Blood Spirits by Sherwood Smith Page A

car or an inkri, whichever came first.
    As soon as I stepped on the streetcar, my mood plunged. I knew how to handle a sword, even if I was out of practice. But the social duel was so not in this Los Angeles girl’s training. Well, at least I wasn’t pretending to be Ruli, like last summer.
    That made me wince.
    Â 
    When I opened the door to my room, I entered a cloudbank of cold. There was my reflection in the wood-framed mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. In the bleak, thin light, my face looked bleached, almost skull-like.
    This wasn’t winter cold. The radiator was burbling along contentedly. It had to be the refrigerator-ice of ghost air, only it snapped the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck like the shock of static electricity.
    â€œRuli?” I said. No visions, no flickering lights answered me. “Ruli, if that’s you, I came to help you out. I don’t know if that makes a difference.”
    No ghost appeared, but the numbing cold gradually faded, leaving pleasant warmth and the sound of the radiator hissing to itself. “Okay, so that was . . . weird,” I said. “I really wish you’d do something ghostly. Let me know you’re listening, so I don’t feel like a complete dork standing here talking to an empty room.”
    Zip.
    So I went downstairs to get some lunch.
    Madam beamed when I appeared, and she happily bustled me to the corner table by two windows. Then, with a flourish, she pulled out a chair, giving me the table all to myself. After, she went straight back to the group who’d shoved two tables together at the front of the room.
    As it was early afternoon, and the regular lunchtime was pretty much over, I’d figured that these had to be Madam’s relatives, and maybe some of her local friends.
    Anna’s husband Josip headed toward me, bringing a plate of savory pork-stuffed baked cabbage leaves, aromatic with caramelized onion and garlic, and a couple of slices of the sweet bread made with layers of ground nuts and raisins soaked in rum.
    I dug in. At the long table Madam lowered her voice to a rumble. For such a small woman, she had an amazingly deep voice. As she spoke, I could feel the eye-tracks.
    Then her characteristic bustling step approached.
    To my surprise, it wasn’t more food or drink. “Mademoiselle Dsaret.” Dsaret? This was her idea of protecting my identity? Way to be unclear on the concept! Since I’d blown the whole anonymity thing anyway, there was no use in correcting her.
    â€œMay I trouble you with a question?” she went on, hands folded before her apron. “I would not ask, but this is from my own cousin’s sister-by-marriage.”
    â€œCertainly.” To save her from having to act as go-between (though I realized later she might have relished that very thing) I got up and headed for the long table.
    Most of the people looked like they were related to her—narrow skulls, dark hair with that reddish tinge, dark eyes. One old woman was fair-haired. The youngest one there, a boy who looked about nineteen, had curly black hair and the sparse beginnings of a mustache.
    â€œHello,” I said in Dobreni. “I understand you have a question for me?”
    From the shiftings and exchanged looks, I got the sense that I’d made a mistake. Of course. It’s always easier to nose into the business of a total stranger if your question is carried by someone else, and no one is face-to-face.
    Trying to get past the social fumble, I said, “Well, I have a question for you. I love Dobrenica. But I didn’t see much when I was here before. What do you suggest I visit?”
    The smiles and bright looks made it clear that I’d said the right thing.
    The grandfather spoke first. “You must see the museum. It is on St. Ladislas Street, next to where we are building the opera house. Did you know that we shall have our own opera house?”
    The others looked at me