In the Shadow of Blackbirds

by Cat Winters

  “Before our last trip, I always pictured the Emberses living on the Swiss Family Robinson’s island,” I admitted to Aunt Eva as we cruised toward the populated stretch of land no more than a half mile across the bay. A biplane from the Naval Air Station on North Coronado buzzed into the cloudless sky. “Stephen always wrote about living on an island, so I envisioned him swinging on vines and eating his dinner out of coconut shells. But it’s not even an island, is it? It’s a peninsula.”

  “No one calls it that,” said Aunt Eva.

  “Stephen said there’s a narrow road connecting the island to the mainland for people who don’t mind driving around the bay.”

  “I wonder if this is a terrible idea.” My aunt picked at the rail with one of her freshly scrubbed fingernails.

  “If what is a terrible idea? Sitting for another spirit photograph?”

  “No, taking you back over there. Letting you have that package.”

  “What do you think is going to happen if I get that package? Stephen will magically appear and ravish me right there in his brother’s studio?”

  “Shh! Mind your mouth, Mary Shelley. Good heavens.” Aunt Eva eyed two children eight feet away from us—two little girls with big blue eyes half hidden beneath their flu masks. They stretched their chubby arms over the rails and called out to seagulls circling over the water, “Come here. Come here, silly birds.”

  My aunt lowered her voice so I could scarcely hear. “You used to be as pure as those little girls.”

  “Let’s not have this conversation again.”

  “At your age, you shouldn’t even know what men and women do behind closed doors.” She shook her head with a pained sigh. “You’re sixteen years old, for pity’s sake. I didn’t know about those sorts of things until my wedding night.”

  “You should have read Gray’s Anatomy, then.”

  “Well, there you have it.” She held up her hand as if she had just solved the deepest mysteries of the universe. “You read too many books that encourage the loss of innocence.”

  “I lost my innocence on April sixth, 1917. And it had nothing to do with Gray’s Anatomy.”

  “What?”

  “The day this country declared war against Germany,” I reminded her. “The day spying on neighbors became patriotic and boys turned into rifle targets. That’s enough to take the sweetness out of a girl.”

  “Shh.” She furrowed her brow. “Mary Shelley Black! Don’t you dare publicly announce such things about the war.”

  “Don’t publicly announce such things about me losing my innocence.” I kicked the toe of my boot against the rail and felt the vibration shinny up to my fingers.

  Ten minutes later, we arrived at the island that wasn’t an island and disembarked.

  A double-decker electric streetcar that looked like one railroad car had been squished on top of another transported us down Coronado’s main road, Orange Avenue. We clacked down the tracks, past plaster bungalows and traditional clapboard houses that loomed larger than the average American home. Buicks and Cadillacs rumbled by the streetcar, belching clouds of exhaust that smelled of city life and wealth. No signs of poverty existed anywhere on the island, but still, black and white crepes marked the Spanish influenza’s lethal path just the same.

  For half the journey, a motorized hearse drove by our side, its cargo—a shiny mahogany casket topped with calla lilies—on full display through open scarlet drapes. I ground my teeth and clenched my fists and felt as though Death himself were riding along next to us, taunting us. He was a nasty schoolyard thug, bullying us with a killer flu when we were already worrying about a war, flaunting the fact that we couldn’t do a thing about the disease.

  Just go, I thought. Leave us alone.

  I turned my eyes to the passing palm and magnolia trees, and like everyone else on the streetcar, I tried to pretend the hearse wasn’t there.

  After reaching a stretch of shops and a pharmacy, Aunt Eva and I climbed off the streetcar, walked two blocks southwest, and arrived at the familiar row of houses that ran alongside the beach, separated from the white sands by Ocean Boulevard and a seawall of boulders. Waves crashed against the shore with a roar, echoed by the cry of seagulls combing the sand for food at the water’s edge.

  “You’re going to see a noticeable change in the Emberses’ front yard,” said Aunt Eva when we neared our destination.

