Chapter Text
1909
Spikes are blooming along the path, their purple petals forming bells and trumpets. They’re the same shade as the ribbon on the hem of Ada Shelby’s dress.
“Something pretty for you, Ada,” her mother said, snipping the thread and smoothing the cotton. “Because I love you dearly, and I’ll love you just as much after the baby’s come.”
That was months ago. Now, Dierdre Shelby’s fingers are too swollen for sewing; her gold rings dangle from a leather cord around her neck. She used to knead bread in the mornings, singing ditties about whiskey resurrections and goats mocking peelers, then play cards in the afternoons, dimpling with laughter, punctuating her jokes with flicks of her cigarette. But all Deirdre does lately is sleep.
That’s why they’re traveling to the camp: there are healers. According to Ada’s grandmother, their guelder-rose and milk thistle tinctures are more trustworthy than any laudanum mixture offered by a Selly Oak white coat. “Your mother’s womb is full of soot,” Birdie explains. “City poison. That baby needs fresh air.” After all, Deirdre spent her other pregnancies rambling around the countryside on donkey carts and barges; Ada and her three brothers were born on the canal.
Ada stands on her tip-toes to reach the flower, planning to make a present of it to her mother. But before her fingers brush the petals, her uncle Charlie stops her, tugging the back of her dress. “That’s foxglove,” he says, grabbing her hand. “It’ll make your skin itch. And it’ll kill the horses.”
Ada huffs. As far as she can tell, the boys consider horses to be holier than saints. They certainly tend to them with more care than they do Ada; her brother Tommy whines whenever he’s ordered to sweep their bedroom, but shovels horse manure without complaint.
Sighting the band of wagons in the distance, the boys race ahead, whooping and cheering, and Ada runs after them. When her eldest brother hears her panting, he halts, lifting her on top of his shoulders to carry her the rest of the way.
“We’ll go shooting later, would you like that?” Arthur asks, patting her dangling leg.
She smiles, knowing it’s a privilege. When her cousins—every child at the camp is called “cousin,” whether or not they share blood—beg Arthur for lessons, he tells them to learn by observation, to watch him hunt hares and stags in the woods. But Ada avoids the hunt; although she’s never been squeamish about blood, she is unnerved by the eerie shine of a stag’s eyes as he lays dying. So Arthur lines up bottles on a wooden crate for her, then adjusts her stance as she does her best to shatter them.
When they arrive, a crowd has already gathered around Birdie’s opulent wagon, which is painted burgundy and trimmed with pale blue acanthus scrolls. It’s by far the most beautiful vehicle Ada’s ever seen: the racehorses carved on its doors are gilded.
Hearing “oi’s” and laughter, she turns to see that burly Joseph has her brother John in a headlock; he's the only man who's ever beaten Arthur in the ring. Tommy is flirting with Orla, a sprightly girl of fifteen, whose honeyed voice is the envy of the county. Deirdre is surrounded by a half-dozen older women who lead her away from the mob, kissing Ada’s cheeks as they pass. Ada’s aunt Polly, her father’s wild sister, squeezes her hand, then touches Dierdre’s elbow and asks, “Where’s your husband?” her mouth twisting in disgust when Dierdre admits she does not know.
It’s no surprise to Ada that her father is missing: the senior Arthur Shelby is often gone for days at a time, fleeing “sniveling brats and nagging women.” Polly sneers that he’s “good-for-nothing,” claiming the best thing he ever did was choose Dierdre to bear his children.
“Want to paint the new wagon?” Orla asks Ada, after Tommy’s disappeared into the woods. “The weather’s mild enough.”
“Can I choose the colors?”
She shakes her head. “You can decide where to put the swirls, if you’d like.”
Ada accepts the horsehair brush solemnly, and Orla’s agrees that it is a great honor, her lips quirking in amusement. Ada soon learns otherwise, though, because Orla’s brother Andrew alters her design, claiming the adults are going to paint over it all later. And John has no respect for her art, either: he dips his finger in the can of paint and swipes Ada’s cheek with gold, laughing at her pout.
“Go gather some branches, make yourself useful,” Charlie scolds him. After John is gone, he asks her, “Do you want to go for a ride?” He points at the new pony. “Just broken. She’s the perfect size for you.”
