The Witches of New York

by Ami McKay

  “If this is about the window…it’s all fixed.”

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Mr. Withrow said, pointing to Cecil Newland’s signature. “Mr. Newland’s the proud new owner of this dump and he can do with it however he sees fit.” With that he tipped his hat and walked away.

  A sweet-faced waif stood in the shadow of the stoop, chewing on a stale piece of Mr. Markowitz’s pumpernickel.

  “Of course,” Eleanor muttered, resisting the urge to tear down the notice. “Of course…”

  The little girl looked up at Eleanor with sad eyes.

  Eleanor dug a few coins out of her pocket and gave them to the girl. “Save some crumbs for me,” she half-heartedly teased. “Soon I won’t have a home either.”

  “Good luck to you, ma’am,” the girl said before wandering away.

  Inside the shop Eleanor paced the floor—bewildered and angry. “What will we do?” she said. “Where will we go? Why do men like Cecil Newland always manage to get what they want instead of what they deserve?”

  Only Perdu and Cleo were there to hear her. The raven let out a cranky squawk of commiseration. The dog lay down at Eleanor’s feet and rolled over.

  Eleanor sat on the floor next to the pup and gave its belly a rub.

  Adelaide had gone with Dr. Brody to Bellevue hospital and the City Morgue. They intended to check the medical wards, then visit the found persons gallery to see if Beatrice was among the unidentified dead. Eleanor had barely been able to stand the conversation that’d led up to their departure.

  “I’m not saying she’ll be there,” Adelaide had said. “I just think it’d be wise to check.”

  “It doesn’t seem right,” Eleanor had argued. “Aren’t there other things we should be doing than trolling through the morgue? Better ways to spend our time?”

  “If you think of something, let me know. Until then, this is all I’ve got.”

  Dr. Brody had weighed in then, in an attempt to calm the waters. “Ruling certain things out can’t hurt. In fact, it might serve to bring a little peace of mind.”

  But Eleanor couldn’t shake the feeling that the morgue wouldn’t hold any answers. Short of telling them not to go, what else could she say? She certainly didn’t wish to argue with them. Since Beatrice had gone missing, the two had become a pair—she could hear it in the give and take of their conversations, see it in the way their bodies touched here and there. It was new, fragile, and despite all their worries, sweet. She didn’t resent it for a minute, but with Beatrice gone it was difficult to see happiness as anything but out of place. Still, she couldn’t deny that Brody seemed to be holding everything together, most especially Adelaide. There’d been moments when she’d felt that her friend was terribly close to running away, she was so guilty over Beatrice’s disappearance. She just hoped Adelaide understood she didn’t place any blame on her.

  She needed Adelaide to be present, here with her, rather than running off every evening to the hotel or park. Where was the Adelaide who’d appeared after the dumb supper? The one who’d kept saying, “We’re better together than apart.” Eleanor was running out of magic she could perform alone. But she wasn’t ready to think the worst, not yet. That’s why Adelaide’s talk of the morgue had bothered her so. The very thought of Beatrice’s body lying on a marble slab was like giving up. Eleanor had to believe that Beatrice was alive.

  That morning she’d woken up feeling brittle and raw, yet hopeful. She’d turned the shop sign to OPEN, thinking someone might come through the door with good news, or that Beatrice herself would come skipping across the threshold as if nothing had happened. How long could this go on? How long before they learned the truth? Instead of answers they’d received an eviction notice.

  Leaning over Cleo she put her head to the dog’s heart, listening to the comforting throb and tick of it. She’d said yes to taking in the stray, thinking its appearance might be a sign—perhaps Cleo might be a benevolent spirit in changed form, come to guide the way. As she mused, the shop door opened, bells jangling.

  “Hello,” Georgina Davis called, “special delivery for Miss St. Clair.”

  “Over here,” Eleanor replied, standing up, shaking her skirts.

  “Everything all right?” Georgina asked. “I couldn’t help but see the notice.”

  Eleanor let out a weary laugh. “When it rains, it pours.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Georgina said, setting a parcel on the counter. “Here are the broadsheets I promised. I thought you should have them as soon as possible. Any news?”

