Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls

by Claire Legrand

  —right into Mr. Alice’s stomach.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, smiling down at her. In one hand, he held an enormous shovel with dirt and rot clinging to it.

  “I—I—” said Victoria, staggering back. She tried to say something, anything, but her throat was too tight for words. A dark movement across the ground caught her eye—a roach, scuttling out from behind Mr. Alice to squeeze into a hole in the brick.

  Victoria didn’t think twice. She lunged toward it and pressed down on the spray can’s button. A poison cloud covered the roach—Victoria saw it with her own eyes—and yet the bug only paused and stared at her, clicking its beady black eyes. She sprayed again, and again, and it waved its feelers and did not die.

  Victoria lowered her arm. “I don’t understand.”

  Mr. Alice knocked the useless spray can away with his shovel. At the movement, the skin along his neck seemed to roll and bulge.

  “I want to speak with Mrs. Cavendish,” Victoria said, putting up her chin. She would not act afraid. She would act as though she had every right to be there, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Now.”

  He smiled widely. “Come.”

  Mr. Alice put his naked white hand at Victoria’s neck and led her back to the front of the house. Strangely, the door knocker looked different this time, like a pig with a great, gaping snout instead of a rose. Victoria frowned at the knocker hard enough to calm her racing heart and gather her courage. She smoothed her curls.

  Remember, you’re Victoria Wright, she reminded herself. Maybe in her imagination she couldn’t get to Lawrence, but real life was quite another thing; in real life, Victoria Wright always got exactly what she wanted. She tugged her raincoat straight and put on her fiercest dazzle.

  Mr. Alice pushed open the door. Something darker than shadows stretched away from him into the Home, forming a hallway with a tiny prick of light at the end. A rush of cold gusted out past Victoria.

  “Go on,” Mr. Alice said, gesturing with his shovel. “She has been waiting for you.”

  THE HALLWAY WENT ON FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE days, between closed doors on either side. Victoria wondered if it would ever end.

  Mr. Alice led the way. He used his shovel like a walking stick, tapping the end of it into the carpet. Pat, pat, pat. Shadows in the carpet clicked and whirred alongside them, too dark and quick for Victoria to see. She stared straight ahead, refusing to think about the roach outside, dripping with poison and very much alive.

  Perhaps this was not such a good idea.

  She considered making a run for it, but when she looked back over her shoulder toward the front door, she saw nothing but darkness. Surely the door was there, but Victoria had the feeling that if she ran back and tried to find it, she would be lost forever. The hallway would keep twisting around and never let her out.

  The hallway went on for what seemed like days, between closed doors on either side.

  Ridiculous, she told herself. The hallway could not have been any longer than a regular hallway. After all, the Home was only so large. She had seen it from outside, plain as anything. It had only had three floors and a normal amount of windows. She was just frightened, that’s all.

  Very frightened.

  The prick of light in front of them grew larger till it formed a doorway. Mr. Alice stopped and gestured toward it with his arm.

  “After you, Victoria Wright,” he said, smiling.

  Victoria set her jaw and walked past him into a golden hallway lit with soft lamps in sconces. She was determined not to show any sort of fear at whatever lay on the other side.

  But what lay on the other side was impossible.

  She didn’t see a kitchen or anything close to normal, like she had the first time.

  Instead, a wide gallery stretched to Victoria’s right and left, farther than she could see. The gallery’s walls held balconies and windows. Everything past the first floor was darker, and there were six floors altogether, with shadowed railings and hallways, and curling columns that spilled over the walls like vines. Painted birds covered the ceiling, leering down at Victoria. There was something odd about them. It took Victoria a long time to figure out that instead of claws for feet, they had long, sharp hands.

  On the second floor were rows of windows, and inside the windows hung paper heads, blackboards, screens—classrooms. On the third floor were paintings large as walls, paintings of balloons and kites and wolves and bones. On the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, things moved in the archways between columns, dark shapes that slithered around the balconies.

  In fact, everything was moving. When Victoria unfocused her eyes, the entire gallery, the six floors, the windows and balconies, the classrooms and hanging paper heads, shimmered and crawled.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Victoria said, crossing her arms. The ridiculousness of everything around her outweighed her fear. She grabbed on to that feeling and held tight. “This doesn’t make sense at all.”

