“Mother, please!” Josie laid a hand on her mother’s arm, but Mrs. Clifford shook her off, giving Cass a right hard slap on her other ear. A trickle of blood went slowly down her sister’s neck as Desdemona chirped, Othello! Othello! Forgive me! Othello!
At last Mrs. Clifford let go, and Cass buried her face in Josie’s chest. Josie pressed a handkerchief to one ear, and then the other, for the ear that had been pulled on was bleeding, too. Their mother sat at the piano, laid her elbow on the fallboard, and cradled her forehead in her hand. “You children will be the death of me,” she said. “Now get out. I don’t want to see you again today. Mrs. Pike will bring up your meals.”
“But it’s my birthday,” Cassie sobbed.
At this Mrs. Clifford seemed to cast aside her weariness. She let out a hard little laugh. “Have you heard a word I’ve said, Cassandra? Do you actually believe yourself worthy of a cake? Of presents? Shall I invite Mr. Berringsley and serve his decapitated bird on a silver platter?”
“It’s not fair! I didn’t know she would eat him!”
Josie watched her mother’s face, how a knot formed at her jaw as she clenched her teeth. She rose from the piano bench, stepped toward Cass, and slapped her one last time. “I could kill you,” she whispered. “I could wring your neck.”
* * *
That night Josie made her sister a red paper crown. Alec played “happy birthday” through the phonograph with the kazoo from the time capsule. Where’s the box, Cass? he asked. Get your kazoo and let’s play a duet!
Josie hadn’t been able to buy a present for Cass, so she was obliged to use her imagination. This ticket entitles the bearer to one very special song, followed by a very special bedtime story, from the twenty-first century. It was essentially a present from Alec, but she couldn’t very well put a book or a hair ribbon in a box and pretend she’d found it in a shop.
For the first part of her gift, Alec plugged his “iPod” into his “speakers” and played a song called “Life in Technicolor.” It was strange music, marvelous music, and, in a few minutes, it built a room in their minds that they could live inside.
They heard the smile in Alec’s voice. Now you’re the only people in the whole world who’ve ever heard a Coldplay song.
“You should see the look on her face,” Josie whispered into the horn. “This very nearly makes up for everything that’s happened today.”
What happened? he whispered back.
She sighed. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Alec, what’s technicolor?” Cass piped up.
Have you ever seen a movie? A film, I mean? A “moving picture”?
“Uh huh. Mr. Berringsley took us once, in New York.”
And it was in black and white?
“Of course,” Josie replied. “Do you mean to say . . . ?”
Technicolor is even brighter than colors in real life. You’ll see. There’ll be a movie of The Wizard of Oz.
“Emily read us The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” Cass said. “How long must we wait for the film?”
Let me look it up. There was a pause, and Josie knew Alec was using his Times Machine. About twenty-three years.
“Why, I’ll have grandchildren by then!”
He laughed. It’s not that long!
“Now it’s time for my bedtime story. I would like one about an airship. Have you ever flown into the sunset, Alec? That’s what I’m going to do someday when it’s the future, and I have my very own aeroplane.”
I know just which story to read to you. It’s twentieth century, but it hasn’t been written yet. So he read from The Little Prince, and when she began to nod off he promised to finish the story the following night.
Once Cass was in bed, Josie recounted the events of the morning.
This is terrible, Josie. Have you thought any more about what I said?
“Yes, but . . .”
What about Emily?
“Even if I could write her a letter, how would I put it in the post? Mother would never allow it. I can always tell when we’ve had a letter from Emily because she takes it out of the stack and hides it away, and doesn’t answer when we ask her who it’s from.”
Do you have any other family?
“None,” she sighed. “At least, none that I know of.”
Then it’s gotta be Emily. You’ll reach her. You have to.
She hesitated. “Do you know that for certain?”
I wish I could say yes.
“I can’t, Alec. There’s no way.”
There has to be a way. You said her aunt and uncle live in the city, right?
“That’s right.”
And didn’t you say they’re the ones who raised her? So she’s probably gone back to live with them, and even if she hasn’t, you can at least write to her uncle, and he’ll forward her the letter.
“That’s true. I could write to him at the Evening Star. He’s the editor in chief. But how will I ever get a letter out of the house?”
Is there anyone else who could help you? Someone you could write to without making your mother suspicious?
“I don’t think so…”
Think!
Then the answer came to her. “Dr. Jennings!” If she could only manage to write to him, he would certainly help her. “He told Mother he’d send her a copy of the first article! Perhaps she’ll allow me to write him a thank you.”
Yes! You can slip another letter in along with it, and tell him why you can’t write to Emily yourself.
“But . . . Alec . . .” Fear bound her hands together. Doubts tore at her insides. “Even if Emily takes us back to the city with her, there remains the question of our keep. I can’t possibly expect her to—”
It’ll be okay, Josie. You’ll find a way. I know you can do it.
They bid each other goodnight, and she climbed into bed, blinking back tears as images welled up out of the darkness: the letters E.A.J. in gold leaf, glinting on the lid of the steamer trunk—her mother’s eyes glittering through the spirit mask—Merritt’s cold white hands grasping Cassie by the waist—the headless bird—the tiny grave.
