Twin Speex: Time Traitors Book II Read Free

“eighteenth century,” “barrister.”
    Several entries popped up, and she clicked on his Wikipedia page. There was a pen and ink drawing of a particularly handsome middle-aged man. His hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. Like a poet, a loose scarf was tied rather romantically about his neck. He wasn’t smiling, but there was something light and casual in his pose and expression, almost as if he had been drawn by a friend at a small, intimate gathering.
    Ava read down the page. Gabriel Wright was described as the son of an innkeeper. He had distinguished himself at the bar as an advocate for the poor and disenfranchised. Outside of his work against slavery, he was most famous for gaining the bastard son of a duke’s daughter the right to visit his mother’s gravesite.
    He wrote several pamphlets for the abolitionist cause, and she even recognized a quote attributed to him: “ When we treat people like cattle to be bought and sold, we cheapen humanity to the point of self-destruction .”
    She remembered a researcher who had used that very phrase as an eighteenth-century example of percipient thinking, foretelling the devastation slavery would wreak on a young nation through war and social injustice.
    Gabriel Wright had immigrated to the colonies in 1775 with his wife…
    “Odette…,” she whispered and glanced momentarily up at Odell.
    She looked back down at the page and continued reading aloud, “ ‘Odette Wright, of which little is known, was considered to be very influential in her husband’s work. She was rarely seen in society, but was noted by court reports to be in attendance at some of her husband’s more important cases.’ ”
    Ava looked again at Odell, who said, “Sound familiar? You know of her beliefs through private letters, her feminist and abolitionist work. It is not a stretch to imagine her married to a like-minded man.”
    She shook her head, confused. “She kept her maiden name in all her subsequent writings and correspondence. How did you know? Why Gabriel Wright? And where did you get this portrait?”
    “It was bequeathed to me through a family trust,” he answered vaguely.
    “ Your family? How are you connected? According to this, her married name was Wright.”
    “That is correct, but Swanpoole was an alias.”
    “An alias for what?”
    “Speex. Her name was Odette Speex.”
     

 
     
     
    Two
     
     
    ODELL SAW HER sitting at the corner table next to the window. It had been “their table” since when they were very young. The old Lebanese couple who owned the place had served as surrogate grandparents, plying them with hummus and pita bread while they did their homework.
    The small café was situated across the street from their old fifth-floor walkup. It had served as home base for the twins while their mother was busy challenging the “Balanchine Patriarchy,” as she had dubbed the ballet scene in New York City. They had seen even less of her when she decided to ditch it all and start her own company.
    The White Swan Dance Theater had proved very successful, and a few years later their mother moved them to a spacious brownstone in a more sedate part of the city. Still, the twins gravitated to the old neighborhood. The Lebanese couple had long since retired, but their son, Jamil, ran the place with the same homey warmth that Odell felt as a physical embrace whenever he entered.
    Ettie had been looking at her phone only seconds before and was now staring moodily out the window.
    “Not coming, is he?” Odell pulled out a chair and sat down.
    “No,” she replied, still looking out the window and abruptly changing the subject, “Do you see that little girl over there? The one with the knit pom-pom hat?” She nodded in the direction of a rather shabby-looking apartment building. “I think she lives in our old place. I wonder if she has my room.”
    “ Our room,” he reminded her with a smile.
    She looked at him now and nodded sadly. “Yeah, I guess the one