We did. They were thin and tired-looking.
I’m sorry I haven’t been able to speak much. Mr. Worthington sighed. Once upon a time, I had a lot to say.
Where are we, exactly?
I’m not entirely certain. Let’s find out, shall we?
Together, we crawled out of the cardboard house, across a pile of damp newspapers, and into a gloomy winter’s day. Across from us was another cardboard hut, and another beyond that, and another. Beside the huts towered the Hall. When I peeked inside the doors, I saw rows of beds on the floor and people huddled over bowls of soup.
Farther off, through the light rain, I saw buildings that looked vaguely familiar.
Is that downtown? I asked.
Yes, I believe so. And this is . . . this must be Gladville. Yes. Yes, that’s it.
Gladville? Henry said. Doesn’t look very glad to me.
It wasn’t, said Mr. Worthington. It was . . . yes. A nickname. The city put us here.
What is it? I asked. And what happened to it?
It’s a shanty town, said Mr. Worthington. One of several. There was . . . there was trouble, you see, with the banks. They had to put us all somewhere. There was Gladville, and Sunnyville, Peace Park . . .
I could feel Henry’s mind whirring through months of schoolwork. Are you talking about the Great Depression? In the thirties?
There wasn’t anything great about it, Mr. Worthington said. He was in my mind, crawling through a swamp of remembering.
I was . . . a businessman, he said sadly. He tightened what remained of his ragged tie, he straightened his shirt. An honorable man.
It was The Economy, I whispered. Wasn’t it?
Then something slammed into our stomachs.
“Hi, Daddy, look! I got us lunch!”
We looked down and saw a tiny girl with dark hair and dark eyes. She was hugging us, and she had a pail in her hands.
“Tabby?” Mr. Worthington’s voice creaked on the words, and then we were kneeling and burying our face in the girl’s hair. “Tabby, Tabby . . .”
“Daddy, come on, I’m hungry! I waited in line for hours. What’s wrong?” The girl put her hands on our face and kissed our nose. “Did you have a bad dream?” She kissed our nose again. “Your nose is so cold!” Kiss. “Like a reindeer!” Kiss, kiss.
“Yes,” Mr. Worthington said. I could feel the lump in my throat from where he was trying to smile. “I’m afraid I did, a terrible nightmare.”
“Well, I have soup, so it’s time to eat,” Tabby said, tugging on our hand. “Sit, and I’ll serve you, monsewer.”
“Monsieur,” Mr. Worthington corrected.
Tabby giggled, and it turned into a nasty, wet cough.
Henry, it’s his daughter, I whispered.
I know. Her name is Tabitha.
Tabby for short. Together, along with Mr. Worthington, we were remembering. His memories floated through us, like leaves on the wind.
She was born in April.
Her mom got sick. Lydia.
Tabby likes cats.
The image of Tabby and Gladville swirled away, and then it was a different day. A stormy day.
We were inside our cardboard house, and Tabby was in our arms, coughing. Each cough jolted her body like an electric shock.
“Someone help us!” Mr. Worthington screamed, and there it was again—that sharp, stabbing pain in our gut. I realized it was hunger.
I doubled over, gasping. Henry, I’m gonna pass out.
No, you’re not, it’s okay, came Henry’s voice, but he didn’t sound much better than I felt.
“Someone, please!” Mr. Worthington tore open the door and stood in the rain, Tabby in his arms. People watched us from their own shacks. But no one helped us. Tabby wasn’t the only one coughing.
Everything swirled again. When we came to, we were walking down an aisle of shacks. In our hand, wrapped in grimy paper, we held two slices of bread.
This’ll help Tabby, Mr. Worthington told us cheerfully. She’ll be on the mend soon, with this food in her belly.
I could barely open my eyes. My stomach was going to cave in. And it wasn’t just my hunger; it was Henry’s, and Mr. Worthington’s, which he was trying to ignore. He wanted this bread for himself—but he would give it to Tabby. Everything was always for Tabby.
Mr. Worthington? I whispered. We couldn’t possibly go on like this.
