Intersections Read online

  Daddy hadn't seen any of my performances. He'd been away for half the year on some case or another, and when he came back to find I'd been turned into some sort of sideshow act, that was the end of it.

  Rose pleaded with him, fanning out all the money I'd made that month, but Daddy just snatched up the cash and threw it in her face.

  "This is fraud," he told her. "You're forcing her to be a criminal, for God's sakes."

  Only Rose didn't see that way. She told Daddy it wasn't fraud because I could actually do it.

  I didn't know what to say. I just wanted them to stop fighting. So I told the truth. I said it was fake. It was all fake.

  The look on her face... I've never seen such a betrayed look again in my life.

  "What about Francis?" She'd started to cry. "What about my baby boy?"

  "I made all that up, Mama. I thought you knew."

  She slapped me across the face so hard my mouth filled with blood.

  "It should have been you," she said. "Francis should be here right now and you should have been the one to die." Then she turned to my father. "Go on. Take her. I never want to see her face again."

  And that was that. Daddy took a job opening an office for his agency down in Montgomery. The tutors came again and I found myself happy to be back in the South, even if I did cry myself to sleep most nights thinking of what Rose had said. I checked the mail every day, desperate to find a letter from her apologizing and saying she wanted to come home. But that letter never came.

  When we accepted this job, I honestly didn't expect her to still be here in town. That was so many years ago, after all. I wish...

  Well, enough of the maudlin. What's done is done. I have to get dressed for dinner anyhow. You run along and clean up now, Connie. I'll see you at the séance in a few hours.

  7

  The first to arrive, Rose sat me in the foyer and rushed off to prepare. I'd been in there for several minutes when the girl came in. Still in her white dress and pink ribbon, she looked like she was on her way to an Easter egg hunt.

  "Hello again," she said.

  I stood. "Hi."

  "You're early."

  "Nothing else to do."

  "That's the truth. This town is dead. Pun intended."

  We shared a smile and I was struck by how warm and lovely she was. She was about my age, too, so that definitely didn't hurt.

  Glancing around for Rose, she lowered her voice to a whisper. "Want a smoke? I stole a few cigarettes."

  "Uh, yeah."

  Grabbing our coats, I followed her outside and around back to a clump of trees. She led me into the thick of them where two rusty chairs sat hidden from view.

  "Applesauce," she said. "I forgot the matches."

  I pulled a matchbook from my pocket and her eyes went wide.

  "I could kiss you." She snatched them from me.

  "I wish you would." My cheeks instantly grew warm and I regretted saying it.

  She smiled and lit two cigarettes, reaching over and slipping one tenderly between my lips.

  A slight cough. "Rough,” she said. “You must be an old pro at this."

  "Where I grew up, if you hadn't had a cigarette by the age of nine, something was wrong with you."

  "And where's that?"

  I waved it off, not wanting to let her know I spent most of my life picking pockets and digging through trash for food. "What about you?" I asked. "What are you doing here? How do you know Rose?"

  She stared at me for long enough that I thought I'd made some kind of faux pas. Then she laughed. "You don't recognize me?"

  Her eyes did look familiar, but I was sure I'd never seen her before today. "No. Should I?"

  "I'm glad you don't. I don't get many chances for this."

  "For smoking?"

  "For being a kid." She smiled again and my heart skipped a beat. "For being a girl."

  Not sure what she meant, I simply puffed away on the cigarette.

  “The only time I really get to myself is at night. After everyone has gone to sleep, I slip out and go for a walk.”

  “Young girl like you, isn’t that dangerous?”

  “I didn’t used to think so.”

  The back door clanged open and Rose called out: "Time to get ready!"

  "Coming!" She stood and, dropping her cigarette to the ground, crushed it beneath her heel. Turning to me, she whispered, "I need to get changed."

  "For what?"

  She shook her head like I was the stupidest person she'd ever met.

  Then she leaned over and, cradling my face between her hands, pressed her lips to mine. They were warm and soft, the rough taste of cigarette smoke rolling into my mouth. An electric tingle flooded through me, warming me in the cold November night. My arms went limp and the cigarette slipped from my hand. I was lost in her, the world ceasing to exist around me, and I prayed it would never end.

  That was my first kiss, the kiss by which I've judged all others throughout life, and, eighty years later, its power still holds.

  She pulled away and spun, running through the night and out of view. I heard the door open and close again and still I sat, unable to move, not even caring about the cigarette burning out beneath me. All I could do was grin. If anyone had come upon me right then, I would have looked like a blithering idiot.

  Persephone and Simon stood in the foyer when I went back inside. Simon had been whispering something to her and she laughed before shushing him.

  "Behave," she said and gently slapped his chest. "Connie. Nice of you to finally arrive." She looked around. "Are the parents here yet?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Poor things." She sighed and opened her purse. "As fresh as this is for them, I suppose it would be good taste for me to wait until they've gone before I point out all the tricks used tonight." She rummaged around in her bag until she found a mint and handed it to me. "Your breath smells like a tobacco field. Really, Connie."

  Blushing, I popped the mint in my mouth.

  Persephone paced back and forth through the foyer, stopping to look at a vase or a gourd or a framed illustration of Gallow's Grove. It took me a moment to realize she was anxious. I'd so rarely seen her in that state, but she'd been off-kilter ever since Sir Doyle first mentioned this town. I'm sure the idea of sitting across a table from a sister she'd never met before today had fried her nerves.

  A knock at the door brought her to a standstill. Rose slipped into the foyer and glanced at Persephone before answering it. The Ennis couple stepped in, eyes wide to see the three of us.

  "Good evening," Rose said. "I'm sorry tonight's séance must take place under these circumstances. As discussed, my daughter Persephone and her assistant will be joining us. Persephone, this is Don and Mary Ennis."

  "I'm sorry for your loss," Seph said.

  "Thank you," Mary muttered, her eyes looking raw. She'd likely been crying all day.

  "And," Rose went on, "you know the mayor, of course."

  "Mr. Mayor." Don shook his hand.

  "My sympathies," Simon said.

  Don turned to Persephone. "I know this must seem strange to you, us demanding a séance the same day our daughter was..." He couldn't finish that.

  "Not at all," Seph said. "I completely understand."

  "Shall we?" Rose opened the doors to the parlor.

  The room dark, candles lit around the walls, I thought for a moment the table was a tombstone. Carved from some dark wood, its circular shape had been decorated with symbols. It wasn't until we were seated around it, Persephone on one side of me and Mary the other, that I realized they were letters.

  The alphabet had been carved into the wood, white paint filling the grooves each letter made. They were in some kind of scrambled order I couldn't decipher, things like "B" next to "V" and "O" next to "A." On either end of the table, the words "YES" and "NO" almost beamed, while the word "HELLO" was etched in front of an empty seat I assumed would be used by Madame Nephthys.

  Looking straight down, the