  Pat, pat, pat came Mr. Alice’s shovel along the carpet. “Come along.”

  “But this—this is too big. The Home is only—”

  “The Home is just what it needs to be,” said Mr. Alice. He smiled, tracing the edge of his shovel with his bare hand. “She’ll be angry if you’re late.”

  “It’s not like I have an appointment. She didn’t know I was coming.”

  Mr. Alice only laughed.

  Victoria followed him past a room of dark pianos. Their lids stood open, strings trailing into piles on the floor. It reminded Victoria of Professor Carroll’s classroom in Building Five, but a wrong, turned inside-out version.

  “Lawrence,” Victoria whispered.

  “What’s that?” said Mr. Alice. “What’s that now?”

  “Nothing. I sneezed.”

  “Gesundheit.”

  They stopped at a tall, narrow door beneath a painting of a woman and a boy and a girl. At first the painting looked rather lovely. As they approached, however, the woman’s face grew longer and thinner. Her bones looked ready to burst through her skin. And the children’s smiles became frantic. The woman’s fingers dug into their shoulders and disappeared into their flesh.

  Victoria hid her shudder.

  The door had etchings of scenes upon it, in rows from top to bottom. The one at Victoria’s eye level looked like a fox hunt. The one above it, girls blowing fire out of their mouths. The one below it, a circus with a two-headed ringmaster. A small, knobby-headed ghoul dancing with a naked woman. An orchestra conductor on an empty stage, waving his arms to musicians who weren’t there. His hands had fallen off.

  Mr. Alice knocked on the door, which had no handle. A pretty voice from beyond the door said, “Come in,” and the door opened. Mr. Alice pushed Victoria through.

  “Excuse me,” Victoria said, yanking herself away. “I can walk by myself.”

  The pretty voice laughed. “Of course you can, Victoria. You’re quite capable of many things, aren’t you? Please, come in. Sit down, why don’t you?”

  Victoria marched into the room. As her eyes grew used to the soft light, she realized the walls were bare and of a deep crimson color. One wall held a giant window. Here Mrs. Cavendish stood, her hand on the curtains. She seemed to be looking at something, but beyond the window was solid black. Victoria couldn’t see a thing.

  “Well? What do you think?” said Mrs. Cavendish. She did not turn from the window.

  “Of what?” said Victoria. It was a fine line, between being brave and being too brave. She got the feeling it wouldn’t be wise to snip at Mrs. Cavendish like she could get away with snipping at everyone else.

  “Of the Home, of course. Of my Home.”

  “Well, it’s big. And it has lots of interesting rooms.”

  Mrs. Cavendish laughed. “What else?”

  Victoria’s sense of order being so completely offended, she wanted to shout out, “The Home makes no sense!” and demand an explanation, blueprints, schematics of the piping.

  Instead, sh
e shrugged. “It’s very nice and fancy.”

  “Perhaps you’ll want a tour someday?” Mrs. Cavendish said, stroking the tasseled drapes.

  “Maybe.”

  Mrs. Cavendish sighed and turned. Once again, Victoria could not help but stare at Mrs. Cavendish’s pretty face, and the quiet, calm way she held herself. The curling brown hair, the steady blue eyes, the folds of her dress falling neatly around Mrs. Cavendish’s body made her seem like just the sort of person you’d like to burrow into after a nightmare.

  “So, Victoria,” said Mrs. Cavendish. “Why have you come to see me?”

  Victoria paused. How could she say what she really wanted to say? She couldn’t demand outright that Mrs. Cavendish give Jacqueline, Donovan, and Lawrence back, or any of the other missing children. First of all, she didn’t really know that Mrs. Cavendish had them. Maybe the paper airplane had been an orphan’s joke. Maybe Jacqueline really was sick, and maybe Lawrence really was just a good grandson, and maybe Donovan O’Flaherty had finally received punishment for the Mallow Cakes thing. Maybe he had been transferred to the Learning School in the city, where the bad kids went.

