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Mrs. Pollard went back inside. Raven sighed and picked up the now empty basket. Although elaborate swindles like the one in San Francisco provided well for her sprawling family, they could only be done occasionally to avoid the scrutiny of the authorities. In between, she and her cousins Renay, Emile, and the others worked whatever jobs they could find in New Orleans to put food on the table and pay the bills.
“Hello, Raven.”
Seeing eight-year-old Dorcas at her side, Raven smiled for the first time that day. Dorcas, an orphan added to the Moreau family the day after her birth, habitually appeared out of nowhere, but her presence at the Pollards’ left Raven puzzled. “Why aren’t you in school, Dorrie?”
“Mother Superior sent me home. She said I can’t attend anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I told Sister Mary Mathew her baby was going to be a boy and she fainted.”
Raven hid her smile. Were she a nun, and an eight-year-old revealed her surely illicit pregnancy, she probably would’ve fainted, too. Dorrie possessed what the old people called Sight. She saw and knew things in uncanny and inexplicable ways.
“Does Mama Hazel know about this?”
“Yes. She’s going to talk to the Mother, but she sent me to fetch you.”
“Is something wrong? Is Mama ill?”
“No. She has visitors.”
Raven looked over the Pollard house. “I have to make dinner for the Pollards or I’ll lose this job.”
“Mama Hazel said, ‘Come now. You have a new job.’”
Raven’s curiosity rose. Granted she didn’t enjoy working for the Pollards. They were rude, miserly, and impossible to please. Having to endure the missus’s complaints about everything from how the wash was pinned to the way the place was swept made her want to quit almost daily. To walk off now without notice meant there would be no reference for future employment, but if her mother needed her, Raven would worry about references later. The family always came first.
As if cued, Mrs. Pollard reappeared. “Raven, you know I don’t allow visiting!”
“I do, but my mother needs me at home. I won’t be returning.”
“What!”
Raven set the basket down in the grass and took Dorrie’s small brown hand. The air rang with Mrs. Pollard calling her name, but Raven kept walking to her mother’s house a short distance away.
The ability to quickly assess a situation was something Raven learned at an early age, so when she entered the parlor she took in the three strangers. Two Black men with brown skin and close-cropped beards stood together by the hearth. Although gray hair showed one man to be older, they resembled each other enough to suggest they were related. Both were stone-faced and tight-jawed, as if angered by something or someone. The third stranger, seated in one of the parlor chairs, was a plump, middle-aged White woman with graying brown hair and flint-colored eyes that assessed Raven’s arrival with a cool distance. Raven’s mother, Hazel, sat alone on the sofa, and although her mother’s face gave nothing away, the muted, angry light in her green eyes, along with the hard faces of the men, let Raven know to proceed cautiously.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Raven,” her mother said. “Dorrie, can you go upstairs and keep Aunt Havana company?”
“Yes, ma’am.” But before she exited, she paused before the woman and said, “You’ll only be sick on the ship for a few days, then you’ll feel better.”
The woman stiffened and turned to Hazel for explanation.
“She’s mistaken you for a woman at her school. It’s nothing. Go on, Dorrie.”
As Dorrie exited, Raven knew the explanation was a lie and wondered what the prediction meant, but before she could speculate further, Hazel introduced her to the strangers.
“Raven, these two gentlemen are the Steeles. Harrison and his son, Braxton.” The sparks of lightning in her mother’s eyes were now directed at the father, adding another layer to the mystery.
“Pleased to meet you, both,” Raven said.
“Same here,” the older Steele replied. The son, tall and clad in a well-made suit, was handsome enough to be one of her rakish cousins. The razor-cut mustache outlining his lips flowed neatly into the close-cut beard and enhanced his good looks. He appeared to be near her in age. His assessing onyx black eyes were hostile and cold. He offered her a stiff nod.
“And this is Miss Ruth Welch. She’s a detective with the Pinkerton Agency.”
Raven showed no reaction to the explosive surprise. “Pleased to meet you as well, Miss Welch.”
“Likewise,” Miss Welch said.
