Finding You Page 6

  The deafening, splitting noise of the gunshot cracks the air. There’s a terrible, slow moment as Eugenia drops to the ground, her hands falling away from the bars, a catch in my breath as I realize, He actually did it. He killed her.… He killed her.… Someone I knew. She’s dead. I can’t breathe, or move, or think.

  This is not the world I knew.

  Eugenia lies still on the cold ground, an arm thrown above her head, her dark blood pooling on the stones, seeping across her face, covering her eyes. I’m shaking, and my ears are ringing from the gunshot, from screams cut short, my own or those of the girls around me, I don’t know.

  I drag my eyes away from her mangled face and look instead at her murderer. Curram stands with his man beside him, unaffected. He pockets the gun as smoothly as he drew it, wiping his hands together as if to clean them. His face holds no emotion besides disdain.

  “Dunbar,” he says to the jailer, “make arrangements for someone to clean up the mess.” He glances once through the bars to survey the rest of us. He must enjoy our distress, because he watches for a full minute more.

  When Curram finally leaves, the jail fills with the sound of sobs. Even Phoebe tucks herself away so that her face is hidden by the shadows.

  Eugenia’s body lies where it fell. Every moment it seems more still, more lifeless. Even when I close my eyes, I can see, pressed into the backs of my eyelids, all that blood mingling with her hair, her legs twisted together as she crumpled to the ground.

  In that other life, which seems so long ago, I saw her nearly every day, though I never thought much of it. In a class or across a street, people mixed us up, because we looked similar, though we were never really friends. Even if it was only a little, I knew her.

  I knew her, and now she’s dead.

  This is real.

  There is no hope, no silver lining. There is no use in waiting for Tam to arrive to free me. Tam will be too late. The only thing I have coming to me is defilement and misery.

  My tears dry up as determination sets in.

  I can’t sit still any longer. I’m going to leave this place, or die trying.

  eight

  They don’t bring us anything to eat, and the moments pass slowly. Not that we could eat anyway. Nobody tries to make conversation, and eventually the other girls drift off to sleep. But my mind is in a frenzy.

  I need a plan. All the books tell me that a heroine has a plan.

  But I have no idea how to get us all out of here. We could use the wire in our corsets to make a hook to snatch the keys, or maybe we can lure Dunbar to the bars somehow. We could use the water we’re given with dinner to rust away the hinges of the cell door. It all feels far-fetched. Even after I decide to plan when I’m better rested, I can’t sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Eugenia clutching at the bars, screaming her name, dropping to the ground in a bloody mess.

  What happens at home, when people are taken? I wonder. Do their families search and search for them? Does the newspaper warn of danger? Do the police post notes on street corners, asking for help? My thoughts turn darker and darker, but I don’t know how to shut them off. If a person is missing for long enough, does their family just try to forget? Will Pa try to forget me? He hasn’t forgotten Mum, but he doesn’t speak of her often. He just gets a funny look on his face when I mention her.

  Will he push back the memory of me when he realizes I’m not coming back? Will that be less painful than wondering where I’ve gone? What does he think happened to me? And maybe Tam didn’t see me get taken. Maybe I’ve exaggerated everything to myself, that he could possibly find a way to save me, that he even loves me at all.

  What if he kissed me only because he was leaving, and now he regrets it? What if it was just an impulse, and when he comes back someday he’ll want to resume our friendship as it always has been? Or to ignore me so he won’t feel awkward?

  I don’t need to worry about that. I need to worry about being there when he comes home.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to stop. I have Tam’s love here in my hand: I don’t need to wonder if it’s real. He loves me. With everything else in doubt and turmoil, that, at least, I can be certain of.

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but I wake with a start. More nightmares, I think, wishing I could somehow shake my head free of them. And it’s not as if waking up is any better. It must still be night; most everyone appears to be sleeping.

  “Des?” I say quietly, crawling over to the bars. The thin lace of my stockings is wearing out already; my knees are nearly exposed, and tender from the rough floor of the cell. “Are you awake?”

  “Yeah, sweetheart?” he answers quietly, his back to me against the grating. His voice is defeated, heavy.

