The Dark by Claire Mulligan

multitudes of spirits are making themselves known now. It is as if a celestial door has opened between the worlds ofthe living and the blessed dead, who are, I must say, a veritable symphony of woe. As for that peddler, I have sent him packing back to his cellar grave. He is no longer needed as intermediary. The Fox sisters are the sole intermediaries of the spirits now.
    Your ever-loving daughter,
Leah                                
    She folds the letter and melts the wax for the seal. “Calvin? Calvin!” she calls. He promptly appears in her bedroom doorway. His lip is still swollen from the spirits’ hi-jinks the night before, and he looks wearied, but becomes all smiles and cheer when she asks him to post the letter to Arcadia.
    “I’ll post it smart, Leah,” Calvin says. His voice has a nasal tone and an uncertain timbre and is, Leah thinks, somewhat grating. He pushes a dark curl out of his eyes.
    “Yes, is there more, dear?”
    “No, except … except that I’d post anything for you, Leah. I’d march it my own self to the world’s end.”
    Leah smiles. “Oh, I doubt we need ever take anything that far.”

CHAPTER 5.
    O n the fifth day of our acquaintance my patient, out of the blue yonder, declared that she would like some candy.
    “Candy? What sort, madame? Gibraltars? Licorice? Chocolates from Switzerland? Shall I steam over and buy you a passel forthwith? Do I seem a servant? A lackey of any stripe?”
    She smiled. “No, and I am sorry, Mrs. Mellon.” She explained she had been thinking of the Posts and their apothecary. Thinking, too, of Calvin, this “ersatz” brother. “The one I just spoke of? He ever smelled of ginger-root and chocolate from the confections he made. He aimed to have his own shop one day. Alas and such, he would have, but he was swayed from his purpose.”
    “Young men are easily swayed. They just follow along, tra-la-la, even if they know better, even if they’re warned, strongly warned, against rose-glassed ideals … and, oh, here is your medicine. Here.” I poured her laudanum into a tumbler, spilling a drop or two, I allow, in my distraction. To explain: I had seen my son swayed by all the rhetoric and brouha that preceded the abolition war. I agreed with the grander cause, certainly, but not the method, by which I mean the method of using young men as cannon fodder, and ditch filler, and numberings on a damned general’s tally sheet.
    “Is there more?” my patient asked. She held the emptied tumbler in both hands, like some pauper with a tin cup.
    “No, no, that is sufficient for the now. But, if it is of such importance,then I suppose I can bring you some penny candy next visit.” At which I hauled out my knitting (I had still not found its form). “I have time aplenty if you need to talk on, duck,” I added.

    A J ULY DUSK THICK WITH RAIN , and inside the Posts’ apothecary Maggie looks steadfast at the show-globe that illumines the window as might a green moon. Nearby the clerk tends to a pot of leeches. “They’re God’s creatures, same as any,” this clerk says to Katie.
    “Sure had me fooled,” Katie replies. “I thought they were licorice … well, till they squirmed and all.”
    Maggie risks a glance at Amy and Isaac Post, who are conferring with Leah at the counter’s far end. The Posts are angular, poke-edged people who fit together with ease, alike a child’s wooden puzzle. Not that there is anything childlike about them, Maggie thinks. Amy wears her plainness with pride. Has a long face and slate-grey hair pulled taut; a forceful gaze. Isaac has the wisest eyes in the world. Usually he wears a beatific smile above his chin beard. Not this day. Indeed, Maggie cannot recall him ever looking so troubled and uncertain.
    “I wish Ma were here,” Katie says to Maggie. “Right
here
, I mean,” she says, indicating the apothecary itself with its shelves laden with tinctures and powders and ointments, and