The Vorrh

help them and guide those who had passed over to the table.
    Muybridge took his first picture on a wide-open lens and silently wondered why any Chinaman would help in this way. Outside, on the streets, the Chinese were little more than slave labour, treated like dogs, their ancient culture spat on. Sixty miles from here, he had witnessed a ‘chink-hunt’; four of the best local pistoleros had placed wagers to see how many Chinese they could shoot from horseback. Their targets were the immigrant labourers, recently dismissed after building a stretch of the new railway line. The distressed men had fled in panic, dropping their few possessions to gain more speed. Sixteen fell that day, under a laughing hail of bullets. Nine died. One of the sportsmen was using a Winchester ‘73. It was unclear who had won the wager, but Wang Chi had either gained great benevolence or vast ignorance on the other side, for he was apparently bringing Sarah’s lost child to the table.
    The medium’s voice tightened into falsetto and Muybridge took his second picture, this time in a blaze of flash powder. All – including the spirits – had been warned about the potential intrusion, so that most closed their eyes when he said ‘NOW!’ and fired the light.
    After-blurs danced in their heads and added to the sense of aura, the smell of nitrate and magnesium stinging the closed air of the wooden chamber. Amid choked sobs and watery sighs, a child expressed her innocent love for her mother.
    Muybridge was preparing to take his third picture when the medium announced that another presence had joined them. As he squeezed the bulb to slice out another long exposure, something moved in the corner of his vision. He jolted to see it, but there was nothing there. The sitters seemed oblivious to his change of attention.
    ‘Who are you?’ asked Madam Grezach, in long, drawn-out, saggy words.
    She brought her hand to her face and made a few passes over her eyes.
    ‘Someone is here for you!’ she said in operatic surprise. ‘For you, Mr. Muggeridge, for you!’
    He flinched to hear his real name being spoken, especially in front of the Winchester heiress. He moved to correct Madam Grezach when she spoke again.
    ‘A poor woman is here. She asks why you made the gins which hurt her so terribly?’
    The medium’s voice was changing again, and now a slippery Cockney accent emanated from the same mouth, where the child and the Chinaman had so recently been.
    ‘Why did the sun’s shadow cut me so?’ it wailed. ‘The face that finished me was white, all white and looking in at the sides of me; inside me.’
    The other sitters were agitated by the change of direction; their lashes twitched with desire, longing to examine his expression. Muybridge fumbled with the plates and pretended not to hear the tone of these questions and comments. Even though he knew it was all nonsense, he still felt the dread of this charade raking up his troubled past. He half-expected the ghost of his idiot wife to waltz into the room and tell stories of his cruelty and lack of manhood, to gabble his secrets aloud from the yapping mouth of this charlatan Pole.
    ‘The lights crawled inside, I had to find the shadows and get ‘em out!’
    He fired another magnesium flash, to banish the vulgar words from their company. White smoke flared from his camera and the voice disappeared. The medium sank into heavy groans and placed one hand drunkenly on her head, dislodging one of the tortoiseshell combs that kept a curly torrent of unruly auburn hair in place. It spilled onto the table unreasonably, covering her face and the groans beneath, giving the now slumped figure a grotesque, simian quality. Just for a moment, he heard a distant flock of birds sing from her dripping and distorted mouth.
    Sarah said something to Elder Thomas, who stood up and shuffled to the door. Moments later, the lamp glowed brightly and the room’s shadows receded to other parts of the house. The sitters stood up and fussed around Madam Grezach to regain her posture and her hair. Muybridge met the eyes of Elder Thomas, communicating with the slightest of expressions his disdain of this frantic, hysterical woman and the whole façade of music hall nonsense. He expected to see his subtle glance of cynicism mirrored in the elder, to gain a nod of support and agreement. Instead, he saw the opposite: total belief in the procedures, and disapproval of Muybridge’s own expression. Worse still, he saw