Confessions of Madame Psyche. Dorothy Bryant

the hammering. But it was Father who gave us the answer to how to use the shop.

      One foggy dawn in early summer, he appeared with two buckets full of flowers, carried on the streetcar. Setting them down in front of the house, he stumbled up to bed, and the next day he could not remember how or where he had gotten them. (Probably he won them at cards, as he won his drinks.) But by that time Sophie had sold them to passersby, and Sophie was in business. From then on, Father stopped at the wholesale flower market at dawn, buying and carrying home what he could. Sophie’s flower shop supported us during those first weeks and remained a small, steady source of income.

      When we were ready, Erika placed an ad in the personals column of the Examiner. It read, as I recall,

      May “Psyche” Murrow

      the child who predicted the earthquake

      is now holding sittings 9 p.m. week nights

      209 Haight Street Admission $1

      She also had the message printed on cards and mailed to some of the people who had attended the sittings at Hunters Point.

      I was very nervous on the day of our first sitting in the Haight Street house. We had not practiced using the secret entries to the closet nor the trap doors in the floor or ceiling. “Never mind,” said Erika. “We must get started. We won’t do anything complicated.” She showed me where to press on the table leg to make the central compartment eject its contents. “But don’t press it until everyone is looking up to see the flower petals.” Sophie was to open the trap door from the flat above, drop a handful of petals (swept up from the shop) and quickly close the trap. “But don’t do it until after May blows out the candle, hear?”

      How could she induce Sophie to do this—Sophie, who believed in the spirit world? The answer was simple. Sophie believed that the spirits did not come unless the sitters were hospitable, believing, open. A few little tricks prepared the sitters for the real visitations from the other world.

      Aside from those two effects, which might make a grand finale, we would do only a few rappings whenever either of us could reach a lever. If I felt nervous, I could stay in candlelit trance with only nods to signify “yes” to some questions. “Remember, just let them lead you,” said Erika. “You’re a smart girl, May, smarter than they are or they wouldn’t be coming to you!” Then she laughed, and her eyes flashed behind the spectacles she wore all the time now.

      Just after Father left for the evening, the first people arrived; two old women who had once come by carriage to Signora Renata’s house. Then came a pretty young woman who smiled at Erika, but immediately sobered when Erika frowned at her. She kissed me and said her name was Maisie. Then a great many people arrived all at once, and when all seventeen chairs were filled, Erika put a note on the front door saying there was no more room, come back tomorrow. “Come here, May.” She took me aside and, pretending to arrange the white ribbon she had tied on my hair, she whispered, “That couple in black lost a ten-year-old son in the quake. His name was Ned and he collected frogs.” Then she drew me to the table and sat me down with the eight people who could fit around it. The others had to sit in a second circle around us, but Erika was careful not to place any of them behind me.

      “My little sister is a shy girl who does not understand the gift bestowed on her. She seldom remembers what happens during a sitting. She always becomes exhausted. For the sake of her health and wellbeing, I must limit each sitting to one hour. I now ask you all to send your thoughts out toward her to help her in the exercise of this mysterious and taxing gift.” Having created a solemn silence, Erika put out the gas light and sat on the window sill at the opposite end of the room.

      We sat in nearly total darkness and utter silence for what seemed hours, but was probably about five minutes. Without Signora Renata, I did not know how to start. “Perhaps,” said Erika, “the gathering is not placed for maximum exchange of psychic energy.” I didn’t know what she meant, but I took her hint and said, “Yes.” She lit a candle in front of me and then began moving people about. Three times she rearranged their sitting, then looked at me and frowned. On the third reshuffling, she gave me a slight nod, and I said, “Yes, that’s better. I feel …” My voice trailed off while they waited for me to say what I felt, which was, actually, not quite so scared. I’d had a chance to look at all the people and get used to them. Maisie kept smiling and nodding. The couple in black looked pale and sad with eyes that hardly seemed to see at all. The two old ladies looked kind, and the others, mostly women, looked curious and not suspicious. All in all, a friendly gathering who wanted me to succeed.

      I left the candle burning in front of my face while we sat for another eternity. Then Erika produced a rap which seemed to come from midair, and I answered her with one that vibrated the chair containing Maisie, who squealed. With people in the room, the accoustical effect was even better than expected. “Who’s there?” I said, and reached out my foot to produce a rap that shook the far end of the table.

      A few more raps established the presence of the spirits, and then Erika invited questions. The first ones were still—more than a year after the earthquake—related to divine vengeance and the possibility of recurrence. Then Maisie described a jade ring she had lost, asking me to help her find it. I sat still, not knowing what to say. “Will I ever get it back?” she insisted, and finally I nodded. I waited for the sad couple to ask me a question so that I could mention Ned and frogs, but they only sat, hunched, like stone efficies carved in an expression of grief. People were beginning to cough and grow as restless as I felt. I knew Erika’s thoughts as well as if I had been a true psychic: I was losing my audience, and they would not come again unless I did something interesting. But I could think of nothing to do, and the hour had passed.

      I blew out the candle and waited for Sophie’s shower of flower petals. It did not come. Finally Erika pulled open a window drape, and while all eyes were turned toward her and the moonlit window, I pressed the button and something popped from the center of the table, a small object which rang like a coin dropped from above.

      “What is that?” asked someone, reaching for it.

      I lit the candle again. One of the old ladies held a small object.

      “My ring! my ring!” shouted the girl called Maisie. She took it from the old woman, put it on her finger, and waved her hand about. Everyone turned toward me. Erika had wisely told me nothing about this trick, and I must have looked as surprised as everyone else. It took me a while to realize that Erika had employed another accomplice besides Sophie.

      Speaking of Sophie, it was at this moment that she remembered to perform her part, sending a shower of petals over us. Then she snapped the trap door shut with such a bang that all eyes turned upward toward the ceiling. Instead of marveling at the mysterious wafting of flower petals from the spirits, people were scanning the ceiling for what must have occurred to all of them—an opening, from which anything might be dropped, including the ring.

      One look at the dismay and fury on Erika’s face, and I knew this could be a disaster. The thought of facing her wrath, even though I had not caused this accident, was enough to make me jump up with a scream that somehow I managed to turn into a laugh, as I shouted with inspiration born of terror, “Oh, take your horrid frog back or I won’t play with you!” As everyone froze, I laughed again. “You are a wicked boy, Ned, but I like you anyway, frogs and all.”

      Then I began to mime a series of games with an invisible child. I ran around the room, looking back over my shoulder and laughing, as if being chased. I stopped and shook as if “tagged” and turned to chase “him.” I reached into invisible pockets and shuddered at invisible frogs I touched, then laughed and said, “We are frogs too!” and played leapfrog, crouching low on the floor, then rising to jump over my invisible playmate, then took his invisible hands and, circling slowly, sang, “Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posey, ashes, ashes, all fall down,” then fell on the floor and lay still. I counted to thirty with my eyes closed. When I opened them and saw Erika’s face over me, I knew that my performance had impressed even her. She helped me up.

      Ned’s parents were crying and laughing and pressing close to me. I gave them a blank stare, letting Erika repeat