The Elementals (23 page)

“I can tell you absolutely everything about them. What do you want to know?”

With a gentle smile, Julian shook his head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“You have to start with D. W. Griffith,” she said, very seriously. “He makes epics. Like
Intolerance—
oh, Julian. Thousands of extras—those are people who stand around, filling out a scene. Each story had its own tint! And Julian, he constructed ancient Babylon! The whole thing!”

“Sounds grand.”

Digging in her pocket for quarters, Kate shook her head. “It bankrupted him. But who cares about money? It was art. Extraordinary art; when you watched it, you traveled through time. It’s exactly what I want to do.”

Julian produced a handful of change of his own and gave it to Kate to sort. “Go bankrupt?”

“Make art. Paint in light and motion.” Kate pulled out all the quarters and handed the rest back to him. “I have ever so many ideas. I want to write a new story for Ophelia. I want to make a film about Joan of Arc, and Persephone, and Mary Magdalene . . .”

Julian stepped into line with her. “Why not blessed Mother Mary?”

“Because she was perfect. Where’s the fun in that?”

The theatre’s doors swung open. The people who poured out were animated, so bright as they talked about the movie and decided their next destination.

Suddenly, strawberry curls caught Kate’s eye. Growing very small in her own skin, Kate paled when Mollie emerged on the arm of a sailor.

Wrapped in watery blue silk and wearing a brand new hat, Mollie threw her head back to laugh at something the sailor said. Even amid the rush, Kate made out the scent of her perfume.

Wrenched from the inside, Kate moved before she could think too much. She caught Mollie’s elbow and said, “Where’s my camera?”

Awareness flared in Mollie’s eyes, then disappeared like a dying ember. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

The sailor tried to step between them. “Move along, pal.”

“Tell me where the film is,” Kate said, craning around the sailor. She didn’t care if Mollie’s date took a swing. Let him do it, let him draw a crowd and make a scene. The police would sort it out; they could get her camera back, her film, her
chance.

Mollie steeled herself, no hint of warmth in her expression at all. “Leave him alone, Alfred. He must have seen my little picture at the nickelodeon. Fans are so tiresome.”

“You
sold
it?” Kate murmured. She felt Julian’s hands on her now, strong on her shoulders. Everything felt distant and unreal. “You sold my movie?”

Pulling the sailor back against her side, Mollie gathered herself. “The poor thing’s out of his mind. I’d sign an autograph for you, but I haven’t got a pencil. Best of luck, though.”

Then she glided away with Alfred, too cool to look back. Staring after her, Kate slumped against Julian, hot tears in her eyes. Her first feature, playing in a nickel slot machine without her name on it. It wasn’t fair that she could care about Mollie so deeply and Mollie couldn’t care less.

Kate wanted to fall to the ground and tear her clothes and cry. She wanted the skies to open up and, for a moment, the whole world to weep with her. But wishing for things like that was useless. It was fantasy, and wasted emotion.

Trying to collect herself, Kate swiped her dry cheeks to make sure no tears encroached. It didn’t matter. She had already decided to start over. From the bottom, the very hard way. With a real friend nearby this time, someone she could trust.

“Was that your muse?” Julian murmured, surreptitiously rubbing his knuckles down Kate’s spine.

Swiping again, Kate shook her head. Scraping the last of her sentiment away, she turned to Julian and abandoned that past by choice.

“No,” Kate said, summoning a rueful smile. “That was an actor.”

In the darkness of the red car, Julian slipped his hand into Kate’s. His touch didn’t interrupt her discourse on making motion pictures, but it did soften her manic gleam.

Whatever a muse was, and he couldn’t say he knew how one would fit into modern life, he knew Kate was hurting. That, he recognized from experience; all he could do was squeeze her hand and wait for it to pass.

“That’s a ways off now,” Kate said finally. She took off her cap and let her braids fall to her shoulders. “Have to get a new camera, don’t I? Where did you plan to look for work?”

Julian shrugged, trailing his thumb against hers. “Not sure. A lot of places won’t have me. There’s got to be something, though.”

Leaning her head back against the seat, Kate pondered the ceiling. “Can you drive?”

