The hardest part of the charades I pull?
I could tell my customers every single thing they want to know.
CHAPTER TWO
My stomach grumbles as I watch Snuff lick a tin of sardines in the alley. Pathetic, me even considering snatching it from him.Is there food nearby?I ask Spirit.
Spirit doesn’t answer.
Spirit never answers my direct questions. It is the rule I hate the most, and not only because it took me most of my eighteen years to finally figure that out. Do you know how much conversation takes place in the form of a question? No, Spirit only talks when Spirit wants to talk. Which is infuriating, this one-sided conversation. Rather like chatting with a toddler. One who demands candy. And who has a load in his pants.
Spirit lays the taste of liver and onions on my tongue. I scowl—I hate liver and onions. This is the sensation they give me when they think I’m being obstinate.
Pathetic or no, I kick the sardine tin away from Snuff, thinking I might salvage the rest for me. The cat looks up at me with such huge, sad eyes that I immediately regret this choice.
I sigh. Retrieve the tin. Place it gently at the cat’s paws. “Here you are, fellow. Sorry for my greed.”
Snuff narrows his gaze. He does not accept this paltry apology. I wouldn’t either, were I him.
I don’t normally have to scrounge for food like this; scamming my customers pays fairly well. But my purse is back at theboardinghouse, so at the moment I’m penniless. Hasty exits always lead to regrets, in my experience.
I am well-versed in regrets.
The sun is setting, and the shadowy alleys are getting cool. Cobblestone pathways wind back to the boardinghouse where I’m staying. Alone. Always alone. That thought somehow pulls me to the mysterious gentleman with the pocket watch. Is he alone? Lonely?
I’ve never wondered such things about a client before. I don’t care for the line of thought.
I peek around the corner, out of the alley. A crowd has gathered on the sidewalk in front of the crumbling Victorian house that is my home this week.
The zealots have found me again.
Chills snake to my core. As buffoonish as most are, the zealots could be the literal death of me. It is not only illegal to read fortunes as a medium in New York City, it is also considered immoral, this dance with the dead.
Spirit plays clownish circus music as I spy on them, but I whisper back, “They aren’t fools, you know. This isn’t child’s play.” Spirit silences.
The zealots shout names and threats at my temporary home. They sting like hot needles, these insults. I used to be able to ignore them, but since they’ve stolen so much of my dignity, their threats land like punches.
“Only witches and Satanists talk to the dead!” Reverend Jenkins shouts at the boardinghouse. He is a narrow-faced, narrow-souled, narrow-minded lout. Never once has he invited me into a conversation.
Reverend Jenkins blusters and puffs and shakes his fist at the still-open window. Intolerance stokes the fires of the righteous.
Ah! Me mum is there! Tell her I love her, will ya? I miss ’er so!
“Right,” I mutter back to the Spirit currently talking. “I’m going to march into THAT crowd of lunatics and give your mother a message. And then I’ll swing from the nearest tree branch.”
Swinging from a tree branch! Oy, I miss it!
There’s something to be said for frolicking in skin and bones.
“Byswing, I mean from a noose, you know. With flames licking my toes?”
Spirit grows quiet again.
I can’t walk through that crowd. I can’t get to my belongings. Correction:belonging. My satchel is inside, but everything therein is expendable. The only thing I truly care to retrieve is the photograph of me, Daisy, and Maman. The gelatin silver print of me and my sister, our mother resting with creamy lilies on her breast. Maman waltzed into death like she was dancing on rose petals. She told us her heart exploded with love for us; those were her departing words. I heard her voice once, just after she passed. She whispered:All the seeds I planted are blooming. I knew it was the last time I’d hear her smiling voice; she parted peacefully.
My sister did not part peacefully, and those are the voices I usually hear: the tortured and suspended souls. The voices that haunt me most are those with unfinished business: unexpressed love, or deep regret. And sometimes those voices reek of vengeance.
If I’m honest, I’m not certainhowDaisy perished. It’s amorbid fascination of mine, this wondering. Did she leap? Did she burn? Did she choke? I simply cannot stop my thoughts when it comes to conjecturing about her demise. It’s a miserable, spiraling trap.