Josie turned her head and saw Cassie curled up at the head of the bed like a kitten and breathing just as softly. Her doll sat at the foot, nestled in the folds of the quilt.
She’d always reckoned that when Mrs. Gubbins “spoke,” it was merely Cassie giving voice to the things she wouldn’t otherwise be permitted to say. Mrs. Gubbins was Cassie’s imaginary friend—or imaginary biddy—nothing more than a figment of her own fertile mind. The doll could have no opinion on the fact that she was destined to pass the next hundred years locked inside the spare-room cupboard.
That night Josie tossed and turned under the weight of all her fears and frustrations, and when she did at last drift off, she dreamed she was still awake.
Again she glanced over at Cassie asleep in her narrow bed. Her sister was still slumbering peacefully, but something was different. The doll at the foot of the bed was staring at her.
You promised you would look after her. The voice was low but clear, and it sounded for all the world like a woman sixty years of age.
“I’m trying,” said Josie.
The doll’s face was as stiff and expressionless as ever, yet the voice went on. You can do better than to try, child, for to try is to fail. Do you see? The doll was chiding her, but gently, as if it understood the difficulties she faced.
“Then what would you have me do?”
Protect her, said Mrs. Gubbins. Do as you promised.
You Never Know
32.
The next morning Danny came by, and they walked into town together. “I guess you haven’t heard yet about Harold,” Danny said.
Alec raised an eyebrow. “No . . . ?”
“Mrs. Grogan caught him looking through her testing binder at recess the d
ay before the math final. I heard my mom talking to Mrs. Yates about it last night. He’s in deep poop.” Danny shook his head. “He could have gotten an A without cheating. That’s the sad thing.”
Now that Alec knew what Cassie’s voice sounded like, he could imagine exactly how she’d said it: Mrs. Gubbins says Alec doesn’t keep any secrets worth telling. But YOU do . . .
“You gotta feel for him, though,” Danny went on. “If he doesn’t get into Harvard, Dr. Yates will pretty much disown him.”
“I didn’t know his dad was like that,” Alec said slowly. If Harold hadn’t been a good friend to him, maybe now he could halfway understand why.
When they got to town hall they found the impatient secretary blessedly absent. The boys explained what they needed to a white-haired man in a short-sleeved dress shirt and suspenders who turned out to be the historical records clerk. Danny showed him the photos of the grave he’d taken with his phone.
“I haven’t been up there in years,” said the clerk, “but that looks like the newest section of the graveyard . . .” The boys exchanged a look—newest!—and the man smiled. “Well, it was founded in 1797. That stone is early twentieth century. Probably one of the last interments.” He pointed through a doorway, where they could see rows of metal shelving crammed with old files and boxes. “We’ve got the cemetery map with all the plots numbered and indexed, but it may take me a little while to find it. Can you boys come back after lunch?”
They passed the wait at the library. In the archive room, Bernice had left the Clifford box on a low shelf, and Alec pulled out the scrapbook with a sigh. “I don’t know why I’m even looking at this again. We’ve already been through it three times.”
Danny shrugged as he shuffled through Lavinia Clifford’s correspondence file. “You never know.”
Slowly Alec turned the familiar pages of pictures and newspaper clippings. He came to the end of the album, and ran his finger over a tiny nub of paper sticking out from between the leather cover and the black cardboard backing. Carefully, very carefully, he began to pick at the seam. His friend did a silent dance of glee as the square of black cardboard backing came away, leaving a shallow space under the back cover. Alec pulled out a small cache of pictures and papers concealed inside, one of which was a theater program.
Cassandra Jasper in THE COMET PARTY
Written and directed by Byron Grimsby
At The Century Theater
Limited engagement!
Alec stared at the lovely young woman on the playbill cover. “That’s her! That’s Cassie! You know what this means?” He jumped up and down in his seat. “The grave can’t be hers either!” The boys looked at each other. If they hadn’t been in the library they’d have whooped and hollered.
“I saw a picture of a comet party in the shop once,” Danny said. “People had these wild-’n-crazy shindigs in 1910 where they’d go up on the roof and drink champagne and watch Halley’s Comet go by. Jasper, that’s Emily’s last name, right? Now we know why we couldn’t find anything.”
They’re going to adopt her, Alec thought. They’ll adopt them both.
There was a dramatic shadowy studio portrait of Cass, like all the famous old movie stars had, and two informal pictures of the sisters—Josie beaming with pride, Cass holding a bouquet of roses, and figures in motion all around them. These must have been taken right after a performance. Alec looked at the playbill in his hands, feeling dizzy with relief.
When they returned to room 213 the clerk ushered them to a big, yellowed map spread out over a desk, the curling edges weighted down with moldy-smelling hardcovers. “First I found the plot on the map”—he pointed to a tiny block on the grid—“and then I looked up the number in the ledger-book. The grave you’re interested in isn’t quite as old as it looks—it dates to 1927. As a matter of fact, it was the very last interment at Mount Hope.” He turned the ledger around so they could read it, and pointed. Alec leaned in for the name under the clerk’s fingertip, and it was just as he’d expected: Clifford, Lavinia.
