The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls (13 page)

“Quiet, Gallagher,” said Mr. Tibbalt.

“Gallagher?” said Victoria, raising an eyebrow.

“Is that a problem?”

“No.” Victoria sat on the edge of the piano bench, avoiding the questionable dark patches on the cushion. “It’s a very proper name, that’s all.”

Mr. Tibbalt set a bowl of food at Gallagher’s front paws. “A proper name for a proper gentleman.”

Gallagher began eating, his tail wagging. Victoria watched Mr. Tibbalt settle on the sofa that bore the imprint of where he must sit all day, all night. It was the only clean spot in the room. She felt uncomfortable when she noticed how he sometimes stumbled on his feet, and how the act of sitting creased his gaunt face with pain.

“Well,” said Mr. Tibbalt. “Been poking around where you shouldn’t, have you?”

Victoria kept her voice cool. “I’m only writing my article.”

Mr. Tibbalt leaned back. He didn’t have much hair left, and what remained stuck up in halfhearted tangles.

“I wouldn’t,” he said. Then, quieter, “I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll get stuck, just like her, just like everyone.”

“Stuck?” Victoria took out her notebook and began scribbling. It would help to look the part of a reporter. “Just like who?”

Mr. Tibbalt waved his hand at her. “Oh, put that garbage away.”

“Funny you should say that,” said Victoria, wrinkling her nose as she caught a rotten whiff of something from behind the piano.

“You don’t fool me. I know about the little boy. The musical boy.”

Victoria forced herself to keep breathing and scribbling. “What boy?”

“Lawrence,” said Mr. Tibbalt, rolling his eyes. “Drop the act and talk to me, or leave. I don’t have time for shenanigans.”

Victoria snapped shut her notebook. “Fine.”

“Well? You’re looking for him, aren’t you?” said Mr. Tibbalt.

“I am. And I think some other kids, too. Kids from school.”

“What kids?”

Victoria sat up straighter. “What do you care about them?”

“Do you want my help or don’t you?” Mr. Tibbalt said.

At his feet, Gallagher paused in his eating to growl at Victoria, his kibbled whiskers twitching.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” said Victoria.

“Well, no, you don’t,” said Mr. Tibbalt. “But you can.”

Victoria shot Mr. Tibbalt a demon dazzle, and Mr. Tibbalt shot one right back. Then and there, Victoria decided to trust him. Anyone who could muster up a dazzle of that quality had to be all right.

“Jacqueline Hennessey,” said Victoria. “And Donovan O’Flaherty. No one knows about Donovan, and Jill says Jacqueline’s sick, but—”

“But you don’t believe them.”

“That’s right.”

Mr. Tibbalt scratched his unshaven jaw. “Who’s Jill?”

“Jacqueline’s sister. They’re twins.”

“Yes, family.” He nodded. “Isn’t it awful when your own family gets involved in such a thing? You think you’re safe at home, but so often, you’re not.”

“What are you
talking
about?” said Victoria.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but they’re gone, they’re all gone. If you’re lucky, they’ll come back.” Mr. Tibbalt wiped his face with a soiled handkerchief from his jacket. “But sometimes, you’re not lucky.”

Gallagher left his supper to climb the sofa and lay his head in Mr. Tibbalt’s lap.

“Where did they go?” Victoria said, but Mr. Tibbalt just sat, staring into the room’s dark, messy corners.

Thunder broke the silence. The lightning made the house look even worse and Mr. Tibbalt look even older and more tired. Gallagher raised his head to howl.

Victoria didn’t have time for people being dramatic. After picking her way through all the filth, she wrinkled her nose and poked Mr. Tibbalt’s shoulder.

“Where did they go?” she repeated. “Tell me, or
I’ll
leave.”

Mr. Tibbalt blinked sadly. “She took them.”

“Mrs. Cavendish?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Tibbalt. “They’re with her. They’re at the Home.”

“I knew it,” whispered Victoria.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I guessed right.” Victoria began to pace. “Well, I’ll just tell their parents, and they’ll call the police, and they’ll go get them out. I mean, you can’t just steal kids and take them to your orphanage. I’m sure that’s against the law. My father—”

“You don’t understand,” said Mr. Tibbalt. He put his cap back on and stumbled to his feet. “This way.”

Victoria grabbed a poker from the hearth and followed him, Gallagher trotting at her heels.

