Spectris Read online

  My thoughts connect with Death, and Cardiff Avenue appears in my mind. Reaper-vision is worse than ghost-sight. Everything feels somber and dark around the edges, as though life itself is having a funeral. This ability arrives and departs at His pleasure—sometimes it furthers our investigation, but often it’s just to trifle with the Visionary in question. I feel Him brush past, robe roiling across the sidewalk. Alas Hester, we meet again.

  How are you this evening, Sir?

  This elicits a cool, dry laugh from the Reaper. Better than these people. And you?

  I can hardly complain, given my surroundings.

  Sir Death glances at the factory and grimaces. Have you ever dealt with such a large number of spirits?

  He’s trying to determine if I am up to the job of a multiple-ghost project. Not all from one murder. Fortunately, they seem to have a spokeswoman in Willa Holloway.

  Focus on her then, Lady V. She must have the strongest will to speak for the group, shown more backbone in life. But don’t let her walk all over you.

  Of course not, Sir. One is a professional, not a doormat.

  He laughs again, and I quake at the frosty sound. Do I make you tremble, Visionary? Why is that, I wonder?

  Hoping to end our exchange, I indicate that I must leave. Don’t let me keep you, Sir. You’re terribly busy.

  Sir Death tucks in his swirling robes and levitates a few inches above the sidewalk, just for the fun of it. These spirits can’t cross over, Hester. Not until your job is done. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  Reaper-vision grows dim, but I’m still aware of His presence, like a nagging worry which I cannot shake. Deciding to fetch Lizzie from the mourners down the block, I turn in that direction and hear firm, steady footsteps approaching from the east, from the area of the bomb site. The athletic stride, thick leather boot soles, and ease of carriage denote it’s a male.

  “Sweet wife of mine,” a low, whiskey-flavored voice says. “How did you manage to get through the police barrier?”

  I forget Death and Lizzie for the moment and turn to face the man I married. By proxy, with Cordelia standing in as the bride. It was a failed attempt to free me from the lunatic asylum and now Dr. Noah Kelly is fighting the annulment I seek. He of the happy whistling and wry humor—the tough Bostonian who won’t start a fight but damn well finishes it, the slave driver behind my sign language instruction and stencil printing—wants the marriage to be real.

  He loves me, I love him, but that isn’t always enough. I have far too many demons to wrestle with, literally and figuratively, and I don’t wish to foist them on Kelly. I’ve also sworn never to give a man control over my life again. Doing so has only brought me heartache.

  Therefore, an intrigue of sorts is underway, where I evade his charm and strategic attempts to undermine my resolve, while still allowing him to catch me once in a while for a passionate kiss.

  Or two, if the mood strikes. The man could tempt a novice from her vows.

  Occasionally, with a certain word inflection here or there, when he’s especially angry or tired, Kelly’s dubious upbringing comes out. He ran with a gang of petty criminals as a boy, only to have an elderly doctor interrupt Kelly’s burgeoning career as a jewelry thief and pick pocket. The doctor helped reform him and set the lad’s feet on the path to becoming a talented physician. He isn’t completely tame, however. As Kelly would say, you can take the boy out of the street but you can’t entirely take the street out of the boy.

  He stops a foot away. “Never mind, Hester. Don’t tell me. It’s probably better that I not know.”

  The doctor surprises me by putting his hands on my waist and pulling me up against him. I feel Kelly’s sorrow for the dead and injured as though it is my own.

  “How glad I am that you are well,” he whispers next to my ear.

  Kelly smells of brick dust and burned timbers, but there is also a hint of the warm sandalwood cologne that I associate with him. I wish I could stay in his arms like this—no more visions, or ghosts, or the Reaper. No romantic entanglements where I disappoint the one who cares for me, or where the one I care for makes demands which I can’t obey.

  I move my hand along the buttons of his cotton shirt, then across the solid chest until I reach his shoulder. He spars each morning, and it shows in the smoothly sculpted muscle. His skin is warm beneath the thin material and thaws some of the coldness inside me. I itch to touch his face, the jawline and cheekbones, but I resist and drop my fingers.

