When I turned to orient myself, I saw through Nella's eyes, her face in the glass above the mantel.
I'd become one with her. We took first one step, then another, to reveal the whole of our body. Though we had no colors but gilded ones, we gazed in certainty at the creamy shades of organza and lace at our shoulders. We had no doubt that the veil draped over our hair was white or very like it.
Reaching up, we touched a cameo at our throat, and, oh, the longing fondness that rushed through our breast when we did. It was a joyous peace, one of comfort, that we carried as we turned to meet a handsome man in a morning coat. When he leaned to kiss us, the vision melted as wax down a candle.
"Miss Mfana," I said, reaching uncertainly for my chair so I could sit.
A wavering daze clung to me, as if I had gone too long without a meal to fortify me. Still, I summoned myself and looked up at the girl who clasped her hands so tightly they trembled. "She's not angry. Wear her cameo when you wed, so she can celebrate with you."
The tremble that had started in Miss Mfana's hands spread to her shoulders and then throughout her, until she shook with tears. "I don't even have a beau."
Awash with my own power, I simply said, "You shall."
***
Delighted with our new popularity, Zora and I took calls the whole week. Strangers and friends alike came to the Stewarts' door, and without fail we served them tea and fortunes. We accepted—quite guiltily—Edwina Polk in the very first days.
She sat nearest the stairs, pale and freckled with a cup tipped between her palms. Having her in the Stewarts' parlor disconcerted me. For the first time, I truly realized how much better-heeled she was than we.
Certainly my brother, August, had pretended we were wealthy, and the Stewarts were not impoverished by any standard. But Edwina's dress matched the illustrations in my latest Harper's Bazar magazine. Her gloves were so new, the fingers had not yet been worn smooth.
But there I sat with a strange measure of power over her—for having answers to unknowable questions. When the light struck me that day, I shivered in the gilt veil and saw Edwina on the deck of a steamer ship. The ribbons in her hat trailed in the wind, and a handsome boy—a stranger entirely to me—came to take her elbow.
"It might be," I told her dizzily, as Zora threatened with the smelling salts, "a honeymoon tour, I think?"
Trembling, Edwina put the cup down hard. "Is he handsome?"
"Yes."
Zora swooped close again, but I batted the salts away as Edwina slid to the edge of her chair. Her gingery lashes fluttered as she grasped at her future, as if by knowing it, she could somehow steer it. "Did he say anything?"
"I'm sorry, I only see," I told her. Then I swore, "But he's tall and blond, I think. He seemed quite kind."
This stopped Edwina short. Slowly, she pulled a locket from inside her collar and opened it. She showed me a handsome portrait of a boy. He had a soft, thoughtful expression and hair the color of wheat. As if choosing her words with calipers, Edwina said, "Is this him?"
A crystalline chill took me, the way it had when I saw Zora's vision dress in her mother's real hands. My lips tingled as I touched the locket. "Yes. Yes, that's him! And you had a pale suit on, with a dark ribbon around here, that matched the one on your hat."
Calm came over Edwina, and she smiled. "Thank You," she said, closing the locket to drop it in her collar again. She kissed my cheek and Zora's too before she left.
She crossed our front walk satisfied, and I had to admit, it was a relief that most of my sendings were of this bland, happy variety. I saw one girl sketching the ruins in Athens. Another returned to Tokyo to summer with her grandmother.
With each innocuous vision, my confidence grew. I had it all nearly figured out—how to sit at the window, how to catch the light in my eyes just so. Where the gift came from remained a tantalizing mystery. I only knew that if I welcomed the sunset, the sunset would speak to me.
Awash in the intrigue of having so many call for us, Zora and I were careful not to get too drunk on it. It was a terrible challenge to mind ourselves, though, for it seemed no girl in Baltimore cared to go without her future told—not even the most privileged ones.
The sugar heiress sent her strawberry card again. It was, more or less, a summoning to her door.
Therefore, we found it quite funny that the butler seemed poised to turn us away. I suppose our lawn gowns weren't the most fashionable. What could little mice like us want with Miss Lawrence, after all?
