Spiritualists

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

Genres: YA Romance; YA Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The Witch Haven meets Divine Rivals in this magical tale of a young clairvoyant who gets dragged into a dangerous game of revenge alongside a mysterious thief in early 1900s New York City.

Stella Bohdan is never alone—never—and yet she is the loneliest person she knows, dead or alive. A gifted psychic who can hear the voices of spirits, all Stella wants is to con enough people to survive on the brutal New York City streets and find a way to deal with the tragic death of her sister.

Performing seances in parlor rooms and tarot readings by candlelight, Stella is barely holding on. Until she meets Pax, a mysterious young man who offers Stella an invitation and a promise: Join a secret group of talented mystics who explore the darker realms of spiritualism, and together they will get revenge on her sister’s killer.

But how can Stella admit she is the reason her sister is dead?

In the hope of righting past wrongs, Stella joins Pax and his team of mystics. It’s soon clear there is more behind their partnership than just vengeance.

They must tread carefully though, because in the world of spiritualism, not everything is what it seems—especially when communing with the unknown.

Release date: June 2, 2026

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter One CHAPTER ONE

I am never alone, never, and yet I’m the loneliest person I know, dead or alive. My whole life is noise, constant static from the Other Side.

Aw, I’d hug you if I could, hon.

Poor thing. Always with us nearby.

We think you’re a real lollapalooza, you know that, kid?

“Lady Rose!”

That voice, though. That one is here, now, instead of inside and away like the others, and it startles me. That’s a customer calling, using my fake name.

I shake off my stupor and remind myself of my current whereabouts: makeshift psychic parlor, giving a makeshift reading. Treading a makeshift line of sanity. I’ve collected a roomful of questionable folks at this reading. “Yes, yes, one moment.” My fingertips hover over the tabletop.

The Ouija board beneath feels ice-cold and bone-dry. Yes, it’s artful: The letters are a delicate, precise script, and the heart-shaped planchette glides across the polished wood like a clean blade being sharpened.

Few things live in ice-cold, bone-dry places. So to me, a Ouija board is safe.

My fingers tremble. The planchette glides beneath my touch. It is a beautiful, chilling charade.

“What’s it say, missy?” a client wearing tattered overalls grunts. He smells of grease and gin. “Where’d she leave the money?”

Over my dead body, I say. Oh—HaHA!

I glance around the parlor. My clients sit on pillows tossed about the floor. They think it’s more authentic this way, to sit with a medium while perched on a pillow. But it’s truly because I’m too cheap to rent a room with both a window and a chair.

My assessment of the room stops abruptly on…

Him.

Do I know him?

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. No. I don’t think so. He is unlike the others gathered here. His eyes! They are bottle green with a tinge of silver, iridescent like small, sleek fish, and I can feel them on me.

Spirit wafts cold air across my skin, and I shiver. Yes, I can feel his eyes like that.

This young gentleman is truly dapper. He sports a pocket watch, shoe spats. A vest. Hair oil. And an arrogant half grin that tells me he knows exactly how handsome he is. Anyone who believes in themselves as much as this gentleman does cannot be trusted.

How did he get in here without my notice? He didn’t pay the nickel entry fee. He owes me.

“Lady Rose,” Tattered Overalls growls.

I blink. The dapper gentlemen’s intensity makes me leery, and there is a darkness around him that I don’t often see. His aura is sharp, stabby. Something deep within me stirs, and I shift uncomfortably, the sensation of sitting on cold rocks.

Back to business.

The oil lanterns scattered about are covered with shawls, and they toss long, twitching shadows on the red velvet walls, the waltz of light and dark. I kick the leg of the squat table.

The crowd gasps. I roll my eyes back in my head. It is a discreet way to size up the room.

About eighty percent of the dozen gathered here are buying this act. I can’t tell if the handsome gentleman falls for it; his eyes are tight and his arms are crossed firmly over his lean chest. But most of the others—they believe. I can tell by the number of lips bitten, the variety of handkerchiefs twisted. This is more than usual. I can punch it up, in that case. I can get away with more.

Not too much more, though. There is great danger in them knowing for sure. A nickel per show is one thing. A true connection to the one universal energy is another. No, it’s far better to get a pinch of things wrong. My maman used to say, “A single grain of rice can tip the scale.”

