by Hannah Tinti
“That’s enough!” said Brother Joseph. “It’s only supposed to happen three times.” But the boys kept at it, imagining worse things, giddy with their own meanness.
Ren tried to think of his own bad fate for William, but he could not get past the image of the farmer lifting the boy into the cart. He wondered if William would write, once he was settled. Some of the boys who were adopted sent letters, detailing their new lives, the warm beds and clean clothes and special meals their mothers prepared for them. These letters were cherished and passed from boy to boy until the pages were torn and the ink had faded.
Ren pictured the supper waiting for William at home. The farmer’s wife would have taken out the good plates, if they had good plates. Yes, Ren decided, they would have good plates. Plates of white porcelain. And there would be a small bowl of wildflowers, picked from behind the kitchen door, pink and blue with tiny yellow buttercups. There would be bread, still warm, sliced and covered with a napkin in a basket. There would be stew of some kind, hot and full of meat that had been rubbed with herbs, tender and soft to chew. And a mountain of potatoes. And corn scraped from the cob. And glasses of fresh milk. And cooling on a windowsill, just behind the farmer’s wife, who was standing in the door frame now looking for her husband’s wagon, would be a blackberry pie. Just for the three of them.
She would not have minded his hand. She would not have minded at all.
Ren sat on the floor of the distillery and sorted grapes, pulling leaves and bits of vine from the flesh, tossing the damaged and unripe fruit to the side. There were always spiders in the baskets from the fields, and clouds of gnats, and sometimes thin black snakes. Ren’s fingers were stained with red. It would be days before the color faded from his skin.
When he was through, he dumped the grapes over the top of the winepress, an enormous contraption that held court in the center of the barn. The children huddled by the chutes at the bottom, holding buckets, collecting the juice, while others pushed the crank, which was set in the middle of the press like a windmill on its side. It was heavy work. The oldest boys were assigned to the crank, one on each arm, walking in circles. In another year, Ren would be one of them.
Only a few boys had grown old enough and been passed over enough at Saint Anthony’s to be sent into the army. One was named Frederick, a stout child who had trouble breathing and would often faint, crumpling to the floor with barely a sound. The soldiers came in the night and took him. From the window of the small boys’ room, Ren had seen the men drag Frederick across the yard and through the wooden gate, his body limp, his feet bouncing off the cobblestones. He was not heard from again.
Another was named Sebastian, a boy remarkably pale and thin. Six months after he’d left with the soldiers he appeared at the gate of the orphanage, and he was so changed that the children did not recognize him. His face was haggard, and both eyes had been blackened. His lip was split in two and his leg appeared to be broken. Sebastian pushed open the little wooden door in the gate, the same one he had been passed through as a child, and begged the brothers to take him back. Father John approached, murmured a prayer, and threw the extra bolt. The boy stayed out there for three days, crying first, then pleading, then shouting, then praying, then cursing, until he fell silent, and a wagon came, driven by three soldiers, and they put Sebastian in the back of it and carried him away.
It was rumored that Father John accepted payment from the soldiers, and also signed a contract of some kind, giving over ownership of the boys. A day did not go by that Ren did not think of this, and whenever he did, the scar on his arm began to itch. Every time he was passed over in the line of children, every time he watched another boy taken, and every year he grew older, it itched more.
To make up for this, Ren stole things. It began with small items of food. He’d stand in front of the cook after cleaning out the fireplace, and the man would glance at the boy’s scar, and then turn and study a pile of cabbages while shouting for someone to wash the beans, and it was just enough timeA for Ren to slip one of the pieces of bread left out on the counter into his pocket.
He never took anything that couldn’t be easily hidden away. He stole socks and shoelaces, combs and prayer cards, buttons, keys, and crucifixes. Whatever crossed his path. Sometimes he would keep the items, sometimes he would return them, sometimes he would toss them down the well. In this way Ren was responsible for most of the lost things being prayed for at the statue of Saint Anthony.
