No longer shapeless, it became a hand reaching out. Two or three of the guests screamed and scuttled to the far side of the drawing room. Beside me, my sister tensed and circled her arm around my shoulders, pulling me back. She said something under her breath but the loud thud of my heart deafened me to her words, but not to her fear. I could feel it all around me as I stared at the shadow, which was quickly changing shape again.
It became a foot then the head of a rat then a dog with snapping jaws and hungry eyes. A hound from hell, snarling and slavering and vicious. It stretched its neck toward me and before I could react, Celia jerked me back.
Too late.
The shadow creature's sharp teeth closed around my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself. Nothing happened. Oh there was screaming coming from everyone else, including Celia, but I heard no tearing of flesh or clothing. I felt no pain, just a cool dampness against my cheek. I opened my eyes. The creature had turned back into a shapeless cloud. For a brief moment it hovered near the door and then with a whoosh it was gone.
A breathless moment passed. Two. Three.
"What was that?" I whispered in the ensuing hush.
Celia looked around at the white faces staring wide-eyed back at us, hoping we could give them answers. We couldn't.
She indicated the armchair. "Is he still here?" Her voice shook and she still gripped my shoulders.
"Still here," both Mr. Wiggam and I said together.
"Did you see that?" he said, staring at the door. He didn't look nearly as frightened as the others, but then what did a dead man have to fear? He went to the door and peered out into the hall. "I wonder what it was."
"It's gone now," I said. My words seemed to reassure the ladies who stood huddled in the corner of the room.
"The air in this city," Mrs. Wiggam said with a click of her tongue and a dismissive wave of her hand. "It gets worse and worse every year." She ushered the ladies to seats, plumped cushions and pooh-poohed any suggestions of a menacing spirit ruining her social event. "It was a trick of the light, that's all," she said. "The tense atmosphere in here has got to you all, stirred your imaginations."
"Stupid woman," Mr. Wiggam muttered. "She can't possibly believe that cloud was natural."
I didn't care what Mrs. Wiggam thought, as long as her guests accepted her explanation. Clearly some of them did, or perhaps they simply wanted to believe it and so willingly forgot what they'd seen only moments before. One or two seemed unconvinced and I hoped they would not gossip about it later. If word got out that we'd released something sinister during one of our séances, our business could flounder. Celia and I could ill afford such a disaster becoming public knowledge.