Henry stared at Maggie’s disappointed expression and his face softened.
“My presence outside Chelsea Manor this morning was no accident. But meeting you was unexpected. There was no way to anticipate such a charming girl would come flying through the air,” Henry said with a smile, but seeing that Maggie still looked betrayed, he continued solemnly, “But I am sorry if you feel like I lied to you. Coming here earlier tonight was a mistake. I had hoped my mere appearance might provoke Clement Clarke Moore to confess. But since it didn’t, I am taking it upon myself to get the evidence I need to prove him wrong.”
“But I have no idea what you want,” Maggie insisted. “Some of the family remembers your father, but they have no idea why you came here.”
Henry sighed. “Only your grandfather knows the true reason.”
“Which is what? That your father didn’t cheat at seminary? Or that Sidney and Grandmother Catharine were in love?”
Henry’s mouth slightly opened in surprise at Maggie’s last suggestion. “What makes you mention love?”
“Is it true?”
Henry still seemed stunned, but responded, “I don’t know. Possibly. But that’s not why I am here. At least not really.”
“Then why?”
“Maggie, your grandfather…” Henry paused thoughtfully, his face lit by the colorless moonlight drifting through the library. “Your grandfather stole the poem.”
“What poem?”
Henry threw up his arms in exasperation. “What poem do you think?”
Maggie didn’t respond.
“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas… A Visit from St. Nicholas… Clement Clarke Moore’s Famous Plagiarized Poem―whatever you want to call it,” Henry said, sounding rather frustrated. “The poem was my grandfather’s. Major Henry wrote it long ago. And Clement Clarke Moore stole it.”
“How can that be true?” Maggie asked. “My grandfather is many things, but he’s not a thief.”
“Perhaps declaring it stolen is harsh,” Henry admitted. “But the poem originally appeared in a newspaper in 1823. Anonymously.”
“Because Grandfather Clement never thought much about that poem. He wrote it for his children. But a friend came across it and had it published without his knowing,” Maggie said, reciting the well-known family tale.
Henry crossed his arms. “It’s possible that someone could have taken it without Moore’s knowledge. But my grandfather, Major Henry, was the true author. It had been told at Christmastime in the Livingston household long before it was ever seen in print. My family only recently discovered that Clement Clarke Moore falsely claimed authorship to Major Henry’s poem, since it took Moore twenty years after it was first published to do so. My father became obsessed with the matter right up until his death. Although the poem initially coming in contact with your family was not Moore’s fault, he still lied about being the writer due to its popularity and the pressure for someone to take credit. He would rather lay claim to a poem he hates than risk exposing the real author and the story of how it came to the Chelsea Manor in the first place.”
“From your father?” Maggie whispered.
Henry nodded. He wiped his face one last time and then stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “After my father died, I found all his journals and letters, revealing more of the story than I knew. Sidney was a seminary student. He and Catharine became close acquaintances. She was a young mother of four with a fifth on the way. Again, I do not know the extent of their relationship. There was some kind of love, but I cannot confirm whether it became romantic. Sidney was also strongly attached to the children―the eldest one, Margaret, especially. He often visited both Catharine and the children. Many stories he had shared with them had been learned from his own father Major Henry, including ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
“So what happened?”
“Clement Clarke Moore found out, of course. So not only did he forbid Catharine from seeing Sidney, Moore set out to destroy my father’s name. He accused him of plagiarism, shattering his academic reputation and kicking him out of seminary. Sidney had no choice but to return home to Poughkeepsie. But he had left behind many things―letters to Catharine, stories for the children, and one Christmas poem. Someone must have discovered it, and thinking Clement Clarke Moore had written it, they had the poem published. My father heard about your grandmother’s death. But he didn’t learn of the poem’s publication until much later and was understandably upset.”
“So why are you here tonight?” Maggie asked.
“I was hoping to find some evidence; maybe something in writing where your grandfather admits to all of this. Not about Sidney and Catharine’s relationship. Not about framing Sidney for plagiarism. But confessing that he is not the true author of the most famous Christmas poem in the world.”
