The Blackham Mansion Haunting (The Downwinders Book 4) Read Free Page A

Paragonah?”
    “No,” David said. “Honestly, Deem, I don’t!”
    “Something dreadful has happened to him,” Carma said to Deem.
“His memory may return after a while. For now, you’re the only one who might be
able to shed some light on things. Can you tell us what happened? Why did you
go to Paragonah? I remember you mentioning the journal, but maybe you could explain
more and make sure we’re all on the same page. It might jog David’s memory.”
    “Alright,” Deem said, leaning back into the sofa as Carma
handed her a mug. She took a sip. “Oh, that’s good!”
    “It’s got a nice little zing, doesn’t it?” Carma said. “Now,
start at the beginning, dear.”
     Deem sighed. “I’ve been trying to read the journal I found
in the mine. Lorenzo Lyman’s journal. It’s been slow going, but I’ve found that
the more I try to read it, the more I understand. Re-reading it helps; coming
back to some parts after reading others kind of opened them up. So I’m able to
make out a lot of it that I couldn’t at first.
    “Lorenzo’s mother was gifted, that’s how he inherited the
gift. She was one of eight wives of Amasa Lyman, his father, who was an apostle
in the church back in the 1800s. Because of his father’s high profile,
Lorenzo’s public use of his gift was limited to the kind of folk magic people
would accept, like dowsing.
    “Then, his father was excommunicated for heresy. It split the
family, with some supporting Amasa, others siding with the church. One of his
sons, Francis, rejected him and went on to become an apostle himself. There’s a
town near Park City that’s named after him. Lorenzo, on the other hand,
supported his father.
    “One of Amasa’s interests was Spiritualism. Lorenzo shared
his father’s interest in it, I think because it gave him an outlet for his
gift. They became dedicated practitioners.”
    “What is Spiritualism?” Winn asked, sipping his mug. “I’ve
heard the name before, but what is it exactly?”
    “Basically a belief in the ability to talk with the dead,”
Deem replied. “A loose religion sprung up around it. It’s still around today,
though it’s nowhere near as popular as it was a century ago, primarily due to
all the fakery and debunking that occurred.”
    “Debunking?” Winn asked.
    “Spiritualists would conduct elaborate séances to speak with
the dead,” Deem replied. “Mediums who could conduct compelling sessions became
celebrities. Most of them wound up being charlatans and were exposed by critics
as frauds. They’d fake rappings, levitations, ectoplasm. It fell out of favor
as a pastime, and only the hard-core believers stuck with it. Lorenzo was
hard-core.”
    “He had cause to be,” Carma interjected. “He had the gift. He
knew it was possible, speaking with the dead. But most people who had the gift
kept Spiritualism at arm’s length. It seemed something normal people liked to
indulge in as a curiosity, and it became such a sideshow that any
self-respecting gifted wouldn’t participate. We would much rather indulge in
private, or with other gifteds, but not with a random group of strangers, a
couple of which might be debunkers set on exposing you and making an
uncomfortable, embarrassing scene!”
    “Spoken like you had some experience with it, Carma,” Winn
said.
    Carma laughed. “You amuse me, dear boy,” she replied. “I’m
nowhere near that old.”
    “How old are you, exactly?” Winn asked. He could see Deem
react to the question in his peripheral vision, shrinking.
    “Why, that’s impertinent!” Carma shot back, a look of
distaste on her face. “What happened to the boy who was raised to never ask a
woman her age? I’m thirty-nine, if you must know.” She demurely took another
sip.
    “Lorenzo was an avid follower,” Deem continued. “Even when
his father lost interest in it, he kept up, organizing more and more intense
séances. He and a group of friends held routine sessions. One of their