Free Sister Noon by Karen Joy Fowler

always remembered it.
    Her father would have been furious with her if he’dknown she was waiting for a Spanish prince. Her mother would have sent her to bed until she got over the idea. Because she’d managed to keep it a secret, she never had gotten over it.
    “You might be Spanish, Jenny,” Lizzie said, “what with your dark eyes and hair.
¿Hablas español?
”
    Jenny didn’t answer. Lizzie replaced her shoe and picked her up. The man was gone. The ground was level again.
    The sidewalk began on Octavia Street and ran beneath the blue-gum eucalyptus trees. Mary Ellen Pleasant had planted these herself, only a few years before, but they had grown quickly and were already tall by San Francisco standards. Mrs. Pleasant was rumored to use the bark and the seeds in her brews. Lizzie looked up the trunk to where the leaves hung, clustered and limp as Japanese wind chimes. The trees gave off the smell of unripened lemons.
    Lizzie set Jenny down. The House of Mystery was dark, except for one window on the second floor. Its curtains were drawn, and glowed faintly with a backlight of gold. A dog barked in the distance; Lizzie couldn’t tell whether it was inside the house or out. “Have you ever been here?” Lizzie asked.
    “No.”
    “I’ve been to tea here. You can’t imagine how beautiful it is. You can’t tell from the outside.”
    “Like a palace?” Jenny asked.
    Lizzie had never been to a palace. “Inside, yes. Exactly like.”
    Suddenly, all around the quiet mansion with its homey golden window was the illusion of tumult. Clouds flewacross the sky like enormous birds, making the moonlight blink on and off so the whole landscape flickered. The shadows of the trees scudded over the ground; the wind rattled the leaves.
    In all that movement there was no person. Lizzie wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been. Reporters sometimes flocked outside the House of Mystery, pigeons pecking for crumbs. Occasionally someone sneaked into the yard to dig for the diamond necklaces Mrs. Pleasant was rumored to have buried there.
    Quite inexplicably, everything combined to unnerve Lizzie—the lack of people, the flying clouds, the witches’-brew smell, the single lit window, the Wilkie Collins book at home that she was halfway through. The string of women who’d been murdered on the streets of Whitechapel a year or so ago.
    There
was a thought Lizzie wished she hadn’t had! She tried desperately to unthink it. Diego Estenegas smiling at her.
    No good! The women were fed with poisoned grapes.
    Golden horses! Diamond haircombs! Diamond necklaces! Their hearts cut out as if they were voodoo chickens! Lizzie’s breath was shallow and fast.
    Jenny yawned and shivered. Lizzie picked her up and started back to the Ark, moving now as quickly as she could. On Bush Street they passed a pair of young men walking arm in arm. Lizzie heard their footsteps first and was relieved to see that there were two of them, and both apparently sober.
    The men had almost passed before one of them spoke. “Are you an idiot?” he asked, in a tone no one had usedwith her since her father died. She turned to make sure he was addressing her and not his companion, and this allowed him to come too close. “Out here after dark with a child?” He was shaking his head. “What kind of a mother are you?”
    The other man spoke next. “What kind of woman walks the streets at night? Is that what you want men to think?”
    They were at least twenty years younger than she, and not so nicely dressed. She would not be chastised by boys. “How does it concern you?”
    “We’re compelled to see you safely home. It wasn’t our plan for the evening.”
    “Nor is it my plan now.”
    “We don’t want you,” said Jenny.
    “Go away,” said Lizzie. She used her public-speaking voice and she expected to be obeyed. “You must see I wouldn’t be here without a compelling reason. You must see that I wouldn’t have brought this child out into the cold and