Maggie wanted to ask Henry more, but something clattered in another room. The sound wasn’t particularly loud, but it still got the attention of Maggie and Henry in the library.
Henry’s eyes grew large. He looked toward the door and back at Maggie, silently inquiring about the noise. Maggie shook her head; not knowing anything other than the rustling was coming from the Great Room.
Maggie and Henry walked out into the foyer and crossed the hall carefully. They each grabbed a knob on the Great Room’s doors, and after Henry gave a slight nod, they swung them open.
For a moment, nothing moved―neither Henry, Maggie nor the petite intruder by the Christmas tree.
The stranger was certainly no St. Nicholas. The boy looked Gardiner’s age of twelve, but was dressed much older. He wore a burgundy coat, sharply cut to expose his emerald green vest and matching trousers. His tall burgundy top hat sat loosely on his tiny head while long blond hair was swept across his brow.
After Maggie and Henry came bounding into the room, the boy seemed the most startled of the three. And now all of them stood frozen, watching to see who would move first. But then the burgundy-coated boy tightened the gray sack he was holding, slung it over his shoulder, and bolted toward the fireplace.
Maggie expected the boy to attempt the nearly impossible task of climbing back up the chimney, figuring that must have been how he had entered. But instead of watching him struggle with the chimney, the boy disappeared down an unusual opening in the back of the fireplace.
Maggie and Henry dived toward the hole, but it closed by the time they reached the fireplace. Maggie pounded on the bricks while Henry tried to pull open the ash pit cover on the ground just as footsteps sounded from the second floor. They locked eyes, both suddenly aware of the trouble that would arise if Henry were to be caught.
The footsteps drew nearer to the second floor landing and then began to slowly make their way down the steps. The Great Room doors were wide open and Maggie knew they would be discovered in a moment’s time.
But just as Maggie was about to grab Henry and hide him in the parlor, Henry’s scuffle with the ash pit cover exposed a round golden emblem in one of the blackened bricks. The emblem was no bigger than a half dollar with a tiny hole in its middle. Maggie spotted an engraved cursive G intertwined with smaller letters: L and S.
Without thinking, Maggie pressed the emblem with her thumb. The ash pit cover and its surrounding bricks disappeared, forming back into a hole.
Maggie couldn’t see how far down the opening went. But as the footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs, Maggie and Henry jumped into utter darkness.
s Maggie and Henry landed upon a giant ash pile, the hole above their heads closed, cutting them off from Chelsea Manor. Unlike when her sled dropped from the hill that morning, Maggie managed to land crouched on her feet with her hands bracing the ground while Henry ended up sprawled uncomfortably on his back. He let out a painful groan and Maggie hurried to his side.
“Are you hurt?”
Henry shook his head and attempted to sit up, positioning himself on his elbows. Through the darkness, Maggie could see his blue eyes shining up at her. And without thou
ght, she affectionately laid her hand upon his shoulder. But the moment was broken when Maggie began to take in the shadowy sights around her. The mysterious cellar reminded Maggie of a crypt, and such a comparison caused chills to stream down her back.
“Where are we?” Maggie shakily stood on the loose residue under her feet.
Henry cupped a handful of gray powder and let it slip through his discolored fingers.
“The ash pit of the fireplace,” he suggested, not sounding too confident.
Maggie pointed toward the sealed hole that hovered yards above her extended finger. “Did you see? There was a golden button on the trapdoor that caused it to open.”
Still reclined on his back, Henry stared up at the ceiling they had fallen through and then around at the ash. Head to toe, Henry was marbled in gray and black filth. Maggie glanced down at her similarly stained clothes and felt relieved to be wearing Louis’ trousers.
“What happened to that boy?” Henry stood up and wiped his hands together as a dust storm rained down from his body. “And who was that boy?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said, attempting to brush soot off her nightshirt. But the soot was too layered to make any significant change. “I’m more concerned with how I’m going to find my way back into Chelsea Manor.”
