“Why did you give it to me?” Marjorie stuttered, looking more than a little pale.
Johann appeared affronted but then relaxed his face. “Oh, Pet, not ‘cause I wished to curse you. Eugene loved that jewel so I popped it from its hideous setting and let him make it into a sparkly present to please his pretty wife. Did I do wrong?”
Eugene gave his father a nervous look. “You never told me about the curse, Papa.”
“Ja, on the ship, son. Remember Velte took it and then I told you both about the curse… Oh well, it's nonsense. Bedtime stories, that’s all.”
Eugene put his arm around his wife and whispered in her ear.
“Enough of these silly stories. Did you hear about that daredevil from England, Charles something-or-other?” Eugene said, looking up.
“Ah, you mean The Demon Barber. Yes, I read about him in the paper. He’s going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, in a month or so?” Grand-da Pat replied. “Damn fool!”
Bells went off in my head. I knew this story.
Marjorie’s funeral was the same day as Charles Stephens' funeral. Gigi told me that once when we were on a tour of the Falls. My heart skipped a beat.
“Marjorie, you’ve cut your hair,” said Vicky, smoothing down her own brassy blonde bob. “It’s all the rage right now.”
A disapproving glance flew Marjorie’s way from Opa Johann.
She’d said she was going to wear something to soften him up. I should have stopped Marjorie from wearing the sapphire. This must have been the reason I’d returned to this place in time—to save her.
“Do you like it?” Marjorie asked, fiddling with her hair.
“No,” Opa Johann said.
Vicky took a long hard pull on her cigarette, either oblivious to the tension or pleased to be creating it.
“I do,” I said, coming to Marjorie’s defense.
“Look at the example you’ve set for your children. Speaking out of turn…all because of that women’s suffrage…” Opa Johann grumbled half under his breath.
“Maggie, how is that fiancé of yours?” Eugene said, stepping in.
Eugene, it seemed, was just as Gigi described, always the peacemaker. I stared into his eyes. They’d been dark earlier, almost black. It was hard to fear this man. What changed him, or what would change him? Unfortunately, I knew the answer: the Delhi Sapphire.
“Winfield is wonderful.” Maggie’s face lit up as she said it. “We’ve decided the wedding will be in the spring. Oh, I can’t wait. There’s a well-known Frenchwoman who owns a shop in London and I’m having my dress made there next week.”
“London?” Gigi piped up. “Can I come, Aunt Maggie? You said you’d take me next time. You promised!”
Maggie glanced at Marjorie and frowned. “Haven’t you told them?”
“Told us what?” Gigi asked.
Maggie bit her lip and smiled. “Well, I already invited your mother and you girls.”
“Mama, can we go?” Gigi pleaded.
My gaze darted to Marjorie, willing her to say yes. If we were in London then Marjorie would be safe. She didn’t die in London.
Come to think of it, I could no longer remember how she died.
ELEVEN
I followed Maggie and the throng of women through the streets of London, listening to the sounds of lorries, cars and two horse-drawn hearses. Maggie’s friend Emily, who’d been kind enough to give us the city tour, pointed out the cenotaph erected for the London Victory Parade and was now detailing the event that marked the end of the war. My mind stopped listening. We’d been everywhere from The Tower of London to Big Ben and all of the bustling metropolis and dark, narrow alleyways in between. Thankfully our visit to the dress shop had been brief, although at least I’d been able to sit down while Maggie and the others fawned over her gown.
We’d been on our feet for hours now and hunger pains had long overtaken my insides, not to mention the satchel on my shoulder that was growing heavier by the second. All in all, I was glad we were headed back to the hotel for a late supper.
A tickle set in my throat and I turned my attention outward. A woman in a cloche hat hurried passed us with a handsome red-haired man by her side. He wore trousers with a Fair Isle slipover sweater and when he spoke, it was with a tinge of brogue. He reminded me of Cullen and I suddenly felt lonely. They were in a hurry to get somewhere but then it seemed everybody suddenly was. Almost as if on cue, they disappeared and I realized the busy street had thinned. Fog descended, eerily beautiful despite the dingy residue it seemed to be composed of. I lagged behind, taking in the outline of the buildings, which now looked even more Gothic and ghostly.
