Shadows Gray (26 page)

Israel raps on the door and it is opened to us directly.  A man of medium height with sunken cheekbones and deep set eyes stands on the other side of the threshold and at first I am startled by his menacing appearance; suddenly then he smiles and it’s as though his face has transformed into something light and whimsical. The eyes that seemed so dark a split second before are dancing with warmth and he looks positively excited to see us, bedraggled and destitute, at his door.

“Ah, Dr Rhode!  So good to see you!  So good, so good indeed!  Come in now, come in out of the cold and I’ll have Lu put the kettle on for tea.”   He sweeps us in with long arms.

I take in my surroundings with the expertise of one who has taken in many and has practice at assessing situations quickly.  The carpet is a red that once was most likely lush and bold in color, though it has faded with time and wear.  The furnishings are clean but shabby.  I am no expert at nineteenth century fads to know if it is dated but I would say that it is.  The lighting is a simple oil lamp that gives off a softness but hardly any illumination and so everything looks darker than it really is without the glow of modern electricity that I have grown so accustomed to.  It will take retraining myself, I think, to keep from entering a room and feeling for that familiar switch on the wall even if half the time I forgot to flip it when I had the chance.

“Dr Smythe, this is Noah Gray, and this is Sonnet.  My wife.”  Israel doesn’t even falter or shrink from the words.  And here I thought he had a harder time lying than the rest of us. 

I almost put out my hand to shake Dr Smythe’s but then remember that is probably not the greeting a woman in this age would offer.  Instead I smile and drop the smallest of curtsies.

The woman he had referred to as Lu has tea in our hands almost instantly.  She is petite and silent.  She appears to be several years her husband’s senior although perhaps life has aged her prematurely.  Or perhaps age has been uncommonly kind to the good doctor.  I smile at her and thank her for the tea but she doesn’t lift her eyes to mine and she remains silent.   Great, I think, I’ll be stuck here while Israel doctors every day and night with a silent unfriendly woman as my only friend.  Well, maybe she can help me brush up on my Chinese…mine is terrible since I’ve hardly had a use for it until now.

The rest of the evening is dull and slow.  We are stuck in that place between boredom and politeness and forced manners that you always find yourself in when spending time with new people.  The doctor is friendly enough and he doesn’t pry too much but it is difficult making small talk when everything you’re saying is a lie.  His wife, Lu, never speaks, but since I’ve had practice myself pretending not to understand a language when I do, I can tell she understands us all well enough.  Her eyes narrow at certain spots in the conversation and once I see her mouth twitch when her husband is telling us an amusing tale of life in London.

We drink tea and eat a spicy soup with a clear broth that hardly seems to be anything more than water and spices with a few chunks of some sort of green leafy vegetables that float in our bowls, but it is surprisingly filling and tasty.  I can’t help but be concerned that they will able to feed us; their place is shabby and their cupboards bare enough without three more adults.  Perhaps that is why Lu is silent and pensive.

After supper and more painful small talk we can no longer hide our yawning behind our hands and everyone retires.  Dad makes himself comfortable on the couch in the living area which I’m sure feels like our old house to him, except theirs is hard and unforgiving while ours back home was soft and could practically swallow you whole.  Lu walks Israel and I up the stairs and to our room and exits again without a word.

It is very tiny, it would qualify as a closet in more modern houses, but it’s clean enough and it’s warm.  There is a lamp and a small writing desk.  The bed is small and covered in two quilts.  I flop on it gratefully.

“I know this should be awkward but I’m way too tired and I suppose we’ve slept in more embarrassing places,” I yawn some more.  “I get the fluffy pillow though.”  I toss the other, more flat one, at Israel.

Israel doesn’t attempt to catch it, just lets it fall to his feet.   He is looking…uncomfortable? Embarrassed? 

“What?” I can’t help laughing at his pained expression.  “This was your bright idea, remember?  You can remember that when you’re trying to get comfortable on the cold, hard floor.”

“Thanks,” he mutters, finally shaking himself out of his stupor.  “Can I at least get the fluffy pillow then if you’re going to make me sleep on the floor?”

