Page 15

The chilly breeze tears at Jo. It ruffles her hair and cuts through her wet shift.

Horace rears back, his forelegs stroking the air. He’s getting impatient.

“Why, finding my killer, of course,” Millie says. “Someone killed me. And I need to know who and why. And he”—she points at Horace—“won’t tell me. Answers are earned, he says. So I’m stuck here with him, and you must help me.”

Jo squints at the girl. She didn’t come to this place to help anyone but herself. This is unexpected. This is not what the old man promised. “This is not what I agreed to. I do my penance, and the Master grants my wish.”

“This is not how it works, Jo.” Millie stares at the horse for a long minute. A shadow of wariness clouds her eyes when she turns to Jo. In a low and calm voice, Millie says, “The night of my untimely death, I played cards with Grace. But then she had to leave for an appointment with her friend, and I stayed and read my Bible. I quickly got bored and chased my brother, Charlie, around the house. Then we all had some tea and Cracker Jacks.”

Horace shifts his legs impatiently, and Millie climbs down from the wagon. She’s barefoot, her feet almost as white as the cobblestones.

“I became very sick that night. I was in agony. I was in so much pain, I actually wanted to die.” She gives a half shrug, almost nonchalantly, but there is a certain heaviness in her movements. “Someone poisoned me. And that’s why I’m here. Horace told me those who died an unnatural death come here, seeking answers.” Her voice breaks, and when she looks at Jo, the sadness in the girl’s eyes tells its own story. Millie is in pain. She doesn’t understand the cruelty of death. The inevitability of it. She’s lonely and afraid and she wants answers. “I need you to help me figure out who killed me. And, most importantly, why they wanted me dead.”

Jo lets out a long breath. She knows this deep, boundless agony. She knows it far too well. There are no good answers to any of the questions. “I don’t think I can do that, Millie. I don’t think I can help you.”

Horace aggressively swivels his head in her direction. His vivid brown eyes study her. Jo takes a step back.

“I’m not trying to be cruel,” Jo says. “Or unkind. I just can’t.”

The girl raises one eyebrow. “You’re the only one who can do it. You speak to the dead. You can hear us. Once, a long time ago, you breached the rip between the worlds, and it gave you the ability to see us. Talk to us.”

Jo blinks. “How do you know that?” Yes, there was a time when she almost died. She started hearing the otherworldly whispers after that.

“He told me.” Millie looks at Horace.

Jo lowers herself carefully onto the edge of the well. She tries not to look down, but the water glimmers at her, beckoning her, watching her warily. Her memories on the bottom of the well. Everything she tried to forget for a long time. Most of them faded, the edges frayed and broken, like the old daguerreotypes.

Jo looks up at the girl. “You can’t move on until you know your killer. It’s your unfinished business. Is that it?”

“Yes.” Millie’s voice is soft, a whisper of a child in the morning. She stretches her back, lifting herself on her toes. She cranes her neck to the left, then to the right. “I get so stiff from this constant sitting. And you’d think being dead removes all bodily aches.” She plops down by Jo, pulls her legs up to her chest, and wraps her pale arms around her knees. “When I think about my poisoner—whoever that is—all I see is the faces of people. Some I recognize. Some I don’t. I see Mother, Grace, the twins, and Charlie. Ira and Finn. I see strangers—men and women walking in the streets. And their faces spin and spin and spin in my head, and I cannot focus on anything.” The tremble in Millie’s voice stills the air. “Help me. Stop the spinning.”

The white mist simmers around the well. The water ripples, and Jo’s rib cage tightens in response. “It must’ve hurt badly. The poison.”

“Well, there are ways to die far worse than poisoning,” Millie says with an odd, sharp edge to her voice. “Strangulation. I’ve heard it’s terrifying not to be able to breathe.” Jo stills, arms hanging loosely by her sides. “Whatever I had hurt, but not too long. Anyway, you want your wish granted, don’t you? That’s why you’re here.”

Jo’s mind is spinning. “Yes.” Part of her is surprised. Flustered by the unexpected turn of the conversation.

“The Master can grant you your wish.”

Jo’s pulse stops beating for a few seconds and then restarts at a galloping speed. “What about my penance?”

Millie nods. “Yes, you atone. But you also must solve my murder.”

Horace sets his gaze on Jo. You must earn my kindness.

The heavy cloud of regret swells in Jo’s chest. It grows, expands, and morphs into something solid and dark, taking away her ability to think. To respond. The old man tricked her. He never told her anything about helping the dead move on.

“What happens if I can’t solve your murder?” Jo pushes out the words through her unmoving jaw. “What happens to my wish?”

“I won’t move on, Josephine,” Millie says. “And you’ll never get your wish.”

Jo opens her mouth to say something defensive, to argue, but the words won’t come. Instead, doubts sink their roots into her mind.

Horace turns his head, and his big dark eyes take Jo in. His lips stretch, and the corners of his mouth turn up slightly. His tongue flicks out, and he snorts.

“I don’t know how to solve a murder. I’m a photographer, not the police.” Jo pushes down a sharp lump in her throat. “I don’t know where to start.” She sighs. “I think . . . I think my mind is playing a cruel joke on me. None of this is real.” She waves around the courtyard. “This place. The water in the well. Even my memories feel like they’re not really mine.” Something shifts inside her, and heaviness settles in her mind, making it harder to talk. And so she reaches out to Millie and gently strokes her hair, her fingers skimming over the petals of the rose tucked behind Millie’s ear. The girl feels real: soft and warm and solid. Touching Millie tugs on something inside Jo, something she has never felt before—a maternal instinct, perhaps—and suddenly she wants to help the girl. To console her. To say something kind. Jo wants to save the girl. But it never works out—she never has been able to help anyone before. So instead, Jo pushes this odd inclination into the deepest corner of her mind and drops her hand. “I don’t think you’re real, Millie.”

Millie smiles and stretches her legs in front of her. “Did I feel real to you when you touched me?”