Chapter Three
I am not vain.
But this Pax fellow leads me to a carriage—a carriage! An extravagance even for the wealthy in a city like New York. My shoes being resoled is often the extent of my transportation costs.
He offers his hand to assist me inside, and his grip is strong yet soft, his nails perfectly manicured.
I turn my pink cheeks to the window. I don’t know why I find his touch embarrassing.
Not only is he off-limits, but he overflows with an exuberance that I find highly untrustworthy.
I’ve never met someone so shrouded in shadow but so smiley and slick.
The carriage is pulled by a shaggy gray horse, and the cobblestone streets jar us, causing us to occasionally bump shoulders. “Pardon me,” I say when thrown against him.
“My pleasure,” he says like a scamp, and he winks.
“I imagine you win over plenty of weak-hearted ladies with lines like that.”
“Lines? Do you mean… conversation?”
I purse my lips. His demeanor is infuriating.
When we arrive at the restaurant, Pax offers his arm. “Allow me to relieve you of your dire circumstances.”
I sense he means more than this bumpy carriage ride, and I dislike that he’s assessed me so thoroughly, so quickly. What does he know of my dire circumstances? His sparkling green eyes crinkle in a way that raises all my suspicions.
He has a business proposition, I remind myself. You can tolerate him if there’s enough money involved.
Indeed. You should definitely get down to business, Stella.
Spirit howls with laughter at this. I inhale deeply. I am simply getting the nickel I am due. Perhaps more.
The restaurant—Zangheri’s on East Twenty-Second—makes me acutely aware of my less-than-spotless self, my less-than-stylish clothes. I wish I were still wearing my corset beneath these rags. I could use the armor in this place.
A string quartet floats music across the sunlit room.
Spirit sends me the literal scent of money, dusty and inky.
Diners titter and pat pearls and clink delicate teacups.
The men’s chests are covered from belt buckle to Adam’s apple in gleaming buttons, every whisker and hair slicked into place.
The women glide and swoon. Their clothes are crisp, clean.
Mine are slack, gray. I am a bison here, in my thick, stompy boots and shaggy, loosed hair. I am whispered about.
Why did he bring me to this place? It feels deliberate, like he’s showing me exactly where he falls in New York City’s social strata. Or is it the opposite? Is he reminding me of my complete and total lack of status?
Likely both.
But I am hungry. My belly roars at the smells in the air: beef and potatoes and gravy. The emptiness that accompanies hunger feels like a personal insult, far more powerful and hurtful than mere gossip. So I follow Pax inside.
The ma?tre d’ shows us to our table, a private affair in a cozy corner.
“Enjoy, Monsieur Princip.” Princip? My prince?
It’s practically unbearable, the fairy-tale likeness: a prince in a carriage, a girl in rags.
I instinctively search for the nearest exit.
I’m not ready to sprint just yet, but soon, I feel. Soon.
Pax Princip holds my chair for me, scoots it in.
He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by how hulking I appear in comparison to these delicate feathers around us.
Nor does he seem bothered by the dozens of women who slide their eyes at him, who inhale sharply at the sight of him, who shift in their seats so they can get a better glimpse of him. He is enticing. Noted.
Pax sits and tosses his expensive hat in an empty chair; he runs his fingers through his thick, dark hair.
Ain’t he a looker.
I’d whistle at him meself if I hadn’t lost all me teeth in that bar fight.
Enough of him! My son is here! The red bow tie! Stella, I need to tell him I’m sorry!
I squint, because somehow, squinting helps me tune them out, like turning down the volume on a radio. A twisty curl falls over Pax’s forehead. “Are you well?”
You have no idea, Prince Pax, how far I am from well. “Sure. Yes.”
Pax tilts his head. “Why is your leg bouncing?”
“My leg isn’t—” Shit. I still my leg.
Pax is studying me, dissecting me, and I don’t care for it one bit. I widen my eyes at him. “What?”
My directness amuses him. He lifts his chin at me. “Where did your pin go?”
“My what?”
“Your pin. Your brooch.” He leans forward, his hand reaching over the delicate table settings. As his pointer finger gets closer, I feel it again: that odd pull. It’s not unlike the pull I feel when the Dark Trio are near—powerful and urgent. Deeply compelling. I gasp slightly and lean back.
I look down at my dress, draped above my rapidly beating heart. There are two tiny pinholes there. I myself have never noticed them.
“My maman’s brooch,” I say with a shrug. “Hard times mean you sometimes part with things you love.”
