The Vespertine

by Mitchell, Saundra

  "Then what's the matter?" she asked, though a worried murmur filled the room. I could see their eyes shifting, looking to me, then looking to the door. I could feel them vibrate with disappointment, to think I might leave them fortuneless.

  Impressed with the weight and power of my rebuke, I reminded myself to be gracious still. Perhaps Zora called me Maine's Own Mystic, but I knew that I was yet a young woman who couldn't begin to explain how the sight came on her. Clearing my throat, I said gently, "You're just asking something of me that I've never done."

  My retreat emboldened her. "Would it hurt to try? We read about it in The Strand, " she said. It was a magazine full of fantastic stories, and I'd read it, too. Mediums opened themselves to the spirit world and let phantoms write with their hands.

  I had no spirits. I had no guides. I had only the sunset. Fighting a sense of panic, I looked at the girls all around the table and shook. Raw with want, with need, they all watched me as if I alone could spare the meal to save them. What flare of pride and power I'd felt a moment before had fled me. It was cruel that my confidence never lingered.

  With a look to Zora, I clutched the pencil once more and said, "All right. I can try."

  Guessing at this, I started my breathing, then stopped. "Give me something. Anything, all of you, you'll have it back when I've finished. A glove."

  "Hurry," Zora urged them. "The light's fading!"

  The tea guests exchanged looks, but each stripped themselves of a glove. They piled up in my lap, lace and kid and satin, all in tasteful shades of cream or buff. I pushed my hand into the pile, balancing the paper and book on my knees. I felt awkward, but the worst of it, I felt inspected. Turning my eyes to the dimming light outside, I put the pencil to paper and waited.

  Nothing came, and I blinked, shaking my head as I looked around to faces strangely drawn. "I'm sorry."

  Zora wrapped a tight hand around my arm, so hard that my fingers flexed and the pencil flew from them. Before I could demand some explanation for her roughness, Miss Brosmer snatched the slips of paper from me, turning to pass them around.

  "'Today in the vespers, I see the girl with the butterfly brooch at the druggist,'" read a red-haired girl, who wore, in fact, a butterfly brooch at her collar.

  The lady beside her leaned over her shoulder to read, "'Today in the vespers, I hear a voice sweet as a nightingale gone hoarse just before a party.'"

  A chill swept me, and I turned to Zora as another guest read, "'Today in the vespers, I see this day the same as the next, the same prospects held now to be the same prospects found three years hence.'"

  That one burst into tears, and I murmured to Zora, "Did I write that?"

  "And more," she said.

  Miss Brosmer cleared her throat, lifting a paper before her face and reading, "'In the vespers, I see this lovely glove of crepe and kid, gone missing and ruining the set. " She lowered the page and squinted at me. "You've had us all on."

  "I never claimed my visions were of consequence," I said stiffly. Taking to my feet, I shook the gloves from my skirt and returned both pencil and book to their perturbed owner.

  Some complaints rose, but a fair girl at the end of the table snatched the paper from her neighbor's hand and fled to the kitchen. Her friends followed, a great clamor and demand for her to tell them the matter, and I thought it best that we go before they all turned on us.

  Just as we made it to the door, Miss Brosmer came down the hall. "Wait!"

  "Blasted latch," Zora cursed, rattling the doorknob, and then, when we found our egress too slow, turned to face whatever awful recrimination we had to bear to take our leave.

  "I did apologize," I said weakly.

  Waving a sheet of my predictions, she closed on us, less reading than repeating. "'Today in the vespers, I know that I am happy now he is dead.'"

  "Oh, Amelia, you didn't," Zora said, a horrified whisper only for me, drowned out when our hostess spoke over her.

  "I tell you in confidence that he's vicious. And I'm happy knowing she'll survive him."

  Briskly, she pushed us out of the way, working the door's complicated latch to let us out. And then, as if this had been no more than an ordinary tea, she smiled first at Zora, then at me.

  "May I have a card for my collection?" she asked.

  Marveling at her quick shift, from skeptic to believer to ... whatever this could be called, I gladly gave over my card just to pay my way from her foyer.

  Zora fished one of hers from her clutch, and we thought ourselves on our way once we passed the threshold.

