The Good Thief (3 page)

Ren knew not to answer, not to say a word. His left eye was swollen, his face smeared with mud where Brom had pressed it into the ground. The twins had pulled his hair until he told them where his collection was hidden, then made off with all that he had saved, slipping back into the barn before Brother Joseph had stirred. Father John had heard the fight from his study and discovered Ren alone by the well, bruised and bloody and weeping at what he had lost.

“Sin does not only reside in the flesh.” Father John stood and walked across the room. “It is an indelible part of your soul. Each transgression a black mark that cannot be removed, except by holy confession and the sacred fire of God’s judgment.” He closed the book and slid it back into its place on the shelf. “The saints are examples for the rest of us. You should think of them the next time you are tempted.” The priest pulled the switch from his sleeve and inspected it, pulling a small hair from the bark. “It is what I always do.” He pointed to the whipping stool, and the boy walked over and lowered his trousers.

The whipping stool had held Ren’s weight and the weight of many other boys over the years. Ren remembered the first time he had taken his place across it, after he was caught in a lie by Brother Peter. Now there were even more scratches in the wood, places where the joints were failing. It seemed close to falling apart.

“Who hit you?”

The first strike was always a shock. The boy tried not to move as it seared into his skin. Sweat gathered on his lower back. Between his legs.

“Who hit you?”

Ren tried to think of other things. He could feel the edges of the cuts begin to separate, the sting working its way across his body. Saliva dripped from his mouth and pooled on the floor.

“Food will be rationed until you reveal their names. The shoes and blankets for the winter returned.”

Ren gripped the stool. He waited for it to break. Every year there was talk of new shoes and blankets. And every year they never arrived.

The small boys’ room was a long, narrow attic space lined with cots and bits of bedding, with slanted walls and a ceiling that ran like a stripe down the length of it. There were two latched windows, one by the door and one at the far dark end, and it was by this particular window that Ren was trying to sleep, the backs of his legs still burning.

The room smelled like boiled fish. It was the same oily smell that covered the rest of the orphanage. This oil came from the bodies of the children and seeped into the tables and chairs, into the stone walls of the building. The boys were washed twice a month, along with their linens, by a group of charitable grandmothers. On those days the brothers would prop open the doors and windows, trying to air the place, but it did little good. By the end of the first night the smell would return—a combination of bedwets, worry, and sickness.

Brom and Ichy were in the next bed, as they had been ever since they were first brought to Saint Anthony’s. Ren still remembered the night when Brother Joseph had shuffled into the room, the twins bundled in his arms. The little boys were soaking wet, their bodies shaking. Ren had watched as Brother Joseph set them on the bed and began to unwrap the blankets.

“The mother drowned herself.” Brother Joseph threw the wet clothes onto the floor, muttering into the dark. “Nothing but bad luck. No one’s going to want these two.” He rubbed the boys’ arms and legs. “They need to get warm.” And with that he slipped first one, then the other into Ren’s bed, then hurried down the hall to look for something dry to put them in.

The boys squirmed against Ren under the blanket. They were perhaps a year younger, but took up twice the room, and he considered kicking them out onto the floor. Ichy grabbed hold of Ren’s nightshirt, as if sensing this, and promptly stuffed the piece of fabric into his mouth. Brom sobbed with rage. Ren thought of their mother, floating in the river. He wondered what color her hair was. He decided that it was blond. He decided the color of her eyes (blue), and her skin (pale), and the print of her dress (pink), until he could see her standing before him, dripping with water. Her shoes were caked with sludge, her hair tangled with branches. She crossed her arms, as if she were chilled, and it took a few moments before Ren understood that she was waiting for him to do something.

“What do you want?” he asked. But she would not answer. So he began to whistle, just to hear the sound of something in the room. Beside him, the twins stopped their crying and went still. They went so still that Ren worried they might be dead. He sat up and watched their sleeping faces until he was sure that they were breathing. When he turned around their mother had disappeared.

Now Ren shifted his stinging legs and tried to ignore the pain. Father John was right-handed, and because of this he favored the left when leaving his marks. Ren turned to one side and then the other. The skin around his eye throbbed and his arm was sore where Brom had twisted it. He picked at a scab starting to form on his knee and sucked his breath between his teeth as it came loose.

“Does it hurt?” Ichy whispered from the next bed.

Ren did not want to seem a coward. “No.”

“You shouldn’t have punched me,” said Brom.

Ren turned and looked out the window. He was not ready to be friends again.

“Do you think William’s home by now?” Ichy asked.

“He must be,” said Brom.

“Unless he was captured by pirates,” said Ichy.

The twins were silent then, and eventually their breathing became shallow. Ren rested on his side and thought about Saint Anthony reattaching Leonardo’s foot. He wondered if the skin was left scarred, or if the saint had been able to make the ankle completely smooth again. He slid his hand underneath the covers and took out The Lives of the Saints .

After Father John had finished the beating and turned to put the switch back into his sleeve, the boy had reached out and lifted the volume from the bookcase. He’d hidden it underneath his shirt, curling around the book on the whipping stool until he was dismissed. He’d kept the leather binding next to his skin and now it was warm, as if it were a living thing.

Ren propped the volume with his elbow so that he could get enough light from the moon to read. He turned to Saint Anthony’s feast day, June thirteenth, and learned that Leonardo’s foot was not his only miracle. Anthony also lived in a walnut tree and magically transported himself from country to country. He preached sermons to fishes, sent angels after thieves, and made mules reject hay for consecrated hosts. He saved fishermen from storms, converted thousands of heretics, guided nuns through Morocco, and, perhaps most impressively, brought a boy back from the dead.

