CHAPTER
11
TOM’S FATHER STOOD IN THE doorway and folded his doughy arms. “Absolutely not.”
“But, Father—” Tom began.
William Bailey jerked a sausagelike thumb at the five small girls peeking from behind him. It made his whole body jiggle. “I have enough mouths to feed. Can he pay for his lodging? Will he work?”
“He works harder than anyone,” Tom said.
“Well, I don’t need more hands.”
My heart sank. It was no accident that Tom and I rarely spent time at his place. His father was just plain mean.
Tom’s younger sisters tugged at their father’s flour-crusted apron. “Please, Father, let him stay, please.” They were kind girls, like Tom, taking after their mother. They also knew that if I stayed, I’d read them stories for bed.
In fact, it was Tom’s mother who settled it. Mary Bailey, half as tall as her husband but just as round, leaned out the window on the third floor and hollered. “Let him in, Bill. We can afford this charity. It’s the Christian thing to do.”
Tom’s father pointed down the street. “The church is right over there.”
A soggy towel landed on his shoulder with a splat. “William Bailey! Shame on you.” Tom’s mother snapped her fingers at me. “You come up here this instant, Christopher.”
William Bailey glared at me, but he let me pass. Tom got a slap across the head.
• • •
Trailed by a gaggle of Baileys, I went up to Tom’s parents’ bedroom. Mrs. Bailey shooed her giggling daughters back down the steps and sat me at the table by the window.
An old wooden bed, its mattress squashed with the weight of years, was pressed against the wall. There was a worn velvet settee in one corner, and a set of drawers, faded yellow paint flaking off, in the other. The table in front of me was the only concession to wealth, with intricately carved cherry legs that curved upward to a thick slab of white stone. On top was a tin basin; beside it, a rough, mottled towel. A silver mirror was set into the back.
“I was just about to wash,” Tom’s mother said. “You can have my water.” She sized me up. “I haven’t thrown away Tom’s old things yet. I’m sure some of them will fit you.” She left, and I was alone.
I pulled off my apprentice’s apron. It cracked with dried blood. My shirt, equally ruined, joined the apron on the floor. The folded page I’d torn from the ledger came loose from my waistband and tumbled down to land beside my clothes.
I looked in the mirror. My reflection stared back. It seemed so still, so calm.
Everything’s fine, it said.
But it, too, was painted with blood, streaked across my cheek. I remembered the softness of my master’s chest, where I’d pressed my face against him.
I dipped a finger in the basin, sending ripples across the surface. I brought my hand up and drew a line through the blood. A drop of crimson water trickled down my palm and fell from my wrist. It splattered on the marble, an ugly pink blot.
I was alone.
For the first time since I’d found him, I was alone.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was sob.
Despair swallowed me, like a demon. It howled in my head, crushed my chest, spiked claws into my soul and pulled. Come, it said. It’s peaceful here. I wanted to go. I wanted to die. I wished so much that the Cult had taken me, too.
A breeze from the window brushed my hair against my eyelids. At my feet, I heard the rustling of paper. It was the page I’d torn from the ledger. Pushed by the wind, it fluttered and scraped across the floorboards.
Despair chanted, reached for me, called me back.
No, I said.
I punched the table. Hard. It echoed like a hammer. The skin on my middle finger split at the knuckle. Blood oozed out, dripped down, mixed with my master’s in the water on the stone.
My hand throbbed. The pain brought me back to life.
Because you are alive, Christopher. He kept you alive. That’s why he sent you away.
And he left you a message.
The paper trembled in the breeze, then stilled. I straightened in the chair, pressed against it. The oak dug lines in my back.
I wanted to go to sleep, to sleep forever. To see my master again. And I would.
But not yet.
Master Benedict had left me that message in the ledger for a reason. Whatever was on that page was so important that he’d stayed to write it down instead of running for his life.
He needed me. Three years ago, I’d needed him, and he’d saved me, brought me to Blackthorn, gave me my first real home. That life was gone now, stolen along with his. It didn’t matter. He needed me. Even in death.
I wiped my eyes, my heart still burning. I shouted from the flames, so he’d hear me all the way in heaven. I promise you, Master. Whatever you asked of me, I’ll do. I won’t cry. I won’t rest. I won’t fail.
And I’ll find whoever killed you. I’ll make them pay. Before God and all His Saints, I swear it.
There was a knock on the door. Tom’s mother called through it. “Christopher? Is everything all right?”
I looked in the mirror. My reflection spoke back.
“Everything’s fine,” it said.