I step back, push the lump down my throat. “Don’t you have new friends now? Surely you don’t dwell on your childhood friend and his kid sister.”
Now I’m being cruel. I can see it in his face. Oliver never could hide anything he was feeling.
“You have no idea what I dwell on.” A weaker boy would have looked at the ground as he said it, but Oliver’s gaze bores right into mine. He chews on the inside of his cheek and then straightens his spine. “I’m sorry to have upset you, Frances.” He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a small calling card printed with his name and contact information.
“I did get your letter. I’m studying at Columbia now. Please, tell me if you need anything. I’ve… I’ve missed you.” He has the audacity to smile that strange, hollow smile again.
He reaches out for the briefest moment like he means to touch me, but I recoil. I don’t take the card. I ignore the screaming part of me that wants to collapse in his arms and tell him everything. But I am four months older than the girl he once knew, and I now know how dangerous it is to love things.
“I’d best be going, Oliver.”
I pick up the pace of my steps, disappearing into the crowd, leaving him standing in silence on the busy street corner. His eyes burn into the back of my skull, but I won’t turn around.
I can’t.
I can’t think about how, after all these years, Oliver Callahan still makes me nauseous. Nor can I think about the strange way he said he missed me or the serious line of his mouth. I can’t give in to the hurt of the things he makes me remember and the things he makes me want. I have a job to do.
After looping around the block, I duck down a narrow alley between a department store and a green grocer. No one will notice a bloodied blouse thrown among the pallets, factory scraps, and rotting food.
With quick fingers, and only rats for company, I untie the ribbon and slide my blouse out, tossing it in a pile of grease-covered rags. I stare at it for a moment, wishing I felt some level of relief in being rid of it. But instead I feel annoyance. The bastard ruined my favorite blouse.
I don’t look back. I just slip out into the chaos of the streets, another faceless girl.
* * *
Seven blocks later, Mrs. Arnold’s butler answers the door to her brownstone.
I’m invited into a parlor so clean, I feel guilty sinking my boots into the carpet. The room is cloaked in forest green, filled with spindly furniture, golden mirrors, and rugs so lush it looks as if no one has ever set foot on them. A girl close to my age silently scrubs an already gleaming fireplace. I offer her a sad smile she doesn’t return. Maybe she can sense that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me now. Perhaps, after what I’ve done, I have a look about me that warns others to stay away.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to think of anything but the way my scissors flew across the room last night. What if I am imagining things? I wouldn’t be the first Hallowell to lose their grip on reality. I hate that I can’t make myself feel normal, that it feels like something is crawling inside me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve awakened something I can’t make go away.
A few long minutes crawl by before Mrs. Arnold’s well-coifed lady’s maid appears and opens the box containing the coat. “The eighth button is a little loose, but I can fix it myself. Don’t let it happen again.”
“No, ma’am. Thank you.” I swallow the more gruesome retorts that spring to mind.
Stepping out of the mansion, it’s strange to be free of the coat that gave me so much trouble.
I wander the streets aimlessly for a while, passing factory girls dressed in shades of dingy gray, cotton caps covering their limp hair. They look hollow-eyed, and most have been working all night. Among them pass a few rich men in top hats and their fancy wives twirling satin parasols. Small boys on corners shout the latest news, and women on balconies shake out the day’s first batch of laundry. The predictable chaos gives me some semblance of comfort.
I bound across traffic to the other side of the road, leaping on deft feet over the trolley tracks that snake through the city, avoiding the horses that trot by.
If I had money, if I loved my brother less, I could use this opportunity to walk to Grand Central, board a train bound for the West, and never return. I saw a photograph once of San Francisco, and I always imagined I’d like it there. It looked like a place one could breathe. There’s never any place to breathe in this city.
But what little money I make each week goes almost entirely to my room and board. In the cigar box currently resting under my bed I have exactly two dollars and sixty-two cents. It might get me west of the Mississippi, but not much farther. I’m not sure I’d even know how to live anywhere that isn’t here.
