In the Shadows

She took an apple from his basket, tucking it into her bag.

“Pick out something nice for your brother,” she said, teeth finally

showing.

Thom watched, speechless, as she swept out of the shop

and away.

New Orleans, Dusk

March 4, 1924

nine

C

HARLES SAT NEXT TO THOM, ON THE BANKS OF A STREAM

HIDDEN BEHIND THE TOWN IN A TALL COPSE OF TREES. It

was a cold clear singing dream of a creek, and he did not

miss New York a bit. Cora and Minnie were here, they were his for

the summer, and he took that gift very seriously.

As Minnie finished her dramatic reading of The Rime of the

Ancient Mariner, Cora triumphantly pulled Charles’s straw boat-

ing hat from the large picnic basket she had packed this morning.

“Here you are! I had a feeling you’d be wanting it.”

He took it with a grateful exclamation, and Cora didn’t see the

secret sly happiness to his thanks. Thom had everything wrong.

He’d tried to tiptoe around Cora after that horribly wonderful

night with the witch, but what a girl like her required was to be

needed. In the six days since that incident, Charles had made a

game of forgetting things, or requesting things, or otherwise being

ridiculous. Cora was far more cheerful when she thought she was

being useful.

Minnie was harder than Cora, which was why Charles liked

her more. He’d think he had her figured out, only to lose her

attention to a far-off gaze or a discontented sigh.

He missed the challenge of seeing problems and inventing