by Cat Winters
“No, you couldn’t,” said John beside me. “I think you’re full of bunkum, Reverie.”
“Am I?” Henry cocked his right eyebrow. “Perhaps I should put you into a trance in the same amount of time, mon pote, and set you crowing like a rooster.”
The girls all laughed, including Sadie, whose cackles attacked my head like a swarm of screeching insects.
“Prove it by hypnotizing Olivia again, right here,” said Percy, resting a wintry palm on the back of my hand.
The laughter quieted. I quaked, for Percy’s hand looked as pale as death.
“The way you manipulated her the other night impressed me beyond belief,” he continued, his face graying, his voice retreating into the distance. “I would love to witness how you do it—up close.”
Anger roiled inside me. I shook Percy’s hand off mine and cried out, “All is well!”
Percy wrinkled his forehead, but before that phrase could spew from my mouth again, Sadie clapped her hands and begged in a faraway echo of a voice, “Oh, do it, please, Monsieur Reverie. It’ll be fun. We could prop her up next to the buffet table.”
“Yes, put her next to the birthday cake, like a delicious tart,” said a long-nosed fiend of a boy with a leer that turned my stomach.
“Yes, do it,” the bulging-eyed girl chimed in, her canines sweeping over her bluing bottom lip. “How funny that would be.”
I glared at Percy, who shrank back and pinked up to his regular hue, as if he had just then realized he was failing at making me feel comfortable.
“I’ll pay you to keep her asleep during the entire meal.” Sadie stood to her full height and stared me down with irises that simmered bloody red. Her long black fingernails ripped into the tablecloth. “Name your price, and I’ll go fetch my father’s wallet right now.”
I gasped for air and grabbed the arms of my chair while the room swayed and knocked me about worse than Percy’s buggy. Don’t faint, don’t faint! I told myself. Keep your wits about you. Don’t show them you’re weak—that’s exactly what they’re craving.
“No,” I heard someone say, but my tilting brain and failing ears couldn’t figure out from where in the room the voice had emanated. I drew long breaths of sour beer fumes and willed the claws and the fangs to disappear, forced the black spots to stop buzzing in front of my eyes, until the room settled back into view. The partygoers ceased being demons once again.
Down the way, Henry peered at Sadie across the fine bone china and gilded steins. “Miss Mead is not an object to be laid out for your entertainment.”
Sadie sank back down to her chair. “Prove to us you can put her under in less than one second, or we won’t believe you. We’ll call you a humbug and send you out the door before you eat another bite.” She flapped her napkin across her lap. “You’re our entertainer for the evening.” She beamed with the smile of a victor. “Entertain us.”
Henry backed his chair away from the table with a loud screech, and my heart jumped. He was going to do it. Sadie had harassed him to the point of obedience, and he would drop me into darkness before I could even think of springing out of my seat and fleeing the room.
The hypnotist indeed rose to his feet, seeming to follow her command—but instead of stalking toward me, he tossed his napkin onto his plate. “I will not be bullied into performing hypnosis.”
Sadie laughed. “We’re not bullying you, you silly, dramatic thing. I just—”
“What do they look like, Miss Mead?” Henry leaned his palms against the table. “What do you see?”
A soundless question—What?—formed on my lips.
“They don’t look quite right, do they?” he asked.
“What is he talking about, Olivia?” said Percy with a nudge of my arm. “Is he hypnotizing you right now?”
“Is this part of it, Reverie?” asked Teddy. “Can you hypnotize her with just one look?”
A blush seared my cheeks and neck. I directed my eyes toward my empty Wedgwood plate with its swirls of blue flowers—no one had even served me any oysters yet—and squirmed under everyone’s scrutiny. If only I could disappear into the wind and blow back through the streets and the darkness toward my own house. If only returning home early to Father wouldn’t mean he’d blame me for ruining the evening.
“They look like vampires, don’t they?” asked Henry.
I lifted my face, stunned he had asked that question in front of everyone.
