Page 11 of My Darling Girls

Her nerves are not on fire anymore. Her mind quiets.

When she’s done, Finn escorts her back to the street. As they stand in front of the same hansom, Jo realizes the sun’s almost up, but the sky is bloated with rain clouds. A storm is on its way. The air is freezing and seems to be made of sharp blades that cut through the clothes.

“How long did I take?” Jo asks.

Finn checks his watch. “Almost three hours. We started to wonder if you had fallen asleep.”

Three hours? Surely, Finn’s wrong. “I didn’t fall asleep. I was working. Time goes by so fast when I’m working.” She doesn’t believe a word she’s saying.

He chuckles, amused. He probably doesn’t believe her either. “You took a really, really long time. I, myself, dozed off.” He opens the door to the hansom, but she doesn’t move.

“I didn’t realize I took so long.” Her cheeks are suddenly aflame. How did she not notice this odd time lapse? She thinks back to her session with Millie, but her memories are fragmented, disjointed, punctuated only by the clicks of her camera. The hair on Jo’s neck prickles. What happened to her in that room? Why can’t she remember?

“When will you have Millie’s pictures ready?”

An odd ache builds in her chest. Three hours. Did she really take that long? The morning air feels heavy with doubt and questions she cannot answer.

Finn’s voice drifts over to her. “The funeral is tomorrow.”

“I’ll have the photos done before the funeral. Tomorrow afternoon.”

A Young Lady from Millville

Jo’s stomach rumbles as soon as she arrives at her studio.

Instead of trying to find something to eat, she passes through the hallway without giving her small kitchen a second glance. She quickly shrugs off her coat and drops it on the floor in her rush to the darkroom, where she sets her camera on the table. Then, she flies upstairs to her bedroom, to her precious vial of opium.

As soon as she mixes herself the drink, anticipation stirs in the pit of her belly. All the questions she has kept at bay since she left Millie grow louder and louder. She must release them before they explode.

A long-awaited rush of relief comes with the first sip. Another one, and she starts falling into the underworld. The third one sends her tumbling.

She doesn’t fall; she crashes.

The clean, fresh air of the courtyard grounds her. The blinding sunlight reflects off the cobblestones. A warm breeze rustles Jo’s shift.

“Millie, where are you?”

No reply.

Jo leans over the edge of the well, her fingers hungrily wrapped around the coolness of the stone. The water is so murky, she cannot see her face. A stench of mud and decomposition rises from the bottom. It reminds her of a long-forgotten summer. Of the river and the trees by a riverbank. It reminds her of the nightmare she worked hard to forget. She turns away from the water and stares down the alley where Millie came from.

“Millie?”

At first, she hears nothing but the soft whispers of the breeze and a flock of crows that appears. The birds call each other—or maybe Jo—and circle and circle and circle above her head. They’re so close, she can see their beaks and glinting eyes. She can probably count their feathers if she wants to. The murder of crows takes flight, and Jo detects movement in one of the alleys.

Josephine. A girlish voice drifts over to her.

The familiar steady clop of horse hooves on the cobblestones echoes through the courtyard, and a few seconds later, the white wagon appears.

“I knew you’d come,” Millie says with a rueful twist of her lips. Her cheekbones are sharper than before. Her pale skin isn’t translucent anymore. There is no white mist moving beneath it. “I’m glad you listened to my call. I’m glad you came.” She’s wearing the same white dress as the day before. A white rose is tucked behind her ear.

The courtyard Millie isn’t like the dead girl Jo saw a few hours ago. If anything, the courtyard Millie is alive and well. If not for the hollowness in her eyes. And when the girl looks at her, Jo feels like Millie sees right into her soul, into her deepest, darkest secrets.

Millie pulls on the reins. The horse halts and glares at Jo. Snorts. Then nods. The horse nods.

“Hello, Millie,” Jo says, swallowing hard. “Hello,” she says to the horse and immediately feels silly. Does she really think the horse understands her? As if reading her mind, the horse looks at Jo inquisitively, its upper lip rising, revealing its big yellow teeth.

“The water in the well stinks something rotten,” Jo says. It’s not what she wants to talk about, but it slips off her lips before she can catch herself. It feels pressingly important to know more about the water.