In the Shadow of Blackbirds(20)

Behind us, the Model T rumbled away.

I stepped a foot inside the studio and watched Julius disappear through a doorway next to the dark background curtain. I’d always assumed the door led to a closet, but it appeared to be the entrance to an office in which photographs hung on a string to dry like laundry on a clothesline.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

Aunt Eva still massaged her throat. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Is it the opium?”

“Mary Shelley!”

Julius walked back into the studio with a brown folder. “Here, take it.” He held out the concealed picture in the tips of his fingers.

I approached and took it from him, feeling my stomach dip with nervousness as I did so.

His red eyes watered. “Now go. Please.”

“I’d like to see the photograph first.”

“Go.”

I held my breath and flipped the folder open. There I was, in black and white, seated on the velvet-cushioned chair with my camphor pouch and clock-gear necklace strung around my neck. My pale eyes peered at the camera above my flu mask.

A transparent figure stood behind me—a handsome brown-haired boy in a dress shirt and tie.

Stephen.

Stephen was the ghost in my photograph.

Aunt Eva took the folder from my hand. “Oh no, Julius. Is that your brother?”

The words cut deep. I realized what they implied.

“Is he …” Aunt Eva’s lips failed to shape the word.

Julius cleared his throat. “We just learned he died in battle. The telegram said it was a ferocious fight at the beginning of October. He went heroically.”

All the oxygen left that room. I held my stomach and heard the warning signs of unconsciousness buzz inside my eardrums. My vision dimmed. My legs started to give way.

Aunt Eva took hold of my arm to steady me. “Mary Shelley, are you all right?”

Julius turned his back on me. “Take her outside.”

A scream from upstairs jolted me to my senses. We all peered toward the ceiling.

“Stephen!” cried Mrs. Embers, as if someone were tearing her heart to shreds. “Stephen!”

Julius grabbed my arms and turned me around. “I said take her out of here. Both of you, get outside. Go far, far away. My brother’s childhood sweetheart is the last person we need to see right now.”

My feet tripped from the reckless way he steered me across the floor. Before I could regain my balance, Aunt Eva and I were back outside in the fog. The door slammed behind us. We could still hear Mrs. Embers’s screams beyond the walls, even over the thunder of the waves.

“Let’s go.” My aunt took my hand and guided me down the steps. “We need to let them mourn. What a terrible, terrible thing to lose a loved one clear across the world.”

My body felt out of control. I couldn’t walk or breathe right. Pain squeezed my lungs so hard that Aunt Eva had to shoulder my weight to help me move.

“I warned you not to long for him.” She put her hand around my waist to better support me. “I knew he’d break your heart.”

“I want—” I choked and sputtered as if I were crying, but no tears wet my eyes. “I want you to throw that photograph in the bay when we’re on the ferry. Stephen … he would have hated seeing it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea with the way you’re acting. I’ll keep it for you in case you change your mind.”

“No.”

“You may want it in the future.”

“No.”

“Shh. Just concentrate on walking. You’ll feel better when you get back home.”

“My home’s in Portland. I’ll never get back there. I’ll never feel better.”

We continued to hear Mrs. Embers’s screams, even as we made our way past the house next door, before the crash of waves swallowed up her cries.





WE PARTED AT THE FERRY LANDING ON THE SAN DIEGO side of the harbor. I could tell from Aunt Eva’s pinched eyebrows she regretted sending me off alone, but she had to go to work. I staggered away without looking back at her. The photograph floated somewhere halfway across the bay, ripped from its protective folder and thrown in the corrosive salt water.

The quarantine had silenced the heart of downtown. A stray newspaper page scuttled down the sidewalk on the wings of a southerly wind. Overhead a pair of seagulls cried to each other as they soared toward the ocean, eager to escape civilization. I didn’t blame them. A handful of men and women departed a yellow electric streetcar near Marston’s Department Store at Fifth and C. Like me, they were all dressed in dark clothing and masks, heads bent down with the weight of the world, eyes on the watch for death.

We all looked like bad luck.

The word CLOSED hung from every other shop door, and the stores that did stay open lacked customers. I passed a barbershop in which the barber stooped in front of his mirror and trimmed his own hair, probably out of boredom. The tobacco shop next door displayed a poster with a bloody German handprint. THE HUN—HIS MARK, it said. BLOT IT OUT WITH LIBERTY BONDS.

The Hun—Stephen’s Killer, was all I could think.

“No, he’s not dead,” I murmured. “He’s not dead. He’s supposed to come home. He’s supposed to send me another letter.”