He’s telling the truth. His eyes have a faraway look; art is truly a part of his soul.
“What do you love, Stella?”
I blink. “What?”
“What do you love?” His eyes shine.
I look down. The water in the bowl is stained a light brown now.
I am dirty.
I don’t belong here.
I am not allowed any of this.
I remove my fingers, hide them in my lap.
“Flowers,” I say softly. I expect him to guffaw or offer a saccharine smile. I anticipate a reply along the lines ofEveryone loves flowers!
But instead he bites his lower lip. “Flowers. That’s lovely.”
My impatience finally boils over. “What do you want?” I ask again.
Pax is unaccustomed to dealing with bison like me. “Don’t you want to know how I know your name?”
I grin to myself. Spirit told me he’d simply asked my landlady for my name. Or more accurately, paid her a jitney for it. That slob of a landlady was bought out for a nickel. (The nickel that’s supposed to beminefor that reading he attended, thank you.) I’d use a fake name to rent a room, but it’s difficult enough for an eighteen-year-old to find accommodations that are also used as a place of business, so I use my real papers.
Pax wipes his hands with the white linen napkin, then crumples it into a ball. He does not dab his fingers dry as the rest of these fine folks do. His edge is more jagged than appearances let on. “What do I want? Well… your mysticism. You have a gift, Stella.”
I shake my head. First, what I have is far from a gift. I can’t tell a memory from a dream from reality from a dead person’s voice. Not a gift. Second, he need not know any of this for certain. A single grain of rice and all.
Pax slides his hand into the breast pocket of his coat. He produces a calling card, gold-embossed, printed on thick, creamy paper. He places it on the table and slides it to me.
Julia’s Bureau
A bridge between the living and the dead
“I am recruiting the world’s best psychics to help heal humanity.”
Goose pimples ripple over my arms, and I shiver. I feel thesensation of push and pull, like ocean waves. “I don’t understand.”
Pax looks around the restaurant, apparently gauging the possibility of listening ears. Does he not know ears are always listening?
He leans forward. My breath shortens. I think of our breath, comingling between us, hot and twining and—
No.
“Julia’s Bureau is a gathering of the finest mediums and clairvoyants in the world,” he says. “Our goal is to ease some of the grief and suffering in the world by making connections to the Other Side. Our Spiritualists have seen tremendous success in London, and I’m opening the New York office. We want you to join us.Iwant you to join us.”
I’m intrigued. The part of me I most despise is the part he wants.
But I neither agree nor disagree. I have the upper hand in this conversation. That’s one thing Spirit gives me: Ialwayshave the upper hand in a conversation like this one, if I ask no questions.
He’s telling the truth.
It’s why here’s here, yes.
Plus those dimples, child! Law, he is NOT hard to look at!
