In the Shadow of Blackbirds

by Cat Winters

  “But you dislike supernatural photography,” said Aunt Eva.

  “I dislike fakes. As with everyone else, I’d love to find proof of the survival of the spirit beyond death. Maybe Mary Shelley’s body is demonstrating that the soul exists as a magnetic field.” He leaned his elbows against the table and bent even closer to the apparatus. “Come to my studio Monday, say around ten o’clock in the morning, and I’ll record what you’re experiencing. Bring Stephen’s photographs as well, and we’ll see if we can attract signs of him.”

  “All right.” I peeked at my aunt’s bloodless face. “As long as Aunt Eva doesn’t mind me leaving the house again.”

  “Let’s see what the flu does to our block first. We might not even be here Monday.” She massaged her forehead with her hands balled into fists. “I hate to be rude, Mr. Darning, but I’m overwhelmed by everything that’s been happening and really need to feed Mary Shelley her onions.”

  “Please, don’t let me keep you.” Mr. Darning tore his eyes off the needle and fetched his hat from the sofa. “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but this has been remarkable. Thank you for allowing me to be a witness.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Darning.” I followed Aunt Eva and him to the door. “Did my other photograph reveal anything?”

  “No—oh, I forgot to bring that with me. I’ll give that to you on Monday as well.”

  “Nothing peculiar showed up, then?”

  “I’m afraid not. But let’s not give up. I think we’re on to something here. Perhaps we’ll open an unchecked door in the world of psychical research.”

  I smiled. “Thank you so much for coming. I feel better now that I’ve shown the compass to someone with your background.”

  We said our good-byes, and Aunt Eva allowed him to slip out a small crack in the door before she locked us up again.

  She grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me close. “You should have told me he was coming.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been distracted and forgot.”

  “That’s the second day in a row a man has shown up while I look a mess.”

  “You look fine.”

  “I have salt hanging out my nose.” She brushed at her nostril.

  “I’m sure he understands.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.” She pushed me away. “I’m so furious at you for leaving this house, Mary Shelley. What is wrong with you?”

  “Stephen didn’t die in battle in October.”

  She gawked at me like I was speaking in tongues. “What?”

  “I met one of his friends at the Red Cross House today, a boy named Paul from Coronado. He said Stephen lost his mind over in France and the army sent him home before October. Julius lied—Stephen didn’t die heroically.”

  She closed her gaping mouth. “Well … perhaps the family was embarrassed about the actual cause of death. The push to have a war hero might make people say things that aren’t true.”

  “Why was he tortured, then?”

  “You don’t know that he was. Maybe he caught the flu on the way home.”

  “He probably came home before the flu even spread. He might not have lived long enough to know about the pandemic. And that doesn’t explain the birds and the burning air.”

  “What birds?”

  “He’s haunted by birds. They troubled the men in the trenches because they ate the dead.”

  My aunt stepped back with terror in her eyes. “You need to let this morbid fascination go, Mary Shelley.”

  “I told you, he’s coming to me—I’m not making it up. He needs my help.”

  “Even if he does, how on earth is a sixteen-year-old girl supposed to help a dead young man who lost his mind in France? There’s nothing you can do for him.”

  “That’s not good enough.” I stormed back into the living room to fetch the compass and accidentally knocked an elbow into Oberon’s cage, which sent the bird flapping and screeching. “Oh, be quiet, you awful bird.”

  “Don’t take out your anger on Oberon.” Aunt Eva placed protective arms over the magpie’s cage. “Maybe you should speak to the minister at church. You’re starting to scare me.”

  I hoisted the compass. “A minister would think I’m either crazy or possessed by the devil. I’m tempted to speak to Julius.”

  “No.” She blocked my path to the stairs. “Don’t you dare speak to Julius after what he did to us yesterday.”

  “I want him to tell me how Stephen died.”

  “I told you, the family might be embarrassed and too upset to discuss it. Maybe that’s why Mrs. Embers lost her nerves. Sometimes the truth is too terrible to discuss. Do you truly believe I tell the girls at work the real reason why you came to live with me?”

