In the Shadow of Blackbirds (25 page)

“It’s all right. I’ve heard words far worse than
damned—
sometimes from Stephen.”

The soldier wiped away a tear and sniffed. “Oh, Christ, what a waste.” He shook his head and squeezed his eye
closed. “Such a waste. I hope he went quickly and didn’t have to keep suffering.” He leaned his elbow on the chair’s arm and rested his head against his fist. Another tear spilled from his eye and glistened against his mask.

“What’s your name?” I placed my hand around his upper arm, feeling the soft satin of his sleeve and the lack of nourished flesh beneath.

His meager muscle relaxed beneath my fingers. “Paul.”

“I hope you heal soon, Paul. I hope the nightmares stop bothering you and your pain leaves your wounds.”

I moved to take my hand off him, but he tensed again and said, “Can you keep touching me a little longer? Again, I don’t mean that in a flirtatious way, especially now that I know you’re Stephen’s girl. But … you remind me of something I experienced after that shell went off next to me.”

“I do?”

He nodded. “I thought I’d died for a while and went somewhere peaceful. I’d forgotten what that felt like until you touched me.”

I held his arm again and watched his eyelid fall.

“Can I ask you one last question, Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Did Stephen ever seem to be afraid of birds when he was over there?”

Paul didn’t answer, and for a minute I thought he’d fallen asleep. I gave up waiting for a response and shifted my legs to get more comfortable, when he drew in his breath and replied,
“None of us liked the crows. They ate us when we died. They hovered on the edges of the trenches and stared down at us, watching us, waiting for us to get shot or bombed. Sometimes we even had to fight them off the boys who weren’t all the way dead.”

My stomach tightened. “Oh. God. I’m so sorry.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just a strange dream I’ve been having. I’m sorry I brought up such an unpleasant subject. Please rest now, and heal.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry to be so blunt. I think … I’ve forgotten … how to speak in polite—” His tongue sounded like it had grown too heavy to finish his sentence. His chin sank forward on his chest, and he dozed off.

We sat like that for at least a quarter hour, amid the restless chirps of the flitting canaries, the tinkle of teacups on society women’s trays, and the soft swish of cards flipping at the poker game several feet away. Paul’s body relaxed until his gentle breathing indicated he was in a deep sleep. Quiet snores snuck out from beneath his mask.

I remained next to him, touching him, holding on to a tangible piece of Stephen’s life, haunted by his words. And even when I moved along to the other men and finished reading
Tom Sawyer,
all I could think about—it consumed my entire being—was the image of Stephen shivering in the shadows of hungry dark birds while his mind crumbled.

SOMETHING MOVED ON AUNT EVA’S PORCH
.

I snuck up the front path with noiseless footfalls and craned my neck to see beyond the post that blocked my view. I could make out the shape of a crouching person.

“Who is that?” I asked.

The person shot up with a cry of surprise, and I spotted a pair of large round spectacles balanced above a sagging flu mask. Brown hair grew from the top of the stranger’s head like a thicket of grass.

“Is that Grant?” I shielded my eyes from the setting sunlight. “Stephen’s cousin?”

“That’s right.” Grant slunk down the porch steps.

“What are you doing here?”

“Julius wanted me to bring you something.” He nodded backward to the porch.

“Why didn’t he bring it himself?”

“He’s busy at his studio.” Grant stuck his hands in his pockets and slithered away from the house. “Plus I think he’s afraid of you.”

“Julius isn’t afraid of anyone.” I grabbed Grant’s arm before he could dart away. “Hey, wait. I need to ask you something.”

“What?”

“I just heard something about Stephen’s last days in France.”

Nervous air pulsated off him. “Why don’t you chat with Stephen about it instead?” He tried pulling away from me. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be summoning him.”

I tugged him closer. “Does the family know Stephen was sent home alive?”

His breathing quickened.

“Did he make it home, Grant? Tell me. Do you know what happened to him?”

“Look, Shell—”

“Don’t call me Shell. Only Stephen could call me that.”

“Look, Frankenstein …” He spoke so close to my face he would have spit on me if we weren’t wearing masks. “My mother choked to death from the flu right in front of my eyes five weeks ago. My father’s drifting around somewhere in the middle of enemy waters with the U.S. Navy. And my sister lost her hair from a fever so high I can’t believe she’s
not buried like our ma.” He yanked himself free of me. “Gracie and I are just trying to survive on our own right now. We don’t need anyone pestering us about us working in Julius’s studio.”

“I’m not pestering you about Julius’s studio. I’m just asking about Stephen—”

“Stephen’s a dead war hero, all right? Leave it at that. I don’t know who’s telling you otherwise, but they’ve got their story wrong.”

He turned and walked away.

“A friend who was with him overseas told me otherwise,” I called after him when he reached the front sidewalk. “Stephen didn’t die in battle.”

Grant stopped with his shoulders hiked as high as his chin.

“How did he die, Grant? If you know, please tell me.”

He stayed stone-still with his back curved into a lazy C and his eyes directed at the sidewalk in front of him. “You ever heard of shell shock?”

I flinched at the question. I had read about that condition at the library. It could have described what Paul told me about Stephen.

“That’s what they’re calling the psychological trauma from the war, isn’t it?” I asked.

“It’s a cowardly way to behave. I’ve heard the British execute their soldiers who get it, because of the shame.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and strove to keep my
voice from breaking. “Is our army doing that to our men, too? Is that what happened to Stephen?”

Grant shook his head, still speaking to the ground. “I’m thinking his friend is the one who’s shell-shocked. The friend who’s lying to you. Stephen died in battle.” He squinted up at me through the sun-bright lenses of his glasses. “If you really are seeing his ghost, spooky Frankenstein girl, ask him yourself. I bet he’ll swear he’s still over in France, picking off Germans.”

