by Diana Forbes
“Dragon slain,” I said with pride.
Stone bent down to the pavement and quickly crammed the deconstructed doll and its trimmings into his jacket pocket. “Maybe I can use the material in one of my future paintings,” he said. A tiny piece of the doll’s white stuffing still lay on the sidewalk. He reached his hand toward the small white speck.
“Be careful of my heart,” I joked.
He focused on me with his good eye. “You said that in jest, right?”
“Yes—the doll has a heart.” I pointed to the cotton tuft. “See? And she looks like me, so—”
“I’m delighted you meant it as a joke.” He paused. “Because I’d never want to hurt you. I’m made of rougher stuff than you.”
“Than me, or the doll?” I huffed.
“Than both of you.”
That was enough—he needed to be taken down a peg or two. Behind us I heard a horse snort.
“Don’t automatically assume the material I’m made of,” I said, stiffening my spine. “You see only my long, red hair, not what lies underneath.”
He tossed the last bit of cotton into his vest pocket. Did this stranger really have the effrontery to assume I was falling in love with him? What cock and bull. For that to happen he’d have to see me as a woman first, which clearly he did not. Meanwhile I didn’t even know his middle name. As a general rule, one should never fall in love with anyone until one has mastered that pertinent detail.
“What is your middle name?” I asked.
“Rake,” he said. “And you, my dear, should stay far away from rakes.”
I laughed. “No one names their child ‘Rake’.”
He nodded gravely as if he had reached the same conclusion. “It’s a beastly name for an American.”
“So, what is it, really?”
“It’s Ray,” he said, scrunching up his face like a kid eating lima beans. “But enough about that. Whoever created this voodoo doll must pay. Do you have any clue who it was?”
I nodded. It had the telltale signs of Thomas Stalker’s handiwork—scary, symbolic, and obnoxious as hell.
“Excellent. Find out the perpetrator’s address and we’ll pay him a return visit,” he said. “I won’t have you living in fear.”
Milk or cream? Sugar or plain? To confront Stalker, or not?
That afternoon over coffee, Verdana confirmed Stalker was the likely culprit. Apparently, he’d recently used his voodoo tricks to frighten some of the other new recruits to the Movement. I remembered Bess’s charm bags—the ones that contained camphor and powdered jellyfish to protect someone against terrible evil. I should have packed one of those protective satchels when I still had the chance.
Pushing the typewriter aside, I scrunched down next to Verdana and Sam at her mahogany oval table. “How does Stalker even know about this horrid practice?” I asked. “Is he even from Louisiana?”
Verdana shook her head. “Boston, born and bred. He probably found out about it from the idiotic Folk-lore Society.” She rattled open a newspaper and pointed to a small Folk-lore Society meeting announcement. It claimed its mission was to keep traditions alive. The notice said the Society put witchcraft, gris-gris, folk dance, and all sorts of regional cults and beliefs under a microscope, and claimed they were worthy of serious study.
“Voodoo. Land sakes!” said Verdana. As if inquiring about the weather, she said, “So, tell me about the doll, was the hair long or short?”
“Long—like mine. And red.”
“You’re a celebrity.” She whistled. “Already.” Standing up, she rocked back on her clunky boots. She put her hands up to her mouth like a speaking trumpet. “And now introducing our new suffrage leader, Miss Penelope Stanton!”
Verdana twirled around in her outrageous bloomers and boots, modeling before an invisible audience. She narrowly avoided crashing into one of the suffrage posters on her wall. “Gosh, he never made a voodoo likeness of me.” She pointed to herself. “I’m here, Thomas Stalker,” she called out. “Why don’t you turn me into a doll—and leave Miss Penelope alone.”
“He’d have to make a much bigger doll if it was supposed to be you,” Sam said. He stood up and poked her in her fleshy abdomen.
She punched him in the arm, and they both jumped around her parlor pretending to box with each other. Was it brazenness on their part or sheer ignorance? No one should be so cavalier about voodoo.
“Assuming that I don’t keel over from a pin in my heart,” I snapped, “I think I’ll go pay the Devil a visit.”
