by Alan Finn
Because of its size and initial expense, the prison was very likely the most famous in the country. Everyone from presidents to Charles Dickens had walked its cell blocks. Tourists, for reasons that eluded me, flocked there. I had been asked many times over the years if I wanted to see this architectural marvel, declining on every occasion. I had no desire to set foot inside the place.
Now, however, I had no choice. If I wanted to understand who the Praediti were and what they were up to, I needed to speak with Magellan Holmes.
Despite that fact, I wasn’t quick about it. I don’t know how long I stood outside the prison. Long enough for the sky to darken from the onset of evening and an approaching late-spring storm. When I at last moved, it was only because I spotted a guard shooing a well-dressed couple through the front gate. The last of the day’s tourists, no doubt.
“Wait!” I yelled as the guard began to close the wrought-iron barricade. “I need to speak with one of your prisoners.”
The guard—a man as thick and impenetrable as the prison’s walls—continued his task. “Personal visitation is only on Sundays.”
“This is an urgent matter.”
“Whatever it is, it can wait till Sunday.”
“I’m a man of the press,” I said, pleading. “I write for the Evening Bulletin.”
Yes, it was a lie. But a small one, which I saw as forgivable. Plus, it finally caught the interest of the guard, who halted the gate before it closed completely.
“Who do you need to see?”
“Magellan Holmes.”
The guard cocked an eyebrow. “The wife killer? What do you need to see him for?”
“An article I’m writing,” I said, lying again.
“You ain’t tryin’ to get him freed, are ya?”
Although it was a good-natured joke, I was able to answer that question honestly. “Not at all. I have no desire to see that man free.”
The guard contemplated me through the gate’s bars, sizing me up and determining my trustworthiness. Standing stock still before him, I wondered just how much I really looked like my father. It was enough for P. T. Barnum to notice a resemblance, and as I underwent the guard’s inspection, I became convinced that he had spotted it, too.
Imagine my surprise, then, when he nodded and told me to enter. Yet I felt a great deal of disappointment as well. Slipping through the gate, I realized I actually wanted to be turned away just as much as I wanted to be let in.
Those emotions continued to tug at me as I followed the guard deeper onto the prison grounds and down the middle of a triangular-shaped courtyard. Two sides of the triangle were made up of long, low-slung cell blocks that reached to the wall behind us. Another entrance gate was positioned at the triangle’s tip. Rising over it, outlined against the darkening sky, was a rotunda.
“This is as far as I go,” the guard said as we reached the second gate. “Callahan will help you from here on out.”
This Callahan on the other side of the gate was as thin as the other guard was wide. The two men had a brief, whispered exchange before the first guard left and Callahan took over. Opening the second gate, he said, “Welcome to Eastern State, Mr.—”
“Clark,” I said, stepping inside. “Edward Clark.”
“We get a lot of newspapermen here,” Callahan said. “We’re very popular with the press.”
I was inside the prison proper now, standing directly beneath the rotunda. Cell blocks stretched in every direction, like the spokes on a wheel. Another guard stood in the center, slowly rotating so he could keep an eye on every long block. Callahan greeted him with a nod before veering into one of the blocks.
“Mr. Holmes is in Cell Block seven,” Callahan said.
It would be incorrect to call the long hallway I found myself facing a block. To my eyes, it looked more like a tunnel, with a rounded ceiling that stretched as far as the eye could see. Damp-walled and dim, there was definitely something subterranean about the place. Not even a few windows in the ceiling, letting in the last breaths of daylight, could help brighten the place.
“You ever visited us before, Mr. Clark?” Callahan asked.
“No,” I said.
“We’re a model prison. Solitary confinement, that’s what it’s all about here. One man per cell. Little fraternization. We want them to reflect on their misdeeds.”
I pictured my father alone in a cell with nothing to do but think about how he had killed my mother. I wondered if, while staring at the cold, stone walls, he ever regretted it. I wondered if thinking about it tortured him. I hoped to God it did.
“Mr. Holmes is in the last cell on the right,” Callahan said. “I’ll guide you there and leave you alone for a few minutes to talk.”
We began the long journey down the cell block, my trepidation growing with each step. I was still torn by the desire to either move faster or run in the opposite direction, each emotion compounded by the sights along the way. Evenly spaced cells sat on both sides of the hall, each one equipped with a narrow window in the roof that let in a slit of fading light. Instead of bars or wood, these doors consisted of flattened strips of iron, welded together in a gridlike pattern. In the center of the door, at eye level, was a rectangle big enough to pass through a plate of food.
The design of the cell doors did little to hide the men inside. Passing cell after cell, I caught sight of shadowy figures lying on cots, sitting on commodes, standing up while simply watching the wall. Some approached their doors and reached out to us. Hands both white and black emerged from the rectangular slats, fingers curling and uncurling. A man inside one cell we passed, standing with his trousers around his ankles, shoved his manhood through the iron slats of the door and flapped it at us, grinning. I looked away, toward the cell across the hall. Inside that one was an inmate lying on the floor, loudly weeping.