Henry looked across the cellar where a weak glow was coming from a passageway.
“Follow me,” he said, taking Maggie by the hand. A jolt ran up Maggie’s arm as Henry led her into the dim tunnel.
It was impossible to tell what lay beyond the narrow passage, but the burgundy-coated boy had left dirty footprints along the ground. Maggie and Henry followed the footprints to the passage’s end where a spacious cavern appeared before their eyes. Oil lamps dangling from the walls illuminated its curved ceiling.
Maggie looked up at the doorway they were under and saw 48C carved in its keystone. She didn’t understand what it meant. But the footprints stopped there.
Maggie grudgingly let go of Henry’s hand and took a few steps into the space. The cavern was empty except for heavy chains moving horizontally along the ground as far as the eye could see. Two rusty chains ran one direction and two chains ran the other, clicking along old gears that groaned loudly as they turned.
“Look!” Henry pointed toward a tunnel opening.
A wooden contraption attached to the chains appeared out of the darkness. As it neared, Maggie saw a sleigh with tattered red seats. Although the sleigh was vacant, the chains and gears slowly moved it along as though there was an old horse pulling it. When it reached Maggie and Henry, the sleigh didn’t stop and instead continued to mechanically lumber along the chains, heading into the dark tunnel where it threatened to disappear completely.
Henry grabbed Maggie’s hand again and tugged her toward the sleigh. It was traveling slow enough that they were able to stumble inside. Maggie took a seat across from Henry just as the sleigh passed into the musty, black tunnel.
“We’re below New York,” Maggie observed.
Maggie couldn’t see Henry in the darkness, but she heard him clear his throat and say, “It appears that way.”
“Did the city build this?” Maggie asked, trying to keep her companion talking. Henry’s voice helped calm her nerves.
“I’ve never heard of anything being built below Manhattan. I’ve actually never heard of such an underground system like this being built anywhere.”
The sleigh continued to glide through the tunnel. Occasionally, it would open to similar caverns that contained doorways to other passages.
“Do all of these lead to ash pits?” Maggie asked. She was pleased to be able to see Henry’s face once again even though his anxious expression was a bit unsettling.
“Maybe,” Henry replied. “It could be a fireplace cleaning system where workers come down here and haul away ash in these sleighs.”
“But what was that boy doing in Chelsea Manor?”
Henry shrugged. “He probably was just using these tunnels to break into homes.”
“Who would do that?”
Henry gave Maggie an uneasy look.
“I wasn’t referring to you,” Maggie said quickly. “At least you had a reason to be searching around Chelsea Manor.”
Henry thought for a moment. “What if this boy also had a reason?”
“But what about that golden object?” The mysterious emblem was still troubling Maggie. “Did you see? It had a large G and a smaller L and S on it. What does it mean? And where did it come from?”
“I don’t know.” Henry’s voice rose in irritation. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Since Henry’s arrival, Maggie had learned more about her grandparents and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas than she ever imagined knowing. And now she connected their unusual circumstances to his sudden appearance. So she had expected Henry to have all the answers like he did earlier in the library.
But it turned out Henry was just as confused as Maggie.
“Perhaps GLS is the name of the company that helped build these tunnels and sleighs for the city,” Henry suggested in a gentler tone. “And they needed a way to gain access to the ash pits from the fireplaces in case something happened to any underground entrances.”
Maggie knew Henry was just inventing a story for her sake, but she appreciated the effort.
Henry sat across from Maggie in the front of the sleigh. She watched as he twisted in his seat as though he had heard something. A moment later, they both spotted another sleigh coming from the opposite direction.
It was empty.
And a few more sleighs heading toward them were also unoccupied. But just as they entered another lit cavern, voices could be heard coming from an arriving sleigh. Maggie and Henry swiftly flattened their bodies against the bottom of the sleigh.
