by Debra Dunbar
“I have a plan. I’ve spent the last two weeks researching, gathering information, following breadcrumbs. This isn’t some knee-jerk action on my part. I’ve been thinking this out for days, and here, like a sign from God or something, is my opportunity. I can’t let it pass me by.”
Sadie reached for Hattie, halting her pacing. “Doesn’t that worry you? That maybe this is a trap?”
“It would, if it were the doing of someone else. And trust me, I’ve put some thought into it. The Hell pincher leaves this sort of road map to eliminate anyone foolish enough to hunt him down. People like me. But this wasn’t the Hell pincher’s doing. Or the mob. Or anyone else but me. I did this. I followed my instincts, and they led me right here.” She jabbed the top of the bed with her finger. “As if I was always meant to end up here.”
Sadie lowered her gaze to the floor, then ran a finger under her nose to think. “Soul twins are said to have a connection of sorts. No one’s pursued it with an academic bent, because it’s rare enough just to find soul twins.”
“It’s not our connection,” Hattie urged. “It’s something greater. It’s fate, or something like it.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “Do you believe in God?”
“No,” Sadie replied matter-of-factly.
“I never gave the matter much thought. But, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like there’s a hand at work. Something bigger, smarter, but benevolent.”
“I think you’re just tired.”
A voice added from the doorway to the bathroom, “I believe in God.”
They turned to find Charley holding himself up against the door jamb. He still looked as if he’d been run over by a truck, but at least he was clean, and his hair and beard chopped into some sort of order.
“How are you?” Hattie asked.
“Can’t sleep.”
“You were out for seven hours.”
He winced. “Oh, yeah? I feel like I could go another seven hours. Then a day. And a week.”
Sadie stood up, straightening her dress before offering a hand to the man.
“My name is Sadie O’Donnell. Hattie contacted me regarding your…” She struggled for the word.
“Freedom?” he suggested.
“That. Yes. Look, I represent a group whose mission is to—”
“I know who you are,” he muttered. “I, uh, I knew your husband.”
Sadie pulled her hand away, stepping back two steps.
Charley continued, “He was my cottage mate. That don’t mean nothing to you, I know. But it means he was the only soul I had to talk to for a while. A good while.”
Sadie whispered, “That was a year ago.”
Charley’s face drew into a knot of grief. “That…that long?”
Hattie reached out for him. “It’s okay,” she whispered.
“A year?” His voice caught in a raspy moan. “My…my girls.”
“Where are you from?” Hattie asked.
Through a sniffle, he replied, “Portland.”
Sadie rubbed her face, lingering for a strength-gathering moment before clearing her throat and steeling her nerve. “Maine? That’s a good piece from here.”
“Do…do you think they’re…they’re still alive?” His voice cracked. “They’re not pinchers. My wife wasn’t one of us, and none of them got my abilities. She died when the youngest was born. I’m all they have…”
Charley wept for a moment, then began to pace the room. “I have to go home. I got two girls. I don’t know where they are. Oh, God…who has my girls?”
Hattie lifted a finger to her lips to shush him down to a conversational volume. “We can get you wherever you need to go. We can help you find your girls, get all three of you somewhere safe. That’s what we do. That’s what the Charge does.”
When did the Charge become “we” to her?
“We’ll find out where your girls are, Charley,” she promised. “We will. We’ll do it, because we’re all free pinchers here.”
Charley nodded as he gathered himself.
“You said you knew Jonas?” Sadie asked
“He was on the other side of the wall. There’s, uh, two people. Two in each cottage. Got two cells each. They keep you apart sometimes. Sometimes not. Depends on the proctor.”
Hattie squinted. “What’s a proctor?”
“The one in charge of the…” He shuddered. “The pain.”
Sadie closed her eyes.
“But you knew Jonas?” Hattie prodded.
Charley wobbled on his legs, and Hattie guided him to the bed to sit.
