Iron Cast

by Soria, Destiny;

  She could tell by Corinne’s expression—nostalgia chased by irritation—that she had succeeded. Corinne didn’t like being reminded of her family.

  “Not fair,” Corinne told her.

  Ada smiled and kept playing, but she slid into a new melody, drawing inspiration from the ocean that still stretched beyond the horizon. She summoned only emotions this time, no accompanying memories. Freedom. Power. A boundless, howling rage.

  It was Corinne’s turn.

  Corinne closed her eyes as the emotions filled her. She licked her lips and began to recite.

  “Oh, a hidden power is in my breast,

  A power that none can fathom;

  I call the tides from seas of rest,

  They rise, they fall, at my behest. . . .”

  As she spoke, the tide began to rise. The sun fell behind roiling gray clouds, and the ocean boiled with the oncoming storm. Ada blinked, and they were no longer on the beach but on the edge of a towering cliff. The wind beat around them, pelting icy rain. A crash of thunder shook the rocky ground, reverberating in her chest. Then came the lightning, a jagged gash so bright that it seared the insides of Ada’s eyelids.

  Corinne was grinning again, looking far too pleased with herself.

  “Lightning comes before thunder,” Ada said.

  Corinne scowled at her, and the illusion dropped. They were suddenly back in the common room, knee to knee on the couch. The rain that had been dripping down Ada’s face just a moment earlier had vanished without a trace.

  “Best two out of three?” Corinne asked.

  Ada laughed. Years ago, when they had first started this game, it had been a way to practice, with Corinne holding the illusions of everyday objects in her hands and Ada coaxing the simplest emotions from her violin. The harder they had pushed each other, the more complex the exercise had become, until it was less like practice and more like a conversation—a call and response with an intimacy that was lacking during onstage performances.

  “I told you, I’m going to bed early,” Ada said.

  “Wait.” Corinne grabbed her wrist before she could get up. “Don’t you want to talk about Saint?”

  The feeling of contentment Ada had managed to cultivate shattered. She slid her legs off the couch and started wiping down her violin with the felt cloth she kept in her case.

  “He’s a coward and a snitch,” Ada said. “What else is there to talk about?”

  “He’s been our friend for years.”

  “That’s what I thought too, but friends don’t push your head onto the chopping block to save their own neck.” She shoved her violin into the case, a little more roughly than she intended.

  “He was scared,” Corinne said. “I’m not defending him, Ada, but can’t you—”

  “If it were you instead of him, would you have sold me out?” Ada asked. She snapped the case shut and faced Corinne. “If you were scared and alone in a room with the HPA threatening to send you to lockup, would you have turned on me?”

  Corinne shook her head. She didn’t even hesitate.

  When they were twelve years old, the day that Ada had decided to move out of the Cast Iron and away from her insufferable new roommate, a member of Johnny’s crew had muttered a racial slur within earshot. Ada had ignored it, as she always had, because it was easier that way. But Corinne, who had not managed a kind word for Ada since the moment they’d met, called the man out in a room full of people and demanded an apology.

  He had begrudgingly given one, but only after Johnny had come into the room to see what the commotion was. The incident accomplished nothing but to make the man hate both of them equally. Ada never forgot it, though—not because she had needed Corinne’s help, but because she knew that Corinne’s strange brand of loyalty was not to be taken lightly. Something had changed between them that day, and though it wasn’t something that Ada could readily identify, she had not left the Cast Iron after all.

  “I know Saint was scared,” Ada said. “So was I. But I kept my mouth shut, and he didn’t, so how am I supposed to ever trust him again?”

  It was not a question with an answer. Ada stood and picked up her case. She knew it wasn’t fair to ask Corinne to stop being friends with Saint, but she also knew she didn’t have to. Corinne would have already made that decision herself.

  And, deep down, there was a part of Ada that just wanted to punish him.

  She didn’t want to examine that part of herself too closely. It was easier to lock it away like her violin in its case. It was easier to just forget about Saint and the wildflower painting and all the other gifts and jokes and small comforts throughout the past several years. Remembering only made the nightmares about the asylum worse, because it meant that her incarceration hadn’t been bad luck or even justice for her crimes. The terror and the sleepless nights had been done to her by someone she trusted and loved.

  Ada didn’t think she could live with that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pickings were slim at breakfast the next morning. Apparently the cook had decided to take the day off. Saint was sitting alone at one of the tables in the club, staring into a coffee cup. Corinne and Ada ignored him, sitting on the opposite side of the room. It was a surreal experience for Corinne. Just a few weeks ago the three of them had been sitting at this same table, cutting up about something inconsequential. Ada was teasing Saint about one of the new delivery boys, and Saint was blushing to the tips of his ears. Corinne remembered laughing until she couldn’t breathe.

  Today she and Ada ate their breakfast without saying much. Ada was sitting with her back to Saint, but Corinne could see that his presence had stiffened her shoulders and tightened the corners of her mouth. Corinne couldn’t help but peek past her to gauge how Saint was doing. She had never gone this long without speaking to him before. His expression wasn’t as forlorn as she expected, and he was staring hard across the room. She followed his line of sight to the stage, which was empty except for a couple of chairs and a forgotten microphone stand. There was also something white in the center of it that looked like an egg, of all things. It was still too early in the morning for Corinne to wrap her mind around that particular oddity, and when Ada noticed her staring, she looked back at her food without a word.

