“Yes,” I say, and thank him. “That isn’t why I called, though. I just had the oddest experience. My next-door neighbor, who I’ve known my entire life, has things I’ve seen sketches of in the book.”
“You sound terrible.”
“I’m a little shaken, I just…” The words don’t come.
“What things?” Churchwarry asks. I imagine him pacing the shop. I can hear him prop the door open so that his wife can call down if she needs him. He walks toward what I imagine is the back of the shop, where the shelves are fuller, heavy like the reference shelves at Grainger, and muffle the sound of our conversation.
“Theatrical curtains, portraits.” I hear his chair pull back. Books being moved.
“One curtain looks very much like another, no?”
“They’re the same curtains, Martin, I know it. And the portraits — faces don’t change.”
He pauses for a moment. “Did he say how he got them?”
“He said they were his father’s, possibly his grandfather’s. Who did you say you got the book from? Whose estate?”
“John Vermillion, if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t put much stock in the name, though. As I recall from the rest of the auction, he was a consummate hoarder. There was no rhyme or reason to the lots. Quality books were butted up against ruined paperbacks. Pulp. A total nightmare. We were all bidding on pure speculation.”
“I just — I found out that my mother gave away her things, like she meant to kill herself. I saw the curtains and the paintings he had — my neighbor. My mother, she gave things to him, to the neighbor, to Frank.” It could be so simple. Suicide might run through my family with a genetic marker as clear as blue eyes. Simple and horrifying. Enola, on the lawn with her Electric Boy, carrying in her a thing I am powerless to stop.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, and there is kindness in it. “I feel like I may have stirred a pot I shouldn’t have.”
My mouth fills with a coppery taste where I’ve bitten into my cheek, the sort of little wound that will swell for days. “It’s too much. To know he had her things, and then to see those paintings and curtains from the book. They’re the exact portraits. I need—” It takes a few tries before the right words surface. “I need to know who he is. He’s someone.”
“We’re all someone,” Churchwarry says. He means to calm me, but instead I feel a cold black fear.
“You should know that we die—they die — on July 24th. My mother, my grandmother, Cecile Duvel, Bess Visser. All of them, every single woman, drowned. Six days.”
“Six days?”
“My sister, Martin. My sister.”
A small gasp.
“Exactly.”
“Is there anything I can do?” There is something different about his voice now. If I could put a name to it I’d say it has the ring of tenderness.
“You like research?” He makes no complaint when I ask him to find out everything he can about my neighbor’s family. “Franklin McAvoy, his father, grandfather. I need to know why he’s got these things.” I give him names to look for — Peabody, Koenig, Ryzhkova or Ryzhkov (damned patronymics). There’s a larger picture at work, something that ties Frank to the book, to my mother, to whatever it is that’s killing us.
The next hours are spent under yellow lamplight. The portrait in particular bothers me. From the sketches it looks as though it hung inside Madame Ryzhkova’s wagon. A small column of figures nearby details expenditures — silks, herbs, salt. A fortune-teller’s tools. I have a sneaking suspicion that if Churchwarry starts tracing Frank’s family and I start with Ryzhkova, our research will intersect. I turn on the computer and do a cursory search for Ryzhkova. The name pings back thousands of results. Shit. Of course it would be the Smith of Russian names. Too much information is just as bad as none at all. Dates should trim things down, 1700s, late. Region as well. Most coming into the colonies would likely have come in through New York City or Massachusetts, Boston particularly. Philadelphia might be a stretch. Though she might hate me at the moment, Alice is still quietly helping me. I log into the National Archives, punch her university ID, and begin searching for ship passenger manifests.
When I collapse under the screen’s glow, I dream of walking along the bottom of the Great South Bay, or maybe it’s Jessop’s Neck, where the water is bathtub warm and the beach is lined with yellow jingle shells. The sand blooms with long leaves of seaweed that becomes hair, red and thick like Alice’s. A horseshoe crab crawls on my foot, then to my leg, clinging. It’s followed by more until I cannot see the water through the deluge of crabs. I wake, gasping.
Enola turned my computer off. In the quiet I hear her shuffling cards.
14
Their language was devised in secret, as it depended on stealing Ryzhkova’s cards. Lessons took place with little warning after evening performances in smaller towns, during lulls that came with travel, and in early mornings or late into night while the menagerie slumbered, save for a restless few. After traveling days Ryzhkova slept heavily. The bumps and kicks of the roads left her so depleted that on occasion Amos placed a hand under her nose to assure himself that she still breathed. If the air was chilled, he pulled an extra shawl around her. This small looking-after dulled the guilt that came each time he stole the cards.
Amos would signal a lesson by leaving a card for Evangeline to find in her bedclothes, nestled in the tub staves, or buried among her hair combs. She would hide it in her sleeve, wearing it by her skin until she found him waiting for her behind the pig wagon, which was set away from camp. Amos’s affinity for animals meant his spending time there aroused no suspicion. From there he took her into the trees, or down to the rivers the menagerie followed, to a branch that formed a perfect seat, or a group of rocks that would shelter them from prying eyes. When they met she wore a sackcloth dress that drew no attention. Amos took no such measures; he remembered how to walk silently and hide with stillness.
Through each bower, knoll, and bended branch, Evangeline grew to know him; things he’d loved while running free, secrets he’d learned — how green moss made a soft cushion, the chatter of river toads at tossed pebbles — each meeting was gilded with knowledge. Through cards and grass blade whistles, she began to love the silent man.
Lessons started in the same manner as readings, by identifying the participants. Evangeline was represented by the Queen of Swords, for her dark hair and fair skin. She understood the card for the woman’s coloring alone and did not know its kinship with sadness and loss. He thought it best not to tell her, and yet he felt a loss weeping from her, one he longed to ease. For himself, he chose the Fool, for its friendly appearance, and because the little dog made Evangeline smile. Together, Queen and Fool named each member of the menagerie.
The Hermit was Peabody, an easy choice, as the card was an aged man with a lantern and flowing white beard. To the untrained eye the card meant a solitary figure or a wizened man, but Amos knew the Hermit was a guide, a protector, one who shares in experience — all things he thought about the man who had become his proxy father. They chose the Two of Pentacles for Melina — a man juggling two golden stars. For Susanna, the contortionist, Evangeline chose the Hanged Man, an upside-down figure dangling by his foot, his free leg bent at the knee. Amos could not tell her that the Hanged Man spoke of the connection between the material and the divine, or that it appeared to those who grieved or questioned faith. Perhaps it was fitting; Susanna was quiet — what did he know of her thoughts? For Benno he chose the Four of Cups. The cross-legged dark-haired man reminded him of his friend and his generosity, a man with drink enough to share with many.