“Thank you,” he wheezed. “Yeah. He was there I think last summer. It gets hot in the summer. Most of the others just came and went. Probably sold.”
Hattie blanched as she peered up at Sadie.
Charley continued, “But Jonas? He was there for a while. He was like a hunk of pig iron, that man. Nothing they did got to him. Which…well, it made things worse.”
“How so?” Sadie whispered.
“If they can’t break one of you, they go hard on the other. Pit you against the other. I figure it’s part of their stupid method, whatever that’s supposed to be. Our first proctor wasn’t so good at it. Then they brought in a different one. Oh,” Charley held his head in pain. “He was the Devil, Himself. He could break your bones with a snap of his fingers. He’d be smooth and nice and make you think maybe he was on your side, then he’d turn on you.”
Hattie exchanged an uneasy glance with Sadie. “And yet, after all that, you still believe there’s a God?”
“I do. God spoke to me. Told me it would get better one day. All I had to do was carry on, survive.” Charley wiped his face then added, “Most times they only take one.”
“One what?” Sadie asked.
“Like I said, there’s two of us in each cottage. It’s like a play, and those are our roles. They want the money we bring when they sell us, so usually both get trained and prepared for auction, but I learned early on they didn’t want to sell me to anyone. Guess they couldn’t figure out how my powers could make them any money. There’s a few of us there like that. We just…live…there. Eternal torture. All to play a part for the new people. And if the new people are, what? Bankable but stubborn? They need someone to scare them straight. We’re the ones they use. They break us over and over and over again.”
Hattie’s arms trembled, but she got a hold of herself as Charley continued.
“Jonas…your husband…he was a saint. I’ll tell you that much. He saw right through them. All of them. He didn’t just know the game they were playing, he knew the rules. He made Sebastian, the proctor, angry. Just…he was enraged.”
Hattie eyed Sadie, who looked ready to jump out of her own skin.
Charley nodded with a weary smile. “When Sebastian gets angry, he gets…creative. I don’t think there was a day I didn’t die.”
“Die?” Hattie asked.
“He’d pulverize me. Again. And again. Every bone in my body. And he’d do it every time Jonas mouthed off. He…he learned. He learned if he pushed back, I’d be the one to suffer. Sometimes Ithaca doesn’t punish the strong. They punish the weak. Divide us. Keep us from trusting each other, from ever wanting to band together in anything but the service of our masters.”
Hattie stared at the man in horror. “What happened? Since then? How did you escape?”
Charley’s eyes darted away from hers. “I, uh, don’t know. I mean, it all feels like yesterday.”
“You got out. And I’m happy that happened,” she said. “And we’re going to get you back to Portland to find your girls, then we’re gonna get you all someplace safe. But first, I need to ask something of you. I need you to be brave and do something for me—something that’s gonna help more pinchers get to safety.”
Charley’s eyes went wide. He leaned away from Hattie.
She continued. “I need to know how you escaped that place. And then I need you to do something for me.”
He let out a deep-throated m
oan, but Hattie squared herself against him. She’d done her best to piece this man together, but he stood on a razor’s edge. One slip to the right, and he’d fall into utter madness. One slip to the left, and he’d fly away to Maine and never be heard from again.
Hattie needed him to balance on the edge of the knife just a little longer. She needed him to keep himself together.
As for Sadie, she’d had lost someone to Ithaca already. Somehow, she’d become calloused to her pain. She accepted it as a given. But it wasn’t simply a “given.” It was something that could be interrupted. Subverted. One virtuous man could be saved. If only this fur pincher could help her save him.
With some coaxing, Charley outlined the layout of Ithaca farm. The cottages. This mysterious chalet he kept referring to. The faces and names he’d heard passing through the compound. Hattie ferreted out the limits of his powers, the animals he could transform into and how long he could maintain it.