You’ll see! Everything will be better soon.
But when we reached our shack, it was empty.
“Tabby?” Mr. Worthington shouted, digging through the garbage. We ran all through Gladville, searching, yelling. “Tabby, where are you? Tabby!”
“They cleaned everything out earlier,” someone said, a hunched-over woman with yellow, drooping eyes. “The policemen. They took the bodies. Got to take out the rot, they said. They came with wheelbarrows.”
“But Tabby will be all right; she’s not a body!” Mr. Worthington shook the woman, even though Henry and I tried to pull his arms back. “I’ve brought her bread; it’ll help her! Tabby!” We were running again, digging through the garbage. “Tabby, I’m coming, sweetheart! I won’t leave you!”
The world turned over, swirling. When it stopped, we were lying on the floor of our shack in wads of newspapers.
“She’s gone,” Mr. Worthington was saying, over and over. “Tabby, my poor, sweet Tabby.”
He reached for a doll propped up on a pile of garbage in the corner. It reminded me of Joan’s doll, Magda. Above it hung a tacked-up cross made of twigs.
I wanted to throw up, but there was nothing left to throw up.
Henry, make it stop. I clutched my stomach. This was worse than being stabbed, worse than blowing up. We hadn’t had enough food for weeks. Our fingernails were cracking from the cold. We’d been drinking filthy water, we hadn’t bathed, we couldn’t find work. We hadn’t eaten, we hadn’t eaten . . .
It’ll be over soon. Henry whispered. I promise.
I closed my eyes and listened to his voice. That’s what I died listening to: Henry whispering. The last thing I saw before everything faded was the lonely, lumpy doll in the corner.
We came to slowly, just like we had died.
“Bravi, bravi, bravissimi!” Nonnie cried, applauding us. Igor blinked slowly from her lap.
For a long time, I just lay there. What do you do—how do you move again—after something like that?
“Sorry.” Mr. Worthington stretched out his hand to us, a dark, shimmering, barely-there splotch in the air. “Sorry.”
“Was it like a roller coaster, ombralina?” said Nonnie. “Did you zoom through the air?”
Henry had turned away from me, and his voice sounded funny. “Yeah, Nonnie. We zoomed.”
“A doll” was all I could say, because it was obvious. “That’s his anchor. We’ll have to find Tabby’s doll.”
MARCH
WE KEPT MR. WORTHINGTON close while we searched. Shades followed us everywhere, every day, their black jaws clacking. At night, while we slept, I heard clawed things clattering across the roof. Soft groans. Crashes from the attic, where the floor was too weak to store anything.
“The ceiling, it will fall! Una catastrofe!” Nonnie declared one evening after dinner, while I attempted to dust. The Maestro sat at the kitchen table, head in his hands as he studied the Mahler 2 score.
“Don’t worry, girls.” He smiled up at us. His eyes were red and watery. I wondered if he’d been sleeping, if he could hear what I’d been hearing. “The noises lately. Don’t worry about them. It’s only rats. I’ve already called an exterminator.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Rats?”
“No, no!” Nonnie shook her head. “Not rats. Shades. Olivia told me. They come, they drag you away!” She yanked her scarf through her fingers.
I couldn’t tell what the Maestro was thinking as I stood there, clutching the dust rag. I figured even the shades, crashing across the roof, could hear my heart pounding.
“Anyway, it doesn�
�t matter.” The Maestro returned to his music. “This . . .” He pointed at Mahler 2, his notes scrawled across the pages. His fingers shook. “This will make all the difference. She will come back. She will.”
I backed away as quietly as possible. When I’d reached the hallway, I made a run for it, straight for Mrs. Bloomfeld’s office up front, and locked myself in. I picked up the phone, almost dialed Henry’s number—and stopped.
What exactly would I say to him? The Maestro’s officially lost it. The Maestro thinks some symphony will bring back my mom.
I hung up the phone and started to pace, Mr. Worthington right beside me.
“I mean, he’s insane, right?” I kicked one of the file cabinets. It made a satisfying boom. “What, like some music he plays will magically call her back from wherever she’s gone? She could be halfway across the world, for all we know.”