The items he kept were stashed inside a small crack about a foot from the edge of the well. Leaning over the stone wall, Ren could fit his hand inside the hiding place, his breath echoing back to him from the water far below. There was a broken piece of blue and white pottery, a snake skin he’d found in the woods, a set of rosary beads he’d stolen from Father John, made from real roses, and, most important of all, his rocks.
Every boy at Saint Anthony’s collected rocks. They hoarded stones as if they were precious objects, as if the accumulation of feldspar and shale would pave their way to a new life. If they dug in the right places, they found rarer things—pieces of quartz, or mica, or arrowheads. These stones were kept and traded and loved, and sometimes, when the children were adopted, they were left behind.
That afternoon, when Brother Joseph had fallen asleep, William’s rocks were spread out across the floor of the barn, and the boys began to argue over how to divide them. There were perhaps thirty or forty pieces. Rocks that gleamed like metal, or had brown and black stripes, or reds and oranges the color of the sunset. But the best of the collection was a wishing stone, a soft gray rock with an unbroken circling band of white. Good for one wish to come true.
Ren had seen only one before—it had belonged to Sebastian. He’d shown it to Ren once, but he wouldn’t let anyone hold it. He was afraid of losing the wish. He was saving it, he said, for a time when he was in trouble, and he’d taken it with him when he left for the army. Later, outside the brick wall that surrounded the orphanage, his lips cracked from the sun, Sebastian told Ren through the swinging door in the gate that someone had stolen the wishing stone while he slept. “I shouldn’t have held on to it,” he wept. “I should have used it as soon as it came into my hands.”
The rafters of the barn caught the boys’ voices and sent them back, louder and more forceful, as they bargained over William’s collection. A few had already noticed the wishing stone. Once William’s rocks were divided, Ren was sure to lose his chance. He edged closer to where it lay on the ground, rolling up his sleeve as he went. Then he pretended that someone had shoved him from behind, and threw his body into the center of the group, scrambling on the floor, the stub of his left arm covering his right. The group elbowed him to the side.
“Shove off.”
“Leper.”
“Get out of the way.”
Ren moved to the back of the room as the boys continued to argue, the stone safe in his fingers. He opened his palm and glanced down. The wishing stone was the color of rain. The edges smooth. He felt the indentation where the ring of white began and thought of all the things he was going to ask for.
Brom and Ichy whispered to each other, then left the group and followed Ren. They knew he had taken something. They were his friends but they wanted their share.
“What’s that in your hand?”
“Nothing.”
“Give it here.”
The rest of the children began to notice. First Edward, with his runny nose, then Luke and Marcus. Ren knew he had only a moment before they would all be upon him. He punched Brom, the weight of his friend’s chin hard against his knuckles. Then he ducked under Ichy’s arm and burst out of the barn, running as fast as he could to the well, hoping he could reach it in time to hide the stone, praying all the while that the boys wouldn’t come after him. But they did—they were close behind, Brom in the lead and nearly grabbing Ren’s shoulder, and then he did, and they both fell to the ground.
Ichy sat on Ren’s chest and Brom twisted his arm until h
is fingers opened. Ren tried to kick them off, biting and scratching, but he knew in his heart that he was going to lose, and he felt the stone slip out of his hand. The boys left him panting in the dirt and clustered around what they had taken.
“I want to wish for an arrowhead,” said Ichy.
“That’s not good enough,” said Brom.
“For candy, then.”
“For Father John to break his neck.”
“For toys!”
“To get picked from the line.”
“For a hundred wishes instead of one.”
Ren listened to his friends. He had never hated anyone more. He thrust himself forward and snatched the stone back. If he couldn’t use the wish, then no one would. The twins grabbed hold of his shirt and he pulled desperately away, the hate inside giving him strength, more than he’d ever had before, and he leaned over and threw the rock down into the well. There was no sound as it descended, just the echo of Ren’s own breathing in the dark, and then the smallest splash that told him it had hit water.
