A kettle went on the stove. No one made small talk, glancing furtively at me as they worked. I felt hulking and conspicuous, like a hangman visiting a school for ballerinas.
The tea arrived with a fresh-made cookie.
“Gertie will see you now,” the girl said and curtsied again.
I picked up my cup and saucer and followed her to the tower’s southwest corner—all the bedrooms in Ogden were the same size, but some had better views.
My cousin sat in an armchair, framed by a bay window open to the breeze. She wore an antique black dress I didn’t recognize. Mortons avoid the frippery of lace, ruffles, and bows—Gertie’s dress had all three. Only the barrette in her hair was pink.
“Jessica,” she said. “It’s been too long.”
“If only there’d been some sort of recent family gathering.”
“Don’t be cross. You know the pod doesn’t do well alone. Oneiswearing black, after all.”
The girl in the fluffy dress offered me a chair. I sat, balancing the saucer in my lap.
“How was everyone?” Gertie asked.
“The same.” I rubbed my finger, felt the last nubbin of cuticle. “Mary, more so.”
“It’s that name. Can you imagine how many Marys there’ve been? One suspects we’ll never see the last. And our little cousin who forgot his rabbit?”
“Thomas? Not so little anymore—we talked about him coming here next year.” I glanced at my guide, who was still hovering.
Gertie pointed at the door: “Cartwheel.”
The girl stretched her arms, then threw herself into a cartwheel that carried her out the door. Delighted thumps came from farther down the hall as she did another.
“Speaking of more so,” I said, wondering if this nonsense went on when Gertie was alone with the pod or was purely for my benefit.
“They love it. How’s your tea?”
I sniffed it, took a cautious sip. Sometimes the pod made tea from forage: nettles, dandelions, unknown mushrooms.
“It’s fine. Did you know that Peter had acquired some money?”
“So glad you like it. Yes, I did.”
“The cookie’s lovely too. How did he manage that?”
“Ghia bakes them. From the bank in town, thanks to a little legerdemain with your mother’s signature. One hopes you don’t mind.”
I dunked the cookie. This was what I’d expected.
The walls of Gertie’s room were covered with detailed renderings of Helshire buildings. The largest was the tower of Dewitt Hall, each brick a tiny pen stroke. She was minoring in Architectural Drawing, an adjunct to her focus on forgery and counterfeiting.
Gertie had been fabricating identities, signatures, and deeds for thefamily since she’d turned fifteen. This excused her eccentricities: collecting ordinaries, missing funerals, some modest embezzling.
“So the aunties found out,” she sighed. “Because of Peter’s accident, one presumes?”
“The family doesn’t know yet. I stumbled onto it and assumed you were involved.”
“Then one needn’t have confessed? You scoundrel.”
“Why would you helpPeterget hold of money? He was a danger to himself.”
Gertie blinked. “He wanted to bail out some friends. When he got the money back, he was going to replace it.”
