Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 (8 page)

“
I’m eatin’ at Bobby’s, Ma. You can give Rose my share,” Louise said over her shoulder as she left.

The mother sighed as she got up from the porch and picked up her bowl of peas.
“Fine. Be gone by tomorrow. I’ll give you a ride to town.”

The thought of riding on that bony woman
’s back to town gave me the shivers. What a strange place I’d landed in. Still, it was better than the hospital, so I went in the house willingly enough.

It was dark, but that was nothing new to me. The place was dusty, but I was never one to care about that. There was a smell of something cooking, and I followed the mother into her kitchen.

“Wash up then,” she ordered. I watched her throw the peas in some boiling water on top of a large oven. I stared at it curiously: the oven, I mean. I couldn’t see the fire, and I was curious about the heat source. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but the mother looked like she wouldn’t want me to.

“
Is the river close?” I mumbled.

“
Not particularly. You’re a funny one. Use the sink,” she gestured towards the place near the oven.

I waited until Daniel passed me by and used it first. The water came gushing out of a pipe right into his hands. I held my hands under it eagerly. It was cold, but it felt nice enough.

The father arrived, a big man, dirty from working in the fields all day and ill-tempered. Probably from being married to a shrew, I figured. He grunted when introduced to me. We sat down at the table and ate our supper. There was bread and meat and the peas and a jar of peaches. It wasn’t the best food, but I was hungry enough to eat, especially the bread. I stuffed a whole piece in my mouth, and the mother moved the plate out of my reach with a glare. She didn’t scare me, and I glared back.

That night I slept in a bed with Louise, who had come back from her beau, Bobby. She nearly talked me to death, like I was some sort of friend or sister or something, until I told her to shut up or I
’d smother her with a pillow. I think she thought I was joking because she laughed, but I wasn’t joking, and I didn’t laugh with her, and she abruptly shut up.

The next morning the mother made us all line up for prayers, and when I wouldn
’t say them she tried to turn me over her knee for a swat. It was unsuccessful, and she ended up looking a fool, panting and angrier than a hornet. I laughed in her red face and went outside. Louise and Daniel looked after me with expressions that almost looked reverent.

I was sitting by the car (to me it was just an odd pile of metal) when it suddenly sprang to life. It roared and sputtered and moved, and I screamed. I wanted to run away but my legs wouldn
’t obey me, and so I just sat there, screaming until the father came out from the pile of metal and yelled at me to stop.

“
Get her out of here!” the mother demanded, letting the screen slam shut behind her. The naked baby was on her hip.

The man opened a door in the metal thing and came toward me, and when I realized what he meant to do, I screamed louder and kicked him hard. He grabbed my wrists with one meaty hand and my kicking ankles with the other. I tried to bite, but he shook me like a dog. I felt my teeth knock together with such force I wondered if I broke any. He tossed me in the growling thing, and I hit my head. I thought he meant to cook me in there, like it was some sort of giant oven, and I was not going to die that way. Like the witch from the gingerbread cottage. Would he throw in wood and fire next? I pushed on the door, but it wouldn
’t open the way it had for him. Was there a magic word? Was there a key or a secret latch? I fumbled until I found it and pushed and pulled until it gave way and the door swung open. My body fell out. The father came around again, and the whole ordeal started over. This time the mother brought out a frying pan.

“
You want me to knock her in the head, Bert?” She held it over her head with one hand, while she balanced the baby with the other.

“
Naw, she’ll behave,” the father grunted. “If she don’t, we’ll grind her up and feed her to the pigs. Ain’t nobody to miss her, the goddamn little lunatic.”

I figured he wouldn
’t really grind me up, but I stopped fighting. To my surprise, he followed me in the big steel container, and then it began to move. I put my hand on the window of the steel thing and stared at Daniel as we moved away. He stared back, and he got smaller and smaller in the distance until he was gone forever.

11

Such a strange little girl, I thought, as I put the diary down. Our own car, well, Mr. Connelly’s car, was moving along too. Our hearts in synch, Rose and I were traveling down different paths in different times, she terrified and I not. I had asked Connelly if he minded me reading it in the car instead of conversing and he had chuckled.

“
I’ll try to get over your silence though it stings my heart a bit,” he said.

