Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So, what exactly did you do?”

“What?”

“I mean, why are we being banished?”

Katherine rolled her eyes. They weren’t being banished. Sent away, surely, but for their own good. Well, for Katherine’s own good. At least, according to her father. This little diversion was meant to keep her safe, to help—what was it the letter said?—settle her nerves. David was collateral damage, but she was grateful her father at least had thought to secure company for her before packing her upstate. Besides,  banishment very rarely included a first-class train compartment or a country estate. It wasn’t as if they were en route to a desert wasteland; Carterhaugh was barely a day’s journey from the city.

It might as well have been the moon. But Katherine wouldn’t give David the satisfaction of being right. David was always right, and quite frankly, it sometimes tried her patience. She tossed her hair over her shoulders and leaned down to the close-woven basket at her feet, where a ruddy shock of tabby fur met her hand. David wasn’t the only one being dragged to the country against their will; Katherine’s cat, Tibby, was also an unwitting chaperone. Katherine gathered the squirming Tibby into her lap and turned to watch the green blur of the passing countryside.  

“You’re being overdramatic,” she said to David.

“I am not. I am never.”

David’s voice was all false affrontery. Katherine snorted and snuggled a rather ambivalent Tibby to her chest. No one seemed particularly excited for their journey.

“Never? David Jacobs, I’ve known you for fifteen years—”

“—yes, and those fifteen years have lowered my lifespan considerably,” David grumbled.

Katherine smothered a giggle in the scruff of Tibby’s fur. It was more than likely true. Katherine had not made life easy for David.

David and his family had come to live in the Pulitzer household when Katherine was only five-years-old and David, six. Esther, David’s mother, was an excellent cook, and even though Katherine’s father should have been more concerned with the delicate French cuisine that was in vogue among the upper set, he couldn’t resist the rib-sticking echoes of his youth in Hungary. There was a chef who would cater important functions, but Joseph Pulitzer required dumplings and goulash and schmaltzy chicken soup, and Esther Jacobs was more than happy to provide them. With Esther came her husband Mayer, who worked in the livery, and their three children: Sarah, David, and Les.  

Katherine’s brother Ralph was already at school, and it was made clear that she and her sister Lucy were not supposed to play with the help; Les was too little to work, but to pay their keep, Sarah assisted her mother while David emptied the garbage pails and ash cans. Katherine and Lucy were being raised to be proper young ladies, to fit into the world that their father had never thought he’d be a part of. The children of their immigrant cook might be charming diversions, but they were not appropriate company for girls who would one day be out in society. But Katherine’s mother and father were often busy with work and social obligations, so if Lucy and Katherine left their cold nursery for the warmth of the kitchens, no one was the wiser.

Lucy and Sarah had been fast friends. They were both china dolls, petite and delicate and graceful. Their little hands worked to braid Esther’s sweet dough, and they never made any mistakes. They were everything Katherine was not. Katherine tried, but she couldn’t seem to be quiet or still. She certainly wasn’t graceful. And so, she set her sights on David.

David was not exactly rough and tumble. He’d been quiet and lean then, like a ghost who slipped in and out of rooms without ever being noticed. He tripped over his English and cried when he fell down and skinned his knees, a quality that Katherine found not quite endearing. But he was a boy. In Katherine’s experience, boys certainly got to have more fun than girls ever did.

Katherine had dragged David through their childhood. He dutifully made mudpies with her in the side garden; he stomped her hair ribbon out when she lit the silk on fire with a kitchen match; he helped her release all the mice from the traps in the house. David participated in every stupid stunt Katherine could muster, and eventually, he did it with aplomb—even when it meant dodging the butler or tangling with his father’s belt when things went a bit too far.

But when Katherine led David into trouble, Lucy’s gentle hands always led him back out. It had been that way a long time.

Katherine blinked her eyes with all the innocence of a lost fawn.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Tibby, impatient with Katherine’s theatrics, wriggled free and hopped to the floor of the compartment.

“I’m sure you don’t.” David pretended to study the newspaper in his lap. “I don’t think your glands function appropriately,” he mumbled.

“And which glands would those be?”

More demure blinking.

David’s ears burned pink. “Adrenal. Don’t be common.”

“Such a promising young medical student.”

He was, too. Thanks, in part, to Katherine’s father. Thus, the abrupt interruption to David’s studies.  

Eventually, Joseph Pulitzer had accepted the Jacobs children as an unavoidable fact. When Sarah was old enough, he’d found her a position as a lady’s maid with a prominent family on the upper east side. And Les and David? He’d sent them to school. It was when there was unrest with the newsboys; Pulitzer’s private secretary had convinced him that it might help his image if there was some act of charity they might publicize. Scholarships materialized out of rarefied air, and suddenly, Les and David were enrolled at one of the most prestigious boys’ schools in the city.

It wasn’t easy for either of them, but it was harder for David. Les was young, but David’s classmates had already been made into society snobs; they wouldn’t be kind to a boy they could only see for an upstart immigrant beggar.

But both Katherine and Lucy knew that David was something special. He’d let the barbs and rumors roll off his back, and he’d worked and studied like a madman. He parleyed one scholarship into another, and now, he was at Columbia, studying to be a physician. All thanks to Joseph Pulitzer—at least, according to the human-interest piece that ran in The World before David’s first year began.

It made him feel like a sideshow freak, he’d said. No one would ever believe that he’d accomplished what he had on his own merits.

But Lucy believed. So did Katherine. Katherine also understood his concern. Probably better than anyone else. It was one of the things that kept them close, even after everything that had happened.

“I am promising, thank you,” David said, trying entirely too hard to sound cheery. He reached to scratch at Tibby’s arched spine; she flopped onto her back and let his fingers tickle at the soft fur of her belly. He didn’t look at Katherine. “Though I may be slightly less promising at the start of next term since I’ll have spent the entire semester at some farm upstate.”

Katherine winced.

“You could have refused Father’s request.”

“Oh, sure I could have. I’m sure that would have gone just swell.”

“Now who’s being common?”

David sighed. Tibby rolled away from him and slinked back to her basket. David watched her downy tail with distant eyes.

“Kathy, why is he sending you away?”

 “Us,” she corrected.

“I’m just the chaperone.”

“You know why.”

It was David’s turn to stare out his window. He took a sharp breath, like someone had socked him in the gut.

“He thinks it will be better for my health. Fresh air and all of that.”

“I suppose it will,” David said softly. “But I doubt that he’d send you all this way—”

“He wants to protect me, David. At least, that’s what he said in his letter.”

David’s head jerked back toward her. “He—he didn’t even see you before you left?”

“No. He’s quite busy, you know.”

Katherine looked down at her hands. They were lady’s hands now, clean and soft, her nails buffed and pearl pink. Like Lucy’s had always been.

“I know,” David replied.

Katherine hesitated, and then she met David’s eyes. “But he’s not too busy to read his competition.”

Understanding broke over David’s face. He gestured at the newspaper in his lap.

“He saw your story in The Sun?”

Katherine nodded.

“He did. He was not pleased.”

Not pleased was a euphemism. Her father had been apoplectic when he’d seen her story about the asylum on Blackwell’s Island, most especially when he determined that Katherine had herself interred for the better part of a week to gather material. Never mind that he hadn’t taken any notice that his daughter was missing in the first place. Never mind that Katherine had written something truly important and was getting attention she had long deserved. Never mind that it was the first thing that had made Katherine feel alive since they’d lost Lucy.

No, her father’s first concern was that Katherine had given the story to the competition; his second was that she’d dare compromise her reputation in such a fashion now that she was the eldest daughter. There was no concern for her at all. Sometimes, Katherine thought there never had been.

“So, you are being banished.”

David tried for a gentle smile, and Katherine slumped back against the upholstered back of her chair.

“We are.”

“Yeah.” David chuckled disconsolately. “Thanks for that.”

Katherine moved to rake her hands across her face, but remembered herself before she could muss her hair or make-up; she had to think of things like that now. She forced herself to sit straight again.

“I couldn’t just stay cooped up in the house. I’m not some Dresden doll. I’m not like Constance or Edith.” She lowered her voice and looked back at the unfamiliar hands in her lap. “I’m not like Lucy.”

She knew David’s shoulders had wilted without looking.  

“No, you’re not,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry that I’m not.”

She meant it. She’d spent her entire life wishing she could be more like her sister and knowing that she could never be. It had never mattered quite so much before.

“No one could be.” David sniffed and looked back at her with wet eyes. “And I like you how you are.”

At least she had David. It was a blessing her father had never known about what was between David and Lucy, or Katherine wouldn’t even have that. She reached her hand across the aisle, and he took it. 

“Even though I got you banished?”

He squeezed her fingers. “Even then.”

The train jerked as it moved over the railroad switch, and their hands fell apart. Tibby mewled in protest, and Katherine reached down to scratch between her pointed ears. Katherine’s eyes found the swift-moving landscape again, and this time, it wasn’t only the speed that blurred her vision.

“I miss her, David.”

“I do too.”

“I know.” Katherine wrapped her arms around herself. The trees flashed by. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”

“She was your sister.”

As if that made David’s pain any less real. Katherine had stood shaky guard outside Lucy’s sickroom so that David could say goodbye. She knew what they were to each other. What they might have been, if they’d only been given time.

“She was your—”

He stopped her with a nod. “She was. Perfect. Beautiful.”

“She thought the same about you.”

David shook his head, but she could hear the start of a smile in his voice. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Didn’t she tell you so?” Katherine asked.

“She did.”

David’s smile grew wider, and Katherine’s insides knotted together, strands in some complicated braid of thanksgiving for what David and Lucy had with one other and guilt at the jealousy she felt. Not that she wanted David. He was like a brother to her. It was only that Katherine wanted someone to look at her the way David had looked at Lucy, to really see her and love her as she was.

Fat chance of that happening now that they were being exiled to Carterhaugh.

Fat chance of that happening when Katherine couldn’t be who she really was at all. Even with her manicured hands and careful coiffure, she still felt like the sloppy little girl she’d always been. She couldn’t be quiet. She couldn’t be still. She couldn’t be what anyone wanted her to be. That’s why her father was sending her away.

They rode in silence for a while. Then, David took a crackling breath. He gestured out the plate glass window at the indistinct scenery.

“What’ll we do with ourselves, do you think?”

Katherine huffed. “Stare at the wallpaper? Watch paint dry?”

“You make it all sound so appealing.”

“Maybe there will be some nice, wholesome field mice for Tibby to chase.”

Tibby purred in response.

“Better than sewer rats,” David acknowledged. He looked at Tibby as though he expected her to nod.

“Indeed.”

“And what’ll you chase?” he asked Katherine. “Fancy catching rabbits with your teeth?”

Katherine took the bait and snickered. “Vulgar.” She sighed. “I suppose we’ll ride horses.”

David groaned and scrunched down in his seat. “My behind can hardly wait.”

“Weakling.”

“Tomboy.”

Katherine snorted. “You’d rather pick flowers and caper nimbly through the fields?”

David stared at her as though there were field mice and sewer rats capering nimbly from her ears.

“Caper nimbly?”

“I have a way with words.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know what we’ll do, David,” she said. “But whatever it is, we’ll have to make the best of it. You know how Father is.”

“Yes. We’re stuck there until the decree is lifted.”

Katherine wondered just how long that might be.

“You have a knack for making him sound like some kind of evil king.”

“I can’t imagine why that would be,” he grumbled.

Katherine’s laugh was easier now, and she leaned forward in her seat. She kicked the toe of her leather boot across the aisle and nudged at David’s ankle. Tibby batted idly at the hem of Katherine’s skirt with the mottled sock of her paw.

“Is it selfish that I’m glad you’ll be with me?”  Katherine asked.

“No. I wouldn’t want you to be alone. Even though you’re mean to me.”

“Don’t be so sensitive.”

Katherine smirked at David, but her features softened almost immediately. The train had started to slow. They were coming into the quaint country station—all soft yellows and Tudor finishes—and Katherine’s separation from almost everything she knew was suddenly crushing.

“And I wouldn’t want to either. Be alone, I mean,” she whispered.

David unfolded his lanky body from his seat and knelt in the aisle like some kind of gallant, if slightly awkward, knight. Tibby scrambled back into her basket as David took both Katherine’s hands and kissed them.

“I know, Kathy. You won’t be.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m always here for you. You know that.”

Katherine wished it were enough.

There was a knock on their compartment door. The conductor put his head in.

“Carterhaugh Station, Miss Pulitzer. Your things will be on the platform.”

David kept one of Katherine’s hands and stood to help her to her feet. Katherine nodded curtly at the conductor, the way a lady should.

“Thank you, sir. We’re ready.”

---

They were not ready.

The hamlet of Carterhaugh was certainly picturesque, but that hardly mattered. Both Katherine and David were used to Manhattan’s traffic and bustle; when their carriage rolled through the center of town and passed an actual, honest-to-goodness ox cart, they both knew they were out of their depth.

David let out a low whistle. “You must have really made your father angry.”

Katherine bristled. “He likes to be angry.”

“That much is true,” David said with a chuckle.

People stopped on the old-fashioned wooden causeways to watch the carriage as it trundled past, their mouths agape. Katherine felt like the grand marshal of a rather short parade. She wondered if she ought to wave.

“Why did your father even buy land out here to begin with?”

Katherine shrugged. Likely it was because one of his rivals had done the same. That always seemed to press her father into action.

“Maybe he wanted to feel like a feudal lord,” she said. “I’m surprised the roofs aren’t all thatched in straw.”

“Fire hazard.”

“Sure,” said Katherine distractedly.

There was something not quite right about Carterhaugh. It wasn’t just that it was small and provincial; it somehow seemed as though they were slipping backward in time. There were none of the modern conveniences of the city, none of its modish sensibility. It felt like the backdrop to some kind of fairy story.

It made Katherine uneasy.

Soon enough, they’d come out on the other side of town and were bumping down an unpaved country road toward her father’s estate. Tibby hissed inside her basket, not altogether pleased with the quality of their ride. Around them, the trees grew thick and tall, and the grass was a veritable sea of waist-high rushes. Katherine rolled down the isinglass of her window, and she was hit with a smell that could only be described as green.

“You know,” David said, bracing himself as the carriage guttered against a particularly large rock, “other people in your father’s line have homes in Newport. On the beach.”

“Can you smell that?” Katherine asked. She took another deep breath, and suddenly, she felt giddy, like she’d had one too many tipples of champagne.

“What? Dirt? Manure? Kathy, are you alright?”

Katherine wasn’t sure she could answer. A queer laugh tugged at the back of her throat, but she pressed her lips shut. What had come over her?

“Kathy?” David asked again. He put a soft hand on her knee.

“Do you think we’re almost there?”

David gazed absently out the window. “We must be. It seems suitably remote.”

Katherine’s heart seemed to pick up speed. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Her voice was breathless. David squeezed her knee, his eyebrows twitching in concern.

“I mean, for some place in the middle of nowhere,” she amended. She cranked her window closed again, and the sweet smell of the grass and the earth disappeared. The air in the carriage was close and still.

“I guess it’s fine,” David said.

But fine wasn’t the word for it. Katherine didn’t know what the word was, but, all at once, she knew it had to be more than fine.

The carriage turned into the wide mouth of a gravel drive, rumbling slowly past squat stone walls dripping in vines and flanked by flowers more wild than curated, spiriting them even further beneath the canopy of trees. The house seemed to be rooted with the trees itself, like it had grown up out of the country soil too. It was a pale grey stone, almost smooth but for a few flaws in the masonry, impossibly boxy and tall with a sloping black-shingled roof and a medieval-looking turret on its far end. There weren’t many windows that Katherine could see, but the few she could pick out were ebony-framed and glazed in a leaded diamond pattern. The heavy doors in the stone entryway looked hand-carved and were painted a dark and moody green; each had its own enormous iron knocker in its center.

It was like her father had summoned an entire English country estate to the Hudson River Valley. She wouldn’t put it past him.

“Maybe he is a feudal lord,” David murmured.

The carriage rolled to a jerky halt, and a footman appeared with the step block. Katherine and David both pressed against the carriage door like awed children.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Katherine whispered. David nodded, his jaw hanging ever so slightly open.

The staff was lined up in front of the stone stoop, and a woman in a sensible if old-fashioned black frock stepped forward. Her faded red hair had only just barely been tamed into a grizzled pompadour, and she watched with watery blue eyes as the footman helped Katherine from the carriage.

“Miss Pulitzer, welcome.”

“Hello,” Katherine said warmly. She shifted Tibby’s basket against her hip.

“I’m MacGowan, ma’am,” said the woman. She dipped into a perfunctory curtsy. “The housekeeper.”  

“Well, hello, MacGowan.”

Katherine smiled, but MacGowan’s thin lips barely twitched in return.

“Seems friendly,” David whispered as he stepped down behind Katherine, hiding his remark in a cough that was not quite convincing. Katherine giggled.

“And who is this?” MacGowan nodded coldly at David. “Have you brought staff from the city?”

Katherine could feel David tense behind her. She reached backward and slipped a demure arm in the crook of his elbow, dragging him forward with as much grace as she could muster.

“Of course not. This is Mr. Jacobs.”

David politely tipped his hat, but MacGowan’s nose pinched as though she’d smelled something rancid.

“I’m sorry, miss. Who?”

“My companion,” Katherine said, a bit too sweetly; David elbowed her. “I’m sure my father wrote to you about him.”

“Oh, the hired boy.”

David sputtered. “Excuse me—”

He took an ill-advised step forward, and Katherine caught him by the suspenders.

“He’s my friend. A guest.”

MacGowan’s crêpey cheeks colored. “A gentleman friend?”

“Yes, of course. You’ll have prepared him a room?”

David tried to smile, but MacGowan looked at him as though he were diseased.

“Downstairs,” said MacGowan.

“I’m sorry?”

“We have a room for the boy downstairs.”

Katherine shook her head. “Mr. Jacobs is a guest of the family, and—”

“We thought we were preparing for another servant. And besides, an unrelated single young man cannot room on the same floor as a proper young lady such as yourself, Miss Pulitzer. You must know—”

Katherine practically bared her teeth. “He is my friend, and I—”

David’s fingers wrapped gently around her shoulder.

“It’s fine, Kathy.” Then, meeting MacGowan’s fish eyes, he amended: “Miss Pulitzer.”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Oh for goodness’ sake.”

David didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. Not when he was giving up an entire semester to play nursemaid to Katherine. But still, he bowed his head and waited for instructions. David understood his role; it was Katherine who sometimes forgot.

MacGowan was placated. She nodded at one of the liveried boys in the row of servants.

“Ainsley will show you downstairs, Jacobs.”

David nodded, cheeks pink, and went to the back of the carriage to pull down his wicker suitcase from atop Katherine’s steamer trunk.  

“Mr. Jacobs,” Katherine corrected acidly. She held MacGowan’s gaze; no country housekeeper was going to get the better of Katherine Ethel Pulitzer. “And he will dine with me.”

MacGowan looked as though Katherine had suggested eating in the nude.

“Miss Pulitzer, that’s very—”

“He will dine with me, or I will not dine at all.”

MacGowan demurred. “Fine, then. Ma’am.”

“Thank you,” Katherine chirped. “I’ll see you at dinner, David.”

David could only shake his head as he was led to the back door. Tomboy, he mouthed. Weakling, Katherine mouthed back. He rolled his eyes.

Katherine turned to MacGowan with her most dazzling smile.

“Won’t you show me in, Mrs. MacGowan? It’s been such a long day of travel.”

MacGowan looked like she’d rather stuff her hand into a hornet’s nest, but she merely gave a prim nod and signaled to the footmen to collect Katherine’s luggage.

“Of course, ma’am.”

Katherine followed MacGowan’s red pompadour through the massive green doors and into a stone foyer that was outfitted with wall-to-wall antique tapestries and a heavy oak sideboard. It was nothing like the gleaming marble perfection of their New York mansion. Something about the rustic finish made Katherine’s skin pimple with gooseflesh.

“Goodness,” she murmured, craning her neck to look at the wooden chandelier overhead.

“Yes, it’s impressive, isn’t it?” MacGowan answered curtly.

“Quite.”

“If you’ll follow me upstairs, miss.”

Katherine started up behind MacGowan just as Tibby popped her tawny head out of her basket with a decided chirp.

“Oh goodness!” MacGowan started. “You’ll want to leave your cat in the kitchens, won’t you?”

“I will not,” Katherine said crisply. Tibby stared at MacGowan with deserved contempt. “Even if David can’t, Tibby will go where I go.”

MacGowan opened her mouth to say something more, but when she caught sight of Katherine’s eyes, she shut it again.

“Of course, ma’am.”

MacGowan deposited them in a grand suite at the top of the stairs, and much to Katherine’s relief, left her when Katherine said she could see to unpacking her trunks herself.

“Finally,” Katherine mumbled. She opened the lid of the basket, and Tibby hopped out, ready to survey their new home. Katherine wondered dolefully what David had found downstairs.

Katherine’s chamber was large and airy, dressed in colorful tapestries and Turkish carpets. At its center was a tremendous, ancient four-poster bed that Katherine supposed her father had spirited away from some bankrupt Scottish lord, along with everything else she’d seen of the house so far. Thankfully, no one had imported the gloomy Scottish weather. The room was bathed in sunlight from a large window, looking out over what seemed to Katherine like endless fields and forest. Tibby plopped herself in a square of sunshine, and Katherine went to open the shutters.

There was that green smell again, soft as rainwater but somehow tangy, like the snap of pine needles or fresh-tilled soil.

“Oh,” Katherine whispered.

She closed her eyes and took another breath, deeper this time. The breeze wrapped her in its woodsy scent, and Katherine found herself leaning over the windowsill, as if she might be able to grab onto the wind with her own two hands. It blew through her hair and seemed to sneak into the hollow of her ear. Look, it whispered. Look and see.

When she opened her eyes, she could make out a crumbling stone wall, just along the border of farthest field, an orchard just beyond. And there, leaning against the wall, was the figure of a young man. He was so far away that Katherine couldn’t make out his features—only his broad shoulders and dark hair—but there was a sudden pinprick of anticipation in her belly, one she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before.

“Oh,” she said again.  

Tibby chirped from the carpet behind, and it seemed the wind flew out the window again. Katherine turned and met Tibby’s green eyes. She scooped Tibby into her arms and planted a kiss between her ears.

“Do you see him too?”

But when Katherine turned back to the window, the young man was gone.

Chapter Text

When Katherine came down for breakfast the next morning, David was already there. He’d positioned himself just inside the entryway, his napkin slung over his arm like a butler’s cloth, aquiline nose at snobbish attention.

“Miss,” he said with a stiff bow.

Katherine giggled. She filched his napkin and slapped him with it.

“Very funny. One night in the servants’ hall, and you’ve finally learned some manners.”

David grabbed for the napkin and slapped her back.

“I stand corrected,” Katherine sighed.

David laughed and pinched at his pants pockets in an awkward parody of a curtsy, napkin still dangling from his fist.

“I beg your forgiveness, Miss Pulitzer.”

Katherine snorted and rolled her eyes. “Sure you do.”

“Well, I mean, I would. If I needed to.”

“Are you sure you don’t?”

“I think you need my forgiveness more than I need yours,” David said cheerfully.

Katherine blanched. “Fair enough.”

“Joke!” David tugged on one of her curls and grabbed her by the hand. “Come sit at this giant table with me. We can shout at each other while we eat our eggs.”

“Probably straight from the chicken.”

“Probably,” David agreed. “Though, thankfully, MacGowan didn’t send me out to collect the eggs.”

Katherine sighed as she settled into the upholstered chair at the head of the dining table, where a plate of toast and eggs with sunny orange yolks was already waiting for her. The stupid table was giant, and she was grateful when David took the seat just next to hers; if he’d sat at the opposite end, she might have needed an ear trumpet to hear him.

“I’m sorry about all of that. You know I don’t think of you—”

David shook his head. “Kathy, I was just joking. It’s fine. How’d you sleep?”

Katherine bit her lip. She wasn’t sure that she had slept. She told herself that it was just because it was her first night in a strange house, but there was more to it than that.

She’d left the window ajar, and the same green wind that had carried them to Carterhaugh had slipped past the leaded glass and into her bed. Whenever Katherine had dared close her eyes, the earthy green scent filled her head and made the darkness spin around her; the wind seemed to caress her with its soft fingers, sucking at her breath until she had to gasp for more. Every muscle in her body coiled under the wind’s touch and then would suddenly unspool in a burst of shaking relief.

It was disorienting and frustrating and indecent—and wonderful. She had never felt anything like it.  

But she certainly couldn’t tell David that. Instead, she took a ladylike sip of coffee.

“Like a princess, I suppose. I’ve got my very own tower here.”

David nibbled thoughtfully at his toast. “Drop your hair out the window, you might catch a prince.”

She thought of the young man she’d seen in the fields the day before, and she nearly choked on her coffee. Best to change the subject. 

“How did you sleep?”

David considered for a moment. “Well.”

“Descriptive.”

“I’m not the reporter.”

It shouldn’t have stung, but it did.

“Yes, well. Neither it seems am I.”

David’s face softened. “It’ll blow over, Kathy.”

“I hope so. But there’s not much to report up here.”

David leaned closer, a confidential glint in his eye. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Katherine couldn’t help herself; she laughed and twisted excitedly in her seat.

“Oooh, tell. Is MacGowan a witch in disguise?”

David didn’t hesitate. “Of course,” he said darkly.

Katherine nodded seriously. “I thought as much. However did you get her to reveal herself?”

“I had tea in the servants’ hall last night before bed.”

Katherine didn’t mean to pull a face—David’s family were domestics, after all, and David himself had hauled rubbish in her own household—but she couldn’t help it. If David was to be banished up here with her, he at least should be treated as her guest. 

“David, really.”

“The princess had retired to her chamber. And don’t be a snob.”

“I’m not a snob,” Katherine protested.

“Sure,” David deadpanned. Katherine kicked him beneath the table, but he didn’t react. He took another bite of toast, washing it down with an indelicate glug of orange juice. “Anyway, there are some really, ah, colorful folks working here.”

“MacGowan aside?”

“I met the caretaker.”

“How quaint. Old man, scraggly beard, tells excellent stories?”

David wrinkled his nose. “He tells excellent stories, but he isn’t old or bearded; he took over fairly recently. Must be about our age. His name’s Conlon.”

“And? What yarn did he spin for you?”

“Well…”

David looked suddenly uncomfortable.  

“Oh no. You have to tell me.”

“It’s just that—” David swallowed. “He said you oughtn’t to go out alone.”

“Oh, of course.”

That seemed to be the expectation no matter what Katherine did. She stabbed at her egg yolk with more force than was strictly necessary, and David flinched when he heard the fork tine clank against the china.

“No! He said there’s a legend—”

Katherine brandished her goopy fork in David’s direction. “—upstate New York doesn’t have legends!”

He raised his hands as though she might spear him.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?” he tried.

Katherine did not set her fork down. “So, I shouldn’t go out alone in case a pumpkin-headed assassin comes after my head? Or shall I just take refuge beneath a covered bridge? Either way, I don’t see how an extra body would make much of a difference. You’d probably leave me to be decapitated.”

“Depends on the day.” David sniffed imperiously. “Besides, it was an example. That’s not the legend.”

Katherine let the fork hover in the air for a moment longer before setting it gently back on her plate. She folded her hands in her lap and looked expectantly at David.

“Fine. What’s the legend?”

“That pretty young maids—”

“—are you serious?—”

“—pretty young maids should be careful where they step on Carterhaugh.”

“Because I’ll put my foot in a cowpie?”

Katherine snorted, but she felt something twinge low in her belly. She was glad the dining room windows were firmly shut.

David didn’t seem to notice. “How do you even know what a cowpie is?”

“Don’t change the subject,” she snapped. “Why should pretty young maids be so careful?”

“There’s a man out there.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake. There are men everywhere.”

But there was a man out there. She’d seen him. Hadn’t she? He’d disappeared so quickly.

Katherine’s belly was warm now, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat another bite of her breakfast. She kneaded at her skirt beneath the table.

“Well, this man waits for beautiful girls and then charms them into giving up their—” David trailed off and looked back at his plate. He glanced at Katherine out of the corner of his eye. “Well, you know.”

“Do I?” she said archly.

David sputtered. “Kathy!”

“Don’t look so delicate. I know some things about you, David Jacobs.”

Every last drop of blood in David’s body seemed to find immediate purchase in his cheeks.

“I beg your pardon!”

She shook her head. “I won’t give it to you. You’re no innocent.”

But as soon as the words left her lips, Katherine knew she shouldn’t have said it. She and David had never discussed it—it wasn’t proper, after all—but Lucy had told her. There were no secrets between sisters.

He was so gentle, Kitty. I—I was afraid—we both were—but I didn’t need to be. He took such good care of me. Is it wrong that I want to do it again?

She’d been glad for Lucy, of course; glad that it was David, glad that it wasn’t the Pandora’s box their mother and governesses had warned them about. But Katherine had been jealous too. She supposed she was still jealous. Lucy was different, after. Softer. More grown-up. And it felt like Lucy and David had their own secret, one that Katherine, obviously, could never be a part of. She did not like being left out. She did not like not knowing things. Even now, the queer heat beneath her skirt was a reminder of everything she did not yet know—about Carterhaugh and about so many other things—and it was driving her mad.

But still. She shouldn’t have made fun. It wasn’t her business, and it certainly wasn’t kind. Lucy’s loss was still too fresh.

“David—”

He shook his head.  

“Tomboy,” he said without looking up.

“Weakling,” she murmured back, watching his face for any sign of upset.

A tiny smile pulled at his lips. “I carried my suitcase all by myself,” David said.

“I stand corrected. You’re very strong.”

“Thank you,” he said, but his voice was just a bit too soft.

Katherine knew better than to linger in this particular moment.  

“You’re welcome,” she said quickly, dabbing at her lips with her napkin. “You know, this mysterious man doesn’t sound all that different from any of the boys I’ve met at parties in the city. He probably just doesn’t have a punchbowl to spike.”

David nodded seriously. “That would be a strange thing to just have on your person in the middle of the woods.”

“It would, but then so would a pumpkin-head,” she agreed, glad that David had forgiven her carelessness so quickly. “So, we have a bunch of off-color servants, do we?”

“They seemed to believe the story. Conlon was saying you really ought to be careful about going anywhere alone.”

“Oh, fantastic.” Katherine groaned. “I’ll just invite MacGowan to be my shadow, shall I?”

David chuckled, rubbing self-consciously at the back of his neck. “And here I thought you packed your own.”

Goodness. She was putting her foot in it left and right, wasn’t she?

“I don’t mean I don’t want to spend time with you.”

“Good, since we’re trapped here together.”

“I’m sorry! I just—it would be nice if anyone would trust me to do something on my own.”

Katherine knew she sounded like a child, but she didn’t care. She was agitated, certainly. The day before had been long. She hadn’t slept well. And she was suddenly conscious of every nerve in her body in a way that she hadn’t been before. Her skin flashed with heat. She would snap at David if she wanted to; evidently, he would take it. She glared at him.

Of course, he didn’t glare back, the pest. He just blinked at her with his stupid blue eyes and covered her hand with his.

“I trust you. Kathy—”

She flipped her hand over and squeezed his. “It’s fine.”

 “Anyway,” he took a self-conscious sip of juice and ducked his chin, “it was just a story.”

But Katherine knew David, and she could hear in his voice that he wasn’t sure it was just a story at all. She sighed.

“You think I should be careful, don’t you?”

“Well, with you, that’s really a relative concept.”

David squeezed her hand back with surprising tenderness; Katherine felt like a proper heel.

“I am always careful.”

David snorted.

“I am mostly careful,” she amended, disentangling their hands and tossing her hair behind her shoulders.

“You’re not that either, but I don’t see the wisdom in disputing the point any further.”

“Thank you, kind sir.” Katherine nodded pertly. “So, since it seems you don’t trust me to evade any marauding gentlemen on my own—”

“—not what I said—”

“—might you accompany me on a tour of the grounds after breakfast?”

David pretended to consider the offer. “And who will be our guide?”

It was not in Katherine’s nature to let someone lead her about, and David knew it. Still, he was always the more cautious of the two, and from the way his great cow eyes were looking at Katherine just then, she was almost certain that he didn’t think it was a good idea for the two of them to go tramping around Carterhaugh alone. In truth, it probably wasn’t. But it was as if there was a scrap of wind lodged somewhere deep inside of Katherine, urging her on. She felt the color rising in her cheeks.

“We don’t need a guide.”

At once, Katherine knew it was the truth.

David rolled his eyes. “Of course we don’t.”  

“If we get lost, it might provide some entertainment,” she countered.  

David watched her for a moment, his lips opening and closing with a thought he didn’t seem to trust. Then, he smiled to himself.  

“MacGowan will probably think I’ve taken you off to—to ravish you.”

Katherine let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. They were all right after all.

She slid her chair back from the table and veiled the lower half of her face with her napkin, like some kind of raunchy Bowery showgirl—or at least, what she imagined one might be like.

“No, that’s the job of the mysterious man of Carterhaugh.”

David jumped to his feet. “I could be mysterious!”

Katherine tossed the napkin at him, and David’s hands blustered awkwardly between them, completely missing the catch. She laughed at him.

“You could not. But you’re charming and wonderful and sweet.”

David begrudgingly retrieved the napkin from the floor. “Not strong or dashing or—”

“Those aren’t always the most important things,” Katherine said. She took his arm and pressed a gentle kiss to his bicep. “Lucy didn’t think so anyway.”

“No,” he said softly, leaning his head on top of hers. “I suppose she didn’t.”

It was strange. Katherine and David touched one another all the time. It was as casual as conversation between the two of them. But suddenly, it felt wrong to be pressed so close to David’s side. Whether it was the mention of Lucy or the queer echo of the wind, Katherine didn’t know, but she pulled away.

“Don’t get maudlin on me,” she said with an aggressive cheerfulness. “Go find your boots, and let’s do some exploring.”

Napkin still in hand, David made another grand bow.

“Yes, Miss Pulitzer.”

“Oh, shut up.”

---

It turned out that two people raised almost exclusively in New York’s stone canyons and manicured parks were not necessarily natural explorers; only Tibby, who’d been cajoled on the adventure by a handkerchief stuffed with sardines, had the benefit of animal instinct. They navigated their way out of the gravel drive with ease, but in the space of twenty minutes and a scant mile, they’d managed to make quite a spectacle of themselves.

Katherine had soaked herself past the hem of her skirt thanks to a bit of hubris with an irrigation ditch, and her hair, wind whipped and tangled, resembled nothing so much as a bird’s nest that had fallen out of a tree and then been promptly stomped on by a passing bear. David, it turned out, was one of those unfortunate individuals whose mosquito bites become rosy continents unto themselves; there was a massive blotch on his cheek and another flowering on the back of his neck. He trundled awkwardly in his boots, cursing every few steps.  Katherine thought he looked rather like a well-dressed scarecrow who’d escaped his perch. Tibby, of course, padded ahead on delicate paws, as though she didn’t want to be seen with them.

Katherine couldn’t blame her. By the time they reached the back field, both Katherine and David were sweating like dockhands. Tibby promptly abandoned them, off to chase the smattering of sparrows alighted on a wooden fence at the field’s perimeter. David was miserable.

Katherine was not.

The moment they’d stepped outside, the wind had wrapped her in its embrace, pressing at the small of her back and tugging at her wrists. She’d thrown her arms wide and taken off with a giddy laugh, leaving David and his ill-fitting boots no option but to try and keep up. She couldn’t be bothered to care. When she breathed, the green smell filled her to the brim, and there was only sky and grass and sour-sweet blossoms. The strange feeling in her belly now radiated into every limb, and as Tibby took off after the birds, Katherine found herself spinning like a dervish. Laughter spilled out of her in a way it hadn’t since she was very small. It made her feel as though Lucy was spinning with her.

The world kept whirling around Katherine like some kind of bowered carousel even after she stopped spinning. The stone wall she’d seen the day before flashed past in the distance, and her heart seemed to pick up speed.

“It’s beautiful out here,” she breathed.

David slapped at the bite on his face.

“Sure.”

Katherine tried to still her vision. “You don’t think so?”

She couldn’t understand David’s ambivalence. There was nothing in Manhattan like this. But David leaned his behind against the fencepost with a shrug.

“I think it’s fine. It’s very—green.”

Katherine threw herself next to him on the fence rail.

“This is why you’re going to be a doctor and not a poet.”

“You really like it, don’t you?”

David squinted, as though he were trying to see what Katherine did.

“I think I might,” Katherine said.

She turned and leaned herself headlong over the fence, gazing at the stone wall just beyond. High grass waved around it, and from this distance, she could see the climbing roses that crept up and around the stone, thick and casual as a throw blanket. They fluttered a little in the breeze, and the wind carried their petal-soft perfume right to Katherine. She breathed deeply.

“I know we’ve got parks and things in the city, but they’re not the same.”

“Yes, in parks, someone actually cuts the grass,” David grumbled. He knocked the heel of his boot against the fence post, trying to dislodge a clod of mud.

“You’re ruining it.”

“My apologies.” David sighed, and he turned to lean over the fence too. “What makes this so different?”

Katherine considered. “It’s—it’s boundless. There’s nothing to contain any of it—it just grows the way it wants to.”

“What does?”

“All of it! The trees, the grass—look at those roses! David, have you ever seen anything like them before?”

She gestured so madly at the little stone wall that David had to grab her by the waist of her skirt to keep her from tumbling headlong over the fence.

“There are rose bushes at home.”

Oh, why couldn’t he understand?

“Yes. Bushes. That someone trims and manicures. These are wild. They’re free. They’re—they’re beautiful.”

David looked out at the wall, his blue eyes serious. Katherine could see them scanning the wall the same way they moved over the pages of his textbooks, as if he were filing it all away for later. He scratched at the bite on the back of his neck and looked back at her. His eyes moved across her face with the same specific attention.

“They are,” he said finally. He elbowed her. “You are too, you know.”

Katherine started.

“What?”

David reached over to smooth her ruined hair. “I may not be a poet, but I can read between the lines. Just because you’re not Lucy—”

The wind slipped away from her for a moment, and Katherine’s chest felt suddenly heavy. She looked down at her soiled skirt with shame.

She’d never told David how she felt, but perhaps Lucy had seen and they’d discussed it; or maybe it was just that David had always been good at seeing things that others did not.

Lucy had always been what a young lady should be, a perfect rose in a delicate vase. She was graceful and refined, her voice always measured and gentle, never a hair out of place or a wrinkle in her dress. Katherine had never been that way. She’d tried—tried to be like Lucy, tried to please their parents, tried to be anything other than what she was—but she just couldn’t seem to master herself the same way.

Katherine had loved her sister more than anything, but she couldn’t help but feel that she’d never compare. In her darkest moments, she thought that it might have been better if she and Lucy could have traded places. The world would be better and more beautiful with Lucy in it.

Katherine’s eyes prickled, but she couldn’t blame it on the wind; the air had gone still.

“David—”

David’s fingers whispered over her cheek. “I loved her, Kathy, but—”

“I know. It was impossible not to. She was perfect.”

“She wasn’t, though. That’s just what I mean. No one is.”

Katherine laughed cheerlessly. “Name one thing.”

“She was easily hurt,” he said without hesitation. His eyes went back to the wall. “She cared too much about what other people thought.”

“Those aren’t flaws, David.”

“They can be. There were some moments she missed entirely, because she was so worried about what someone might say or what they might think of her. There are things that she didn’t do or-or-or say to other people because—”

His voice faded away, and Katherine realized: Lucy had been too perfect. Even if she’d lived, she and David might never have had the life they deserved because Lucy wouldn’t have known how to break the rules. Lucy hadn’t been able to bear disappointing people; Katherine had never known how to do anything else.

“Oh,” she whispered. She leaned toward David, but he twitched out of range.

“It’s fine,” he said, voice thick. “I understood. And I’m not so different, or I might have been stronger.”

“David—”

He let her touch him this time, and he turned back to her with a bewildered smile.

“But you, Kathy? You’re always yourself.”

The wind started up again, barely a whisper. It blew Katherine’s hair back over her shoulders, and she shivered.

“Not always.”

“More than anyone else I know.”

“I wish that were enough,” she murmured.

“For who?”

She balanced her weight on the bottom fence rail, leaning her body out and away from David. “You know who.”

She would never be enough for her mother and father.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

David wrapped a gentle hand around her wrist and pulled her back to him. The wind pushed his dark hair away from his forehead, and Katherine could see his eyes, clear and kind as they’d always been.

“Not that it should matter, but you’re enough for me.”

“I might be too much,” she said, looking away.

“I like you that way,” David said sincerely. “Keeps things interesting. And I think—I think as long as you’re enough for yourself, that’s what should count.”

