Girl One(47)

21

April 24, 1975

My darling Josephine,

Here we are at your fourth birthday already. I remember looking down at you when you arrived and marveling at you, my little one, but also worrying for you. You were so very alone when you were born. The only one of your kind. A true first, the rarest being on the whole planet. At the time, I didn’t know if there’d ever be more of you. I didn’t know if you would thrive at all. Your mother has always done her best to look out for you, but I worried that she couldn’t fully understand how special you are. You’re her dear, sweet little girl, and she doesn’t always see the specialness that lies underneath. That’s my job.

The grandest news is that just last week, your Aunt Lily-Anne gave birth to our perfect ninth baby. She has completed the puzzle you have started: Girl Nine to your Girl One. With her arrival, I’ve proven the critics wrong and accomplished everything I set out to do. There are nine of you where before there were none. Take good care of your littlest sister. I have a suspicion that she will need a big sister in her life, for she seems to be quite the special Girl. Show her the sisterly love you’ve shown the others: Isabelle, Catherine, Gina, Emily, Delilah, Bonnie, and Helen.

Your loving father always,

Joseph Bellanger





22

The basement held a subterranean chill, and the hairs on my arms rose as we descended a long stairwell. I remembered climbing into the attic to see Emily French a few days ago. This space was all gray concrete, slick and smooth. A secret tunnel under the house. I could barely connect it with the farmhouse above. A large white projector screen stood against one wall. In front of it, a simple black couch. No windows. No doors other than the one we’d come through. I looked at Cate, anxious, excited, lower belly pinched with nerves.

In one corner, a table held a clunky projector, all wheels and gears. Patricia gestured at the couch. “Have a seat, girls.”

We sat next to each other. In front of us, that looming blank screen. Cate smiled at me sidelong, encouraging. I was deeply and fiercely grateful for her presence here. If she’d stayed back home in Arkansas, I’d be doing this alone right now.

Patricia clicked the lights off. Startling blackness for a moment. The rising whir of the projector. The screen came to life, striped and dotted with interference, transforming into a tilted view of a room, large and gloomy. It was the Homestead. I recognized the kitchen table, long and low and rough-hewn, covered with dishes. The simple freestanding sink. I remembered this place. For a moment it was so clear, as if I’d never left.

The camera took a moment to adjust, swooping in a seasick curve, wobbling over to the table, and narrowed in on a little girl. She sat there, almost too small to see over the edge, her face drawn and sullen, her hair glowing red even in colors muted by time. She stared off into space. A two-year-old. She seemed younger, bird-boned.

“Fiona.” Patricia’s voice was singsong. “Fiona, look over here.”

A slow, imperious swivel of her head, an owlish blink. Fiona had been crying. Her rounded cheeks were glossy and sticky-looking. I felt a gasp stuck in my chest, my amazement lodging there. Fiona, resurrected, right here.

“Can you do that again?”

“I want Mama.” Fiona used both hands to push her hair off her face, her scowl deepening. “Mama. Where is she?”

“The trick again. Like earlier.”

Fiona stared, baleful. She shook her head, burying her face in her hands. “Mama,” she said, muffled, and I imagined Fiona trying to comprehend the loss of her mother, trying to understand that the person she loved most wouldn’t be coming back.

I swallowed, dizzy for a second. The camera zoomed in. It must’ve been a Super 8, faded and flickering, everything washed into nostalgic watercolors. The video had the dreamy, harmless quality of a home video. Fiona breathed heavily, on the verge of tears.

A rattling noise. A fine, quick shudder. The camera moved away from Fiona to focus on a candle, sitting inside a lumpy clay holder, perched at the edge of the table. There was something strange about the flame, the way it seemed to flicker to life just as the camera panned to it. An unnaturalness at the edges. At the sight of the flame, I felt a familiar jolt of fear.

An agonizingly long moment, and then the candleholder shuddered. It quivered against the table like it was caught in an isolated earthquake, even as the rest of the kitchen stood still, not even a curtain twitching. I heard a whisper—“My god”—and wasn’t sure whether it was the Patricia holding the camera or the current version of her, standing behind me.

The holder rose just barely, not even an inch. It hovered, or maybe it was a trick of the light, my brain trying to turn it into an illusion even as I watched it. The flame hovered in the center of the screen, so bright it felt like it could reach through into the present and eat away the entire basement. Then the candleholder came down hard, shattering into jagged puzzle pieces. Beside me, Cate flinched. The candle fell onto the table, and Patricia’s hand reached into the frame to press the flame out before it could spread.

From the projector, a high-pitched wail rose, sludgy with tears. The thump of little footsteps, growing distant, as Fiona ran.

We stayed on the shattered pieces a moment longer, as if this would convince us that it was real. That what we’d seen—cause, effect, object rises, object breaks—had truly happened. I imagined that the version of Patricia stuck forever in 1977 couldn’t make herself look away. So different from the woman who’d refused to look me in the face.