Verdana cast a look at Sam. She stopped prancing around the table and approached me. “Penelope, for the sake of the Movement, I forbid it. You don’t want to aggravate a person like that. What if he’s mentally ill?”
Fatigued from carrying home half a dozen eggs, Mother was napping. Lucinda was out seeking that most elusive of comforts during a Panic—a job. And, as the sky turned a magnificent shade of orange, Stone and I sat across from each other in the parlor, savoring the fourth, yet most important meal of the day.
High tea.
He leaned back on the decrepit wing chair. “Your employer is missing the point,” he said curtly, pouring himself a steaming cup. He sweetened it with four teaspoons of sugar. “Bullies need to be bullied back. Otherwise they’ll never let you alone.”
Picturing armies of sanitarium inmates wearing voodoo doll necklaces, I waved him off. “Verdana’s right. I have no desire to match wits against a lunatic.”
He banged his chipped teacup down on the sagging end table. “Sane or insane, you can’t let him spook you.”
I stared at him. Something in my expression caused him to laugh, but he sobered quickly enough. I figured he was so adept at capturing a subject’s mood on canvas that he could probably read anyone’s thoughts. Not that I was trying to hide mine.
“You can’t just declare that you want rights,” he said. “You need to fight for them.”
He wasn’t even in the Movement. Why was he trying to teach me how to lead it? It would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out why Stone thought he knew everything about everything, and then some.
“But I’m not the leader. Verdana is. And she says—”
“If you do everything she says, you’ll always be a follower. Is that all you aspire to?” He asked me if Verdana had found a voodoo doll in her likeness at her doorstep.
Remembering Sam’s remark about Thomas Stalker running out of cotton stuffing, I couldn’t help suppressing a smile.
Stone leaned back on the wing chair and chortled.
I felt the cords in my neck twang. Before moving to this strange city, I had never wielded anything scarier than a bow and arrow at an archery contest. But now, after only a few weeks, I’d mastered both a scalpel and a gun. When did it stop? Boston was supposedly a bastion of civilization. So, why did it feel like the wild West?
“I’m a pacifist,” I said.
Stone stood up, crossed the tiny room, and sat down next to me on the couch. “You still have to fight for what’s right. It’s called leadership.” He gently stroked my face.
Inadvertently, I leaned into his touch, then stifled the ripple of pleasure I felt. For while his fingertips were callused, there was something tender about the way they strummed my cheek, reminding me of how a virtuoso piano player might coax his instrument.
However, it was to be a very short song. All too quickly he stopped. “You need to focus on taking out trash like Thomas Stalker,” he said. “And I need to focus on trash cans. Either way, we both need to focus.”
He was made of much tougher stuff than I.
That night, on the pretense of taking a short constitutional after dinner, Stone Aldrich and I strolled two doors down to Stalker’s flat and rapped on his door. Through the rickety screen, a gangly man with springy hair grimaced at us. He bore a striking resemblance to a werewolf. His long, stringy arms rippled as he opened the door. How many fights had he picked to have arms so sinewy?
Baring oversized, yellowe
d teeth, he let us in. He wore a silver chain around his neck with an amulet of a star. The light in his parlor was dim, but even in the semi-darkness I could see that he was in the process of crafting several suffrage voodoo dolls.
Rolls of white cloth and stuffing littered a table and desk, as well as some partially assembled dolls, most just missing heads.
Is this how he viewed all women?
Stone Aldrich stared at Thomas Stalker’s extended hand and refused to shake it. “It looks like a student art project in here,” Stone muttered. “Er—this is Penelope,” he said.
“Uh—hello,” I mumbled, watching Thomas Stalker’s giant teeth clamp down. They dominated his face, and his lips hung open to make room for them.
He looked like a brute and smelled like he hadn’t bathed in days. Plumes of dirt emanated from his skin. “Get out of Boston,” he grumbled.
I placed my hands on my hips to steady myself. “Stay out of my flat,” I said.
“She means it,” said Stone, slowly withdrawing a Colt .45 pistol from a holster, raising it, and pointing it at the man. The gun gleamed against the room’s dark shadows.
