Chapter 7
Thea
A tiny bell tinkled out a melody as Thea pushed open the door to the only portrait studio in Pleasant Valley. That they even had a studio was perhaps a miracle in and of itself, as a town based solely on the collection of lumber certainly didn’t have enough population to support an entire year’s worth of salary for a photographer. Still, if she had learned enough from Mr. Mendelsohn, they would be partners by end of day. As a traveling photographer, he’d made it his art not only to garner sales door to door, but also engage the temporary comradeship of others established in the field. Thea hoped to garner the same results.
Now, her shoes clapped along the floorboards as she gave the small studio a quick once-over. Amos Bros. Photography had been painted on the front window in stenciled letters with scrollwork beneath it. Each wall in the room appeared decorated to be a different room in an actual home. One of the walls was cream with emerald green bordering and hand-painted bouquets. A velvet-covered chair, a white pillar of four feet or so, a few plants, and an easel were positioned strategically. In the chair, an orange cat was curled up and watching her through slits for eyes, its tail twitching up and down.
“May I help you?” The booming voice jolted Thea from her observations. A man of medium height and build entered the room from a doorway near the wall opposite the front entrance. His long mustache draped along the edges of his mouth, thoroughly and completely white. His hair was parted in the middle, yet it was hardly worth the effort, for there wasn’t much left atop his head to part at all.
Thea composed her wits and ceased her meticulous perusal of the room. She cleared her throat. “Dorothea Reed.” She extended a gloved hand, and the elderly man eyed it. Seemingly unused to palming a lady’s hand, he took it gingerly, fingertip to fingertip, then released it.
“Martin Amos.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Amos. I am a photographer—a traveling photographer—and I have settled in Pleasant Valley for the time being.”
His eyebrow lifted. Not unfriendly, more like he waited before he drew any sort of conclusion about her.
Thea swallowed. “I’ve no intention of setting up competitive services, I only wondered if I might be able to garner employment with you. For an interim period and a small sum, offset by allowing me use of your development room. I have a small black room in my wagon to create the negative plates, but for transfer to paper I need a more suitable work space.”
“My development room?” Mr. Amos coughed.
It wasn’t as though she’d requested entrance into his private living quarters.
Thea nodded. It was never easy asserting herself now that Mr. Mendelsohn was gone.
“Employment?” He cleared his throat again.
“For a small sum. I must be able to cover my own living expenses. But I’m not looking for extravagance, Mr. Amos. I would appreciate the freedom to develop my photographs when I take them on my own time, outside of town.”
Mr. Amos blinked. Finally, he crossed his arms, his gray wool suit coat stretching taut against thin shoulders. “You’re proposing I allow a traveling photographer entrance to my business and interaction with my clientele, so you can develop photographs that you took of your own accord and therefore stealing from me potential business?”
Well, she had bungled this up well and good, hadn’t she? Thea opened the satchel she gripped tightly in one hand. “Please. I’m quite good at assisting accomplished photographers such as yourself. For pay, I would help you here in the studio. And as for my own work, if you take a look at it, you’ll understand. I’ve a very special type of photograph. . . .” She didn’t bother to mention that she also took the normal portraitures. Instead, she made a silent promise to stay honest and only photograph what she represented to Mr. Amos now.
“Ah. Memorial photographs.” He spoke over her shoulder as she pulled out samples. Thea looked up and noticed his eyes fixed on the photographs that were pasted to thick paperboard.
“Yes,” Thea nodded. “It’s a privilege to help family members capture the final pose of their loved ones who have passed on. I’ve all the equipment. Backdrops, framework, even sewing kits to assist with preparing the body if needed. I only do not have a decent place to develop the photographs.”
The man waved her pictures away. “That’s—disturbing.”
“So, you don’t offer memorial photographic services?” she asked innocently, knowing full well there was the possibility he did not, and hoping it was true. While it was traditional to take photographs with the newly passed on, many photographers still found it unsettling. Why wouldn’t they? In small towns such as these, they often knew personally those who had passed on and so collecting their last image was rife with memories, superstitions, and even for some, grief.
“When I must.” He crossed his arms over his chest again. “I wouldn’t deny the last memento to a grieving family.”
“However, you don’t travel to find them?” Thea pressed forward, borrowing confidence from the fact she’d heard Mr. Mendelsohn use this same line of reasoning before.
