The Shadows

by Chance, Megan

  “She’s spirited too.”

  “I’d also like to go home, so can you please do what you will and be done with it so I can leave?” Which may have been the most stupid thing I could have said, I realized in the next moment.

  Derry sighed. “You see.”

  Oscar laughed. “Well done, Miss Knox. Well done indeed.”

  Finn waved a hand at the others. “I’ll take a moment with Miss Knox.”

  The others moved as if they’d been held suspended and Finn’s command had released them. There was a keg in the corner, sausages on the table, and they went back to drinking and talking.

  I looked at Derry, panicked.

  Finn said to him, “You too. Leave us.”

  Derry glanced at me. “Finn, you—”

  “I’ll return her to you in ten minutes,” Finn said. “If she still wants me to.”

  Derry had said he’d protect me, but Finn felt formidable, and I thought that any war between them would not end in Derry’s favor. I felt his wariness as he left me with Finn and went to the keg with the others. He stood in the corner with Oscar, watching over the rim of his cup.

  Finn came even closer to me. “What do you know about the Fenian Brotherhood?”

  Answer his questions, Derry had said. “Nothing. My friend Patrick Devlin is a member. That’s all.”

  “You know nothing about their activities?”

  “I’m not privy to their secrets.”

  Finn grasped the edge of the barrel, a hand on either side of me. The pure maleness of him made me swallow nervously. “You’re lying,” he said.

  “They mean to free Ireland from British rule. Patrick . . . Mr. Devlin . . . told me that they’d helped raise a rebellion in Ireland, and it was a failure. That’s all I know.”

  “Devlin collects relics. You’ve seen them?”

  I nodded. “Torcs and statuettes. The ogham stick. Which I believe you have.”

  “Have you seen a rowan wand? Or a horn?”

  “Why? Why do they matter?”

  He backed away. I glanced past him to Derry, whose eyes looked black.

  Finn made a quick gesture. “Bring the ogham stick,” and almost before he got the words out, Goll hurried up with something in a rag. He handed it to Finn, who unwrapped it and held the stone before me. “Touch it.”

  I recoiled. “I’d rather not.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d just . . . rather not.”

  He smiled, more gently. “Please, Miss Knox.”

  Again I glanced at Derry, who nodded, and I laid my hand upon the stone. It was as warm as it had been before, growing hotter with every second—burning. I jerked away, expecting to see blisters on my hand that weren’t there. Something else I didn’t understand.

  Finn chanted, “Darkness and thunder, blood and fire. The eye of one who slays. As one is bid, so come the rest. The rowan wand and virtue gone. A blood price paid. Now come the Children of Domnu.”

  The words unfurled in my head as if another voice said them to me. The verse Finn spoke felt wrong; it wasn’t how it should be said, though I had no idea why I thought that. “No,” I couldn’t help saying. “No, you’re saying it all wrong.”

  He lurched back as if I’d hit him. He held out the ogham stone to Ossian, who took it from him without a word, and I felt foolish and afraid. I wanted to go. Finn reached out, taking a strand of my hair between his fingers, staring at it with longing. It was all I could do not to yank away. Finally, he looked up with a sad smile that pulled at my heart, though I’d been afraid only moments before.

  He let go of my hair. “Thank you, Miss Knox. You’ve been very enlightening. Now please, you must be hungry and thirsty. Join us for a bit, if you will, and then I’ll have you escorted safely home.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, and now I let it out. “That’s all? That’s all you wanted to know?”

  “Why, is there more you can tell me?”

  “No. That is, I don’t understand. I have nothing to do with this.”

  He gave me a slow bow. “You’re welcome here, Miss Knox.”

  It was a signal. Derry was at my side in seconds.

  “Get Miss Knox something to eat and drink,” Finn said. Before he left us, a look passed between them. I knew it was an order. Join us for a bit, he’d said. I knew already Derry would do whatever Finn asked of him. He’d brought me here at Finn’s request, no matter how reluctantly.

  I felt Derry’s tension ease. Whatever he’d been afraid of hadn’t happened.

