In the Shadow of Blackbirds(30)

Fetching two sheets of stationery and a fountain pen from my bedside table might make everything feel normal.

But what’s normal anymore, Shell? I pictured Stephen asking as I headed up the staircase. Normal ended a long time ago.

“I just need to write,” I said out loud to the empty air.

I grabbed the writing utensils and went back downstairs to a weathered wooden table in the backyard. It sat under the sagging branches of sweet-scented orange trees. Breathing in fresh California air without my mask, I penned a message I knew I would never be able to mail.


October 29, 1918


My Dearest Stephen,

Do you want to hear something odd? I attended your funeral today.

Yes, you read that grim sentence correctly. Now I have to ask you something, and I want you to answer me truthfully: Did you speak to me when I was leaning over your casket? Do you see me writing this letter right now? Was your brother right all along about spirits hovering around us, waiting to be captured in photographs, or has something changed in me? My sense of smell has become extraordinarily acute—as if I can smell and taste emotions. Then there’s the compass needle, and your voice at the funeral—I’m not who I was before being struck by lightning.

You whispered to me that something is wrong—something about birds. I don’t care how many times I’ve skeptically laughed at the talk of ghosts, I heard you, Stephen. You sounded like you were in trouble.

And if something has happened, does that mean you’re unable to rest in peace?

Answer me, please—in any way that you can. Tell me what happened. Let me know if you are suffering. I want to help you, even if it means looking at life and death in strange new ways that make me shudder with fear and awe. If you’re stuck and afraid, I’ll do my best to help you figure out what’s wrong.

If you can still be with me again, then come.





Yours,

Mary Shelley




WHEN DAYLIGHT WANED AND THE AIR COOLED TOO MUCH for me to linger outside, I tucked my letter to Stephen in the dictionary I’d been reading all afternoon and opened a cabinet outside the kitchen door to switch on the main gas valve. Then I dragged myself into the house, grabbed a matchbox, and poked flames in the wall lamps’ glass globes to ignite the delicate honeycomb mantles hidden inside. The matches smelled of sulfur dioxide—a scent I knew I’d forever associate with Stephen’s casket—and the odor made me want to retch. It took me twice as long as it should have to bring the lamps to their full brightness.

Aunt Eva planned to work late to cover her missed morning shift. Five hours to go before she would come home. Five hours of dwelling by myself after dark.

Supper was the furthest thought from my mind, but I knew Aunt Eva and I would both need to eat. I stirred up a bland pot of canned vegetable soup over her coal-burning, nickel-trimmed cookstove and ate in silence, wishing she could have afforded electricity. Not only did I enjoy the soothing hum of incandescent lightbulbs, but the gaslights emitted an eerie white glow far too similar to the blue haze in the funeral room. My shadow rising and falling across the pea-soup-green wallpaper made me jump and peek over my shoulder every few minutes.

When my bowl was halfway empty, a voice called out from another part of the house, “Hello.”

I froze. The hairs on my arms and neck stood on end.

The voice then asked, “Who’s there?”—a horrible, squeaky sound that resembled a child speaking on a phonograph record.

I braced myself for more words or movements from the other room and eyed the window as a means of escape. Was it a robber? Stephen? Another side effect of the lightning?

A squawk blasted through the silence.

Oberon.

“Oh … of course.” I sighed. It was just that silly bird talking, not Stephen or an intruder. Just a trained magpie saying what he always asked when someone entered the room.

I returned to my soup, swallowing down limp beans and carrots that tasted like rocks, when a thought struck me: Why did Oberon ask the question he always asked when someone entered the room if no one had entered the room?

I leapt out of my chair and charged into the living room, convinced I’d find Stephen standing by the bronze cage.

Oberon was alone, but he fluffed up his black-and-white feathers, lowered his raven-dark head, and screamed bloody murder at the empty lavender room.

“What’s wrong, Oberon?” I approached the bird with cautious footsteps. “Did something scare you?”

“Who’s there?” he screeched again.

I spun around and scanned the living room, not liking the atmosphere. I swore I heard one of Aunt Eva’s picture frames tapping against the wall.

“Everything’s OK, Oberon,” I said in a voice meant to soothe the both of us. “Everything’s fine.”

“Who’s there?”

“Please stop saying that.”

“Who’s there?”

“I said stop!” I tossed the beige cover over his cage.

“Who’s there?” Oberon rustled his wings beneath the cloth. “Who’s there? Hello. Hello. Who’s there? Who’s—”

“Stop!”

“Who’s there?”

“Shut up, you stupid bird. No one’s there. Absolutely no one’s there.”

I kicked the sofa instead of succumbing to an urge to knock over his cage, and limped back to the kitchen, where I huddled in my chair with my hands clamped over my ears until the bird stopped yelling.