The Year of Shadows (35 page)

“There’s a song you should listen to, Olivia,” said Mr. Barsky, sailing out of the kitchen. “
Mais oui
, it’s by Edith Piaf, a wonderful French
chanteuse
. It’s called “
Non, je ne regrette rien
.” Do check it out,
ma petite belle.
”

“What’s he saying?”

Mrs. Barsky shook her head. “He’s talking about a song. It means
No, I regret nothing
. Don’t ever wish you hadn’t met them, Olivia—or anyone, for that matter. It’s who we meet that makes us
us
. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. I think so.” I tried out the word
regrette
on my tongue, the way Mr. Barsky had said it, but the r’s got stuck in the back of my throat.

“
Regrette
,
regrette
,” Mr. Barsky corrected, bustling back into the kitchen with dirty dishes.

Mrs. Barsky booted him on the butt. “So, how is the
oldest one, the quiet one with the hat?”

“Mr. Worthington? He’s the only one left. Of
my
ghosts, I mean.”

“And you’ll help him quickly, I assume?” Mrs. Barsky nodded over my shoulder at the Hall. “I also assume you’ve seen that?”

I didn’t even have to turn around. I knew the shades had been swarming through Emerson Hall the last couple of days, since Tillie and Jax had moved on. Like an anthill that’s been kicked.

“Yeah. I know they’re there.”

“It’s catastrophe waiting to happen, Olivia. You must move quickly.”

I slammed the umbrella down on the table. “I
know
that, I’m just . . . strategizing.”

“Yes, slam away, that’s the kind of fighting spirit you’ll need. Now, off with you! Go on!”

As I stormed out and across the street, I could feel the shades watching me with their invisible eyes. Watching, and waiting.

But for what?

That evening, Henry, Mr. Worthington, and I gathered in my bedroom. It was too open onstage, too vulnerable. Shades writhed in the shadows like countless black holes, chewing on the ceiling, barreling through the rafters. The Maestro had locked himself in his room; Mahler 2 blared
down the hallway. I was glad, for once. It meant we couldn’t hear the shades.

“Do you think they’ll rip another hole in the ceiling?” Henry whispered to me. “There are two more concerts to go, you know.”

I ignored him. I couldn’t think about that. I shut the door firmly. “Nonnie, you’ll keep watch?”

Nonnie bobbed her head. She had constructed a turban of her yellow, blue, and purple scarves to celebrate the approach of spring.

In just a couple of days, it’d be March. Would we have done enough? Or would we all be out on the streets come summertime?

“I watch over you all,” Nonnie shouted, spreading her arms wide.

“Nonnie,” Henry said, “it might look weird while we’re doing this. You understand what we’re doing, right?”

“Mr. Worthington will smoosh you!” Nonnie clapped her hands together. “So you can see through his eyes.”

“Okay, yeah, basically.”

“I’m ready!”

“I wish I were that ready,” I muttered, sizing up Mr. Worthington, who waited patiently at the edge of my bed. “To be honest, I’m a little freaked out about this, Mr. Worthington. You’re . . . well, you’ve always been . . .”

“Disturbing?” Henry suggested.

With his thumbs, Mr. Worthington pulled up the corners
of his mouth up into a smile. It was too much effort to do it the normal way, apparently; with the shades around, Mr. Worthington had gone almost completely see-through. Luckily, they hadn’t attacked him . . . yet. During the day, he stayed at The Happy Place. At night, he sat at my feet.

But we couldn’t keep doing that forever.

“Reluctant,” Mr. Worthington said over his thumbs. “Reluctant.”

“Yes, we’re reluctant, all right,” I said. “And how about you don’t talk? You need to save your energy for us, you know.”

“Ready, Olivia?” Henry held out his hand and smiled. “One last time?”

I held up an imaginary glass. “To the world of Death.”

“To the world of Death,” Henry agreed, clinking our hands together. “Well, sort of.”

We sat down, our knees touching, and laced our fingers together. We turned to Mr. Worthington.

“Ready,” I said.

And Mr. Worthington swooped low, spread his mouth wide, and poured gently into us, slowly, like tar.

When I woke up, I was lying under a roof of cardboard. Trying to sit up, I realized I couldn’t. A sharp pain stabbed me in the stomach. For a second, I thought we’d been murdered again.

Henry?
I gasped, blinking to clear my vision.
Where are you?

Olivia, I’m right here,
came Henry’s voice from somewhere deep inside my mind.

I latched onto it.
Keep talking, almost anything. I’m almost there.

Seven times seven is forty-nine. O what a brave new world, to have such people in it! Your name is Olivia, and you don’t like people very much.

Shut up. I like you, don’t I?

I dunno.
Henry sounded like he was smiling.
Do you?

My brain blushed.
Whatever. What were you saying about a new world?

It’s Shakespeare.
The Tempest.

Oh, Mr. Honor Roll.
Of course it is. Where’s Mr. Worthington?

Look down,
said a soft, kind voice from inside our heads,
and you’ll see my hands.

We did. They were thin and tired-looking.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to speak much.
Mr. Worthington sighed.
Once upon a time, I had a lot to say.

Where are we, exactly?

I’m not entirely certain. Let’s find out, shall we?

Together, we crawled out of the cardboard house, across a pile of damp newspapers, and into a gloomy winter’s day. Across from us was another cardboard hut, and another beyond that, and another. Beside the huts towered the Hall. When I peeked inside the doors, I saw rows of beds on the floor and people huddled over bowls of soup.

