She directed me to a small, square building with open windows and a screen door. Out front, there was a porch with a sunshade and three bistro tables—none of which were occupied. I might have considered it a bad sign, but when Alice opened the door, a warm, pleasant collection of odors wafted out: cooking plantains, toasting bread, melting cheese . . . and unless I missed it, just a hint of rum. I’m sure they use it for cooking, and I’m sure they use it for drinking. Prohibition is a silly thing when rum is as easy to buy as a soft drink.
The woman at the counter was named Candice Pearson, and when introductions were made, she offered to produce a traditional Cuban sandwich. Or two, since Alice thought the idea sounded grand. I asked how Mrs. Pearson had guessed, and she said that she hadn’t, exactly. But this was a town of clairvoyants, and I should get used to having people know things without having been told.
“We don’t guess so much as intuit.” She winked. She handed us each a glass of water and told us to have a seat outside.
After she disappeared into the kitchen, Alice collected some napkins and led the way to one of the round tables with the pretty metalwork chairs. “She’s right about everyone here knowing your business,” she said. “It takes some getting used to.” She pulled out her own seat before I could offer to do so.
I drew a chair for myself and sat down. “I don’t mind the lack of privacy. I am here because I need the advice of those who . . . who can see more than I can see, and know more than I can know. Even if it means sharing an awkward secret or two.”
Between bites of a serviceable sandwich (a little heavy on the mustard, but otherwise good), I gave Alice the barest outline of recent events. “The first fires were small nuisances, and I thought there might have been a problem with the wires in my house. Then there were more fires—bigger fires—and in the ashes left behind, I found images like these.” I pulled a ruined piece of fabric from inside my jacket, where I’d kept it all this time. I unfolded it and laid it out flat on the table between us.
She set the last bites of her sandwich aside and wiped her hands (and dabbed at her mouth) with a napkin. She did not touch the fabric at that time. Instead, she used the back edge of her unused knife to turn it toward her. “Good heavens, would you look at that!”
“It’s not my imagination, is it?”
“No, not at all. It’s clear as day: a handprint. A left handprint, to be more precise—from someone with long, slender fingers. And”—she squinted—“a ring? A wedding ring?”
“Yes! That was how I saw it, too!”
“How did you make this image? Or how did it happen, I mean? You didn’t just light it on fire; what is this, wool?”
“Yes, it’s wool. I used an iron and left it too long in place.”
“I see, I see.” But I wondered why she did not touch. “And there are other examples?”
“I have a few others in my luggage. But the largest and most grand were on the wall of my house and inside the kitchen sink. There was a good one in the bathtub, too, but it is cast iron—and no more easily carried to Cassadaga than the house itself.”
I could not read her expression as she stared down at the cloth, still prodding it with the dull end of the knife. She was thoughtful, to be certain. She was concerned, I guess. I think she might have been afraid, but I hoped not. It wouldn’t do for both of us to approach this with terror.
Still, I had to tell her the truth—even if I told it gently, and in a roundabout fashion. “After these little fires, and the bigger fires, and the fires that I created in search of more images . . . there was a terrible one. My neighbor, Carmella Vasquez. Her house burned down, with her inside it. Everyone thought Felipe was inside, too, but he turned up alive and the police gave him to me. He has no one else.”
“The poor little thing.” She looked up from the scrap. “And his poor owner, too!”
“The fire chief said that she was smoking and fell asleep. It happens, I’m sure.”
“Just like theaters burn down because of the film and the hot projectors. It happens, I’m sure.”
Her tone unnerved me. It wasn’t exactly thoughtful, certain, or frightened. It was the tone of a woman who has been told one thing but believes another. “You suspect foul play with regards to the theater?” I used the term the thugs do in the mystery dreadfuls.
“Something like that. I was inside the theater when the reel caught fire. I barely escaped with my life, and now you show me this fabric, with this pattern on it. You tell me about your little fires . . .” She set down the knife and hovered her hand above the wool like she wished to touch it but had some concerns about doing so.
“You can pick it up, if you wish.”
“I do wish to pick it up, but at the same time . . . I don’t. Mr. Cordero,” she said my name to announce a change of subject. “What did you do during the Great War?”
“I . . . I fought.”
“For that matter, how does a man from an island end up fighting thousands of miles away, on behalf of another country?”
“That is a story of another war,” I said, more defensiveness in my voice than I intended. “It was fought when I was a child, and then I was brought here. This is my country—and when the Great War came, I left Ybor City to defend it. I fought in Germany and France, and I—”
“But how did you fight? What did you fight with?”
I might’ve answered her, as best as I was able. I might have tried to explain the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector, and if I told my story well, I could have made it sound valiant and glorious. It was both of those things, when viewed from a certain angle (from hindsight, I guess). At the time, it was messy and hot and miserable.
I would have told her all of this, but we were interrupted.
Two women came over to Candy’s, presumably for lunch, and they both stopped in their tracks when they saw us. Or I should say, when they saw me. They looked at me with widened eyes, as if I’d sprouted an extra head.
