A Death-Struck Year (11 page)

Kate’s eyes widened. “Is that true?”

I nodded. “Look at the owl,” I said, pointing.

We climbed the steps. A carved wooden owl perched on the railing. It was ten inches high, round and wise as it looked out onto the street. Kate
ooh
ed and
aah
ed when she realized the porch rail and the owl were one piece, carved from a single length of wood.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She bent to take a closer look. “Your brother must have a romantic soul.”

I made a face. “I wouldn’t go that far. And please don’t ever tell him that.”

Kate laughed. She knocked on the door. When no one answered, she shrugged. “I’ll check the back.”

Kate disappeared around the side of the house. Within minutes she reappeared, unconcerned. “Nothing. I looked in the kitchen window. Everything looks fine. They must be out.”

I couldn’t help picturing Tess Cooke in her bedroom. Unable to call for help. Too far gone to realize she even needed it.

“Let’s ask the neighbors,” I said. “Just in case.”

“Sure.”

We retraced our steps down the path.

“My brother Gabriel loves to build things,” Kate said. “He would spend all day with his blocks if my mama—”

A thud, faint but unmistakable, sounded behind us. We spun on our heels.

“What was that?” My eyes darted around the immaculate yard.

“I don’t know. It sounded like . . .” Kate’s hand clamped around my arm. She pointed up at the house. “Look!”

On the second floor, a crack had appeared in one of the keyhole windows. Even as we watched, it grew, spreading across the glass like a spider’s web. I met Kate’s shocked stare, then raced back up the steps and tried the door.

“It’s locked!” I said.

Kate ran toward the side of the house. I sprinted after her. On the back porch, an assortment of blue flowerpots crowded near the door. Kate was already on her knees, lifting one pot after another.

“This door is locked too,” she said without looking up. I dropped to my knees and started pushing aside pots. One tub was bigger than the others and flowerless, but still filled with dirt. I shoved it aside and saw a brass key.

I held up the key, triumphant. “Found it!”

We scrambled to our feet. I fumbled with the lock. It finally turned. We ran through the kitchen, down the hall, and up a curved staircase. The air was scented with lemon polish and candle wax. Portraits flashed by on the walls. I caught a glimpse of dour men and women dressed in old-fashioned clothing.

At the top of the landing, four rooms branched off. Kate rushed directly to the far end of the hall. I followed, glancing through open doorways as I passed. The first room, a bath, was empty. Across from the bath, a tiny bedroom was unoccupied. Feeble sunlight streamed through the window onto a cradle and a stuffed blue chair. A nursery.

In the third room, a baseball bat stood in the corner beside a desk. The bed was unmade, the patchwork quilt kicked aside. A lone white sock languished on the wood floor. On the nightstand was an old Kodak camera and an empty glass.

“Cleo!” Kate shouted.

I rushed to the last room. A man and woman lay on the bed beneath a pile of bedcovers. The man might have been in his thirties, with damp red hair plastered against his skull. His eyes were closed. The woman was awake, her hair also red, but wild and curly. She shivered as Kate lifted her head and held a glass of water to her lips. The smell of urine, sharp and pungent, saturated the air.

I looked toward the cracked window and saw an apple on the floor beneath it. The woman had thrown it, I realized, to catch our attention. I wondered how she had found the strength.

“Slowly,” Kate said, as the woman gulped the water and choked. “There’s plenty.” She looked over at me, pale and tense. “We can’t carry them. He’s far too heavy, and she’s in a family way.”

For the first time, I noticed the large bump beneath the covers. “I’ll be right back,” I said. I ran down the stairs, searching, relieved when I came across a study. A telephone sat on the desk. I lifted the receiver. There was a crackling noise over the line. A woman’s voice said, “Only essential telephone calls are permitted at this time. What is the nature of your call?”

“I need an ambulance!” I tried to stay calm, but my voice still sounded breathless and panicky. “I have two patients with influenza. One is with child. Please—”

The operator interrupted, sounding frazzled. “Your address?”

I gave it. “Will you be terribly long? The woman is—”

“Help will be sent directly.” And with that, the phone went silent.

“Aargh!” Vexed, I dropped the receiver and ran up the stairs.

“They’re on their way,” I said, at Kate’s questioning look. We both knew that could mean anything. Kate pressed a cloth against the man’s forehead. The woman had fallen asleep, and the sound of labored breathing filled the room. I unlatched the damaged window, careful as I pushed it open. As an afterthought, I pulled on my mask.

