Evelyn wondered what he was up to, the public radio podcaster who she’d met while perusing the self-help section at Politics and Prose. Trevor, a fellow B-more native who always wanted to go to a concert or try out different restaurants, who found a way to treat her to drinks or dinner even with a limited budget. Who would throw down and cook for her unprompted,who prepared braised ribs and chicken and cobbed corn while they watched legal dramas or rom-coms at his place. Who once, when they were eating barbeque, took Evelyn’s saucy fingers, placed them in his mouth, and licked them clean, his tongue a twisting snake that flicked in and out. The gesture so unexpected, sointimate, that it caused all sorts of sensations that left her feeling… not like herself.
The next day, she decided to focus on Kent exclusively.
The wisps of half smoke left Evelyn as she strolled past the eatery and walked under the awning of the Lincoln Theatre. She glanced back at the sidewalk mural of Harriet Tubman in a green cloak holding a lantern above an afroed Prince, the Obamas to his right, all smiles, encircled by the American flag. She glimpsed the True Reformer Building across the street on Twelfth with its mural of a somber Duke Ellington flanked by piano keys. The art and its connection to U Street history usually gave Evelyn a surge of pride and confidence. Today, nothing.
She reached Vinnie’s Vintage, a local secondhand clothing boutique, and saw herself reflected in the store’s large glass window. She was supposed to be all glowed up with her bobbed wig and teal suit a size too small and black stilettos that were torture on her arches.
Evelyn stopped and looked at herself.Reallylooked at herself in the clear glass, as if she were in front of Renaissance mirrors. The truth too clear.
Kent had gotten with her based on what she could do for him. Had slept with her because she would help him get promoted, would put his projects before her own. What she could finally admit because she couldn’t do the mental gymnastics anymore. She was too tired.
Their relationship had been a total lie. Like so many of her other campaigns.
Shit.
Evelyn clutched her handbag and tucked in her chin as tears filled hereyes. She was going to break down, felt like she might crumple to the street right then and there. She had to get home and be a wreck in private. She made a right onto Fifteenth Street. A town house entered her line of sight. It was nestled off the sidewalk in the alleyway that appeared a few feet before Sixteenth. The brick exterior, the richest, deepest sienna she’d ever beheld.
Everything else in the world turned gray. Dead and lifeless, silent. The city’s evening noise disappeared. But the town house, its brightness remained, its color so rich and inviting that it somehow held sound. A soft, steady hum. A woman’s whispering voice. The words were indecipherable but also gentle, firm. Sound that lifted the fatigue from Evelyn’s shoulders. Something about the voice promised safety, which she needed so very much.
Home felt too out of reach, too far away.
Evelyn wiped sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her blouse. She drew closer, walked up the town house’s narrow steps. To the left of its entrance, in golden letters,NUEVA INVESTIGATIONS. Underneath,WELCOME.
The whispers continued, soothing, beckoning. Yes, she’d be okay if she could get inside. Safe and okay. Evelyn looked for a buzzer or knocker, only to find nothing, just a thick wooden door covered in gleaming white paint. Beautiful.
She stopped, breathed, placed her hand against the door, pushed it open.
The hum enveloped her, as did a sense of relief. She passed through the foyer and entered a sprawling space set up as a living room. The air was breezy, cool. A large velvet couch was covered in rust-and-mustard pillows. The aroma of soap and sandalwood all around her, thick, a tad cloying.
She walked deeper into the space. Portraiture adorned the walls. Ajumble of hues and textures that blurred. Evelyn grew dizzy and closed her eyes. The smell of sandalwood was overpowering. Then it hit her, the scent, so like her grandmother’s drugstore perfume. Grandmama, who passed away when Evelyn was seven, who used to sit with her for hours as the little girl arranged the old woman’s glued-up figurines into a grand porcelain court. Who would tell her, “Look what you can do, little girl.”
An ache bloomed in Evelyn’s body in the middle of the town house. Tears brimmed. She hadn’t thought about her grandmother for a long time.
What was she thinking? She’d made a mistake. Was crazy, walking into somebody’s house she didn’t know unannounced. Was actually out of her damn mind.
Evelyn opened her eyes, vision blurry, ready to make a beeline for the door. She took in the art on the wall, zoomed in on a watercolor of a thorny forest. In its center stood a scowling, gnarled man pointing at her with a crooked finger. An impossibly long finger. The face, for a moment, looked like her grandfather. She peered closer.
The man was Kent. An ancient, warped Kent, as if he’d aged sixty years overnight. He was stooped, no longer able to reach the sky, no longer an eclipse. His misshapen, droopy limbs covered in melting flesh. Foul, old.
She stepped closer to the portrait. There beneath him was another person, an elderly woman. Evelyn gasped. It was her, senescent and stooped.
The image of Kent moved, ready to pounce upon the woman in the painting. Evelyn lurched back.
She wiped her eyes and blinked hard.
“Hello.”
The voice was gentle and firm and feminine. The whispers, the indecipherable words…
Evelyn spun around. She couldn’t breathe.
There in front of her was an angel dressed in white.
She focused, blinked again. No, not an angel, but a woman in a white suit with a crown of curls. A sliver of smoke snaked through the air. A stick of incense jutted from a wooden holder perched on a mahogany desk. A portrait of a man in a red knit hat loomed above. His midnight skin was majestic, marked by white paint. He stared directly at Evelyn. His feline yellow eyes were captivating.
The image… something was off. His gaze was too penetrating, too intense. As if he were demanding something of her.
Evelyn suddenly remembered once again what had happened in New York with the spirits, what she saw on so many reels. How it made her feel. What she was feeling now, in this space…
