Opal opened her eyes again. The men around the table rolled their sleeves like bankers counting cash, except for the Colonel, who scrutinized his Mind Box, watching the needle.
She channeled Madame de Fleur until her body was Opal’s body, her mind Opal’s mind. She was two women at once. She remembered how when Oren came through, Madame de Fleur exhaled, a moan, and Opal had wondered if it hurt to hold someone else inside you, even though she already knew the answer.
Her voice turned throaty and low. She slowed her speech. She’d always been consistently measured, not prone to excitability. Now, she allowed anger to settle in her bones: “You mewling, fly-bitten pile of horse manure.” The crowd erupted.
“This is a public setting,” the mayor said.
“You insufferable minnows. All of you. Cowards. You have no cause, by law. No proof. No legal recourse, and so you resort to public shaming. Go ahead. Arrest her and save her the embarrassment of this spectacle.”
More murmuring from the audience. The police officer in the back straightened, but made no attempt to move forward.
“She’s interfered with business,” said Tuttle, finally. “She’s impeded the sale of a company. That’s tortious interference.”
“This isn’t about that, I remind you,” said the mayor, impartially. “It’s about the medicines. The pills.”
For a moment the room grew quiet. Opal heard the rustling of clothing, then the voice of an Earthshine worker from the back.
“We were sick!” Maria yelled, and the other Earthshine Girls echoed in agreement. “She cured us!” They all yelled now.
“Silence!” yelled the mayor, but at that moment, someone hurled a bar of soap toward him. He ducked. As if on cue, the row of Earthshine Girls stood and threw soap in the men’s direction, the distinctive lavender smell wafting toward Opal, the soap cakes thudding gently as they landed at her feet.
“Ladies, please,” Charles Tuttle now said. He looked toward the Earthshine Girls, toward Amanda Mahooney, and Opal saw it, his quickened breath at the sight of his mistress. His voice softened some. “Let’s be reasonable. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
She remembered Bertie’s advice: Think of what you can do within your means.
“‘Can death be sleep when life is but a dream?’” Opal said. Her voice was not her own. “I’ve always loved that line. You’re familiar with that woman, aren’t you? Intimately?” The rest of the Earthshine Girls took their seats, but Amanda remained standing.
“I… I… No. She works for me. I’ve never met her personally,” Tuttle stammered.
A pause, then Amanda ran toward the elevator, weeping. At that moment, it dinged again, as though it’d been waiting. The sound made the whole of Opal recoil, as though the bell itself had been shoved in her ear. Something told Opal to look, the same way her eyes were drawn to grotesque sights, like to a dead squirrel being picked at by vultures, its innards appearing stretched and rubbery in the beaks of the birds.
The doors slid open.
Jagr emerged.
The air was syrup in her lungs. Jagr held a newspaper. He looked unwell. He stood boulder-like near the door, which isn’t to say he was strong or immovable, but that now, once he arrived, he didn’t know what to do. Amanda ran past him. The doors of the elevator closed.
Jagr’s beard was gone, and in its place a mustache. His suit, whichnormally hugged his frame, drooped in the legs, so he resembled a boy in his father’s clothing. He looked so unfashionable among these city folk, in his barn coat and mud-caked boots that hadn’t been scrubbed by her in months.
He set his umbrella in the stand, then lingered next to that statue of that woman, the one with her finger to her lips. What secret was she unwilling to tell?
Jagr took off his hat, revealing thin patches of hair pulled across his head like plow lines. She watched him watch her, but she felt no power in the act. His eyes rolled up and down her body, his wife. The space of time provides clarity, makes one all the more aware of the body’s subtle shifts. As she had recognized the changes of his body, so he recognized hers. Still, no one was more familiar with her than that man. She did not need clairvoyance to know he’d made note of her fuller face and her swollen knuckles and her center of gravity that forced her to lean back in the chair.
Opal tried not to move. Perhaps she could become invisible. Evaporate. Travel through the air as tiny unseen particles. The band felt too tight around her head.You are someone else, she uttered silently.You are far away.And for an instant—a flash of time too small to be recognized—she thought she’d willed herself elsewhere, the same room but a different time. Her body calmed. The room brightened. She heard the clacking of a typewriter. The chairs beside her were empty.
She felt unwell. Her condition—Jagr had convinced her of it.
And now he walked forward, closer to her.
“Sir, have a seat,” the mayor said. He stood and threw his arms wide, marking a line with his body.
“She is my wife,” Jagr said. “I’ve come to take her home.”
Opal did not remember his voice being so plain. In fact, she didn’t remember it at all. The mind can do that, willfully forget. It’s what’s allowed the human species to survive.
The crowd gasped. Dixie Ellison scribbled in her notebook. Jagr repeated himself, louder this time. “She is my wife!”
Opal could not see the Colonel, but she could sense him. The audience began to murmur. Someone yelled, “She’s a widow!” and at that several people screamed.
