Chapter 1

“The passions of the child must be kept subdued and wholesome.”

Anthony Comstock, 1873, Traps for the Young p. 41

Monument Cemetery, Philadelphia, 1875

The angel is my favorite. I trail my fingers over the polished folds of cold marble and stare up at the monument. Stone curls, frozen in wind-tossed perfection, frame a radiant face that shows no anger—only enduring love. I could stand here forever, basking in his gaze.

“Come, Ida.” Mother’s voice is icier than the December gusts whipping at my skirts.

I hurry down the cemetery path, an armful of evergreens clutched tight to my bosom. Up ahead, she stops beside the half-buried stone marking the grave of my long-dead sister. Shears flicking, Mother trims the dried grasses around the granite marker with the same attention to detail she gives everything.

I turn my head. Sometimes, I wish I lay beneath that stone. Maybe then, she would love me, too.

Ignored again, I inhale the sharp scent of the fresh-cut fir and set a bough at the foot of my father’s headstone. The simple limestone slab is gray-green with moss. I press my palm to the chill stone.

There will be no wreath for my father. His weathered tombstone lies untended. No carved angel stands sentinel at his grave. No loving sorrow from my mother marks his passing.

I trace the date, December 1857. He died a mere four months after my birth. How different my life would have been if he had lived.

“Forget him,” Mother hisses. “Bring the garland here.”

I wipe my damp hand on my cloak and slip to her side.

Mother tugs at my sleeve. “Wreath, Ida.”

I hand her the pine circlet with its black ribbon, and she sinks to her knees and rests it on the most elaborate of the six small tombstones.

“Dear lost child, would that you had survived.” Her breath trembles.

She peers up at me. “Men will have their way, Ida. Heedless of the consequences. I begged your father to wait, to let me grieve. Recover my health. But no. An heir to inherit the business—that was all he wanted from me. What choice did I have? Wives must submit to their husband’s will. It is our duty in marriage. Our duty as women. Our path to heaven.”

I pinch my lips together and watch the wind rattle the bare branches of the poplars. It is always the same litany when we come here. If she wants to ensure I never marry, she has done well.

Mother straightens the wreath. “And then to suffer the pain of bearing children”—she runs a hand down her face—“only to lose them.”

I want to shout that I am here. I am alive. But it will do no good. I was not the desired child. Instead, I humble myself, as always. “I know, Mother. But think—she is with God, a blithe spirit cavorting forever in heaven.”

“Does she, daughter? Or does she hover in the borderland?” My mother kisses the damp stone.

Beneath lies my sister, dead from the swoop of the strangling angel—the dreaded diphtheria. Dear Nan. We would have played, shared secrets, and known each other’s innermost thoughts. She would have clasped my hand as we sat straight-backed, feet flat on the floor, for hours during Mother’s wearisome lessons.

But heaven wanted her more than me.

Sometimes, I despise the angels.

For a moment, it is all too much—the cold, the wind, the moldy scent of death. The memories. I fall back on the Bible, more for myself than for my mother. “The Lord loves the little children. The kingdom of God belongs to them.”

Mother pushes to her feet, her eyes wild, the traces of her French accent strong. “The séance table at the Hunters. It moved, Ida, when I asked if my little ones are at peace.”

I rub one foot against the other. “Perhaps, that was a yes?”

She glares at me. “What do you know of the spirits? You are but a foolish child, Ida Celanire. Now stand up straight and stop dirtying your stockings.” She seizes my hand as if I am a disorderly toddler instead of an eighteen-year-old on the cusp of womanhood. “Come. I have borrowed one of those new spirit boards. Together, we will learn the answer.”

“A spirit board?”

The tree branches sway. Bitter cold crawls under my petticoats. I do not need to know if spirits are real. I already know they are.

The house is dismal and dark when we return, the fire in the parlor grate reduced to embers, the Irish day girl long gone. But the aroma of the stew she made lingers.