  "How strange," Miss Brosmer said.

  Poisonous curiosity drove me to turn back. "Is it?"

  She held it up, rubbing the imprint of my name with her thumb. "The ink looks like blood."

  And truth, in the slanting vermilion light, it did.

  ***

  "I'm not ready to go home," Zora said, hooking my arm with hers and pulling me toward Division Street once more. Night came around us in a cooling cloak, a mantle happily taken after the heat of the day and the unfamiliar parlor.

  "You mean, you've become accustomed to peeping at Thomas after a call and won't go home without it."

  I teased, but I could hardly blame her. We passed Thomas Rea's yard nearly every day; we had reason to coincidentally find ourselves at his back fence.

  But Mount Vernon Place, where the Fourteenths lived, remained a mystery to me. Bound by a tightness in my chest, I squeezed Zora's wrist and pulled her to stop with me.

  "If you had business with Dr. Rea," I said, overtaken by an impetuous flash of heat. "Thomas could walk you home, could he not?"

  "What business have I got with—" Zora stopped, eyes going round. "What sort of wickedness are you devising?"

  "None," I swore. "And if I say nothing, you won't be implicated if I suffer some blow to my reputation."

  "Amelia, can't we be clever about this?"

  "In what way?" I turned myself out of her grasp, almost like the steps of a dance right on the sidewalk. "Invite only thirteen to a dinner party and hope upon hope that your father will hire him by chance? Send a letter begging him to call?"

  Suddenly, near dark gave way to the oily glow of gaslight, and night transformed. It seemed ragged around the edges, rougher and meaner than the city in the day. It frightened me; it delighted me.

  "We can promenade the park tomorrow. Thomas would carry a note to him."

  "And let's do that." I pressed fingers to my lips and stood by as a policeman came round the corner on his beat. Perfecting ourselves, Zora and I pretended to check our clutches at the good doctor's door, nodding pleasant greetings at the patrolman as he passed.

  As soon as he went by, I whispered in Zora's ear. "Think of all the things you know that I couldn't possibly guess. How fine Thomas looks making firewood. How nicely he carries your parcels; how kindly he shares his last sharpened pencil. I have nothing like that, not one incidental memory to call my own."

  "It's dangerous to go at night," Zora said.

  Gently, I unwound myself from her grasp. "I'm sick with it, Zora."

  No doubt, her thoughts spun, for she grasped at another excuse to keep me. "Do You even have his address? It's the whole heart of the city, Amelia, hardly a singular building unto itself."

  "I don't need it," I said, then reached past her to rap on Dr. Rea's door. The abruptness startled her. I held her pinned like a butterfly to a board.

  Just as the door handle turned, Zora broke. "You must be back before eight o'clock."

  I pressed a kiss and a promise to her cheek. "I'll say I went after a pomander for my corset. Thank you. Thank you a hundred times."

  "I already regret this," she called after me, then clamped her mouth shut as the door swung open. "Dr. Rea, I apologize for the hour, but my throat's gone sore and Mama doesn't quite trust the new druggist at Eame's..."

  ***

  As I stepped from the cab, my driver frowned when I drew his wage from my purse. Instead of opening his hand to
take my nickels, he leaned over the seat to ask, "What business do you have walking the park at this hour alone, miss?"

  "Oh, I'm not alone," I told him, brazen as I could be. Casting my gaze out, I pointed at a pair of ladies in the distance. "See, there?"

  Squinting, he took my coins but made no move to leave. "I'll sit and watch you meet them."

  "You're a true gentleman, sir, thank you."

  Steeling myself with a breath, I squared my shoulders and marched resolutely to those strange women, entirely unknown to me.

  "Excuse me," I said.

  Fortune had played me well, in choosing my imaginary companions. Their skirts swung like great black bells as they met me. "Yes, miss?"

  I turned, waving the driver off. "I hate to trouble you, but do you have the time, perhaps?"

  "Yes, of course. Ten past," one answered.

  Warmly, I thanked her, my hands clasped in gratitude. When they walked on, so did I. My blood roared with satisfaction as I swept through the park.

  Row houses lined a gentle slope, and I stared at them, one by one. This one had a red door, that one, blue. I considered them all, then stepped up to knock on the green one. It was the same shade as Nathaniel's stationery. I felt certain it would be right.

