Chapter Six
The following day I’m at a new boardinghouse, a mere half block up Bowery.
I hang my sign on a nail jutting off the sagging front porch.
My carved sign features a rose woven with a daisy, and it means I’m open for business.
One must still eat, after all. Two minutes later a knock, knock-knock, knock sounds at my door. It’s the secret knock of my regulars.
The door creaks open, and there is Miss Cambridge, her plump cheeks glistening from the climb up two flights of stairs. “Lady Rose!” she pants, leaning in the doorway. “You’re back! Oh, the time I had, finding you this week.”
I lead her to her pillow, offer her a cup of tea.
Miss Cambridge dumps three, four heaping spoonfuls of sugar into her tea, slurps it, then adds a fifth.
Sugar is expensive; this is like watching her spoon hours of my fake readings into her tea.
“Now, Lady Rose, a question about this soulmate of mine we’ve been discussing—”
Soulmates—hmmph. What do I know of those?
I inhale. “Did I tell you about his watch, Miss Cambridge?”
She flutters her eyelashes. “Ooooo, no! There’s precision in a man who wears a nice timepiece. Do tell.”
“Well—” I am uncertain where to begin. I do indeed feel a partner is in Miss Cambridge’s future. I also feel there is much pain there. How does one relay such a delicate message?
“LADY ROSE, YOU ARE A MONSTER AND YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!”
The words hammer through the window. I wince. Partly because they are so LOUD, partly because how the hell did they find me so fast this time, but mainly because they are twisting the ever-present knife in my back. The one that wonders if they are right.
“YOU ARE SATAN HIMSELF, MASQUERADING AS AN ANGEL OF LIGHT!”
I stalk to the velvet curtain and yank it open. The sunlight stuns me. Shrew-faced Reverend Jenkins is there, megaphone in hand, yelling up at my window from the sidewalk.
“YOU ARE A SCAM, A LIAR, A WITCH!”
A crowd gathers. One of them taps his shoulder, gestures to the building, shrugs.
Reverend Jenkins’s face pulls tighter still.
He waves his arms about, spittle flying, as he explains to this new gentleman how sinful I am.
A clairvoyant! A scam! A scourge! The gentleman who asked the question glares up at me.
His jaw tightens, his fists ball, his brow furrows. He begins shouting at me, too.
Fear is a most contagious virus.
Miss Cambridge flutters her fingertips at the base of her throat. “Oh, my. I can’t be seen here.” Thanks for the concern, lady.
I grab my bag. Inside is a bit of money, one change of clothes, a floppy hat, and some crumbling saltines. I toss in the photograph of me and Daisy; at least I’d managed to break into my old room and rescue it.
“YOU ARE A SINFUL CREATURE WHO WALKS WITH THE DEVIL!”
I pause at the door. Sunlight slants into the stark room, dust motes floating through it like fairies dancing on a moonbeam. I was here but one day.
“This way, Miss Cambridge,” I say. “No, no, go left, not right.” I usher her to the steamy, pot-banging kitchen, toward the back door. I’m familiar with its location; I scout all escape routes when I move into a place.
As we pass through, Mrs. Walton, the new landlady, steps in front of us. “You and your mama can’t stay here, missy.” She looks at Miss Cambridge, who is thankfully too flustered to repute the claim. “We can’t have those letches camped out front. Bad for business, that.”
“We’ve overstayed our welcome, I see.” I dodge around her, head to the door.
Stop short. A chill thrills down my spine.
I am aware of his presence before I even see him:
Pax.
And with him: the intense, physical pull toward him. It’s the same dark, salty temptation I feel from the Trio of shadows that have haunted me since my youth. Curses.
He leans against a tin garbage can in the back alley, more casually dressed this time. No fancy jacket, suspenders stretching across his lean chest.
He’s studying his fingernails. Probably for blood. My stomach clenches, but it unfortunately feels more like… longing? Than it does disgust. Which disgusts me.
