The Elementals (14 page)

The trouble was, she didn’t see what was wrong with her suits. She liked them, and the way she looked in them. The way they made her feel. There were no words to explain it, except she never felt at
home
in a dress.

At once, it was obvious Kate had taken too long to craft a reply, because Mollie pitched herself out of the chair. In fact, she nearly stumbled because she refused to put her hand down anywhere near Kate’s.

Stepping over her, Mollie put her mending in the bureau and reached for her wrap. “I’m going to see if Rykoff’s has any day-old fruit. Do you want anything?”

“I could come with you,” Kate said, but she already knew the answer was no. Ridiculously mistimed, she finally thought of a counterpoint to Mollie’s point. “I’m still exactly myself, you know. I just like to wear trousers.”

Mollie draped the wrap over her shoulders. At the door, she stopped, then seemed to consider whether she had anything else to say. Once she did, there was no gentleness to it at all. “We should pretend we never had this conversation.”

With that, she let herself out and pulled the door hard and fast behind her.

***

After supper, Nathaniel left the table without excusing himself.

They’d had no visitors to the shrouded house since Kate disappeared, nor had they invited any. Consequently, the thin whip of a man walking past their windows was wholly unexpected. And unwelcome, as he curled his hands over his eyes to peer inside.

Nathaniel wrapped the air around himself, stepping from its nothing embrace into the backyard. Traces of wind clung to him, swirls and eddies that tossed his hair and tugged on the square of chartreuse silk in his front pocket.

He cleared his throat, and when the man turned around, he said, “I believe you may be trespassing.”

Instead of bolting, the man pulled off his hat. His weary face was worn in, lines dug so deep in his brow and his cheeks that they caught shadows. “You Witherspoon?”

“Yes,” Nathaniel said, and out of habit, followed with, “And you are?”

“Byron Foster. I’m looking for my daughter Irene. Sometimes she calls herself Mollie or Kitty.”

Suspicious, Nathaniel looked the man over.
Mollie
wasn’t supposed to have family; sometimes young people ended up in bad situations when they were on their own. For all Nathaniel knew, this man was a panderer, or worse.

Choosing his words carefully, Nathaniel said, “The name doesn’t sound familiar to me.”

Hardness slipped into Byron’s voice; he didn’t accuse, but he threatened on the edge of it. “A couple fellas at the dancehall said she went home with
your
son.”

Nathaniel studied his face. He’d painted hundreds of portraits; with concentration, he found notes of symmetry and balance to prove Byron’s identity. Eyes the same shade of underwater light, hints of strawberry blond hair mixed with the gray. Still, relation didn’t guarantee safety; Nathaniel approached him warily.

“I don’t have a son. Tell me about . . . Irene.”

With a sigh, Byron dragged a hand down his face. “She’s about yea tall, hair’s kinda red, kinda blond. Blue eyes, pretty as a picture. The last time I saw her, she was going dancing. Green dress, old shoes . . . This ringing a bell?”

Oh, it was. “Possibly. Could you—”

“The hell with this—did you do something to her?” His rage came on swiftly and purely, without hint of artifice. Not the egoed anger of a man lost of good property. The fire of a man broken for want of his child.

“We’ve seen her.” Nathaniel opened the back door to invite him in.

Byron scraped off his boots and stepped inside. Taking in the mostly sheeted furniture, he shot Nathaniel an uneasy look. “Moving?”

“We were.” Nathaniel brushed past him to start the percolator. “Amelia, this is Mollie’s
father,
Byron. Byron, this is my paramour, Amelia.”

Silvery whispers passed between Amelia and Nathaniel, silent to their guest.

But she told us . . . 
Amelia murmured into him.

Yes, I know,
Nathaniel replied. He turned to Byron and said aloud, “Our daughter Kate befriended her at the dance-hall. She told us her name was Mollie and claimed she had no home.”

Byron jerked his head back. “What? We live on Juniper Street; own the place outright!”

Nathaniel said, “That’s what she claimed.”

“That was almost two weeks ago,” Amelia said. Dark circles ringed her eyes; she’d bitten her lips raw. Her gaze kept trailing toward the door, as if she expected Kate to walk through it at any moment.

“Well, where are they now?”