  But then, what about the in-the-middle feeling that had been plaguing Victoria all week? And how strange everyone was acting? What about the bug dripping poison, and Professor Alban’s screams?

  “Well?” said Mrs. Cavendish, sitting in her fine chair, which had talons for feet. “Cat got your tongue?”

  Near the door, Mr. Alice laughed. Mrs. Cavendish’s mouth twitched. Victoria thought quickly, remembering pieces of things she had seen in the Belleville Bulletin. She needed to somehow investigate without seeming like she was investigating.

  She thought of Lawrence screaming somewhere all alone, and gulped.

  “I just—well, I wanted to see the Home for myself, that’s all,” said Victoria. She smoothed her coat and sat on the chair opposite Mrs. Cavendish. The next words were hard to say; she still wasn’t used to this lying and being sneaky thing, after all. “People say bad things, you know, but I’ve never believed them.”

  “Bad things?” said Mrs. Cavendish. Her smile froze, sweetly. She tilted her head, politely. “What sorts of bad things?”

  “Oh, like it’s a dump and all the kids are mistreated and you hog their money and all that,” Victoria said, waving her hand. She laughed the same high, breezy laugh her mother used around company. But of course Victoria had never heard anyone say anything about the Home, good or bad, and remembering this shamed her. How had she never noticed any of this before?

  Mrs. Cavendish’s eyes widened. “Mistreated, you say?”

  “Oh, you know how people get silly with rumors sometimes. But I wanted to see for myself.”

  “And what do you see, Victoria?”

  “I see lots of things.” Victoria paused. “I saw your piano room.”

  Mrs. Cavendish smile flickered the tiniest bit. Her teeth flashed. “Oh?”

  “That was interesting. All those open pianos.”

  Mr. Alice shifted his weight; in the silence, the sound seemed deafening. Mrs. Cavendish scratched the side of her mouth with one fingernail.

  Victoria waited a couple of breaths before she spoke again. “My friend Lawrence. Lawrence Prewitt? He played the piano.”

  “Played?” said Mrs. Cavendish, her eyes sharp. “You mean, he no longer plays?”

  “He’s gone, I guess.” It hurt Victoria to say the words out loud in this quiet, blood-colored room.

  “Gone?”

  “He’s been gone for a few days,” said Victoria, getting up to pace. She needed the slow, measured steps to keep from running away. “His parents say he’s with his grandmother, but I don’t believe them.”

  “Why wouldn’t you believe them?” said Mrs. Cavendish.

  “I just have a feeling.”

  Mrs. Cavendish laughed. “A feeling? I thought you were beyond such things, Victoria.”

  “You say that like you know me,” said Victoria kindly. “We really only just met the other day.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Cavendish, settling back into her cushions, “I know you quite well, actually.”

  Bang.

  Victoria jumped.

  The bang sounded like the slamming door in the library, just before those dark things—those roaches—snatched Professor Alban away.

  Bang.

  It came from the big, dark window. Something was slamming against it, so hard Victoria thought the glass might break. Small, pale blurs pounded on the glass.

  Mrs. Cavendish was quick. “Handle this,” she spat at Mr. Alice, who yanked the window’s curtains closed before leaving through a door in the corner. Mrs. Cavendish grabbed Victoria’s arm and pulled her through the tall, narrow door with the etched wooden rows. On her way out, Victoria caught sight of a row she hadn’t seen the first time—a long table, empty chairs, and a feast piled high.

  “I’m terribly sorry to cut your visit so short, Victoria,” said Mrs. Cavendish, dragging Victoria down the gallery. Above them, the balconies writhed in lamplight as the banging behind them suddenly went quiet. What will she do with me? Victoria thought, with a sudden jolt of fear. Will she lock me up? Frantically, she looked around into the shadows for a door or window standing ajar. She could perhaps make a run for it.

  “Stop pulling so hard,” said Victoria. She tried to pry Mrs. Cavendish’s fingers loose, but they wouldn’t budge, even when Victoria pounded on them with her free fist. “Where are you taking me? Let me go, right now.”

  “But, you see, I’m a busy woman, and I only have so much time for visitors.”