Before I could even think to respond, Grant hustled down the sidewalk to his black Model T and leapt into the driver’s seat. The engine popped and rattled as it sputtered to life, and he sped away in an oily cloud of exhaust.

I watched him careen around the bend with a squeal of tires before I climbed up to the porch to see what he had left.

A gold Nabisco Sugar Wafers tin sat by the front door, an envelope bearing my name resting on its lid. I ripped open the paper and tugged out a note written on letterhead from Julius’s studio.

Dear Mary Shelley,

I apologize for my behavior last night. Grief for my brother and concern for my mother are bringing out the worst in me. You’re right, I bury my pain in ways I shouldn’t, but I swear to you I’m an honest businessman who is doing nothing to tarnish the good name of my stepfather’s studio.

I am giving you something of Stephen’s I found in his room. You seem the best person to have it. Perhaps it will make a complete set.

Please come to Coronado for another photograph as soon as you can. You know in your heart it would help us all. It is the right thing to do.

Yours with sincerest apologies,
Julius

I knelt and removed the box’s lid.

In the golden tin lay Stephen’s name and address, scrawled in black ink across a pile of pastel envelopes in my own handwriting. All the letters I’d ever written to Stephen since his move to San Diego—the companions to his own letters from the summer of 1914 to early 1918—were tucked inside the cookie tin. I sifted through the envelopes and postcards and heard the sound of our shared lives in the crisp rustle of paper.

“It’s just a bribe for a spirit photograph,” I whispered to myself. “Just a bribe. Don’t you dare go running over there, Shell. Don’t do it.”

I snapped the lid closed, rose to my feet, and braced myself to be greeted by the black-and-white bird that dwelled within Aunt Eva’s walls.

“OBERON. HELLO. WHO’S THERE? OBERON.”

The bird would not shut up. I slammed my bedroom door
against the nonstop whistling and squawking and set to work mapping out what I knew.

June 29

Stephen’s last letter, written from France.

Sometime between June 29 and October 1

Stephen sent home.

Taken to East Coast hospital?

Sometime between summer and October 19

Stephen loses his life.

(
Grant just mentioned executions of soldiers suffering psychological trauma. Did that happen to Stephen
?)

Saturday, October 19

Restless sounds heard above Julius’s studio during my sitting.

Julius says that may have been Stephen’s ghost.

Monday, October 21

We pick up my photograph in Coronado; the picture includes Stephen’s “spirit.”

Julius tells us Stephen died a hero’s death.

My lightning accident.

Tuesday, October 29

Stephen’s funeral.

Seeing all the dates and pertinent information laid out on paper helped my brain feel a little more organized. Yet so many questions jumped out from the gaping holes in the diagram. The unexplained pieces remained just as unexplained as before.

A siren howled outside, blaring loud and close enough for me to abandon my notes and look out a front window in Aunt Eva’s bedroom. A black ambulance stopped in front of the house next door, and the neighbors’ yard exploded into a scramble of stretchers, officers, and hysterical family members who rushed about in the fading daylight.

Out of the chaos charged my running and screaming aunt.

“The flu is next door!” came her muffled yell from behind the closed pane. “Oh, dear Lord, the flu is next door. Mary Shelley!”

I hurried to meet her downstairs.

“The flu is next door!”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do?” She pushed the door closed and locked it tight, as if she were able to barricade us against germs with a dead bolt.

“Don’t panic, Aunt Eva.”

“It’s next door!”

“I’ll start boiling onions for supper. Why don’t you change out of your uniform and get comfortable?”

“We’ll wash ourselves in the onion water.” Her eyes bulged. “I want to smell the onion fumes in my hair.”

“That sounds fine.” I patted her shoulder. “Go get changed.”

She clambered upstairs and climbed out of her grubby work clothes while I lit the gaslights and cookstove with more matches that smelled like Stephen’s funeral.

When my aunt tromped back downstairs, she wore an apron and carried a sponge, and she insisted we scrub the insides of all the windows with hot water. I stuffed salt up my nose at her urging and wiped down the kitchen windowpanes while the scent of boiling onions overpowered the air. My stomach cramped and groaned.

Someone knocked on the front door, and only then did I remember my invitation to Mr. Darning to come over and view the compass phenomenon. I thundered down the main hall to get to him before my aunt, but she was already opening the door.

“Who’s there?” asked Oberon. “Hello. Hello.”

“Oh. Mr. Darning.” Aunt Eva wiped her hands on her apron. “This is a surprise. Please, come in—quickly.” She grabbed the photographer’s arm and yanked him across the threshold. “The flu just hit next door. I don’t want to leave the house open.” She slammed the door closed and locked it tight again. “Oh, good heavens, I just washed my mask and won’t be able to wear it.”

“Is this a bad time?” he asked.

“Hello. Who’s there?” said the blasted magpie.

I sidled up next to Aunt Eva. “I’m sorry, Mr. Darning. I forgot to tell her I invited you over.”

“You invited him over?” asked my aunt.

Mr. Darning removed his hat. “She was going to show me the compass phenomenon.”

Aunt Eva raised her brows. “The compass phenomenon?”

“I haven’t yet mentioned my compass experiences to Aunt Eva.” I backed up the stairs. “Again, I’m sorry—I’ve been preoccupied. I’ll go get it and bring it to the living room.” My feet sounded like an elephant stampede as I scrambled up to fetch Uncle Wilfred’s mahogany case with the weighted brass compass mounted inside.