Chapter 1
Cooper Union
Astor Place, Manhattan
“I’m going to be arrested. They’re probably on their way here now.” Margaret Sanger looked out over the group of serious young
women. She smiled slightly, her canny green eyes rested for a moment on Celia Applebaum in the front row. Celia smiled back
as the panic rose in her throat.
Beside her, Selena Farmer shifted uncomfortably. Selena was married and had a new baby. She had even more to lose than many
of the others. Celia nudged her with her elbow, trying to signal that they would be fine, while she forced herself not to
look toward the exit doors.
“I’m leaving for the Continent immediately. I hope you will continue our work, but you must be careful. There will be reprisals.
Anthony Comstock is a vicious man. And in my absence he will take all he can in his wake.”
“That’s why we must stop him!” yelled someone more courageous than Celia, who swallowed and clutched her papers tighter.
Margaret held up her hands. “Yes, we must. His power is waning, but like all powerful men, he will do anything to maintain it. He’s acting more and more reckless, making more outrageous
claims. He is like a star blazing out of control, sucking up the air; it will burn the brightest before it dies. And it will die, leaving nothing but a gray pile of ash. But this is his most dangerous time. He will ignore rules and the law, even in
his final hurrah. Remember. He will have his spies everywhere. Stay aware. Be brave. Stay safe. Now go. I won’t desert you
for long.”
Celia watched her mentor leave the stage, petite, agile, her auburn hair flaming like a beacon to action. And then she was
gone. Normally after meetings, the women would break into conversation as they gathered up their things, but today no one
spoke. Just watched their leader walk out of the room and possibly out of their lives. Pamphlets were quickly slid into briefcases,
hurriedly stuffed into grocery bags, tucked into waistbands or inside special pockets sewn into skirts for just such contraband.
Today, they walked in measured steps toward the exits, willing themselves not to hurry, to look normal. They separated at
the door just as the Cooper Union students, mostly male, let out of class and hurried toward the street for a quick cup of
coffee or a cigarette before the next began. Celia wondered if Margaret had planned it that way.
She clutched her knitting bag tightly under her arm and joined the other women as they were absorbed by the crowd. Heads down,
anonymous, afraid that Comstock might already be out there watching, waiting for one of them to slip up. All of them wondering
which one of them would not make it home tonight.
Arcadia Rare Bookshop
Fourth Avenue
Book Row
Olivia Applebaum rolled up the shade from the front door of the Arcadia Rare Bookshop and peered outside. It was almost time
to open, and Celia was missing. Again. She would have to have a talk with her youngest sister about her continuous frolicking
off to God knew where.
It was hard in the best of times to keep the shop profitable; they’d had to open the whole first floor to new as well as affordable
used books. Had even joined the secondhand-book sellers in putting the cheapest volumes outside along the sidewalk. Their
father would never have let that happen; Applebaum was a valued name in the world of distinctive antiquarian bookdealers.
But Papa wasn’t around to disapprove or be disappointed, was he? He’d died three years ago, three years after their mother,
taking with her his last chance of having a son to carry on his name and the business.
And yet their name was still on the sign above the door, and the shop was still in business. His daughters had made sure of
that.
Fortunately, Olivia had taken to books at an early age and had been sent to college to become adept at classical languages
and continue improving the binding and restoration skills that she’d learned from him.
Luckily for her, she loved old books, spoke and read French, German, and Italian well enough to translate. Could decipher
several other languages. In the years since his death, Olivia had built a solid reputation and had pulled off some advantageous
sales.
And yet they were still counting pennies.
She adjusted her eyeglasses, and a ripple of fatalism ran through her veins. It was now up to her to leave her sisters with
a legacy. And she was running out of time.
Olivia pursed her lips and straightened a volume of Plutarch’s Lives on the glass display case.
“Now where is she?” Their middle sister, Daphne, brushed past her to peer out the bowed display window. “It’s almost time
to open.” Unlike Olivia and Celia, who were dark-haired like their father, twenty-year-old Daphne had taken after their mother.
She was light-haired and blue-eyed, with a vibrant complexion that even the dimness of the shop couldn’t dull. And, alas,
more interested in charming the customers than selling books.