  Shaking her head Eleanor said, “Thank you, and no.” Georgina looked something like an overgrown pixie with her wiry limbs, inky fingers, and red felt cap askew. Another messenger sent by magical forces, perhaps. Unwrapping the parcel, she stared at Beatrice’s image, blinking back tears. “You must’ve stayed up all night to get these done.”

  Georgina shrugged. “The sooner these notices get passed around town, the sooner someone might come forward with information. In my experience, the first hours and days are crucial to finding someone who’s lost.”

  Eleanor nodded. “How long have you been working in the newspaper trade?”

  “One year for the missing persons’ column, three altogether for Mr. Leslie’s papers. Mostly the ladies’ beat—roller-skating clubs, women’s societies, charitable organizations and such. If you need help distributing the notices, I’m happy to volunteer.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Please,” Georgina said, touching Eleanor’s hand. “I’d like to.”

  “All right then,” Eleanor said, turning the sign on the door to CLOSED. “Let’s go.”

  Sister Piddock, making her morning rounds, stopped outside the teashop. She grinned ear to ear as she read the notice nailed to the door. “Our God is a wonderful God!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “My prayers have been answered.”

  Reverend Townsend was coming up the sidewalk, contemplating Beatrice’s fate in the brisk morning air.

  “Good morning, Reverend,” Sister Piddock said, giving him a wave. Noticing his hand was dressed with a bandage, she asked, “Have you injured yourself in some way?”

  “A bite,” Townsend replied, too distracted to lie.

  “From a dog?” Sister Piddock asked, brow furrowed.

  Reverend Townsend ignored the question. Let her think what she liked.

  Cleo stood behind the door, crouched. Eleanor had left the dog and raven with strict orders: “No demons allowed in, no magic allowed out.” Sniffing at the threshold the dog gave a low growl.

  Taking a step away from the door, Sister Piddock said, “I wanted you to know that I thought your sermon yesterday was especially powerful. That story you told of the poor girl who’d been bewitched was very compelling. Will you visit her again? Do you believe she can be saved?”

  “I will do all I can,” the Reverend answered. “She suffers greatly. Much fasting and prayer is required.”

  “I shall remember her in my prayers, along with my prayers of thanksgiving,” Sister Piddock said. Pointing to the notice, she smiled. “God has seen fit to remove mine enemy.”

  Reverend Townsend stepped forward and looked through the teashop window.

  Cleo began to bark.

  “The women who run this place are engaged in the Devil’s work,” Sister Piddock boasted. “One of them was even so bold as to set herself upon me the other day in the park. But now they will be put out.”

  “Was it Saturday?” the Reverend asked, remembering the one-eyed witch.

  “Indeed it was,” Sister Piddock answered. “But the Lord intervened and caused her to turn tail.”

  As Cleo continued to bark, Perdu hopped onto his perch in the window and peered out to the sidewalk. No sooner had he spotted the preacher than a terrible darkness came over his eyes. Within that darkness was a faint glimmer, and within that glimmer a faint noise—the sound of Beatrice crying. “Mercy,” he croaked, causing the dog to fall silent. �
��Mercy…”

  “Our God is a wonderful God,” Reverend Townsend said, pleased with what he’d just learned. “He will provide.”

  “Amen,” Sister Piddock said.

  This Is the Place Where Death Delights to Help the Living.

  A CROWD WAS gathered along a tiled hallway that skirted the west side of the City Morgue. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, lovers, workmen, preachers, missionaries, roughs, prostitutes, paperboys and tourists—all were there to participate in the daily viewing of the unclaimed dead. Feet shuffling, elbows touching, voices hushed, the anxious onlookers waited at the gallery windows for the day’s corpses to be revealed.

  What drama would unfold today? What sadness, what ugliness, what evidence of brutality might they see? Some were there to search for loved ones, others only to satisfy their curiosity.

  A curtain of glass and iron separated them from the dead. A patent lamp hung from the ceiling, its flame constantly burning, its flue set to draw out foul smells and bad air. Even with the hygienic contraption dangling above them, the men in the corridor cleared their throats loudly and often, while the women held handkerchiefs to their noses or sucked on candies flavoured with clove and mint. Consumed with thoughts of putrefaction, they were unaware that the soiled state and exhalations of their neighbours posed more of a threat to their well-being than the dead.

