by Jill Zeller
The pool was on the saloon deck, beneath an ornate skylight and filled with women; laughter rippled from the tile walls; the place smelled of damp. The exercise—despite her bulk, Harriet Farragut was a powerful swimmer and tutored me on my stroke—did me good. Like the warm water flowing over and away from my skin, the memory of disorientation, when everything went white, dripped away. There was no reason to fear Sephira Picou. She was merely a woman, nothing more. Flesh and blood and not the holder of my fate.
“What are you smiling about?” Harriet struggled out of her costume, donned an enormous blue robe as we dried ourselves in the women’s changing room.
“Just something my father used to say to me.” I wrung the water from my hair, twisting it in my hands. “There is nothing I fear more than fear itself.”
Harriet gave a short laugh. She seemed settled, back to the confident, cheerful woman I had first met. “What in the world do you have to be afraid of? You’re beautiful and smart, and I have no doubt you will go far in this world.”
She touched my arm; her eyes, deep blue gray, probed mine. “In truth, Nola, I am envious of you. I wish with all my heart I could have set out, alone, on a voyage as you are doing. But even though I might have dreamed those dreams, that life was never for me, a woman.
“And—” Her hand closed on my skin, tightening. “Take care. You don’t seem touched by society’s rules. But they are harsh, and perhaps, more deadly than physical harm. Already I am hearing remarks about you, my new friend.”
I knew about remarks. I’d felt the pain of remarks about my mother, from school friends, and family. I laid my hand on Harriet’s.
“I’m not afraid of remarks,” I lied, wishing she hadn’t told me. “I used to be afraid to swim, until you showed me what I could do.”
“We fear what we don’t know, I think.” She busied with her buttons and ties, turned half-away.
I watched Harriet’s shoulder, chiding myself. Why think only of myself, when Harriet has lost her only child, forever? Why not tell her, secretly, about the séance tonight? Maybe her torment not knowing where, or what, her son is. Perhaps all she needs to know is that he is safe.
Not here. Too many people about. And something else stopped me, too. Was I doing it again, was my mouth on a faster train than my brain, as my father used to ask me? Should I think this through? Mr. Farragut would be very hurt if I told his wife about the séance.
And did I have permission to do even that? Would Sephira Picou be accepting of Harriet coming with me?
For once, Ondine, think this through. I would give myself an hour, I thought.
But of course I didn’t think of it again until it was far too late. Philip came to my cabin as I was changing for dinner.
After, as we lay together, night draped the day with blue veils. I loved smelling his hair, and the soft musk of his skin as I watched the changing porthole light. I had squirreled away the images of him I had sketched, knowing how he seemed to dislike looking at himself. But I did show him drawings of the Farraguts, and of the ship, and my own self-portraits. One of these he asked for, and a pleased warmth spread through me.
“You have a great talent.” Philip sat beside me, slowly lifting the pages of my portfolio. “In everything, even the mundane, you catch beauty somehow.”
“My father says I look at everything as if it is a photograph.”
“So much of magic is tricking the eye.” Picking a braid of hair from my shoulder, he leaned in and kissed my skin. “People see what they want to see. And no two see an object the same way.”
I waited a moment, then, wondering why—and probably knowing why—I was reluctant to ask, I said, “I met your sister this afternoon. She seemed—that is she almost insisted that I join her tonight for a session—with the spirits.”
Philip said nothing for a long moment as he fingered my hair, examining it as if counting the strands.
Then he said, “She is distressed by something. Often, she doesn’t even know what it is.” His voice was very soft, almost a whisper.
“It was as if she came looking for me. I was near the galley, a place where passengers normally aren’t to be found.”
Now he turned to me, smiled. “And what were you doing there, lurking near the kitchens?”
I felt my face warm as he looked at me. “They were singing. It was very beautiful, like hymns. I met an extraordinary young crewman who visits the New York City Library when he is in port.”
One of Philip’s eyebrows lowered. “I would suggest you not speak with the crew. They have their own ideas and it’s best to leave them to it.”