I sucked in my breath, wishing he’d put down the deadly instrument.
“You’re defending her?” Thomas Stalker asked. “Men should stick up for each other and run these shrews out of town.”
I breathed to prevent my voice from shaking. Pretend this is a speech, I told myself.
“I am not a shrew,” I said, keeping my voice low and firm. “My opinion just disagrees with yours, Sir.”
Stone raised the gun higher. Why was he carrying such a dangerous thing? Did he think being an artist gave him license to make up the rules?
Thomas Stalker turned his body toward Stone Aldrich. “I don’t like what the Movement did to my missus,” Stalker grumbled, biting his callused lip. “Got inside her brain. Gave her airs. Don’t like women with airs.”
He glared at me as if maybe I had airs.
My eyes cased his parlor. Near the headless dolls, I spotted a black, metal Singer sewing machine being used as catchall for some of his filthy shirts. His wife must have left him, for what woman would allow her prized sewing machine to be degraded in this way?
A ring of bruises circled Thomas Stalker’s neck as if he were no stranger to fights. An oil lamp flickered, casting a shadow shaped like a rat. Why had Stone taken me here? I just wanted to be far away from the creepy flat. The owner was menacing and smelled vile. But then I recalled what Stone had said: the Movement’s goals wouldn’t happen against all opposition. No, I had to fight for them.
I walked over to the table of headless dolls. With one swift motion I swept them off the table onto the floor. “Stop trying to scare me with these witchcraft totems,” I said, crushing one of the doll’s bodies with the heel of my shoe.
He stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.
“Dolls,” I translated, pointing to the monstrosities strewn across the floor. “You stuck a pin in my heart. Just so you know, mister, the other day I shot a gravestone with a pistol. I have perfect aim, and I own a gun. Don’t make me use it.”
“Ladies shootin’ pistols, now?” sneered Stalker. “Bad enough they’re shooting off their mouths.”
“Give me the gun, Stone,” I said.
Both men stared at me.
“Now, please.”
Stone carefully placed the shiny piece in my hand. My fingers curled around the weapon, which felt cool to my touch. I formed a sight line and shot at one of the headless dolls.
Bang! I hit her right in the heart. Then I lifted the gun and pointed it at Thomas Stalker.
He chewed the air a few times, then slowly raised his hands in surrender pose. “Sorry, Miss,” he mumbled. “Won’t happen again.”
“Er—thank you for your understanding,” I said, starting to curtsy, the general protocol after a short visit, but Stone shook his head. “C’mon,” he said, yanking me by the arm and out the doorway.
Crickets sang accompanied by an occasional katydid, but otherwise peace reigned in the dark heavens. A poet’s moon shimmered in the sky, low, iridescent, and bursting with promise. Stone threaded his arm through mine as we returned the short distance to my flat. We loitered near the stoop outside.
“Doesn’t it feel better to not walk in fear?” he asked, putting up his hand and motioning for quiet so we could listen to a katydid’s plaintive call. The creature crooned her song. Katy-did. Katy-did.
“Yes, Stone.”
A light in one of the flats above us dimmed. Katy-did. Katy-did. I longed for him to stroke my cheek.
“God, I love brave women,” he said, squeezing my arm. “What you did in there took real courage.”
I handed him back his gun, which he slid into a holster. I wondered if, together, we’d embark on other similar adventures.
“Which also means… you’ll be fine when I’m gone,” he added.
I paused. “I had hoped you’d stay,” I said quietly.
“Can’t,” he said, voice quivering. “At any rate, you’re better off on your own.”
Even the katydids went mute. A surge of saltwater stung my eyes. “I don’t understand,” I said.
He turned to me. “I want things clear with us, Penelope. We’re pals, good pals, but don’t view me as a suitor.” He looked up at the stars as if counting them. “There are too many complications.”
“Because you’re Jewish? I can easily live without lobster soup and—and camel and rock badger. I’ve never even tasted camel. It looks tough…and furry. I don’t care whether an animal has cloven feet or not.”