“I wish we knew.” Nathaniel spooned coffee into the basket, work that convinced his body that he was doing
something.
“They left in the middle of the night, and we haven’t heard from them since.”

Sitting down heavily, Byron twisted his hat. “They leave a note?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Suddenly, Amelia said, “Los Angeles would be my guess. They’re probably in Hollywood. They were making a motion picture together; Mollie wanted to be an actress. Kate was the director.”

The percolator protested, little tinny sounds, as Nathaniel screwed it back together. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “We honestly believed she was an orphan. That’s the only reason we didn’t send her home.”

“Irene’s wild like her mother.” Byron tossed his hat onto the table and sprawled in his chair. “Can’t stay put, won’t stay down. That’s why I let her go out dancing so much. I thought it would get the act-up out of her system.”

Entirely sympathetic, Nathaniel leaned against the counter. “Amelia and I talked to the San Diego police. They wired a description to the police in Los Angeles. The next step will be ads in all the papers, perhaps a private detective.”

“She’s done this before, run off on me. Like her mama, I said.” Worry darkened Byron’s eyes. He couldn’t sit still either; picking his hat back up, he turned it in his hands. “Never more than a week before.”

“It’s probably easier for two of them to get by than one. I don’t know if Mollie had any money, but Kate had a bit.”

Amelia said, “It’s not going to last forever. If they get hungry enough . . .”

Byron laughed wearily. “I don’t know about your girl, Mrs. Witherspoon, but mine has a way of getting what she wants.”

“Miss van den Broek,” Amelia corrected absently.

The percolator started to burble, a merry sound at odds with the conversation. Nathaniel poured two cups of coffee and carried them back to the table. Amelia waved off the cup but reached out to stroke his arm instead.

Nathaniel handed one to Byron, and took a seat. “We’re out of milk and sugar; my apologies.”

“I won’t taste it anyhow,” Byron said, and took a sip. “Thank you.”

Deep in thought, Nathaniel rubbed his thumb against the mug, keeping the same, slow time as Amelia’s fingers on his sleeve. Mollie lied about her family; she lied about having no home. She’d even lied about her real name. He couldn’t help but wonder if Kate was a step on Mollie’s way to getting what she wanted.

It was easier, so much easier, to blame someone else’s daughter for this. He looked to Amelia.
You’re thinking the same thing, aren’t you?

I blame you. I blame myself. I blame the world,
she answered.

The light shifted in the room, daylight sinking to dusk with the first dangerous streak of sunset. She’d been so good about avoiding it, quick to cover windows. Hurrying to inside rooms at the first call of dusk.

For twenty years, she’d resisted its call. Her strange gift had ruined so many lives and damaged so many others. She hadn’t been able to save her dear friend Sarah with it. It had directed a bullet into Thomas Rea’s breast.

Once, Amelia had played her gift like a parlor game; now she avoided it entirely.

Though strangely, at night, she dreamt of it. And by day, she ached for it—a homesickness that she alone knew. And at that moment, with Kate missing, a streak of crimson light seduced. It had a voice. It promised her visions of her daughter; it begged her to come look again.

Once more,
it whispered.
Just this time
.

Standing abruptly, Amelia said, “Excuse me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Better than anyone, Nathaniel recognized Amelia’s sudden shift of mood. But because they had company, he didn’t leap up to follow. But he did call after her—into her.
Where are you going?

Sweeping down the hall, Amelia pulled the pins from her hair. It tumbled down her back, wild and windswept—it transformed her; she looked very nearly sixteen again.

And that’s precisely what she had in mind. Locking herself in Kate’s room, she threw open the curtains and clutched the windowsill.

Anchored there, she made herself look. She stared into the western sky until tears streaked down her cheeks. The sunset rushed up to meet her, an old, eager friend.

With her last deliberate thought, she told Nathaniel,
I’m going to find our daughter.
And then she was silent.

***

First thing in the morning and at the end of the day, horse carts pulled up to the laundry. Everyone but Julian and the girls on the manglers would leave their posts to carry fresh, folded linens to the carts for delivery.

