HE HAD LOOKED for her, of course, though not right away. When she said that she would come back to him, he had believed her. But then when no letter or word from her arrived, Moody’s worry began to take hold. Where had she gone? How was she living? And what could have been so horrible that it was keeping her away? And then … after more than half a year had passed, he was overcome with despair, and the realization that there was nothing he could do. He didn’t even know how to start looking for her—he knew none of her acquaintances, and certainly, she had no family. All he possessed were those few small scraps about her past: the plantation, her mother, her freedom.
One day he had gone to the colored section of Boston and asked questions of anyone who would talk to him. He spoke with an old woman who ran a boardinghouse on Russell Street.
“Oh yes,” the woman said. “She was here—about two years I guess. Pretty girl. She came and went. Kept mostly to herself. Except for the children.”
“Children?” Moody asked.
“Yes,” the old woman replied. “The children in the neighborhood flocked to her. She was always bringing them little treats. Sweet cakes and things, little pieces of yarn. A nice girl. But, well—”
“Did she give any reason for leaving, or tell you where she was going?”
“Ha!” the woman said, suggestively. “They never do. Suspect she went to her relatives somewhere. If they would even take her.”
“And her employers?” Moody asked. “Do you know?”
“She worked for people,” the woman said. “In houses.”
Isabelle had said that her heart belonged to him, and that too he had desperately believed. He had needed to believe it, because after his misdeed, the idea of her forgiveness was the only thing that mattered. He had held no delusions about what a woman like her might have seen; but when she listened to him, and gazed back into his eyes, there was a goodness there that no indecency could have touched. No—she had loved him, he was sure of it. He had never been so sure of anything in his whole life.
He had photographed her—only once. It had been afterward. She had been resistant, but she had let him. She understood that he needed to do it.
It had all been so long ago. There was so much he did not remember.
And then the thought struck him—had she returned to chastise him? Had she grown so displeased with what he was doing that it had somehow forced her out of the grave? He studied the negative, for he had still not made a print of it. Her eyes returned strange emotion. No, that could not be it—she would not have come back to admonish him. She would, in an odd way, have approved of what he was doing—the healing he was responsible for in returning people to their loved ones. Was she reaching out to him for some other reason then? To let him know that she had never left him?
“But the Garretts,” Moody thought. “What has she to do with the Garretts?”
He stared at her, waiting—even begging—for an answer, but of course, no answer ever came. The longer he peered at her, the more unyielding she grew, standing upright behind the Garretts with a kind of quiet defiance. And yet, even in the rigidity of her unreadable stance, she remained so slight, so impalpable, and so luminously transparent that she appeared more like a mirrored reflection of herself than anything real or alive. He was desperate to know what she wanted to say to him, and it rent his heart to look at her.
As for Joseph—Moody noticed that he too seemed heartbroken whenever he studied the negative. It was plain that Isabelle’s spirit had captured him as well, despite Joseph’s attempts to disguise this. And yet, Moody thought, the man stank of fraud. What could his motivation have been if he had indeed played such a trick?
“This is a powerful spirit,” Joseph said. “And as I told you before, she may be carrying many messages.”
They had returned to the second-floor gallery, where the clamor of carriages rose up from the street.
“Such messages can be difficult to untangle,” Joseph added.
Moody looked at the image. It was her … and yet it wasn’t. He wanted nothing more than to believe that it was Isabelle.
“If it is truly her,” Moody said, “why would she appear now? And why in this picture?”
“It may have nothing to do with you,” Joseph replied. “There is more here than we understand. The Garretts reacted, and we must discover the connection. There is a connection, I assure you.”
Moody did not like Joseph’s insistence that Isabelle somehow “belonged” to the Garretts. If Isabelle’s spirit had returned, she would have surely returned for him.
Then Joseph reached into his pocket and pulled out an object—some sort of silver box, or a case.
“If you will indulge me, Mr. Moody,” Joseph said. “I would like to try to make you remember.”
Joseph then asked the spirit photographer to lift his eyes and focus.
So … Joseph Winter was a mesmerist too?
“You wish to put me into a trance,” Moody said.
There seemed to be no end to the absurdity.
“I wish you to remember more than you think you are able to remember,” Joseph said. “The trance can, as you know … take you back to certain places. There is a connection between Isabelle and the Garretts, I am certain. The clues may be somewhere in your memory.”
“I would think that I would be able to remember such details,” Moody said. “She was with me—right here in the gallery!”
