Later that day, the twins visited Cynthia. She was quite the mouse of a woman. She acknowledged that Nicholas had been a guest in their house because of some distant relation that she couldn't seem to remember. She couldn't say much else as she had been staying with her aunt and uncle for most of his stay.
"Did Mr. Pierson leave any belongings behind?" Anise asked.
"Yes. When he died, my parents didn't know what to do with his things. They just left everything in his room."
"May we see?"
Aside from the expected affects, he had left what looked like kitchen herbs in tiny glass bottles. Lining one wall were mysterious boxes covered in wax, and there were strange curios on shelves. Senna refused to enter the room.
"I remember that Mr. Pierson kept to himself mostly. I rarely saw him. Sometimes, I would hear strange noises as well, but no one seemed to know what they were. I was told never to ask about it again."
"What sorts of noises?" Anise inquired.
"They're difficult to describe… Sometimes it sounded like a hushed conversation. Other times there were creaks or growls. Chanting. There were even odd smells like sulfur or ammonia. But again, I was told not to ask about it."
"We should leave," Senna whispered to her sister.
She started to swoon and Cynthia caught her arm to steady her. Senna mumbled her thanks and grasped tight to Anise who ushered her out. She led her sister by the arm the entire way home as she feared she might collapse.
"What did you feel?" Anise handed Senna a cup of tea.
"Cynthia definitely knows more than she's saying," she replied. "There is a darkness around her. And her hands are rough, not like that of a wealthy woman."
"So you swooned on purpose?"
"Oh, no. That was entirely real. There is evil in that room. Evil I dare not discover unless we must."
Anise sipped her tea, considering. "How old would you say Cynthia is? Perhaps twenty?"
"That seems reasonable, yes."
"The Allards were comfortably wealthy, so an upstanding lady of Cynthia's age would be home in the evenings."
Senna's eyes lit with sudden understanding. "Do you think she was in attendance at the séance?"
"Geneva made it sound like there were no survivors and the papers made no mention of anything of the sort."
"If she wasn't at the séance, where was she? She couldn't have been home or I imagine she would have heard something."
After a pause, Anise said, "I think I need to speak with Geneva again."
~~~
Rather than the showy possession type of channeling that Anise did for public séances, she chose a meditative state to contact Geneva. It was safer as it didn't require the spirit to inhabit her body, so Senna could rest.
"What have you found?"
Anise explained all of their discoveries. "But what I want to know is if Cynthia was at the séance."
"I don't remember names. There were... ten people seated and a maid. I don't recall seeing the maid among the dead."
"What did she look like?"
"Petite. Pale, thin. I didn't see her very well. She was the one who tied me to the chair. She had an unusual knowledge of knots if that helps." That piqued Anise's interest.
"Were her hands rough? Like she had been practicing?"
"I would think it more likely from working in the house."
"I think I know what happened."
Anise took a deep breath to close the connection and hurried back to Mr. Kingsley and his collection. Reading through it again, she knew what she had to do.
"What's this all about?" he asked.
"The murders were committed by a woman possessed by a malevolent spirit. Or so the papers say. Thank you for your time, Mr. Kingsley. I need to test a theory."