  Gabriel came in at precisely half past ten, looking more awake than anyone else. Corinne couldn’t understand how he managed to be clean-shaven at this hour, with his slacks and shirt neatly pressed. He nodded at Corinne and Ada but went straight downstairs, no doubt headed for Johnny’s office.

  Jackson sauntered in a few minutes later, trailed by Tom Glenn, a drifter whom Johnny had hired a few years back to help with the shipments at the wharf, when they had started coming nightly. Glenn and Jackson were laughing raucously about something. Jackson tipped his cap to Corinne, but she ignored him. He didn’t take the hint and came over to their table, resting both his hands on the wood.

  “Morning, ladies.”

  “Morning,” Ada said, managing a smile.

  Corinne chose to maintain her stubborn silence.

  “You look like you’ve recovered from your stint at the asylum,” he said to Ada. “I accept gratitude in cash or check.”

  He winked at her, and Corinne coughed loudly.

  “Gratitude for what?” she said. “I recall being the one in the ridiculous nurse getup, pulling off all the stealth and subterfuge. You just waltzed in at the last minute with your vaudeville imitation of Knox.”

  Jackson shrugged, unaffected. “Ada was fooled.”

  Corinne gave Ada an expectant look, and her lips twitched.

  “The eyes were wrong,” Ada said.

  “Exactly,” said Corinne.

  Jackson looked between them, but both were stone-faced. A united front.

  “You two are hard ones to crack,” he said at last, moving away from the table.

  “That might be the first real compliment you’ve ever given,” Corinne told him.

  “My pleasure.” Jackson flashed his toot
hy grin and gave a parting wave.

  “I still don’t like him,” Corinne said to Ada, once he and Glenn were gone.

  “I’m not sure you’ve ever really liked anybody,” Ada said, taking a sip of coffee.

  “That’s not fair. I like you. I like your mother. I like—” Corinne barely stopped herself from saying Saint. Old habits. “I like that baker who gave me a free cupcake that one time.”

  “He gave me that cupcake, and you stole it.” Ada was smiling, giving no indication she’d noticed Corinne’s near slip. “Jackson doesn’t seem all that bad. Kind of reminds me of you, actually.”

  Corinne searched for something to throw at her, but she wasn’t willing to part with her biscuit. She took a bite of it instead.

  “Let’s go uptown today,” she said around her mouthful. “I’ve got an idea that might be worth some aces. It’s like an abbreviated Carraway coal mine, but with scarves.”

  Ada looked at her strangely, and Corinne wiped her face, expecting it to be smeared with food. “What?” she asked.

  Ada let out a short laugh.

  “You’ve forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what?”

  “You’re due at the train station today. It’s still school holidays, and your parents are expecting you.”

  Corinne groaned and dropped her head onto her arms.

  “Can’t I just telephone them and tell them I fell off a horse during equestrian lessons and the school nurse demands I stay in bed?”

  “And risk your parents’ driving to Billings Academy to visit you?” Ada raised an eyebrow at her, unmoved by her distress. “You pay the headmistress to send home good reports, but not nearly enough to deal with your parents in person.”

  Corinne moaned and did not raise her head.

  “There, there,” Ada said, patting her arm with faint sympathy. “It’s better than actually having to attend Billings. Posh food and unparalleled academia. The horrors.”

  “Snotty debs and itchy uniforms and not a single drop of booze for miles,” Corinne corrected. She stood up. “Fine, but I’ll be visiting Aunt Maude first thing tomorrow, so I’ll meet you here around ten.”

  “One day you might consider spending more than a few minutes with your aunt Maude.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever actually met the woman.”

  Corinne took her dishes to the kitchen and headed to their room to change. She kept her school uniform folded in a suitcase under her bed. The leather-and-brass case was by far the nicest possession she had, but she touched it only during the holidays. She had been at home for Christmas still when Johnny called to tell her that Ada had been taken into custody. She couldn’t even remember the details of the barely coherent lie she’d concocted to convince her parents that she had to leave the next day to return to school. Something about a national Latin competition and the Billings contestant having the flu. If they hadn’t been immersed in preparations for their New Year’s party, they never would have bought it. Corinne was skilled at taking advantage of her parents’ inattention, though. She’d promised to catch the train home in two weeks and escaped before they could come to their senses.

  The uniform was a white pleated skirt, white blouse, white stockings, and white Mary Janes. Billings had an obsession with the color. The school motto, Super Omnia Puritatis, “Purity Above All,” was emblazoned in various strategic places across the sprawling campus. Since it was located in Pennsylvania, Corinne didn’t have to worry about her parents stopping by for a surprise visit, and she used almost all of the money she earned running cons to compensate the headmistress for her role in the elaborate deception that was Corinne’s life.