THREE
Father John’s study was on the second floor of the monastery. From this small room came dictations and benedictions, portion sizes and bedtime procedures, prayer schedules, catalogs of sins, a rotation of privy duty, and the sounds of these rules and regulations being enforced. Ren had been caned there three times for hoarding food, six times for leaving his bed at night, fifteen times for being on the roof without permission, and twenty-seven times for cursing. He knew the room well and was sure that the priest whipped him less harshly—he’d seen welts inches deep on others.
Father John chose a volume from a shelf on the wall: The Lives of the Saints. He walked over to his desk and began to read while Ren stood in the corner, watching and waiting. Thirty minutes passed. Father John sometimes kept the children for hours this way. The waiting was always worse than the punishment.
In his own way Ren was a believer. It came as easily as breathing. There was a stream in the woods behind the orphanage. Ren liked to put his hand in and feel the water rush through his fingers. He watched leaves and twigs floating downstream and felt the tug of the current on his wrist. It was the same pull that came sometimes when he prayed—the sense of being carried on to a deeper place. But he never had the courage to follow it through. As soon as he felt the urge to let go, he’d take his hand out of the water.
The priest turned a page in his book. He ran his finger along the center of the spine and began to read aloud: “ ‘In Padua a young man named Leonardo kicked his mother in a fit of anger. He was then so remorseful that he confessed to Saint Anthony. The saint told the young man that he needed to remove the part of himself that had committed the sin. Leonardo went home and cut off his foot. Saint Anthony, upon hearing this, went to visit the injured man. And with one touch he reattached the foot.’ ” Father John closed the book but kept his finger in the page. “I thought you might be interested in that story.”
Ren knew not to answer, not to say a word. His left eye was swollen, his face smeared with mud where Brom had pressed it into the ground. The twins had pulled his hair until he told them where his collection was hidden, then made off with all that he had saved, slipping back into the barn before Brother Joseph had stirred. Father John had heard the fight from his study and discovered Ren alone by the well, bruised and bloody and weeping at what he had lost.
“Sin does not only reside in the flesh.” Father John stood and walked across the room. “It is an indelible part of your soul. Each transgression a black mark that cannot be removed, except by holy confession and the sacred fire of God’s judgment.” He closed the book and slid it back into its place on the shelf. “The saints are examples for the rest of us. You should think of them the next time you are tempted.” The priest pulled the switch from his sleeve and inspected it, pulling a small hair from the bark. “It is what I always do.” He pointed to the whipping stool, and the boy walked over and lowered his trousers.
The whipping stool had held Ren’s weight and the weight of many other boys over the years. Ren remembered the first time he had taken his place across it, after he was caught in a lie by Brother Peter. Now there were even more scratches in the wood, places where the joints were failing. It seemed close to falling apart.
“Who hit you?”
The first strike was always a shock. The boy tried not to move as it seared into his skin. Sweat gathered on his lower back. Between his legs.
“Who hit you?”
Ren tried to think of other things. He could feel the edges of the cuts begin to separate, the sting working its way across his body. Saliva dripped from his mouth and pooled on the floor.
“Food will be rationed until you reveal their names. The shoes and blankets for the winter returned.”
Ren gripped the stool. He waited for it to break. Every year there was talk of new shoes and blankets. And every year they never arrived.
The small boys’ room was a long, narrow attic space lined with cots and bits of bedding, with slanted walls and a ceiling that ran like a stripe down the length of it. There were two latched windows, one by the door and one at the far dark end, and it was by this particular window that Ren was trying to sleep, the backs of his legs still burning.
The room smelled like boiled fish. It was the same oily smell that covered the rest of the orphanage. This oil came from the bodies of the children and seeped into the tables and chairs, into the stone walls of the building. The boys were washed twice a month, along with their linens, by a group of charitable grandmothers. On those days the brothers would prop open the doors and windows, trying to air the place, but it did little good. By the end of the first night the smell would return—a combination of bedwets, worry, and sickness.
