The Door Through Washington Square

by Elaine Bergstrom
Berkley/Ace (out of print)
ASIN: 0441005446

Don't we all wish we could change the past? At least we wish for the chance to alter those moments in which entire lifetimes were irrevocably changed or snuffed out, somehow redirecting them back onto the right path. But what price would have to be paid? What entities entreated and appeased? And what consequences might result?

When Dierdre MacCallum receives a deathbed summons from her Grandmum, Bridget, she is forced into an unwanted role. The matriarch of the wealthy MacCallum clan has singled out Dierdre to represent the family at her bedside and inherit the bulk of the family fortune, including her building. Just beginning to slip the yoke of MacCallum control by actually working for her living, Dierdre is thrust suddenly into the center of family history. For Grandmum has a secret, and Dierdre is fated to learn about Bridget's racy life in the building abutting New York's bohemian Washington Square. Indeed, she learns immediately that the view through the french doors in Bridget's sunroom is not the same as that seen through the modern doors nearby. Dierdre's curiosity is soon relieved by Bridget's extensive journals and verbal account.

In 1918, one of Bridget's tenants was Aleister Crowley ("... a writer, a mountain climber, a mystic and a magician"), founder of his own religion and practitioner of magick—the "k" to distinguish his complex rituals from cheap parlor tricks—defined as "... the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." Crowley's fundraising events often became orgies, faithful followers gleefully embracing his famous dictum: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

Grandmum's young life was scarred by tragedy—mother and siblings claimed by influenza, a brother killed in the war, her father a suicide—which forced her into the also unwanted role of businesswoman in a time intolerant of such foolishness. With poverty looming, and already accepting of fortune-telling and seances, Bridget fell in with the Crowley phenomenon. Crowley offered his help: with her innate abilities and his evolving magick, their sexual union would bridge time itself and Bridget could save her family. In Dierdre's present, the ritual's success is proven by the MacCallums' wealth and altered history.

Now, Crowley's open doorway lures Dierdre to the past and into the arms of the poet Noah Hathaway. But Dierdre also causes changes that will ripple through time, endangering the solidity of her present, and her meddling will lead to Noah's death. Deliriously in love, Dierdre must conduct her own dangerous ritual. Elaine Bergstrom, Milwaukee's premier spinner of dark tales (Shattered Glass, Daughter of the Night, Mina, Madeline) takes up the theme of opportunities lost and won, delivering one of her best efforts—a time travel romance rich with heart and historical detail. The enigmatic Aleister Crowley, who did live in the Village for a time, drives the action with the thrust of the dark powers swirling about him, but as always, it's Bergstrom's attention to character that makes her work so intriguing and ultimately rewarding. Crossover fans of horror, historical fiction, and dark romance will want to hunt this one down if they missed it.

(A version of this review appeared in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)