Katherine blinked much too quickly. “And you don’t think you have a way with words?”

“Well.” David blushed beneath his mosquito bite.

They stayed that way, letting the wind wrap itself gently around them. After a while, the light changed, almost like someone had blown out a lamp somewhere in the sky. Tibby scurried back from the sparrows, curling against the fencepost. 

David looked up. “It looks like it might rain. Do you think we should go back?”

Katherine looked at the wall in the distance, its veil of wild roses shaking in the wind. She shook her head.

“You can.”

“But—”

She scooped Tibby into her arms. “Tibby will protect me from the marauding ravisher of Carterhaugh. Won’t you, Tibbs?”

Tibby looked profoundly disinterested; David looked like he was ready to throw Katherine over his shoulder and make a run for it. But the wind was picking up speed, and Katherine couldn’t resist its pull. 

 “It’s just a story,” she insisted. “Remember?”

David’s eyes scanned the sky. “You’re sure you’ll be alright? I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be looking after you.”

“And when has that ever gone well?”

“Fair point.”

Katherine turned and grabbed David’s hand. “I’ll be just fine. If it starts to rain, I’ll be right behind you. I just want to go a bit further. Go make some messes for MacGowan to clean up, and I’ll see you at dinner?”

“But—”

“David. Please. Trust me.”

She had him there. His face fell.

“You’ll be careful?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Well—”  

“I’ll be careful.”

David nodded to himself. “Alright then.”

“I’ll see you at dinner. I promise.”

“It’s a date,” he said.

With another baleful look at the sky, he squeezed her hand and made to leave. As he turned, Katherine cleared her throat.

“David?” she called. He looked back, and she smiled. “Thank you.”

“Always, Kathy. But you’re stuck with me, just so you know.”

“I’m glad,” she said to David’s retreating back.

The wind seemed to split itself then, rushing David away and wresting Katherine over the fence and toward the stone wall.

He’s gone, it whispered in her ear. Hurry now. Don’t delay.

Tibby wriggled free from Katherine’s hold and picked her way toward the wall with curious intention; Katherine’s windblown steps followed the periscopic path of Tibby’s tail above the grass.

The smell of the climbing roses was heady and thick the closer Katherine got, and by the time the wind flung her against the wall’s squat top, she felt almost drunk. Her limbs felt strangely disconnected from the rest of her; when she saw her fingers nestled among the roses, they looked suddenly unreal, as though they were part of the vine themselves. The waving tips of the grass were sharp and sticky against her stockings. If anyone had passed the wall, it would have been difficult to see the young lady in its shade, so surely had Katherine been swallowed up by the field and its wonders.

The wind buffeted her hard, and Katherine found her cheek upon the roses. This close, she could see the little green thorns on the vine, but the blooms were soft as a pillow against her skin; the spiny defenses couldn’t touch her.

That’s it, child, said the wind. Breathe it in.

She did, and the perfume drenched what was left of her senses. The wind gathered petals and leaves and blades of grass and spun them around her. Everything was a blur of white-green-pink. There was suddenly nothing Katherine wanted so much as to lie down and never stir from this beautiful spot. She laughed, throwing herself back upon the grass, and the wind laughed too. When she fell, she took a handful of roses with her.  

Tibby nudged impatiently at Katherine’s hip, then butted under her hand with an insistent mewl, but Katherine couldn’t be moved. She didn’t even notice when the light overhead changed again; she didn’t see the shadow of a man creeping toward her.

“Whatcha got there?”

The wind died, quick as a wink.

Katherine popped up, still clutching the delicate roses to her chest; their petals jarred as her heart thudded beneath them. Tibby skittered behind her, finding refuge in a particularly snarled pile of vines. Katherine hardly noticed.

In front of them, his corduroyed backside leaning against the wall, was the boy she’d seen the day before. Katherine wasn’t entirely sure how she knew him, but somehow, she did. And here she was, blown halfway to Sunday and blinking at him like an idiot.

He was certainly handsome up close, she thought.

The broad shoulders she’d noticed were straight and well-muscled, even beneath the sage green of his work shirt, and if she could see a bit of his hard-packed chest where he’d left a few buttons undone, why shouldn’t she look? The shock of dark hair was tousled—from the wind, surely—and ill-contained under a tweedy grey flat cap. Everything about him seemed solid and compact; if she touched him, he’d probably feel like stone beneath her hand.

Not that Katherine wanted to touch him, of course. That would be indecent. She didn’t even know him. But—

She shook herself. Where on earth had he come from?

The boy didn’t seem to share her bewilderment. He stared at her for a moment, his wide-set hazel eyes narrow with amusement, like he knew something she didn’t.

“I said, ‘whatcha got there?’”

Katherine looked down at her chest. Yes, she knew what those were.

“Well, roses, of course.”

Thank goodness she sounded more confident than she felt; the wind may have died, but her insides kept right on turning.  

The boy quirked an eyebrow, and his lips settled into what could only be described as a smirk.

“And where’d you get ‘em?”

His voice was warm and a little rough, like tea that someone had spiked with whiskey. Not that Katherine had ever done that, of course. And not that she cared what his voice sounded like.

She tossed her curls toward the wall. “Just there.”

She held the roses closer to her chest, afraid he might otherwise see the frenzied beating of her heart. Unfortunately, the gesture only had the disquieting effect of drawing his eyes to her breast.

The boy frowned. Katherine tried not to feel insulted.

“Huh,” he said.

“What?”

He pushed off the wall and took a step closer, looking her up and down in a way that made her more than a little self-conscious.

“Just seems that a lady oughta be more careful about touchin’ other people’s things.”

Well, that made very little sense indeed. She forgot herself and let the roses go. She pressed her hands flat on the earth behind her, making ready to stand.

“Other people’s—what?”

She heard the haughty Pulitzer note slip into her voice, and she held the boy’s eyes defiantly. He didn’t seem deterred. He took another step toward Katherine, looming over her now. Katherine didn’t care. She wouldn’t be intimidated on her own property.  

“Those ain’t your roses,” the boy said.

He reached down beside her and plucked one of the fallen roses from the grass. His body felt warm, even inches away. Which was entirely beside the point, Katherine reminded herself. She thrust her chin into the air, tangled curls flopping back behind her shoulders.

“Aren’t they?” she said imperiously.

The boy buried his nose in the little blossom, and something about his breath against the delicate petals made Katherine’s stomach feel queer.

“Nope,” he said.

Well, then.

Katherine pushed herself to standing and took a step toward the boy. They were inches apart now.

“This is my land,” she said, her voice low and—hopefully—dangerous.

But the boy only chuckled to himself. “Is it now?”

He spun the rose between his fingertips, and Katherine couldn’t help but watch. His fingers were short and blunted, but somehow, there was something gentle about the way he handled something so fragile, and—

“Yes,” Katherine said, snapping back into herself.

It didn’t matter that the land was her father’s; she wouldn’t let the boy win.

“An’ who says?”

He leaned a touch closer to her, and Katherine did her level best not to stumble backward. This close, she could see a braided gold chain circled fast around his sun-brown throat. It was impossibly thin, as though plaited by fairy’s fingers, and it bobbed when he—

Katherine swallowed, hard.

“I would imagine the deed ‘says,’” she said, much more coolly than she felt.

“Huh,” he said again.  

“I’m sorry. Do you—do you think it belongs to you?”

“Sure.” He spread his arms wide and turned to indicate the patch where they were standing. “This little piece here is mine. I take care of it.”

Katherine put her hands on her hips. “You’re on staff here?”

There was the smallest crack in the boy’s bravado; Katherine saw him gnaw at his bottom lip. He wouldn’t look right at her.

“Not exactly.”

“Then—”

“I take care of it, I said,” he interrupted, voice hard. The wind stirred, and Katherine took the smallest of steps backward. She heard Tibby hiss behind her.

“Alright then,” Katherine said, as though she were talking to a willful child. “You take care of it.”

“I do,” he said softly. “I try.” The boy kept his eyes on the little rose between his fingers. “Y’know, when a rose is plucked, it ain’t never the same again.”

It was Katherine’s turn to move closer. His back was almost to her, and she reached out like she might grab his shoulder, but stopped herself just short of touching him.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“When you pick a rose, you’re takin’ it from everything it’s ever known. You’re takin’ away somethin’ you can’t give back.”

He looked back at her, and his eyes might have been red. Katherine leaned her weight against the wall.  

“I never thought of it that way.”

She dipped her head, not quite in invitation. But the boy seemed to understand. He settled next to her on the wall, rose still spinning gently between his fingers.

“Of course you never. That’s why I gotta watch out for my spot here.”

Katherine leaned a little closer under the guise of looking at his rose. “It’s still beautiful.”

“It is,” he agreed. He looked over at her, and, wind or no, Katherine felt the heat flare beneath her belly and up her spine. “They don’t lose that once somebody picks ‘em,” he went on. “They’re just—different. More fragile-like, huh? You gotta be delicate with a rose what’s been plucked. Careful, y’know? Why’d you think they got thorns?”

Katherine wanted to reach out and brush her fingers against the tiny green thorns. She wanted to see if he’d stop her. But she kept her hands braced against the wall.

“To—to protect them?” she asked.

He smiled.

“Sure. Even from the likes of pretty little girls like you.”

Katherine didn’t quite know what to say to that. But the boy didn’t wait for her to respond.

“What’s your name, miss?”

“Katherine.”

He considered her answer for a moment, and then he nodded. “S’pretty too. A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

The wall suddenly felt much less solid.

“You shouldn’t say such things.”

“I says what I like,” the boy said matter-of-factly. “You’re pretty. I think you know it. But if you don’t, I’ll tell you. Simple as that.”

Katherine was used to the well-bred young men at every society party. They would reach for her gloved hand and lean down to bless it with a continental kiss. Usually, their grip was sweaty and their lips unpracticed. When they complimented her looks, they tried to be suave and poetic, and usually, they just succeeded in convincing Katherine that they were mutton-headed bores. No one had never just told her she was pretty. It felt somehow shocking.

“Thank you. I think,” she said. “And your name?”

“Kelly. Jack Kelly.”  He gave a loose-waisted bow, catching his cap before it fell away.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Kelly.”

Jack turned toward her, resting his hip against the wall. “Are you?”

“I think so. Though I suppose I’m still confused about what you’re doing here.”

He winked at her. “Maybe I’m waitin’ for a pretty girl to pluck a rose.”

“So that you can upbraid her?”

“I ain’t sure what that means,” Jack said, tilting his body so near to hers that a gust of wind might send them crashing together, “but if you’d like me to, I’m willin’.”

His shirt was rolled up to his elbows, and as he shifted his weight, Katherine noticed the tight cord of the muscles in his forearm.

“Uh—”

“Calm down, Miss Katherine. You’re safe with me.”

He offered her the little rose, and she took it. She brought it to her nose and breathed in its delicate scent, the same petals that had brushed his skin now brushing against her own.

“Am I?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t you be?”

“You’re a stranger.”

But even as she said it, she felt somehow sure that Jack wasn’t a stranger at all.

“Ain’t so strange now, what with you knowin’ my name and all.”

“Where do you live?”

“Around.”

“In the village?”

He hesitated. “Ah, sure. Just about. An’ I figure you must be in the manor house up yonder?”

“I might,” she answered vaguely.

The wind moved again, and her hair loosed from whatever semblance of order it had left. Almost as though he’d anticipated it, Jack reached forward and stopped it, pushing it gently behind her ear. The heel of his palm whispered past her cheek, and he smelled like the wind: earth and grass and roses.

“Ain’t never seen you before. I’d remember,” he said without pulling away.

His fingertips folded gently, tentatively, behind her ear, and Katherine was glad for the wall behind her; she was certain she might fall to the ground otherwise. Her eyes slipped closed, and—

“Well, ain’t that somethin’.”  

Jack’s hand disappeared. She heard a low keening groan at her feet, and when she opened her eyes again, there was Tibby, her tabby coat raised up and away from her body in fluffy defense. Jack, the idiot, was leaning toward her. Tibby hissed at him.  

“Oh, Tibby!”

Jack didn’t pull his hand back. “She don’t seem to like me much,” he said with a laugh.

“She’s not much for strangers.”

Katherine dropped to her knees in the grass, but Tibby was completely occupied with Jack. Her green eyes flashed as Jack knelt down too.

“Like I said, I ain’t so strange now.”

“Tibby doesn’t know you yet,” Katherine said.

“Well, maybe Miss Tibby an’ me can get to know each other better.”

Jack let his hand hang in the air, and Tibby inched her nose forward for a curious sniff. She did not look impressed, but her fur seemed to deflate around her.

“That’s right, Miss Tibby,” he cooed. “You just take your time. We’ll get to know each other, you bet.” He looked up at Katherine with a hesitant smile, and Tibby’s little pink nose bobbed between them. “You and me too, Miss Katherine?”

She blinked at him as though he’d just spoken a foreign language. “I—well, I suppose so. You could call at the house.”

Jack’s face might have paled. He drew his hand away and fidgeted with the chain at his throat.

“Oh, I ain’t much for payin’ calls.”

“Then—”

“You just come out here when you need a chat, huh?” he said quickly. “So long as you mind the roses.”

“I might,” Katherine said softly.

“I hope you do.”

Katherine was almost grateful when she felt the wind push her toward him, but Jack was on his feet now, reaching his hand down to help her up. The sky had gone another shade darker, and Katherine felt the sudden plop of raindrops on her cheek. Tibby chirped with decided distaste.

“You’d best be gettin’ in.”

His hand was rough against her petal soft skin. She ducked down to scoop Tibby up before she could give it anymore thought.

“It was good to meet you, Mr. Kelly.”

“Sure, it was good to meet you too, Miss Katherine. Be sure you take care of that blossom, huh?”

Katherine winced, but when she opened her hand, the rose was still intact. She slipped it into the breast of her shirtwaist before Tibby’s scrabbling feet could knock it free.

“Of course,” she said.

“Take care of yourself. And Miss Tibby, too. Don’t wander too far now.”

Katherine had the sudden sense that she’d already wandered farther than she knew.

“I—I won’t.”

Jack smiled and tipped his hat. “Until we meet again, then.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I’ll make sure we do.”

The sky thundered above, and Katherine felt the wind wrap around her again. She snuggled Tibby close against her chest, and let the wind carry them away from the stone wall.  

“I’ll be waitin’, then, won’t I?” Jack called after her.

But when Katherine turned to wave, he was gone.

David was going to kill her.

Chapter Text

The rain came, and it did not leave for three days.

“A hurricane, or what’s left of it,” David explained; despite his charms, he was often an insufferable know-it-all. “I’m sure it’s come up from Florida or Georgia. You remember—we’d get these in Manhattan every now and again. Normally, they can’t move so far inland, though. It isn’t warm enough to keep the storm going. It’s rather curious that we should get so much of it here, especially so early in the season.”

Katherine didn’t care about the season; she only cared that she was cooped up inside.

She tried to keep herself occupied with David. They learned every inch of the manor house, from its kitchens—much to MacGowan’s steely consternation—to the attic turret. Not surprisingly, it was not the best maintained of Katherine’s father’s properties; Katherine understood her place in the pecking order. There were leaks in the roof and drafts in the halls and more field mice than Tibby could hope to stalk in her lifetime. But still, it had its charms.

The library, for instance. Both David and Katherine could certainly appreciate that.

Its gigantic Turkish carpet had once been a lush crimson, and its gothic windows had not seen the backside of a rag in quite some time, but the great stone fireplace somehow kept the room warm and cheery, even as the squall raged outside. Every wall was heavy with carved mahogany shelves crammed absolutely full of books, not all of them dull or academic; whoever had put the library together had secreted some folk tales and Henry Miller between the dusty volumes of political history and finance. There was a glossy wooden table inlayed with a gorgeous antique chess set and, facing the window, a tremendous writing desk outfitted with a typewriter that seemed oddly out of place among the rest of the room’s aged treasures. It was exactly the sort of space that David and Katherine would have curated for themselves, and so they promptly made camp for the duration of the storm, with Tibby curled up by the fire for good measure.

MacGowan was less than thrilled.

“We don’t keep the library open, miss. It’s typically used only for special occasions.”

“And when, may I ask, was the last time Carterhaugh saw a special occasion?”

“That’s beside the point, miss. It’s how we’ve always done things. And for Jacobs—”

“—Mr. Jacobs—”

“—Mr. Jacobs to spend so much time with you unchaperoned?”

“You needn’t be concerned about that. And speaking of, Mr. Jacobs and I will take our meals in the library for the time being. That will be all, MacGowan, thank you.”

It was entertaining the first day. It was stilted the second. And on the third, by which time Katherine had lost approximately twenty matches of chess to David and his smug face, and the charm of eating off trays delivered by a glowering MacGowan had rather worn off, it was interminable. It did not help that Katherine’s position at the chess board had her facing the stone wall where she’d left Jack.

She tried to watch for Jack without letting David know what she was doing; luckily, David was distracted by their never-ending game of chess. However, it didn’t much matter. The rain wrang down like a glassy curtain, whipped about by a savage wind. No one in their right mind would have been outside. But still, Katherine couldn’t help looking.

She couldn’t help thinking of him either. She kept the little rose in her chemise, nestled gently against her breast. It should have started to shrivel and dry, but the petals were still soft and smooth against her skin.

It was silly, she knew. They’d only spoken once, and Katherine Ethel Pulitzer was not the type to get soppy over a boy—well, a man. Plenty of society fops had tried to earn her favor, and she’d turned down every one of them. But there was something about Jack Kelly that made it difficult for Katherine to master her own thoughts. She tried to listen to what David was saying, tried to focus on the path of her pawns and knights and rooks, tried to think of anything but the handsome boy at the stone wall, but all she seemed to be able to do was wonder if Jack was thinking of her too.

He said he’d be waiting for her, after all. And if Katherine thought about that as the rain pelted her bedroom window, her belly thrumming and the cleft between her legs tight—well, it wasn’t anyone’s business but her own.

On the fourth day, the rain dried up, slowly at first, and then all at once, like a faucet someone had only just remembered to turn off. Katherine flung open her window. The sun peeped through what was left of the clouds and the wind—not the vicious wind of the storm, but Katherine’s wind—rustled through the high grass.

Katherine didn’t waste any time. She left a disinterested Tibby on the window sill and David rather a vague note on the breakfast table, and then she slipped out the side door. She’d expected the ground to be marshy and thick, but the path to the wall seemed to have inexplicably resisted the rain’s thorough soaking. The grass was still wet, though, and it smelled impossibly sweet, as though honey had leached into its roots.

As Katherine walked on, her wind pushed the clouds away, and the sun rose higher, bright enough now that the water on the grass and the vines and the leaves shone like slivers of diamond.

The wall sat in the distance, its stone dark under its wet pall. The little roses fluttered gently in the new wind. Katherine’s stomach fluttered just as surely.

There was no sign of Jack.

“Hello?”

Katherine’s voice was swallowed up by the wind and its undercurrent of birdsong. Who did she think she was speaking to, anyway? What had she expected—for the boy to sit out in the rain, pining for her? They’d spoken once, for pity’s sake. And she’d probably said all the wrong things; oh, goodness, what had she said? And she was sure she’d looked a complete mess; hadn’t David told her that she’d looked like a wood nymph when she came in? Suddenly, she didn’t find it so flattering.

Katherine sat uneasily on the wall’s edge, crossing her legs tight together in an absolutely abortive attempt at looking casual.

“Mr. Kelly?” she called again.

The only response was the gentle flapping of the roses.

“Of course,” she muttered to herself. She slapped her hands against the top of the wall, curling her fingers angrily around the roses without thinking. “It was silly of me. Stupid, silly Katherine. Always too big of an imagination for her own good and—”

She groaned and buried her face in her hands, accidentally tugging some roses free as she lifted her hands from the wall.  

“So, you came back?”

Katherine’s head shot up, a few rose petals still stuck to her cheeks.

Oh. There he was.                                   

Jack stood in front of her, just as if he’d been there all the time. There was no sign that he’d come running, no sweat or beating breath. He smiled at her, one corner of his mouth inching higher than the other. 

Katherine promptly forgot what she’d just been so frustrated about. She ducked her head.

“Mr. Kelly—”

“Y’can call me Jack, y’know. We ain’t strangers no more.”

As if it to prove it, Jack took a step closer to her. His sun-brown fingers brushed the rose petals from her cheek; Katherine hoped he couldn’t feel the warmth of her blush.

“Evidently not,” she said softly. “Jack.” She took a breath, but her head felt just as light as if she’d taken no air at all.

Jack’s smile grew wider, and he leaned his head back at a cock-eyed angle, the sun glinting against the tight golden chain at his throat. His hand was at his side now, but Katherine could still feel his fingers on her skin.

“And how are you, Miss Katherine?” he asked.

“Just Katherine. If you’re just Jack, I mean.”

“Katherine.”

“I’m alright, I suppose,” she said coolly, trying to ignore her pirouetting insides. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Jack huffed out a soft laugh.

“Sure. But for all I know, you just like roses.”

“They are beautiful.”

“So are you,” said Jack, voice husky and low, like nails scratching softly against her skin. Then, he smirked. “Oh, I forgot. I ain’t supposed to say things so plain.”

“You—you can if you want to.” If there was any blood left in Katherine’s body that hadn’t found its way to her cheeks, she would have been well and truly shocked. “But I—where did you come from?”

“Just the other side of the wall.”

Jack sat down next to her. Katherine felt the heat of his body, and her skin seemed to cinch tighter around her.

“I didn’t see you when I came up.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” His fingers scratched the chain around his throat. The skin beneath was a soft pink, as though the metal had scraped it down to new skin. He thumbed it back down into place. “I’m careful about that kind of thing.”

“So—you were just hiding behind the wall?”

“Sure. In a way.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

Jack shrugged. “That’s the only explanation I got.”

Katherine looked down to where her hand rested among the roses. Jack’s fingers were practically a hairsbreadth from hers. She wondered if he knew.

“It all seems rather mysterious.”

There was the slightest of cracks in Jack’s smile.

“I s’pose you could say that.”

Katherine waited, but he didn’t say anything more. She cleared her throat, tossing her curls back over her shoulder.

“You know, my friend told me there’s a legend about this place.”

Jack looked down at their hands, and he twitched his fingers against the roses.

“An’ what kinda legend is that?” he asked softly. His little finger brushed against Katherine’s.

Katherine gulped. “There’s a man that haunts Carterhaugh and tricks pretty young maids into—ah—”

“I think I catch your meanin’.” Jack pulled away, pressing his hands behind him and leaning backward. He looked Katherine over thoughtfully. “Well, you are a pretty young maid. You think I’m the trickster from your story?”

Katherine felt his eyes on her body, and she burned like the filament in an electric bulb.

“Are you?”

 Jack shook his head with a dry laugh.  

“If I was, you think I’d tell you?”

“I suppose not.”

“I can assure you, Miss Katherine, I’m a gentleman.”

He hopped off the wall and bowed to her, extending one of his brown hands. Katherine hesitated, and then she set her hand in his. She’d never let any man take her bare hand before. Jack’s skin was rough, his hands big and warm.

“Katherine,” she murmured.

“Katherine.” Jack dipped his head and pressed a whisper-soft kiss to the crest of her knuckles. He looked up at her with serious eyes. “I wouldn’t trick you. Not if I could help it.”

Katherine didn’t know what to say. Jack gave her hand a gentle squeeze and then let it go again.

“Well,” she said airily. “I suppose that’s good to know. If we’re going to be friends and all.”

“I’d like to be.”

“Me too.”

“Then I guess that settles it.” Jack stretched and looked around. “Say, where’s Miss Tibby?”

“Back at the house. She doesn’t much like all the wet.”

“Fair enough. What brings you ladies here anyway?”

Katherine looked away. “My father sent me here.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“A holiday?”

“Not exactly.”

“What then?”

“He sent me away.”

Jack’s face softened. He sat back down on the wall, his knees brushing against hers. “What for?”

“To protect me,” Katherine said hollowly.

“From what? Guys like me, I suppose?”

“No.”

“Katherine?”

“My sister—”

Jack shook his head in mock disbelief. “It ain’t fair that there should be two such beautiful girls.”

“There aren’t. Not anymore.”

He winced. “Oh.”

“Lucy. That was her name.”

“What happened to her?”

“Typhoid.”

Lucy was sick for months. At first, they’d thought it was only a summer cold. Their parents had brought Lucy out at the beginning of the season, and they’d spent the warm months in Bar Harbor, dashing from luncheons to boating parties to balls. It was an awkward summer. Lucy was the belle of every ball, but she missed David desperately; it was difficult for her float in the arms of so many different men when there was only one she wanted to hold. Still, Lucy glittered. Katherine thought now that her sister had been like a star, burning white hot before her flame was extinguished forever.

When they returned to the city, Lucy took ill. She did not get better, Father’s specialists be damned. Somehow, she was beautiful even as she faded.

She died on New Year’s Eve. Six months, and it still did not seem real.

Jack reached for Katherine’s hand again, and she let him take it.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I am too.”

His thumb rasped softly over the back of her hand. 

“Why’d your old man send you away, then? I’d think he’d wanna keep you close.”

“He said that it would be safer here. That sickness doesn’t spread like it does in the city.”

Jack nodded without looking at her.

“I s’pose he’s got a point there.”

“And he doesn’t want me close. He never has.”

Jack’s head snapped up, and his grip on her hand tightened. “I ain’t so sure I believe that.”

“It’s true. Lucy’s—losing Lucy was just an excuse. I don’t—I’m not what he wants me to be.”

“What’s he want you to be?” he asked gently.

“A proper lady,” Katherine breathed.

“Ain’t you?”

Jack raised his eyebrows, and Katherine looked pointedly at their intertwined hands.

“This may shock you, Mr. Kelly, but no, I’m not.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

He made to let her hand go, but Katherine held fast.

“I didn’t mean to. Fool you, I mean,” she murmured.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Jack’s fingers pulsed around hers. “I ain’t upset about it.”

Katherine couldn’t quite look at him. “Why’s that?”

“Just that I like you the way you are. Your pa’s a fool.”

Katherine’s eyes suddenly brimmed. Jack’s words might have been simple, but she felt as though she’d been waiting her entire life to hear them.

“I don’t know that anyone’s ever called my father a fool.”

“Nah. If he thinks there’s somethin’ wrong with you, he’s a fool.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

He brought her hand to his mouth, watching her eyes for permission. Katherine nodded, and he kissed her knuckles again, soft and careful, his breath spreading warm across her skin.

She wondered if Jack was some kind of dream she’d concocted—she couldn’t understand how he could see her so clearly. But he must be real; she could feel the sandpaper heat of this thumb tracing soft patterns over the lavender-blue lines of her veins.

“You’ve only just met me.”

Katherine’s voice was nearly a whisper. Jack shrugged and held her hand tighter.

“It don’t matter. There are some things a body just knows.”

“How?”

“I got my ways.”

She shook her head. “It’s sweet of you to say—”

“I don’t say things what ain’t true.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.” He turned his head away, his throat tight beneath its golden chain. “I can’t.”

“Well, then. I suppose I’ll have to believe you.”

“You should.” Jack hesitated, just for a moment, and then he raised his free hand to Katherine’s cheek.  “I know we don’t know each other yet, but you’re a good one, Miss Katherine. I can tell.”

The wind blew around them, honeyed grass and warm earth, but somehow, Katherine couldn’t let it carry her away, no matter how she wanted to.

“I’m not as good as my sister was.”

Jack laughed, but the sound was cheerless. “Well, that ain’t fair.”

“What?”

“Makin’ sure I can’t argue.” Jack’s thumb moved across her cheekbone, and then, he pulled away, folding his hands into the empty space between his knees. “I didn’t know her, and so’s I can’t very well contradict you—even though I’d like to.”

“Yes, well, I’m very crafty,” Katherine said, but she could not sell the joke.   

“I can see that. But I can see you buy your own line too.”

“What?

“That you really believe you ain’t as good as she was.”

“I’m not. I—”

Katherine bit her lip. She knew better. You didn’t believe things that were true; you merely accepted them.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

There was no reason she should tell him. The man was a stranger to her, after all. But somehow, as the wind pressed against her back, Katherine knew that she would. There was something about Jack that made her want to bare herself in ways she never had before.

“I think my father would have preferred it was me,” she said slowly. “That died. I think everyone would have preferred it was me. I do.”

It hurt less than it should have to say; she’d had time to let the thought settle. But Jack flinched backward as though she’d slapped him. He shook his head.

“Oh, Miss Katherine—Katherine. Katherine, you don’t—”

“I do. Mean it.”

“That ain’t what I was gonna say.” He fidgeted again with the chain at his throat. “But I—I understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got a brother. Charlie.”

“He’s not—”

“No, he’s fine. I—I’ve made sure of it. And I ain’t sorry about what I’ve had to give up to keep him safe. Because I know he’s better’n me. So, I see what you’re sayin’. But—oh—"

Jack’s voice broke, and he hid his red face in his hands. He turned away from her, curling over his knees. The wind gusted, and his cap fell to the grass, letting his dark hair tangle in its wake. Jack didn’t seem to notice. He suddenly looked very much like a frightened child.

It was indecent, Katherine thought. Or at least, it should feel like it was. In her father’s world, it was not appropriate for anyone to reveal too much, even when you knew someone well. And she and Jack were strangers.

But somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.

Katherine stood and gingerly set her hands on Jack’s shoulders. She could feel the swell of hard muscle beneath her fingertips, and her breath caught.

He looked up at her, his hazel eyes pleading. “Katherine, you’re still here. You’re young and healthy and—and free. That ain’t nothin’ to take for granted.”

She let herself sink down into the grass so that she was on her knees before him.

“What do you mean?”

Jack’s hands were on either side of her face now. Katherine should have pulled away, but she did not want to.

“I meant what I said,” Jack said. “Don’t never wish that on yourself. You don’t deserve it. An’ I bet Lucy would say the same.”

Katherine knew he was right. Their entire lives, Lucy had always done her best to protect Katherine, even from their father. Katherine could remember every childhood misadventure she had managed to talk Lucy into. Even when Lucy knew better, she humored Katherine when almost no one else would. You let me go first, Kitty—it’s what a big sister is supposed to do.  

“She might,” Katherine admitted. She felt the wet seeping through the knees of her skirt.

“She would,” Jack said, his voice so low and certain that Katherine could practically feel it. He let her go. “I know it.”

“But you didn’t know her.”

“She was your big sister?”

Katherine nodded. “How did you—”

“I told you: there’s some things a body just knows. An’ let me just tell you, as a big brother, I know damn well that Lucy wouldn’t want you to feel this way. Beggin’ your pardon, of course.”

Katherine hoped beyond hope that what he said was true. She sank back so that she could look up at him, her fingers soft on his corduroy knees. Her skin felt charged where she touched him.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The wind blew her hair around her shoulders, and Jack reached to smooth it back.

“Ain’t nothin’ to thank me for. I’m just tellin’ you the truth.”

“Well, thank you all the same.”

The ghost of a smile found its way to Jack’s lips.

“’Course. We’re friends, ain’t we?”

Katherine gently pulled her hands away, cheeks red. “I suppose we are.”

“You alright then?”

She sat back on the grass, tucking her knees close beneath her chin like she did when she was a little girl. Her skirt would be ruined, but there was no one to answer to at Carterhaugh.

“Yes,” she said. “Are you?”

Jack watched her with soft eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seemed upset. Do you—would you like to tell me about Charlie?”

“Oh.” He scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck, and the gold chain slid back and forth over his skin.

“It’s only that you said you understood. About Lucy. And I wondered—of course, you don’t have to say—just that—you said—what did you—”

“You know, you’re awful pretty when your face gets all red like that,” Jack said, but his voice fell strangely flat. He looked away from her. “You wanna know about Charlie?”

“If you want me to know. I suppose I’d like to understand.”

“I think you already do,” Jack said softly.

“You don’t—”

“No, it’s alright. C’mere.”

He sighed and reached down to help her back onto the wall beside him. Their fingers stayed laced together even after she was settled.

“You know how you feel about Lucy?”

Katherine nodded.

“That’s—that’s how I always felt about Charlie. We was all each other had when we was little—no folks, y’know?”

Katherine did not know. She may have spent an inordinate number of her childhood years fascinated with the idea of being an orphan. She entertained visions of running away, free and unencumbered of anyone’s expectations. But looking at Jack now, at the drawn lines of his handsome face, she could see that growing up alone was not what she’d imagined.

“I promised I’d always look out for ‘im, an’ I never minded it; I’m sure Lucy never minded lookin’ after you neither—though I’d bet you was a handful.”

“I was,” Katherine agreed.

Jack only shook his head, his smile growing into something warm and beautiful as he went on.

“With Charlie, it was so easy. He never asked for anythin’, never complained, no matter if we’d gone days without food or some place nice to sleep. An’ he could’ve. He—well, he was real sick when he was a baby, an’ somethin’ happened to one of his legs. Makes it hard for him to get around. But he never got mad about it. Never wanted more help’n anybody else. An’ always smilin’, even when I knew somethin’ was eatin’ him up inside. He never wanted me to know; he didn’t want me to feel bad.”

Jack faltered for a moment, and his face dimmed. “But I knew. And it killed me every time.”

“You grew up here?” Katherine turned so that she was holding Jack’s hand in both of her own.

“No. In the city. We sold newspapers to make ends meet. But there was a bad winter, and Charlie got real sick. I—I stole some medicine from a druggist. An’ I got caught.”

“What happened?”

“They sent me to the Refuge. It’s this jail for kids.”

Katherine’s father was on the board of the Refuge. He called it a charitable institution. She’d never thought of it as a jail before.

“A jail?”

“Broke the law, didn’t I?” Jack said coldly. “Didn’t matter why I done it.”

Katherine disagreed, but she only tightened her hold on Jack’s hand. “I can’t imagine.”

“You don’t want to,” Jack said darkly; it made Katherine shiver. “But that ain’t the point. I was inside, and Charlie was out. I—the warden. Mr. Snyder. He tol’ me about this work farm in the country. In Carterhaugh.”

“I’ve never heard about any work farm here.”

“It ain’t somethin’ the locals would talk about, trust me.”

“Why not?”  

“It’s just—” Jack hesitated. “It ain’t the kind of thing folks go gabbin’ about.”

But Katherine was a reporter. She knew that there was always someone who would gab about what others tried to hide. She made a mental tick in her reporter’s notebook and nodded for Jack to go on.

“So, you came to the work farm?”

“Snyder tol’ me I had to, that I was bein’ transferred. He wanted me out here real bad. Real bad. I told him I’d go if Charlie could come too. I thought it’d be safer for him. Y’know, like your father.”

“Sure.” But they both knew that’s not why Katherine’s father had sent her to Carterhaugh. “But the warden said yes?”

“He said yes. I just—I didn’t know—”

Jack was shaking; Katherine felt the tremor between her hands.

“Jack?”

“Nothin’. It just wasn’t what I thought it’d be. So I made a deal to get Charlie out. He’s safe now. Got adopted by a nice lady in the city. Runs a vaudeville house.”

“She didn’t adopt you too?”

“She couldn’t. Snyder made sure of that.”

Katherine pressed her lips into a hard, flat line. This Snyder fellow didn’t sound like the sort who should be working with children at all. She wondered what sort of “deal” he’d forced upon Jack. She would make it her business to find that out too.

Perhaps there was a story in Carterhaugh after all. And if she could find it, perhaps it could help Jack and his brother.

“Can you visit?” she asked.

“No.” Jack’s voice cracked. “I ain’t seen him for six years.”

 “Six years?” It didn’t make any sense. “Can’t you leave the farm? You’re not a child anymore.”

“I—I got a sentence to finish.”

“For stealing medicine? Years ago?”

“It’s part of the deal.”

“I don’t understand. You’re here with me.”

“I got a long leash.”

Jack tugged at his throat without thinking, and something about the gesture made Katherine’s skin crawl.

“I’m sorry,” Katherine said.  

“I ain’t,” Jack said gruffly. “Not if Charlie’s safe and happy.”

“He’s never come back here?”

“He can’t.”

But he could. Charlie was still alive. Katherine couldn’t fathom what was keeping the two brothers apart. Whatever Jack had promised, he was still paying the cost.

“This warden doesn’t sound like a very understanding man,” she said.

Jack made a noise low in this throat. “He ain’t a man at all.”

This time, the pang in Katherine’s stomach had nothing to do with the fact that she was holding Jack Kelly’s hands.   

“Jack, I—”

He shook his head. “It ain’t nothin’ for you to worry about, Miss Katherine.”

“Katherine,” she said softly.

Jack looked up at her, his eyes shining. “Katherine.”

The wind rose again, and Katherine felt its hand at her back. It eased her forward, soft as a lover, until her body was only inches from Jack’s.

“What if I do worry?”

“An’ why would you?” Jack asked, but something in the low tone of his voice told Katherine it was not a serious question.

The wind swept Katherine’s hair behind her shoulders, and Jack was suddenly closer.

“I—” Katherine felt heady, like she couldn’t draw enough breath. “I don’t know how to explain.”

Jack’s eyes were wide. “Me either.”

“Just that—you see me.”

“You see me too. That ain’t nothin’.”

“No,” Katherine whispered. “It’s not.”

No one had ever seen her before. Not like this.

Jack leaned toward her. Katherine studied his face—the dark frost of stubble on his jaw, the little white scar on his chin, the boyish dimples, the hopeful oak leaf eyes—and she felt something kindle low within her.  But he didn’t move any closer. He was still shaking.

“Miss Katherine. Katherine. Katherine, I—”

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

She anchored her little hands so that her thumbs met his temples. “May I kiss you?”

His chest heaved, and he started to move, to turn away, but she held him fast.

“Are you—are you sure?”

“Yes,” Katherine said.

“You can’t take it back.”

“I know.”

“You don’t,” he whispered. “You don’t, but oh—God help me.”

“Jack?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Kiss me. Please.”

And so, she did.

Chapter Text

It took Katherine fewer than ten seconds to decide that kissing Jack Kelly was her new favorite pastime.

It wasn’t that Katherine had never been kissed. She had. Her first kiss had been with a rather reluctant David when they were seven and eight-years-old. Lucy and Sarah had been crying buckets of tears over the ending of the fairy story they’d just read, where a prince woke a princess from a sleeping death with true love’s kiss. Katherine’s argument had been that waking up to someone else’s mouth on your own couldn’t possibly be romantic. What if his breath was sour? What if he accidentally sucked your breath? What if his lips felt slimy?

Lucy and Sarah, grown-up ladies of nine years, had insisted that Katherine just wouldn’t understand until she’d found a young man she cared very much about. Katherine cared very much about David, and he was a young man; so, she’d kissed him, right there in front of Sarah and Lucy.

David made a noise like a mouse who’d been snapped in a trap. Lucy’s cheeks turned about fourteen different shades of pink. Sarah laughed at them all for the better part of ten minutes. And Katherine? She hadn’t been able to see what all the fuss was about. She’d merely been grateful that she hadn’t been able to smell David’s breath at all.  

There had been others, of course. Society girls were great for getting giddy on stolen sips of champagne and kissing each other for “practice,” but it was all in good fun and usually involved far more giggling than actual kissing. And then, there were the boys. No one spoke of such things, but it turned out that many of the young men Katherine had grown up with were not gentlemen; in fact, they fancied themselves Casanovas of the upper East Side. They excelled at cornering young ladies away from their chaperones and romancing them with inexpert open-mouthed kisses. Katherine was usually adept at avoiding them, but there had been a few occasions where she just hadn’t been quick enough. She remembered one run-in with Darcy Reed that had felt rather like a shellacking.

Kissing Jack felt entirely different.

As soon as Katherine touched her lips to Jack’s, the delicious, maddening tension that the wind had carried into her room that first evening took hold of her body. Every part of her ached with wanting Jack, and he seemed determined not to disappoint. His hands were somehow everywhere at once, warm and rough and wonderful, and every bit of Katherine he touched flared with electric current. But the kiss itself was gentle and soft. Jack did not fight for control. His lips slipped against hers like velvet, the crook of his fingers light on her cheek. It was Katherine whose hands looped around the back of Jack’s neck; Katherine, who pulled him close; Katherine, who prodded his lips open with the force of her own will. As her fingers inched to tangle in Jack’s dark hair, his gold chain slid beneath her palms. It was hot to the touch, and as it rasped against Jack’s skin, he moaned.

Katherine pulled back. “Are you—”

“M’fine,” Jack said breathlessly. His cheeks were pink with exertion.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Did you—Miss Katherine, where did you learn to kiss like that?”

She blinked back at him. “I’m not sure. I’ve never done it until now.”

Jack pressed a whisp of a kiss to Katherine’s lips, and she almost whined when he pulled away. He leaned his forehead against hers.