The boy had been found buried in the garden of Saint Anthony’s father. The saint’s father was arrested and charged with murder. But then Saint Anthony came, and touched the dead boy, and brought him back to life. The child opened his eyes and named the real killer. The book didn’t say what happened next, and Ren was left wondering if the boy had gone back to his grave. It didn’t seem fair. If you had to die, Ren thought, you should only have to die once.

There was weeping at the other end of the small boys’ room. Ren listened for a few moments, and then slid his book carefully underneath the blanket. The other boys began to stir; he could hear one or two mumbling, half-asleep. Brom sat up and shouted for quiet. Another boy cursed. Then someone got out from under his covers. Ren could hear the footsteps crossing the floor. There was a moment when all the children held their breath, and then a loud, hard smack. The crying stopped, and the footsteps returned to bed.

They were all awake now, staring up into the darkness of the rafters, listening. The children took turns crying at night. It was only a matter of time before another boy began. And when those small sounds started, Ren knew that it would be hours before he could read again.

He shut the book and closed his eyes. He imagined the wishing stone resting at the bottom of the well. He had held it, even if it was for only a moment. Ren pulled his hand into a fist, trying to remember the shape. He could feel the blood pulsing there, underneath the skin, and for a moment the heat of the stone was against his fingertips again, all of his possible wishes spread out before him. Ren moved his hand into the moonlight and slowly opened it, half-expecting the stone to reappear. But there was no magic in the small boys’ room that night. Only Ren’s open palm, empty and cooling in the dark. A few rows over, another boy began to cry, and Ren pressed his face into his pillow. He was glad he’d thrown the stone away. Now no one would ever be able to wish on it again.

B
rother Peter’s classes took place each day in the front room of the monastery. What these classes were meant to teach the boys varied on the occasion and, it seemed, the weather. On rainy days he pulled out maps and talked about where things were in the world. When the sun was out, he recited poetry. In the snow he removed an abacus from his desk and discussed numbers. And when the wind was strong he did nothing at all, but simply stared out the windows at the trees blowing back and forth.

It had been decided that the brothers must give the children some knowledge; at the very least enough language to read the Bible, and enough arithmetic so that the Protestants could not cheat them. Why this task of education was given to Brother Peter the boys did not know, for more often than not he would simply rest his forehead on the table before him and ignore the children completely. Much of what the boys had learned had been transferred from child to child like a disease, and mostly concerned bits of New England history: minutemen and the North Bridge, Giles Corey and Crispus Attucks.

Today the boys practiced writing and rewriting psalms on tiny bits of slate, which they passed around and shared. The psalm was 118, verse 8: It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. Brother Peter had just put his head on the table when the boys began to whisper and point out the window. Ren looked up from the words spelled out before him. There was a stranger crossing the yard.

The man wore glasses. He had straw-colored hair tied with a ribbon that made him look like a student. He had no hat, but he was wearing boots and a long dark coat with a turned-up collar, like a coachman’s. Brother Joseph was leading the man toward the priory, and the children watched as the stranger paused in his step for a moment and leaned to one side, as if his leg pained him. He had a slight build, and before he slipped into the building, Ren could see that his hands were pale and thin. He was no farmer.

Fifteen minutes later Brother Joseph burst into the classroom, out of breath, his robe stained down the front with wine. He scanned the room of boys and said the words they were all waiting for: “Get to the statue.”

Ren scrambled out of the room and dashed toward Saint Anthony, feeling somehow that his luck was running out ahead of him. He took his place in line along with the other boys. Brother Joseph passed in front, tucking in shirts and fixing collars, while across the yard the door to the priory opened.

Father John approached the children with the same uncomfortable posture he took before beating them. In one hand he held some papers. The other was tucked into his sleeve, which meant he was carrying his switch. The stranger followed at a short distance, his long coat trailing in the dirt.

He was a young man, his face rugged and handsome, his ears a bit too large for his head. When he came to the statue of Saint Anthony, he folded his arms and leaned against it. He looked at the boys over the top of his glasses. His eyes were blue, summer-sky blue, the bluest eyes that Ren had ever seen.

“This is Mister Nab,” said Father John. He glanced at the paper in his hand, then turned to stare at the stranger, who was now standing on one foot and twirling his ankle in the air.

“Old war wound,” the man said. “When the weather turns cold, it aches a bit.” He put his foot back on the ground, stomped it once, then once again, and opened his mouth into a broad, bright, beaming smile. It was winning, and he turned it with force, first on the priest, then on the line of boys.

Father John collected himself and turned back to the paper. “Mister Nab is looking for his brother, who was sent this way as an infant. He says that he is approximately eleven years of age—is that correct?”

“I believe so. Although it’s been so long now it’s hard to remember.”

“Well,” said Father John, pausing for a moment. Ren could see that he was losing his patience. “Do any of these boys look familiar?”

Benjamin Nab stepped forward and gave each of the children a thorough going-over. He seemed to be looking for something, but it was hard to say what it was, for with each boy he searched in a different place. He took hold of their chins and tilted their faces into the light. He felt their necks, measured the length of their brows with his finger, and twice lifted a patch of brown hair to his nose.

“Too short,” he said to one boy.

“Too tall,” he said to another.

“Show me your tongue.” Marcus stretched it out into the sunlight, and the man considered it, then shook his head again.

Ren could sense the twins fidgeting next to him. Brom’s hands were clenched into fists. Ichy lined up his feet perfectly. But Benjamin Nab did not even take the time to examine them. He moved farther around, as if he knew their bad luck and was afraid of catching it. Then he came to Ren.

Benjamin Nab poked the boy once in the shoulder. It was a hard poke, as if he’d caught Ren sleeping.