leeched to a pale glow in the moonlight. Under the cover of dark-
ness, he dug a hole deep enough for a body, then dropped his case
inside.
He spit on it, wishing he could burn it, wishing he didn’t fear
what it held so much. He had promised his mother he would never
look inside, but it was all he had left of his own father.
Into the ground with it, then — the same place the cursed
items had put all those whose lives they’d tainted.
London
Late August, 1900
three
T
HOM'S FINGERS WERE RESTLESS, POUNDING THE NOTES
VIOLENTLY INSTEAD OF THEIR USUAL CARESSING. At the
end of the piece he slammed his fist into the keys, imme-
diately regretting it as the grand piano’s discordant burst sounded
like pain.
He let his forehead drop onto the cool ivory, wishing music
were the refuge it used to be. He couldn’t fall deeply into it,
couldn’t immerse himself far enough to forget to worry.
Standing, he closed the lid carefully. He’d go out. Maybe
someone else’s music could pull him away from reality.
He buttoned a jacket over his vest and raked his fingers
through his hair, slicking it into shape as he looked out over
the New York City night. It glowed and twinkled back with the
promise of escape.
Padding down the thickly carpeted hall, he turned the door-
knob and eased open Charles’s door. His younger brother lay
diagonally across the bed, feet twisted in the sheets, comforter
on the floor, his arm thrown over his face. He never used to sleep
this way, but Thom had been finding him in this position more
and more often. Charles claimed the pressure helped ease the
headaches.
Thom tiptoed into the room, easing the comforter back over
Charles’s much-thinned frame. Charles’s eyes twitched beneath
his lids, rapidly processing dreams. Thom hoped they were dreams
of running, dreams of light and life that would bring his brilliant
brother back from the deathly chasms he walked now.
When Thom went out the front door minutes later, no one
stopped him. No one ever did. At the dance hall, no one stopped
him as he ran himself ragged, the syncopated rhythms of the rag-
time beating out any other thoughts. He kissed a pretty girl who
picked his pocket. He let her. He laughed and danced and did
everything to excess and almost — almost — managed to forget.
When he stumbled home that night, he had just enough wits
about him to do so quietly, tipping the elevator attendant extra as
they reached the penthouse floor. Thom planned to slink down
the hall toward his room but froze when he saw lights on in
his father’s office, leaking out beneath the door. What was his
father doing home? He was never home. The last Thom had heard,
his father was in Germany. Before that, London. Before that,
Chicago.
Anywhere but here, anywhere but where his favorite son
lay ill and his other son frantically tried to make it better, or
numbly tried to escape when it wasn’t. Edward Wolcott was a man
who fixed problems. When the doctors had made it clear that
Charles would never be fixed, well, he’d moved on to things that
could.
Muffled voices drifted toward Thom, and he walked to
the office door, leaning his head against the frame. At first Thom
was confused, sluggishly failing to process what he was hearing.
One of the men sounded like his father, but not the father he knew.
Gone was the cold, imperious authority. Gone was the razor-sharp
efficiency. His father sounded . . . scared. Pleading.
“... surely something else can be arranged. There are
all sorts of boys for the taking, anywhere you look in this city.”
“The nature of a sacrificial offering is that sacrifice is required.”
This other voice was calm, detached but pleasant. A woman.
Thom scowled. Why was his father bringing a woman here? If
they woke up Charles . . .
“You can’t ask me to do this.”
Thom let out a relieved breath. Here was the domineer-
ing man he knew. Even though they’d never gotten along, Thom
realized he depended on the stability of his father’s power.
Heeled footsteps echoed off the marble floor of the office,
slow and uneven, as though the woman were walking around the
room, examining it. “Willingly give one, or be stripped of all. Your
decision. You agreed.”
When Thom’s father spoke again, he sounded as broken as
Thom had felt since Charles had gotten sick. “I’ll make the
arrangements.”
“There’s a good boy,” the woman said.
Thom barely made it around the corner before the office door
opened. Unsettled and unable to ask his father what the con-
versation had been about, Thomas dragged his own pillow into
Charles’s room and slept on the floor, counting Charles’s breaths
until he finally fell into sleep.
The next morning Thom awoke with a pounding headache to find
Charles leaning over the bed, grinning slyly at him.
“Had yourself a bit of a bash last night, I see.”
Thom groaned, swatting ineffectively at his brother. But
secretly he was thrilled, feeling lighter in spite of the pain. With
Charles awake and teasing, it was going to be a good day. A
hopeful day. “I heard some new ragtime,” he croaked. “I think I
remember enough to play it for you.”
