In the Shadow of Blackbirds(69)

If I tipped the back of my head against the porcelain-enameled rim of the tub and let my body go limp in the sudsy water, would my mind grow drowsy enough to see him? Would he get too close again and fill the house with his terror? Or could I lure him for just a breath of a moment?

He had come to me in the daylight before—when his whispers burned at my ear at his funeral and when his photograph dropped to my floor just the previous afternoon. If I pushed away the commotion of the sirens outside and let myself sink downward, downward, downward …

My arms relaxed over the tub’s curved lip.

My chin tilted upward. My head lightened. The center of the earth dragged me toward it, as if I were riding in an unlit elevator on a rushed descent.

Down.

Down.

Down.

The world above me faded to white. Pain seized my head. Something exploded across the clouds, and the sky turned a deep red. I rose toward the bloodstained surface. Voices cried out in panic below.

“Mary Shelley.”

I jolted upright with a frantic splash of water. Fresh air rushed into my lungs, and my slippery fingers clutched the sides of the tub to regain my bearings.

“Gracie is here, Mary Shelley,” called my aunt through the door. “Can you be out and dressed in a few minutes?”

“Gracie?” I slicked back my wet hair. “Stephen’s cousin Gracie?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say why she came?”

“I told her she can’t have what she came for, but she wanted to talk to you just the same.”

“What did she come for?”

My aunt didn’t respond.

“I said, what did she come for, Aunt Eva?”

“A séance. To find Stephen.”

I leapt out of the tub with a loud cascade of water and grabbed my towel. “Let me just get dressed. I’ll be right there.”





I PADDED OUT TO THE LIVING ROOM ON BARE FEET AND twisted my hair into a braid to avoid dripping all over my navy-blue dress with the sailor-style collar. I had worn the same garment the first time I met Gracie, I realized, when she had bustled about Julius’s studio, changing phonograph records to smother the sounds of Stephen upstairs.

Gracie watched me approach with round, inquisitive eyes—the look of a captured owl. She sat, shoulders stiff, in the middle of Aunt Eva’s sofa, her flu mask lowered to her throat, hands clasped in her lap as if they had been locked together with a key.

My aunt looked equally rigid and uncomfortable in the rocking chair across from her.

“Hello, Gracie.” I parked myself beside our guest, which made the girl stiffen even further. “It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” Gracie dropped her gaze. “I’ve wanted to come over here ever since I heard about what happened at that séance the other night. Grant heard about what happened from Julius, actually, and then Grant told me. I haven’t been working in the studio lately.”

“Why not?” I asked.

That nasty, curdled taste of spoiled milk I remembered from the funeral spread across my tongue.

“I haven’t …” Gracie sniffed. “I haven’t wanted to go back to that house since Stephen …”

I sat up straight with the realization that she may have just confirmed my suspicion that Stephen died in that house. “But Grant still works there?” I asked.

“He says he has to. When our mother died, he quit his job at a restaurant downtown. He said we both needed to work at Julius’s studio to be with family and to earn decent money. Our father is off in the navy, you see, so it’s just the two of us right now.”

Aunt Eva rocked in her chair with soft creaks of wood. “Don’t you live on Coronado as well?”

Gracie shook her head and grinned, embarrassed. “We’re the poor relations. Our father used to be the swim instructor at the Hotel del Coronado—that’s how he met our mother. She used to go swimming in the hotel’s pool when the Emberses wintered in that big house over there. Mama didn’t get to inherit the house, because she was the female heir. Stephen’s dad got it, so we’ve always lived right here in San Diego.”

I squirmed at the idea of Stephen being part of the rich side of the family. “I don’t think Stephen ever felt comfortable living on the island,” I said. “He told me he was heading to war to avoid becoming corrupted by his surroundings. He probably would have preferred switching houses with you.”

“Many people would give their right arm to live in such a beautiful community,” said Aunt Eva.

“I’ve seen men with missing arms,” I muttered. “I’m sure they’d choose intact bodies over ocean views any day.”

My aunt frowned and changed the subject. “Would you like some breakfast, Gracie? Mary Shelley and I haven’t yet had ours.”

Gracie shrugged. “I guess breakfast would be nice. But what I really want is a séance.”

Aunt Eva stopped rocking.

Gracie looked at me from the corners of her eyes. “Like I said, I’ve wanted to visit you ever since I learned you spoke with Stephen at that séance.” She fidgeted with her interlocked fingers. “That’s not true, actually. I’ve wanted to come ever since Grant and Julius dragged you away from Stephen’s casket.”