question he posed was odd. I had never conceived of rejecting Will, but I assumed it was because I loved him, not because I feared any consequence. But the hour has grown late for such prickly introspections.
Though I’d set a fire before dinner, it has died and the room is cold. The glass is frosted over, and my candle is a single star in a dark sky. I pull out my scrapbook and page through notes from Toby, uneven and misspelled; letters from Will, with his elegant script and stilted declarations of love; still more scraps of paper, oddities, and curios, before I reach the pages I have kept from Will’s sketchbook. Where I find him again. His best gift was for capturing the outdoors.
A thread of black ink becomes a bird wing or loop of ivy. I linger over them before turning to a section in the back with drawings, some of myself, where I compare Will’s art with Geist’s print.
Will’s pen unlocks my secret moments. My smile on the cusp of laughter. The breeze in my unbound hair. The bow of my neck against the sun.
But in Geist’s print I glower. As if my closed mouth might hide a pair of fangs. We are all dour, all but Viviette, who looks positively beatific.
And then I see what has eluded me. This fragment of detail is now so clear, and yet so radically different, that for a moment I wonder if I’ve lost my mind.
Quickly, I pry the paper from its backing and bring the candle close. And yet I’m sure my memory is serving me correctly and that the discrepancy is real. Unlike the Harding photograph or the print that I’d set on Uncle Henry’s desk, in this image Viviette’s head is crowned not by holly berries but by a wreath of dark flowers.
But. The negative could not have changed.
Irises. I trace them with my fingertip. They are inky flames leaping around the angel’s head. Transfixed, I can feel myself slipping away again. Geist had called it the undertow, and that strange word now redefines itself as I skid deep into memory.
An August day, the angry sun. Wildflowers and smeared black ink on the sketchbook pages.
My eyes snap open. Black irises. Is there such a flower?
The ink is so dark. Geist’s words sliver through my heart.
In the print my own black eyes stare up at me, reproachful. Black pupils, black irises. What am I looking at that I can’t see?
Taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing. But I can’t smell or touch or taste these flowers. “Why black irises?” I murmur aloud. What is the significance of this flower in particular? And in the next breath, I think I might know.
12.
Mavis would hate to hear that she snores worse than Mrs. Sullivan. Her sound sleep is my good luck as I fumble for my clothing, rank with soot and sweat from my trip to the city.
My movements are deft and noiseless. For what I need to do, I can’t risk Mavis discovering that I’ve been out. The use of a fresh frock would betray me.
It’s just a guess, less than a hunch, but the lights have lit my mind. I won’t be able to sleep or to think of anything else unless I am proved right or wrong. I move like mist down the stairs and beeline to Uncle Henry’s study.
He has put the photograph in his Indian cabinet and has removed his magnifying lens from its case. In its proximity to the photograph, I gather he might have been using the lens to comb the image for deeper insights.
In Uncle’s photograph, Viviette wears her crown of holly.
Just as I’d suspected, it is only my print that has been altered. Its encrypted irises are for my eyes only. I close the door to his study and am off.
The Black Eye, as I’d always heard the tavern called, stands on the outskirts of Brookline Village, at the far end of Sherburne Road near Heath Street. Hurrying alone this late at night on the stretch of road that leads into the village, I am struck by a thousand terrified imaginings. I don’t trust my eyes. A hungry beast crouches, ready to rip my flesh from bone. Wild creatures spy from tangled boughs above while a crone crouches behind a tree, beckoning, her gaunt arm a ragged branch. I try to keep my senses sharp. But when a fox darts across my path, I scream and start running. My borrowed boots drag and squelch, but I don’t stop sprinting until I have cut across Heath Street, where I spy what must be the tavern.
It’s a modest, two-story building, but its swinging lantern is strong enough to be a beacon to its hitching posts, where a few weary horses stand in wait.
And then I see the sign. I am exhilarated and terrified.
One woodcut flower blooms below the elegant letters that spell out the tavern’s name. I read it over and over. Until tonight, I have misheard the shorthand slang for it.
The Black Eye, the Black I, The Black Iris. In my hand is the newspaper that I’d stolen from the hired man’s satchel, with its back-page advertisement that I’d seen printed a hundred times before. Not a black eye, but a flower.
I push through the door into a room wreathed in smoke from the brick hearth that blazes at the far end. A teakwood bar, twice as large but half as nice as Uncle Henry’s, is captained by a pip of a man who stands behind it.
“Good evening,” I muster.
“Who you here for?” A dog with a bite.
In addition to Mrs. Sullivan’s rubber boots, I’d borrowed Mavis’s cloak and bonnet. I’d hoped that entering The Black Iris disguised as a servant would be less conspicuous than a young lady in heeled boots and a trimmed hat.
Dressed as a servant, unfortunately, also means being treated as one.
“Oh… I…” I take quick peeks all around.
It’s men here, mostly. I recognize the roofers seated at the far corner, and I’m thankful to be faced with their backsides instead of their scrutiny. At the wall, younger fellows play darts. Around a more raucous table, mixed sexes cluster. The only face I know is Peg O’Leary’s, who Aunt Clara engages twice a year to help with changing over the household linen. Tonight, with her plumped cleavage on show, Peg is more temptress than laundress.
It’s a welcome space against the chapping cold, but doesn’t feel entirely friendly. Nor does the barkeep’s face, with his mouth now down-bent like a brook trout’s.
“I’m… I’m…” How to explain myself?
His own conclusions startle me. “I know who you are. You’re his Frances. We’d begun to think you’d given him the slip. But you came ’round, after all. He’s been waiting for you, then.”
Confused as I am, I decide to nod knowledgeably.
The barkeep jabs his thumb toward a walled set of stairs behind him. “Well, get on up. Sue’s not here, if you’re wondering. Not at this hour. Got her own home and family when she’s not tending orphans. Takes after her mother that way. Up the stairs and turn the corner. You’d be his first visitor in two weeks.”
“Thank you, sir.” It seems safe, for now, to pretend to be Frances.
“Sir’s my father. Now, scat. He’s waiting.”