“Never?”

“Not like that,” Katherine murmured.

Jack laughed and tucked his face against her neck. His nose tickled behind her ear, and she shivered as she felt his lips touch down at the crest of her jaw.

“Should we make sure it wasn’t an accident then?”

He nipped gently at her ear lobe. Katherine’s knees practically gave out beneath her.

“Katherine?”

His breath was so warm. She let him hold her closer.

“We’d better try again,” she whispered.

Jack leaned backward so that he could see her face, the flecks of green in his hazel eyes suddenly more intense. “For sure?”

Every muscle in Katherine’s body quivered like a plucked bowstring.

“For sure.”

---

They met nearly every day after that.

Katherine found ways to make her excuses to David: she needed a constitutional, or she didn’t want to twit his allergies. She’d only be an hour, and then of course they could play another game of chess. She wasn’t sure that David didn’t suspect her of something—especially the longer it went on—but he didn’t stop her either; he seemed to know better.

“Sure, Kathy,” he’d say. “Whatever you say.”

Then, David would sigh and bury himself in one of his medical journals, and Katherine would run to bury herself in the roses, Tibby at her heels; Jack and Tibby had taken quite a shine to each other.

But Jack was never there to meet them. Katherine understood. He didn’t have the freedom she did. It was a strange thought. Katherine had spent years feeling like a prisoner in her father’s house, but she had never understood just how privileged she was. She would wait for Jack, usually plucking a few roses to slip into her hair—he liked that, he told her—and then, he would appear, as if by magic.

It was weeks before she realized why.

She’d laid in the shade of the wall, plucking blades of grass to brandish at Tibby’s batting paws. She’d been there for more than a quarter-hour. Jack wasn’t normally so late; it seemed he always materialized just after Katherine arrived. She was worried for a moment—Why couldn’t he come? What had that Snyder done to him?—but then, the wind stirred around her. The roses on the wall shook, and there was a jolt in Katherine’s stomach.

It couldn’t be.

Tibby mewled as the wind tickled through her coat, and she watched Katherine thoughtfully. Katherine took a tender pink bud between her fingers. Tibby butted against her hip.

“This is crazy. It’s crazy,” Katherine murmured to herself. “You can’t make people appear.”

But when the little rose came free from the vine, Jack was suddenly there. Tibby chirped excitedly, and Jack bent down to let her sniff his hand.

“Well, if it ain’t my two favorite girls.”

“Jack! The roses!” Katherine cried.

Jack did not look away from Tibby, who had flopped onto her back in the grass and was quite enjoying the gentle belly scratches she was receiving.

“What about ‘em?” he asked.

“Just that—well, it’s going to sound ridiculous.”

“Try me.”

“You seem to just appear whenever I pick them.”

Jack looked up at her then. He looked tired, Katherine thought, but he managed to arrange his face into an imitation of his usually charming smile.

“Gotta look out for what’s mine, don’t I?”

“But how—”

“Magic.”

He was making fun of her.

“Oh, of course,” Katherine grumbled.

Jack’s smile grew wider, and, with a final scratch at Tibby’s belly, he stood to take Katherine in his arms.

“Of course.”

He pressed a soft kiss to the hinge of her jaw, and it was all Katherine could do not to moan in response. She put a hand to his chest.

“Jack, I’m serious—”

He let his teeth find her pulse point. “Mmm, so am I.”

“That isn’t fair. You’re—mmph—” the tip of his tongue flicked against her skin, “deliberately—ooh—” his nose traced a fine line to the hollow behind her ear as his hands circled her waist, “trying to—oh, my—” he tugged at her hair, “distract me!” 

Jack leaned backward, looking entirely pleased with himself. “How’s it workin’?”

“Pretty well so far.”

“Good.”

She didn’t ask about the roses again.

---

Sometimes, when Jack finally appeared at the wall, he would be stooped and dark-eyed. Other times, he would almost flinch away from Katherine’s touch until he buried his face against her breast like an overwhelmed child. There were days when Jack didn’t seem to be able to speak at all, and, on those days, Katherine would just sit next to him on the wall and wait. They weren’t strangers anymore. She could be there for him.

What she didn’t know was how to help him—and Jack didn’t seem to know how to let her. He wouldn’t let her see what Snyder had done, and he certainly didn’t want to talk about it.

But it had always been difficult for Katherine to let well enough alone.

She couldn’t stand to see anyone in pain or exploited; it was why she had started working for The Sun in the first place. And Jack was certainly being hurt and taken advantage of, even though, most days, he would spend their brief time together—he never seemed to let more than an hour pass before he would nervously pack Katherine off to the manor house—hiding whatever burden he carried beneath his handsome smile. 

Katherine had been at Carterhaugh for a month when she finally screwed her courage to its sticking-place. She’d plucked her rose, and Jack had appeared, a mottled halo of purple bruises ringing his throat just above the gold chain. He had to know she couldn’t ignore it, but he didn’t say anything as he settled himself on the wall. Even Tibby, who had never been very adept at comforting anyone in their time of need, seemed to know that something was amiss; she curled herself in the grass next to Jack’s feet and nuzzled at his boots with her whiskered snout.

Katherine’s heart thrummed deep in her corset as she reached to brush her fingers against Jack’s bruises.

“What happened?”

He tried to smile. “Nothin’ for you to worry about.”

“Jack.”

“Katherine.” Jack shook his head. “I’m fine. Just leave it.”

“You’re not fine.”

“What a headline.”

“Jack,” she tried again.

But he wouldn’t quite look at her. Instead, he leaned down to scratch between Tibby’s ears. “Hey there, Miss Tibby.”

“Jack, please.”

He didn’t answer.

“What happened?” Katherine pressed.

For a second, she thought Jack hadn’t heard her. But then, he took a shaky breath. The hair on Tibby’s back prickled in the wind.

“Why do you wanna know?”

“I want to understand. Maybe I can help.”

Jack made a sound that was not quite a laugh. “Ain’t nobody can help me.”

Katherine leaned down and let her hand find his cheek. He reluctantly let her guide him upright until they were sitting face to face.

“That can’t be true.”

“It is. I made a—a bargain.”

“To keep Charlie safe. I know.”

“Yeah.” Jack’s words grated against his throat. He looked down at his knees.

“What was it?” Katherine pressed. “You always seem—I’ve been wondering—”  

“I don’t—it ain’t really—”

Jack tried to shrink away from her, but Katherine took him by the shoulder. He watched her for a moment, his eyes wide and skittish, like a frightened animal pressed against the back of its cage. She smoothed his hair away from his face.

“Jack? Please?”

His eyes slipped closed. “He owns me.”

Katherine’s skin was suddenly a sheath of gooseflesh.

“What?”

“Snyder. He owns me. Lock, stock, and barrel.”

Jack’s fingers picked at his gold chain, and Katherine bristled. That wasn’t how the law worked. Jack had stolen medicine, not committed grand larceny or murder. Perhaps he had a sentence to serve, but ownership? Jack was a man, not a dog on a leash. Surely Charlie wouldn’t have wanted this for his brother. It didn’t make any sense—but, she reasoned, what about Jack’s story made any sense at all? After all, who appeared at the shift of a rose?

“I don’t understand,” she murmured.

“It’s better if you don’t.”

“But—”

Jack stopped her mouth with a hurried kiss. “S’fine. It’s what I signed up for, huh?”

“It isn’t right.”

He shrugged. “Nobody said the world hadta be right.”

“No. I guess they didn’t. But there must be a way—”

Jack pulled away from her then. He stood, and Tibby skittered behind Katherine’s ankles. He turned his back to her.

“There ain’t no way.”

“I have—my family has a lot of connections, Jack. I could use them to get you out of this. To help you get back to Charlie.”

Katherine almost believed it. She was a Pulitzer, and her name would open doors, with or without her father’s influence. Surely, she could talk to the police commissioner about this Warden Snyder or locate the judge who had heard Jack’s case. There must be someone who could help.

But Katherine couldn’t ignore the distinct feeling that it wasn’t just the law that bound Jack to his fate.

“You can’t help,” Jack said softly.  

“Why can’t I?”

“Because I’d be welchin’ on my end a’ the deal.”

Katherine flew to her feet. “That doesn’t matter! It’s not a fair deal. Whatever he made you promise—”

“Fair ain’t really a thing with Snyder’s kind. I won’t let him hurt Charlie.”

“Charlie’s been adopted, Jack. Snyder can’t undo that. If you were to run, it wouldn’t—”

“You don’t know what he can do. It don’t matter what’s happened on the outside.”

“The outside?”

Jack’s eyes widened, as though he’d been caught at something. “Off the farm, I mean.”

“Jack, I don’t understand,” she said again. “Please just—”

He kissed her once more, his rough hands flush against her cheeks. “I’m fine, huh? I’m here with you, ain’t I?”

Katherine let him pull her into his chest, and she rested her cheek on the soft homespun of his shirt. He smelled like the stale midsummer: baked earth, dry grass, and relentless sun. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his waist.  

“Not all the time. When you’re back there—”

“I can handle it. I have to.”

Or what? Katherine wondered. What could Snyder possibly do to Charlie then?  

“You shouldn’t.”

Jack stiffened in her arms.

“Yeah, well, you don’t get to decide that.”

He took her by the arms and set her away from him. Katherine was immediately cold. The wind tugged at her skirt and the roses waved. Jack threw himself down against the wall, unseating a rather offended Tibby, who hissed at him in response. Jack absently reached to stroke Tibby’s fur, and she hissed again. Katherine felt rather like hissing at him herself.

“I was only trying to help.”

“I know.” He sighed. “An’ I appreciate it. I do. I just—I can’t let you.”

“Won’t,” Katherine insisted. Tibby chirped her support.  

“Can’t,” Jack countered.

He scrubbed his face with his hands. When he let his hands dangle again at his knees, Katherine could see that his eyes were red. She sighed.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Jack extended his hand, and Katherine took it, settling in the grass beside him. “Don’t be mad, huh?”

She kissed his cheek, letting her hand linger when she pulled away. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just worried.”

“Been a long time since somebody worried ‘bout me.”

“How does it feel?”

She unseated his cap and tucked his hair back with a smooth stroke of her hand. He closed his eyes.  

“Nice,” he murmured. “But don’t waste too much a’ your time on me, huh?”

Katherine snorted, but she didn’t pull away. “Too late.”

“I s’pose it is.” Jack’s head sunk between his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t want to drag you into any a’ this.”

“You haven’t dragged me into anything.”

“S’what you think,” he said softly.

Katherine bridled, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “No one takes me anywhere I don’t want to go.”

Jack’s head popped up again, and Katherine thought she might see the ghost of a smile on his lips. It would have to do, for now.

“Y’know, I believe that,” he said. “Wish I could say the same,” he added softly.

Katherine fought against her better judgment and swallowed her questions. She could see from the set of Jack’s jaw, from the way that his eyes stayed rooted to the grass beneath them, that he would not say anything more. Instead, she nestled into his side, letting the prickly grass bite into her hips as she settled against him. Tibby, in a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness, curled between them and let Jack stroke her belly again. His arm found its way around Katherine’s waist, and he leaned his head on top of hers. It was like they’d always known one another, like they’d always been just like this.

But they hadn’t, and Katherine knew, even as Jack held her tighter, that she did not know him at all. And Jack didn’t know her either: she might keep her questions to herself for now, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t find the answers.

---

“And where’s your head?”

Katherine started at David’s voice. After she’d left Jack—or, more to the point, after Jack had sent her back to the house, the way he always did—she hadn’t met David in the library like usual. Instead, she’d installed herself at the desk in her suite; she always did her best thinking at her desk. But there were too many thoughts spinning around in her brain, each of them a top in precarious motion. She had to figure out what was happening on that farm. She had to find a way to help Jack. She had to understand.

But she had forgotten the time. The western horizon was a watercolor of pinks and roses and lavender; she’d missed dinner. When she looked back at the doorframe, David stood there with a plate of cold sandwiches.

“Hungry?”

Katherine shrugged. “Not really. I—sorry if I left you waiting.”

David sighed and, with a cursory look over his shoulder for MacGowan, came further into her room. He set the sandwiches down at Katherine’s elbow and then went to close the door. He came back and settled himself on the edge of her desk.

“Kathy, you’ve been wandering around like something undead for weeks now.”

Katherine leaned back in chair. “What a charming image.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t actually.”

She did know, of course. David wasn’t stupid. Of course he’d noticed the change in her.

“Oh, Miss Pulitzer. Methinks thou dost protest too much.” 

Katherine resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “Doctors aren’t supposed to quote Shakespeare.”

“I’m well-rounded.”

“Apparently.”

David didn’t take the bait. He studied her for a moment and then reached to take her hand. His face was drawn with concern.

“Kathy,” he said softly.

“Davey.”

Katherine gave his hand a perfunctory squeeze and then pulled away. Still, David smiled just a little.

“You haven’t called me that in a long time.”

“Well, you’re a grown-up now, aren’t you?”

“I am,” he said. “And you’re not.”

Katherine folded her arms across her chest. “And why’s that?”

“Grown-ups don’t go sneaking off without telling people what it is they’re doing.”

Katherine’s neck was suddenly hot with creeping blush.  

“I’m not sneaking—”

David raised an eyebrow. “Sneaking.”

“I’m just exploring.”

“How many times can you explore the same spot?”

“What?”

“It’s not like I don’t know where you go.”

Oh, no. She hadn’t considered that David might follow her; she hadn’t considered what David might have seen. Surely he would have said something before now. But—

She glared at him.

“So now you’re spying on me?”

He snorted. “You’re a grown-up, huh?”

“Weakling.”

“Tomboy,” he fired back. “And don’t think you’re going to throw me off the scent.”

“Clearly. You’re a regular bloodhound.”

Katherine tried to swivel her chair away, but David’s hands wrapped around its wooden arms, holding her in place.

“I’m not following you.”

“Then how, precisely, do you know where I go?”

David stared at her as though she were concussed. He swung one arm wide to the window in front of them.  

“Because there’s a massive window that looks out over the fields?”

There was one just like it in the library below. Of course.

“And you just happen to sit there all the time?” she tried.  

“Well, thanks to you, I’m completing my summer term by correspondence, and the library is rather a convenient place to study.”

Wasn’t it just like David to remind her that he wouldn’t be there to watch her if she hadn’t gotten them banished in the first place—to remind her that she’d unseated his otherwise quiet and orderly life, and not for the first time? And what had she done to thank him? She’d left him alone.  

“I—I suppose it is,” she said guiltily.

“Who is it you’re meeting?” David asked, his voice soft.  

“What?”

“Kathy, I’ve seen you with him.”

She couldn’t tell what David felt, and suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She sank a little lower into her chair but kept her eyes on the distant fields. Their stone wall was adrift in the faded grass, cool and dark in the winnowing light. David turned to see where she was looking.

“Who is he?”  

“David, please—” she shook her head. “It isn’t that I don’t want you to know. But I don’t want you to know.”

David laughed cheerlessly. “I don’t understand.”

“If Father finds out, I don’t want him to think you knew anything.”

“But I do.”

“You don’t. You’ll have plausible deniability.”

“Why do I need that?!” David’s eyes widened, and it would have been comical if Katherine didn’t know that he was suddenly very concerned for her virtue. “Kathy, what are you—”

“No, it isn’t—we haven’t—it isn’t like that. But he’s—David, you loved Lucy didn’t you?”

David’s face crumpled. Katherine was being unfair, and she knew it, but she had to make him understand.

“You know that I did.”

“And if you could have seen her every day—”

“—I would have done anything,” David admitted. “To have that time with her.”

“You did, didn’t you? When you could?”

She knew the answer, of course. David and Lucy had never been free to be what they were; every one of their moments was borrowed or stolen.

David closed his eyes. He gripped the edge of the desk with white knuckles. “Yes.”

“Well.” It was the only explanation Katherine could give.

David snapped out of his revery, eyes wide.  

“You love this guy?”

Well, she certainly hadn’t said it out loud. It was ludicrous to love someone whom you didn’t really know. But still—

“I—I think so.”

And then, she thought of the way Jack’s eyes lit up at the sight of her, even on his darkest days; of the need she felt inside his kisses; of the soft touches that seemed to plead with her to treat him just as gently, to keep him safe. Her chest felt warm and buzzy.

“And I think he loves me too,” she said softly.

“Katherine!”

“I can’t ignore it, David.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.” David’s voice softened, and he looked at her with eyes that didn’t seem to know whether to be pleased or terrified. “But—”

“I promise, he’s a good man.”

“Who manages to romance a respectable young lady in the middle of a field?”

“As unlikely as it sounds, yes.” Katherine took his hand. “I wanted to tell you, but—”

“Plausible deniability?”

“Yes.”

David looked down atthier hands. “I trust you. You know that.”

“Do I?” she asked.

“Katherine.”

“David.”

He sighed. “I only want you to be safe.”

“I am. He would never hurt me.”

“You seem so sure.”

“I am. I know it.”

David enveloped her hand in both of his own, squeezing it tightly. “Kathy, if anything happens to you—”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

A scoff. “You want me to spell it out?”

There was a flare of irritation somewhere in the back of Katherine’s mind. Yes, she understood David’s concern. Yes, she was absolutely engaging in something that could ruin her precious reputation. But she was doing it because she wanted to, and if she wanted that—and she did, she did—it wasn’t David’s place to stop her. After all, he’d done it with Lucy.

“You don’t know him.”

She tried to pull her hand away, but David held fast.

“No. Evidently, you won’t let me.”

Good lord, the boy was exasperating.

“Not yet! I promise, when the time is right—”

David let her go. “When will that be?”

“I don’t know. But—you understand, don’t you? I kept your secret. With Lucy.”

“It isn’t the same,” David insisted. “I can’t protect you like this, Kathy.”

She looked out the window. The wind cut through the grass and pressed at the glass panes. The sun was almost gone now, but the quivering roses still glowed a gentle pink on the wall. Katherine felt a familiar pang low inside.

“Maybe I don’t want to be protected.”

David looked as though he didn’t know whether to strangle Katherine or burst into tears. “But—”

“Everything is going to be okay.”

She couldn’t make that guarantee, of course—not when there was still so much she didn’t know—but she desperately wanted it to be true.

“How can you know that?”

“I don’t. But—” she hesitated, “he sees me, David.”

He looked stung. “I see you. I’ve always seen you.”

“I know. But—”

“No. I know.” He turned away from her, and Katherine knew it was because he didn’t want her to see the tears in his eyes. “Lucy—Lucy saw me.”

She stood and slipped behind David, setting her hand on his shoulder. “And you saw her.”

“I did.” His voice broke then. He turned, and Katherine knotted her arms around his waist. He held her close, chest beating against hers. “Oh, Kathy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. I should be happy for you. I am happy for you. Just—promise you’ll be careful?”

“As I can be.”

He sniffed and let go a wet laugh. “That inspires confidence.”

David knew her too well. But Katherine knew that he would let her alone. He understood now.  

“I promise I’ll be careful,” she said. She pressed onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

His arms fell away from her, and he mopped a hand across his red face. “I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

David nodded. “But if he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

Katherine laughed then, and she slapped playfully at David’s’ chest.

“Weakling.”

He gave her a watery smile.

“Tomboy.”

Chapter Text

The summer began to move more quickly. There hadn’t been in any rain in weeks, and the sun sucked at the green grass until it was hay. The wind came in hot gusts that offered little relief from the stifling air. Still, she went every day to meet Jack—but she’d taken to carrying a canteen with her, and a picnic lunch to boot. Jack never seemed like he had enough of anything. Water. Food. Rest.

Or her.

He drank Katherine down just as surely as he did the water. Every time they met, it felt as though Jack was afraid it might be the last time. There was an urgency to his kisses that Katherine didn’t quite understand, but she knew better than to ask too many questions. Jack did not always want to answer. In fact, he usually didn’t.

That’s why Katherine had sent the letter.

She’d written to her editor near Independence Day, but weeks later, there still hadn’t been a reply. She’d nearly forgotten that she sent it, until one afternoon in late July when she’d interrupted David’s studies with a bouquet of fresh roses, grass and dust still clinging to her clothes. It had been one of Jack’s better days, and Katherine practically felt like singing.

“A rose for a rose,” she giggled, tucking one of the little flowers behind David’s ear. “Where’s Tibby?”

“Last I saw, she was heading after some mice in the kitchen.”

David leaned back from his desk, and he looked Katherine up and down. His cheeks flushed, and Katherine bit her lip. She knew that she looked a mess, but there was a difference between good, clean dirt and a cattywampus shirtwaist and disheveled hair, and it was clear David knew it when he saw it. It wasn’t precisely what he thought, of course—they hadn’t gone so far—but he wasn’t far off the mark.

David cleared his throat, pretending to page through his textbook. “MacGowan’s been snooping around, you know.”

Katherine resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. “Color me shocked.”

“She spoke to me voluntarily.”

“Oh, the poor dear.” Katherine rolled her eyes and threw herself into the chair facing David’s. “What did she say?”

“She wanted to know why you’re always ordering your lunch in a hamper.”

“We’re in the country. I want fresh air.”

David snorted. “It’s ninety degrees, and the air is damp as a rag.”

Katherine thought of the way her shirtwaist clung to her skin, of the soft pink patches Jack would touch with his fingertips. Just that afternoon, he’d wrapped her hair around his fist, lifting her coppery curls from her shoulders and pressing a kiss to the nape of Katherine’s neck. It didn’t matter how hot it was; Jack knew how to make her shiver.

“What did you tell her?” She toyed idly with her roses and did not look up.

“Oh, I told her that you’ve been meeting a man every day since the beginning of the summer and that it’s starting to get quite serious—come on, Kathy. What do you take me for?” David plucked the rose from behind his ear and set it in the open spine of his book. He smiled to himself. “I told her you’re very into botany.”

“Botany?”

“It’s the study of—”

Katherine stuck her tongue out at him. “I know what it is. But she—did she believe that?”

“I doubt it.” David flipped the heavy leather cover of his book closed. He hesitated. “She—well, she also said she knows I’ve been in your room.”

“And she doesn’t approve?”

“She’s a right old battle axe.”

“I’m sure Father chose her just for that.”

David winced. “Speaking of. There’s a letter from your father.”

“Oh.” There was a sudden pit in Katherine’s stomach. No news was good news when it came to personal messages from her father. She’d rather be exiled than back under his magnifying glass. And there was Jack to think of now. Katherine set the roses on David’s desk. “Do you think he’s calling us home?”

David shrugged. “Well, summer will be over before we know it. Life has to start again at some point, doesn’t it?”

But for Katherine, life had only just begun. For all that she’d complained about Carterhaugh when they first arrived, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it now.

“Does it?” she asked softly.

David slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and produced a creamy envelope. He slipped it gently beneath her fingers and let his hand rest on hers.

“It does,” he said.

Katherine sighed and took up the envelope, trying to ignore the way her hands were sweating as she sliced beneath the flap.

“Well?” David asked.

Katherine forced herself to swallow. It was only after she began to read the letter aloud that she realized the handwriting on the paper was not her father’s.  

Miss Pulitzer,

I am writing on behalf of your father, who is away on business and cannot be disturbed. Any further letters will be held until his return. He left instructions that you and Mr. Jacobs should expect to remain at the country estate for the foreseeable future, as your mother has accompanied your father on his travels and Misses Edith and Constance will be returning to school next month. He hopes that the country air is keeping you both well and sends his best wishes.

Sincerely,

George H. Ledlie
Personal Secretary to Joseph Pulitzer

Katherine’s insides fluttered like petals in the wind. He wasn’t sending her home! She would be able to stay with Jack. She would have the time she needed to put together the patchwork scraps of Jack’s past and find out how she might help him. It was the biggest kindness her father had ever done her, and he didn’t even know it.

David didn’t share her enthusiasm; his face had gone pale.

“The foreseeable future?” David grabbed for the letter and read it over again. He shook his head. “I can’t—what on earth does that mean? I’ve already missed one term; I can’t very well learn to be a doctor locked in a library.”

Katherine bit her lip. She hadn’t given a thought to David. Here, he was in a gilded cage. He belonged in the city. Even if Katherine wasn’t sure where her future lay, David’s certainly wasn’t here.

“I don’t understand. He shouldn’t be punishing you.”

David crumpled the letter and chucked it at the window seat. “I suppose I should be thankful he’s letting me continue my studies at all,” he muttered.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Katherine insisted.

David scoffed. “Neither did you. And yet—”

“I embarrassed the family.”

“By telling an important story?”

“And selling it to the competition,” Katherine reminded him.

Her face softened, and she rose from her chair and went to David. He scooted to one side and let her perch on the arm.

“And you know it wasn’t just that,” she went on. “That’s just his excuse for finally packing me off. I’m just sorry he dragged you into it.”

David pulled her arm around his shoulders. “It seems he wanted us both packed off. And he’s succeeded. He always does.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Katherine leaned her head on top of David’s. From her perch, she could make out the little stone wall in the distance.

“It isn’t your fault. Though,” David’s eyes followed Katherine’s to the wall, “I suppose you didn’t really want to go home anyway.”

“No,” she said softly.

David shrugged her arm away. “I figured,” he said, more to his shoulder than to Katherine.

“It doesn’t mean that I want you to have to—”

“I don’t think it matters much what either of us want.”

“Not to Father, anyway.” Katherine wrapped her arms around David’s stiff shoulders. “What you want matters to me.”

David sighed and leaned his head back against her. “What you want matters to me too.”

“I know. Thank you for—well, for letting it go on.”

David chuckled in spite of himself. “I think we both know no one lets you do things. “

“Except, it seems, my father.”

“I think you scare him, Kathy.”

“Oh, yes, I’m terrifying.”

“You’re so much like him.”

Katherine pulled away. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, not like that.” David shifted to face her and took both her hands. “It’s just that you’re almost always the smartest person in the room.”

“Unless you’re in it.”

“You’re very kind, but just listen for a second.”

“Of course,” she demurred.  

“You’re smart, Kathy. You have endless ambition. And you’re stubborn as all get out. You’re all the parts of your father that have made him what he is. But you’re—well, you’re you. I don’t think he understands what to do with you.”

Katherine looked away. There were moments where she recognized her father in the things she did or said, but usually, she tried her best to ignore them. She didn’t want to be like him. She wanted to see people as more than potential headlines or business ventures. She wanted to surround herself with the love her father had never been able to provide—and she wouldn’t be able to if what David said was true.

“Maybe he really is trying to protect you,” David went on. He squeezed her hands. “Because he doesn’t know what else to do.”

“I think you’re giving him too much credit.”

“Maybe. I guess I’d just like it to make sense.”

“It won’t, I don’t think.”

David watched her for a moment, and then he let her hands go. “No, I don’t suppose it will.” He let his head fall against the upholstered chairback. “Guess we’re regular captives then, aren’t we? Prisoners in the tower?”

Katherine suddenly thought of Jack.

“No,” she snapped, jumping up from the arm of the chair. “We’re not. You shouldn’t say things like that.”

David blinked. “It was a joke.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

David stood then, reaching for her with careful arms. He didn’t know what he’d said, of course. It made sense that he felt like a prisoner; Katherine understood that. But Jack—Jack was being held captive. And every day, it seemed to carve away a little bit more of his spirit. Neither she nor David knew what that felt like, not really.

“Kathy?”

“Nothing—it’s just—we’re still very lucky. We’re safe and we’re comfortable and we have each other.”

“We do.” David held her close. She felt his sigh against her chest. “And you’ve got more than that.”

He meant Jack, of course. It was hard to be angry at David when he was so damned understanding—and when Katherine knew that he did not have what she did.

“I do.” She wrapped her arms tight around David’s middle and let her head rest on his chest. “It will be alright. Father will calm down eventually.”

“Let’s hope it happens before we’re both old and grey.”

“God willing.” She squeezed him again and felt a stiff crinkling beneath her forearm. “What’s that?”

“Oh! I forgot. There was another letter today.”

“Who from?” Katherine didn’t bother to wait for David to tell her; she dug into his pocket, and her heart leapt when she saw the return address. “My editor at The Sun!”

Dearest Katherine,

So good to hear from you! The news desk is calling your name, and everyone here eagerly awaits your return; our features haven’t been nearly so exciting since you left. It sounds as though you might have something cooking upstate, though. Here’s the information you requested.

The work farm near the village of Carterhaugh was called Carter’s Vale. Inmates were usually indigents who couldn’t pay their fines, but it seems there was also quite a population of child laborers exported from the House of Refuge as part of a special program run by the Refuge’s former warden, one I.A. Snyder. The farm was suddenly shut down ten years ago, in 1893. From what I could ascertain, the village hasn’t developed the land. The property is still sitting abandoned.

As for the legal records you asked for, I’m afraid I didn’t find much. Jack Kelly appears to have been an alias for a boy named Francis Sullivan, who was last incarcerated at the Refuge for a period of six weeks in 1896. His crime appears to have been petty theft. After that, he disappears from the record entirely. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information regarding a Charles Kelly or, for that matter, a Charles Sullivan.

I’m dying to know what story you’re chasing. Don’t keep us in suspense too long, and for pity’s sake, get back to the city soon!

Fondly,

Bryan Denton

Katherine squinted at the paper. The farm was suddenly shut down ten years ago—abandoned. How could that possibly be? That was before Jack had been arrested, before he’d been sentenced, before he and Charlie would ever have come to the country at all. Why wouldn’t there have been a record of Jack’s transfer to another facility?

How could Jack be imprisoned in a place that didn’t exist?

Who was he?

Katherine didn’t realize that she’d dropped the letter until David bent down to pick it up from the carpet.

“Kathy? What is it?”

David’s eyes started to move over the paper, but Katherine snatched it back before he could see Jack’s name.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just some research I asked Denton to do for me.”

But she spoke too quickly. David’s brows knit together.

“Research about what?”

“A story.”

David scoffed. “Descriptive.”

“Don’t. Not right now.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“I can’t.”

“It’s about him, isn’t it? Your mystery man,” David teased. When Katherine didn’t respond, he softened. “Is it bad?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know.”

“What does that—”

“It means I don’t know,” Katherine hissed. “I have to see him again. I have to—"

“Maybe you shouldn’t go back out there,” David interrupted.

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t,” David’s voice was heavy and serious. He took her by the shoulders. “You don’t have to do anything. Not that you don’t want to. Kathy, if he—”

“I have to talk to him,” she said, almost to herself.

She slipped away from David, but he grabbed for her wrist and held her fast.

“I’ll go with you,” David pleaded.

“No.”

“Kathy—”

She shook her head. “It’s all right, David. I promise.”

“It doesn’t seem all right.”

“You said you trust me.”

“I do.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

David hesitated, just for a moment, and then he let her go. He sank back into the chair and looked out at the fields. “And I’ll be here.”

He would be there, she knew. David didn’t have a choice except to wait for her.

“David—”

David wouldn’t look at her. “Be careful, Kathy.”

“I will.”

Katherine shoved Denton’s letter in the belt of her skirt, and then she was gone. She didn’t notice MacGowan skulking in the hall as she sped outside.

---

“Jack!” Katherine hollered. She ripped at the roses on the wall. “Jack Kelly!”

She wasn’t sure that he’d come. The roses always worked, certainly, but they’d already had their hour that day. Jack never said so, but it was understood that Snyder would let him have no more than that. Still, Katherine had to try. She had to know what Denton’s letter meant.

There was a soft chuckle behind her. “Holy Hannah, Miss Katherine. Couldn’t keep away, could you?”

“Don’t!” she snapped, pointing a sharp finger in his direction. The wind knotted her hair, and she felt the soft sheen of sweat against her cheeks. She must have looked a mess, but she didn’t care. “You have to tell me—”

“Whoa there, darlin’.” Jack spoke just as though he were quieting a spooked animal. “Tell you what? Why are you back so soon? Everything awright?”

“No, everything is not alright!”

Katherine took a step backward as Jack reached for her.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I!” she cried. She pulled the letter from her skirt and thrust it in his chest. “What does this mean, Jack?”  

“What is it?”

“Read it,” she said coldly.

Jack’s eyes clicked back and forth over the letter like a typewriter carriage. Katherine knew when he got to the bit about the farm; he stumbled back against the wall, his brown skin suddenly ashen.

“Katherine, I—”

The wind blew his voice away.

“You lied to me,” Katherine said, surprised to feel the hot prickle of tears at the back of her eyes.

Jack shook his head. “No. I didn’t. I can’t.”

He offered her the letter then, and Katherine snapped it away from him, stuffing it back in her skirt.

“There is no farm, Jack.”

“There is. It just—it ain’t what you think it is.”

“And what do I think it is?”

“I dunno.” Jack stared down at the letter. “But what I told you ain’t a lie. You gotta believe me.”  

His voice cracked, but Katherine wouldn’t be moved. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Why would Snyder bring you all the way out here if there wasn’t a farm?”

“I wouldn’t think too hard about that if I was you.”

Katherine wasn’t sure she understood, but the hair on her arms stood up anyway. “He—”

“No one can see what happens out here,” Jack said, his voice hoarse. He looked back at her with red eyes. “And that means he can do whatever he wants.”

“To you?”

Jack pulled down the brim of his flat cap, and he did not answer.

“But why?”

“Because he needs me,” Jack said bitterly. “And he knows that I’d rather die than let anything happen to Charlie. S’easy to get people to do your biddin’ when that’s the situation.”

Katherine let herself sink down next to him on the wall. She turned so that their knees touched, and she gently eased his cap away from his eyes. “What do you mean he needs you?”

He shrugged. “Just that.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

He let go a wet laugh. “Katherine, there’s a whole lotta things I ain’t tellin’ you.”

“And you want me to trust you?”

“I do.” Jack stared at his hands. “But you don’t hafta. It just—it ain’t safe for you if I say too much.”

“And why’s that?” she asked.

He didn’t reply. Katherine would have stamped her feet if the sound wouldn’t have been lost in the high grass.

“Of course,” she huffed. “Of course you can’t tell me.”

“Why do you wanna know so bad?” Jack’s head hung between his shoulders.

Good lord, she wanted to throttle him.

“Because I—because I care about you, Jack!”

The grey cap bounced up. “You do?”

The expression on his face nearly broke Katherine’s heart. It was as though no one had ever said the words to him before.  

“Of course,” she said, gently this time. “What do you think I’ve been doing with you all this time?”

Jack shook his head in disbelief, not quite looking at Katherine. “I didn’t wanna question it. I ain’t even sure why I can see you. Or why you can see me.”

“What does that even mean? I don’t—”

“Now, I think it’s ‘cause it makes it harder for me to go back to him. I think he gets off on that.” His cheeks flushed, and finally, he met her eyes. “Beggin’ your pardon.” 

God, he was so beautiful, Katherine thought. And someone had hurt him so very badly. She clenched her fists next to her hips.

“It—it just—”

“What?”

Jack took her hand then, gently uncurling her fingers and brushing his lips over each knuckle. He was so tender, so kind. Katherine’s throat ached.

“It makes me so angry. That someone would treat you this way.”

He squeezed her hand. “It ain’t nothin’ I didn’t sign up for,” he said resignedly.

“It’s called extortion, Jack. He could be thrown in jail. He should be.”

Jack snorted. “No, he couldn’t. He’s the one what locks folks up. No one’ll ever do it to him. They couldn’t.”

“I doubt that.”

“Don’t.”

Jack spoke so definitively that Katherine nearly flinched away from him. He felt her start and held her tighter, fidgeting at his golden chain with his other hand.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” she murmured.  

“Yeah.”

She knew she ought to leave it there, but she could not.

“Can I—can I ask one more thing?”

Jack nodded.

“Why is there no record of Charlie?”

“Because his last name ain’t mine. Either one of them.” He sighed. “Go on. Ask.”

“Why?”

“Because we ain’t blood. We was just in the same orphanage when we was kids. But he’s my brother all the same.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? You ain’t gonna ask why I’d stick my neck out for ‘im if he ain’t my blood?”

Katherine felt the tears needle at her eyes again. Jack had given up everything for Charlie—and it certainly wasn’t because he had to. They must have loved one another a great deal.

It reminded Katherine of someone else she knew.

“No. I—I have family like that too.”

“Then you understand?”

“I do,” she said softly. Her eyes flicked to the manor house in the distance, where David was almost certainly keeping watch.

“You ain’t scared of me now?” Jack asked, his voice strained. “Now that you know I been keepin’ things from you?”

“You told me you couldn’t lie.”

“I can’t.” He sounded as though he regretted it. “But I can improve the truth, or leave some of it out. Charlie’s my brother. That’s better than what the hall of records says, ain’t it? Truer.”

“It is,” Katherine agreed.

The wind suddenly fluttered through the trees and slipped down around them. Jack’s dark fringe rustled a little beneath the brim of his cap, and Katherine couldn’t help herself: she put her hands on his face and bent down to kiss him.

“And I’m not afraid of you,” she murmured against his lips.  

“That’s funny,” Jack breathed. “Because I’m pretty scared a’ you.”

“Don’t be.” She slid closer to him, and Jack’s arms circled her waist; she leaned her head against his chest. “Why are you so afraid?” she asked.

Jack looked over his shoulder, as though someone might be watching.   

“I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want nothin’ should happen to you. I ain’t so sure I could protect you.”

“Nobody wants to lose the people they love,” Katherine said practically.

Jack froze.

“What?”

“What?”

“You can’t,” Jack said.  

“I can’t what?”

“Love me. You can’t.”

Katherine hadn’t realized she’d said it, but all at once, she knew it was true. She cupped Jack’s face in both her hands and kissed him again.

“What if I do?”

Jack’s eyes widened. “You really do?”

“I think so.”

There was a moment of terrible silence, and Jack looked away from her.

“I—I think I love you too.”  

Katherine turned his chin back toward her, letting her fingers slip back into the dark hair at his temple. “Why does it make you so sad?”

“I told you,” Jack’s voice wobbled, “I’m afraid. Lovin’ me ain’t never been good for nobody.”

“I think maybe you haven’t been loved the right way.”

The wind gusted behind her, and Katherine pressed against Jack with all her might. He wrapped his arms around her, his touch suddenly and unexpectedly fierce.

“Neither have you,” he whispered.

Katherine felt a snap of electricity low inside her.

Something had shifted. Katherine couldn’t have said what it was, but as the hot wind urged them closer together, she knew that their moment had changed somehow.

“Come over the wall,” Jack said.

Katherine’s ears swam with wet heat. “What?” she asked.

“Just to the other side. Will you?”

Just then, she would have followed him anywhere. Every one of her questions slipped from her mind, and there was only one answer.

“Yes.”

Jack braced himself with one hand and hitched easily over the wall’s rocky top. Katherine didn’t follow. She stood for a moment, the wind whipping her skirt tight around her legs; if Jack looked closely, he would have been able to see her knees tremble.

Katherine hadn’t lied. She wasn’t afraid of Jack. It was only that, once she went over the wall, she knew somehow that she could not come back. Not the way she’d been before. Sure as the familiar heat in Katherine’s belly suddenly kindled to life, she knew it would not be content to spark and fizz where it was; if she went over the wall, the heat would spread, fleet and all-consuming as wildfire.

Jack reached for her with his brown hands. “Come here to me.”

His voice was low and rough, and Katherine felt it winding warm around her ribs, like a knotted line that bound them together. The wind pressed at her back, and she took a step forward. Jack’s hands were at her waist then, searing her skin even beneath the soft silk of her shirtwaist. He lifted her easily, and her feet touched down on the other side of the wall.

When Katherine turned to look back on Carterhaugh, her eyes widened. The manor house was gone. Her side of the wall seemed to have disappeared entirely, and she and Jack were utterly alone amidst the waving grass and trees.

“It’s alright,” Jack whispered. Gentle fingers guided her face away from what had been until she was looking at him only. “You’re safe. I promise you’re safe.”

Jack did not let her go, and Katherine did not want him to. Suddenly, nothing mattered so long as Jack Kelly kept his hands on her.  

Jack’s thumb brushed against the boning of her corset, and Katherine took a sharp breath, anchoring her hands on the broad line of his shoulders. Jack dipped his head until his mouth was at her ear, his breath hot and close against her skin. Katherine shivered in spite of the heat.

“What’re we doin’?” he asked. His lips slipped around the soft pink of her earlobe. “What do you want?”

“You,” Katherine breathed.

She fastened her hands around the back of his neck and let her head tip back, pressing Jack’s mouth against her throat. He obliged, mapping a gentle course with his lips down from the hinge of her jaw to the white lace of her collar. The tip of his tongue flicked against the skin just above the delicate trim, followed by the barest graze of teeth. Katherine’s breath came out in a startled gasp.

