CHAPTER TEN

Charley choked on the scream rising in his throat, and a rough hand clamped over his mouth. He smelled copper and dirt, tasted the sticky film of blood.

He twisted in the firm grip. A rough face came down to his, brushing against his cheek, making the jagged cuts there sing with pain.

“Hush, Charley.” The scent of apples.

Charley stilled, silenced, breathing heavily, sucking in the dust and dirt, the blood and apples.

The hand came away from his mouth. The other rough hand took the candle from him.

“Charley, are you all right?” The gardener’s face, lit from below by the dim flame, looked dark and strange. Blood ran from his nose into his thick beard. One eye swelled, the slightest glint of white shining through the thick purple lids.

“Sam, what are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“I came t’ help you.”

“How did you know I was here? How did you find me?”

Sam stepped back. His face grew grim as the shadows crept across his bruises. “Th’ headmaster said you’d run home. But I saw your injuries, Charley—I knew tha couldn’t have run. Certainly not t’ Cairo.”

“Why did you leave me? Why did you go to the village when I was still sick?” Charley’s strength broke. He sank to the floor, all the rage and fear pouring out of him.

“I’m sorry, Charley.” Sam knelt by him. “Th’ headmaster ordered me t’ go. He said the matron was concerned about me—about my past, and our friendship—how much tha seemed to rely on me, and not on the school, as your family. He said a few days away would do you wonders. He said he needed me t’ fetch some things.” He reached out and smoothed Charley’s hair, pulling bits of old rag from its tangles. “I was wrong t’ go. I should have stayed.”

Charley’s chest tightened. He wanted to yell, but he wanted friendship more.

“When I was in town, I asked questions. About what you told me.”

Charley lifted his head. His strained face had pulled at the cuts on his cheek, which flowed afresh.

“You were right, Charley. Me mam was the daughter of the earl. This was her home. And she was disowned because of a child, Charley—but that child wasn’t me.”

“What?” Charley straightened.

“She had a daughter, long before she met my father. The little girl went missin’, and the earl disowned my mother when she wasn’t found. He accused her; that’s when she ran away with my father.”

“But did they know it was her when she came back here to work?”

“Aye, they did. The headmaster’s a friend of the late earl. He knew my mother—knew her as a child, and hired her on as matron. The woman I spoke to, she said there were rumors about a falling out between the earl and Byrne around the time my mother ran away. It was rumored that maybe Byrne had been the father of the missing girl. The earl demanded that Byrne’s home be searched. Nothing was found. And Byrne refused his friendship after, though he was left the mastery of the school in the earl’s estate.” Sam pulled an apple from his pocket and handed it to Charley.

“Sam, there was a woman here just a moment ago. She was in that room, and she went through the hole in the floor.” He shook, clutching the apple.

Sam grasped the shard of china that had fallen at Charley’s feet. The light from the candle wavered across the walls as it trembled in Sam’s hand. He stepped into the room. There was a low cry, and the light dropped and winked out as the candle hit the floor with a soft splash of wax.

“Sam!” Charley heaved himself off the floor and ran to the doorway. He heard the apple roll into the dark hole.

“Stay back, Charley. I’m fine. She—she’s here.”

“She is?” Charley’s face went cold with fear.

“Yes. My mother. She’s been here all along.” Sam’s voice was as cold and rough as stone.

Charley reached into his shirt and pulled out the matches. He groped on the floor for the candle, and lit it.

Behind the patched curtain, the corpse of an old woman sat in a splintered chair. Her skin had shrunk to leather, her hair a web of dust, wisps blending with the cobwebs stretching around her. A folded linen cap lay in her lap, yellowed, pressed between her gnarled hands, resting on a crisp, ancient apron.

Sam’s shoulders shook. Charley pulled at his arm. Sam rose, and Charley led him to the leather chair. He took the callused hand in his.