Ada scowls, knowing he means “small.” But she admires the horse’s glossy black coat and soulful eyes, so she takes the carrot he offers, coaxing the creature to eat out of her hand. Once he’s helped her climb onto the horse’s back, she smiles, because she’s even taller than her brothers now, and the whole world looks more vivid from this height: the shine of the river, the bright expanse of grass beneath the cloudless sky, and the red steeple on the hill in the distance.
They cross the field, pace slow and steady, the way Ada prefers it. “Does the pony have a name?” she asks. When he shakes his head, she tosses her cap of hair, proclaiming, “Her name is Foxglove.”
Leaving him chuckling behind her, she rides Foxglove to the tents, then dismounts on her own, bruising her knee but pretending not to feel the sting. The women are lounging in the shadows beneath a chintz canopy, since Dierdre can no longer bear the harsh sunlight. Her fringed blue shawl is draped over her lap, and Polly’s red veil is tied securely around her sloping shoulders. “Polly told me this baby will be a boy," she says.
“Another one?” she asks, disappointed.
“You won’t be outnumbered forever,” Polly assures her. Then she presses Ada’s palm to her belly. “Still flat, but my girl's in there. Her heart’s already beating.”
“Aunt Poll, how do you know? Did you read Mum’s fortune? Will you read mine?”
“No,” Dierdre says firmly. “You’re too young."
Ada heaves an aggrieved sigh. The truth is, she’s not especially interested in her fortune. What she wants is time alone with her aunt. Polly’s rarely in the city anymore, preferring to camp by the river with her new husband’s family. Ada misses dancing with her—shoeless, of course, though Ada’s never minded, because she’s twirled off of her feet anyway. She misses knife-throwing lessons; Polly’s got perfect aim, and Ada’s is improving with practice. She misses sitting in her aunt’s lap, watching her skewer strangers with her wit, and order the boys around like royalty—which some say she is.
While the other women are distracted, Birdie beckons Ada into the wagon and declares, “You’re old enough.”
Twitching the lace curtains closed, she gestures for Ada to take a seat at the round table, then rifles through an oiled leather satchel. As soon as her grandmother’s back is turned, Ada starts twisting the hem of her skirt between her fingers. But when Birdie faces her again, Ada stills. I’m not a baby anymore. I don’t cry or cover my eyes. I don’t curl up on the pillow’s like a pet. When she flips the cards, she's relieved to find that her hands are steady.
“Ach,” Birdie says, hiding the cards with her forearm. “There’ll be heartbreak, but that’s the lot of every woman. You’ll have love, and you’ll have babies, and you’ll be a princess in truth, Ada Shelby.” She leans in, close enough for Ada to count every black line in her irises. “Princess of the city, not the countryside,” she clarifies, squeezing her hand, “with all that brick-and-ash trouble. None of us can tell you which path to take. None of us have ever walked it. You’ll have to find your way alone.” Then she reclines again, sending Ada out to play.
Unsettled, Ada steals a couple of the hazel branches piled by the wagon and challenges Andrew to a duel. When she scratches a line beneath the ginger boy’s eye, Arthur and John laugh, and Tommy informs his friends proudly, “That's my sister, alright.” But not even the adrenaline can distract her, so she tosses the branch back onto the woodpile.
I’ve never truly been alone, she realizes, sitting down beside her mother, who fusses over the nicks on her hands and her arms. “Do you want me to tell you a story?” Ada asks. Dierdre swears the print jumps on the page, and can’t distinguish between p’s and q’s, so Ada reads to her aloud. They’re mid-way through The Tale of Benjamin Bunny—the book is a gift from her teacher, a reward for having the neatest penmanship in class—and they’ve reached the most exciting part: the cat has trapped Peter and Benjamin in a basket, and they fear they’ll never escape Mr. MacGregor‘s garden.
“Thank you, chicken,” she replies, “but not now. Why don’t you go find your brothers?”
Since her brothers are busy dressing a deer, Ada decides this is a prime opportunity to practice living a solitary life, and wanders the edge of the forest until she can no longer hear their boisterous laughter. She touches the rough bark of an oak, then picks up a freshly fallen leaf, rubbing it between her fingers. She digs a trench in the ground with the toe of her boot. She lays down beneath a fat yew tree until a rainbow of banners has risen in the fields, and the sky has turned violet. I don’t feel much like a princess, she admits to herself.
