The séance had begun. Bernadine shifted nervously, petticoats rustling under her heavy wool skirt. The weather had turned cold these last few days and winter began to cast its tenebrous pall over the world. It matched the mood of the room chosen for the occasion.

               The parlour had always been dark, even in high summer. Its heavy damask curtains and somber furniture made the room stately but morbid and somehow cold. The effect was heightened now that the curtains had been drawn, shutting out what paltry evening light there was. The room felt heavy and close.

               Present was young Bernadine, her mother and uncle, the vicar, and the medium. This had all been her mother’s idea. Widowed many years ago, Adelina Harris had placed every hope for her family’s future on her son, Matthew. Matthew had been a difficult child – quarrelsome, selfish, and possessing an innate cruelty streak that quickly alienated both him and Bernadine from other children.

               But Adelina had been desperate to cling to her son, who outwardly so resembled his father. That the boy had not inherited any of her husband’s great capacity for love and warmth never seemed to matter to her. She was a by her own nature, a proud and conceited woman whose less pleasant traits were tempered by her husband. He had died shortly after Bernadine’s birth, as if the universe had traded the two. Without her husband, Adelina’s vanity flourished, and little Mathew grew unchecked and wild, ruled by passions and indulged in every way by a mother who saw only her husband’s face when she bothered to see at all.

               Bernadine had moved softly through childhood while being terrorized by her tyrannical brother. Matthew hit, broke toys, and stole cherished secrets. On entering adolescence, Bernadine was relieved to be sent away to a school for young ladies. She had thrived there, finally seeing that there was a world beyond her brother’s tiny kingdom.

               Matthew grew as well. Where Bernadine became thoughtful, studious, and reasonably well-accomplished, he became twisted and malevolent, his only concern the indulgence of his own wants. There had been many fights, debts, and whispers of terrible things done to girls whose only misdeeds were to be born to lowly families. Money could buy silence and reputations could be repaired by moving the young beast to a different school.

               Bernadine had always privately nursed suspicions about the nature of her brother’s end. Sensible and perceptive, she had always known that the day would come where money would no longer be enough. She had said as much to her mother years before and had been harshly reprimanded for her insinuations. Bernadine had watched her brother leave for university with a mixture of relief and foreboding. Glad to be rid of his odious presence, she still knew in her heart what was coming.

               His first year had passed with more debts, more bad behaviour. Their uncle had been sent to speak with him. Matthew had laughed at the recriminations, no longer even pretending contriteness as he had in childhood. The uncle had spoken harshly to Adelina on his return, facing her with the damage her indulgences had done.

               Adelina could no longer ignore the monster she had created. Her face began to show the strain her son’s behaviour was having on her finances and her soul. The laudanum helped but even so, she lost weight, her hair thinned and fell out, her wrinkles deepened.

               The household had held its breath, waiting for the next blow. A scant few weeks in the winter term the news had struck. A messenger had brought a telegram. Adelina’s pallid hands shook and she wrestled with the heavy paper. Upon reading the contents she had fainted, landing on the hallway floor with a heavy thud. Matthew was dead.

               The uncle again made the trek to his nephew’s living quarters. He had made a considerable effort to keep the horrifying details from Bernadine and her mother but it been necessary to mention a partial truth at least, to clarify the swirl of disturbing rumours.

               Matthew had been found early one gloomy January morning, crumpled in a fetid alleyway. An obvious victim of foul play, his skull had been so badly beaten in that he was unrecognizable. The uncle had to resort to childhood scars to be certain it was his nephew who lay bloated and stretched on the morgue table.

               It had been a devastating shock to Adeline. The golden child she had loved so well had breathed his last amongst the rotting garbage of a malodorous trash pile.

               Bernadine had politely mourned her brother, the contemptable boy who had grown into an even more contemptable young man. Her outward sorrow did not touch her heart. She felt no genuine grief at the death of the person who had tormented her and so many others.

               Adelina, far from feeling relief at her son’s death, seemed to be consumed by a sort of insatiable desperation. For a year Adelina continued to waste away, some maligning presence gnawing at her soul. She kept her son’s as he had left it. She laid out clothes for him in the morning. She even insisted on having a place set for him at Sunday dinner. Adelina seemed to take more notice of her dead son than she had ever bothered with while he lived. Bernadine suspected that it was guilt that drove her mother’s strange actions. Was it not the truth that Adelina’s blind spot had created the devilish passions that had ultimately killed Matthew?