“What’s that for?” Mr. Tibbalt grumbled, pushing on a
door wedged shut with stacks of papers and books.

“In case you try to hurt me,” said Victoria. “I exercise, you know, so just watch out.”

Mr. Tibbalt nodded. “That could come in handy, if you’re serious about this.”

“About what?”

“Getting them out,” said Mr. Tibbalt. “Parents, police, reporters, they won’t help you. You’ll be on your own. And it probably won’t work. You’ll get stuck too. She’ll have you. And if you get out, you won’t remember enough to tell anyone, and even if you do end up remembering, you won’t want to, and you won’t want to say anything. You’ll be too afraid. Like me. And if you don’t get out, you’ll never, ever leave.”

Mr. Tibbalt mumbled this as he tried to open the door. Victoria stared at him. His words sounded crazy, but he was the first person to take her seriously and actually talk to her. She relaxed her grip on the poker.

“It happens all the time, year after year, decade after decade,” Mr. Tibbalt continued, pushing through old sofa cushions and a hat rack. The room had a lot of windows and a large chandelier. Shelves of trinkets covered most of the walls. “She’s been here a long time, and Belleville has always been hungry for perfection. People don’t care about much as long as everything looks
as it should, as long as they can show off and feel good about themselves.” Mr. Tibbalt paused and raised a bushy gray eyebrow. “You understand about that, Victoria.”

Victoria put up her chin and said, “Yes, I do,” refusing to look away.

“Sometimes, though,” Mr. Tibbalt continued, “she gets overly ambitious. Takes groups of children at a time. That’s when people wake up and start noticing. They can’t help but notice. That’s when things get bad.” He sighed, wiping his brow. “Like when I was a boy.”

“But where does she come from?” said Victoria. “She just appeared one day and started snatching kids?”

“As far as I can tell.”

Victoria almost stamped her foot. “But what does she
want
them for?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” said Mr. Tibbalt, his mouth going all twisty like a wrinkly fruit. “She wants to
fix
them. A place like Belleville doesn’t think well of odd children or ugly children or children who don’t quite do what’s
normal
. That’s where she comes in.”

“But . . .” Victoria paused. If she wasn’t careful, Mr. Tibbalt’s mouth might twist around till it disappeared forever. “Why does everyone let her?”

Mr. Tibbalt’s mouth twitched into a frown. “Sometimes
you get what you ask for, and sometimes . . . you get more than that. Much more.”

Victoria’s mind rebelled against this nonsense, and yet . . . the knot in her stomach wouldn’t go away. “But how does she make her house so much bigger on the inside than on the outside?”

Mr. Tibbalt froze. “On the inside? How do you know about the inside?”

“I’ve been there,” Victoria said. “I went there, just to see what I could see. There was something beating on the window in her parlor. And she let me go, but I don’t know why. I thought she might lock me up, but she didn’t. She said she liked me. She said I was like her.”

“Ha. She
would
like you, yes.”

Victoria bristled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You like things to be just so, no matter what the cost,” said Mr. Tibbalt, pulling out a large photo album from underneath some moldy newspapers. “So does she. So does everyone around here. And as far as
how
she does what she does, I’d rather not know.” Mr. Tibbalt glanced up at her. “There are magic tricks, like pick-a-card and white rabbits, and then there are other tricks. Nasty ones. I’d guess that’s what Mrs. Cavendish is all about. But I surely don’t want to find out.”

Deep in her bones, in a place she’d never felt before,
Victoria shivered. She quickly changed the subject. “Beatrice said I may be all right, since Mrs. Cavendish likes me.”

“Or maybe you’re worse off than anyone.”

“Yes, that’s what Beatrice said.”

“Poor Beatrice,” said Mr. Tibbalt. “She’s seen it happen before, several times, just like me. But it’s hard for her to see awful things. Not strong enough. She never spoke up, just like I never did. It kept us safe, you see. We were so afraid. We
are
so afraid. You can’t help being afraid, being a child and seeing your friends get taken away and not really remembering they were your friends at all—till they come back. Different. Changed. Or maybe they don’t come back at all, and you never remember they were there, and you have mad dreams, wondering how many people you’ve known and forgotten.” His voice was bitter. “But staying quiet, it kept us safe.
Safe
.”

“Beatrice left,” said Victoria.

“She’d almost left several times, over the years. But it’s hard to leave a place when you’re tied to it by fear, when it’s broken you with fear, when it’s all you’ve ever known. Even then, though, even then . . . there’s only so much a person can take.” He sighed. “I wasn’t always like I am now, you know.”

