Onyx Webb: Book Two

by Diandra Archer

  Declan and Tommy rode together, spending most of the time gazing out the window at the passing countryside and calling out the names of various vehicle models and manufacturers as they’d see them—a 1932 Dodge Brothers Coupe, Plymouth Road King, Packard Eight, and others—most of which they’d only seen in magazines.

  But nothing compared to the theater itself.

  Opening in 1926 at a cost of $5 million, the Ambassador was a mecca of movie theaters—an enormous structure with Spanish Renaissance chandeliers hanging from a sixty-foot-high ceiling, which had been painted deep blue with wavy silver lines to make it look like running water.

  Declan and Tommy felt like they entered heaven.

  And then there was the organ—an enormous Wurlitzer 4, with a console decorated in silver leaf and jeweled lights that sparkled on and off as it was played—and one thousand pipes hidden in the walls at the side of the stage, all at a cost of $115,000.

  Of course, Father Fanning knew the dollar amounts would be incomprehensible to his kids, none of whom had ever seen more than twenty dollars in one place in their lives. So sharing such details was pointless.

  Once everyone was seated, the Boys Town A Capella Choir sang “Vigil” by Christians, a new composition written specifically for the movie. Then actor Leslie Fenton read a telegram from Louis B. Mayer and introduced actor Gene Reynolds, who cued up the movie.

  Seconds later, the lights dimmed and the movie began.

  Declan had heard people say that movies were intended to provide a two-hour escape from the worries of life. If this were true, then why in the hell did Father Fanning go to so much trouble to take an orphanage full of children sixty miles to watch a movie about kids in an orphanage?

  Declan turned and saw Father Fanning watching from the corner of the theater and the same sick feeling overcame him, a mix of suspicion and anger. Stick Boy had told Declan about the things Father Fanning had done to him not long before he went missing.

  Did Declan think Father Fanning made Stick Boy disappear? No. He was pretty sure that evil deed could be credited to Sister Mar Mar.

  But Father Fanning had his own cross to bear.

  Many of them.

  Because Declan didn’t trust Father Fanning, he found it impossible to go to the priest for confession. Instead, he would go to Sister Kay Kay. It was during one of these sessions that Declan shared the depth of his hatred for the priest.

  “You will never find peace until you learn to let go of the hatred and hurt that lives in your heart,” Sister Katherine had said. “You must forgive and forget, and trust that God has a plan for those who have wronged you.”

  Declan was confused. “Is that what you did?” he asked.

  “Whatever do you mean, Declan?” Sister Katherine asked.

  “About Sister Mary Margaret?” Declan said. “Forgive and forget, and let God take care of it?”

  Sister Katherine went silent—as if trying to compose her response just right before she said anything.

  “God and I have a pact, Declan. I serve at his pleasure and do as He commands. Now, as far as you are concerned, remember that hatred hurts the hater most of all.”

  Sister Katherine stood and walked off.

  Her confession was over.

  Declan felt Tommy hit him in the arm. “What?”

  “I’m gonna go get some Red Hots.” Tommy said. “You want anything?”

  Declan reached in his pocket and pulled out his nickel. “Yeah, get me some Sugar Babies,” then returned his gaze to the screen.

  The message of the movie, besides showing the trials and tribulations of growing up poor and without parents, was that no boy would grow up “bad” if given a chance in life. It was a nice sentiment, but Declan knew the truth: No one is given anything ever.

  Not even chances.

  After ten minutes passed, Declan looked around for Tommy. Where was he? Could the lines at the refreshment stand be that long?

  Declan felt a sinking feeling come over him. Something was wrong.

  Declan turned and looked to the corner of the theater.

  Father Fanning was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  San Jose, California

  June 22, 1936

  It had been a month since Onyx and Ulrich departed the Open Arms Orphanage, taking a route that zig-zagged from St. Louis to Minneapolis to Denver to Boise, Idaho.