Jack pulled away, Katherine’s hands still looped around his neck. He touched his fingertips to her cheek, then let them slide where his mouth had just been. His fingers teased the top of her collar. “Could I—”

Katherine nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

Jack gently turned her around. The wind was with them still; it took Katherine’s hair in its grasp and tossed it over her shoulder so that Jack could reach the pearl buttons of her collar. Katherine felt the wind against her skin as Jack plucked her open, punctuating each of his efforts with a soft kiss: the nape of her neck, the top of her spine, the space between her shoulder blades. He slid the shirtwaist away from Katherine’s shoulders and pulled it gently from the belt of her skirt, slowly, carefully, as though it were something precious. The wind took it then, setting it in the grass just beyond, and Jack’s hands moved over the warm length of Katherine’s bare arms.

“You’re so soft,” he whispered. His hands slipped to her waist, and he turned her back to face him. “An’ beautiful.”

So are you, Katherine thought; but, for the first time in her life, she was well and truly speechless.

Jack’s eyes looked to hers for permission, and even though she couldn’t have known what he would do, she nodded again. He sank slowly to his knees in front of her, kissing the divot between her collar bones and letting his breath warm the tops of her breasts as he went. His hands weren’t on her waist anymore. Instead, his fingers worked to open her corset. When it fell behind her, he pressed his face against Katherine’s chemise, his big hands bracing her ribs.

She could have sworn Jack was trembling.

Katherine knelt down until they were face to face. Jack’s cheeks matched the roses on the wall.

“Hi,” she said.

Jack swallowed, hard. “Hi.”

He reached to touch her hair, to push it back over her shoulders, and the wind pressed back against him, tangling the copper curls around his fingers. He gave her hair the slightest tug, and suddenly, Katherine couldn’t contain herself.

She leaned forward on her knees and took Jack’s face in her hands, crushing their mouths together in a kiss that seemed to flare up from depths she hadn’t realized she contained. Jack’s stubble rasped against her palms as he clamored to meet her, his lips bruising and hungry against hers. His hand pulled at her curls, stopping the kiss short and drawing Katherine’s head back until her throat was on full display. Then, his mouth was on her again, and this time, it was not gentle. Katherine found that she didn’t mind at all.

She let Jack’s breath, lips, tongue cut a path down her white throat, and when his teeth sank into the soft swell of muscle where her neck met her shoulder, she started backward with a sharp cry. She felt Jack’s hands hitch beneath her legs, and he lifted her up on to his lap, his hands bracing her arched back as he nosed at the lace trim of her chemise. As she pressed back against him, she felt Jack’s own desire nudge at her belly, stoking her heat.

Katherine knew she should be afraid, but she couldn’t remember why. Her hands were anchored against Jack’s neck, and his golden chain burned between their skin. Distantly, she realized that the chain didn’t seem to have a clasp—but then, Jack kissed the underside of her jaw, hot and quick, and every thought went right out of her head. A sound that she didn’t quite recognize slipped from between her lips, and she clung to Jack.

Jack leaned back so that he could look at her face. His next kiss was soft, and the next one softer still, until he pressed a feather’s touch to her lips. His chest was heaving against hers.

“Katherine, I—”

“Why—” she cleared her throat, “why did you stop?”

“You ain’t never done this before.”

It was not a question.

Katherine shook her head. “Have—have you?”

Jack looked away from her. “Not exactly. Not like this.”

“What do you—”

“It ain’t important,” he interrupted. He brushed her hair over her shoulders, but this time, the gesture was tender, almost afraid. “I just—Katherine, are you sure?”

“I am.” Katherine kissed him, matching the softness of his touch.  “Are you?”

“I am. I—I want you.”

“Then, I’m yours.”

Katherine’s hands fell to Jack’s chest, and she let her fingers drum against his shirt buttons. Jack nodded, almost to himself. He gently shifted Katherine backward and pulled his work shirt over his head in one fluid motion, taking his cap with it.

“Oh,” Katherine breathed.

Soft, Jack had called her. Beautiful. Jack was certainly beautiful, but there was nothing soft about him. His skin stretched taut over hard muscle, a ghost of dark hair running over his chest and down. Katherine couldn’t help herself. She reached and let her finger follow the soft hair to the button of Jack’s corduroy pants.

Jack’s breath seemed shaky now. He dropped a soft kiss to Katherine’s cheek and then lifted her from his lap. He stood and let his pants drop to the grass.

Katherine couldn’t move. He was like some kind of statue, every sun-browned muscle sharply contoured and perfect, and he’d laid himself bare—for her. There was no doubt that he wanted her; he couldn’t hide it from her now.

Katherine wanted him too. She wanted him, but she didn’t know what to do. She was relieved when Jack stepped close to her again, circling her in his strong arms so that he could undo the buttons of her skirt. She stepped out of the fabric, left in just her flimsy chemise. Silk ribbons, soft cotton, fragile lace.

Jack was quick with the buttons, and the wind split the fabric panels, tickling over Katherine’s breasts, across her belly, and downward. Jack hooked one finger beneath the lace-trimmed shoulder strap and slid it down Katherine’s arm; then, he did the same with the other. Katherine trembled as the garment fell away. The wind was the only thing between them now.

Jack stood back from her, and he let his eyes move over every inch of Katherine. “My God,” he breathed. “My God, Miss Katherine.”

But Katherine didn’t have the opportunity to respond. The wind urged Jack forward, and he wrapped Katherine in his arms, gently lifting her from the grass and then kneeling back down. He held her for a moment, cradling her against his bare chest and dropping a gentle kiss to the part of her copper curls. Then, he laid her down on the green grass.

There were shoes and stockings to be dealt with, of course. Jack dispatched his own neatly, but he took his time with Katherine’s, peppering the skin from her knee to the delicate curve of her ankle with kisses that, no matter how soft, seemed to vibrate through Katherine’s entire body. The wind slid between them, around them, and Katherine felt then like she had her first night at Carterhaugh—dizzy, delightful, and coiled tight.

Jack kissed the arch of her foot, and then his nose began to trace a gentle line upward, glancing over the swell of her calf, above her knee, and then, hovering against her thigh. Katherine’s breath caught in her chest, and Jack’s head turned, his breath warm and wet against her.

“Like a rose,” he whispered, and then he pressed his lips somewhere Katherine hadn’t known anyone might ever press his lips.

The sound that Katherine made scattered the birds from the trees. There was a puff of hot air as Jack laughed and hummed against her, and she couldn’t help the wriggling twitch of her own limbs. Jack’s tongue lapped gently at her, and Katherine felt a queer tightness start to build at the crest of the cleft between her legs. Then, he pulled away, face flushed.

“But—” she protested, but Jack put a finger to her lips.

“You’re almost ready, acushla,” he murmured.

To demonstrate, he let his fingertip find where his mouth had just been. Without conscious thought, Katherine’s hips bucked in anticipation, but Jack’s touch slid away, down what was now warm and slick. He hovered in wait. Katherine nodded, and his finger pressed inside, turning and curling against her.

The heat burst forth, and Katherine burned. She cried out, and Jack stopped her mouth with a firm kiss, letting his touch push just a bit deeper before he took it away again. Katherine practically whined in protest.  

“I’m ready,” she panted. “Please, I’m ready.”

Jack smiled down at her. “I think you are.”

He bracketed her thighs with his knees, leaning the length of his body over her and bracing one arm next to her head. He dipped his head for another kiss, gentle this time, and when he looked at her again, his face was serious.

“I love you,” he said.

Katherine raised her arms and let her hands move across his bare back. “I love you. I do.”

“If I hurt you—”

“You won’t,” Katherine insisted breathlessly. She wiggled her hips beneath him.

Jack reached down, and Katherine froze as she felt his tip whisper gently against her. He held her eyes.

“For sure?” he asked, and his voice was ragged and thick.

Katherine nodded meekly. “For sure.”

He pressed into her then, slowly, and Katherine felt something inside her give way.

“Jack,” she breathed, and then, she felt him begin to move inside her. Slow at first, and then harder and faster. Jack lost himself then, his head thrown back and gold chain glinting in the sunlight. Katherine felt something begin to build just beyond where Jack could touch, and she swallowed a half-moan. Jack heard. He seized her wrists and anchored them in the tall grass over her head. His face dropped to meet hers and he groaned against her lips. He ground his hips down against her, bumping against the place he’d kissed her just before as the rest of him kept pace, and Katherine’s vision blurred.

“Jack,” she said again; his name seemed to jump from her lips, but the sound was breathy and strange, like it wasn’t coming from her at all. “Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack!”

He moved in time with her voice. 

Katherine was the first to tumble, and as she quickened around him, Jack’s rhythm ground to a shuddering halt, and he spilled himself inside of her. His skin was sweat-damp as he lowered himself against her, mouthing gently at her breasts. Katherine shivered, part of her still twitching around part of Jack.

They’d gone over the wall, and somehow, Katherine knew she was right: nothing would be the same again.  

Chapter Text

Katherine’s body stayed curled around Jack’s, her face pressed against the sun-warm skin of his chest. She should have gone back to the house, but somehow, she couldn’t make herself move. A warm, languorous calm slipped over her as surely as a blanket, and she thought she might be happy if she never moved again. Jack seemed to agree: his arms were sure and fast around her, and the tension that always gnarled his muscles seemed to fade away.

They would have to do that again, she thought.

“Comfortable?” Jack asked. He dropped a kiss to her curls.

“Mmmm.”

He chuckled softly, jostling her head. “You stay there, acushla. You rest.”

Katherine nodded, nuzzling her cheek against his skin. Jack’s hand fell to playing with her hair, and her eyes grew heavy. She slipped from consciousness like water from a kettle, dropping fast and sure into depths below.  

Katherine did not know that her sleep was unnatural. She did not notice when the wind blew shot of the wall like a frightened child. She couldn’t see when the sun seemed to dim, just a little. And she didn’t feel it when Jack’s muscles braided like chain beneath her cheek.

But Jack knew. He noticed, he saw, and he felt. He couldn’t help it. And he knew what it meant.

Snyder was nearby.

Jack sat up, cradling Katherine gently against his chest, but she didn’t so much as stir. Hurriedly, he grabbed his work shirt from the grass and wrapped it around her as best he could. He held her to him, like a doll or a stuffed toy, more for his comfort than hers.

A shadow stood over them. And then it was not a shadow, but a man.

Snyder leered down at Jack. “Well, boy. Caught you with your pants down, did I?”

Jack’s cheeks should have burned, but they did not. It wasn’t as though Snyder hadn’t seen him this way before. Privacy was a luxury, and life had never been generous to Jack Kelly. He cinched his arms tighter around Katherine and squared his jaw, holding Snyder’s eerie blue gaze without flinching.

“Guess you did.”

Snyder only smiled. “I knew you’d been straying to greener pastures—of course I knew. I always know—but I didn’t expect even you to be so reckless.”

“Ain’t nothin’ reckless about it,” Jack snarled.

Still, he felt his body shift backward as Snyder glided another length closer to them. Katherine was practically limp in his arms, and her hair fluttered over Jack’s chest.

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” Snyder murmured. “She’s certainly beautiful. Especially like this.”

Snyder’s grin widened, and he reached down to finger a copper curl.

“Don’t touch her!” Jack barked, but suddenly the chain at his neck burned white hot. He instinctively reached to pull it from his skin, and Katherine slipped into the grass beside him. She did not wake.

Katherine’s eyes stayed buttoned even as Jack’s body folded in on itself, his chest heaving over his knees and his arms knotted at an impossible angle behind the small of his back. There was sweat dripping from his dark hair and down his face. He couldn’t seem to raise his head.

“I think we’re forgetting our place, boy,” Snyder said, all oil and false nicety. He knuckled his fingers into Jack’s hair and pulled him upright, their faces just inches apart. “Or don’t you remember that I take what I want?”

“You—you can’t take her,” Jack managed. His voice was tight, as though someone were choking him. Indeed, the gold chain burned hotter and seemed to cinch closer around his throat. He wanted to throw himself over Katherine, to protect her, but he was rooted to the spot. “She’s got people who care what happens to her.”

Snyder threw him down and turned to Katherine. “Oh, I don’t mind that so much. It isn’t like they’d find her if I decided I wanted her.”

It was true, Jack knew. He’d spent years hidden away, and no one had ever been the wiser. Not that there would have been anyone to look for him. Except for Charlie. At least, not until—

“She—found—me,” Jack wheezed.

“Because I let her.”

Snyder’s fingers moved over Katherine’s cheek, and Jack’s guts felt like they were going to burst out of his mouth. But still, he couldn’t move.   

“I don’t understand,” Jack gasped. The skin beneath his chain was blistering now. His vision began to tunnel.

“You don’t need to, boy. I don’t keep you around for your brains.”

All at once, the pressure at Jack’s throat eased, and his muscles uncoiled, leaving him in a heap in the grass. Snyder rose above him.

“What have you told her?” Snyder demanded.

The skin beneath Jack’s chain still burned, but it was an ember now, not a flame. He curled himself around Katherine, who was still blessedly locked away in sleep.

“I ain’t told her nothin’—ahh!”

The chain flared again, and Jack screamed. His body arched away from Katherine’s, every muscle gnarled tight.

Snyder raised his eyebrows. “Hmm, seems that isn’t quite true. You know better than to lie. Care to try again?”

“I-I told her about Ch-Charlie,” Jack panted.  

“Of course you did.”

“An’ that I—that I—Jesus!—work on the farm.”

“Nothing else?”

Tears sprang to Jack’s eyes. “That I belong to you.”

“But you didn’t tell her how?” Snyder asked, his grip on Jack tightening even without touch. “Or what will happen to you?”

“No.” Another flash of heat. “No, sir!”

“I suppose you haven’t fouled up too badly then.”

Jack’s body slumped in some version of relief, and the chain’s glow dissipated.  Snyder hauled him up by the elbow and yanked him away from Katherine’s slumbering form.

“Let’s go then,” Snyder snarled. “Seems you finished what you were doing.”

Jack tugged backward. “I can’t just leave her!”  

“Oh? I thought you didn’t want me to take her.” Snyder pulled Jack close, this time tucking his hand around Jack’s chain. He forced Jack to look at Katherine, wrapped in green homespun and beautiful even in the cold of Snyder’s shadow. Snyder’s voice rumbled low in Jack’s ear. “Should we? Take her home with us, erase all the thoughts from that pretty little head, and put her to work?”

“No!”

“Why not?” Snyder cooed. “Aren’t you happy, boy? Knowing you’re protecting that crippled brat? She could be happy too. And it would cost her less than it’s going to cost you in the end.”

Jack was silent, his Adam’s apple bobbing against Snyder’s grip.

“Oh, did I strike a nerve?”

Snyder threw him down again, and Jack crumpled. The golden chain didn’t burn now, but it weighted Jack to the spot, sure as if it were an iron fetter. He could only watch as Snyder knelt alongside Katherine, his hand sliding over her bare hip.

“Don’t!” Jack rasped. “Don’t touch her!”

“It isn’t for you to tell me what I can and can’t do,” Snyder growled. As if to demonstrate, he let his touch wander inside Jack’s work shirt. Katherine sighed, but she did not wake.

Jack fought to hold his head upright, and when he spoke, it was in a feral growl. “If you hurt her, I’ll—”

“Oh, I won’t, my boy.” Snyder slipped his hand to the soft skin just below Katherine’s navel. He closed his eyes for a moment, as though he were waiting for something, and then looked back at Jack’s red face with a smile. “But there will be pain for her eventually, trust me.”

Jack didn’t know what Snyder meant; he only knew that he hadn’t meant for this to happen. He didn’t want anyone else to suffer because of him. He didn’t want Katherine to suffer at all. Not ever.

But there was nothing else Jack could offer Snyder to keep him from hurting her; he’d given everything he had already.

“No,” Jack breathed. He let his forehead grind into the dirt beneath.  

“Oh, she’ll be fine for a while yet, and even then, when the pain comes, it won’t last forever. But it will come, I promise you that. And when it does, it will be your doing, and she’ll know it.”

Mercifully, Snyder drew his hand away.

Jack’s strained whisper leached into the ground. “No. I won’t. I won’t hurt her.”

“Oh, my boy,” Snyder soothed condescendingly, “you already have.”

“I don’t—"

“Don’t sound so worried. She’ll be just fine. I give you my word.”

Jack let out a shaky sigh, the grass itching against his bare skin. Snyder’s word was his bond. Jack knew that better than anyone.

But it was cold comfort. Snyder’s fingers knuckled again into Jack’s hair and hauled him upright. He stroked the chain at Jack’s neck.

“I can’t say the same for you, but that was never part of our deal, was it?”

“N-no, sir.”

Snyder nodded. “Good, then. Get your things, and let’s go.”

He shoved Jack away, and the weight finally lifted, even as Jack came down on his hands and knees. He didn’t care that he was still exposed; he didn’t care what Snyder had ordered—he scrambled to Katherine’s side.

“I’m sorry, Miss Katherine,” he murmured. He brought his shaking fingers to her petal soft cheek and leaned down to kiss it. Then, he buttoned his homespun around her; she needed it more than he did. “I’m so sorry.”

Jack reached for her castoff skirt, but fingers snapped behind him.

“Boy!” Snyder growled. “Get a move on!”

“But she’s—”

“I don’t care. Leave her, and let’s go!”  

Jack looked back. “Can I—please, at least let me put her on the other side of the wall. The glamor. If she stays over here—”

“Do it now. And no more dallying. You’ve already kept me waiting long enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jack scooped Katherine into his arms, and even though he knew it was better this way, he wished that she might wake; he wanted to see her eyes again, wanted to be seen before he disappeared into whatever hell Snyder had waiting for him. But her dark lashes shadowed her pink cheeks, and she stayed locked in what Jack hoped was a dreamless sleep.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Remember it, if y’can.”

Gently, he set her on her own side of the wall and let her go.

---

The first thing Katherine saw when her eyes fluttered open was the buttressed ceiling of her suite.

The second was MacGowan’s pinched face.

The third was Tibby, perched sentinel at the end of Katherine’s bed, her green eyes fixed on MacGowan. 

Katherine examined herself. She was tucked up in bed, the covers drawn clear to her chest. She wore her cotton nightgown, and someone had plaited her hair, like she was ill. But she didn’t feel ill. Well, not quite. But how on earth had she gotten home? Had Jack—

She looked to the picture window, but the curtains were drawn. She couldn’t see the wall.

What had happened to Jack?

Katherine started and tried to sit up.

“Oh, thank goodness,” MacGowan said, but she didn’t sound thankful at all. Her cracked hand pushed Katherine back into her pillow. “Miss Pulitzer, can you hear me?”

The question struck Katherine as preposterous. There weren’t many things that could render a person suddenly deaf, and she was fairly certain that she’d encountered not a single one of them.

“Yes, of course,” Katherine replied, but her voice was coarse and weak.

“Water,” MacGowan advised. She was holding a glass to Katherine’s lips before Katherine could even attempt to protest. “You’ve been—well, you’ve been asleep for days, Miss Pulitzer. You’re bound to feel weak.”

Katherine didn’t understand. She nearly choked on the cool water, but managed a ladylike swallow. “I’ve been—what?”

MacGowan nodded and set the waterglass on the bedside table. “Nearly a week.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither does the doctor,” MacGowan said. Something in her pale face twisted. “Although he has other concerns.”

Tibby hissed, and there was a pang low in Katherine’s belly. “MacGowan, what’s going on?”

“I’m afraid the only one who can answer that is you, Miss Pulitzer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“I’m sorry, I—”

Katherine closed her eyes. The last thing she remembered was her cheek upon Jack’s chest, legs tangled in tickling grass, the soft kiss of the wind, Jack’s fingers in her hair. And now, she was here.  

But there were other things, loose and half formed, things that must have happened after. A sudden darkness. Jack’s anguished screams. A hand that was not Jack’s on her skin. Being lifted into the air and gently set down.

I love you. Remember it, if y’can.

Katherine shivered.  

“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” Katherine said. She cleared her throat, and MacGowan begrudgingly proffered another sip of water. “What is it I’m meant to remember?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” MacGowan said shortly. Her cheeks colored, and she looked away.

“MacGowan, tell me.”

“There is only so much I can tell,” MacGowan hedged. “That—that Jacobs boy says he came to retrieve you for dinner, and when you didn’t answer, he entered your room and found you unconscious.”

But that couldn’t be. Katherine couldn’t remember making it back to the house at all.

She sat bolt upright, clutching at her comforter. “David. I need to see David.”

MacGowan shook her frizzy red head, pursing her lips like someone had force-fed her a lemon. “Oh no, Miss Pulitzer. It would be entirely inappropriate after—”

“Get. Him.” Katherine’s voice dropped low, rumbling dangerously in her chest. She found MacGowan’s watery blue eyes and did not look away. “Now.”

MacGowan stared at her for a moment, shriveled mouth agape, before she remembered herself and dropped into a prim curtsy.

“Yes, miss.”

Perhaps there were some good things about being her father’s daughter after all.

As MacGowan sped from the room, Tibby kneaded toward Katherine and flopped down next to a chunky fold of comforter near to Katherine’s knees. She deigned to let Katherine scratch absently between her ears, purring all the while. Katherine hardly noticed. Her brain was too busy trying to untangle the knot where her memories should be. The wind beat against her darkened windowpanes, as though to offer its help, but Katherine couldn’t hear.

Remember it, if y’can.

Jack’s voice seemed to settle in her ears, and Katherine closed her eyes. But the door banged open again, and there was David. He stayed frozen in the doorway, blinking at her as though he couldn’t believe she was real.

“Kathy!”

David’s voice shredded in his throat, and Katherine winced. He didn’t look well. His face was pale but for the dark circles under his eyes, and his hair looked like it had been struck by some kind of cyclone. His shirt was wrinkled and untucked. David was normally so fastidious; whatever had happened, Katherine must have worried him something fierce.

He started toward her, but MacGowan’s red hand caught his arm. “I don’t think—”

Katherine sat up. “You may leave us now, MacGowan,” she said imperiously.

MacGowan looked just as though she’d found a mouse in her bloomers. “Miss—”

“Go.”

MacGowan’s face could have curdled fresh cream, but she bobbed into another curtsy and went.

David looked at the empty doorway, then at Katherine, then back at the empty doorway. He shook his head and pulled the door shut.

“Remind me never to make you angry.”

“Noted,” Katherine said softly.

David hesitated, and then he crossed the room and threw his arms around her. “Oh, Kathy. Oh, thank God. I was so worried, I—”

“It’s alright,” Katherine soothed. “I’m alright. I promise.”

She felt David’s ribs swell beneath her arms, and he swallowed a sob.

“I thought—you wouldn’t wake, and I-I-I thought that you—you were—”  

“Shhh, Davey. I’m fine!”

“You weren’t, though,” David hiccoughed. “And I couldn’t—MacGowan, she—” he broke off and hid his face in his hands.

“What?”

“They think I hurt you.”

“What?”

“I—Kathy, when you didn’t come home, I went to look for you. I went to your wall, and you—you were—”

But David couldn’t bring himself to finish. He couldn’t even bring himself to look her in the face.  

“David, I’m fine. I’m right here.”

“Did he—” David began, but he stopped himself short. He took a breath and tried again. “Kathy, I—” He shook his head. “He just left you there!”

Katherine bristled, and she drew her knees up to her chest. Tibby mewled in protest.

“He didn’t,” Katherine insisted.

“Well, it certainly seemed that way,” David said softly.

Katherine’s insides went cold. At once, she realized what David must have found, the state she must have been in—or, more importantly, not been in. Her cheeks flushed scarlet.

“Oh.” She started to reach for him, and then she pulled back. She and David had never been precious with one another, but this—he’d seen—well, he’d seen what was meant for someone else. And clearly, he hadn’t understood. “David—”

David shifted so his back was against the bedside, and he stared at the curtained windows. “I carried you back here, and I made sure they didn’t see. But the doctor—they thought I—”

Oh, God.

It was too much, the thought of David squirreling her, naked, into the manor house without anyone seeing. And he’d probably dressed her and tucked her into bed so that everyone would think she’d been sleeping; hadn’t MacGowan said that he’d found her unconscious in her room? But MacGowan was already so suspicious of David, always making comments about the time he spent alone with Katherine, about the fact that he was allowed in her room at all. Of course, the woman would leap to some idiot conclusion. But that? David wasn’t capable of hurting anyone that way, least of all Katherine.

“No,” Katherine breathed. The fur stood on Tibby’s back.

David nodded, but he didn’t look back. “MacGowan called the police.”

The absolute bitch, Katherine thought. David’s dishevelment suddenly made sense. But—

“You’re still here.”

“I am. They believed me. Who knows why?” David laughed cheerlessly, and his head flopped back against the bed. “But MacGowan still doesn’t.”

“I guess it’s good I woke up.”

She let herself touch David’s hair, but he jerked away. He looked up at her from the floor, and the raw pain in his eyes reminded Katherine of Jack. She felt a pang low in her belly.

“Please don’t joke about this,” David said, his voice hoarse. “I thought they were going to send me away after that. But they didn’t.”

Well, that was curious. It certainly seemed like the kind of thing MacGowan would orchestrate if she could. But Katherine’s brain couldn’t puzzle that through and deal with David at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

David sighed, and he picked himself up from the floor. His balance was shaky, but he smoothed his ruined clothes, as if it might make some kind of difference. Katherine shifted and patted a space on the bed, not quite beside her. David hesitated, his eyes darting toward the door, as though MacGowan might come roaring in with a pitchfork. It wasn’t an unreasonable fear, really.

“It’s okay,” Katherine said.

David sank onto the mattress. “What happened, Kathy?”

It was Katherine’s turn to shy away. She slid a little deeper into the covers, and she tried to ignore the heat that flushed her skin.

“What do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter,” David said softly. He tried to smile at her, but he was not quite successful; his face collapsed into more of a watery grimace. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”

Katherine’s eyebrow shot up. “What wasn’t my fault?”

“What he did to you,” David said, clenching his fists. “I mean, it was him, wasn’t it?”

“What? Who?”

But Katherine knew precisely who David meant, and she absolutely resented the implication that Jack would do anything to her that she hadn’t wanted herself.

“Your—” David lowered his voice, as though there was anyone who could possibly hear them—although, who knew, perhaps MacGowan was at the door with a waterglass—“The one you’ve been meeting. You said he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“He didn’t.”

There was an edge in Katherine’s voice that neither of them expected, and David snapped to attention. He looked at her, his eyes wide, and Katherine nodded.

“He didn’t,” she said again.

David blinked like an idiot. “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

David couldn’t judge her for this. He wouldn’t. He’d done it himself, and with Lucy, no less. He knew what it was to be close to someone you loved; he must have known how hard it was to resist. He had to understand.

Katherine waited, and David’s face—something he’d never been able to control—slipped from bewilderment into resignation, his thin lips pressed into an even thinner line.

It would have to do, Katherine supposed.

David sighed. “He—was he good to you?”

“Yes, he was.” She twisted a little beneath the comforter at the memory of just how good Jack had been.  

“Good,” David said softly. “I’m glad.”

David had been good to Lucy, too. Katherine knew it.

“Me too,” she said.

“But—” David’s brow suddenly wrinkled.

“What?”

He looked back at her, and he took her hand. “I don’t understand why he’d leave you like he did. If I hadn’t found you—”

“I don’t think he had a choice,” Katherine hedged.

Echoes suddenly burst inside her head.

Boy! Get a move on!

You’ve already kept me waiting long enough.

She remembered Jack’s arms, shaking as he set her down in the grass. Hadn’t he? He must have.  

David’s voice fractured her thoughts. “What does that mean? That he didn’t have a choice?”

Well, that was more complicated. How could one explain to the most logical person in their life something as illogical as whatever it was that was happening to Jack Kelly? Oh, well, David, he only appears when I pluck roses because he’s owned by some goon who’s keeping him like some kind of slave. I’m not entirely sure of the physics of the operation, but—

Oh, yes. That would absolutely go over well.

Katherine bit her lip. “Someone is hurting him, David.”

She hadn’t seen, but she knew. The welts at his throat. The flinches. The silence.

The screams. She’d heard the screams. His screams. But still, he’d kept her safe.

Oh, Jack.

“A grown man? C’mon, Kathy.”

Katherine ripped her hand away from David’s. How could he?

“What if the police hadn’t believed you?” she hissed. “What would have happened to you?”

David withered, and well he should. “That isn’t funny. You don’t—my family would—everything I’ve worked for—”

“It would be gone, wouldn’t it?” she pressed. “You would be gone—”

“—Katherine, stop—”

“—and that would hurt, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would. But I don’t understand why you’re being so cruel.”

David’s voice broke, and his shoulders sagged forward. Katherine knew that the knifepoint of her words had found its target, that she had David backed against a wall, but she refused to withdraw. He had to understand.

“You don’t—”

“Kathy, they thought I—took advantage of you,” David said wildly.

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t! But this guy—”

Katherine ignored him. “And if they’d decided you had—”

“My life would be over.”

“Exactly.”

Jack had only been trying to protect his brother, and, for all intents and purposes, it had ended his life. He’d spent years in captivity, and for what? To exist as some kind of plaything, a whipping boy? He was a grown man, certainly, but he was bound by his promise. That much Katherine understood.

David had only thought to protect her. If the police hadn’t believed him, if they’d believed MacGowan, he would be damned. Locked up and dismissed. No one would care what happened to him. He knew it, and so did Katherine. She couldn’t understand how he could be so quick to dismiss Jack’s suffering—not when he’d been a hairsbreadth from his own hell.

For her. But that was beside the point.

David tugged at his hair in frustration. “Exactly what? I don’t understand!”  

“I can’t explain it; I don’t even really understand it.” Katherine took a deep breath. “But he—he couldn’t stay. I know he wouldn’t have left me if he didn’t have to.”

I love you. Remember it, if y’can.

“Kathy—”

“Davey.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that anyone thought you would do that. But he didn’t do what you think he did. I—I wanted to. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what I understand,” David muttered. He stood and went to the window, staring at the dark curtains instead of the world just beyond.  

“David, please. You and Lucy—”

“Don’t talk about Lucy,” he snapped, but there was no real venom in his tone.  

“I know that you two were—how you were with each other. You know that. This is the same. I want him. Just like Lucy wanted you.”

David winced as though she’d punched him, and he didn’t look back.

“When I found you—I thought—I thought I was going to lose you. Like I lost Lucy.”

Guilt twisted in Katherine’s stomach, just for a moment, and she felt the traitorous prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. She didn’t want to hurt David; she didn’t. But he had to understand. He had to be on her side. On their side. She’d always been on his. And Lucy’s.

“I’m fine.”

“This time,” he said, voice low.  

“He won’t hurt me, David,” Katherine insisted.

David shook his head. “He already has.”

The words stirred something else in Katherine’s memory, of a rough hand beneath her belly, but she couldn’t make sense of it.

“Please don’t be this way,” she said to David’s back.  

An infuriating shrug. “I’m not being any kind of way.”

“You’re being sullen and stubborn and overprotective,” Katherine pointed out.

“And you’re being shortsighted, stupid, and bullheaded.”

“Weakling,” she tried.

But David didn’t take the bait.

“Maybe I am,” he said hollowly. He turned back to her, but his face was blank. “I guess you’d probably like to rest, wouldn’t you?”

No, she wouldn’t. “David—”

“I guess it would be stupid to ask you to be careful.”

“It wouldn’t,” she said softly. She tried to get him to look at her, but he wouldn’t. “I am,” she insisted. “David, please—"

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “I have some studying to do.”

Katherine wilted back against her pillows. “Okay.”

David started to move toward the door, but he stopped himself.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he said.

She knew that he was, but somehow, it didn’t make her feel any better.

“I am. I promise.”

David mopped his hand over his face; he looked almost as broken as he had when they’d lost Lucy. “Kathy, I—”

She leaned forward. “Yes?”

“Never mind. I’ll—I’ll see you later, huh?”

A quick creak of the door on its hinges, and David was gone.

Katherine stared at the entryway, entirely unsure of what had just happened. Tibby, who’d vacated the bed at some point during their argument, hopped back onto the comforter, mewling curiously at Katherine.

“I don’t know!” Katherine groaned. “I don’t know what happened.”

Tibby only blinked back at her, and then flopped onto her back with another chirp. Katherine sighed and scratched absently at the tabby’s soft belly.

“What does he want? I can’t take it back. I wouldn’t.”

Tibby purred in response.

“It isn’t fair. I never made him feel badly about what he and Lucy did. Not once. I protected them.”

Tibby fastened her front paws around Katherine’s wrist and mouthed at her fingers. Katherine hardly felt the sharp points of Tibby’s teeth.

“I suppose he thinks he’s protecting me, but—oh, damn it all!”

She threw back the covers without thinking, and Tibby hissed in protest at the sudden interruption. But Katherine was on her feet. Her legs were weak, and she swayed a little, but she forced her feet over to the window and drew back the curtain.

She blinked against the light, but she heard the familiar rattle of the wind against the panes. Without thinking, she threw up the sash, and the wind slipped in around her, stronger and more urgent than it had ever been before. The green smell was different now, suddenly more pungent, almost rotten, and Katherine’s belly rolled with nausea. She took another breath, but the smell only seeped further inside, and Katherine nearly gagged. She grabbed the heavy curtain to brace herself.

When she looked out, the wall stood in stark sunshine. The green grass waved around it, but something wasn’t quite right. It struck Katherine like a bolt of lightning:

The roses. The roses were gone.

Chapter Text

Katherine still didn’t feel like herself.

She kept waiting, but the nausea that cloyed at her when she’d thrown open the windows didn’t leave; instead, it seemed to roost deep inside her. She’d been tethered to her suite for days, retching and dizzy. Even Tibby had sought greener pastures, choosing to spend most of her time pursuing the mice.

The doctor had been called in again, but he seemed baffled. Katherine didn’t have a fever; no one else on Carterhaugh was ill. Perhaps it was just an allergy or, more likely, a feminine complaint. He’d left her a packet of nondescript powders, ordered the window kept shut, and disappeared again. MacGowan, thankfully, had steered clear, other than to bring Katherine scalding ginger tea and to change out her ewer.

David had steered clear too.

Katherine kept waiting for him to come to her. They’d never fought before. Not really. Sure, there had been petty disagreements when they were children—once, when David wouldn’t give her his full attention, Katherine had dumped a bottle of ink in the middle of the adventure novel he was reading; David had made bunting out of Katherine’s bloomers and hung them on the grand staircase in recompense—but there had never been any real hurt between them. Not like this. They’d always been each other’s comfort.

But Katherine wouldn’t be the first to blink. What had he called her? Bullheaded? Well, let him see just how bullheaded she could be.

Still, she missed him. And she worried for him.

But she worried more for Jack.

The curtains stayed open day and night, and with little else to distract her, Katherine’s eyes kept constant vigil over the little stone wall. It stayed bare, the high grasses waving around its squat top. No one came to rest there, and no flowers bloomed in its shade.

By the time two weeks had passed, Katherine was practically at her wit’s end. The roses stayed gone, and so did Jack. She wondered what Snyder had done to him. If he was even still—

She wouldn’t think that. She couldn’t.  And she certainly couldn’t stay cooped up any longer.  She had to find Jack and help him—which would be considerably easier if the world would stop spinning around her every time she tried to stand.

The only option was to ring for MacGowan, who answered Katherine’s call with all the enthusiasm of a corpse.

“Yes, miss?”

Katherine sat up as straight as she could against her pillows, hoping that the quick pinch she’d given her cheeks had made them satisfactorily rosy.

“I need some fresh air.”

“I’ll open the windows, miss.”

MacGowan sounded as though Katherine had asked her to watch paint dry.

“No, thank you,” Katherine interrupted. “I—I need to get out of this room. Would you send David up to escort me outside?”

MacGowan’s nostrils twitched. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

“And why might that be?”

“Jacobs—”

“—Mr. Jacobs—”

“Jacobs is presently indisposed.”

Katherine wrinkled her nose. “What on earth does that mean?”

“It means,” MacGowan sniffed, “that he’s not at liberty to visit you, particularly in your chambers.”

Something about the way MacGowan said at liberty poked at Katherine’s belly, as though David was a kind of captive himself.

“He’s at liberty if I say so,” Katherine countered.

“No, he isn’t,” MacGowan said firmly. “As I said, miss, I can open the windows for you—”

But Katherine wasn’t about to be put off. “Is he sick?”

“Something like that,” MacGowan said, batting Katherine’s question away with a wave of her hand.

“MacGowan—”

The housekeeper ignored Katherine and moved to open the window. At once, the green wind slipped into the room, and Katherine’s gut seized with another seasick lurch. She curled over herself, and MacGowan clucked sympathetically—well, almost sympathetically; Katherine wasn’t so sure that MacGowan didn’t enjoy her discomfort.

“Do you need the basin, miss?”

Katherine ground her back molars together and tried to breathe through her mouth. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“You look a bit pale,” MacGowan said archly. “I think you’ve overtired yourself, miss. You should—”

“I’m fine,” Katherine insisted, even as she steeled herself against a tight knot of cramping. When she spoke, her voice was tight as a wrung cloth. “And I want to go outside. If you’d only—”

“I don’t think that would be wise, miss. You’re in no condition to be traipsing around out there.”

“David would be happy to assist me, I’m sure,” Katherine hedged.

MacGowan shook her head. “It can’t be helped. If I may ask, miss, why are you so insistent that Jacobs escort you outside? You’re clearly unwell.”

“I—” Katherine swallowed what was threatening to come up, and she felt sweat on her brow. “I’ve been looking at the gardens. I have some—well, I have some concerns about the way they’re being managed.”

MacGowan’s face twisted into genuine puzzlement. “The gardens, miss?” Her watery blue eyes twitched out the window.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know that—”

The wind blew again, and even as Katherine braced herself for another wave of nausea, a seed took root in her mind.

“The caretaker!”

Hadn’t the caretaker been the one to warn David that Katherine should be cautious? He must know something about Jack—and maybe he knew more than MacGowan was willing to tell Katherine about what had happened to David too.

MacGowan raised an eyebrow. “What?

“I’d like to speak with the caretaker. About the gardens.”

“Conlon?”

“Yes,” Katherine said, her tone far more confident than she felt. That was what the man was called, wasn’t it? “Conlon.”

“Well, that’s highly unorthodox, miss. If you’d simply tell me your concerns—”

“I’d rather discuss them with Conlon, if you don’t mind,” Katherine snipped.

“But miss, what with you still being confined to your chambers—”

“Unconfine me, then,” Katherine said coolly. “I’m sure with your assistance I could dress and make it down to the drawing room.”

“But I—”

“Or is there some reason you’d prefer I stay up in my room?”

Katherine batted her eyelashes, and MacGowan glared at her.

“No, miss.”

“Well, then. I’d very much appreciate your assistance, MacGowan.” Katherine plastered on her sweetest smile.

“Yes, miss.”

---

Three-quarters of an hour and one too-tightly laced corset later, Katherine sat in one of the drawing room’s high-backed arm chairs, waiting for Conlon. She was still feeling a bit peaked, but in the absence of the wind, the likelihood that she might lose her breakfast had passed. She was surprised MacGowan wasn’t lurking about, but the woman seemed to have done with Katherine as soon as she was settled. Katherine was grateful for the reprieve, even if it gave her mind too much time to wander.

What did MacGowan mean that David was indisposed? And what if Conlon didn’t know anything about Jack?

A soft knock broke the silence.

Katherine straightened her spine. “Enter.”

“You, uh, wanted to see me, miss?”

As usual, David was right: Conlon was young. He hardly looked old enough to take charge of an entire estate. Physical strength, however, did not appear to be a concern. Compact though Conlon was, Katherine had never been able to discern more individual muscles under a person’s clothes in her life. She blushed and cleared her throat. 

“Yes, I did. You’re the caretaker.”

Conlon moved casually toward her, his brown hands in his pants pockets. “So I’ve been told.”

He smiled at her, and it was disarming, the way she felt she already knew him.

But Katherine didn’t smile back. She needed him to know that she was in charge if he was going to be of any help to her at all.

“You would be responsible for any major changes in our gardens or landscaping, then?”

Conlon shrugged. “I s’pose, though I can’t say as I’ve made any a’ those lately.”

“You know the stone wall that borders the back field?” Katherine asked.

“’Course,” Conlon said casually. Then, he remembered himself. He slipped off his cap and nodded politely. “I mean, yes, miss.”

“Did you clear the roses from it?”

Conlon’s easy smile disappeared. “What?”

“The roses on the wall. Did you clear them?”

“No. I—I wouldn’t never.”

“Well, they’re gone.”

“You’re sure, miss?” Conlon’s eyes darted toward the damask-draped window.  

Katherine nodded. “As sure as I can be, trapped in here.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind. I just—I haven’t been able to go and see. I—”

Conlon moved suddenly closer to her, his voice low. “You ain’t picked them roses, have ya?” He looked over his shoulder, as though someone might overhear.