Victoria’s eyes filled with tears as she stared at the floor. “My parents are being weird.”

Mr. Tibbalt paused.

“They aren’t acting like themselves,” said Victoria. The tears grew, but she didn’t let them fall. Everything looked like she was inside a bubble. They surprised her, these tears. Till this point, she had been so busy trying to figure things out that she hadn’t had time to worry about her parents. Now the worry struck her right in her belly. “Will they be all right?”

“Hard to say,” said Mr. Tibbalt. “Come here, look at this.”

They sat on two wobbly stools, and Mr. Tibbalt opened the photo album and spread it out on his knees. Photographs, newspaper clippings, and sketches lined the pages. Mr. Tibbalt turned them slowly. His fingers, purple and gnarled with the cold, smoothed out wrinkles and cleared away dust.

“This is from when I was a boy. I lived here with my parents.” Mr. Tibbalt pointed to two waving people with a boy in the middle. “I was sixteen when it happened.”

“When what happened?” said Victoria.

“When Vivian disappeared.”

Mr. Tibbalt turned another page and pointed to a photograph of a young girl. She had wild black curls and a crooked smile. She wore overalls rolled up to the knee and a wide hat, and she held a basket full to the brim with berries. Around her neck sat a cheap-looking heart-shaped locket.

Mr. Tibbalt pointed to it. “She kept my picture in there, you know.”

“Who is she?” said Victoria.

“Vivian Goodfellow,” said Mr. Tibbalt. He wilted a bit in his seat as he stared at the photograph. “She had such a lovely voice. She lived at Eight.”

“The Bakers live there now.”

Mr. Tibbalt continued over her softly. “Vivian was always saying things she shouldn’t have, going where she shouldn’t have been, poking her nose into places she shouldn’t have poked. When Teddy Tibbalt disappeared, she was the only one who noticed, the only one who bothered to look for him.”

In her surprise, Victoria almost stepped on Gallagher’s paw. “Teddy Tibbalt? Was that you?”

“No. He was my brother.” Mr. Tibbalt turned back to the photograph of the waving people. He pointed to the boy in the middle, and then to another boy Victoria had missed the first time—a smaller boy crouched in the background. “See? There he is. He never liked pictures. All he liked was burning things, and building things in the backyard and breaking them.”

“Why would you want to build things only to break them?” asked Victoria, wrinkling her nose.

“That was just Teddy. He wasn’t a bad boy. He was just
a strange, angry boy.” Mr. Tibbalt breathed in and out, his throat rattling. “Till he disappeared. And when he came back, he wasn’t Teddy. He was someone else, like someone had broken the old Teddy and built a new one.”

“And your parents didn’t do anything when he was just gone all of a sudden?” Victoria sniffed. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Do you?” said Mr. Tibbalt, frowning.

Victoria thought of her missing schoolmates. Her shoulders felt suddenly heavy as she considered the thought that she and crazy old Mr. Tibbalt, who was too frightened and too old to do anything about it, might be the only ones who realized they were gone. “Well . . . no. I guess not. After all, nobody seems to care about”—she took a deep breath—“about Lawrence being gone. I believe you.”

“Quite so. I can’t even explain to you how it happened, Victoria. One day he was there, and the next he wasn’t, but I didn’t care. Neither did our parents. There was a cold fog over us. The days were blank but peaceful. I went to school, did my homework, went to bed, just like normal.”

Something crashed outside. Victoria darted over to the window, but it was impossible to tell anything, what with the storm picking up and the wind blowing Mr. Tibbalt’s garbage around.

Mr. Tibbalt wiped his sweating brow again. “Vivian tried to figure it out. She was the only one to keep her head. I’d always thought she was swell. She was a real beaut, you know. Inside and out. She tried to tell us something was wrong, she came over every day to search the house, all of that. My parents threw her out over and over. She got so angry with me that one afternoon . . .”

Victoria waited at the window for Mr. Tibbalt to continue. When he didn’t, his hands covering his face, she started feeling extremely uncomfortable. She hated soothing people.

“There, there,” she said, gritting her teeth and patting his shoulder. “Keep going.”

“She said she thought I was different, that I could see people’s value. But then she said, ‘You’re just like everyone else, Bernie.’ And she cried, she was so angry. She left. She went to the Home—I saw her march straight through that gate.”