by Hannah Tinti
McGinty tried to turn himself. The glass stuck to his body, like a broken layer of skin. The Bowler held him still. He told him to wait. They’d get a doctor. McGinty shook his head.
“Get tha boy,” he said. The Top Hat and the Bowler looked at each other, then dragged Ren out from underneath the desk. The hole in McGinty’s chest was ragged and deep. Each breath he took sent another wave of blood over his yellow suit. He stared at Ren as if he expected something from him. Then he shut his eyes. “Mahgret,” he mumbled. “Open tha door.” And then he was dead.
THIRTY-FOUR
The streets. were wet from the rain that had come and gone. The air smelled fresh, the stink and soot of the town temporarily washed from the sky. Ren stumbled outside in his socks, his face covered with tiny cuts, his heart pounding and Benjamin clutching his hand.
They’d slipped away as the room tumbled into confusion. Shouts and screams echoed in the factory as the hat boys gathered around McGinty’s body. Some immediately began to rummage through the desk for money, while others started to roll up the rugs or grabbed paintings off the walls. Soon the men were all scrambling to take what they could, hurrying through the hallways. Benjamin held on to Ren and maneuvered down the stairs, wove in and out of the mousetrap girls on the factory floor, passed through the side door that the Harelip held open—her face anxious and smiling—then sauntered by the group of soldiers on the corner, who turned and looked at them curiously as they made their way down the street. Now they turned toward the boardinghouse, toward home, and started to run.
There were puddles on the sidewalk, and Ren’s socks grew wet and slippery. He glanced up at Benjamin. The man’s face was still swollen, but the bandage on his head had been tossed away. His arm no longer seemed broken. He stumbled a bit now and then but his legs matched Ren’s stride for stride.
“You’re not hurt.”
“I am,” said Benjamin. “Just not as bad as they thought.”
“But your teeth.”
His hand went to cover his mouth. “I’ll have to make a visit to Mister Bowers.”
Behind them, the bell at the mousetrap factory began to ring. Not once or twice as it did calling the girls to work, but over and over, until the vagrants lying in the street lifted their heads, and the doors and shutters of houses opened, and the widows leaned out, and the old men fishing by the river frowned and pulled in their lines.
At O’Sullivan’s bar, the patrons stumbled out the door to see what the clamoring was about. Two soldiers, their uniforms askew, watched Ren and Benjamin rush past. Then they heard the calls of their captain and began strapping on their guns. Benjamin pulled the boy into an alley crossed with clotheslines, the same place Ren had stood with the Harelip, and they both waited there, pressed against a garbage bin, catching their breath as the soldiers went by.
“I thought he let you go,” Ren said.
Benjamin shook his head. “He knew who I was. Right from the start.” He leaned against the bin, holding his fingers to his side. “I think he just wanted to hear you say it.”
“That you were my father?”
“Yes.”
Ren waited for this truth to fall away like the others. But it didn’t. It stayed in the air between them. As real as the clothes hanging from the line over their heads. Ren felt like he was in a fairy tale. As if all he had to do to make something happen was to say it out loud.
“Take this.” Benjamin reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the paper McGinty had witnessed. “Give it to Tom. Don’t let anyone else touch it.”
The paper was fine between Ren’s fingers, the edges straight enough to cut. “Are you leaving?”
“They’re looking for me already. I’m going to have to disappear for a time.”
“But you didn’t kill him.” Ren could not stop his voice from cracking.
Benjamin patted him on the back. “Come on now, little man.”
It was too late. Ren was crying. He wiped at his nose, ashamed. “Can’t you take me with you?”
“I’m trying to do what’s right,” said Benjamin. “Don’t make it any harder.” He reached over their heads and plucked a shirt, some overalls, and a jacket from the line. Then he removed his own torn coat and put on the new clothes, hopping for a moment back and forth in his long johns. When he was finished he looked like a different man. A man with worries. A father.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Ren asked.