  “D’you want something?” he asked me. “There’s not much—sausage and bread—but I can—”

  “I think I would be sick if I ate anything,” I told him, which was true.

  “I’m sorry. There was no other way. What did he say to you?” He glanced over to the table where Finn had gone to speak to Cannel. “Never mind. You can tell me later.”

  “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said. “I don’t understand any of this. Not the glowing, or . . . I must be going mad.”

  “I don’t think so, lass.”

  He held out his hand, and I took it without a thought. The others watched as he led me across the room. Finn and Cannel huddled over a deck of cards on the table; Ossian eyed us as he drank from a cup of ale.

  Oscar came bounding up. “You can’t take her away yet, Derry. Why, she just got here. What do you think of our humble abode, Miss Knox?”

  He was so charming it was hard not to smile. “I think it could use a woman’s touch.”

  “What, you don’t think that stain in the corner a good enough decoration?”

  “I suppose, if you embellished it a bit.”

  “Ah now, why did we not think of that? Embellish how? A bit of blood perhaps? Or mud?”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “That wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined.”

  Oscar’s green eyes sparkled. “No? I’ve been told I have a talent for art. Many a lass has commented on it.”

  “Have they?”

  “D’you think that might impress your pretty friend Rose?”

  Just then Goll came up, bearing a cup of ale, which he offered to me with a shy smile. “’Tis good to have a lass about the place for a change.”

  I took the ale, though it smelled strong and bitter, and I hadn’t the stomach for it. I thanked him, and then Oscar nudged me, trying to get my attention again and spilling his ale down his shirt in the process. I offered him my handkerchief.

  “Pansies,” he said, looking at the handkerchief. “You do some fine needlework, Miss Knox.”

  “I don’t, but my mother does. You have a good eye.”

  Keenan stepped up and said, “A good eye? Oscar?”

  I listened while the three of them went back and forth about who had the sharpest vision. Only Derry said nothing. I felt his impatience growing until he interrupted Keenan in the middle of his boasting with “She’ll judge a contest between you later. Just now she’s wanting some air.”

  I didn’t miss Oscar’s frown as Derry pulled me to the window. He let go of my hand, pushed the sash all the way up with his shoulder, and stepped over the sill to the fire escape below. “’Tis cooler out here,” he said, turning to offer his help. Careful of my skirts, I sat on the sill, trying not to show any ankle—not very successfully—as I twisted to follow him out. From behind us in the room, I heard catcalls.

  “They’re savages,” Derry muttered. “Ignore them.”

  He helped me onto the platform, steadying me as I sat, and then he sat beside me and handed me back the cup of ale that Goll had given me. Tentatively, I tasted it—as bitter as I’d thought, even more so. Warm and rather nasty. My stomach slipped, and I put the cup aside.

  The fire escape looked out onto a crowded street. I’d never been up so high—five stories, perhaps six. It seemed a long way down, but everywhere people lounged on their fire escapes, one or two men shirtless, women shouting at children playing in the street below.

  “It w
on’t fall, will it?” I asked, testing the rail.

  “It hasn’t yet.”

  “That’s hardly reassuring.”

  “It’s held four of us at one time. Only a little creaking.”

  “Very funny. You’ve probably loosened it.”

  “Probably,” he agreed, drinking. “Now tell me what Finn said to you.”

  “He asked questions about the Fenian Brotherhood. And the ogham stick.”

  “That’s all?” He looked dourly into his cup.

  “What else should there be? You said there’d be questions and nothing more.”

  His mood puzzled me. Distracted and tense and . . . and angry. I looked at him, trying to see his expression, but those dark-blue eyes were half hidden beneath the heavy fringe of his hair. In frustration, I reached to push it out of his face.

  He recoiled so sharply he banged his head against the wall. His hand was quick as lightning, grabbing my wrist, stopping me before I could get close. “Don’t.”

  I wrenched loose. “Your hair’s in your eyes. I can’t see what you’re thinking. It’s annoying.”

  “Why not just ask me what I’m thinking?”

  “Because you won’t tell me the truth.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I don’t think you ever do. You lied to get me here, for one—”

  “I said I was sorry for that.”

