Read Online The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James - Free Book Online
Authors: Simone St. James
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just off the Streatham High Road, the driver sitting in the front seat as mute as Gloria’s Buddha head. Octavia looked surprised. “Well, yes,” she replied with a little coolness. “I wanted to find Harry, to find all of them. I still do.”
“You wanted Gloria to contact her own dead brothers?”
“Harry and I were to be married!” she said. “He was taken from me without a good-bye. Is it so unusual?”
I swallowed and looked away. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t do spirit sessions.”
“You can do them,” Octavia said. “Your mother could, too.”
I looked back at her. “I thought you didn’t remember me.”
“I remember you now,” she said. “You were Gloria’s friend for a time. I heard that your mother was a psychic, too. The Fantastique.”
My throat was dry and the words tangled before I could speak them. What else had Gloria said about me? “Did she tell you what happened? To us?”
“I assume you had a falling-out,” said this girl who had been my replacement. “Lots of people fell out with Gloria, or she with them. She was hard to get along with sometimes. But to me, she was family.”
I felt a faint throb of pain in my head, the beginnings of a headache. I wanted to get away from her. “My mother was proven a fake, or didn’t you hear?”
“I heard,” she replied. “I don’t put any stock in those kinds of reports. Some people simply don’t believe.”
I placed my hand on the door handle. “I won’t find him for you, Octavia. I won’t.”
“They didn’t even tell me what happened to him,” she said as I pushed the door open and stood. “Not really. I don’t know if he died fast or slow, or whether it hurt. Whether he thought of me before he went. Gloria wouldn’t tell me.”
I turned and looked down at her, sitting elegantly in her plush motorcar. “Then you aren’t meant to know,” I said, and shut the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
O ctavia had dropped me on a winding street off of Streatham High Road. It featured a seedy café, its windows dirty, and a theatrical costume shop, the front window filled with faded wigs on the blank heads of mannequins. Before me, past a half-broken stoop, was a ramshackle building of inexpensive flats, one of a line of unappealing square buildings built sometime in the past fifty years to accommodate the single, unattached London worker. The flats weren’t big enough for families, but on the stoop of a building next door a young woman with a tired face watched me as she rocked a sleeping baby in its pram, a second child playing quietly with a marble at her feet.
I ascended the uneven front steps and stood under the cornice, now dusky from the London smut, peering at the curling notices pinned next to the door. SMITHERS, IMPORTE R OF CURIOSITIES, 3-B. NEEDLEMAN, FILMIC CAS TING AGENCY & SEEKERS OF TALENT, 2-A. And, near the bottom, RAMONA, FORTUNES TOLD (NO SAT URDAYS),4-A. Perhaps this had been a working-class neighborhood when it was built, but now its inhabitants made money any way they could.
I pushed open the front door, crossed through an airless vestibule, and found myself in a front hall that admitted no light at all. I took a moment to adjust my eyes to the gloom. Ahead of me was a staircase with a thin rail leading to the upper floors. To my left was a lift, silent and empty. There was a strong musty smell, as of a disused library, underlaid with sour neglect. There was no sound. I wondered whether all the tenants were eerily quiet, or out, or whether the curious setup of this building muffled their furtive movements.
I pulled off my cloche hat and lifted my hair from my forehead. The headache was moving in now, pulsing from the base of my skull at the back of my neck, rolling gently over me like far-off thunder. It was becoming common for me to get these low-grade headaches when I exerted my powers too heavily or too quickly in succession, as I had just done in Gloria’s flat and with Octavia Murtry.
I
“You wanted Gloria to contact her own dead brothers?”
“Harry and I were to be married!” she said. “He was taken from me without a good-bye. Is it so unusual?”
I swallowed and looked away. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t do spirit sessions.”
“You can do them,” Octavia said. “Your mother could, too.”
I looked back at her. “I thought you didn’t remember me.”
“I remember you now,” she said. “You were Gloria’s friend for a time. I heard that your mother was a psychic, too. The Fantastique.”
My throat was dry and the words tangled before I could speak them. What else had Gloria said about me? “Did she tell you what happened? To us?”
“I assume you had a falling-out,” said this girl who had been my replacement. “Lots of people fell out with Gloria, or she with them. She was hard to get along with sometimes. But to me, she was family.”
I felt a faint throb of pain in my head, the beginnings of a headache. I wanted to get away from her. “My mother was proven a fake, or didn’t you hear?”
“I heard,” she replied. “I don’t put any stock in those kinds of reports. Some people simply don’t believe.”
I placed my hand on the door handle. “I won’t find him for you, Octavia. I won’t.”
“They didn’t even tell me what happened to him,” she said as I pushed the door open and stood. “Not really. I don’t know if he died fast or slow, or whether it hurt. Whether he thought of me before he went. Gloria wouldn’t tell me.”
I turned and looked down at her, sitting elegantly in her plush motorcar. “Then you aren’t meant to know,” I said, and shut the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
O ctavia had dropped me on a winding street off of Streatham High Road. It featured a seedy café, its windows dirty, and a theatrical costume shop, the front window filled with faded wigs on the blank heads of mannequins. Before me, past a half-broken stoop, was a ramshackle building of inexpensive flats, one of a line of unappealing square buildings built sometime in the past fifty years to accommodate the single, unattached London worker. The flats weren’t big enough for families, but on the stoop of a building next door a young woman with a tired face watched me as she rocked a sleeping baby in its pram, a second child playing quietly with a marble at her feet.
I ascended the uneven front steps and stood under the cornice, now dusky from the London smut, peering at the curling notices pinned next to the door. SMITHERS, IMPORTE R OF CURIOSITIES, 3-B. NEEDLEMAN, FILMIC CAS TING AGENCY & SEEKERS OF TALENT, 2-A. And, near the bottom, RAMONA, FORTUNES TOLD (NO SAT URDAYS),4-A. Perhaps this had been a working-class neighborhood when it was built, but now its inhabitants made money any way they could.
I pushed open the front door, crossed through an airless vestibule, and found myself in a front hall that admitted no light at all. I took a moment to adjust my eyes to the gloom. Ahead of me was a staircase with a thin rail leading to the upper floors. To my left was a lift, silent and empty. There was a strong musty smell, as of a disused library, underlaid with sour neglect. There was no sound. I wondered whether all the tenants were eerily quiet, or out, or whether the curious setup of this building muffled their furtive movements.
I pulled off my cloche hat and lifted my hair from my forehead. The headache was moving in now, pulsing from the base of my skull at the back of my neck, rolling gently over me like far-off thunder. It was becoming common for me to get these low-grade headaches when I exerted my powers too heavily or too quickly in succession, as I had just done in Gloria’s flat and with Octavia Murtry.
I
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