Spirit huffs at my showmanship—my Team of Light on the Other Side often gets impatient with this type of bluster—and they offer me an image of a red barn.

“Oh!” My eyes widen. I swish the planchette across the wood. “B-A-R-N-R-E-D. The red barn?” I look up into the dull, hazel eyes of Tattered Overalls. “Does that make sense to you?”

His greasy hair shines in the lamplight. “No. We live in the city. Ain’t no barns near us.”

What an idiot. Tell him I said he’s an idiot.

“There’s that restaurant, Papa!” says a smudge-faced boy next to this hulk. “The one around the corner—its front doors are painted like a barn!”

Tattered Overalls scowls at the boy.

But I nod and slide the planchette. People are so easy. They lead you right to where they want to go. Quite the opposite of Spirit, who often comes through as crackles of words through static. Spirit often offers me images, and it’s up to me to interpret their meanings. Sometimes they offer me smells, sensations, or feelings, sometimes snapshots of places I’ve never been, sometimes faraway, tinny music, but they are mostly electrified nonsense. A jolt of static electricity—zap!—but in my mind.

Delightful.

I spell out “D-O-O-R-S.” The boy beams.

I miss you, son.

That I hear as clear as a crystal ball. I throw him a bone: “S-O-N-L-O-V-E.”

The youngster’s eyes glass over. A single tear gathers on his lashes, then slides down his dirty cheek.

I love and hate this job. Mostly hate. Grief is a terrible thing to capitalize on. So where I can offer solace, I do.

“She wouldn’t leave the money there. We never even ate there.” The man licks his dry, chapped lips. Pounds his fists on the table. The planchette bounces to the floor. I bet they think the pounding did that, caused the planchette to bounce like that. If they’d paid attention, they would have seen the planchette hop and skid before the pounding began. If they’d ALL JUST PAY ATTENTION, they would see everything so differently.

The boy shrinks backward at his father’s pounding. The way he folds into himself, I know this boy has shrunk away from pounding before. My teeth grind.

“Where did she leave it?” Tattered Overalls bellows. “I need that money! Where is it?”

This beast is crushing the velvet on my tablecloth in his meaty fists. And he’s scaring his son. I try not to listen to the voice in my head telling me to answer:

“Up your hind end.”

But I do. I say it.

Rather, I hear my voice say it while I cringe. Her words from my mouth. Sometimes I simply cannot stop them from taking over my voice, my words. It’s an awful sensation, and it leaves me nauseated.

The man thrusts his hands under my table and upends it. The heavy oak slab hits the sideboard with a crack, which topples the oil lamp, igniting the crocheted shawl draped over it.

People scream, shove, scramble to stand. Smoke quickly fills the small room, choking us, stinging our eyes. Not this, I think in a panic. Anything but fire. I whip open the thick curtains and bright, yellow day blinds me. I fling open the window and toss the ignited shawl into a dirty puddle two stories below.

Tattered Overalls reaches into his boot and groans, trying to push himself off the floor. He flashes a gleaming silver knife, and he stumbles between me and the door.

Here we go again.

The gentleman with the silver-green eyes steps forward, between me and this brute. “Easy, big fella,” the young man says. His voice! Spirit offers me the image of a steaming cup of coffee, strong and bold and dark.

The brute does not take kindly to this barrier; he places both hands solidly on the gentleman’s crisp vest and shoves, hard. The young fellow stumbles but rights himself quickly. He shakes his head. Sighs.

Sighs! He’s done this before, tussled like this, and he finds this whole bit tiresome. Those impossible eyes of his slide to me, still standing by the open window. And here, here, is a moment where I feel a snick, like the tumblers inside a locked safe falling into place. An opening, an unlocking. A deep and unavoidable pull.

It is terrifying. I shrug off the sensation. His face quirks ever so slightly, as if he, too, felt both of those things: his pull, my eschewal.

Pop! The young guy lands a sickening punch square on brute’s nose, those silver eyes never unlocking from mine. Blood explodes everywhere. The beast growls like a bear in a trap.

Exciting as this is, I can’t stick around for it. No pokey for me, thank you.