“You knew the moment you came into the room that you should avoid them, didn’t you?” he added. “I could see it in your eyes. This isn’t a curse, Olivia. It’s a gift.”
I shook my head. “No, this is definitely not a gift. They’ve got pale flesh and horrifying teeth. I can’t stand being around them. All is well!”
Silence befell the room again. I was about to stand and slink out to the hall, mortified, when Teddy slammed his hand on the table and made us all jump.
“Holy Mary,” he said. “He did it. He hypnotized her from across the table. She thinks we all look like Count Dracula.”
Sadie broke into her awful, screeching laughter again, and the other girls joined her.
“Bravo, Reverie,” said Sunken-Eyed John, clapping his hands. “A swell magic trick. How’d you do it?”
“Olivia?” Percy poked my arm. “Wake up. You’re babbling nonsense about that novel.”
“What about him, Miss Mead?” asked Henry, nodding toward Percy. “What does he look like?”
I rubbed the sides of my head, and my whole body went hot and achy with humiliation. “Just hypnotize me, On-ree. She’ll pay you well, and I won’t have to be here anymore. Coming to this house was a mistake.”
“Well, that’s rude,” said Sadie, and then she snapped her fingers and demanded, “Hurry up and make her go rigid as a plank, Monsieur Reverie. I’d like to see if I can stand on top of her myself.”
“Oh, yes!” One of the boys applauded with loud smacks of his large hands. “I would pay good money to see that.”
“Do it, Reverie,” said a husky-voiced fellow.
“Yes, do it!” others added.
I shot to my feet, but Sunken-Eyed John grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the table. His fingers squeezed against my bones.
“Let go of me.” I struggled to break free, fire smoldering in my chest. “All is well. All is well!”
My ridiculous cries made everyone laugh all the harder, as if my fury were part of the show.
“Let go of her, John,” said Percy over the obnoxious guffaws. “She’s my girl, you louse.”
“All is well!” White steam—the extinguished flames of my actual words—would soon gust from my mouth and nose. I was certain of it. “All is well! All—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Henry approaching, which sent me further into a fit of angry panic. My legs and free arm thrashed about, knocking over my empty chair with a crash. “All is well!”
Henry’s footsteps drew closer. The air thinned; my lungs hurt. Percy tugged on my elbow, while John kept my wrist pinned and pinched.
“All is well! All is—”
“It’s all right, Olivia.” Henry took hold of my flailing arm.
“All—”
“Stop panicking. I’m not going to hypnotize you.” Henry yanked John’s hand off my wrist, releasing the pain. “Let go of her. You’re idiots, all of you. Spoiled brats. Find your own entertainment.”
Before anyone could react, he guided me away from the table, toward the breath of freedom waiting beyond the dining room’s entrance, and I choked on the fiery pain of embers lodged inside my throat.
“Hey! Reverie!” called Percy behind us. “Where are you taking her?”
We made it halfway down the mirrored hallway before I heard Percy’s footsteps jogging after us.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from here.” Henry steered me toward the wide front door that would lead to fresh air and escape.
Percy was on our heels. “Come back, Olivia. I didn’t
even get a chance to drink my beer.”
Henry came to a sudden stop and turned on Percy. “Are you Miss Mead’s suitor?”
“Yes.” Percy pulled at his gray bow tie. “My name is Percy Acklen, and I am courting her.”
“Then how the devil can you worry about beer at the moment, bâtard? Those people were treating her terribly. One boy called her a tart, and that ugly one next to her was pinning her down and hurting her. You just sat there like an imbecile.”
“Now, wait a moment . . .” Percy stepped close. “Don’t throw insults at me when you were the one hypnotizing my girl. We all thought you were giving us a show.”
“Do you want me to take you home, Olivia?” asked Henry, ignoring Percy, his hand still cradling my arm. “I will explain everything to your father.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Please, no. My father will be furious if I come home early. He’ll make everything so much worse than it already is.”
