The Shadows

by Chance, Megan

Almost the moment I left Patrick and started back to the house with Aidan, my guilt and fear returned. It wasn’t just that I’d betrayed both Lucy and Derry, it was that I didn’t understand why I’d dissuaded Patrick from proposing. I had agreed with Mama that I’d needed to push him. And yet, when the time had come, what had I said? “You mustn’t think of such things now.”

  I only felt worse when Aidan said, “That was some kiss, Gracie. I hope Patrick proposed before he took such liberties.”

  “As if it matters to you.”

  I thought Aidan would make some cutting remark, but instead he stopped. “You know it does.”

  I wished I could say, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want to love Patrick, yet . . . But the years when I could speak to Aidan about anything were gone. “Really? Lately, I wonder.”

  He winced, and I felt terrible. But before I could apologize, he said in that devil-may-care tone I’d grown to hate, “It’s only a few blocks home. You can make it on your own, can’t you? I’ve just remembered I have an engagement.”

  Whatever apology I might have made was replaced by irritation. “Yes, by all means. Go hurl yourself off a bridge for all I care.”

  “Perhaps I will, just to spite you.”

  “At least you’ll be too numb to feel the impact.”

  He laughed, but it was humorless. He touched the tip of his hat and bowed slightly. “I love you, too, Gracie.”

  I watched him walk off. I couldn’t face going home to Mama and Grandma. Not just yet. Then I realized Rose’s house was very close.

  I didn’t give myself time to think better of it. I hurried there, forgetting that it was her mother’s calling day until I saw the carriages waiting out front. Rose would be too busy with visitors for me. I knocked on the door anyway and asked to speak to Rose privately, and in a few moments, she came to the door. “What is it, Grace? You know it’s Mama’s calling day.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. But I need to talk to you.”

  Her expression turned from curiosity to concern. “What is it? What happened?”

  I motioned for her to join me on the stoop. When she did, my words rushed out. “I told Patrick that Derry’s in a gang.”

  “What? Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Because he is. He and Oscar both. They’re in a gang called Finn’s Warriors, and, Rose, they were in this fight and I watched Derry kill this boy and then he kissed me and—”

  “What? Stop! Stop right there.” Rose glanced back at the house and then led me away, onto the sidewalk. “What do you mean, he kissed you?”

  I let out my breath in exasperation. “I tell you that he and Oscar are in a gang and they’ve killed people, and you ask me about a kiss?”

  “Because that’s why you’re here. Because he kissed you, and you liked it.”

  My mouth fell open. Trust Rose to see the truth. “He killed a boy. I watched him do it. In a gang fight.”

  “Why does that surprise you?” she asked. “He’s a stableboy, Grace, or have you forgotten? And he’s Irish. It would be stranger if he wasn’t in a gang. He’s no more appropriate for you than for Lucy—and if she finds out you’ve kissed him, you’ll lose Patrick.”

  I sagged against the cast-iron fence. “I know.”

  “Would you care?”

  “Yes, I would care! I don’t understand myself. Today when I was with Patrick . . . he was going to propose, Rose, and I stopped him. I told him we had time. But I don’t have time. I want to marry him. I want to stop feeling this way—”

  “What way is that?” Rose asked.

  It was so hard to admit. “When Derry kissed me, I . . . I kissed him back.”

  “Has Patrick kissed you yet?”

  “Yes, but what has that to do with it?”

  Rose leaned against the railing beside me. “You’re just slumming with Derry, and you know it. There’s nothing wrong with it. We’ve all done it. Believe me, I would kiss Oscar, too, given the chance. But I wouldn’t run off with him or marry him or anything like that. It’s not you kissing Derry that has me worried. It’s that he belongs to Lucy, and now you’ve gone and told her brother that her beau’s a gang boy. . . . You’d better hope she doesn’t ever discover it was you.”

  My guilt returned, worse than ever.

  “Now, me, I’ve kissed . . . oh, I don’t know. There was Michael O’Shaughnessy and Bobby Olson and Timothy Lederer—”

  “You kissed Tim Lederer? You never told me that!”

