In the Shadow of Blackbirds(41)

A MASKED FACE STARTLED ME IN THE DARK.

“Don’t hurt me!”

“Stop saying things like that.” Aunt Eva brought her candle closer to her face and walked to the side of my bed. “It’s just me. I’m getting ready to leave for work. Are you feeling all right? Can I leave you alone?”

My bleary eyes wandered around the rest of the room and caught sight of the outlines of Stephen’s photographs on the wall, my flu mask dangling off a dresser knob, my sturdy Boy Scout boots sitting upright on the floor.

“I said, are you all right?” She leaned over me.

“Yes.” I breathed a sigh that rustled her hair. “I’m fine.”

“Have you been having nightmares?”

“No. Not since you woke me up last night.”

She stroked my cheek with her chilly hand. “Take my phonograph apart again today or do whatever you want inside this house, but don’t dwell on that séance.”

“I won’t,” I said. It was a lie.

Her eyes studied my face one more time before she disappeared from my room and down the stairs. Oberon spoke his name to her in his gravelly bird voice, and then I heard the front door shut.

A half hour later, I got dressed and emptied my black doctor’s bag of everything but sheets of blank writing paper and some cash. Down in the kitchen I ate an apple and pulled Mr. Darning’s business card out of a little silver box my aunt kept next to her cookbooks. I then plunked myself on the living room sofa to yank my boots over my stockinged feet.

“Who’s there?” asked Oberon from his cage.

I glared at the bird.

“Who’s there?” he asked again.

“I told you to stop saying that. It’s not amusing anymore.” I laced up my boots, grabbed my mask and bag, and clomped out the door.

A crow cawed from the roof next door and gave me a sideways stare I didn’t care for in the slightest. I tied my mask strings around my head, hurried my pace, and glanced over my shoulder, making sure the black bird didn’t follow me. The crow flapped away with a whoosh of large wings and disappeared among the browning leaves of an oak tree.

Three blocks to the south I passed the undertaker’s wretched-smelling house across the street. Four men in coveralls hustled to assemble more makeshift caskets on the front lawn, and I felt the vibrations of their saws inside my bones.

“Have those boys stopped playing on the caskets?” I called to the workers.

A graying man with a thin, masked face looked up from his sawing. “What’s that you said?”

“I saw a group of boys playing on the caskets the last time I walked past here.”

“You mean those little scamps we’ve been chasing away this past week?”

“Yes.”

The man nodded toward a pile of smaller coffins beside him. “They’re in there now.”

His words socked me in the stomach. I turned my eyes toward the ground and pretended I hadn’t heard the response.

The reinforced soles of my Boy Scout boots clopped down the sidewalk.

Death snapped at my heels—I’m coming. Are you watching out for me?

Five blocks farther south, I dug Mr. Darning’s business card out of the black bag, for the addresses were getting close. I scanned the shop windows for the photography studio, passing a hat shop, the Dream Theatre, a grocery store, and hotels. Eventually I found it—Darning Studio—a modest storefront on the northeast corner of Fifth.

Two display windows showcased Mr. Darning’s work: a collection of twenty photographs, ten per window, not a single one of them tainted by spirits, flu masks, or even the war. I saw babies in long white christening gowns and plump-cheeked children in sailor outfits. Brides in airy veils posed in front of clean-shaven men in three-piece suits. The members of a high school football team, clad in black jerseys and knee pants, folded their arms and gazed at the camera with stern expressions. A pretty young woman with dark curls piled on her head peered at me with eyes like pools of ink. On a white card below her frame someone had written, San Diego’s beautiful chanteuse Vivienne Boudreaux.

The photos brought a smile to my face beneath my mask. They were all lovely.

I opened Mr. Darning’s glass door, next to a black sign engraved with golden letters:

MR. ALOYSIUS P. DARNING

PHOTOGRAPHER AND RENOWNED DEBUNKER

OF SPIRITUALIST FRAUDS




A jingling brass bell announced my entrance, and I stepped into a small waiting area with three oak chairs.

“I’m with a customer,” called Mr. Darning from around a partition. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Sit still, Billy,” said a woman’s voice. “Daddy wants to see how big his boy is getting.”

More picture frames hung in the lobby, lined in a neat row along gold-and burgundy-striped wallpaper. I perused the contents of the frames while I waited, reading letters thanking Mr. Darning for catching fraudulent photographers. I looked at newspaper photos of well-dressed gentlemen clapped in handcuffs, their arms clutched by unsmiling policemen. A handwritten letter from the mayor of Los Angeles offered Mr. Darning grateful phrases such as “Your display of integrity amid a turbulent era is to be commended, sir.” And “It is never easy to stand up for what is right when so many people want to prove you wrong. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving countless Los Angeles families from becoming victims of fraud during this current craze for Spiritualism.”