  My certainty died when the door opened. Tall and bronze, a handsome young man considered me in curiosity. "May I help you?"

  "I'm sorry to disturb you," I said, clutching my pendant. "I thought I might find Nathaniel Witherspoon here."

  At once, he relaxed and turned to call out. "Nate! Company!"

  I didn't have a chance to thank him before he walked away. I wasn't sure I wouldn't have laughed and danced and acted a fool in front of him, anyway. On magic alone, I'd found the right door.

  And, oh, how the strength melted from me when Nathaniel came down the hall. He came in shirtsleeves, the linen stained with a wild play of color. For a moment, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, he stood before me, barefooted. He was mussed, bohemian and wild and ... beautiful.

  "Amelia," he said, pulling me inside.

  For once, for the first time, he sounded urgent. Concerned. As if he might care about my reputation after all. The very idea amused me.

  Clasping my hands together, I stood my straightest, as if I were a princess to be obeyed. "I'd like to see your studio, Mr. Witherspoon."

  Nathaniel stepped into a loose pair of boots. "You shouldn't be in here. I can't believe Navid opened the door for you."

  "How rude if he hadn't."

  When Nathaniel turned to grab a jacket, I brushed past him. The acrid scent of turpentine burned my nose, and I followed it straight back. The scent deepened, with strange oils and perfumes. My heart raced, thrilled to be so surrounded by Nathaniel—not just his hand at mine, not just the warmth of his body, but his scent, his world, all wrapped around me like a manteau.

  Sweeping down the hallway, I took delight in the smallest of things: flecks of paint on the linen wallpaper, the row of miniatures hung by hooks in the hall. I brushed fingers along a stack of books teetering on a hall table, then passed them, through the opened double doors at the end of the way. What might have been a dining room in another row house was a gallery in this one. A stained canvas covered the floor, and painted ones sat in stacks against the wall.

  "Please, Amelia," Nathaniel said, catching up to me and staying me with a hand on my shoulder. What a monster I was, to enjoy discomfiting him so. "Let me take you home."

  Instead, I slipped from beneath his touch. He had an easel at the window, and I wanted to see what wonders he'd worked at it. And then I murmured a soft sound when I finally saw.

  Once again, he'd put life in the art—water flowing as real water did, a diaphanous gown drifting on the surface of it. It was plainly meant to be Ophelia, drowned for want of Hamlet's love, but the face on the figure was mine.

  "Is this..." I started, then turned to him. A curious cold drifted around me, no more so when Nathaniel refused to meet my eyes. Instead of speaking to him, I asked him directly in my mind. He would prove himself, for once, for all. Is this your premonition for me?

  Nathaniel jerked his head back. "It's a painting. Nothing more."

  Swallowing hard, I turned back to it, and this time I indulged. I reached out to touch the water and drew back an oily smear of blue and gray. When I rubbed it between my fingers, it melted away, until nothing but a shadowy stain remained. "I'm dead in it."

  With that, he seemed to recover. "You're alive now. Follow me, Amelia."

  Instead, I asked, "How do you hear me?"

  "I listen."

  Frustration stung, and I shook my head. "How do you hear me, Nathaniel? How is it that you're the only one in the flames who sees me?"

  Holding out a hand to me, he drew me in. His cologne filled me, driving away all the primal, astringent scents of his studio.

  His heat radiated through his shirt, and he tucked my head beneath his chin. "I think sometimes each of the elements breathes life into a particular body. You seem very like fire to me."

  I rested my cheek against his chest. I listened to his human heart. "What would that make you?"

  "Come on," he said, and took my hand.

  ***

  As we ran through the park, I spun around, turning my gaze to the monument thrust against the sky. A marble column soared above my head, glowing with unusual luminance.

  At the top, our first president pointed serenely toward the harbor. In this late and glimmering hour, he seemed a part of the heavens.

  Nathaniel stopped beside me, his eyes turned toward the marvel as well. Deliberately, accidentally, I could never say for certain, his knuckles grazed against mine as he murmured, "You can see the whole of the city from the top."

  "Would that I could," I said. The air had turned thick, breathing it an exercise.