  Because Kelly stands so close, I speak with the faint, rasping whisper only he loves to hear. “Happy you’re safe too, Noah.”

  He steals a brief, hard kiss—a mixture of exasperation and affection. Sir Death loiters farther down the sidewalk, watching Kelly and me with bored amusement. A little disconcerted by this, I jump when someone yanks on the back of my skirt.

  “You left,” a congested little voice says. “You didn’t come back.”

  Lizzie? Damn it all. I took longer to return than I promised.

  Leaning down, I reach out to her, filled with guilt. “I was on my way.”

  The empty linen food bag is thrust into my hands. “There’s no more to eat. I finished it all.”

  That said, Lizzie turns and empties her stomach into the gutter. A sour apple and ham smell reaches me as she sputters and begins to cry.

  “What’s your name?” Kelly asks with a calm voice, introducing himself as he takes something from his pocket. “Blow your nose on my handkerchief. That’s it, Lizzie. Splendidly done. Do you know, I have a daughter not much older than you?”

  “R-really? She’s seven?”

  Kelly gives me the used handkerchief, and I stow it in the linen bag.

  “Alice turned nine last month. She loves books and lemon drops and the color blue.”

  Lizzie must sense a new champion in Kelly because she pushes me aside and grabs onto him. I hear Kelly whisk her up into his arms, asking her softly about her family. Lizzie tells him how she found her granny lying on the sidewalk, but where is she now? Did someone steal her?

  The child must not have noticed the body being carried off when she stood with the mourners. Kelly says that her grandmother has gone to a clean and safe place, where his doctor friends will care for her after Lizzie goes home. He then gently asks for the child’s address. In a flood of tears, Lizzie gives him the information and grows quiet. Her breathing sounds muffled after the outburst, as though she’s pressed her face into Kelly’s neck.

  “Has anyone come to claim her, Hester?” Kelly asks. “No? Well then, let’s take Lizzie to her home. Are you ready to go?”

  Having made contact with the ghosts, my work here is finished. I nod at Kelly and feel him take my arm. A number of doctors stand nearby, many volunteers from the surrounding neighborhood clinics. They transported the last of the injured to the uptown hospital a few minutes ago and now search through the rubble for survivors. As coroner of Stonehenge, Kelly has several assistants among them.

  He waves one of them over. “Any new developments?”

  The assistant sighs wearily. “Nothing. And no bodies beyond the ones we’ve already sent to the morgue.”

  “What’s the status of the fire?”

  “It’s mostly burned itself out, but the South side is still smoldering. Even with that giant fellow at work moving the stones and bricks, we’ll be here for hours. Probably all night.”

  Kelly shifts Lizzie higher in his arms. “Then I won’t be missed if I step away.”

  “Not at the rate we’re going, sir. Take your time.”

  The young doctor leaves us, and we begin our walk toward Lizzie’s house. We encounter Cordelia a block north of Cardiff.

  “Don’t wait up for me tonight, Hester,” she says, without stopping. “I’ll be staying over with my parents.”

  Lizzie, Kelly, and I travel slowly, the doctor piloting us around the people on the sidewalks. It is only five blocks to the little girl’s home, but I am exhausted when we finally arrive.

 
3

  Auribus teneo lupum.

  I hold a wolf by the ears—Terrence

  Destruction’s aftermath hangs over New Wales Road like a shroud. The wind has blown ash and soot from the explosion this way, polluting the air and making it difficult to breathe. Sidewalks usually busy with children at play, or women sweeping and hanging out the wash, are quiet and somber. Kelly sets Lizzie on her feet and leads me up the cobbled path to her home. Those uneven stones can be tricky to navigate with a cane. The child is weeping loudly when someone opens the front door. A female shouts Lizzie’s name, in tears herself.

  Did she imagine the little one dead? Caught in the factory’s flying debris or the blazing fire?

  “Where have you been?” she asks. “Ma’s scared out of her wits. She’s out searching for you.”

  The sister thanks us for returning Lizzie and then alternates between berating the child for disappearing and comforting her. Hiccupping softly, Lizzie announces that their granny is dead.

  I feel the older girl trying to be brave. “Oh, there, there, sweeting. Come inside now, come in.”

