The Dead Are Patient

The dead are always more honest than the living, Violet Abrams thought as she adjusted the glass plate in her camera.

They've got nothing left to hide.

Mrs. Chen sat perfectly still in the velvet-backed chair, hands folded in her lap, head tilted at precisely the angle Violet had positioned it twenty minutes earlier. She would hold that pose for as long as necessary. The dead were patient that way.

"Almost ready, Mr. Chen," Violet said, her voice dropped a full octave into the gruff register she'd spent three years perfecting. "Just need to check the exposure one more time."

The widower stood to the left of the camera, wringing his cap between callused hands, his shoulders slumped with grief. Next to him, his two daughters clutched each other, their faces pale and tear streaked.

"She looks beautiful," Mr. Chen whispered. "Like she's only sleeping."

Violet—or rather, Bernie Abrams, as the neat sign on the studio door proclaimed—grunted acknowledgment while ducking under the camera's black cloth. Through the ground glass, Mrs. Chen's image appeared upside down, reversed, and achingly final. Violet had positioned her carefully: eyes closed this time (the family had requested it), wearing her best dress, a small bouquet of paper flowers in her hands. The Chen family couldn't afford real flowers, but Violet had learned long ago that what mattered in these photographs wasn't botanical accuracy. It was the preservation of dignity.

She pulled the dark slide, exposing the wet collodion plate. "Everyone hold very still now. Count of thirty."

The family froze. Mrs. Chen, of course, didn't need the reminder.

Violet counted silently, watching the late afternoon light filter through the studio's high windows. Dust motes danced in the beams, visible only because of the particular slant of October sun. In another hour, she'd lose this light entirely and have to rely on the flash powder—dangerous, expensive, and prone to making clients flinch at precisely the wrong moment.

"Twenty-eight... twenty-nine... thirty." She slid the dark slide back into place. "All finished. You can move now."

Mr. Chen's shoulders sagged with relief. His daughters immediately began whispering to each other, the tension of enforced stillness breaking like a snapped thread.

"I'll have the photograph ready in three days," Violet said, pulling the plate holder free and tucking it carefully under her arm. "You can collect it here, or I can have my assistant deliver it to your home for an extra sixpence."

"We'll come here." Mr. Chen pulled a small leather purse from his coat. "How much do we owe?"

"Seven shillings for the sitting and one plate. Eight if you want a second print."

It was a fair price—cheaper than most post-mortem photographers in London charged, and Violet's work was better. Poppa had taught her that: price fairly, work honestly, and give the grieving what they really needed. Not just a photograph, but proof that their loved one had been here, had mattered, had been worthy of remembrance.

While Mr. Chen counted out coins, Violet became aware of a presence at the edge of her vision. Not unusual in this line of work. She kept her face carefully neutral, her focus on the money changing hands.

"Thank you, Mr. Abrams." Mr. Chen pressed the coins into her palm—still too warm, she always thought, money from the living—and shook her hand firmly. "You've given us a great kindness today."

"My condolences to your family," Violet replied, the formula as practiced as her lowered voice. She walked them to the door, nodded as they filed out into Carter Square, and locked the door behind them with a decisive click.

Only then did she turn to face the woman standing beside the velvet chair.

Mrs. Chen looked exactly as she had in life, Violet imagined, though she'd never met the woman before today. Middle-aged, Chinese features, still wearing the same dark dress though it now appeared faintly translucent, as if someone had painted her in watercolors and forgotten to make the pigments fully opaque.

"You can see me," Mrs. Chen said. Not a question.

"I can." Violet pulled off the false beard she'd been wearing, wincing as the spirit gum tugged at her skin. Three years of this and it still hurt every time. "You've been dead two days, I'd say. Heart gave out in your sleep."

"Three days." The spirit drifted closer, though 'drifted' wasn't quite accurate. She moved like a person walking, but her feet didn't quite touch the floor. "I felt it happen. Like... like falling into deep water."

Violet nodded, setting the beard carefully on the worktable and beginning to unbutton her coat. The binding corset underneath was already making her ribs ache. "Peaceful, then. That's good."

"My husband—"

"Will be fine." Violet kept her voice gentle but firm. It was always the same conversation with the recently departed. "Your daughters will see to him. They're good girls. I could tell."

"Mei is too soft-hearted. And Lin works too hard. She'll make herself sick—"

"Mrs. Chen." Violet turned to face her fully, abandoning the beard removal for the moment. "What is it?" Violet asked gently. "What's keeping you here?

The spirit's translucent hands twisted together. "My daughters. They're so young. Lin is only nineteen, and Mei just sixteen. How will they manage without me?"

"They'll manage because you taught them how." Violet kept her voice firm but kind. "Lin runs the household accounts, doesn't she? And Mei helps your husband in the shop?"