  Turning only eyes to me, Nathaniel said, "Stand a moment, then follow me directly." And then he stepped off.

  I watched him move across the marble walk, his strange, rolling gait nevertheless silent, even as I concentrated all my attention on each fall of his feet. I let him go so long, he threw a look over his shoulder to find me.

  How quickly I'd come to savor those glimpses of his vulnerability, those tiny proofs that my heart was not the only heart that faltered. I swooped down on those tender scraps, viciously glad to devour them. I wondered at myself that his distress should please; what was the matter with me?

  Would that I were goodhearted; would that I wished all the best, selfless things for him—but I didn't. Stripping him of his defenses in Annapolis had softened me. Once he was vulnerable, I could curl in his arms—I could surrender a kiss and all my senses to him.

  With deliberation, I straightened, then followed directly as commanded. But I followed in my own time, no more hurried than I would be if strolling the park come Sunday. Regal in my procession, I let my fingers admire the black iron gate as I passed it.

  Nathaniel reached out of the darkness to grab me. He pulled me by gentle force into the monument's foyer, pressing me against the wall, so close I could taste the hot fall of his breath on my mouth. "Did you come only to torment me?"

  Slipping beneath his arm, I dashed to the foot of a spiral staircase, turning my eyes up to get lost in the whorls as I mounted the steps. I laughed and said, "Not only to tor-ment you."

  And with that, I lifted my hems and ran. Hardly fast, for neither gowns nor corsets, nor heels and narrow passages permitted an exceptional sprint—but fast enough. Fast enough to dare him and call him, bid him chase me and catch me if he could.

  The sound of my flight clamored on the steps. It echoed up and down, bouncing on marble from every direction, until the sound of it seemed as great as the roar of the ocean, as the pounding of my pulse in my ears. I cried out, a sharp laugh, a sharp scream, all melted into one when he got close enough to drop fingers on my shoulder.

  Spinning in the narrows, I stumbled and would have fallen back onto the steps, but he caught me
around the waist. He knew no shame, going about without gloves, but I blessed him, for I could feel the fever in his touch without them. Above, gasping for my breath, I gazed on him.

  He turned his face up to me. I could have knighted or executed him in that moment, with him bended at my knee. Instead, I sank into his gaze. A distant rhythm of thunder swept through his voice when he asked, "Are you mine now?"

  Shamelessly, I let him steal closer, I let him think he'd won my kiss. At the moment before the embrace, I hauled myself up forcibly and fled up the stairs. My laughter rose with the roar of the steps, with his cursing below. I flew like a hawk; I felt lifted on wings.

  The landing came too soon. I caught myself on an arch there and lost all my breath. For I could see all of Baltimore laid at my feet. A fearsome terror took me when I stepped onto the deck that circled the column.

  Its rail came only to my knee—nothing stood between me and plunging to the fence-framed walks below. Then, from behind, arms looped round my waist as Nathaniel pulled me against his chest.

  "Now you're caught, aren't you?" he murmured in my ear, and I turned like a wanton toward the sound of his voice.

  I could catch but a glimpse of him over my shoulder, a crescent curve of his moon face. The black fan of his lashes lowered, and his lips parted, painted dusky in the dark. I had no answer for him—I had no words at all.

  The wind stole my longing for cruel delights. I wanted nothing but to live there—in the gentle cage of his (embrace—always and ever.

  Turning on this precarious edge, I brushed my nose against his and blushed for trying to find myself in his eyes. I drew out, on hooks, a plaintive whisper. "I mustn't stay."

  "Should I recite for you?" he asked. "Shakespeare, on parting with a kiss?"

  Emboldened by his touch, fearless with the whole world beneath me, I said, "No. Speak your heart to me."

  "I always do," Nathaniel said. He shifted, covering his arm with mine. As he brushed a kiss behind my ear, he laid my own hand on my breast, mapping me against his body. "In there, that's my heart. My breath."

  Swept unsteady, I startled at the sweet pain that filled me. Since our first meeting, I ran mad with him; he ran wild in my veins. We had no quiet affection to spare between us, only tempting and taunting and impossible longings. I felt dashed on his shore, or that I was the stone on which he wrecked, and recklessly I said, "Tell me you love me."