Introduction

1892—Des Moines

Katherine Arthur and her family are back and it’s time to collect the money Mrs. Mellet left them in her will. The tidy sum will allow the family peace of mind and a future that’s stable and fulfilling. But when things don’t go exactly as planned, Katherine steps up to do more than her share. Hired as a kitchen mistress, her intuition (with the help of a mysterious recipe book), cooking prowess, and work ethic make her the perfect partner for the enigmatic, wealthy woman next door. Then Aleksey Zurchenko arrives...

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

The Gift

Katherine

1892

Des Moines, Iowa

I’m a liar. I hate that I am, but the truth put me in suffocating straits. There’s no alternative but to keep my truths secret, tucked away where no one can reach them and use them against me. Fear of being accused of lunacy or evil sits deep in my bones and courses through my blood. Sometimes a lie is the only way to survive.

I’m lying right now. To Mama. There’s no other choice. She’s standing right there in front of me, my secrets alive between us. She doesn’t see them, though. I can’t tell her that I parcel pieces of who I am, that I fence off sections to protect me inside, that doing so keeps those I love even safer on the outside.

So when I saw the deceased Mrs. Mellet walk right into the room that morning, I almost told Mama the truth. I should have told her the first time I saw her, but I simply couldn’t untangle my words from the binding fear that noosed them in my mouth.

“What is it?” Mama asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

And so I had. I nearly blurted out that dead Mrs. Mellet was standing there, her spirit, along with what I could only think was an angel, coppery light shimmering in the corner of the room, watching over us. I hoped it was an angel. I thought of the Christoffs and the church elders, the people who had caused my suffering because of things just like this, and I wanted to tell Mama everything.

Trust might be suitable in this case. This was my mother after all. She loved me, I knew that. Yet when I started to explain, the words came against a rush of my own uncertainty. I couldn’t trust that love would overcome everything the world brought forth. I wanted to tell the truth. But more than that, I wanted Mama’s grace raining down over me like summer sunshine. I wanted her to know me again. But all I could do was swallow my words, let my heart hold my truth, and hope that someday I could reveal everything, let her see the parts of me that made people fear me as though I entered the room with the devil himself.

I inhaled deeply. Was I even sane? For I had come to understand that, if not a liar, I was unhinged or possessed. None of these possible truths were suitable for my mother or anyone with sense. I called up the words again, but their sour taste made me stuff them back down. How could I tell Mama that dead Mrs. Mellet was here, in the room, her presence sulfurous, as real as the two of us?

Was it really her? Wispy gray hair, pillowed in a loose updo. Limping toward me, crooked-eyed, twisted-limbed, kinked hands, and curled bare toes. She wore a black sateen high-necked shirtwaist with a belled skirt, far out of fashion in cut. Mrs. Mellet’s movement brought the sound of her skirt rustling to my ears as it might have if the woman had been alive in the room. Mama had told me of Mrs. Mellet’s twisted toes and fallen arches, and her movements were plodding as if her spirit still suffered her earthly pain.

At first, I thought she appeared angry, hostile. A chill pricked over my skin like a million spiders marching. Was she there? I squeezed my eyes shut and wished with all my being that when I opened them the old woman would be gone. When I did, she remained, but the angel had disappeared. A metallic taste gathered in my mouth, saliva rushing, my body wanting the cold sensation gone before my mind even decided the same.

I felt my mouth gaping and saw Mama out of the corner of my eye. She had turned and stopped talking at the sight of me struck dumb, as though she could see my heart pounding in my chest, could feel the same presence that I did.

She moved toward me, a cloudy haze coming with her, bringing the chill closer. I dropped the hairbrush and closed my eyes. I forced an exhale, hoping to clear the room of Mrs. Mellet’s spirit with one breath.

At the age of fifteen, I’d already been visited by plenty of spirits, especially in recent times, even by bodies I believed to be angels—even by my own dead brother. But this time, this appearance left me unsure of what I was seeing and why.

“Katherine?”

I shot a look at Mama, who appeared perplexed as she fussed with her sewing box. I looked past her. “Do you see . . . ?”

She followed my gaze, pausing for a moment and then reaffixed it on me, her expression questioning. “What?”

A burst of air rushed past us. She rubbed her arms and looked around. “Storm must be coming with that cold breeze. I’ll get the window.”