“Door to door?” He sniffed. “Certainly not.”
“There is business there,” she cajoled.
He narrowed his eyes. “I refuse to monopolize on another’s grief. What? Would you have me knock on every door and ask if someone may have recently died there?”
Thea nodded, hoping to keep her expression both pleasant and helpful. “Yes, and to inquire if someone is near passing over. Sometimes the person is too ill, so we must wait until they’re at eternal peace. But many find it a blessing not to have to seek out the services of a photographer. Many often wished they had, only it’s too late. You cannot exhume a body for memorial’s sake, of course.”
The man blanched, and his eyes widened. “Why, you are a spit of a—”
“I believe you called me a ‘traveler,’” Thea provided, offering him a delightful smile.
He blustered.
Thea snapped her valise shut. “You are one of the Amos brothers, as the window implies?”
He nodded, lost for words.
“Well, Mr. Amos, shall we start?”
Thea had exhausted all her gumption cajoling her way into attaining Mr. Amos’s tentative agreement. In the hours of the morning after she’d arrived, Thea had learned Mr. Amos was a happily married man. He and his wife, Greta, had three grown children, all daughters, all married, and all moved away. There were no grandchildren. His brother had passed away six years prior, leaving Mr. Amos sole proprietorship.
One of the rooms in the secluded area of the studio had a small table and chairs in it, a countertop, and several photograph albums. A back door had a draft slipping through a gap at the floor, but it brought into the room fresh air and an early summer scent of life. Now, the most permanent resident of the studio, Pip the orange tabby cat, sauntered in, chin lifted in complete ownership of the place, and brushed by Thea’s legs.
“Cheeky little fellow,” she muttered after him.
Pip trilled a tiny meow in response.
Thea familiarized herself with Mr. Amos’s work and had to admit he was a very fine photographer. She ran her finger across the border of one of his photographs, the fleur-de-lis a beautiful brass color, and the woman in its frame, young with coiffed hair that waved and flowed with such perfection that Thea could only stare. At times, she wished she were beautiful. That the camera would capture her image and convince her she was worth looking at. Convince her she was worth—something.
Thea slammed the album shut, hiding the beautiful woman from her view.
The instant the photo album clapped its pages together, the back door jerked open. Thea jolted, startled as a form burst into the room, completely unaware of her presence. His head was bent toward the floor, a bulky camera stand under one arm, while the hand of the same arm gripped a wooden camera box. In the grasp of his left hand was an album, and he blustered ahead, dropping it onto the table. The camera stand clattered against the counter as he balanced it there, and at the same time he bent and rested the case on the floor. Pip scampered from the room, leaving the mess behind in a whisk of fur and tail.
Thea blinked. She’d not expected this. Not anticipated that Mr. Amos already had an associate. Why then would he have even entertained the possibility of adding another?
The man turned. Gray eyes lifted, squinting in deep contemplation. Straight hair fell on either side of his forehead, not combed or styled, just haphazard and thoughtless.
They stared at each other for a moment, both caught by surprise. A distinct, unsettled air fell over the room, as if neither were supposed to be there at all, and both were afraid the other might tell. Simeon was the first to break the stare. He ducked his head, fumbling at his back pocket and yanking forth a cap that he tugged onto his head and over his eyes. He held his face away from her, so Thea only had the privilege of seeing the left side of his profile.
His shoulder lifted upward in an odd little jerk, then settled.
Thea frowned.
He noticed.
“Pardon me.” Simeon ducked away and turned on his heel toward the open back door.
“Wait!” Thea collected herself. She hurried after him, but Simeon was walking at a pace reflective of a man attempting to escape, but also trying not to run and bring attention upon himself.
“Mr. Coyle!” Thea tried again, grasping the doorframe and leaning out into the daylight.
Simeon stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, his shoulders hunched, and rounded a corner out of view.
Thea blinked a few times. She’d not expected to see him, and obviously he’d felt the same about her. His retreat didn’t carry with it the feeling of fear. Rather, in that moment, it was as if she’d once again run into him, they had touched, and a spark like a cannon cracker had ignited. It seemed Simeon Coyle knew less what to do with that feeling than she did.
