Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn Read Free Book Online

a more practical note,  was beginning to think I might like to become a journalist someday and thought, perhaps, Tesla could be my first subject.
    It was in that summer that I also discovered a tall, dusty stack of a British magazine, the Strand. The Spirit Vale library's collection went back to 1901. While perusing it, fascinated by the comical fashions of the decade just passed, I came across the first installment of a detective story called The Hound of the Baskervilles.
    I couldn't stop staring at the color drawing on the cover of the magazine. The main part of it showed a scene from the story. But in the right-hand corner, in a red, outlined circle, was a close-up drawing of the story's main character, Sherlock Holmes. He was Tesla -- I mean, he looked just exactly like him, with sharp features and piercing eyes. I could hardly believe it!
    Settling down to read, I soon discovered that the story inside did not disappoint. It featured a detective of supreme logic who noticed everything and worked out his solutions with a cool attention to detail untainted by emotion or superstition. His name was Sherlock Holmes.
    I couldn't get enough of Sherlock Holmes. He was erudite and polite, brave, and even witty at times. And so smart! A genius! I knew that the real genius, of course, was the author, Arthur Conan Doyle, but it was not him I mooned over -- it was the fictional character.
    One hot afternoon in 1911, I was scanning the papers  while Mother was inside trying to contact a spirit for a husband and wife client when a Haitian couple came to Spirit Vale. I was sprawled out, my legs dangling from the end of the front porch swing, when Mimi approached me at a fast clip.
    I'd been distracted from my Tesla search by an article about the largest cruise ship ever built. It had been constructed in Ireland by the British White Star Line. It was to be four city blocks long, built for luxury, and remarkably unsinkable. I was so engrossed in imagining it that I didn't notice my older sister until she was right in front of me.
    Glancing up, I saw instantly that she was in a state of agitation. "What's wrong?" I asked, laying my newspaper aside.
    She plunked down on the front steps. "Oh, it was just so strange. I had to get away," she cried.
    We had become so accustomed to the strange that for Mimi to find anything this unsettlingly out of the ordinary garnered my instant attention. I came down onto the step beside her. "What's strange?"
    She told me that a couple had arrived that morning. They were dark-skinned Africans of about middle age and appeared to be husband and wife. "They were in a motorcar."
    A motorcar! Although I knew from the newspapers and magazines that automobiles had been around for a few years, they were just starting to show up in Spirit Vale and  it was still a cause for excitement. "Did you see it?" I asked, eager for every detail.
    "Yes, but that wasn't the strange part," she replied.
    The couple had parked their Model T Ford and were headed for a reading with Madam Anushka, a medium from Russia who was said to have studied magic with Rasputin himself. "They had just gotten out and I stopped, curious to see the motorcar," Mimi said. "The woman looked over her shoulder and noticed me. She suddenly turned around and stared right at me as though I had terrified her. She clutched her husband's arm as though she was about to faint."
    In my mind I was ticking off the details in an effort to be like Sherlock Holmes. Black African couple. They have a motorcar. Locks my sister in a piercing stare. "What happened next?" I asked.
    "She kept staring at me and staring at me as though she knew me," Mimi recalled. "I just rushed away. I can't tell you how she unnerved me."
    "Who unnerved you?" Twelve-year-old Blythe came up the path wearing a pretty, white ruffled frock. Her blond ringlets were tied back in a pink satin ribbon. Even at twelve, Blythe believed that appearances counted, and she was determined to become someone