by Laura Ruby
“That sounds like a story Grandpa Ben would tell,” said Tess. “Right, Theo? Theo!”
“Sure,” said Theo, clearly not listening. He sat alone on one side of the dirigible cab, alternately tugging on his lip and stuffing his hand in his bushy hair. Theo was quiet the whole ride back to the society, quiet through the landing of the dirigible, quiet through the tour of the Morningstarr Archive that Imogen gave Ava. And he was quiet when various Cipherists said good night and left for their own homes, quiet when Gino and Imogen puttered around the kitchen putting the last of the cookies away, quiet when Imogen showed them where they could catch a few hours of sleep before morning, and quiet when Imogen herself fell asleep, snoring softly in one of the leather chairs in the farthest corner of the great room.
It was not normal for Theo to be so quiet.
After everyone else was asleep, Theo got up from the sleeping bag the Cipherists had laid out for him. Jaime watched as Theo prowled the exhibits—stopping at the centuries-old egg in the case, letters from Benedict Arnold and Mary, Queen of Scots.
Jaime sat up, whispered, “Are you okay?”
Theo’s lips moved but found no words. Behind him, Auguste broke into song, soft and low, “Who lives / Who dies / Who tells your story?” Theo jumped as if poked.
“What is it?” Tess said, awake, too.
Theo pulled out a white square from his back pocket. “I found this in the trunk.” He gave the square to Jaime.
Jaime used the light from his phone to see it. The white square was a photograph, a Polaroid of all things. His parents had some of these types of photos, taken in the 1970s with a special camera that was no longer in use. In the photograph, a dark-haired young man and woman in nineteenth-century dress sat at the foot of a tree, laughing. Along the bottom edge of the photo, someone had written, “The Morningstarr Twins, 1807.” Jaime flipped the photograph. On the back were the words, “Now you know.”
Jaime stared at the image, the date, the words.
“Jaime?” said Tess. Nine crept over to him, nudged at his knees, but he barely felt her.
“What is the trouble?” Ava said. Her dark eyes told him that she hadn’t been sleeping, either.
Tess said, “What are you looking at, Jaime?”
Jaime was looking at picture taken with a camera that didn’t exist in 1807. He was looking at a picture of the Morningstarrs when they were young and strong, doing something people had claimed they never did—laugh. And he was looking at their bright open faces, filled with hope.
Now you know.
Time folded, unfolded, folded again.
“Jaime!” said Tess. “What are you looking at?”
Jaime tore his eyes away from the photo. He glanced from Tess to Theo, Theo to Tess.
“You,” he said. “It’s a picture of you.”
Sunrise in Gotham Senior Living Center
1953/1972/1979/2005/2007/?
Grandpa Ben
If you wanted to visit the Sunrise in Gotham Senior Living Center from Manhattan, you had to make your way up through the city to Marble Hill, the only Manhattan neighborhood on the mainland instead of the island. Unlike the streets of much of Manhattan, and more like the streets of the Bronx, Marble Hill had houses with porches, spacious lots with lawns and trees. The center itself was nicely situated on the top of a knoll overlooking the Hudson, high enough that the center’s numerous windows were filled with sunlight from sunrise to sunset. The people at the Sunrise in Gotham Senior Living Center believed in the power of the sun to brighten moods and illuminate the dustiest corners of the mind. They also believed in daily exercise, good nutrition, lively entertainment, clean, comfortable quarters, and pleasurable company. It was the finest memory-care center in all the five boroughs, or so the brochures said.
Benjamin Adler found it pleasant enough. He enjoyed the large sunny rooms, the “Bop to the Beat” exercise classes, the plentiful, if a tad bland, food. The center had a variety of pets—therapy animals—that visited the residents, including four dogs, three miniature ponies, two very large and floppy cat-rabbits, and Norma the Llama, who had spit on only one resident during her tenure so far, old Mr. Mitchell. (Since many of the residents and even some of the staff were tempted to spit on old Mr. Mitchell, no one got too worked up about that.) They also had a small Morningstarr Machine, a miniature Roller that cleaned up the trash, that the residents called Simon. “Hello, Simon!” they would say, and Simon would do a strange but charming whirl before cleaning up the crumbs and debris. Sometimes the center brought in cover bands to play Chubby Checker or Beatles tunes, and the residents would twist and lindy on creaky knees. Other times, the center brought in a violinist or a singer, and the residents would close their eyes and remember long-ago concerts with husbands and wives, dance performances of children and grandchildren who could never visit enough, even if they came every day.
Now Benjamin sat in his favorite spot by the window, watching a rather determined squirrel drag an entire bagel across the lawn outside. The people at the Sunrise in Gotham Senior Living Center did their best with the food, but the bagels, oy. Not so good.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Adler!” said one of Benjamin Adler’s favorite aides. Her name began with a G. Gloria? Gracie? Gwendolyn!
