Free In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

leave his photographs hanging on my wall toremind me that something beautiful once happened in the middle of all the year’s horrors.”
    She pulled me against her side and sniffed back tears. “All right. But keep your heart guarded. I know what it’s like to have love turn agonizing. There’s nothing more painful in the world.”
    NO ONE ANSWERED THE STUDIO DOOR AT DAWN. WE stood outside the Emberses’ house in a fog so thick we couldn’t see the Pacific across the street.
    I tugged my coat around me. “Should we knock on the front door?”
    “I don’t know.” Aunt Eva waddled down the side staircase and peered through the mist toward the main entrance. She wore a blue plaid skirt over her work trousers to disguise her uniform, and the pants beneath produced so much bulk that she looked like a giant handbell—skinny torso, bulbous hips. “I don’t want to disturb his mother. She seemed ill the other day.”
    “You can’t be late for work, though.”
    “I’m not sure what to do.” She trekked back up the stairs and knocked again.
    The sound of an automobile motor sped our way. We both craned our necks to see the approaching vehicle through the fog: a plain black Model T. The car careened around the corner, clipped the curb with its carriage-sized wheels, and squealed to a jerking stop on the side street next to the house.
    A man with uncombed black hair spilled out of the passenger seat.
    Aunt Eva rubbed her throat and asked in a whisper, “Is that Julius?”
    I squinted through the fog. “I think so.”
    “You going to be OK, Julius?” asked the driver, a solid-looking, bespectacled fellow who appeared to be closer to my age than Julius’s. “You sure you don’t want me running the studio instead of closing it for the day?”
    Julius ignored the driver and stumbled up to the house, his shirt untucked, his chin dark with whiskers. His face resembled Uncle Wilfred’s in the throes of tuberculosis: gray, clammy, sunken. His red-rimmed eyes caught sight of us standing on the steps. “Why are you here?” He didn’t sound pleased.
    “We came for Mary Shelley’s photograph. Are you unwell, Julius?”
    He blustered past us, smelling of cologne and something sweet, even though he looked like he could use a bath. “Come in and take it quickly. Then please go. I’m not feeling well.”
    Aunt Eva jumped out of the way. “It’s not the flu, is it?”
    “No, it’s not the damn flu.” He fumbled to open the door and reached around to a switch that lit a quartet of electric wall lamps. “Wait here. I’ll get it.” He went in.
    Behind us, the Model T rumbled away.
    I stepped a foot inside the studio and watched Julius disappear through a doorway next to the dark background curtain.I’d always assumed the door led to a closet, but it appeared to be the entrance to an office in which photographs hung on a string to dry like laundry on a clothesline.
    “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
    Aunt Eva still massaged her throat. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen him like this.”
    “Is it the opium?”
    “Mary Shelley!”
    Julius walked back into the studio with a brown folder. “Here, take it.” He held out the concealed picture in the tips of his fingers.
    I approached and took it from him, feeling my stomach dip with nervousness as I did so.
    His red eyes watered. “Now go. Please.”
    “I’d like to see the photograph first.”
    “Go.”
    I held my breath and flipped the folder open. There I was, in black and white, seated on the velvet-cushioned chair with my camphor pouch and clock-gear necklace strung around my neck. My pale eyes peered at the camera above my flu mask.
    A transparent figure stood behind me—a handsome brown-haired boy in a dress shirt and tie.
    Stephen.
    Stephen was the ghost in my photograph.
    Aunt Eva took the folder from my hand. “Oh no, Julius. Is that your brother?”
    The words cut deep. I realized what they implied.
    “Is he …” Aunt Eva’s lips failed to