  “What was that stuff hitting the windows?”

  Mrs. Cavendish turned down the hallway of forever, back toward the front door, which Victoria couldn’t see in the dark. She wondered if Mrs. Cavendish would throw her in the shadows, where she would get lost till she starved—or something worse.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Victoria,” said Mrs. Cavendish, her smile stretching in the dark.

  “The windows. Things were hitting them.”

  “Were they?” Mrs. Cavendish threw Victoria forward. Victoria hit the front door, turned, and shrank back against the handle.

  “I like you, Victoria,” said Mrs. Cavendish, watching Victoria’s face carefully. “We’re alike, you and I.”

  “Alike?” said Victoria. “I don’t think so. I mean, you—”

  “Yes? Me?”

  “You—” Victoria swallowed down her fear and all the awful things she wanted to say. “You’re so grown-up and smart, I mean.”

  “You should leave. Go home and be a good girl like you know you want to be.”

  Victoria decided to be bold. This could be her only chance to ask, after all. Mrs. Cavendish did not seem like she would want Victoria back here ever again. Her pretty blue eyes flashed. Victoria opened her mouth. Where’s Lawrence? she almost said.

  But Mrs. Cavendish cut her off before she could begin.

  “Thank you for visiting the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls,” said Mrs. Cavendish, as if reading off a script. Her smile was wide, her voice bright. “Normal visiting hours are from four o’clock to six o’clock on weekday afternoons and every other Saturday from ten till noon. . . .”

  Mrs. Cavendish opened the front door, one hand on Victoria’s neck as if Victoria were a kitten. Victoria wanted to kick and bite at her, but she let herself be led out as Mrs. Cavendish continued her speech about tours and upcoming activities. Who knew what would happen if she tried to fight back?

  Behind Victoria, the house yawned and creaked. The floor shifted. The walls glistened with black wings.

  “. . . and of course,” said Mrs. Cavendish, looking back down the hallway, her shoulders hunched, her pretty blue eyes darting to the ceiling and walls, “do let us know of any children who might benefit from education at the Home.” She pushed Victoria onto the porch and licked her lips. “We are always looking for more children to help.”

  Victoria landed on her
knees. By the time she turned back, the door was closed and Mrs. Cavendish was gone. A tiny ripple raced along the front side of the house, like the bricks were skin and the ripple was the blood underneath. Beneath Victoria’s feet, the porch shuddered.

  Victoria brushed her knees clean and straightened her coat. Her knees shook, but she refused to let herself fall. It had begun to rain. The tiniest of drops pattered down through the thick trees overhead. Looking back at the Home, she took her time examining all the gables and eaves and windows.

  It was not big enough for a gallery and six floors, a piano room, and towering balconies. It was not big enough for a hallway of forever. As she walked home, Victoria tried to make sense of it and failed. She let me go, she thought. Why did she let me go? And why did she say I was like her? The longer she walked, the fuzzier the memories of what just happened became, leaving a sour feeling in her throat and stomach, like from meat gone bad.

  The Home’s gate stood open at the end of the drive. After Victoria passed through, it quietly clicked shut behind her. Her head, full and heavy, swam with dark shadows, but through them all, she could still see Lawrence’s face, if she thought about it hard enough. She could hear his happy humming as they walked together to the Academy and smell the dirt on his shoes. Clenching her fists, she focused on those things, and her head began to clear.

  At home, everything was dark because of the storm. Victoria hung up her raincoat and flinched at the echo of each rain-soaked step.

  “Hello?” she said. “Um, Father?”

  It was one thing to go sneaking around the Home. It was quite another to face her parents after disappearing with nothing but a note left behind, after lying when she’d never lied before.

  The only light was a dim, flickering one beneath her parents’ bedroom door. Victoria raised her hand to knock, but a tiny noise from the kitchen made her stop.

  Beatrice waved her hand at Victoria through a crack in the door. “Come here,” she mouthed.

  Victoria didn’t show it, but inside, her heart was racing. The house had a bad feeling about it; like the Prewitts’ house, Victoria realized—too dark and too quiet. She followed Beatrice into the kitchen.