When it came to convincing him not to fly away to Maine, but to stay a bit longer, even unto returning to Ithaca to help them boost Vincent, it took Sadie’s indomitable will. Sadie pulled out of her rigid refusal to accept the situation and found her voice again. The voice of the Charge. That calm, reassuring voice of reason that cut through the despair for countless free pinchers and focused each one on a new task. One that was more arduous, more dangerous, and perhaps even doomed to fail. Usually this task was their sojourn to the West, where the powerful families had yet to establish their stranglehold over the pinchers.
But today, it was a very different sort of quest. It was a plunge into the heart of darkness.
“Jimsonweed,” Charley finally declared. “That’s how I did it.”
Sadie poured herself some coffee from the room service they’d ordered. “How?”
“I told you…the assessor of the joint is some sort of water pincher. Makes potions to keep powers bedded down.”
Hattie nodded. “I’ve had experience with this sort of elixir.”
“Well, my mother was a gardener. She knew all sorts of herbs and plants. Used to brew up remedies for the country folk. Nursing mothers, people with kidney stones. All that sort of thing.”
“The jimsonweed?” Sadie pushed.
“I knew it had an effect on the brain. You boil it down, and it can…” He made a squirrely circle with his finger around his own temple, before reaching for some bacon from the food service cart.
Hattie asked, “You wanted to get numb?”
“I wanted to get dead. Those people don’t know what’s growing in their own fields. Jimsonweed everywhere. Side of the paths they used to force-march us on. So, I picked some flowers. I’d heard how if you took too much jimsonweed, it could kill you. I saved it up. Then, just last week, I ate them all. Just ate them. It didn’t kill me. Made me sicker than a toad, but it had an effect.”
“What effect?” Sadie asked, leaning forward.
“That elixir? The one that killed our powers? I think the jimsonweed undid whatever it did. I got my powers back. All of a sudden. I didn’t even know what had happened at first. Felt so different. I guess I know why, now. I didn’t think I was there much longer than a few months. Over a year, though? That’s a long time to be under a potion.”
Hattie nodded. “You found a way to undo the water pincher’s elixir.”
“But you won’t need to do that. The day of the auction they don’t give the ones being sold the elixir. They need to demonstrate their powers for the buyers, so they don’t get drugged that day.” He shuddered. “By then they’re too broken to do anything but obey anyway.”
Hattie frowned in thought. “There’s no spell or anything over the auction to prevent people using their powers then? No…no null?”
Sadie shook her head. “He said they need the pinchers to demonstrate. And from what I hear, lots of families send their pinchers to evaluate the talent and bid on them. I’d imagine it would be rude to strip their powers if they’re being asked to buy talent. Can’t imagine the families would go for that.”
Hattie nodded. “This plan I had? With a few changes, I think it’s gonna work. I know someone who will know where the auction will be. I just need to get Vincent a message, then do what I do best.”
“Seriously?” Sadie demanded. “You’re going to go in single-handed with a pocket full of illusions, and try to break this man of yours out of there?”
With a smirk, Hattie replied, “Yes. And I’ve got more than a pocket full of illusions.”
She stood up and wandered to her winter coat, reaching into the pocket to produce an antique gold watch.
Sadie squinted. “What’s that?”
“It’s a cheat. And it’s good to have a cheat every now and then. Especially if you are what we are.”
Hattie turned to Charley.
“So, boy-o. Are you ready to be a hero?”
Chapter 23
Vincent lay on his cot and thought of his situation, recognizing the futility of resistance. All he could do was to steel his inner resolve to the point that even Dominguez couldn’t see it, and hope to get out of there as soon as possible. The man seemed practiced in sniffing out automatic reflexes. Tilts of heads, lifts of chins, narrowing of eyes. An entire language the body speaks to betray the mind.
They would sell him, ship him off to New York City and the war brewing there. They would have him fight, and likely die, in the service of petty warmongers playing lord of the manor. Lefty would remain to train a new pincher for Vito. And the can would be kicked down the block for another year.
