Nevermor (2 page)

Some of the
callers were not specifically looking for children
as sons and
daughters.  They were looking for apprentices, servants, older girls to serve
as nannies.  Wren was not unwilling to work for her room and board, but it was
often that even these people would not want to take all three of them on, and
she wanted them all to stay together.  This was her one aspiration.  She didn’t
want to be separated from her brothers.  They were all she had left.

While she put on
her best face for the visitors with softer expressions, some guests were not
quite so scrupulous.  She could tell by the gleam in their eyes that they were
looking for something different – unsuspecting laborers for the workhouse, or
they were thinking vile thoughts as they looked at her supple complexion.

Wren tried her
best to fend some of these off, and had so far managed to do it, finding that
it worked well to claim that Max was her own son instead of her brother.  The
thought of an unwed mother so young tended to put people off.  Or if the
visitor was suspect for a factory workhouse, she would direct Henry to slouch
or pretend that his legs were uneven so that he would look weak.  Miss Nora
already had them working in a factory to earn their keep at the Home.  Wren did
not want them living in one.  There, they would be treated as nothing more than
property and would no doubt suffer the mishandling that went with it.

Wren felt she
was a fairly good judge of character and she kept her eyes peeled for the
genuine article – even if Henry couldn’t care less.  He usually stared at his
own shoes and the cracks between the floorboards rather than put on his best
face.

It would be nice
if he would try sometime
, she thought. 
I can’t do it all by myself.

She looked out
across the room with the thin drapes and the threadbare settee, looking toward
a decently dressed pair that had caught her eye immediately.  They were clearly
married, and the woman had a warm smile as she pointed out a few of the younger
children to her husband.  He was, perhaps, a bit more stern-looking than Wren
might have liked in a father figure, but the woman reminded Wren of her own
mother, who she had not seen since she’d kissed her goodbye on the steps of
Miss Nora’s nearly two years ago.  These people at least looked clean and
well-to-do, and that was enough reason for her to want them.

The couple was
moving in their direction now, and Wren felt her heart speeding up.  She was
the neglected girl at the party who was finally being asked to dance – but this
was so much more important than that.

This is it
, she told
herself. 
Make it count.

“Stand up
straight,” she whispered to Henry, but all he did was squirm and look up at her
with defiant blue eyes.  All the soap in the world couldn’t wash away the look
of ill-temper that was constantly on his face, and Wren could only hope that
her own smile and politeness would make up the difference.

As the couple
drew closer, Wren’s chest clenched with both fear and excitement.  Her hand was
trembling slightly against Max’s, and she hoped that her anxiety was not
showing through to the outside.

When the woman
hesitated in front of them, she did not seem to see Wren at all.  Her eyes
settled on little Max instead as if she’d just spotted the most adorable puppy
hiding in the bushes.  She leaned down to address him immediately.

“Hello, what’s
your name, pet?” the woman asked him sweetly.

Max turned
against Wren’s leg and didn’t speak.  He was one of the more attractive young
children – his innocence unspoiled by a hard life, even though he’d cried his
share of tears for their lost mother that he could no longer remember.

The woman looked
hopeful for an answer from him, but Wren knew that he wouldn’t talk to her
now.  As little help as she got from Henry, she got even less from Max, who was
fine around the other children but had never felt comfortable in the presence
of strange adults.  She put her hand on his head to soothe him as he clenched
her dress and hid his face in the folds.

“His name is
Maxwell,” Wren said for him.

The woman was
still looking at him anxiously, and Wren would have given anything to have that
sort of attention.

“Say hello,” she
urged her brother, knowing that he was the ticket, and eventually Max looked
sheepishly up at the woman.

“Hullo,” he
mumbled.  He couldn’t have sounded more uninterested in her except if he’d been
bawling, but the woman seemed delighted.

“What a charming
little boy,” she commented, her eyes shining.  “I have so wanted a little one. 
I haven’t been able to have my own, you know.  He even looks a bit like me,
don’t you think?”

Wren wasn’t sure
what to say to that, so she only smiled.  She supposed that if it went
unquestioned, a resemblance might be seen, but as far as Wren herself was
concerned, it was fairly obvious that she was not related to this woman.  The
lady’s eyes were blue, but small, and her nose was slightly crooked over her
thin lips.  Now that Wren was close enough to notice these things, she wondered
how she could have been reminded of her own mother in the beginning.

My mother was
lovely.  This woman is nothing like her.

The woman now
caught her eyes on Wren, who was not always overlooked for being pretty,
especially when one was so close.  Her eyes were blue and kind, her skin pale,
and when her hair was not covered in soot, it was a lovely golden color that
spiraled down her back.  Her lips were sweet, and they always seemed able to
find a smile to lift another’s spirits, even when she was unhappy herself.  It
was as if the core of her soul was visible on her face, revealing her inner
beauty as a rare and perfect pearl.

“Well, aren’t
you lovely,” the woman commented to her.  Wren put on her best disposition,
telling herself that this was it – this was her chance to make a good
impression.

Show her that
you’re smart and competent.  If she’s not looking for a daughter, surely she
might be interested in a nanny if she’d rather call Max her son.  Henry could
make himself useful through work.

But before she
had gotten the chance to speak further, the woman had looked over at her
husband for approval, and Wren saw her downfall there in his eyes.  He had been
staring at her the whole while, gazing intently like a hungry wolf wanting to
gobble her up.  Wren had not even noticed, but his wife saw it now, and she did
not like it one bit.

That was the end
of the encounter.  The woman grabbed her husband’s arm and pulled him away from
them.  Wren was helpless against it.  Her hope sank like a stone in the deep,
cold well of despair.

