These Shallow Graves

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Jo!” Eddie shouted, running after it. “I’ll get down to the Tombs as soon as I can. Is there anyone—”

  The driver snapped his reins. The wagon picked up speed.

  “Get Bram, Eddie! Tell him I need a lawyer!”

  “I will!” Eddie yelled.

  Jo knew that Bram was her only hope. He knew good lawyers and would guarantee their payment for her, seeing as she couldn’t get to her stash of money tonight. But would he come? He might not. He thought she was crazy. If he didn’t, she was lost.

  The wagon rolled out of the asylum’s gates and Eddie disappeared from Jo’s view. It was dark inside the wagon, but one of the officers had left his lantern in the back with them, so they had a bit of light to see by. Narrow wooden benches lined both walls. Jo sat down on one.

  Fay sat down across from her and stretched her legs out, a disgusted expression on her face. “How the hell am I going to get out of this?” she fumed.

  Mary sat down next to Fay. She was still staring at the little rag doll in her hands, and she’d gone dead quiet. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “What’s wrong, Mary?” Jo asked. “Why are you crying?”

  Mary didn’t say a word. Instead, she pulled the doll’s head off.

  “Hey! Easy there!” Fay said angrily. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  But Mary, intent upon her work, continued to rip the doll apart.

  “Thanks a lot. I had that doll my whole life,” Fay said as she watched pieces of her good-luck charm fall to the wagon’s dirty floor. She shook her head. “In case neither of you has noticed, we’re in a lot of trouble. Especially me. Can you, Jo, be quiet and can you, Mary, stop ripping things up and let me think?”

  As Fay finished speaking, they all heard a metallic clink as a small object dropped out of the doll’s torn body and hit the floor. It glinted in the lantern’s light. Jo leaned down to pick it up. It was a ring. A sapphire and diamond ring.

  “Fay,” she said quietly. “Give me the lantern.”

  Fay passed it to Jo, squinting at the ring. “That was inside the doll?” she said, sounding surprised. “Wish I’d known.”

  Jo held the ring close to the light, turning it so she could look inside its band. There was an inscription: Stephen & Eleanor, March 12, 1873.

  Jo’s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes sought Mary’s. “It’s her, isn’t it?” she said. “But how is that possible?”

  Mary nodded. She was looking at Fay now. Tears were streaming down her face. She reached for Fay’s hand.

  Fay took it and patted it distractedly. She wasn’t paying any attention to her, or to Jo. “There you are, Mary. Be still now, won’t you?” she said.

  She didn’t die, Jo thought. Mallon took her out of the asylum and sold her. He sold a child, damn him.

  “Mary,” Jo said, “your necklace … the one the policeman was looking at. May I see it?”

  “It’s mine!” Mary shouted.

  “For God’s sake, Jo, don’t get her going again,” Fay said, exasperated.

  “Please, Mary, I just want to look at it,” Jo said, trying to keep her voice calm, even though her mind was racing. “You’ve kept it safe for so long. I know you have. I won’t take it from you, I promise.”

  Mary warily pulled the necklace out of her blouse. Without taking it off, she held it up for Jo to see. It was a gold pendant in the shape of half a heart. There was a word inscribed on it. Stephen.

  Jo leaned back against the wagon’s cold metal wall, speechless. Charles Montfort, Richard Scully, Alvah Beekman, Stephen Smith … they were all victims of her uncle, but there were two more.

  “Mary,” she finally said. “A woman’s body was pulled out of the East River back in 1874. Her face was gone, but she was wearing a jacket and watch that belonged to you. Who was she? Who did your parents bury if they didn’t bury you?”

  Mary’s eyes narrowed. “Lizzie the Cat,” she said angrily. “She robbed people, and bit and scratched if they resisted. She took my watch and my jacket. Took my money. Left me to die on the street. But I couldn’t die. I had to live. I had to find her. Lizzie got drunk on my money. She fell into the river and drowned. But I lived.”

  “Can you tell me about Stephen?”

  Mary shook her head; she started to rock back and forth on the bench.

  “Please, Mary,” Jo said.