  We leave them and walk the next few blocks silently. Upon reaching my boarding house, Kelly opens the front gate, like the gentleman he is. Chickens cluck in the back garden, and I hear the cows softly lowing. Amid these domestic sounds, my home feels empty and quiet with no Cordelia or Gabriel inside. Who knows where Willard has gone, but I do not sense him either.

  Kelly takes my key and unlocks the door. The doctor lives in a far better part of town, near his practice on Black Swan. “I can’t stay,” he says. “Though I wish I could.”

  I do not wish this. I am weary and dirty and fit company for no man, least of all Kelly.

  Too tired to use my painful voice, I switch to sign language. Want bath. Sleep.

  He kisses my cheek in farewell. “Then you shall have it. Rest well, Hester, and lock your door after I leave.”

  As Kelly walks away, the cheeky fellow whistles, “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” The tune is so cheerful and bouncy that I can’t help smiling. I go inside the house and take the linen sack to the kitchen. There must be eggs in the hen house that need gathering, and I’m sure the glass from the broken biscuit jar remains in the pan by the wall, waiting to be thrown away. But I ignore these chores. I have needed to use the privy for hours, after so much Earl Grey, so I attend to that first. Then I stoke up the scary-sounding kitchen stove with a few pieces of kindling and heat a pan of water until it feels hot to my fingertips. After pouring the water carefully into a bucket, I try not to slosh as I walk the few feet from the kitchen into my bedroom. Worlds apart from the fancy copper tub I once used, my new wooden hip bath will still allow me to wash the grime away. I cannot wait to be clean. The smell of smoke and destruction coats my hair and clothes, depressing me with each breath.

  Leaving the bucket near the hip bath, I take my lucky stone out of my pocket and put it on the dresser. The drawers below yield clean underclothes. I gather my unmentionables and move on to the wardrobe. A narrow, roughly made piece of furniture, it serves well for my needs since I have so few dresses and coats to store inside. My already meager choices are fewer than usual since I’ve put off laundry day. I am not a lazy person by nature, but I loathe doing laundry. As payment for my so-called treatments at the asylum, I was forced to work with a dolly stick and lye until my hands blistered and bled. Because of this, the task of beating and boiling dirty clothes is particularly distasteful, bringing feelings to the surface that I would rather stay submerged.

  The wardrobe door creaks as I open it, and I grab the nearest dress off a peg. I have no idea what color this one is—I never asked when Cordelia gave it to me.

  After tossing the clothes onto my bed, I drag the hip bath to the center of the room. I shall bend over it and wash my hair first and then climb inside afterward to clean my body. Once finished, I’ll dump the dirty water out in the garden. Waste not, want not.

  Some lovely lilac soap resides in my nightstand. I take it out of the drawer and unwrap the handkerchief that covers it, inhaling the fragrance. Once a sizable block, the soap fits snugly in my palm now, like a smooth, flowery-scented egg. I set it on the rim of the hip bath, and the water in the bucket gurgles happily as I dump the liquid into the tub. It’s quite an encouraging sound, like the long-awaited voice of a dearly missed friend. I lock my bedroom door and begin to unbutton the neck of my shirtwaist, when I hear a knock. Expecting no one, friend or foe, I pause, hoping that if I am quiet my visitor will leave.

  The knocking only grows more insistent. Criminy. Is a ten minute soak too much to ask?

  Buttoning up my neckline, I walk to the front of the house, and open the door to a blast of resentment, irritability, and anger. In addition to these emotions, I detect the smell of stale coffee and chewing tobacco.

  “Are you Hester Grayson? The owner of this boarding house?”

  I nod and the stranger pushes past me, followed by his companion.

  Blast them! How dare they enter my home uninvited!

  The men walk into the parlor, as though they are paying me a social visit. “Who are you?” I rasp, holding my throat.

  “What’s that you say? Speak up.”

  I ask again, slower, but he still doesn’t understand. Turning to the escritoire, I remove my slate and piece of chalk. WHO ARE YOU? I print carefully on the slate, measuring the letters against the side of my finger at first, as a point of reference for size and legibility.

  “Constable Drown,” he replies. “Is it true Cordelia Collins lives here?”