I looked beyond my mother as she gripped the handles on the window and pushed it down. Outside, the oak, the maples, even the massive walnut tree, stood stock-still. No wind at all. The chill had materialized right inside the walls of the boardinghouse bedroom.

“You felt that? The cold?” I said.

Mama turned and squinted at me. “Well, yes. That’s why . . . are you coming down with the grippe?”

I looked at Mrs. Mellet, standing near the dresser. She seemed confused. She was trying to tell me something, but I could not make sense of her message. With her death, Mrs. Mellet had bequeathed a gift to us. Perhaps she was just here to say her final goodbye to Mama, to thank her for the work she had done for her before she died.

“You look nervous,” Mama said. “We should only be cheered on this very wonderful day.”

I forced a nod, trying to swallow. I bent down for the brush, hoping that when I stood Mrs. Mellet would be gone.

“Let’s try the dress again,” my mother lifted her voice to match her happy mood.

I stood, and Mrs. Mellet was smiling, nodding, reaching toward me. My initial feeling of being threatened had passed. Mama smiled, her face a blend of pride and optimism—an expression I hadn’t seen in years. Chills lifted the hair on my arms again.

“We can’t be late for Mr. Halsey,” Mama said. “I’m sure he’s elated to finish his business with us.” She exhaled deeply. “And I’m surely glad to be finished with him and the Mellet family.”

Had Mrs. Mellet been alive, I might have said the woman’s eyes were welling from regret for what she’d done to our family. I wanted to confide in Mama. But I couldn’t.

Mama lifted the dress and shook it. The summer-sky-blue cotton billowed, making the sound of wind in sails as she shook out any lint or dust that might have gathered on it. The neckline was round, and the front of the skirt was straight and would be draped as was the fashion. Mama’s attempt to create an illusion of being well-to-do was good, but we both knew anyone who was the type to follow fashion would recognize her effort to fool the eye for what it was.

“It’s nearly ready.”

My feet wouldn’t move, the brush heavy in my quaking hand.

“What is it?” Mama said over her shoulder. “You feeling faint?”

I shook my head as Mama set the dress over the cane-backed chair. She came to me, gripping my arms.

“You’re scaring me.”

My insides quivered. I wanted her to understand what I was experiencing, but I couldn’t form the words. Dizzy thoughts of the Christoff family tangled my tongue. Memories swarmed like bees. Images of the church elders, their faces going bloodless upon learning of my ability to communicate with the dead. They sought to punish and hide me away—their fear and beliefs compelling them to believe I was evil. I couldn’t risk Mama reacting the same way.

Mrs. Mellet had told me she was sorry. I already knew that much. Part of her making amends led to Mama, Tommy, and me all coming back together after years boarding apart. She’d told Mama that she was sorry for being part of the investment failure that led us to flee Des Moines to the prairie in 1887. We knew she wanted to pay us back money that was owed us. Her death one year ago should have meant we were given our due right then, as was written in the will. But Mrs. Mellet’s heirs clogged up the works, and time ticked away until this very day, which would allow us finally to make our way back to some measure of respectability. That was the business we were to put to rest this very morning at the lawyer’s office. I knew she’d apologized to Mama before she died. And leaving us money and restoring our name was how she was to apologize going forward.

I pressed my hand over the pocket in my skirt where I normally hid the crystal pendant that had fallen from a decrepit chandelier. But I hadn’t put it there that morning. Fear shook me again. Think clearly. What if I wasn’t really seeing anything at all? I thought of the newspaper articles I’d read about the insane, the people they locked away for believing they could see such things. What if I had turned lunatic? What if it was the devil slithering up through the earth’s crust just to tempt me?

There was no denying I had been saved. Not saved at a revival, not by God in the way that the church members experienced it. But I had been rescued. The appearance of generous spirits just when dangerous people or perilous situations threatened had saved me many times. It was my sweet brother James who appeared to me in the fields with the Christoffs just in time for us to take shelter from the tornado. And then I convinced the man sent to haul me back to the Christoffs’ to let me leave, assisted by the arrival of his deceased mother who offered just the right words to convince him I was not the devil or a thief. I gave him comfort in conveying her words and then he gave me my freedom from the Christoffs. I could not deny those things. And yet, it all still confused me, frightened me at times. Like this time, with Mrs. Mellet arriving, giving me a sense that her apology was not for what was in the past, but something pending.

Mama cupped my cheeks. “Katherine?”

I grabbed her wrist.

“What is it?”