  “He gave me a ring. I put it inside the doll I made for her. And I put the doll in a little basket with the clothes I made. I didn’t trust them. I thought they would take her from me. I hoped that if they did, they would take the things I made, too. I hoped she would keep the doll with her, and that one day she’d feel the ring inside it and take it out and know who she was—mine and Stephen’s. Lizzie didn’t get Stephen’s heart, either, I kept it safe all these years. Stephen died at sea. I heard the newsboys say so. Years and years ago. But his ghost came back. A fearsome ghost with devil’s marks on its face. I was afraid when I saw it. Afraid it was angry with me because I lost our baby and couldn’t find her again no matter how hard I tried. But now, if I see the ghost again, I can tell it I did find her. I can tell it our heart is mended.”

  Jo handed the ring back to Mary. She was in tears now, too, but she was smiling.

  Fay, still preoccupied with their dire situation, glanced at Jo. “What’s wrong with you? How come you’re crying and smiling at the same time? Maybe Montfort’s right. Maybe you have lost your mind,” she said.

  Jo reached across the wagon’s narrow aisle and took her friend’s hand. “Fay, listen to me. … You don’t know who she is,” she said. Her voice, like her heart, was full of emotion.

  “Jesus, Jo!” Fay snapped. “I am listening! I’m listening to the sound of this wagon on its way to the Tombs. Half an hour from now, I’ll be listening to the sound of a cell door slamming shut. A few days from now, I’ll be listening as a judge gives me ten years for kneecapping Phillip Montfort. And yes, damn it, I do know who she is. She’s Mad Mary!”

  “No, Fay, she’s not,” Jo said. “She’s Eleanor Owens. Your mother.”

  Jo paced back and forth in her cell like a caged tiger.

  The Tombs had been built decades ago over a polluted pond, and the stone cells within them were cold, damp, and foul-smelling. Jo had to keep just to keep warm.

  She stopped suddenly and stared down the dimly lit aisle. He’ll come, she told herself. He said he would, and he will.

  She resumed her pacing, exhausted but too anxious to sit down. Behind her on a metal bench, Fay was stretched out asleep, her head in Mary’s lap. Mary, smiling, was stroking her hair.

  Jo smiled, too. She’d never seen Fay cry, but Fay had cried in the police wagon. The hard, cynical girl had cried buckets. Mad Mary had, too.

  Eleanor, Jo told herself. Not Mad Mary. Not anymore.

  She looked down the aisle again, wrapping her hands around the bars of her cell, and this time she was rewarded. The security door way down at the end of it opened, and a man walked through it.

  When she saw him hurrying toward her, a knight in a rumpled tweed jacket, she thought, No matter what happens to me in the coming days, no matter how bad this all gets, I have been so lucky to know him.

  “Where’s your coat?” Eddie Gallagher asked, rushing up to the bars. He covered one of her hands with his own.

  “I loaned it to a madman,” Jo replied, remembering with a shudder how it had been snatched off her at the asylum.

  Eddie immediately took his jacket off and pushed it through to her.

  “Did you speak with Bram?” she asked urgently.

  “I did. He’s on his way,” Eddie replied.

  As if on cue, the security door opened again, and Bram, accompanied by a balding and bespectacled man who looked to be in his early thirties, walked briskly down the aisle.

  Relief washed over her. “Th
ank you, Bram,” she said as he reached her cell. She knew he hated the Tombs and all that the place represented, but he’d still come. Because she’d asked him to. Because that was the kind of man he was.

  Bram’s eyes traveled over her swollen lip, bruised face, and her torn, bloodstained clothing. He swallowed hard. For a second or two, it looked to Jo as if his emotion would get the best of him, but he squared his shoulders and bested it instead. He was, after all, an Aldrich.

  “Jo, this is Winthrop Choate, a friend of mine and a very fine lawyer,” he said. “He’ll help you.”

  Choate shook Jo’s hand through the bars, then asked her to tell him her entire story—start to finish. She’d just begun when the security door opened a third time. A short man, well-dressed and well-fed, came bustling down the hall, accompanied by an officer.

  Jo recognized him; he was John Newcomb, a lawyer retained by her father. And her uncle.