“
I could read aloud if you miss my voice so much,” I offered, cheekily.

“
All right then, little one. Enlighten me on Rose.”

So I hear Rose
’s story in my own voice all the way back to Bedlam.

Being only eleven, I wasn’t worried about every danger being in this predicament put me in. I wasn’t scared at all of the father, though I should have been, but I was wholly unhinged over the contraption we were in. I saw the cornfield where I had met Daniel go whizzing by at a frightening speed. I felt every rock and gravel and pebble as they were trampled beneath our steel feet. I felt as though I was in Death’s coach, the carriage to Hell with invisible horses that pulled us along at breakneck speed. I was certain of it.

“
Where are you taking me?” I asked, hugging my knees to my chest. My hospital gown was becoming threadbare after its night in the cornfield and its subsequent wearing.

“
Drop you off at the Wilkensen’s, I ‘spect,” Bert grunted. “They shot my favorite dog last fall. Figure this’ll make us even.”

And drop me he did. The pile of metal screeched to a halt and the father leaned over my body to open the door. I slid out with relief, and my legs were so shaky, I nearly slid all the way to the ground.

“Keep walkin’ down this road and you’ll come to a house. Or don’t. Just stay away from us, you hear?” He had to lean down to be seen by me.

“
Yes, sir,” I mumbled.

I had never spoken such polite words in my life, and I expect I never will again.

“
We’re here,” Connelly interrupts. The hospital looms large out my window.

I sigh dramatically. All that work to be done now that I
’d taken a day off... All I want to do is hide from Miss Helmes.

“
I was hoping you could drop me at home instead?” I wheedle.

“
I don’t think that’s a good idea. Better to let Miss Helmes see you safe and sound, and you can get back to scrubbing.” He leans over me in the very same way I imagine the farmer had for Rose, and opens my door.

“
A gentleman would get out and walk me to my door at least,” I hint.

Connelly draws on his cigarette and regards me with amusement.
“I never claimed to be a gentleman,” he says, and the way he says it makes shivers go up and down my spine.

Mina meets me at the door.
“Where have you been? I was so worried!” She hugs me quickly. “Were you off with him?” The way she says it, it sounds as though the H in him should be capitalized. “He seems… nice. And handsome.”

“
We were looking for his,” I pause, and frown. “His… someone.”

“
Well, I’m glad you’re back. I worry when I can’t find you,” Mina links arms with me and leads me inside.

“
You’re a ridiculous worry wart,” I say, fondly. “Any riots or surgeries or gristly murders while I was away?”

“
Nothing at all,” she laughs. “Except Mr. Limpet has been asking for you.”

“
Oh, dear. I probably promised to dance with him again. Is it Monday already?”

“
Speaking of dancing, Lizzie, dear, I’m having a party. You will come, won’t you? It’s to be the most lovely old-fashioned ball!” She claps her hands like a school girl and awaits my response with held breath.

“
At your house?” I shrug out of my coat and hang it on the wall. “Oh, Mina, you know I don’t fit in with your people.” In so many, many ways…

“
You’ll be smashing, you’ll see, and it will be good for you to get out of the hospital for a night. You’re looking too pale.”

“
We’re in England in April! Everyone is pale, you nitwit.” I snort. “You look like a corpse yourself.”

“
Mother makes me wash my face with milk and lemons; it’s not my fault. Say you’ll come?”

“
What will I wear?” I don my apron hurriedly and plop my nurse’s hat over my braids. “I’m afraid my good apron is at the cleaners.”

“
Very funny,” Mina wrinkles her nose the way she does when she’s found something I’ve said to be distasteful. Her nose is going to stick that way someday, I swear. I’m constantly giving her reasons to wrinkle it. I imagine her mother will make me pay for the corrective surgery. “I’ll loan you something pretty. Papa had several new dresses made for me, and I think one is more your color anyway; it’s a beautiful periwinkle shade.”

“
Oh dear. Periwinkle, you say?” I feign distress. “Periwinkle washes me out. Do you have anything in ruby or emerald? Jewel tones make me feel rich.” I wriggle my eyebrows. “By the way, I ate my lipstick.”

“
Oh, for goodness sake. Thursday evening. You won’t forget now?”

