The Seer of Shadows

by Avi

  DEDICATION

  FOR WALTER DEAN MYERS

  SPECIAL THANKS TO ARLENE ROBILLARD,

  WHO POINTED THE WAY

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Bonus Material A Day in the Life of Avi

  Avi on the History of Photography

  Fun and Spooky Green-Wood Cemetery Facts

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Acclaim for The Seer of Shadows

  Books by Avi

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  IT WAS AN OCTOBER MORNING in the year 1872, and New York City’s air was so befogged with white mist and dark smoke that I could barely see across the street. All the same I was attending to my daily chore of sweeping our small front court with its painted sign:

  ENOCH MIDDLEDITCH

  SOCIETY PHOTOGRAPHER

  Chancing to look up, I was startled to see a black girl standing just beyond our low iron gate. It was as if she had just stepped out of the haze, dressed in her somber cotton servant’s garb. A tiny wisp of curly black hair poked out from beneath her white cap. Though clearly she was a servant, her posture was upright, quite proud, and not at all deferential. I judged her to be about the same age as I, fourteen; but her smooth face, round and dark, seemed devoid of emotion until I noticed her eyes: They were full of a deep and brooding intensity.

  My first thought was that she was looking at me, but then I realized it was our sign that held her attention.

  “May I help you?” I asked.

  She turned her gaze upon me. “Who are you?”

  The question, asked so bluntly, was unexpected. “I’m Mr. Middleditch’s apprentice.”

  “Does he make portraits?”

  “Portraits, cartes de visite, and studies.”

  “My mistress, Mrs. Frederick Von Macht, requires a portrait.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right place.”

  “Good,” said the girl. “She will be at your door tomorrow, at two.”

  Though surprised by her presumption, I said, “I’ll tell my employer,” perfectly aware that Mr. Middleditch had no pressing matters to attend to. Business was anything but lively.

  With a curt nod the girl turned and walked away, vanishing into the mist as eerily as she had appeared.

  Not only did I wonder where she’d come from and gone to, I was uncertain whether to believe her or not. But knowing it would be a good thing if her mistress did come for a sitting, I put aside such questions and hurried into our rooms to inform Mr. Middleditch that he actually had a customer.

  Still, there was something very unsettling about the girl, so much so that I could not get her out of my mind. Was it the way she’d suddenly appeared and disappeared into the mist? Was it the tone of her voice? Was it the brooding look in her eyes?

  That said, I shall be the first to admit there was nothing about her appearance to foretell the extraordinary events that were to follow.

  TWO

  MY NAME IS HORACE CARPETINE. I was born in New York City and spent my youth there. Perfectly happy years they were, too, though my childhood occurred during the vast upheaval known as the Civil War. And I can assure you there was nothing civil about that conflict, certainly not in New York City.

  My father, short, stocky, and bald, was a watch repairer about whom always wafted a faint smell of fine machine oil. An early and fervent supporter of Abolition and radical Republicans, he was devoted to the likes of Abraham Lincoln and New York’s Horace Greeley. In fact, it was from Mr. Greeley that my first name was derived.

  Father, a great believer in science, considered all superstition bunkum. Every occurrence, he thought, had a rational explanation. All matters should be considered in the light of honest logic. Not surprisingly, I was brought up to think the same.

  My mother was a seamstress of fancy frocks working at home for a milliner who dubbed herself Madame D’Arco.

  I had an older brother and an even older sister. My sister, Harriet (named after the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe), settled her fortunes by marrying Mr. Toby McClain, a customs house clerk. By the time this story begins, I was already an uncle.

  My brother, John (named after John Brown, the martyred Abolitionist), had been taken into my father’s watch shop and was destined to make that his life’s occupation.

  I, much the youngest, was in many respects raised as an only child, living with my parents in a third-floor apartment on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. I was quick to learn, and by the time I approached my fourteenth birthday I was quite verbal, a good reader, and could do sums and geometry. My father enjoyed engaging me in what he called “philosophical arguments,” when we would debate such questions as “What is truth?” or “What is more useful in the modern age, logic or faith?”

  In fact, Father liked to brag I was a model youth for the industrial age. Had I not won school prizes for mathematics and practical science? Was not one of my heroes John Ericsson, the great, self-taught engineer?

  When my schooling was complete, it was necessary to find me a suitable trade. Given my skills and taste, Father decided it should be work of a scientific nature. As it happened, one of his customers learned that a photographer by the name of Enoch Middleditch needed a boy to serve as live-in helper: an apprentice.

  In those days, while photographs were to be seen everywhere, it was the rare individual who could explain the process by which they were made. Photography required knowledge of mechanics, physics, and chemistry.

  Photographic images were considered remarkably truthful, reality itself. “Paintings may be beautiful,” my father argued. “But they are only artists’ notions. Photography reveals facts.” He would point to the daguerreotype of my grandfather on the wall. “You see,” he would say, “that is him!”