“Good-bye!” he said, pleased he’d remembered her name.
“Good-bye, already? I’ve got a few more hours yet,” Gwendolyn replied cheerfully. She tapped the puzzle book in front of him. “How’s the puzzle coming?”
His mind scratched for the word he wanted, his tongue twisting. Sometimes the words came easily; mostly they didn’t. And when the words did come, they weren’t always the ones he was searching for. This frustrated and saddened him, but he tried to live with it as best he could, as he’d been forced to live with so many things.
“It’s a kindly puzzle,” he said. “Thank you.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Gwendolyn. “I hope you’re excited for your visitors.”
“Apples and oranges,” he said, which was not what he meant to say at all. Once upon a time, he said what he meant. Years ago, in 1972, he’d bumped into a beautiful girl named Annie in the middle of a delicatessen, spilling his matzo ball soup all over himself. He’d gazed into her beautiful dark eyes and asked her to marry him right then and there. She’d laughed, but he was never more serious.
“Would you like an apple?” said Gwendolyn. “I can get you one.”
“1972,” he said.
“What happened in 1972, Mr. Adler?”
“It’s all stuff and nonsense,” he said, another thing he hadn’t meant to say. He meant the opposite of stuff and nonsense; he meant that he’d fallen in love with his Annie at the first glance he’d ever had of her; he meant that she was everything and everything was her.
“A song,” he said, trying to correct himself. “La-la-LA-la, la-la-la-LA-la-la.” Annie was a singer and a song.
“1972 is a song? I didn’t know that.”
There was a little girl, also a song. What was her name? M, M, M. Miriam! A tiny replica of her mother, but with his eyes. Born in 1979 in the middle of the night. Never slept. Always yelling. She had something to say before she could say it. Benjamin could sympathize with that now. Hush, little baby, don’t say a word / Daddy’s going to buy you a mockingbird. The birds sing, too.
“We put her bed in the bathtub so she wouldn’t wake up the neighbors,” he said.
“Who was in the bathtub, Mr. Adler?”
“The little song,” said Benjamin. The words weren’t coming out remotely right, but it didn’t matter. He had entire film reels of his past that played on and off in his mind, and watching them was more soothing than talking. And though they didn’t play in order—in one reel he was four years old and riding a horse for the first time; in the next he was fifty-eight and Miriam was having her own little songs; and then he was twenty-three and all the wedding guests were dancing the horah, and he and Annie were lifted in chairs at the center of the circle; in th
e next, he was sixty and Miriam’s little songs were singing, “Grandpa! Grandpa!”
“Mr. Adler? Would you like me to take this lunch tray away? And maybe bring you an apple?”
“Far kinder tsereist men a velt.” He didn’t remember exactly what it meant, but he knew it was the truth.
“I’ll bring you an apple,” Gwendolyn said, scooping up the tray. She hurried off.
On the other side of the table, a small, wizened woman sitting in a wheelchair wrung her hands. “What do I do now? Am I okay?”
“You’re okay. You don’t need to do anything,” said Benjamin.
The woman smiled. “Thank you. I just like to ask.”
The right words sometimes came, and when they did, it was like a puzzle piece snapping into place. Benjamin smiled back. He pointed at the squirrel outside. “They do their best, but the bagels here, oy.”
“Oy,” the woman said. “Not so good.”
“Good for the fuzzy tails, though,” he said.
“Fuzzy tails,” the woman agreed.
“The little songs are coming to sing,” he informed her.
“That’s nice,” she said. “I like music.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the sun on their faces, the view of the fuzzy tail and his precious but obviously terrible bagel, the films unspooling in their own minds. There was another bird that sang, not a mockingbird, but a . . . a . . . crow? No. A talking bird. Big and black. You could teach him things, and he would remember. He would tell you what he knew, if you asked the right question.
“Here, birdy-birdy-birdy,” Benjamin said.
Gwendolyn appeared next to him. “Your first visitor is here now,” she said. “A surprise visitor!”
Benjamin turned. A woman with warm brown skin and black hair piled on her head stood there. She wore a pair of small sunglasses with blue lenses and a long silvery-gray coat that settled around her ankles.
“It’s the summertime,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “But I don’t want to get too hot.”
This made sense and also did not, but Benjamin wouldn’t dwell on the contradiction.
Neither would Gwendolyn. “I’ll let you two visit for a while. Come on, Mrs. Feingold. Let’s go for a walk outside.”
“I want to see the fuzzy tails,” said Mrs. Feingold.
“And they want to see you,” Gwendolyn said.
