But the room was empty, save the librarian and a man reading in a wingback chair near one of the windows. I crept up to the librarian’s desk, the wood creaking beneath my feet, past the alabaster busts of dead men. I lowered my voice, asking to be directed to the archives for theCincinnati Inquisitor.
The librarian was an older woman with short, dark hair that may have once been ginger. A mole above her lip resembled a tiny button. “How far back?” she asked me.
“Around 1910,” I said.
“Ah,” the librarian said. “More comet research. I’ve set those boxes aside. I think every middle school teacher in the city has assigned some sort of Halley-related project. It’s fun to consider, isn’t it, what life was like back then?”
“No, not the comet,” I said. “The Earthshine factory fire.”
“Oh?” said the woman. This seemed to please her, something more esoteric. She smiled, then led me across the room, past a statue depicting a woman draped in a Greek-style dress, one finger pressed toher lips.Silencewas the statue’s name, and when I neared her, I felt it again, that presence. She stood in bare feet, her other hand clutching a rolled-up scroll, her gown clinging to her breasts. I stopped in front of her, and the librarian did, too, and we both admiredSilencefor a moment. Her face held both admonishment and secrecy. She seemed to say bothdon’t speakanddon’t tellat once, and her name suggested both a command and a state of being. It only occurs to me now that she’s every woman I’ve ever known, cast in white.
“She had a sister, you know,” the librarian said.
“The statue?”
“The New York Mercantile Library once owned the pair.TruthandSilence.”
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“Lost, I believe.”
She led me to the opposite side of the room to a table that reminded me of the cold-read table at the studio. Oval. Wood. Ringed by straight-backed chairs. I counted the stack of the labeled banker’s boxes, then made note of the ones on the floor.
“No microfiche?” I asked.
The woman shook her head. “We’re a small staff, but maybe I can help,” she said. “The Earthshine fireandthe strike?”
I lifted the lid off a box and smelled the must of old paper. The wordstrikereminded me of a match being struck, and in that moment I felt like one, hot. Perhaps I was feverish. In my head, that sound, the one I’d been hearing for weeks, had become more consistent, like tinnitus. Thewaa-waaing. The librarian was talking but I could barely hear her above the noise.
“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine.”
“Start there. You’ll want this box,” the librarian said, pointing. “There was a great column back then. Dixie About Town. Dixie Ellison—gossip queen, a real curmudgeon. A gossip column, but useful in its own way. Not quiteTempo of the Times.” She hesitated. “Don’tI know you from somewhere? You look so familiar.” She studied me like a book she wasn’t sure where to file on the shelf.
I ran my hands over my head, felt the individual prickles of hair. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Hmm…” she said, as though considering it. And then she left me to the box.
I opened the lid and rooted through the papers. I must have gone through a dozen papers that way, just opening and closing them, reading the front-page headlines, but I saw nothing I didn’t already know: Charles Tuttle had intended to sell the Earthshine factory, but the workers had gone on strike, which prevented the sale. They’d demanded higher wages, better working conditions. They claimed the old factory was a dangerous work environment, old equipment, stifling heat. They’d argued they’d been underpaid. I piled the papers haphazardly on the table, until I reached the bottom of that first box.
Nothing.
What was I doing here anyway? What did I think I’d find? If they ever make a movie of my life, they’d cut this scene, because archival research doesn’t raise anyone’s pulse except an academic’s, and I didn’t own a single blazer with elbow patches. I thought the newspaper would have facts, a definitive answer to questions I may not have even known to ask.
What happened the night of the fire?
I read through the headlines in one box, then another. When my legs grew stiff, I stood at the window. I could see a small stretch of the river in the distance and people walking on the sidewalks below. Parked across the street sat a black sedan with tinted windows, the same type of luxury car the Tuttles had in their fleet. I knew the interior to be soft and leathery. I had to assume I was being watched.
Sitting down at the table again, I thought of what Roxanne had said, that gossip was the best way to get to the truth of a matter.Usefulin its own way, the librarian had told me of that gossip column. What had she meant by that?
I heaved another box to the table, one I’d already gone through, then sorted through the stack. This time I turned to the last page of theInquisitor, to Dixie About Town, a two-inch-by-two-inch column bordered with a thick, black line that set it off from the rest of the page.
Halfway through the box, I stumbled upon her name, and I felt relief and excitement, like I’d recognized an old friend in a crowd.
Madame Doucet, the Witch of Walnut Street, shall be put to a public test of her supposed ability to commune with the Other Side, this on decree of Mayor Louis Schwab who, at my urging, has vowed to rid our city of intoxicants. Should she fail this test, she may be arrested and incarcerated for a variety of crimes, including knowingly providing drugs to women, which have produced deleterious effects and precipitated several deaths of women across this city. This on the word of several of my sources. Should she not show, I’ve heard, from various sources, a warrant will be put out for her arrest. Tickets available in advance. May 18. Location and time forthcoming as arrangements are still being made.
A trial, I considered. If she hadn’t died in the fire, perhaps she’d been arrested. She failed the test—or maybe she didn’t show. Maybe she’d tried to run away again. I wanted answers. The librarian sat at her desk, typing. The man in the wingback chair had set down his magazine and picked up a book. I could seeSilencein profile, her finger to her lips. I wondered where her sister was—or how you lose a statue. Then, I studied the words there in print. Mystery ailments. Side effects. How could I not think of those Jane Does in this moment, of those interviews I’d read?
Beneath the article, at last, a photograph.