“We have to leave. There’s someone else here. The woman—the one who was here before—she went into that tunnel thinking she was chasing me. I don’t know how long we have before she realizes I’m still in this room.”

Sam swallowed and nodded.

Charley stood and walked to the main door. It gaped, ajar, another key sticking from the lock. Charley pulled the key free and placed it in his shirt with the other. He grasped the gardener’s hand and pulled at him. “Come, now. We have to get out of here.”

Sam stood and followed Charley, his open eye roving, searching the floor for answers.

They entered the hall outside the dark infirmary. Charley locked the tall door behind them.

The wall of flaking red brick cut off what had been the way to the main hall.

“How did you get here?” Charley asked.

Sam led him down the long hall, past walls covered in moth-eaten tapestries. He pulled one aside and slid a board from the wall. “I couldn’t find the tunnel, Charley. So I took a page from your book, and climbed up through th’ window you fell from.” He handed Charley the candle, and they stepped through the opening. Sam pulled the board back into place behind them.

“I was searchin’ the rooms for you. The boy was there in an open room. The twisted boy who chased you. We fought. I took his key.” Sam swatted at cobwebs and helped Charley over the uneven floor. “I tried all th’ other doors on that floor, but they were locked. I heard footsteps on the stairs, so I followed. I didn’t see owt else, but I found a hole in th’ wall that led me here, and this door fit the key.”

The tunnel became stairs. Charley leaned on Sam as they climbed. “He’ll be waiting for us up there? The twisted boy?” He hesitated on a step, resting his knee.

Sam faltered. “He’s dead, Charley.”

Charley felt his face burn as it twisted with grief and relief.

“I hit him, and—there wasn’t much to him. Poor boy.”

Charley followed Sam’s footsteps in silence.

“I think tha’s right about another thing, Charley.”

Charley waited.

“When I was tryin’ all the doors, thinkin’ you were behind one of them, I heard things. I think there are more boys here, locked in like you were.”

“I know there are; I’ve seen them. They’re hurt, and drugged.” All those empty bottles of medicine…they must think they’re in a bad dream. Charley grabbed Sam’s arm. “Sam, we have to get them out. Bowles might still be here, and Mullins.”

“They were hurt afore they disappeared, weren’t they? Like you.”

“Bowles was hurt. Sean felt sick…”

“The woman in the village said that boys have gone missin’ from this school since it began—always boys who had been ill or injured. My mother—” Sam paused and caught his breath. “There was an investigation. They blamed her. It was said she performed unnecessary surgeries. Some boys died. Some just vanished. That’s why she was dismissed, Charley.”

Charley panted, struggling to keep up on the long stairs. He stopped and lowered himself to a step to catch his breath.

Sam stopped and turned back to him, bringing the candle up between them. He reached out and wiped away the sweat and blood that ran down Charley’s face.

“Sam, it never stopped.”

“What didn’t?”

“The surgeries.”

“What?”

“When the doctor came to remove my cast, I remember the look on his face just before I passed out. My arm’s twisted around. Two of my fingers are missing. Just like that poor boy.”

Charley felt heat rise up in his face. He leaned over a stair and vomited, the recollection of his twisted skin turning his stomach. He felt the dry pieces of the table scraps scratch at his throat. His back slid lower against the wall.

Sam held on to him. His hands shook as hard as Charley’s. “But my mam—that must have been her. I mean, I couldn’t really tell, but her cap and apron…”

“Help me up, Sam. We have to keep moving. We have to get the others out.” Charley’s fingers pulled at the gardener’s sleeve.

Sam lifted Charley and set him on his feet, holding him steady till his stance was sure. He let Charley walk ahead, keeping a hand to his back, walking close behind him in case he fell.

At the top of the long stairs, they pulled aside the loose plank and stepped into the second-floor hall. Sam paused and listened. They crept down the hall to an open doorway, stepped inside, and shut the door behind them.

A dirty bed, a reeking chamber pot, and a stack of broken, dirty plates filled the room. The smell was enough to weaken Charley’s knees.