But Zora raised her chin. "Sir, we will go away unannounced. So long as you realize you're turning away Maine's Own Mystic, Miss Amelia van den Broek."
How fortunate that I choked on my own laughter. Offering him more than a trembling smile might have ruined Zora's grand introduction. But what was brilliant was that the man actually paid her mind.
"One moment," he said, and disappeared. When he returned, he led us into the most richly appointed parlor I'd seen yet. I felt like I might meet the First Lady here, among the crystal and the lace.
Instead, I met a young woman adorned in layer upon layer of pink. Not one inch of her contrasted. Even her pale blond hair reflected the rose of her gown. She matched her cards well, for she looked like nothing more than a giant spring strawberry.
"I'd like to take tea at your house, and so I need a reassurance," she said, without preamble.
Smiling curiously, I looked to Zora, who said, "Pardon?"
"I've got a good many friends. I must be assured there's room enough for all of them in your parlor," Miss Lawrence said. She didn't bother to sit or offer tea. In fact, it seemed very much that she intended to flit away without even meeting our gazes straight on. "We're all very interested in having our futures told."
"Are you?" Zora said. Her voice had grown dangerous. Miss Lawrence had no idea how close to a lashing she was. I did, and I thought better of making enemies of an heiress, so I interjected.
"Right now I'm taking single guests. It's very ... taxing to part the veil."
Zora swelled beside me. I didn't dare look at her, for no doubt her expression would send me into fits of giggles. But what could I do? Miss Lawrence had presented me with an absurd notion; it was only fair to give her one in return.
But instead of throwing us out, she finally sat! The ivory of her fan cracked in her hands as she looked me straight on. "I've never heard of a spiritualist admitting impediment."
My chest tightened. "Only a fraud can promise you everything. It's truth that has limits."
"I see." Something dawned on Miss Lawrence's face, something rather like realization. I couldn't imagine what thoughts distracted her so, but she cracked her fan again and said, "And I suppose each supplicant must pay for your visions."
"What? No!" I gathered myself. "If I see, I see freely."
Zora stepped hard on my foot, but I couldn't help the exclamation. However useless my gift might be most of the time ... and all right, however wicked I might be sometimes, I was mostly a good girl. What kind of a good girl charged a fee for insight? I felt dirty just thinking of it.
Suspicious now, Miss Lawrence narrowed her eyes. "No one pays?"
"No one," I said, and dragged Zora closer to me. It was a strange call, and I meant to end it immediately. "My gift is free. It is singular. I make no promises; what comes to me comes. If you should wish me to look, then call at sunset."
Outside, Zora squeezed my hand and told me, "You can't speak to Helen Lawrence that way, you know!"
"I did and survived it," I said. And I laughed, because I expected that to be my first and last sitting with society.
How surprised I was to discover I was wrong.
Perhaps no one had been so curt before; maybe it was just that my gift was genuine. But a whole stream of society debutantes flowed through the Stewarts' parlor, dammed only when it came time for our week-end in Annapolis. It was like Zora's joking announcement had come true.
I was Maine's Own Mystic, and I was in demand.
"I'm glad to see you go," Mrs. Stewart said, fussing with the luggage on the victoria.
Grabbing one end of a thick leather belt, she leaned back with all her weight to tighten it. Then, quickly, she closed the iron clasps to fix it in place. "You've done nothing but eat and drink us into the poorhouse."
Giggling, Zora twisted around, propping up to watch her. "You always said you would see me socially accomplished."
Mrs. Stewart offered an unladylike snort, then a grunt when she fixed the second strap. "That was before I had to resort to selling my hair combs for tea and cookies."
"I'm given to understand that there's a market for shorn hair as well."
"Oh, Zora," I said.
Cracking her umbrella against our trunk, Mrs. Stewart made a satisfied sound, then came to the sideboard of the carriage. She stepped up, clinging to the handle as she pulled Zora's wrapper closed. "I should thank you very much to leave that tongue at home. If You should embarrass us with Mrs. Castillo..."
"Mama!" Zora recoiled, incredulous. "I would never!"
