Coming January 15: MUSIC IN THE NIGHT -- Excerpt

 

Right now, all that mattered was surviving until spring, and saving enough money for one more attempt at a safe deposit box. By then, her enemies would have to assume she was dead or at least unable to harm them and give up looking for her. Time and patience and prayers would have to sustain her. Other than her mother's cross, that was all she had left.

Her largest difficulty was that she had tried to sell the cross three times, and each time the shopkeeper wanted the crystal rose that fit into the center of the cross as well. Carmen couldn't bring herself to agree to that. Her imaginary childhood friend, Essie, had showed up in her dreams weeks ago and told her not to sell the rose. While the advice of an imaginary friend couldn't exactly be taken as gospel truth, Carmen wanted to believe her. Just like she had believed with her mother's encouragement that Essie was a real girl when she was a child, she wanted to believe Essie spoke the truth now. She needed to hold onto that crystal rose, and not just because it was the last thing she possessed that had been her mother's.

So she needed to get the job as an assistant cook or dishwasher or whatever was available at the hotel just another block down the street. Mrs. Blomfield, her landlady, knew the right people to find out about jobs opening throughout the great, sprawling city of Chicago. The helpful, somewhat worn old woman had admitted that it would neither hurt nor help to offer her as a reference when Carmen applied for work. Then she had looked up at the sky with the gray, churning clouds moving in from over the lake, and bade her get to the hotel before the rain struck. If she looked like a drowned cat when she asked for work, a recommendation from the First Lady of the United States wouldn't be enough to get her a job.

For luck, Carmen had worn her mother's cross. She hadn't worn it since the dream that helped her make up her mind and flee before she lost everything. Seeing and speaking to Essie in her dream had been the first good thing that had happened to her since her father died. She needed that bit of luck or blessing or whatever one wished to call it.

Clutching the cross through the protective layers of inadequate shawl and jacket and shirtwaist, Carmen stepped under the overhang of a doorway on a side street. She tipped her head back and she closed her eyes and prayed. For good measure, she focused on Essie's face as she had last seen her imaginary friend, and called silently with all her force of will. Perhaps she wasn't being so fanciful, wishing that Essie would turn out to be an angel sent to guard and guide and advise her? 

The crystal rose warmed and vibrated through the wet layers of cloth. Carmen gasped and stepped back against the wall. She uncurled her fingers from the cross and tried to catch her breath. No, she was not imagining. The tiny spot where the back of the crystal rose touched her bare skin, under her shirt, was warm. The contrast with the icy rain soaking her clothes was far too clear to be her imagination. She hadn't warmed the cross and rose with her equally cold hand.