Alice called out, “Hello,” in a pointed fashion, the kind of fashion that says it isn’t polite to stare. Though who am I to guess what is polite here, where people know one another’s thoughts and sense one another’s secrets?
The older of the two women was taller and lighter, with longer hair. Cautiously, she returned the greeting, and said, “Alice, I see that you have a visitor.”
“Yes, this is Mr. Tomás Cordero, of Ybor City. He’s come to the camp to learn about the faith and receive some counsel with regard to his departed wife. Tomás,” she said. She used my first name now—implying by familiarity that they were being rude, I believe. “This is Dolores Brigham and Imogene Cook.”
Both of them approached, crowding the little table. I squirmed and reached for the burned fabric swatch before they could see it for themselves. It was private, a thing between Alice and myself. It wasn’t theirs to touch.
Imogene was shorter and stockier, with short, dark hair and spectacles. She wore an air of directness like a large hat that shadowed her every move. “What’s that?” she asked me as I stuffed it back into my pocket. Then she asked Alice, “Is this some kind of official business? Because you really ought to conduct it on the right side of the tracks.”
“This is a getting-to-know-you lunch, and it’s happening over here because we wanted sandwiches,” she stubbornly replied. “What’s it matter to you, Imogene?”
Dolores stepped in, with more caution. “There are . . . protections within the camp’s boundaries.”
Alice looked as blank as could be. “Since when?”
“Since 1897,” she replied.
“Well, it’s news to me, and we’re only eating and talking, so it doesn’t matter. Besides, I don’t have an office or a parlor to see clients. Where should we meet when the time for business comes?”
“In the hotel, there are rooms you can reserve for consultations. Or you can pick a time at H
armony Hall or work out of my home, if you like. Take some tea and sit on the bookstore porch—or in the fellowship hall at the rear. But stay over there,” Dolores Brigham pleaded softly. “Stay where the best measures have been taken.”
“Something’s strange about this one,” declared Imogene Cook. She cocked a thumb at me and frowned like I’d done her some great wrong. “It’s something to do with the theater. There’s something attached to him . . .” She fluttered her hands, like she was waving away a puff of smoke.
Dolores took her by the arm and said, “Imogene . . .”
“He only just arrived. He had nothing to do with the theater,” Alice said.
“No,” Imogene protested. “There’s fire all around him.”
“There was a fire at his house,” my companion clarified. “That’s all. You’re seeing both that and the theater. Leave him alone.”
She dug in. “No, there’s something with him.”
“He’s got a little dog with him, but he left it up in the hotel to have a nap. Go away, Imogene, if you’re going to be discourteous to my . . . my friend.”
“So he’s not a client?”
“You’ve never helped a friend in a professional capacity?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Stop asking questions and let us finish our lunch.”
“We will.” Dolores drew Imogene away from the table, her face a knot of worry all the same. “I apologize for any disturbance. It was only the fire at Mr. Cordero’s house, as you said. I’m sure that’s all it is. It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said with a dip of her head.
I replied in kind.
They left us alone, and Alice visibly relaxed. “I do not like that woman, Imogene. She says whatever’s on her mind, no matter how useless it is—and she’s always so nosy. Can’t mind her own business to save her life.”
“Thank you for leaping to my defense.”
“Think nothing of it. You gave me an excuse to send her packing.” The dear girl scowled. “She shouldn’t have bothered you like that. And what’s this about protections at the campsite? No one said boo about it until now.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A few weeks, so . . . not long, in the grand scheme of things. I know, I know—there’s still plenty for me to learn—but you’d think someone might’ve mentioned it sooner. Instead they talk about the property’s boundaries at the gates, like they’re just as magical and holy as things that come in threes.” Now she was stewing, and it was a joy to watch. “Well, they don’t have Candy’s on the other side, so to hell with their gates.”
I laughed.
She then apologized with a ferocity to match her original blasphemy. “And did you know,” she went on, “that spiritualists are teetotalers? They don’t drink or smoke, or anything.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s what they say in public, but no, not really. Candy has a speakeasy in the back, where you can drink what you want and smoke if you like. But a lot of them live as clean as they can, to which I can only say, ‘Good for them.’ As for me, I like a nightcap without any judgment, thank you very much. Apparently you can only get one of those on this side of the tracks.”
We finished our meal, and she still was anxious and irritated, so I asked her to show me around the camp. It gave her something to do other than fidget and swear.
We started on Stevens Street, and she took me on a loop around the two small lakes that anchor the campgrounds. On the way, we met a handful of the locals, and she introduced me enough times that I will never remember anyone else’s name—but perhaps some of them may recall mine. Everyone seemed pleasant and welcoming, though a few gave me odd looks. Not so odd as Imogene Cook (whose name is emblazoned in my head), but I could see right away that there was something about me that worried them.
