In the Shadow of Blackbirds(81)

I hurried to the studio’s door and banged on the glass. “Mr. Darning? Are you in there?”

I held my breath. A figure moved inside.

“Mr. Darning?” I banged again. “Please open up. It’s Mary Shelley Black. I need your help.”

The photographer appeared behind the glass with rumpled hair and blinking eyes. With his mask in his hand, he opened the door, and for the first time I saw his entire face, including a trim mustache that matched his copper-wire hair.

“Miss Black. You caught me off guard. I slept here last night because my neighbors all have the flu.”

“It got Aunt Eva, too. I’m scared it’s going to take me at any minute.”

“Oh, Jesus.” He pulled away from me.

“I’ve been breathing the same air she has. I’m dead—I know it. Please take me to Stephen Embers’s house before it knocks me down.”

“What?”

“Take me over there, and convince Julius to allow me inside Stephen’s bedroom. Julius wants to take a picture of me for a contest. We can tell him the best place for a spirit photograph is up in Stephen’s room.”

“But—”

“I swear to you I’ll show you evidence of a soul who’s departed his body. I swear you’ll feel better about that girl of yours who died.”

He tied his mask around his face. “I don’t know if I should allow you in my car—”

“That’s her picture right there, isn’t it?” I pressed my hand against the window that separated me from the photograph of the beautiful dark-haired woman.

“Yes, that’s Viv.”

“If you had only a few hours left to live,” I said, my fingers running pale streaks down the glass, “and you knew you could spend those last precious moments freeing her soul so she could rest in peace, wouldn’t you do anything you could to help her?”

His eyes shone with tears. “Of course I would.”

“Then help me free a soul I love.” The vinegary sting of grief nipped at my taste buds. “Keep me safe from Julius while I call Stephen to me one last time.”

He craned his neck toward me. “You’re—you’re going to let his spirit go?”

I nodded. “It’s time. They all need to move on, Mr. Darning.”

He blinked, and a tear escaped his left eye.

I took my hand away from the glass. “But I promise you, what you’ll witness in Stephen’s room will be better than MacDougall’s scale experiments, better than my compass, and far better than Julius Embers’s usual photographs. You’ll have proof your Viv lives on in some other place.”

He turned his gaze from me to the picture of the brunette woman, which told me his answer.

He would be coming.

I would be safe to explore Stephen’s last memories in the very room where he died.

.............



I SPENT MY FINAL CROSSING OF SAN DIEGO BAY IN THE automobile section of the Coronado ferry, seated on the passenger side of Mr. Darning’s ruby-red vehicle, my black bag tucked beneath my legs. Once the Ramona docked, Mr. Darning slammed his foot on the gas pedal and we sped across the island that wasn’t an island, past the streetcar tracks that had carried Aunt Eva and me to the Emberses’ house, and alongside the restless Pacific until we reached the two-story cottage with brown shingles.

He pulled the car next to the curb and shut off the motor.

Three crows were perched on the Emberses’ roof. Their sinister caws laughed over the ocean’s roar, and I swore they stared me in the eye.

“Oh no.” A headache erupted across my skull. “You were right.” I slunk down in my seat.

Mr. Darning popped open his door. “I was right about what?”

“I can’t get out of the car until those birds go away.”

“Why not?”

“I see their beaks.”

“Pardon?”

“They’re like scissors. They could tear me to shreds. I don’t like how they’re looking at me.”

Mr. Darning didn’t move.

“Kill them,” I shouted in a husky tone that startled the both of us.

He stepped out of the car and smacked his hands together. “Shoo. Go away, birds. Get out of here.”

The calculating birds didn’t budge.

“Throw something at them.” I slid farther down against the leather. “Hurry, before they smell the gore on my clothing.”

“What gore? Why are you talking like that? Your voice sounds different.”

“Just kill them.”

“I can’t go throwing rocks at somebody’s roof. Let me fetch my box of photographic plates from the backseat so we can go inside. Ignore the birds.”

“I can’t ignore them. Look at their eyes. They’re watching me.”

He backed away from the car. “You’re starting to scare me. Please … let me fetch my plates from the backseat.”

The dark thugs on the roof flapped their wings and took flight. I ducked and gasped and covered my head with my arms while their feathers beat against my neck.

Mr. Darning touched my back and made me jump. “The birds are headed east. They’re nowhere in sight. You don’t need to be afraid of them. All right?”