It is full dark by the time she returns, and the younger children are tucked in; her cousin Michael is already whistling snores. Ada does her best to fall asleep next to them, but her heart is beating too quickly, and pictures are flashing behind her eyelids. Her mother, cheeks bloodless and forehead dripping sweat. A red velvet throne in an empty, gilded room. Eventually, she gives up, slinking toward the boulder where her brother Tommy sits, smoking a cigarette. Shadows move eerily across his face, turning his cheekbones into blades.
Out of all her brothers, Tommy is the one she tells her secrets to, the one she asks for advice. With his wide blue eyes and his fair skin—peeling and red now, after a day in the sun—he looks like a fairy king to her. Gesturing her to join him, he asks, “Something wrong?”
“I can’t sleep.” Tommy drops a mint leaf in her palm, and she takes a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m scared of what’s going to come.” She debates whether to tell him about the prophecy, eventually deciding to keep it to herself. Lately, he's been mocking fortune-tellers, who he claims read the movements of the face and body, not the cards, and only predict what their audience wants—or needs—to hear.
Ashing the cigarette with one hand, Tommy hugs her close with the other. “There's nothing to be afraid of. We make our own future, and you'll pick a grand one. All you've got to do right now is dream up what kind of life you want.” He points to the stars, sparkling ribbons against the black. “Now go lie down. Watch those stars until you can see them behind your eyelids. And then will them to come down. They’ll fall, slow and gentle, and they’ll drape over you like a blanket, and then you’ll be able to dream.” He nods toward the tents. “Go on, try it.”
So she does. Ada closes her eyes, and she pulls down the lights.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ada cradles the baby, fluffing her fine tuft of hair. It’s christening day for Anna Gray, and both girls are in white frills for the occasion. Ada even snuck a few drops of her mother's lavender oil, which Dierdre had apportioned out so carefully; her aunt would scold her if she knew, so Ada hopes she'll be too busy to notice her perfume.
Polly has taken control of the household since Dierdre died, declaring her own brother too much of a wastrel to do it: he’s off with Polly’s husband, “drinking and whoring by the river,” or so Arthur says. But Ada doesn’t mind, because she’d rather spend time with her aunt and little Anna, who is even sweeter than her own new brother, Finn.
Most of the family wants nothing to do with poor Finn. “He’s a nuisance,” Tommy complains when he cries. John glowers at him, claiming it’s his fault their mother drowned, because she was still weak from the birth when she fainted into the river. Their traveling cousins make fun of him because he's named after Dierdre’s grandfather, an outsider, whose family lived on the same tract of land in Donegal for a thousand years. Out of pity, Ada dotes on him, but she prefers Anna, who so far has proved a much quieter baby—and cuter, too, with her chubby cheeks and black button eyes.
Polly comes up behind them, adjusting the white bow pinned above Ada’s ear. “She’ll look like you, I think,” she says. “The Shelby coloring. All the girls in our family got it, you know.”
Ada has always secretly wanted to be fair, though she’ll never admit it out loud, because her rival at school, Cora Collinsby, has hair as bright as a copper penny, and pound note green eyes. Admiring them openly would be a shameful show of weakness.
Tapping her niece’s scrunched up nose, Polly continues, “Dark hair is the loveliest kind. It makes me think of the countryside…the night before rain, when the earth smells freshest.”
“Dirt, you mean?” Ada replies, regarding her dubiously.
Polly laughs. “Ah, but beautiful!”
They’re interrupted by thundering footsteps as the boys join them in the kitchen. Tommy pats Ada on the shoulder, and John reaches past her to grab a slice of bread, heedless of the crumbs falling on the bib of her dress. Brushing the crochet lace with a huff, Ada turns toward Arthur, who is pouring tea into a porcelain cup with a chip on its rim. Before she can warn him, it slices his lip, and he flinches, cursing.
After wiping the blood with a handkerchief, he shoves it unceremoniously into his jacket. When Ada wriggles her fingers, he crouches beside her, bemused, until she pulls the handkerchief out of his pocket, folds it into a neat triangle, and tucks it back in. His smile broadens. “Thanks, petal,” he says, standing to pick up a babbling Finn and ruffle little Michael’s hair. Her younger cousin does not laugh, looking at him in quiet curiosity.
