Something Strange and Deadly (13 page)

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

B
y the time I reached Clarence's side, Peger had
slithered off into the crowds. It was probably best, for I didn't want the blond reporter to recognize me. I prodded Clarence with casual questions about Peger, but Clarence insisted the man had only stopped to ask for the time.

Funny, because now jutting from Willis's pocket was a rolled newspaper—the same sort of newspaper Clarence had acquired during his mysterious rendezvous on my front porch.

I let the subject drop, though, and I drifted into my thoughts. Clarence seemed focused on his own sad musings, and we spent the remainder of the hour wandering the rows of Machinery Hall in somewhat companionable silence.

When I arrived home later that afternoon, Mama cornered me, her mouth spewing questions. They weren't angry questions, though. She wouldn't stop clapping her hands and demanding specifics on my conversations with Clarence. It seemed it was all right for me to misbehave and run off with no warning so long as I did so with a wealthy bachelor.

The next morning I woke early and rushed to the Exhibition. As Joseph had said, there was no time to waste.

The three Spirit-Hunters awaited me at the Exhibition turnstiles. They'd been forced to abandon their lab when Peger had arrived demanding interviews.

Joseph pointed to the horse-drawn streetcars that clattered to and from the Exhibition. We clambered through the throngs to reach the concourse.

“I do not like leaving the lab.” Joseph fidgeted with the rim of his top hat. He held a black leather case in one hand much like a doctor's bag, and it swung with each of his gliding steps. “Peger is like a spider who spins my words against me.”

“Aw, it's good we're all going,” Daniel said. “Three can work faster than one, and when we get back, the spider will be gone.”

“Four,” I corrected. I had to pump my legs to keep up with the team's trotting gait.

“Huh?” Daniel glanced over his shoulder at me.

“There are four of us,” I said.

His stride slowed until he walked beside me. “I'm not sure you count, Empress.”

“Why not? I can scour the library as well as any of you! I have a brain and am perfectly...”

He was grinning wide. The rascal was teasing me! And before I could summon a worthy retort, he whistled brightly and sauntered ahead of me.

Blazes, he was cocky. And entirely too dashing for his own good—or for
my
own good, rather.

Moments later, and with no time to dwell on Daniel's easy smile, I clambered onto the streetcar.

“Fare?” the mustached driver demanded.

“Oh, what is the—” I shut my mouth as he plucked a coin from my gloved hand. It was like magic! I had no idea how it had appeared there.

Jie gripped my now-empty hand and towed me to an open-air window. I was squashed by the other passengers, but at least I could breathe.

“Two for the price of one.” She snickered. “I gave you my quarter. The driver didn't even see me get on.”

“Really?” So it wasn't magic, then. Just Jie's unnatural dexterity. I huffed out a jealous sigh. “So you managed to sneak on
and
slip money into my hand? How do you do it—move like that, I mean? Where'd you learn it?”

Her dark eyes crinkled with pleasure, but she didn't reply. I inhaled for a dejected sigh, but gagged on the stench of people and horse. I thrust my head out the open window and sucked in air.

The horses heaved, and the streetcar rattled to a start down Elm Avenue, east toward downtown. Jie swung out the window beside me. Over the trotting hooves, squeaking wheels, and crunching gravel, I shouted, “You're nothing like any girl I've ever met.” I couldn't keep the envy from my voice, and my face was likely as green as my words.

But honestly, I
hadn't
ever met anyone like her. She could go where she pleased, do whatever she wanted, and no one was scandalized by it. And most impressive of all, she could fight.

She rubbed the bald half of her head. “It's because I have no hair. In China we say, ‘The girl with the full hair is not as free as the girl with the bare head.'“

“What?” I tried to ask, but the dust plumes from the road flew into my mouth. All I could manage was a wispy choke. I pulled back into the streetcar and coughed my throat empty. I tried again. “What does that saying mean?”

She twisted back into the car too. “It means that as long as I still shave my hair, I'm free. See, in China, girls keep their heads bald like the boys, yeah? Then when we're the age to become a woman, we bind our feet and grow out our hair.”