“Don’t baby me,” said Mrs. Feingold. Then she said, “Am I okay?”
“You’re perfect, Mrs. Feingold.”
“Feh.”
The visitor sat down next to Benjamin. “Do you know me?”
“I think I should,” said Benjamin. The right words. But also the wrong ones, because he didn’t know her. At least, he didn’t know her name. But she was familiar to him, as if someone had described her to him long ago and here she was. Like the answer to a clue in a crossword. Annie loved her crosswords.
“My name is Ava. I knew your daughter,” said the woman.
“You did?” he said, but as soon as he said it, another film unspooled in his head. His little song, telling him all about this woman, what she looked like, how she would sometimes brush her hair away from her forehead at night. Her imaginary friend. T, T, T. Tara, Tabitha, Tiffany—
“Trixie!” he said.
“Yes, she did call me that. She thought I was magic.”
“I thought you were a ghost,” he said, not what he meant. He tapped his temple.
“I am no ghost,” said Ava. “And I am always and forever a lady.” She took his hand. Her fingers were warm.
“A lady,” he repeated. “Yes.”
She said, “I stayed away for so long. I wanted to. But a person gets curious despite herself. And as far away as I’d gotten, word of you came to me. I heard that you had some interesting theories about the Cipher and the people who had created it. That the Morningstarrs liked to laugh.”
“The world is a funny place,” he said. The right words.
“They did like to laugh. In the beginning anyway. Your Miriam liked to laugh, too. She reminded me of them. Of Tess. So I would visit occasionally, after everyone else went to sleep. I have spent much of my life watching everyone else sleep. In beds. In graves.”
Benjamin tried to make sense of what she was saying, but the words and their meanings got tangled in his head. Everything seemed to be backward, or upside down.
“I have a question for you,” she said. “And I need you to try and answer, though I know it might be difficult.”
“Yes,” he said. Yes, it might be difficult; yes, he would try.
“Did you know?” she said. “Did you know who the children were?”
The children? The children. Far kinder tsereist men a velt. For your children you would tear the world apart. Maybe he had.
But he couldn’t answer the woman’s question because the children were the children, no more, no less. Who else could they be but themselves?
He shrugged helplessly. Her smile was so sad it almost broke his heart. He hadn’t known there was so much of it left to break.
“I thought I was too old to be angry,” Ava said. “I thought too much time had passed, too many people had come and gone. I thought I was numb. But . . .” She hesitated. Her dark eyes were filled with pain and grief and rage and loneliness and something else he was sure he wouldn’t have been able to name even before he’d lost everything, even before all the words had gotten scrambled in his head.
“I’m not numb after all,” she said, not to him, but to herself.
He wasn’t, either. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
“All the little songs will be here soon,” he said, both an invitation and a warning.
“Is it all right if I sit with you till then?” she asked. “It’s peaceful here. And I like the sun.”
“Me too,” he said.
They sat by the window of the Sunrise in Gotham Senior Living Center, two old and weary souls, hoping the light was enough to bring them back to life.
TO BE CONCLUDED
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to my late father, Richard Ruby, who spent much of his youth as an ironworker in his grandfather’s construction company. He, along with many others, helped to build bridges and buildings around New York City. He is gone, but also with me every day.
In the middle of writing this book, I was diagnosed with an illness, so I could not have finished this without a massive amount of support. Thanks to my agent, Tina DuBois; my editor, Jordan Brown; Debbie Kovacs at Walden Media; art director Amy Ryan; designers Aurora Parlagreco and Laura Mock; Renée Cafiero, Mark Rifkin, and Josh Weiss in the managing editorial department; and everyone else at Walden Pond Press for their faith and patience.
Many thanks to the Hamline MFAC students and faculty who sent cards and jokes and food and gifts that helped keep me going.
I’m eternally grateful for the amazing women of the LSG, the Shade, my beautiful Harpies, and my writing group (you know who you are).
Thanks also to Miriam Busch, the original Aunt Esther, knower of all the things; and Annika Cioffi, keeper of the Nines.
Love to all my family, every Ruby and Metro who called and visited even when I was too sick and cranky to speak, as well as to Anne Ursu, the Tess to my Theo, and the Theo to my Tess.
And finally, thanks and love to Steve, without whom I would be just a ghost, lost and untethered in the world.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAURA RUBY is the author of books for adults, teens, and children, including the Michael L. Printz Medal winner and National Book Award finalist Bone Gap, the Edgar Award nominee Lily’s Ghosts, the Book Sense Pick Good Girls, and York: The Shadow Cipher, the first book in the York trilogy. She is on the faculty of Hamline University’s MFA in writing for children and young adults program and lives in the Chicago area. You can visit her online at www.lauraruby.com.
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York: The Shadow Cipher
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