Of course, I’d read about the smog of old London, when a million coal fires polluted the atmosphere, but the sound of the fog horn now blaring from the river made it real.
“Maggie,” Emily said with a cough, “We should duck into one of these places. We’ve got a pea-souper rolling in.”
Maggie’s soon-to-be mother-in-law gave a gasp. “A tavern is not a suitable place for us.”
“Terribly sorry but—” Emily stopped. “It’s going to get worse and—”
“What is it?” Marjorie asked through a muffled hand.
“Pollution,” I answered and then clamped my hand over my mouth.
“No use chit-chatting. We should be there already. Let’s pick up our feet, shall we?” Maggie’s soon-to-be mother-in-law said.
Maggie, acutely uncomfortable, made a vague gesture with her hands and followed the formidable woman down the sidewalk. As the ladies turned a corner, a man in a trench coat caught my eye. He’d been right behind us four blocks ago and earlier in the day loitered outside the dress shop. His fedora rode low over his eyes at all times and he looked to be about 5’11, coincidentally the same build as Eugene. I kept my eye on him for the next several blocks before he slipped behind a great stone church. In the growing fog, the iron fence surrounding it looked like rows of jagged black teeth.
Catching only a glimpse of Marjorie’s coat tails as she took a left turn down a cobblestone side street, I ran to catch up but when I rounded the corner, the street lay empty.
The smog didn’t hang quite as low here, or maybe the cool breeze off the River Thames pushed it away. I looked up and noticed a sign that hung atop an old storefront, advertising rare books. Maggie must have reasoned with her mother-in-law and pulled the gang indoors. No better place than one filled with books.
Wandering into the bookshop through a brass-studded wooden door, I smiled to myself, taken in by the familiar smell of grass mixed with a hint of vanilla, my happy place. Books were a constant in my life, and this unmistakable smell always made me feel at home. The bell over the door jingled and a slender man of sixty with large brown eyes, a long nose and a full gray mustache appeared, climbing down from the rolling ladder behind the counter.
He smiled at me as if he recognized a fellow bibliophile
“Good afternoon, Miss. May I help you?”
I looked around the quaint little shop. A polished table sat empty in the corner, offering up only a delicate brass lamp. Shelves lined the room and were packed with books at every turn but the store was also empty, unless Marjorie and the gang were hiding in an alcove. “Did a group of women come in here?”
“No, dear,” he replied and wrinkled his brow.
Turning to go back out the door, panic slammed into my chest. The man in the navy-blue trench coat had followed me. He stood at the corner of the street, leaning against the wall, casually smoking and efficiently blocking my only way out. Half expecting him to turn around and spot me, my mouth went dry and my armpits began to tingle.
“Is everything all right, Miss?”
Swiping a hand over my forehead, I brushed back a clump of sweaty hair. “I’m fine. I’m waiting for someone, that’s all.”
The shopkeeper stood still, watching me, his kind face creased with concern. Hastily I retreated, circling the room, studying the shelves and looking for a backdoor.
>
He followed me to where I stood browsing an older collection of Shakespeare. He pulled a nineteenth-century edition of Twelfth Night and handed it to me. I flipped through the pages, to be polite, and handed it back.
“Something specific you fancy?”
“I’ll just take a look around on my own,” I said before noticing for the first time the book he held.
“What’s that?” I asked, squinting; his hand covered the spine. I followed him and he laid the book open on the counter and turned it sideways so we could both look at it. A smell I recognized drifted out of it. It was the scent of dust and pages that time had long since begun to degrade. It was the smell, too, of the book I’d found in the library and seen prior to that in the nineteenth century.