“Heck no.  Aw, look at the cute pajamas they set out for you!”  I hold them up for his inspection.  They’re less like pajamas and much more resemble a nightgown.  I stifle another spurt of laughter but am unsuccessful and I giggle like a school girl while Israel grabs them out of my hands.

“Are you sure this isn’t supposed to be for you?” he grouses, holding it up against himself.

“Nope, this one’s mine,” I gesture to the other folded pile next to me. “I don’t have quite as many ruffles,” I erupt in peals of laughter again and have to hold my stomach.

  “There’s no way I’m wearing this.  It’s too short anyway.  My legs will freeze.  Now give me a blanket; the big one.”  He pulls it out from under me like a magician who yanks out a tablecloth and leaves all the place settings.  I am left on the bed, trying to get my giggles under control. 

“What are you doing now?”  I lean over and watch Israel as he is gingerly pulling back the dust ruffle on the bed and peering under.  “Looking for bogey men?”

“Spiders,” comes the muffled reply. “I despise spiders.”

I start laughing again and only stop when my breath runs out.

********************

The next couple of days are long and slow and dreadfully monotonous.  I help Lu around the house as much as I can but it is obvious she is a loner and I am only in the way.  I spy her with a basket of clothes and surprise her by speaking enough broken Chinese that we can get a sort of hobbled conversation going.  The clothes, she says, are either forms of payments from patients of Dr. Smythe’s, or hand-me-downs.  They are for Dad and Israel and I, and she apologizes for their condition.  I thank her graciously (dear old Lady Halloway’s muslin is getting a bit of a funk to its smell so I am rather grateful).  I am not so grateful when Lu informs me I need to be wearing a corset.

“You’ll need it anyway to get into this one; it’s very small,” she holds up a yellow dress with a million tiny buttons.  It looks like it would fit Emme, not me.  Lu sees my doubtful air and presses it into my hands along with the blasted corset.  “You’ll look very nice,” she says, and I see her smile for the first time in the three days I’ve known her.

“Yes, I’ll make a very nice looking corpse,” I agree a few minutes later as Lu yanks on the laces of the corset.  “Holy Moses, woman!  I can’t breathe!”

As a parting shot, she pulls them another centimeter tighter and pats my head in a mothering way.  “You’ll live,” she replies, cheerfully.  My, my, Lu just needed to see someone in pain for her mood to lighten.  I must introduce her to Prue soon.  Prue and Lu.  They’ll be quite the vaudeville act in my sorry life.

While standing in the yellow dress and instrument of torture that is my corset is painful enough, trying to sit in it, with the whale bones poking into each and every rib and my lungs collapsing in agony and surrender is even worse, and so I decide to walk for the afternoon and try to find Bea or Emme or Luke.  I have seen Bea once the day before yesterday, along with Joe, but I can’t help worrying both for Emme, who is playing a dangerous game in a dirty city, and for Luke, who is attempting to live through his first travel as a Lost.  He must be so bewildered.

I retrace my steps as best I can, from the afternoon we left Luke and walked to Smythe’s place.  I am sure I probably walk in circles and am getting myself hopelessly lost, but it seems right.  I seem to think I remember this particular storefront, and that particular cranky looking man who barks at me to buy his fish.  I am almost certain this is the neighborhood we woke up in and I believe I can see the blue doorway that Emme said she arrived near.  There’s the store across the way that Luke said he found himself behind.  I remember the smell of sweated cabbage that is the Thames and since my breath is coming in short shallow gasps now, I think I’d better stop and take a rest.  Since sitting is too desperately uncomfortable, I choose to lean against the nearest building and stare out at the water.  I hear the barking of the fish man from a block away and since the day is bright and sunny – somewhat of a rarity in England, especially in rainy December – the street is bustling with people.  I hardly notice when someone slows their walking and stops a short distance from me.  Out of my peripheral vision I see a figure in a charcoal gray cape but that is all I see until the person speaks and I spin to face the speaker.

