“Yes. I know what killed him,” Marianne repeated. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If only I’d stopped him from leaving when he did. If only I’d tried harder.”
“Leaving from where?”
Marianne hid her face in the handkerchief. “A party with the Waltons.” She said the name as if Hetty should have known them, or even been impressed by the connection. Hetty didn’t know the name, of course, or if she had heard it before, she had long let it slip away from her memory.
“Dinner,” Marianne continued, “had just been served, but instead of going into the next room, Charlie pulled me aside and told me we needed to leave earlier than expected. He’d forgotten something important, he said. I told him that surely if it was so important, he would have remembered while he was having a cigar with the other men. But he insisted, and said I could stay if I liked, and that no one at the party would miss him.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“It would be rude to leave a party. I’m not you. I can’t make the same excuses.”
“Not even out of concern for your husband?”
Marianne’s trembling lip stiffened into a thin line, and Hetty wished she kept that last bit from slipping out.
Provocative questions like that might work on strangers. Most were slow to trust and very reluctant to talk. Ignoring the chains politeness put on conversation helped get a few answers she might not get otherwise. But that tactic had just crumbled whatever ground had formed between them.
Despite the arguments that had chilled their friendship, Marianne still expected special treatment.
“Out.” Marianne’s murmur grew to a roar when Hetty started to protest. “Leave, get out of my home! You always bring trouble when you come. Get out. Leave me alone!”
Hetty took the yelling without comment.
She deserved it, even though it was an honest question and hardly the worst she could have asked.
Still, it stung when the door slammed behind her and the sobbing grew even louder on the other side.
There was nothing Hetty could say to temper Marianne’s grief, but still her hand hovered over the door for a heartbeat before dropping away. She had done what she came here to do, so why did she feel like she had done something wrong?
HERCULES
6
HETTY’S TENURE AT MRS. HARPER’S dress shop outlasted all her previous jobs despite being the one she despised the most.
She could not justify to herself why she disliked it so. Mrs. Harper was decent. The other girls crammed in the attic with her, with one lone exception, were pleasant. The pay, while a pittance to some, brought no complaints from her. And it was steady work, for Harper’s attracted clients that were flighty, fickle, and fashion conscious.
Hetty supposed the real reason she disliked working at the shop was that very few dresses required enchantment. Straight sewing was favored by most of the shop’s clientele despite the current trend toward enchanted garb. Not because their work was subpar. The work of Hetty’s fellow employees was some of the finest she’d ever seen. But while the general trend favored clothing with enchantments, certain people cared more if the method of enchantment was Sorcery or Celestial magic.
There was a long history to the art of Sorcery, with convoluted rules about wand waving and chanting strange words that sounded made up. It started in Europe, but as it spread around the world with conquerors, pilgrims, and missionaries, it took on different forms. One thing remained consistent: Sorcery was for white folks. Mostly because there were laws that prevented anyone who wasn’t white from learning. Some of those laws were formalities that confirmed what generations of spilled blood already made taboo. A wand in hand, a whisper of an incantation, or even a glance at a spellbook meant losing everything you held dear—and if you were lucky, you died before that happened.
It was like that everywhere, as far as Hetty knew.
Yet Hetty had heard stories of Quakers who taught Sorcery to runaways and the freeborn. And even now there was pressure from certain groups to overturn the law. But for Hetty’s neighbors it was a waste of time. Few would dare to learn if the law changed. Laws, after all, were only words printed on paper. The consequences of ignoring them were left up to interpretation.
No laws stopped white folks from trying to use Celestial magic, just jeers and taunts. There were stories of the genuinely curious who attempted to learn, and books written by well-meaning abolitionists talking about what they called Primal magic found in the quarters. In these same books the writers were often puzzled by this branch of magic. But that was their own fault. They had this idea that magic existed to make their lives easier.
But magic was more than that. It was in everything that made life. It was life itself.
The magic Hetty’s mother taught her was a mixture of lore brought over from Africa, from the West Indies, and even from the native peoples of this land. Mingled together, it created a magic system that was greater than the sum of its parts. It incorporated traditions that found ways to brew magic with herbs, to enchant candles for protection, to use song to rejuvenate, and, most important, to develop sigils from the constellations.
With Celestial magic you memorized the shapes, lines, and vertices of the night sky. While the magic worked well enough when drawn into the air, these sigils were even stronger once grounded on a surface, whether it was drawn in dirt, carved in wood, or pounded in metal. It also kept the magic alive longer to be used at a later time. This was why Hetty sewed sigils into the band at her neck. Doing so kept a reserve of magic at her fingertips ready to be drawn on no matter the circumstance. A trick that saved her life on more than one occasion.
“You’re late,” Julianna muttered as Hetty slipped into the attic. “Don’t you want to keep your job?”
“You should worry about keeping yours,” Hetty replied as she settled on a stool. “Given how often I have to clean up your stitch-work.”
Snickers floated around the room.
Air hissed out between Julianna’s teeth, but good sense for a change led her to duck back over the dress she was working on.
“Mrs. Harper didn’t notice,” Margo said as Hetty placed her sewing kit on the floor. “She hasn’t been up here all morning.”
