A Dreadful Splendor (52)

“You will be an orphan soon,” she said. She tapped the card depicting a beast with horns and a tail like a fish. “And I see you underwater, as a young maiden.”

A bark of nervous laughter came out of me.

Maman was by my side at once, spitting out a sharp retort in French.

The fortune-teller kept her gaze on me. “You will die a young girl. I see the number nineteen.”

A chill crept over my skin. I forced a smile. I couldn’t appear affected in front of Maman, not after ignoring her advice. “I will die when I’m nineteen?” I asked, still trying to make sense of her words.

She shook her head. “No. You will never reach your nineteenth year.”

Later that evening, as Maman brushed out my braids, we watched the flame of the candle sputter.

“I’ll be around forever, ma petite chérie.” She tried to soothe. “That girl was only trying to make an impression. Even so, she could have sweetened it a bit. Most people only want good news. She has not learned that yet.”

“But we lie to make people feel better, so they’ll pay us well at the end of the séance. She already had my money, so there was no reason for her to lie.”

Maman continued to work my hair. “That fortune-teller looked young to me. She might not have a nice mother like you do, and seeing us together made her sad. When people do something mean, it’s because they are secretly hurting.”

I considered this bit of wisdom. She put down the brush and kissed the top of my head. “So you won’t die?” I asked.

“Someday, Genevieve. But with a pile of white hair. And I’ll be spoiling all your enfants.”

I smiled, wishing the fortune-teller had told me that version. Maybe people only believe in the things that scare them.

Maman blew out the candle and we tucked in for the night. For the first time in a long while, I was grateful that we shared a bed. Her soft breath against my neck lulled me to sleep.

Then her voice broke the silence of our small room. There was a careful edge to her tone. “Promise me one thing, though,” she said. “Stay out of la mer.” The ocean.

I told her I would. She sighed and rolled over, and was soon snoring softly.

Not long after our encounter with the fortune-teller, a woman with a hat that looked like a stuffed parrot came to our apartment, asking if Maman would do a ghost cleansing of her boardinghouse.

Maman informed the woman that she could contact the dead, but she could not make a spirit do anything against its will.

The woman laid a hand on her hip. “I’m losing customers because of that damn ghost,” she said. “My girls are too afraid. I don’t care what you do, just make it go away.” She opened her embroidered reticule and handed my mother enough pounds to buy us meat and cream for two weeks.

Then the woman took notice of me. Like some men, her gaze lingered on my face before sweeping down to my toes and back. “She yours?” she asked Maman.

Maman’s back straightened. “Genevieve is well versed in the art of spiritualism,” she said. “That is where her future lies.”

The woman smirked as if Maman had told a jest, and a tightness squeezed my chest. Then she introduced herself as Miss Crane.

That night, Maman and I arrived at the address Miss Crane had provided. Imagine my surprise when I saw a parlour full of women, some only a few years older than I. They all wore rouge and silken dressing gowns trimmed with lace that swayed when they walked, accentuating the full curves of their hips.

The air was heavily perfumed, but not enough that I couldn’t detect a sourness beneath it. A settee was covered in a gaudy fabric with mismatched patches sewn on the armrests. A stack of books propped up one corner where it was missing a leg. Miss Crane stood with a hand on one hip and a cigarette between her red lips. A comb with tiny blue stones pinned back her hair. When I looked closer, I saw the gems were painted on.

She accompanied Maman and me to the second floor. The stairs creaked with each step as we walked up. Down below I could see the chandelier that hung over the foyer was home to several spiderwebs.

The haunted room in question had a double bed with a lovely pink cover. There were flowers on the wallpaper and a tall chest of drawers with a mirror. The small coal grate was full, and lace curtains framed the room’s one window. How could a space this lovely be haunted?

Maman set out her candles as Miss Crane watched us from the doorway. She spoke with the cigarette still in her mouth. “He died in that bed,” she told us. “Drusilla damn near suffocated under the weight of him, fat bastard.” The cigarette bobbed with each word.

“They refuse to come in here anymore—all the girls. They say they can hear him moaning at night and the window keeps opening on its own.” She pointed a long fingernail at the window. “They think it’s his spirit trying to get out.”

The soft bed lost its appeal.

“Moaning at night?” Maman repeated. I could hear a tinge of sarcasm.

Miss Crane snorted. “This isn’t an all-night operation. These noises happen after I lock the front door. I treat my girls good, give them a warm, safe place. If they didn’t have me, they’d be out on the streets freezing and starving, or worse, doing the same thing they are now but with a rougher crowd. They pulled a girl out of the Thames yesterday, throat cut.”

Maman’s eyes hardened, and she announced that she was ready. Then she asked if she could meet the girl who was last with the departed.