I could stay in New York. I could run uptown, maybe Harlem? But I’d live in fear. If the police ever found me, and I’m sure they would, my fleeing and hiding would only be evidence of my guilt.
Which means I have nothing. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
Girls born into tenements on the Lower East Side don’t have the privilege of being dreamers. I’ve never had romantic notions about what my life would be. I didn’t imagine it behind the bars of a jail cell, but there are worse things than prison.
Living in constant fear of the other shoe dropping would be worse.
Or maybe I’ll finally, finally get lucky; maybe I’ll convince the police of my innocence.
My only choice is to return to the shop and face what happened. But the surety doesn’t keep me from being terrified.
I steel myself and turn down Delancey Street.
CHAPTER THREE
The sidewalk outside the shop is still swarming with police, the brass buttons on their blue uniforms polished bright.
My steps slow as I approach, and I attempt to arrange my face into an expression of innocence. I fear it only makes me look more suspicious.
“Good afternoon, officer,” I nod to a mustached man. He’s shorter than me, which is to say very short. His shoes are impeccably clean. I picture his wife shining them for him before he left for work this morning. The imagined scene almost makes me feel guilty for the lies I’m about to tell him.
I’m surprised I don’t recognize him. I know most of the officers at the local police station well by now. I’ve spent every Sunday sitting in their waiting room, picking at my cuticles until they bleed, waiting to speak to an officer about William’s case.
Our conversations are always the same, a well rehearsed theater. No, there aren’t any leads, they tell me. Next comes my line: Is there anything I can do to help? They always smile and tell me no. It fills me with a rage so strong it fuels me for the rest of the week, until I appear again the next Sunday and the anger is renewed.
I enter the shop at the officer’s heels. Mrs. Carrey and the girls must be upstairs. The police are still busy documenting evidence and speaking to one another in hushed tones. They brush for fingerprints I know will be mine, and track blood splatters on the wall, but I’d be surprised if they came to the conclusion of flying scissors.
“Miss Hallowell, yes? Your supervisor informed me you were out on a delivery. You should not have left,” he scolds, “but I’m glad to see that you’ve returned.” His beady eyes look me up and down. “I was hoping we could have a word.”
“Yes, sir.”
He pulls out the chair at Mary’s desk for me, but remains standing, his shiny shoes toe-to-toe with mine.
“Miss Hallowell,” the officer begins, clearing his throat, “I just have a few simple questions for you, very simple, all right?”
He nods his head at me like I’m a child. I nod back dumbly.
“Where were you last night?”
I pray that my face doesn’t turn red, as it always does when I am embarrassed or anxious. “I was here working in the shop until ten p.m., sir. Then I retired to the apartment upstairs.” I’m pleased to hear how steady my voice sounds.
He jots something in the narrow not
epad balanced in his left hand.
“Good, very good,” he says encouragingly. “And why were you up so late?”
“I was behind on a project.” I’m grateful for one answer that isn’t a lie.
He scribbles some more.
“Did anything unusual happen when you left the shop?”
“No, sir.”
“I see, I see.” He nods, then looks up from the notepad. His eyes are no longer kind.
“And can you tell me, Miss Hallowell, why your shears were found in the victim’s neck?”
“No.” My voice cracks.
He presses further. “Well then, can you confirm, Miss Hallowell, that you were alone in this shop after hours, the same shop the deceased’s body was later found in, and can you confirm that the deceased had a”—he stops and clears his throat again—“sordid history with the ladies?”
His tone has changed dramatically; he’s speaking quickly. My palms and chest have begun to sweat.
“I don’t know what you’re implying, sir.” I sound panicked. I am panicked.
He glances at my feet, boots only partially hidden by my long black skirt.
“May I see your boots?” he asks.