“You yourself have said—” Joseph urged.
“Yes, I know what I have said!” Moody shouted.
It was not that he did not believe in mesmerism, for he had seen convincing displays of it before. But the appearance of Joseph, and now Isabelle, and the emergence of other things … these were all part of a journey Moody had not prepared himself to take.
“Your method,” Moody said. “Just how … ?”
“During the war,” Joseph said, “there was an old surgeon who practiced it on patients—to relieve pain, and even to operate in some cases. He had studied mesmerism in England, and I asked him to teach me. Sometimes there was not enough ether or chloroform for colored troops.”
Joseph looked away.
“I learned how to use it,” he concluded. “To great benefit.”
Then Joseph turned back toward Moody, who neither acquiesced nor resisted, as Joseph raised the silver object close to Moody again. Moody, exhaling, carefully set down the negative, and focused on the shiny thing in Joseph’s hand. Sun streamed in from the windows, causing an almost blinding reflection from the silver. From somewhere in the room, the clock’s ticks struck and faded.
Joseph pivoted his wrist, though the movement was barely perceptible. The object in Joseph’s hand was bursting—a sun-drenched mirror.
Seconds melted into minutes. Moody’s eyelids fluttered—and closed.
“Can you hear me, Mr. Moody?”
Moody remained still, then nodded.
“I want you to see Isabelle,” Joseph said. “I want you to see her for the very first time.”
Moody’s eyes had closed, and the ticking of the clock continued.
“Yes,” Moody said, “I see her.”
“What does she look like?” Joseph quietly asked. “What is Isabelle wearing?”
“She is beautiful,” Moody said. “She is wearing a gray wool coat, because it is cold. It is winter. The coat is unbuttoned, and beneath she is wearing a thick cotton dress—blue and white. She has walked through the store and come to see me at my stall. We are alone together at the back of the store.”
“And what then, Mr. Moody? What does she say?”
“At first, she says nothing. I am working and I do not notice her. I am engraving a silver amulet, and I am fixated on my work. But then I feel her presence. She almost frightens me—like a ghost. I look up to see her standing there. Her face is delicate, and she does not smile.”
“Continue,” Joseph said. “Does she speak to you?”
“She does. The light is bouncing off a shiny object in her hands. Her voice is beautiful … so beautiful. I hear the request—I hear her words. But I am blinded by her face, and the bright light shining in her hands. She reaches out toward me. She is holding a light, and she offers it to me.”
Moody gasped—as if he were trying to catch his breath.
“Then … then … she hands it to me. I take the light in my hands. It is a rattle—a child’s rattle—crafted of the finest silver. She asks me to engrave it for her, and I say that I will do it. The rattle is for a boy very dear to her heart, a boy she fears may not be long for this world. I ask if the rattle is for her own boy, and she tells me no—the boy is one she cares for.”
“The boy,” Joseph said. “Who is the boy?”
“I do not know. I do not ask her anything else. I am only anxious to oblige her request and I offer to engrave the rattle right away. Her request is a simple one, merely three letters. I perform the engraving on the spot.”
“Engrave it for me, Mr. Moody, if you please.”
Joseph placed a fountain pen in the spirit photographer’s hand, and laid Moody’s other hand upon a clean sheet of paper. Moody gripped the pen as if it were his old engraving tool. Then he carefully “carved” three letters into the blank sheet before him.
WJG
Joseph studied the three letters.
“W-J-G,” he mumbled. “W-J-G …”
The hypnotist snapped his fingers, and the spirit photographer awakened. Moody held keys to locks. It was simply a matter of finding those keys.
“These letters,” Joseph said. “What do these letters mean to you?”
Moody inspected the paper. He had never seen it before. And yet, it was as familiar to him as anything else he might have written.
“They’re initials of some sort,” Moody said. “They could be—”
“She came to you with a rattle,” Joseph said. “Isabelle. This is what you engraved for her—W-J-G—on a rattle.”
“Yes, I remember the rattle,” Moody said, “and I do remember the lettering, now. But I never asked whom the rattle was for. I never presumed to ask her questions.”
Then he eyed the paper again.
“W-J-G.”
Moody looked at Joseph.
“The boy,” Moody said. “She—”
“William Jeffrey Garrett!”
“The boy’s nurse,” Moody said.
“She must have come on an errand for the Garretts! As the boy’s nurse, she may have even lived in the house with them. No doubt she knew things, saw things …”
And then, the strangest feeling overcame Edward Moody—an inexplicable weakening. The negative’s return.