  A pair of prostitutes, Elsie Trew in red velvet, Mae Blum in gaudy flounced skirts, held the railing at the far end of the viewing windows. They looked so much alike they could be sisters (but they weren’t).

  “I hope we don’t see Jenny,” Elsie said.

  “I’m pretty sure we will,” Mae replied as the spray of feathers in her hat drooped in the morgue’s damp air. Their housemate, Jenny Greene, had disappeared from Madison Square and they hadn’t seen her since.

  “You think she’s dead, or just hope she is?” Elsie asked.

  “Oh, I know she is,” Mae replied. “For a fact.”

  “That so?”

  “I seen her tiptoeing across the telegraph lines and chimney pots last night. God strike me dead if I’m lying.”

  “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  “Why? ’Cause she’s your friend?”

  “No, because she still owes me two dollars for rent.”

  As the first body arrived behind the glass, the crowd leaned in for a better look. With deliberate care the coroner and his assistant lifted the cadaver from a wheeled stretcher and placed it on one of the marble tables that graced the gallery. This specimen was male, a gentleman of middle age, returned to the window for a second day of viewing. (Like the rest of the nameless bodies that came this way, he’d be displayed for three days before being carted off to a pauper’s pit on Hart’s Island. The only record of his having been in the gallery would be a portrait taken by the morgue’s photographer and a breadbox-sized selection of his personal effects sent to gather dust in an out-of-the-way closet.) Naked, except for the length of gauze neatly covering his manhood, it was plain to see that whatever life he’d lived hadn’t been easy.

  His most notable disadvantage was his lack of legs. Both ended in stumps at the knees. A less pronounced but ragged scar that cut across his right shoulder possessed a similar sheen, all injuries sustained long ago. Among the tattered pieces of clothing the coroner had chosen to display with the corpse was a worn soldier’s cap issued by the Union Army.

  The coroner’s description for the Roll of Found Persons read:

  FOUND, October 10 at Pitt and Delancey Streets, male, approximately 40 years of age. Both legs missing from a previous injury. This unfortunate soul is thought to have been a veteran of the War Between the States, as the underside of the brim of his kepi is marked: T.D.F. 13th N.Y. Cause of death, consumption.

  It wasn’t unusual for the coroner to indulge in modest speculations about the deceased. Corpses that stirred his sympathy were often given captions in death. “Pretty blonde girl.” “Portly matron with weary face.” “Swarthy scar-faced gent.” The sight of a clean liver on his examination table would lead the coroner to note, “The deceased was a temperate soul.” A young lady found to be virgo intacta was described as “innocent and full of promise.”

  A gruff-looking man who was watching the proceedings clutched a torn-out page from Leslie’s Illustrated. The entry for Gretta Buskirk was underlined and the words “reward offered” were circled with grease pencil. Hat cocked and eyes squinted, the man looked as if he were waiting for a racehorse to come into view around the clubhouse turn.

  Sadly for him, the second body of the day belonged to a woman around fifty years of age, her dull brown hair streaked with grey, her belly bloated and veined, her sickly yellow skin mottled with angry purple bruises. Long scratches appeared along her thighs, some of them open and starting to rot. After today, her seventy-two hours would be up. The coroner had awarded her a single line in the Roll of Found Persons.

  FOUND: October 9. Chrystie Street. Woman, grey hair, missing teeth, died from the drink.

  The final cadaver to be brought to the gallery was another disappointment to the reward seeker: she, too, was not Gretta Buskirk.

  FOUND: October 11, near Madison Square Park. Female, approximately twenty years of age. Hair, auburn. Eyes, blue. Cause of death: knife wound to throat.

  Though kept as cool as the morgue could manage, the corpse was already showing signs of decay. It was clear she had been discovered days after she’d died, with the blue tinge to her skin and bites on her toes and fingers where rats had nibbled. Lips turned dark, gash in her throat stitched, wet hair swept back from her face: she looked more ghoul than girl. At the sight of her, a whisper went through the crowd: murder. The coroner folded the shroud down from the top, then up from the bottom, arranging it in such a way that the girl’s remains were covered from her breasts to her thighs, but enough of her could be seen for someone who had been close to her to make an identification. He then arranged the girl’s hair and turned her head slightly so something of her profile showed. He placed her hands on top of the shroud, one over the other, as if she were a sleeping princess waiting to be kissed awake.

