In the Shadow of Blackbirds(17)

An airplane growled overhead and drowned out the music and my question. The thunder of its engine shook the photos on the walls and vibrated in the pit of my stomach.

More thumps and bangs emerged from the floor above. Julius and I both looked at the ceiling.

“What’s happening up there?” I asked.

Julius tore his eyes away from the beams overhead. “My studio causes everyone’s imaginations to mistake normal house sounds for mischievous ghosts.” He strode over to his stepfather’s beautiful black camera and ducked his head under a dark cloth behind it. “It’s probably just my mother cleaning. She’s become a little obsessive. Keeps her from worrying about Stephen.”

My eyes drifted back up to the ceiling while he brought me into focus and finished the camera’s preparations. I would have felt much better if I could have seen Mrs. Embers myself.

“All right.” His head reemerged from beneath the cloth. “Let’s get started. Stay still now, and keep looking this way.” He leaned his lips toward the camera’s outstretched leather bellows and whispered something to the machinery—a ritual I’d seen him perform the last time I posed for him. From the few words I could hear, I gathered he was making some sort of plea to the other side. He then straightened his posture and cried out, “Spirits, we summon you. I bring you Mary Shelley Black, named after an author of dark tales who believed in the mysterious powers of electrical currents—”

Something dropped to the floor upstairs. Julius flinched and raised his voice: “She’s drawn hundreds of mourners to me with her angelic image. Send us another spirit to stand beside her. Bring her a loved one she wants to see.” He held up his tray of flash powder. “Mary Shelley Black—summon the dead!”

He opened the cap of a round lens that gaped like the eye of a Cyclops.

The flash exploded with a blinding burst of flames and smoke.

Inside the camera, a chemically treated plate was imprinted with a miniature version of my body.

“There.” Julius coughed on a dense white cloud that drifted around his head. “It’s done.” He screwed the lens cap back into place and inserted the glass plate’s protective dark slide inside the rear of the camera.

My eyes watered so much from the scorching air that I had to wipe them with my sleeve. The blast made me remember the Christmas when Stephen’s father burned off his eyebrows with a particularly volatile flash explosion.

“Shall I give the package to her now, Julius?” asked Gracie.

“Yes.”

Another thump from above caused dust from the ceiling’s beams to shower upon us. Footsteps pounded throughout the house, far louder than the phonograph’s music. I blinked through the smoke and saw Julius’s face go as pale as his cousin’s.

The pocket doors to the front hall crashed open. Mrs. Embers stumbled into the studio, strands of dark hair falling across her eyes. “I need your help, Julius. I’m hurt.” She clutched her stomach.

“Christ!” Julius put down the flashlamp. “Get them out of here, Gracie.” He charged across the room and grabbed his mother by the arm to escort her away.

“You need to go immediately.” Gracie handed me Stephen’s parcel and pushed on my back to get me to move faster.

I looked over my shoulder. “What happened to Mrs. Embers?”

“Please, just go.”

“When should we come back for the photograph?” asked Aunt Eva.

“I don’t know. Monday morning, maybe.” Gracie opened the door and gave me another shove. “A family emergency has arisen,” she called to the line of customers, which now spilled over onto the front sidewalk. “The spirits are letting us know they need their rest. Come back another day.” She propelled Aunt Eva outside behind me and slammed the door closed on all of us.

Cries of unrest came from the black-clothed grievers.

“What did you do in there, you little hussy?” asked the same heavyset woman who had pushed Aunt Eva off the steps. “Why’d you ruin it for the rest of us?”

“That’s Mary Shelley Black,” said a young brunette behind her. “You can’t talk to her like that.”

“I don’t care if she’s Mary, Queen of Scots. I’ve been waiting four hours to get a picture taken with my poor Harold, and she just ruined it all.”

“I didn’t ruin anything—”

Aunt Eva grabbed my hand. “Let’s run.”

“That’ll only make us look guilty,” I said.

“Run!”

Two hefty men from the back of the line were now headed our way with murder in their eyes, so I did as she said—I used my Boy Scout boots’ double soles of reinforced solid oak leather and bolted across the grass and down the coastal neighborhood’s sidewalks, until Ocean Boulevard disappeared behind us.

We didn’t stop running until we jumped onto the streetcar, and even then my heart kept racing. I sat beside my aunt on the wooden seat and clutched Stephen’s parcel to my chest.

“What was all of that about?” I asked while trying to catch my breath. “What happened to Mrs. Embers upstairs?”

Aunt Eva gasped for air and rubbed a stitch in her side. “I don’t know. But I’m sure meeting mourners on a constant basis … and worrying about a loved one overseas … can destroy one’s nerves.”