Peeking out from the side, Maggie spotted a boy and girl dressed similarly to Chelsea Manor’s burgundy-coated visitor. But they appeared around Francis’ age of sixteen. The boy wore a plum coat and top hat with a red vest and matching boots. He had shaggy brown hair and a thin moustache. The girl was tall with sinister black hair pulled back into a low bun, paper white skin and almond-shaped eyes. Her skirt was blue with a cream-colored vest.
“Are you sure this is the right one, Harriet?” The plum-coated boy jumped out of the sleigh, holding a familiar gray sack. “We’re supposed to visit 65G. This is 53F.”
“You need to get your hearing examined, Milton,” Harriet snapped. “We were assigned 53F as well.”
That was all Maggie heard before her sleigh entered another tunnel. As other sleighs passed with similar passengers, Maggie and Henry remained pressed to the bottom of their sleigh.
Eventually, the caverns with the oil lamps became less and less, and soon their sleigh was coasting through darkness. Maggie’s leg muscles were starting to ache, so after a few more empty sleighs went by, she crawled back up onto the seat.
“What if we never find our way out?” Maggie was unable to hide the panic in her voice.
Henry got up and took the seat beside her. He put an arm around Maggie’s shoulder and rubbed it lightly. “We’re going to be all right. I promise.”
But soon Henry stopped rubbing her shoulder, and instead laid a firm grip on Maggie’s forearm.
“What?” Maggie asked, but was instantly shushed by Henry.
A cavern appeared in the distance that was unlike the previous ones. The underground walls framed the upcoming chamber like a portrait and Maggie saw rows of motionless sleighs in the background.
It was clearly the end of their ride.
As the chamber approached, half a dozen men in tall helmets could be seen monitoring the incoming and outgoing sleighs. They weren’t like the workers Maggie and Henry saw earlier. The men were older, dressed all in black with the exception of their brass belts.
And they didn’t seem too friendly.
“Get off,” Henry whispered anxiously.
Maggie followed Henry from the sleigh before it rolled
into the guarded chamber. Hiding in the shadows, she saw an endless wall of tunnels containing similar gears and chains. Sleighs were constantly arriving and departing like a well-orchestrated station.
“Tonight always feels longer than the rest,” yawned one hefty guard.
“Don’t start falling asleep on me, Crofoot,” another guard said. The smaller man reached into his jacket and pulled out a silver flask. “Here,” he said, handing the flask over to his friend.
“Thanks, Calhoun.” Crofoot took a sip and wiped his mouth. “I hate getting pit duty. Everyone is up in the Krog, drinking and playing cards, while we’re stuck having to watch all the Foundlings. It ain’t fair, I tell you.”
“Ah, it’s not so bad, Crofoot,” Calhoun said, reaching for his flask. “It’s fun giving the Foundlings a hard time.”
After taking a long swig, Calhoun glanced about for a target. He spotted a pair of young boys arriving from another tunnel.
“What took you so long, Foundlings?” Calhoun snarled.
The surprised Foundlings looked worried, unaware of doing anything wrong.
With Crofoot and Calhoun’s backs toward them, Maggie and Henry saw the opportunity to escape behind a row of unused sleighs that were stacked like kindling against the wall. Maggie and Henry crouched down and watched the guards through gaps between the sleighs. The gears and chains were noisy enough that no one could hear them whispering.
“So the young workers are Foundlings,” Henry said.
“Whatever they are,” Maggie replied. “I prefer them to these men in black coats.”
“Well, we should leave before they become less distracted.”
“But to where?”
Henry glanced around. Behind the row of sleighs in the corner of the room was a doorway. Getting Maggie’s attention, he nodded in its direction.
Maggie and Henry both looked back at Crofoot and Calhoun. The guards had lost interest in the Foundlings and were back to their post, passing the silver flask between eager hands. Staying low to the ground, Henry made his way to the exit with Maggie directly behind him. Crofoot and Calhoun mumbled in the distance, but the guards didn’t notice them slipping away.
Krampus: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1) Page 5