The twisted boy lay on the floor, his eyes staring, as dull as the dusty windows. His high cheekbone was caved in on the side of his face where Sam must have struck him. Charley knelt by him. The three remaining fingers on his right hand still had Charley’s blood under their splintered nails. His face was smooth in death, its grimace cleared, and Charley saw, again, how young he must be. Maybe eighteen. The grey in his hair was all dust and crumbled plaster. The ankle of his twisted foot was red and withered, like Charley’s arm.

“He must have been one of the missing boys,” Charley said, moving a lock of hair away from the dark, empty eyes. “One of the first—mad with pain and drugs and loneliness. How long have they all called him a ghost? Never coming to look for him.” He pressed the boy’s eyelids shut.

Sam looked down at the boy, at Charley. He rubbed the scar on his neck. “Come, Charley. I don’t think we have long before we’re noticed.”

Charley stood. He covered the twisted boy with a ratty blanket.

In the hallway, Charley pulled both keys from his shirt. He tried each one in every door along the long hall. Nothing moved. Charley slammed his hand against the door. “There have to be more keys.”

Something slammed into the other side of the door.

Charley fell back, then pressed his face back against the wood panels. “Hello? Who’s there? This is Charley! I’m going to get you out!”

Low growls slipped through the keyhole and around the door. Slow scratching slid down the dry wood. Thumps, bangs, and low moans.

“I don’t think we should open this one, Charley. We shouldn’t assume we have friends behind these doors.”

Charley stared at the rattling wood. “I don’t care if they’re friends or not. Pain has made these boys monsters. We can help them.”

“Charley, tha can’t save what isn’t there anymore.”

“Bowles? Mullins?” Charley shouted through the keyhole. He heard the groan of bedsprings and something heavy hitting the floor, dragging. The bloody, scarred stumps of truncated fingers pushed under the door.

Charley coughed and raced down the hall, trying the keys again, pounding, rattling the doorknobs. “Let’s go back and search the boy. There are more keys here somewhere.”

“I searched him, Charley. Th’ only key he had on him was t’ your door.”

Charley held the keys to his forehead, pacing. “The boy lived under the roof, up in the attic eaves, in that room full of boxes and hanging things. The bones…”

Charley turned and limped into the hall. The panel lay on the floor, the entrance to the tunnel gaping. Charley couldn’t remember if they’d replaced it. He hobbled down the hallway.

A moan sounded to his left. He turned. The door to the dorm room was ajar. Charley looked at Sam. “This was locked, wasn’t it? Before?”

Sam shook his head and shrugged. Charley pushed the door open.

Bowles lay on the bed. His crystal sat beside him on the sloping table. Charley ran to him. “Bowles! It’s Charley. Are you all right? Ethan?”

Sam walked up to the other side of the bed. He looked from Bowles to Charley, his brow furrowed.

Charley reached for Bowles. At first, he thought his head had been shaved—the spiked thatch of blond hair only showed in random patches. But as the light from the candle fell over him, Charley saw white bone, and the dry yellow edges of Bowles’ scalp peeling away from his skull. Rows of slanted stitches held the rest in place, infection bubbling up from the wound like tallow.

Charley swallowed his scream, breathing shallowly, the sweet scent of rot heavy on the air. “Ethan, can you hear me?”

Bowles’ eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

Charley knelt low to whisper, but saw Bowles’ ears were gone, cut away from angry, gaping holes. He grasped Bowles’ hand. It was dry and hot, limp and unmoving.

“You can’t help him, Charley.”

A wail snuck past Charley’s throat.

Sam came around the bed and lifted Charley away.

“I should have come straight here, Sam. I should have been sooner—I would have been in time.”

“Quiet, Charley. Time forgot about this place long ago.” He carried Charley from the room and into the hall, to the entrance of the tunnel. He set him down on the landing. “Up or down, Charley? It’s up to you. I’ll follow, and help, either way.”