  The compass slipped in my sweaty hands, but I caught it before it fell.

  “I tell my friends your father went to war,” she said, “just like Stephen’s family is saying he’s a hero. The world is an ugly place right now, and some things need to be hidden. Don’t go poking around in other people’s business.”

  I sighed in disgust.

  She squeezed my arms. “Will you promise me you won’t contact Julius?”

  I gritted my teeth and nodded.

  “Good.” She jutted out her chin. “Now let’s go eat our onions. Put Wilfred’s compass away and then come right back downstairs—but be careful with that. It’s been in his family for years.”

  “I will.”

  Oberon jabbered and screeched as I took the compass upstairs, and my mind replayed Paul’s conversation about the birds.

  They ate us when we died. They hovered on the edges of the trenches and stared down at us, watching us, waiting for us to get shot or bombed.

  You’ve got to keep them from getting at your eyes, Stephen had told me when he spoke from the shadows of my bed. They’ll take your beautiful eyes.

  At the top of the stairs, I murmured under my breath, “‘And strewn in bloody fragments, to be the carrion of rats and crows.’ No wonder they haunt you so much, Stephen. But did they really kill you?”

  I set the compass on the end table next to my bed, and the needle jerked away.

  “What … ?” My blood sped through my veins. “Are you … ?” I turned and searched the room for signs of Stephen, but saw only furniture and his crate of books.

  “Are you here?” I asked. “Are you with me right now?”

  The arrow swayed and shifted in every direction. Pressure mounted in the air like a kettle about to boil. Smoke engulfed my nose.

  I clutched the compass’s case. “I’m sorry if I scared you with that poem. Please don’t be upset. Please come back and talk to me.”

  Something whacked against the floor.

  I jumped and turned again.

  At first I didn’t see anything out of place. Nothing moved. Nothing rustled in the quieting, rapidly cooling atmosphere.

  I poked around the room and discovered the source of the sound—Stephen’s lightning bolt photograph lay facedown on the braided rug, stiff and motionless, like the dark blue bodies on the sidewalk when Julius drove us to the séance. I held my unsettled stomach and picked up the frame. The fall had cracked the wood, but the glass remained intact, as did the photograph beneath. I hung the picture back on its nail, and the anagram Stephen had written between the golden waves caught my attention:

  I DO LOSE INK

  “Link,” I whispered, picking out the verbs. “Soil. Lend. Nod. Sink. Don. Die—”

  A headache flared between my eyes. I rubbed my forehead above my nose.

  “Mary Shelley,” called Aunt Eva from downstairs. “Are you all right? Did something fall up there?”

  “Everything’s fine. I’m coming.” I straightened the lightning bolt’s frame and whispered, “I’ll figure it out, Stephen. I’ll figure everything out. I just need to think. I’m sure the answers will come.”

  DRESSED IN MY WHITE NIGHTGOWN, MY HAIR FREED FROM its ribbon, I gathered the strength to write my father a letter b
y the oil lamp’s light.

  November 1, 1918

  My Dearest Father,

  I received your letter, and I am relieved to hear you are well. Are they giving you enough food? I would feel better knowing that you are eating properly. If I sound like a little mother, perhaps that’s because Aunt Eva fusses over me night and day and shows me how to be an expert worrier. She’s caring for me well, but you can probably guess which one of us is the braver member of the household.

  Is there any chance they’ll drop the charges before your trial? Do you have a lawyer? If there’s any possibility you won’t stay in jail, please tell me as soon as you can. I really miss you. I was just remembering the other day about the time we built that mousetrap together and hunted all over the store for that little pest Phantom. And remember when you taught me how to fix our phonograph? I figured out how to make the same repairs on Aunt Eva’s machine just two days ago. You would have been proud.

  Now for the hardest part of this letter: my sad news.

  Stephen died. Can you believe that, Dad? Stephen Embers died. I am doing better than expected, so please do not worry. His funeral was lovely. Everyone treated him like a proper war hero.