It is my expectation that this will shock him, or at least rattle his calm facade. But he nods. “I understand that.”
Interesting. “How did you notice that?” I pinch my dress near the two tiny pinholes and look at them closer. “They are no bigger than a pair of fleas.”
Pax laughs, and Spirit places the image of coffee in my mind’s eye again. “Fleas?”
I grit my teeth. “Like I said. Hard times.” I refuse to let this slick playboy get the better of me.
The waiter comes with flat, wide bowls full of water, a thick slice of lemon floating atop. It’s odd, this bowl. I reach for a drink.
No, Stella! Don’t drink it!
It’s a finger bowl, girl.
Watch him.
Pax gently pushes up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt and his cuff links flash. These jewels of his are interesting. Wing-shaped, encrusted with diamonds. He dips his fingertips into the bowl. I exhale. Thank goodness I didn’t drink this. Thank you, Spirit.
My fingertips sink into the warm water. It is delicate, refreshing.
“I’m a trained artist,” Pax says, pulling the thought from the ether, it seems.
“Pardon?”
“Those pinholes. I noticed them because I’m an artist. Have been since I was a kid. I’ve been trained to note the tiniest of details. The smallest of discrepancies.”
“Details aren’t the same as discrepancies.”
“They are in my line of work.”
This person keeps surprising me. “An artist?”
He grins like a schoolboy. “Yes. A painter. Oils, mostly. The colors, the textures, the smells… there is not a scent on earth that matches linseed oil. I love it.” He inhales deeply as if he’s smelling an art studio now.
He’s telling the truth. His eyes have a faraway look; art is truly a part of his soul.
“What do you love, Stella?”
I blink. “What?”
“What do you love?” His eyes shine.
I look down. The water in the bowl is stained a light brown now.
I am dirty.
I don’t belong here.
I am not allowed any of this.
I remove my fingers, hide them in my lap.
“Flowers,” I say softly. I expect him to guffaw or offer a saccharine smile. I anticipate a reply along the lines of Everyone loves flowers!
But instead he bites his lower lip. “Flowers. That’s lovely.”
My impatience finally boils over. “What do you want?” I ask again.
Pax is unaccustomed to dealing with bison like me. “Don’t you want to know how I know your name?”
I grin to myself. Spirit told me he’d simply asked my landlady for my name.
Or more accurately, paid her a jitney for it.
That slob of a landlady was bought out for a nickel.
(The nickel that’s supposed to be mine for that reading he attended, thank you.) I’d use a fake name to rent a room, but it’s difficult enough for an eighteen-year-old to find accommodations that are also used as a place of business, so I use my real papers.
Pax wipes his hands with the white linen napkin, then crumples it into a ball. He does not dab his fingers dry as the rest of these fine folks do. His edge is more jagged than appearances let on. “What do I want? Well… your mysticism. You have a gift, Stella.”
I shake my head. First, what I have is far from a gift. I can’t tell a memory from a dream from reality from a dead person’s voice. Not a gift. Second, he need not know any of this for certain. A single grain of rice and all.
Pax slides his hand into the breast pocket of his coat. He produces a calling card, gold-embossed, printed on thick, creamy paper. He places it on the table and slides it to me.
Julia’s Bureau
A bridge between the living and the dead
“I am recruiting the world’s best psychics to help heal humanity.”
Goose pimples ripple over my arms, and I shiver. I feel the sensation of push and pull, like ocean waves. “I don’t understand.”
Pax looks around the restaurant, apparently gauging the possibility of listening ears. Does he not know ears are always listening?
He leans forward. My breath shortens. I think of our breath, comingling between us, hot and twining and—
No.
“Julia’s Bureau is a gathering of the finest mediums and clairvoyants in the world,” he says.
“Our goal is to ease some of the grief and suffering in the world by making connections to the Other Side. Our Spiritualists have seen tremendous success in London, and I’m opening the New York office.
We want you to join us. I want you to join us. ”
I’m intrigued. The part of me I most despise is the part he wants.
But I neither agree nor disagree. I have the upper hand in this conversation. That’s one thing Spirit gives me: I always have the upper hand in a conversation like this one, if I ask no questions.
He’s telling the truth.
It’s why here’s here, yes.
Plus those dimples, child! Law, he is NOT hard to look at!
I nod. Then blush, because maybe he heard that as well and saw my agreement? Is he also psychic? Crikey. This could get sticky. My shivering increases. “You’re a Spiritualist.”