  “Where are we going?” Onyx asked more than once.

  “Wherever we wish,” Ulrich said.

  Onyx knew that wasn’t true, of course, because wherever we wished really meant wherever Ulrich wished.

  “What about Hollywood?” Onyx asked. Onyx had always dreamed of visiting Hollywood after seeing her very first movie—a silent film, Saved from the Titanic. It starred Dorothy Gibson, an actress who’d survived the sinking in real life. Gibson was one of twenty-eight people in the first lifeboat to leave the ship. “According to the map, we can head south through Las Vegas and then onto Los Angeles.”

  “Through Las Vegas? No,” Ulrich said. “I have no desire to go back to that city.”

  “We don’t have to stay there, Ulrich.”

  “Even the thought of stopping for gas in that cesspool of a town makes me ill,” Ulrich said, shaking his head vehemently. “The answer is no.”

  Onyx knew that whatever had happened to Ulrich in Las Vegas a year earlier was traumatic enough to keep the otherwise courageous, hard-headed German from ever going back. So she never pushed Ulrich for an explanation as to why they had to rush from the city, right in the middle of her sickness no less.

  But as sometimes happens in life, the event resulted in the two of them spending the entire winter at Our Lady of the Open Arms. And that was the good part.

  The wild journey had reconnected Onyx with Katherine—Sister Katherine—who’d helped restore Onyx to a healthy version of herself. And though she didn’t fully understand why, sitting at the easel and stroking the canvas with a brush dipped in paint had played a significant role in her recovery. But painting always seemed to restore Onyx’s soul, perhaps more than anything else.

  They headed west through Northern Nevada—stopping in Elko, Reno, and Carson City on the way—staying in the best hotels, eating in the best restaurants, and seeing stage shows every night.

  “Do we have money for this?” Onyx asked more than once.

  “Don’t worry about the money,” Ulrich insisted. “My system at the poker tables is working, just as I told you it would.”

  In truth, Ulrich had lost hundreds of dollars at every stop along the way. He’d been siphoning cash from the money he’d stolen from the Spilatros, which—when he finally had the chance to count it one evening after Onyx had gone to sleep—turned out to be almost $32,000.

  What Onyx didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  “Still,” Onyx said, “my father always said it was important to save for a rainy day, and God knows we’ve had our share of them, Ulrich.” There was more she wanted to say, of course, including the fact that most of the rainy days were caused by him.

  Onyx went silent. The mere mention of her father caused her to choke up with emotion, and Ulrich could tell she’d become upset.

  “Very well,” Ulrich said. “After this, I shall be more cautious with our funds. But you should know I have a surprise in store for you.”

  “What kind of surprise?” Onyx asked.

  “I didn’t want to say anything until now, but your husband has secured a job doing construction on the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “How?” Onyx asked. “When did you…?”

  “I sent a wire with my credentials almost a month ago now,” Ulrich said. “They wired back that they were glad to have me and wanted to know how soon I could arrive. That is why I have been rushing us.”

  “Really?”

  “What, you doubt me?” Ulrich said.

  “No, no. In fact, I am proud of you, Ulrich,” Onyx said. And she was. It was one of the only times the man had taken the initiat
ive to get a job without being hounded to do so.

  The story was, of course, a complete fabrication.

  In truth, Ulrich had sent no such wire, nor had he been offered any such job. The only reason he even knew about the bridge was because he’d heard a story on the radio about the number of men who had died during the structure’s dangerous construction.

  The number stood at eleven.

  This did not include the number of men who’d been seriously injured, many of them paralyzed for life, having fallen a hundred feet or more into a hastily created safety net. They called it the “Halfway to Hell” club. It was a club Ulrich had no intention of joining.

  Not with so much money in his pocket at least.

  “You should trust me more, Onyx,” Ulrich said, patting her on the arm. “Now, take a nap and in just a few hours we shall be in San Francisco.”

