Cinnamon Moon

by Tess Hilmo

  I am so happy Ida wants to train me on hat forms but that good news is dampened by Nettie’s situation. “They’ve moved her somewhere else and I feel like it’s my fault.”

  “You are a child,” Ida says, coming to my side and cradling my hands in hers. “None of this is your fault. Do you remember how I told you our saying, Liebe ist wie Wasser—Love is like water?” She looks out the front window of her shop. “And how are things at the boardinghouse? Is it time to move here with me?”

  I consider telling her about sleeping in the henhouse and how Miss Franny treated us when Sam talked us back inside, but decide against it. “Quinn really gets along with Sam,” I say. “It’s important for him to have a friend.”

  “And your Franny lady is behaving?”

  “She’s trying,” I lie.

  “Good,” she says in the way she does, which really means fair or satisfactory. “Perhaps we should eat. Greta, come upstairs with us. I will open my new jar of jam and slice some bread.”

  Just then the door swings open with a tinkling of bells and Quinn sticks his head in. “Found a newspaper in the street, Ailis. I’ll leave it here so it doesn’t blow away while I’m playing.”

  “Thanks,” I say as he places a copy of the Chicago Evening Journal on a table.

  He starts to leave but Ida stops him. “You must eat with us. I’ll lock the door for a minute and we will go together.”

  Quinn takes the paper on his way toward the back stairwell leading up to Ida’s apartment.

  “Why do you read that garbage?” Ida points to the paper. “They call it news, but it is mostly fable and gossip.”

  “I know,” Quinn says, “but some of it is true.”

  “Who can tell the difference when it’s all reported the same way?” Ida pulls the paper from his hands and tosses it in her garbage basket at the top of the stairs. “That paper seems to publish the worst stories. Bah!”

  Quinn and Greta go into her apartment but I am frozen on the top stair, my eyes fixed on the folded Journal in the garbage basket.

  “Come, Liebling,” Ida says after the others are inside. “Something sweet will make your heart feel lighter, if even for a moment.”

  “You’re right,” I say, still frozen. “They do publish outlandish stories.”

  “The more outlandish the story, the more papers they sell, I suppose,” Ida says.

  “And people do tend to believe what they read.”

  “Fools.”

  I look up at Ida, wide-eyed. “Maybe we should take our story to the newspapers.”

  Ida raises her hands to her cheeks. “That’s it. The newspaper is our answer! We must speak to them today.”

  * * *

  Ida asks Greta to mind the shop while she takes us over to the newspaper office. When the Chicago Tribune building burned down in the fire, the employees moved into the same building on Canal Street that holds the Chicago Evening Journal offices. We decide to stand outside the main entrance and wait until we see a reporter, which only takes about twenty minutes.

  “You a reporter?” Quinn asks a young man with a pad of paper in his hand and a couple of pencils jammed into the rim of his derby hat.

  “Sure am, kid. Working here for our own Evening Journal.”

  “Perfect,” Quinn says, knowing the Journal is far more likely to run our article than the more mainstream Tribune. “We’ve got a story for you.”

  The man looks Quinn over. “No, thanks.” He starts up the stairs.

  “It’s guaranteed to sell papers,” Ida says, stepping up. “I imagine a top story could really help a man’s career in this type of business. Of course, if you’d rather we speak to another reporter—maybe one with more experience…”

  The man eases around on his heel. “What exactly are you saying?”

  Ida leans in and says, “The story of the year. Crime, intrigue, helpless children disappearing from right under our noses. Still, if you’re not interested…”

  “Who said I’m not interested?” The reporter slips one of those pencils out of his hatband and begins tapping it on the notepad. “Keep talking.”

  Ida holds a palm up and looks from side to side. “Not here,” she says. “The children are cold and someone might overhear us. Take us to a café. Buy these two a piece of pie. Their memories work better when they are warm and their stomachs are full.”

  The reporter shoves his pencil back into his hat. “This better be good.”

  “You won’t be sorry,” Ida promises.