“Certainly not all of them!”

“But you’ve—you’ve plucked ‘em before?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, shit,” Conlon breathed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothin’, miss. I just—”

“You know, don’t you?” Katherine whispered.

“What?”

“What happens when you pick one of those roses.”

Conlon swallowed hard. “I might. Do you?”

“I do.”

He scratched at the back of his neck, and he wouldn’t meet her eye.

“I saw poor Jacobs carry you back. I wondered if—”

“Oh, for the love of mud! He didn’t do anything!”

Katherine was almost out of her chair, and Conlon held up his hands in contrition.

“Didn’t think he did, miss. But I thought—”

“What?”

This time, Conlon looked right at her. “I thought maybe someone else might’ve. Someone from the other side. “

Katherine’s breath stopped.

“You do know.”

“Yeah. I do. And I tried to warn Jacobs so’s you’d be more careful. Seems you didn’t listen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, it seems you don’t,” Conlon muttered.

Something in his expression made Katherine feel like a chastised child, but she couldn’t make herself think on it just then. Conlon knew about the roses. It made her feel closer to Jack already.

Katherine couldn’t keep the urgency from her voice. “Have the roses—have they ever gone before?”

“No.”

“Maybe there are still a few left?” she pressed.

“Maybe.”

“Would you—could you take me there?”

Again, Conlon looked over his shoulder. “Miss, I don’t think it’d be appropriate with all you got—”

“Please,” Katherine nearly bleated in desperation. “I just need to see.”

Conlon’s brown eyes searched her face. There was the faintest crease of worry between his dark brows. He shook his head, and Katherine braced herself.  

“Sure. Fine. Alright.”

Katherine wanted to throw her arms around his neck.

“Oh, Conlon—”

“—but if MacGowan catches us, it’s gonna be my hide.”

“She won’t.”

Conlon snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re the careful type.”

There was that look again. Like Katherine had done something wrong, and she didn’t know it. She raised her chin in haughty reply.    

“No one ever got anywhere by being careful.”

Conlon stared at her for a moment, and then his face softened. “A fair point, I guess,” Conlon chuckled. “Awright, miss. Twenty minutes. You’ll want to go out the side door, and be careful no one sees. I’ll be waitin’ for you.”

“Thank you, Conlon.”

He sighed. “Don’t thank me yet.”

---

Conlon didn’t say much as they trekked to the wall, but Katherine was grateful for his strong arm to hold onto. The wind teased her and urged her forward, the same as it always did, but the green smell was too much. It knit itself to her breath, stirring her insides. Several times, Conlon had politely looked away when she’d been sick in the grass.

“You’re sure you’re up for this, miss?”

“Yes, of course.”

As they got closer, Conlon’s muscles coiled beneath her hand.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Just ain’t been out here in a while is all.”

Katherine didn’t ask anything more. She didn’t need any help unraveling the look on his face now; she’d seen it on her own too many times since they’d lost Lucy. She squeezed Conlon’s arm, and he tried to smile.

“We’re close,” he said.

“I know.”

The wind gusted behind them, and Katherine held her breath. The wall rose out of the grass just ahead. 

Please, she thought. Please, let there be at least a few left.

But there weren’t. Katherine broke to her knees at the base of the wall. She felt Conlon’s eyes on her as she searched the grass with needy fingers, like some kind of scavenging animal. She gulped for air that wasn’t green and tried to keep her gorge from rising. Her hair came loose and blew around her, and she knew that her skirt would be ruined, but she didn’t care. She had to find a rose. She had to get to Jack.  

It didn’t matter. There wasn’t a single rose left.

Katherine’s hands clenched into fists. That couldn’t be. They couldn’t have just disappeared.

But they might have. Perhaps the roses were like Jack: in Snyder’s thrall, fragile and subject to the man’s whims.

Maybe they had disappeared to the other side of the wall.

“They’re—they’re all gone,” Katherine murmured, half to herself. She tugged pointlessly at the grass, and another wave of nausea rolled through her stomach.

“Looks like it.” Conlon sank to his knees at her side. He combed through the grass himself, shaking his head in disbelief. “I—I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it before.”

“They can’t be. He—”

Katherine’s eyes stung.  She pulled herself up on wall’s slate lip, knuckles were white and shaking, and she leaned to see the other side. There weren’t any roses; only high grass and weeds.

She couldn’t have lost him. Not like this.  

“Jack?” she called desperately. “Jack!”

Her voice broke, and the wind carried its pieces away.

Conlon’s hands were on her shoulders. “Miss—”

Katherine shook her head, still clutching at the wall. “He can’t be gone. He said—”

“Hey now.”

Conlon guided her down and wrapped her awkwardly in his arms. Katherine let him. She needed to feel something besides the wind’s insistent pull. She pressed her face into Conlon’s shoulder.

“It’s alright, miss.” Hesitant hands smoothed her hair. “You just settle down now, huh?”

She didn’t want to settle down. People had been telling Katherine to settle down her entire life, and she’d had about enough of it. Young ladies were demure; they didn’t cry or carry-on in public. They swallowed their pain, or they blushed, or they demurred and lowered their eyes—Katherine was sick to death of the pretense. 

She’d given herself to Jack without pretense because she knew that he didn’t expect her to be anything other than what she was, and now, she’d lost him. So, she’d sob into a stranger’s shoulder if she damn well felt like it.

When she finally pulled away, Conlon’s shirt was stained with her tears. He offered her a plain handkerchief from the cuff of his shirtsleeve and looked away.

“How did you know?” she asked.

Conlon sighed and settled back against the wall. “What?”

“About the roses.”

“I picked ‘em myself. A long time ago now.”

“And someone came to you?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. There was a rough edge to his voice, frayed as rent fabric. “He did.”

“Then, you know about the work farm?”

Conlon’s breath stopped. “Best to stay away from the folks there. They don’t belong to us, miss.”

Katherine felt suddenly cold. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s better if you don’t.”

“Please.”

“I—” Conlon began, and for an instant, Katherine could see the loss creep into his eyes again. He shook his head. “It ain’t gonna help you feel no better. Not if you’ve tied yourself to one of them.”

“But I have,” Katherine said softly. “And I want to help him.”

“You can’t,” Conlon said hoarsely.

“How do you know?”

“You really ain’t gonna quit, are ya?” Conlon mopped his face with his hands and looked back at her. His eyes were red at their edges. “S’pose I show you what I mean. Will you leave it alone then?”

“If I can.”

“I guess that’ll hafta do.” Conlon stood and offered her his hand. “C’mon then.”

Katherine let him pull her to her feet and help her over the wall. But it wasn’t like before. Conlon was not Jack. And when she turned to look, she could still see the manor house in the distance.

What she couldn’t see was Jack, kneeling low in the grass, Snyder’s hand against his golden chain.

---

Jack could hardly breathe. Katherine was right there. He could almost touch her—and he certainly wanted to. It had been nearly three weeks since Jack had seen her, and still, he felt the silk of her skin against his when he closed his eyes at night. It was his only respite. He would have given anything to hold her.

But Jack didn’t move. Couldn’t, really. Not with Snyder so close.

Things had been worse, lately. Snyder rarely let Jack outside now, and when he did, it was only to torture him—to take him to the empty wall, to show him that Katherine was still convalescing, to remind him of the route they would take when it was finally time for Jack’s sentence to be carried out. There were delicate chains linking his wrists now too, but they weighed on him just as if they were iron fetters; he was as good as shackled to the dirt beneath him.

Snyder’s hand rubbed against the chain at Jack’s neck. “Your little girl’s a brave one, isn’t she?”

There was something about the man’s voice that set Jack’s bowels on edge. He practically growled.   

“Don’t—” Jack started to protest, but he was cut off by a sharp tug at his chain.

“You’re getting awfully fond of that word, aren’t you? Are you confused about our arrangement, boy?”

He wasn’t confused. He understood that he didn’t have any power. He knew what he’d agreed to. But it didn’t make it any easier. Not when Katherine was so near to him. Still, Jack knew what he was supposed to say.

“No.”

“Then you’d best stop telling me what I can and cannot do. Whether you keep your tongue is immaterial to me.”

“Yes.” Another tug, a sliver of fire. Jack hissed in pain. “Sir.”

“That’s more like it.”

Snyder let him go and watched as Katherine and the caretaker left the wall. He chuckled to himself.

“It’s sweet, the way she thinks she’s going to be able to save you. You know that’s what she’s after, don’t you?” Snyder spoke with all the charm of a crocodile gnashing its jaws. “That young man, the one she’s with? He thought he’d be able to save the boy who came before you. But he couldn’t. And she won’t save you either.”

“Please, I—”

But Jack didn’t know what he was pleading for, and Snyder didn’t care.

“Our contract is binding, boy. Your sentence will be carried out when the time comes, and nothing can stop it. That’s what you agreed to.”

And he had. Jack had understood what he was giving up when he made his bargain with Snyder. He knew that it was his life for Charlie’s, and he’d never regretted it. He didn’t regret it now. The world needed Charlie more than it needed him. Charlie was better than Jack—and Charlie couldn’t have endured what Jack had suffered under Snyder’s care. Jack knew it. He accepted it. It was what he’d agreed to.

But now there was Katherine. Jack couldn’t explain it. They hadn’t known each other long. But he felt like there was a part of him anchored deep inside of Katherine, that there was something about what they’d done that was keeping him tied to the world he’d agreed to forsake.

Jack knew there was no way out, but for the first time, he wanted there to be.

Jack looked across the field, and he could see Katherine’s copper curls twisting in the wind. His chest ached with want.

“She won’t understand,” he said softly.

“What’s that?”

“Why I left her.”

“She doesn’t need to.” Snyder stooped so that he and Jack were face to face, and Jack felt the rasp of Snyder’s calloused thumb on his cheek. “Think on it, boy. If she thinks you ran out on her, she can be angry at you. It won’t take away her pain, but it will temper it. She’ll be happy to let you go.”

Jack knew it was a lie, but the words still fell on him like a blow. His head fell.

Snyder slipped his hand around Jack’s throat. “If she knew the truth, it would be that much harder. Imagine how she would suffer if she knew what was waiting for you.”

“Like you care,” Jack growled.  

“Oh, I do. I do.” Snyder tightened his grasp. “I wouldn’t harm a hair on her pretty little head. Not with what she’s holding for me.”

“Wh—” Jack began, but Snyder’s hand stole his breath.  

“Don’t you worry, boy.” The man’s icy blue eyes followed Katherine and the caretaker. He smiled. “You’ll find out soon enough. And so will she.”

---

Katherine had never been on this part of the property. As they weaved through the high grass, farther and farther away from the wall, outbuildings began to crop up like weeds. Shambling cabins, a derelict barn, stalls with rusted metalworks, a falling-down mill.

“Is this the farm?” she asked.

Conlon shrugged. “I guess. If that’s ever what it was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s been like this since I can remember.” Conlon gestured at the rickety buildings. “If there’s work goin’ on, it ain’t in a place you and I can see is all.”

Katherine didn’t understand. “Well, it’s been abandoned, right?”

“You an’ I both know that ain’t quite the truth.”

“Then what is?”

“I don’t know,” Conlon admitted. “Not for sure. Just that whatever’s gone on out here—whatever goes on—it ain’t natural.”

Katherine’s stomach tipped. “Oh.”

“C’mon, miss. You had to have some suspicion.”

Katherine’s brows knit together. Of all the things to say! People didn’t just appear at the turn of a rose; houses didn’t fade into nothing when you crossed a wall; boys weren’t owned like chattel. She had more than a suspicion.

“I did. I do. I just—”

Conlon laughed cheerlessly. “Yeah, it’s not the kind of thing you admit, even to yourself. Life ain’t a fairy story, right?”

That, at least, Katherine knew for certain. “No, it isn’t.”

“Those at least have happy endings,” Conlon said, and Katherine knew his words weren’t for her.

They went on for a moment in silence, past the barn and into a thicket of white birch trees just beyond. The wind died behind her, and for the first time that day, the green smell disappeared. When Katherine felt the lurch in her belly, it was for an entirely different reason.

“Conlon?”

Beneath the trees were rows of squat white stones. Their curved heads barely peeked above the gnarled grass, like a child’s growing teeth, but Katherine knew what they were. Gravestones.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Conlon said, his voice cracking.

Katherine shook her head. “I—I don’t—”

Conlon reached behind, and, begrudgingly, Katherine took his hand. Together, they knelt near one of the stones at the front of the glade. Conlon’s rough brown fingers pushed the heavy grass away.

1880-1896

“There’s no name,” Katherine murmured.

“Not on any of the others, either,” Conlon replied.

Katherine peered through the weeds. It was true. The stones were blank except for the years, and all of the lives buried beneath them had been brief. 1874-1889. 1863-1882. 1860-1875. 1859-1868. 1845-1861. Katherine brought her knuckles to her mouth. They were so young.

“But this one was mine. My Tony.” Conlon touched the carved stone with great tenderness, and his eyes were bright with tears. “We was kids. I—I know it sounds silly. But I loved him.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all.”

Conlon shook his head, fingers still soft on the stone. “I didn’t understand, y’know? I didn’t even realize it was the roses that made him show up at first.”

“Neither did I.”

“But once I did—I was out here every day.” A soft smile spread over Conlon’s lips, and Katherine knew he was remembering; he could see his Tony sure as if he were there in front of them. “I never met nobody like him. He was han’some. Funny. An’ he cared about me. More than anyone else I ever met.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“He showed me this place, right before.”

“Before what?”

“He—” Conlon’s body wound tight as a spring, and he squeezed his hand around the stone’s curved top. “He disappeared. I—I don’t rightly know what happened. But after, I came back, and well. He was there. I knew it was for him.”

“Disappeared? But the stone—”

“There’s lots of stones. Lots of bodies, I’d wager.”

“Yes. There are.” Katherine chilled at the thought of Jack, nameless and buried beneath her feet. “What do you think—"

“The warden. He ain’t a nice fella.”

“That much I’ve gathered.”

Conlon sat back. “Tony was an orphan. Got picked up for gamblin’ and sent to this place in the city what’s supposed to rehabilitate kids.”

“The Refuge.”

“That’s it. Tony had a hard time there. Got in trouble a lot. So’s the warden tells him he’s bein’ transferred out here. That he made Tony sign somethin’ sayin’ he agreed to a change in his sentence. Only they get out here, and there’s no other kids. Just the warden and his people. An’ he hurt Tony. A lot. Made him work all the time, and kept him caged like an animal when he wasn’t. Starved him for days at a time. Made him do his biddin’ whenever, however.”

“Oh,” Katherine whispered. She thought of Jack’s long silences, of his tears, and she wrapped her arms around herself.  

“We neither of us could figure out why he was allowed to see me. An’ I’m grateful for the time we had. But—”

Conlon ran his arm over his eyes.

“I couldn’t save him.”

“What happened?”

Conlon shrugged. “I don’t know. But one day, I pick a rose, and he appears lookin’ like a ghost. An’ he tells me he’s got to say goodbye, that his sentence’ll be carried out the next night.”

“His sentence?”

That’s what Jack had called it too.

“Like anyone would execute a kid for sharpin’ cards.”

Execute.

“Conlon—”

“I never saw him again. The warden killed him; I’m sure of it. And I don’t know why.”  Conlon’s voice was hoarse. “Do y’see? Your fella. He ain’t yours. Look at the stones, miss. Look at ‘em.”

Katherine shook her head, and her head swam as she studied the numbers. 1874-1889. 1863-1882. 1860-1875. 1859-1868. 1845-1861.

1861. 1868. 1875. 1882. 1889. 1896.

“Seven years,” she murmured. “They’re all seven years apart.”

1896. That meant—that meant—

“It’s been seven years since I lost Tony, miss,” Conlon said softly. “The warden—he’s going to take another one this year.”

Chapter Text

Katherine woke with a start. The pillow was damp beneath her head, and her heart was racing. She fumbled for the lamp key on her bedside table, unseating a rather perturbed Tibby from behind her knees. The window was open, and the green smell hung heavy in the air.

She hadn’t slept well since Conlon had taken her to the gravestones a few days before. It took hours to get to sleep, and when she finally did, the dreams would start. They marched through her mind in endless parade, and Jack was in every one.

Some were sweet. Images of the afternoons they’d spent together might flicker past like scenes from a nickelodeon; sometimes, Katherine could even feel his lips on her skin. Some throbbed low inside of her, and she woke sweating and loose as an uncoiled ribbon.

But others woke her for an entirely different reason.

Jack, locked in a cell, eyes dull and body broken. Jack, screaming for her from beyond the wall. Jack, slipping into the ground beneath the gravestones, fingers clawing at the dirt closing in around him. In her nightmares, Katherine was always a prisoner in her own body. She would try to help, to answer, to move, but to no avail. She couldn’t do anything for him.

Tonight was no different. In the dream, Jack was bound to a wooden pillory, his wrists tethered above his head by the same gold chain that captured his throat. His back was bare and already torn open, weeping red down to his hips. Behind him was a faceless man with a bullwhip. Katherine opened her mouth to scream, but there was no sound. She tried to go to Jack, to throw herself over him, but her feet stayed frozen on the floor. The man laughed and raised the whip again—

Then, as always, she woke. But she knew the whole thing would start all over again as soon as she closed her eyes.

“This is ridiculous,” Katherine muttered into the dim.

Things couldn’t go on this way. Jack was who knows where, suffering God knows what; David was still suspiciously absent; and Katherine felt increasingly as though she were keeping some kind of secret from herself.

Tibby seemed to agree. She mewled from her spot on the rug and batted at the border of Katherine’s comforter.

“What, Tibbs? What do you think I should do?”

Tibby flopped onto her back, apparently endorsing the unspoken suggestion that Katherine get out of bed and pet her.

Katherine laughed in spite of herself and slid onto the floor. Tibby wrapped her paws around Katherine’s wrist and mouthed at her fingers. Katherine scratched absently at the tabby’s furry belly.

What was she going to do? If only there was some way she could get to Jack—if she could only talk to him—

The wind pushed through the windows and across Katherine’s writing desk. It teased the edges of her stationery set, and a sheet of creamy paper fluttered to the floor. Tibby kicked at the paper with her back paws.

Katherine’s breath stopped. Of course. A letter. Even if she couldn’t see Jack, at least there was a possibility her words might still make it to the other side of the wall. And maybe, something would make it back to her as well.

Katherine stood and smoothed her nightgown, earning an indignant chirp from Tibby.  She closed the window. She sat down at her desk. She dipped her pen in the inkwell and touched it to the white paper. She wrote.

---

“Wake up, boy.”

Jack could barely raise his head from the makeshift pillow of his arms. It had been difficult, since Snyder stole the roses away. Without the roses, Jack hadn’t any freedom left. Snyder kept him locked up now—unless, of course, he had a whim that only Jack’s pain could satisfy. Food and water were sparse; so were sunlight and fresh air. Jack had started to wither, and Snyder was only too happy to encourage his decline. 

Snyder kicked at his shoulder. “C’mon, boy. Get yourself up.”

Jack groaned. He didn’t move. If Snyder wanted him up, that only meant the man wanted to hurt him. Jack wasn’t sure he could stomach much more of that.

“You’ve had a special delivery. From your little girl.”

Jack’s breath stopped. Katherine.

“Oh, so, now you’re interested?”

Jack pressed himself up, trying to ignore the way his arms shook beneath his weight. “Please. Is she—”

“She’s just fine,” Snyder said flatly. “So far. Seems she’s rather concerned about you, though.”

Snyder reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled envelope. “She left this at the wall early this morning. Looked like she hadn’t slept, poor poppet.”

Jack’s gut lurched. She was suffering, and it was his fault.

 “’Dearest Jack,’” Snyder read, barely masking his own glee—

I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I have to try. Things have been difficult. I know that you would not leave me—not after what we’ve shared—but your absence is real, nonetheless. I am worried for myself. What I gave to you is something that cannot be restored, and while I do not regret giving it, I still feel at sea. I can’t help but wonder if I upset you or if, perhaps, I’ve done something wrong.

Snyder raised his eyebrows. “Seems she’s concerned if she was a good lay. Was she, then?”

Jack snarled and tried to raise himself further up, but Snyder only laughed and shoved him back onto the ground.

“’But I am most worried for you,’” Snyder went on, his voice high and girlish.

Last night, I had a dream that you were hurt.

A few days ago, I met with Conlon, the caretaker, and he showed me the graves of the boys who came before you. Have you seen them, there in the birch grove? I do not think I could bear it if there were a new stone this year—

Snyder looked up from the letter. “I didn’t realize that boy would lead her so close to the truth,” he said thoughtfully. “Not that it matters. But it does add a certain dimension to what’s coming, don’t you think?”

And yet—I wonder, did you know that this is where your bargain would lead? Did Charlie? I can’t imagine he would have allowed you to sacrifice yourself this way had he known. I would do anything to stop it, if I could.

Is there a way?

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Snyder murmured to himself. He chuckled as he read the next line.

I hope Snyder hasn’t hurt you. I hope you are as well as you can be. I hope that I will see you again.

I love you. I remember.

Your Katherine

Snyder’s voice dissolved into real laughter around Katherine’s name, but Jack barely heard.

She loved him. She remembered. Maybe—just maybe—

“So, she had a dream you were hurt, did she?“ Snyder’s voice derailed Jack’s thoughts. There was a rough hand at his elbow, hauling him up and away from the dirt floor of his cell. “I do so like to make a lady’s dreams come true.”

---

MacGowan was in Katherine’s room when she returned from the wall. The maid was sifting through the clothes hamper in Katherine’s en suite, a smug look on her pinched face.

“What are you doing?” Katherine asked. Tibby was at her heels, as she always was when Katherine returned, but even the tabby’s eyes were fixed on MacGowan.

MacGowan started, and then quickly rearranged her expression. She dropped the hamper’s lid. “Removing the rubbish, miss.”

“That isn’t what it looked like.”

Tibby chirped in agreement.

“That’s what it was,” MacGowan said tartly. She raised her eyebrow at Katherine’s windblown hair and dirty skirt. “Another walk, miss?”

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

“Oh, but that’s not quite true, is it?” MacGowan countered. “I’ve been entrusted with your well-being, and you’ve so often been poorly as of late.”

“You’re dismissed, MacGowan,” Katherine said tersely.

Delivering a potentially ill-fated note to one’s captive lover did not exactly put one in the mood for a sparring match with the help. Particularly when the help was MacGowan.

“As you wish, miss.” MacGowan curtsied primly and started for the door. Just before she turned the handle, she stopped and turned back to Katherine, her face drawn in overdramatic concern. “Your father is very worried about you, you know.”

Katherine’s stomach plummeted. Tibby hissed.

“My father?”

“Yes. He’ll be here within the week.”

“I don’t understand. He and Mother were in—”

“I took the liberty of wiring your father after that unpleasant business with Jacobs.”

“You—what—”

Katherine shook her head in disbelief.

“You shouldn’t have—”

MacGowan folded her red hands over her middle. “You were sent to Carterhaugh for your health, Miss Pulitzer. Your father would want to know if there’s any threat to your person.”

“But there isn’t.”

“You’ll forgive me, miss, but your judgment on this point may be faulty.”

“Excuse me?”

As if Katherine wouldn’t know what had happened to her own body. Well, she supposed there was a point in time where things got a bit fuzzy—but it certainly had nothing to do with David! Not that she could tell her father about Jack either.

Katherine wanted to wrap her hands around MacGowan’s throat and shake until the woman’s face matched her red hair.

“It’s only that you’ve been through so much,” MacGowan went on, voice dripping with false sympathy. “You must be—”

“Don’t tell me what I am,” Katherine snapped.

MacGowan smiled condescendingly. “Of course not, miss. But my first duty is to your father. He left specific instructions to keep him informed should anything occur.”

Of course. Of course! Even hundreds of miles away, her father still had to control every aspect of her life.

“But nothing hap—”

“As you say, miss. In any case, your father will be arriving soon.”

Katherine sank onto the bed, scooping up a squirming Tibby and, much to Tibby’s dismay, holding her close to her chest. “What did you tell him?”

“What I had to.”

Katherine certainly did not like the sound of that.

“But David—why—where is David?”

“Detained in the servants’ hall, miss,” MacGowan sniffed.

Detained? Oh, for pity’s sake. This was so much worse than Katherine could have imagined. She’d only thought that David was licking his wounds. And maybe she’d been too preoccupied with what might be happening to Jack. But this—

“What? You’ve—he’s been locked up in his room all this time? That’s why—oh, God.”

Katherine’s father would be operating under the auspices that David had—had ruined his daughter, and Joseph Pulitzer did not take kindly to anyone touching his things. He would only be too happy to pick David’s life down to its bones and throw the boy out with the garbage.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t lose David too. David couldn’t lose himself. He didn’t deserve that.

 “But the police—”

“—were not as thorough as they should have been,” MacGowan said resolutely.

“I don’t think that’s your decision.” Tibby twitched in Katherine’s arms.

“What goes on in this house is my decision.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I think you’ll find that it is, miss.” MacGowan’s hands shifted into her apron pocket. Her bony fingers shifted around something beneath the white fabric. Tibby made a noise low in her throat and squirmed some more. “Speaking of, I think it’s best if you leave off any excursions until your father arrives. Your condition is quite delicate, you know?”

Katherine felt very much like she was trying to cobble together a story without her notes. She let Tibby go, and the cat hopped to the floor.

“My—my  what?”

“Oh, my dear. Don’t play coy. Not with me. It seems we’re both women of the world.”

Katherine’s cheeks flushed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

But Katherine was suddenly quite afraid that she knew exactly what MacGowan meant.

“Don’t you? The nausea? The—” MacGowan’s nostrils flared, “—irritability? And it seems that your monthly hasn’t arrived on its proper schedule.”

“My—but how would you—”

MacGowan laughed. “Who do you think sees to your laundry, miss?”

So, that’s what she’d been up to with the clothes hamper.

“You vicious—”

MacGowan pressed her lips together in an unbearable simper.

“I’m curious, miss. How long do you intend to pretend the Jacobs boy didn’t touch you? It’s going to be rather difficult now that you’re carrying his child.”

She couldn’t be.

Katherine’s body ached beneath cold sweat. “No—no, I—”

It wasn’t possible. She had always been taught that children were the natural result of marriage; it had never occurred to her that a child might appear any other way. Academically, of course, Katherine understood the process. It wasn’t as though she believed in the stork any longer, but—

She and Jack had only been together once, and surely, once wasn’t enough.

Katherine pressed her hands against the flat beneath her navel. There was nothing. No swell, no indication that she was anything but the girl she’d always been. But she felt the ghost of another touch, a hand that was not Jack’s pressed against her.

But there will be pain for her eventually, trust me.

She knew what MacGowan said was true.  

Katherine’s body bent in two. She didn’t know how to make sense of what she felt.

Katherine knew her father well; he wouldn’t suffer her fall from grace. Any liberty she might have gained would be torn from her grasp as soon as he arrived. She understood that her life as she’d known it was over, but she’d known that when she went over the wall.

She hadn’t lied when she told Jack that what she’d given him could not be restored, but now she felt the loss more keenly than before. She was no longer an innocent; and now, she was something soiled as well.

She was also alone. Jack might never know about their child, and if he did, he wouldn’t—he might not live to see it come into the world; summer was already fading, and the months left in Jack’s year were few. And David? Well, given what Katherine’s father would certainly believe about the parentage of the child—what Katherine would have to let him believe, given the truth—she likely wouldn’t have David much longer either. David might never forgive her. She supposed she couldn’t blame him.

But there was another thread, one that Katherine couldn’t help but unspool: she had a piece of Jack. Now, no matter what happened, there was that.   

Katherine cradled her belly. Jack.

MacGowan stood above Katherine, staring down at her in self-satisfied disgust. Tibby hissed again.

“You silly, stupid girl. You let that boy get you into quite a pickle, didn’t you?”

A pickle seemed an insufficient comparison. Katherine was in an entire larder of trouble. But MacGowan had the wrong boy.

“Did you tell Father?” Katherine winced at the desperation in her own voice.

MacGowan turned to leave. “I’ll have cook prepare your meals on a tray, and we’ll see that you’re kept as comfortable as possible.”

Katherine flew up from the bed, hands crushed into fists at her sides. She hadn’t done anything. Well, perhaps she had, but it didn’t warrant whatever it was MacGowan had planned.

“This is my house. You can’t treat me like some kind of prisoner.”

“This is your father’s house, my dear, and you are meant to be a young lady of good breeding.” MacGowan stopped at the door, knuckles shifting in her apron pocket. “No matter how blithe your unconcern, everything must be done to protect your reputation, and that is precisely what I am doing.”

“My reputation is just fine.”

But even Katherine could hear the weakness in her own protest. She was as good as ruined, and they both knew it.

“Because I’ve kept it so thus far,” MacGowan snapped. “That boy won’t stir from his room until your father’s decided what to do about him; and you won’t stir from yours until it is certain that you’re safe.”

“But you can’t do that.”

MacGowan’s fingers emerged from her pocket, gripping a heavy skeleton key. “I think you’ll find that I can, miss. Now, you just get comfortable. I’ll send up your supper when it’s time.”

“MacGowan—”

Katherine started to the door, but MacGowan had already slipped out before she’d made it halfway across the suite. Katherine tugged at the doorhandle, but it wouldn’t budge. She was locked in.

“MacGowan!”

Katherine’s hand slapped at the wood, but there was no answer from the other side.

---

Jack slumped limp against the wooden post at his front. He couldn’t take another stroke—he couldn’t. But he knew that he would. He always did. It was the promise he’d made, to keep Charlie safe. He did not resist, and the bargain remained intact. Now, perhaps that promise was keeping Katherine safe too.

Snyder cracked his whip’s leather tail against the empty air, but Jack’s muscles were so far gone that he couldn’t even flinch.

Snyder leaned in close to his ear. “This is just child’s play compared to what’s waiting for you, you know?”

Jack felt the whip’s grooved handle muddle his torn flesh. He groaned in pain, pressing his forehead against the post.

It had been easier to take, before. He’d known that Charlie was safe, and that was all that mattered. Jack had never mattered. Not to anyone. Not even to himself. It had been a simple bargain to make. His life for Charlie’s. Trash for treasure. It made him feel noble, like he’d done something with a life that would otherwise have been sucked away by dead-end jobs and greedy bosses and pointless toil.

It had been a lie Jack told himself. When Snyder beat him, he pictured Charlie in his new mother’s soft arms; when he was caged, he thought of Charlie, tucked into a nice, warm bed; when he was hungry, he imagined that Charlie was full. And it had worked for a while. He could fool himself that he was a part of Charlie’s future, since he wouldn’t have one of his own.

But now—

Now, it just hurt. Because, for the first time in a long time, Jack wanted his life.

He wanted a life with Katherine. To be touched gently, to be seen. And Snyder was only too happy to remind him that he would never have it, no matter how close he’d come.

“Had enough for today, boy?” Snyder growled.

Jack nodded listlessly against the pillory.

“Well, you’re lucky. I find myself in a charitable mood.”

Jack heard the whip hit the ground behind him, but he didn’t dare make any move that might betray his relief. Snyder snapped his fingers, and Jack’s delicate chains came loose from the post. He collapsed to the wet, red ground beneath him.

“My, but you look good that way,” Snyder said above him. “That must be why your little girl sees you like this in her dreams.”

Jack closed his eyes. He tried to conjure the other bits of Katherine’s letter—her love, her hope—but her concern stung him just as surely as the lashes on his back. Worse, maybe.

“Do you miss her, boy?”

Yes, he did. There was no point in denying it. But still, Jack didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to give Snyder the satisfaction of having anything else to torture him with. Not that it mattered. Jack knew that this is what the rest of his life would be. There wasn’t much of it left, so there was no reason for Snyder to hold back. And after Katherine—well, it felt like a punishment. One that Snyder relished.

“She misses you too, doesn’t she?” Snyder jeered. “She loves you. I wonder if she’ll still love you when she finds out what you’ve done to her.”

Perhaps Snyder wasn’t in such a charitable mood after all. But Jack was hardly in the mood for cryptic heckling either.

“Did you hear me, boy?”

“What I—” Jack tried to press himself up, but his arms buckled, and he fell back in the bloody dirt below.

Snyder laughed and sank to one knee. He yanked Jack’s head upward by his hair, ignoring the animal groan that Jack couldn’t stifle.

“You’ve ruined her.”

Jack hadn’t been away from polite society so long that he didn’t understand what Snyder meant. What he and Katherine had done at the wall—it wasn’t polite. Things that felt so good usually weren’t. It was something that, if anyone knew about it, could very well result in Katherine’s ruin. But they’d been under the protection of the glamor. No one had to know. No one could know. It was theirs alone.

Jack shook his head in Snyder’s grip. “I don’t—”

“You got the girl with child.”

If Jack had any blood left in his body, it certainly drained from his face. “What?”

“She’s knocked up. On the nest. Up the pole. Stung by a serpent. Wearing the bustle wrong. In the family way.”

Family. The word lanced through Jack’s chest, and he was halfway relieved when Snyder threw him down again. He didn’t want to see Snyder’s smug face.

“Your girl’s a proper lady, isn’t she? Or, she was, before you got to her, huh?” Snyder was properly amused with himself. “I wonder what will happen to her when people find out? Perhaps she’ll be locked away until she delivers while your brat festers inside her. And once it comes, once her sweet, little body is well and truly broken because of you, she’ll give it up. She can’t be tied to something so vile, can she? And do you know where kids like that end up, boy?”

Jack knew all too well. The moan escaped his lips before he could help it.

Snyder laughed. “That’s right. What’s yours is mine, isn’t it? It’s always been. And this’ll be no exception. Two, for the price of one. It almost makes up for letting your Charlie get away, doesn’t it?”  

“Please,” Jack heard himself say. “Please, let me see her. You can’t—”

“I can do whatever I please,” Snyder snarled. “And I will. You’re mine, boy. I didn’t think you could forget it. And whatever comes of your union with that girl is mine too. Just count yourself lucky I’m not taking her as part of the bargain.” He leaned close to Jack’s ear. “But then again, people would notice if she disappeared.”

Not for the first time, Jack wished that he was already buried in the birch grove. This was too much. Katherine had been his talisman, the one hope he had that someone might remember him when he was gone; he was sure that he’d faded in Charlie’s memory. But now—

She wouldn’t remember him fondly. How could she? Snyder was right. Katherine was going to end up a prisoner in her own house, a prisoner in her own body. She was going to suffer alone. And for what? For their child. A child that would never truly belong to either of them. A child who, if it lived at all, would live under Snyder’s whip, under the hands of his cronies, until its blood was spilt to pay his debt.

Jack should never have touched her. It was all his doing. Of course it was. There was nothing Jack had done in his life that had ever worked out the way it was supposed to. He couldn’t help it, then: he wept like a child.

Snyder put a patronizing hand on Jack’s back and hooked his nails into the open wounds. Jack screamed, but Snyder was nonplussed.

“I think you’ll find it interesting,” he said, “what happens to you as your brat grows. I know I will.”

Jack wanted to plead, but his lips couldn’t find the words. Great, gulping sobs wracked his body, and his back burned. He wasn’t a man. Not anymore. He was an animal. He was meat on an abattoir’s hook. He was well and truly broken now, and Snyder knew it.

“Don’t worry, boy,” Snyder cooed. He took up the whip again. “You only have a few months left.”

Chapter Text

“Katherine?”

Katherine blinked into the dim light, uncertain if she was actually awake. MacGowan hadn’t wanted to listen to Katherine’s literal battery of protests, and so, rather than allow Katherine to hammer endlessly at her bedroom door, MacGowan had dispatched the doctor with his syringe.  Much of however many days had come before had passed in a blur of hooded eyelids and rushing ears.

Worst of all, her sleep had been dreamless. Jack was lost to her again. The realization made her chest ache with longing.

“Are you awake, child?”

Katherine blinked again. The room slowly sank into focus around her, but she couldn’t seem to make sense of the face at her bedside.

“Father?”

Pulitzer’s upper lip twitched beneath his mustache, and he nodded stiffly. He made no move to touch his daughter.

“Katherine. How are you feeling?”

Katherine knew well enough that there was only one acceptable answer to that question. Her father did not truck with weakness of any kind. Perhaps it was fear; Katherine remembered his wet eyes at Lucy’s bedside. Perhaps it was just impatience.

“Fine, thank you,” she said.

Her voice was rough and unfamiliar, and her tongue felt like a wad of cotton in her mouth. She looked around for Tibby, but if she’d been out of it for very long, MacGowan had probably deposited her down in the kitchens. At least there were mice to catch.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know, when you’re asleep, you look almost like Lucille.”

It should have been a soft remark, but there was nothing soft in her father’s voice. On the contrary, Katherine felt as though she’d done something wrong. She shrank backward against her pillow.  

“I didn’t know.”

“Yes, well,” her father sniffed, “the illusion is rather ruined when you open your mouth.”

Of course it was. Katherine tried to ignore the sudden sting at the back of her eyes.

“Now, you tell me about this business with the cook’s boy.”

The cook’s boy. As though he hadn’t known David for fifteen years. Katherine’s hands curled into fists against the sheets.

“David.”

Pulitzer gave no indication he’d heard her. “The housekeeper says—”

“She’s wrong. Nothing happened.”

“Is that so? I’ve been called back here from Europe because nothing happened?”

“I’ve been—unwell,” Katherine hedged.

“And it has nothing to do with—” he caught himself, pursing his lips in distaste, “—David?”

“No, sir.”

“And you’re fine now?”

“Yes, sir.”

Pulitzer’s eyebrow raised above his gold pince-nez; Katherine always thought the spectacles made him look a goggle-eyed ogre.

“You know I’ve been in the newspaper business for a long time, don’t you?” he asked, leaning closer to her. Not to touch her. Never to touch her. Only to make her feel smaller.

It worked. Katherine wriggled beneath the sheets, and she was a little girl again. The wrong little girl. The one who laughed too loud and got into too many scrapes and disappointed her parents and was never, never good enough.   

“Yes, sir.”

“I can spot when a source is trying to sell me a false story. I can spot when someone is embroidering the truth.”

“I’ve never been much for needlework.”

Katherine wasn’t certain where the words came from, but she was grateful all the same. She almost laughed.

Pulitzer, however, was not amused. “Oh, I don’t think this is the moment to be clever, my dear.”

“What is it the moment for, Father?”

“You tell me what that boy did to you,” he growled.

“Nothing!”

Katherine wanted to scream. It was bad enough that none of this had anything to do with David, but she was rather exhausted of the notion that her body was nothing but a vessel for someone else to put to use, whether she wanted them to or not. And it certainly seemed that she was expected to not.

Didn’t her father know? Hadn’t her mother welcomed his touch the way Katherine had welcomed Jack’s? What, precisely, made the notion of a woman letting a man touch her so distasteful?

“That boy’s no innocent,” Pulitzer said. “After the years he spent sniffing around your sister—”

Sniffing. As though David were a dog and Lucy was a piece of meat.

But her father had never seen. They’d taken great care to make sure that he didn’t. He hadn’t seen the way that Lucy looked at David, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright, like David was the only man in the world. He hadn’t seen David’s tenderness, didn’t know that when Lucy was ill, David risked his own health to steal into Lucy’s room and hold her, so that she wouldn’t be alone. Katherine’s father hadn’t seen the love between them; perhaps he wouldn’t have understood even if he had.

Katherine squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t!”

“—I should have known he would set his cap for you. He must have known we’d never let him anywhere near Lucille, even before she died—”

“You don’t know a thing about—”

“—but I’m sure he thought you’d be a much easier mark. It wasn’t as though many other men would have you with the way you gallivant all over town playing reporter.”

Katherine felt as though she’d been slapped.

“I don’t play reporter. I am one.”

Her father scoffed. “Not anymore, you’re not. Why do you think I sent you here?”

“I thought you wanted to protect me.”

Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true. Nothing her father had ever done was meant to protect her; he had only ever cared about protecting himself and precious empire he’d built.

“I wanted to protect our family from your misguided attempts at making a name for yourself.”

“I’m of no concern to you, then?”

Katherine asked even though she knew the answer. Her father sat straighter in his chair.

“You’re of great concern to me. I’m concerned about what you might do to our reputation.”

“You traveled thousands of miles just to berate me?”

“I traveled thousands of miles because the housekeeper suggested that you’d been taken advantage of.”

He spoke though he were worried about her wellbeing and not the potential headlines in the scandal sheets or whispered gossip in society drawing rooms. Katherine knew better.

“I wasn’t,” Katherine said softly. Jack did not take advantage of her. She’d welcomed his touch, and she’d do it again, given the chance. “David didn’t touch me.”

But Jack had. And she wouldn’t be able to hide it from anyone all that much longer.