Her Fate in Her Hands
33.
“Cass?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“When Mrs. Gubbins speaks to you . . .”
Cassie looked up from her drawing and cocked her head.
“Do you see her lips move, or is it as if a voice is talking in your mind?”
“Her lips don’t move, silly. She’s a doll.”
“So it is like a voice speaking in your mind?”
Her sister shrugged. “I don’t know. I never thought of it that way.”
“The next time she speaks to you, will you try to notice?”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know.”
“But why?” Cass stared at her sister. “Did she talk to you, too?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Gubbins says she talks to me because I listen. That’s why she’s my friend. She says there’s no point talking to folks if they don’t want to hear what you have to say. It’s very fusterating. She says most people are deaf even though their ears work just fine.”
“Cass . . . who is Mrs. Gubbins? And how does she know things?”
Cassie shrugged.
“I mean it. I want to know. How did she know that you’ll be married someday, but I won’t?”
The little girl shook her head. “She said she would never have told me that if she’d known I was going to gab about it. You weren’t supposed to know. It was meant to be a secret.”
Josie tried again and again, but Cass wouldn’t tell her anything else. Evidently she had learned her lesson too well.
* * *
A parcel arrived in the mail, and Mrs. Clifford opened it over luncheon. It was the latest edition of The Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, with an article entitled “Mrs. Lavinia Clifford: A Case Study in Telepathy” bookmarked with Dr. Jennings’s business card. The enclosed note was written in the doctor’s own hand:
My dear Mrs. Clifford:
Here is the first of several articles I intend to publish on the nature of your extraordinary ability.
I shall forward the others in due time.
Sincerely yours,
Henry Jennings
Josie read the note while her mother skimmed the article. Judging by her reaction, Dr. Jennings hadn’t written the fawning analysis Mrs. Clifford had been expecting. “Rubbish! If I had known he would make such a ridiculous mess of the truth I would never have invited him into my home.”
“What did he say, Mother?”
“He says I have no spirit controls—that they are merely figments of my own personality.” She tossed the magazine onto the table and rolled her eyes. “I have gone over his secretary’s transcripts! I have read every single piece of information—all that I had no earthly way of knowing! How could I have known of his dead fiancé back in England? How could I have known all those poor boys’ last words to their mothers, if not by some heavenly agency?” Her mother sat in her customary attitude of frustrated exhaustion, cradling her forehead in her long white fingers. “I suppose I ought to write him,” she sighed. “To thank him—but for what, I can’t imagine.”
“I’ll do it,” Josie said. Her mother lifted her head and cocked an eyebrow. “After all,” she went on, “you’re terribly busy finishing your manuscript, and I do so enjoy writing letters, and . . .” She was about to say it’s so seldom I have a reason to, but her mother might interpret this as a veiled reference to Emily, and she desperately needed to be allowed to pen this letter.
“Very well, then.” Mrs. Clifford slid the magazine and accompanying letter across the table. “You may read the article before you compose your letter, but you must be succinct and polite but not at all flattering. You must show me the letter, and if it is not succinct and suitably reserved then I shall expect you to rewrite it.”
* * *
The article wasn’t nearly as condemnatory as her mother was making it out to be. There were several references that Josie did not understand—thanks to Emily, she had heard of Dr. Freud and Dr. Jung, but there were other names and terminologies that were unfamiliar to her.
But the crux of the article was perfectly clear. Dr. Jennings had indeed concluded that Mrs. Clifford’s “spirit controls” were latent compartments of her own personality, which she employed as actors upon a metaphorical stage—but he also put forth the possibility that she had a genuine ability to “tap into the collective unconscious.” There was too much information she could not have otherwise known.
Such supernatural knowledge was not proof of life beyond death, however, as the matter of Miss Eugenia Rice’s letter attested. The doctor believed that Mrs. Clifford had been unable to summon the contents of the letter because no one in the room knew what it contained, that she had attempted a distraction by bizarrely mimicking a young male voice. Had she been able to communicate with the deceased Miss Rice, who had written the letter, then she could have proven it through a recitation of the missive inside its sealed envelope.
First Josie wrote the secret letter. Over the course of four drafts, she discovered that what must be communicated need not always be said outright.
Dear Dr. Jennings,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to ask you the greatest favor I feel I shall ever need to ask of anyone, and so I must first apologize for my boldness in doing so. I do not wish to burden you with the unpleasant details of our situation, so I will simply state that my sister’s welfare depends upon our leaving our home.
I hope you will recall your introduction to our tutor, Miss Emily Jasper. She is the niece of Mr. Simon Jasper, editor-in-chief of the New York Evening Star. I would look to you always in deepest gratitude if you were to forward this letter to Emily in care of Mr. Jasper, for she is my best hope of making a better life for my sister and myself.
Sincerely yours,
Josie Clifford
The official thank-you letter, on the other hand, required only two drafts.
The Boy from Tomorrow Page 16