"That goes for Amelia, too," Mrs. Stewart said. She tugged on my cloak's collar to check its fastener, then hopped down. "Whatever spiritualist nonsense you goslings have been up to lately, I expect none of it while you're in Annapolis. "
My neck grew hot. "Yes, ma'am."
"It's not nonsense," Zora said, for she seemed to be constitutionally incapable of going along when it came to her mother's wishes. "It's a genuine gift."
"Folderol and gibbering," Mrs. Stewart replied.
Offended, Zora deliberately slung an arm. "You're wounding her."
"I'm fine," I said, swallowing a hiccupping laugh at the look she gave me. "Besides, I couldn't possibly take callers from Annapolis and Baltimore, so perhaps it's best to keep our diversions to ourselves."
"That's what I like to hear. It's a long week-end, Amelia—do your best to rub off on her." Mrs. Stewart made an expression very like a smirk, though she was entirely too well-bred to smirk on the street.
Zora rested her head against mine. "For that, I'm running away with an actor."
"Good luck finding an actor who could keep you in tea," Mrs. Stewart muttered. Satisfied that we would lose neither our bags nor our virtue on the road, she stepped down. A plume of dust rose at her hems, earth pounded tender by the constant fall of boots and horseshoes.
Heaving a sigh, Zora said, "I wish you'd take us."
"Five ladies alone on the road, I think not." Mrs. Stewart laughed incredulously. "Your father is a perfectly good driver."
"He's slow as sap," Zora confided.
Her breath tickled my ear, her voice buzzing in it, and that set me to laughing again. It matched the delicious buzz in my chest, the keen pitch of anticipation rising by the moment. Oh, how endless seemed the skies above Baltimore, how pure the clouds that rushed on their currents out to sea!
We had good weather ahead. And good company planned, because as soon as Zora's father found his way to the victoria, we'd collect Sarah and Mattie for our long week-end in Annapolis. For our first taste of freedom! For my second city dance!
For my chance to return Nathaniel's glove in person.
When Mr. Stewart finally appeared, Mrs. Stewart hurried to throw last-minute admonishments at us.
"See you're on your best behavior, and mind Mrs. Castillo as if she were me." Thinking better of that advice, she interrupted herself. "As if she were anyone but me."
"Well, so much for arguing that exception," I told Zora, and we melted to giddy laughter once again.
***
In dumbfounded wonder, I stared at the mansion spread before us in Annapolis.
When we'd turned off the pressed dirt road onto a brick-paved way, I had thought perhaps that we might have come into the city by backward means. But the curve in the drive straightened, revealing Tammany House. It was a grand, sprawling palace to me.
The main house stood three stories, with tall windows evenly spaced across the faç ade. And should that have been its entirety, I would have marveled. But Tammany House continued, with wings spread out on either side. And there were balustraded patios, meant for lounging.
I only had to close my eyes to imagine standing up there to take in the stars. Or the sunset. Maybe this is where I would finally capture a glimpse of my own future.
"It's something, isn't it?" Sarah said, her eyes full of glory.
Her smile curled at one corner, somehow at once wistful and proud. She gazed on Tammany House as if it were a prize. Something to be won, but in what game of chance, I didn't know. It seemed unlikely that Mrs. Castillo would give her domain to a girl unrelated to her, and I understood that the family had a single daughter and no sons. Should Sarah aspire to have Tammany House for herself, she would have to take it by supernatural means, indeed.
It was grand, too grand to even realize, when Mr. Stewart took us inside. I lost myself in the introductions to Mrs. Castillo, so drunk was I on the details around me.
Art and sculpture, crystal and glass—raucous colors gave way to quiet ones as a maid led us up a spiraling staircase. The ceilings rose so high, embellished in every corner. Yet our footsteps hardly echoed for the luxuriously thick carpet that coursed the halls like a claret river.
"This is too much," I whispered to Zora, when the maid opened the door to our bedroom. I was almost sick with it, trying to grasp that I should be staying in this velvet room, sleeping in that curtained bed, breakfasting on that walk just outside the window.
Wryly, Zora pushed me into the room. "The Castillos have had some modest success in shipping."
