Chicago, 1913
“I can feel the moving picture again when I read this.” Walter waved Aidan’s journal in the air. “Everybody will love seeing this kind of story.” The candle on the round table flickered. “Iris and you-all put our lives into that scenario.”
“Iris is mostly to blame,” Aidan said. Toting the rocker he’d made as a wedding gift for Walter and Rose, he squeezed through the back door into Walter’s tight little kitchen.
“You finished that already?” Walter said.
“I felt the pattern in the wood, just made it come through. That don’t take no time.” Aidan set the rocker by the stove. Orchids bloomed on the back and along the arms.
“Rose loves those swamp flowers.” Walter smiled. “Thank you.”
“Easier than trying to carve the wind.” Aidan reached for his journal.
Walter held on to it and sat back in his chair. “Your father was Hutalgalgi, Wind clan too.” He stared at Aidan. “This book is full. You’ve got a lot of good stories to tell?”
“Writing myself down, it’s—a hoodoo tonic spell.” He paced ’round the table. “I thought I’d let Iris and … Redwood read it all tonight.”
“Good.” Walter shook his head. “I don’t understand you two.”
“Red and me went too fast when I first got to Chicago. We had to learn how to be with one another again.” Aidan stumbled over pots and baskets lurking in the shadows. The sun had gone down an hour ago. “Don’t you like electric lights?” He watched the shadows from candles play on the ceiling.
“Sometimes I do, sometimes I want a flame.” Walter brushed away bits of food and set Aidan’s journal on the table. “Sometimes I don’t pay the electric bill on time.” He shrugged. “This is not important.”
“Now that The Pirate and the Schoolteacher is done, Red and me are going to California, or Oregon, or Washington,” Aidan said. “We’re taking Iris too.”
“What are you running from?”
“I don’t know that I’m running from anything.” Aidan considered the empty jars lined up on the counter, waiting for the vegetable harvest. “Liquor cross my mind now and again. But I close my eyes, and it’s empty bottles full of amber sunshine.”
“That’s wonderful, but have you talked to Redwood?”
“We talked before, before I left George’s.”
“What if she’s changed her mind? Rose changes her mind all the time. We can’t decide anything.” Walter tried to laugh as if he’d made a joke. “Can’t stand still with a woman. You got to change.”
“They’re making moving pictures in California. There must be vaudeville too.” Aidan’s head throbbed. “I want to dig in the dirt again and make something grow. Raise a family.” He sank into a chair. “I need room, trees, a dark night, just for a while. And if we don’t like it, we can come back. Where’s Chicago going?” He rubbed his face and then squeezed his hands together. “Carving some difficult piece, no use digging away on a mistake. You get yourself a fresh piece of wood and—”
“What?”
“You love Rose, don’t you?”
Walter smiled. “She makes me feel like a good man.” He clutched Aidan’s arm. “But I will miss you if you ride away.” He paused, searching for something. “You know how to believe.” Walter released Aidan, pleased with this.
“I’m your friend, even on a distant coast,” Aidan said. “And I’ll miss you.”
“I don’t farm,” Walter said. “But perhaps—”
Aidan’s heart pounded as Walter pondered his perhaps. “You and Rose could come, see what else to do.” Aidan gripped Walter. “Raise hell for Indian people out there.”
Walter sighed. “My father would like to see the Black Hills again. We could cross this way one more time.” He nodded. “What are you going to do with the bear?”
Aidan chuckled. “Iris wants to take her with us when we go west, but—”
“So, it’s only Redwood you must persuade.”
“I feel something from her. Maybe she’s ready to—”
The rocker moved back and forth of its own accord and startled Aidan silent. He and Walter watched it. “Boneyard baron rock an empty chair.” Aidan quoted Miz Subie. An orchid on the chair gleamed in moonlight. Seeing that, he jumped up from the table.
“You didn’t bring that flower. What is it?” Walter stood up too.
“I’m not sure.” Aidan opened the back door and saw a flash of fire disappear ’round a corner. “I gotta go.” He stuffed the journal in his shoulder bag and plucked the orchid from the chair. The petals were hot. The chair went dead still. As he rushed out the door and down the street, the tang of burnt flesh filled his nose and mouth.
The end of a good show with good players was always sad, but the gloom Redwood felt, now that she had reached after the film, was worse than usual. Dread had been dogging her for weeks, and not just over what she and Aidan were goin’ do. Today at the screening in Nicolai’s office, dread hit Iris too. Baby Sister flitted ’round like a dragonfly, pestering everybody till finally Aidan told her to sit down and be quiet. And still Iris twittered louder than the noisy projector, during the whole show.
The Pirate and the Schoolteacher looked grand and sounded grand with musicians playing along. Redwood hated to admit it, but George was right. Everybody cheered for the Schoolteacher coming back from the dead, for a dark hero and his brown-skin sweetheart. Who could deny their picture show would be a success? Mama used to say, Stories and songs are powerful medicine. A good story fill you up when you hungry, when you lonely, help you find your way when you lost. A good song take the hurting out your spirit. George and those hinkty club women were wrong—nothing naïve or foolish ’bout believing in stories.