  “Well, it was months ago, and you were all involved with your family and everything, and it isn’t as if it matters. It was just the one time. Let me see . . . there was that boy in Charleston and another in Boston—”

  “Rose—”

  “Listen to me, Grace. A kiss is a kiss is a kiss. I’ve liked all of them. But I’m not a fool, and neither are you. How did Patrick’s kiss make you feel?”

  “Loved. Like the world could swallow me, and he would never let me go. I wanted more.”

  “And Derry’s?”

  On fire. As if I were falling into something dangerous and exciting. As if I were meant to be in his arms. “Dangerous.”

  “Because he’s forbidden,” she said with authority. “And he is forbidden. It doesn’t matter what you feel for him, Grace. He doesn’t matter. He can’t. Your mother would be beside herself. You’d never be able to go out into society again. Everyone would cut you. Is that what you want?”

  I shook my head.

  “You see? It’s a fun game, but Patrick is the one you’re meant for, Grace. You know it as well as I. It’s all right to have kissed the stableboy, but now you must let him go.”

  She laid it out so clearly. It was only a kiss, a small indiscretion, and now it was over. It was right to tell Patrick about him, for Lucy’s sake as well as for my own. And now Patrick would take care of things, and I would never see Derry again.

  I ignored the pinch of my heart at the thought and hugged Rose. “I knew you would help.”

  She hugged me back. “You would have figured it out on your own. I don’t blame you, Grace. Derry is gorgeous. But then, so is Patrick. Just promise me that the next time he starts to propose, you let him finish.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  “And I’ll try to find someone to throw into Lucy’s path. She’ll forget Derry as soon as she falls in love again, you know.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. And I didn’t let myself think about the look in Lucy’s eyes when she spoke of Derry and how well I understood it. Rose was right. Some things were never meant to be.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Diarmid

  It should have been easy enough. He would go to her house. When she answered the door, he would just shake back his hair and show her the lovespot. If he did it quickly enough, she wouldn’t have time to remember she hated him, or to do any of the things she’d warned him she would do if he came near her again. Diarmid spent the entire day imagining it. The flash of anger in her dark eyes when she saw him at the door and then the way the anger would melt away. The way she would gasp prettily and say, “Oh! Does it hurt?” and reach to touch it the way they all did. He would take her in his arms and kiss her, and she would whisper against his mouth that she loved him, and—

  And the whole vision made him sick.

  Just do it, he told himself. It was as Finn said: women chose with their hearts. “Then she won’t hesitate to bare her throat to your knife when the time comes.”

  Diarmid was bruised and sore from yesterday’s fight; it felt as if he were imprisoned in a steam room, the air wet and hot and that wretched, constant thunder that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Where was it coming from? It felt unnatural, like those storms the Druids used to raise during battles. Thunder and lightning, and the air turning violet and blue and black. The crackle of electricity. He’d never liked them. Those storms were terrifying, meant to instill horror, and combined with the Morrigan’s ravens, that was exactly what they did. It had been only throu
gh sheer practice that he hadn’t succumbed to the same frenzy, a mental game he used to play with himself through the chaos of battle—to convince himself that he had brought the storm, that he was in control of it, that it could not touch him.

  But this thunder hadn’t yet reached that intensity. It stayed distant and nagging, shortening everyone’s temper. Leonard had kicked the carriage this morning after he’d scraped his hand against the brake lever. Jerry had cursed and thrown a hoof pick when a fly tormented him. Diarmid had to fight the thought: Do it now. Do it now. Go to her.

  When he was done mucking the stalls, he plunged his head into the barrel of lukewarm water out back, not bothering to dry himself off, just shaking his hair like a dog until droplets flew everywhere and his shirt was soaked. It was the only thing that had felt good the entire day, but it didn’t improve his mood. Night fell and he still hadn’t made himself go to her. Another day gone. Finn would expect this to be quick; he couldn’t delay long. But one day, perhaps two, he could do.

  His mood was made worse by the fact that he wanted to see her. He couldn’t get the kiss out of his head. Not the way she’d lifted her face or her soft sigh when she’d realized what he was going to do. Not the hunger in the way she’d kissed him back. Hunger that wasn’t compelled, that had nothing to do with any lovespot.

