by BJ Hoff
The whispers grew louder, the touches more demanding. Clammy hands groped at him from both sides of the bridge, pressing and probing him. The whispers became voices—shrieking, angry, menacing voices who demanded something he was unwilling to give.
Suddenly, the wind began again, this time a blistering hot fury roaring down the tunnel, slamming at his back, then his face. He tried to run, but was caught up by the scalding wind, sucked inside it, forced into a mindless, macabre dance as he struggled to retain his footing on the bridge.
He made the mistake of looking down. His eyes filled with the horror of a lake of fire, blazing up, dangerously close to the bridge. He threw out one arm, grabbed a fistful of nothing but scorching wind, screamed as a burst of fire exploded in front of his face, shaking him hard enough to hurl him from the bridge.
He slipped and pitched forward, flailing both arms as he screamed, and began to fall…
The boy’s scream of terror pierced Sandemon’s spirit, jolting him back to his surroundings, hauling him rudely away from the peace of the Presence. Bending over the shrieking youth, he saw that his eyes were open, wide and huge, as if they beheld some mind-shattering horror. Thrusting his arms straight out, the boy grabbed at Sandemon’s shirt like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.
Sandemon’s heart hammered like a fist at his chest as he threw his arms about the youth, holding him tightly. “Hold on, boy! Hold on!”
“Don’t let me fall! Please, God, don’t let me fall!” The boy’s delirium swelled to near madness, and Sandemon clasped him even closer to his chest.
“You won’t fall! Hold on to Sandemon! I won’t let you fall!”
He went on crooning to the terrified youth as if he were an infant to be soothed. Finally, little by little, the boy quieted, though his hands never loosened their death grip on Sandemon’s shoulders.
Easing him back just a little, Sandemon searched the boy’s eyes. Tierney’s gaze cleared, then finally focused. “You are safe,” Sandemon assured him gently. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now.”
The boy stared up at him, and even as he watched, Sandemon saw the fear return, the horror remembered. He held the boy with one arm around his shoulder, putting an ear to his chest. The heat of his body had cooled measurably. The heartbeat was already increasing in strength.
He would recover.
“What happened?” the boy asked, his tongue thick. “Where have I been? What happened to me?”
Still holding him, Sandemon searched the youthful, frightened face, damp and slick with perspiration.
“I think, Tierney Burke, that you have been to the gates of hell,” Sandemon replied, his own voice weak and somewhat unsteady. “God be thanked that in His mercy, He brought you back.”
The boy lay so still he seemed not to breathe. Those searching blue eyes, in which Sandemon had seldom seen anything but the darkness of cynicism or the glint of pride, were now glazed with something else. For a moment, Sandemon thought the youth would mock him, and he stiffened, bracing himself for more insult.
But Tierney Burke merely lay staring up at him, limp as a broken doll. To Sandemon’s amazement, the boy grasped his free hand and clung to it. “Thank you…”
Sandemon waited, holding his breath.
“I almost fell…I would have died.” He stopped, gasping. “Thank you…for holding me back. For not letting go of me. I owe you…Sandemon.”
“It was not I who kept you from falling, Tierney Burke, but your merciful Savior. He held you back to give you more time—time to make your choice between death and life, between heaven and hell.”
Tierney gave a weak nod, his eyes closing. Sandemon’s eyes filled, but he smiled a little as he gently eased the boy down on the pile of quilts that served as his pallet. Then, getting to his feet, he went to glance out the window. The wind had stilled, leaving the night hushed and peaceful once more. He gave a weary but relieved sigh, then started to tiptoe past the sleeping Jan Martova.
“Sandemon?” the Gypsy called softly.
Stooping down beside him, Sandemon asked, “How are you feeling? Better now?”
The Gypsy nodded as if to say he was doing all right. His eyes met Sandemon’s and he reached to touch his arm. “I was listening to you,” he said. “I heard you praying for Tierney Burke…and speaking of your God. The One you call your Savior.”