               Some months ago Adelina had met the medium. After her son’s death she had begun attending Spiritualist meetings at a local church, intent on finding a channel of communication to the hereafter. Adelina still possessed the kind of money that talked. Although Matthew’s death had somewhat rebuffed her vanity, she still intended to indulge her whims, even if it required unorthodox methods.

               The result of this mania was the séance in which Bernadine found herself a less-than-willing participant.

               Her uncle was here because he felt it his duty to protect his sister and niece. The pastor attended for the same reason, though he was less motivated by the paternal instinct of his office as he was by the potential loss of Adelina’s patronage to some other spiritual advisor.

               The medium himself was a diminutive man, short and thin-limbed, he didn’t seem strong enough to hold the power he claimed. His most distinct feature was his heavy eyebrows. Thick and dark, they reminded Bernadine of miniature storm clouds perched against a high, sloping forehead. Their effect was highlighted by the darting, beetle- like eyes that took in the wealth of the parlour. He called himself Bellini.

               All were seated around a small wooden table. On the table was a brass bell and a hand mirror. As they clasped hands Bernadine, sitting next to Bellini, felt a wave of revulsion wash over her. Not only because she didn’t care for the suggestive leers Bellini gave her on his arrival, she felt some primordial horror at what they were about to do. Would it not be better to let the dead sleep in their graves? Her brother, vile demon, could hardly be expected to improve in character given the sudden and violent nature of his death. Bernadine tried to ignore a tinge of nausea. Bellini had begun to speak.

               “It is best to call the spirits to us with a hymn,” he explained. “They will know that we mean no harm and that they are welcome among us. Perhaps the young lady would be so kind?” He turned to Bernadine and she was glad that they darkness spared her the full effect of his lecherous, ingratiating smile.

               Before she could beg off by claiming inadequacy, her mother spoke up “On yes, Bernadine has such a lovely voice!’’. Bernadine felt there was a sliver of desperation to her mother’s demeanor. Annoyed, she mentally sifted through the hymns she knew. If she was to be forced to sing, she would at least be sure to give them something close to her own feelings. Nothing merry or reverent. She began in her soft soprano ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’.

               “Lovely, lovely!” Bellini praised. He instructed them all to keep holding hands and that the small mirror could be used as portal to call Matthew’s spirit out of the ether surrounding the living realm. Bellini began to call. “Mathew, Matthew Harris, come to us! Come back to your mother, Matthew. Your family misses you so!”

               In the crepuscular light, Bernadine was sure she her uncle’s lips tighten at that last remark. There was no reply to Bellini and the parlour remained dark and still. The uncle was unimpressed and was convinced that Bellini was charlatan. “How long are we supposed to sit here?” he demanded peevishly. He was shushed by Adelina.

               “The spirits do not perceive time as we do,” Bellini explained with ruffled dignity. “It may be some moments before Matthew makes his way out of the spirit world.”

               The clock in the hallway ticked, each sound a punctuation of the silence in the room. Bernadine wasn’t sure which happened first, the terrible pressure in her chest or the brass bell emitting a single note, sharp and high though it had not moved. It echoed through the room and the entire group jumped.

               “Madam, he is here!” cried Bellini. Adelina let out a trembling sigh, as if some great burden had finally been lifted. The uncle looked on dubiously, first at the bell and then at the vicar, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. Bernadine’s chest grew tighter and her vision began to swim. The vicar gently squeezed her hand.

               “What should we do?” Adelina asked with excitement.

               “Make sure it really is your son,” the pastor said pointedly. Bellini shot him an annoyed look but the vicar pressed on “if it is as this man claims and we have called some poor soul out of a ghostly miasma, away from their eternal rest hadn’t we better make sure it is Matthew here and not something else?”.

               Bernadine made of note of the vicar’s phrase ‘something else’ instead of ‘someone else’.  Bellini was defiant. “I have powers far beyond those taught by the limits of your church!”, he sneered. “I have called Matthew Harris and so it is he who responds!”.

               “Even so,” answered the vicar, rankled by the disparaging comments, “it could do no harm to be sure,”. He was determined to force Bellini to back down. Adelina must see the church’s ultimate authority over spiritual matters. There was no reason to be taken in by (or to support) such wastrels as the medium, Bellini.

               The medium realized that he was corned and with a huff, asked the spirit to give some sign that it was Matthew Harris. As they waited the air in the room seemed to become heavy and oppressive, as if before some great thunderstorm. Bernadine began to feel dizzy again. All of a sudden, the smell of cheap cigar smoke was all around them, filling their nostrils with the sour, acrid scent. Adelina let out a shivering cry “oh it’s him! It’s my dear Matthew come home again!”. Bellini regarded both uncle and vicar with no small amount of smugness.