And Hattie…hopefully she’d understand. That was the real tragedy of this. He’d sensed they were on the verge of something great together, only to have this happen. He should have kissed her before he left. He should have told her how he felt.
He’d been alone in the cottage since the evaluation, Betty taken off somewhere else. No torture. No lectures. Nothing but silence. Where was Sebastian? Had Dominguez’s words cut so thoroughly through the man’s pride? Was he arguing with the evaluator right now over whatever “deal” he’d thought they had regarding Vincent? Or had the entire complex been dealing with the attempted escape? Was the attempt successful? That might explain the lack of attention he’d received for the day.
He closed his eyes and listened to the nature sounds in the forest surrounding him. An owl sounded its disapproval at something. Must be night. Dinner never came. But as hungry as he was, he was grateful for the respite from pain and Sebastian’s instruction.
A scratching noise at the door caught his attention. Probably another rat. One or two had taken up residence in the attic space, holing up from the winter’s cold. He had grown accustomed to listening to their comings and goings as he had nothing else to occupy himself with. This particular creature seemed to have taken an interest in the door to his cell.
He sat up to find a whiskered snout sticking into the cell underneath the door where it sat at an angle to the crooked floor boards. The rat muscled its way through the undercut of the door, then sat staring around as if searching for something.
Vincent sat up on the cot. “Hello, friend.”
The rat’s joints popped, and its sides inflated, causing Vincent to scramble backward on the cot in alarm. As he watched, the rodent grew in size, tiny arms lengthening and filling, its face drawing back into something resembling a human. The transformation continued until rags replaced fur, a mop of red hair replaced the large rodent ears, and a grimy face stared at Vincent from behind a scraggly beard.
“Finally,” the shapeshifter coughed as he stretched his joints. “You’re Vincent, right?”
Vincent sat stiff and wide-eyed on his cot, unsure if he’d finally gone insane.
The red-bearded fellow reached into his pocket to produce a tiny paper-wrapped package. He held it out for Vincent.
“Here.”
Vincent didn’t move.
“Take it. It’s from a friend.”
Vincent shook his head. “You’re not real.”
“Yeah. I know how you feel. I can’t believe I’m back here.” He looked around the cell. “They’re all the same, aren’t they?”
Vincent got off the cot and took a step forward. “Who…what…are you?”
“Name’s Charley. Look, I don’t mean to show up and shine you off like this, but I have to get outta here.”
“No escape,” Vincent muttered.
“Yeah, there is. I did it once. Don’t intend on coming back.” He waved the package. “Come on, fella.”
Vincent eased his fingers toward the package with caution, taking it into his hand.
“What friend sent this?” Vincent asked.
“Oh, hell’s fire. What was her name?”
“Hattie?”
Charley snapped his fingers. “Right! That’s her. She said she couldn’t be here to give it to you in person.”
Hattie? How had she found him? Had she driven all the way up here with some half-baked idea of breaking him out? Good Lord, that woman was going to be the death of him with her crazy schemes.
Schemes that sometimes worked. And as worried as Vincent was about her getting caught, he was close to tears at the thought of her taking such a risk to help him.
“Where is she?” he asked the other man.
“Not far. Listen, I’m on the clock. Hourly patrol will be here in a couple minutes, and I gotta be gone by then. Hattie says…” He glanced at the ceiling, jogging his memory. “First, that she misses you. And she’s going to help you because even powerful gangsters who pinch time need someone to have their back. Oh, and you have to make the auction tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Make the auction. Make sure you’re picked up and sold at the auction. She has a plan, but I couldn’t follow it. So, just do that. Okay? I gotta go.”
He turned back for the door as Vincent lifted the package and called to him, “What’s this for?”
“Your friend just said to say Merry Christmas.” He nodded. “Good luck. I mean that.”
The man’s joints popped all at once, and his form shrank back into that of a rat. Shoving his way back under the door, he left as suddenly as he’d arrived.