Farther off, through the light rain, I saw buildings that looked vaguely familiar.

Is that downtown?
I asked.

Yes, I believe so. And this is . . . this must be Gladville. Yes. Yes, that’s it.

Gladville?
Henry said.
Doesn’t look very glad to me.

It wasn’t,
said Mr. Worthington.
It was . . . yes. A nickname. The city put us here.

What is it?
I asked.
And what happened to it?

It’s a shanty town,
said Mr. Worthington.
One of several. There was . . . there was trouble, you see, with the banks. They had to put us all somewhere. There was Gladville, and Sunnyville, Peace Park . . .

I could feel Henry’s mind whirring through months of schoolwork.
Are you talking about the Great Depression? In the thirties?

There wasn’t anything great about it,
Mr. Worthington said. He was in my mind, crawling through a swamp of remembering.

I was . . . a businessman
, he said sadly. He tightened what remained of his ragged tie, he straightened his shirt.
An honorable man.

It was The Economy,
I whispered.
Wasn’t it?

Then something slammed into our stomachs.

“Hi, Daddy, look! I got us lunch!”

We looked down and saw a tiny girl with dark hair and dark eyes. She was hugging us, and she had a pail in her hands.

“Tabby?” Mr. Worthington’s voice creaked on the words,
and then we were kneeling and burying our face in the girl’s hair. “Tabby, Tabby . . .”

“Daddy, come on, I’m hungry! I waited in line for
hours.
What’s wrong?” The girl put her hands on our face and kissed our nose. “Did you have a bad dream?” She kissed our nose again. “Your nose is so cold!” Kiss. “Like a reindeer!” Kiss, kiss.

“Yes,” Mr. Worthington said. I could feel the lump in my throat from where he was trying to smile. “I’m afraid I did, a terrible nightmare.”

“Well, I have soup, so it’s time to eat,” Tabby said, tugging on our hand. “Sit, and I’ll serve you, monsewer.”

“Monsieur,”
Mr. Worthington corrected.

Tabby giggled, and it turned into a nasty, wet cough.

Henry, it’s his daughter,
I whispered.

I know. Her name is Tabitha.

Tabby for short.
Together, along with Mr. Worthington, we were remembering. His memories floated through us, like leaves on the wind.

She was born in April.

Her mom got sick. Lydia.

Tabby likes cats.

The image of Tabby and Gladville swirled away, and then it was a different day. A stormy day.

We were inside our cardboard house, and Tabby was in our arms, coughing. Each cough jolted her body like an electric shock.

“Someone help us!” Mr. Worthington screamed, and there it was again—that sharp, stabbing pain in our gut. I realized it was hunger.

I doubled over, gasping.
Henry, I’m gonna pass out.

No, you’re not, it’s okay,
came Henry’s voice, but he didn’t sound much better than I felt.

“Someone, please!” Mr. Worthington tore open the door and stood in the rain, Tabby in his arms. People watched us from their own shacks. But no one helped us. Tabby wasn’t the only one coughing.

Everything swirled again. When we came to, we were walking down an aisle of shacks. In our hand, wrapped in grimy paper, we held two slices of bread.

This’ll help Tabby,
Mr. Worthington told us cheerfully.
She’ll be on the mend soon, with this food in her belly.

I could barely open my eyes. My stomach was going to cave in. And it wasn’t just my hunger; it was Henry’s, and Mr. Worthington’s, which he was trying to ignore. He wanted this bread for himself—but he would give it to Tabby. Everything was always for Tabby.

Mr. Worthington?
I whispered. We couldn’t possibly go on like this.

You’ll see! Everything will be better soon.

But when we reached our shack, it was empty.

“Tabby?” Mr. Worthington shouted, digging through the garbage. We ran all through Gladville, searching, yelling. “Tabby, where are you? Tabby!”

“They cleaned everything out earlier,” someone said, a hunched-over woman with yellow, drooping eyes. “The policemen. They took the bodies. Got to take out the rot, they said. They came with wheelbarrows.”

“But Tabby will be all right; she’s not a body!” Mr. Worthington shook the woman, even though Henry and I tried to pull his arms back. “I’ve brought her bread; it’ll help her! Tabby!” We were running again, digging through the garbage. “Tabby, I’m coming, sweetheart! I won’t leave you!”

The world turned over, swirling. When it stopped, we were lying on the floor of our shack in wads of newspapers.

“She’s gone,” Mr. Worthington was saying, over and over. “Tabby, my poor, sweet Tabby.”

He reached for a doll propped up on a pile of garbage in the corner. It reminded me of Joan’s doll, Magda. Above it hung a tacked-up cross made of twigs.

I wanted to throw up, but there was nothing left to throw up.

Henry, make it stop.
I clutched my stomach. This was worse than being stabbed, worse than blowing up. We hadn’t had enough food for weeks. Our fingernails were cracking from the cold. We’d been drinking filthy water, we hadn’t bathed, we couldn’t find work. We hadn’t eaten, we hadn’t eaten . . .

It’ll be over soon.
Henry whispered.
I promise.

I closed my eyes and listened to his voice. That’s what I died listening to: Henry whispering. The last thing I saw
before everything faded was the lonely, lumpy doll in the corner.