“In that case,” Hetty replied, “let’s not give her reason to do so.”
Hetty’s skill with needle and thread gave her the ability to change employers as she saw fit, and a way to merge magical talents. With her hands busy, her mind was also free to dwell and wander on various topics, such as the elements of a case before her. A few times she pieced together a crucial part of a mystery while stitching tiny flowers onto a bodice.
This morning, instead of a case, her mind kept returning to the fragments of her half-remembered dreams—a dead body sprawled on the ground and her too afraid to look and see who it was. She wanted it to be Charlie, but she knew it wasn’t him at all.
“Henrietta, which dress are you working on?”
Mrs. Harper stood above her, her usually kind face creased with short lines between her brows. A prim and tiny white woman, she had been left a widow and childless by the war. Losses that would have made her a sympathetic figure, if Mrs. Harper didn’t say her menfolk didn’t die in Union blues for her employees to be lazy and ill-mannered. She saw the younger girls as charity cases and looked after the older ones with pity. Mrs. Harper spoke to Hetty only about jobs, but something in her manner told Hetty that wasn’t the case today.
“This is a quick hem job for the Clarks. I’m almost finished.”
“Julianna can finish it.”
Drawing out her wand, Mrs. Harper sent the dress floating into the air. With a flick of her wrist, Mrs. Harper removed Hetty’s stitches so hard that the thread flew out of the dress as if it were yanked by an invisible hand. The dress floated over to Julianna, who took it but otherwise remained frozen like everyone else in the room.
“We shall speak in my office. Bring your things.”
The flurry of needlework halted as Mrs. Harper left.
Nothing good would come out of that combination of words, and everyone in the stuffy attic knew it.
“I suppose you aren’t that needed after all,” Julianna hissed. “What will you do now? Mind house and hearth for your husband?”
Hetty packed up her sewing kit, carefully tucking her needles so she could find them easily.
With no answer from Hetty, Julianna barreled on, her voice rising to a taunt.
“Unless house and home aren’t where you’re wanted. After all, if you travel for weeks at a time with one man, he’s likely to be the only one that’ll marry ruined goods!”
Hetty snapped the kit shut and turned to Julianna.
The other woman’s sneer trembled and fell away. Julianna had gone too far and she knew it. But she had said nothing new. Hetty had heard variations of this gossip time and time again. In some ways, it provoked her marriage in the first place, even though it was an arrangement made to best suit their interests. Still, it stung to hear such words. Hetty expected this of the rich and snobby luminaries, not of someone she worked with side by side.
“Without me to clean up your stitch-work,” Hetty said, “you’ll be called into the office next. I’m not the one that’s here because she couldn’t find a job elsewhere.”
In Mrs. Harper’s office, a dress draped the wire dress form, its voluminous skirts spread out as far as it could go. The dress drew on the colors of the morning sun, with soft gold embroidering along the bodice. The Sea Serpent and the Dragon, designed to draw the eye from any distance away, easily blended into the hem, granting protection from stains and wrinkles, keeping the colors vivid.
So much of Hetty’s attention was focused on the dress, she nearly overlooked the two other figures in the room. A young miss sat in a chair like a statue, her limp blond curls falling into her face as she stared down at her clenched hands. The other person faced the window. A tall and spare white man, with a small balding spot on the back of his head. He turned as the door shut, and his features echoed the girl’s in some areas, but were sharp instead of round.
“Mr. Whitmore, this is the one that made the dress.” Mrs. Harper shoved Hetty forward. “Everything she did, she did without my direct say. I try to give some responsibility to these girls to teach them how to act properly. She came highly recommended, so I thought I could loosen my grip. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no trouble,” Mr. Whitmore said. His smile sought to envelop Hetty, but it contained little warmth. “I have no complaints about the work. It is rather excellent.” He moved toward the dress and tapped his wand against the hem. As the tip ran along the stitching, a spark appeared. “I take offense to enchantments being placed on it without my permission.”
This stirred the girl to life.
“Papa, I said I wanted—”
“If you wanted an enchanted dress,” Mr. Whitmore said, interrupting his daughter, “you should have asked me first. Especially if you got it from here. You never know what sort of hocus they’d put in the dresses. Primal magic is nothing but trouble.”
“None of my girls enchant regularly, only by request,” Mrs. Harper said. “This one did it all on her own. I gave her too much freedom, it seems.”
“I don’t mind that bit,” Mr. Whitmore said. “It’s good when they think for themselves. Means I don’t have to explain things over and over. This is better work than any I’d gotten from New York, and if it weren’t for the magic, I’d keep it.”
“I’m so sorry about that. Perhaps she could remove it.”
“No need. I can just borrow her. Victoria, didn’t you want a new ball gown? We can even talk about new dresses for fall.”
“Mr. Whitmore.” Mrs. Harper’s voice dripped like honey off its comb. “We don’t have fall fabrics yet.”
“We wouldn’t be buying from here.” Mr. Whitmore laughed as if Mrs. Harper had claimed horses could talk. “A dress is good as its maker, and judging by the quality of this one, she is the best.”
