For the second time in as many days, David sits at my table. Right now, he’s across from me, and I’m glad. He and I need to be unified if we’re going to get through this and, more importantly, help the others get through this.
I look down at my plate and nearly weep as my stomach wheezes in despair.
Two pieces of watery cabbage. A potato so small and knotted it takes all my willpower not to put the whole thing in my mouth at once for the fulfillment of having, temporarily, the wonderful feeling of being full. That, and so I won’t have to look at the ugly, misshapen thing another second.
“Did you hear about Michael?” David asks.
Oh no.
“Tell me.”
David takes a moment to see who is within earshot, and it strikes me again how paranoid all the kids are acting now. As if everyone is wary of everyone else.
“James went to the outhouse after Poole’s big speech, saw Michael wandering around outside, along the fence by the road. He called out to him but got no answer. When he went close to check on him . . .”
“What?”
David swallows hard, takes a moment, then continues. “He was all bloody. James said his hands were like raw meat.” David shakes his head. “He’d chewed off his own fingers.”
“David . . .”
“It’s true, Pete.”
I’m disgusted, and more than a little skeptical. This must be exaggeration. The rumors now will be far worse than any truth, but this seems a step too far. “Sorry, I don’t believe it.”
David shrugs. “I checked his bed before dinner. It’s soaked in blood. One of the staff was up there with an armful of sheets just as I was leaving.”
“Then it was an accident. Got his hand caught in something.”
David stabs at a leaf of soggy cabbage with his fork. “Maybe. But James says his mouth was dripping blood, and that he was laughing like a fool.” David drops his fork on the table, rubs his face. “God, I can’t eat this shit anymore.” He looks at me, almost accusatory. “I thought you brought back supplies.”
“We did. A wagonful,” I say, as if it serves as an explanation for being forced to eat scraps. “There are many of us,” I add lamely.
David grumbles and sighs, picks up the fork and stabs again, lifts the dull green cabbage into his mouth, chewing slowly. He takes a small sip of milk, most likely wanting to make it last. “Anyway, he’s in the infirmary.”
I nod, decide not to pursue it. It’s both too bizarre and too awful to think about, so I change the subject. “John Hill says a few weeks of hard winter are coming.”
David smiles coyly, and I know what’s next. Despite everything, David will always find a way to tease me mercilessly about certain things.
I’m an idiot for bringing up John Hill.
“And how is young Grace?” he says.
Feeling myself reddening, I pour all my focus into the cutting of my potato. “Fine,” I say.
When I look up again, expecting to see that jackal’s smile of his and be tortured with more questions meant to embarrass me, I’m surprised to see he’s not focused on me at all . . . but on the room. His cheer has vanished, and I almost want to mention Grace again, if only to lift his spirits. If chiding me helps, let me help.
“Quiet in here,” he says.
It’s true. There’s the scrape of cutlery against dishes, and nothing else.
No arguing.
No laughing.
No teasing.
Not even a belch or a fart, nor the ensuing giggles. I glance around at the nearby tables, see morose faces intent on their food.
I don’t know if it’s my frayed nerves, my lack of nourishment, or my exhaustion, but as I look around the room, I see not only boys, but flitting shadows. They slip from boy to boy, dashing in and out of corners, resting in laps, on tables, over shoulders.
I blink and rub my eyes. Why am I cursed with seeing things? Phantoms and prancing shadows? I want to whimper from the rising terror that scrambles up my spine, bit-by-bit, like a fat spider trying to reach my tired mind and slip inside, take over.
When I remove my knuckles from my eyes, I notice Simon, three tables over, watching me. Next to him is that nefarious Jonah. His other new friends, Terrence and Samuel, sit across from him, showing me their backs.
I offer a small wave. But Simon, instead of waving back, does the oddest thing.
He sticks out his tongue.
It’s unusually long, and blackened.
I turn away, refocus on what remains of my meal, which now looks less like food and more like garbage—rotten greens, moldy potato. I don’t feel well. I don’t feel that things are right. Something is wrong, and Basil’s death, I think, is not the root of it, but the result of it.
Something is wrong with me.
“What’s happening,” I say, not meaning to speak the words aloud.
David hears me, however, and nods. “I don’t know, friend. But if this was a dancing girl, I’d say we’ve only seen the skirts of it. The kicking legs are soon to come.”
I set down my fork and look at him, feel the world climb back to a sense of normality. David’s eyes are wide with feigned innocence. “And what would you know of dancing girls?”
He chuckles at that, and the sound is elixir to my soul. “Hey, you’re the saint, remember? I’m the rapscallion. And proud of it.”
He jams a fork of potato in his mouth, then makes a face. He speaks through a mouthful of mush. “Are the eyes supposed to be crunchy?”
We stare at each other for a second, then both burst into laughter.
It’s the only human sound in the room.
30
THE SMALL LIBRARY IS MY FAVORITE PLACE IN THE orphanage.
The room was originally built as part of the chapel, the walls built from the same bluish gray stone. Heavy oak crossbeams detail the high, vaulted ceiling. There’s one window, above my reach, that in the daytime hours filters the sun, turns it crimson and blue, the colors of the image painted onto the glass: a guardian angel wearing a royal blue cloak, bold white wings unfurled, looking down from a blood-red sky. At night, the glass turns pure black, an empty mirror.
The floor is constructed with the same smooth stone as the foyer, giving the library a medieval feel. At each end of the oval-shaped room are two heavy wooden doors, crafted from dark oak and bolted through with rough, black iron studs. One door leads to the chapel, the other to the hallway where the priests’ rooms are settled. The walls are covered in high shelves the same dark wood as the doors and filled with hundreds of tomes. Some of the shelving cases are designated for use by all, including the boys. Most, however, are exclusive to the priests and, when part of my private lessons, to myself as well.
The only thing about the library I dislike is the painting that hangs between two of the bookcases—an artist’s depiction of hell splayed across a huge canvas. It has an elaborate, gold-painted frame that is almost disgustingly lavish given the image within, which is dark, graphic, and cruel.
In the painting, which Andrew once informed me was done by one of the founding priests of St. Vincent’s, is an elaborate tableau of human suffering, demons, and a bleak, flaming landscape. The humans, naked and corpse-like, as if on the brink of starvation, are being poked into a lake of flames by the demons, who hold spears, swords, and daggers. The demons are spike-tailed, black-skinned devils, but their faces are almost angelic, a conflicting depiction that makes them seem even more obscene than if they had horns at their temples, wild yellow eyes, gnashing teeth.