“I just,” I said. “I hope that . . .”

“We’ve all been hoping for a long, long time,” Mama said, her voice soft and comforting. “It’s all right now.”

I nodded.

Mama’s brow creased with confusion. She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “You’re white as perfect lace. Clammy.”

I gripped her wrist tight and struggled to organize my thoughts.

Mama brushed her rough thumbs over my skin. “The time for worrying has passed. Allow yourself a moment’s peace. I’m here now. We’re together for good.”

Mama’s expectant words were a relief, and as she spoke, her sentiments seemed to usher Mrs. Mellet from the room as if satisfied Mama understood what I could not. I watched Mrs. Mellet’s form dissolve into the air like sugar in warm tea. Perhaps Mama’s strong will had returned to her and was enough to send this negative energy on its way.

I would confide in Mama. Not yet, not without knowing what she would think of me, how to show her not to be afraid of me. The warmth in the room returned, enveloping me with the promise Mama’s words carried.

She squeezed me and kissed my cheek. “One more thing to fix on the dress,” she said as she waltzed past.

The chill was gone, but the fear lingered. A tangible undercurrent ran inside my veins, mixed with my very blood. I wanted to ignore it. Mama’s strong words seemed to have cleared the woman’s gloomy spirit, and relief spiked. But I had learned that Mama could not always be with me, could not always keep me safe. Luckily, I’d also learned what would help me at those times.

I went to my case and fished inside, fingertips grazing the little pouch that housed my treasure. With muslin scraps, I’d created a pouch the size of my palm with plain hemp drawstrings to close the bag. For a firmer purse, I’d flattened newspaper in the bottom and added fabric over that.

I glanced at Mama, her eyes narrowed on the collar she was stitching. One lesson learned good and hard at the Christoffs’ was that people didn’t like what I could do. Communicating with spirits wasn’t something I could tell anyone about, not even Mama.

Inside the simple bag, I had tucked away my most precious possession. I turned my back to my mother and loosened the pouch’s strings. The puckered maw gaped, and I peered inside. My ragged heartbeat steadied. I drew a deep breath, and a calm emerged from my soul and filled me outward.

The sun shifted and streamed through the window, the rays reaching inside the pouch, licking at the crystal facets that reflected a purple wash of light. I looked back at Mama, still engrossed in her stitches. I pulled out the plum-sized ball, rubbed my thumb over the hexagon faces of the chandelier pendant, and was soothed by the sensation. I slipped it into one of the pockets I’d sewn in my underskirt and patted it, pressing it against my leg, secure in the knowledge that it was back where it belonged. I had finally been put back exactly where I belonged. At least for that one moment it felt that way. And I told myself it would be so.

**

An hour later we trundled through Des Moines, Yale in my arms, her cheek soft on my shoulder, lips parted slightly in sleep. My stomach growled, and I thought I heard my sister’s rumbling as well. I had grown accustomed to hunger, to squirreling away morsels of food for when I was desperate, but it broke my heart to think of Yale learning the same lessons.

Someone bumped my arm, jarring Yale, but not stirring her from her nap. The population of Des Moines had grown in the years since we Arthurs were forced to the prairie, running from my grandfather’s bad investment deals. In the time we were gone, the growth of the city brought filth and overcrowding while simultaneously providing us with cover from our former life. I wished we could have just slunk away to a dark corner of town when it all went bad instead of lighting out for the prairie. Maybe then James would not have died in the blizzard, my father wouldn’t have been faced with his own weakness in dealing with the loss, and we would not have all been separated like a shattered china teacup on the floor, pieces scattering everywhere, some never to be seen again.

Like a young man who outgrew his clothes every few months, Des Moines outgrew itself, and the result was a raggedy sense of making do. Every few minutes a breeze would rush past us, raising the odor of horse, making me turn away from a clutch of wagons and carriages in the street to our left. Traffic intermittently stopped and started on the mud roads, iron wheels turning over cedar-block paving, loosening and breaking pieces as they went. The sidewalks were jammed tight, people causing us to stop and start again, giving me a chance to glance into the shops.

The storefronts of Hartley’s Haberdashery, Cobbler Luke’s, and Jenny’s Dry Goods were eyebrowed in pine green awnings meant to hide the soot, dust and age, but they had turned more gray than green. Their windows bore circles and ribbons of gray where the shop owners had wiped down the glass only to have the wetness capture the swirling grime that rushed by before the moisture could evaporate.

