SCORPIO

9

ALTHOUGH HETTY WALKED THROUGH the doors to the telegram office the moment they opened the next morning, she found herself waiting longer than she’d expected.

The white clerk took his time straightening papers, polishing the machine, and adjusting eyeglasses, until he very slyly placed his wand within arm’s reach.

“What can I do for you?” the man asked when it was clear she was the only person in the tiny office.

“I would like to send a telegram.” Hetty slid the coins and the note across the counter.

The man didn’t even look at the slip of paper.

“You’ll need a bit more if you’re sending it this far,” the man remarked.

“The price changed?”

“Yes, just last night.”

Hetty knew the price hadn’t changed, not recently and not for long distance. However, little would come of an argument this morning.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a few more coins. Without clarifying or asking for a certain sum, the man snatched her coins and her note.

This was the last bit of money she could spare, and now she doubted it would even make it.

How ironic, she thought with a bitter smile. She went through great lengths to hide working on the telegram, and it might just come to nothing.

Her jaunt to the telegram office took her away from more familiar streets, but she was in no rush.

She headed south, leaving behind Twenty-Second Street to make her way to Oliver’s house on Juniper. It was a long walk, and to walk it was to see nearly every face the Seventh Ward had to present. Everything north of Twenty-First Street was white and bright, filled with businesses, offices, and places where people like her were only brought in to clean. But south of there, things changed for the better. More places had brown faces, as well as the immigrant populations: the Chinese who recently settled along Race Street, and the Italians and Russians on the east end.

There was a stretch along Lombard where gambling and political clubs got on with their business, hiding in plain sight. They were the same caliber of places found in the worst of the slums, only with a gleam of respectability. Hetty had been to her fair share of saloons and gambling dens, and she favored the places where she was likely to get stabbed over those where she might face a professional con man trying to sell her a bridge that went nowhere.

A streetcar rolled to a stop in front of a knot of people at the corner. With the sky turning a concerning gray, Hetty elbowed her way through the crowd. At the last moment, she jumped up and grabbed the outer rail.

In her haste, she had leapt right into a group of men who had the same idea as her. They called out to her in playful cheers as she found her footing along the metal edge.

“You know, miss,” called a grizzled man, “we’re allowed to sit inside now. Some very fine people went through a great deal of fuss so the likes of us can ride with no trouble.”

“I like the fresh air.” Hetty hooked her arm securely around the bar. “It’s a lovely day.”

“Looks like rain to me,” called another on her left. “Why do you think people are crowded together?”

“Don’t you worry, miss. We’ll make room for you if the skies open up.”

But the skies stayed temperamental as the streetcar lumbered southward, stopping only to shift its burden. While she could have moved, Hetty stayed where she was for a bit longer, soaking up the strands of conversation nearby. She might only hear bits of the stories, but those bits were interesting and sometimes got woven into her own tales.

“I saw it in the Eventide. They went straight up to the prison and dragged him from his cell. Ain’t it something when a man can’t expect to be safe behind bars? And I heard—”

“. . . I’m sure proud of my little girl, but ten dollars for a year of schooling ain’t easy to part with . . .”

“. . . can’t find any work here, I’m going to leave town. There’s jobs up here, but if you aren’t turned out for your color, they boot you right quick for having a touch of magic . . .”

“. . . if you want the best stuff you go to Miss Sal’s, best fried chicken around, so fresh it’s practically still kicking . . .”

“There’s a show tomorrow evening,” a young man at Hetty’s left called to his companion. “It’s supposed to be a real hoot. They got these ladies that—”

“Shut your mouth.” His friend swatted him on the back. “We got a lady right here listening in. Excuse him, miss,” he said with a gap-toothed smile. “He ain’t got much sense.”

At the next stop, enough people got off that it was silly for Hetty to cling outside any longer. Slipping inside, she adjusted her sewing kit in her hand and walked through the lurching car.

She had a few choices for seats. Some right behind the driver, some further in the back, but once she saw a familiar face, the adjacent seat was the one she chose.

“Well, well, looks like you’re traveling my way,” Hetty said to Maybelle Lewis. “Is this chance or fate?”