  I have been reading quite a bit to keep my brain active—and to help me understand the war better. I have a question for you: when you were in the Spanish-American War, did you see soldiers whose bodies and brains had stopped working right? They’re calling it shell shock now, but I’m sure it happened before they invented shells. I’m curious about that subject and would like more information. Perhaps when I am older, I will try to learn how to repair broken minds in addition to exploring the inner workings of machines and electrical devices. These damaged men need help, and figuring out how to heal them seems a worthy challenge.

  I am healthy and safe, Dad. Please keep yourself the same way.

  Your loving daughter,

  Mary Shelley

  My hand cramped from the tension coursing through my fingers. I had kept the tone of the letter somewhat optimistic for Dad’s sake, but I longed to say so much more. Penning the words Portland City Jail on the envelope made the muscles burn even worse.

  I set Dad’s letter aside and fetched the stack of Stephen’s envelopes—the ones he had addressed to me—so I could read words written by the boy whose mind was still intact. What could his voice from the past tell me?

  At the bottom of the stack lay the very first letter Stephen had written after he moved to California. I opened the blue envelope and pored over his message.

  June 21, 1914

  Dear Mary Shelley,

  We finally unpacked enough for me to find my writing paper and pen. The house is just as I remembered from when I visited my grandparents: large and drafty, with the wind whipping through the boards at night, making the walls creak.

  The house faces southwest, with a view of the wide-open Pacific. L. Frank Baum wrote the last books of his Oz series when he wintered down here, just a few blocks away from where I’m sitting right now. If I ever see him walking down the street, I’ll tell him I know a crazy girl up in Oregon who’s read all his books at least five times apiece.

  Glenn Curtiss, the aviation genius, owns a naval flight school on North Coronado Island, and his airplanes buzz over our house and rattle the china cabinet several times a day. My mother worries that all the plates and cups will shatter from the ruckus. It scares her something awful. I’ve seen Curtiss’s flying boats, which are normal biplanes with pontoons attached to the bottom. They take off from the Spanish Bight, the strip of water that separates the two Coronados, and the pilots circle them over the Pacific outside my bedroom windows (yes, windows, plural—you should see this place, Shell!). Imagine what it would be like to feel that free, flying through the air, gazing down at the earth like a seagull. Maybe one day I’ll join the navy and learn how to fly. I bet you would, too, if they allowed women. Better yet, Curtiss would hire you to work for him, and you could lecture him about all the ways he could improve his engines.

  Are you lonely up there without me, Shell? I already miss our chats. I genuinely doubt I’ll find any girl around here who spends her spare time fiddling with clocks and poring over electrician’s manuals. Have you read any good novels I should know about? Is it still raining in Portland, or did summer weather finally arrive? Summer lasts year-round here. While you shiver up there this winter, I’ll be swimming in the ocean and basking in the sunshine on the beach. I’ll send you a sand crab.

  Write soon.

  Your friend,

  Stephen

  I sputtered up a laugh and remarked aloud, “I remember telling you exactly what you could do with your sand crab.”

  I laid the letter next to the lamp and sighed into my hands, my elbows digging into the table. “Are you in the room with me right now, Stephen? Can you hear me?” A quick check with the compass told me I was the only magnetic force gripping the atmosphere at the moment. “Why can’t you come when I call you? Why do I have to be half-drunk with sleep for you to completely show up? In fact …” I stood. “I’m going to bring a chair upstairs so I can sleep sitting up.”

  After the long day at the Red Cross House and all the bickering with Aunt Eva, my arms shook with exhaustion as I lugged a dining room chair up to my bedroom. Aunt Eva’s door was shut, the space beneath it dark, so she didn’t have to witness my preventive measures against waking up with a boy or a bird on my chest.

  I sat on the scratchy needlepoint cushion and attempted to get comfortable. “All right.” I nestled my head against my arms on the table. “Come if you can, but don’t scare me.” I closed my eyes.