“I wonder how long they’ve been like this,” I said.

“Long enough.” Kate pointed her chin at the night table, where a newspaper lay beside the water glass. “It’s yesterday’s paper.”

“I should wait outside. I don’t want them to miss the house.”

Kate nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

The ambulance arrived forty minutes later. Kate and I stood on the sidewalk as the stretcher-bearers loaded the man onto the truck. He was still unconscious. The woman grasped my hand as she was carried past, and would not let go. I bent my head to her ear.

“You’re both being taken to the Auditorium.” I tried to reassure her. “To the hospital. You’re safe now.”

But the woman only gripped my hand tighter. “Jamie,” she whispered. “Please.” She dropped my hand and disappeared into the truck. A moment later, the ambulance sped off.

“That was terrifying.” Kate watched as the truck grew smaller in the distance. “I just want to sit down and cry.”

I was only half listening. I turned to look up at the cracked window.

“Cleo?”

I dashed back into the house and up the stairs, entering the bedroom where I’d seen the baseball bat and camera. Draped over a chair was a navy school jacket. I picked it up and turned it over. My scalp prickled.

Footsteps sounded in the hall.

“For heaven’s sake, Cleo.” Kate walked in, aggrieved. “What is it?”

I held up the jacket so she could see the name neatly stitched onto the inside of the collar. Jamison Jones.

“Kate,” I said. “Where’s the boy?”

We searched the house from top to bottom. We looked under beds and inside armoires. Kate ran outside to check the shed. I peeked into the attic, earning nothing but a face full of cobwebs for my trouble.

In the study—a room filled with heavy wood and dark leather—Kate and I examined a framed photograph on the mantel. Mrs. Jones was seated. She wore an enormous feathered hat. Mr. Jones stood behind her, gruff and serious, along with a skinny teenage boy who looked just like his father.

“Did she actually say he was missing?” Kate asked.

I shook my head. “She just said his name. And she said please.”

“Please what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, frustrated.

Kate was quiet for a moment. “She was sick, Cleo. Maybe she didn’t know what she was saying. He could be with relatives. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Her words made sense. More sense than my own doubt—that tiny niggling feeling that refused to leave me alone. I tried one last thing. Jack had built this house, after all, and he had learned from Papa. I walked over to the glass-fronted bookcase. Standing on tiptoe, I carefully felt along the top edge.

Kate came to stand beside me. Her expression made it clear she was beginning to think I was touched in the head. “What are you doing?”

I felt along the sides, brows knit in concentration. “There’s a room hidden behind my brother’s study. The only way to get in is by pressing a button on the bookcase.”

“A secret room?”

I nodded.

Kate searched the opposite edge of the shelf. “What do you have in it? Gold? Jewels?” She sounded intrigued.

I smiled. “Mostly just drawings and plans.” And crate upon crate of illegal whiskey, but I kept that to myself. Kate looked disappointed. Finally, I stepped back, feeling foolish. “You’re right. There’s no one here.”

Kate laid a comforting hand on my arm. “It’s good he’s not here. It means he’s safe somewhere else. Let’s go out through the back. We can lock up and leave the key where we found it.”

I agreed. In the hall, a grandfather clock stood directly below the staircase. I’d been so distracted earlier that I’d overlooked it. It was made of pale blond wood. A curving hourglass figure gave it a feminine appearance. An owl perched on a narrow ledge just below the clock’s face. A carved wooden owl, just like the one on the porch.

Without thinking, I reached for the bird and tried to shove it forward, then back. When it didn’t budge, I twisted it, like a doorknob.

“What . . . ?” Kate began.

We heard a loud click.

The clock wheeled slowly to the side before shuddering to a stop. A doorway was revealed. An odd smell tickled my nose. I was reminded, strangely, of the chemistry lab at school. A muted red light appeared, and I heard Kate gasp behind me.

It was a darkroom.

Photographs were strewn about the tiny floor space, along with several cameras and upended shallow trays. Lying in the midst of it all was a teenage boy. He was curled into a ball, and he was shivering, his lips so cracked they’d started to bleed. He looked exactly like his father.

Jamison Jones.

Sunday, October 13, 1918

It poured all afternoon. Raindrops, sharp as pebbles, whipped at our faces, and the wind tried its best to send our skirts right over our heads. Kate and I scurried back to the Auditorium hours earlier than we’d intended. Hannah wasted no time putting us to work. After we’d dried off, she’d given us each a white apron to protect our clothing. Kate was sent to help in the kitchen. I was to go upstairs to the new ward for women and children.

