I turned my attention back to the bar where the light I’d seen was revealed to be the reflection of a pagoda lantern attached to the wall behind me. The oval mirror showcasing it had a twin, like eyes holding my outline in their unblinking gaze. A third mirror, rectangular and centered between the first two, was split by an antique brass cash register, while a long bar sat before that, white towels pegged at each end, and spittoons spaced evenly along the base. A brass foot rail shone as brightly as the polished bar, matching the paneled oak crisscrossing every inch of wall space, giving the simple room an opulent feel. I glanced up at a ceiling of beautiful pressed tin, each intricate square cupping a constellation. Fans twirled lazily overhead, and an elegant staircase on the left rose to a split hallway.
I tried to shake the feeling of being watched. Hard, since my warrior’s mind calculated almost two dozen men in straight-backed, unpainted chairs, who stopped cold as they stared directly at me. I had a sudden, desperate hankering for a six-shooter.
“Well…” I cleared my throat and resisted the urge to tip an imaginary hat. “Howdy.”
Despite being born and raised in the Sierra Nevadas, at the southernmost tip of what was known as the Silver State, what I knew about the era where saloons had proliferated across the West was confined to Hollywood bastardizations of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I thought I’d been in over my head when I woke up to discover I was a twenty-first century superhero veiled in my sister’s fleshly body. But at least then I’d had a cultural rope to grab onto and regain my equilibrium…and I don’t mean a lasso.
There was nothing in this nineteenth-century-style saloon that looked vaguely familiar. Even the people were the sort that looked out at you, unsmiling, from black-and-white photos…like long-dead relatives with hard lives that leeched their personalities from their leathered skins. Ironically enough, it was the flash of a photographer’s bulb that snapped the silence from the room, blinding me once again. Vulnerable, I braced for assault, but the worry dissolved under the trickling keys of a piano intro.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I muttered to no one, rubbing my eyes and squinting in the direction of the music.
Oh, many secrets does this girl have
And she hides them in the light
But the darkness may have the last laugh
Because her temper has a bite.
I was as surprised by the subject of the song as at the way it ended…or didn’t. The piano player, a reed-thin man with a bowler hat, long fingers and a hook nose, cut off the jaunty song as abruptly as he’d begun, withering into himself like a skeleton sinking into his swivel stool. I raised my brows, waiting for some other random weirdness to occur-might as well get it all out at once, right?-and it obliged me in the form of a saloon girl appearing over the second floor’s shining brass railing.
In a muted world of sepia tones and scratchy grays, she was saturated color, almost blinding in her brightness. She smiled down at me as I rubbed my eyes again, not moving, just letting the shock of her appearance amidst so much gray sink in. None of the men, I noted, could take their eyes off of her either. The only thing to rival her brilliance was that steady orange glow circling the bright red door next to the bar.
A world ruled by women.
Hitching a hip onto the left-hand railing, she crossed her arms beneath what these people probably referred to as her bosom.
“Sleepy Mack, I could just kiss you.” Her laughter rang over the sunken room as musically as the piano had moments before. “I mean, finally. A new fuckin’ song.”
The slumped piano player didn’t respond, his hands drooped lifelessly over his knees, the dusty bowler hat tipped low over his eyes. I finally moved-Yay, me-twisting to find another solid wall behind me. Gilt frames with oil paintings of women in various states of undress were interspersed with old-fashioned oil lanterns, but the small box with its candle and the tunnel leading back to modern-day Vegas was nowhere to be found.
I did, however, spot the cause of my earlier blindness. A nineteenth century daguerreotype camera sat next to me, a shiny box front and wooden tripod so pristine that my dormant photographer’s heart went boom-boom. But anger rose along with my covetousness-two sins for the price of one-because the camera had clearly been set there for the purpose of catching people as they entered. I thought of what I knew about fairy tales, the way myth derived from fact and vice versa, and suddenly didn’t like that someone had snapped my photograph at all. Some cultures believed capturing a person’s image also enslaved their soul. I turned my head and narrowed eyes back to the bartender, and had the satisfaction of watching wariness overcome his handsome features as I headed his way.
“I want that picture back,” I said, pounding my fist on the bar, though I shot a nervous glance at the red door, instinctively edging away from it. By now another woman had joined the first at the top of the stairs, and two more were heading out of a room as resplendent as they were-shimmering, shining, tasseled, bright, and alive in a way nothing downstairs was. Catching the direction of my gaze, a Latina with heels even sharper than my tongue swiftly pulled the door shut behind her, while the rest leaned in various states of repose along the railing. Eyes were shaped, lashed, and lined from corner to corner, black kohl apparently a girl’s best friend over here, while lips fighting with nails to sport the greatest sheen. It was a rainbow-hued array of fringed and beaded and silken clothing, jewels sparking off their ears and fingers and arms, and even from the shawls pulled about their shoulders.
I wiped my brow with my free hand, unable to keep from comparing its ashen hue with the vibrancy and life perched above me. It was steaming hot down here, so maybe in this world color rose instead of heat.
Because the women above didn’t look hot. The few holding fans were clearly doing so for effect, feathers swaying with the casual flick of their wrists, shots of light from bright gems gleaming from bone handles and gold wrist straps. There was nothing on or near them that wasn’t adorned. Even Cher and Suzanne, using their entire feminine arsenal, couldn’t compete with the show above.
I returned my attention to the bartender, who calmly reached over and lifted my hand, polishing the shining bar top beneath with his pristine white rag. “Been a long time since we had anyone come through that entrance, miss.”
His voice was a sweetened drawl, and the “miss” melted me somewhat, so while I removed my hand from his grasp, I was careful not to touch the bar. He smiled his thanks. He was dressed in traditional barman garb, the collar on his white shirt pressed beneath the black vest, his white apron spotless. I didn’t look, but I would have bet that his shit-kickers were polished to a glossy sheen. His hair would have been fashionable in my world if not for the handlebar mustache above his goatee and the generous helping of pomade slicking back the honey-blond strands. Honey blond, I thought grimly, if he hadn’t been living in an achromatic world.
“My picture?” I demanded, holding out my hand. Meanwhile I sniffed, trying to scent out if he was Light or Shadow, for me or against, but I came up with the mental equivalent of a blank chalkboard, a big void, but even less than both of those things implied, because the molecules I inhaled were empty. I drew back, even warier.
The bartender shrugged. “All first-timers to the Rest House have their images taken. How ’bout a drink? First one’s on the house.”
The Rest House? I tilted my head. “And that’s secret agent language for what?”
“No secret, ma’am.” He jerked his chin, indicating a point over my shoulder, and I turned, ignoring the cluster of people-all men, I now noted-still eavesdropping. One man, dark-skinned even outside the monochromatic room, rose from his seat so slowly it looked like he was floating in space. He pointed to the wall where my image, or eventual one, sat nestled among dozens of others. I took my eyes off it long enough to watch him float back to his seat, wondering exactly how long he’d been drinking.