One lone pure white awning stood against the gunmetal scene, drawing me in—La Reine’s Fine French Couture. The windowpanes gleamed like sheets of diamonds, and the dresses in the window were every shade of sorbet. All manner of decadent silk ruffles, summer wool bustles and soft cotton sleeves graced the shop, and I knew that business would profit this season as women who had money to spare would enjoy the sense that this dress shop with the whitest awning meant the store was the best in French fashion. Mama would have thought so way back when.

Mama patted my back and kissed Yale’s cheek, causing her to open her eyes for a short second before dozing off again. “You’ll have beautiful things again someday, I promise,” she said.

Tommy, Yale, Mama, and I passed smiles back and forth as the knot of pedestrians unfurled and we surged with the crowd toward our future.

“Remember that?” Tommy said as he stepped onto the broken cobblestones to let a set of ladies pass. “It used to be Miller’s Haberdashery,” he shouted before hopping back up onto the sidewalk with us.

“And that,” Mama pointed. “Lilly DeMare’s dress shop. All boarded up. Shame.”

Their mindless conversation comforted me, made me think that I must have been wrong to intuit anything dark from Mrs. Mellet’s presence earlier. Surely, the mere cheerfulness of my family would not erase the sense of foreboding she’d brought with her if something awful was soon to happen. Yet my sense of knowing when it came to events that affected me were not as accurate as they seemed to be when I was reading for others. That kept a seed of discomfort firmly planted in my gut. I wished I had a better handle on what I could “do” with this ability I saw partly as a gift and partly as trouble simply waiting to visit.

As we turned the corner to head down Locust Street, it became even more crowded. The sidewalks teemed with smartly dressed folks headed to offices, men in tattered shirts pushed toward warehouses, soot-covered men dragged home from coal mines and riverboats, and fashionable ladies floated past, heading to shops.

A wash of odors filled my nose—floral perfumes, hair pomade, body odor, manure—an olfactory tapestry woven with the scents of city life.

A cramp gripped my forearm. Four-year-old Yale was heavy, feeling more like one hundred pounds than the thirty she probably weighed. A man stopped short, and I almost smacked right into his back. Yale moaned. “Just a little ways more. Almost there.” I heard Yale’s stomach growl. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

I popped Yale onto my other hip, fished an apple slice out of my pocket and pressed it to Yale’s lips, wanting to quell the burn in my stomach but wanting her to feel the hunger less than I.

Tommy came up behind me. “Mama stopped at the flowers back there. Checking her list.”

My twin brother swept Yale from my arms and plopped her onto his shoulders. He moved through the crowd toward Mama and the flowers but stopped to talk to a thin redheaded girl, who I recognized as Pearl, the girl from the post office. He waved me over to them.

When I reached them, I caught her words.

“Hey, Prince Charming,” she said, her voice thick, her words staccato.

Prince Charming?

The girl slapped her hands with the blackened nails over her mouth and moved closer, putting her face into Yale’s. Awe took over her features, and she appeared to have never seen a child before.

“Oh, Pearl, don’t start,” Tommy said.

“Well, if you ain’t Prince Charming, I can’t say who is.”

“No such thing. You know better.”

“A girl can dream, Tommy.”

She turned her bright smile on me and pushed her hand out forcefully. “Big day today, right?”

Her dirty nails, ragged hem, and graying shirtwaist did nothing to dull her spirit. Her cheeks were splotchy with grime she never seemed to be able to remove, but her bottle-green eyes were lit like a lamp, her red hair shining under the little bit of sun that snuck through two buildings behind us.

I smiled; the ease of this clearly rough-hewn girl always took me by surprise and warmed me all over. She glowed with goodness in a way I didn’t remember ever seeing a person radiate.

I took Pearl’s hand. The firm and overzealous handshake made me burst out with a laugh. “It is a big day.”

“You folks’ll still speak to me once you get all that money owed you, right?”

“Jeez, Pearl,” Tommy said. “Of course.” Tommy and Pearl continued to tease and banter while the image of Mrs. Mellet came to mind again. A chill scrambled through me, and I forced my focus back on Pearl and her endless optimism that she wore like skin.

We couldn’t be late to the lawyer. I glanced at my mother, who was studying a piece of paper.

“Have to run,” Pearl said. She bounced away, weaving through the crowd, a glimpse of her hair coming and going until she disappeared for good. Tommy shook his head. “There she goes. There she goes again.” He pulled the brim of his hat down, telling me he was done with the subject of Pearl.