I pull away from the spell of this gentleman and I follow the path of the shawl: out the window. And this is why windows are more valuable than chairs, though a fan of heights I most certainly am not. I brace myself for the impact; my boots are ready.

It’s a cold, wet landing into the puddle. Over my shoulder, the hulking fellow is squeezing through the portal and will shortly land atop me, surely crushing my bones. The mysterious young man with the pocket watch has disappeared.

Spirit shocks me with a jolt. It is momentarily paralyzing, and it locks my every muscle. I hate the sensation, but I know this message from past communication with the Other Side: Pay attention, Stella. This is information you will need later.

I work my jaw. WHY must you make your point so emphatically, Spirit? A squeaky toy duck couldn’t pass along the same message?

I slip and slide. I run.

The oaf pounds to the ground behind me.

My boots clatter on the cobblestones.

Alleys. The alleys are my best bet.

The one I pick smells of garbage and urine, but I slosh through the dark passage. Snuff growls at me for disturbing his dinner. “Back later,” I shout over my shoulder. He twitches his whiskers, a quick Bring fish.

My corset is cutting into my ribs, making it difficult to run. I reach behind my back, loosen the strings, and stop to wriggle free of it from under my dress. I toss it in a rubbish bin, all while running far away from my Hester Street boardinghouse.

This neighborhood is dirty and crowded; a quarter of a million people crammed into one square mile. It’s largely Jewish and packed with immigrants. The fakirs, the Hindu wonder-workers, long ago established this part of the city as the epicenter of spiritual connection. It’s easy to get lost here. I love it.

When at last I’ve escaped Tattered Overalls in the winding New York City alleys, I lean against a cool, stone building and slide to sitting. My view is of the gleaming East River, the knots and cables and sway of the Brooklyn Bridge, the dozens of colorful boats dotting the shoreline. Brooklyn smokes and chugs in the distance. I heave to catch my breath. The stirring, the longing, creeps back into my belly.

Who was that young man? Why is he so familiar? Why is he so disturbing?

But Spirit of course ignores my questions, choosing instead to focus on the brute:

You didn’t tell him he was fat and lazy.

I told you to tell him that!

Anger surges, hot and red. I think it is my anger I feel, and not theirs. “Shut up!” I yell into the alley. It echoes back to me: Shut up!

It might not have been an echo. It might have been a taunt. Things like that, I never know. My identity, theirs, my anger, theirs… I don’t know where one ends and the next begins. It’s enough to drive one mad. Slowly, hauntingly. My face heats.

That jackass will never find that money.

Not after what he did to me.

“Shut up, I said!” I yank my hair at the roots. “Enough! Leave me ALONE!”

There is silence.

Perhaps this time, I’ve done it.

Perhaps this time, they’ll finally honor my wish and leave me be.

But then, I feel it: the slow, slimy chill of being watched. Usually I just hear Spirit, quick crackles of their voices, quippy and communicative. Sometimes they come through in flashes of light and images, like the herky-jerky movement you see when you squint through the eyepiece of a nickelodeon.

But rarer still, I can feel them. The Dark Legion. They are shadows and blood, their taste metallic, their caress hypnotic. Their movement, a darkening, a thickening, barely visible from the corner of my eye. Sickness and fear and anger surge along with the three spirits I call the Dark Trio—two tall, lumbering male presences and one shorter one in a wide-brimmed hat. Their eyes are inky hollow pits, their tongues like snakes, their breath like garbage. They are monsters. They are fiends. I’ve not looked at them directly, ever. I instinctively feel that if I look directly at them, I’m inviting evil in. When the Trio approaches, I feel the sensation of falling. Free-falling, the absolute loss of control, and then the abrupt, breathless jolt just before you smack the ground.

I pant. I slide my eyes to detect them, but nothing is there. Nothing is ever really there.

The dead are everywhere and nowhere. Like memories.

He’s fat and lazy and he only wishes he knew where I stashed that cash.

You didn’t let ME have a turn, Stella! My sister was there and I didn’t get my say.

I wanted to tell my mother not to worry. My MOTHER, Stella.

The hardest part of the charades I pull?

I could tell my customers every single thing they want to know.