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  The brick chimney and brown shingles of the Emberses’ home rose into view, as well as a serpentine line of black-clad men, women, and children that wound from the side of the house to the wall of privets along the property’s front edge. As on the train from Oregon, I saw only desperate eyes and ugly white patches of gauze where mouths and noses used to be.

  I sucked in my breath. “What are all those people doing there?”

  “I told you, Julius specializes in photos of fallen servicemen now. People have been traveling across the country to benefit from his work, and the flu has tripled demand.” Aunt Eva quickened her pace and led me across the Emberses’ front lawn, past the waiting customers.

  “There’s a line, lady,” barked a short woman with squinting eyes.

  “I know the family, thank you very much.” Aunt Eva adjusted the wide-brimmed hat she wore to conceal her boyish hair and, with an air of pride, bypassed the crowd.

  I gulped at all the glares shooting our way over the masks and slouched with embarrassment.

  We made our way to a side entrance that led directly into the studio. In April a simple wooden sign bearing the words EMBERS PHOTO STUDIO had greeted us, but now a large oval plaque made of polished brass announced in bold-faced letters:

  MR. JULIUS EMBERS

  SPIRITUALIST PHOTOGRAPHER

  “Excuse me.” Aunt Eva hiked up the hem of her dress and climbed past a small group on the cement steps. “I know the family.”

  A heavyset woman shoved her back to the ground. “Then use the main entrance.”

  “Mr. Embers told me not to.”

  “Then you must not know the family well.”

  The side door opened, and out poked the masked face of a thickset girl no older than eighteen, with a nest of chaotic brown hair pinned to the back of her head. Her white blouse bunched at the waist of her wrinkled gray skirt, and she had the overall appearance of a melting ice-cream cone. “Please make room for the exiting customers,” she said in a voice as frazzled as her hair.

  A family of four—two malnourished-looking parents and a small boy and girl—filed out of the studio with wreaths of garlic strung around their necks, as if they were warding off vampires instead of the flu. Behind them blared John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

  “Good afternoon, Gracie.” Aunt Eva elbowed her way back up the steps to reach the girl at the door. “Tell Mr. Embers I’ve brought Mary Shelley Black for him.”

  A hush fell over the crowd when my aunt spoke my name. All masked faces turned my way.

  “Mary Shelley Black?” Gracie sized me up with eyes as large as golf balls. “Oh, my—it is you. Come in.” She grabbed my hand with cold fingers, yanked me and Aunt Eva inside, and shut the door on the crowd with a thwack.

  A wall of frigid air hit my skin the moment we entered. I shivered and adjusted my eyes to the dimness of the long rectangular room. Meager shafts of natural light came through three windows shaped like portholes on the western wall. Candles burned on all sides of the room.

  “I’m so happy to finally meet you,” shouted Gracie over the patriotic music trumpeting out of a phonograph’s black-horned speaker. “I’m Julius’s cousin. My brother and I have been helping out as his assistants ever since the flu took our mother last month.”

  “Oh … I’m so sorry to hear about your loss.” I squeezed her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Stephen mentioned you in his—” I froze, for on the wall to my right, from floor to ceiling just inside the doorway, hung a poster featuring an artist’s rendition of my photog
raph with the kneeling, white-draped ghost. My own painted eyes stared me down, as if in challenge.

  “Hello, Mary Shelley.” Julius Embers stepped out of the shadows of his studio wearing a black suit, an emerald-green vest, and a smile that almost looked hesitant. No flu mask concealed his mouth and nose, as if he were unafraid of Death striking him down. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “What do you mean again?” I dropped my hand from Gracie’s. “It looks like you see me every second of the day on your wall over here.”

  “That’s true.” His smile broadened to his usual overconfidence, any hint of uncertainty banished.

  I straightened my posture to feel taller around him. “Did you use me in this advertisement to make your brother mad?”