**

Before we reached the attorney’s office, Mama stopped and pulled us into an alley. She removed Tommy’s hat and swatted it against the wall. “Dust and street all over it.”

She dug her handkerchief from her sleeve and licked it. Tommy pulled away, knowing what was coming next. “I’m fifteen, Mama.”

As Tommy tried to dodge Mama’s attempt at mothering, a wagon rattled to a stop near the alley. The clatter of voices and tins clanging against each other drew my attention. The passenger sitting in the front of the wagon spat into the road, for some reason bringing cheers of triumph from the batch of young men in the back.

From the corner of my eye, I saw an enormous man bolting down the street, chasing down the wagon. His massive size belied his grace as he hurdled a barrel that rolled in his path and wove in and out of the giant holes that had yet to be filled. He finally reached the rig and dove over the back hatch, kicking as he wiggled his way between the others.

The wagon heaved and groaned as it began to move again. Some of the boys sat atop a pile of stone and another perched on the wooden side while the remaining ones seemed to be forced to sit on the floor of the wagon. One stout fellow got to his knees and leaned over the edge of the wagon, reaching his blackened hand toward me. “Come here, little chickadee,” he said.

I looked away, but in my peripheral vision I saw the wagon had stopped moving. A group of people passed in front of it, and the clump of men now stretching over the edge of the wagon, hands waving, called to me. “Have a ride with us, beautiful,” one said. I glimpsed the rig one last time and saw the big fella, the one who’d been running, stand in the back. I looked past all the other faces, all the outstretched arms; something lured my gaze to him, and the world went silent. He spread his thick arms out, trying to balance himself as the wagon began to move again, bobbing and quivering with each turn of the wheels.

I shaded my eyes to see him better. His blue irises pierced mine, riveting me. His hat covered most of his golden hair, and as the wagon pulled away, the big blond one rubbed his chin, silent as the others continued to chirp. I leaned forward, still drawn to him. The rig jerked forward, all the cargo lurching back and forth, causing all but the big one to jostle into each other. I could see them all laughing, but their voices had all fallen away as though I were absorbed into some parallel space with one man and me, just staring. And as the wagon began to turn the corner down the way, the giant blond one shuffled around the others, around the stones, to keep his gaze on me, to keep mine latched to him.

And then they were gone.

I was left frozen in place for the second time that day. A name came to me, skittering through my mind. Aleksey. Aleksey Zurchenko. Flutter, flutter, flutter, like a butterfly, the name flounced through my head.

A gust of wind pulled at the bonnet tied around my neck. A lock of hair whipped against my eye. I tucked it back into the knot at the nape of my neck. I exhaled deeply and pressed the orb in my skirt pocket against my leg, bringing me a measure of calm.

What would Aleksey Zurchenko be doing in a wagon in Des Moines? The next thought chilled me. Was it possible he was deceased, his spirit finding me so far from where we first met so many years ago? I hoped that was not the case, that Aleksey was alive and well with his wonderful family, where he belonged.

Mama came behind me, putting her hand at the small of my back. “Let’s move along.”

I nodded as we ambled onward. “Did you see that wagon full of boys—the one hauling stone?”

Mama craned to see up one end of the street and then the other. “Boys? No, darling. I didn’t.”

I shook my head. Perhaps my mind was slipping toward lunacy. My solace in this was that no one I loved knew of my ability, and that would keep them safe.

We continued on, heading to claim the money that Mrs. Mellet had promised to repay my family after all these years of having none. Aleksey’s name came to me again. I imagined what would have happened if that had been him in the wagon. Would he have jumped out to say hello? Shouted and waved?

The thought of him being near warmed me. And I decided that once we were settled, I would write him. No matter that we hadn’t exchanged letters since shortly after I left the prairie, that I had no idea what I would say to him. Suddenly, I needed to know that he was safe and sound and happy. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Discuss how time and place influenced the choices that Violet and Katherine made throughout the novel?
2. How did family have an impact on Katherine's life?
3. Discuss how death in the 19th century played into Katherine's abilities?
4. How did love play a role in the novel?
5. What might Violet's life be like if her story continued at the end of the book?
6. Discuss the various ways that townspeople saw Dreama's gift.
7. How does The Kitchen Mistress explore the different ways people comfort themselves in the face of loss and death?

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