Shadows Gray (27 page)

“No!  We didn’t mean to!  We didn’t want to travel without you.  It just happened.  We’ve been so worried all this time, but now you’re here and we can be a family again.” I must make her see.  Why is she acting this way?

“Families don’t leave their babies behind. I don’t like you. I have to go home.” She pulls her hood back up over her tousled hair. “I don’t like to be late for tea.  It’s nice to be back where there’s tea, don’t you think? You can come for tea some day, but not today.  You can come visit me even though I don’t like you because it’s important to have good manners. Doctor says so. I like to have lots of people over for tea. Lots of interesting people because they amuse me.”

“Alright,” I falter. “I’ll come for tea another day.  Will you tell me where your home is?”

Rose waves her hand down the street. “I don’t want to tell you the exact house, because I don’t know you, you see and it wouldn’t be safe, now would it?  That’s not sensible.  There are bad people in the world, bad people here too.  I met a bad man yesterday.  He won’t hurt me though, he told me so. He said I was a good girl.  He might hurt you though.”

“Why would he hurt me?”

“Because you are a bad girl! He wants to hurt the bad girls. You left behind a baby. Bad girl. You shouldn’t leave babies behind.  It makes them sad.” Rose turns again and begins to walk away.

“Wait! Did Old Babba find you? Did she raise you?” I can’t leave without at least that question being answered.

“Old Babba hated me and I hated her. I remember that.  I was very happy when she died.  So happy.  I danced and danced.”  Rose closes her eyes, remembering, and begins to sway.  “I like dancing. They let me dance in the hospital when I was good.  We had balls every month with music and dancing and everything. Did they put you in the hospital too, when you told them you could travel through time?”

“No, they didn’t put me there. What hospital, Rose?”

“Why, Bedlam, of course,” she stops swaying and looks surprised that I don’t know. “I grew up in Bedlam. Well, I must be off, sister.  You know what they say, don’t you?”

“No,” I whisper. “What do they say, Rose?”

“’Go thy way! Let me go mine. I to rage, you to dine.’”

********************

I am still standing there several minutes later.  A half hour, an hour, a day, I don’t know.  Rose had walked away, in the opposite direction of where I came from and where I will return eventually, once I find my center of gravity again.  I feel sick; sick with sorrow, sick with dread.

My sweet sister is mad.  If she wasn’t mad before Bedlam, she was after they were through with her.  I know some history; I am familiar with some of the famous hospital’s reputation as a freak show for people to gawk at, for their crude experiments and half baked rehabilitation attempts.  If Rose had any sanity at all when they found her, they probably strapped that sanity down to a gurney and operated on it, or medicated it with horrible things.  Didn’t they open their doors to the public and let them come and poke fun and fingers at all the lunatics, all for the price of a ticket?  What had Rose endured?  And could she ever recover from such a thing?

London seems to pull the Lost in like a magnet, or like a moth to a flame.  This is Prue’s second travel here, as well as Emme’s, and evidently the second for Rose.  What is it about this place that draws us here, unwillingly and accidently?  Is there a fate that awaits us in London?

********************

Eventually, I grow cold enough that I feel as though I must move my bones or lose them to the beginnings of frostbite.  I walk home as if on auto pilot, my feet trudging obediently through the puddles and over the cobblestones, until I reach the three steps that descend down to the door of Dr. Smythe’s house.  Our house.  I let myself in and hang my cloak up near the fire to dry as it had rained on me at some point, though I hardly noticed.  I do not see Dad anywhere, and am glad for it: I have not figured out what to say to him or anyone, concerning Rose.  Of course I don’t intend to just leave her, I will not abandon her to a life without us any longer, but I am unsure how to describe her.  ‘Simple’ will hardly prepare Dad and Prue and Israel for the shell that is Rose. 

I wander into Lu’s kitchen and prepare myself a cup of tea.  A week in old England and I’m officially addicted to the strong, boiling hot brew.  I barely even miss toffee cream breves anymore.  I am adaptable…like a small puppy drug around on a leash, I go where my unseen handler leads, helpless to object and so I simply acclimatize. 