  “Not at all. I used your image because of the impressive spirit you lured into the photograph. My customers enjoy how regal you look with your proud expression and your ethereal visitor kneeling by your side. You bring everyone comfort.” He stopped directly in front of me. “I want to capture you again—see what else you can give me.”

  I studied his face and caught a similarity between his and Stephen’s eyes that I hadn’t ever noticed before. He was four years older and at least a half foot taller than his brother, but his eyes were the same shape and shade—the deep, inviting brown of dark, liquid chocolate. I glanced away from him, unsettled by the resemblance. The words he had used to describe the way he found Stephen and me the last time I was in that house burned in my brain:

  I found them on the sofa. He had her skirts pulled up to her waist and was on her like an animal.

  “It’s really good to see you, Julius,” said Aunt Eva with a tender squeeze of his arm. “You look like you’re holding up well, considering all the work you’re doing.”

  “I’d look even better if I hadn’t just endured a difficult morning with Aloysius Darning.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes.” Julius sighed and took his arm away from Aunt Eva’s clutches. “That nincompoop is so determined to prove me a fraud that he hovered over my sittings from eight o’clock to nine thirty. He made some of my customers nervous with all his poking and prodding of my equipment.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t find anything amiss, though,” said my aunt.

  “Of course not. Because nothing was amiss.”

  I lifted my eyes back to Julius’s. “Aunt Eva said you’re finally going to give me Stephen’s package.”

  “Yes.” He took my hand and pressed it between his hot palms. “My mother only just told me about it when we heard you were coming to San Diego. I’d also be happy to lend you some of his novels if you’d like.”

  “Isn’t that nice of him, Mary Shelley?” Aunt Eva slipped my hand out of his. “I told him you’d be bored with no school and nothing to read but the dull old dictionary.”

  “Thank you,” I said to Julius. “I’d like to borrow them.”

  The music stopped. The phonograph’s needle traveled to the center of the record with the crackling hiss of static. Julius whipped his head toward the sound. “Gracie, stop gawking at Mary Shelley and attend to the music, please.”

  “I’m sorry, Julius.” Gracie hustled to the phonograph. “I was just so excited to meet her. Stephen always talked about her letters, and I’ve seen her face so often on your wall there, I almost feel like I’m meeting someone from Hollywood—”

  An odd banging erupted from the floor above us.

  Gracie’s forehead turned as white as her mask. She peered toward the ceiling with an expression of such horror, I half believed something sinister was thumping against the wall upstairs. My heartbeat quickened. I found myself gazing at the ceiling as well, while the painting of the white-cloaked phantom lingered in the corner of my eye.

  “Gracie—the phonograph!” said Julius.

  Gracie fumbled to replace “Stars and Stripes Forever” with a new record. She turned the crank on the phonograph, and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” started up at full volume.

  “Why are you blasting the room with patriotic music?” I asked Julius over the commotion.

  “The spirits of fallen war heroes appreciate it. It makes them feel they didn’t die in vain.” He steered me by my shoulders, away from my aunt and toward his growing collection of spirit photographs. What must have been a hundred sample photos hung on the longest interior wall, their frames wedged against one another in a fight for space on the walnut panels. The majority of the faceless spirits wore military uniforms and stood behind mortal sitters. Some of the ghosts rested their hands on their loved ones’ shoulders.

  I heard breathing near the back of my neck and turned my head with a start. Aunt Eva had followed us like a shadow.

  “Eva, please have a seat in the chair back there.” Julius nodded to a chair in the corner by the door—the pesky relative seat, or so it seemed.

  “Do you need me to help with Mary Shelley’s hair or—”

  “Please have a seat.” Julius gave another nod. “The spirits won’t want a crowd.”

  With a wounded look, Aunt Eva retreated, and Julius pressed his fingers around mine again, guiding me across the room. “Let’s take off your mask and get you seated.”

  “I’m not taking off my mask,” I said.

  “I want to see your whole face in the photograph.”

  “Are you off your rocker?” I tensed my legs in a solid stance and shook him off me. “I’ve seen how many people come into this musty, dark room. I’m not risking my life for a photograph.”