“So...” I frowned. “Does that mean you're not a woman yet?”

“Yep.” She flashed her eyebrows and pointed down to her boots. “My feet are still big and ugly.”

I cringed. Foot-binding was a practice that seemed barbaric to my Western sensibilities. Breaking one's foot and wrapping it so it stopped growing? Of course, if one paused to consider, was binding a woman's waist and forcing her to stand like a camel any less barbaric?

“Why haven't you had your feet bound?” I asked. “You're older than me, aren't you?”

“If I were still in China, I would've.” She cracked her knuckles against her jaw and stared out the window. “See, when I came to America, I was real young. My uncle had to pretend I was a boy. It was safer that way, yeah? Things here... they aren't good for people like me, and it's even worse out west. As a boy, my chances were better. And that way my uncle and I could both work.”

But what had happened to her uncle? I wanted to ask. In fact, I had a thousand questions I wanted to ply her with—about her past, about her culture, about her strength—but I didn't. I couldn't. Not when her face looked so distant.

“So how did you meet Joseph?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

“We were all three at the same saloon.”

My eyelids shot up. “A saloon?”

She chuckled and waved in Daniel's direction. “He got cheated at cards, yeah? And a fight broke out. Joseph saw the whole thing, and when the police came, he vouched for Daniel.”

I rolled my eyes, amused. The story definitely fit with what I knew of Daniel—and I almost wished I could have seen it.

“And you?” I prodded. “What were you doing there?”

She grinned wickedly. “I was the one who cheated Daniel.”

I barked a laugh. Now I
really
wished I could have seen it.

“So now you see?” she asked. “With my hair like this, I'll be free forever.” She poked at my bodice. “Why would I ever want to put this on? Squeeze my guts and deform my ribs? It's not natural.”

I snorted. “You wouldn't want to wear it. I certainly don't.”

“Then why do you?”

I scrunched my forehead up at the absurdity of the question. “Because I don't have a choice.”

She shook her head and gazed at me with sad eyes. It made me uncomfortable.

I turned away from her disappointed scrutiny and watched the Schuylkill River flowing beneath the Girard Avenue Bridge.

“Eleanor, you have a choice,” she said softly. “You
always
have a choice.”

Half an hour later, the Spirit-Hunters and I paraded through the arched doorways of the Mercantile Library. The moment my foot crossed into the cavernous room, calm blew over me.

Before me, the high, curved ceilings of the library rose over aisle after aisle of bookshelves. The morning sun poured in from windows spanning the entire length and height of the walls. It layered shadows over the western half of the room. A small fountain bubbled at the entrance, and the soft murmur of the library's patrons traveled over it like a melody.

I hadn't visited this place since Elijah had left, and I couldn't imagine why. So many happy days had been spent here. My chest clenched with regret. I had been Elijah's outlet from his bullies, and he had been my escape from Mama's expectations.

Yet without Elijah in my life, I'd bowed to Mama's demands. I had done no studying, and most of my intellectual thinking had involved coin counting and haggling.

I guided the Spirit-Hunters to a circular desk at the center of the room. After verifying my father's subscription, the pretty, black-haired librarian slipped a brass key from her pocket.

“The entrance is there.” She pointed to a chestnut door at the back of the room. “If you wish to take any documents home, you must sign them out first.”

I took the key, and we moved through the people and shelves toward the back room. Once I'd unlocked the door, Joseph turned to Daniel.

“Take these.” Joseph slipped the brass goggles from his bag and thrust them into Daniel's hands. He swiveled to me. “What year was your brother at school, Miss Fitt? And what was the name?”

“Germantown Academy, and he started in the mid-sixties.” I wrinkled my forehead. “Why do you ask?”

“Yearbook. I'd like to see a list of all the boys who attended, if possible.” He spoke with no hint of command, only a straightforward efficiency. Joseph had a job to do, he expected us to help, and he tolerated nothing but obedience. The Spirit-Hunters worked together like the gears of a clock—orderly and focused.

