Welcome to the Steampunk adventures of Gold Detection. Over nine weeks, we will travel to the very edge of madness and death with our esteemed heroes! Check back every Monday or Subscribe to receive my writing in your Inbox.
If you would like to start from the beginning:
Part One - Wherein we meet our heroes and listen to a strange and eerie invitation.
Part Two - Our heroes attend a night out with a veiled lady and watch a concert by the ghost of Chopin.
Part Three - A small interlude as the Golds prepare for the party.
A chill moved quickly up Kate’s spine, and she removed the needle from the wax-covered disc. She had heard that song before. She knew that Lafayetta, Blackburn’s strange and ethereal medium, was not playing the piece with her own hands.
The Golds had been in attendance months before when Blackburn had presented a gala at a local theatre. The stark image of Lafayetta still hung in the back of her mind. The woman was unbelievably tall, Kate estimated almost seven feet, and incredibly skinny and corpse-like. She sat in the middle of the stage, veiled in sheer white and dressed in a gown made of the same material so that one could see right through to the flesh underneath. Her slight, pale breasts were uncannily darker around her pointed nipples.
Kate remembered remarking that “the show of the veiled lady” was little more than veiled pornography. Her husband, who was not one to be mesmerized by the human body, agreed. Yet, she could not stop noticing how his eyes stared straight forward to the macabre show on the stage.
Kate had turned her head back to the display in time to see something start to move under the transparent dress. A white and almost glowing substance started to pour out from those large, dark nipples, and a larger strand moved up from the belly button.
The woman’s face craned backward at an unnatural angle, and her eyes slowly rolled until Kate could only see the whites.
She felt the hand of Maximus on hers, and he squeezed hard in a strange mix of fear and joy. “Ectoplasm!” He whispered. “She is a physical medium, harvesting the ectoplasm from her own body to channel the dead.”
“Ectoplasm,” Kate repeated. She had heard the term and read the paper in which Charles Richet had coined it to denote the exteriorized substance of spiritual energy. She had wanted to see it firsthand, and now she wished she never had.
The strands came together to form a blob of viscous white floating in the air in front of the now comatose medium. It did not separate. Small strands, like puppet strings, still connected to Lafayetta through thin arms rising from each point of origin.
The blob pushed through a slit in the thin fabric and started to shape into the form of a man’s upper body.
The crowd gasped in unison as the face of the man took shape and announced in a deep foreboding voice that he was the ghost of Frédéric François Chopin.
Kate very much doubted this since Chopin never spoke a word of English in his life and was now speaking fluently without even the slightest hint of an accent.
Yet, a piano was brought forth, and the physical presence that called itself Chopin hung in the air above the black and white keys.
Suddenly, the ectoplasm elongated, and Laffeyeta let out a slow moan as the thing that called itself Chopin laid ghostly white fingers on the piano. The notes of the “Waltz in D-Flat Major” began to form under the spirit’s touch, quietly at first but quickly building in sound and intensity. Kate knew the song was called the “Minute Waltz,” but that Chopin never intended that it be played so quickly. The slow movement of the specter’s performance drew out the melody and gave weight to its unnatural origins.
Kate’s hand then tightened on her husband’s as the exquisite notes of the unforgettable melody filled the theatre. In the past, she had always loved the song and found joy in its light-hearted melody, but not longer. It was stained by the chill that ran down her spine at the sight of the unnatural creature that stood on the stage in front of her.
Not a word was uttered while the performance commenced, and all eyes stared straight into the milky white phantasm whose tentacle-like fingers moved over the piano.
The music ended, yet the crowd remained dumbfounded. The spirit played one other song, the one she now had recorded on the phonogram. Then, it turned back to face the crowd.
Still, not a sound came from the audience as the thing in the form of Chopin moved forward to take a long bow. He opened his mouth, and once more, the foreboding voice, this time speaking his native French, emanated from all around the theatre. It spoke the same words that Chopin had been recorded to have written from his death bed, “Comme cette terre m'étouffera, je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour [que] je ne sois pas enterré vif."
At this, a low gasp went over the crowd. Chopin’s form quickly deflated and was drawn back into the waiting form of the medium. As the last bit of ectoplasm returned to Lafayetta’s inert form, the woman sat up as if from an afternoon repast.
She then stood and straightened her garments. At this small gesture, the tension of the crowd broke like a block of ice suddenly dropped onto a hot iron.
People rushed to their feet, and the applause roared from all sides. Kate remembered joining in with cautious regard. Her stomach rolled as if she was on a ship that had just survived a storm the captain had run into for fun and games. She could see it on the faces around her as well. They were only half clapping for the woman who had led them on this strange journey. The rest was for survival itself.
Lafayetta channeled many other spirits that night, yet none were as intriguing to Kate as the presence of Chopin.
Maximus was astonished when the woman used her ectoplasm to power a small, usually steam-driven, toy carriage as it raced around the stage. The ivory liquid snaked out from the darkness of the medium’s body and entered the carriage through a funnel that replaced the coal burning chamber. All at once, the ectoplasm was cut off, and the carriage shot across the stage faster than any toy Kate had ever seen.
After the show, Maximus moved forward with the other scientists and the curious to get a closer look at the little engine that drove the carriage. Blackburn assured them that the toy would run for hours on the small amount of ectoplasm that was turning the motor. This show of human automation is what had given Maximus the insane idea that he could project his being into a machine. He had ranted about it for weeks afterward and had only stopped during the Automaton murders when catching the iron man had been their only concern.
Kate filled in the small RSVP and rang for Hieronymus to call on a steam bike messenger to have it delivered to Blackburn’s estate. They would be in attendance.
Thanks for reading and taking this adventure with me! Move on to Part Three.
Let me know what you think below.
The Black Banshee was first published in a slightly different form in the anthology - Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror. Pick up the book for some other great stories.