  Moving behind the marble slab, he hung the girl’s garments one by one from an iron rod that ran the length of the back wall. Her undergarments were factory made and common, so he placed them together on one hook. Her dress was also shop-bought, nondescript, so it went up next. Her corset was by far the costliest item in the lot. Made from pink satin, heavily embroidered, and with silver clasps, he hung it against the dress’s dark wool, making a backdrop for the young woman’s prized possession. Lastly, he took up her mantle and boots, and a well-worn rabbit’s foot strung on a piece of ribbon, and hung them side by side by side on three separate hooks.

  On the other side of the glass two gentlemen dressed in black stared at the rabbit’s foot, then bent their heads in consultation.

  “Mr. Palsham isn’t interested in her body,” the one said. “Just the object.”

  “You’re sure she’s no witch, then?”

  “There’s nothing to her. The only thing that’s been touched by magic is the charm.”

  “How do you propose we go about getting it?”

  “When no one claims her, we will.”

  “And if someone does?”

  “We’ll offer to pay for the rabbit’s foot.”

  “What if they refuse?”

  “We’ll persuade them otherwise.”

  Just then, Adelaide and Dr. Brody entered the gallery, Quinn finding the clearest path to the viewing windows. “Here,” he said, taking Adelaide’s arm, “this way.” He wanted to get them in and out of the place as quickly as possible, for her sake. They fell in behind the two men in black, who blocked their view; they’d have to wait their turn. Resting her hand in the crook of Quinn’s good arm, Adelaide lifted her veil, went up on tiptoes and craned in an attempt to see past the men.

  Shaking, she came down off her toes, and clutched at Quinn’s coat. “There’s a girl…I
can’t see all of her but I think her hair is red.”

  Dr. Brody snuck a look between the men. “More auburn than red,” he replied, but not the least bit convinced it wasn’t Beatrice.

  Adelaide assumed the worst. How would she break the news to Eleanor? “Please,” she said, edging close to one of the gentlemen in front of her. “Make room for me.”

  The man turned and stared, then gave a slight tug on his companion’s sleeve, who also turned to look down on her. Neither moved.

  Adelaide assumed they were just another pair of insensitive souls gawking at the tangle of scars on her face. “Surely what’s behind the glass is more interesting than this,” she said, hoping to shame them into taking their leave.

  “Let the lady have a look,” Dr. Brody said. “You’ve had your chance.”

  Muttering one to the other, the men shoved past them.

  Shaking off their rudeness, Adelaide stepped forward with Quinn and they took the men’s spot at the window. It wasn’t Beatrice. Blinking back tears, Adelaide found she couldn’t see straight. She wiped her eye with a handkerchief, and it was as if the sight in her lost eye had been restored. When she looked again through the glass, she saw a dark figure standing over the young woman’s corpse with a bloody knife in hand. She watched in horror as the corpse changed into a trembling, terrified Beatrice. Adelaide gripped the brass rail that ran along the length of the glass and closed her eye, a wave of dizziness causing her to feel as if she might faint.

  “Adelaide,” Quinn said, his arm circling her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s not her,” Adelaide said shaking her head. “It’s not her.”

  “We’ve seen enough,” Quinn said. “Let’s get you home.”

  The ghost of Jenny Greene floated to the window and watched Adelaide leave. Then slipping behind the marble slab she stared at her cold dead body. Although she’d died days ago, she’d only been brought to the morgue early that morning. The coroner had cleaned her, stitched her up like a treasured rag doll. Then she’d been rolled into another building so a photographer could take her picture. The kindly gent had talked to her as he’d gone about his work, his friendly voice chattering away from behind his boxy camera. He’d said he was sorry no one had found her sooner. She’d shouted at him over and over, “I know who done it. I’ll take you to him,” but the photographer hadn’t heard her. Once he’d finished his task, he’d disappeared to the darkroom to sniff away the wretched stench of her remains with an ether-soaked rag.