  “All right, all right.” He took my hand again and chuckled as though he found my fear entertaining. “Good God, I’d forgotten what a stubborn old mule you are.”

  “I also have two provisions before I sit for you.”

  He lifted his eyebrows and laughed again. “And they are?”

  I untangled my fingers from his. “First of all, you need to tell Aunt Eva you lied about the way you found Stephen and me the last time I was here.”

  “Mary Shelley, our host is giving you free photographs,” said my aunt from her corner. “Please just sit down for him and stop embarrassing yourself.”

  “I won’t sit down until he tells the truth.” I stared at Julius until he could no longer meet my eyes. Over by the phonograph, Gracie scratched at her arm and glanced down at her shoes.

  “I may have exaggerated a little.” Julius peered straight at me again. “I’m sorry.”

  “We weren’t on the sofa, were we?” I asked.

  “No, but you were—” He bit his lip. “My brother said some things to me of a personal, sensitive nature, and—as brothers sometimes fight—I might have added some details about what I saw.” He studied my face for a reaction.

  I turned toward my aunt. “Did you hear that, Aunt Eva?”

  “The entire island of Coronado heard that, Mary Shelley. Please just put this subject to rest and sit down.” She rubbed her flushed neck and looked like she wanted to disappear inside the walls.

  I returned my attention to Julius. “I’d also like to see Stephen’s parcel before I sit.”

  “Of course. Gracie, pull out the package Stephen prepared for our guest. It’s in the top drawer of the desk.”

  His cousin scuttled over to a small desk topped with three glowing candles, and the flames twitched and danced as she approached. The flickering light made the faces in the nearby photos seem to move.

  Gracie squeaked open a drawer and held up a rectangular item wrapped in brown paper. “Is this the one?”

  “Yes,” said Julius. “Will you assure Miss Black it’s Stephen’s handwriting on the front?”

  “Oh yes, it’s his.” Gracie beamed at the words on the paper. “His penmanship was always so much better than mine.”

  That was of hers made my blood run cold.

  “All right.” I gave Julius a nod. “Those were my conditions. As long as you understand I’m only doing this for my aunt’s sake and not because I believe in your ghosts, I’ll sit for one quick picture.�
��

  He gestured toward a high-backed chair with a plum-colored cushion, positioned in front of a black background curtain. “Please have a seat.”

  I walked over to the chair and lowered myself to the cushion with a shiver. The room felt like a northern basement at the peak of winter, musty odor included. Stephen’s words from my last visit entered my mind: He also runs a fan over ice blocks in between sittings to cool the air in there. He tries to make everyone feel like phantoms are hovering around the studio.

  Julius knelt to position me as he desired and guided my knees to the left in a way that tickled, but I clamped my teeth together to keep from flinching or laughing. He tilted my gauze-covered chin to the right.

  “How badly did you injure him that day?” I asked in a voice too quiet for Aunt Eva to hear.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I mean. My aunt dragged me out of here so quickly, I never got to ask if those thuds were the sounds of you slamming his head against the wall.”

  He kept my chin in his hand. “Brothers fight when we upset each other. That’s just how we are.”

  “Is everything all right?” asked Aunt Eva. Uneasiness tinged her voice.

  “Everything’s fine.” Julius got to his feet.

  I swallowed. “Has Stephen written? Do you know if—”

  An airplane growled overhead and drowned out the music and my question. The thunder of its engine shook the photos on the walls and vibrated in the pit of my stomach.

  More thumps and bangs emerged from the floor above. Julius and I both looked at the ceiling.

  “What’s happening up there?” I asked.

  Julius tore his eyes away from the beams overhead. “My studio causes everyone’s imaginations to mistake normal house sounds for mischievous ghosts.” He strode over to his stepfather’s beautiful black camera and ducked his head under a dark cloth behind it. “It’s probably just my mother cleaning. She’s become a little obsessive. Keeps her from worrying about Stephen.”