  Onyx closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. Perhaps she should trust Ulrich more, she thought as she drifted off. Maybe that has been the problem all along.

  An hour later—after getting turned around and heading south for almost fifty miles in the dark—Ulrich realized his mistake. Exhausted and unwilling to tempt fate by driving any longer in the pitch dark, he and Onyx were forced to spend the night in a one-horse town called San Jose.

  Onyx woke at the crack of dawn, eager and excited to get to San Francisco, but Ulrich was dead to the world.

  Letting Ulrich sleep, Onyx decided to go for a walk, not expecting there to be anything to see or do. But the movement and fresh air would do her good.

  To her surprise, less than a half mile from the motel, Onyx spotted a large house on the horizon—more than a house, actually, the place was an expansive estate, larger than any home Onyx had ever seen.

  Onyx left the main road, winding her way through an orange grove—allowing the tall spires of the house to guide her—until she arrived at the front gate. To her surprise, she discovered the estate had been empty for over thirty years. But a placard on the fence read:

  Winchester House: Tours 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Just a nickel gets you inside!

  Onyx reached in her pocket and realized she’d left the room without so much as a single penny. Her father had admonished her many times: “Never go out and about without havin’ some money in your pocket, Jitterbug. You never know when you’ll be needin’ a nickel or two.”

  As usual, her father was right.

  Disappointed, Onyx turned to leave and—as she did—something caught her eye. A glint of light on the ground mere feet from where she was standing.

  Onyx stepped forward and picked up the object.

  A nickel.

  But not just any nickel. The coin was a Liberty Head nickel—dated 1904, the year of the St. Louis World’s Fair—still shiny and new, as if it had just left the mint.

  Some things in this world couldn’t be explained, but others could. Thank you, Daddy.

  Minutes later, Onyx found herself strolling the strange and wonderful 160-room structure, with its seemingly endless hallways and staircases, when she happened to glance down a narrow side-corridor and saw a tiny woman wearing a peach-colored bathrobe, which struck Onyx as odd, but odder still was the black veil covering the woman’s face.

  The tiny woman motioned for Onyx to come with her, and she did as instructed, following her down a hallway and up a narrow flight of stairs until—after a series of odd twists and turns—they arrived somewhere deep in the center of the house.

  “This room is my little secret,” the tiny woman whispered with a sly smile. “See the panes? Thirteen, always thirteen.”

  “What?” Onyx asked, not understanding.

  “The windows,” the tiny woman said, pointing to a series of colored stained-glass panes. “Thirteen panes, each and every window, each and every time, always, always.”

  “An unlucky number, thirteen,” Onyx said.

  “Perhaps,” the woman said. “The number can wreak havoc and bring torrents of destruction when wrongly applied, but those who understand its true meaning are given great power and dominion.”

  Onyx looked at the windows and studied them, realizing that each window did indeed have thirteen panes—twelve around the outside, forming a perfect square, surrounding a single larger pane in the middle.

  Thirteen.

  “Never dine with thirteen at the table,” the tiny woman continued. “Thirteen itchy witches, eating pumpkin pie, thirteen girls wrongly charged, all thirteen would die.”

  “What?”

  “Salem,” the woman said. “Bridget, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Susannah, two Mary’s, two Martha’s, two Sarah’s—like me—plus Margaret, Ann, and Alice. Thirteen girls cast a spell. All thirteen gone straight to hell. Don’t you see?”

  Onyx had no idea what the woman was talking about and made the decision to leave, but then the woman said something that made Onyx change her mind.

  “Take a seat, Onyx,” the tiny woman said.

  “How do you know—?”

  “Your name? Onyx Webb with two letter b’s? Why, I’ve been expecting you,” the tiny woman said, motioning to a small table with two chairs in the center of the room. “You can call me Sarah. Please, sit.”

  Onyx sat in one of the chairs as instructed and saw stack of parchment paper with a single pencil lying on top.

  “What are we doing?”