Maybelle was the eldest of Penelope’s five cousins, and she had a warm, cheerful air. There was little resemblance between them, except for dimples in the exact same spot in their cheeks. A so-called contraband of the war, Maybelle escaped slavery with her two young children to a Union camp. There, under the dubious protection of the army, she cooked and washed laundry, often to her great peril. Maybelle always said her prize for such hard labor was her husband, and the shoe shop they ran together.

“If I knew I would see you today,” Hetty said, “I would have brought the christening gown.”

“No need to worry about that!” Maybelle brushed a hand along the curve of her stomach. “This baby will not come for some time. So I have plenty of time for my other baby. I should have asked you from the start to make Annabelle’s wedding dress. You should see what we were given. It’s a star-forsaken shame.”

“I could fix it for you,” Hetty said. “Or make a new one.”

“I hate to ask that of you,” Maybelle said, “and a new dress from scratch—”

“Will be easier than fixing a downright mess,” Hetty interjected. “I can start on it right away. I know her measurements and her tastes. I just need materials.”

“Truly?” Maybelle’s eyes filled with sudden hope. “Even by the end of the week?”

“Yes,” she promised. “Sooner, even.”

“That would be lovely.” Maybelle paused and then frowned. “Won’t you be busy at Harper’s?”

“I no longer have a job there.”

Maybelle grinned. “Which explains your eagerness for this job.”

Hetty’s protests were cut off with a wave of Maybelle’s hand. “I’d do the same in your place,” Maybelle said. “Though I expect people will be asking all sorts of orders from you once they find out you’re a free agent. Why, I see this as getting to you before you become too popular.”

As the streetcar rolled through town, Maybelle rambled on about the shoe store’s business and passed on harmless gossip and chatter. Hetty had long passed the stop she should have gotten off, but rain tapped against the window, so the conversation was welcome.

When the car emptied of enough people so no one sat nearby, Maybelle stopped in the middle of her own chatter and leaned forward. “Are you stopping at the hospital?”

Hetty had been waiting for this. Maybelle had also missed her stop, and not because of the rain. While their conversation had been pleasant, she could tell Maybelle had been drawing it out as she waited for the right moment.

“Why would I go to the hospital?” Hetty asked.

She knew why Maybelle had made the suggestion. But Hetty liked to ask such questions anyway. It gave her a sense of control over the events that would occur next.

“My son is working nights as a cleaner,” Maybelle said. “And one night he saw Samuel Owens on a slab.”

“He died from breathing too much smoke,” Hetty said. A building on Ninth Street had gone up in flames two weeks ago. The fire was quickly contained and no one died. Except for Samuel, who’d returned multiple times to the building to look for anyone still inside. He seemed fine besides a few bruises, but when he went to sleep that night, he didn’t wake the next morning.

“It’s not that he died unusually,” Maybelle continued. “But that he was there at all. He was buried. I was at his funeral.”

“So was I,” Hetty recalled. “We put that on with Oliver’s help. It was a small affair. He didn’t leave much family behind. I suppose that makes it easier for people to dig up his body and sell to students. No need to ask permission of anyone.”

“Can’t anything be done?”

“Grave robbers will keep coming as long as hospitals make it worth their while,” Hetty said, repeating what Benjy had told her as they watched a group dig up a body one summer night.

They could do something about this group of men, that woman, that lone man, or that couple sneaking about, but neither Hetty nor Benjy could be around to stop it completely. After all, grave robbers were not the problem. It was the value placed on Black bodies and circumstances that allowed theft to occur in the first place. Unlike white cemeteries where even simple tombstones were dusted with enchantments to protect the dignity of the dead, a series of laws forbade enchantments in the few cemeteries they were given access to. These were laws that gnawed at even the most conservative and placating members of their community. For without those protections, the dead remained vulnerable to harm from the living.

“This is worth looking into,” Hetty continued. “Can’t say if it’ll be soon.”

“Oh yes, I heard about Charlie Richardson. There’s been chatter these past few days.” Maybelle’s face grew thoughtful. “Did he ever pay you back for the dresses?”

“No, but it was never about the money,” Hetty replied. “I’m grateful that you told me about them.”

“It was nothing.” Maybelle waved her hand. “My daughter just happened to be wearing the dress you made, so I had a nice comparison to the other dress. You have such distinctive work. Anyone who knows it can recognize it later. It’s why I thought your friend foolish to sell them.”

“He did many foolish things.”

And one of them got him killed.