Sandemon nodded, wondering what was to come.
“Will you tell me more?” asked the Gypsy.
“More?” puzzled Sandemon.
“Tell me more about your Jesus.”
Slowly, a smile broke across Sandemon’s face. Forgetting his fatigue, the countless hours without sleep, he sank down to sit on the floor beside the Gypsy. “Indeed, I will,” he said, patting the boy’s hand. “You just rest, now, and I will tell you more about my Jesus.”
In her bed upstairs at Nelson Hall, Annie stirred in her sleep. Turning over, she opened her eyes, listening.
The wind had stopped. Still she listened, just to be sure. Finally, hearing nothing, she yawned and reached over to stroke Fergus’s head. Then she tugged the covers securely under her chin and murmured one last drowsy prayer for Sandemon and, after a moment, another for Tierney Burke and the Gypsy.
Turning over, she gave a soft sigh and went back to sleep.
PART THREE
LIGHT OF HOPE
Glorious Grace
See to it that no one misses the grace of God.
HEBREWS 12:15
32
Suffer the Children
We never knew a childhood’s mirth and gladness,
Nor the proud heart of youth, free and brave.
LADY WILDE (1824-1896)
Early November
New York City
For the first time since the choir’s inception, Evan Whittaker shortened a Thursday rehearsal. He was anxious to leave the Five Points before dark, and he still had two stops to make before going home.
With November bearing down upon the city, the days seemed much shorter. Even though it was only a little past four, the gloom of early evening was already gathering, casting deep shadows over the streets—and over Evan’s spirits. He now turned Lewis Farmington’s buggy onto Mulberry Street, where Billy Hogan lived, and a vague sense of anxiety churned in the pit of his stomach. Despite the boy’s unmistakable enthusiasm for the singing group, Billy had shown up only once in six weeks for rehearsal. That had been three weeks past, and for the entire hour the little fellow had not once looked Evan in the eye. He had been nervous and withdrawn, tucking his chin against his shoulder as if to hide the ugly bruise darkening his temple.
Evan had sensed something unsettlingly different about Billy that day. The boy had seemed distant, withdrawn—removed from the others in the group, and from Evan.
Troubled over the lad’s peculiar behavior, Evan had made an attempt to talk with some of the other boys about him, but had learned nothing. Even Billy’s closest friend, Tom Breen, had been no help, although Evan sensed an odd evasiveness in the older boy’s replies. Each time Evan questioned him, Tom said the same thing: yes, he still saw Billy; but, no, not recently; and no, he hadn’t a clue as to where Billy might be keeping himself on Thursday afternoons.
“Workin’ at his papers or shovelin’ coal for the Arab, most likely” was all the Breen lad ever volunteered. On one or two occasions, Evan thought the boy had been about to add something, but instead he merely shrugged and walked away.
Today, he intended to ask his questions directly of Billy himself if he found him at home. If not, he would talk with someone in the family. He had taken quite a liking to the thin little lad with the wheat-colored hair and angelic voice. He would hate to think Billy might be ill or in some sort of trouble.
Later, Evan intended to stop by the mission clinic to see Dr. Grafton. The physician’s request that Evan “drop in” concerned him more than he liked to acknowledge. He had tried for weeks to coax Nora into visiting the doctor, always with no success. Invariably, s
he insisted that she was “perfectly fine, only a bit tired,” and he was to “stop fussing over her.”
As luck would have it, Dr. Grafton had dropped by the house late one afternoon to check on Teddy. Evan had been at home at the time and, against Nora’s protests, insisted the doctor examine her as well. But despite his concerns he was nevertheless caught unawares when that impromptu examination led to another, this one at the doctor’s office in Manhattan. Then, just today the message had come through Daniel that Evan was to stop by the mission clinic, after hours.
He could not help but worry that his fears about Nora’s health might be justified after all. In spite of her insistence that there was nothing wrong, she seemed exhausted by the slightest exertion, continued to eat poorly, and appeared altogether enervated by the end of the day.
