The girl in the glass by Jeffery Ford

Author:Jeffery Ford [Ford, Jeffrey]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Suspense fiction, Historical fiction, Historical, Swindlers and swindling, Literary, Historical - General, American Historical Fiction, Depressions, Spiritualists, Seances, Mediums, Fiction - Historical
ISBN: 9780060936198
Publisher: New York : Dark Alley, c2005.
Published: 2005-08-03T23:00:00+00:00

Before I could speak, he whispered to me, "I've been meaning to talk to you." I was going to tell him the same, but his expression was one of perplexity, as if he'd made himself weary from too much thought.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I've been thinking about the butterflies," he said.

"That's not exactly unusual," I said, smiling.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I think once this present group dies out in a few weeks, I'll discontinue the Bugatorium."

"Why?"

"Recent developments have left me with a bad taste for the idea of breeding in any capacity. It's never struck me before, but now the whole thing"—here he lifted his hands in the air, the same motion he used to release butterflies during the séances—"seems to me wrought with vanity; the most self-serving affectation."

"But the study of butterflies excited you," I said.

"I think I conned myself into the excitement."

"I always enjoyed them," I said.

"Did I ever tell you how I got started?"

"No," I said.

"It was my first con," he said. "My father, the great Magus Jack, would bet on anything. He'd bet me on things and never lose—coin flips, horse races, how many times a woman at the mailbox on the corner would open and close the little door after putting her letter in. When I'd lose, he'd laugh at me. It got to the point where all I wanted to do was beat him—if only just once.

"One morning, before the sun was even up, one of the few days he ever spent with me, we were walking through the park—he was going to show me some scam—and I spotted a butterfly, closed, on a flower. I bet him I could wiggle the flower and the butterfly wouldn't fly away. He laughed his condescending laugh at me and took the bet. I got down, grabbed the flower by the stalk, and moved it back and forth, a good six or seven times. The butterfly hung on, wouldn't budge. He didn't laugh then but paid me in silver with a grim look on his face."

"Why didn't it fly away?" I asked.

"It was something Morty had read to me one of the nights I'd stayed with him. Out in the wild, a butterfly can't fly until it's warmed by the sun. It needs the heat to move its blood up into the wings. I never forgot that con. Butterflies became my good luck charm."

"You never told me that before," I said.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "It feels like a lot of things are about to change." He looked up then and followed the flight of some white specimen whose name I didn't know. As if snapping out of a daydream, he again focused on me. "Was there something you wanted to talk about?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I just came in to say good night."

"Okay," he said and leaned back, closing his eyes. His left hand descended to rest on Morgan's shoulder.

SNOW

When I woke in the middle of the night this time, it wasn't to the sound of a phone ringing but something a hundred times louder and far more ominous.

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