“He’ll only get rumpled again,” John mumbles with his mouth full. “So will you, Ada.” Then he tilts his head, taking note of her brutally starched skirt. “Well, maybe not. But the coal dust’ll get you.”
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Polly urges, buttoning her black wool coat and buttoning her son into his. In her grey suit and wide-brimmed hat, which is adorned with a single arching feather, she is looking especially elegant today. But, though her hair is pinned up in a low pompadour, she moves with the grace of the dancer on the riverbank, whose tousled waves brushed her hips. “You can carry the baby if you’d like," she tells her niece.
Ada has never been prouder to walk the cobblestone streets of Birmingham than she is now, her aunt and cousin on one side, her brothers on the other, the baby in her arms as lovely as any of Cora’s porcelain dolls.
At the corner, Mrs. Ciangretta joins them, cooing over the newborns. “Ada Shelby, my best student. Nothing like those brothers of yours. Pure trouble, they are.” To Ada’s surprise, John blushes, and Arthur smiles, ducking his head.
By the time they arrive at St. Anne’s, they’re a jolly parade. Mr. Ciangretta holds hands with his wife, flirting with her in Italian. His son, Angelo, roughhouses with the Shelby boys; she thinks he must be lonely, since his elder brother emigrated to America. His daughter, Fiorella, strolls arm-in-arm with Lizzie Stark, who lowers her voice to a whisper whenever Ada comes within earshot. Freddie Thorne brings up the rear, guiding his mother around a gap in the pavement.
When they reach St. Anne's, Ada’s grandmother is leaning against its brick Gothic steeple, smoking a cigarette. Clad in gold instead of the customary widow’s weeds, she draws everyone’s attention. “Where’s my good-for-nothing son?” she asks, to which Polly replies, both rueful and amused, “With my good-for-nothing husband.” Then Polly looks down at her niece, warning her, “Beware of beautiful men, Ada darling.”
“No, no,” Birdie says, pitching her voice to be heard above the ringing bell. “You deserve a handsome one. But stay away from the gin drinkers, the opium eaters, the womanizers....Pick a man who's serious about family, even if he jokes about everything else. That's a man who will never abandon his children.”
Inside, the air is cool and fragrant, so Ada takes a deep breath of incense and mahogany, dutifully making the sign of the cross in front of the altar, though she’s more impressed by the stained glass window than she is by the figure on the crucifix. Then she slides under the white stone arches until she’s at the end of the pew, watching the votives flicker at the feet of the alabaster Virgin. Mass is boring, but Ada sits still–unlike her brothers, who only behave while the choir is singing its reedy hymns. She is unmoved by the priest’s stories: God is cruel, consigning his son and saints to such gory fates, Eve’s an embarrassingly easy mark, and Mary is a coward for being afraid of Gabriel, who looks dainty in every Annunciation painting Ada’s ever seen. The longer the mass goes on, the harder she finds it to remain upright, so it's a profound relief when Tommy tucks her under his arm and whispers, “Rest. I’ll make sure nobody notices.” True to his word, he wakes her as soon as the service is over, and Ada scrambles out the door after him, brimming with energy.
Mrs. Ciangretta is on the church steps, watching Ada’s grandmother with disapproval, but Birdie is blithely unconcerned, smoothing Daniel Owens’ cowlick and inviting his weary father for a drink at the pub. Spotting a trio of little girls in the distance, Ada runs to meet them, eager to play with friends her own age. But as she gets closer, she recognizes the Pasquale twins, small and pointed like kestrels, and Cora Collinsby between them, elegant as a turtledove but not nearly as peaceable.
“Ada Shelby!” Cora calls, a sing-song mockery. There are rosettes embroidered on her pale pink dress, and her shoes are polished to a shine—unlike Ada’s, which are peeling away from their soles. “Did you think that dress was fooling anybody? You still look like that mongrel who rolls in manure at the scrapyard.” She wrinkles her snub nose as though smelling something foul.
“You're the bitch,” Ada says, crossing her arms. "And you’re pinch-faced, too."
“At least I’m not a thief or a beggar.”