• • •
WAS it my speech? My English is perfection. I’ve spoken it since I was eight or nine years old. I am darker than some people here, but lighter than others. I’ve seen a number of colored men and women—all from up north, as Alice told me—and two or three Indians. No other Cubans, or anyone else speaking Spanish so far, which I do find odd. This is Florida. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere in the state without hearing my mother tongue somewhere, on some stoop or in some park.
Alice noted that most of the people in attendance (and most of the long-term residents, too) were from New England, and I probably seemed exotic to them. She said my accent is lovely, and they are only being strange to me because I am different. She said I should not judge them too harshly, for novelty makes people curious.
I know she’s right, but I do not like being a spectacle—especially not when my business has burned and the newspapers or policemen may call me out, seeking to return me to Ybor City for questions. Silvio may not satisfy them with whatever answers he provides, and someone may come looking.
I wonder what newspapers this little town receives. I wonder how many people read them. I wonder how far word of my burned-up shop will spread.
Surely, not so far as this?
• • •
BY evening, I was warm and tired but feeling considerably better—by virtue of the company and the calm, friendly town. I considered returning to the room to take a nap or turn in very early, and I said so to Alice. But I said it within earshot of a mustachioed, balding man with warm eyes and a wide smile, and so my plans were derailed.
He introduced himself as Oscar Fine, president of the campground organization.
“I hope you will reconsider, as we’re holding our first open reading of the new meeting sessions. Have a cup of coffee from the hotel and come join us! We have a new crop of visitors, and the last crop has largely left us. My son, David, is participating for only the second time.”
Alice cocked her head. “I didn’t know David did . . . anything, come to think of it.”
“His abilities are hit-or-miss,” his father confessed. “But he’s been developing them for the last year. His first open reading went fairly well, and I’m hoping for his sake that tonight’s goes even better. Sometimes I fear that he’s not as firmly committed to the process as he ought to be.”
Alice failed to stifle a giggle. “I’m sure he’ll be marvelous.”
I was unclear on the concept of an open reading, but they filled me in, and it sounded intriguing—if vaguely alarming. So far as spiritualism, and speaking to the dead, and communicating with things beyond the veil went . . . this was a dive into the deepest part of the ocean.
What would I say? What would I do, if Evelyn came forward to offer me some message that did not come from a scorched bit of cloth?
In the end, my desire to hear from her—even the possibility of hearing from her—won out, and I asked if it would be all right to bring Felipe, who had been cooped up in the hotel room for several hours.
Mr. Fine assured me that it would be no problem for me to keep the little dog by my side so long as he was not disruptive. After the president was gone, Alice said, “Believe me, Felipe will be about the least disruptive thing in the pavilion. I did an open reading once. It went . . .”
“Yes?”
“It went . . . disruptively. At best, there was crying. At worst, there was fainting. But in the end, the people who received messages from their loved ones on the other side . . . they all seemed satisfied with the experience.”
“People fainted?”
“I fainted. Tell me, though—are you hungry again? I’m hungry again. It’s a little early for supper, but not so early that I’d like to go without.”
I told her the truth: that I was content to wait another few hours for an evening meal. The sun had not yet begun to set, and Felipe was waiting for me. With that in mind, Alice walked me back to the grocery—where I picked up some meats and cheese for snacks, for both myself and the dog. He had declined the bagged dog food I’d found before we
left, but I doubted he’d turn up his nose at some good salami or pepperoni.
Alice left me in the hotel lobby, and we agreed to meet again in an hour so that we could walk down to the church together for the open reading.
Felipe yawned when I opened the door, then sniffed the air with interest as I entered carrying the paper-wrapped lunch meats in a little bag. I convinced him to eat. We shared a little cheese. Then I leashed him up to take him outside, where he pissed on every corner of the garden beside the porch.
I said to him, “I think we’ve come to the right place. I think everything might be all right. Eventually.”
He gave me a quizzical frown, but that’s what he usually gives me.
“At least, our hopes are higher here than they would be anywhere else.”
17
ALICE DARTLE
Cassadaga, Florida
AFTER AN HOUR or so, I reunited with Tomás in the hotel lobby—where I found him seated by the front door, with his little dog, Felipe, in his lap. They both perked up when they saw me, which is a good way to make a girl feel nice. Even a girl who hasn’t been wholly forthcoming.
Tomás stood up and put Felipe gently on the floor, where he remained tethered by a red leash. I didn’t think he needed it, to be honest. The dog didn’t seem interested in leaving his master’s side, and who could blame him? After everything the poor fellow had been through . . . I’d stick close to my only friend, too.
“Are you ready?”
“Of course,” said Tomás, with just a tad too much forced certainty. I didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that he was fibbing. It was only fibbing, though. He was trying to be game, not deceptive.
I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, either. I had a bad feeling about it, and I was rather annoyed with Oscar Fine for suggesting it. Tomás’s dead wife was trying to reach him through warm and violent means, or so it appeared—and maybe she was trying to reach me, as well. I know I’m not the one who set the fire in my washroom sink, and the list of possible arson candidates is short indeed.