City of Ash (47 page)

“I have a tent,” she said as she opened the packet and bit into the bread.

“You do?”

“I am capable of simple tasks, Mrs. Wilkes,” she said snottily.

I ignored that. “You went out of hiding?”

“It was as you said. No one noticed me. Except for one very nice man who thought I was you. He was most complimentary about your work in
Black Jack
. He even put up the tent for you. By the way, you promised him tickets to the next performance. His name is David Reynolds. He’s a doctor, with a practice on Front Street.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “You pretended to be me?”

“It worked quite beautifully.”

I didn’t know what to say. The thought that she was pretending to be me … it bothered me quite a bit, actually, but what was I to do about that, given that I was the one who’d suggested it? And hadn’t I done the same to her? Unknowingly, of course, but still …

She asked, “Shall we go there?”

I nodded, shoving the gown beneath the crate that served as Sebastian’s desk, following her out. I was nervous; it was better if people didn’t see there were two of us, as long as we were going to be playing this game, but there was no one around, and those who were didn’t seem to notice us.

Mrs. Langley stopped at a tent only a short distance away. “This one.”

I glanced back at Sebastian’s tent. “Do you think it far enough?”

“I didn’t have much choice.”

She ducked inside, and I followed her, letting the flap fall
closed behind me. There was a bedroll laid out, and the jeweled clock in the corner, and nothing else.

She said, “It’s spartan, I know, but … I suppose I shall have to find a lamp and a pail of my own.”

“I’ll see what I can find when I go back to the theater.”

“You’re going back?”

“We’ve another rehearsal this afternoon. I came to tell you that there’s a charity ball at Mrs. Wilcox’s house in two nights. The company’s to do a tableau.”

She sat on the bedroll. “At Mrs. Wilcox’s house?”

She said it in a funny little voice, as if something was wrong, or not what she expected. I sat as well. “Is she important?”

“A founder’s wife,” she said. “She didn’t like me. She gave me the cut direct, in fact.”

“Well, she seems to like Nathan fine. Lucius said he’s one of the sponsors of the ball.”

She laughed. “Well, of course. How he’s moved up in the world already.” Then her eyes darkened. “How soon before we bring him down again?”

Her expression made me nervous—a Macbeth look that made me remember what she’d said about murder. But I said, “We’ll do something at the ball, of course. I have to be there anyway for this tableau, and it’s as close as I’m going to get to any society party. But there’s another thing too: Nathan’s going to be with the mayor when he gives a speech later today. At the site of the fire’s start. I thought you could appear there.”

“Where is it?”

“Front and Madison.”

“And where will you be?”

“Waiting to talk to him after,” I said. “To convince him he’s seeing a ghost.”

She smiled, and it was a mean little smile that made me wonder what was going on in her head, at the same time that I didn’t really want to know. “Perfect. It couldn’t be more perfect.”

T
he plan was easy enough. Mrs. Langley was going to go to where the speech was to be given, and stay at the very back of the crowd. We’d determined that anyone from her social circle would be up front, if they were there at all, which she doubted. “They’re too busy with relief efforts to attend speeches,” she said. But Nathan would be onstage, and he would see her. It was only supposed to be a moment, just an instant where she caught his eye, and then she was to disappear again, and I was to take her place. It was risky, I knew, but we had to start somewhere. And if Nathan searched me out after, I was to convince him he’d seen a ghost. Which was the most difficult part of the whole thing, and I admit I was nervous about it. She was right, this was all preposterous, and we were mad to try it. But if it worked … well, that was the lure, wasn’t it?

When I went back to rehearsal, everyone was already there. It went quickly; Sebastian had managed to write only a few scenes for the tableau in that two hours, and the lines were pretty much given to Jack and Aloysius, as women didn’t do much speech making in the aftermath of disasters, and most of what I had to do was to scream in terror and look mournful. Which was fine, you know, because I was distracted enough without having to learn new lines on top of it.

When rehearsal was over, I told Sebastian I was going to see Nathan at the mayor’s speech, and though he gave me this puzzled and rather amused look that I couldn’t quite understand, he shrugged and told me he’d see me at the tent later. I watched him leave and tried not to think of how much I wished I were going with him, and then I made my way to Front and Madison.

The crowd there wasn’t large; most everyone was actually working to rebuild their businesses instead of just talking about it, but it was enough of one that she would have time to escape if he decided to come after her. They’d put down a wooden pallet to stand on, and there were police at attention on either side and an American flag hanging from a pole above. The mayor was
already speaking, Nathan and someone else I didn’t know were nodding somberly.

“… in tents,” the mayor was saying. “We will widen the streets and, at long last, rid ourselves of the deadly corner of Commercial and Front, that menace known as ‘the throat,’ where so many accidents have taken lives and property—”

I hung back in the shadow of a tent, where I could see but not be seen, and looked around, wondering where she was. The mayor kept speaking, now about the charity ball planned to raise money for the dispossessed, and Nathan kept nodding, the sun glancing off his fair hair. Every now and then, he looked out at the crowd. “Come on,” I murmured to myself. “Come on, Mrs. Langley—”

And then I saw her. Moving quickly, her too-long, bustleless skirt swishing about her legs and dragging on the dust. She glanced around—looking for me, no doubt, but at this point I didn’t dare try to catch her attention. Instead I watched Nathan, waiting for him to spot her, my heart pounding hard. I saw her move to the back of the crowd, and she was looking at him too, waiting, and his gaze cast out, roving, roving, and then.…

He went so still it was as if someone had turned him to stone.

