Opal had heard sad thoughts could impact a baby, and, if so, what were its chances of survival now? She’d been drinking milk and taking supplements, but now she felt she couldn’t trust her body. She couldn’t trust herself. Maybe her baby would also come too early, and, if so, who could she call for help? She thought about the times she’d sat with Betsy in the lunchroom and held her hands and felt her pulse and checked her respiratory rate and the color of her nailbeds and the texture of her hair and the whites of her eyes and the tone of her skin, and, still, she’d missed the most important part.
Maria crouched next to Opal on the pavement. At first, Opal thought Maria was about to embrace her, console her as she’d consoled the others.
“Can you…” Maria started to say, but she couldn’t finish her sentence. She began to choke up, so she sat back on the heels of her boots. She removed her cap, which left an indent on the skin of her forehead, an invisible crown. There was something saintly about Maria, ethereal, this woman in white. “Can you reach her? Can you commune with her yet, there on the Other Side?”
“Betsy?” Opal asked. The mention of her name now brought Maria to tears.
“I just thought maybe…”
As the woman cried, Opal considered maybe Jagr had been right. Maybe shewassick. She could have said:I ran away from my husband. I stole his formulary. He was a doctor who taught me just enough to be useful. Just enough to be dangerous, too.Jagr used to work and rework a formula, sometimes altering it by only an eighth of a milligram, intent on precision. His formulary was record of that. He believed in science and certainty. But how could anyone be certain a cure was no worse than the disease? Look at her unusual episodes and the drugs Jagr made her take that left her dull and woozy. How could she believe in science at all when she carried this baby from the Other Side, conceived that night by the river.I don’t believe in science, Madame de Fleur had told her,I trust my own senses.
“She would have to want to come through,” Opal said. A wave of nausea passed through her. Strong emotions always manifested as physical sensations, which were easier to label, treat. What does sadness look like beneath a microscope? What are the symptoms of regret?
“It’s this damn place,” Maria said. She pulled at the hem of her skirt like she intended to rip it apart. Anger, if examined closely, is grief in disguise.
“We could take Tuttle’s raise and stop this foolishness,” Opal said. “That’s a victory, isn’t it? We’d be making almost as much as the machinists. Betsy would be thrilled.”
“You’re right. We’ve gotten something. We haven’t lost, not completely—”
At that moment, a group of newsmen began moving toward the factory entrance, toward the door where Betsy had once allowed herself to be chained. The women followed. Opal could taste the powder of cameras as she got close. Then a jolt of surprise when she saw her: Bertie Tuttle pressed her back to the door of the factory. Her ankles were crossed, and her arms were raised. The mood seemed to lighten, and Gilly and Pearl and the others picked up their signs again and began walking circles. Opal tried to make eye contact with Bertie—but she wouldn’t look in her direction. She was formal, inscrutable. Two Earthshine Girls made quick work of the chains until Bertie was fastened in place, half-crucified on the door of the factory. Then the Earthshine Girls began cheering. The mood turned jubilant, suddenly. Joyous. Everyone chanted now, except Bertie. Her lips never moved.
DIXIE ELLISON GATHERED PLENTY OFnew material for the evening edition of the paper. She lamented how a good society woman like Bertie could become so readily duped, so influenceable, so easily won over to the cause. She then declared Betsy avictim of the foulest sin, further proof thatwomen do not have the appropriate constitution to work outside the home. Dixie did not say—perhaps she didn’t know—that Betsy often left her lunch uneaten or fed it to the pigeons that gathered near the benches outside. The other girls assumed it was symptoms of her pregnancy, the morning sickness that everyone knew could occur at any time of day.
Instead, Dixie concluded,I believe this Earthshine girl’s fate, and that of her child, was driven to its most unfortunate conclusion by the Comet Pills found in her possession. The city must eradicate all intoxicants. Nothing is more tragic than the death of a young woman and her unborn child.
But what about the life of one?
What would Dixie say about how Maria picked up extra shifts to feed her children she left at home alone, under the care of her oldest child who was only eight, or how after her work at the factory she moonlighted as a seamstress to make ends meet? How would Dixie report Gilly’s lethargy, how when she arrived home from her shift, she had to make dinner for her husband and tend to him as though she herself hadn’t a job? If women really were the weaker of the sexes, why must they do all the tending, all the ceaseless, payless work? It made no sense. What would Dixie’s spin be on Victoria’s nervousness or Pearl’s anxiety or Ruth’s weight gain because the only joy she found was in sugar, and one must take her pleasure where she can find it?
And, yet, Opal could not help but worry that Dixie was at least partially right—that what happened to Betsy was an unintended side effect of the Comet Pills she’d taken. Recently, Maria confided in her that she hadn’t had her weekly visitor in two months, nothing too unusual given the way she overworked herself.
“Could you be pregnant?” Opal asked.
“Not unless I’m the Virgin Mary,” Maria replied.
Gilly, too, recently pulled Opal aside asked her if she had anything for the pain she often felt searing through her middle like she was being branded on the inside by the soap stamping machine.
Opal had written to Madame de Fleur about all this, and whenshe wrote back, Opal memorized her words. Madame de Fleur’s letters usually communicated nothing and everything at once—but this one had been different. It almost pained her to read it.
That scientist, Flammarion, he’s retracted his words about the end of the world. He says he was only theorizing one possibility, not predicting an outcome. The probability that the world will end by the comet’s gases is small, but still, I worry about endings. They’re always disappointing. Life is a moral hazard. Survival often relies on self-delusion. A woman must never apologize for what she wants or for what she must do to protect herself. I’ve found if you have to ask yourself a question that begins with “Is it possible…” the answer is usually yes.
You say I speak in riddles, but now the occasion calls for directness: A spiritualist cannot be held responsible for the messages received from the Other Side. This would be akin to smashing the telephone box for bad news spoken through its lines. You were trying to help those women with your power of mediumship. I believe this, truly. It’s clear to me, from your description, however, that your cures have unintended consequences. I am sorry for the sad circumstances of those women’s deaths and that you’ve been put at the center of them. The Witch of Walnut Street! What an unfortunate insult. And, yet, I’ll tell you what I suspect you already know: This may be an instance of a cure being worse than the disease.
While you’re not responsible for the messages from the Other Side, you are responsible for yourself. A spirit cannot compel one to act; the spiritist behaves according to her own will and desires. I say this with great risk; it may change everything.
We believe what’s necessary for our survival. We can convince ourselves of anything. But do not convince yourself you have no power of self-determination. What damage might that do to the field of spiritualism, or to people like us? I want you to come to France, always, but not like this.
—M
That night, she dreamed of Madame de Fleur. In the dream, she’d placed her head on a railroad track as a train could be heard rumblingever closer. Opal held the woman’s head, felt the dampness of her hair. “They’re looking for you,” Madame de Fleur warned. “They’re almost here.”
“What should I do? Tell me,” Opal pleaded.
Madame de Fleur said nothing. She folded her hands over her heart like she’d been laid in a casket.
“Should I run?” Opal asked in the dream. The train grew closer and closer. The sound of the whistle pierced her ears, then all grew quiet, and she could hear Madame de Fleur’s rattly breath.
“Go!” she snapped.