“What do you mean?” A tone in his voice, disapproval, perhaps. It irked me—he sounded like my brother, controlling and so right about everything.
His face softened. “I didn’t mean anything. I’m sorry. It’s just that, they are superstitious. Not that they would harm you, not that way, but if they start to believe—oh, never mind. I’m on edge, I suppose, perhaps because I worry about Sephira.”
From what I had seen of Sephira, she seemed eminently capable of taking care of herself, but I didn’t say anything about it. Running my finger along his cheek, I felt stubble, and chided him for it. He promised to shave before supper.
“Come at ten tonight.” Philip said as he left, after first checking that no one was in the hallway to see him leave. He gave me the location in second class. “And yes, you never did ask but I knew you wanted to. Bring Mrs. Farragut with you. Sephira insists on that, too.”
I was late to supper and had no appetite for the bisque and perch. I felt Harriet’s quiet and curious glances at me across the table while Mr. Farragut spoke about his work with the engineers who designed and fitted mulas, the small locomotives running on rails on either side of each lock, leading the ships like horses pulling a plow.
“In the past, of course, before steam-power, mules or horses pulled canal boats through the locks.” Mr. Farragut wiped his mustache with the back of his hand, then, as if catching himself, picked up his napkin. “Now the ships can pass through on their own power, but the mules guide them, using lines to keep the ships on course, protect the hulls from the canal walls. Those drivers have to be on their toes when guiding a 13,000 ton vessel through those narrow locks.”
His stories helped to distract me from thoughts of how to get Harriet aside and tell her about the séance tonight. I looked forward to seeing this mighty construction, the Eighth Wonder of the World. And it pleased me to know someone who played such an important part. It never occurred to me before that I, a woman, could be an engineer, using my skills as an artist to draw plans. One of Harriet’s female students had gone on to become a physician for women at a prestigious hospital in Baltimore. Why not for myself, this ambition, this goal? I could find a school, perhaps in the West, if there was such a one. A job, and with Mother’s help, perhaps, perhaps.
When my chance came I almost missed it. The captain passed through the saloon, chatting with the passengers. When he approached our table, Mr. Farragut turned to speak with him, about the voyage, timing, when we would reach Colon. I found myself studying the captain’s face; he was a ruddy, red-haired man, skin deeply lined and seasoned by hours in sunlight, making his eyes of bright, pale sea-blue even more startling. What a portrait he would make!
With a start I remembered the note I had written earlier and slipped into my pocket. My hand jerked, and my spoon fell to the floor. Leaning down, I pulled the note from my dress, nearly tearing the paper, slid it into Harriet’s lap and retrieved my spoon.
As I surfaced, I brandished the spoon. “I saved it, Captain, threw it a life preserver—my fingers!”
The men laughed, as did others at nearby tables. Glancing at Harriet I saw her cheeks grow pink, one hand under the table, clutching, I hoped, my note to read later. Smiling, she even laughed her first laugh of the evening, as if she knew what my message contained before reading.
In night air eerily calm, the sea was a glass plate with a diminis
hing trail of moonlight on its surface. I met Harriet at the entry to the second class cabins on the Main Deck. Grumbling peacefully under our feet, the ship’s engines kept our course through the night.
The cordial worked its way through my veins, so that I would beg for the calm of the night to possess me. Harriet was a strung wire of excitement, quavering like the electric lights sometimes did, dependent upon the generator’s caprice.
“I can’t quite seem to catch my breath.” Harriet pushed her hand into mine. She checked her pocket watch a fifth time. “It’s ten now. We should go in.”
She pulled at me, and I was able to move my numb legs. An irrational fear plagued me; I who was afraid of nothing felt a gnawing dread. I tried to tell myself it was for Harriet’s welfare that I worried, but I knew that was not so. Sephira Picou had asked for me to come, me, myself, personally. Why?
We had been instructed to seek out a private parlor in the second class saloon, a place that could be reserved for special functions. Crossing the dim room, nicely furnished in wood and inexpensive fabrics, it felt cozy but not so elaborate as first class. Here the sea was close, a silver presence seen through a string of portholes.