Benjamin looked serious for a moment, then poked the boy hard in the shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
Ren tried to laugh, but he was shivering. The wind was rushing through the alley, as if it wanted to send them on their way. Dust blew into the street, and the sheets snapped over their heads.
Benjamin took a sweater from the clothesline. He pulled it over Ren’s face, fit his arms one by one into the sleeves. The sweater was so long it hung to Ren’s kneecaps. But it was thick and it was warm, and the cold didn’t seem so bitter as before.
“Hold still,” said Benjamin. He reached forward and picked a piece of glass out of the boy’s cheek. Then he held it there, shining, on the tip of his finger, as if he were waiting for Ren to make a wish.
“What’s the thing you want most in the world?”
The boy closed his eyes and Benjamin slipped something into his hand. He could feel the square shape, the tiny indentations where the baby fingers were spread. A frozen greeting. The glass warmed in his palm, as if the tips were bending into his own. As if his hand had been simply waiting until they were together again, to close back into a fist.
The bell was still ringing when Ren stepped out of the alley. He could hear it tolling, like a call to prayer, marking each street as he ran down it. Five, then four, then three, then two. All of the words he’d given up came flooding back like an old way of breathing. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. Forgive us our trespasses. Pray for us sinners, now. Now. Now. And at the hour. He stopped himself. He started again.
He passed a few mousetrap girls clutching their shawls, and prostitutes, still in their dresses from the night before, peering at the factory from the street. Behind them the boardinghouse looked abandoned and lifeless. There was no smoke from the chimney. The shutters were closed. The doors were locked. Ren banged against the wood and shouted at the windows.
He could hear furniture being pulled away, a bolt being drawn back. The door opened and the twins stood in the entry-way. Ren threw his arms around them both.
“Are you all right?” Brom asked.
Ren nodded. Ichy took hold of his elbow and brought him inside. The boardinghouse was worse than ever—holes in the walls, the furniture in pieces.
“We heard the fighting,” Ichy said.
“We woke Papa.”
“And he got his gun.”
“By the time we could get him downstairs, you were gone.”
“And the kitchen was full of dead men.”
“We dragged them out to the stable.”
“We thought they’d taken you away to be murdered.” The boys tried to look brave, but Ren could tell they had been undone by the thought.
“Papa made us barricade the door.”
“He was afraid they were coming back to kill us.”
As they talked, Ren looked at the blood. It covered the rugs in great swirls, streaked over the wood, and trailed in spots, leading out to the backyard.
“Where’s Dolly?”
The twins exchanged a look.
“They shot him,” Ichy said at last. “They shot him so many times he couldn’t get up.”
Dolly was in the same stall where they had kept the farmer’s horse. The smell of manure was slightly faded, replaced by dust and gunpowder. A quilt was thrown over him, and a pillow Ren recognized from Mrs. Sands’s parlor was propped underneath his head. There was a bandage on Dolly’s neck and another across his shoulder. His arms, legs, and chest were plugged and oozing, his monk’s robe wet with blood. Underneath it all, the ground
was turning red.
Outside the stall was a pile of carefully arranged blankets, hiding the bodies of Pilot and the hat boys. Beside this pile the donkey was slowly chewing through a mound of hay. Tom sat grimly on a stool, watching the animal eat, his leg stretched out before him, his gun cradled in his lap. When he saw Ren in the doorway, his face softened. “Our fellow,” he said.
Ren stepped forward and touched the wrapping on Dolly’s neck. His fingers came away stained, the color of wine.
“He said he put you up the chimney.”
“He did.”
Tom lifted his eyebrows, then shifted his foot. “I thought he’d lost it.”
Ren put his head to Dolly’s chest.
“He’s gone,” said Tom.
Ren kept listening.
The schoolteacher stuffed the gun into his coat. He sat and watched the boy for a while. He shook his head. “Why don’t you come inside?”
“No,” said Ren.