“
I will check my busy social calendar and get back to you, yes,” I promise. “Now, scoot, before the old battleaxe finds us loitering.”

“
Oh, and Lizzie?” Mina calls before I round the corner. “Mack is coming along with me. You can bring someone if you like. A gentleman?”

I smile and laugh.
“I’ll try,” I answer, knowing full well who she means. “But I’m afraid he’s no gentleman. I have it on good authority.”

Mr. Limpet finds me before Miss Helmes does. I am busily sweeping out the back hallway when he wheels his chair up to me. Most of the time, he
’s too frail to get around anywhere by himself, but occasionally he finds a spurt of energy and makes a round of the entire building, causing people to get their toes out of his way in a hurry.  He squeals to a halt and regards me suspiciously.

“
Do we need to oil that chair again, Mr. Limpet?” I ask, cheerfully. “Sounds like you’re driving the Coach de Bauer.”

His face relaxes into a wreath of wrinkles as he smiles.
“Ah, Lizzie, it’s only you,” he says, fondly, reaching out for my hand. He pats it with clammy hands. “I’m so glad when it’s only you.”

“
I’m glad to see you, too. Did you save me a dance later?”

His smile deepens.
“I did! I did save one for you! The ragtime! Your favorite!”

“
Is it?” I can’t help laughing. “I don’t recall, but if you say it is, then it must be.” I smile down at the old man. Never mind that that dance went out of vogue before I was even born; I can’t help but humor him with promises he’ll never remember to cash in anyway. “Does it go like this?” I do a funny two step.

Mr. Limpet scowls at my dancing.
“No, no, that’s not right! Don’t you remember? Why don’t you ever remember?”

I sigh and bend down to kiss his bald head.
“Never mind, Mr. Limpet. I’m just a forgetful girl. I’ll brush up on my steps at home, okay?”

“
That’s good then. You’re such a good girl, Lizzie.” He wheels himself away.

“
I must be,” I mutter to myself. “Who else would do this wretched job?” I long, once again, for my assistance to be needed in a lovely surgery or the setting of a bone. Heck, even a nice batch of leaches to apply to someone who needed bloodletting would be welcome right about now. I have serious doubts about staying here at Bedlam if my medical expertise (well, all right, less medical expertise, more medical
passion
might be a better description) isn’t wanted. I fluff some more pillows with more force than is strictly necessary and allow myself to wonder about Mina’s ball and her periwinkle dress.

I
’ve never had much cause for dressing up. It wasn’t as though the orphanage threw a lot of parties, though we did wear our best when some parents-to-be came strolling through, usually hand in hand, cooing over the youngest ones, and ignoring the rest. Like puppies and kittens in a store we were: lined up, looking as adorable and well-behaved as possible, hoping against hope that this would be our chance for a real family. It never happened for me, like it never happened for so many there.

Ah, well. Such is life. No point in moping. Someday I
’d have a brood of children, and I’d never leave them, not once. I’d give them crumpets and cocoa for breakfast each morning, and I’d braid each of my daughter’s hair with brightly colored ribbons. We’d wear our best to church, and everyone would comment on our happiness and health. The girls would look like their mum, and the boys would have eyes that sparkled mischievously… a bit like Mr. Connelly’s now that I peer a bit closer into my fantasy.

Perhaps I shouldn
’t be trying so hard to find Rose. After all, a girl has to look out for her own future.

I wonder what he would say s
hould I ask him to accompany me to Mina’s ball? He had said he was rather bored. A bored, rich young man. It was practically charitable of me to ask, really. I hated to think of him sitting in his big empty house, pining away for a mad girl, with nothing to do. He’d probably thank me for taking in an interest in him. After all, he did drive me in that lovely car to Bodleian, and he certainly didn’t need to. He never thought Rose would be there anyway; that was all my idea. He really was quite agreeable. I stop fluffing pillows for a moment and think.

Why is he so agreeable?

Does he have a motive I’m not seeing?

Well, if he does, it can
’t be that bad. Sweet Fanny Adams, there’s really no need for me to twist a handsome young man into Jack the Ripper. My imagination is always getting me into trouble. I resolve to ask him to Mina’s ball the very next time I see him.