The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart by Leanna Renee Hieber Page B

the curtain, and gestured for us to step into the warm velvet interior and to our seats.
    From a lifetime of being ignored as a mute, I was the one used to watching, not being watched. It was unnerving. I knew so little about Mrs. Northe, really. Who her friends were, what her late husband, an industrialist, had actually done to make a good deal of money, or what void I filled in her life.
    “You’re wondering about me,” Mrs. Northe said. I bit my lip. “It’s all right. Our goings-on have had little to do with outside society. You see me waving, and you know no one I know. My late husband made his fortune in coal,” she began. “A dirty business in more ways than one. Philanthropy became my passion to offset the ruthless companies. Peter tried very hard to be a good man and run a good business, but it wasn’t perfect. He never interfered in my charity, nor my spiritual affairs. I loved him very much. He was taken from me too soon.”
    She glanced around the auditorium, blinking back tears. “I’m not exactly sure I’ve recovered from Peter’s death, even after eight years. All my gifts were useless to save him. I suffered that frustration alone.” She looked away, her body tense, emotions held in like a tightening corset. “To these people, I’m merely a wealthy patron of the arts who is rumored to hold an occasional séance. My dear friends are few and far flung, some upstate, the rest in Chicago.”
    “Your gifts…were they with you since childhood?”
    “At least in part. But everything sharpened the day I watched a ship sail in with Civil War wounded and dead. I saw the ghost of my beloved cousin, fainted right into the river, and nearly died. In that space between life and death I understood that I had a purpose: to use my gifts for love and peace while so much hateful darkness seized the world. I understood then that there will always be a war over souls, and I chose in that moment to live and to fight for the light.”
    I shuddered at the word “war.” I hadn’t bargained on being a solider in that battle, but I’d been drafted anyway.
    “As to why I remain involved with you, Natalie,” she continued, “Fate brought you to me when your father wished to buy Denbury’s portrait. The moment we met, my gifts told me our fates were entwined. You came at just the right time. I was terribly lonely and bored, my gifts atrophied.
    “None of these people,” she waved her hand about the box seats and glittering jewels, “are brave, bold, or terribly interesting. Nor are they my friends. Nor are my talents useful in their shallow worlds. Wealth buys you visibility but not true friends, not happiness. Remember that. I think Lord Denbury knows this well, but in this striving, greedy city, don’t you forget it. You are meant for so much more than an average, petty life.”
    I sat stunned, taking in everything she’d said. I hadn’t expected her to open up so, but I was glad she had. Before I could query further, the orchestra in the pit struck a melancholy chord. A slow dirge of a tune began, similar to Bach’s infamous organ Toccata, yet original and dramatic, mournful and glorious. As the music swelled, the gallery gates were opened and an intriguing crowd pressed forward.
    Into an open, standing-room gallery at the front of the theater filed a group of men and women entirely in black, as if they’d all just come from a funeral. Yet their faces were full of excitement and expectation, as if waiting for a god to descend. Some clasped hands, and some waved from one side of the gallery to the other, as if they all knew one another. Many glanced shyly at the ground, and in each body—I could interpret the language of each one’s body as if they were speaking—there was a trembling vulnerability conquered only by the radiant excitement on their faces when they stared toward the footlights, which cast a glow upon the red curtain.
    The program stated only: “Assembled works of Great and Melancholy