  So we trudge over to a small café where the reporter buys us each a piece of apple pie with clotted cream. Then Quinn and I sit shoulder to shoulder and tell him everything. All about Father Farlane seeing Charlie with the children at church. We tell him how we saw Nettie gathering dead rats in the sewer and how they are staying in the ruins of the Monroe Hotel and at least one other place we don’t know about. And how Nettie was taken away as soon as they saw us sniffing around. We follow the advice Ida gave us on the way over to the newspaper office and spare no detail. Quinn even throws in some extra bits about hearing children wailing inside the hotel and begging for water and freedom. It is probably true on some level.

  “All these kids are orphans, you say?” I can tell the reporter considers it a problem.

  “Oh, no.” Ida jumps in. “We’ve heard some are children being stolen right out of their beds, under the noses of their loving parents. They’re beaten and forced into slavery, and for what? A couple of dollars!” Then she reaches over and taps her finger on his notepad. “Now, you tell me the threat of having your child taken from your own hearth, forced to gather diseased rats, and drink only sewer water won’t sell a stack of newspapers.”

  Quinn looks at me. We both know it is likely orphan children who fill the hotel, but we also know that fact is a lot less newsworthy. “Maybe you could headline the article Will Your Child Be Next?” Quinn suggests.

  Ida claps her hands together. “That’s a powerful headline, Quinn. Well done!”

  “Excuse me,” the reporter says. “I’ll be the one writing the headline. If I decide to write anything at all.” He tucks his pencil back, slides his notepad into his coat, and stands up. “I hope you enjoyed the pie.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, running my finger along my bottom lip, checking for remnants of cream. “You’ll write the article, won’t you?”

  “It’s not so easy. Absolute Exterminators is an important business for Chicago and Mr. Blume is a man of significant influence.”

  “Think of the children,” Ida pleads. “The helpless, innocent souls. And here you are, the only brave knight able to help them. A story like this can make a career.”

  “You mean obliterate it,” the man mumbles.

  Ida grabs his sleeve. “A brave knight. That is what the families of our city need. It’s what the readers of the newspaper need. You are our one hope.”

  He leaves us sitting at a corner table in the café, clotted cream turning sour in our stomachs.

  “Do you think he’ll write the article?” I ask.

  Ida twists her napkin in her hands and looks out the frost-laden window to some far-off place. “Only heaven knows.”

  21

  It is a fragile line between heartbreak and fury, and I teeter between the two over the next few days. Each morning Quinn and I rush to finish our chores and be freed from Miss Franny’s grasp. Then we pick up a copy of the Journal on our way to work, hoping to find our story about Chicago’s hidden rat slaves, but it’s never there. I get so angry at the printing of meaningless stories about city hall’s new funding or announcements regarding the Ladies’ Aid Society meetings. We even try talking to another reporter—an older gentleman—who walks away from us mid-sentence the moment we mention Mr. Blume’s name.

  Cowards, the lot of them.

  When Saturday comes, I find myself out on the shore of Lake Michigan watching the sunrise. Patches of thick fog hover above the icy, black water. The sun pushes up out of the earth on the far sho
re. The frozen lake shimmers and radiates with the golden reflection of an emerging day and, despite the freezing temperature, I am glad to be there.

  “Where’d you go?” Quinn asks when I return to Miss Franny’s. He is barely awake.

  “To the outhouse,” I say, wanting to keep the lake to myself.

  He wraps his blanket around his shoulders. “Ailis?” he asks, and I know to sit down on the side of the bed. “Do you ever think we’ll go back home?”

  “To Peshtigo? What’s there for us?”

  Quinn pulls his knees up and rests his chin on them, and I remember he is only eleven—a boy. And I only a girl, really. “They’re still there. At least their grave is.”

  We only dug one grave. Quinn fashioned one large coffin from singed scraps of wood and buried them together. “But the town is completely destroyed. At least here there’s a good part of the city left. Shops and schools and churches. You’ve heard about Mayor Medill’s speeches. Chicago will rise up and become greater than ever before.”