“That went
beautifully,” Henry muttered as the couple passed by.  “They usually have to
see me first before they run away.  Nice job on that one.”

Wren didn’t
respond to her brother’s chiding.  She swallowed down that rejection; told
herself to be brave.  Beside her, Henry grew quiet again, looking sullen as
usual, and eventually Max had hidden himself behind her dress fully so that he
could not be seen by anyone.  Still, Wren waited, glancing pleadingly at the
others who had come to visit, trying to keep her smile even though she felt
like crying.

No one else gave
them any attention.

2

The day went by
with no result, just as so many days before.  Afterward, it was back to chores
at the Home – washing and cooking and wiping up coal dust.  Soon enough, Wren
was back in her bed, staring at the drab ceiling of the attic dormitory that
housed all twenty of them – boys and girls alike – wondering once again if she
would get out of here before she was old.

Another day,
that’s all,
she thought
.  I’m not any worse or better for it. 
She had to think of
it that way, or else she might eventually give up.

She had
succumbed to the curse of the fifteen-year-old girl – too pretty for her own
good, caught between being a child and woman, and because of that, no one
wanted to embrace her. The ones who
did
want to draw her in desired to
for reasons that she wasn’t willing to lay down her dignity for.

For thirteen
years, she had been her mother’s daughter.  She had been taught what was proper
for a lady with morals and manners, was trained to be an efficient wife and
mother, as society dictated.  Her life hadn’t been all fun and games, but she
had been comfortable and safe with her family.  She’d expected her only trouble
to be preparing herself for suitors in the coming years, but the family had
fallen on hard times after Max was born.

Her father had
lost his job over an adulterous scandal that had sent them all reeling.  The
family name had been dragged through the mud.  None of his old colleagues would
risk associating with him after that, and months passed without income.  Wren’s
mother had grown cold and distant toward them all, slipping away into unhealthy
bouts of depression.  Some days, she couldn’t even remember her daughter’s
name.  She neglected her baby as much as the rest of them, and Wren had taken
to raising the boy herself.  Her father couldn’t find another position and
turned to drinking.  Eventually the accounts were wiped, the family money gone,
and there was only one other option.

Miss Nora paid a
small price for the children, who would bring money in to her from the factory
– unless she might sell them off for a higher price to someone willing to
adopt
.  Wren’s mother had hugged her and kissed her goodbye on the steps,
but Wren was convinced that her mother wasn’t really there inside that body. 
The woman had gone away a long time before that.

Wren tried not
to think of her parents too much anymore.  She didn’t wonder where they were
now or what had become of them – if they had stayed together or whether their
marriage had fallen apart.  There was too much to worry over in her life as it
was, and all she knew was that she was not going to reverse it.

She was stuck
here.  There was no way out.

In the past, Wren
had kept her mind busy by trying to think of a way that she and her brothers
could leave the orphanage, maybe survive on their own somewhere that there was
fresh water and green fields.  Her mind would drift around like a bird flying
in the heavens, circling to keep a watchful eye, but once it settled again, she
always found that it was pointless to even consider.  If they weren’t at the
Home, they would be on the streets, among so many other children whose parents
couldn’t afford to keep them fed.  They would be forced into lives of crime –
would be thieves, dirty and flea-ridden, starving and destitute.  Henry might
have actually preferred that sort of life, but not Wren, and she didn’t want it
for her brothers either.

Those ideas
eventually became impossible fantasies that she created to soften her
situation.  In one instance, she had dreamed that their parents abruptly came
back for them, shining and rich, to take them to an estate in the country where
the air was clean.  In another, a wealthy man would fall in love with her and
take her to be his wife, and he would let her brothers come along to his castle
by the sea.  Her more fanciful side had often imagined doing something a bit
more extreme, like sneaking on a train, or even a ship.  It would take them far
away, and somehow they would find a place to belong.  Maybe there was some
country across the ocean – or an island in the middle of it – where they could
go, free of the smog and the poverty, and live their lives in the sun.

But she had to
remind herself that she was too old for fairytales like that.

“Wren?”  Max was
calling for her attention from the bed next to hers.  There were no babies at
the Home anymore, and so all of the children were kept together in one large
room that was full of echoes and damp smells.  They were unsupervised through
the night and left to care for one another.

Max was among
the youngest, but he had his own bed just as Wren did.  The mattresses were
stuffed with sharp down that often pricked them, and the metal frames creaked
in the night, but it was better than sleeping on the ground, or outside in the
gutter.

“What is it?” 
She looked over at him, seeing how he was curled around his pillow.  He had no
toys, so he often adopted the pillow as a stuffed doll.

“Are you sad?”
he asked her.  “I can’t sleep if you’re sad.”

Wren hated
herself for letting him notice, though she sometimes thought he was unnaturally
perceptive.  She didn’t like her personal feelings to bring any of them lower
than they already were.  She was one of the oldest here, and her brothers were
not the only ones who looked to her for guidance.

“I’m alright. 
Come here,” she invited, holding out her arm to welcome him in. 

Max and his
pillow crawled into bed with her, as he did on many nights when he couldn’t
sleep.  She often wondered if it was a good idea to keep him so close, though
she did feel he deserved to be coddled by
someone
.  She feared that this
made him look to her as if she were his mother.  She had, after all, been the
only one caring for him since he was old enough to remember, but she had never
liked the idea of that.  She was only a child herself and was unfit to raise
one.  What Max needed was a real mother.  They all did, but it was almost too
late for that – especially where she and Henry were concerned.  They had seen
far too much to go back to being petted again.