  “I want Miss Montfort released into my custody immediately!” he bellowed at the officer. “A jail cell is no place for a frail and unstable young woman. She is supposed to be under a doctor’s care!”

  “Can’t do that, sir. You can talk to her, but that’s all. Miss Montfort was arrested, along with the other two women. She’ll be arraigned in the morning,” the officer explained.

  “Arrested? Why? She didn’t do anything! She didn’t shoot Mr. Montfort, the other girl did!”

  “Who did what is for the judge to decide,” the officer said.

  Newcomb came to a halt at Jo’s cell. “Miss Montfort!” he exclaimed, pressing a hand to his chest. “My poor dear girl. I’m so sorry to see you in such a terrible place. I’ve been sent to fetch you away from here, but I find I am unable to so. I will, however, secure your freedom tomorrow morning.”

  Jo should’ve been relieved to see Newcomb, but she wasn’t. Instead, something inside her told her to be wary of him. “Where will you be taking me after I’m released?” she asked him. “Why, home, of course,” Newcomb replied with a smile.

  “Who sent you?” she pressed.

  “Your family.”

  “You mean my uncle,” Jo said flatly. “My mother doesn’t even know I’m here, does she?”

  Newcomb hesitated. Only for an instant, but that was long enough for Jo to realize her instincts were correct.

  “You’re not here to take me home,” she said, furious. “You’re here to take me back to Darkbriar.” For the first time, she was grateful she’d been arrested. While she was in this cell, she was beyond her uncle’s reach. “You’re Phillip Montfort’s lawyer, not mine. I’ve taken my own counsel. Mr. Winthrop Choate will be representing me, as well as Miss Eleanor Owens and Miss Fay Smith. Good evening, Mr. Newcomb.”

  Newcomb, flushing with anger, said, “Your uncle and mother have signed the papers necessary to have you committed. I’d advise you to come peacefully after I’ve posted your bail. If you do not, I’ll have you forcibly removed from the courtroom and brought to the asylum.”

  “Try it, fat boy,” Eddie said.

  “Where are the papers you cite, counselor?” Winthrop Choate asked, stepping forward. “I’d like to see them.”

  “Who the devil are you?” Newcomb spat, looking him up and down.

  “Winthrop Choate. Miss Montfort’s attorney. The papers?”

  “At the asylum, of course!”

  Choate frowned regretfully. “I’m afraid you’ll have to present them to a judge for verification before I can allow you to take custody of my client.”

  Newcomb turned crimson. He leaned in close to the bars. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Miss Montfort. One you can’t hope to win,” he warned. Then he stalked off, slamming the security door on his way out.

  Jo flinched at the sound. She crossed her arms over her chest and cupped her elbows, worried. Choate had brought a briefcase with him. He was digging through it now.

  “We need to work fast, Miss Montfort,” he said, pulling out a pad and pen. “If the papers Newcomb spoke of actually exist, he could make trouble for us. Tell me everything that led up to tonight. Leave nothing out.”

  Jo looked at Eddie, the man she’d lost. She looked at Bram and knew—by the look on his ashen face—that she’d lost him, too. She thought of her mother, their home, Miss Sparkwell’s School, her friends … and realized that she would lose more, much more, before the night was over.

  She took a deep breath, and began.

  Two hours later, just past midnight, Winthrop Choate stopped writing. He looked at Jo and said, “Is that everything?”

  “Yes,” Jo replied wearily.

  She sat down on the cell’s bench. Fay was still asleep, her head still resting in Eleanor’s lap. Eleanor, wary and watchful, was awake. Eddie, who hadn’t been present for most of what occurred at Darkbriar, was busy writing down everything that had transpired. Bram was leaning against the bars of the cell opposite Jo’s, looking as if he’d been hollowed out.

  Choate’s glasses had slid down his nose. He pushed them back up.

  “Phillip Montfort will be a lethal opponent, but I expect you already know that,” he said. “Any hope we have of besting him rests on finding the letters Stephen Smith sent to Miss Owens. Without them, we have no proof of Van Houten’s crimes. What Phillip Montfort confessed to you on the grounds of the asylum, he can—and will—deny. He’ll say he feared for his life and made the whole thing up to keep Miss Smith from killing him.”