  I am trying to humor him with my impression but he holds his solemn expression and says, “I dreamed of them again last night. Father just came in from skimming cranberries. His shirt was wet and his hair was matted down the way it gets from his hat. Mother was stirring a pot over the fire and singing ‘Katie-Ba-Loo’ to Gertrude.” He squints. “I can’t remember what Gertrude was doing, but she was there, too.”

  I think of Mother and sing a refrain from the song:

  Katie-Ba-Loo, the mountain sings

  Its song of wondrous love.

  Oh, Katie-Ba-Loo, go to your home

  Fly quickly as the dove.

  Quinn joins me for the chorus:

  Katie-Ba-Loo, Katie-Ba-Ree,

  please give your heart to me.

  It’s a soft, lilting tune and we fade off on the last words of the chorus, leaving the room silent.

  “Do you want to go back?” I ask.

  “Maybe someday.”

  “I think it would make me sad to see our old farm.”

  Quinn looks down and nods.

  “And we both agreed we’re tired of being sad. What about our promise to only remember the good times?”

  “My dream was about the good times.”

  “True,” I say, realizing good times don’t always have to bring laughter. There’s the quiet kind of happiness, too. “And that song is beautiful.”

  “I should learn how to play it on the fiddle.”

  “Definitely,” I say. “But first we have work to do.”

  “Will you go to Ida’s this morning?” Quinn asks.

  “She’s expecting me in a couple of hours.”

  Quinn walks over to the little window and says, “At least the sun is shining. That’ll make for more people on the streets. It should be a nice day for playing music.”

  I go out into the kitchen. Singing “Katie-Ba-Loo” with Quinn has made me miss working alongside Mother and so I decide to start breakfast. I promised Sam that I would try harder at getting along with Miss Franny. Maybe serving her in this way will help things between us, even a little.

  First, I get fresh water and begin boiling it for morning coffee. Next, I fill the wooden bowl with wheat kernels, crush them into flour with the pestle, and mix in baking soda, salt, oil, and two eggs. I pull out a cast-iron skillet, line it with oil, and warm it on the stove. After a few minutes, I dip my fingers into the bucket and drop a few beads of water into the skillet. They crackle and bounce and that’s how I know it is hot enough to start the pancakes.

  “I’ll take two fresh ones off the top,” Miss Franny says, coming into the kitchen and looking over my shoulder. “Don’t make the coffee too strong. Watering it down makes it last longer.” I’m surprised she doesn’t mention anything about me making breakfast. Instead, she drops into a chair at the dining room table and waits for me to serve her. All the while I’m flipping pancakes, pulling out jam, and making coffee. “And don’t make the pancakes too big, either,” she says from her seat. “We don’t need to be giving away the farm.”

  I serve her two perfect pancakes with jam and butter and hot coffee—watered down appropriately. After she eats, she comes over and takes the serving platter of pancakes to give to the guests. “Dishes,” is all she says to me, which I pretend to mean, Delicious pancakes, Ailis. How kind of you to make them for me. Would you mind doing the dishes whilst I serve these pancakes to the guests coming downstairs and claim full credit for them? I must be smiling because she stops in her tracks and says, “What?”

  “Nothing, Miss Franny.”

  “Then get to it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The next hour is washing dishes, sweeping floors, wiping the table, and helping Quinn sprinkle sand on the frozen front walkway so it’s less slippery.

  Sam has picked up extra hours at the iron smith so he walks with us for a block and a half on our way into the city.

  “Play your heart out,” he says to Quinn when we get to Van Buren Street and he goes his own way.

  “Always do,” Quinn says. Then he turns to me. “Let’s grab a newspaper.”

  “I don’t want to be late,” I say, tired of looking for our story.

  “Suit yourself, but I’m going to find one.” He peels off a block before Ida’s.

  “Where will you be playing today?” I holler after him.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find a fire pit close by.” He turns around, walking backward, and raises his fiddle case high in the air. “Just follow the music.”