  “Will you talk to me?” He turns so I can see his face and raises an eyebrow.

  “You think you want my stories of woe?” he says, shaking his head.

  “Yes,” I say. Beside me, Val nods, staring blankly at Eugenia’s body across the cell. She’s so still I didn’t realize she was awake, her legs pulled up tightly to her chest.

  “Anything but the silence,” she whispers, her eyes wide, scared.

  A corner of Des’s mouth lifts, meant to be a reassuring smile. How many smiles does he have? Cocky and self-assured, either as a mask for his pain or a way to cope with it, or wry and rueful, his view on life so sarcastic. And then, at moments like this, kind and gentle.

  “I have nothing to tell you but my own nightmares,” he says, shrugging.

  For a moment there’s silence. I take a breath, hoping I don’t scare him away. “Tell me why you stay, Des. You could find a way out if you wanted to. That’s the story I want to hear.”

  When he finally looks up, I think he’s going to cry. “I’m still here,” he says finally, really open for the first time, “for Lillian, my sister. It wasn’t just me they took that day.” He almost chokes on the words. His eyes find mine and they are pleading. “He—Curram—took her. I’d have just let them kill me if it’d only been me, but … I couldn’t … he said he’d hurt her if I didn’t do as he said. There I was thinking I was king of the world and answering to nobody, and I couldn’t even protect my own sister when it came to it.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking frantic. “He had her tied to a chair, all bruised and bleeding about her face, and she was crying, though Boyne kept tellin’ her to stop, like that’d help.”

  Now his tone turns hollow. “Curram said he’d keep her till he was done with me, and if I ever disobeyed him, I’d be responsible for her treatment. I’ve tried to learn where he keeps her. I can’t roam free, but I’ve—I’ve tried.” He’s somewhere else now, his eyes vacant, and I try to picture a girl with a face like his, and hair as black as both of ours, her skin broken and bleeding.

  “That’s why—why I’m still here, why I can’t help you, even why Curram is still alive. I’d have killed him three years ago if I thought I could find Lillian. He knows it, too, but he knows he’s got me. I have to believe she’s still alive, that I can find her somehow, that I can save her, even though I failed the first time.” His eyes find mine again. “And then you showed up, and I thought he got messy or didn’t care or—or I don’t know. I thought you were her, right there in front of me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, tired of apologizing for the evil on every side. I feel used up and tired, tired in my heart and down through my bones. I scoot backward to the wall, wrapping my arms around myself for comfort or warmth; neither comes.

  “How old were you when you came here?” I hear Valentina say, her voice gentle and sympathetic as always.

  “Sixteen, my pa said. That might not be true. He lost a lot of his wits after my”—he clears his throat, making light of his words with a halfhearted chuckle—“after my mum ran off. But I’d say he was probably about right.” His voice is hoarse.

  She asks more questions, but I don’t hear them. When exhaustion pulls my eyes closed, I think of Tam. I remember the way my heart raced so hard I thought it
would choke me, on a day just one summer before. Rain falling, and Tam and me running through the city’s streets like children, laughing and pretending we could fly. The late-afternoon light seeped through a hole in the clouds and made the air yellow, and I was so sure everything was perfect and would stay that way. When the thunder began to crash, Tam pulled me under a peddler’s awning for safety, his face glowing with life. He looked around us at the rain-soaked city, and I looked up at him.

  I can see him behind my eyelids, opening his mouth like he’ll say something, glancing down at me and grinning, catching himself and looking closer. I remember the way he leaned in so his face was close to mine with only inches between us. I thought I felt his breath on my cheek, and I thought he was going to kiss me. My stomach fluttered in panic, and I flushed with nervousness. But he didn’t kiss me then. He just smiled again and told me in a curious voice that he’d never noticed just how odd my eyes were, with flecks of gold and brown in the green.

  It didn’t feel like a compliment then; the words stung because they weren’t a kiss.

  How different everything is now. I squeeze my eyes shut more tightly and try to remember the exact words Tam used, the pattern the raindrops followed as they rolled off his cheek, the number of times my heart thrummed against my ribs waiting for that almost-kiss. The harder I try, the further the memory slips away.