  “And you’re not telling me everything. You’re not telling me why you brought me here when you could have answered those questions of Finn’s. I told you everything I told him. And you’re not telling me why . . . why . . .”

  “Why what?”

  I looked away. “Why anything. Why people glow only when they’re around you. Or why the ogham stick burned me. Or why the things Finn said . . .” I didn’t know how to explain, not about the verse, or the way it had sounded wrong in my ears, or how Finn had looked at my hair with such longing, as if he wanted me, or not even that, exactly, but something within me, but couldn’t think how to ask for it.

  Derry didn’t give me any answers. “Do you like him? Finn?”

  “I hardly know. He’s very . . . overwhelming.”

  “What about the others? Oscar? Goll? Keenan?”

  “They’re charming.”

  “Charming.”

  “Yes. And not at all annoying. You could take a lesson from them, I think.”

  “Could I?”

  “Yes. I doubt any one of them would have dragged me here under false pretenses, or sneaked into my room, or stolen anything at all—”

  He laughed. “You don’t think so? Any one of them would have done so if Finn had asked it. And when they were in your bedroom, they would have stolen a kiss—or more. Which I haven’t done, I’d like to point out.”

  “Well, you have Lucy for that, don’t you? And you said you didn’t want to kiss me.”

  “I did?”

  “After you stole my book. Patrick’s book. When you brought it to the house.”

  “Ah. So I did.” He was staring at me strangely. The falling sunlight hit his eyes; they were the color of the deepest part of the Sound. He brought up his knees, resting his forearms on them, letting the cup of ale dangle in his hand. “And you have Devlin.”

  I thought of Patrick’s kiss and how I’d wanted more.

  “So the two of you can sally forth together and save the world.” The irony was thick in Derry’s tone.

  “You don’t like Patrick. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know him.”

  “Then why do you say such things?”

  “Perhaps because he’s playing with things that should be left alone. Or perhaps because he’s got you wound about like the string on a top. The things you say you want—do you really believe he can get them for you?”

  “Yes.” I remembered the weight of Derry on my bed, the shine of his eyes in the darkness. “He can save me.”

  “Can he? Or better yet, will he? Or will you just find yourself in a different prison? Can he change the world?” Derry laughed lightly and took a sip of his ale. “Maybe not.”

  “Can you? Can anyone?”

  “Some things are hard to change, I know. When I see all this . . . despair . . . I don’t know how anyone can bear it. How do you live without seeing green? How can you go up and down these stairs every day and hear your children cry with hunger and . . . Well, I don’t know how to fix it. But it seems wrong not to try.”

  “What a tender heart you have,” I said, astonished to hear such sentiment in him.

  “When people say that, it means they plan to do nothing themselves.”

  “It’s harder for me. It is,” I insisted when I saw his raised brow. “You’re a boy; you can at least try to change the world if you want.”

  “One minute you’re on top of the world,” he said, lifting his cup in a mock toast, “as rich as a king or prince, and the next you’re living in a room with seven others and eating moldy bread. But life’s a gamble, isn’t it? And we all have to wager. Still, you get to choose what that wager will be—whether you’ll take a risk, and whether ’tis faith or fear that guides you.” His gaze challenged me. The blue of his eyes seemed to shimmer.

  For a moment, I thought of him on a riverbank. Watching me. Waiting.

  And then, from below, I heard a shout. A child screamed out, “The Black Hands! The Black Hands is coming!”

  Derry jerked to attention, spilling the ale from his cup. His face tightened in a way I didn’t recognize. I followed his gaze to a group of young men coming around the corner below us. Each of them had smeared one of his hands with soot. Some had striped their faces with it as well. They stopped beneath us. Thunder cracked as one of them called up, “Hey, Warriors! The Black Hands is waitin’ for you!”

  TWENTY

  Grace

  Derry dropped the cup, and it tumbled to the platform below. Someone yelped as it hit. Finn leaned out the window, his hands braced on the sill, forearms taut with muscle. He shouted down, “Better have your coffins ready!” and then he nodded at Derry and said, “Come on.”