I pause for a moment, pretending to be distracted by the ambulance that’s pulled up on the curb alongside the police vehicles and carriages. I wonder if the body is still here somewhere, and they’ve arrived to take it away.
I say a silent prayer to William for a moment of brilliance, a revelation that will help me out of this mess, but I know I’m finished. I’ll spend the rest of my days in prison. My life will have amounted to nothing. I want to burst into tears, fall to my knees, and beg him to spare me, but I swallow the urge. William would never have begged.
Chin up, sis. It’s all going to be all right.
I bend down slowly, reaching for the laces with shaking fingers, when the chime on the door breaks the heavy, dread-filled silence.
Still bent over, I freeze and look up.
Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the yellow morning light, are two nurses. One is young—my age perhaps, or a little older. The other is likely in her forties. They’re wearing long gray-blue dresses with straight prim white collars. Their white hats sit perfectly atop their swept-up hair, and their red-cross armbands are wrapped snugly around their upper arms. They’re both wearing elbow-length capes with straps that cross in an X at their chests. Most nurses’ capes are lined with red; theirs, however, are as black as night and unlike any I’ve seen before.
“Excuse us,” the younger one interrupts, pushing through the crowd of officers, not distressed in the slightest by the scene before her. Her voice is low and reedy, her hair so blond, it’s almost white. She moves in contrast to her older, dark-haired companion, a pale woman with a freckled face who stands next to her silently, mouth pressed in a thin line.
“We’re looking for a Miss Frances Hallowell,” the blonde demands, hands placed on her hips.
“I’m Frances Hallowell.” I’m still half-hunched, my fingers frozen on my bootlaces.
“Your test results have returned,” she trills, “and we are so terribly sorry to inform you of your tuberculosis diagnosis.”
There must be another woman named Frances Hallowell in this neighborhood, because the person they are seeking obviously isn’t me. I don’t have a cough. I haven’t been tested for anything. The last time I saw a doctor I was nine.
From the corner of my eye, I can already see the police officer inching away from me, not wanting to catch what I allegedly have.
The older nurse meets my eye and raises her eyebrows slightly, as if to say, Trust me.
I cough one pathetic little cough to communicate my understanding.
“You have been ordered to report to Haxahaven Sanitarium,” the little one continues. “This is for the safety of yourself and others. We have an ambulance waiting outside to take you now.”
“Miss Hallowell is a suspect in an ongoing investigation,” the officer finally pipes up from behind me. Somehow, with all that is currently unfolding before me, hearing out loud that I’m a confirmed suspect is what fills me the most with fear.
I don’t know who these women are or what I will encounter at this sanitarium, but if it means avoiding going to trial for murder, I will follow them wherever they wish me to go.
“No,” the blond nurse corrects the officer impatiently, “she is a patient. And the longer she remains in the city, the more people we are putting at risk.”
The older nurse finally speaks. “You’ll come with us at once, Frances.” Her voice is low and kind.
The officer stares at them both, mouth agape.
Mrs. Carrey floats into the room, her brows knit together. “Frances dear, this does explain that awful cough you’ve been having.” She glances quickly at the officer.
I nod, thankful for her one final act of protection. “Yes, ma’am. Please give the other girls my regards.”
Sadness cracks through the veneer of her professionalism, a frown tugging at her lips. “You’ll be missed.”
Without another word, the blond nurse takes me gently by the elbow and leads me outside to the waiting ambulance. It is a rickety thing, as if someone tacked a large box on the back of a Model T and painted a red cross on the side. It looks profoundly unsteady on its chest-high spoked wheels.
The older woman slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine with ease. I’ve never seen a woman drive a machine before.
The younger one leads me to the box attached to the back of the car. It is a simple setup: two stretchers are tacked to the wall, and a few cases of what I assume are medical supplies litter the floor.
She sits down on the stretcher on the right wall and gracefully slips into a supine position, lying flat on her back.
She notices me eyeing her.
