In the Shadows Read online

leeched to a pale glow in the moonlight. Under the cover of dark-

  ness, he dug a hole deep enough for a body, then dropped his case

  inside.

  He spit on it, wishing he could burn it, wishing he didn’t fear

  what it held so much. He had promised his mother he would never

  look inside, but it was all he had left of his own father.

  Into the ground with it, then — the same place the cursed

  items had put all those whose lives they’d tainted.

  London

  Late August, 1900

  three

  T

  HOM'S FINGERS WERE RESTLESS, POUNDING THE NOTES

  VIOLENTLY INSTEAD OF THEIR USUAL CARESSING. At the

  end of the piece he slammed his fist into the keys, imme-

  diately regretting it as the grand piano’s discordant burst sounded

  like pain.

  He let his forehead drop onto the cool ivory, wishing music

  were the refuge it used to be. He couldn’t fall deeply into it,

  couldn’t immerse himself far enough to forget to worry.

  Standing, he closed the lid carefully. He’d go out. Maybe

  someone else’s music could pull him away from reality.

  He buttoned a jacket over his vest and raked his fingers

  through his hair, slicking it into shape as he looked out over

  the New York City night. It glowed and twinkled back with the

  promise of escape.

  Padding down the thickly carpeted hall, he turned the door-

  knob and eased open Charles’s door. His younger brother lay

  diagonally across the bed, feet twisted in the sheets, comforter

  on the floor, his arm thrown over his face. He never used to sleep

  this way, but Thom had been finding him in this position more

  and more often. Charles claimed the pressure helped ease the

  headaches.

  Thom tiptoed into the room, easing the comforter back over

  Charles’s much-thinned frame. Charles’s eyes twitched beneath

  his lids, rapidly processing dreams. Thom hoped they were dreams

  of running, dreams of light and life that would bring his brilliant

  brother back from the deathly chasms he walked now.

  When Thom went out the front door minutes later, no one

  stopped him. No one ever did. At the dance hall, no one stopped

  him as he ran himself ragged, the syncopated rhythms of the rag-

  time beating out any other thoughts. He kissed a pretty girl who

  picked his pocket. He let her. He laughed and danced and did

  everything to excess and almost — almost — managed to forget.

  When he stumbled home that night, he had just enough wits

  about him to do so quietly, tipping the elevator attendant extra as

  they reached the penthouse floor. Thom planned to slink down

  the hall toward his room but froze when he saw lights on in

  his father’s office, leaking out beneath the door. What was his

  father doing home? He was never home. The last Thom had heard,

  his father was in Germany. Before that, London. Before that,

  Chicago.

  Anywhere but here, anywhere but where his favorite son

  lay ill and his other son frantically tried to make it better, or

  numbly tried to escape when it wasn’t. Edward Wolcott was a man

  who fixed problems. When the doctors had made it clear that

  Charles would never be fixed, well, he’d moved on to things that

  could.

  Muffled voices drifted toward Thom, and he walked to

  the office door, leaning his head against the frame. At first Thom

  was confused, sluggishly failing to process what he was hearing.

  One of the men sounded like his father, but not the father he knew.

  Gone was the cold, imperious authority. Gone was the razor-sharp

  efficiency. His father sounded . . . scared. Pleading.

  “... surely something else can be arranged. There are

  all sorts of boys for the taking, anywhere you look in this city.”

  “The nature of a sacrificial offering is that sacrifice is required.”

  This other voice was calm, detached but pleasant. A woman.

  Thom scowled. Why was his father bringing a woman here? If

  they woke up Charles . . .

  “You can’t ask me to do this.”

  Thom let out a relieved breath. Here was the domineer-

  ing man he knew. Even though they’d never gotten along, Thom

  realized he depended on the stability of his father’s power.

  Heeled footsteps echoed off the marble floor of the office,

  slow and uneven, as though the woman were walking around the

  room, examining it. “Willingly give one, or be stripped of all. Your

  decision. You agreed.”

  When Thom’s father spoke again, he sounded as broken as

  Thom had felt since Charles had gotten sick. “I’ll make the

  arrangements.”

  “There’s a good boy,” the woman said.

  Thom barely made it around the corner before the office door

  opened. Unsettled and unable to ask his father what the con-

  versation had been about, Thomas dragged his own pillow into

  Charles’s room and slept on the floor, counting Charles’s breaths

  until he finally fell into sleep.

  The next morning Thom awoke with a pounding headache to find

  Charles leaning over the bed, grinning slyly at him.

  “Had yourself a bit of a bash last night, I see.”

  Thom groaned, swatting ineffectively at his brother. But

  secretly he was thrilled, feeling lighter in spite of the pain. With

  Charles awake and teasing, it was going to be a good day. A

  hopeful day. “I heard some new ragtime,” he croaked. “I think I

  remember enough to play it for you.”