  She didn’t particularly enjoy lying constantly to her family, but she didn’t have any other choice. When her hemopathy had manifested, she had been starting her second year at the academy. She grew too ill to function, barely able to leave her room. A nurse had recognized the symptoms almost immediately, but she hadn’t told the headmistress, or Corinne’s parents, or even the Hemopath Protection Agency, which was supposed to be notified of all hemopaths so that they could be properly registered. Corinne learned later that the nurse’s younger brother was a hemopath, living in seclusion in the countryside, safe from society’s fear and hatred.

  The nurse had heard the stories of the club owner in Boston who took hemopaths under his wing. She wrote to Johnny Dervish, and a week later there he was: a man dressed like a farmhand who had pockets full of cash that he handed around the ward, buying allies, buying silence. He didn’t try to buy Corinne. He explained to her, very simply, what her choices were. She could register as a hemopath, weather her family’s disappointment, and spend the rest of her life wearing her affliction as a public brand of shame. Or she could go with him to Boston, to a safe haven where she could develop her talent, where the only rules were loyalty and trust, where she could thrive among her peers.

  She had chosen Boston, without hesitation. Her only acts of penance were the occasional visits to her parents’ home. A small price to pay for a life of bliss.

  She lugged her suitcase up the stairs and went out the front door of the club, rather than risk dirtying her Mary Janes in the alley. After walking a couple of blocks with the suitcase banging against her leg and the cold gnawing through her coat, she started to consider swallowing her aversion to the giant steel traps that were taxicabs, at least for the ten-minute ride to the train station. By the next block, her left shoe had started to rub a blister, and she gave up.

  As she searched the street for a taxi, she saw two men at the corner of the block, both in nondescript suits, hats, and overcoats. She might not have noticed them at all except that they were both staring in her direction. Neither was moving. They just stood there. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and Corinne strengthened her grip on the suitcase. Even at this distance there was something unsettlingly familiar about them. Every instinct inside her screamed that she should run, but she took only a single step back. The men still didn’t move. They also didn’t look away.

  A taxicab cruised around the corner, and Corinne flung out her arm so quickly that her shoulder popped. The cab screeched to a stop beside her, and she shoved her suitcase into the backseat before the driver could even climb out to help her. She followed her suitcase and slammed the door shut. The effort to block out the instant throbbing from the steel and iron cost her dearly, but she told the driver her destination and sat back with a forced air of comfort. There was a sign prominently displayed in the front passenger window: NO NEGROES, NO HEMOPATHS. Corinne gritted her teeth against the headache clawing at her skull and peered through the window as they passed the corner where the two men were standing.

  They were gone.

  Corinne dug her pocket watch from her coat and gripped it in her right hand, like an anchor to her own sanity. She shut her eyes and didn’t open them until the cab reached the train station.

  The Wellses were expecting Corinne on the twelve o’clock train. The cab dropped her off with only a few minutes to spare, and she ran through the station with her suitcase banging against her thighs. A few people gave her strange glances when she ran to the arrival platform. The train hadn’t come yet, and she could see her parents at the opposite end of the platform. She cursed and stepped behind a potted plant. When the train pulled in, she waited until the rush of people disembarking had flooded the station; then she wended her way through the crowd and tapped her father on the shoulder.

  “Corinne!” he said. “You always sneak up on us.”

  “Very light feet,” she said. “Those dancing lessons at school have their practical applications.”

  She dearly hoped her parents would never call on her to display her so-called skills, which the headmistress of Billings detailed in quarterly letters to the Wellses. Corinne embraced them each in turn. Her mother asked about the Latin competition, and Corinne gave purposely vague answers to all her questions, until finally her mother gave up and started telling her excitedl
y about some fete that had gone better than anyone expected. Corinne tried to listen, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the two men outside the club, why they looked so familiar, and Ada’s insistence that the Hemopath Protection Agency wouldn’t trust the bulls to deal with the Cast Iron. The HPA had been formed by special appointment from the mayor less than a week after hemopathy had been declared illegal. Supposedly the agency’s purpose was to ease the integration of hemopaths into society through mandatory registration, but in the past six months, it had become obvious that the HPA was more interested in sweeping hemopaths off the streets for any imagined offense than in helping them integrate into society. Corinne had never come face-to-face with any agents, but if tales were true, they were ruthlessly efficient and handpicked for their heightened resistance to hemopathy.

  It was hard to focus on anything with her mother rattling on, and finally Corinne pushed her anxious thoughts aside. She would tell Johnny tomorrow about the incident. He would know what to do.

  Her father had driven the Mercedes, and Corinne rode in the backseat, popping three aspirin when her parents weren’t watching and trying not to grimace. The taxi and the train station were bad enough without having to ride in the family’s metal deathtrap all the way to their estate in the countryside. Perry and Constance Wells lived close enough to society to be involved, but distant enough to still seem important. Corinne had asked her mother once where the money came from, since her father’s job as a banker didn’t seem lucrative enough for their style of living. Her mother had said it wasn’t polite to ask about finances, though Corinne later overheard phrases like “family money” and “old blood.” She didn’t care enough to ask more, which was something her brother, Phillip, found disgraceful.

  “Our name means something around here,” he’d told her once. “You should be grateful to be a part of it.”