“Oh, to hell with all of this.” Percy marched over to our jackets hanging off the scraggly coat rack. “I’m hungry and grumpy and need a good supper. Let’s go eat in the city and tell Olivia’s father everything went well. Who needs catty birthday girls and overbearing daddies ruining our evening?” He threw his crimson scarf around his neck. “You, too, Reverie. I’m willing to bet you also have a father who’s made your life miserable.”
Henry lowered his hand from my arm. “No. Just an alcoholic uncle-guardian who got himself killed in July.”
“Holy tripe. That’s even worse. You’re in.” Percy clomped back over to us on the loud soles of his oxfords, my coat in hand. “Come join Olivia and me. I’m paying.”
“Your buggy only holds two people, Percy,” I reminded him.
“True. Well . . .” He helped me into my coat. “Do you have a hired carriage, Reverie?”
“No. Miss Eiderling paid someone to drive me here, but I don’t think—”
“Then we’ll all squeeze in together. It’ll just have to be tight and cozy.” Percy offered me his elbow and plunked his top hat on his head. “Come along. Let’s get out of here and go toast to youth and vampires and rebellion.”
hree people did not fit comfortably into a buggy built for two.
Mandolin jostled us through the streets of Portland, and Percy, Henry, and I squeezed together on the padded green seat, my hips too wide to fit between the boys. I had to turn and sit sideways, facing Percy, while half my rump perched on Henry’s warm leg behind me.
“Comfy?” asked Percy, shifting his face toward me, his nose an inch from mine.
“Somewhat,” I said, and I gritted my teeth against a jolt from a buggy wheel slamming against a pothole.
Cologne and pomade and the scent of wool suits ruled the air around me. Youth these days will be the death of morality, I remembered the pumpkin-haired organist complaining earlier that day, and I wondered if she might be right. Wedged between the two young men like that, my chest shoved against Percy’s arm and my backside bumping against Henry’s femur, I must have resembled the heroine of Sapho, the play both the organist and my mother said was causing an uproar in New York City—the one about the strumpet and her lovers.
This was not the evening my father was envisioning for his newly tamed daughter.
Percy tipped his face toward mine again. “Is she still hypnotized, Reverie?”
“No,” I said before Henry could even think of confessing that my father had paid him to cure my mind. “I’m fine.”
Percy turned his sights back to the road ahead. “I’d like to learn a couple of hypnosis tricks.”
“They’re not tricks, mon ami,” said Henry with a bite to his voice. “They’re skills that require knowledge, compassion, and mastery. My uncle began training me back when I was just twelve years old, and he only did so because he believed I possessed both talent and responsibility.”
“Your uncle? The rummy who got himself killed, you mean?”
I nudged Percy in the arm. “That’s cruel, Percy.”
“Yes. That uncle.” Henry shifted the leg that rested below me. “He became the guardian of Genevieve and me after our parents died. And despite his weaknesses of recent years, he was once witty and kind and deeply in love with the arts of hypnotism and mesmerism.”
Percy shot him a sideways glance. “You make hypnosis sound like a woman.”
“It is like a woman. She’s beautiful. She’s mysterious.” Henry’s voice softened to a lush purr that made my stomach flutter. “Une belle femme.”
“Risqué,” said Percy with a chuckle.
“But you have to treat her delicately,” continued Henry, ignoring Percy, “and with utmost respect. Or else you’ll find yourself waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, realizing”—he paused long enough for me to peek over my shoulder and catch him watching me through the darkness from beneath the curved brim of his hat—“you may have gone too far.” He kept his eyes on mine. “You’ll be deeply sorry if you’ve inflicted any harm.”
Percy steered Mandolin around the bend to the right, and I forced my eyes away from Henry’s.
“Well,” said Percy, “despite how sacred you’re making stage hypnosis out to be, I would really love to pay you to show me how to perform some of these skills.”
“That information isn’t for sale,” said Henry. “You’re just going to have to mesmerize the world based on your own natural charms, Monsieur Acklen.”
Percy barked a laugh that seemed to shatter something fragile in the air, and I rocked against them both, wondering if Henry Rhodes would put my mind back the way it was, if he was genuinely sorry for what he had done.
