Excerpt from The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

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FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE CHARISMATIC SPEAKER
AND CLAIRVOYANT MEDIUM VIOLET PETRA

I first saw Violet Petra in 1874 at a private gathering in the home of her patron, a banker named Jacob Wilbur - or was it Jasper? - at his well-appointed townhouse near the Washington Square in New York. She was very young, scarcely more than a girl, and her performance, while affecting, only hinted at what was to come. There was a rage for female trance speaking at that time and men of substance were combing the provinces for attractive young women to grace their parlors with prodigies of clairvoyance. Often these sessions began with a display of the speaker's better than average knowledge of a subject, say astronomy or Roman history, chosen at random by the assembled guests. It was understood that the speaker's eloquence was attributable to the intercession of "spirit guides," deceased know-alls who spoke through her, without her will or even her consciousness. Some of these were historical figures - Ben Franklin was a popular resource, which struck me as appropriate, given his reputation for meddling in the affairs of others and his preference for the company of pretty women. Once the fad for guides got underway, American Indians were much in evidence, presumably chosen for their spiritual purity. These "guides" served as conduits to the immense, sunny, happy land where the spirits of the dead wandered aimlessly waiting for a summons from the loved ones they had left behind.

Violet Petra didn't have a spirit guide at that first gathering in New York. She spoke for fifteen minutes on the subject of magnetic attraction and took a few questions written on scraps of paper and tossed into a hat. I remember one, an inquiry about the health of the questioner's relative who had recently decamped for California. This traveller, described only as "my niece," had insisted on making the trip to join her husband, though she knew herself to be in a delicate condition. Violet read out the question to the group in her soft, clear voice, keeping her gaze upon the paper. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and she dropped her chin upon her breastbone, which caused her dark, waving hair to fall forward, curtaining her features. A long moment passed, long enough for the gentleman next to me to finger his pocket-watch and the air to grow thick with anticipation. Then she lifted her face, brushing her hair back with one hand, and I saw the trademark oddity of her left eye, which bulged in its socket, the iris wandering off to one side.

This peculiarity of Violet Petra's eye was to become part of her myth. According to the brief autobiographical account sometimes appended to her speaking programs, it was the result of her first contact with the spirit world, which occurred when she was nine years old in a meadow near her bucolic childhood home in upstate New York. It was a warm summer's day, and she was busily gathering clover to weave into a crown. Her older sister, propped against a maple tree with her writing desk in her lap, was composing a letter. Little Violet could hear the crop-crop of her pony grazing near the fence of his pasture. The sun brushed the world with a liquid light outlining each flower in gold, or so it seemed to her. She felt a kiss of cool air against her cheek, once, twice. Startled she brought her hand to touch the spot. A voice close to her ear whispered her name, a voice she recognized as belonging to her grandmother, which was odd, as she knew her grandmother was far away, at her home in Philadelphia. But here she was, gently summoning her granddaughter by her pet name, which was Viva. The delighted child raised her eyes and for a moment looked into her beloved granny's sweetly smiling face. In the next moment, with the speed and the thwacking sound of an arrow striking a target, a bolt of light sliced into her left eyeball. She was knocked backward by the blow, and sprawled unconscious upon the clover with her bouquet still clutched in her hand.

Excerpted from The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin. Copyright © 2014 by Valerie Martin. Excerpted by permission of Nan A. Talese. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.