Mr. Worthington nodded. “Halfway.”
“Right. So whatever. I don’t want to think about this anymore. He can think whatever crazy things he wants to, just as long as he keeps conducting.”
I flung open the door, marched back into the lobby—and stopped dead.
A single shade had curled around one of the marble columns, peeking out at me. Its fingers had dug black grooves into the stone.
Something inside me boiled up at seeing it standing there, just waiting to attack. I rushed at it, baring my fingers like claws.
“Go away!” I screamed. “Get out of here!” I saw a stack of programs, freshly pressed and waiting for the next concert, sitting by the door. I grabbed them and flung them at the shade, hitting it square in the back as it scampered away. And for a second, I thought I heard the strangest thing—a sick little sound, like from a hurt dog.
Then it was gone, leaving me shaking in the middle of the lobby. Mr. Worthington hovered behind me, muttering, “Halfway, halfway,” over and over, like a prayer.
One day, I was so tired from searching for Tabby’s doll and going to school and work and practicing algebra (which had actually gotten kind of fun) that I fell asleep right after getting home from The Happy Place and didn’t wake up until two in the morning.
Mr. Worthington stood on his head in the middle of the room. He enjoyed trying different sleep poses.
I told him I needed a drink of water, made sure he was safely near Nonnie, and padded out of the room in my socks. Something pulled me through the silent backstage rooms. Instruments—a piano, a harp—stood silently in pale light streaming in from the windows. Some of the musicians had left their jackets hanging on chairs. The light coming in from outside froze dust particles in place like snow.
The Maestro had fallen asleep on his cot, right on top of—I tiptoed closer to look—the score for Mahler’s Symphony no. 2: “The Resurrection.”
When I shuffled past the Maestro’s bedroom, I saw his door standing open, just enough for a thin ray of light to escape.
I peeked inside.
The Maestro had fallen asleep on his cot, right on top of—I tiptoed closer to look—the score for Mahler’s Symphony no. 2: “The Resurrection.” What a surprise.
The Maestro rolled over onto his back, blowing the score open to the first page of the fourth movement, the Urlicht. He started to snore.
“Gross.”
Igor jumped into the room and onto the mattress. At least he doesn’t drool.
“Oh, ha-ha.”
That’s when I saw the plastic box lying open between the Maestro and the wall, the letters lying in smashed piles underneath the Maestro’s cheek. I recognized those letters and the loopy handwriting that read: “Dearest Otto . . .”
Strange, how different the Maestro looked while sleeping. In fact, he looked about five years old with his mouth hanging open like that. Had he been reading these letters before bed?
Out from under his arm poked a triangular scrap of paper—the corner of a newspaper clipping.
I slid it out. The Maestro’s greasy fingers had smeared some of the ink, but I could read it just fine. There weren’t a lot of words. But there were enough:
Waverly, Cara. Waverly was Mom’s name, before she married the Maestro. My fingers shook. I thought I might drop the paper. Igor sat up on his haunches and put his paws on my wrist.
I took a deep breath and read on:
Waverly, Cara. Passed away 2/15. Memorial service to be held 3PM 2/21 at Pine Ridge Baptist, 5144 Grandison Road.
My brain couldn’t get past the words “Memorial service.”
“That’s right here in town,” I said. “She was here? But . . .”
Then I saw it, the ugliest, most unforgivable word I’ve ever known:
OBITUARIES.
I didn’t need Henry or Joan there to tell me what that meant. I knew. The realization sank into me, collapsing my insides.
It meant Mom was dead.
PART FOUR
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” I whispered.
Igor meowed softly. Yes, you do. I think you’ve understood all along.
“But . . .” The newspaper fell to the ground, floating like Tillie swinging her way down from the rafters. The date on the newspaper was from just over a year ago. Last February.
“Olivia? What’s wrong?” The Maestro was yawning awake, reaching for me.
“Get away from me!” I slapped at his hands. “Don’t touch me!”
“Olivia, what in the world—?”
