Picture the Dead

by Adele Griffin

  “If I had any.”

  “Poor Fleur!” He smiles.

  I smile to hear my old nickname, bestowed by my cousins from my long-ago summertime habit of arranging wildflowers in my hair. Funny, the things Quinn remembers. Of course his mind is as sharp as a nail even now. I curl myself more comfortably in my chair as he deals the deck.

  “You seem more at ease these days.”

  “Perhaps because I have more to see,” he says, referring to the fact that against the doctor’s orders, he has removed his eye patch. Quinn has a notion that his skin must be exposed to air to heal. I don’t tell him how I wish he’d kept it covered, how unnerved I am by his damaged eye that moves back and forth like a trapped fly behind his puffed, blue skin.

  “Or perhaps I’m only grateful that after a month home,” I continue carefully, “you are paying me any attention at all.”

  “Not fair, Fleur. We’ve always been close.”

  I shrug. Close is not a word I’d have used. Though I suppose he has been closer to me than to anyone else since his return. Before the war Quinn was endlessly pursued by the smart young Brookline and Boston set, but he’s been home for weeks, and has refused to see any friends. Partly I’m sure it’s got to do with his injury, which makes him self-conscious.

  “Let me lend you some money for cards,” he suggests, a smile playing on his lips, “and you can pay me back later.”

  “Ha! You have a more optimistic view of my fortunes than I.”

  Quinn laughs outright, which catches at my heart, he sounds so much like Will. He enjoys cards, and I play longer than I want until the clock in the hall strikes twelve long chords. As I leave, I give Quinn’s unshaven cheek a quick peck and abscond with the jack of hearts. It’s my first kiss for anyone since Will left, and I’m surprised by the spark of feeling it ignites though of what specific emotion, I’m not sure I could say. My lips feel as if they’ve brushed fire, and my heart trips in my ribs. Does Quinn notice? I avert my head as I hasten to the door.

  “Jennie.” At my name I stop. “A question.”

  I pause and turn.

  “Did you really love my brother?” Quinn asks. “Or did you just love him back?”

  I can’t hide that I’m startled. “What do you mean?”

  Casually, he says, “The oldest son. The heir of Pritchett House. You would have been put in a sticky position if you’d rejected his advances. You know how…persuasive Will could get.”

  “I wasn’t forced to love Will.” A nervous laugh catches and dies in my throat.

  “No. Not overtly.” Quinn looks uncomfortable. “Ah, I’m being an ass. When all I wanted to comment on was your sweetness, Jennie. You give so freely of your time and good humor, I wondered if Will and I ever realized how much we depended on it.”

  Then he selects a book from a stack on the carpet and opens it, pretending to be absorbed, and clearly embarrassed by his confession.

  Quinn’s newfound sensitivity is touching. I’m happy that he has spoken his brother’s name, even if the question he posed was odd. I had never conceived of rejecting Will, but I assumed it was because I loved him, not because I feared any consequence. But the hour has grown late for such prickly introspections.

  Though I’d set a fire before dinner, it has died and the room is cold. The glass is frosted over, and my candle is a single star in a dark sky. I pull out my scrapbook and page through notes from Toby, uneven and misspelled; letters from Will, with his elegant script and stilted declarations of love; still more scraps of paper, oddities, and curios, before I reach the pages I have kept from Will’s sketchbook. Where I find him again. His best gift was for capturing the outdoors.

  A thread of black ink becomes a bird wing or loop of ivy. I linger over them before turning to a section in the back with drawings, some of myself, where I compare Will’s art with Geist’s print.

  Will’s pen unlocks my secret moments. My smile on the cusp of laughter. The breeze in my unbound hair. The bow of my neck against the sun. Fleur. I’d forgotten. It’s a name that conjures summers past when I gathered starflowers, bluebonnets, thistle, and daisies on the riverbanks, twining them into bracelets and crowns, filling vase after vase, setting them on every windowsill and mantel, much to Aunt’s dismay.

  But in Geist’s print I glower. As if my closed mouth might hide a pair of fangs. We are all dour, all but Viviette, who looks positively beatific.

  And then I see what has eluded me. This fragment of detail is now so clear, and yet so radically different, that for a moment I wonder if I’ve lost my mind.