Beneath us, around us, was water. A chill went through me as I imagined a green, murky world of warrior-like mermaids storming the ship’s hull with razor spears.
Beside me, Harriet stared into my face. “Nola. Is everything all right?”
Her voice, sharp, caught my attention, dragged me away from my vision. Almost impatient, I thought, but when I looked at her, I saw no impatience there, but keen focus, as if she saw through me to the other side to the saloon’s empty tables and chairs.
My legs unlocked, my foot moved. Going through the closed door of the parlor, we came into a small room with portholes at one end admitting moonlight. Small, shaded gas sconces ringed us, giving out a dim, yellow glow. At a table in the center of the room, Sephira sat dressed in a bright, cold color like moonlight; a chiffon veil covered her face; black hair draped her shoulders.
At the table also sat a young man with pale, sandy hair and matching mustache, skin also pale, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. I had sometimes seen him walking the promenade with an older lady, probably his mother.
Harriet greeted Miss Picou, introduced herself and me to the young man in what I was coming to know as pure Harriet Farragut self-assurance. The young man, Roland Levesque, also from Quebec, took my hand in a gentle, tentative way.
Without a word, Miss Picou indicated that Harriet was to sit on her right. My place was next to Harriet, with Mr. Levesque on her left.
Under us, the ship gently rumbled and rolled. Here, I couldn’t smell the salt and rich murk of the water surrounding us as the portholes were closed. Stale tobacco, and a hint of mold replaced the sea-scent.
I wondered where Philip was tonight. He had not come to my cabin after the supper, leaving me suspicious and lonely, feelings I tried to excuse as my own selfishness.
Harriet, bless her, remained silent, as did Mr. Levesque. There was the aura of a church in the room, a place of whispers and divine respect. We all felt it, I thought, as Sephira Picou sat statue-stiff, not even, it seemed, breathing.
We waited. Harriet’s eyes were closed. Mr. Levesque examined his hands on his lap. I looked around the room, seeking fakes and fraud. Or something else, perhaps.
I watched Miss Picou. Through the veil draping her head and shoulders I thought I could see her closed eyes. The merest sparkle under the cloth showed a jeweled circlet spanning her forehead.
In the center of the table stood a glass globe, the crystal ball I had read about, a tool of prediction and communication with the spirit world. Beside it lay a deck of cards, face down; printed on the backs was an intricate fantasy of gold and red design. I wanted to pick one up, examine the pattern, but I knew that would be a sacrilege.
The silence ticked on, and my heart seemed to join the pattern of anxious heartbeats all around, as if we were being synchronized like military clocks. The heat of the room fed a worm of panic in my gut, a feeling I had as a child, a fear of being locked in a cage, never escaping.
Just as I was telling myself I could leave any time, stand up and walk away from the stone idol that Miss Picou had become, the sconces dimmed.
Harriet gave a sharp breath, and I must have too. No one had moved, nothing was said. Darkness filled the parlor, eased only by the faint sheen of moonlight through the portholes.
It was then I noticed the smell. A musky floral spice stung my nostrils, then faded. At the same time, our breaths loud with suppressed panic, the globe in the center of the table began to glow.
By degrees it brightened, until its golden light brought Miss Picou’s face into focus in an eerie, fae manner, brightening her skin under the veil as if she was glowing from within with the light of the Golden Dawn.
I found myself clasping my skirt until my fingers ached. I heard Harriet breathing quickly, and wondered if she could take the suspense. I knew I could, but this indeed was nothing like any unease I had felt before. All the daring feats I had performed before—roller-coastering alone, walking solo down a New York street long after midnight, daring to drink my brother under the table, risking arrest in a votes-for-women demonstration—now felt trifling and childish.
I heard Miss Picou’s sharp breaths coming quickly, panting. Her head began to move back and forth, snakelike. The spicy aroma floated past again, and as it did the lights seemed to flicker and take on rainbow hues.