PERCY LED US INSIDE AN ELEGANT TWELFTH STREET establishment with frosted glass light fixtures twinkling over dark wooden booths and tables draped in ivory cloths. Waiters in white coats waltzed about with bottles of wine and steaming plates of fish and beef that made my hungry stomach moan. I’d never stepped inside the place before that moment. Father always preferred eating at home, so we seldom dined in restaurants.
Our host, a tall gentleman with a dusky walrus mustache, took our coats and the boys’ hats and led us up two short steps to one of the dining areas. In one of the booths we passed, a woman in a lavender dress picked at a salad with soundless jabs of her fork.
Another vision approached—I could tell, for the air grew hard to breathe, and the colors of the woman’s booth bloomed into shades that demanded my full attention. Her supper companion, a bony-faced old coot with a half-dozen gold rings, said something to her that made her blur and fade into fog and shadow.
I stopped in a daze and rapped my knuckles against Henry’s arm behind me. “They’re disappearing,” I said. “Certain women.”
“Who’s disappearing?” asked Percy. “What’s going on with you now?”
I sealed my lips, picked up the hem of my gown, and continued following the walrus-mustached host. The illusion passed. My lungs breathed with ease. Everyone now seemed made of flesh and bone.
The host seated the two young men and me at a round table, toward the back, with the flame of a white candle dancing in a silver holder at the center. We removed our gloves, and the host handed us thick red menus. I heard him describe the evening’s specials in a friendly enough voice, but I could no longer pay much attention to the menu or the possibility of food. All I thought about was how I was going to convince Henry to put me back the way I was before I, too, faded like my neighbor Mrs. Stanton and that poor woman poking at her salad.
“Psst—look over there,” said Percy in a whisper once the host had left us.
I craned my head toward the booth across the room that had caught Percy’s eye. Four young ladies dined there in relative quiet, including redheaded and lovely Agnes Frye, my friend Kate’s sister who had lured us high school girls to Wednesday’s rally.
My skin prickled, warning of the arrival of yet another hallucination. The ladies’ booth seemed to rush toward me for better viewing.
My eyes opened wi
de.
Lanterns switched on inside all the women’s bodies. Their hair glistened with breathtaking luminescence—a light that reflected off the surrounding wood. Their skin flushed with a brilliance that rivaled our candle’s flame. I sucked in my breath and watched in awe as they glowed—literally glowed— before my eyes.
“See the emblem hanging off their left shoulders?” asked Percy.
Agnes lowered her left arm and revealed a bright yellow ribbon.
My fingers tightened around my menu, and I slouched down in my chair with the hope that she wouldn’t see me with the boys and come over. I shook my head to regain control of my brain, as mesmerizing as this particular illusion was. The prickling faded. The ladies’ booth dimmed and retreated to its position against the wall. The world tipped back to its normal balance.
“What are the ribbons for?” asked Henry.
“Women’s suffrage.” Percy frowned. “My sister is like them. She used to wear yellow ribbons, roses, and buttons all the time without any of us knowing what the deuce they meant.”
“You have a sister?” I asked.
“Yesss,” hissed Percy. “I have two older, married brothers, both respectable lawyers, and a twenty-year-old sister who’s no longer a part of our family.”
“Because of the—?” I glanced back at Agnes and her friends.
“Yes.” He swallowed beneath his stiff collar. “My father learned she helped run a banquet for Susan B. Anthony down in Salem last February, so he forced her to pack up and leave.” He closed his menu with a solid thwack.
Henry wrinkled his forehead. “You’re not allowed to talk to or see your sister anymore . . . just because she wants to vote?”
“That’s right.” Percy darted another quick peek at the suffragists. “After Father threw her out, she moved to Idaho so she could live the way she wanted and vote as much as she pleased. Mother nearly died from heartbreak and humiliation.” He reopened his menu and pressed his lips into a hard line. “My sister is a spinster now, just like every woman in that booth.”
“Agnes isn’t a spinster,” I said.