  At first only the soft whisper of the oil lamp’s flame met my ears—a soothing nothingness. Minutes later an entire brigade of sirens tore through the streets like an invasion of wailing banshees. Their cries made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. I must have drifted off counting how many ambulances there were—at least four of them—while the oil lamp turned the backs of my eyelids orange.

  A dream ran through my head: I lay on my back somewhere outside and watched the blackness of the nighttime sky dissolve into a milky shade of white. A gunshot hurt my ears. Streaks of red splattered across the heavens.

  I awoke with a gasp, fear blazing across my tongue and static snapping in my hair. I heard another gasp, and Stephen thrust his arms around my waist and buried his cheek against my stomach as if I were a life preserver, his face pale and damp in the lamplight. He shivered against me.

  I wrapped my arms around his head. “Are you all right, Stephen?”

  He didn’t answer. He could barely breathe.

  “It’s OK. I’m here. You’re safe. It was just a dream.” I lowered my right hand to his shoulder and found the wide cotton strap of the sleeveless undershirt he was always wearing. To soothe him, I ran my fingers down the curve of his bare arm, meeting with cold flesh and scars that reminded me of the barbed-wire wounds on Jones’s hand. I puzzled over Stephen’s lack of a proper shirt. “Where were you when you put on these clothes?”

  I bit my lip in anticipation of his answer. The question seemed like a stroke of genius for the five or six seconds after I asked it.

  He didn’t respond—he just quaked and panted—so I elaborated. “You’re wearing a sleeveless undershirt, a brown pair of pants that look like civilian trousers, and gray socks without any shoes. Do you remember where you were when you put on this clothing? Do you remember why you’re not wearing a regular shirt?”

  He slowed his breathing enough to answer. “No.”

  “Are you sure? Please think hard, Stephen. Think back to the moments before the birds arrived. Where were you?”

  “I don’t know.” He closed his eyes and tightened his grip around my waist. “I just remember it being hot. There was too much sunlight. Too many windows. I didn’t like wearing sleeves.”

  “Were you in a hospital?”

  “Maybe. I just …” His eyes opened wide. “Oh …” He exhaled a sigh heavy with remembranc
e.

  My heart raced. “Oh what?”

  “I just remembered something.”

  “What?”

  “I think I hurt her.”

  “Her?” I swallowed down my jealousy. “A girl was there?”

  “The Huns flew over us. Their planes were practically right on me. The bombs were about to drop. I don’t know why she was there.”

  “Who was there?”

  “My mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She was reaching over me, and I kicked her so hard she stumbled several feet backward and landed on the ground. I heard her cry out in pain.”

  “Your mother was in a hospital with you? Is that what you mean? Or was there a nurse who looked like her?”

  “It was her. She said my name.”

  “But—that can’t be.” I shook my head.

  “She was there. I was panicking about the plane, but she was there, and I hurt her.”

  “Wait a second … wait …” The little clock gears inside my head clicked into place. “Oh, God.” My diagram of the events leading up to his death repositioned itself in a brand-new order in my mind. A sentence from Stephen’s letter sitting right there next to me on the bedside table leapt off the page: airplanes buzz over our house and rattle the china cabinet several times a day …

  “Oh, my God.”

  I remembered back to the day I posed for that second spirit photograph in the Emberses’ house—the biplane soaring over the roof, footsteps scrambling across the room above our heads, dust shaking loose from the beams, Mrs. Embers tearing into the studio, saying, I need your help, Julius. I’m hurt. She had grabbed her stomach as if she had just been kicked, and Julius shouted, Christ! Get them out of here, Gracie.

  It wasn’t a ghost that made everyone stare up at the ceiling with whitened faces. A spirit didn’t somehow hurt Mrs. Embers.

  It was an eighteen-year-old boy, deep in shock from the war, reacting to a sound that reminded him of battle.

  “You were still alive that day.” I grabbed the sides of Stephen’s face. “When Julius took my photograph and Gracie gave me the package, you were living and breathing in the bedroom directly above my head.”