After the screening, Clarissa hugged Redwood then disappeared quickly. Milton was out the door complaining of aches and pains. Fidgety Iris ran off behind George. Saeed offered to celebrate with Redwood, but she let him go paint the town red with Corey, his union man. Aidan rushed off too, with Walter, saying they could talk in the morning; they could plan. ’Stead of hauling Aidan off somewhere quiet for a talk right then and there, Redwood said, “Fine, fine.” She shouldn’t have let him slip away.
Nicolai lifted a glass of strong spirits. “Now, it is out of our hands.”
Taking a shortcut home from the trolley, Redwood turned down a dim alley. A tall figure, little more than smoke covered by a colorful cloak, blocked her way. Like a highwayman from an old-fashioned romance, he declared, “Stand and deliver!” She backed up and opened her eyes wide. The alleyway was empty. Night had fallen.
Redwood tried to soak away nightmare images. After the bath, she slipped into a blue silk gown Clarissa gave her and watched the moonrise from her window. It looked like Mr. Noyes’s ghostly galleon tossed on cloudy seas when the highwayman came riding. Redwood stepped away from the window, shivering inside and out. Haints don’t bother you, ’less you believe in ’em, Mama always said. Hear me? Don’t be so hardheaded. Don’t hug anger to your heart.
“I ain’t mad at you, Mama,” she whispered. “I mean, I was, but not really, just mad at a world so mean you had to—” Redwood cried softly. “But see what I’ve done. Just like I promised!” She smiled and wiped away tears. “What I always wanted to do.”
Nicolai had made several prints of The Pirate and the Schoolteacher. George was goin’ pay for more. Her copy sat on top the books she’d boxed up, two reels in a metal case, glittering in moonlight—magic. They’d called up much magic. Nicolai captured their conjuring on film. Soon projectionists would set their spells free into the world. A thrill raced up her back, delight at her dream come true, and then fear. Something bad was coming, a train jumping the track or the moon falling out the sky. A blot on tomorrow, and what could she do about it? She moved to close the shutters.
A wooden box, carved in the shape of a comet, perched on the window seat. The tail was silver threads and blue-violet feathers from a swamp hen. Redwood picked it up and drew the feathers over her face and down her neck. A sweet ache spilled over her. Some secret thing inside rattled. The sound tickled her too. Aidan gave her the comet-box last year, but she’d never opened it. If tomorrow might not come, if something horrible was to claim her this night, she’d better burn her candles and open her secret treasures, now.
Lighting a red scented candle and setting it in the window, she undid the clasp of the comet-box. Her hands trembled as she slid the round cover to one side. In the box was a bright yellow bead and two cracked seashells wrapped in a brown-and-black feather. The bead was actually a mosaic of yellow, gold, and white. Redwood squealed as she remembered the pounds of beads and hammered gold jewelry hanging on the necks, waists, arms, and ankles of the Dahomeyan women at the Chicago World’s Fair. The feather was something Aidan found at the Wild West show before they rode the Ferris Wheel. The seashells, though, were a mystery.
She kissed the bead and stroked the feather. Here was proof. “We were really there.”
She put a shell to each ear. The ocean whispered a windy chant, urging her to get up and move. What if she and Aidan didn’t make it to the morning? Redwood set the treasures back in the comet and slid the lid shut. She pulled on Aidan’s old shirt and pants and set his cap on her head. She tied a stream of blue silk to her waist. Her red mojo bag hung ’round her neck. Walter’s place was an hour or so, walking and taking the trolley. She could stay with Aidan there till they decided where they were going next. And if they only had one more night, it would be together.
Rustling in the garden startled her. A stiff breeze blew the candle out, and red wax dribbled down to the window-seat cushions. Redwood peered outside into the shadows. The boneyard baron flung the colorful cloak into the high branches of the maple tree. He stood below it, an icy wind in a long black coat. A scarf of white mist curled ’round his neck. The baron tipped his black top hat at her. “Stand and deliver!” Sparkly teeth caught a glint of moonlight and froze in a scowl.
Redwood shuddered. “You been following me.” She stared in his blazing eyes and didn’t blink as pain seared into her. “What you want?”
On each of the baron’s skeleton fingers, a silver ring dripped blood. He pointed dagger fingernails at a flash of light in the distance. Redwood winced. The baron set his velvety hat on his bright white skull and sauntered away from the maple tree. Every step he took was a fresh grave. She felt warm flesh whither and heard anguished souls wailing, but she couldn’t read the headstones. The baron turned back to glance at Redwood and then faded into the silver lining of a shadow.
Redwood rubbed her aching eyes and pulled on Aidan’s brogans. She ran through the house from top to bottom. Iris’s room was empty. The other children were visiting their cousins. George was working late and Clarissa had gone to take him supper. She called the Dry Cleaning but couldn’t get a connection through the switchboard.
Redwood wished she was good at cussing, like Aidan. She longed for a foul stream of it. Nothing came. She dashed out into the middle of the street, trying to feel the right direction to take, trying to see the baron as a warning of danger to come, a danger she could stop. She ran and ran, till her bones rattled and her muscles burned, till the streets and the people were gray shadows behind the baron’s top hat and cane, till she didn’t feel her feet touch the ground, running toward—