In the Shadow of Blackbirds(88)

I grabbed for the camera but lost my footing for a moment when I saw Julius and Mr. Darning lying on the floor, streaked in blood. Glass had sliced their faces and clothing and hands, each tiny wound bleeding a stream of bright scarlet. Julius stared at his bleeding palms like he didn’t understand what was happening.

I had witnessed enough photography in my life to know to push down the dark slide sticking out of the top of the camera to protect the glass plate inside. I then pulled out the wooden plate holder that carried the fragile piece of evidence.

“Mary Shelley,” groaned Julius. “I’m in agony. Get me my painkillers from my bedroom.”

I stuck the plate holder in Stephen’s empty satchel. “I’ll call an ambulance when I’m a few houses down.”

“No! Don’t call anyone.”

“I’m calling the police.” I moved to leave, but someone gave me a shove from behind that sent me toppling toward the glass on the ground. All I remembered after hitting the floor was peering over my shoulder and catching the fleeting image of Mr. Darning’s face and the camera coming toward my head. Pain walloped my skull.

My spirit slammed up to the far corner of the ceiling.

My body remained below.





DOWN ON THE GROUND, MY FORMER SHELL LAY IN A twisted heap—an empty body with Stephen’s satchel still strapped over my shoulder. A welt on my forehead bled and swelled like rising dough. Mr. Darning collapsed with the camera in his hands, crumpled over my feet, and seemed to lose consciousness. Julius curled into a ball four feet away and sobbed.

“I told you to stay away from my house,” said a nearby voice.

I looked beside me. Stephen was also crouching up there in the upper corner of the room with his back against the ceiling and his feet pressed against the wall. He looked less wounded and bloodied, although I could see where the bullet had entered his head. Burn marks marred the skin around his mouth.

I edged closer to him. “He hit me with the camera. What if I stay dead? What if no one finds me or understands what happened?” My frustration rumbled down to the room and rocked Stephen’s bed against the wall.

Julius sobbed harder. “Stop haunting me, Stephen. Leave me alone. Go away.”

“Is everyone all right in there?” asked a woman outside the window, down below on the front lawn.

“Who’s that?” I asked Stephen.

“She sounds like our neighbor.”

“I heard the glass break,” called the woman. “Are you up there, Julius? Is anyone hurt?”

Julius struggled to lift his head. “Get me help! I’m bleeding to death here.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to find an ambulance. I’ll fetch my husband and bandages.”

“I need my painkillers! I’m in agony.”

Mr. Darning groaned as if he were coming to but remained limp across my feet.

I turned my attention to the windows with their demolished panes and strained to hear the neighbor’s feet running to her house. I thought I detected the squish of heels hurrying across grass.

Stephen wrapped his arms around his legs. “Those weren’t birds, then?”

“No.” I slid all the way next to him and leaned against his side. “They were people.”

“Did they really try to kill me to win a contest?”

“Yes, they did. I’m so sorry.” I laced my fingers through his. “Mr. Darning loved a young woman who died. He was desperate for proof of the afterlife, and your brother was desperate for money. I guess they were both out of their minds on drugs. Maybe they became friends because of their addictions, or maybe—” A thought struck me. I remembered the peculiar puzzle of Mr. Darning catching every other flimflamming photographer except for Julius. “No, wait—did they already know each other before Mr. Darning started saying he was a fraud catcher?”

Stephen cocked his head. “You mean Aloysius Darning?”

“Yes. Did you know him?”

“That was the name of a two-bit photographer whose business was about to shut down before I left for the war. I died because of him?”

“One played the mysterious photographer. The other played the expert. And both profited. No wonder Mr. Darning always denied finding proof that Julius was a fake. He probably also posed as the spirit soldiers.” I looked down at the man who I once thought shared my father’s voice. “He was scamming me the entire time. I was just as desperate as everyone else, wasn’t I?”

A door opened somewhere downstairs.

Stephen braced himself against the ceiling. “If they find the glass plate inside the satchel, they’ll have documented proof of him attacking you while Julius stood by. People will ask questions. They might discover photographs from the night of my death.”

“But what if they don’t see the plate? What if nobody searches inside the satchel?”

“Go back down there and show them the plate yourself.”

I shrank back against the ceiling’s plaster, terrified of dropping into that damaged flesh below. Down there, my body grew grayer and colder by the minute.

“Go on,” said Stephen. “I can’t ever leave, knowing you died because of me. Push yourself back into your body. Stop the world from mucking up everything so badly.”

A gray-haired couple blew into the bedroom with rolls of white bandages tucked in the crooks of their arms. They contemplated the blood and the glass and struggled to make sense of the scene. The man knelt beside my body and searched for my pulse.