“Do you really feel he’s so unbending, Anne?” Beatrix asked softly.
Anne’s shoulders pinched together in the way they always did when she was about to grasp even tighter to her opinion, and Violet prepared to make her case once more, but then something flickered across her sister’s eyes, dulling the hard glint there.
“Whenever he speaks about the spirits, it’s as if he’s truly lived their joys and fears,” she whispered. “I can see the sympathy so clearly etched across his face. It makes me wonder ”
Anne paused then, letting the unspoken words linger in the silence, but her sisters understood their meaning nonetheless.
Would his sympathy for wandering souls be enough to overcome his desire for the ring?
“I’ll do my best,” Anne finally relented. “Though I can’t say that I’m looking forward to our conversation.”
“You should go to the apartment to see what you can find,” Violet suggested. “And bring Vincent with you to help. Memories are lingering there, so potent that you can feel the weight ofthem whenever you draw a breath. Together you may be able to uncover something that I haven’t been able to see.”
“Perhaps,” Anne repeated, though she didn’t sound as certain as Violet had.
“And while you’re dealing with Vincent, I’m going to have a talk with our landlady,” Violet added. “Now that we have a name, she may be able to tell us a thing or two.”
Though Brigit hadn’t seemed to know anything about the history of the building, a sudden urge to ask her again was prickling at the corners of Violet’s awareness, so potent that it made her temples tingle. She would trust herself this time, following her impulses instead of burying them beneath the weight of the worst possibilities.
Anne nodded in agreement as she leaned forward to let the rich notes of cocoa and hazelnuts chase away the worst of the day’s worries.
But just as she touched the warm porcelain to her lips, something on the other side of the window made her grow still.
“What is it?” Violet asked as she watched her sister’s face fall.
Instead of answering, though, Anne rose from her chair and moved toward the glass pane, pushing aside the curtains so that her sisters could see through the window.
“Medusa’s curls,” Violet cursed when she turned around and saw what awaited them there.
The snowflakes that had been drifting to the sidewalk only moments before were now shifting in the opposite direction, like stars on strings that were being slowly lifted by a puppeteer who realized too late that they weren’t meant to be in the scene.
“Our time is running out,” Anne whispered, her declaration fogging the glass as she gazed out the window and wondered how long they had before the threads of Fate were so frayed that they wouldn’t have a hope of weaving them back together.
CHAPTER 29
A Spider
Appears just before a time of creativity.
As Beatrix walked along the sidewalk the next morning, she scanned the streets, searching for anything else that might have shifted in the night.
The woolen figures shuffling beside her had their heads pointed firmly to the ground, the heat of their breath coming in clouds that rose from beneath their hoods and hats. Their heels were tapping quickly against the stones, as if they believed moving at a faster pace might give them a chance of overtaking the icy whip of the wind. Though the people who called Chicago home were more than willing to cast a smile at those who passed by in the warmth of summer, the frigid grip of winter kept them from noticing anything beyond their tightly clasped hands.
As Beatrix turned her own face upward and straightened her shoulders to get a full view of the street, she couldn’t help but feel grateful that the unrelenting edge of a particularly cold day had caused everyone’s attention to move inward.
Though nothing was out of place enough to cause anyone to halt in their tracks, a few unusual details emerged for those who lingered long enough in one spot: faint light pouring out of a thirdstory window in the way it only does in the pitchdarkness of night, reflections in shopfront windows that didn’t quite match the silhouettes of the people shuffling by, and curbsides that felt like they were five inches taller than they actually were, causing an unexpected sinking feeling in the stomach of anyone who had the misfortune of stepping down too quickly.
Worse still was the odd sensation that something important had been left behind.
At first, Beatrix believed this uneasiness was brewing from within, but the longer she walked, the more she suspected that the other people on the street were plagued by a similar feeling. She kept bumping into women who stopped abruptly on the sidewalk to peer into their reticules with concerned expressions that pinched their eyebrows too tightly together. And the men kept patting the breasts of their coat pockets and playing with the rims of their hats, as if deliberating whether or not to turn back around.
Something felt like it was sliding slowly offkilter, enough that people kept reaching for their pocket watches and pearl drop earrings to ensure that they were still in place. And though most pushed aside this odd apprehension, attributing it to nothing more than the short days and cold weather, Beatrix knew better.
When she saw the chipped paint of the bookshop’s storefront from beneath the rim of her hood, Beatrix peered up at the sign and wondered, not for the first time that morning, whether she was making the right choice. How could she justify settling into the wingback chair beside the shelves for yet another afternoon when so much hung in the balance?
She’d started to express as much at the breakfast table, only to have her worries cut to the quick by Violet and Anne, who’dthrown a woolen cloak across her shoulders and shoved her out into the street faster than Beatrix could draw in a breath to protest.
“We need a good turn of Fate,” Anne had said as she threw a knit scarf out the door. “And she’s best found when you least expect her.”