My stomach growls as I slip off my wet cloak. I can’t wait to fill my icy insides with a bowl, and then warm my freezing toes and fingers at the still-hot cook stove in the kitchen. But Mother is on a mission.

“Come, Ida.” She presses her hand against the small of my back and hurries me into the drafty dining room. “We must call the spirits while they are foremost in our minds.” She lights a candle. The flickering flame illuminates the spirit board in the center of the tabletop. The pale, polished wood glows ominously. The black alphabet and red YES and NO spell disaster. The triangular planchette hovers on its tiny feet like a spider come to entangle me in its web.

A chill worms its way through me, and I look longingly toward the door. But escaping my mother’s will is not an option. I am too hungry and too cold to bear a night shut away without my supper for disobedience.

“Sit, Ida.” She points to the chair on the opposite side of the table.

I dutifully take my place, roll my shoulders, and stare at the board. I have heard of these instruments designed to call forth the departed. Something slithers down my spine.

I focus on the stale scent of the dusty drapery and the hard needlepoint cushion on the seat. I am safe. This is our dining room. I have eaten every meal here since I can remember. A candle, a piece of wood, and a metal disk cannot change that.

I hope.

My mother caresses the ever-present, pearl-trimmed pendant of baby hair at her neck, the chestnut brown so unlike my own pale locks. “We must concentrate. Think of the dead. How much we love them.”

I tip my chin. “Yes, Mother.”

“Now place your fingers on the planchette.” She says the word in the French way—planchet—all nasal and arrogant. When she takes that tone, I know better than to disobey.

I set my fingertips on the smooth metal as Mother does the same. She whispers her question with a hesitancy surprising for her. “Are you at peace, my dear Nan? Are you?”

For long minutes, nothing happens. Then, beneath our hands, the planchette moves snail-like across the talking board, heading toward the YES.

My stomach knots. My breath rasps. Shadows dance. Drapes rustle. All my life, I have seen spirits. Are they here?

“Mother,” I whisper, “you’re making it do this, aren’t you?”

“Hush. Of course not, Ida. Our loved ones draw near. Can’t you feel them?”

Another chill wafts over me, raising all the hairs on my body. I tuck in my chin and shut my eyes. Is the ghost of the father I never knew manifesting behind me? Are the shades of my sister and the stillborn babes from Mother’s second marriage to Mr. Brown, the ones that gave my mother her sad eyes, hovering above us?

The planchette vibrates as if in answer. The proof of the unseen grows too close.

I jerk my fingers up.

“Don’t,” Mother chides.

I tentatively touch the corners of the cold metal as the planchette alights atop the YES.

“See? They have come. Now, Ida,” Mother says, “ask a question.”

Above the mantle, my father’s portrait stares down at me, his eyes heavy, his mouth pinched down. I cannot bear to think the shadows are real. Ghosts are not angels, but they can be demons.

I choke out the words, “No, you . . . you first.”

My mother’s taut body melts into itself. She rocks back and forth. “Oh, my lost babes.” She seizes my hand. “I am afraid to ask. You must help me be brave.”

Brave? If I knew how to be brave, I would not be sitting here. I hunch lower.

“As you wish.”

She resets the planchette at the center of the board and closes her eyes. “Are you safe, my children? Are you with the angels, my darling little ones?”

The candle flickers. The shadows settle in around us. Cold wraps over my shoulders like a shawl. I do not want to talk to the dead. All I want is for my mother to be happy. Everything is better when she is light-spirited and not focused on my failings.

I hold my breath and place the tips of my fingers on the edge. The planchette lies still beneath our hands. I pray the angels forgive me and press a little. It moves slightly. Stops.

“Please”—Mother’s voice wavers—“please say yes.”

Her words float in the air like mist. I give another nudge. The planchette glides across the board, the black lace at my mother’s wrist sweeping after. Then, as if by some unknown presence, it settles into place.