Shirt soaked through, Julian kept cranking the dryer. At night, his shoulders ached something fierce, and it took a while for his back to straighten out when he went to bed. He couldn’t even claim to like it, because it hurt like hell. But he didn’t have it worse than anybody else, and he had a pay packet to look forward to at the end of the week.

Sadie darted past him. She was steamed through like everyone, her clothes gray and damp, but she smiled all the same. Instead of hurrying to the front, she lingered. Her dark eyes trailed over Julian, the smile going crooked.

“It took
two
of us to keep that dryer going before my father hired you.”

Shaking his head, Julian said, “Which two?”

Up on her toes, Sadie squinted, then pointed out the girls working the hand-crank mangler. They weren’t more than ten years old, responsible for pressing the fabrics too delicate for the automated machines. “Stella and Dottie, right there.”

“So I can do the work of a couple of little girls.”

“Only just,” Sadie said.

Mr. Zweifel bellowed from the front of the laundry, and Sadie scurried away. Prickling with awareness, Julian glanced at the folding table each time someone walked by.

All the faces were familiar now; he’d even started to learn their quirks. Claude bent at the knees for each lift, as if the sheets were lead. Virginia liked to take two stacks at once and pin them securely beneath her chin.

They looked like ants, Julian decided. Invading a picnic and liberating bread crumbs for a feast.

Sadie returned and took her time at the folding table. Balancing laundry on a jutted hip, she didn’t seem to notice how it tightened her dress and apron against her waist. It was a tantalizing hint of her, and it caught Julian’s eye as easily as the glass pin in her hair did.

Wandering closer, she teased, “There you are again.”

“Surprise,” Julian said. He guarded the blooming warmth beneath his skin, still counting off seconds to keep his pace on the crank. The rest of his attention was fixed on Sadie and the curl that escaped her chignon to kiss her neck.

“Let me ask you something.” Sadie shifted her bundle and took a step closer. “Are you the one I hear singing?”

“I didn’t know I was that loud.”

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, she looked at him from beneath her lashes. Steam hissed overhead, scrubbing the words away before they could linger. “You’re not. I traded Pearl for her spot on the floor. I can hear you fine when I’m racking.”

The heat offered some advantages: it hid the blush that crept up Julian’s neck. “Have any requests?”

Claude veered away from the table to bump Sadie from behind. “Your dad wants you,” he said. Then he grunted beneath a double stack of towels and trudged away with them.

“I’ll be right back,” Sadie said.

Watching her go, Julian wondered how much nerve he had. That night in the barn with Elise was still fresh. But maybe Sam was right; maybe he’d waited too long to say something.

All along, he’d counted on what things
felt
like with Elise. He’d always figured their hearts were in the same place. If he’d asked what she was thinking—

“Daydreaming?” Sadie asked.

Julian looked up and decided he had all the nerve in the world. “Thinking about my day off. I heard
Cleopatra
’s playing at the movie palace.”

Bouncing slightly, Sadie said, “I heard that too.”

Maybe not all the nerve, not yet. “Can I tell you a secret?”

With a quirked brow, Sadie hesitated. But she was still smiling when she said, “Of course.”

Julian waved her over with a tip of his head. She only took one step, so he motioned for her again. When she got close enough for whispering, Julian made a show of looking for eavesdroppers. Then he murmured to her, “I’ve never been to a movie palace before.”

Laughter spilled out of her. It crinkled her nose and the corners of her eyes; she quickly sobered herself and said, “I’d run from you screaming if I didn’t have work to do.”

“You wouldn’t have to run very fast,” he pointed out. Any minute now, Mr. Zweifel would call for her again, so Julian leapt without waiting for the rest of his nerve to arrive. “Would you go with me? In case I get lost, or confused.”

Sadie pretended to think about it. “Well, I’d hate to see you lost or confused.”

“So you will?”

“I think I will,” Sadie said. Then she frowned. “Look at you, your hair’s in your eyes.”

With a glance toward the dryer crank, Julian asked, “Could you get it for me? I’m a little occupied.”

Sadie’s smile softened. Shifting her linens from one hip to the other, she approached him. No runaway spark ignited them; she was sweet and shy, reaching up to touch him. Her fingers slid across his skin, rough to the touch, but gentle in their motion.

“Better?” she asked.

Julian hoped he wasn’t staring. “Lots. Thank you.”