  Quickly, I pry the paper from its backing and bring the candle close. And yet I’m sure my memory is serving me correctly and that the discrepancy is real. Unlike the Harding photograph or the print that I’d set on Uncle Henry’s desk, in this image Viviette’s head is crowned not by holly berries but by a wreath of dark flowers.

  But. The negative could not have changed.

  Irises. I trace them with my fingertip. They are inky flames leaping around the angel’s head. Transfixed, I can feel myself slipping away again. Geist had called it the undertow, and that strange word now redefines itself as I skid deep into memory.

  An August day, the angry sun. Wildflowers and smeared black ink on the sketchbook pages.

  My eyes snap open. Black irises. Is there such a flower?

  The ink is so dark. Geist’s words sliver through my heart. William Pritchett reached for you because he has unfinished business in this world.

  In the print my own black eyes stare up at me, reproachful. Black pupils, black irises. What am I looking at that I can’t see?

  A spy must engage all senses.

  Taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing. But I can’t smell or touch or taste these flowers. “Why black irises?” I murmur aloud. What is the significance of this flower in particular? And in the next breath, I think I might know.

  12.

  Mavis would hate to hear that she snores worse than Mrs. Sullivan. Her sound sleep is my good luck as I fumble for my clothing, rank with soot and sweat from my trip to the city.

  My movements are deft and noiseless. For what I need to do, I can’t risk Mavis discovering that I’ve been out. The use of a fresh frock would betray me.

  It’s just a guess, less than a hunch, but the lights have lit my mind. I won’t be able to sleep or to think of anything else unless I am proved right or wrong. I move like mist down the stairs and beeline to Uncle Henry’s study.

  He has put the photograph in his Indian cabinet and has removed his magnifying lens from its case. In its proximity to the photograph, I gather he might have been using the lens to comb the image for deeper insights.

  In Uncle’s photograph, Viviette wears her crown of holly.

  Just as I’d suspected, it is only my print that has been altered. Its encrypted irises are for my eyes only. I close the door to his study and am off.

  The Black Eye, as I’d always heard the tavern called, stands on the outskirts of Brookline Village, at the far end of Sherburne Road near Heath Street. Hurrying alone this late at night on the stretch of road that leads into the village, I am struck by a thousand terrified imaginings. I don’t trust my eyes. A hungry beast crouches, ready to rip my flesh from bone. Wild creatures spy from tangled boughs above while a crone crouches behind a tree, beckoning, her gaunt arm a ragged branch. I try to keep my senses sharp. But when a fox darts across my path, I scream and start running. My borrowed boots drag and squelch, but I don’t stop sprinting until I have cut across Heath Street, where I spy what must be the tavern.

  It’s a modest, two-story building, but its swinging lantern is strong enough to be a beacon to its hitching posts, where a few weary horses stand in wait.

  And then I see the sign. I am exhilarated and terrified.

  One woodcut flower blooms below the elegant letters that spell out the tavern’s name. I read it over and over. Until tonight, I have misheard the shorthand slang for it.

  The Black Eye, the Black I,
The Black Iris. In my hand is the newspaper that I’d stolen from the hired man’s satchel, with its back-page advertisement that I’d seen printed a hundred times before. Not a black eye, but a flower.

  I push through the door into a room wreathed in smoke from the brick hearth that blazes at the far end. A teakwood bar, twice as large but half as nice as Uncle Henry’s, is captained by a pip of a man who stands behind it.

  “Good evening,” I muster.

  “Who you here for?” A dog with a bite.

  In addition to Mrs. Sullivan’s rubber boots, I’d borrowed Mavis’s cloak and bonnet. I’d hoped that entering The Black Iris disguised as a servant would be less conspicuous than a young lady in heeled boots and a trimmed hat.

  Dressed as a servant, unfortunately, also means being treated as one.

  “Oh… I…” I take quick peeks all around. A spy must absorb every thing and reveal nothing.

