Page 9 of My Darling Girls

Finn’s whistle is soft. He looks amused. “Paris, huh? I’ve never left Chicago. Born and raised here. Going to stay here forever.”

No one leaves the Snakes.

“You never know.” But they do, don’t they?

Finn shrugs. “I’m not interested in going anywhere.”

The door opens, and the three men from earlier come in carrying trays with candles. There must be at least twenty or thirty candles, all alight, all burning bright.

“Where do you want the candles?” Gertrude asks from behind the men. She steps aside, and a beautiful, tall girl in a long black dress enters the room. She holds a tray with three rock glasses filled with amber liquid. “Grace, set it on that chair.” Gertrude points to a chair by the vanity.

The girl carefully puts the tray down. Her hands shake violently, and one of the glasses tips and slides, but Jo grabs it just in time.

Grace whispers, “Thank you.” She’s lean and narrow shouldered and has the same bright-blue eyes as Finn. Her prominent cheekbones are as sharp as blades. There’s an odd scent coming off her skin—something earthy, mixed with tobacco, and beneath it a subtle orange blossom scent.

A boy, no older than eight, lingers in Grace’s shadow. He peeks around her skirt at Jo and smiles, revealing red gums and a couple of missing teeth.

“This is my oldest, Grace,” Gertrude says. “And this is Charlie.”

The boy runs up to the tray with glasses and starts shuffling the glasses in a circle as if playing a game of Where Is the Ball.

“Stop it,” Gertrude hisses and grabs Charlie by his shoulders. She raises her hand as if preparing to strike the boy. “Enough.” She shakes him with such strength, the boy’s head flips back. He yelps.

“Charles, come here,” Grace says, pulling him into an embrace. She pats his hair, whispers something into his ear, and the boy runs out from the room. “He doesn’t understand fully that Millie’s gone.” Grace rubs her forehead. Her lower lip trembles. “Always wants to play.”

“Sometimes I fear he’ll never grow up. Charles is eight,” Gertrude says with a sigh. “Children make me crazy. I have two more: twins. Thankfully, they’re in their bedroom.” Gertrude looks over at her dead daughter. She nods at Grace. “Grace was the one who found Millie spewing blood.”

Grace pales and sways.

“Are you all right?” Jo asks, taking the girl by the elbow. “Do you need to sit down?”

Grace shakes her head, sad and dead eyed. “It’s just this room. And Millie. All of it. It’s just too much.”

“I understand,” Jo says. She truly does. The week August died, she retched and screamed and clawed her fingers into the wooden floor. There were moments when she couldn’t move at all. And there were moments when all she could do was whimper. If not for opium, she wouldn’t have survived.

Grace pulls away from Jo, then hesitates. “I can still smell it on her.” Grace’s collapsed face is a distant reflection of her own from a year ago.

“Smell what?”

“Blood.” Grace turns around sharply and slips away from the room, the musky scent trailing behind her.

Jo picks up a glass of whiskey from the tray and takes a big sip. She hadn’t realized how much she needed a stiff drink. She drinks some more and looks quizzically at Finn, who’s swirling the whiskey in his glass while studying the mud on his shoes. Gertrude is staring at Millie and whispering something under her breath.

“I need to start my work,” Jo says.

Silently, as if on command, everyone turns to her. All three men are still holding the trays with candles. And again, Jo feels like she’s been put on display. They are watching her, taking note of her every move and her every word. Under their scrutiny, she tries not to think about the young man with mutilated feet in the next room. What happens to her when she brings Millie’s photos? Will these men stitch her lips shut? The nausea returns and grows, but Jo pushes it down.

“Please leave the trays on the floor,” she tells the men. “I’ll arrange the candles myself.”

Gertrude nods, and the men put down the trays by the bed. Then they exit the bedroom, shutting the door behind them.

“Millie looks at peace,” Jo murmurs.

“Does she?” Gertrude says and takes a sip from her glass. “Her suffering was short.”

Jo waits a few seconds, steps closer to the woman, and then pushes forward. “She was so young. Finn told me she was fifteen. You mentioned her retching blood. What sickness was it?”

Gertrude’s fingers wrap around the glass so tightly, the knuckles bleach of any color. “No one knows. Some awful stomach sickness. One minute she was fine, and then she was dead within an hour.”