In the Shadow of Blackbirds(59)

“I just heard something about Stephen’s last days in France.”

Nervous air pulsated off him. “Why don’t you chat with Stephen about it instead?” He tried pulling away from me. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be summoning him.”

I tugged him closer. “Does the family know Stephen was sent home alive?”

His breathing quickened.

“Did he make it home, Grant? Tell me. Do you know what happened to him?”

“Look, Shell—”

“Don’t call me Shell. Only Stephen could call me that.”

“Look, Frankenstein …” He spoke so close to my face he would have spit on me if we weren’t wearing masks. “My mother choked to death from the flu right in front of my eyes five weeks ago. My father’s drifting around somewhere in the middle of enemy waters with the U.S. Navy. And my sister lost her hair from a fever so high I can’t believe she’s not buried like our ma.” He yanked himself free of me. “Gracie and I are just trying to survive on our own right now. We don’t need anyone pestering us about us working in Julius’s studio.”

“I’m not pestering you about Julius’s studio. I’m just asking about Stephen—”

“Stephen’s a dead war hero, all right? Leave it at that. I don’t know who’s telling you otherwise, but they’ve got their story wrong.”

He turned and walked away.

“A friend who was with him overseas told me otherwise,” I called after him when he reached the front sidewalk. “Stephen didn’t die in battle.”

Grant stopped with his shoulders hiked as high as his chin.

“How did he die, Grant? If you know, please tell me.”

He stayed stone-still with his back curved into a lazy C and his eyes directed at the sidewalk in front of him. “You ever heard of shell shock?”

I flinched at the question. I had read about that condition at the library. It could have described what Paul told me about Stephen.

“That’s what they’re calling the psychological trauma from the war, isn’t it?” I asked.

“It’s a cowardly way to behave. I’ve heard the British execute their soldiers who get it, because of the shame.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and strove to keep my voice from breaking. “Is our army doing that to our men, too? Is that what happened to Stephen?”

Grant shook his head, still speaking to the ground. “I’m thinking his friend is the one who’s shell-shocked. The friend who’s lying to you. Stephen died in battle.” He squinted up at me through the sun-bright lenses of his glasses. “If you really are seeing his ghost, spooky Frankenstein girl, ask him yourself. I bet he’ll swear he’s still over in France, picking off Germans.”

Before I could even think to respond, Grant hustled down the sidewalk to his black Model T and leapt into the driver’s seat. The engine popped and rattled as it sputtered to life, and he sped away in an oily cloud of exhaust.

I watched him careen around the bend with a squeal of tires before I climbed up to the porch to see what he had left.

A gold Nabisco Sugar Wafers tin sat by the front door, an envelope bearing my name resting on its lid. I ripped open the paper and tugged out a note written on letterhead from Julius’s studio.


Dear Mary Shelley,

I apologize for my behavior last night. Grief for my brother and concern for my mother are bringing out the worst in me. You’re right, I bury my pain in ways I shouldn’t, but I swear to you I’m an honest businessman who is doing nothing to tarnish the good name of my stepfather’s studio.

I am giving you something of Stephen’s I found in his room. You seem the best person to have it. Perhaps it will make a complete set.

Please come to Coronado for another photograph as soon as you can. You know in your heart it would help us all. It is the right thing to do.





Yours with sincerest apologies,

Julius




I knelt and removed the box’s lid.

In the golden tin lay Stephen’s name and address, scrawled in black ink across a pile of pastel envelopes in my own handwriting. All the letters I’d ever written to Stephen since his move to San Diego—the companions to his own letters from the summer of 1914 to early 1918—were tucked inside the cookie tin. I sifted through the envelopes and postcards and heard the sound of our shared lives in the crisp rustle of paper.

“It’s just a bribe for a spirit photograph,” I whispered to myself. “Just a bribe. Don’t you dare go running over there, Shell. Don’t do it.”

I snapped the lid closed, rose to my feet, and braced myself to be greeted by the black-and-white bird that dwelled within Aunt Eva’s walls.


“OBERON. HELLO. WHO’S THERE? OBERON.”

The bird would not shut up. I slammed my bedroom door against the nonstop whistling and squawking and set to work mapping out what I knew.





June 29



Stephen’s last letter, written from France.





Sometime between June 29 and October 1



Stephen sent home.



Taken to East Coast hospital?





Sometime between summer and October 19