  Fear makes my heart jump. Is Cordelia all right? Did something happen to her? I nod and motion for the officers to sit down. They prefer to stand, making the room feel very small.

  “She’s engaged to Isaac Baker,” Drown says. “Is that correct?”

  Again I nod, quite frightened now.

  “We’re looking for Mr. Baker. Has he been here today?”

  Shaking my head, I print on the slate. WHY ISAAC?

  The constable chews his tobacco, sucking it back into the corner of his cheek. “We’d like to talk to him about the bombing at the lace factory. Has he ever mentioned the foreman, a Mr. Pilgrim? Witnesses say they heard them arguing shortly before the explosion.”

  Pilgrim knew Isaac? How?

  I write on the slate and show it to the constable. ARGUED ABOUT WHAT?

  Drown spits tobacco juice on the parlor floor, and I step to the side a few inches, hoping it didn’t splash against my shoe. “By all accounts, they fought over the working conditions at the factory. Baker complained that the wages were too low for the lace makers, said they endured poor conditions and long hours. The men nearly came to blows.”

  I print so fast my hand cramps. ISAAC WOULDN’T HIT ANYONE.

  “Could be Mr. Baker took action to impress his fiancée. We’ve visited the lady’s family—parents, cousins, aunts—and no one can tell us her whereabouts. So I’ll ask you, Miss Grayson. How do I find your tenant?”

  NO IDEA.

  Bravo Cordelia for evading these rather thick coppers.

  Drown’s theory that Isaac bombed the lace factory makes no sense at all. If Baker was concerned enough for the women to take their side against Pilgrim, why would he kill thirteen of them a short while later? And what of the intricacies of bomb-making?

  While good-natured, Isaac isn’t particularly bright. He’s attending school to be a piano tuner, which is rather difficult for one with a pitch-proof ear. Isaac still thinks a perfect fifth is an unopened bottle of Scotch, for pity’s sake.

  How does he benefit by destroying the lace factory? Cordelia’s aunts are now unemployed, and they could lose their homes and drain his future in-laws limited resources. Without their financial help, who will subsidize Isaac’s tuition at the tuning school?

  Has the constable considered any of this?

  “We’ll be back,” Drown says. “Murder’s a filthy business.”

  So is cleaning chewing tobacco from the flo
orboards, you ignorant ass.

  The policemen leave, and I go to my bedroom, thoroughly bemused. Thinking of poor Isaac and Cordelia, I take a cloth and plunge it into the lukewarm water in the hip bath. The dripping cloth brings out gooseflesh on my arm as I wipe my face. And then there is another knock at the door.

  More accursed visitors? It better not be Drown, returning to ask further questions. Yet what if it’s Willard? He might have misplaced his key—the man leaves it all sorts of places. A little curious now, I squeeze water from the cloth and lay it over the edge of the hip bath. Never have I had such difficulty washing.

  I stomp down the hall and open the door ungraciously. I hear the swish of long skirts against the brick porch. Have the women come to visit Cordelia? No, I think to myself. These ladies are not my friend’s relations. Another time and place flashes across my psyche. A shepherd boy drives his goats past an aqueduct. Grey and green olive groves reach toward the Mediterranean sun. Honeycomb and Wine. Red flowering vines grow along the walls of a villa near the pale waters of the Tiber.

  Roma—as it was long ago—after the sons of Mars fought one another, Remus perishing and Romulus creating a city from the dust.

  Filled with awe, my spiritual sight increases, and I behold three immortals standing before me. My heart leaps with joy as I bow to them, but the feeling is short-lived. They offer no sign of greeting or friendliness. Instead, the goddesses are solemn: one carries a small woven basket, the next a book and quill, while the last hefts a golden scale. I recognize the symbolism of their possessions immediately. They gather, record, and weigh evidence.

  I rub my face in shock. The Furies, here in Stonehenge?

  “Let us in,” the Fury with the scale murmurs. “We have much to say.”

  My knees buckle as she speaks, and I sink to the floor, covering my ears. Her voice seems human at first, but a hidden note rises like a wail within the words. A screaming wind, it tears at my head and grates like a nail scratching across glass.