In the Shadow of Blackbirds(35)
“Come back down here, Eva.” Julius opened the passenger door wider, revealing a plush black seat more luxurious than any sofa my family had ever owned. “We don’t want to keep our hostess waiting.”
“They’re dying right across the street, Julius.”
“Eva—come talk to the spirits. They’ll tell you there’s nothing to fear.”
His words acted as an elixir upon my aunt’s nerves.
Her shoulders lowered. Her chest rose and fell with a soothing breath. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of the séance that way. I suppose you’re right.” She ventured back to the Cadillac and climbed into the middle section of the seat.
I stepped in next to her with my coin purse dangling off my wrist. Julius helped me push the hem of my skirt into the car so it wouldn’t catch in the door when he closed it, and then he strode over to the driver’s side.
The officers across the street hauled out a body concealed by a sheet. Long red hair swung off the end of the stretcher.
Aunt Eva turned her face away with pain in her eyes. “That was Mrs. Tennell, the woman who found you dead during the lightning storm, Mary Shelley. The poor thing. She has five children.”
I dug my nails into the beads of my handbag. “I should have thanked her for helping me. I should have visited her. I’m too late.”
“There’s nothing you can do.” Julius climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. “Stop thinking about it.” He brought the engine to life with a roar and steered the roadster southward, to the heart of downtown San Diego.
We traveled past houses and storefronts and more black ambulances. On the sidewalk in front of a home as pristine white as a wedding cake lay three bodies a huckleberry shade of blue, dressed in nightclothes. The corpses rested beneath a streetlamp, as if the living had kicked out the dead like garbage. I bent forward and held my forehead in my hands to stave off nausea.
“I heard the Germans snuck the flu into the United States through aspirin,” said Julius.
I swallowed down bile. “That’s just more anti-German propaganda.”
Aunt Eva kicked my ankle. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I’m not trying to sound un-American,” I said, “but the aspirin rumor is stupid. Influenza is an airborne illness. The only way the Germans could have used the flu as a weapon was if they shipped boatloads of sick German people over here and let everyone cough on us. But the flu kills so quickly and randomly that everyone on the boat might have been dead by the time it arrived in an American harbor, like Dracula’s victims on the Demeter.”
“Does she always argue like that?” asked Julius.
Aunt Eva nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“She sounds like my brother.”
A small smile managed to spread across my lips beneath my mask.
Another siren screamed by. That old bully Death breathed down my neck and nipped at my skin, warning, Don’t waste one spare second of time. If there are things you want to accomplish while you’re still alive, you’d better do them soon. I’m coming.
JULIUS PARKED THE CADILLAC IN FRONT OF A FIFTH Avenue hardware store. The shop was wedged between a toy store and a restaurant that smelled of juicy grilled hamburgers. The sign in front of the eatery claimed the place specialized in “Liberty Steaks,” but that was simply paranoid speak for We don’t want to call anything a name that sounds remotely German, like “hamburger.” We’re pro-American. We swear!
A glass door led us to a dark interior staircase that clattered with the echoes of our dress shoes as we climbed the steps. Another door, plain and chipped and brown, waited at the top. Julius knocked.
Someone opened the door a crack and stuck out her head: an unmasked girl, a year or two older than me at most, with long golden ringlets crowned by a sparkling jeweled band. Her eyes were lined in black kohl, her lips rouged a deep red.
“Hello, Julius.” She opened the door farther, enough for us to see her wine-colored dress and gargantuan breasts that seemed at odds with the innocent Goldilocks look of her hair. “I didn’t know you were bringing two guests.”
Julius took off his hat. “Does that throw off your numbers?”
“Sadly, no. Not at all. Francie died over the weekend. We’re not sure if Archie and Helen are still alive. Roy saw an ambulance at their house on Monday.”
Julius wrinkled his brow. “That’s disturbing.”
We entered a dim, bare hallway, and the girl shut the door behind us.
“Welcome.” She offered her hand to Aunt Eva. “I’m Lena Abberley.”
“I’m Eva Ottinger. And this is my niece, Mary Shelley Black.”
“Ahh.” Lena shook my hand and grinned at Julius. “You’ve brought your muse, Julius. ‘Beauty resides within the sacred studio of Mr. Julius Embers, Spiritualist Photographer.’”
I reddened and let go of her hand, tasting a flavor that stung sharp and hot. “I didn’t know he was going to put me on that handbill.”
She winked at me. “Don’t be modest about the great Julius Embers’s interest in a pretty young thing like you. He and I refer clients to one another. You’ll find a stack of those handbills next to my donation jar in the parlor. Come along.” Lena beckoned with her index finger. “Roy is already here.” She swished through a doorway to the right of the entry hall with her curls bouncing and her hips swinging beneath her dress.