I finish my tea and still have not decided what to do about Rose.  Part of me wants to find her immediately and bring her here, by force if necessary.  Could Dr. Smythe help her?  Are there medications or procedures that would help her fragile mind?  Or could it be that today was simply a bad day and maybe, just maybe, she isn’t really the way she seemed to me: broken and empty? 

Who was the friend she spoke of?  Did she really dance when Old Babba died?  Who was the bad man she spoke of?

Tired and desperate to turn my brain off, I go to bed before anyone in the house even comes home for supper. I wait until I hear them before I will myself to sleep and even in my dreams, I have no peace.

“She’s not right, Caroline. She’s unholy, that’s what she is.  She killed that cat.”

I listen from under the table again.  I have stilled my hands from playing with my doll and my ears itch from straining to listen.  Who killed a cat? 

“It was an accident, Babba.  Rose is a good girl.  Don’t speak about her like that.”

“She’s unhinged.  She’s not right, you know it, and the whole village knows it! She bit that woman in the square and laughed when she bled.  What child does that? You have to take her far from here!  If you won’t do it for everyone else’s safety, do it for the girl. You still have another child, Caroline…what will happen to Sonnet if you leave Rose to her own devices?”

“Rose loves Sonnet. Nothing bad is going to happen.  You’ll see.”

“It’s you that will see, mark my words.  You’ll see that nothing good comes from offering solace to Satan.”

I wake, cold and shivering and in the dark.  It is the middle of the night and pitch black.  I know from the sound of breathing from the floor by my bed that Israel has returned and is sleeping.  I almost wished he snored; the silence is menacing and threatening and causes me to brood on the meaning of my strange nightmare. 

I lean over the bed and adjust myself so that I am comfortable on my pillow and yet can keep my hand just touching Israel’s chest.  Just a touch. 

Chapter Twenty-Six

It’s Christmas Day and our celebration is half hearted.  Lu, being Chinese, doesn’t celebrate the holiday and Dr. Smythe tells us apologetically that since he never liked Christmas much he doesn’t feel the need to impose it on his wife.  It’s any other day to them and since it is their house, any objections seem crass and impolite. 

So, it’s off to Bea’s new house we go; simple hand make gifts tucked under our arms as Israel, Dad and I leave the Smythe’s.  We will collect Prue on the way and take her for dinner with us and return her afterwards.  Emme and Joe will of course be there.  All we are missing is Luke, and of course, Rose. 

It’s been two days since my conversation with my sister and I have told no one.  Several times I have rehearsed a dialogue with Israel in my head, but each time I open my lips nothing comes out.  It’s as though I need to speak with her again, feel her out, see if things are as bad as I fear, and then come to a decision. 

Also, I don’t know where exactly to find her again.  And my family has been through me and my madcap searches for Rose before.  They haven’t exactly ended well up to now.

Dad has collected enough shillings and Israel has earned a tiny salary this week so that we can take an omnibus to pick up Prue and get back home again.  Prue had sent a message boy to let us know that she had secured a position with Sir Halloway three days ago and is comfortably situated.  Whether or not she is close enough in proximity to us to travel with us again remains to be seen, but hopefully time is on our side and eventually we can all find homes nearer to one another.  Dad has kept tabs on Bea and Joe and they are content enough in a small room in a rundown neighborhood where Bea is attempting to do enough laundry to eke out a living.  Emme is living with some other girls; I try not to think of it as a brothel.

“Prue!” I give in to a rare display of courage and pounce on her as she enters our tiny carriage, enfolding her in my embrace. “I’ve missed you!”

“Good Lord, child, don’t smother an old woman,” Prue brushes off her old coat and smoothes out imaginary wrinkles, but I can tell she’s pleased enough to see me.  “Well, look at you.  You look like a woman, now don’t you?”

I look down at my blue dress.  It’s a new one from Lu.  I spent yesterday letting out the hem to accommodate my height and it does look rather nice I think.  It’s a sapphire kind of color, and the jewel tone sets off my hair and skin tone. At least that’s what I think Lu told me.