“Didn’t he?” Pulitzer stood, his smart suit falling back into place as he straightened. He went to Katherine’s window and studied the fields. He did not look at her. “You’re with child, Katherine.”

Katherine’s gut lurched into her mouth. “How did you—”

“MacGowan told me of her suspicions. The doctor confirmed it while you were sedated. It’s early, but there were signs.”

Katherine thought she might be sick. Neither Jack nor David had taken advantage of her, but she’d been violated all the same.

Her father turned back, looming over her now. “Now, you explain to me how that happened.”

Katherine couldn’t look at him. She forced her eyes over his shoulder, to the sun-dappled fields just beyond. She could make out the stone wall in the distance, still missing its pall of roses. Every nerve seemed to call out for Jack, but she kept her lips pressed firmly shut.

“Tell me!” Pulitzer barked.

Katherine shook her head. “I—I can’t.”

Pulitzer stared at her for a moment, and then he went to the door of the suite. For a moment, Katherine thought he might leave her, that perhaps he would lock her up and abandon her to rot, like some kind of fairy tale prisoner. But he merely jammed the service button, his bearded face red with anger.

MacGowan appeared directly, looking very much like the cat that got the cream.

“Yes, sir?”

“Bring that guttersnipe here,” he snapped.

David. Katherine started from the bed, but her father’s hard eyes pinned her back down again.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, ashamed of how small her voice was. “Father?”

Pulitzer did not answer. He stayed at the door until David appeared, flanked by a smirking MacGowan.

“Kathy!” David cried.

He started to barrel forward, and Katherine winced when she saw how thin and pale he was. The thin skin beneath his eyes was smudged dark purple, and his clothes were a complete mess. He ran a panicked hand through his tangle of dark curls, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“Kathy, you’re—”

Pulitzer cleared his throat, and David froze. He turned to look at Katherine’s father, blue eyes wide.

“Mr. Pulitzer.”

Pulitzer stared at David as though the boy were a cockroach he wanted to crush beneath his heel. David’s gaze snapped to the floor.  

“Will there be anything else, sir?” MacGowan asked from the doorway, an insufferable smirk on her pinched face.

“Not at the moment. You’re dismissed,” Pulitzer said, his eyes still on David’s bowed head.

MacGowan’s eyes met Katherine’s for an instant, and she smiled. “As you wish, sir.”

If Katherine could have murdered her right there, she would have. But MacGowan slipped out of the room just as quickly as she’d come.

Katherine’s father stared at David with hard eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous. “You feckless little ingrate. What do you have to say for yourself?”

David’s head bobbed up. “Sir?”

“I’m surprised you have the nerve to play innocent with me.”

“David—” Katherine tried to scramble out of the bed, to put herself between her father and David, but her knees buckled where she stood.

“Not a word out of you, miss,” Pulitzer snapped. He turned his attention back to David. “I’m curious, young man, what your designs on my daughter are.”

To his credit, David held his head high, even as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I don’t have any designs on Katherine—”

“—Miss Pulitzer to you—”

David winced, and Katherine’s chest tightened. “I don’t have any designs on Miss Pulitzer. She’s my friend. We’ve been friends a long time. Surely you know that, sir.” 

Pulitzer huffed out a cheerless laugh. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I saw you with Lucille.”

“W-what?”

Katherine watched as the hard line of David’s shoulders broke in two. She wanted to go to him, but she knew that it would only make whatever was about to happen that much worse.

“I know that you thought you could worm your way into her affections,” Pulitzer growled. “That you thought to make a place for yourself in this family so that you could rise above your station.”

“I—” David’s voice broke, “I never had anything but the greatest respect for Lucy.”

“Lucy.” Pulitzer sneered at the nickname. “Perhaps it’s a blessing she died before you could ruin her reputation the way you are Katherine’s.”

David doubled over himself, as though Pulitzer had punched him. He shook his head, all the color gone from his face. “I don’t understand.”

Pulitzer looked at Katherine, a queer sort of smile on his face. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

Katherine tried again to stand, but the room whirled around her. She clutched at the sheets beneath her.

“David. Davey, I—”

“You took advantage of Katherine.”

“I did not. I never laid a—”

“Shut up, boy. Shut up and listen to me,” Pulitzer snapped. He shoved his finger into David’s chest. “You sullied my daughter, and now she’s with child.”

Instinctively, Katherine covered her womb with her hand. David turned to look at her, mouth agape, but when his eyes found her hand, his face softened.

“Kathy?”

“It’s true,” she whispered.

David’s eyes filled with tears, but she couldn’t read his expression. “Oh, my God. Kathy—”

He took an instinctive step toward her, but Katherine’s father caught him by the elbow.

“Don’t you move, you upstart.”

David tried to pull away. “I didn’t know, sir. I would never do anything to hurt Katherine.”

“Well, you have.”

As though he cared.

Katherine managed to stand on coltish legs, her nightgown tangling around her knees. She braced herself on the bedpost. “No, he hasn’t. Father, please—”

“That’s enough.” Pulitzer clutched David’s elbow tighter. “After everything I’ve given your family, this is how you repay me?”

“Sir, I would never—”

“I could call the constable. They won’t take your word over mine. I could have you locked up for years. And you’re an immigrant, besides. Crimes of this nature can get a man deported.”

David seemed to have lost the ability to form words. His mouth worked hopelessly open and shut.

Katherine forced herself to take a shaking step forward. “Father, he didn’t—”

 “Shut up,” Pulitzer snarled. He shook David by the arm. “Did you think to entrap her? To see to it that she’d have to marry you so that she wouldn’t be completely ruined?”

Katherine felt a wave of nausea crash against her ribs before she could take another step. She suddenly understood why her father had demanded David’s presence.  

David, it seemed, hadn’t quite figured it out. “What? No, I—”  

“Oh, don’t play innocent with me.”

“But—”

“Katherine, for once in your life, keep your mouth shut,” her father hissed. He shook David again. “Was that your plan, boy?”

David finally managed to wrest his arm away. “No, sir.” His voice trembled, but he straightened his spine.

He turned and saw Katherine flagging against the bed, and he started to move to her, but Katherine shook her head. She didn’t want him to touch her. Not just now.

She wanted Jack. She wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

“I suppose you love her,” Pulitzer said.

Katherine felt David’s eyes on her face. She stared out the window, arms wrapped around her middle. The wall was barren in the afternoon sun.

“Yes, I do,” David said softly. He was still staring at her.

“How sweet. And how absolutely convenient.” Her father’s voice was thick with sarcasm. He cleared this throat. “You’ll marry her then.”

Katherine felt as though someone had ripped open her chest and thrown her heart on the floor. She bent over her knees.

She loved David, she did, but he wasn’t hers. He was Lucy’s, and he would always be. And, for better or for worse, Katherine was Jack’s. She couldn’t tether herself to anyone else.

 “Father—”

David cleared his throat. “Kathy, don’t.”

He was still trying to protect her. But he couldn’t go along with this. He couldn’t.

“David?” Katherine tried, but he didn’t seem to hear. He stood, thin and white as a ghost, and he nodded his dark head.

“Yes, sir. I’ll marry her.” 

Pulitzer’s smile was cold. “Yes. You will.”

“No!”

Katherine didn’t realize she’d said the word aloud until David flinched. Her breath started to mount, and she found herself prostate on the floor. Her father huffed impatiently.

“You made your bed, miss. Now, you’ll lie in it. If you didn’t want to marry him, you would have done well to keep your legs closed.”

“Don’t speak to her that way,” David snapped.

It seemed his trance was broken. He went to Katherine, sinking to his knees at her side, but he hesitated to put his hands on her; they hovered in the air like uncertain birds. Katherine did not want them to land. Katherine did not want any of this.

“Oh, go on, touch her. You’ve already seen all she has to offer, haven’t you?” Pulitzer said.

David did touch her then. His gentle hands slid over her shoulders, so softly that Katherine wasn’t sure she felt them at all. But he didn’t deny her father’s jab. There was no point, even if it wasn’t true.

“Kathy,” David whispered. “Kathy, I’m sorry—”

“The noble paramour, are you, boy?” Pulitzer interrupted. “You’re a calculating little rat is what you are.”

David’s hands tensed.

“He isn’t!” Katherine burst out.  She knew her father wouldn’t hear her, that he would only see the hysterics of a disappointing child, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Tears slipped down her face, and her father looked away in distaste. She looked up at David. “David, you don’t have to—”

But he only pulled her into his arms, pressing her face against the flat of his chest.

Katherine knew he meant to make her feel safe, but she had only one thought: David’s body felt nothing like Jack’s.

“I love your daughter, sir,” David said. “And I’ll gladly protect her for the rest of my life.”

His hand rubbed gentle circles against her back; Katherine had never felt more trapped.

Her father snorted. “What a touching thing to say. It doesn’t seem that you’ve done very well so far.”

“I suppose I haven’t,” David said softly. His lips fell to the crown of Katherine’s head, and he held her tighter. “But I’ll make up for that. I swear it.”

“Yes, and I’m sure her dowry doesn’t hurt.”

Her father sounded almost amused. Katherine supposed he wasn’t completely devastated by the turn of events. Now that he had David where he wanted him, which should prevent any major scandal, he could bask in the glow of Katherine getting her just desserts. She’d never been what he wanted her to be, and now, she was at his mercy.

“We don’t need your money,” David spat. “I’m almost done with medical school, and then—”

“You’ll take what I give you if you don’t want to be thrown out of Columbia tomorrow. You should be used to availing yourself of my charity, shouldn’t you?”

David let her go for a moment and turned to her father. His own simmering anger seemed to be bubbling to the surface. “You—”

Katherine slipped her arms around his waist. “David, don’t.”

He couldn’t say anything that would change it anyway.

“You’ve made yourself my problem, boy, and you’ll do as I say,” Pulitzer snapped. He stared down at them. “You two will be married before the fall ends, and then young man, you may return to the city to finish your schooling. Katherine, you will remain here until the child is born.”

“I won’t leave her,” David said resolutely.

Katherine knew she should have appreciated David’s chivalry, but she felt the room drawing closer around her. She wished that he would let go.  

“Then take a leave of absence, for all I care,” said Katherine’s father. “You’re getting what you want; I don’t see why you feel that you need to continue playing this sappy lover routine.” 

“It isn’t a routine,” snarled David.

But it was. It was. David didn’t love her, and she didn’t love him, and everything thing about this was all wrong.

Her father rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say. Once you’ve secured your medical degree, we’ll discuss where to send you. It won’t do to have you in the city for very long, not once the child starts to grow.”

David’s chest seized. “But my family—”

“—are lucky they’ll still be employed after this debacle. But my family will not lose face because of the machinations of an ungrateful deviant like you.”

Katherine managed to extricate herself from David’s arms, but he kept hold of one of her hands. She didn’t know what she planned to say. How could she possibly explain Jack to her father? But she had to try.

“Father, you don’t know—”

Pulitzer cut her off with a raised hand. “I know all that I need to.”

“But—”

“No. I won’t hear any more. What’s done is done, and the two of you will face the consequences without complaint. Am I understood?”

David squeezed Katherine’s hand. “Yes, sir.”

“Yes, Father.”

“It’s going to break your mother’s heart,” Pulitzer said, his eyes trained on Katherine’s tearstained face. “You know how difficult it was for us to lose Lucille—and now, this?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“What a ridiculous thing to say.”

But it was true. She had never meant for anything to happen with Jack. But it had, and she could not regret it.  

David helped her to her feet and eased her back onto the bed. He wouldn’t quite look at her.  

“I’m headed back to the city tonight,” said Pulitzer. “My secretary will be in touch about wedding plans, but I’m sure you’ll have gathered that it’s going to be a small affair. We’ll say we didn’t want to cause a stir so soon after your sister’s passing.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Aren’t you going to thank me? I think I’ve been rather benevolent given what you’re going to put us through.”

He clearly had no consideration for what Katherine was going to go through. She slipped her hands back against her belly and closed her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“I’ll see you before the fall’s out.”

And then her father turned on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him. Apparently, their unchaperoned company was no longer a concern.

The room was heavy with silence. Katherine felt that David was near, but she couldn’t open her eyes. For the first time in her life, she didn’t want him so close. But, it seemed, she no longer had a choice.

She felt David’s weight beside her on the mattress.

“Kathy—”

She wrapped her arms tighter around herself and opened her eyes. “Why would you do that?” she hissed, ashamed of the crackle of tears in her voice.  

“What?”

“Why would say you’ll marry me?”

David sighed. “Because I care about your honor.”

He moved to reach for her hand, but Katherine jerked away.

“And your own.”

It was unfair, but so was everything else.

“Katherine!”

She shook her head. She drew her knees up to her chest so David couldn’t reach for her again.

“If he wasn’t threatening you, would you have done it?”

“Yes,” David said firmly. “I would have. I meant what I said. I love you, and I’ll protect you however I can.”

Katherine knew she should have been touched, that she should be grateful for David’s sacrifice, but didn’t know how to be. Neither of them wanted this. It wasn’t the way things should be.

“This isn’t the way, David!”

“Isn’t it?” David forced his breath in a hard sigh. He stood up and went to the window, eyes fixed firmly on the wall. “Where is he, Kathy?”

“What?”

“Your—you know.”

“Jack,” she said, and the word lodged itself between her ribs like a knifepoint.

“Where is he? If he can’t be here to do the right thing by you, I’m certainly not going to let your father—”

“He can’t be.”

Images from her dream’s passed in front of her mind’s eye. Jack, chained. Jack, beaten. Jack, screaming. Jack, Jack, Jack. Katherine felt tears seeping from beneath her eyelashes.

“Well, he should be,” David said. “And I am. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Katherine shook her head. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Because you can’t have Lucy.”

“What?” David looked as though she’d slapped him.

“You can’t have Lucy, so I’m the next best thing.”

It was David’s turn to blink back tears. “How can you say that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? Father wasn’t wrong.”

“He is wrong, and so are you.” He sniffed and looked away from her. “I—I don’t love you the way I loved Lucy. But I do love you. And I’m not letting you go through this alone.”

But Katherine wanted to be loved the way that Lucy had been. She was, so far as she knew. And not by David.  

“What if I don’t want to marry you?”

“I don’t think it much matters what either of us want,” David said sharply. “I can’t say as I’m thrilled by the notion right this second either.”

“Then—”

David turned back to her, eyes red and mouth flattened in resignation. “Kathy, there isn’t anything else we can do. Either of us.”

Katherine let her forehead fall to her knees. “I know.”

They were quiet for a long while, David at the window, Katherine curled over her knees. When the light started to fade, David came to the side of the bed, and Katherine slid over to let him in. He wrapped his arms around her, and Katherine let herself cry—for herself and for David, and for Jack and their child.

David kissed her forehead.   “I’m sorry. Kathy? I’m so sorry.”

Katherine couldn’t speak, but she let David hold her until the light was gone.

Chapter Text

Life at Carterhaugh fell into a predictable rhythm. David was released from the servant’s quarters and provided with an appropriate guest suite on the second story. He and Katherine sat together at the breakfast table in the morning, read together in the library each afternoon, shared their aperitifs in the parlor each evening. They walked the grounds, ate their dinner, played lengthy games of chess and backgammon.

But they seldom spoke. Not like they used to, anyway.

David tried. He would offer a hesitant smile over his egg cup or ask Katherine about her book in a voice that sounded less and less his own. But Katherine couldn’t bring herself to play along.

She didn’t ignore him. Not exactly. But she couldn’t return his smiles or provide more than one-word answers to his questions. She knew she was behaving like a child, that David had no more say in this than she did, but somehow, it didn’t matter. She hadn’t asked for his help; she didn’t want it. She didn’t want him, even if she cared for him. She wanted Jack, whether she could have him or not.

Still, David knew what it was to want something he couldn’t have. As the summer crept closer to its end, he tried a little less. When they climbed the stairs each night, David would press his lips to Katherine’s cheek and wish her a good night, and then they would disappear to their separate purgatories.

Soon enough, they’d inhabit the same limbo, chained together for the rest of their lives. But not yet. Not yet. Katherine’s belly had only just started to swell; she could still pretend for a little while longer.

She still stole outside whenever she could. Sometimes, she felt David’s eyes on her back when she left him, but he never stopped her. He knew better. He knew that she needed to pretend. She was sure he pretended too, in his own way.

This afternoon was no exception. Tea sandwiches on the veranda turned into stilted conversation, and Katherine sighed. Her eyes found the field, and David’s eyes followed.

“Go,” he said softly. “I know you want to.”

Katherine bit her lip. She always at least did him the courtesy of protesting. “David, I—”

His chin dipped low, and he ran his thumb around the fragile rim of his teacup. “It’s fine, Kathy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Katherine stood, smoothing her skirt and letting her hands linger on her belly. David looked away.

“I’ll—I’ll be back before supper,” she said.

“I know,” David said again. He tried to smile. “Be careful. Please.”

“I will,” she said, but it wasn’t quite a promise. There wasn’t much point in being careful anymore. She left David alone at the wrought-iron table and went to the fields.

---

Jack lay curled on his side in the dark, his blood warm and sticky on the dirt floor beneath him. The walls and the ceiling of his cell were dirt too. He may as well have been buried alive.

He was buried alive. Snyder hadn’t let him see the sun in weeks.

Jack remembered his wonder when he and Charlie first came to the farm. He’d never seen so much space in all his life. Sure, there were parks in the city, but they’d never had much leave to enjoy them; there was too much work to be done, too much to do about keeping Charlie safe and fed. Jack wasn’t so stupid to think that country life was going to be a picnic—not that he was sure what a body did on a picnic anyway; food was so dear that the idea of eating your meal in the out of doors where ants and birds might get at it felt plumb stupid—but when Snyder bustled them off the train at Carterhaugh, Jack thought his lungs might burst for all the air. It wasn’t rank and stuffy like the city in July. The air was still wet and heavy, but it was green and somehow cleaner. Jack could have sworn he saw Charlie stand a little taller as they stepped onto the train platform.

“It smells good, don’t it?” Charlie had asked, a gap-toothed smile splitting his chapped lips. He coughed then, but the sound already had the quality of something fading on the air, like the passing knell of a church bell.

Jack knew he’d done the right thing, then.

He’d known it even when his hands were cracked and raw from weeding, when his back wouldn’t straighten, when the sun’s burn gnawed at his skin. He’d known when Snyder reached for him with greedy hands, when the warden invited his strange friends to look at Jack, to touch him. Jack had known when the beautiful lady from the city collected an apple-cheeked Charlie and delivered him away from this hell that he’d done the right thing.

He knew even now, yesterday’s lashes still simmering on his back. Charlie was safe. So was Katherine, even if she would not escape unscathed. And Jack was fading, the way he’d always known he would. He’d promised, after all.

In the weeks since Snyder had told him about the child, Jack had grown weaker. Not all at once, but like someone was chipping away at him with a hammer and chisel. Days spent in his cell stripped the color from his skin and the meat from his bones; he passed most of his time in sleep. He didn’t mind so much.

When Jack slept, he dreamt of Katherine. He talked to her, held her to his chest, kissed her coppery curls. He felt the swell of her nascent belly beneath his palm.

Jack knew that they were only dreams. Waking was only too much of a reminder. And he knew what was waiting, as the months winnowed into weeks that unspooled the fragile thread of whatever life Jack had left.

But he’d done the right thing. Hadn’t he?

His knees crept closer to his chest, and he winced as the skin on his back stretched his fresh wounds.

What would it have been like, if he’d never come?

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t. It wasn’t as though Snyder had given him any choice; boys like Jack were seldom given choices. And if he’d stayed in the city, tried to weather the Refuge, Charlie would be dead.

And Jack would never have met Katherine.

Jack let his knees go, and his body uncoiled against the packed dirt.

“Katherine,” he whispered.

Maybe it said something about the life he’d led up to this point, but Jack knew that he would gladly die for one more taste of Katherine’s lips. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful—and she was, oh, she was—or kind or smart or any of the myriad fine qualities she seemed to carry without effort. It was that he knew she understood him. That Katherine, for all her wealth and privilege, knew exactly what it was to be shunted through life like a sack of dry goods, all manhandling and no say. Seen for her value, or lack thereof. Passed onto the next person, to the next port of call without any real thought of what might be inside.

She’d seen what was inside of Jack, and she’d found value. Not because he could protect her. Not because he was something low for her to command. But because he was himself.

Jack had never had that before. He knew he never would again.

“Katherine,” he whispered again. He wrapped his arms around himself, ignoring the sting when his fingers met the bloodied stripes on his back. “Katherine. Katherine. Katherine.”

---

Katherine.

The hair on Katherine’s neck bristled to attention. The word was dreamlike—something she knew she’d heard but that didn’t quite land on her ear. Instead, it echoed through her head, strange and insistent.

Katherine. Katherine. Katherine.

She pressed her hands against the wall. “Jack?”

There was no answer.

She’d been at the wall for nearly an hour. Lately, she went instead to the birch grove, searching for a new stone that, blessedly, still hadn’t appeared. But today, she could not bring herself to look. Instead, she’d tripped the familiar path to the wall, still stark and bare of roses.

The stone was warm beneath her hands, and she felt the sun’s burn beating against the back of her neck; she’d neglected to wear a hat. Sweat slipped from her nape to the top of her collar. She made no move to wipe it away. She was grateful, at least, that the pitch and roll of her stomach had ceased.

She couldn’t let go of the wall.

“Jack?” she said again, louder this time. “Jack? Are you there?”

The only answer was birdsong. Jack wasn’t there at all.

Katherine sank to her knees, letting her forehead press against the stone. It was hot, almost searing, but she didn’t care. It was something to feel.  

“Miss Pulitzer?”

There was no denying her ears this time. Katherine lifted her head, rubbing at the red spot left behind, and turned to face Conlon.

He stood balanced against the long handle of his scythe, hand on his hip, like he was looking at a naughty child.

“Whatcha doin’, miss?” he asked, his voice gentle even if his eyes were not.

It was a stupid question, Katherine thought. If anyone knew what she was doing out here, it ought to be Conlon.

“Nothing.”

“Looks like somethin’,” Conlon said. He took a step closer. “An’ it don’t look like it’s treatin’ you well.”

Katherine stood then, smoothing her shirtwaist, brushing off her skirt, rearranging her face into a carefully honed mask of icy detachment. Perhaps her parents would never quite approve of her behavior, but she was a young woman of society nonetheless; she knew how to make someone wither under her gaze, and she wouldn’t give Conlon the satisfaction of seeing her sweat.

Except that she was sweating, quite literally. And her practiced veneer was interrupted by rather inconvenient tear tracks and red cheeks.

Conlon didn’t seem to realize he was being chastised. He took another step toward her; if he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her.

“You oughta stop this, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business what I should do,” Katherine said, her voice clipped. And who was he to tell her to stop, anyway? She’d seen him in the birch grove a few times and kept her distance; she knew he hadn’t forgotten his Tony. He shouldn’t expect her to forget Jack. Not when he wasn’t even gone yet. Not really. 

Conlon only stared at her, his brown eyes more than a little sad. “I know—”

“You don’t know anything.”

“But I do,” Conlon said softly. “And this ain’t doin’ you any favors. You’re only hurtin’ yourself more.”

“I’m not—” but Katherine couldn’t make herself finish.

It wasn’t that she thought Conlon was right; it was just that he wasn’t entirely wrong either. Going to the wall, scouring the birch grove, none of it made her feel any closer to Jack. It only reminded her of what she’d lost. It was like pressing on a bruise. She was satisfied to lean into the ache. She didn’t want to let it fade.

“I heard about you and Jacobs,” said Conlon.

He shifted his weight backward against the wall, balancing his scythe alongside. He looked sidelong at Katherine. She let herself rest next to him.

“What did you hear?” Katherine asked.

“That you’re gonna be married,” he said.

“Oh. Yes.”

Conlon studied her face; Katherine looked over her shoulder at the pitching grass on the other side of the wall. Her stomach felt queer, as though they were being watched.

“Look, miss. Jacobs is a good guy, huh? He’ll take care of you. It ain’t nothin’ to have someone who’ll take care of you. Maybe just—”

“How can you say that?”

Katherine’s head snapped back, but Conlon didn’t flinch from her gaze. He held her eyes with his own steely resolve.  

“Because I don’t live in a fantasy world. Beggin’ your pardon, of course.”

Katherine shook her head. “But you—”

“I lost the boy I loved. I know he’s gone. It might do you some good to know it too.”

Katherine felt a queer pain somewhere south of her heart but north of her stomach. It seemed to catch in her ribs, tangled and aching.

“But he isn’t gone. He can’t be. I—I can still feel him.”

“Forgive me for sayin’ so, miss, but I think you’re feelin’ somethin’ else entirely.”

Katherine hadn’t noticed she was cradling her belly until she saw where Conlon’s eyes had gone. Her cheeks burned.

“Jacobs—”

“David,” Katherine corrected softly.  

“David.” Conlon’s voice mellowed. He folded his hands awkwardly in his lap, as though to keep from touching hers. “He’s here, miss. And he’s real. An’ like I said, he’ll take care of you.” He glanced again at her belly.

Katherine’s hands pressed against the soft curve that was beginning to swell from her skirt. “What if I don’t want him to?”

“You got some other choice?”

“No,” Katherine admitted. And neither did David.

“Then, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Conlon said simply. “Let David in. He’s hurtin’ too, you know.”

Katherine closed her eyes. Of course he was. How could he not? David had spent his entire life pinned beneath the weight of his parents’ hopes and dreams of what life in America could really mean, and the Pulitzers had certainly shown him: people like him did as they were told, not as they wanted. He would live out the rest of his days as her father’s pawn, and he’d be told to be grateful. He might make his parents proud, but he’d given himself away—and he’d done it for her. Because he loved her.

And Katherine had left him alone.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know he is.”

Conlon made a noise low in his throat. “Do you? ‘Cause it seems to me you done a lot a worryin’ over somethin’ you ain’t got no control over and not enough worryin’ about what’s goin’ on right in front of you.”

It was true, and that made it hurt all the more. There was nothing she could do to help Jack—at least, not that she’d discovered so far. She didn’t even know where he was. How he was.

If. If he was.

But there wasn’t a stone. And she felt him. She did. It wasn’t just the child. She knew it.

She looked up at Conlon.  

“I can’t give up on him.”

This time, he did reach for her hand. “You don’t think you might be givin’ up on yourself by carryin’ on this way?”

“What?”

“You’re gonna waste away, and—” he hesitated, “—it ain’t just you you’re responsible for now, is it?”

Katherine felt her hand begin to sweat in Conlon’s grasp. “Does everyone know?”

“It ain’t a huge estate, miss.” He sighed. “But Jacobs—David—he loves you anyway, don’t he?”

The ache in her core settled behind her chest, and she thought it might burst. “Yes, he does. I know he does, but not—”

“—not the way your boy on the other side does?” Conlon squeezed her hand then let it go. “Miss, I understand. I—I know what you must be feelin’. I remember. I ain’t never gonna forget. I can’t. It’s right here, always.” He touched his dirt-smudged fingers to his breastbone, and he almost winced. “But he’s lost to you. And the sooner you accept it, the better it’ll be for you. And for David—and your little one too, huh?”

Katherine looked at Conlon’s face weather-beaten face, at the red line that bridged his strong nose, the freckles on his cheeks—and the sad lines carved around his liquid brown eyes. She knew that he understood, that he was only trying to help.

“Of course,” she murmured.

But even as she said it, she knew she wasn’t ready to leave Jack behind. She stared out at the fields beyond, and Conlon’s broad shoulders sagged in relief. He hopped down from the wall and extended his hand.

“Then let me help you back to the house. Your David’s there. He’ll be worried.”

Her David.

David deserved so much better than her, and if she could find her way to Jack, she would make sure he got it.

Conlon’s hand still hovered in front of her. Katherine managed to paste what she hoped was a conciliatory smile on her lips. Let him think she needed to say her goodbyes.

“I—please. Leave me. I’ll be along. I just want to—I have to—” she gestured at the waving grass behind them.

Conlon looked out, and Katherine saw his own sadness flicker across his face for just a moment. He withdrew his hand.

“Yeah,” he said, voice husky. “I get it. But don’t take too long. You don’t need any more trouble, huh?”

“No,” Katherine agreed.

Conlon shouldered his scythe and left her alone at the wall. The wind pressed at his back, buffeting Katherine from her perch on the wall and pulling her hair loose from its pins.

Then she heard it again.

Katherine.

---

“Katherine,” Jack murmured again. Her name had become a senseless babble as he rocked himself back and forth on the dirt floor. He hardly noticed when the heavy wooden door scraped open.

“How sweet,” Snyder murmured from above. He toed his boot into Jack’s ribs, cutting off his wind. “How absolutely precious.”

Please, Jack tried to say, but all he could manage was a wet gasp.

---

Please.

Katherine’s breath stopped. It was Jack. Jack’s voice. She’d heard him clear as day, and he was in pain.

“Jack!”

---

Jack curled himself into a ball, hands shielding his head from whatever Snyder might try next. That’s when he heard her.

Jack!

It couldn’t be. Katherine. She couldn’t—how—

He uncovered his head and looked up at Snyder. Had he heard?

“Do you hear her?” Snyder asked. “Your little girl?”

Jack kept himself from nodding. He didn’t want to admit to anything that might hurt Katherine. And if he could hear her, here, in this awful place—

“You do, don’t you?” Snyder growled. “That’s good. Because I’ve heard she has some news for you. And I think you should hear it straight from her. That she should see you for what you are.”

Jack pushed himself up to sitting, pulling his knees to his chest to hide his nakedness. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

Snyder leaned down to caress Jack’s matted hair. “Well, I didn’t bring you here for your brains now, did I?”

Jack shrank away. “Please,” he said, this time aloud. He didn’t want this. He wanted Katherine. He wanted Katherine so badly.

Snyder only smiled. “You don’t look well, you know? I wonder if she’ll even recognize you.”

“You’re really—I can—I can really see her?”

“You may,” Snyder sneered. “I’m feeling generous.”

It was cold comfort. If Snyder was going to let him see Katherine, Jack knew it was only because the warden thought to hurt him. Whatever Katherine’s news was, it would not be easy to take. Still, Jack’s heart beat suddenly faster. She would touch him. Hold him. Make his sacrifice bearable. He squeezed his knees. He didn’t even care if this would be his undoing.

A pile of clothes was tossed at his head, snapping him out of his reverie.

“Get dressed.”

Jack complied, even as he struggled to stand. The clothes were too big for him now, and the homespun stuck to his open wounds, but at least he was covered. At least he had a shred of his dignity back, even if just for a moment.

He hoped Katherine would be glad to see him.

“Now, call to her again,” Snyder snapped. He brought Jack’s wrists together, his touch knitting the gold chains into a knot Jack would not be able to break.

“But I—”

“I don’t want you to misunderstand what’s happening here,” Snyder said. “You’ll see that girl if it pleases me, but you still belong to me, my boy. You understand.”

Jack stared at his linked wrists. “Will I—” he swallowed, hard. “Will I see her again?”

Snyder ignored him. “Call to her, boy.”

“K-Katherine,” Jack murmured, lips trembling. “Katherine, please.”

---

Katherine, please.

“Jack, where are you—” Katherine spun wildly and the wind whipped her skirts around her. She pressed her hand to her womb, heart thudding in her chest. “Jack?”

And then she saw it. A single rose hidden in the waving grass.

Chapter Text

Katherine stared at the rose, uncertain if it were really there. Her fingers shook when she reached for it, but it came loose without much coaxing. She held the bud in her hand, and she waited.

The wind swept through the meadow, and at once, there he was.

Jack looked terrible. His shirt hung off a scarecrow’s frame, bits and pieces of its sage green fabric clinging to skin where blood wept from unstaunched wounds; his skin, normally warmed by hours in the sun, was pale and sallow now; his hazel eyes were glassy and sunken. Katherine realized that every vision from her nightmares had come true. He’d been beaten. Starved. Broken. The man in front of her was a shell of the one who’d taken her over the wall.

And still, he was beautiful.

Jack staggered forward, and the hesitant smile on his otherwise gaunt face made Katherine’s heart feel as though it were being slammed between the heavy covers of a book. 

“Katherine,” he murmured. “Katherine, are you—are you real?”

“Are you?” she whispered.

“I am now.”  

Katherine opened her arms, and Jack fell into them, burying his face against her breast. They were on their knees then, awash in the yellow-green waves of the dry grass. Jack shook in her arms.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he said.

“I’m here.” Katherine pressed a kiss to his sweat-damp hair. “You’re here.”

“I’m—I’m here.”

She wondered why he didn’t wrap his arms around her, but she didn’t ask. It seemed pointless. He was here. He was with her, and who knew for how long? Perhaps he needed to be held more than she did. She squeezed him tighter.

Jack hissed beneath her touch, and Katherine started. When she shifted her hand, her fingers were sticky with blood.

“Jack, I—”

“I’m awright,” Jack insisted through grit teeth. “It ain’t nothin’ for you to worry yourself over.”

Katherine brought her hand to his cheek. “What did he do to you? Snyder?”

Jack’s gaze twitched away. “What didn’t he do?”

“Why?”

“He don’t need a reason. He never has.”

“Is it because—” Katherine hesitated, “—because of what we did? I—I thought that maybe—when you didn’t come back for me—”

“I wanted to,” Jack interrupted. He grimaced at the effort, and he sank back into Katherine’s arms. “I didn’t wanna leave you. I wouldn’t never. Not if I could help it.”

“You couldn’t.”

Jack’s breath was warm against her collarbone. “No, I couldn’t. An’ I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For—he—I mean, is it true?”

Katherine stroked his hair. “What, love?”

“That you’re—that there’s a baby.”

There was a seasick jolt between her ribs. “How could you—yes. Yes, it’s true.”

He lifted himself away from her then, and Katherine saw why he didn’t hold her: his hands were tethered together by chains at his wrists, the same slender gold as the one at his throat. The flesh beneath the delicate fetters was already pink with irritation.

Katherine shook her head. “Jack, your—”

He pressed his bound hands against her belly. He closed his eyes. “I never thought there’d be anythin’ left of me. And now—”

Katherine slipped her hands over his and pressed them closer. She hadn’t felt the child move—it was still too soon—but she knew that Jack could feel the tender swell of her abdomen. He gasped like a child.

“He told me. Snyder,” Jack said, his eyes fixed on their hands. “I didn’t understand at first. He said—he said that I was gonna cause you pain. An’ I thought it was just because he was gonna take me away before I could say goodbye. I didn’t—and then he told me that you was gonna have a baby.”

Katherine suddenly remembered the rough hand on her bare skin the last time she’d seen Jack. She shivered.

“Does it—are you—do you feel okay?” Jack asked.

Katherine nodded. “I do. I was ill for a little while, but that seems to have passed. But it’s strange to think of a little person growing inside of you.”

“A little person,” Jack echoed. “Our baby.”

“Yes. Our baby.”

Jack kissed her then, his lips cracked and dry beneath hers. Katherine pulled away just for a moment, delicately lifting Jack’s hands and ducking beneath the circle of his arms. She let her head fall against his chest, and he did what he could to hold her close.

“I missed you,” she murmured.

“I missed you too. I—I heard ya. In my dreams.”

“And I saw you in mine.”

She didn’t tell him what she’d seen. It had been foolish to ask what Snyder had done; she’d seen every blow, every lash, every cry. She pressed hard against Jack’s chest.

His lips fell to her hair. “I—I don’t know why he’s lettin’ me see you,” he said hoarsely.  

“It doesn’t matter,” Katherine said. She closed her eyes and buried her nose against his homespun, but he didn’t smell the way he had before. Now, he reeked of iron and sweat. Her fingers dug into his breast pocket. “You’re here. We’re here together.”

“For now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Katherine reassured him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Jack said. His arms stiffened around her. “Katherine, I—you know I can’t stay.”

She did. Of course she did. But it wasn’t enough. “Why?”

“It don’t matter why.”

“It does to me,” she said softly. When Jack did not reply, she went on. “I—I talked to Conlon.”

“Who’sat?”

“The caretaker of the estate. He—well, he knows. About Snyder.”

Jack’s breath caught. “What’s he know?”

“He was in love with the boy who—well, the boy who came before you,” Katherine said, her words measured and careful. She leaned back against Jack’s bound wrists, so that she could see his face. His eyes were red and wide.

“Katherine, I—”

“I saw his grave, Jack. All of their graves.”

Jack shook his head, but Katherine wouldn’t let him look away.

“Please,” he whispered.

“I won’t let you go,” Katherine said firmly. She slipped her arms beneath him and held him close. “Not if that’s what’s waiting for you. Not ever.”

“I wish I could’a told you before.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Jack sighed. “It’s part of the—well, you understand, right? That he ain’t exactly a man. Snyder?”

“He’s a monster,” Katherine said without reservation.

“He ain’t quite that either. But he’s got power. Powers, I guess I mean. Stuff like we don’t see in our world no more. An’ when you got what he has, you’ll do anything to keep it.”

Katherine understood. “Like kill young men?”

“Sacrifice,” Jack amended. “He—well, every so often, he’s got a loan that comes due. And that’s the price.”

“A human life?”

Jack nodded, his face pale. “To settle his debt with hell.”

Katherine’s flesh prickled to life. “I don’t understand.”

“S’how he keeps his power. He finds kids like I was, kids what don’t got nothin’ or nobody, and he—well, he takes them in.”

“Kidnaps them, more like,” Katherine bristled. The notion of Jack, young and defenseless and hauled into hell by whatever kind of man that Snyder was, made her blood boil.

“Nah, he didn’t kidnap me,” Jack said softly. “We made a deal.”

“It wasn’t a fair deal, Jack,” Katherine reminded him. “He said this was your sentence. He didn’t give you a choice.”

“Well, he ain’t exactly a plain dealer. It ain’t in his blood,” Jack said, his eyes suddenly far away. “He—he was of a mind to—to sacrifice Charlie. When we come out here, he hadn’t decided which one of us he was going to use and which one he might keep to have his fun with. I knew it was bad. I just didn’t—I didn’t know that’s what he was lookin’ us over for. But I—I saw the graves one day too. An’ I may not be a genius at figurin’, but it didn’t take one to understand what it meant. We was taken just after that last stone.”

“Tony,” Katherine murmured. “His name was Tony.”

Jack didn’t seem to hear. “I decided we was gettin’ outta here. So, I waited ‘til I thought he and his friends was out cold, and I took Charlie and stole one of the horses from the stables. We was halfway to town when he caught us. He tore me off the horse, and I tol’ Charlie to keep going—screamed at him, actually, but he didn’t. Wouldn’t. He came back for me. And that’s when Snyder let his hand show.”

“What do you mean?” Katherine prompted gently. She looked up at the underside of his stubbled jaw. Jack did not look back at her. He wasn’t with her anymore. He was with Charlie.

“He told us ‘bout the debt to be paid. Grabbed Charlie by the hair an’ said it was gonna be him. That he’d keep me for—for his own amusement. An’ he must’ve known—'course he knew—that I wouldn’t let nothin’ happen to Charlie.”

Katherine could almost see it. Jack, years younger, soft about the face clutching the hand of a little blonde boy. He would have cried, would have thrown himself before that awful monster and begged for his brother’s life. Katherine knew it.

“I didn’t know then that he can’t hurt you ‘less you agree to his terms—least a’ ways not the way he’s gonna hurt me—” Katherine held him tighter, and if she pressed against his wounds, he didn’t seem to notice, “—so I made a deal. I tol’ him I’d stay an’ he could do whatever he wanted with me an’ that I’d be his sacrifice, if only he’d let Charlie go.”

She imagined that Charlie had fought him, that his little hands would have grabbed at Jack’s shirt and refused to let go. And Snyder would have pried them apart. He would have wrapped his fist in Jack’s hair, the way he did in her dreams. And he would have laughed at the two boys and their tears.

“So, he did. An’ I made sure he found Charlie a good spot. But he—” Jack’s chest beat beneath her cheek, “—he done somethin’ to make sure Charlie won’t never be able to remember me. That’s why I ain’t seen him. It’s—it’s probably better that way, ain’t it?”

Katherine had a strong notion that it wasn’t. She couldn’t imagine Jack being blighted from her own memory. She supposed Charlie wasn’t aware, but still, somehow, Katherine thought that she’d rather feel the ache of Jack’s loss than the emptiness of never having known him at all. It wasn’t fair that Charlie had lost him that way.

It wasn’t fair that she was going to lose him too.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

Jack’s chin bumped the top of her head. “I couldn’t. It was part of his terms. I ain’t allowed to tell—s’pose none of us he does it to can. But you—you figured it out. What he’s about. What’s going to happen to me.”

“I won’t let it.”

“I can’t go back on my word, acushla,” Jack said softly.