“A horse cart? Yep. But I can’t load one.”

A thoughtful sound escaped Kate’s lips. She rocked with the red car’s motion, her long lashes fluttering as she thought. “Can you sew?”

“Pretty well.”

“That’s something to start with.” Kate nodded, as if she knew the first thing about finding work with a needle and thread. “Are you artistic at all?”

“I play the fiddle.” Julian sprawled next to her. There was nothing of note on the ceiling. Dirty fingerprints, a bit of cracked paint. But it was pleasantly dark after the lights from the boardwalk. “Don’t have one with me, though.”

Kate said, “You can save up for one. I’m saving for a camera now; we can both have a goal.”

“Good idea,” he said. Her hand was smooth in his, impossibly soft. The scent of smoke and fried food clung to her clothes, but he enjoyed sitting with her all the same. The one thing he truly missed from home was living with his family.

The white farmhouse was only quiet at night, and sometimes, not even then. Kate did an admirable job of making up for the amount of conversation he would have enjoyed with three brothers and two parents.

His visions of her seemed laughable now. The girl in the dark shared Kate’s face, but she’d always been an idealized creature. Someone mystical waiting for him in a surreal place. He never would have guessed the truth. She was a faint reflection of a real girl, and the real girl was far more interesting.

The bell rang, and the red car shuddered to a stop. Julian gave Kate’s hand another squeeze, then untangled himself. She leapt from the car, the thick, silver coils of her braids bouncing with each step. She reached for Julian’s crutches.

Tossing them to her, Julian swung off the car by the rail. They moved fluidly together, waiting for a break in traffic to hurry across the street. Keeping pace with Julian, Kate whistled a few notes and looked over at him. “Can you play
anything
on a fiddle?”

“If I have the sheet music,” he said. “And I know a lot of songs by heart.”

Kate chewed her lower lip. “I wonder what would happen if I made a motion picture that matched up with a song. Could you write something new?”

“Probably. What’re you cooking up, Kate?”

Doffing her hat, she bowed to him from the corner, then turned on her toes. “A Katherine Witherspoon film, with original score by Julian Birch.”

Julian laughed, herding her along with his crutch. It was late; he was tired. The night had cooled, tracing a shiver across his skin. Nothing seemed more appealing at that moment than crashing into bed and drifting away beneath the sheets. “I don’t want to be famous.”

“Then what do you want?” she asked, pulling open the boarding house door for him.

A wave of homey scents greeted them: pot roast and potatoes, floor polish and pipe smoke. Breaking the quiet, Mrs. Bartow’s voice rang out.

“There he is,” she said.

Julian hesitated as a man and a woman turned in unison to face him. For the briefest moment, his lips went numb. He didn’t recognize the man, but the woman was unmistakable. The dark eyes, the curve of her mouth . . .

Before Julian could say anything, Kate pushed around him and gaped.

“Oh my God, those are my parents!”

***

Caleb had nowhere to go. Clune’s had let him come in long enough to collect his belongings. He didn’t have much—a change of clothes, two bullets, and a deck of cards. But by God, they were his.

He tied it all in a bundle, and glowered as the manager put him out the back door, like a dog. They weren’t interested in explanations or apologies or any damned thing at all.

Still rank from the lockup, he’d tried to wash in the public fountain. All he managed to do was soak his shirt before he had to run.

The cop who patrolled Central Park spotted him first thing and swung his nightstick lazily to make a point as he approached.

Slinking away, Caleb had to haul his dungarees up every few steps; everything he owned weighed down the pockets.

So he lightened them a bit, spending the last of his money on whiskey. It fortified him in deep swallows, warming his belly even as it growled for food.

The restaurants weren’t in much of a giving mood. After trying all the regular back doors and soft-touch cooks, he still ached with hunger.

With no one looking, he dug into the trash behind one steakhouse and produced a couple of half-eaten baked potatoes. Better than nothing; he gulped them down and scrubbed his hands dry on his pants.

Sick of moving, he wandered Sixth Street. There were plenty of apartments and boarding houses there, so he snuck in to sleep in their lobbies.

A few times, he caught a nap before they shooed him away. The Hotel Alexandria was so damned snooty, he didn’t get past the front doors.

