“For we are many.”
Andrew catches movement from his left as Sheriff Baker steps around the bed, unhurried, grim-faced. He raises his pistol, presses it against the bony hinge of his brother’s jaw, just below the temple, and pulls the trigger.
The gunshot is deafening in the small room. Andrew screams and covers his ears. A spray of Paul’s head bursts away and finds a wall. He slumps backward, landing awkwardly atop the bed. A broken doll. A mewling sound escapes his lips, a long moan that is part vocal, part the finite hiss of escaping life.
Andrew pushes away from the wall, puts a hand on Poole’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Poole nods and they both step forward, look down at what remains of Paul Baker. “We should pray for his soul,” Poole says, but without energy.
Andrew says nothing, can only stare at the man dying on the blood-soaked bed.
He watches, solemnly, as Paul Baker’s head twitches once before his jaw falls open, the black tongue lolls out, and his body goes still.
12
I HEAR THE GUNSHOT AND THINK, AT FIRST, IT’S MY recurring dream. The memory of my father. But sitting up in bed, I know it’s not. After finally getting everyone back to sleep, some are stirring once more, whispering in urgent tones to neighboring beds.
I consider getting up again, finding out what happened. But I fear Johnson’s warning. I lay here struggling with my thoughts, conflicted as to what to do . . . what if there’s danger? I need to protect the others. If the men brought guns . . .
My thoughts are shattered by the crashing sound of the dormitory doors blasting inward, blown open with such force that they smash against the walls. A few boys scream and now everyone’s awake, or so I assume. I leap from the bed, standing to face whatever comes to us from the dark with such strength. Such anger.
But there is nothing.
There is no one.
The hallway beyond the open doors is dark and empty. It seems to stretch forever, an otherworldly corridor, ending in oblivion.
I turn to notice David also standing and, like me, staring dumbly at the open doors, the empty hall. I try to think of what to say, but cannot formulate the words, or come up with any answers.
I have no idea what’s happened.
Only now do I realize that I’m shaking uncontrollably.
Before I can think further, I watch in disbelief as the heavy iron cross hanging above the doors—the one I have seen every morning, noon and night for the last ten years of my life, seemingly unmovable—dislodges from its mount and falls, clattering like a broken bell against the floor, where it rests.
I turn, dazed, and see many of the other boys are now out of their beds, standing and staring. Someone is crying. Another boy moans in his sleep, as if fighting his own nightmare.
For a few minutes, no one moves. There is no more sound.
Outside, the snow falls heavily past the windows.
I notice Simon, a silver-trimmed shadow. He stands with his back to me, facing out the large window between our beds, framed within black sky, gusting flakes of snow.
I start to ask if he’s okay, but decide not to.
He seems transfixed by the night.
Part Two
Sides
13
I WAKE UP.
The room is filled with brilliant daylight.
About half the boys are already awake, a few even dressed, which is odd. I haven’t heard Poole ringing the morning bell, and it appears other haven’t, as well.
I look at the clock on my bedside table. My waking brain is slow to understand what I’m seeing. It reads just past six-thirty, and the memories of last night come back to me. At first, I wonder if any of it was real, or only a dream.
Screaming men? A gunshot?
Did David and I really sneak out to the foyer? It’s all . . . muddled.
And the doors. And the cross.
I sit up and look at the doors, which are closed.
The cross, however, is leaned against a wall. I remember now. That’s right where I’d set it after I finally mustered the courage to get out of bed and close the doors, seal off the dormitory from whatever was happening in the rest of the building. That done, I went around to a few of the cots, tried to comfort the younger kids. Poor Michael was beside himself. Sobbing hard. Asking for his dead mother again and again. Finnegan and Jonathan, the inseparables, were found hiding together under a cot. It took David nearly ten minutes to talk them out and back into their beds.
Some of the boys, strangely, hadn’t even stirred.
They’d slept through it all, apparently. I envied them. Especially now, with my eyes heavy and my head throbbing.
I sit up, look across the room. David is still asleep, and I decide to let him be. Simon, in the next bunk, is also still lying down. But I can tell he’s awake.
Because his eyes are open.
He’s staring right at me.
“Simon,” I ask, rubbing my tired eyelids. “You okay?”
He doesn’t answer, but continues to watch me closely, the sheet pulled up past his mouth. I know it seems odd, but it almost looks as if he’s smiling.
“Do you know what time it is?” I ask. “We should be up. My alarm . . .”
He doesn’t answer, but （thankfully） closes his eyes, apparently finished with the conversation. I wonder why one of the priests hasn’t come to wake us. Today was to be another day in the fields, pulling whatever crop we could from the hard ground before the snow . . .
The snow.
I jump out of bed, stand on the cold floor and look out the window. The sky is a sheet of white, the sun pale as a blind eye. I step close to the window, turn my gaze downward, and gasp.
The ground is covered in snow. The fresh layer appears to be at least a couple inches deep, maybe more.
In the near distance, the large, black-cloaked form of Brother Johnson catches my eye, a blank space against the white. He walks into the gap between the barn and the narrow road, and I realize he’s going to get Bartholomew. I can’t help but wonder if the boy is still alive.
My peripheral vision flitters. I hear windswept voices. I press my forehead against the cold, wet glass, and look down to my left. What I see there explains why we haven’t been disturbed. I assume the priests most likely hoped we’d all sleep through the morning.
This is not something they’d want the children to see.
Poole, Andrew, and Father White stand outside our graveyard, which is nothing but a small patch of crudely fenced-in ground dotted with crosses, the tapered points rammed into the earth near the heads of dead boys. To my knowledge, at least one priest sleeps in the earth with the orphans, a man named Gideon who died the year I arrived, having succumbed to a strain of flu that also claimed the lives of several children.
Standing with the priests are three other men, and I assume they’re the ones who arrived in the night. Closer to the road is a horse-pulled wagon. Three more horses are tied to a nearby gate, stomping the thin layer of snow to mud.
On the ground at the men’s feet, wrapped head-to-toe in brown sackcloth, are two bodies. I can’t tell if the men are preparing to bury them or take them away. I assume one of the bodies is the injured man Johnson spoke of. I have no idea who the other might be.
I try to recall the sounds from the night’s chaos: the horrible laughter, the screams, the loud voices . . . the pistol shot.
Was a man murdered here? I wonder, and decide I’ll need to pry the entire story out of Andrew as soon as the right moment allows.