“Hello, sister,” says Rose. “I knew you would find me.”                                                     

Chapter Twenty-Five

I feel calm, shockingly so.  I don’t feel as though my legs will collapse or that I can’t breathe, the way I felt the other times I saw Rose.  Instead, my thoughts are collected and tranquil and I do not shake or feel faint.  I do feel though, that my heart is beating exceedingly loudly and that my feeble ribs will not be able to contain it much longer.  They may snap like dried kindling, allowing my heart to leap out like a wild, untamed thing.

“I knew you’d come,” she says lightly.  Her eyes avoid mine and she speaks evenly.  The hood of her gray cape is low over her forehead, and I can see her blonde hair straggling out in wispy strands that blow softly around her face.  She has a soft spoken voice that sounds nearly childlike.

She is close enough to touch, but something holds me back.  Trepidation of some sort.  Or a fear that she will disappear like a phantom or a spirit if I reach out.  Will my hand pass right through her like an apparition?  I won’t try it.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I say softly, almost the way I would speak to a scared child or a wounded animal.  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Why would you think that?” she asks lightly, pulling her cape closer around her bird like frame and staring out at the river. “I’m your sister, aren’t I? Don’t we belong together, you and I?”

“Yes,” I swallow hard. “We do.  But we’ve been apart so long.  Are you-” I don’t know how to finish my question: are you alright, are you happy, are you really here?

“Oh, I’m fine, sister,” she still doesn’t look at me; though she turns her head to face me, her eyes stare blankly at a spot over my shoulder and she brings her hand to her mouth and begins to nibble at her nails. “You?  You’ve been well all these years? Living with our father?”

“Yes.  He’ll be so anxious to see you and so happy too.” What a ridiculous understatement. “Will you,” I clear my throat. “Will you come and see him?”

“Oh, not today.  I’m very busy today. Perhaps another time.” She pulls her hand away from her mouth then and I wince at the sight of blood lining her cuticles.  She has bitten them to the quick.

“Another time?  No, Rose, please.  Please come with me.”  I am confused by her attitude and it shows itself in my shaky voice.  I finally reach out and touch her arm, just touch it lightly.  She moves away with an apologetic smile.

“No, no, I really mustn’t.  I have to finish my walk and I have to meet my friend.  I don’t like to upset my schedule.  It’s not good for me to upset my schedule.  The doctors say so. You understand.”

“What doctors, Rose?   Are you ill?”  Is this my fate then; to find my sister and lose her so quickly to some dreadful disease?  My heart begins its terrible thudding in my chest again and this time when I reach out, I grasp her arm more forcefully.

She shakes me off with unanticipated strength and shakes her head at me.  “No, no, don’t pull on me, I don’t like it.” She frowns and brushes the spot on her elbow where I had grabbed her as if the touch is implanted or seared on her cape.  As if I’ve soiled it.

“But what doctors, Rose?”

“The ones at the hospital, silly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Not now,” she narrows her eyes. “The doctors aren’t here because they are all dead.  From before, they were here before, like I was here before. You travel like me so you must know.”  She speaks impatiently, like she doesn’t like explaining and I am beginning to exasperate her.

I don’t understand but I will change the subject if what I’m saying agitates her.  “Where are you staying?”

“Home, of course.  I’m always home. Sometimes home is different but it’s alright because it isn’t the hospital.  I don’t want to go back to the hospital but I always do.”  She shakes her head vehemently and her hood falls back.  Her hair is dirty and stringy yet she is impossibly beautiful. 

“I won’t make you go back to the hospital.” I promise.  Again, I speak as I would to a cornered animal that I’m afraid would bolt if I were to scare it.

“Were you there?” Rose cocks her head to the side and for the first time, stares directly into my eyes.  It’s like looking into a looking glass: her pale eyes are the exact shade as mine. “You look familiar.  Do you know me?”

“Of course I do.  I’m Sonnet, your sister.  Remember?”  I want to cry but I swallow back the lump in my throat.

“Oh yes.  I forgot, but now I remember,” she laughs at herself. “Sometimes I can be so silly. We weren’t at the hospital together, we were babies together.  Yes,” her voice slows, “We were babies but you left me behind. How could you, Sonnet?”  She looks devastated.