  Inquiries were made about Mr. Middleditch. “He’s a very successful photographer,” Father soon informed me. “Quite wealthy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me so himself, and he strikes me as an honest fellow.”

  Things were soon arranged. In return for being Mr. Middleditch’s apprentice, I would have room, board, and, most importantly, instruction in the science of photography.

  Upon entering my new life, I took my mother’s love, my father’s ideals, and their parting gift of a copy of Dr. J. Towler’s book:

  THE SILVER SUNBEAM

  A PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL TEXT-BOOK

  ON

  SUN DRAWING AND

  PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTING

  And God said, let there be light: and there was light

  When Father presented the volume to me, he assured me that despite the biblical quote on the title page, its three hundred and forty-nine pages contained only rational knowledg
e.

  So it was that on March the first, 1872, I left home and moved in with Mr. Middleditch, resolved to be nothing less than the best photographer in this world.

  Other worlds were not mentioned.

  THREE

  MIDDLEDITCH WAS HIS TRUE NAME. He claimed it was of English derivation. Its singularity, moreover, was something of which he was absurdly pleased. He liked to say that its oddness meant that people would remember it. In the world of photography, ever more crowded with amateurs as well as professionals, he insisted it was vital to be noticed.

  He rented the lowest floor in a common brownstone house in the Manhattan district known as Greenwich Village, 40 Charlton Street. The rooms, set low in the house, were gloomy. But when you consider how photographic images were made—in semidarkness—it was actually an advantage.

  The front parlor was a reception space for clients. The second room was where he took his photographs. A third room contained his equipment and was where the photographic plates were processed. Chemical smells tinged the air.

  Beyond these rooms was a small, private living space, consisting of his bed-sitting room, plus a kitchen of sorts. I slept in the kitchen. Beneath my narrow bed I stored an old sailor’s chest in which I kept some personal items, my copy of The Silver Sunbeam, and the little bit of money I called my own.

  The entry to our quarters was through the front court, where the sign, which proclaimed Mr. Middleditch a “society” photographer, made its appeal to New York snobbery. But once I had established myself in Charlton Street, I discovered that Mr. Middleditch’s business did not thrive. He’d greatly exaggerated his wealth and position to my father and struggled to eke out a living. He claimed he did not care, saying he was an artiste, even speaking the word with a French accent.

  Truth be known, Mr. Middleditch was lazy. Still, he was a good teacher and more than willing to instruct me in the secrets of the photographic art. I’m sure he did so not because of any particular generosity, but because I could do more work while he did less.

  In fact, though I did lots of sweeping, dusting, and brushing of jackets, I was taught a very great deal about aperture and shutter speed, the essence of photography. My fingertips soon grew black with photo chemicals, the mark of the true photographer.

  In my first few months, things went well. Very soon I was setting up cameras, adjusting lenses, and preparing photographic plates, both negatives and positives. While I was thus engaged in my regular duties, Mr. Middleditch busily chatted with his occasional clients, “fishing them,” as people said.

  If there was one thing my employer was good at, it was taking advantage of a situation. Thus, as I readied the photographic wet plates, he, with flourish and fuss, spent time arranging his subjects.

  “I wish the world to see how beautiful you are” was his standard phrase for women.

  For men it was “Sir, we must capture your sense of dignity and power.”

  His subjects duly flattered, Mr. Middleditch would duck beneath the black cloth behind the camera box and press the air bulb that powered the shutter release. The image was thus captured. Then he reappeared and chatted some more while I attended to the critical work of developing the photographic glass plate.

  I never actually took pictures. Mr. Middleditch insisted upon doing that. It was a point of honor with him and frustration for me. When I asked when I might, he’d say, “In time, Horace, in time.”

  Such a response only increased my desire to actually take pictures. How could I ever become a photographer unless I tripped the shutter? How little did I guess the result when the opportunity at last arrived!

  FOUR

  MRS. FREDERICK VON MACHT came to our door promptly at two o’ clock. When the knock came, Mr. Middleditch bolted into his workspace to suggest that he was busy, while I went to the door and opened it.

  Mrs. Von Macht was a tall, meticulously groomed woman dressed entirely in black. True, in those days black clothing was to be seen everywhere on both men and women. But her silk garments were especially elegant: a high-necked and narrow hourglass over-jacket in the fashionable style of the day, set over a skirt long enough so that her patent leather shoes were all but invisible. Fine black kid gloves concealed her hands. The hat she wore was decorated with dark bird plumes. In one hand she carried a little purse, a reticule of black jet beads.

  Her face was quite attractive, with brown eyes that seemed to convey deep sorrow. Her cheeks were pale and smooth, her brow unlined, her mouth as delicately set as a rose, her chin beautifully formed. Her long black hair was pulled back and shaped into a chignon at the nape of her neck. Not a hair was out of place. I could also detect a faint smell of lilac perfume.