Katherine wriggled in the loop of his arms. “But you’ve just told me the story, and you weren’t supposed to do that either. Why can’t you—”

“Because I can’t.” Jack tried to break his wrists apart, to let her go, but they stayed stuck tight. Katherine leaned back against them. Jack’s face was drawn. “If I could—God, Katherine, I would do anything I could to stay with you. But I can’t undo what’s been done. That ain’t the way it works.”

Katherine lifted Jack’s arms and ducked out of them. She pulled her knees to her chest and looked at their wall, steely in the afternoon sun.

“There must be something we can do,” she murmured, more to herself than to Jack.

Jack rocked forward on his knees, laying his bound hands flat against the ground. His fingers curled in the earth. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t hide anything from you if I could help it. You know that, don’t’cha?”

Katherine felt suddenly cold.

She’d forgotten what it was she was keeping from Jack. She hid her face against her knees.

Jack noticed. Of course he did. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He watched as Katherine curled in on herself, and he tried to fight off the deep barb of shame that worried his gut. He’d made her feel this way. He’d hidden things from her, and he was only going to bring her greater pain. He crawled awkwardly toward her, his hands sliding together in the dirt.

“Katherine?” he asked. She didn’t answer, and he clasped her stockinged ankle between his hands. “Acushla, I know—”

“No, you don’t,” Katherine said, her voice muffled by her skirt. “You don’t know.”

She wasn’t wrong. Jack didn’t understand what she’d been through at all. He hadn’t been there for her. He tried to remind himself that he couldn’t be, but the thought wasn’t all that helpful. If he couldn’t see her through this, he should never have touched her in the first place. He hadn’t been fair to her; he supposed he hadn’t been fair to himself either.

He should have known better. It was stupid to believe that he might have something he wanted, or that there was any chance of escape. All the escape he’d ever be granted had cost Katherine everything, and he could not protect her now.

“I’m sorry,” he said desperately.

His fingers cinched tighter around her silk-sheathed ankle. The fabric was cool and smooth beneath his rough hands.  

“No, Jack,” Katherine said. She didn’t look up, just tucked her cheek against her knees and stared at the wall. “You—I haven’t told you everything either.”

Jack let her go and sat back in the grass. It hurt—everything did—but he stifled his groan. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Katherine peeked over her knees. “My father knows about the baby.”

Well, that probably wasn’t good. From what he knew of Katherine’s father, he was sure that the man wouldn’t be pleased—and that he wouldn’t hesitate to use the situation to remind Katherine of the myriad ways she’d fallen short of his expectations. Jack’s hands clenched into fists against his thighs.

“Is he angry?”

“You might say that,” Katherine said softly. Jack could tell that she didn’t want to look at him, but, somehow, she couldn’t seem to help herself. She raised her head, her tea brown eyes shining. “My friend, David—”

“—the one what’s like family, yeah?”

Katherine winced. “Yes. He—he found me. After. And I was—”

She didn’t need to finish. Jack knew exactly the way David would have found her. He hadn’t been able to let go of the image—Katherine, her bare skin like cream, wrapped in only his old shirt. Her body swallowed by the waving grass. Snyder’s hand on her.

Jack closed his eyes. “I didn’t want to leave you that way. I—”

“I know,” Katherine said instantly. “But the housekeeper saw him carry me back. And they thought that—that it was him. Who’d taken advantage of me.”

“When it was me,” Jack said stonily. That’s what he’d done, wasn’t it? Taken advantage of a situation he’d had no call to find himself in anyway. He didn’t deserve her, and, now, they both knew it.  

“No. You didn’t do anything,” Katherine protested.  

“But I bet they didn’t believe you.”

“No,” Katherine said, her voice dropping like a stone in a well. “They—my father, he’s forcing David and me to—to get married.”

Jack felt like someone had socked him in the gut.

“Oh.”

Of course that’s what her father would do. That’s what would be required of any young lady who found herself in Katherine’s situation; Jack hadn’t been so far removed from society that he didn’t know that. That’s what had brought his own parents together, after all, and they weren’t half so highfaluting as Katherine’s folks.  

It was only that he hadn’t thought of it yet—the possibility that Katherine would find the comfort she so deserved in someone else’s arms.

It was fine. Wasn’t it? Jack was going to die; they both knew that now. At least Katherine would be cared for. At least their baby would have a father of sorts. It was more than Jack had ever had.

But still. He felt himself coming undone. He tried to still his breath, but it started hammering against his chest in panicked bursts.

“I tried to tell him about you, but—” Katherine began, but Jack raised his hands, the threads of his golden fetters glinting in the sun. He couldn’t see her for the glare. It was almost better that way.

“It’s awright, Katherine,” he heard himself say. “It’s—that’s what you should do.”

And so what if saying so made Jack feel like he was being ripped in two? It was the truth. She had to protect herself. She had to protect the baby. Jack couldn’t do it, and if this David could, Jack would not stand in his way. How could he?

Perhaps this had been Snyder’s plan all along, to dangle what might have been so close that Jack could almost reach it, and then rip it away. To twist the knife so deep that Jack would bleed until there was nothing left.

He heard Katherine’s breath disappear. “No. No, you can’t mean that.”

“I do,” Jack said gently.

He tried to stand, but his legs were too weak to hold him without the use of his hands. Katherine scrambled toward him on her knees. It made him feel ashamed, to see her lower herself so.

“But I love you,” she said, tucking her hands against his cheeks. “How can I—”

“Because I want you to,” he said.

He closed his eyes for just a moment, savoring the feeling of her skin against his. Cool and smooth, just like the silk of her stocking. He was sure that this would be the last time he felt it. Snyder had made his point; Jack had to let her go and give himself over to his fate. There was no other choice.

Jack opened his eyes, and Katherine was a blur behind his tears. “Because I love you too,” he said, “an’ I want to know you’re taken care of. That my kid’s safe and happy.”

Katherine shook her head. “But you—”

“I won’t be here. An’ our baby deserves a sight better than a Da what’s condemned to hell. There won’t even be a name on my stone. Better he shouldn’t know me at all. Your David—he’ll take care a’ you both, won’t he?”

Katherine didn’t answer.

“Acushla—”

“He—he will,” she said softly. Her hands fell away. “David’s always taken care of me.”

“Sounds like a good guy,” Jack said. He tried to smile, but the effort crumbled as soon as he’d made it.

“He is.”

“That’s all I can ask for, then.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

Jack let go a broken laugh. “No, I guess it shouldn’t. But I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do about it now.”

“Don’t leave me,” Katherine murmured. She wrapped herself around him then, sliding onto his lap. Jack ached to put his arms around her, but he couldn’t. He could only let her cling to him. He tried not to flinch when her hands pressed against the lashes on his back. “I can’t do this without you.”

Jack drew his bound hands up between them. He let his fingertips find her face. “Oh, Miss Katherine, you can. And you will. You’re so strong. An’ you’ve got your David; I hope he knows how lucky he is.”

Katherine snuck into the loop of his arms again. He felt the nudge of her belly against his, and he tried not to imagine the little soul growing there. It hurt too much.

“I don’t think he feels particularly lucky,” Katherine sniffed.

“I’ll bet you’re wrong,” Jack said gently. “Any guy what gets to go toe to toe with you oughta feel like the luckiest sap in the world. I know I do.”

He did, too. Even if it was just for a moment, at least he’d known her. When Snyder finally carried out Jack’s sentence, Jack knew he’d be thinking of the copper-haired beauty in his arms. She was written on his skin and knit to his bones.

Katherine’s tears were suddenly hot on his shoulder. “Jack—”

“You’re somethin’ special, Katherine Pulitzer. I want you to promise me you won’t forget it when I ain’t here to remind you no more.”

“Why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?” Katherine asked, her voice panicked. When he lifted her face, it was red and splotchy. She pressed a frantic kiss to his lips. “Don’t we have time?”

Jack tucked his elbows so that he could hold her closer. “I don’t know, darlin’. I don’t know if he’ll let me see you again.”

“When—” Katherine tried, but she couldn’t seem to force the words from her lips. She swallowed and tried again. “When will he—”

“In the fall. Just before All Saints Day.”

“The end of October then. That’s not very much time,” she said.

“No. It ain’t.”

“And will he—where will he—”

“I ain’t sure. And even if I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Jack said. He smiled sadly. “I don’t want you seein’ me that way. Hell, I ain’t so thrilled you’ve seen me like this. It’s better if you—if you remember—”

“I’d love you no matter what he did to you,” Katherine said, her voice suddenly fierce. She wrapped her arms tight around him. “I won’t let you go.”

“I wish you didn’t have to,” Jack said softly.

He waited for Katherine’s protest, but there wasn’t one. “Me too,” Katherine whispered.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“Thank you,” Jack said suddenly. “For lovin’ me. I—I wasn’t sure anyone ever would again.”

“Well, you’d better get used to the idea,” Katherine said with a watery smile, “because it’s my plan to love you until the day I die.”

“Funny,” said Jack. “I got the same plan.”

Katherine crumpled against him. “You’d better.”

“I will, acushla. And the baby too. I’m only sorry that—”

“Don’t,” Katherine interrupted. “Just—don’t. Not now.”

She angled back against the yoke of Jack’s arms, and even with salt tracks on her red cheeks and the wind tangled in her hair, she was still the most beautiful thing that Jack had ever seen. It almost hurt to look at her, to know that she’d been his and that she could not be again. He hoped that her David understood what he had, that he’d be good to her—and good to Jack’s child.

“If I can, I’ll love you even after,” Jack murmured. “To—to hell and back.” As if there were a way back.

“Always,” Katherine said. “I promise.”

It was enough, Jack thought, to be loved. Even if he would not be there to feel it, he felt it now, and it was enough.

Chapter Text

David watched Katherine from his place across the table. Their chess game was all-but abandoned, but he wasn’t sure that Katherine even noticed. At some point, her attention had drifted to the window—of course it had; it always did—and she hadn’t looked back since. Autumn was fast-approaching, and the sun was already sinking low in its bed, painting Katherine’s skin a luminous gold. She barely blinked against the light. Her finger played idly with a russet curl, twisting it and letting it go over and over again. Tibby was flopped at Katherine’s feet, her fuzzy belly presented for attention, but Katherine hardly noticed.

She really was beautiful, David thought. He loved her in his own way. Maybe his chest ached to watch her belly swell and to think of the little person who would someday kind of-almost be his. Just like Katherine would kind of-almost be his. He knew better than to think either of them would really belong to him.

Nothing and no one had ever really belonged to David, after all. Not even Lucy.

That was the hardest thing, he thought. To look at Katherine and to know she was not Lucy.

It wasn’t that David thought of Katherine as a consolation prize. Quite the opposite, really; he knew that he was the consolation prize, if he was any prize at all. But everything about Katherine made him miss Lucy more. Lucy always soothed Katherine’s fire, was gentle where Katherine was coarse, was graceful and sure where Katherine was coltish and impulsive. One was not better than the other, but they were not the same.

David missed Lucy’s feather soft kisses and the way her cheeks would color when she pulled away from him. He missed their whispered conversations and how Lucy looked at him as though what he said was actually important. He missed her sweet laughter, her soft hands, the fragility that gave David a reason to be brave. He missed making her smile, listening to her talk about their future. He missed the way she felt in those stolen moments in the dark.

He knew better than to think he and Katherine would have moments like that. Even if they eventually found their way to one another, it would not be the same. She could not be Lucy, and David could not be Katherine’s Jack, whoever he was.

David only wished that she would let him in. It wasn’t fair that they should both face this alone.

The last time she’d gone to the wall, she’d come back pale and tear-stained, hands fast around the slight curve of her belly. She wouldn’t tell him what happened, wouldn’t even come out of her room for several days.

But she was blossoming in spite of it. Anyone could see that. Her belly was coming into its full roundness, and the shadows that had swallowed her cheeks had disappeared. Her coppery hair was glossy and fine. There was an extra light to her somehow, even if it didn’t extend as far as her smile—and even if David was in its shadow.

David’s eyes followed Katherine’s. The high grass around the wall had been cut away, and the leaves of the long-limbed oak had turned. There was nothing of the green of early summer there now. David wondered if there ever would be again.

Suddenly, Katherine gasped, and alarmed Tibby skittered to the window seat. Katherine looked down at her belly, and David couldn’t read the look on her face.

“Kathy?”

“Give me your hand!” she demanded.

“Are you alright?”

“Just give me your hand!”

David leaned across the table, and Katherine grabbed his hand so fiercely that he thought she might break off a few fingers. She led it all the way to her belly and pressed his hand against her.

“What—”

“Just wait. Just—”

David felt a hearty bump against his palm. He laughed. He couldn’t help it. He hadn’t felt anything like it since his mother was carrying Les.

“I know!” Katherine tittered. The smile that cracked her face was radiant. “He’s so strong already! He—”

“He?” David raised an eyebrow.

Katherine nodded. “I just have this feeling. He’s going to be just like—” she trailed off, and her smile dimmed. “I—what I meant was—”

“Just like his father?” David asked, his voice soft. 

Katherine’s hand still rested on top of his. The baby landed another kick, but neither of them said anything this time.

“It’s okay, Kathy,” David said.

Katherine looked down at their hands. “Is it?”

“It is.” David hesitated. It had been so long since Katherine had opened up to him; it seemed that if he was going to ask for more, this was the moment. He took a deep breath. “I only wish that you’d tell me about him.”

“Why does it matter?”

David turned his hand over and took Katherine’s hand in his. “So that we can tell his son someday.”

“David—”

“I mean it. I—Kathy, I-I know what it is to be separated from the person you love—”

“—Davey—”

“—no,” he said. “Let me finish. I don’t know what it is you’re feeling exactly, but I do know that it hurts. And that it will always hurt a little bit.” That he knew for certain; he felt a band wrap around his heart even as he spoke. “But if I know, if you tell me more about him, I can help keep him here for you, the same way you keep Lucy alive for me. If we can do that, maybe—well, it might not be so bad.”

It might make their life together more bearable, he thought, if they didn’t try to make it something that it wasn’t. It didn’t seem as though pretending was doing either of them any favors so far.

Katherine sighed. “Oh, Davey.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do,” she said. He waited for the inevitable but, for whatever reason she would find to turn him away this time. Instead, she squeezed his hand. “I—I think I’d like that.”

David’s breath caught. “Really?”

She nodded. “Really. I’m sorry, Davey. I haven’t been fair to you at all.”

She hadn’t, but David was certain that it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to agree.

“I know that this isn’t what you want,” she thumped their laced hands against her belly, “but you were gracious enough to help me even when you didn’t have to.”

“Well, I kind of did,” he said with a soft laugh. It wasn’t as though Joseph Pulitzer would have left much of David in his wake if David hadn’t agreed to his terms.

Katherine’s lips twitched. “I suppose you did.”

“And you’re wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is what I want.”

“You can’t mean that,” Katherine said flatly. “You want to marry a girl you don’t love—”

“—ah, but I do—”

“—who’s carrying another man’s child? How much D.H. Lawrence have you been reading lately?”

This time, David’s laugh was warm and real. “Plenty, thanks to a certain someone who’s been wandering around like the undead. I’ve read practically every book in this dust trap.”

“Weakling,” Katherine murmured, but he could hear the apology in her voice.

“Tomboy,” David fired back. “And maybe the specific set of circumstances isn’t quite what I’d imagined—”

“—thank heaven for small miracles—”

“—but what I want is for you to be safe. What I want is to do whatever I can to help you. And you’re my best friend, Kathy. Maybe this isn’t the kind of love either of us dreamed about, but it’s still love. We can make each other happy. And we can still honor the people who aren’t with us.”

“You deserve Lucy,” Katherine said. She pulled her hand away and brought it to his cheek.

David’s eyes stung. “I miss her. Every day.”

“And I miss Jack. He isn’t even—he’s still—but I miss him so much.”

“Isn’t it a privilege to miss someone?” David asked.

It was something his mother had said to him after Lucy died. She’d held him in her arms and let him cry the tears he couldn’t show anyone else, and she’d told him that it was a blessing to miss someone so much. It meant that your love was strong enough to survive the greatest distance, even the kind you could not cross. It meant there would always be a piece of Lucy somewhere inside of him. Katherine would certainly always have a piece of her Jack.

“I suppose,” Katherine said. Tibby hopped from the window seat and moved to nuzzle at Katherine’s ankles. Katherine leaned down to tickle her fingers across the tabby’s back, but David did not miss the tight line of her jaw. “But that doesn’t really make me feel any better.”

“Me either.”

Katherine looked back at him, and Tibby mewled at the interruption. “You really want to know about him?”

“I do. He must be someone special if you love him.”

“I—I do,” Katherine said shyly. “He is.” She looked up at him again, the fading sunlight catching in her whiskey brown eyes. “And so are you, Davey.”

“I’m nothing special.”

“I think you are. There aren’t many men who would do something like this and do it happily.”

He smiled. “Well, let’s not overstate things.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “For the way I’ve been acting. It’s just—”

“You don’t have to explain. I can’t say that I understand, but I’ve been trying.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re always welcome. You know that.”

“I guess I do now.”

They sat in silence for a moment, both their eyes on the fields. The sun was almost entirely gone now. A chirp from Tibby roused them. Katherine laughed and leaned to gather Tibby into her rather crowded lap. Tibby’s pink nose sniffed around Katherine’s round belly, and then she rubbed her whiskered cheek against it.

“Well, it’s good that Tibby already likes the baby,” David said. He reached over to scratch between Tibby’s ears.

Katherine smiled. “I shudder to think what would happen if she didn’t.”

It felt good, David thought, to joke again. He’d missed their easy rapport. But he knew there were important things to be said, and he did not want to diminish them.

“Kathy, I meant it. If you want to tell me about him—”

“I do. It’s only that—I’m not sure how.”

David shrugged. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Katherine shook her head. “It’s not that—it’s only that—well, there’s some of it that might be rather hard to believe.”

Like the idea that any man could disappear from Katherine’s life without a trace or thought for her well-being, for instance. David tried to smile. He didn’t want to ruin whatever it was they’d managed to achieve.

“I’m sure I can believe it if you tell me. What do you say, Kathy? We can have our dinner in here and keep ringing for tea so that MacGowan has to stay up all night.”

“You’re rather devious, you know?”

“Well, I learned from the best,” David said, his voice warm and soft.

She blushed. “I suppose you did.”

“I missed you,” David said. “I—please don’t leave me like that again?” 

“I won’t. I promise.”

David stood and then leaned down to kiss Katherine’s cheek. “Then, I’ll ring for that tea.”

---

Jack lay against the stone wall of his cell, too weak to move. He hadn’t seen anything but the confines of his prison since he last saw Katherine. Jack had made her leave him at the wall. He hadn’t wanted Snyder anywhere near her, and he didn’t want her to see him crumble. He’d held her as best he could and kissed her with all the strength left in his body, and then he’d watched her go. She’d peeked over her shoulder on her way, tears on her cheeks. He’d waved and tried to smile.

And then, Jack let Snyder take him. What did it matter now? He knew Katherine was taken care of, and he knew what was waiting for him. The man descended on the wall, and the sun went dark. Jack was dragged below. Snyder left his wrists bound, leashed the chain around his neck to a bolt in the wall, and left him. He didn’t even bother with the beatings now; Jack was so broken that he barely responded. Snyder had also given up on all but the sparest food and water. It wasn’t as though Jack needed to be strong.

And he wasn’t. Jack felt his strength fading, and he knew it wasn’t just Snyder’s mistreatment that was doing it. Perhaps he’d given up.

Jack knew his time was close, if he could know anything at all. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d seen Katherine, but surely, it had been long enough that their baby was moving inside her.

Sometimes, in the rare stretches of time where his thoughts were even remotely coherent, Jack imagined what it would feel like to sleep beside her, to reach for her in the night and feel the soft petals of her skin, to bury his face in her hair. She would be rounder now, her cheeks like pink apples. Glowing, maybe. Katherine had a light all her own.

He wondered what their child might look like, too. He thought he might like a little girl, pert and pretty as her mama, red curls framing a soft face. Or maybe there would be a boy, brown and braw as Jack had been when he was small. It might not be so bad, if Katherine had a piece of him to look at. She might remember him better that way. He only hoped her David wouldn’t mind. That people wouldn’t talk.

Not that Jack would hear it. He’d never know what his baby looked like. He wouldn’t know if they were happy, if Katherine was well. He’d simply be gone. A blank stone. A blighted memory. Gone.

He was already going. His breath was a shallow rattle, his heartbeat soft as summer rain. There was no way to stop Snyder’s plan. Not that there ever had been. Jack could never have taken any other course of action.

But he knew he was doing the right thing. And it was merciful that he was doing it alone. He didn’t want Katherine to see him wither, and while she flowered with new life, Jack had certainly withered. Snyder had made sure of it.

The door creaked open. Jack did not move. Snyder loomed over him, a crooked smile on his wicked face.

“Well, boy. Look at you.”

Jack couldn’t respond; his mouth was bone dry, and his voice was lost. Once, he would have been angry. He would have tried to fight. He didn’t now. His eyes flicked toward the door. There was a waterskin dangling at Snyder’s hip. Maybe he’d have some water at last.

“There isn’t much time left,” Snyder said, as though he were talking about some kind of holiday. He toyed idly with the waterskin, and Jack could hear the slosh of liquid inside. “Only one more moon.”

Jack whined low in his throat. It was the only sound he could make. He needed that water.

Snyder knelt next to him and ran a hand through his gnarled hair. “It’s a shame we have to end it, isn’t it? We’ve had such fun together. You’ve really been one of my very favorite boys. But you’ve reached the end of your usefulness. You’re not much good to anyone this way, are you? It’s really a kindness, what’s going to happen.”

“P-pl—” Jack tried, but his cracked lips stung with the effort.

Snyder laughed. “What’s that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

There wasn’t enough water left in Jack’s body for tears. He closed his eyes.

“I suppose you want some of this,” Snyder said.

He tugged Jack’s head backward by the hair and tipped the waterskin to his lips. The water was so cool that it shocked Jack back into some semblance of awareness. He felt its chill all the way down to his gut and almost whimpered in relief.

Snyder chuckled. “It would be foolish to let you die before I can kill you, my boy. But it’s interesting to see you so helpless. I do think I miss your fight.”

Jack could only gulp down more water. He didn’t know when he’d get any more. If he’d get any more. There was no telling what ‘one more moon’ really meant. Not from his windowless cell.

“Your brat’s started moving in that girl’s womb,” Snyder said offhandedly.

Jack choked. Water sloshed over his lips and down his front.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it? How as that child grows, you seem to get weaker. I wonder if he’ll break as easily as you did once I get my hands on him.”

Jack started, but the chain at his throat pulled him back against the wall. Snyder laughed again, shouldering the waterskin.

“You’re quite the bargain, aren’t you? Two for one.”

Jack shook his head fiercely. “No. No!” he managed to rasp.

He would not let Snyder take his child. He couldn’t. His first instinct was to reach for Snyder, to hit him or tear him into pieces, but when he raised his hands, he realized they were still tethered together. He couldn’t do a thing, not to mention the fact that he was weak as a kitten. He pressed his back hard against the wall.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Snyder said. “It isn’t as though you’ll ever know the boy, is it?”

Jack’s chest felt fit to rip open. “Boy?”

A son. He was going to have a son. Except he wasn’t, was he? Some other man would raise his son—and Snyder, apparently, was hellbent on bringing that child to the same end as his father. Jack tried again to lunge for Snyder, but he only choked and sputtered against his delicate collar.

“Yes. Boy,” Snyder said with a smile. “But he certainly won’t have your name. Just your foul blood. But no matter, huh? It’ll serve my purpose just fine.”  

“No. She’ll—she’ll—”

“She’ll what?” Snyder leered. “Take him away? You fool, you have to know that I wouldn’t let that happen. How do you think the girl found you in the first place? She’s bound to this land. You could feel that, couldn’t you?”

Jack’s gut lurched. The roses. The wind. None of it was Snyder. Or, at least, not all of it. It was Katherine. Katherine and him. They’d sown the seeds of their own fate, and Snyder would reap the harvest.

“Even if she and that fop she’s marrying take the child away,” Snyder went on, “he’ll end up back here someday. And then he’ll be mine.”

Jack shook his head, the gold chain snagging against his pale skin. “You can’t—”

“I already have. You did it for me, didn’t you? There’s something that connects you and that girl, and when I thought of using it to my advantage, well—I didn’t have to lift a finger. Your weak mortal heart somehow did all the heavy lifting.”

“Please—I—” Jack swallowed, his throat so dry that it felt like taking down knives, “you can’t hurt him. Not unless he agrees. I—I know that. I agreed to your terms and—”

“Oh, he’ll agree,” Snyder said. “When he’s old enough, he’ll do just what I want him to. Just like you did.”

He leaned his face close to Jack’s, his breath hot on Jack’s skin.

“I never wanted that crippled brother of yours, you know. Just you. And I got you, didn’t I? I’ll get your boy too.”

His fingertips ghosted over Jack’s cheek, so gently that Jack couldn’t help but shiver.

“His mother will want to remember this place. She’ll be heartsick for you the rest of her life. They’ll never leave Carterhaugh behind, not really, and I’ll be waiting. It'll be far easier than culling urchins from the city.” Snyder’s voice dropped to a whisper: “And it will be all the sweeter if he looks just like his handsome papa.”

Jack’s bound hands clenched into fists. “I won’t let you—”

“How’re you going to stop me, boy? In a few weeks, you’ll be dead—and it isn’t as though you’ll be leaving this cell anytime before then.”

It was true. There was no way for Jack to warn Katherine—they’d already said their goodbyes. The next time Jack felt the air on his face would be the last, and he would not have leave to do anything with it. He would go beyond the wall, his blood would spill, and Snyder would have what he wanted.

Unless—

A sharp thought caught in Jack’s mind like a burr. He hardly noticed when Snyder’s fingers slipped through his hair again.

He’d called to Katherine before. Just before the last time he’d seen her. Snyder had known, but now, Jack thought perhaps that Snyder hadn’t been the one to do it, no matter what he’d wanted Jack to think. Whatever hold the land had on Katherine, and whatever hold Katherine had on Jack—it had brought them back to one another. Maybe, if the need was great enough, if she was thinking about him too—

“Had enough, boy?” Snyder asked, tapping the waterskin against Jack’s hip. “I’m not sure when I’ll feel like coming down here again. And it isn’t as though I need you in fighting shape. Quite the opposite.”  

But Jack would fight. He would only have to hope that Snyder didn’t know it. If he could warn Katherine, get her away—

Jack squared his jaw, and he did not answer. Snyder uncorked the waterskin and dumped the rest of it over Jack’s head.

“Well, then, I hope that’ll last you,” Snyder laughed. He stood and went to the door. “Think on your sins, boy. You’ll be in Hell soon enough.”

The door slammed shut, and Jack was alone. He let his head fall back against the stone wall and closed his eyes. The water dripped from his hair and onto his shoulders. He shivered but paid it no mind. How had he done it before? Was it his dreams? Or had he just thought of her? Did she have to be thinking of him at the same time?

It didn’t matter. He would figure it out. He had to. Jack might burn, but his son would not.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know that we can be sure that Jack’s been taken by the fae, but it certainly sounds like there’s something similar going on.”

Katherine was impressed with David’s pluck. Of course, there was no clear precedent on what to do when your best friend confesses to you that her lover is destined to become some kind of sacrifice to hell, but all things considered, David took it in stride. He hadn’t asked the obvious question—“Are you insane?”—and, for that, Katherine was more than grateful. Perhaps he thought so privately, but if he did, he did not let it show. David knew something about what it was to lose someone you loved to something beyond your control, and he would not twit at Katherine—not about this.

Instead, he’d thrown his more-than-considerable brain power toward the problem of how to stop Jack’s fate from coming to pass. It turned out that being confined to a library had never been more useful.

“What do you mean?” Katherine asked. She smiled as David thumbed a speck of whitish dust from his nose. Some things never changed. She was tucked into the window seat, a cold cup of tea on the sill next to her and Tibby curled at her ankles. The wall stood bare in the distance, its grassy borders a carpet of fading autumn leaves.

“Well, you said that this Snyder tricked Jack into volunteering to give himself up, that he couldn’t hurt Jack unless Jack agreed to his terms, right?”

“That’s what he said.”

She knew well enough. She’d replayed their last conversation over and over in her head, as if it were a phonograph record.

David nodded, licking his thumb to turn a page. “From what I can tell, it’s a common tactic. Tricking someone into revealing something—like their name or, in Jack’s case, that he’d be willing to trade himself for his brother—and using it to entrap them.”

“Snyder certainly did that,” Katherine said softly. “Do the stories say if there’s a way to break their bargains?”

She pressed her hands against her swollen belly, and the baby rewarded her with a stern kick. The resulting flinch unseated a rather perturbed Tibby, who hopped down from the window and slinked toward the door; she’d be off to the kitchens to see what she could find. The baby’s movement was more frequent now, and every time Katherine felt it, she found herself wishing that Jack could feel how strong his son was. Katherine could only hope that Jack was just as strong, even if he didn’t look it in her dreams.

His vision still came to her most nights, and she knew that they were running out of time. Jack was more bones than flesh, his hazel eyes slowly losing their light. Sometimes, he would try to speak, but his tongue seemed as though it couldn’t move of its own accord anymore. She might not be able to touch him in the waking world, but in dreams, she cradled him and gave him rest.

There must be a way to get him out of Snyder’s snare. Even though she pretended to have resigned herself to her fate, she wasn’t sure how she could face losing Jack forever.

David interrupted her thoughts, his face screwed up like a schoolboy’s as he peered down at his book of folklore. “According to legend, there are ways. You can trick them back, I guess—like, if they break their end of the deal, the whole thing goes out the window.”

Katherine wrinkled her nose. “But how could we do that with Jack? I don’t know what Snyder’s end of the deal is.”

David let his chin rest in his palm and licked his lips. “Right. But, well, he took Jack for a reason, didn’t he?”

“To pay a debt.”

To Hell, she added silently. She didn’t want to test the limits of David’s understanding by reminding him of the absurdity of their situation. The baby kicked out again, and Katherine grimaced.

David smiled in sympathy. “You alright?”

“Fine. He’s just very worked up.”

“I suppose he’s worried about his papa,” David said gently. He watched Katherine’s arms slip closer around her belly, and then he looked away, as though to give them privacy.

“So am I,” Katherine replied distantly. “But what were you saying? About his end of the deal?”

“Sacrificing Jack is his end of the deal, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that Snyder must be in a pretty tense position himself if this is how he pays his debt. It isn’t like it’s a parlor game or anything.”

Katherine wasn’t convinced. “I wouldn’t put it past him. It seems to me he takes plenty of delight in other people’s suffering.”

But she knew David was right. Snyder needed Jack; it was the only thing that had kept Jack alive in the face of his torture.

“Maybe,” David agreed. He shoved back from the writing desk, leaning over his spread knees. “But what I mean is—he’s got to be serving some kind of master himself, doesn’t he? Jack’s life is essentially a tax that Snyder has to pay.”

“I know that,” Katherine snapped. “But—”

“—if we can keep Snyder from taking him, if Snyder can’t make his payment, then his deal will be voided. He’ll have to let him go.”

Katherine slumped back against the window frame. “That isn’t exactly news, Davey. We don’t even know how to get to him.”

“I know we don’t,” David said, “but Conlon might. Didn’t you say the same thing happened to his—well, his young man?”

“Tony,” Katherine said softly. “Yes, but he said he didn’t know what happened to him. Not precisely. Only that a new stone appeared a few days after he’d gone.”

Katherine tried to ignore the strange pang in her belly. She hated to think of Jack buried in that same ground, nothing but a pile of bones, if even that much of him would remain when Snyder had finished.

“Still, he might be willing to help us.”

“He might. Or he might not want to trouble old wounds.”

David’s eyes were bright, and Katherine knew he was thinking of Lucy. “Sometimes, you have to.”

“I know,” she replied. She reached out her hand, and David took it without hesitation. “Thank you for doing all of this.”

David shrugged. “You’d do it for me.”

“But I didn’t, did I?”

They’d both been beside themselves when Lucy was dying. David stole every moment he could at her bedside, and Katherine filled the remaining hours. There weren’t any books to consult or plans to hatch. After a while, there hadn’t even been hope. There was nothing they could do but watch Lucy go.

Watching David’s singular focus on Jack gave Katherine pause. She wondered what she might have done better for him.

“You did, in your own way,” David countered, squeezing her hand. His eyes darted away. “There was nothing—well, we couldn’t save her. But maybe we can save him, huh?”

Lucy would have been proud, Katherine thought. She certainly knew what she was about when she chose David.

“Maybe we will,” Katherine murmured. She wanted to believe it. She would believe it.

“I hope so.”

“I do too,” Katherine said. “Do you really think Conlon might help us?”

“I think it’s worth a try,” said David.

“He warned me to stay away. And I didn’t.”

“No, but I don’t suppose he could stay away when it happened to him either. I’m sure he only wanted to protect you.” David winked at her. “He doesn’t know you very well, does he?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Katherine teased.

“Sure you don’t,” he shot back.

“Weakling.”

“Tomboy.”

They were quiet for a moment. David leaned back in his chair, and Katherine shifted her weight, trying to ease the ache in her lower back. She hadn’t quite reached the point of no return insofar as her comfort was concerned, but her body was becoming more foreign to her every day.

She supposed Jack must feel the same way. That Lucy must have too. Bodies were impermanent and limited at best; Katherine knew all too well that their changes were difficult to weather. Flesh and blood could be as much a prison as an iron-barred cell. But bodies could create life and swell with pleasure and provide repose to an otherwise aimless soul.

She wanted so badly to feel Jack’s body against hers again, even if it did not feel the same. She didn’t care what state he was in so long as she could hold him.

“We’ll ask him,” Katherine said. “Conlon. We’ll ask him.”

David nodded and popped up from his chair. “Then there’s no time to waste. I’ll fetch him, shall I?”

David was right, of course. There were only a few weeks left. They hadn’t any time to lose. Not if they had any hope of saving Jack. And, even if she was hesitant to embrace it, Katherine had hope.

---

Jack stared up at the ceiling of his cell. It was one of the rare moments he found himself conscious, and he wasn’t exactly grateful.

He spent most of his time now in restless sleep. He was aware of the blackness that consumed his dwindling hours, but he was too weak to fight it. Even if he had, his reality would not have been so different. His cell was dark, and Snyder rarely bothered with him anymore. Jack’s sustenance came from a bowl of water that he drank from like a dog and whatever scraps Snyder deigned to leave, and both came infrequently. It was never enough. His body was failing, and his thoughts, what few he could grasp, were half-lost in shadow.

Katherine was half-lost to him too. He’d tried, but he couldn’t seem to find her the way he had before.

There were dreams, of course. She was close to him then. Jack felt her arms around him, pressed himself against the swell of her belly, convinced himself he felt his son stir inside of her. But his tongue was useless. Even in his dreams, he wasn’t free of what Snyder had done to him. He was still shriveled and starving, still raw inside and out. He could only let Katherine rock him like a helpless child, grateful for even the sleep-addled notion of her soft skin against his.

Take him away, Jack wanted to say. Go as far as you can, and don’t never look back. Just tell him I love him, and remember that I love you too. Always.

But his words were lost somewhere deep inside, just as sure as if they’d been locked in a cell all their own. The days were running out, and he couldn’t tell her. The weight of his failure was crushing. It was almost a relief when his visions of Katherine faded away and the blackness returned.

But lately, it wasn’t only Katherine who visited his dreams.

He saw Charlie. Charlie didn’t see him, not like Katherine, and he wouldn’t have known Jack if he had. But still, Jack found himself in the warm kitchen of Charlie’s new home. Sometimes, he got a glimpse of Charlie asleep in a feather bed. Others, he saw Charlie at school, navigating checker-floored hallways with a brand-new crutch, its leather pommel soft under his arm.

But Jack’s favorite was the kitchen. Charlie, more robust than Jack had ever seen him, sat at a well-laid table with a beautiful woman dressed all in pink. Charlie’s plate was heaped with all kinds of good things to eat, but he barely seemed to notice them. He and the lady—he called her Medda—were too wrapped up in conversation to be bothered with the feast in front of them. It made Jack’s belly ache. The only thing that pulled Jack’s attention from the smell of roast and potatoes was Charlie’s laughter. Jack had never heard him laugh like that before. It made Jack want to laugh too, no matter how badly he hurt.

Sometimes, Jack saw his ma. She was younger than when he’d last seen her, softer. The roses of her cheeks were still pink, and she wore her dark hair in long curls to her waist like she must have when she was a girl. Jack thought he might know now what his da saw when he looked at her. She didn’t touch Jack but stood away from him in a halo of crystalline light. Instead, she held out her little white hand—still neat, still soft and perfect and lovely—and called his name. Her voice was sweet as a siren’s call, and Jack found it harder to resist following her every time she came to him; but the darkness kept him tethered to the dirt floor, and she would fade away without him, just as she had all those years before.

And then, there was the boy. He was tall and thin, all angles and bones, a shock of blonde hair sitting atop a freckled face. There was always an unlit cigar stuffed between his lopsided lips. He had the sort of face that wanted a smile, but his expression was dark. Jack didn’t know him. Not exactly. But somehow, he knew: this was the boy who’d come before. The caretaker’s boy. Tony. When he came, there was no escape; he was in the cell with Jack, his knobby knees tucked up to his reed-thin body. He had what Jack’s da would have called a thousand-yard stare, and his blue eyes stared straight through Jack.

Tony was there now. Jack hadn’t even realized he’d slipped back under sleep’s black pall until he saw him, his bony back pressed hard against the stone wall of Jack’s mind.

Jack wanted to ask why Tony was there, but his lips might as well have been sewn shut for all the sound he could make.

Still, Tony seemed to understand.

“You ain’t got much time left,” he said, his voice a rough chirp. “An’ I’m s’posed to warn you. Like the one before did for me.”

Jack nodded, and, even in his dream, the delicate chain pulled at his throat.

“It won’t hurt much. The worst thing’ll be gettin’ there, ‘specially weak as you is right now. You can bet I remember that. He’ll put you on a horse and make you ride into the hills. Up at the top is an old well. He’ll do it there. Cut your throat and throw you down. You’ll be dead before you hit the bottom. Well, dead to this world anyway, huh?”

Jack would have closed his eyes, but he knew that he was already asleep. He felt a weight in his chest. Tony wasn’t real, but somehow, Jack knew that his warning was true.

“There ain’t nothin’ on those stones he puts up because there ain’t nothin’ under ‘em. But none of us is here because we thought we’d have somebody to remember us.”

There was a gravel in Tony’s voice that suggested the pain Jack felt flare in his own chest. They had people to remember them, but they’d found them too late.

“Don’t fight,” Tony said. “You can’t fight. But I’m sure you know that by now. I mean, look at you.”

There was nothing to look at, of course. Neither of them was really there. Jack was sleeping fitfully in an underground cell, and Tony was dead.

Tony sighed, pinching at his cigar. “You can’t fight. But maybe someone can fight for you.”

Jack’s head popped up.

“I can’t tell you no more. An’ look, don’t get your hopes up. Just if—if anyone gets ahold of you, you let ‘em hang on. I didn’t know. Spot didn’t know. If I had—if I could’a told him—”

The dead boy’s voice faded away, and his blue eyes were bright with impossible tears. Jack understood. Tony blurred in front of him.

“Maybe she’ll be the one to stop it. Your girl. And your boy.”

Jack sobbed then, and the sound cracked the dream’s fragile walls. Tony started to fade.

“Well, look. Either way, at least that monster won’t be able to touch you no more,” he murmured. “By God, at least there’s that.”

Tony was gone then, and Jack woke with a start, his trembling body drenched in cold sweat. His golden collar burned at his throat, and there were tears on his cheeks. He tore his dry lips apart, and he didn’t mind the copper that tippled over his sandpapered tongue. How could he?

“K-Katherine,” he rasped into the dark. “Katherine.”

The pain didn’t matter now. If he dreamed again of his mother, he would let her walk away without him. He had to. He couldn’t give himself up. Not yet.

And if he dreamed of Katherine, he would tell her. Hang on. Don’t let me go. And she would. He knew it.

Jack wasn’t afraid when the darkness drew in around him again. He finally had hope. Maybe he was a fool, but he would cling to it with all his might.

---

Conlon looked out of place in the polished library, just as he had the day Katherine summoned him there. He sat in front of the heavy desk like a naughty pupil, his hands fidgeting even as he laced his fingers together. He’d traded his summer shirt for a long-sleeved flannel, but, from her place in the window seat, Katherine could see that the sun still lingered in his olive-skinned cheeks.

Even so, as David kept talking, Conlon looked more and more pale. Maybe he thought he could hide it, but Katherine knew better. She knew what grief looked like, especially the sort of grief someone was trying so desperately to hide.