Accompanying all of these sights was a chorus of voices, some whispering, some shouting. They taunted us, pleaded with us, asked for money, lawyers, food, tobacco. Floating above them, like a lullaby on a breeze, was the sound of a hymn being sung with regretful sincerity. Someone who had adequately reflected on his misdeeds, I presumed.
Callahan ignored all of this, walking with his narrow chin thrust forward. He was accustomed to such things. He saw—and heard—these men every day. I, however, did not, and the sights and sounds reduced my already-conflicted resolve.
I didn’t belong in that place, not even as a visitor, and every forward step we took further tilted my emotional balance toward fleeing. I would have, too, if my legs had allowed it. But they were too weakened by nervousness to do any running. By the time we neared the end of the cell block, I thought they would buckle and collapse beneath me.
“Holmes is just up ahead,” Callahan announced.
We were at the second-to-last cell, where an inmate lay snoring on his cot. Then it was on to the last cell.
My father’s cell.
I stopped before I could reach the door, my heart pounding loudly in my ears. Sweat had broken out on my brow and my legs wobbled. I was certain I was going to faint. I hoped for it, in fact. I wanted to tumble to the floor, unconscious, and not wake up until I had been dragged all the way back to the street outside.
But then I again thought about my mother. I thought of her voice during Mrs. Pastor’s final séance, gently instructing me to see my father. And, of course, I thought of her final word to me, the one I needed to ask my father about.
Praediti.
I needed to know what it meant. So I wiped my brow, took a deep breath of rancid prison air, and stepped in front of the cell.
Just like his neighbor, my father also lay on a cot, only he was awake. He was reading a book, taking advantage of the last few minutes of light coming from above. The book—a Victor Hugo novel—covered his face, leaving me with only a glimpse of thin legs in gray wool trousers and a pair of hands I no longer recognized.
Once upon a time, those had been among the most famous hands in the world. People truly believe
d that magic sprang from those fingertips, that a whole other world was contained in those delicately creased palms. Now they were veined and spotted. The hands of an old man. If any magic had truly existed in them, it was long gone.
“Holmes,” Callahan said. “Someone’s here to see you.”
My father didn’t look up from his book. “Who is it?”
His voice. Unlike my mother’s, I had forgotten how it sounded. For a moment, I didn’t even recognize it. It seemed too strange, too foreign to be my father’s. Unfamiliar though it was, it unlocked hundreds of memories—ones that had eluded me for years. I recalled him bidding me good night, reading me stories, telling me how much he loved me.
“A reporter from the Evening Bulletin,” said Callahan. “He wants to interview you.”
My father turned a page of his book. “I don’t wish to be interviewed.”
“Well, he’s here now. Might as well talk to him.” Callahan turned to me, his smile an apology. “I’ll leave you two alone. If, after a few minutes, he doesn’t talk, hurry back and I’ll show you out.”
Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the Amazing Magellan.
I remember very little about those first few seconds with him. My emotions were too unruly to pick up many details or preserve thoughts. I recall my throat being dry, so much so that I wasn’t sure I could talk. And I remember my right leg twitching—a nervous tic I had no control over.
But mostly I recall desperately wanting to see my father’s face. I wanted to gaze upon the Amazing Magellan to see what had changed and what was the same. I wanted him to see me, as well. I needed him to lay eyes on me and see that I was still standing, that his unthinkable act all those years ago hadn’t broken me.
I cleared my throat and spoke.
“Father.”
The book, lowered slowly, revealed my father’s face in small increments. First was the thinning patch of hair, not so much gray as it was colorless. Next came the wrinkled forehead, followed by his eyes. Those eyes, at once friendly and unknowable, had long ago left crowds mesmerized. Now they stared at me, recognition flickering deep within them.
“Columbus?”
It felt intensely strange to be addressed by my given name. It had been so long since I’d answered to it. Still, I said, “Yes. It’s me.”
The book dropped to the floor. My father sprang off his cot and rushed to the cell door, gripping the iron slats while peering at me from between them. He studied my features, seeking out similarities to the boy he had once known. He nodded at each one. Nose. Eyes. Mouth. Convinced I was really his son, Magellan Holmes did something that surprised me.
He began to weep.
“Thank God,” he said. “Thank you, sweet merciful God. They told me you were dead. That you died in the war. I thought you were truly gone. I thought I had lost you forever.”
The tears poured from his eyes, raining down his cheeks and dampening his shirt. I felt tears of my own pushing at the corners of my eyes, begging to be released. I held them back. I refused to cry in front of my father. I refused to cry for him.
“Columbus Holmes is dead,” I said. “I go by Edward Clark now.”
“But you’re alive,” my father said. “The name is unimportant. What matters is that you’re here. Oh, Columbus, you can’t know how much I’ve dreamt of this moment! My boy. My sweet, sweet boy.”
He smiled at me, even as the tears continued. The smile was, unlike the rest of him, something I recognized. Neither time nor prison had been kind to him. He was far too thin and his skin had the pallor of a corpse. But his smile was still the same.