“It’s a collection of spells I acquired at an estate sale in Prague a few years ago.” He flipped the thin pages until he came to a poem printed neatly in the center of the leaf. “It looks to me like a book of magic,” he added, grinning.
A familiar feeling twisted within me.
Could it be?
TWELVE
“ A book of magic?” I questioned.
The old shopkeeper looked down at me with a mischievous flicker in his eyes. “Do you believe in such things, child?”
He pushed the book closer so I could see the fine print. “I translated it once—this particular page says—”
“No!” I cried and flipped the leather book closed after the first couple of lines, knowing full well what could happen if he finished. The familiar chills spread from my fingertips to my elbow and the book seemed to glow.
He stared at me.
I felt myself reddening. “Excuse me,” I whispered. “I’m just excited and my family is superstitious. If it is a spell then maybe it shouldn’t be read aloud.” I was silent a minute; I hated to lie. “You said you translated it though. What language is it?”
“It's several languages actually, Persian, German, Latin and more I can find no record of.”
He was studying me, and I felt—uncomfortably—that before this moment I had never fully registered the extreme keenness of his dark eyes with their genial crows’ feet. I took a deep breath. I couldn’t meet his eyes as my mind recalled the first time, I’d seen the book at the alchemist Rochus’s cottage in 1857. The cellar had been crammed with bookshelves that went all the way to the ceiling, but that book in particular had caught my eye. The leather had been in pristine condition then. Should I tell him I’d seen it before?
“It’s amazing anyone dared to write anything down with the threat of being burned at the stake. Most magical knowledge and traditions were handed down verbally over the centuries but there were the rare few.” He shifted his stance and opened the book back up, “and thank goodness for them, otherwise spells like this would never have come to rest here.”
I was so intrigued by what he was saying, and yet the skin on the back of my neck began to crawl. I turned, realizing a shadow now lingered outside the front window. “Do you have a back door?”
His eyes followed my gaze to the man outside the shop. “Are you in trouble?”
I said nothing but moved behind a large shelf, blocking the man’s view of me.
At that moment the bell jingled.
The shopkeeper gave me a look and waved me into the back.
“Just a moment please,” he called out front before following me into the back room. “The door is over there.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, hesitating, not wanting to leave him alone.
“Wait!” His brows drew together for a moment, then his face set in sudden decision and he held the book out to me.
My eyes lingered on it.
“You need this!” he whispered, pushing it into my hands. I tilted my head, searching his eyes.
Chills once again ran through me.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
“Take it.”
“No. I can’t.” I couldn’t risk Eugene getting access to all those spells.
“You must! It’s a gift, and be sure to look at page thirty-eight but keep in mind, the spell will only be good to you the once. Now hurry.”
The man spun around and headed back through the curtain.
I heard the low rumble of conversation, but I couldn’t make anything out.
Fingers shaking, I shoved the spellbook into my satchel, clumsily missing the open pocket. The book thudded to the ground and landed open to page thirty-eight. There was a flurry of swiftly moving images, like a movie on fast forward. Confusion riddled my mind. Straining my eyes, I attempted to make out the images but couldn’t.
“You try my patience!” I heard a man bellow from the front. The shopkeeper yelled, followed by a large crash.
I retrieved the book from the floor and hurried out the door, dashing down the alley. I was breathing heavily now, a pulse drumming in my forehead. Just as I turned left, merging into the main street, a hand gripped my shoulder.
“Zafira!”
I turned to see Marjorie.
“Thank heavens! We were so worried.”
Her embrace felt strange but comforting and I hugged her back, still scanning the street for any sign of Eugene, or the man I thought had to be Eugene.
“Come along. Aunt Maggie’s waiting on us.” She squeezed my hand in hers and we rounded a corner, hurrying back to the Savoy hotel.
Inside our suite the doors to the outside balcony hung wide open, tall drapes billowing in the breeze. I stepped out onto the balcony, inspecting the cool, steep shadows below to see if we’d been followed. The fog had all but disappeared and Big Ben was once again visible. Faint shouts of children told me people were beginning to venture back into the streets, but thankfully there was no sign of him.