Ada clenches her fists at her sides, tense and uncertain, because she can’t deny the charge: her family steals, and her mother accepted bread and milk from the nuns when the winters were long. Is that so wrong? she wonders, but decides not to dwell on the question: it’s enough to know that Cora intends it to be an insult.
So Ada does as Arthur taught her: she throws a punch.
Claudia Pasquale covers her mouth, riveted but scandalized, as though her brother never put Danny through a plate glass window, while her sister Chiara laughs with vicious glee. But Ada's not scrapping for their entertainment. She is making a statement. So instead of drawing out the fight, she knocks Cora to the ground and kicks a cloud of dirt in her ruddy face. Before the girl can struggle to her feet, Ada spits on the ground beside her and says, “Don’t fuck with the Shelbys.” Then she strolls away, satisfied, her head held high.
Her grandmother is leaning against the door of a dingy back-to-back, watching her approach with a smile. “Good form,” she says, inspecting Ada's knuckles with exaggerated care. Then she checks the pleats on Ada’s skirt, noting, “Not one tear."
Ada blushes, but has no time to savor her victory, because Mrs. Collinsby is striding in their direction, the elaborate arrangement of lilacs on her hat trembling. “You keep your rabid little brat away from my daughter!” she snaps, her Gibson girl beauty marred by her fury. “It’s disgusting enough that she fights like a dog...but on a Sunday? Godless.”
Birdie gives the woman a once-over, taking in her wasp-waisted figure with disdain. “Don’t preach godliness to me,” she warns. “I used to work at Warwick Castle. Tell that daughter of yours to mind her tongue, or else I’ll start telling your secrets.”
Mrs. Collinsby pales, nodding jerkily, and when Birdie bumps her shoulder as they pass, she doesn’t complain. Confused, Ada follows her grandmother to the corner, where Birdie ducks into a doorway, pulling Ada close. Once they're safe in its shadow, she grins, swinging a delicate gold watch like a pendulum. “Slid right off her wrist,” she whispers, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Take it. You earned it.”
“What did you mean, about the castle?” Ada asks, pressing the watch against her chest.
“Oh, that woman was the Earl’s mistress, and your little enemy is his bastard. Her millinery? She whored for it.” Ada’s jaw drops. She'd heard rumors that Cora and her brother had different fathers, but she'd dismissed them: the only evidence was his chestnut hair and aquiline nose, and Ada knew full-blood siblings could look like strangers—after all, she barely resembled Arthur. No wonder Vincent's so kind, she thinks, recalling how he carried her home after she twisted her ankle, hopping a fence.
“Now, I don’t care what the priest says, there’s no shame in that," her grandmother continues. "We’re all trying to make our way in the world, to get our hands on the things those fancy lords and ladies take as their due. But she bows and scrapes to them as much as any beggar, even if her dresses are silk and her shop is bustling. That woman ought to admit she’s more like us than she is a lady. She should be proud she got that man to pay for her baby. Plenty of whores aren’t so lucky. I’m proud that I snuck out of their castle with a satchel full of their silver. We deserve it just as much as they do.” She hugs Ada, kissing the top of her head. "Don't forget it."
“I won't forget,” Ada swears, listening to the steady beat of her grandmother’s heart.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tommy and Freddie are waiting outside the schoolhouse in the morning, cigarette smoke veiling their faces. They exhale in unison, and Freddie blows a perfect halo–until he notices Ada and starts to cough.
“What are you doing here?” she asks. At seventeen, Tommy is finished with school, and Freddie—though only twelve and thus entitled to one more year—dropped out to take care of his mother. Mrs. Thorne used to be a seamstress, but nearwork by candlelight left her almost completely blind. Still, thanks to her husband’s wages as a foreman at the factory, and the support of her friends and neighbors, she was able to keep a tidy house when Freddie was little. Then her husband died.
He was shot by the father of a barmaid barely older than Freddie: the abortionist had been furious enough to break her code of silence, hearing the girl sob his name as she bled to death. Freddie hasn’t spoken his father’s name since, but every Sunday, he picks daisies in the schoolyard and leaves them on the poor girl’s grave.