  * * *

  When I wake, I’m clutching the locket to my throat. I look at my two hands beside each other, so different in the near darkness: one imprinted with the shape of the heart, the other mangled by the cruel, inflamed X of the brand. My life, summed up so neatly: on the right, my old self, my love, my memories; on my left, the harsh new reality from which I’m still trying to wake.

  Eugenia’s body, still lying where it fell by the grating, jars me every time my eyes fall on it. There’s already an odor coming from her corpse, as if the toilet hole is overflowing. How long will they leave it there to rot?

  I try to look elsewhere, but it’s almost impossible.

  The guards bring our stew and take Des upstairs in one occurrence, while we sit in tense clusters and wait to see if anyone else will be taken. When everything is quiet again, Valentina brings a bowl to me. “Finish it all,” she says, putting the dish into my hands. “Just don’t look at the body and it’s fine.” I could starve myself, I think briefly. That might be the least awful way out of here.

  No.

  Escape will be the least awful way out of here. Taking the others with me, making my way home, finding Tam, upsetting Zachariah Curram and ruining his plans to keep us. That will be my story. Not wasting away in a hole in the ground, waiting for one of two fates.

  In a few hasty mouthfuls, the stew is gone. A couple of the girls choke on it, or stare miserably into their dishes, and it dawns on me that some were probably raised on more delicate food.

  I look around at them, all girls my age, but different in every other way. I wonder if I should learn their names, and then I wonder if I would be better off keeping my distance instead. If they become my friends, it will only get harder to see them taken. It could happen half a dozen more times before I think of a way out of here.

  As if my fears had been broadcast aloud, the door at the top of the stairs bursts open. The noise is like a death sentence, but I don’t look up this time. I leave my head on my knees, my arms wound around myself. Why is it so cold? I hate the cold. I hate being underground. I feel as if my head is filled with fog.

  I hear footsteps, maybe two people; when I do raise my head, two young men are approaching Dunbar. They wear the sort of battered clothes that outdoor servants, groundskeepers or stable boys, might.

  “Heard we’re s’posed to ’elp you with removin’ a body?” one of them says, throwing a glance at Eugenia’s form on the ground. The other, younger man fidgets uneasily, looking at his feet.

  “Help me?” Dunbar grunts.

  “That’s what I was told.” The first one shrugs, refusing to be put off. “Wanna unlock that door?” He crosses his arms and Dunbar grumbles loudly, climbing to his feet and shuffling toward the cell. After a moment of fiddling, the door swings open, and I am suddenly filled with inexplicable panic that it will be as if Eugenia were never here, that she will be forgotten, that her life will truly be over.

  I lunge forward, scrambling on my hands and knees toward her body. I can’t bring myself to touch her, so I pull at the ribbon in her hair; it takes a second to come free, and as I draw back with it clasped in my hand, someone grabs my arm.

  A strong hand hauls me to my feet, and I find myself only inches from the face of the first servant. He looks me over, grinning a little. I can feel his breath on my cheek, but I don’t risk trying to wriggle free. “Friend o’ yours, was she?” he asks me in a smooth whisper. I don’t answer; it takes all my courage just to meet his gaze. His eyes stray from my face, down the length of my neck, landing on the place where my corset starts. He pulls me a little closer, and I brace myself for a struggle if he tries anything. I can feel my pulse in my fingers as they curl around the ribbon from Eugenia’s hair.

  “You been up to see the master yet?” he asks softly, meeting my gaze again for a second. When I don’t answer, he scans me and must realize that my clothes are wrong. “Maybe not.” He grins again and leans in, planting a hard, sharp kiss on my mouth. I jerk away from him in surprise, anger making my cheeks hot.

  “Let me be!” I snap, throwing my hand out to smack him. He catches it and slaps me hard. My ears ring, and my cheek pulses with more warmth. His smile broadens.

  “Nice spirit you’ve got there,” he says, smirking. I’m shaking, but his grip on my arm is strong, bruising. “I see why Mr. Curram likes to get you fresh. Wouldn’t want ’is products spoiled by … damaging hands, now would ’e?” His free hand trails along my cheek, then down my throat and over my shoulder.