When he saw the obituary on the floor, a heaviness fell over him.
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh.” I snatched the clipping and ran out to the stage, tumbling over my own feet. The Maestro followed me, and Mr. Worthington was right behind him, fretting.
“Olivia, allow me to explain—”
I thrust the obituary at his face. “How did it happen? How did she die?”
He flinched. Good. Let him flinch. He could flinch himself into a coma, for all I cared. That wouldn’t change the fact that Mom was dead—dead, dead—that I had found out like this.
“It was a car accident,” he said simply. “They said—” He cleared his throat. “Olivia, they did say it was quick. She would not have felt tremendous pain. Cara’s mother—you remember Gram.”
I did. She’d never liked the Maestro, and I don’t think she’d ever liked me too much either; we looked too alike.
“She called me with the news. That’s how I found out.”
“I don’t care about that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
The Maestro put up his hands. “Olivia, you will wake your grandmother.”
“Oh, like you care about Nonnie.”
“But of course I—”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve been lying to me. There was a memorial service. She was here, in this city, at that church. You kept her from me. All of you did!” My head spun. They must have known. The musicians, Richard Ashley, maybe even the Barskys. They all must have known.
“Kept,” Mr. Worthington muttered, pacing behind the Maestro. “Kept.”
“Olivia, you wouldn’t have wanted to go to that.”
“How do you know? You don’t know me at all.”
“She did not look like herself, Olivia, not at the end. She was broken all over.”
I tried to imagine what that would look like. I was an artist, and artists had to examine even the awful things—especially the awful things—to find the truth.
“Olivia, how was I supposed to tell you?” The Maestro’s voice was thin, wavery. “On top of everything that’s happened to us, how could I tell my daughter that her mother had died? That she had lost her again? First because of me, and then because of this?”
What would a broken Mom have looked like? Would her nose have shattered into bone splinters? Would there have been a great, black gash across her stomach where the windshield sliced her open? A spiderweb of scars?
The Maestro reached for me. Igor put his paws on my legs. I shoved them both away and found the Maestro’s eyes—those black, wet, pathetic, red-rimmed eyes.
I whispered, “I wish it had been you instead of her.”
He nodded. He was suddenly a thousand years old. “Sometimes I do too.”
Then the air filled up with this horrible croaking sound. Mr. Worthington moaned and rushed across the stage, his arms reaching out for something.
Toward a shade. With a doll in its arms.
Igor dug his claws into my foot. The doll, Olivia!
Tabby Worthington’s doll.
But it was too late. Because the shade was opening a dark, shadowy slit right beneath the exit sign. Unzipping it with its spider-fingers, like a tent flap. Through the slit, I could see teeming shapes of blues, reds, and blacks. The shade slipped back through the opening, the doll in its arms . . .
. . . and disappeared into Limbo.
Mr. Worthington let out an awful cry.
I ignored him. I ignored the Maestro, who stood like a statue, watching me. He hadn’t noticed a thing. He whispered my name. I even ignored Igor, until I realized I was back in my room, that I had marched there like a robot, that I was scribbling exploding cars and broken faces in my new sketchpad, the one with Henry’s name on the inside.
For Olivia, it read. My favorite artist. From Henry.
Igor slammed his head into my hands, knocking my pencil away.
“Is a storm?” Nonnie murmured, rolling over in her sleep.
“Igor, I can’t breathe,” I whispered. There was a hot river building inside me, and I was drowning in it.
Igor started licking me. I can clean you, if you like. Would that help? You look messy. You don’t even have to pet me. Although I wouldn’t stop you or anything.
I tucked Igor into bed with me and rocked him, and rubbed the friendship bracelet around my wrist, and shoved the twist in my throat down, down, and down.
Dead. Mom was dead. Not just missing, but actually dead.
Maybe if I said the word enough times, it would stop being so awful.
DEAD. DEAD. DEAD.
I wasn’t sure where to go from here. I shut down. I went dark. “Radio silence” is the term. At lunch the day after I found the obituary, I said only enough so that Henry and Joan would understand.
The Year of Shadows Page 23