At the funeral, Mrs. Thorne talked about going to south Belfast, where her sister lives with her brood, a place she swore she’d never return to after escaping the Magdalene laundry. But Freddie convinced her to stay in Birmingham, and so far, they’re managing to make ends meet. They moved into a flat above the sweets shop. They bartered their furniture and the clothes she sewed years ago, which were out of fashion but well-kept enough to be made over. Mrs. Thorne even sold her hair; Freddie argued against it, but she claimed it didn't matter what she looked like when she could hardly see her own reflection. Occasionally, neighbors donate little luxuries, raisin puddings and meat pasties, because Freddie and his mother are beloved in their part of town: visitors crowd the place every afternoon, laughing at Mrs. Thorne’s bawdy jokes and her wild retellings of Gothic novels.
Still, leaving school was a brutal disappointment for Freddie; according to Mrs. Ciangretta, he’s the smartest boy in Birmingham, and in a just world, he would've made it to university. Sympathetic to his plight, Tommy found him a job at the Birmingham Small Arms Company, manufacturing shock absorbers, and introduced him to the new owner of The Garrison pub, who pays him a few shillings to wash glasses when the bartender's too busy. Treating Freddie like a protege, Tommy is rewarded with his fierce devotion.
Arthur and John like Freddie well enough, because he possesses the qualities they prize most: loyalty, humor, and the ability to hold his own in a fight—even if he’s slow to anger and often the last to join the melee. But they have no patience for his daydreaming, slapping him in the back of the head if he’s too dazed to hear them calling, and they mock him for being a “sour old nun” when he chides them for groping the barmaids. Tommy, though, indulges him, inviting Freddie to the Shelby house for a drink after work; Freddie sips tea while Tommy nurses a whiskey.
Ada eavesdrops on their conversations without shame. They debate the value of religion, which they both come down decidedly against; Freddie is frustrated by his mother’s stubborn piety, railing against the hypocrisy of the priests who tortured her at the institution, while Tommy’s objections are rooted in his refusal to submit to authority. They gossip about the workers at the factory, whose brutish looks often disguise fragile hearts: the foreman is distracted because his wife left him for his brother, so Tommy and Freddie are able to sneak away more often for a smoke. They consider the likelihood of another Irish uprising and make friendly wagers on which horse will win the Derby.
When she’s not lurking in the doorway, Ada is finding excuses to join them in the kitchen: she scrubs dishes she’s already washed, and folds rags she’d ball up otherwise. Over time, she’s become confident enough to ask questions, and Freddie answers seriously instead of mocking her, or batting her away like so many others do.
So when Tommy says, “No school today. You’re coming with us,” Ada skips eagerly after them, relieved that she tied her hair with her favorite bow this morning. Although John teases her whenever she wears it, claiming its enormous loops resemble kitten ears, Ada knows she is the height of fashion.
Freddie rifles through the pocket of his jacket, which is oil-stained and two sizes too large, until he finds a chunk of toffee wrapped in paper. He tosses it to Ada, and to her relief, she catches it with uncommon grace. “You didn’t have to,” she says, knowing that he paid for it with cash he can't spare; Freddie rarely recalls that stealing is even an option.
“You deserve it, being stuck in a room all day with those nasty little kids.”
Ada looks down. They only invited me out of pity, she realizes, cringing. Since the fight with Cora, most of the children her own age shun her, too snobbish to associate with a low-class brawler or too cowardly to risk reprisal from Cora, who controls them with sugar-coated threats and bribes of silk flowers from her mother’s shop. They never insult Ada outright, of course; her brothers would punish their siblings for the disrespect, being too honorable to smack children. But her former friends find other ways to hurt her. They avoid her eyes, never speaking to her unless the teacher forces them to, and they no longer invite her to play hopscotch and jump rope.
Kicking a pebble across the pavement, Ada fails to suppress a sigh. I miss my mum, she thinks, wondering if the grief ever really goes away. Sometimes, she still expects to hear her humming through the window, hanging laundry on the line. She feels her mother’s calloused fingers caress her cheek in the morning, and then she’s shouted awake by John.
