In the Shadow of Blackbirds(82)

I lifted my head and made sure the birds were truly gone. “All right.” My voice resembled my own again. “I’m sorry. They bother me these days.”

He opened my door for me. “Calm yourself and stop shaking so much. There’s nothing to fear.” Despite his bold words, his own hands trembled.

A disorienting bout of light-headedness threatened to stop me from making my way up to the front porch, but I gulped deep breaths and persevered, still keeping an eye out for crows. And the flu. My dizziness and confusion could have been the first signs of fever.

Mr. Darning’s raps against the front door sounded as loud to my ears as cannon blasts. We waited almost a minute, with no results, and then he knocked again.

I reached out to the wall below the porch light for support. “What if Julius isn’t home?”

“Shh. Let’s listen for his footsteps and make sure he’s not avoiding us.”

We tipped our ears toward the door and stood stock-still, but I only heard waves breaking on the shore across the street.

Mr. Darning swallowed and looked my way. “He might be dead.”

“Oh no.” I jiggled the brass doorknob. Locked. “No!” I pushed against the door as if I were truly strong enough to break it down. “This can’t be happening. His cousin came to our house just yesterday. Julius was alive as of her visit.”

Mr. Darning shook his head. “Being alive yesterday doesn’t mean a thing with this flu.”

“Don’t remind me. My aunt …”

“I’m sorry.”

I glanced behind me at the empty lawn where the lines of photography customers had waited. I thought of the studio … and the porthole-style windows.

“Oh … wait … Stephen’s entrance.” I tore down the front steps.

“Where are you going?”

“Stephen used to climb through the studio’s windows,” I said, my feet squishing across the dew-soaked front lawn, “to save the equipment at night when Julius left them open.”

Mr. Darning trailed after me with his brown case of glass plates in hand.

Around the corner, beyond the studio’s entrance, I saw three round windows—all open to allow the chill from the night to settle inside the house. Or else left open by a man unavailable to shut them.

Stephen’s grandparents had built the openings six feet off the ground, so the portholes were more a useless nautical decoration than a means of view or escape. A larger window faced the ocean at the front of the house, but I had always seen its shutters closed and locked, perhaps so Julius could further provide a dim and ghostly atmosphere inside the studio.

Two options existed: a coral tree with thick branches that reached out to the windows and a sturdy white trellis that was attached to the wall next to the leftmost porthole. I didn’t feel like shinnying up a tree trunk in my taffeta dress, so I grabbed hold of the trellis’s latticed wood and started to climb.

“You can’t go into that house alone,” said Mr. Darning. “Not when Julius might be in there.”

My head still felt dizzy, so I didn’t dare look down at him. My hands brushed past a flowering vine that tickled the backs of my fingers. “I’ll run”—I grunted and kept going upward—“straight to the side door … and let you in right away. I just hope Stephen isn’t furious at me for coming.”

“Why would Stephen be furious?”

I wrapped my right hand around the bottom edge of the left window. “He believes there are creatures inside the house that want to hurt me. Nightmare creatures.” I peeked inside the studio.

“Do—do you see anything in there?”

I shook my head. “It’s empty. The lights are off. I’m going in.” I clutched the trellis again and went a few inches higher. “Please turn away, Mr. Darning. This won’t be ladylike.”

“Be careful.”

“I’ll try.” I reached out to a nearby tree branch, gripped it with both hands, and swung my feet to the bottom edge of the round window. I then slid my legs carefully through the opening so I wouldn’t take the six-foot drop in one loud go. With my fingers still locked around the branch, I held my breath and listened for Julius’s footsteps. Or Stephen’s voice.

“Are you all right?” Mr. Darning called from down below.

“I’m fine. I’m going to push the top half of my body through and see if I can twist around and hang on to the ledge before dropping.”

Somehow, I did exactly that. With a swish of black taffeta and the thuds of tumbling feet and elbows, I landed on the studio floor—bruised but intact.

The house inside tasted of smoke and poison and blazing-hot metal. It felt wrong to be there, and I would have bolted out the door if I hadn’t felt in my gut that Stephen’s room hid the missing piece in the puzzle of his death.

“What are you doing in here?” asked someone behind me.

I leapt to my feet.

Julius came toward me through the open pocket doors, but he staggered rather than walked. His pace was slow and his footsteps unsteady, like the movements of a drunk. His pale face had grown thin compared with his appearance just four days earlier, and his wild black hair needed a good brushing.

I ran over to the side door and opened it for Mr. Darning.

Julius stopped in his tracks when he saw the other photographer entering the studio. “Why are you both here?” he asked.