Conlon must have felt her eyes on him, because they darted her way. Katherine focused her attention on her velveteen lap.

“We thought that since you’d—well,” David cleared his throat, passing the tip of his tongue nervously over his lips, “since you’d been through it, you might have some idea of what we could do.”

“Do? You mean, how to stop it?”

David winced. “Yes.”

Conlon shook his head. “There ain’t no way. You don’t think I would’a if I could’ve?”

“That’s not—”

Katherine shifted her weight to the edge of the upholstered seat. “We know you would have saved Tony if you could have.”

“Sure. An’ I couldn’t. You won’t be able to save your gent neither, miss. I told you before. It’d be best for you to let him go. So’s you can get started on healin’. It’s the only thing to do.”

“I will if I have to,” Katherine said softly. “But David thinks there’s a chance that we might be able to stop him. Snyder.”

“I already told you, there ain’t.”

“But there might be,” David cut in.

“Forgive me, sir—”

“—David—”

Conlon forced himself to smile. “David. I know you wanna help your girl here. I know the two of you is in a right fix. But fairy stories is just that. That man, whatever he is, takes what he wants. An’ I don’t think neither of you want to be next.”

“I’m not sure they are just stories,” David said gently.

“An’ why’s that? Because that’s what you wanna believe?”

“No. Because it’s the only way any of this makes sense,” said David.

“How?”

“You know how,” Katherine said. She rose from the window seat, her muscles protesting with every moment. David offered her his hand, and she took it, drawing near to him. “I know you do. The stones. The—the sacrifice. I know Tony told you. And you saw how he suffered. Not all of it was natural.”

Conlon’s eyes shone in the gas light. “None of it was.”

“You know what I mean,” Katherine persisted. “The roses. The golden cuffs. The way they come and go. It isn’t of our world. And David’s found stories—”

“Stories have happy endings,” Conlon said bitterly.

“I’m sorry about what happened to Tony. David and I, we both know what it is to lose someone—”

“Not that way,” Conlon snapped. He hid his face in his hands, and his fingertips ripped at his dark curls. “You don’t know.”

But Katherine would know if he didn’t help them. An ember of panic flared beneath the baby’s weight, and she tried not to let it kindle.

“Please, Conlon,” she said, voice suddenly trembling. “I know that it won’t bring Tony back, but I—if there’s any chance I can help Jack, I want to take it.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“Why won’t you listen to her?” David said wildly. He let Katherine go and took a step closer to Conlon. “I do know what it is to lose someone. To know they’re going to leave you and to not be able to stop it. And I still want to help her. I don’t want her to feel what I feel. Do you? How could you wish that pain on someone else? How could you wish what happened to Tony—”

Conlon was on his feet. “Don’t you talk about my Tony!”

“I mean no disrespect.” David held up his hands in contrition and backed himself up against the desk. He hung his head, scratching at the back of his neck. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I thought you’d understand.”

“I ain’t cold,” Conlon retorted. He looked to Katherine, his eyes red. “I don’t want you to suffer, miss. But I warned you. I did.”

Katherine felt blood in her cheeks. “I know you did. But would anything have stopped you from loving Tony? Even if you’d known he was going to—would it have stopped you?”

Conlon’s face fell. “No. I wouldn’t trade what I had with him for anything.”

“That’s how I feel about Jack. And even if I can’t stop it, I want to know that I tried. That I did everything I could.”

“I wish I had,” Conlon whispered. He sank back into the chair.

“But you did,” said David. He spoke slowly, as though he didn’t want to spook the caretaker. “You did everything you could with what you had.”

Katherine knew David was reminding himself; he’d done what he could for Lucy with what he had. They both had. It felt like nothing, but it was not. Lucy may have died in vain, but she did not die alone. She’d known that she was loved.   

“I’m sure Tony knew it,” David went on. “But now, with your help, we might be able to do more. For Jack. Please, Conlon. I—I know how badly it hurts to be the one who’s left behind. But it’s not fair to begrudge others the chances we wish we’d had.”

A child’s alligator tears slipped down Conlon’s dark cheeks.  “What can I do?”

He looked so helpless that Katherine couldn’t help herself; she left the desk and went to him, wrapping him in her arms. She’d never done anything like it before, but somehow, she’d known it was right. There was no panic now. Warmth settled in her chest, and she felt Conlon’s breath begin to settle.

“Do you remember anything?” Katherine asked softly. “Anything Tony might have said before he was—taken?”

“He didn’t say nothin’ ‘cept goodbye,” Conlon sniffed, letting his cheek rest against Katherine’s belly. He let her smooth his hair. “But—”

“What is it?”

“I—I followed him.”

The floorboards creaked beneath David’s weight. “What?”

“Where did you follow him?” Katherine eased Conlon backward by the shoulders.

“It was the night they killed him. I—I waited by the paddock, where the stones are. They took out a horse and set Tony on it. He was jus’ skin and bones, and I—”

Katherine shushed him and set a gentle hand on his shoulder, even as she pictured Jack on his own horse, his withered body ready to break.

“They’d put this mask on his face, but I—I knew it was him. I’d always know, you know?”

“I know,” Katherine and David said together. Katherine looked back at David, and he offered her a sad smile.

“Where did they go?” Katherine asked.

“Up in the hills,” Conlon said. “Beyond the property line. There’s some old tumbledown buildings up that way. They tied Tony’s wrists to the saddle horn; he weaved like somethin’ caught in the wind all the way. I—I wanted to run an’ pull ‘im down, but my legs was like lead. I was so scared. I tripped halfway up the hill and knocked my head. I—I left ‘im all alone.”

His head wrenched to the side, the muscles in his throat cording in pain at the memory. It only took the sparest of backward glances to see that David was lost in his own reverie. She didn’t want to imagine how they must be feeling, how she would feel if Jack were lost the way Tony or Lucy had been.

She had imagined it, of course; she just could not give herself over to those thoughts just now. She squeezed Conlon’s shoulder, and he seemed to come back to himself.

“You didn’t leave him,” she said softly. “I’m sure he knew that you would never.”

She was sure that Jack knew it too.

Conlon closed his eyes. “The rain woke me the next mornin’. I had a big ol’ knot on my head. I practically crawled up that damn hill—beggin’ your pardon, miss—but there was no one there. Just a burnt down campfire and an old well. I—I don’t know—if they—if he—I tol’ myself I must’ve imagined it. I think I wished I did.”

He broke forward over his knees, and Katherine knelt beside him, hissing a little at the pain in her joints as she went down.

“It’s my fault,” Conlon whispered. “If I hadn’t fell, I could’a gotten to him.”

Katherine slipped her hands over his cheeks, brushing a hot tear away with the pad of her thumb. “It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.” Her face settled into a bittersweet smile and she let one hand fall to her belly. “There are so many accidents, and it isn’t for us to ask why.”

“Oh, miss—”

“Katherine’s right,” said David. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I just wish it’d been enough, you know?” Conlon sniffed. “That I could have gotten to him.”

David shook his head. “You tried, and that’s all any of us can do.”

Katherine knew David had spent months attempting to convince himself of the same thing. But Conlon met David’s eyes, and he looked almost grateful.

“You think so?”

“I do.”

David moved toward them and helped hoist Katherine to her feet again. It felt good to have his arm around her waist, to lean against something solid for a moment. Conlon stared down at his lap, but his face had softened a little.

“Conlon?” Katherine asked.

“Yes, miss?”

“Would you—would you come with us? Show us the way?”

David nodded. “It’ll be Jack’s time in a few weeks.”

Katherine winced as the baby turned a particularly bumpy somersault. Conlon looked up at her, concerned.

“We need your help,” she said.

Conlon stared straight ahead and took a shaking breath. “I don’t know—”

“Please,” Katherine interrupted. “Try. And maybe we can stop it happening to anyone, ever again.”

“There aren’t many ways to stop death,” David said softly. “But—”

“—we can try,” Conlon finished. He sighed. “Awright. I’ll do it. For Tony.”

“For Tony,” David agreed.

Katherine wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the soft stir of her son beneath. “For Jack.”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks passed in a haze of hurry-up-and-wait. The three of them—Katherine, David, and Conlon—spent little actual time planning their attack, as it were. It had been decided that they would stalk Snyder’s paddock the night of the full moon, and David and Conlon would pull Jack from the horse before he could be taken to the well on the hill. Katherine would be there, of course, but it was assumed that she ought not to do any heavy lifting—or pulling, as the case might be—in her delicate condition. She would tend to Jack once he was free.

“And then I’ll gut that Snyder bastard,” Conlon had said. “For Tony and your Jack, and for all the others.”

David had been good enough not to mention his uncertainty as to Snyder’s mortality until he was alone with Katherine later.

Their plan was not sophisticated, certainly. It wasn’t even a plan so much as it was a task to complete. But still, it was something. They would not leave Jack to his fate, no matter the bargain he’d made.

None of them spoke of the risks, but they kept silent stock of them. That David and Conlon might be hurt, maybe even killed. That they might not even be able to get near Jack. That there might be forces working against them far more powerful than their own will.

That it would all be for naught.

But as Katherine’s belly waxed with the moon’s crescent, she felt farther and farther away from Jack. She still saw him in her dreams, but she didn’t think that he could see her anymore. He didn’t rouse to her touch, he never spoke. He laid in her arms, blade thin and still as a corpse. Katherine didn’t need the moon to remind her that they had little time before Jack would be lost to her forever.

Still, she forced herself to believe. They would succeed. They had to. Katherine knew without a doubt that her son deserved his father. David deserved better than a sham marriage, and Conlon deserved to avenge his Tony. Jack deserved respite and love; Katherine hoped she might deserve the same.

But when the sun rose on what might be Jack’s last day, Katherine’s hope had all but vanished.

The sun was wrapped in haze, and when Katherine looked out her window, Carterhaugh’s landscape was barren of any color or life. It was as though autumn had already been swallowed by winter’s icy jaws. The trees were fractured limbs against the leaded sky, their branches shaking in a wind that bore no resemblance to the green zephyr that had so entranced her in the nascent summertime. She couldn’t feel any of its warmth now.

She wasn’t sure that she could feel Jack either.

What she did feel was ill, for the first time in weeks. When MacGowan came to dress her, the woman seemed almost amused to find Katherine hunched over the basin. Well, not almost. Certainly. She smiled like a barn cat ready to pounce on its prey.

“Oh, now, miss. I thought we were done with the sickness. You’re quite far along for that sort of thing.”

Tibby, who was more refined than any barn cat, hissed at the housekeeper from her spot in the window seat. Katherine, however, was in no state to protest.

“We’ll get you into bed, won’t we?” said MacGowan. Her bony fingers bit into the flesh of Katherine’s arm and steered her back toward the bed. “A hot water bottle. Some tea.”

Katherine shook her head, fighting a wave of nausea even as she let herself be settled back against her pillows. “I’m fine, really.”

“Miss Pulitzer,” MacGowan tutted. “I think you and I both know that you have a habit of underplaying your condition. Your father will be here within a fortnight to see you and that boy married; he won’t be pleased if you’re convalescing when he comes.”

Katherine closed her eyes, forcing breath through her nose. The room still spun around her, even though she could not see it.

“I’m fine,” Katherine said again. Even she was unconvinced.

“Of course, miss.”

“Would you—” Katherine took another shaky breath, “Mr. Jacobs. He’ll take breakfast in here with me.”

Katherine didn’t need to open her eyes to recognize the sour expression that would have settled on MacGowan’s face at the mention of David. It peeved the housekeeper to no end that she had to refer to David with an honorific and that there was nothing she could do to prevent David and Katherine from spending time together unchaperoned. It wasn’t as if things could get any worse than they already were—at least in MacGowan’s estimation.

“Miss—”

“Tea and toast for me,” Katherine said. “And I’m sure he’d appreciate some porridge and coffee. It’s a cold morning.”

“Yes, miss,” MacGowan said crisply.  “I’ll send for him.”

“Thank you, MacGowan. That will be all.”

MacGowan left her then, and Katherine groaned. This couldn’t be happening. Not today, of all days. The baby seemed to share her concern. He started shifting restlessly inside her, and Katherine felt rather like he was trying to escape. She pressed her hands against her belly.

“I know,” she whispered. “But you’re not helping matters.”  

There was a soft knock at her door. “Kathy?”

David’s dark head poked into the room, and Katherine did her best to smile.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” David answered, crossing briskly to the bed. He bent to kiss her forehead. When he withdrew, his face was drawn in concern. “Kathy, you’re burning up.”

“I am?”

His cool hand found her cheek. “You are. Are you alright?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” David said—a touch impatiently, Katherine thought.

“Not today.”

“Kathy, if you’re ill—”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m ill,” she said again. “We can’t—”

There was another soft rap at the door. A valet appeared with a tray. “Breakfast, miss. Sir.”

David went and took the tray with a gentle nod. “Thank you.”

The valet left, and David settled the tray next to Katherine on the bed.

“It does matter if you’re ill,” David said, pouring cream from the tea service into a saucer and setting it on the carpet for Tibby, who hopped from her perch post-haste. His hands moved deftly as he prepared Katherine’s tea. He didn’t meet her eye. “You’re with child. You’ve got to be careful.”

Katherine took the delicate china cup in hand, balancing the saucer on her belly. “And I will be. But tonight—”

“Conlon and I can handle it.”

“No,” Katherine said instantly. Tea sloshed against the rim of the cup. “I have to be there. I can’t—Jack doesn’t know you. Either of you. He’ll be so frightened, and—”

“We’ll bring him right here,” David said, as though he were trying to soothe a spooked animal.

“I’m going to be there with you.”

“No, you won’t. Not if you’re still feverish. Besides, it’s dangerous, and your condition is delicate. I think Jack would agree with me.”

“You don’t know what Jack would want,” Katherine snapped, even though she knew David was right. David was always right, and it was never not maddening.

“I might,” David said softly. “Jack loves you, and so do I. I want you to be safe, and I’m sure he does too.”

“David—”

“Kathy,” David interrupted. He took her tea cup and set it on the bedside table before lacing their hands together. “Conlon and I will take care of everything. We’ll bring him home to you.”

“But what if something happens to the two of you?”

David shrugged. “I get the impression Conlon doesn’t much care what happens to him at this point. And better me than you.”

A pang of concern lanced through Katherine’s belly. She squeezed David’s hands.

“David Jacobs, don’t you dare be a hero.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“You know what I mean.”

“And you know what I mean,” David said gently. He couldn’t quite meet her eye. “I promised to protect you. Let me.”

Katherine knew where his mind was, and she knew it had been there for the last several weeks. David threw himself at Jack’s rescue with a passion that would have made little sense to anyone but Katherine. But she knew, even if David couldn’t admit it: he wanted to save Jack not just for Katherine’s sake, but because he hadn’t been able to save Lucy. It didn’t matter that there was nothing he could have done; he would make up for it now. Katherine knew well that David’s stubborn commitment would extend to her own safety, but just now, she didn’t feel quite grateful.

“Davey—”

The baby’s toes knocked into her ribs, jostling the saucer. Katherine winced. Perfect timing, of course.

David shook his head. “Which of us is a medical student, and which of us is not?” he asked.

“Which of us is obnoxious, and which of us is not?” Katherine fired back. The baby kicked out again, as though to remind her she was surrounded. She pulled away from David and set the saucer on the bedside table.

“I don’t mind being obnoxious, so long as I’m right.”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Trust you for that.”

“Kathy.”

“I know,” Katherine murmured. “But I have—”

“You have to take care of yourself and the baby. For him,” David said. He sighed and reached again for Katherine’s hand. “For me too, please.”

“You’re one to talk.”

David dipped his head, a dark curl falling over his eyes. “I know,” he said softly. And it was clear he didn’t care. He’d decided what must be done, and he would do it.

Katherine didn’t like the thought of David risking himself for her welfare, even if it was for good reason. Even if it was impossible, she still felt as though Lucy would never forgive her if anything happened to him. And it might. She’d never seen Snyder herself, but she’d seen every inch of Jack’s body. She didn’t suppose the man would hesitate to hurt anyone who got in his way. And she didn’t suppose that David would avoid doing something impetuous to defend what Katherine wanted.

Katherine should be grateful—and she was—but she couldn’t help the feeling this was all wrong. They couldn’t do this without her. Another wave of nausea crashed through her gut, and she closed her eyes to steady herself. It wasn’t fair. She had to be there. It wasn’t for David and Conlon to do for her. Jack needed her.

But when she opened her eyes and saw David’s face, she knew she couldn’t say so. 

“You’ll be careful?” she asked.

“We will.” David leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “And we’ll bring Jack home.”

“When will you go?”

“Just before sundown.”

There was still time, then. “Maybe—”

David shook his head. “No, Kathy. You’ve got to stay safe.” He pressed a gentle hand to the swell of her belly. “Both of you.”  

“Oh, damn it all,” she muttered.

David’s face cracked with a tentative smile. “Miss Pulitzer.”

“Weakling.”

“Tomboy,” David countered, as he always did. “It’ll be okay, Kathy. This will all be over soon.”

He was right about that too, of course. After today, it would be done. Jack would either be in her arms tomorrow, or she would never see him again. There was no road between.

And it was then that she knew for certain: neither David nor Jack nor anyone else could keep her from doing what she knew she had to.

Still, she snuggled down into her sheets and nodded to David. “I love you,” she said softly.

“I love you too,” David said. “I’ll do everything I can.”

“I know you will.” Katherine would do all she could as well.

David sighed and reached for Katherine’s cup and saucer on the nightstand. He nodded at the tray beside her.

“Do you want your breakfast?”

Katherine shook her head. “No. I—I think I want to be alone.”

“I understand,” David said. He bent once more to kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry. But Conlon and I—”

“I know,” Katherine interrupted.

“Alright,” David said, his voice suddenly careful. “I’ll bring him to you the minute we get in. MacGowan be damned.”

“Thank you.”

“Kathy—”

“David, please.”

David nodded, just once. “Alright,” he said again. He stood, and even as Katherine let her eyes close, she felt David watching her. She didn’t take the bait, and eventually, she heard the door click shut behind him.

She opened her eyes again, trying her best to ignore the way the room wibbled around her. Tibby blinked up at her from the carpet, her green eyes wide in the gray morning light.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Katherine grumbled. “It’s fine. Everything will be fine. He’ll forgive me. Once Jack is home—”

Tibby leapt up on the bed, padding over Katherine’s legs and settling herself next to the breakfast tray. She dipped her pink tongue into David’s porridge, indifferent when Katherine rolled over to pet her.

“I have to go.”

Katherine’s fingers tangled in Tibby’s soft fur. Tibby looked up only briefly from the bowl, a milky whisp of grain clinging to her brindled chin, before ignoring Katherine and lapping again at David’s porridge.  Katherine rolled back to face the window. The stone wall was bare in the distance, and the sun was moving higher in the sky. Hours. They had hours left. And Katherine would be there when Jack needed her.

“It has to be me,” she whispered. “I know it.”  

---

Jack spent his last few hours praying. He knew it was silly. God had never bothered with his prayers even before Jack had sold his soul; why would He give Jack a second thought now? He probably couldn’t even hear him. Still, Jack plead. For himself, for Katherine. For their son.

Jack wasn’t sure that Katherine could hear him anymore either. Not that he spoke. Not really. When she held him in their dreams, he couldn’t seem to get any words out. He lied in her arms and stared up at her beautiful face, and he didn’t say anything at all.  His words to Katherine were a kind of prayer too, insubstantial, floating in some kind of space that Jack couldn’t define. Whether the words found her, he couldn’t know. He could only hope, and hope was just as scarce in his cell as light or air or water.

God did not intervene, and Jack’s hope didn’t come to anything. When had it ever?  Snyder came for him.

“It’s time, boy,” Snyder said. “Let’s get you to your mount.”

Jack didn’t move. He couldn’t. His muscles were worthless at this point, his will nonexistent. But Snyder was right: it was time, and nothing would stop what was to come.

Jack didn’t even know it when his last day dawned, because he couldn’t see the sun. He hadn’t, not in months. He wouldn’t, he guessed. Not now.

Snyder sighed and stepped further into the cell. He knelt beside Jack’s withered body and slung Jack’s arm over his own broad shoulders, hoisting Jack to his feet. Jack’s knees buckled hopelessly, but Snyder kept him from falling. It was the one kindness the bastard had ever done him. It didn’t matter much; he’d throw Jack down soon enough.

“Pretty weak, aren’t you?” Snyder laughed.

Jack’s head lolled against Snyder’s shoulder. It made his skin crawl to be so close to the man, but he didn’t have any choice. It was either die on the dirt floor or let Snyder take him up for a last gasp of air—and only one would fulfill the agreement Jack had made anyway.

Jack’s joints felt as though they were crumbling as Snyder lurched him away from his underground prison. They climbed stairs that Jack could not remember having descended, passed down unfamiliar hallways, slipped through rooms Jack wasn’t sure he’d ever seen. He recognized nothing except Snyder’s touch, and that, he wished he could forget. It wasn’t fair that it would be the last thing he would ever feel.

He thought of Mam’s soft hands and the way they would slip across his cheeks when she snuggled in for her goodnight kiss. He thought of Da’s hugs, always awkward, always half-tinged with tobacco smoke and whiskey, but warm and right. Of Charlie’s arms, so tight around Jack’s ribs that he used to joke his guts would come out of his mouth before long.

He thought of Katherine. The rose petal silk of her skin, the smell of her hair, the way her touch made Jack feel like he was glowing with electric light. He wished he’d known it for just a little bit longer.

And he thought of the touch he’d never know. A baby’s tiny hand grasping at his finger, a little body warm against his shoulder.

It was enough to kill him right there, the pain of what he was leaving behind. Jack never thought it would matter to him if he stayed or went, but it did. Oh, God, it did.

“Here we are,” Snyder grunted.

When Snyder threw Jack down, it was the hard ground of the paddock that met his body. They had made it outside. The dead grass bristled against Jack’s ruined back, and the cold bit into every aching joint, but he didn’t care; he was so glad to feel the air on his skin again that he thought he might cry. His palm slipped over the grass, pressing down until he felt the earth beneath. He let his forehead rest against the ground. It wasn’t quite dead. Not yet. He could still smell life in the soil.

But he was so cold.

“Kneel up,” Snyder commanded, toeing roughly at Jack’s naked ribs.

Jack couldn’t move. He shivered and curled in on himself.

“Kneel, I said!” Snyder barked again.

This time, he knuckled his fingers into Jack’s hair and yanked him to his knees. Jack barely felt it. His head drooped between his shoulders. He didn’t raise it even when he felt something soft and cool slip over his shoulders.

“You’ll have to look your part,” Snyder said, maneuvering Jack’s arms into clean sleeves for the first time in months.

Jack didn’t have the strength to question it. He stayed silent and let Snyder dress him, not even flinching when Snyder’s fingers tickled at the small of his throat. The clothes felt strange against his skin, but he thought dimly that it might be nice that he would die with his scars hidden from view.

“White. Always white for your lot on a night like this,” Snyder grumbled. “But you’ll look quite handsome when the moon strikes you, won’t you? A beautiful sacrifice, boy, just like the others. Only you’re giving me more than the others, aren’t you?”

This time, Jack’s head rose of its own accord. “No,” he rasped.

“Oh, it speaks, does it?” Snyder laughed. He straightened the collar of Jack’s shirt and patted him on the head. “I wonder if your brat will fight when I take him. I wonder if that little girl of yours will haunt the wall crying for him the way she’s done for you.” A cruel grin crept across Snyder’s face. “I wonder if you’ll be lonesome for them in hell. Their prayers won’t reach you there. Nothing will.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Snyder trapped Jack’s tongue with the rough pad of his thumb. A length of the same delicate chain that circled Jack’s neck sprouted over his tongue, and when Jack tried to protest, it burned hot as an iron. He moaned but clapped his jaw shut again.

Snyder withdrew his thumb from Jack’s lips and slapped playfully at his cheek. “You’ve had your last word.”

He nodded behind him, and for the first time, Jack recognized that there were other men about. He hadn’t seen them often, but it didn’t matter; he recognized Snyder’s associates even behind their black masks. Some held torches; others held the reins of horses Jack had never seen before. One of them stood forward and passed Snyder another mask, this one white.

“For you, boy. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

He slipped behind Jack and forced the mask over Jack’s face, covering his nose and eyes. The cool ceramic felt as though it was melding with Jack’s skin. Right, then. He was already starting to disappear.

Hands lifted Jack to his feet and helped him into what felt like knee-pants. Then, his feet were off the ground, and he was being hoisted up, legs spread, until he came down on soft leather. Bristly horsehair tickled against his bare calves. His yoked wrists were secured around the saddle’s horn, the thin chain crisscrossing itself into new bonds to accommodate Jack’s new humiliation.

“You’ll ride alone,” Snyder said from below. “To show that this is your choice. No one is forcing your hand.”

Jack’s bound tongue couldn’t fire off a retort, but he wished he could have laughed. This had never been a choice. He’d never once been free, not from the moment he took Charlie under his wing. Love was its own kind of sacrifice. He knew that well enough now.

But when the horse beneath him started to move, everything Jack knew felt as though it were slipping away. The threadlike chains that kept him bound did not burn but instead glowed pleasantly warm against his cold skin.  Every hoofbeat drummed him into a kind of trance until he was only vaguely aware of the horse’s jostling motion, of the clopping feet of the other horses, of the moon’s white light on his face. He felt as though he were falling into a pleasant sleep.

“Off we go,” Snyder laughed, but Jack could barely hear him.

---

There were things that David had seen in his life that he did not share. Even when Katherine twitted him about being a weakling, he knew the things he’d survived. Bayonets and leering soldiers and torches and tears. He wasn’t weak, and there weren’t many things that properly scared him.

But as he and Conlon crouched behind the paddock fence, he was terrified.

Katherine’s Jack was dragged naked into the yard, and his body was something that would have made any one of the men in David’s medical school cohort feel faint. He looked worse than the cadavers David had seen, and somehow, he was still walking on his own two feet. But Snyder—it must have been Snyder—shoved him, and Jack fell. When Jack hit the ground, he rolled over, and David swallowed bile when he saw the weeping whip marks on Jack’s back.

“Christ,” Conlon breathed.

David shook his head and pressed his hand against Conlon’s chest. They couldn’t be heard. They couldn’t fail.

Snyder started to dress Jack in loose white garments, speaking low in Jack’s ear all the while. David couldn’t hear what Snyder was saying, but he heard Jack’s pained cry, and he winced. He was glad that Katherine wasn’t here to see this. It was different, watching Lucy slip away. No one had treated her so coarsely. She hadn’t suffered like this.

Other men, their faces hidden by black masks, slipped out from the stalls and surrounded Jack and Snyder. When they drew back, the top half of Jack’s face had been hidden behind a ghostly white mask, like he was the guest at some ill-fated masquerade. It turned David’s stomach. It was like watching someone disappear before his eyes.

“Just like Tony. The bastard,” Conlon whispered beside him. David could practically feel his muscles coiling. “I’ll kill that motherfucker.”

“Shhh.”

The black-masked men lifted Jack onto a horse, binding his wrists just like Conlon said they would. Jack didn’t squirm, didn’t fight. He sat atop the horse like a ghost. The men mounted their own horses, and the dark caravan left the paddock, Snyder at the head. The moon’s light struck Jack’s white body as they rode; at least they wouldn’t lose sight of him.

“Let’s go,” David said.

“Let’s fuckin’ go,” Conlon agreed.

---

Katherine was waiting at the foot of the hill when they came.

She’d managed to slip away after supper, leaving a pile of wadded up sheets beneath the covers. Tibby had mewled her disapproval, but Katherine ignored her. Tibby would understand eventually. Once Katherine brought Jack home, everything would be right.

The night air was wet and cold on her face as she crossed the fields. The moon’s light danced on a gathering haze, and, even though she’d stolen a woolen greatcoat from her father’s closet, Katherine had to brace herself against the chill. Her boots tromped over the cut grass, past the wall, through the harvested fields and beyond, until she saw the hillside.

They would go up the hill before it was done. That’s what Tony had told Conlon. When Snyder brought Jack through, David and Conlon would be right behind. She knew it. But she would be there first. She had to be.

There was a copse of ash trees along the border of the footpath that led up the hill. Katherine decided it was as good a place as any to lie in wait. She bundled her father’s coat tightly around her and crouched low behind the trees. Her belly felt heavier than it ever had before, but the baby didn’t move. He must know how important it was to keep still and quiet too.

She didn’t know how long she waited, but it felt like both fleeting seconds and long hours before she saw the caravan of lanterns loping toward the hill. There were more than just Jack and that monster Snyder, then. Katherine thought balefully of what Conlon had said about Snyder’s friends, and she felt acid rise from her belly. These people, if that’s what they were, they’d all of them hurt her Jack. But she would not let them hurt him anymore.

As the strange band drew close, the moon seemed suddenly brighter, like someone had just turned the key of its cosmic lamp. Its light passed through the barren trees and found a figure in white. Katherine’s breath stopped. Jack. He was masked and bound, bobbing on the horse’s back as though he were half-asleep, but she knew it was him.

The baby kicked with such sudden ferocity that Katherine couldn’t help but cry out, but the wind grabbed her voice with cold fingers and carried it away. She let go of the coat’s lapels and stood, ignoring the way her knees trembled beneath her. The baby was tumbling inside of her now, and she buckled but did not fall. Her hands looped around a low branch, and she watched the caravan move toward her.

The horses moved slowly, their livery tinkling like bells in the night. Jack was flanked by two men before and aft. The men were masked and swathed in black cloaks with great hoods drawn up over their heads. Jack looked like a fallen angel in comparison. He was in an antique shift and breeches, his hands and feet bare, but he did not shiver against the cold. It seemed to Katherine that he hadn’t any idea where he was at all. Perhaps it was better that way. Perhaps he couldn’t feel the pain that she knew Snyder had been giddy to inflict. But she couldn’t know for certain, of course. Not with his face hidden behind that white mask.

Katherine took a step forward, the dry grass and twigs crackling beneath her. Only Jack’s horse, white as its rider, seemed to hear; she saw its great black eye swivel in her direction. The others kept on, and Katherine broke into a run, keeping one arm slung low around her belly. Even as the baby quailed, her feet pounded against the earth.

“Jack!” she screamed, but he did not turn. “Jack!”

“Halt!” cried the leader. Snyder, it must be.

But Katherine would not stop.

She heard the shrieking of the horses as they were tightly reined, felt the ground beneath her feet and her baby moving inside her, but none of it mattered. All that mattered was getting to Jack.

---

“Kathy!” David breathed. He watched her dart from the trees into Snyder’s path, and instantly, he was rushing forward. He and Conlon had followed at a safe distance until now, but damn it all, he would not let the bastards hurt Katherine.

Conlon caught him by the elbow. “Don’t!”

“She could be killed!”

“So could you!”

“I don’t care!” David fired off.

“Yeah, I got that,” Conlon hissed. He kept hold of David’s elbow. “Only, if you get yourself captured, you’re only givin’ them somethin’ else to hold over her head. Let her try. He’s her boy, ain’t he?”

He was, and David knew that if he’d been given the opportunity to fight for Lucy, he would have taken it, damn the consequences.

But Katherine was vulnerable. And David had seen what this Snyder could do, even just for his own amusement. He couldn’t let anything happen to her.

“Look,” Conlon said. “Look at that.”

David looked, and he gasped.

---

For a moment, everything else stopped. Jack’s horse seemed to wait for her, even as the others circled around them. Katherine knew Snyder was there, that he and his black-masked bastards could stop her easily. But they didn’t. The world fell silent. Even the cold disappeared. Jack’s horse turned its dappled white head and bowed.

Jack didn’t move. He didn’t cry out for her. But Katherine wrapped her arms around him just the same. She could see that his wrists were tethered to the saddle horn, but when Katherine pulled Jack’s emaciated body from the horse, the delicate chains on Jack’s wrists shattered into crystalline dust. He collapsed in her arms, his body so light that Katherine might have been holding a corpse. Still, she broke to her knees on the ground.

“I’m here,” she whispered, moving gentle fingers over Jack’s pale cheek. “I’ve got you.”  

The world slipped back into motion again. The wind’s icy breath wrapped around them; the horses stamped and snorted; Snyder dismounted and moved toward her.

Katherine held Jack’s limp body closer. “He’s mine,” she snarled. “I won’t let you take him.”

Snyder drew back his black hood and offered her a chilling smile. He bowed. “Oh, my dear. Your spark is admirable, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The boy is mine, and he always has been. You cannot stop this.”

“I will!”

“And how will you do that? Why would you?” Snyder asked. “I’m afraid he isn’t worth it. Not to you. Not after what he’s done to you. All the trouble he’s caused. All the trouble he’ll cause yet. Let him go, my dear.”

As Snyder spoke, Katherine’s ears began to buzz, and she felt a sort of warm calm slip over her. It was like that day at the wall, when he’d taken Jack from her arms. Well, she wouldn’t let him this time. She clutched Jack with every bit of strength she had.

“He’s mine,” she said again, and this time, her voice was low and dangerous. She didn’t know where it came from, but she could tell from the expression on Snyder’s face that he believed her.

She looked down again at Jack, and she saw his hazel eyes blink beneath his white mask.

Don’t let me go.

Katherine gasped. She heard Jack’s voice in her head, just as sure as if he’d spoken. But he was still inert in her arms. Snyder loomed over them.

“If you want him, you’ll have to hold onto him,” Snyder said, voice low.

“I won’t let him go.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Jack’s body began to tremble in Katherine’s arms. At first, it was like a shiver, and then, it built until Jack was practically convulsing. Every jolt and shudder of his body made Katherine feel as though they might both break apart, but she held on. Foam built at the corners of his mouth, and he groaned, low in his throat.

“Stop!” Katherine cried. “What are you doing to him?”

Snyder laughed. “Oh, my dear. It isn’t about what I’m doing to him. But what about what he’ll do to you? What he’s already done?”

Katherine shook her head, arms still fast around Jack’s shaking body. “No. No! He hasn’t done anything.”

“Hasn’t he?”

Jack’s body stilled, and his fingers dug hard into Katherine’s arms. “Jack?”

“You’re nothing but a girl,” Jack said, but the voice wasn’t his.

It was a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time, that she hoped she might never hear again. It was one of Darcy Reid’s brothers. He’d cornered her in the coatroom at a Christmas party his first year home from Yale. He was drunk, and he’d forced her up against one of the silk-papered walls. She’d threatened to scream, and that’s when he’d laughed at her. You’re nothing but a girl.

“It’s only your own reputation you’d be ruining,” Jack went on. “Not that you haven’t done that already.”

She saw Snyder’s blind, and she would not fall for it. Jack would never say such things about her. She held him closer.

“The only reason you’re here is because your Joseph Pulitzer’s daughter,” Jack went on, his voice shifting again. “There’s nothing to be gained by publishing a woman. What could a woman possibly have to say?”

Her first editor. The one who’d buried her in the basement, who’d printed her copy but under someone else’s byline. The one who’d explained exactly how she could rise up the ladder, and when Katherine refused, had suggested she leave her duties so that she could focus on her “nervous complaint.”

“No one will believe you,” he’d said. Jack said it now, his lips moving in sync with Katherine’s darkest memories.

“It isn’t you,” Katherine murmured. But when she looked down at Jack’s masked face, she felt a queer tug at her heart. What if—

“No,” Jack said, his voice still not his own. It was deeper now, but still familiar. “It’s you. You’ve always been the problem. Why can’t you be more like Lucille?”

Tears prickled at Katherine’s eyes. It was her father’s voice.

Jack didn’t mean it. It wasn’t Jack at all. She knew that. It was Snyder’s dark magic, and he wanted nothing more than to shake her, than for her to let Jack go so that he could claim him. She would not. It wasn’t real.

“It would have been better if it was you, Katherine,” Jack said. “If you had been the one to die. Not our darling girl. You’re nothing next to her, are you?”

“Please,” Katherine begged, her tears breaking free.

Jack’s body was beginning to warm in her arms, and she felt as though she were clinging to an iron someone had placed in a fire. He was heavy now, and unnaturally hot. Still, she clung to him. She wouldn’t let go.

“I miss her,” said Jack, and this time, the voice was David’s. “I miss her so much.”

He didn’t say anything more, but Katherine remembered. She remembered holding David in her arms and wondering why she couldn’t take Lucy’s place. The world didn’t need her so very badly. What had she ever done to deserve mercy, to stay when Lucy had to go? What had she ever done but disappoint and embarrass and fail and—

“Katherine.”

It was Jack’s voice. His real voice.

“You can let me go.”

His body blazed with a scorching heat, and Katherine shrieked.

She could let him go. He deserved better than her. She could take her place by David’s side and do her best to make up for all that she lacked, for all that had been taken from them both. She would be a dutiful wife, a loving mother, a good woman, quiet and respectable.

But if she let him go, Jack would burn like this forever. Her son would never know his father. David would never know the love he deserved. And Katherine would lose herself. Her soul would be condemned just as surely as Jack’s, trapped in a life that could never satisfy.

“No!” she cried. She pressed Jack to her breast, holding his body against her belly, pressing him to his child. She loved him, and he loved her. She knew it.

Jack’s body burst into flames. Katherine screamed, but she did not let him go. She let the flames consume them both, holding Jack even as she was sure she felt her skin blister and burn.

“I love you,” she said, unsure if she even had a voice left. It didn’t matter. It was true, and Jack deserved to know. Even if the flames burnt them to ashes, Jack would know that he was loved, and Katherine would know what was true. “I love you.”

She didn’t feel his arms circle around her. She didn’t notice when the flames went cold. She just kept holding him, her tears falling fast and hard.

“I love you,” she said again. “I love you, Jack.”

“I love you too, acushla.”

Katherine froze. When she looked down, her heavy coat was still wrapped around her; it was as though there’d never been any fire at all. She leaned back, and she saw Jack’s eyes watching her from beneath the mask. His clothes had burned away, and his body was curled around her, pink and soft as a newborn’s. She could see how painfully thin he was now, but all of the scars she’d seen in their dreams had disappeared. Careful not to let him go, Katherine reached for the mask and took it from Jack’s face. He was pale, and his cheeks were smudged with his own tears, but he smiled when his eyes met hers.

Katherine gasped. “You’re—you’re—”

“I’m yours,” Jack said simply. “Katherine.”

Katherine looked up, and Snyder stared back at her.

“He’s mine,” she said, and it sounded more like a question than she meant it to. Her words hung in the air for a moment, but the black-masked men did not move. In fact, they did not appear to be near at all. The horses had gone too. It was only Snyder who stood before Katherine and Jack.

“He is,” Snyder hissed, his eyes hard and dark as coals. “Our deal is broken. He’s free.”

“Free,” Jack whispered.

He blinked up at the stars in wonder, and he looked so much like a child that Katherine’s heart nearly seized. She bent to kiss his forehead and let him go, working off her father’s coat and laying it over Jack’s body.

When Katherine looked up, Snyder was gone. When she looked again at Jack, the chain at his throat was gone too. She covered Jack’s body with hers and pressed a gentle kiss to his pulse point.

“Kathy!”

“Who’s that?” Jack asked, tensing.

Katherine smiled, sitting up again and smoothing Jack’s sweat-drenched hair away from his forehead. “It’s Davey.”

She felt David’s arms around her before she saw him, and she let him hold her. He was shaking.

“You’re alright?” he asked feverishly, moving his hand over her hair and face as though to inspect her.

“I am,” she said, even if she didn’t understand why. From over David’s shoulder, she saw Conlon approaching, his steps slow and careful.

“I can’t believe you did that,” David breathed.

“I can,” Jack said softly. He laughed, but the sound disappeared into a wracking cough almost instantly.

David let Katherine go and looked down at Jack. “We’ll have to get him back to the house immediately.”

“What’s he, some kind of doctor?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” said Katherine and David together.

“David.” David offered Jack his hand.

“Jack.”

“Shit, miss. You really did it,” Conlon said from behind. He looked at Jack as though he had dropped from the night sky.

“We did it,” Katherine said.

“Well, that’s mighty generous of you, but I think we can agree you did the heavy liftin’, as it were,” Conlon said.

Katherine smiled. “You’re going to do some now.” She turned back to Jack, cupping his cheek in her little hand. “Jack, we’ll have to carry you back to the house. We have to get you warm.”

“You too, acushla,” Jack said weakly.

He coughed again, and David’s brow furrowed. He knelt by Jack’s side and gestured for Conlon to join him. Katherine forced herself to pull away, and she watched as David and Conlon lifted Jack from the ground, his gaunt body still covered in Joseph Pulitzer’s greatcoat. The baby fluttered gently beneath her ribs, and Katherine wrapped her arms around herself.

They had done it. Jack was safe.