In the Shadow of Blackbirds(63)

DRESSED IN MY WHITE NIGHTGOWN, MY HAIR FREED FROM its ribbon, I gathered the strength to write my father a letter by the oil lamp’s light.


November 1, 1918


My Dearest Father,

I received your letter, and I am relieved to hear you are well. Are they giving you enough food? I would feel better knowing that you are eating properly. If I sound like a little mother, perhaps that’s because Aunt Eva fusses over me night and day and shows me how to be an expert worrier. She’s caring for me well, but you can probably guess which one of us is the braver member of the household.

Is there any chance they’ll drop the charges before your trial? Do you have a lawyer? If there’s any possibility you won’t stay in jail, please tell me as soon as you can. I really miss you. I was just remembering the other day about the time we built that mousetrap together and hunted all over the store for that little pest Phantom. And remember when you taught me how to fix our phonograph? I figured out how to make the same repairs on Aunt Eva’s machine just two days ago. You would have been proud.

Now for the hardest part of this letter: my sad news.

Stephen died. Can you believe that, Dad? Stephen Embers died. I am doing better than expected, so please do not worry. His funeral was lovely. Everyone treated him like a proper war hero.

I have been reading quite a bit to keep my brain active—and to help me understand the war better. I have a question for you: when you were in the Spanish-American War, did you see soldiers whose bodies and brains had stopped working right? They’re calling it shell shock now, but I’m sure it happened before they invented shells. I’m curious about that subject and would like more information. Perhaps when I am older, I will try to learn how to repair broken minds in addition to exploring the inner workings of machines and electrical devices. These damaged men need help, and figuring out how to heal them seems a worthy challenge.

I am healthy and safe, Dad. Please keep yourself the same way.





Your loving daughter,

Mary Shelley




My hand cramped from the tension coursing through my fingers. I had kept the tone of the letter somewhat optimistic for Dad’s sake, but I longed to say so much more. Penning the words Portland City Jail on the envelope made the muscles burn even worse.

I set Dad’s letter aside and fetched the stack of Stephen’s envelopes—the ones he had addressed to me—so I could read words written by the boy whose mind was still intact. What could his voice from the past tell me?

At the bottom of the stack lay the very first letter Stephen had written after he moved to California. I opened the blue envelope and pored over his message.


June 21, 1914


Dear Mary Shelley,

We finally unpacked enough for me to find my writing paper and pen. The house is just as I remembered from when I visited my grandparents: large and drafty, with the wind whipping through the boards at night, making the walls creak.

The house faces southwest, with a view of the wide-open Pacific. L. Frank Baum wrote the last books of his Oz series when he wintered down here, just a few blocks away from where I’m sitting right now. If I ever see him walking down the street, I’ll tell him I know a crazy girl up in Oregon who’s read all his books at least five times apiece.

Glenn Curtiss, the aviation genius, owns a naval flight school on North Coronado Island, and his airplanes buzz over our house and rattle the china cabinet several times a day. My mother worries that all the plates and cups will shatter from the ruckus. It scares her something awful. I’ve seen Curtiss’s flying boats, which are normal biplanes with pontoons attached to the bottom. They take off from the Spanish Bight, the strip of water that separates the two Coronados, and the pilots circle them over the Pacific outside my bedroom windows (yes, windows, plural—you should see this place, Shell!). Imagine what it would be like to feel that free, flying through the air, gazing down at the earth like a seagull. Maybe one day I’ll join the navy and learn how to fly. I bet you would, too, if they allowed women. Better yet, Curtiss would hire you to work for him, and you could lecture him about all the ways he could improve his engines.

Are you lonely up there without me, Shell? I already miss our chats. I genuinely doubt I’ll find any girl around here who spends her spare time fiddling with clocks and poring over electrician’s manuals. Have you read any good novels I should know about? Is it still raining in Portland, or did summer weather finally arrive? Summer lasts year-round here. While you shiver up there this winter, I’ll be swimming in the ocean and basking in the sunshine on the beach. I’ll send you a sand crab.

Write soon.





Your friend,

Stephen




I sputtered up a laugh and remarked aloud, “I remember telling you exactly what you could do with your sand crab.”

I laid the letter next to the lamp and sighed into my hands, my elbows digging into the table. “Are you in the room with me right now, Stephen? Can you hear me?” A quick check with the compass told me I was the only magnetic force gripping the atmosphere at the moment. “Why can’t you come when I call you? Why do I have to be half-drunk with sleep for you to completely show up? In fact …” I stood. “I’m going to bring a chair upstairs so I can sleep sitting up.”

After the long day at the Red Cross House and all the bickering with Aunt Eva, my arms shook with exhaustion as I lugged a dining room chair up to my bedroom. Aunt Eva’s door was shut, the space beneath it dark, so she didn’t have to witness my preventive measures against waking up with a boy or a bird on my chest.