"But they need their mother—"

"They do," Violet agreed. "They'll grieve. They'll struggle. But they're not children, Mrs. Chen. They're young women, and you raised them to be strong."

"Lin doesn't know how to make my dumplings the right way. And Mei still has nightmares sometimes—"

"And they'll learn to make dumplings their own way. And comfort each other through nightmares." Violet softened her tone, recognizing the fear beneath the protests. "You're not worried they can't manage. You're worried about leaving them. That's different."

The spirit stilled, looking at her.

"Mothers always think their children aren't ready," Violet continued quietly, thinking of her own mother who'd died too soon. "There's never a right time to let go. But holding on doesn't protect them—it just keeps you both in pain."

Mrs. Chen's form wavered, becoming more transparent. "You're certain they'll be all right?"

"I'm certain you raised them well. The rest is up to them." Violet managed a small smile. "They're grieving now, yes, but they're strong. You made them strong."

The spirit looked at her with such gratitude that Violet felt her own throat tighten. "Thank you," Mrs. Chen whispered. "You've given me peace."

"It's what I do." Violet's voice was rough. "The living need photographs. The dead need peace. I provide both."

Mrs. Chen's form was already beginning to fade, the translucency increasing until Violet could see the velvet chair clearly through her. "Tell them..." Her voice was barely audible now. "Tell them I was proud of them. They'll know I would have said it."

Violet nodded, knowing she wouldn't. The family had hired her to photograph their mother, not to commune with ghosts.

But Mrs. Chen didn't need to know that. She needed to believe her love would reach her daughters somehow.

"And tell my husband..." The spirit's voice was barely audible now. "Tell him I love him. I always did."

Mrs. Chen smiled one last time, and then she was gone. Not dramatically—no flash of light or sudden disappearance. Just a gradual fading, like mist dissipating in morning sun, until there was nothing left but the empty chair and the late afternoon light.

Violet stood alone in the studio, staring at that empty chair. This was what she photographed, really—not the bodies themselves, but the empty chairs they left behind. The spaces at family tables that would never be filled again. The weight of absence made visible in velvet and wood and late afternoon shadows.

Mrs. Chen would go home to her family as a glass plate image, carefully posed and peaceful. But the empty chair would remain. At their dinner table, in their daily routines, in every moment when they reached for her and found only air.

The familiar ache bloomed behind Violet's eyes—the toll spirit communication always took. Not quite a headache, not yet, but a warning. She'd need to rest soon, before the pain sharpened into something worse.

A knock at the back door made her turn. That would be Artie, back from his delivery run. She crossed to unlock the door, already reaching to adjust the beard she'd removed.

Arthur Sands came in carrying an empty equipment case, his dark face split by a grin. At seventeen, he was all angles and energy, moving through the world with the quick grace of someone who'd learned early how to navigate tight spaces and tighter circumstances.

"Fletcher family sends their thanks," he said, setting the case down. "And an extra sixpence for the delivery. Said your work was the finest they'd seen."

"As it should be." Violet locked the door behind him. "Did you check the plate before you left?"

"Course I did. Checked it three times, like you taught me." Artie's grin faded as he caught sight of her expression. "Everything alright?"

"Mrs. Chen's spirit." Violet gestured toward the empty chair. "She's moved on now."

Artie nodded, understanding immediately. He was one of the very few people who knew about Violet's gift—had known since the day two years ago when he'd tried to rob the studio and encountered his own mother's ghost in the darkroom. Poppa had caught him, offered him a job instead of calling the police, and Artie had been part of the family ever since.

"Need me to develop the Chen plates?" he asked.

"No, I'll do it. You should head upstairs, see if Poppa needs anything." Violet hesitated. "Has he seemed... off to you lately?"

"Off how?"

"I don't know. Tired, maybe? More than usual?" She couldn't quite articulate the unease that had been growing in her chest over the past few weeks. Nothing concrete. Just a sense that something was shifting, changing, the way the light changed as summer gave way to autumn.

Artie frowned. "He's been working on the accounts a lot. Says the numbers aren't adding up right, but you know how he is with numbers."

"I do." Violet managed a small smile. "Go on, then. Tell him I'll be up soon to help with the ledgers."

Artie disappeared up the narrow stairs that led to the second floor living quarters, his footsteps light on the creaking wood. Violet stood alone in the studio, surrounded by the tools of her trade: cameras and tripods, backdrops and props, the careful staging required to make death look like sleep.

She thought of Mrs. Chen's final message. Tell my husband I love him. I always did.

The dead, Violet had learned, were always more honest than the living. They had nothing left to lose, nothing left to hide behind. In death, all the careful pretenses fell away, leaving only the truth.