Daniel, too, had recently confided a concern for his mother’s health. Like Evan, he had noticed her extreme thinness and unnatural color. All things considered, Evan thought he had reason to feel uneasy.
Sighing heavily, he brought the buggy to a halt in front of an ugly brown tenement squeezed in between two others just like it. For a moment, he sat studying the building. It was a harsh picture of decay, with rotting doorframes and windows; the filth of decades scaled its entire frontage. At first glance it appeared strangely top-heavy, as if the building itself were leaning forward. A closer inspection revealed that its peculiar listing appearance was actually the fault of a sagging porch. It ran the length of the second floor and looked as if it might break off from the rest of the structure at any moment.
The place was so stark and ugly it appeared almost malevolent. Its neighboring dwellings were equally hideous. Evan felt faintly ill at the thought of a child like Billy Hogan growing up in such abominable surroundings.
The children playing in the street were, for the most part, filthy, dressed in rags that scarcely covered them. They seemed to pay no heed to the garbage and animal offal that was everywhere. Wild-looking dogs prowled about, ignoring the children as they scavenged for food.
One never quite got used to the abandoned children, Evan thought—the homeless, and the hopeless, forgotten little ones. Even those with a roof over their head at night often had no real home, only a place to sleep. With drunken or destitute parents, there was frequently no nurturing, no family life, no love. He had been told by Sara Farmington Burke—and he believed it—that in the Five Points, a child could simply disappear one day without a single soul ever knowing or caring where he might have gone.
“God help them,” he said under his breath as he stepped out of the buggy and stood, bracing himself to enter the building. “God help them all…and please, God, help Billy Hogan.”
Nora sat in the rocking chair by the front window, gazing down at the warm, sleeping infant in her arms. She touched a finger to one incredible soft cheek, then to a corner of the tiny mouth, curved in the hint of a smile as he slept.
It was hard to believe that he had been with them only a few months. Why, last year at this time she hadn’t even known she was carrying him!
Teddy was such a good babe. Never a moment’s trouble, not even when he was restless in the night. He seldom cried, except when he was hungry. He would lie quietly in his crib for the longest time, smiling and watching the bright-colored wooden animals Daniel had hung from the ceiling to amuse him.
Glancing out at the afternoon’s deepening gloom, she gathered the baby closer, shivering in spite of the room’s warmth. Like the late afternoon shadows pressing in from outside, a distant specter of uneasiness infiltrated her thoughts, dimming her earlier glow of contentment.
Over the past few weeks, she had grown increasingly aware that she wasn’t well. At first she hadn’t been all that concerned, only impatient with her slow recovery from Teddy’s birth. But she was practical enough to realize that she was no longer a young chick, and she could hardly expect to breeze through the birthing process as if she were.
Moreover, if she were to be entirely honest with herself, she would have to concede that it had been a risk from the beginning, having Teddy. She couldn’t have been overly strong when she conceived; no doubt months of famine and the scarlet fever had taken their toll on her. It was only natural, she tried to remind herself, that it would take time to recover her health.
But Teddy was over four months old now, and instead of feeling stronger, she felt her strength failing. Exhaustion was an ongoing problem. Weariness seemed to plague her from the time she left her bed in the morning until she collapsed on it again at night. Yet there was no good reason for her to feel so depleted. It wasn’t as if she were overworked, after all. Johanna and Daniel John helped out as much as they could. Aunt Winnie came in once or twice a week and spent the day. And although Evan was already far too busy, he always found time for her and the children.
She had said nothing at all to Evan, of course. He fretted enough on his own without her adding to it. But he was obviously suspicious of her attempts to convince him that she was actually doing quite well. In fact, both he and Sara were set on finding extra household help for her—a notion that made Nora feel altogether useless. Just two weeks past, Sara had even gone so far as to send over a girl from one of the immigrant societies, on a “trial basis.” The experiment had proved an utter failure after two days’ time, when Nora caught the girl being hateful with poor Johanna and sent her packing.