“Boys,” their father interrupted from the doorway.
Charles raised an eyebrow quizzically, and Thom rubbed at
his own forehead, renewed unease washing over him. If his father
was here, that meant that last night hadn’t been a dream.
“Come eat breakfast with me.” It wasn’t a request; it was a
command. Thom waited for Charles to ease out of bed and walked
to the dining room with him.
They’d barely begun eating when their father leaned away
from his untouched food and clicked his heavy gold pocket
watch open and shut in a beatless tick that made Thom want to
scream.
Finally their father snapped the watch shut and put it away. He
didn’t look at either of his sons as he said, “You’re going away for the
summer. To Maine, to take the ocean air for Charles’s health.
Agnes will pack your things.”
Thom stuttered in disbelief, “Why? Since when?”
Their father stood, straightening his tie with a slight tremble
in his fingers that Thom hadn’t noticed before. “It’s already
decided.”
He left the room without another word. Charles shrugged
impassively at Thom. “Could be fun, right? Gotta smell better
than the city in the summer.”
Without answering, Thom hurried after their father, catching
him at the elevator. “Dad?”
Edward Wolcott didn’t turn around. The ramrod-straight
lines of his shoulders and back were sloped today. Everything was
off, everything was wrong.
“Why are we going to Maine? And who was that woman here
last night?”
When Thom’s f
ather turned to face him, his steel-gray eyes
looked haunted. “Your brother is dying,” he whispered.
Though Thom knew it was true — had known for months
now — hearing it spoken like an inevitability shook him to
his core.
“He’s not,” Thom said, stubbornly willing it to be true, hating
his father for saying death out loud and making it even more real.
The elevator opened and Thom turned away angrily. As he
stomped back to the door, his father whispered, “Please forgive me.”
It was the first time Thom had ever heard his father use the
word please.
It terrified him.
Paris
Early September, 1900
four
C
HARLES HAD DISCOVERED, MUCH TO HIS SURPRISE, THAT
DYING CAME WITH A WHOLE ARRAY OF BENEFITS
Certainly there was much to be said for not dying
before the age of sixteen, but as that did not appear to be an option,
as much momentum as he could manage.
He knew Thom was angry to be torn away from the city he
loved, but the Johnson Boarding House seemed nice enough. One
place was much the same as any other as far as Charles was con-
cerned. He could tell from the way Thom twitched next to him at
the table, fingers tapping Beethoven on his legs, that they would
have to devise an escape from these group dinners, though.
Beethoven meant Thom was angry. Charles needed to switch
him onto Mozart. Or, better yet, ragtime. A lively ragtime sum-
mer was preferable to a glowering Beethoven one.
A woman who had introduced herself as Mrs. Humphrey sat
at the head of the table, scooping copious amounts of sugar into
her tea while darting glances around to see if anyone noticed. A
fine dusting of the sweet crystals clung to her vast bosom, which,
owing to her short and round stature, rested on the table in front
of her.
She had cooed at him, tsking softly at his pallid complexion.
Illness made people either avoid him or pamper him, and she was
in the latter category. It could come in handy, now that he’d lost
his most malleable nurses.
A honeymooning couple, who fell firmly in the avoid-
acknowledging-the-sick-boy category, were remarking on the
quality of the day and planning a bicycle ride to the lighthouse.
There was another young man probably around Thom’s
age. He clung to the edges, slipping in after introductions,
face neither angry nor pleasant. Everything about him begged
to be ignored in the most polite sort of way. He looked to be no
fun at all.
There was also a man with a full mustache. He was tall, shoul-
ders several inches above the curved wooden back of his chair,
filling out the lines of his finely tailored suit. Something in the
line of his mouth spoke of age to Charles, the gradual, wearing
weight of time. Forty? No, the man’s skin was free of wrinkles and
his hair was a slick, glossy brown, save a streak of gray. Was there
a polite way of asking what his age was? It would bother Charles,
not knowing. He liked to categorize things, filter and sort and
understand and —
A girl of sixteen or seventeen swept into the room, picture-pretty
and efficiently elegant, and Charles no longer cared a whit about
the man. He leaned back, letting a smile play over his mouth in
anticipation. Girls were problems to be solved, and he was very
good at solving problems.
“Thank you, Cora,” Mrs. Humphrey said. Cora! He liked the
shape of the name, the motion of the lips it required.
The silent young man sat straight in his chair. Until that
movement Charles had forgotten he was there. The boy was glar-
ing in alarm at something, so Charles followed his gaze.