YES.

My mother lifts her hands, her face transformed by a smile. “Now, Ida, your turn.”

I know what I am supposed to ask—the name of my future husband. That’s what my silly schoolgirl friends would want to know. That’s what my mother expects—for me to be normal. For me to marry a fine gentleman who will treat me like a china doll and keep me quiet and forever pregnant.

Instead, I test the spirits. “Who—” My mother catches my eye, and I correct myself. “Whom do I love?”

On its tiny wheels, the iron disk skitters across the board like a flea searching for the sweetest patch of skin. This way and that, it slithers until it comes to a stop near the A. Ghostly fingers sweep along the back of my neck.

I barely touch the metal, but it moves again. Only an inch. But it is enough. I go cold all over. Holy awe fills me.

It is true then. Spirits are here. And they know my secrets.

My mother clasps my hands. “A and S, Ida? What unknown suitor has claimed your heart?”

I am too shocked to pinch my lips closed. The name bursts out. “Annie. Annie Shoemaker. The spirits speak true.”

Mother shoves my hands away, pushes the board aside, and stands. “Of course, they do. And I am glad they have revealed this weakness in you—this schoolgirl fancy. I will not have it. My only daughter pining over a spinster schoolteacher. I send you to Friends Central Academy to acquire a bit of ladylike polish in a staid Quaker setting as your long-departed father wished. Not twaddle on about biology and history and teachers you swoon for. I fear I was wrong to enroll you in that school.”

The trembling starts in my toes and twists its way upward until it clamps around my skull. I cannot lose my place at Friends. I cannot lose the one breath of freedom I have.

I glance about the room, willing a spirit to come to my rescue. But any specter with sense is long gone.

I give a slight laugh and lie. “Just fooling, Mother. I have no care for Miss Shoemaker or any of the teachers. I cheated. I moved the planchette. Made it pick those letters.”

She turns up the gas lamp. The edges of the shadows shift. Her face contorts. “Shame on you. The spirits must not be abused in such a way.” She looks me straight in the eye. “I do not like the change that has come over you ever since I placed you at that academy. You are of marrying age, no longer some dreamy child prone to unruly fits and imaginings. I am of a mind to remove you before the end of the term.”

Panic sweeps through me. If I don’t graduate from Friends, I won’t be able to get my medical degree and save sick babies like our Nan.

I raise my chin and try to be enthusiastic. “I need to graduate so I can continue my studies. Just think, if I were a doctor, I could be a great help in the apothecary. I could improve Papa’s bitters and give them a proper endorsement.”

Mother waves her hand in dismissal. “A patent medicine business is no place for a lady. I run the apothecary because I must—so we can live well, so you can attend Friends and become acquainted with the daughters of the better families in the city, meet their marriageable brothers. That’s all. And you can be sure that tomorrow I will be in the headmistress’s office, reporting this unwholesomeness you are displaying and having you removed from that woman’s class. What was her name again?”

I lower my head and pretend my blood is not boiling. There is no stopping Mother when her course is set. “Shoemaker. She teaches science.”

My mother’s mouth twists. I know what is coming next.

She points her finger at me. “Now, in punishment for your tomfoolery with our new spirit board and for offending the spirits, it is off to your room.”

I swish around her and stomp down the hall and up the stairs. Eighteen and still being sent to my room, if you can call it that.

Behind me, Mother jingles the keys. She can jingle-jangle them all she wants. She can lock me in all she wants. The tiny space partitioned out of Mother’s sitting room so she can rent out the other bedroom to a boarder is my refuge. Always has been.

At the doorway, I stop to glare at her over my shoulder then throw myself onto my narrow cot and listen to the key turn in the lock.

My stomach cramps. There’ll be no stew to warm my insides. No hearth to huddle by. I burrow my head in my pillow. It is not I who has disturbed the spirits, but it will be I who has to face them.

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