“Oh, this?” she says. “It’s much more comfortable this way. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
She gestures with a slender hand to the wall opposite her. “Take a seat.”
I step into the back of the ambulance; the roof is so low, I have to keep hunched to avoid hitting my head. For a moment I consider telling the strange nurse she’s got the wrong girl, but I can’t bear to be sent back into the shop. I’m less brave than I hoped I’d be.
“Aren’t you going to lie down?” the blonde asks me.
“I’d rather sit, if that’s all right.” Lying down would make me feel more vulnerable than I already do.
“Suit yourself.” She closes her eyes and crosses her thin arms over her chest. Her black cape falls around her. She looks like Dracula in his tomb.
The Model T lurches forward, right as another police officer steps out onto the street.
“You’re still needed for questioning!” he calls. “You’re a suspect in an ongoing investigation!”
The wheels kick up dust in his red face, and his protests are swallowed by the noise of the engine.
I may have just gotten away with murder.
The back of the ambulance is open, and soon the shop, the police, and the fifteen blocks containing everything I’ve ever known shrink away into the horizon.
It’s my first time riding in an automobile.
“Where are we going?” I ask the young woman lying across from me. I’ve never been as relaxed anywhere as she manages to be in the back of an ambulance bolting through the city.
“Haxahaven. We said that part, right?” she replies breezily, her eyes still closed.
“And Haxahaven is a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients?”
“It will all make sense when you get there,” she replies with a yawn. “Now, shh. I’m trying to take a nap.”
I knock my head against the wall as I lean back in frustration “Will you tell me your name at least?” I beseech her.
“I’m Maxine. That’s Helen up front.” She sounds bored at best.
“I’m Frances,” I reply out of habit.
“Oh, honey, we know,” she replies. “
Now shh.”
Do you? I want to ask. But I know when questions are unwelcome, so I chew at my nails instead.
We race through the maze of towering concrete and masses of people. Maxine remains motionless on the other side of the car, apparently deep in sleep, though I don’t know how with the deafening roar of the engine and the pitching of the wheels over the uneven road. Helen deftly maneuvers between pedestrians and horses as we snake through the chaos of Lower Manhattan. Just when I’m sure we’re about to be mowed down by a trolley, she turns, and we’re bouncing down another cobblestoned street.
Finally, we reach the Williamsburg Bridge, and I can’t help but shut my eyes and clench my jaw as we race over the polluted river. Though I know William’s body is resting in a pile of dirt in a graveyard not far from here, the dark water still makes me feel sick.
Brooklyn is quieter than Manhattan. The laundry hanging out of brownstone windows waves like flags. A silent farewell parade to my old life. I’m overtaken with an ache of sadness so deep, it penetrates my bones. One question plays in my head: What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
Still we drive. Queens is even quieter, cloaked in trees withering with the cool of early fall. Large houses with privacy shrubs dot wide streets.
We go on for what must be nearly an hour. Nerves keep me propped up rigidly, except for my foot, which I can’t stop from bouncing. If Mrs. Carrey were here, she’d smack me with a ruler to stop. But she’s not.
The drive leaves too much time alone with my thoughts. Perhaps I have lost my grip on reality, like my mother did after William died. My mother had never been the portrait of maternal love and care, but something irreparable inside her soul snapped the day they found William’s body washed up on the shore. She sat perfectly still for three days in an armchair by our single window. I brushed out her matted hair, but I couldn’t make her eat. Rumors regarding my mother’s state burned through our apartment building like kerosene set alight by an errant match: quick and hot. Mr. Feranno upstairs wanted our apartment so his grandchildren could live below him. He wrote the authorities about my mother, said she wasn’t fit to care for herself. Then I missed a rent payment, and we were well and truly done for. From our landlord there was no forgiveness, no understanding. To him, there were only those who could pay and those who couldn’t. We could not.
The Witch Haven Page 3