Mr. Amos’s voice filtered from the front, drawing her away from contemplating Simeon and why he’d been here in the first place. There was a potential client in the front. Something about a family photograph. Mr. Amos was speaking with a woman.
Will they be able to keep the child still?
The mother gave a short response. He’d unintentionally insulted her child.
Is Grandma going to pose with the family?
An insinuation the elderly woman might be a problem.
Thea knew the best way to solidify her very tenuous position with Mr. Amos was to make herself known in the conversation and earn the approval and even the need of the female customer. He would hardly be able to not pay her even a little if a customer preferred her feminine presence.
But her attention was captivated by the album Simeon Coyle had dropped on the table. It had flopped open, revealing pages with paper frames but no photographs inserted behind them. She moved to it, reaching out and tipping the cover closed. A soft, chestnut velvet covered the outside of the album, with gold-and-bronze-embossed flowers and a brass clip that held the pages shut—had it been clipped properly.
She turned a few pages. Only four held photographs. The rest of the album was empty. But once her eyes locked with the woman’s in the first portrait, all warmth left her face. A soulful horror filled her, the kind that left Thea grasping for the edge of the table to keep her upright, her knees from buckling.
The woman who stared back had frozen eyes. But unlike the deceased Thea was accustomed to photographing, this woman was alive. She could tell by the shadows that indicated a natural flush in the cheeks, the tip of the head, and a tiny downward quirk to her lips. As if the subject wanted to smile but couldn’t get her mouth to cooperate. As if the hidden terrors in her soul dragged her face down into depths of misery.
Dark ringlets fell to her shoulders, the sides drawn up in a tight knot. Her left shoulder slouched lower than her right, and her chin jutted out as if she were unaware how to pose, what posture was, and even how her appendages should align with her body. She was awkward, detached, and—
“What are you doing?” A man’s hand slammed the album shut and yanked it away from Thea.
Thea yelped, leaping back, even as she lifted startled eyes to Mr. Amos’s.
Mr. Amos turned on his heel, the album tucked under his arm, and then he spun around and glowered at her. “Was Simeon here?” he barked.
Thea gave a wordless nod.
Mr. Amos searched her face as though trying to determine whether to send her packing or tolerate her for no good reason, which he already had. His eyes narrowed.
“Leave Simeon alone, you hear?”
Thea gave a quick nod. If she were four, she couldn’t have felt more reprimanded, more mortified at being caught looking at something she was not allowed to see.
“And don’t you tell anyone—anyone—he was here. Understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand.” Thea nodded again. “But I—”
“No.” Mr. Amos glared at her. “If you’re to work here and assist me, I will entertain no questions about Simeon Coyle. He is off-limits.”
“Yes, sir.” Thea hadn’t missed the insinuation that Mr. Amos was considering employing her.
“All right then.” His tone softened some. “You are welcome to stay for a bit. I’ll assess your abilities. I’d like to see your plates. Your equipment.”
Mr. Mendelsohn’s equipment, Thea mentally corrected.
“Must be the Lord’s timing, bringing you here. I’m getting old. Help isn’t a bad idea.”
He might be curmudgeonly, but Mr. Amos’s brown eyes grew misty, as if he’d warred against growing old once, but had since accepted his fate. Perhaps that was why postmortem photography bothered him. One day it would be him in the photograph.
Thea offered him a gentle smile. “I’m not sure what the Lord has to do with it, but luck is a wonderful thing.”
Mr. Amos paused and raised a bushy white brow. “The Lord has everything to do with it. Luck is just a passing fancy.” He marched from the room, not offended but with a firm step that stated he didn’t want his belief questioned.
Thea stared after him. Mrs. Mendelsohn would have agreed, but somehow she would have stated it ominously. The “Lord” had brought her here, and His club of judgment was barely restrained. Mr. Amos, on the other hand, made it sound as though God cared.
She shook her head. Perhaps He did. But never about her. And certainly not about those poor souls in Simeon Coyle’s album. The images were imprinted in her memory. Outlined with an ink so permanent, so indelible, Thea knew she would never forget them. What she’d seen—what that woman was—was someone not dead, and yet not really alive either. It was almost as though Simeon Coyle had somehow captured a soul suspended between two worlds, trapped somewhere in the middle, and imprisoned like a slave who could not break their chains.