  “Boys,” their father interrupted from the doorway.

  Charles raised an eyebrow quizzically, and Thom rubbed at

  his own forehead, renewed unease washing over him. If his father

  was here, that meant that last night hadn’t been a dream.

  “Come eat breakfast with me.” It wasn’t a request; it was a

  command. Thom waited for Charles to ease out of bed and walked

  to the dining room with him.

  They’d barely begun eating when their father leaned away

  from his untouched food and clicked his heavy gold pocket

  watch open and shut in a beatless tick that made Thom want to

  scream.

  Finally their father snapped the watch shut and put it away. He

  didn’t look at either of his sons as he said, “You’re going away for the

  summer. To Maine, to take the ocean air for Charles’s health.

  Agnes will pack your things.”

  Thom stuttered in disbelief, “Why? Since when?”

  Their father stood, straightening his tie with a slight tremble

  in his fingers that Thom hadn’t noticed before. “It’s already

  decided.”

  He left the room without another word. Charles shrugged

  impassively at Thom. “Could be fun, right? Gotta smell better

  than the city in the summer.”

  Without answering, Thom hurried after their father, catching

  him at the elevator. “Dad?”

  Edward Wolcott didn’t turn around. The ramrod-straight

  lines of his shoulders and back were sloped today. Everything was

  off, everything was wrong.

  “Why are we going to Maine? And who was that woman here

  last night?”

  When Thom’s f
ather turned to face him, his steel-gray eyes

  looked haunted. “Your brother is dying,” he whispered.

  Though Thom knew it was true — had known for months

  now — hearing it spoken like an inevitability shook him to

  his core.

  “He’s not,” Thom said, stubbornly willing it to be true, hating

  his father for saying death out loud and making it even more real.

  The elevator opened and Thom turned away angrily. As he

  stomped back to the door, his father whispered, “Please forgive me.”

  It was the first time Thom had ever heard his father use the

  word please.

  It terrified him.

  Paris

  Early September, 1900

  four

  C

  HARLES HAD DISCOVERED, MUCH TO HIS SURPRISE, THAT

  DYING CAME WITH A WHOLE ARRAY OF BENEFITS

  Certainly there was much to be said for not dying

  before the age of sixteen, but as that did not appear to be an option,

  he had reconciled himself to slamming into the end of his life with

  as much momentum as he could manage.

  He knew Thom was angry to be torn away from the city he

  loved, but the Johnson Boarding House seemed nice enough. One

  place was much the same as any other as far as Charles was con-

  cerned. He could tell from the way Thom twitched next to him at

  the table, fingers tapping Beethoven on his legs, that they would

  have to devise an escape from these group dinners, though.

  Beethoven meant Thom was angry. Charles needed to switch

  him onto Mozart. Or, better yet, ragtime. A lively ragtime sum-

  mer was preferable to a glowering Beethoven one.

  A woman who had introduced herself as Mrs. Humphrey sat

  at the head of the table, scooping copious amounts of sugar into

  her tea while darting glances around to see if anyone noticed. A

  fine dusting of the sweet crystals clung to her vast bosom, which,

  owing to her short and round stature, rested on the table in front

  of her.

  She had cooed at him, tsking softly at his pallid complexion.

  Illness made people either avoid him or pamper him, and she was

  in the latter category. It could come in handy, now that he’d lost

  his most malleable nurses.

  A honeymooning couple, who fell firmly in the avoid-

  acknowledging-the-sick-boy category, were remarking on the

  quality of the day and planning a bicycle ride to the lighthouse.

  There was another young man probably around Thom’s

  age. He clung to the edges, slipping in after introductions,

  face neither angry nor pleasant. Everything about him begged

  to be ignored in the most polite sort of way. He looked to be no

  fun at all.

  There was also a man with a full mustache. He was tall, shoul-

  ders several inches above the curved wooden back of his chair,

  filling out the lines of his finely tailored suit. Something in the

  line of his mouth spoke of age to Charles, the gradual, wearing

  weight of time. Forty? No, the man’s skin was free of wrinkles and

  his hair was a slick, glossy brown, save a streak of gray. Was there

  a polite way of asking what his age was? It would bother Charles,

  not knowing. He liked to categorize things, filter and sort and

  understand and —

  A girl of sixteen or seventeen swept into the room, picture-pretty

  and efficiently elegant, and Charles no longer cared a whit about

  the man. He leaned back, letting a smile play over his mouth in

  anticipation. Girls were problems to be solved, and he was very

  good at solving problems.

  “Thank you, Cora,” Mrs. Humphrey said. Cora! He liked the

  shape of the name, the motion of the lips it required.

  The silent young man sat straight in his chair. Until that

  movement Charles had forgotten he was there. The boy was glar-

  ing in alarm at something, so Charles followed his gaze.