  “L-l-leave her be,” says someone behind him. The man turns slightly, still holding on to me.

  It’s the other servant, looking nervous. He’s got to be younger than I am, maybe fifteen, and thin as a stick. “Robbie, c’mon. Let her alone.” I wish I could thank him, but he avoids my eyes.

  His companion sneers a little, glancing down my corset again. Then he lets go abruptly, and I drop to the ground, surprised by the unexpected release. I clamber away from him, toward the other girls, none of whom have made a sound.

  Neither man pays any more attention to me as they unfold the tarp they brought, lay it out beside Eugenia’s body, and take hold of her pale ankles and wrists. I turn away as they drop her onto it, and don’t look up until they’ve left the cell. I’m grateful, in a way, when the bars clang shut behind them and there is a barrier between us again.

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, wishing I could undo the sharp kiss left there, so different from the nervous, candy-sweet one Tam gave me.

  At the foot of the stairs, Dunbar is growling at the servants. “I’ll say somethin’ if ye try an’ touch ’em agin, ye hear?” he says angrily. “They’re not fer the likes o’ you.” Then he laughs in a scoffing way. “Bet ya couldn’t bed a girl if you paid fer one, so leave the master’s property alone ’fore you go damagin’ it.” The one who kissed me, Robbie, blushes fiercely, his hands curling at his sides. With controlled, stiff movements, he sets down the end of the tarp that he is carrying and crosses his arms over his chest.

  “How’d ye like fer me to mention this to Mr. Boyne?” he hisses, looking like an angry boy whose teacher has shamed him in front of his friends. “You think it’s funny to take a jab at me, huh, old man? I can tell ’im you were making friendly with the girls yerself when I spoke up ’bout it.”

  “Let’s just hurry an’ finish this, Robbie—” starts his helper.

  “Go ahead and mention it,” Dunbar jeers, cutting him off. “I’ve got my job, and I’ll keep it. Now get on!” Grunting, he boxes Robbie’s ears with his fists, but to my surprise the younger man does not retaliate. He just turns, slowly, and
lifts his end of the tarp again. As they begin to make their way up the stairs, the boy struggles under Eugenia’s weight, slow in his steps.

  But Robbie scarcely notices; every step he takes, he’s watching Dunbar, until he disappears through the door.

  I start when someone touches my shoulder. “Are you all right?” Valentina asks softly, her hand fluttering to my face next, where it is still warm from being struck. I want to snap that I am, no thanks to anyone else. Instead I shrug.

  “It could have been worse.” It will be worse, if nothing changes.

  A tear trickles from the corner of her eye, and she quickly wipes at it with the back of her hand. I know she’s thinking the same thing, and there’s silence for a moment. She looks as if she’s drawing up all her courage, and says, “I just want someone to put a bullet in my head.” Then her face drops into her hands and, leaning against my shoulder, she starts to sob. Slowly, awkwardly, I wrap an arm around her.

  In my other hand is the ribbon from Eugenia’s hair, coiled up and small, the only thing left of her. Eugenia Margaret Rigney. Now I’ll never forget her. I won’t let myself.

  nine

  I murmur what I hope are comforting things to Valentina and wrap the ribbon carefully around my wrist: once, twice, three times, tying the ends together in a tight knot. Of course it’s black.

  Valentina’s tears stop eventually, but we stay where we are. “Do you have brothers or sisters?” she asks quietly, our shoulders touching, her head resting against mine. “Where did you go to school? Tell me something good.”

  “I haven’t got brothers or sisters,” I say quietly. “Or a mum. She died when I was young. It’s just my pa and me now.…” My voice trails off. My throat is so tight I don’t know how to breathe. I swallow and force myself to continue. “He must be worrying about me now. We’re all each other has.” Just the thought of his face makes me ache. “I started at the city school ten years ago, when I was six. I haven’t finished yet.” There’s more I could say: that I love books, and meeting the people inside them who don’t exist until you turn the page, that I’m afraid of a lot, and that I usually watch other people have adventures. Instead of any of this, I say the most important thing: “And I love a boy named Tam Lidwell.”