Reverend Jenkins out front.
Pax Princip out back.
Did he do this? Sic them on me to prove that he can offer me protection? Is he that much of a scoundrel? My body flushes hot with anger. Two can play at that game.
I turn to Miss Cambridge. “Miss!” I whisper. “Miss, that’s him.”
I jerk my head toward Pax. He shifts his weight, and I lean back quickly, pressing thin against the pale blue wall of the kitchen.
Miss Cambridge looks out the screen door at Pax. “Huh?”
What a dolt. “That’s him. That’s the man I see in your future.”
This isn’t exactly a lie. I’m about to make Pax a part of Miss Cambridge’s future. Ergo, truth. Spirit scoffs at this logic.
Miss Cambridge peers closer at him. “Looks a bit young for me, don’t he? Looks more appropriate for you.”
“Oh, no.” I nudge Miss Cambridge toward him. “Look at his sharp clothes, his smart haircut, his close shave. I’ve got a very good feeling about him.”
“Yes?”
I nod resolutely. “See his watch chain? He’s THE ONE.”
The one to cover yer arse, lass!
Miss Cambridge giggles, pats her hair, flusters like a hen. “How do I look?”
“Divine,” I say, and shove her out the door.
I spin on my heel to the landlady. “There’s a cellar?”
Mrs. Walton points a crooked finger to the opposite corner. “You and that mama of yours, girl…”
Before she can finish, I shout, “Keep the full week’s deposit!” I dash down five steps and crawl through the tiny wooden doors at the bottom.
I am welcomed into the cellar with a sticky hug to the face from a spiderweb. I brush it off and duck inside this place that likely hasn’t seen light since Abe Lincoln was president.
Pax Princip is making my life hugely inconvenient.
I feel my way through the darkness to a grimy window on the opposite side of this cave. Only a small amount of light filters through it, a filmy yellow glow. My fingers trail over papery onion skins, bumpy potatoes, cool, slick wine bottles, something uncomfortably damp, and—
“EEEEEE!”
Something furry!
I scream.
The thing screams.
Footsteps sound above.
I curse and stumble over the uneven dirt floor to the window.
The lock is rusted shut. I throw my shoulder against it, to no avail.
I dig out the floppy hat from my bag. Place my fist in it. Slam it through the glass. Broken glass always stems from bad decisions.
My hand burns with pain, but I smash out enough glass to climb through the window with my bag. With everything I own. My hat is torn but I shake out the bits of glass, then place it on my disheveled head.
I stand in the side alley, dirty and bleeding.
Ain’t you a sight!
Looks a fright, she does!
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Shouts of my damnation creep around the corner from the zealots: “TERROR!” “VILE!” “WITCH!”
I see through the window that Pax is in the kitchen now, so I duck through the back alley, chased by echoes: “MONSTER!” “EVIL!” “SIN!”
At one block away, it’s quiet.
I’m free.
I’m never free.
Are they right?
Those echoes chasing me—are they right?
They are. Look at what happened to Daisy. Evil and greed took her. The Dark Legion is punishing me for never paying them heed, for never giving their malevolence a voice. I’ve ignored them for years, turned my back on their cries, so they killed my sister.
Daisy didn’t get a first love, a first child, a first… anything.
And it’s my fault.
I want to stop doing this, giving readings, but I can’t. I have no education, no skills. No way to make money other than selling the voices in my head.
They’ll ship me off to Blackwell’s Island if they ever catch me. The island with the asylum. If they’re that charitable. Fortune-telling is illegal in New York, and they could certainly toss me in jail instead. The asylum is the better of the two choices.
And not even Pax, with his smooth promises of safety, security, protection… not even he can shelter me from eternal doom if I truly am evil, right?
I am full of questions, and Spirit doesn’t answer questions.
What if that mob is right, and my soul is horribly, irreparably stained?
That
is
another
question.