  It’s men here, mostly. I recognize the roofers seated at the far corner, and I’m thankful to be faced with their backsides instead of their scrutiny. At the wall, younger fellows play darts. Around a more raucous table, mixed sexes cluster. The only face I know is Peg O’Leary’s, who Aunt Clara engages twice a year to help with changing over the household linen. Tonight, with her plumped cleavage on show, Peg is more temptress than laundress.

  It’s a welcome space against the chapping cold, but doesn’t feel entirely friendly. Nor does the barkeep’s face, with his mouth now down-bent like a brook trout’s.

  “I’m… I’m…” How to explain myself?

  His own conclusions startle me. “I know who you are. You’re his Frances. We’d begun to think you’d given him the slip. But you came ’round, after all. He’s been waiting for you, then.”

  Confused as I am, I decide to nod knowledgeably.

  The barkeep jabs his thumb toward a walled set of stairs behind him. “Well, get on up. Sue’s not here, if you’re wondering. Not at this hour. Got her own home and family when she’s not tending orphans. Takes after her mother that way. Up the stairs and turn the corner. You’d be his first visitor in two weeks.”

  “Thank you, sir.” It seems safe, for now, to pretend to be Frances.

  “Sir’s my father. Now, scat. He’s waiting.”

  My mind is manic as I go. Have I been directed here through some otherworldly connection to find Will? Has he been injured, traumatized to a point where he has possibly mistaken me for a young woman named Frances?

  Yes, yes, yes. It all makes perfect sense. Will is here, right here at the Black Iris, and he’s been here all along, waiting for me.

  I am so ready to believe in something good as I hurry up the steps and around the corner to yank open the closed door that I’m not at all prepared for what lies behind it.

  13.

  He sits in the dark, in a chair pulled up against the night window, smoking. I try not to cough, but fail.

  It’s not William. Of course not. But I am light-headed nonetheless from the ether of hope as I fix a purposeful smile to my face. “I’m sorry.” I squint to see him. “Am I… interrupting you?”

  “Sue props me up,” he says in a quarrelsome tone, “and then forgets about me. Poor old Sue, I’d wager she’s got a lot to remember. Good of her to send you, though.”

  “She didn’t send me. I don’t know Sue. And I’m not Frances,” I say awkwardly.

  “Well, I can see you’re not Frances blindness ain’t my problem.” He taps his pipe and scowls at me through the shadows. “I’m Private Nathaniel Dearborn. Before that, back in Pittsfield, I was Nate.”

  “Should I call you Nate?”

  “Huh. If you want.”

  “May I light the candle?”

  “If you want.”

  I’ve already struck a match. Lit, the bedside candle stub illuminates the face of this round, freckled boy who is no more than my age, though his gaze is world-weary. “Pittsfield? That’s forty miles away.”

  “I told ’em home was Brookline it’s not as if they check those things. Dump you off, and no questions asked. That’s how it’s done. Sue found me like a drownded puppy in the hospital, and she gave me some dignity when she brought me here. For which I am grateful. But I need a favor, Miss not-Frances,” says Nate in a voice that wishes he didn’t. “Will you put me to bed?”

  It’s an unusual request, but as I move closer I understand. Beneath the blanket piled on his lap, Nate is missing both of his legs.

  I set my teeth to hold any disgust from my face. “I can try.” As he tamps out his pipe, I place the candle on the sill, drop the hood of my cloak, and tie back its sleeves to free my arms. He is heavy, but once I tug the chair closer to the bed, Nate can do the rest. He hauls up the weight of his body on the sinewy strength of his arms. Then swings himself over and onto the mattress as I hold the chair steady.

  Positioned, Nate leans back and groans. “Thought I’d be up at that window all night.”

  “It sounds as if this Frances should be here tending to you. Is she your sister?”

  He looks at me with eyes that are two hostile, scorched marks in his face. “Frances Paddle, that’s my girl,” he tells me. “She’s a ladies’ maid to a smart couple down in New York City. It’s not your business why she ain’t collected me yet.”

  “I’m sorry.” But I press on. “Does she know what happened to you?”

  “Doubtful.” He exhales. “That’s the thing about Fran. She ain’t really here. Back when we were crossing South Mountain, I made her up inside my head. I could imagine her face so clear, ’specially when there weren’t enough rations and I had to fill up on something. Every night I held her in my dreams. Now I’m so used to her, I can’t give her up. She’s real as my legs.”