It was a moment, maybe two. I could see his shock from where I stood. He mouthed something—her name, I thought.
Get out of there now. Now. Go now
, and she didn’t go. She didn’t go, and Nathan looked away to say something to that man who stood beside him, and it was all I could do to keep from screaming at her to get out of there.

Then, as if she read my mind, she turned, lifting her skirts, hurrying away, past a semi-erected tent, and then she was gone, and I raced forward to take her place at the edge of the crowd, looking up to see the man Nathan had spoken to glancing through the crowd. I saw when he noted me, when he whispered something back to Nathan, who frowned in confusion, shaking his head.

“—and soon, Seattle will be not just the city she was, but our queen city, the jewel of the Northwest, and of our soon-to-be state of Washington!”

The crowd erupted in applause. Nathan’s gaze riveted to me. I gave him a stupid little wave.

The mayor stepped down. The crowd began to disperse. Now it was time to play my part. I stood there waiting, because, you know, I couldn’t just walk up to
him
there. But he didn’t come to me. Instead he stepped up to the mayor, speaking intently and quickly, and the mayor frowned and motioned for the police. When they approached, he spoke to them as well, and two of them fanned out. Searching for her, I knew, and I hoped she’d got a good distance away.

Nathan came off the makeshift stage, pushing his way through the dwindling crowd until he got to me. “How long have you been here?”

“It’s wonderful to see you as well,” I said.

His frown grew deeper. “How long?”

“A few moments. I only heard the end of his speech. Very well done.”

“Did you see her? Did you see Ginny?”

“Your wife? You mean you found her?”

“No. But I thought I saw her. Standing just where you are. A few moments ago.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“I know my own wife,” he snapped, but he looked disturbed. “You didn’t see her?”

“No one’s seen her,” I said softly. “There’s not even the rumor of it. It’s been four days, Nathan. Perhaps you might want to consider that she might … that she must have been caught in the fire.”

He was hardly listening. He looked beyond me. “I saw her. I know I did. She was as real as you are standing there now.”

I put my hand on his arm and made my voice as soothing as I could. “Perhaps you did see her. But perhaps she wasn’t …”

His gaze riveted to mine. “Wasn’t what?”

“Alive,” I said.

He looked taken aback. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged. “We do a lot of plays with ghosts in them. You
know,
Hamlet
. Or even
Penelope Justis
. The dead are always coming back to haunt the living.”

“This is not a
play,
” he said.

“Of course not.”

“Are you telling me that you think I saw a ghost?”

“I don’t know. I’m only saying it might be a possibility.”

He laughed. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

“I don’t discount it. I know a great many spiritualists.”

“Oh for God’s sake. Mumbo jumbo stupidity.”

“Of course you’re right.” I stepped away. “I’m sorry I mentioned it. No doubt you saw her, and she’s running around the city like a madwoman.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“It’s only that it seems strange that no one else has seen her, and I’ve heard no rumors of anyone suffering amnesia.”

Nathan sighed and put his hand to his eyes. “Dear God. I know it’s … Everyone seems to agree that she must be dead. Perhaps I was … imagining things.”

I nodded, trying to keep from smiling. “I suggest you go home and lie down. Take a headache powder. It must be very stressful, all these meetings.”

“Yes,” he said. “I think you’re right. I should lie down.”

“Well … I should be going. Rehearsals, you know.”

Nathan looked up. “So late?”

“Lucius is a slave driver.” I turned to go. “Good night.”

He grabbed my arm, stopping me. “You’ll be at the ball?”

I nodded. “Mr. DeWitt is writing the tableau even as we speak. I think you’ll be happy with it.”

“You’ll stay with me after,” he said, and it was no question, which irritated me, you know, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

“All right,” I said.

His finger traced softly up the inside of my arm, and his eyes grew warm with that ardor I’d come to dread. “I’m sorry to neglect you. I’ve been very busy.”

“Of course,” I said, drawing gently away. “You’ve a city to rebuild.”

“Yes. And … Ginny’s absence has things quite … chaotic. Her father is beside himself and—” He shook his head a little, as if to clear his thoughts, or as if he only just realized that it was inappropriate to talk of his wife’s father with his mistress.

“Mr. Langley!” one of the police officers called.

Nathan glanced over his shoulder and then back to me. “I must go.” And then he was off, and I was glad.

I hurried away before he could think better of it and call me back, hoping that the things I’d said to him sank into him tonight when he was lying in his cold bed in the dark, with nothing to think about but his wife and what he’d been willing to do to her, and I let myself smile at last.

Geneva

S
he came to my tent that evening, bearing another packet of bread, which I ate just as rapidly as always—I had never been so hungry; my stomach seemed to rumble constantly.

“I can’t stay long.” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed tent flap. “I don’t want him to grow suspicious.”

“Where does he think you’ve gone?”

“To the privy.”

“Then we must be quick,” I agreed. “How did it go with Nathan today?”

“You got away all right? The police never saw you?”

“What police?”

She smiled. “The ones the mayor sent after you.”

I didn’t understand her smile; the idea filled me with dread. “He did? What if they come here? What if they—”

“They won’t. They’ve already been here, remember? And no one believes Nathan saw you. They think it was me.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw their faces. And the police—well, that was halfhearted at best. Nathan said himself that everyone believes you’re dead.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. How quickly they’d all come to that conclusion. But then, how little they’d cared for me. What a relief it must be to them all, to have me gone. “Well, that makes it easier then, doesn’t it?”

“To convince him you’re a ghost? Oh yes. He doesn’t believe it yet, but he will, I promise it.”

“How confident you are.”