  Jo nodded. A heavy sense of dread had settled over her. Choate had questioned her closely as she’d told her story. Again and again he’d asked her if she had any proof of her claims. It was with a sinking feeling that she told him she had very little—only her father’s agenda. Jo recalled showing it to her uncle in his study, weeks ago. He’d asked if he could have it, but she’d kept it. She had unwittingly given him the only other piece evidence, though—the pendant with Eleanor on it. He’d probably gotten rid of it the moment she’d left his house, just as he would’ve gotten rid of her father’s agenda.

  “Mr. Choate,” she said.

  “It’s Win.”

  “Win, can you have the police enter the Owenses’ home and search for the manifests?”

  “With a warrant, yes,” Choate said, looking at her over the top of his glasses. “The question is: can I convince the judge who would issue the warrant that the manifests still exist?”

  Jo realized that there was one person who could answer that question. She turned to the woman sitting next to her.

  “Eleanor,” she said. “Mr. Choate and I are going to try very hard to make sure that we all stay out of prison, but you have to help us. Can you do that?”

  Eleanor pursed her lips. She stroked Fay’s hair. And said nothing.

  “I need you to think back a long time ago, to when Stephen was still alive.”

  Eleanor clenched one hand into a fist and banged it repeatedly on the bench.

  “Did Stephen send you letters from Zanzibar?”

  Eleanor stopped banging her fist. She nodded. “He said he would come for me,” she whispered, looking at the floor. “He said he would, but he died before he could, and then the ghost came instead.” She pounded the heel of her hand against her forehead.

  Jo gently took her hand and held it. Eleanor Owens was a broken human being, a woman who’d had everything taken from her. She’d survived the loss of the man she loved and their baby. She’d survived incarceration in an asylum and life on the streets of New York. But despite it all, she’d never given up hope that one day she’d find her daughter.

  It was to that survivor, to that fighter, that Jo now appealed.

  “Can you remember where those letters are, Eleanor? Please, for Fay’s sake, for your daughter’s sake, tell me where they are.”

  Eleanor leaned close to Jo. “Safe under the heavens,” she whispered. “The gods watch over them. And us.”
<
br />   Jo tried to mask her frustration. She’d heard this nonsense from Sally Gibson, who’d heard it from the Owenses’ former cook.

  “Please, Eleanor,” she said. “Tell me where the letters are. If we can’t find them, then I’m going to the madhouse, Fay’s going to prison, and you’re back on the streets.”

  “Safe under the heavens,” Eleanor repeated. “Guarded by the sun and the moon.”

  Eddie, listening to Eleanor’s replies, said, “Jo, maybe she’s referring to something. You searched her room. I searched the basement. No one searched the rest of the house. Is there something—a painting, maybe—that has a sun and moon in it? Did you see anything on your way to her room?”

  Jo closed her eyes and tried to picture the Owenses’ house. She saw the servants’ quarters in her mind’s eye. The kitchen. The back stairs. The hallway. Eleanor’s room. And the back garden. She saw Stephen Smith standing in it. Looking up at her with his fierce eyes from the bower. Under the marble statues of Helios and Selene.

  Jo’s eyes flew open. “I know where they are!” she cried.

  “Where?” Eddie said.

  “In the bower. There are two statues there. One’s Helios, the sun god. The other’s Selene, goddess of the moon.”

  “Guarded by the sun and moon,” Bram echoed.

  “Good job, Jo!” Eddie said excitedly.

  Win said, “I’ll draw up the papers right away and take them to the judge myself. We’ll serve the warrant at daylight. With any amount of luck, we’ll have the manifests in hand before Newcomb gets back from the asylum. But, Jo, I must ask you something. …”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you sure about this? Not just about the manifests, about all of it? Because none of it will stay private. In a day, two at the most, all of New York will know about your uncle and your father and what they did. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.”

  Jo looked at Win, trying to voice her answer. She thought about the photograph hanging in the foyer of Van Houten’s Wharf—the one of her father and uncle in Zanzibar, so many years ago. Her heart clenched. She’d loved her father, and she missed him, but she knew that she would spend the rest of her life trying to reconcile the good man she remembered with the terrible thing he’d done.