  Sarah ignored the question, taking the pencil in her hand and placing the point on the top sheet of the parchment paper and then closed her eyes.

  For the next several minutes, Onyx watched Sarah rock back and forth, then side to side, but nothing happened. Feeling the urge to leave once again, Onyx rose to her feet. But then, swiftly and suddenly—as if possessed by another—Sarah’s head was thrown back and her hand began moving feverishly across the paper in a wild, uncontrolled manner.

  Then, just as quickly, Sarah stopped. “Leave,” she said. “You must leave, leave, leave, leave, leave, leave, do you understand? Leave now? Leave now, leave now, leave, leave, leave…”

  Onyx looked down at the paper and saw what Sarah had written. Just two words, over and over again, page after page after page after page…

  Poison gift…

  Poison gift…

  Poison gift…

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Orlando, Florida

  July 4, 2010

  “You know, it would have been easier if we’d done this at the restaurant, right?” Robyn asked.

  Dane and Robyn were standing in Robyn’s kitchen, a bottle of every kind of alcohol and mixer imaginable on the counter in front of them.

  “Too much pressure,” Dane said.

  “Well, you’ve got to be able to work under pressure if you’re going to be a bartender,” Robyn said.

  “Yeah, but not on the first day,” Dane said. “I’m the type of person who likes to ease into things, you know what I’m saying?”

  She did.

  Robyn’s history was one of having jumped into the deep end of the pool a few too many times, including the majority of her past relationships. It was always frightening and usually disastrous.

  Her relationship with Dane was different though. They had eased into it, and it felt right—the way a good relationship should feel. Easy.

  “Okay, let’s start by covering the most important key to every great bartender’s success,” Robyn said. “Any thought what it might be?”

  “Clean ice?”

  “Close,” Robyn said. “I’m talking about something bigger and more important. I’m talking about the motives and intentions you carry with you every time you step behind the bar. I’m talking about your personal bartending manifesto.”

  “I don’t want to lead a revolution,” Dane said. “I just want to learn how to make a decent drink.”

  “Then don’t become a bartender,” Robyn said. “The whole reason most bartenders suck at their jobs is because their entire focus is on the drinks. I’m not saying it’s not important to know how to make a Manhattan—it is.
And should you know you’re only supposed to frost half the rim with sugar when you make a sidecar? Of course. But the most important part of the relationship between a bartender and a customer is rarely about the alcohol.”

  Dane remained silent, caught off guard by Robyn’s seriousness.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Robyn said. “Do you like people?”

  “I like you,” Dane said, taking a step forward and wrapping an arm around Robyn’s waist.

  “I mean it, Dane,” Robyn said, pushing him away.

  “Yes, Robyn, I like people.”

  “Enough to remember their names and find out what they do for a living? Enough to remember their favorite drink, and how many olives they want in their martini? Enough to remember they like extra ketchup with their fries and add it to the order without having to be asked? Enough to control your temper when they start eating maraschino cherries and pineapple wedges out of the fruit tray? Do you like people enough to smile and pretend like everything in your life is perfectly fine, even when some girl broke your heart ten minutes before your shift started?”

  “It depends. Is the girl you?”

  “And to take their car keys after their fifth Long Island Iced Tea,” Robyn pressed on, ignoring Dane’s attempt to derail her point. “And hold your ground when they start swearing at you and demanding their keys back? And listen to some drunk tell the same stupid joke for the third time, and then laughing your ass off like you never heard it before?”

  “So this termite walks into a bar and—”

  “I’m serious, Dane. Everyone thinks being a bartender is an endless party, but it’s harder than it looks—a lot harder. You’ve got to be able to multi-task like a maniac, which is the problem with the whole craft-cocktail thing. The more time it takes to make a drink, the less time a bartender has for people. Besides, anyone can mix a decent drink, but only a bartending artist can create an experience. Have you ever been in a bar where you got the feeling the bartender thought they were doing you a favor by making you a drink?”