“Thanks for noticing,” I respond, dryly. “These two wouldn’t notice if I was wearing a potato sack.” I gesture to Dad and Is.

Dad looks offended.  “Didn’t I say you looked nice?  I thought I said so.  You look very pretty, Sonny, dear.”  He pats my knee, absentmindedly as ever and goes back to staring out the omnibus window. He always acts absentminded when he isn’t intoxicated.

Israel doesn’t take the bait.  “What?”

“You didn’t notice my dress.  Just like you didn’t notice the last time I got dressed up.”   I may as well back him into a corner, I think. See if a cornered mouse will take the bait.

“I didn’t say I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t have to.  You’re oblivious.”

Israel rolls his eyes. “Quit hinting for compliments and take the ones people offer you of their own free will.”

“Well, if you’d offer one occasionally I wouldn’t have to beg!”

“Children!  Knock it off; you’re giving me a headache.”  It’s difficult to see in the relative dimness of the cab, but I can hear the scowl on Prue’s face.  “And here I was thinking I had missed you two.  Stubborn, quarreling, argumentative little brats.”

“He started it,” I object.

I have to strain to catch Israel’s reply and I may have imagined it, but it sounds like he mutters under his breath something about him being the one to finish it.

The cab jerks to a halt and we all pile out, ungainly in our unaccustomed finery.  My dress catches on the door and I nearly plow down Dad and smack into Israel, who catches me with a groan.

“Oh that’s nice on a girl’s ego,” I grumble.  “I’m not that heavy.”

“I meant to say, was that a fly that landed on me? A mosquito? A feather?”

“Just your little wife.  And I twisted my ankle, blast it!”  I blink back the tears.

“Here, sit down a minute.  Let me take off your boot.”

He undoes the laces of my boot and removes it as painlessly as possible, but even so, I wince and bite my lip to keep from crying out like a baby.  It feels red hot and I’m sure it’s swelling.

“Help me up and we can hobble in the house,” I pull hard on Is’s arm and stand.

He sighs.  “I suppose this is the part where I offer to carry you?”

“Thanks, but no thanks, Prince Charming.  I can make it, but you’ll probably have to fetch all sorts of things for me all evening.”

“Like what, Princess?”

“Oh, you know! Ouch! Cookies and ham and drinks and the paper and my pipe and cookies and mashed potatoes and my slippers and cookies…”

My list continues on as he loses patience with my slow motion shuffle the way I knew he would and he sweeps me up intolerantly in his arms.

Several hours later I have officially eaten more cookies than Joe, I am pleasantly relaxed by a glass of hot spiced wine, the fire is burning nicely in the tiny fireplace in the tiny two room home, and we are about to open gifts.

“To Emme from Sonnet,” reads Prue.  As usual, being our matriarch and also the most bossy, Prue hands out the presents and we all wait obediently and quietly.  As a little girl, the more I clamored and begged, the more she ignored me.  We have all learned that lesson and so we sit, hands folded meekly on our laps and not a peep crosses our lips, not even Joe’s, who of course, has the most gifts.

Emme opens her package to reveal a large sugar cookie in the shape of a high heel shoe that I cut out painstakingly with a knife, cursing the lack of easy cookie cutters.  I have given everyone the same thing, though a message written in icing on each is personalized and so is the shape of the cookie.  Emme’s says ‘You’ll always be my Fairy Godmother,’ and it’s a sort of homage to the night she dressed me up and made me wear her pretty shoes.  Emme smiles at me and promptly eats the stiletto.

Our assortment of gifts is silly and simple.  No one has money to buy anything real and so it is food or something sewn or written on paper for everyone.  Dad has homemade cards that are surprisingly poetic.  Mine is a poem about a little blue bird that flies away but never strays too far.  I think it is a metaphor for me and the sweetness of the sentiment chokes me up a moment.

Prue hasn’t gotten anything for anyone but she barks out an order to come see her at Sir Halloway’s and she will have homemade cake for everyone.  Just be sure to come in the back and wait until dark, she says.