Brom and Ichy were in the next bed, as they had been ever since they were first brought to Saint Anthony’s. Ren still remembered the night when Brother Joseph had shuffled into the room, the twins bundled in his arms. The little boys were soaking wet, their bodies shaking. Ren had watched as Brother Joseph set them on the bed and began to unwrap the blankets.
“The mother drowned herself.” Brother Joseph threw the wet clothes onto the floor, muttering into the dark. “Nothing but bad luck. No one’s going to want these two.” He rubbed the boys’ arms and legs. “They need to get warm.” And with that he slipped first one, then the other into Ren’s bed, then hurried down the hall to look for something dry to put them in.
The boys squirmed against Ren under the blanket. They were perhaps a year younger, but took up twice the room, and he considered kicking them out onto the floor. Ichy grabbed hold of Ren’s nightshirt, as if sensing this, and promptly stuffed the piece of fabric into his mouth. Brom sobbed with rage. Ren thought of their mother, floating in the river. He wondered what color her hair was. He decided that it was blond. He decided the color of her eyes (blue), and her skin (pale), and the print of her dress (pink), until he could see her standing before him, dripping with water. Her shoes were caked with sludge, her hair tangled with branches. She crossed her arms, as if she were chilled, and it took a few moments before Ren understood that she was waiting for him to do something.
“What do you want?” he asked. But she would not answer. So he began to whistle, just to hear the sound of something in the room. Beside him, the twins stopped their crying and went still. They went so still that Ren worried they might be dead. He sat up and watched their sleeping faces until he was sure that they were breathing. When he turned around their mother had disappeared.
Now Ren shifted his stinging legs and tried to ignore the pain. Father John was right-handed, and because of this he favored the left when leaving his marks. Ren turned to one side and then the other. The skin around his eye throbbed and his arm was sore where Brom had twisted it. He picked at a scab starting to form on his knee and sucked his breath between his teeth as it came loose.
“Does it hurt?” Ichy whispered from the next bed.
Ren did not want to seem a coward. “No.”
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“You shouldn’t have punched me,” said Brom.
Ren turned and looked out the window. He was not ready to be friends again.
“Do you think William’s home by now?” Ichy asked.
“He must be,” said Brom.
“Unless he was captured by pirates,” said Ichy.
The twins were silent then, and eventually their breathing became shallow. Ren rested on his side and thought about Saint Anthony reattaching Leonardo’s foot. He wondered if the skin was left scarred, or if the saint had been able to make the ankle completely smooth again. He slid his hand underneath the covers and took out The Lives of the Saints.
After Father John had finished the beating and turned to put the switch back into his sleeve, the boy had reached out and lifted the volume from the bookcase. He’d hidden it underneath his shirt, curling around the book on the whipping stool until he was dismissed. He’d kept the leather binding next to his skin and now it was warm, as if it were a living thing.
Ren propped the volume with his elbow so that he could get enough light from the moon to read. He turned to Saint Anthony’s feast day, June thirteenth, and learned that Leonardo’s foot was not his only miracle. Anthony also lived in a walnut tree and magically transported himself from country to country. He preached sermons to fishes, sent angels after thieves, and made mules reject hay for consecrated hosts. He saved fishermen from storms, converted thousands of heretics, guided nuns through Morocco, and, perhaps most impressively, brought a boy back from the dead.
The boy had been found buried in the garden of Saint Anthony’s father. The saint’s father was arrested and charged with murder. But then Saint Anthony came, and touched the dead boy, and brought him back to life. The child opened his eyes and named the real killer. The book didn’t say what happened next, and Ren was left wondering if the boy had gone back to his grave. It didn’t seem fair. If you had to die, Ren thought, you should only have to die once.