  All he wanted to do was forget it. But he couldn’t go back to the others at the tenement—he couldn’t bear their watchful eyes, Finn’s questioning of his loyalty, and Oscar’s puzzling over his hesitation. Tonight he just wanted to be alone.

  When Leonard told him and Jerry to turn in, that neither the carriage nor the horses would be needed, Diarmid set off instead. He wandered down to the Bowery, taking in the clustered colored globes of the lamps and illuminated signs that lit the darkness with a false daylight, the organ grinders with their silly monkeys that made him laugh, street vendors selling ginger cakes and oranges, and the German bands playing waltzes on the street corners. He walked past dime museums and theaters, dance halls and saloons. There was a feeling in the air tonight, a sort of desperate gaiety raised by the strangeness of the thunder, as if everyone on the crowded streets felt the need to have fun while there was still time to have it. He heard it in laughter that seemed overly boisterous and saw it in the almost frenzied way boys dashed from saloon to saloon, the brightly yearning stares of the girls he passed.

  Diarmid stayed there for a long time. Long enough that the theaters let out, their melodramas and minstrel shows over. He didn’t go in anywhere but only walked, and sometimes stood watching. It was pointless, he knew, and he was tired and not good company for anyone; and being here hadn’t eased his own yearning or his apprehension but had only brought them both into sharper focus. He was turning to head back to the stables, and bed, when he saw Aidan Knox.

  Grace’s brother was staggering, clearly drunk, wearing no hat and with his tie undone and crumpled. He looked pasty pale, a ghost beneath a shock of dark hair, as he went to the door of a gambling hell, and not a respectable one either. Aidan paused. Diarmid could almost see him thinking Yes? Or no?

  And then Aidan seemed to set his shoulders in determination. He grabbed the door handle, nearly falling into it before he got it open and went inside.

  “Can you cure Aidan of his drunkenness and turn him into the brother who once cared about his family?”

  Diarmid stared at the door. Aidan’s pause puzzled him. The way he’d considered and then chosen, as if he was deliberately courting destruction.

  Diarmid had known men like that. Men trying to forget the horror of battle, or sadnesses too great to bear. Drowning their sorrows and their memories in mead or ale. Intentional oblivion, and if it led to death, so much the better.

  And now Diarmid wondered: What was Aidan Knox trying to forget?

  He thought of the way Grace had watched her brother with love and despair. Diarmid knew he couldn’t cure Aidan—there wasn’t a man on earth who could save another from his own destruction if that was truly what was wanted. But perhaps he could watch over Aidan tonight. It was something Diarmid could do for her, even if she didn’t know he was doing it. Some way to make up for what he had done. What he was going to do.

  Diarmid went to the door Aidan had disappeared through and stepped into clouds of smoke and talk. The place was small and ill-lit—a few sputtering oil lamps set about the tables and the gas sconces on the walls black with soot. At one side was a bar, at the other a faro table with a bright and badly painted tiger on the wall behind; men crowded around both. At other tables they bent over cards or dice. Most were dressed as he was—laborers and immigrants. And among them, with his moneyed bearing and loosened tie, stood Aidan Knox.

  He was at the far end of the room, drinking whiskey as he waited for a place to open at a table. Aidan was swaying. Diarmid remembered the way Grace had swooned at the fair—the glow, yes, but he knew, too, that she had been hungry. And here was Aidan buying whiskey when he should have been buying bread for his family, and Diarmid thought, Leave him. Let him destroy himself.

  But Diarmid crossed the room. He went up to Aidan, who glanced at him once, vaguely, and then again, his gaze sharpening. “I know you,” he slurred. “Lucy’s stableboy.”

  Diarmid winced. “Aye. Derry O’Shea.”

  Aidan raised his glass. “You’re to be congrat—gradulated. I been tryin’ to kiss Lucy Devlin for five years.”

  “I don’t think she likes the taste of whiskey,” Diarmid said.

