In the Shadow of Blackbirds (12 page)

I know the world seems terrifying right now and the future seems bleak. Just remember human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours. When faced with the worst horrors the world has to offer, a person either cracks and succumbs to the ugliness, or they salvage the inner core of who they are and fight to right wrongs.

Never let hatred, fear, and ignorance get the best of you. Keep bettering yourself so you can make the world around you better, for nothing can ever improve without the brightest, bravest, kindest, and most imaginative individuals rising above the chaos.

I am healthy and, for the most part, doing well. No need to worry about me or the store. I’m letting the bank take possession of
the business so we don’t have to trouble your uncles. Take care of yourself. Please write me soon so I know you are still alive.

Your loving father

I gritted my teeth and breathed through silent tears that plunked wet stains upon the paper.

“Oh, Dad,” I said to his tidy loops of black handwriting. “Why should I bother making the world better when some of my favorite parts about it are gone?” I wiped my eyes. “You’re locked away and Stephen’s dead, and I don’t feel like one of the brightest, bravest, and kindest individuals without you.”

THE FOLLOWING EVENING, AFTER AUNT EVA RETURNED
from work, a familiar baritone voice drifted up to my bedroom from the entryway.

My father’s voice.

I swear up and down—I heard my dad.

I hurled myself out of bed in my nightgown and bolted to the staircase, wondering if the telegram and the letter were mistakes—or mere dreams. Dad wasn’t going to be sentenced after all. He had come to fetch me.

“Dad!” My bare feet scrambled halfway down the steps and slipped out from under me. My backside slammed against wood.

“Don’t break your neck, Mary Shelley!” said Aunt Eva from down in the entryway. “Why are you running?”

I regained my balance and pulled myself upright. “I heard—” My fingers went limp around the banister when I got a good look down below. My aunt stood by the front door with a slender stranger in a brown suit. Not my father.

“Oh.” I stooped with disappointment. “I didn’t know you had a visitor.”

The gentleman’s face, aside from his blue-green eyes, was hidden beneath a flu mask. He removed his derby hat and said, “Good evening, Miss Black,” and I saw receding hair the glistening golden red of copper wire.

I lifted my chin. “Do I know you?”

“No,” said Aunt Eva, “but you’ve heard of him. This is Mr. Darning.”

“Mr. Aloysius Darning?” I took a single step downward. “The photography expert who’s been investigating Julius?”

He nodded. “The one and the same. I was just across the bay at Mr. Embers’s house, paying my respects for his brother, and he told me the young model from his handbill had experienced a recent taste of death.”

“I told you not to tell Julius what happened to me,” I snapped at my aunt.

“Don’t get huffy in front of our guest, Mary Shelley. I simply telephoned Julius to let him know you’d been badly injured.”

“He seemed concerned about you,” said Mr. Darning. “And once I learned your name, I realized I knew your aunt.”

“Mr. Darning attends my church.” Aunt Eva rubbed the
back of her neck in a nervous manner. “While I don’t care for the fact that he questions Julius’s photography, he is a kind man.”

Mr. Darning’s eyes smiled above his gauze. “I appreciate that, Mrs. Ottinger. I know supporters of Julius Embers often view me as the villain.”

“I want you to know,” I said, traveling two more steps, “I had no idea Julius Embers used me in that advertisement until I arrived in San Diego over a week ago.”

“Oh … really?” He lifted his copper eyebrows. “He didn’t obtain your permission?”

“No, and I wouldn’t have given it to him, either. Stephen told me all the ways Julius doctors his images. Double exposures, alterations in the developing process—”

“Believe me, I know all about the tricks of the trade, Miss Black. I’ve investigated all those possibilities with Julius Embers numerous times, but I’m afraid the man is either outsmarting me or genuinely photographing spirits.”

“But Stephen was so insistent it’s all a hoax,” I said.

“I know, I know—I understand Stephen’s concerns entirely. An amateur photographer who becomes a false celebrity is just about the worst thing a real photographer can encounter. But I can’t find one shred of evidence that Julius is a fake.”

I squeezed the handrail. “Isn’t there anything else you can do?”

“Mary Shelley.” Aunt Eva shook her head at me. “Please don’t tire yourself out with subjects that upset you. Go back
to bed.” She turned to our guest and grabbed the doorknob. “Thank you so much for stopping by to see how she’s faring, Mr. Darning.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help with your investigation,” I said before Aunt Eva could shut the door on the man, “please let me know.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Darning. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He took a parchment-colored business card out of the breast pocket of his brown coat. “And when you’re feeling better, I invite you and your aunt to come to my studio for a complimentary sitting. I’d love nothing more than to show Julius Embers I can create a superior print of one of his prized subjects—even without a spirit involved.” He handed my aunt the card, placed his derby back on his copper hair, and bid us a cordial good-bye in that gentle baritone voice that made me ache for home.

Aunt Eva shut the door and looked my way, her eyebrows raised. “Why were you calling for your father when you came down?”

“His voice sounded like Dad’s.”

“Oh.” She averted her eyes from mine and hugged her arms around herself. “I know how that feels. There’s a man at church who sounds like Wilfred.”

“May I have Mr. Darning’s business card?”

“Why?”

“Just to have it.”

“No.” She tucked the card into her apron pocket. “I don’t
want you trying to get Julius in trouble when he’s grieving for his brother.”

“I wouldn’t. If Mr. Darning is interested in debunking frauds, I’m guessing he enjoys science. I’d like to write to him and ask him some questions—to give me something to do.”