Silas had mentioned a halfway house where he could get a hot meal and a dry bed, if he was willing to listen to a sermon. His head still ached from the night before; trying to summon the details from his memory actually hurt.

Clinging to a lamppost, Caleb stared into the dark with bleary eyes. The weal on his brow throbbed, sending sharp waves right into his head. Blinking slowly, he wondered what would happen if he passed out on the street.

Most of the bastards in this city would step right over him, he figured. If somebody called the police, he might end up in the drunk tank. Or better, the hospital. They’d give him a bed in the hospital. A hot meal, maybe a bath.

He cursed under his breath when a red car clattered to a stop up the street. He hated those things; he hated the city. All its sound and all its bodies, the filthy street that never swayed under his feet. The air full of people’s cooking and people’s stink, and sidewalks full of the same.

When the car passed, Caleb stilled. The ghost was back.

She floated down the street, silver snakes writhing around her head.

Swirling and turning in the night wind, her lips moved, and he swore he could hear her say,
If you tremble, I would fear not.
Drifting into one of the buildings, she left behind only an impression, a glimpse of the past.

A flash of heat burned through Caleb. It burned clarity into his dizzy head and calm through his uncertain belly.

Shoving off the lamppost, Caleb walked into traffic as if he were invulnerable. In the wake of screeching tires and honking horns, he reached the curb and kept going.

With a sure and certain purpose, he pushed open the door at Bartow’s Ordinary and stepped into the past. She was there, the ghost all silver; but the living Amelia van den Broek was as well. She hadn’t changed, not in twenty years, and Caleb trembled when he realized who stood at her side.

Witherspoon
.

That bastard escaped the fire after all. Everyone had escaped that summer except for him. Except for Sarah.

Caleb could hear her laugh still, and the sound of a bowstring singing. This was meant to be. This moment was written in the stars, because how could he catch a mystic by surprise? He had gone free for this, sailed the seas restlessly until now for this.

It was destiny. It was time.

Pulling his gun from his pocket, Caleb drew back the hammer.

Julian moved first. All he saw was a man with a gun.

Chucking the foot of his crutch into his hand, he swung it. The deafening report of a pistol cracked through the lobby. Burnt black powder singed the air.

Jolted by the impact, Julian dropped his crutch when the man hit the floor.

Ears ringing, he staggered toward the man’s motionless body and knocked the gun away. It spun across the tile with a hiss.

Everything came too fast for Julian to be afraid; his head was too full of echoes to hear. Nothing kept him from looking; the details came in brighter shades than his usual sight.

Blood slipped from the man’s nose, dripping into the dark mat of his hair. Mottled bruises stretched across his face like a mask; his jaw seemed out of place. Through cracked lips, his teeth seemed impossibly jagged, their edges marked with more blood. He was still, but Julian knew death intimately enough. The man’s belly rose and fell, faintly, but steady. He was still alive.

Breaking away from her parents, Kate threw herself at Julian. She searched him with desperate hands, tugging his jacket open.

“Are you hurt? Are you crazy? What were you thinking?”

Someone was screaming, and Julian didn’t know who. Running past him, into the street, Mrs. Bartow cried for the police. The roaring in his head burst, a void that filled with sound, too much of it. Roused by the shot, the rest of the boarding house pressed into the halls and onto the stairs. They murmured, clutching their robes and slipping closer.

“Julian,” Kate’s mother said, rising to her feet, “get your things. You’re coming with us.”

Gasps raced around the lobby as one of the doors swung open. Mr. Kiedrowicz staggered into the hall. At first, it seemed like he carried a bundle of towels. But as he came closer, a little foot flopped out. It was ashen, a stark contrast to the blood blooming through the linens. Screams flooded the hallway, a grieving wail that went on and on.

Unsteady on his feet, Julian couldn’t help but figure the sums. He’d struck the man with the gun; he’d turned that shot. It was meant for one of them—instead, he’d sent it off course. The black halo around the hole in the wall stared at him, unblinking. Accusing.

Julian could live with a lot of things, but he believed in consequences. His mother had warned him that he couldn’t disturb the course of the world. Now he had, and at a terrible cost.