  In short, my quick judgment proclaimed her the very image of a dignified and attractive woman, a woman in firm control of her world and herself. What’s more, she had come in a fine horse and carriage—with a coachman.

  Obviously Mrs. Von Macht was wealthy. But the black band around her left arm made it clear that she was also in mourning, if highly fashionable mourning.

  Her servant girl was with her. But other than to notice her as the same black girl I’d met previously, I paid her little mind. As far as I was concerned, she was of no consequence to our business with Mrs. Von Macht.

  “Yes, madam,” I said to the woman. “May I help you?”

  “I am Mrs. Frederick Von Macht,” the woman replied in a clear but soft voice. “I have an appointment with Mr. Middleditch.”

  “Yes, madam,” I said, making a little bow. “Mr. Middleditch is expecting you.”

  With a rustle of her heavy skirts, Mrs. Von Macht stepped into our parlor. The servant girl followed.

  Our reception room was modest. Two gaslight fixtures on the walls provided soft, pleasant light. This light revealed a small, dark green horsehair sofa and chair. An undersized Turkish rug lay upon the floor while a low table sat before the couch. Upon this table was a portfolio of photographs. Other ornately framed portraits were on the wall.

  I need to say that Mr. Middleditch did not take any of these photographs, although this was not something he revealed to his clients.

  “Please sit down,” I said. “I’ll fetch Mr. Middleditch. He’s working on some photo plates.”

  Not true, but it’s what I’d been instructed to say.

  “Thank you,” said the woman, seating herself and taking in the room with a glance, folding her small, delicate hands demurely in her lap. The servant girl, eyes cast down, stood by her side.

  I hastened to the studio room. Mr. Middleditch was standing before a looking glass fussing over his neck cloth. Perfection achieved, he slicked down his hair with brilliantine and then smoothed his waxed mustache, of which he was very proud.

  Of middling height, Mr. Middleditch was quite stocky: thick arms, large hands, barrel chest. Longish golden hair was brushed back over his collar. His face was as round as a ball, a ball upon which features—wide-set eyes, round nose, and puckered lips—seem to have been affixed with horse glue. His full handlebar mustache was, I will allow, dashing. He did not walk so much as swagger. At the moment he was wearing his best dark four-button cutaway jacket with finely checked trousers and polished boots.

  “Mrs. Von Macht is here,” I announced.

  “What’s she like?” he whispered.

  I described her, adding, “She’s in mourning.”

  “Perfect!”

  “Why?”

  “Horace, a pretty woman in mourning gives me emotions on which I can play. Do you think her rich?”

  “She came in her own carriage. With a servant.”

  “Rich, pretty, and in mourning. More than perfect!”

  My expression must have shown some objection to such sentiments, for he said, “Horace, we need money.”

  With a mischievous wink, he added, “Bid me good fishing,” and stepped into the front room. I followed and, though I kept my distance, I observed all that transpired.

  Mr. Middleditch approached the woman wi
th great deference: body not quiet erect, hands clasped before him—rather, I thought, like an undertaker.

  “Mrs. Von Macht,” he murmured, “I am Mr. Middleditch—the photographer. Thank you so very much for gracing my parlor. I am at your service, completely.” He made a slight bow.

  She gazed upon him with cool, appraising eyes. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she said, “Mr. Middleditch, I am pleased to meet you. Please sit.” She spoke with the air of someone used to giving commands.

  Mr. Middleditch dutifully sat and leaned forward slightly. “Madam,” he began, “how can I be of service?”

  “Mr. Middleditch,” said the woman, speaking in a trembling tone, as if raw emotions were just below the surface of a determinedly dignified composure, “I have a request which may appear somewhat odd, but it is, nonetheless, a heartfelt application.”

  “I assure you, madam, I am pleased merely to have the opportunity to gratify your needs.”

  Mrs. Von Macht took a deep breath, as if gathering courage to speak. “Last May,” she began, “my daughter—Eleanora was her name, and she was only thirteen years of age—passed . . . on.” Her voice seemed to quiver.

  “I am so very sorry,” murmured Mr. Middleditch.

  “Scarlet fever,” continued Mrs. Von Macht when she recovered her composure. “Quite sudden. And tragic. Eleanora was a charming, lovely . . . fair-haired girl. I loved her very much. As did her father. The truth is, Mr. Middleditch, Eleanora was an angel in life as she must be . . . in death.”

  As Mrs. Von Macht spoke, the servant shifted slightly, causing me to glance at her. To my great surprise, the girl was shaking her head slightly, as if inwardly contradicting what the woman said. Next moment the girl, realizing I was gazing at her, looked down.

  “With such a mother,” murmured Mr. Middleditch, who had noticed nothing of the girl’s behavior, “I can have little doubt.”

  “We buried her,” the woman continued, “in the family tomb. Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.”

  “A beautiful place.”

  The woman paused and shut her eyes briefly, as if to control the painful memory. After a deep breath, she looked up. “Mr. Middleditch, do you believe in an afterlife?”