Downstairs, the orchestra floor had grown crowded. So had the assembly rooms. Doctors and nurses slept in cramped dressing areas behind the stage. Many of them had not left the Auditorium in days. Despite the shortage in staff, Hannah had managed to move all the women and children to the second floor.

I stood in the doorway and looked around. A dance troupe must have used the room as practice space. It was bright and airy with wooden floors, scarred and scratched. Barres were pushed up against a wall covered in mirrors. A single pair of pink ballet slippers hung from the chandelier, dangling by a length of satin ribbon.

This ward had fewer beds. I counted sixty or so cots. Nurses and volunteers went about their business. Dr. McAbee, whom I’d met yesterday, was off in a corner. He was a large man, gruff but kind, with a white mustache and eyes that protruded slightly—reminding me a bit of a walrus.

Edmund was halfway down one aisle. Seeing him, I remembered Kate’s words. I squared my shoulders and headed his way, ready to tell him, politely, to mind his own business. But I faltered when I came across Mrs. Jones. Her pregnancy looked even more pronounced under a thin blanket. She slept soundly, having been told that Jamison was downstairs with his father. But Hannah had kept the seriousness of their condition to herself; both Mr. Jones and his son were doing badly.

I lingered by the foot of the bed, wondering at the unfairness of it. Kate and I had found them alive. We’d sent them here. Yet it still might not be enough to save them.

Beside Jamison’s mother, a woman coughed and coughed and coughed. I left Mrs. Jones and gave her neighbor some water, which didn’t help. Mrs. Howard was over at the next cot, sponging down a little girl who’d soiled herself.

There was a small medicine bottle on the shared nightstand. “Should I give her the codeine?” I asked the nurse, holding up the bottle.

Mrs. Howard glanced over, harassed. “Yes. Just a teaspoon. Mark it on her chart.”

I did. Then I continued down the aisle, tensing when I saw Edmund leaning over William Cooke’s bed. My carefully prepared lecture flew from my head.

The boy lay on his side. Asleep or drugged—I didn’t know which. “Is he worse?” I asked. I glanced at the nearby beds and squeezed Edmund’s arm. “Where’s the baby?”

The children’s mother, Tess Cooke, slept in her bed. The cot beside her had the tiniest rumple in the center. It was empty.

Edmund was masked. But his eyes were smiling, despite the nails I dug into his arm. “She’s right there.” He inclined his head toward the next aisle. “With Mrs. Clement.”

Mrs. Clement was another volunteer, a widow whose youngest son had been killed in Europe. She was cradling Abby’s head against her shoulder with one hand as she walked down the aisle, bouncing her gently.

“And William is a little worse,” Edmund continued. “But this I can fix. Are you squeamish?”

I dropped his arm. “Why?” There were some questions you never wanted to be asked in an emergency hospital.

“Sit there, on the bed.” When I did, Edmund lifted William so his head rested across my lap. “I need you to hold his head here and here.” He demonstrated, cupping one hand along the back of William’s head, the other against his chin. “He needs to be kept perfectly still.”

William whimpered in his sleep, a pitiful sound. Apprehensive, I did as I was told. The boy’s hair was a pure black, like mine, and his soft curls wove their way through my fingers. While I held the child’s head, Edmund pulled up a chair and sat before us. His hair was damp, slicked back from his forehead. I wondered if he had gone home to bathe and to have a few hours of sleep in his own bed. Or if he’d just used the showers by the dressing rooms—the ones normally reserved for performers. I saw my own tiredness reflected in his eyes. His face, handsome and serious, looked the tiniest bit thinner than it had yesterday. It made me wonder what he’d looked like before. Before the Spanish influenza, before the war.

Edmund peered into William’s ear. A tray had been placed within reach on a small rolling cart. On it was a white porcelain bowl, a stack of gauze pads, and a collection of needles lined up in a row. There were clear glass bottles, five of them, the writing on the labels scrawled and illegible. Edmund reached for an instrument I did not recognize. It looked like a spoon, only the scoop part was much narrower, elongated. I watched as he used it to scrape dark yellow wax from William’s ear. He cleaned the spoon with the gauze, then continued the removal. He scraped and scooped, scooped and scraped. I looked at the wax sticking to the cotton. There was a disgusting amount of it. I would never look at a spoonful of honey the same way again.