In the Shadow of Blackbirds(8)

“I know.” I squinted into the burning sunlight. “Stephen mentioned that in one of his letters. He didn’t sound pleased about his brother’s work. And I’ve only received one letter from him since their father passed away in January. I’m really worried about Stephen.”

“I’ve posed for Julius.”

“You have?”

“A couple of times.” The sun glinted off her round spectacles, but I could see a funny little gleam dancing in her hazel eyes. “I recognized his name in the newspaper when he presented an exhibit of his work in February, and I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw his photos. He’s trying to summon your mother and Grandma Ernestine for me.”

I stopped in my tracks. “My mother and Grandma Ernestine have shown up … in spirit photographs?”

“I think so.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “On three separate occasions, Julius captured the images of two glowing figures hovering behind me, but their faces haven’t yet fully materialized for us. I told him you’re very much like your mother. I explained she named you after Mary Shelley because of her love of electricity and science, and he thinks you may be able to lure her into making a full spirit manifestation.”

“What? No!” I slammed my suitcase to the ground. “Dad would hate it if I posed for Julius Embers. Julius always got caught drinking and smoking at school and wound up in all sorts of fights and trouble.”

Aunt Eva sniffed. “He’s straightened his ways. He’s quite the gentleman now—so tall and handsome, with his dashing black hair. Barely twenty-two years old and already a gifted Spiritualist photographer.”

I gaped at her. “You sound like you’re in love with him.”

“Don’t say that, Mary Shelley. I’m a married woman with a deathly ill husband. I simply admire the man’s work.”

“You’re blushing.”

“Stop it.” She swatted my shoulder with her white-gloved hand. “I scheduled a sitting for you at Julius’s in-home studio in two days, and if you behave yourself, I’m sure you could see his brother directly afterward.”

I rubbed my shoulder and felt an uncomfortable twinge course through my stomach at the thought of posing for wild Julius Embers in close quarters.

However … I possessed a ticket to Stephen’s house—a ticket to Stephen himself—which was exactly what I had wanted when I stepped off that train.

Two mornings later, Aunt Eva whisked me across San Diego Bay to the Emberses’ home on Coronado Island. In Portland, Stephen’s family had lived in a neighborhood exactly like ours, with homes so squished together that if houses could breathe, their sides would knock against one another when they inhaled.

This new residence, though—Stephen’s grandparents’ summerhouse, which the family had inherited in 1914—was an enormous seaside cottage covered in vast windows and thousands of cocoa-brown shingles. The neighboring house, a towering brick monstrosity, could have been Thornfield Hall from Jane Eyre, or any other grand estate that ruled over the English moors. I felt like an insignificant speck of Stephen’s former life entering this luxurious new world.

Julius greeted us and made jokes about how tiny and serious I used to look. He took my photograph in his chilly studio in the family’s living room, and, afterward, Mrs. Embers—a robust woman with ink-black hair rolled into two thick sausages at the nape of her neck—served my aunt and me tea in a dining room awash in springtime sunlight. Through the open windows we could hear the crashing of waves from the Pacific Ocean. Thirteen different photographs of Coronado beaches dotted the dark paneled walls.

“Where’s Stephen?” I asked, unable to take a single bite of Mrs. Embers’s lemon cake. The anticipation of finally seeing him again had stolen my appetite.

“I was just wondering the same thing.” Mrs. Embers leaned back with a squeak of her chair and called toward the dining room’s entrance. “Stephen? Come down and visit your friend, please. Stephen?”

I strained my ears but heard nothing. Sweat broke out across my neck. Stephen is avoiding me, I realized. He hasn’t been writing me since his father’s death because he’s tired of me.

Mrs. Embers sighed and went back to stirring her Earl Grey. “He’s probably upstairs, packing.”

“Packing for what?” I asked.

“Didn’t he tell you in one of his letters?”

“Tell me what?”

“He’s leaving for the army tomorrow.”

It felt as though someone had just socked me in the chest. I clutched the edge of the table.

Aunt Eva grabbed my arm. “Are you all right, Mary Shelley?”

I stared into the depths of my teacup and struggled to catch my breath while Mrs. Embers’s sentence replayed over and over in my head.

He’s leaving for the army tomorrow.

Back in Portland, one of my classmate’s uncles had just lost half his body to a massive shell explosion on a battlefield in France. Only a week earlier, an eighteen-year-old neighbor from back home—Ben Langley—died of pneumonia at his Northern California training camp.

“Mary Shelley?”

I cleared my throat to find my voice. “I didn’t know Stephen had enlisted. He won’t even turn eighteen until June. What is he doing going over there?”