What a fuckingweek.
The results of Annie’s earlier run-in with the Murano pitcher remain strewn over the rug and buried in the crevices of the old hardwood beyond. I grab an old microfiber rag and use it to pick up the large pieces before trading it out for our ancient but trusty Shop-Vac. And as I watch the tiny slivers disappear into the tube, I remember being fourteen and walking into Virtu for the first time—the cool air-conditioning against my sunburned face; the sweet but musty scent of aged wood and paper mingling with citrus; and the subsequent shattering crash of the entire set of Royal Albert teacups and saucers I was attempting to steal as they tumbled out of my backpack and onto the floor right as I was about to open the door and make my escape.
It was the end of my incredibly short-lived life of crime, butthe beginning of my life as I now know it. And it was all thanks to a bespectacled and bearded shopkeeper with a huge heart and a knack for spotting things that might be worth more than they initially appear on the surface.
I turn off the vacuum and am met with such an abrupt silence that it makes me recoil. It’s times like this when I miss Graham most—in the hours after we close, when things are still and too quiet, his incessant humming of Haydn conspicuously absent.
It’s been long enough to check up on Annie, so I do. I receive a quick confirmation that she’s made it safely to Harold’s house. Good. That’s one less thing to worry about tonight.
The smart thing to do now would be to go back up to my apartment, get some food into my poor body, and sleep for at least ten hours.
Instead, I start humming the opening notes of the “Sunrise” quartet myself as I reach for some fishing line and the box of porcelain shards tucked beneath the counter.
Catoctin, Maryland— September 1908
Ora could hardlybelieve how quickly it had all happened. The day after she received Morse’s letter, she made up her mind to request permission from her supervisor to spend up to a week in Maryland to investigate her correspondent’s fascinating sighting. At first Mearns warned that she would be better served focusing on her cataloging efforts, but Ora’s instincts told her that her travels would bear such fruit as to make that project comparatively insignificant. Of course, Guy was only too happy to take over until her return; Ora knew he—like all of the other men with whom she worked—envied her being assigned the project in the first place. The only difference was that he’d done a better job of hiding it. Now that she didn’t need it to bolster her own career, why not let him have it?
Four days later and she was on her way to Catoctin. From the moment she and her luggage left her house in Georgetown to head to the nearly completed Union Station, Ora’s thoughts drifted between the bird Mr. Morse described and the manhimself. She wanted to think more of the former, but the latter kept drawing her attention. How absurd that she’d become so invested in someone she knew only from his letters and beautiful illustrations! How absurd to think that he might carry the same curiosity toward her! Surely she was getting ahead of herself.Focus on the specimen, she reminded herself as the train pulled into the town’s modest depot.
The reminder was for naught, because when she saw a man standing on the platform, taking his pocket watch out, then returning it, then taking it out again, then returning it…some part of her simply knew. This was John Otis Morse. The man she had come to know over the last five months through his correspondence. Through his beautiful art that so perfectly captured the essence of the creatures Ora had dedicated her life to studying. How could she not be a bit in love with him already?
Especially when he was younger and much more handsome than she’d imagined. The man on the platform was around the same height as Guy, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Ledford was blond, slender, and dandyish in his dress, Morse was dark-haired, broad-shouldered, and wore no pattern or ornamentation beyond the watch he was still fiddling with as she alighted.
As soon as she stepped onto the platform, he glanced up as if sensing her presence. Their eyes met, and in Morse’s golden-brown ones, Ora saw the same instinctive intimacy. A sort of inherent knowing.
Or perhaps she had simply spent too much of her leisure time reading romantic fiction as of late. That would account for the uncharacteristic flight of fancy. She was a woman of science, after all, and she of all people should know that attraction issimply an animal impulse. There’s no magic involved, no string of fate drawing souls together. It’s all strictly biology. The laws of the natural world at work.
Even so, she felt her heart flutter like wings hitting the sky.
“Dr. Worthy?” the man asked as he took a step toward her. He was soft-spoken, yet his understatedly powerful build and the deep timber of his voice inspired a sense of gravity rather than meekness. “I’m John Morse.”
“So nice to meet you in person, sir,” Ora said as she shook his outstretched hand, attempting to cling to formality to ease her sudden influx of nerves.
Morse helped her with her suitcases as they were unloaded from the baggage car.
“I hope you had a pleasant trip,” he said courteously.
“Oh, it was perfectly uneventful, and took very little time at all. Imagine, you being so near all these months and it seeming as if we were worlds apart.” Ora let out a small self-conscious laugh, wondering if she’d already said too much.
“I am very glad you’re here,” Morse said with a small, shy smile that highlighted the earnestness in his voice. He cleared his throat, then added, “The local inn is thataway, down Main Street.” He gestured with his clean-shaven, dimpled chin in the direction of the center of town.
“Wonderful, thank you. I shall see if one of the porters might—” Ora started, but Morse shook his head and said, “It would be my pleasure to assist you.”
The two of them left the train depot, making small talk about the weather as they strolled. Ora snuck glances at Mr. Morse, noting how he carried her heavy luggage several blocks without any sign of struggle or fatigue. Her interest in hisstrength was nothing more than the same natural inclination of a peahen toward the most vivid peacock in her vicinity, she theorized. Not that it kept her from looking…just once more…
All right, perhaps thrice more.
Biology or fantasy, it didn’t matter the origin; perhaps a mystery bird wasn’t the only thing Ora Worthy should set her sights on while here.
NINE
Annie
“Sorry to cutthis short, but I have to go in and scarf down my breakfast before Cal comes down from his upstairs lair and scolds me,” I tell my sister as I approach Virtu Wednesday morning.
The shop is closed on Tuesdays, which gave me the opportunity to do some exploring yesterday. After going to the grocery store and doing laundry, I spent the afternoon wandering through Hampden, popping in and out of open shops and galleries while taking in yarn-bombed utility poles, elaborate murals, stoops collaged with pieces of mirror, and iron railings made to look like lizards. I wound up getting lost for about an hour and a half after taking a wrong turn somewhere, but it only gave me more time to meet people, take in the local charm, and wonder how this eccentric neighborhood could be home to someone as devoid of whimsy as Callahan Leitner. A real mystery, but one I hope to solve now that he has no choice but to let me push him outside of his comfort zone.
“But I didn’t even get to the part where Eduardo told me to ‘calm down.’ I mean,calm down, Annie. Can you imagine a worse thing for a husband to say to his wife in that situation?”