Today, her work apron was haphazardly tied around a lilac calico dress more suited to an afternoon outing than a day in a
musty bookshop.
“I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. She left a note saying she was going for bread and bacon.” Olivia sighed, though it would
already be too late to cook it for breakfast. Mr. Delereux had an appointment at nine to see the Rigg translation of The Decameron, a real find if she did say so herself. “But we can’t wait—I’ll help you with the outside carts.”
“It’s not fair,” Daphne complained. “She’s always running off and leaving me to do all the hard work.”
Olivia smiled sympathetically, though she was actually annoyed that her sister could look charming even when she was whining.
Olivia had no such demeanor. Her sisters were always telling her not to look so grim.
But Olivia was just born grim. By the time she was ten, her father had begun to tease her that she looked like a dowager.
Of course, at ten, Olivia had already worn out the pages of Debrett’s, memorizing the most important members of the peerage—and she knew perfectly well what a dowager was.
Her fate was sealed.
Daphne scowled and rolled the first book-ladened cart across the wooden floor toward the door, dislodging their calico cat,
Jane, the only name all three sisters could agree on—but for very different reasons.
Olivia opened the door for her, and together they pushed the cart of used, worn, secondhand books over the saddle and onto
the sidewalk, then maneuvered it up against the brick facade. Olivia took a minute to rearrange several books so as not to
block the view of the more expensive items in the display window behind it.
Daphne paused as she passed Olivia on her way to collect the second bin. “You’ll have to say something to her. It’s the second
time this week I’ve had to do her job. It isn’t fair.”
Olivia held the door while Daphne wrestled the second bin out onto the sidewalk and pushed it into place on the other side
of the door, then she turned to stare down the street, hands on the hips of her brown tailored suit, searching the sidewalks
for her wayward sister.
Daphne came up beside her. “How long does it take to get a loaf and a rasher of bacon? It’s already too late for breakfast.”
“We’ll have it for dinner,” Olivia said distractedly. Where could the girl be? Olivia didn’t think she was up to trouble,
though Lord knew she had been a handful even when their parents were alive. Into everything she could reach, curious about
everything else. Active and intense, and always on the go, it was amazing that she did as well minding the store as she did.
Fortunately, Celia was also fairly competent at cataloguing the items that passed through the shop, had an aptitude for figures—though no interest—and had been tasked with balancing the register at the end of each day.
But, oh, Olivia could have used another committed, organized soul to take control of the daily operations of the shop while she concentrated on her restoration work and their more important clients.
She blinked against the sun that appeared suddenly over the rooftops. Then stood for a few moments just enjoying the view . . .
while she still could. Already the doors across the avenue were beginning to blur. Colors to dim. The strongest spectacles
in the world couldn’t stop her gradual loss of sight. Or take care of her sisters when she no longer could.
She took every chance to memorize the avenue, burning it into her memory. The bookshops, the printing shops, mixed higgledy-piggledy
in with bakeries, shoe repairs, several delis, and a luncheonette. Different colors, sizes, heights, constructed of brick,
wood, and plaster. As different as they could be, some as fine as any uptown emporium, some barely more than a door and a
narrow staircase to a second floor or down to an airless, dusky basement. But they all had one thing in common. A love of
books.
To Olivia, it was a magical kingdom, one she would lose soon enough.
She was glad that today, at least, she could see that Mr. Wickes’s newsstand down the block had reopened for business. Poor
man. Only last week he’d been the victim of that man, Comstock, who raided him “on a tip.”
Not on a tip from any of the booksellers, Olivia was certain of that. Anthony Comstock was their sworn enemy.
Mr. Wickes was one of his innocent victims. He’d no more sell pornography than Olivia and her sisters.
His newsstand sold newspapers, dime novels, magazines, and a variety of souvenirs.
Comstock’s agents had confiscated a box of celluloid Statues of Liberty, mistaking them for the Venus de Milo, which was considered pornographic by the self-proclaimed “morality man.”
Uneducated oafs.
Nonetheless, Mr. Wickes had to pay a steep fine to keep from being dragged off to jail by four agents from the Society for
the Suppression of Vice.
More like thugs, if you asked Olivia.