Their house is always full of people, people who Ada loves dearly, and who love her in return. Finn crawls after her, giggling madly, Anna smiles at her, old enough now for it to be sincere, and little Michael begs her to pick him up, clapping his hands in delight. Ada’s elder brothers barrel in and out with their gang of friends, who treat her with kindness and haphazard affection. Polly is a comforting presence, always there when Ada needs her. And her itinerant family visits, too: her father makes her laugh with his tales of pirate adventures, her uncle Gray is teaching her to whittle otters out of basswood, and her grandmother regales her with stories of their ancestors’ victories. Yet despite the noise and movement, the kisses and the hugs, there are moments when all Ada can see is an absence, and all she can hear is the silence where her mother’s voice ought to be.
“It was the same for me,” Freddie continues. “They get jealous because you’re so much cleverer than they are, and Mrs. Ciangretta likes you best.”
Ada glances at him, skeptical. Sure, some people call Freddie odd or bookish, but she’s never seen anyone treat him as coldly as they treat her now. When he was her age, he was at the center of every game of cricket and conkers, and the girls have always favored him, sighing over his deep green eyes.
“Do you want me to take care of it?” Tommy asks, not for the first time, and Ada rolls her eyes to hide her shame. She hates that they doubt her ability to take care of herself—even if she occasionally doubts it, too.
“I’m fine,” she replies. “So…where are we going anyway?”
“The Penny Crush,” Tommy answers. "We're going to see The ‘?’ Motorist.”
“It was meant for us," Freddie adds. “If not for the work we do, those motorcars wouldn’t exist.”
“But you’ve never driven one,” Ada points out.
Freddie shrugs. “Our day’s coming,” he says, and Tommy swings an arm over his shoulder, nodding in agreement.
Ada imagines sitting in the tufted seat of a gleaming black automobile, gripping the cold metal door with one hand, holding her hat on with the other, the feather on its brim fluttering in the wind. To her surprise, it’s Freddie she pictures beside her, steering them through Birmingham. She grins, giddy at the thought of seeing a motorcar race on the big screen.
The theater is a brand-new addition to the thoroughfare, the rows of Edison bulbs on its facade a glaring reminder that the old days are gone. There are posters on the wall: portraits of dapper men and glamorous women, photographs of city skylines that Ada’s never seen before. But her eyes lock on one in particular, a full moon with the face of a man, and she shivers with excitement.
Mr. Owens greets them at the entrance, looking heartier than he has in ages in his pressed uniform and cap. He takes their coin with a smile and ushers them inside, where the red plush chairs are filling with people of all stripes. Freddie reaches for Ada’s hand so she doesn’t get lost in the crowd, suggesting they find a seat in the front row, and she blushes at his kindness; since he and Tommy are tall enough to see clearly from the back of the room, this is an act of chivalry. Tommy slides in behind her, and, between them, she feels warm and safe.
When Ada looks up, she spots a balcony in the corner, where a woman with a steel gray bun is tuning a piano. At the first jaunty notes, Ada faces forward again, just in time to see the title card flash on the wall. She holds her breath, gripping her brother’s hand in anticipation.
And then the lights dim, and the wall turns white and silver, the image undulating like the canal under the evening rain. Suddenly, there is a couple right there in the room with them, riding in a motorcar. The tree-lined street they drive on is empty, except for a peeler in a silly round hat, and the audience laughs when the car knocks him over. Then there is a chorus of gasps, because it is speeding toward a storefront, bound to smash through the glass, but before disaster hits, the car flies straight up into the sky.
The bobby is left standing stupidly in front of the window, and the crowd behind her blows raspberries and jeers. But they quiet, struck with wonder, when the car becomes a pale silhouette among the clouds, gliding like a phantom above fluffy treetops, belltowers, and brick chimneys, just like the ones here in Birmingham. And then it’s nighttime, and the car is weaving between six-pointed stars, looping around the full moon, circling the bright ring of Saturn. And then it falls…and falls…and falls. When it crashes through the roof of the court house, the crowd boos, expecting a moralist’s ending, but before the police can catch them, the couple zips out the door, and their automobile transforms into a horse and cart too slow to warrant a traffic ticket.
Ada laughs with glee as their cart turns back into a motorcar, just in time for the bobbies to realize they’re going to escape. When the light turns on again, she feels like she’s jolted out of the wildest dream she’s ever had.
“That’ll be us someday,” Tommy murmurs, so quietly that she wonders if he’s talking to himself. When Ada meets Freddie’s eyes, they are glinting with the same excitement that must be in her own. That’ll be us one day, she thinks, and the music stops.