  The mustachioed man’s eyes followed Cora’s movement and a

  slow, creeping leer spread across his face until his upper lip disap-

  peared beneath his mustache. Charles fought the urge to mimic

  the other boy’s posture of alarm. Cora continued, oblivious. When

  she passed the man, Charles saw him breathe in deeply, as though

  inhaling her.

  Mrs. Johnson, wearing the same white apron as Cora over a

  body thickened by age and childbirth, followed her daughter

  with a pitcher of lemonade garnished with fresh mint. She paused

  in front of the young man, who shook his head slowly, then

  looked deliberately at the man, then Cora, then back to Mrs.

  Johnson.

  In the sudden firming of her jaw and tightening of her lips,

  Charles knew the threat had been communicated. She nodded

  and the boy let his eyes drift to the corner where the wall met the

  ceiling.

  Interesting. Charles settled back to watch how it would play

  out. He liked learning how things worked — automobiles, facto-

  ries, people. People were not so very different from machines.

  Once you figured out how all of the parts interacted, you could

  very nearly tell what would happen before it occurred. It was clear

  the mysterious boy was part of the machinery of this household,

  and thus worth noting.

  After supper, Charles engaged Thom in a silly argument over

  something in the paper as an excuse to linger after all the guests

  besides the young man left. When Cora came in to clear dishes,

  Mrs. Johnson followed.

  “Cora,” she said, “you work too hard. You ought to have a free

  summer, like you did when you were a little girl.”

  “I’m not Minnie,” Cora said with a frown, continuing to stack

  plates. “You need me.”

  “Minnie?” Charles asked, flashing a dimple to atone for inter-

  rupting.

  “My other daughter,” Mrs. Johnson said. “She ought to have

  been down, but . . .”

  “But she’s dotty,” Cora muttered.

  Mrs. Johnson turned back to Cora. “I think you should spend

  as much time as possible outside in the fresh air. Come fall, you’ll

  finish your schooling and never have a summer like this again. I’ve

  been meaning to bring the O’Connell girl on, and she’ll be more

  than enough help for me and Minnie.”

  “I can’t simply do nothing this summer.”

  Charles watched the studied, careful nonchalance of Mrs.

  Johnson’s delivery, and the way the other boy listened intently

  while pretending to do nothing at all. Ah! They were trying to

  keep Cora out of the house, and away from the attentions of

  that man. Which told Charles that they needed the boarder’s

  money, but that Mrs. Johnson was well aware of her daughter’s

  safety, and partnered with the boy to secure it.

  “Actually,” Charles said, adding a bit of extra wheeze to his

  voice, “if I could be so bold, my father had talked of hiring a com-

  panion, but companions are always stuffy old women who smell

  like cats. I loathe cats. Couldn’t we pay extra to have Cora and

  Minnie look after us this summer?”

  Thom sputtered in embarrassment next to him, and Charles

  stomped hard on his foot under the table. If
Minnie were half as

  pretty as her sister, he might have stumbled on a way to keep Thom

  happy this summer, too.

  Charles continued earnestly. “I think some fun companions

  would be just the thing for me.” He coughed, looking up at Cora

  and Mrs. Johnson with eyes large and winsome. The mystery boy

  met Charles’s gaze suspiciously. Charles was making himself part

  of the machinery now.

  “It’s settled, then.” Mrs. Johnson patted Cora’s shoulder

  as Cora stood still, arms full of dishes, mouth open in shock. “And

  Arthur, of course, will keep an eye on you and Minnie for me.”

  The other boy, Arthur, had effectively been assigned to be a

  chaperone. That’d make things trickier, depending on his relation

  to the girls. But Charles was very confident in his summer pros-

  pects now, and had the added pride of having helped nice Mrs.

  Johnson keep her daughter safe. Everybody won.

  After she took the dishes from Cora, Mrs. Johnson called

  over her shoulder, “And all of you please remember to keep

  your bedroom doors locked at night after you turn in for bed.

  House rule.”

  “Brilliant!” Charles said, standing and holding out a hand for

  Cora to shake. “Thanks so much.”

  “Oh, of course. I — it’ll be fun.” Cora’s voice trailed off. She

  sounded a bit lost. Charles would make sure she didn’t stay lost.

  She needed a task.

  “Is there somewhere outside to sit?” he asked. “The evening

  looks nice.”

  “Yes! Of course. The veranda. Would you like a blanket? I can

  make a tea service! But first, come this way.” She walked purpose-

  fully out of the room.

  “What’re you on about?” Thom growled behind Charles as

  they followed Cora through the main floor of the house and

  out the back door to a veranda completely boxed in by an ivy-

  covered trellis.

  Charles whispered over his shoulder, “Oh, I’m sorry, did you

  want to spend the whole summer watching me struggle for breath?

  Because I think Cora is much prettier to look at than I am.”

  Charles sat on a cushioned bench, pleased with himself. Things