That recognition, strangely, created more anger than comfort. It made me think of the man standing onstage fifteen years earlier. The one who had disappeared behind a red velvet curtain and changed my life forever. So my rage took hold, momentarily eclipsing the true purpose of my visit. Fifteen years of resentment woke inside me, flooding my heart with blackness. Fifteen years of questions followed—a veritable storm of them swirling inside my skull. Only the most important one was strong enough to make its way from my brain to my tongue.
“Why did you do it?”
My father’s expression changed instantly, going blank. It was as if yet another velvet curtain had been drawn shut in front of him, blocking everything out.
Despite not receiving an answer, I continued to speak. Now that my initial question had been uttered, all those other words that had accumulated over the years poured out in a seething torrent.
“She loved you,” I hissed. “She couldn’t have been a threat to you. If you wanted to be rid of her so badly, why didn’t you just leave? You could have left us both. We would have been fine without you. You didn’t have to take her from me. You didn’t have to kill her.”
I had started to cry, despite my best efforts. In contrast, my father’s tears dried quickly, his damp collar the only remnant of them.
“There are things you can’t understand, Columbus,” he said. “Things you can never know.”
Deep down, I was hoping that he’d somehow be able to explain everything. To lay out, step by step, the reasons for what he had done. Even if the rationale was nothing but pure hatred of my mother, it would have been better than uncertainty. Better than not knowing why he felt she had to die. But Magellan Holmes was unwilling to give me even that, and I despised him for it.
“You owe me an explanation,” I said. “After the hell you put me through, I deserve something.”
“I have nothing to give,” my father replied, backing away from the cell door.
I moved toward it, gripping the slats just as he had done earlier. I wanted to get as close to him as possible, so that he might see my face, my hurt, my hatred. I wanted it to haunt him.
“May you rot here, you bastard,” I said, my voice wavering between anger and pain. “May you live a long, long life, with nothing but this cell for comfort. May you suffer within these walls. And when it’s your time to die, may your last thoughts be of my mother and what you did to her and how despicable you are.”
I released the door, my fingers white knuckled and numb, and stumbled away from it, spent. I felt empty then. Hollow.
My father, meanwhile, had retreated to the gloomy rear of his cell. I could only make out his silhouette against the cell’s gray walls. Although I couldn’t see his face, I heard him weeping again.
“Is this why you came here after all this time?” he asked, his sob-choked voice emerging from the shadows. “To say that?”
After my speech through the door, I wasn’t sure I had any words left in me. It certainly felt that way. Yet I was able to answer, “No. I was told to see you.”
“By whom?”
“That’s not your concern.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. Even if he believed me, I didn’t want him to know I had communicated with my mother. I didn’t want to tarnish that memory.
“And why do you need to see me?”
“I was told a word,” I said. “A word only you can explain to me.”
“What is it?”
“Praediti.”
My father burst out of the darkness, flying to the door with a speed as frightening as it was unexpected. His eyes, wide and tear stained, darted about a moment before locking on to my own. His hands, I noticed, trembled.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I told you, it’s not your concern.”
“Nor is it yours!” he said. “You must promise me, Columbus—”
“It’s Edward.”
“Fine. Edward, you must promise never to utter that word again. Forget you ever heard it. And if you somehow hear it again, you run. Run as far away as you can. Do you understand?”
I didn’t. Not in the least. Still, I said, “Yes.”
“Promise you’ll do what I say!”
“I . . . I promise.”
My father, looking slightly relieved yet far from calm, turned his back to me and began to move deeper into his cell once more.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what it means?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I can’t. Don’t ever ask me that again.”
“But it has to be something important. It’s something I need to know.”
As Magellan Holmes retreated into the darkness again, he seemed to merge with the shadows, making it impossible to see him. One final illusion.
“So that’s all you’re going to say?” I asked.
My voice, plaintive and pleading, echoed around the cell, almost as if it were suddenly empty. Only through the sound of his voice did I know that my father was still there.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said. “Leave now, and don’t ever return. You should stay dead, Columbus Holmes. It’s better for both of us that way.”
IX
It was raining when I left the prison. One of those chilly, late-spring showers that felt inescapable, as if the dampness has seeped into your very marrow. I trudged through it, ignoring the growing puddles and streams of rainwater that flowed to the gutters.
Seeing my father again had left me tired more than anything else. Yes, rage and grief were still present, simmering like a fever. But it was a deep, shoulder-slumping exhaustion that made me not even care when the rain suddenly picked up, leaving me exposed in an outright downpour a few blocks from home. Instead of sprinting, I slowed down, removed my hat, and tilted my face to the sky. The drops that hit my cheeks were cold and jarring—each one a tiny slap. My hope was that the rain would either wake me from my stupor or wash me away entirely.
Unfortunately, it did neither. By the time I reached Locust Street, I was a soggy mess, made even more fatigued by the long walk in inclement weather. All I wanted was to retire to my bed and sleep for days, not seeing or speaking to anyone. I finally wanted to do what Barclay had advised all along—withdraw from the world until this particular storm passed.
But that plan, like many a previous one, was laid to waste when I noticed a brougham sitting in front of my house. As I got closer, I recognized Winslow in the driver’s seat, hunched, collar up, against the rain.