CHAPTER 9

James leaned against the trunk of the weeping peppermint tree, the shade wispy and uneven. His chin pressed on one bent knee while the other leg lay straight. His toe peeked from the shoe’s crack like a worm fresh from the ground. He pulled the toe in and the crack closed. A ball broke clumsily through the branches, nearly landing on his head.

“Over ’ere!” a boy hollered from the field. “Send it back!”

James chucked the ball into the sky.

“Yeh want t’play, James?”

“Naw.” James resettled under the tree, moved his attention back to his hide-and-seek toe. He traced shapes in the soft brown dirt with a crooked stick. The drone of children hummed all around, melting like the drum of insects.

Meghan Mahoney’s shadow fell across his foot as she sneaked past, snickering with two other girls. “There she is!”

James sighed and poked harder at the ground, wishing their voices were far enough to merge with the rest of the insects.

“Leonora! Hey, Leonora, whot yeh doin’?” Meghan’s voice, sweet as rancid butter, surrounded the little girl hidden in the shade.

“Oh! I forgot. She don’t know how t’talk. Poor thing! Would yeh like a lesson? I’m a very good teacher.” The girls giggled. “Repeat after me: ‘I’m a dumb, ugly girl.’ Say it wiv me: ‘I’m a dumb, ugly girl.’ ”

James kept his chin tucked to his knee and did not look, didn’t need to. He could see Meghan’s freckled face clearly enough behind the voice as she tortured the new girl. He dug hard into the dirt until the stick cracked in his fingers.

“S’not talkin’, eh? How ’bout singin’? Got a good song. Made it just for yeh.

“Leonora, Leonora,
under the sky,
’er parents left ’er to die,
then laughed like the kookaburra!”

The words sickened James’s insides like sour milk. He shot daggers at the girls, caught a glimpse of Leonora’s eyes as they flickered to his. There were no tears, no anger—only softness. A swift heat ignited his nerves. James chewed his bottom lip, his limbs tight. He could stop it. But it would be back tomorrow and the day after. It would be worse because they loved a fight. Their eyes sparkled for it. They’d pick harder. He closed his eyes, focused on the rustle of willowy leaves until the laughter died and Meghan and her crew bustled away.

He sat idly now, his toe tucked back into its hole, his stick broken in the dirt. The silent girl in the shadows sat and settled her chin upon her small fist. And James hated this place—the only home he had ever known—and he wanted nothing more than to leave it. He couldn’t sit any longer and there weren’t enough sticks in the world to break. Springing from his seat, he ran from the field, ran over the path that swung around the church, ran so hard his head bent forward and his legs blurred through the wildflowers and boulders that traced the way to the cliffs.

The smell of the sea smacked as he crested the hill and stood at the very edge. He settled atop a patch of brittle grass, sharpened to points and entrenched in sand. His legs hung over the sheer mountain ledge, his toes dangling hundreds of feet above the swirling waves. James leaned back and dug his elbows into the ground, closed his eyes and raised his chin to the clouds. The orphanage disappeared. The roar of water drowned the voices, the taunts; the briny scent of fish and sea flushed away the smell of sweat and dirt and mildew. The callousness, the cruelty of the orphanage lingered for a moment before the currents tore and diffused it.

The sea stilled him. The bounce of water far below hypnotized and quieted his mind. The steeple bell chimed two hollow rings and a weakness tugged his insides. He did not belong at this place. He knew this before he was old enough to know it. This was not meant to be his life and yet it was his life and he didn’t understand and it made him want to crack sticks and throw rocks into the sea until his shoulder hurt.

From his waistband, James pulled out the Bible Father McIntyre had given him. The Father said it would give him answers, and one came, but certainly not one the priest would approve. James opened the cover and rubbed his hand over the tiny printed words, the paper thin and opaque. Slowly, he pinched the corner of the paper and tore it straight down its seam. He grabbed more pages, ripping evenly so they hardly frayed. The last few pages fell out on their own and James rubbed his finger over the naked seam, bare but for a few red strings. The limp cover collapsed into the back, the substance gone.

James gathered the ripped pages, held them for a moment, the edges flapping in the warm breeze before being released over the cliffs where they danced upon the wind, waved like milky hands and glided down to the frothy ocean. Beside him, a cypress tree with worn and knobby roots hung to the edge of the cliff and James picked through a pyramid of stones at its base until he found the buried black book. In the sunlight, the gold-embossed lettering glowed white and his heart raced just as it had the first time he found it in Father McIntyre’s library. The name “O’Connell” shone brilliant. His name.

The Father had hidden the book from him, but the cyclone had returned it, the wind leaving the book fanned and exposed in the rubble until he’d snatched it.

Now James blew away the bits of dirt that filled the veining leather creases. He placed the book into the shell of the Bible and pressed hard. Not a perfect fit but good enough not to be questioned. Her words were safe now, protected in God’s cover. He tucked his mother’s diary safely under his shirt.