  I can only nod. Dumbfounded.

  “Don’t pity me.” Nate throws me a scathing look. “You don’t know how you’d want to spend your days and nights if it’d happened to you. Who are you, anyhow, if Sue din’t send you? Why’re you here?”

  “My name is Jennie Lovell. And I’m not sure why I’ve come, except ”

  But Nate’s expression has changed so completely that I stop.

  “Jennie Pritchett?” His freckles seem to stand out in his pale face. A reverse constellation.

  “Oh, yes. Yes!” I am alert at once. “I mean, no. Pritchett’s my uncle.”

  “Aw, it’s impossible. You think I’m a fool?” Nate waves me off. “Look at you, you ain’t his cousin. You’re not but a servant girl. My boy Pritchett wouldn’t’ve got hitched to some chit. Got to wake up earlier to put me on.”

  By now I’ve yanked off Mavis’s bonnet and am pulling at the pins that hold up my hastily dressed hair. My proof is irrefutable, I know Will loved my curls and would have described them to anyone, if he’d ever spoken of me.

  As my hair tumbles loose, Nate allows himself a glance. And then a slow, sly smile. “He said you had hair like a storm. Not the beauty I pitchered, but all right, so be it…you must be Pritchett’s Jennie. Reckon you’ve come down in the world in your servant’s clothes, eh?” And quick as a mousetrap, his fingers swipe for a lock of my hair, which he pulls hard and then releases with a bullying laugh that hints at the young man he once was.

  Automatically, I back out of his range, though the young soldier seems hungry for contact. And I do pity him. How couldn’t I? To be alone for hours in this room, prisoner of a wrecked body, would be a hell on earth.

  Nate knows he has scared me. He softens. “You being here, however you found me, and him not here.” He clears his throat. “That means he’s dead, then, huh?”

  I can hardly bear to confirm it. “Yes.”

  He reaches for his pipe and relights it. Accepting this fresh grievance blank-faced, though I sense the news wounds him into silence. I wait.

  “’Fore I planned my escape,” Nate says, finally, “he gave me a letter. Says if I got out alive, I was to get it to you.”

  My heart thrums. “A letter.”

  “Yup. And as you can see, I g
ot out, only to get shot down not two days later, mistook for a Grayback so they said. Shattered both my legs. I was left without hope. When the Union boys found me, they sawed ’em off at once with hardly enough chloroform to take me out. But I held on to that letter. I din’t go back on my word. Blast it, I even paid a fellow to find you. The crook cabbaged my dime and told me nobody lived there by the name Jennie Pritchett. I know firsthand how a fellow can invent a girl from scratch and make her come alive. So then I guessed that you were a hoax, too. Same as Fran. Made me laugh. Pritchett spoke of you so convincing.”

  “I don’t understand. It’d be easy to find Pritchett House. Everyone knows it.”

  “Huh, it was that that stuck-up brother sent him away, and without any explanation. For he found his way home, din’t he? Snot-nosed bastard; he was sweet on you, too. Brother against brother. A damn disloyalty, if y’ask me.” Nate’s sudden burst of anger is unnerving it’s apparent that he’s no friend to Quinn. “Top drawer. I know it’s itching ya.” He points to the battered dresser, thick with paint, wedged in the corner.

  In that smile of his I see another flash of this more brutal and dangerous Nate. Sweat breaks out on my forehead.

  “Thank you for trying to find me,” I manage to say. “I owe you a favor, and I can start by helping you right now if you want to get home to Pittsfield. I’ve got a bit of savings, some jewelry that I could sell ” Aunt Clara’s brooch, for one. Brazenly pinned to a page of my book.

  His hand severs the air. “Like I said, I’m never going back. Not in this life. War was my best way out, and I intend to stay out. I slipped that noose once; that’s better’n others fared. As for Sumter, welp, call it our nature or our destiny. We picked the adventure knowing there’d be no end but a bloody one. Got more good luck than I deserved when Sue took pity. An eyeful of your curls is the sugar icing on my cake.” Again, Nate grasps for my hair, fingers quick as a monkey, but I am quicker as I dart to the bureau.