In the Shadow of Blackbirds(15)

A hush fell over the crowd when my aunt spoke my name. All masked faces turned my way.

“Mary Shelley Black?” Gracie sized me up with eyes as large as golf balls. “Oh, my—it is you. Come in.” She grabbed my hand with cold fingers, yanked me and Aunt Eva inside, and shut the door on the crowd with a thwack.

A wall of frigid air hit my skin the moment we entered. I shivered and adjusted my eyes to the dimness of the long rectangular room. Meager shafts of natural light came through three windows shaped like portholes on the western wall. Candles burned on all sides of the room.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you,” shouted Gracie over the patriotic music trumpeting out of a phonograph’s black-horned speaker. “I’m Julius’s cousin. My brother and I have been helping out as his assistants ever since the flu took our mother last month.”

“Oh … I’m so sorry to hear about your loss.” I squeezed her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Stephen mentioned you in his—” I froze, for on the wall to my right, from floor to ceiling just inside the doorway, hung a poster featuring an artist’s rendition of my photograph with the kneeling, white-draped ghost. My own painted eyes stared me down, as if in challenge.

“Hello, Mary Shelley.” Julius Embers stepped out of the shadows of his studio wearing a black suit, an emerald-green vest, and a smile that almost looked hesitant. No flu mask concealed his mouth and nose, as if he were unafraid of Death striking him down. “It’s good to see you again.”

“What do you mean again?” I dropped my hand from Gracie’s. “It looks like you see me every second of the day on your wall over here.”

“That’s true.” His smile broadened to his usual overconfidence, any hint of uncertainty banished.

I straightened my posture to feel taller around him. “Did you use me in this advertisement to make your brother mad?”

“Not at all. I used your image because of the impressive spirit you lured into the photograph. My customers enjoy how regal you look with your proud expression and your ethereal visitor kneeling by your side. You bring everyone comfort.” He stopped directly in front of me. “I want to capture you again—see what else you can give me.”

I studied his face and caught a similarity between his and Stephen’s eyes that I hadn’t ever noticed before. He was four years older and at least a half foot taller than his brother, but his eyes were the same shape and shade—the deep, inviting brown of dark, liquid chocolate. I glanced away from him, unsettled by the resemblance. The words he had used to describe the way he found Stephen and me the last time I was in that house burned in my brain:

I found them on the sofa. He had her skirts pulled up to her waist and was on her like an animal.

“It’s really good to see you, Julius,” said Aunt Eva with a tender squeeze of his arm. “You look like you’re holding up well, considering all the work you’re doing.”

“I’d look even better if I hadn’t just endured a difficult morning with Aloysius Darning.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Julius sighed and took his arm away from Aunt Eva’s clutches. “That nincompoop is so determined to prove me a fraud that he hovered over my sittings from eight o’clock to nine thirty. He made some of my customers nervous with all his poking and prodding of my equipment.”

“I’m sure he didn’t find anything amiss, though,” said my aunt.

“Of course not. Because nothing was amiss.”

I lifted my eyes back to Julius’s. “Aunt Eva said you’re finally going to give me Stephen’s package.”

“Yes.” He took my hand and pressed it between his hot palms. “My mother only just told me about it when we heard you were coming to San Diego. I’d also be happy to lend you some of his novels if you’d like.”

“Isn’t that nice of him, Mary Shelley?” Aunt Eva slipped my hand out of his. “I told him you’d be bored with no school and nothing to read but the dull old dictionary.”

“Thank you,” I said to Julius. “I’d like to borrow them.”

The music stopped. The phonograph’s needle traveled to the center of the record with the crackling hiss of static. Julius whipped his head toward the sound. “Gracie, stop gawking at Mary Shelley and attend to the music, please.”

“I’m sorry, Julius.” Gracie hustled to the phonograph. “I was just so excited to meet her. Stephen always talked about her letters, and I’ve seen her face so often on your wall there, I almost feel like I’m meeting someone from Hollywood—”

An odd banging erupted from the floor above us.

Gracie’s forehead turned as white as her mask. She peered toward the ceiling with an expression of such horror, I half believed something sinister was thumping against the wall upstairs. My heartbeat quickened. I found myself gazing at the ceiling as well, while the painting of the white-cloaked phantom lingered in the corner of my eye.

“Gracie—the phonograph!” said Julius.

Gracie fumbled to replace “Stars and Stripes Forever” with a new record. She turned the crank on the phonograph, and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” started up at full volume.

“Why are you blasting the room with patriotic music?” I asked Julius over the commotion.