Tom tugged at his beard and sighed. Then he balanced, stood, shifted the splint, and dragged his leg out of the stable. Ren heard him cross the yard to the boardinghouse and then shut the door behind him.
The afternoon passed into evening. As Ren waited, he told his friend all that had happened. He talked until he could think of nothing to say, and then he talked some more. He could hear the donkey eating on the other side of the stable. Occasionally the animal stuck its long gray nose over the railing as if it were wondering what Ren would say next. When the stars came out, Ichy and Brom brought a candle and another quilt. Ren wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. But he did not want to leave the stable. Not yet.
At dawn he opened a window so Dolly could hear the birds. Their songs went on and on without stopping. His own throat was dry, but he felt that if he could talk to Dolly for just a little longer, his voice would reach him. That the right words could make anything happen. He thought of the statue of Saint Anthony, and all the empty prayers he had said before it, wishing for things that had never been lost.
Ren spoke to Dolly about the orphanage, and then about Saint Anthony himself—how he preached to the fishes, and reattached Leonardo’s foot, and raised a little boy from the dead. “At the end of his life,” said Ren, “Saint Anthony moved into a walnut tree. He didn’t want to touch the ground anymore. He wanted to get as close to heaven as he could.”
Now the boy took Dolly’s giant hand in his own. It was cold, the fingers stiff and unyielding. Outside, the morning birds chattered and sent out their calls. There was a flutter, and a swallow’s nest high in the stable rafters began to peep with life. A bird cried out, its mate answered; their babies opened their mouths to be fed. Ren leaned against Dolly’s pillow. He watched for signs and he kept talking, about a saint leaving the world of men, and climbing up into the leaves to spend the rest of his days, and how, when he did, Christ had come to him, and miracles had happened in the branches.
THIRTY-FIVE
They broke up what was left of the furniture, threw boards and pieces of chairs into the fireplace. They took the odds and ends wedged in front of the door, and pulled the stuffing from the sofa in the parlor to use as kindling. Before long a fire was built up. And Tom and Ren and the twins drew around it.
The kitchen was destroyed. The table was in pieces, pots and pans bent out of shape, food splashed on the ceiling, the bench splintered. Black soot and ashes spread across the hearth.
Ren found the bag he had packed to run away with underneath a broken chamber pot. The jars of pickles had smashed, the cup of lard smeared over the cloth. Ren found a knife and used it to peel the last few potatoes. Brom fetched some water and they put it in a pot over the fire and added the lard, and the sprouting potatoes, and a bit of dried parsley still hanging from the ceiling.
There was nowhere for them to sit, so they crouched on the floor. A kind of sadness began to sink in as they ate. All four stared at the fire and told their stories as best they could, while picking glass from the sour pickles on their plates.
“Benjamin’s got nine lives,” Tom said after Ren had finished.
“Will he come back?”
Tom took a bite of potato with his fork. It was still raw, and he made a face as he returned it to the pot, then dried his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He shook his head.
“What about us?” Ren asked.
“I’ll return you to the orphanage.”
The boys were silenced by this. It didn’t seem possible.
Tom put his plate down. “I can’t feed and clothe three boys. I can’t provide for myself even.”
“I’m not going,” said Ren.
“You want to live on the streets? Become a thief? Or a beggar?”
Ren sat in silence. He was already both those things.
“Look at your friend,” said Tom. “Look what happened to him.”
“He was protecting me,” Ren said.
“He was a killer. He was made to die that way. But you weren’t.”
In the fire was a set of kitchen chairs, a piece of the bench, and the top of Mrs. Sands’s chest. It was burning, the hinges glowing red. Ren glanced around the room. The boardinghouse seemed ready to collapse upon them, the heavy beams overhead bending low. They were sitting in a pile of wreckage. A sinking ship.
“It’ll be the one good thing I’ve ever done,” said Tom.
Ren pulled his sweater close. It was hard to believe that after all that had happened he would be going back to where he started. Ren wiped his cheek and a spot of red came away on his fingers. The glass was gone, but it had left a mark. He reached into his pocket and felt the paper Benjamin had given him. He unfolded the page and handed it to Tom.
