In the Shadow of Blackbirds(6)

“He’s seen me receive Stephen’s letters.”

“No,” she said, “does he know what happened between the two of you when you were last down here?”

“He doesn’t know the made-up version you heard from Julius.”

“Why would Julius lie about what he saw?”

“I told you back in April, he and Stephen were having a fight.”

She pulled off her right boot without looking me in the eye.

I sank into the rocking chair across from her. “What has Julius said about Stephen’s whereabouts? Has their mother received any letters?”

“Only one since Stephen arrived overseas.”

“When was that?”

“June or July, I think.”

“My last letter from him was dated June twenty-ninth, right after he made it to France. Then he stopped writing.” I clutched my stomach. “Why hasn’t he written anyone since then? Does his family think he’s all right?”

She yanked off her other boot with a grunt. “As far as I know.”

“Why hasn’t his brother gone to war?”

“The draft board turned Julius down. He suffers from flat feet.”

“Oh, poor Julius.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure he’s suffering deeply because of those feet.”

“I was sincerely hoping you would have calmed down about Julius Embers during these past six months. He invited you over for another free photograph tomorrow. And he has something for you from Stephen.”

“The package?”

“You know about it?”

“Stephen kept saying he asked his mother to send me a parcel right before he left, but it never arrived. Why didn’t she ever mail it?”

Aunt Eva avoided my question by rubbing the sole of her foot. I could see a gaping hole in her black stocking. Oberon let out an angry squawk, no doubt to break the tension gripping the room.

“Why didn’t she mail it, Aunt Eva?”

My aunt’s face flushed pink. “Mrs. Embers probably felt the relationship wouldn’t be good for either of you. You were both too young and too unmarried for that sort of intimacy, Mary Shelley. You should have never gone into that room alone with Stephen.”

“We didn’t—”

“It took me two months before I could show my face to the family, and it’s only because Mrs. Embers reached out to me after she read Wilfred’s obituary.”

I shot out of the rocking chair with the intention of grabbing my belongings and escaping upstairs.

“Mary Shelley—”

“My dad never even let me near Stephen’s brother when I was growing up.” I picked up my bags. “But you act like Julius is a saint. He told a terrible tale about his brother and me, but you worship him.”

“Stop. Please stop.” She kept on massaging her smelly old foot. “I know you’re upset about Stephen and your father, and I know I’m only ten years older than you—”

“I just want you to understand that what happened that day was a thousand times more innocent than what Julius told you. Will you please start believing your own flesh and blood instead of this friend who’s striking it rich off war deaths?”

She lowered her head.

“Please, Aunt Eva.”

“Julius has been so good to me,” she said. “You don’t understand how hard it is to be alone when the world’s unraveling around you.”

“Yes, I do. I understand completely.”

She met my eyes, and her expression softened. She dropped her foot and exhaled a sigh that told me she was dead tired of everything, including our conversation.

I took a calming breath. “Despite this problem with Julius, I am extremely grateful you and I can be together right now. And I appreciate you letting me live here without once mentioning the danger Dad has posed to the family members still up in Oregon.”

She jutted her chin into the air with typical Aunt Eva pride. “Thank you. I’ve been worried about my brothers ever since we saw those people beat on that German man during your last trip. A Swiss German surname like Boschert doesn’t sit well with some people these days.”

“I know. The inability to see the truth about a person is a terrible thing.”

She returned to fussing over her foot, choosing to ignore the fact that I was still talking about Julius. “Go change out of those clothes, Mary Shelley,” she said without any fight left in her, which made me feel guilty. “I’ll start running your bathwater. Look on the bedside table while you’re up there. I’ve left you something that belonged to Wilfred.”

“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “I’ll go look for it.” I climbed the stairs with my traveling trunk thumping against the wood.

The gift she had left for me in my room was Uncle Wilfred’s weighted brass nautical compass, inherited from his seafaring grandfather and mounted in a mahogany case the size of a large jewelry box. A gorgeous device.

While my bathwater roared through the downstairs pipes, I wandered around my new room with the compass, checking to see whether the walls behind the gilded paper contained any metal strong enough to move the needle. And for a short while, the lure of scientific discovery blotted out the sea of masked faces on the train ride south, the purplish-black feet rattling in the back of that cart, my father getting punched in the gut in front of my eyes, and the first boy I’d ever loved fighting for his life in a trench in France.