Her dark eyes crinkled with pleasure, but she didn’t reply. I inhaled for a dejected sigh, but gagged on the stench of people and horse. I thrust my head out the open window and sucked in air.
The horses heaved, and the streetcar rattled to a start down Elm Avenue, east toward downtown. Jie swung out the window beside me. Over the trotting hooves, squeaking wheels, and crunching gravel, I shouted, “You’re nothing like any girl I’ve ever met.” I couldn’t keep the envy from my voice, and my face was likely as green as my words.
But honestly, I hadn’t ever met anyone like her. She could go where she pleased, do whatever she wanted, and no one was scandalized by it. And most impressive of all, she could fight.
She rubbed the bald half of her head. “It’s because I have no hair. In China we say, ‘The girl with the full hair is not as free as the girl with the bare head.’“
“What?” I tried to ask, but the dust plumes from the road flew into my mouth. All I could manage was a wispy choke. I pulled back into the streetcar and coughed my throat empty. I tried again. “What does that saying mean?”
She twisted back into the car too. “It means that as long as I still shave my hair, I’m free. See, in China, girls keep their heads bald like the boys, yeah? Then when we’re the age to become a woman, we bind our feet and grow out our hair.”
“So...” I frowned. “Does that mean you’re not a woman yet?”
“Yep.” She flashed her eyebrows and pointed down to her boots. “My feet are still big and ugly.”
I cringed. Foot-binding was a practice that seemed barbaric to my Western sensibilities. Breaking one’s foot and wrapping it so it stopped growing? Of course, if one paused to consider, was binding a woman’s waist and forcing her to stand like a camel any less barbaric?
“Why haven’t you had your feet bound?” I asked. “You’re older than me, aren’t you?”
“If I were still in China, I would’ve.” She cracked her knuckles against her jaw and stared out the window. “See, when I came to America, I was real young. My uncle had to pretend I was a boy. It was safer that way, yeah? Things here... they aren’t good for people like me, and it’s even worse out west. As a boy, my chances were better. And that way my uncle and I could both work.”
But what had happened to her uncle? I wanted to ask. In fact, I had a thousand questions I wanted to ply her with—about her past, about her culture, about her strength—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when her face looked so distant.
“So how did you meet Joseph?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“We were all three at the same saloon.”
My eyelids shot up. “A saloon?”
She chuckled and waved in Daniel’s direction. “He got cheated at cards, yeah? And a fight broke out. Joseph saw the whole thing, and when the police came, he vouched for Daniel.”
I rolled my eyes, amused. The story definitely fit with what I knew of Daniel—and I almost wished I could have seen it.
“And you?” I prodded. “What were you doing there?”
She grinned wickedly. “I was the one who cheated Daniel.”
I barked a laugh. Now I really wished I could have seen it.
“So now you see?” she asked. “With my hair like this, I’ll be free forever.” She poked at my bodice. “Why would I ever want to put this on? Squeeze my guts and deform my ribs? It’s not natural.”
I snorted. “You wouldn’t want to wear it. I certainly don’t.”
“Then why do you?”
I scrunched my forehead up at the absurdity of the question. “Because I don’t have a choice.”
She shook her head and gazed at me with sad eyes. It made me uncomfortable.
I turned away from her disappointed scrutiny and watched the Schuylkill River flowing beneath the Girard Avenue Bridge.
“Eleanor, you have a choice,” she said softly. “You always have a choice.”
Half an hour later, the Spirit-Hunters and I paraded through the arched doorways of the Mercantile Library. The moment my foot crossed into the cavernous room, calm blew over me.
Before me, the high, curved ceilings of the library rose over aisle after aisle of bookshelves. The morning sun poured in from windows spanning the entire length and height of the walls. It layered shadows over the western half of the room. A small fountain bubbled at the entrance, and the soft murmur of the library’s patrons traveled over it like a melody.
I hadn’t visited this place since Elijah had left, and I couldn’t imagine why. So many happy days had been spent here. My chest clenched with regret. I had been Elijah’s outlet from his bullies, and he had been my escape from Mama’s expectations.
Yet without Elijah in my life, I’d bowed to Mama’s demands. I had done no studying, and most of my intellectual thinking had involved coin counting and haggling.
I guided the Spirit-Hunters to a circular desk at the center of the room. After verifying my father’s subscription, the pretty, black-haired librarian slipped a brass key from her pocket.