  * * *

  I notice a black-and-white kitten sitting at Ida’s feet when I walk into the shop. Ida is at her table, cutting squares of burgundy satin. Her scissor blades glint silver against the mottled sunlight streaming in the front window.

  “Good morning, Liebling,” she says in an especially cheerful tone.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  The kitten tries to jump up against Ida’s chair leg but topples over onto the tip of her shoe. “Aye, Katze,” she says, putting her scissors aside and reaching down. “If you are to live in this shop, you must learn to stay out of the way.”

  “He’s darling,” I say.

  “He is feisty,” she says. “And wonderful. Greta gave him to me.”

  Greta comes in from the storeroom just then and says, “Our cat at home had kittens and my father sent one as a thank-you for the work Ida has given me. He will grow to be a good mouser.” She places a basket on the floor. “Here is what I could find in the storeroom.”

  “That will work.” Ida hands her the cat.

  Greta folds a piece of scrap fabric into the bottom of the basket and places the kitten inside.

  “Where would you like me to start today?” I ask.

  Ida stands up. “My back is aching and it’s still so early in the day. Maybe you can take over and let me stand for a moment.”

  I’ve cut trim, processed orders, and organized incoming stock but Ida has always been the one to make the actual pattern pieces for the hats. “Really?” I ask, feeling a rush of excitement.

  “Because of my back,” she says, but the way her eyes gleam lets me know she understands the meaning of her offer.

  I sit down in her chair. She smells like a blend of coffee and mint, leaning over my shoulder and lining two paper squares along the edge of the table. “I need eight more of these,” she says as she points to the first pattern piece, “and four more of these,” as she points to the second. “Be sure to cut carefully around the corners.”

  Her scissors—the ones that she always uses—feel cool and heavy in my hand. I can’t help but glance over at Greta, who is smiling at me.

  “I will,” I say.

  At that moment, Quinn rushes in the front door. He is flapping a newspaper up over his head and nearly out of breath. “It’s here,” he shouts as if we were a mile away. “The article is here!” He stops, sets his fiddle down, and leans over, resting his hands on his knees and catching his breath.

  “Can it b
e true?” Ida asks.

  “I heard the newsie hollering out the headline,” Quinn says. “He was saying, ‘Will Your Child Be Next? Chicago’s Children Forced into the Rat Trade.’”

  “That’s your headline!” I say, coming out from around the table.

  “I know!” He shoves the paper into my chest.

  I sit down right there on the floor of Ida’s shop and begin reading out loud. “Will Your Child Be Next? Chicago’s Children Forced into the Rat Trade, by Anonymous. So that’s how he avoided getting in trouble.”

  “Read it!” Ida and Quinn say at the same time from above me.

  “Trusted sources inform the Journal that Chicago’s own children are being plucked off the streets and tossed into a veritable den of iniquity in the underground rat trade.” I look up. “That’s good writing.”

  Quinn makes a hand motion that means, Go on.

  “It tells everything! The location of the hotel and how the children are being starved of water and food. It even says Absolute Exterminators, right here!” I point to the words and Quinn leans in, mouthing them as if he can fully read.

  And then, just like Quinn the moment before, Sam comes bursting through the front door. It’s odd to see him standing among the lace and delicate wares.

  “Did you hear?” he asks.

  “We just got the news,” Quinn says.

  Sam steps forward and nods to Ida. “Ma’am.”

  “Sam is our friend from the boardinghouse,” Quinn explains.

  “Word has it the police are headed over to the Monroe to investigate,” Sam says. “Let’s go.”

  Ida notices that I look over to her scissors and she says, “We will continue the lesson later.”

  “What about the shop?” I ask.

  Greta steps forward. “I’ll stay behind with the kitten.”

  “No,” Ida says. “We will all go. This is important and our little Katze must manage himself.”

  We leave a small bowl of water for the kitten and lock up the shop. As we near Monroe Street we hear chanting rising up into the icy blue sky. “Down with Absolute! Down with Absolute! Down with Absolute!”