Joseph inclined his head toward Jie. “You heard Miss Fitt.”

Jie nodded and stalked off toward the bookshelves in the main room. Joseph went into the private room, and I followed.

Daniel was already inside, his lanky form draped on a ladder as he scanned the highest shelves. The square room that housed the library's private collections was also lit by enormous windows, and the walls were lined with colorful book spines, newspapers, scrolls, and loose pages. In the center were tables and studious-looking, straight-backed chairs. It was a haven of knowledge.

I cleared my throat and moved to Joseph, who was systematically plucking books from the shelves. “Mr. Boyer?”

Joseph did not move, but his eyes slid sideways to peer at me. “Yes, Miss Fitt?”

“Do you need me?”

“No, I think not.” He looked back at the shelf and flourished his gloved hand toward the door. “We have enough hands on deck. You may relax, if you wish, and we should be finished quite soon.”

I curtsied, but hesitated to leave. “Um... have you learned anything about the spirit yet? There's been nothing in the papers about it, so I wondered if perhaps... it has vanished?”

“
Non
. I doubt that it would leave—not if it tried so desperately to enter the earthly realm.” He waved to the shelves. “I intend to search for a history of Philadelphia's hauntings, but there is little else I can do. Unless this spirit appears before me, I cannot possibly find out what it wants—or hope to stop it.”

I inhaled slowly. I supposed he was right. What could one possibly do about an absent, faceless spirit?

“We have not seen it since Saturday,” Joseph added. “Let us hope its business with us is finished.”

After a murmured thank you, I left the private collections room and bustled back to the circular desk at the center of the library. I had my own research to conduct. I now knew to whom the strange names in Elijah's letter belonged, but the meaning behind the other odd phrase in Elijah's letter still eluded me.

“Do you know anything about the Gas Ring?” I asked the pretty librarian sitting at the desk. “Or where I can research it?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I've never heard of it. Do you mean the Whiskey Ring?”

“No.” I gave her a tight grin. “Thanks.” I strolled back toward the private collections room, but when I reached the door, I turned right and headed down the hallway for a red velvet armchair—a chair I knew well.

I took my time adjusting my petticoats, fidgeting with my bustle, and squirming in my bodice. Then I eased down and set my parasol on the pine floor. This had been the chair Elijah and I had shared when we waited on Father. It was just as I remembered it.

Sunbeams pierced the air around me, illuminating the hidden world of dust that floated like the finest of snow. I grinned and tapped the armrest. A fresh army swirled up. The first time Elijah had shown me that trick, I'd been seven and he ten. We'd snuggled here, and he'd read aloud from
A Midsummer Night's Dream
.

A figure moved at the corner of my eye. It was Daniel, leaving the private collections room. He held books and papers in one hand and the goggles in the other. He stared at the floor, either inspecting the wood grain or deep in thought. I presumed the latter.

“Mr. Sheridan.” I stood, my gown rustling. “Did you find what you needed?”

His head snapped up. “Empress.” He hunched his shoulders. “Yeah, I got some books for my invention.”

“And those will help?” I angled my head and read a title. “
Annalen der Physik und Chemie
. Do you speak German?”

“Some. I've had to figure it out, Germans being the masters of engineering and all.”

“Oh.” I was impressed.

I gestured to the goggles. “And is that one of your inventions?”

He grunted his acknowledgment.

“What do they do?”

“Well, uh...” He swayed from foot to foot, as if he wasn't sure how to proceed. “Land sakes,” he finally grumbled. “Just take 'em. See for yourself.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You want me to wear them?”

“Yeah. And tell me what you see.” He set the books on the ground against the wall and, taking my hand, he put the goggles in my open palm. His face tightened. “But do be careful.”

I slid them on and scanned around me. The lenses were heavy and thick. They pulled at my ears and pressed on my nose. I studied my hand; the white of my gloves was barely visible. “It's so dark,” I said. “And blurry. It feels as if I'm staring through muddy water.”