“What happened to her?” Moody said.
He held his heart. He was breathing heavily. Once again she was pulling him back.
“The Garretts are terrified of this photograph,” Joseph said. “She had a power over them then, as she has a power over them now. They will want this photograph destroyed.”
“Destroyed!”
“Yes—destroyed. The photograph unearthed something for them—something they had no intention of admitting.”
Moody again picked up the negative. Isabelle’s stare was dark and mournful. No sleight of hand could ever have recreated such an expression. It did not matter who Joseph Winter was at this point. Other things needed to be done.
“We must go to Fanny Van Wyck,” Moody said. “We must have her examine this negative.”
But before Joseph could respond, a loud commotion outside distracted them. Downstairs, in the street, two carriages had pulled up in front of the store.
“Wait here,” Joseph said.
And he fled from the gallery as Moody moved closer to the window. Outside, two plainclothes men were stepping out from a hansom cab, and two uniformed police officers from another. Across the street sat a third carriage—a brougham—its windows shadowed by the buildings.
So, they’d come for him after all.
Moody wrapped the negative in brown paper and slipped it into a small leather-bound case. He could not allow anyone to capture it. He had loved her too much to give her up again.
Joseph returned and locked the gallery door behind him.
“We have very little time,” he said.
“They have come to arrest me.”
“Yes,” Joseph said. “Mrs. Lovejoy did what she could, but they are on their way up to the gallery.”
“Garrett is parked across the street.”
Joseph nodded.
“It is certain, then,” he said. “They have come here to seize much more than you.”
Joseph had not yet finished his words when the heavy thud of boots sounded on the staircase.
Then, a pounding on the door.
The boots stopped, and for a brief moment there was silence.
“Mr. Moody,” Joseph whispered. “You have the negative there?”
Moody clutched the negative to his chest.
“They must never get their hands on this.”
Then the walls of the gallery shook as someone again struck the door.
“I COMMAND YOU TO OPEN THIS DOOR.”
Moody looked about the room. The police would tear apart the gallery. There was no safe place for the negative. And there was no other way out of the room.
“Mr. Moody—quickly. This way!”
And there, at the far end of the gallery, was Joseph Winter, standing near one of the wall panels. He was prying at it, as if trying to strip the panel from the wall, but in a moment had released the panel, which swung out toward him on hidden hinges.
“Mrs. Lovejoy,” a voice said outside in the stairwell. “If you please, open this door.”
There was the jangle of Mrs. Lovejoy’s keys, and there was Joseph’s urging near the opened panel.
“Quickly!” Joseph repeated.
It was an impossible thing—a trick of Moody’s troubled vision. Could such a convenience ever have been true?
Moody ran toward Joseph, and Joseph shoved him into the passage. For that was indeed what was waiting for him: a passage within the walls of the gallery. Then Joseph himself jumped through the wall’s opening and pulled the panel shut behind him.
“Go …” Joseph whispered. “Go forward, quickly now.”
Moody hurried across the passage’s rickety floorboards—a secret set of floorboards that had been living there all this time. The passage was dark and narrow, illuminated here and there by stray bands of light that seeped in through cracks in the plaster. Soon Moody arrived at the top of a set of stairs, where the passage widened slightly. Joseph moved around in front of him.
“We’ll go down,” Joseph said. “They should not be able to hear us. We are now deep inside the walls of the next room, but still we must take care.”
Joseph then began inching his way down the steps—a crooked pathway descending into the cold and the must. The wood was brittle and Moody tried to step down …
But then he stopped.
“Mr. Moody,” Joseph said. “Mr. Moody, you must come!”
Moody’s legs had grown heavy—he tried to lift them, but couldn’t. A coldness rushed into his lungs—so forcefully that his next breath caught in his throat. His legs had become chained to the top step of the staircase. It was not possible for him to continue.
Joseph struck a match, and the smell of sulfur suffused with the must.
“Mr. Moody!” Joseph said.
But still Moody did not move.
“Edward!”
Joseph was already farther down the staircase, his free hand stretching up toward the spirit photographer. Moody extended his arm—he could not quite reach Joseph Winter.
Then at last their fingers touched, and Joseph’s hand inched forward.
“Joseph—” Moody said, his feet unfreezing. “How … how did you know?”
The match’s light cast a menacing glow over Joseph’s face.
“This is not my first escape,” Joseph replied. “And this is not my first time running from the law.”