Picture the Dead

The friends honed their talent for gambling and then, inured by the monstrous horrors of the Wilderness, for grave robbing what use has a dead man for a watch or a ring or a pair of thick boots… Thieving from corpses of fallen soldiers meant a wealth of treasures to barter, and others must have known of their cache. Rounded up with their company and forced into Camp Sumter, they would be naturally attracted to a gang of thieves, and the thieves to them. Charles Curtis, the leader of such a gang, knew how to put these young men’s talents to good use for a time. We picked the adventure knowing there’d be no end but a bloody one… This was my true self.

I can’t complete the entire shape of this chain. It is not laid out flat in front of my eyes. What was Will’s role in all this? Why did he end up a thief and Raider? What specific crime had he committed that he was delivered to the gallows at Camp Sumter? Why couldn’t he have escaped with Quinn?

Madame had asked nothing of me when I’d asked her to take me away and given her Geist’s address. I suppose the fear in my eyes had been enough. She’d simply tossed my cloak over my shoulders and hurried me out the front door to her coach. We hadn’t spoken a word on the trip into Boston, though I’m sure her questions burned in her head.

My own mind is surprisingly lucid. I think of Viviette’s baleful gaze on me all over again. I’d been mistaken. Viviette hadn’t called me the demon; she had warned me of the demon. And Quinn’s second visit had confirmed her suspicions.

“I’ll wait for you.” Madame finally breaks her silence as the carriage turns down the modest rectilinear block to stop in front of Geist’s townhouse.

“No need. Mr. Geist will bring me home in his carriage,” I dissuade her. “Truly, I’ll be fine.”

Madame looks doubtful, but my feet are brisk as I disembark. I wave her driver on. “Thank you, Madame.”

Through the carriage window she watches me, but doesn’t protest as the driver snaps the reins. Once she is departed and I’ve tripped up the steps to Geist’s door, I’m faced with a dread sensation. Inside, darkness. Nobody is home.

With a sinking heart, I rap the brass knocker.

“You won’t find him.”

I whip around. The next-door housekeeper lists over the rail, as bloated as a bee. Tipsy I’d wager, and she has stepped outside for a few bracing moments of winter twilight before ducking back into her kitchen prison.

“Where did he go?”

She raises her hand with her slurred proclamation. “He did the right thing by her. With a ring on her finger, she can hold her head up.”

I’m confused. “Who?”

“Him and her. The master and his maid. Run off together.”

“You mean Mr. Geist and Viviette were…married?”

“Yes, Miss, in city hall, the day ’fore yesterday.”

There’s no way to hide my incredulity. “Where are they now?”

“On holiday. Took a train all the way up to Nova Scotia. Where no doubt they’ll be up to their usual dev’lish monkeyshines. Developing those ghosty pitchers and plund’ring the souls of the dead.” She genuflects.

My bewilderment must show on my face, for the housekeeper guffaws. “No, no, no. There’s no romance there, Miss, lest you count the love of money. Everyone knows it was that Wallis boy brought on Viv’s condition. But Mister Geist can’t ’ford to lose her. Not in his line of work.”

“Do you know when they’ll return?”

“Not till next month’s end.” She blinks drowsily through the dusk. “Who are you, anyhow?”

“Mr. Geist’s niece,” I improvise. “And I suppose that it’s very lucky I was given a spare house key.” I pretend to rummage for it in my purse. The housekeeper tires of watching me. “Chance of rain,” she says, a parting warning before she scowls at the gloaming sky and plods back inside.

I wait until I’m sure she’s gone. My hand reaches up to disengage a hairpin. Then I crouch and fit the pin, jiggering it. A spy can open whatever is locked. I only dare let myself exhale when I feel it click.

Part of me is exalting. A spirit in turmoil wants to expose a truth, Geist had said, or make a confession. But Will hadn’t wanted to make a confession. No, his unfinished business had to do with exposing his brother’s betrayal.

The knob turns. I pause a moment. I’ve never been an intruder.

Darkness makes the furniture unfamiliar and adds to my sense of guilty otherness. I find the matches to light the oil lamp in the front hall. Aware of every creak in the floorboards, I carry it to the sitting room. If Geist had been here, I’d have brandished both my letters in a bittersweet victory. I’d loved Will. It had never been otherwise, despite his brother’s steady poisoning of my memories.

Quinn’s insinuations and lies had weakened me. Worse, they had eroded my trust in Will’s love. But now I’m frightened. Geist is my only confidante, but when I needed him most, he disappeared. Alone as I feel, I must heed his advice as never before.

Any consecrated space, Geist had told me. But not a church.

“And that makes sense,” I whisper aloud. Will hadn’t ever been much for ceremony. And certainly not Pritchett House, where he’d always escaped whenever he was angry with his brother. Geist’s own home is a sanctuary. Devoid of family members and memories, receptive to lost and searching spirits, it’s where Will had knocked.

I take care as I enter the sitting room. What faint sound there is comes from the two ticking clocks and my own shallow breath. I sit on the edge of my usual chair across from Geist’s, my eyes sweeping the shadows, my hands gripping the seat cushion. Hope is all I’ve got. Please, Will.

That last summer, Will used to watch me when I napped. I was always lazing away honeyed hours after our picnics by the pond. Stretched out and barefoot, my head crooked in the bone of my arm, my breath soft with salted air, and the faraway slap of the water setting the course of my dreams. I’d sleep long and deep. So careless with our time. Blissfully ignorant of how little we had left.

Will would observe me, sketch me, then tease me awake with a blade of grass twirled across my cheek. It’s the same sensation that passes through me now, with sun on my skin and a brush across my face as I settle back, relaxing my grip, and open my eyes to find the lamp gone out.

The figure is slouched opposite me in Geist’s armchair. I stare. He appears like a photograph slowly developing under my eyes. His shoulders are back, and his chin is tipped; his arms are crossed loose at the chest. A familiar position. He is here.

When I speak his name, his answering gaze on me is suffused in love and sadness. As Will’s image takes full hold, his lips part. As if to say something in return. His eyes are tender and know me a entirely. Then his hand lifts, reaches out, and sweeps across as if to indicate something…

Later, when I remember and relive and savor this moment, all I can conjure is the memory of my unabashed delight. Exaltation. Here he is, so real I could take his own dear face between my hands.

I hear my thin breath, but when I open my eyes I hadn’t realized they were closed Will is gone.

“No!” I inhale sharply, jumping to stand. Dumbfounded. But he was here. Was he here? If he was, he has slipped from the surface. I’m panicked, shocked by the moment, its power and its brevity. No, no, it’s not enough. Not nearly enough, after all that I’ve been through. After all my efforts in trying to find him.

Something in the room has shifted. A subtle nuance, but the moment dangles, teasing me as I work to solve it.

Of course. Both clocks have stopped.

I must stay calm. Will’s presence hums through me like a hymn. When I glance down and see the cat, I jump and scream.

“Psst! Scat!” The animal has been crouched motionless at the foot of my chair all this time. Was that what Will’s gesture had indicated?

“Psst!” I hiss again. “Shoo, cat!” It doesn’t move no, it’s not a cat, not a living thing at all. It’s some sort of object.

And yet…I’m sure it wasn’t here when I first came into the room.