  Aidan laughed. “Don’ she? Have you done more than kiss ’er yet?”

  Diarmid ignored that. “Come sit with me. There’s a table over there.” He pointed to a corner where two men were leaving.

  Aidan squinted at him. “All right. What game are we playin’?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  Aidan stumbled so badly that Diarmid grabbed his arm to keep him upright, and when he let go, Aidan fell into the chair, dropping the whiskey. The heavy shot glass bounced off the table. Whiskey went flying.

  Aidan watched it go with a sort of dumb fascination, and then he raised his hand, motioning to the bar. “Another whiskey, please!”

  Diarmid made a motion, too, one that told the bartender no. “It’s getting late. Don’t you think you should go home to bed?”

  “Home?” Aidan grunted. “No.”

  “You look like you could use a good night’s sleep.”

  “Can’t stand it there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “There are thin’s—” Aidan sprawled over the table, his dark hair falling into his face, once again squinting as if the light was too bright. There was something odd about him tonight. Diarmid couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “There are things?” Diarmid prompted, seeing the struggle in Aidan’s eyes as he tried to remember what he’d been saying.

  “Thin’s,” Aidan said finally. He sat up again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I tol’ you.”

  “Maybe I would.”

  Aidan put his hand to his forehead. “I got a headache. Somethin’ screamin’. D’you hear it?”

  “Only thunder,” Diarmid said.

  “Not thunder.” Aidan shook his head, closed his eyes. “Ah. God. I can’t stand it. How c’n you stand it?”

  “It’s just too much drink. You’ll sleep it off. You’ll be fine.”

  “I’m never fine. And it’s the whiskey makes it go away.” Aidan opened his eyes, and the depth of misery in them startled Diarmid. There was nothing in Aidan Knox that Diarmid respected, but that despair was something he understood. It made him want to help Aidan for his own sake.

  Aidan went on. “That screamin’ . . . I don’ know how she stands it either.”

  “Who?”

  “M’sister. Where’s the whiskey?”

  “What do you mean about Grace?”

  Aidan smiled crookedly and wagged his finger. “I see how you look at her, y’know. Lucy in one hand, and you want m’sister in the other.”

/>   Diarmid felt hot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, you can’t have ’er. She’s in love with Patrick Devlin, y’know. She’s goin’ to marry him.” Again that misery in his eyes. “Save us all.”

  “Maybe not,” Diarmid managed.

  “Oh, she is. He’s going to propose, and she’ll say yes. Should’ve seen ’im kissin’ ’er today.”

  The floor seemed to give way beneath Diarmid. “What?”

  “No chaste kiss either. Grace’ll say yes, and we’ll all live happily ever after.” Aidan laughed bitterly. “But he don’ know, does he? We’ll brin’ the curse on ’im too. But no one says anythin’ about it. They all preten’ they don’ know.”

  “She’ll say yes.” It took Diarmid a moment to hear what Aidan was now saying. “Don’t know what? What curse?”

  “The curse,” Aidan said, squinting again. “There’s somethin’ wrong with you, isn’t there?”

  Impatiently, Diarmid demanded, “What curse?”

  The thunder rumbled. Aidan squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t stand the screamin’. Make it stop. C’n you make it stop?”

  Enough of this! Diarmid stood. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not home.”

  “You’ll only make her worry if you don’t go there.”

  Aidan put his hand to his head. “I wish she wouldn’. She don’t know, not yet; but she will, won’t she? You know she will.”

  “What will she know?”

  “I can’t go home. Don’ take me home.”

  Just nonsense after all, Diarmid told himself. Nothing to worry about. “Fine, you can spend the night with me.”

  Aidan didn’t protest when Diarmid pulled him up, but he stumbled and sagged, boneless. Finally, Diarmid put Aidan’s arm around his shoulders, bearing the man’s weight as he dragged him from the gambling hell and back into the street. Aidan mumbled more about the screaming in his head as Diarmid took him out of the Bowery, wishing all the time that he hadn’t bothered to follow Aidan, that he hadn’t thought to do a good deed for her, because she wouldn’t know it anyway, and she wouldn’t care.