Miss Picou’s hands appeared flat on the table. I didn’t know how she did it. I never saw them move but one moment the table was bare except for the globe and the cards and now her long-fingered hands lay there, fingers splayed. As if she knew a rule book no one else did, Harriet laid her hands beside Miss Picou’s, little fingers touching.
It was enough for the rest of us. We imitated them, my little fingers touching Harriet’s and Mr. Levesque’s.
Once this circle was formed, Miss Picou inhaled deeply, and sighed. Became very still. But I could see the veil over her shoulders vibrating as she trembled.
Then we waited.
My fingers ached. My arms stiffened. I had to remind myself to breathe. And to tell myself I could leave at any time.
“There is grief here, deep grief.”
Miss Picou’s voice was not like her soft, whispery tone. Instead it was womanly, deep, like a strong mezzo. I had come here skeptical of the so-called spirit-world’s existence, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“Grief felt for years, and grief yet to come.”
Glancing at Harriet I saw her staring upward, glinting trail of a tear on her cheek. To my right Mr. Levesque gazed at Miss Picou, eyes round glistening globes of fear.
But Miss Picou was looking at me.
As far as I knew, this was the first time she had looked at anyone. The worm of panic inside me squirmed, and I felt my heart squeeze the breath out of my lungs.
Me. It’s me she’s talking about.
“A man, exiting a restaurant late at night. The lights are poor, and the wagon driver doesn’t see him. The man is inebriated—he feels lost and broken—his heart is broken. Someone he loves abandoned him, but he fears he abandoned her first, hurt her terribly. Perhaps it is his grief I sense, not hers.”
Arthur. The telegrams. My chest went cold, numb and the power of breath deserted me. I wanted to touch my throat; in a moment I wouldn’t be able to breathe, but my fingers were glued to the table. The touching hands cannot be disturbed.
Then, a voice. A man’s voice.
“Ondine, Ondine. I’m sorry, so sorry. My life is nothing without you. I am lost, lost.”
Sharp gasps around the table. The voice came from an echoey distance, as if across a large, empty, tall-ceilinged room. Deep, wailing.
A dizzy lurch pushed at me. Was the ship tilting? A giant wave coming to destroy me?
I found myself standing, trying to gain my balance. If this was all a fake, it was very, very good. M
y hands still pressed the table. No one else moved. Star Picou’s face was golden yellow, the face of an oriental princess, or a beautiful hag. It was all I could see.
Oh god help me Arthur is dead.
“Arthur?” I croaked the word, my throat a narrow shaft of dust, before I could stop myself.
“Ondine. I’m sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry.”
No one outside my family knew my nickname, given me by my father. No one. I had only told my lover, Arthur.
And one other.
The voice stopped, just as the thought snapped into my mind, as if my thoughts were read out like a ticker tape for everyone to hear.
Sitting in my chair, I bowed my head, embarrassment washing my face, I thought. I did not believe, but the voice stopped as soon as my belief wavered and I had said nothing.
There was one way to be sure, and I had to force myself not to run out of the room. This night’s work was not done, I knew.
Everyone breathed. Their fingers trembled with mine. I couldn’t look away from the table surface, whorls of dark and blond wood, a parquet of diamond shapes.
We waited. Star Picou was silent a long time. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. This meeting was for Harriet, not me, but I couldn’t bear to look at her.
“Oh, he is in a dark place!” Star Picou’s voice was so low, almost a man’s timbre, that we all looked up. I swore it came from her throat and lips.
I didn’t see how she did it but Sephira’s face, under the veil, seemed to shift as if she herself were under water. And with this, it seemed a breeze floated through the room, as if through a suddenly open door.
I felt Mr. Leveque’s hand jerk beside me. Looking up, I saw him turn toward Harriet.
Her face was a rigor of fear, eyes wide and lips pulled back from her teeth.
Miss Picou’s voice growled, “Sickness ride horse home, take foot go away. Wete’ loa non tete yum mort.”
It was a language I had never heard before, except here, on this ship, among the crew.
“The mystere waits under the water. It’s dark and cold and cursed.” Miss Picou murmured on to herself, again lapsing into the strange French-laced argot of what I thought must be the West Indies.