Secretly, she rather hoped Sara wouldn’t find anyone else. She didn’t like the idea of having a stranger about the house doing work she ought to be doing herself. She liked even less the notion of a stranger helping to take care of her precious baby boy. She knew Evan and Sara had only her best interests at heart, but she couldn’t help but wish they would forget the whole idea.
Something else, however, had begun to worry Nora more than the fatigue. For weeks now, at the most unexpected times, a heaviness would suddenly settle over her chest, followed by a dull, squeezing pain. It seldom lasted long—a few seconds at most—but it was occurring more and more frequently.
Although she hadn’t breathed a word about it to anyone, she was afraid Dr. Grafton might have noticed something when he last examined her. He had asked her endless questions about herself, listening to her chest for what seemed an excessively long time. Although his manner had been as friendly and professional as ever, Nora thought he might have been quieter than usual. That same day, he surprised her by suggesting that she consider weaning Teddy early, hinting that she should do whatever she could to conserve her strength.
Nora was trying her utmost to appear fit and strong around Evan, determined he should not suspect anything amiss. Yet she could no longer pretend to herself that everything was as it should be, and she wasn’t altogether certain that she was doing the right thing, trying to hide her condition from Evan. The children had to be considered, after all. What if something should happen to her, and Evan were caught totally unprepared? How would he manage? With Teddy still an infant and Johanna not only physically handicapped but emotionally troubled as well—how could he manage?
Glancing up, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the room. She lifted a hand to her hair, tucking a few gray wisps under the darker strands about her temples. Impulsively, she pinched her cheeks a bit, watching as a faint pink stain crept over them.
But the color quickly fled, and the reflection that stared back at her seemed that of a stranger: a gaunt, ashen-skinned stranger, with dull, shadowed eyes which at the moment glinted with something that looked very much like fear.
After sending one of the kitchen boys from the downstairs tavern with a message for Jess Dalton, Nicholas Grafton hastily scrawled another note, this one for Evan Whittaker:
Forgive my absence, but emergency demands my immediate attention. Will talk with you later in the week. N.G.
Grabbing his medicine case, the doctor tacked the note on the outside door of the mission room, then hurried downstairs.
He had not expected this call quite so soon, yet now
that it was here, he wasn’t surprised. Both he and Elizabeth Ward had known for days the end was rapidly approaching. Nicholas was convinced that the only thing that had kept the stricken young woman going was her concern for her baby daughter. She had never ceased hoping and praying that a letter would arrive from her father in England, a letter that would ease her mind about her little girl’s future.
Nicholas’s jaw tightened as he climbed into his carriage. Every time he thought about the foolish, stubborn man in England who had turned his back on his only daughter, he wanted to drive his fist through a wall.
For weeks he had watched Elizabeth Ward’s hope turn to anguish at the deafening silence from her father. And now, at the end, the poor girl must endure not only the crushing pain of her disease, but despair and fear for her child as well.
At first he had been convinced that Edward Winston, Elizabeth’s father, would reply immediately to his letter on her behalf. No matter how wronged the man might consider himself, he was a father. And a father, as Nicholas knew firsthand, had a way of putting aside any wrong to himself when the well-being of his children was at stake.
But as time went on, Nicholas reluctantly accepted the fact that there would be no reply, no last-minute letter to restore the dying young mother’s hope. Apparently, Edward Winston had been unmoved by every plea for his daughter, despite the fact that his heartlessness would send her to the grave unconsoled—and might well cause his granddaughter to end up in a city orphanage.
People like Edward Winston seldom considered the consequences of their pride, Nicholas thought angrily: the long-lasting and sometimes widespread effects of their selfishness. Did they ever give a thought to the lives that might be damaged, or even destroyed, by the intractable withholding of grace, the stubborn refusal to forgive?
