In the Shadow of Blackbirds(54)

“I’m surprised you’d still want children after dealing with me.”

She sputtered a small laugh. “But I do. And I—I lost my husband just as I was starting to age. I’m not pretty like you and your mother. I’ll never find someone to love me again.”

“You are pretty, Aunt Eva, even though you never seem to think so. And you’re not old. My mother didn’t give birth to me until she was thirty.”

“But she died when she gave birth to you.”

“Because of severe bleeding that had nothing to do with her age. There’s still time for children. Isn’t it amazing that right now you have the opportunity to head downtown in trousers and short hair to build ships—to join in some of the same adventures as men?”

She blew her nose into the dishcloth. “A job doesn’t hold you when you’re lonely. It doesn’t comfort you when a killer flu comes barreling into town.”

I walked over and placed my hand on her smooth, silk-covered shoulder. “I’m here for you, though. We’ll take care of each other.”

At the hospital my touch had soothed her, and again she relaxed under my palm. She faced me with eyes swollen with tears. “Are you really communicating with Stephen? Did you honestly hear him and feel him in that séance room?”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re not just imagining him? I know you’re desperately lonely, too. You have no friends here. You have no father and no school, which I’m sure can cause—”

“It’s truly him, I swear. He seems to need my help in understanding his death. Otherwise, I doubt he’ll ever rest.”

Her mouth quivered. “Do you believe he’s been with you anywhere else besides that séance room and his funeral?”

I lowered my eyes.

“Mary Shelley, where do you think you’ve encountered him?” She gulped. “In this house?”

I nodded and met her gaze. “He comes to me at night. I’ve seen him. I’ve felt him. I think someone did something terrible to him.”

A deep groove of concern formed above the bridge of her nose.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to want to do any harm. He’s just scared. I think between the war and the flu, no one’s going to escape getting haunted. We live in a world so horrifying, it frightens even the dead.”

She left my side and grabbed an onion and her knife from the worktable. “Go clean up the broken glass while I fix supper. Let’s put the subjects of death and the Embers brothers to rest for the evening. I’ve had enough for one day.”

I did as she asked, for the kitchen was drenched with the taste of heartbreak, and I could barely breathe.





I BROUGHT THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND TO BED WITH ME THAT night. My room sweltered with a heat unthinkable for an Oregon girl in fall, so I wore my sleeveless summer nightgown made of batiste and embroidered lace and stretched out on my bed beneath the oil lamp’s light.

Part One, I read silently to myself, Dropped from the Clouds. Jules Verne and his brilliant writing transported me into a hot-air balloon that careened toward a South Pacific island on the winds of a catastrophic storm. The lingering pain of finger marks on my bare arms faded the further I dove into the story, and the ache of missing Stephen and my father softened to a point I could almost tolerate. Warmth spread like candle wax through my blood. I fell asleep ten chapters in, with Stephen’s book squished between my cheek and the pillow.

An awful dream visited me. A crow as large as a bald eagle sat on my chest. I pushed at its lung-crushing body to get it off me, but it cawed and flapped its black wings and sliced my skin with its snapping beak.

“Don’t!” I yelled with enough force to pull myself out of sleep.

My eyes opened.

I gasped.

Stephen was on me—not a bird.

I regained my wits, pushed him off, and crawled backward to the corner of my bed. “Stay back. Don’t come any closer.”

He lunged toward me, so I stood upright on the mattress and shoved my spine against the wall. “Get back, Stephen!”

“Don’t push me away.” He clutched my hips and tugged me down.

“Let go of me! You can’t get close to me the way you did last night.”

“I need you, Shell.” He pulled me to my knees. “Come closer.”

“No.” I shoved him with enough fear-fueled strength to send him falling backward on his elbows. “You’re pulling me into your darkness when you get too close.” I stood again. “You have to stay back if you want me to help you.”

He remained on his back and watched me with eyes black and fearful. He wore that white undershirt again, and I could see an unhealthy thinness in his arms and stomach. His cheekbones had become more prominent since April.

“I see red marks on your arms,” he said. “They’re killing you, too.”

“I’m all right, Stephen. Just scoot back a few feet so I can think clearly.”

He kept staring at Julius’s marks on my skin.

“Scoot back if you want to stay with me,” I repeated. “You need to listen to what I say so we can keep each other safe. Do you understand?”

He edged backward a foot.