She wondered what truth she would tell, if she were a ghost. What would Violet Abrams say, if she were free from Bernie's disguise, free from the binding and the beard and the carefully lowered voice?

But that was a question for another time. For now, she had work to do.

Violet gathered the exposed plates and headed for the darkroom, already calculating exposure times and chemical baths. The dead might be honest, but they still needed to be photographed. And Bernie Abrams was very good at his job.

She just had to remember which "she" she was supposed to be.

The afternoon light was fading by the time Violet finished developing the Chen plates. She emerged from the darkroom blinking against the brighter light of the studio, the wet prints held carefully by their edges.

Mrs. Chen looked peaceful in the photograph. Dignified. A woman who had lived and died and deserved to be remembered.

Violet hung the prints to dry and climbed the stairs to the second floor, her ribs still aching from the binding corset she'd finally removed in the privacy of the darkroom. The living quarters were small but comfortable: a parlor, two bedrooms, a kitchen barely large enough for one person to work in. Everything worn but clean, organized but cluttered with the accumulated possessions of two lives lived fully.

She found Poppa in the study, exactly as Artie had described: bent over the account books, spectacles sliding down his nose, gray hair wild from running his fingers through it. He looked well enough—color in his cheeks, steady hands moving the pen across the ledger. The same solid presence he'd been all her life.

"The numbers aren't adding up," he said without looking up. "We should have seventeen shillings more than we do."

"You forgot the repair on the camera stand. Five shillings to the carpenter, remember?" Violet crossed to the desk, looking over his shoulder at the neat columns of figures. Poppa's handwriting was precise; each number formed with the care of a man who'd taught himself to write in three languages and wasn't about to do it sloppily. "And you gave Mrs. Morrison credit for her daughter's photograph. That's twelve shillings we'll get next month."

"Ah." Poppa sat back, removing his spectacles to rub his eyes. "Yes. The Morrison girl. Terrible thing, consumption. Fifteen years old."

"Sixteen." Violet had photographed the girl herself, had seen death already settling into her features even before the family realized there was no hope. "Her mother couldn't afford the full price."

"Which is why we gave credit." Poppa replaced his spectacles and looked up at her, and Violet felt some of the tension in her chest ease. He looked tired, yes, but he'd always looked tired. Sixty-three years of living left their mark. "How was the Chen sitting?"

"Peaceful. Seven shillings, plus two for the fee." Violet didn't mention the spirit. She never did, unless there was information that might help the living. "They'll collect the photograph on Thursday."

"Good, good." Poppa turned back to his ledgers, then paused. "I'm sorry, sheifeleh. I should help more with the sittings. You shouldn't have to carry all the work yourself."

"I don't mind."

"I mind." He set down his pen with a decisive click. "I'm getting old, Violet. Slower. It's time I admitted that."

"You're not that old," she protested, even as a small voice in the back of her mind whispered: But he is. Look at him. Really look.

"Old enough." Poppa's smile was gentle. "But we have time yet. I've still got good years left in me, and you're learning well. Better than I ever was, if I'm honest. Your mother would be proud."

The mention of her mother—dead these fifteen years from cholera—made Violet's chest tighten. Leah Abrams had possessed the same gift Violet had, the same ability to see and speak with the dead. But unlike Violet, she'd embraced it openly, had made a living as a medium before illness took her.

"Mameh would tell you to rest more," Violet said. "She'd say the dead can wait."

"The dead are patient," Poppa agreed. "It's the living who get impatient." He closed the account book with finality. "Speaking of which—I have the Fletcher sitting tomorrow, and the Goldstein memorial on Thursday—"

"I can handle the Fletcher sitting." Violet stood, brushing imaginary dust from her skirt. "You should rest. You look tired."

"I'm always tired. I'm sixty-three, Violet. Tired is my natural state." But he was already closing the account book, his movements slower than they'd been even a month ago. "Will you ask Artie to make tea? The good kind, not the cheap stuff he thinks I don't notice him substituting."

"I'll make it myself." Violet paused at the door. "Poppa? Are you feeling alright? Truly?"

He looked at her with such warmth, his eyes crinkling at the corners in the way that always made her feel safe. "I'm fine, sheifeleh. Just old bones complaining about the weather. Go on, make the tea. And tell Artie he can't hide the good tea in the flour tin—I know all his tricks."

Violet smiled and left him there, surrounded by his books and papers and the accumulated clutter of a life spent photographing the dead. As she descended the stairs toward the kitchen, she tried to ignore the small, cold voice in the back of her mind that whispered: He looked well, yes. But had he looked quite this tired yesterday?

She pushed the thought away. Poppa was fine. He'd been fine for sixty-three years, and he'd be fine for many more.

The dead might speak to her, but they didn't tell the future.

Only the living could lie to themselves about what was coming.