  Derry grabbed me by the shoulders. “Stay here. D’you understand me, Grace? Don’t move from here, no matter what happens. I’ll be back for you.”

  “What are you talking about—you can’t mean to go down there. Why . . . that’s a gang, and . . .” A gang. I went queasy again. The Black Hands was a gang.

  Just as Finn’s Warriors was a gang.

  Finn’s Warriors. What had I been thinking when Derry introduced them that way, that it was just some club name? They’d styled themselves after the famous Fianna for a reason.

  I touched his arm as he rose. “Don’t. Don’t go.”

  He pulled away. “I’m a Warrior, Grace. This is what I do. You’ll be safe if you stay here. Promise me. Promise me.”

  I nodded mutely, and he was through the window and back into the flat. Inside there was a shout, a laugh, the sound of boot steps. I’d heard of gangs, of course—who hadn’t? The river pirate gangs. The Baxter Street Dudes and the Whyos—who it was rumored would hurt or murder anyone for the right amount. They even had a price list. My father had complained about them every summer, and now, with the depression, the gangs had grown braver and more ruthless, waylaying express wagons in broad daylight, picking pockets on every crowded streetcar, robbing those who walked alone on city streets. Stay away from this part of town—how often had I heard that? And yet here I was. With a stableboy who wasn’t a stableboy. “I know what I am.”

  A member of a gang.

  I pulled back into the corner of the fire escape, wanting to disappear as Finn and Derry and the others—all but Cannel—streamed out through the doorway below, their boots raising clouds of dust. There were seven of them, and twice that many Black Hands—even more. The sky seemed to darken. I heard the thunder again.

  The charming boys I’d seen laughing and joking only minutes ago were grim and menacing now. People gathered to watch on the fire escapes, so many
that the platforms and ladders creaked and sagged. Young boys gathered stones, shouting, “You get ’em, Finn!” “I got an extra knife if you need it, Oscar!” An older woman above me called, “Watch yerself, Derry m’love!” Mothers pushed younger sons behind their skirts; girls with excited faces watched as if this were some fine entertainment. I could hardly think for my fear.

  But I watched, just as everyone else did, as the two groups advanced on each other. I watched Finn circle their leader and then engage, fists flying and muscles flexing and dust pillowing up in the scrabble, scrimming the whole scene with a brown fog. Then Derry rushed in, grappling with some tall boy who was all arms.

  People cheered, frenzied. Little boys threw rocks at the Black Hands. Finn wrestled his opponent to the ground, his boot on the leader’s throat, kicking viciously while the Black Hand tried to cover himself, and then the two disappeared in dust. Two of the Black Hands were on Goll, who shrugged them off seemingly without effort, and Conan’s dirty fleece swirled as he fought off one and then another.

  The Warriors should have been hopelessly outmatched. But there was a mesmerizing efficiency to their fighting. They relished this; they were smiling as they fought. An excitement rose in the crowd that gripped even me. I found myself on my feet, grabbing on to the railing of the stairs above, my fingers grazing the bare foot of a boy who clung to the fire escape as he shouted, “Get ’em, Finn! You got ’em, Oscar! Kill ’em!”

  And then the wooden clubs appeared. Pulled from belts or pockets by the Black Hands as if in unison, and they went after the Warriors in earnest. I began to see blood. Streaming down Ossian’s face, and then Conan’s. A Black Hand clubbed Oscar’s shoulder, and he fell to his knees before he twisted and grabbed the club, slamming it into his attacker’s knee. The boy screamed and collapsed.

  I tried to find Derry in the melee, but the dust was so heavy now it was hard to see anything. Then I saw the glint of metal.

  And Derry. Circling one of the Black Hands, who held a long knife, slashing once, twice, and each time Derry dodged, crouched. He knew how to fight; he was good at it. Very, very good. It was like watching a stranger as he feinted, falling back, ducking the knife thrusts, his dark hair flying. He came in close; the Black Hand thrust again, and I screamed as the knife plunged into Derry’s stomach. All I could think was No, no, no—