“You don’t need to be corresponding with a grown man you barely know. I’ll put his card in my file in the kitchen, and we can consider the complimentary photograph in the future.” She pointed upstairs. “Now go back to bed before I make supper and draw your bath. You’re still paler than a ghost.”

“Have they buried Stephen yet?”

She lowered her arm. “What?”

“Have they held his funeral while I’ve been recovering?”

“No. Not yet.” She cast her eyes away from me again. “They’ve been waiting for his body to come home.”

A sharp pain pierced my stomach. “Let me know when they do, all right?”

She nodded. “I will.”

I retreated back up to my room on unsteady legs.

To chase away images of Stephen’s body coming home in a casket, I forced myself to imagine him crawling through the porthole windows of his family’s studio to save the photography equipment from the salty air, as he told me he did. He probably had to somehow scale the outside walls just to reach the high openings and risked breaking an ankle to jump down to the studio’s floor. My lips turned in a small grin at the
thought of Stephen’s acrobatic feats of heroism. But I had to wonder what was happening to the camera’s precious metal and glass now that he was no longer there to protect it.

I pulled a box of matches from the top drawer of my bedside table, lit the pearl-hued oil lamp, and checked in with Uncle Wilfred’s compass before climbing back into bed. My legs found their way under the sheets, and I was about to sink my head into the pillow when my brain registered something my eyes had just seen. I sat upright and looked again at the compass. My mouth fell open. A shivery chill breezed down my spine.

The needle had stopped following me. For twenty-two more seconds, the little metal arrow directed itself with steadfast attention toward two objects across the room—two objects related to the person who had just dominated my thoughts.

The needle pointed to Stephen’s photographs.

• October 29, 1918 •

AUNT EVA WOKE ME UP THE FOLLOWING MORNING BY
exhaling a loud sigh next to my bed.

I held my breath and opened one eyelid. “What’s the bad news?”

She held her mask in her hand, so I was able to see her pursed, whitened lips. “Julius telephoned me last night. They’re burying Stephen this morning. I’ll be working an extra shift later so I can take some time off work to go to the funeral. The Emberses were so kind to me when Wilfred died.”

“I want to go, too.”

“No, you need to heal.”

“I want to be there. Please don’t make me miss saying good-bye to him.”

She sighed again. “All right, but I’m bringing you home the moment you seem too unwell to be there. I’ll feed you onion hash this morning to make sure you stay safe, and I’m putting us in another taxi so we don’t have to ride on the streetcars.”

“OK.” I closed my eyes, for they had started to sting.

Aunt Eva patted my arm. “Pick out your nicest dress. We need to leave in an hour.”

EVERYTHING I PUT ON MY BODY THAT MORNING—FROM A
big blue hair bow to my black silk taffeta dress—felt like iron weights bearing down on my bones. My healing lightning burn itched worse than a poison oak rash beneath my bandages. Even my mouth hurt, probably because Aunt Eva made me eat enough onion hash to disintegrate my taste buds. I felt like a broken, clumsy version of myself as I made my way back into the briny outside air for the first time in more than a week.

The funeral rooms of Barrett & Bloom, Undertakers, were located on a hill east of downtown, inside a white colonial-style house with black shutters and two front doors that seemed three feet taller than a normal entryway. If caskets of flu victims had flooded the premises like at the undertaker’s house where I’d seen the children playing, then Mr. Barrett and Mr. Bloom must have kept them well hidden. All I saw on the lawn were trim hedges a vibrant shade of green and
magenta bougainvillea that climbed the wall, twisting toward the second-story windows.

We entered a white foyer, and I stiffened at a disturbing sight: a glowing purplish-blue haze that drifted across the floorboards and rose to the ceiling like a restless band of traveling phantoms. The smell of freshly lit matches permeated my mask.

I inched backward. “What is this?”

“They’ve sprinkled sulfur over hot coals to fight the flu.” Aunt Eva nodded toward a metal bucket half hidden by the ghostly plumes. “They tried that same technique at church before the quarantine closed it down. The smoke burns blue.”

“That’s because it’s sulfur dioxide.” But knowing the scientific reason for the eerie blue smoke didn’t make me feel any better. “I don’t like it in here.”

“It’s to keep us safe.” She hooked her arm around mine. “Come on. I’ll be by your side.”

We followed the sound of voices and organ music through a doorway and found ourselves in a room about thirty feet long, wallpapered in a pale yellow. More buckets of smoking coal bathed the masked mourners in that noxious blue haze and made my eyes smart. If we hadn’t been wearing the gauze, none of us would have been able to breathe.

At the far end of the room, a bronze electric chandelier illuminated a closed, flag-draped casket shrouded in smoke, on display in front of amber curtains. My knees went weak, but I forced myself to stay upright, even though the luminous
blue clouds billowing around the coffin made it look like the undertakers had placed Stephen in the middle of a giant laboratory experiment. A photograph of Stephen in his army uniform—the same portrait he had mailed to me—sat propped on a white pillar.

Aunt Eva squeezed my arm to give me strength and led me farther inside the sulfuric room.

Two dozen or so masked mourners milled about in the smoke or sat in the spindle-back chairs facing the coffin. A handful of girls my age, perhaps slightly older, dabbed their eyes with handkerchiefs, and I wondered, with a sting of jealousy, if any of them had ever been Stephen’s sweetheart. We had never discussed an interest in other people in our letters.