The mustachioed man’s eyes followed Cora’s movement and a
slow, creeping leer spread across his face until his upper lip disap-
peared beneath his mustache. Charles fought the urge to mimic
the other boy’s posture of alarm. Cora continued, oblivious. When
she passed the man, Charles saw him breathe in deeply, as though
inhaling her.
Mrs. Johnson, wearing the same white apron as Cora over a
body thickened by age and childbirth, followed her daughter
with a pitcher of lemonade garnished with fresh mint. She paused
in front of the young man, who shook his head slowly, then
looked deliberately at the man, then Cora, then back to Mrs.
Johnson.
In the sudden firming of her jaw and tightening of her lips,
Charles knew the threat had been communicated. She nodded
and the boy let his eyes drift to the corner where the wall met the
ceiling.
Interesting. Charles settled back to watch how it would play
out. He liked learning how things worked — automobiles, facto-
ries, people. People were not so very different from machines.
Once you figured out how all of the parts interacted, you could
very nearly tell what would happen before it occurred. It was clear
the mysterious boy was part of the machinery of this household,
and thus worth noting.
After supper, Charles engaged Thom in a silly argument over
besides the young man left. When Cora came in to clear dishes,
Mrs. Johnson followed.
“Cora,” she said, “you work too hard. You ought to have a free
summer, like you did when you were a little girl.”
“I’m not Minnie,” Cora said with a frown, continuing to stack
plates. “You need me.”
“Minnie?” Charles asked, flashing a dimple to atone for inter-
rupting.
“My other daughter,” Mrs. Johnson said. “She ought to have
been down, but . . .”
“But she’s dotty,” Cora muttered.
Mrs. Johnson turned back to Cora. “I think you should spend
as much time as possible outside in the fresh air. Come fall, you’ll
finish your schooling and never have a summer like this again. I’ve
been meaning to bring the O’Connell girl on, and she’ll be more
than enough help for me and Minnie.”
“I can’t simply do nothing this summer.”
Charles watched the studied, careful nonchalance of Mrs.
Johnson’s delivery, and the way the other boy listened intently
while pretending to do nothing at all. Ah! They were trying to
keep Cora out of the house, and away from the attentions of
that man. Which told Charles that they needed the boarder’s
money, but that Mrs. Johnson was well aware of her daughter’s
safety, and partnered with the boy to secure it.
“Actually,” Charles said, adding a bit of extra wheeze to his
voice, “if I could be so bold, my father had talked of hiring a com-
panion, but companions are always stuffy old women who smell
like cats. I loathe cats. Couldn’t we pay extra to have Cora and
Minnie look after us this summer?”
Thom sputtered in embarrassment next to him, and Charles
stomped hard on his foot under the table. If
Minnie were half as
pretty as her sister, he might have stumbled on a way to keep Thom
happy this summer, too.
Charles continued earnestly. “I think some fun companions
would be just the thing for me.” He coughed, looking up at Cora
and Mrs. Johnson with eyes large and winsome. The mystery boy
met Charles’s gaze suspiciously. Charles was making himself part
of the machinery now.
“It’s settled, then.” Mrs. Johnson patted Cora’s shoulder
as Cora stood still, arms full of dishes, mouth open in shock. “And
Arthur, of course, will keep an eye on you and Minnie for me.”
The other boy, Arthur, had effectively been assigned to be a
chaperone. That’d make things trickier, depending on his relation
to the girls. But Charles was very confident in his summer pros-
pects now, and had the added pride of having helped nice Mrs.
Johnson keep her daughter safe. Everybody won.
After she took the dishes from Cora, Mrs. Johnson called
over her shoulder, “And all of you please remember to keep
your bedroom doors locked at night after you turn in for bed.
House rule.”
“Brilliant!” Charles said, standing and holding out a hand for
Cora to shake. “Thanks so much.”
“Oh, of course. I — it’ll be fun.” Cora’s voice trailed off. She
sounded a bit lost. Charles would make sure she didn’t stay lost.
She needed a task.
“Is there somewhere outside to sit?” he asked. “The evening
looks nice.”
“Yes! Of course. The veranda. Would you like a blanket? I can
make a tea service! But first, come this way.” She walked purpose-
fully out of the room.
“What’re you on about?” Thom growled behind Charles as
they followed Cora through the main floor of the house and
out the back door to a veranda completely boxed in by an ivy-
covered trellis.
Charles whispered over his shoulder, “Oh, I’m sorry, did you
want to spend the whole summer watching me struggle for breath?
Because I think Cora is much prettier to look at than I am.”
Charles sat on a cushioned bench, pleased with himself. Things