The schoolteacher squinted his eyes and began to look it over. He read it through. He read it again. He read it once more. Then he burst out laughing, shaking the paper in the air before giving it back to Ren. Brom and Ichy leaned over their friend’s shoulder, and together they studied the words.
Being sound of mind and memory, I do constitute and appoint this my last will and testament revoking all former wills by me made. Imprimis, after payment of just debts and funeral charges, I will and bequeath all of my estate both real and personal in manner upon my death, to my nephew, Reginald Edward McGinty.
At the bottom was a signature, hurried and slanted, and it read: Silas McGinty.
“What does it mean?” Ren asked.
“It means you get the factory,” said Tom.
Ren dropped the letter in his lap, confused. “What am I going to do with a mousetrap factory?”
“Make mousetraps?” said Ichy.
Tom started scratching underneath his beard, first with one hand, and then with both, rubbing back and forth until the hair on his chin began to rise from the static. “He must have planned it,” Tom said with a grin. “He must have planned it from the very beginning.”
Ren thought of Benjamin’s broken teeth. His busted arm. How he’d made himself look so defeated. How he’d written the will, as if he’d been dreaming the words for years. How he’d held it out to be witnessed. Benjamin had known that McGinty would not read the paper before signing. He knew the same way he’d understood that Ren had been beaten by Father John, that the farmer would not chase them after they stole his horse.
“I’ll bet that factory’s worth a lot,” said Tom.
“But he’s gone,” Ren said. “He won’t get anything.”
“He didn’t do it for the money.” Tom took the will back from Ren and examined it again. “He did it for you. His own little monster.”
The front door rattled, as if it were listening in.
Tom and the boys looked at one another. The schoolteacher drew his pistol from his jacket. Brom reached for the poker, and Ichy grabbed a piece of wood from the fire. Ren looked about for some kind of weapon, picked up a dented frying pan, and held it over his head. Slowly they moved to the entrance, Tom dragging his leg behind. He nodded, and Ren and the twins moved what remained of the broken furniture piled the
re and slid the bolt. Then they stepped back into the shadows and Ren said to the other side, “Come in.”
The clinking stopped. The latch turned. And there stood Mrs. Sands. She was wearing her old brown dress and pinafore, a heavy blanket across her shoulders and a white cap pinned to her hair.
“LOCKED FROM MY OWN HOUSE! WHO’D BELIEVE IT? AND HERE’S THE DROWNED BOY, COME TO WELCOME ME.”
Ren lowered the frying pan. She seemed thin. She seemed pale. But she was taller, somehow, and stronger in the bones, as if something inside was lifting her up. Her eyes were sparkling and her face had a glow. And when she opened her arms Ren ran forward and buried his face in her skirts.
She smelled just the same—of rising yeast and warm water. She bent down and Ren felt himself being lifted until she was cradling him, just as she had when he first came into her home. “NO,” she said. “NO MORE DROWNED BOY. MY BOY. MY BOY.” Mrs. Sands was smiling with her crooked teeth and rocking him back and forth. After some time she put the boy down and turned her face away and wiped it with her skirt, until it was wet from her own tears as well as Ren’s.
“I COULDN’T STAND BEING IN THAT PLACE ANY LONGER.”
The twins stood to the side, confused by all the shouting. Finally Brom put down the poker, and Ichy tossed the wood back into the fire. Tom slipped the pistol into his belt, hopped over, and took her hand. Mrs. Sands allowed him this, but it was hard to say if she was annoyed or amused as he brought it to his lips. She looked the group over and shook her head.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELVES?”
Ren looked down at his clothes, streaked with filth and blood, and then at Tom, his leg tied up in bandages, his beard arranged in every direction, and then the twins, their feet bare and filthy, their faces drawn and half-starved.
“We’ve been lost,” said Ren.