“There’s a lot more to being Jewish than the food, doll. Then there’s the fact that I paint experimental subjects, which most people hate. You can do much better than me.”
I pushed him away from me—hard. “But you can’t do any better than me.”
He tugged at his jacket sleeve, then looked down. “Well said.”
I wished he’d stop trying to put me off. It was becoming irksome. Or, if he were, then he really needed to stop acting so damned charming. He couldn’t keep flirting with me as if he were going to kiss me, then stop mid-air—could he?
“By the way, how did you know my flatmate kept a gun?” I asked, trying to hold back my tears lest he detect that he’d put me off my balance. I felt like one of Thomas Stalker’s headless dolls.
Stone laughed. The raucous sound reverberated through the quiet darkness.
“Oh, my darling sheltered girl.” He playfully tousled my hair. “What do you take me for? This is my gun.”
Thursday, July 6, 1893 Boston
The rain turned the boulevards into mud rivers. When the storm hit hardest, I was caught in the slosh of earthy sludge that coursed between Verdana’s flat and my own. The wet dirt attached itself to my skirts, weighing me down so I could barely walk. The weather was a damned inconvenience for any woman who followed Parisian fashions. Women were supposed to stay indoors as prisoners in their homes while the men roamed free.
Surely, this topic was worthy of a speech.
Up ahead I glimpsed my flat, and standing just inside the bow-front window on the first floor, Stone. He held up one hand to his bad eye and looked to be reading a letter. Moving the pale blue stationery this way and that, he tried to get it in focus. His chestnut hair shone.
I looked away. He was the same person he was yesterday.
I walked up the five steps to my flat and, flicking my wet hair away from my face, placed the key in the lock. From the dim shadows at the doorway, an arm reached out to block me from opening the door.
“Get off of me,” I shrieked.
“Keep your voice down,” an urgent voice instructed. I looked up, trying to swat the rain from my eyes. There was something familiar about the tone. Imperious and condescending. Yet concerned for me, somehow. A very tall man emerged from the shadows. I recognized the dark eyes, the strong chin, and the swatch of dark hair. The rain slicked down his face.
�
�Mr. Daggers…what?” What on Earth was he doing here?
He removed his arm from the doorway and plunged his hand in his coat pocket. “Why are you with him?” he demanded.
“What?”
“Aldrich,” he snapped. “What are you doing with the likes of Stone Aldrich?” Mr. Daggers motioned with his head up to the lit window. Rain careened off his eyelashes.
“I’m not doing any—why is it any of your business?”
“He’s a bad man, Penelope.”
“And you’re such a saint.” Visions of Mr. Daggers kissing me came flooding back. I pictured the letter he’d written to my parents to force me to move in with him and his wife. The flowery o’s from his second letter swam in my head.
“My affection for you forces me to do some bad things,” he admitted with a dismissive shrug. “But you—you’re housing a fugitive.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “He’s not on the run,” I said. “The man can barely walk.”
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” warned Mr. Daggers. “Stone Aldrich is on the run. His line of irate creditors stretches from Philadelphia to New York; no self-respecting gallery will show his paintings; and he’s a flag-waving Socialist.” He spat out the last word. “You can wipe that skeptical look off your face, young lady. Don’t you think I support artists whenever I can? I’m a PATRON of the arts, for God’s sake,” he shouted. “But that man Stone Aldrich wants the workers of the world to rise up and strike down our capitalist system. Just what we need during the Panic. It’s treasonous.”
Maybe Mr. Daggers was a thief of voices. His rampage had turned me speechless. “Stone hasn’t uttered one word about Socialism in the whole time he’s been here,” I said squeakily.
“How gentlemanly,” said Mr. Daggers, his sarcasm dripping faster than the rain. “Tell me—has he been indifferent to your suffragist cause as well?”
I flashed back to the many conversations I’d had with Stone about the Suffrage Movement—his wise counsel on renaming the Rational Dress contingent and his advice on confronting Thomas Stalker. I considered Stone’s concealed pistol. Had I misread his interest in the Movement as purely scholarly? Was he the ringleader of a far more dangerous Movement?