               Bernadine noticed her uncle’s attention draw to the closed door of the parlour, listening intently to something. Before she could ask, Bernadine could hear it as well. Her stomach heaved in recognition; it was the sound of the back door slamming over and over, with such force that Bernadine was sure it would splinter to pieces.

               Bellini’s face had changed. The smug confidence slipped and was replaced by confusion and trepidation.

               “I must let my Matthew in,” Adelina announced with maniacal glee.

               “You must stay at the table, the circle must remain unbroken,” the medium ordered. Adelina made to rise and go to the door anyways. “MADAM,” Bellini said with force “I insist that you remain in your seat!”.  The uncle began to object to both Bellini’s tone and liberties in ordering Adelina. His words were cut off abruptly by the sound of the back door giving a final, enormous slam that vibrated through the house.

               Bernadine felt panic rising quickly inside her very soul. Something felt terribly wrong. The vicar murmured a prayer under his breath. All attention was now fixed on the parlour door. The room filled with a sense of foreboding. Bernadine finally voiced the doubts that had plagued her all evening. “We should not do this. We should not disturb the dead in tier graves!”

               “Heed the young lady,” said the vicar sardonically. “Bellini, what we do here is sacrilege.”

               “It is only Matthew coming home to me!”. Adelina looked at the others condescendingly and slightly crazed.

               “No mother,” whispered Bernadine. She looked to her uncle for re-assurance, but he remained fixated on the door.

               There were more sounds now. An uneven sound of footsteps, it seemed as if whatever was making its way down the hallway was half-dragging itself on crippled limbs. The smell of cheap cigars seeped away into the scent of moist, stinking rot. The air was so foul that Bernadine felt her eyes burning and her throat close. She began to gag and the circle of hands was finally broken by Bernadine’s uncle helping her to lay on the nearby settee. The vicar produced some smelling salts and Bernadine was somewhat revived.

               Adelina watched her daughter with contempt. “Stupid girl, it is only your brother”. Bellini seemed to gather himself from deep within. “Madam, I assure you it is not”. Adelina stared at him, confusion knitting its way across her forehead.

               The muffled sounds continued and grew louder as whatever had been called from the other realm approached the parlour door. Bernadine glanced at the small table, “look,” she cried, pointing at the mirror. As they all watched, the mirror began to glow a sort of sickly blue. Dully at first and then with such intensity that tiny cracks appeared across the glass. The mirror exploded, sending shards in all directions.

               “Stop this!”, the uncle demanded of the medium. “You’ve gone too far! Stop this immediately!”

               “I don’t believe I can,” Bellini responded with fear underscoring his voice.

               The sound of scrabbling came from the other side of the door, clumsy hands fumbling with the knob. “Oh, it’s here!”, Bernadine whispered in terror. The room swam, electric with dread. She was certain she would vomit and the smell was now unbearable. The door began to rattle. Adeline leaned forward, mewling about her returning boy and a disturbed smile splitting her face.

               The door crashed open and hung drunkenly off its hinges, giving a wild frame to what waited in the doorway.

               It was Matthew. Or what might have been Matthew if he had been conceived in nightmares. Corrupt and decaying, his limbs hung disfigured around him like a broken doll. The brute was mangled and blood stained, crusted with the glutinous liquid that gurgled from the mutilated mess that had once been a head.

               Bernadine was out of her mind with horror and was only dimly aware that the shrieks ringing in her ears were her own. She was hardly conscious of anything other than her feeble, desperate attempts to get away from the abomination of flesh presenting itself as her brother. She barely heard the pitiful whimpers of Bellini or the shouted catechisms of the vicar. She was overwhelmed by the unnaturalness of what had been done. Her chest constricted again, and her terror was snuffed out as she faded into blackness.

               The house still stands, though it has been vacant since that awful night. Shouting and an abhorrent smell had drawn neighbours into the street. Weird lights were seen flashing though windows and wind whipped up from nowhere. No one had dared approach and the police were sent for. By the time they arrived, the door opened and a pale, fainting Bernadine was led to a nearby cab by her uncle. After speaking with him, the police insisted everyone return to their homes.

               Adelina Harris is buried in the churchyard next to her husband and, god-willing, the her son. The service was presided over by a haggard looking vicar.

               The house is still and silent. The vicar will not speak of that night and Bellini has fled. Bernadine resides with her uncle while her nerves recover.         

               The house is still and silent. Though sometimes neigbours and passersby complain of a terrible smell; like rot and damp soil.