"And they are your cousins?" I asked, suddenly laughing at myself for my timid meeting of this fine estate. As grand as it was, it was naught more than bricks and timbers. I should have found it no more frightening than a broomstick.
Skirting around me, Zora held her arms out and spun in the wide open of the chamber. In spite of the dust on her gown, with her bonnet still fixed, she stepped onto the trunk at the foot of the bed, then fell straight back into the mounds of pillows. "Mama's cousins, by marriage. Consequently, the Castillos are nothing at all to us, but generous because they can be."
"Zora!"
A sleek girl still in braids cut around me, as if I didn't exist at all. She filled up the room with a nasal twang. "Why aren't you changing? Mama likes to serve at seven. I already told Sarah."
Edging toward the window, I caught a glimpse of the horror smearing across Zora's delicate features. She seemed very much a caricature of herself as she struggled to sit up. "We'll see to it once our bags are delivered, Agnes."
Agnes rounded on me, squinting as she approached. She was a tiny general, her service to the cause measured in silk ribbons and bows. "Is that the best dress you have?"
"No," I said, trying not to bark with laughter. "I'll make myself presentable, I swear it."
She stood a moment more, as if she doubted that I could ever be made presentable, but then huffed her satisfaction. "All right, then. Seven o'clock, remember. Mama—"
"Serves precisely at seven," Zora muttered. "Yes, thank you."
As soon as Agnes marched away, I hurried to help Zora off her back. Instead, the awful wretch clasped my arms and dragged me into the quiet dark of the canopy with her. We'd have to roll off. What a charming display of our grace and civility that would be.
"We're a mess," I said, collapsing in soft giggles. The brocade above us swam with fishes and birds, and I couldn't help but chase them with my gaze.
"Did I say the Castillos kept us out of generosity alone?" Zora asked.
"You did."
With a great sigh, she covered her face and said, "Well, I lied. They keep us so Agnes might play at having friends." "We could be bothering them," Mattie whispered.
***
"We're deliberately bothering them," Sarah replied, throwing back the curtains round our bed.
Though we should have been sleeping, none of us could, and Zora and I scramb
led around to make room for them. We looked like a tumult of wildflowers, all puffed up in our white lace sleeping gowns on the emerald field of our bedding.
Mattie curled at the foot. Want of slumber softened her already gentle features, and she stroked the bedcover as if it were a beloved kitten. "Can you hardly wait for tomorrow, Amelia?"
"I can't," I said. I curled my arms above my head, tugging at the plaits that would save me an hour's dressing with hot irons. "The first dance drove me to distraction. This one will set me on the road to madness and ruin."
"It's Mr. Witherspoon who does that," Zora teased.
But I refused to blush. "It was a wicked, wonderful thing, inviting me the way he did."
Sarah pressed her toe against Mattie's knee, harmlessly menacing her by rocking her back and forth. The bed quaked with the motion, like an ocean beneath us, the lazy sway of waves in the dark. "You can't marry him, you realize."
"He didn't ask," I replied smartly. Of one thing I was entirely certain: Nathaniel Witherspoon was not the marriageable material that my brother sent me to find. Actually, there was one more thing of certainty: at that moment, I didn't care.
Undeterred, Mattie nattered on.
"We won't find anyone to marry here. Mr. Witherspoon is unsuitable. We're all hopeless," Mattie said. She seemed untroubled by this, but then troubled, as she was quick to include, "Save you, Zora. Although you found Thomas in Baltimore. You're only reinforcing him here."
For once, Zora turned scarlet, so bright I was tempted to press my cold hand to her cheeks to warm them. "And yet neither has he asked, thank you."
"He only needs time." Sarah stretched once more, then spilled across the bed in a lazy puddle. "His father's apprenticing him. He won't need to go away to study, and fast as you know it, his name will be on the sign beside the door as well."
Frowning, I peered over at her. "You can't apprentice medicine. There are schools for it. Licenses to be had."
Zora settled with her hands folded on her chest. "Some of them are apprenticed, I think."
"Anyone may call himself a doctor," Mattie said. She wound a loose curl round and round her finger, and seemed to drift before remembering the rest of her thought. "And if there's no harm done—"
The Vespertine Page 10