Allowing myself some momentary relief, I sank into one of the chairs beside Gigi and stared at the satchel cradled in my lap. Between cups of tea and scones slathered with cream, I listened to Maggie, Marjorie, and their mother, Aileen discuss Winfield and his family. All the while, I desperately wished to crack open the book that was burning a hole in my bag.
I finally got my chance after Gigi fell asleep. We’d gone into the other room to get ready for bed and I pulled the small, thick book from my bag. A slightly musty smell floated from between the covers.
“Hello, old friend.”
I opened it again to page thirty-eight. I was shocked to find that it was not in a blur of motion. Just three boxes with slow moving images—a swamp, a ship, and prison bars—like the scene selection from a movie. There were no instructions, only the title in bold print, Dreamwalking. A familiar object jumped out at me from the last image—Gigi’s elephant box—and I reached out and touched the picture. It grew larger until it was the only box. Had I just done that?
Still gripping the spell book tightly, finger in place, I closed my eyes and, when I opened them, a new image sat perfectly still beneath my hand. Goosebumps rose at the base of my neck. It was a picture of Zafira in bed, just as she, I, looked now. In large bold letters underneath, a child’s poem appeared. It was one my Gigi had said to me every night before bed. “Now I lay me down to sleep…”
“Zafira?”
I turned, startled.
“Yes, Gi—Veronika, what is it honey?”
“What are you reading?” she said, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Nothing,” I whispered, folding the book shut and switching off the light. “I was just going to sleep.”
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep...” she mumbled.
THIRTEEN
G igi roused me from bed in the morning with her curious musings and disappeared after I promised to come find her. Pieces of the nightmare she’d pulled me from slid through my brain and tripped my heart once again. The hall was sunny, but my body was cold and wet. It’s just sweat, I told myself, not swamp water.
God, what kind of a dream was that? My heart slammed against my chest. Another sharp image sizzled through my brain.
Zafira about the
age of eighteen, curled up in a window seat, long delicate fingers wrapped around a book, unaware of how the summer sunlight shone on her ebony hair. For an instant, it had seemed she was alone, then I’d sensed another presence. I cringed as Eugene, with eyes black as night, charged out of the closet, knife in hand. He’d picked her up, flinging her over his shoulder. Then the image changed.
There was mud on my feet. We were in some sort of swamp. I could hear Zafira trying to scream, but what came out was a gurgling sound and even that seemed to fade into the wet cloth that filled her mouth.
The edges of the swamp blurred around me and I wondered if I would pass out from the fear. That was when Gigi had wakened me to show off her drawing. She’d quickly left the room, eager to show her mother. I was glad to be alone.
As the sweat dried, I began to shiver. For several minutes I just sat there, before shaking the dream loose. I rose and dressed quickly, knowing I’d slept in. It’d been two days since we’d returned from London. Marjorie was still alive, and Eugene was still an enigma.
I hurried down the hall and found Gigi in the center of her parent’s bedroom. She didn’t realize I was there. She was holding her mother’s mirror, admiring the strawberry blonde ringlets that hung past her shoulders.
“You look lovely, Vee,” I said, mimicking the nickname they all had for her.
Startled, she set the mirror down.
“It’s okay. You’re not in trouble. Did Mama just finish unwinding the cloth from them?” I knew the rag-rolling was something Gigi had endured as a child and hated, but it kept her ringlets perfect.
“Mm-hmm, it hurt a lot more this morning. Mama said it's cause I’m tired. How come you don’t have to do it?”
“My hair is straight so it doesn’t get tangled like yours.”
She pouted and then let out a big yawn, stretching her arms in the air.
“You moved a lot last night.”
“I’m sorry—I guess I had another bad dream.”
Cruel Fortunes Omnibus: Volumes One to Four Page 29