Mrs. Harper laughed as well, and there was a strain keeping it in the air. “I would loan her out to you, but I’m afraid she sneaks magic into everything she sews, even items she promises are plain stitches. Not worth your time.”
“I see.” Mr. Whitmore’s gaze returned to Hetty. One moment he seemed to study her closely, the next he looked right through her. “What a pity. I suppose we’ll have to go elsewhere.”
“I have others—”
“Not interested.”
The Whitmores left despite Mrs. Harper’s arguments, or maybe because of them. She trailed after them, rattling on about others who could take Hetty’s place, but the father and daughter didn’t even glance back.
The door shut and Mrs. Harper whirled around toward Hetty.
“How dare you add enchantments to the dress! I give you liberty with select clients. Now you lost the biggest fish I’ll ever catch. Do you know who these people are? They’ll tell everyone what happened and no one will come here anymore.” Mrs. Harper slapped a hand on the dress. It swayed and nearly toppled over. “Do you know how much money you just cost me? It will come out of your salary. The fabric, the lace, and the jobs I shifted around so you could focus on this. You’ll have to pay it all back!”
Mrs. Harper went on and on, and all Hetty could see were her hands plunged into a cook fire, trying to grab a pan as it fell.
This woman was going to loan her out like a pair of scissors to a man who was only halfheartedly indulging his daughter. Hetty had endured this before, but that was back when she’d had no choice. Now she did, and she knew exactly what to do.
“Take my wages,” Hetty interrupted. “For last week and today. You earned them.”
“Excuse me?”
“You told me to enchant the dress—you wanted to impress them. It’s why you hired me. But if it’s such a problem, then I can find better work elsewhere.”
“How dare you—”
“I quit.” Hetty smiled, further rendering Mrs. Harper speechless. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
Hetty exited through the front of the shop, scandalizing the finely dressed ladies who milled about. Hetty stopped to speak briefly to a pair of white women studying a lovely russet gown displayed in the window.
“You’ll find more fashionable dresses just up the street,” Hetty said to them. “Better prices, too.”
CANIS MAJOR
7
AFTER LEAVING THE SHOP, Hetty found herself standing in the alley not far from the spot where Charlie had been lying the night before. Despite her earlier conversation with Benjy, she had not planned on returning. But with hours she suddenly had to spare, her boots brought her here as if by an enchantment.
Her eyes skimmed along the grime and the dried brown spots that speckled the ground.
No footsteps broke up the grime. Although, it was hard to say if someone had returned. The chaotic mess appeared unchanged, and there were no magic traces after her work of the previous night. The band around her neck didn’t even prickle against her skin. This wasn’t a trap waiting for her.
Hetty almost wished there had been.
A feeling of unease had kept her up most of the night. Charlie being dead was troubling, the carved sigil in his chest worse, but it was downright terrible how they found him.
Strewn in an alley, dressed in ragged and torn clothes and mistaken for a drunk. Yet despite the wounds on his face, he was not unrecognizable. Anyone acquainted with him would have known him at once.
So why the alley?
Why not leave Charlie in a more public place, like a park? If he was meant to be found, why tuck him somewhere to be stumbled upon by accident?
What did the murderer want?
As always, the answer to that pertinent question was the thing they found out last, even if it would be the most useful starting point.
Tired of staring at garbage, she left with no helpful insights. Hetty crossed over a few streets to avoid passing Marianne
’s house. This turned out to be a wise move, because once she did that, she realized it was only a few blocks to Cora’s home.
Most days following work, she spent a moment or two speaking with her old friend, exchanging the latest news and gossip. Sometimes they spoke of the past, and more often than not, she came here for reassuring words as soothing as any balm.
When Hetty first arrived in Philadelphia she stayed with Pastor Jay Evans and his wife, Cora. As station masters for the Underground Railroad, they took in runaways, but they did more than just provide shelter and safety. They gave directions, they found jobs, and they taught the interested how to read. Hetty herself had been one of their many boarders, but instead of staying for a few days or weeks, she called the snug attic room her own until her marriage.
She had thought both Jay and Cora would have been upset when Hetty snuck out of their house in the middle of the night on that first failed trip to find her sister. On her return with Charlie and others, she feared their anger and disappointment. Instead they informally inducted Hetty into the Vigilance Society. Cora even gifted Hetty with a pistol and proceeded to teach her how to shoot.
While their station master days were long behind them, Cora and her husband were still prominent voices in the community, through both the church and their other acts of philanthropy. If anyone could help raise funds for Marianne at the drop of a pin, it was Cora.
Her old friend smiled when she opened the door, her silver-streaked hair pulled back into a neat bun. Tiny round glasses dangled from a beaded chain around her neck, and her ivy green brooch contrasted with the cream of her ruffled blouse. Because she ran a kitchen in the church’s basement, her attire was always serviceable blouses and skirts. But on the rare occasion, and Sundays, Cora could be spotted in one of the sedate dark blue dresses Hetty had made, paired with a single strand of pearls.
“I was wondering when I would see you,” Cora said as she welcomed Hetty inside. “I heard about Charlie.”
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