The Three Thorns

MICHAEL GIBNEY

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.

Copyright © 2014 by Michael Gibney

THE THREE THORNS by Michael Gibney

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published by Tantrum Books for Month9Books

Cover by Adam McDaniel

Jacket design by Victoria Faye

Cover Copyright © 2014 Month9Books

This book is dedicated to two people. The first is my Grandfather, David Thompson, from whom I inherited this precious gift and love for the written word. Your imagination never ended with you…it lives on in me and I will carry it until it’s my time to hand it over. I love you Grand-Dad.

To my dear friend and greatest advocate, Van Dyke Parks. You taught me what true courage and conviction really means. I will be forever grateful for your genuine love, humility and hand in friendship you’ve shown me over the years.

MICHAEL GIBNEY

They say all great legends start small. This one begins with three crimson-wrapped bundles on a rainy evening in London. The year was 1900, but not much had changed to make the turn of the century overly special. Not much, that is, except for the three abandoned babies found that night.

For they were royalty, bound to a destiny that would one day change the world. But on the night of their arrival, they were merely orphans, crying with misery and about to perish in the cold.

***

A minister and his maid opened the large door of an old church to distraught screams. It was late winter and the rain had been ongoing for days.

The frail baby had been wrapped in maroon silk that bore the image of a two-headed snake embroidered through a golden crown.

Without hesitating, the minister swaddled the infant in his knitted woolen sweater, enveloping it in the warmth of his body. Having made up his mind, the minister embraced the infant as if it were his own. He took the crying baby inside the towering church while the maid shook her head behind him, closing the massive doors to shut out the miserable weather.

“What are you doing, Minister Brannon?” she asked.

“A cry for help should never be ignored, Miss Illingworth,” replied the minister, shooting a look of disappointment at the cold-hearted woman.

***

That same night, a second screaming baby appeared on a different doorstep that belonged to a wealthy couple who owned a multitude of opera houses along the city’s prestigious West End. Some would say this child had landed on his feet, but not all was what it seemed, nor did everything glitter brightly with promise in the shallow world of show business.

Puffing heavily on her cigarette, the retired theater actress rolled her eyes at her husband after they had stopped bickering about who was to answer the door first. A look of disgust crossed the woman’s face the moment she heard the whimpering sounds of an infant. Her husband stammered and gently shrugged his shoulders back at her the moment he opened the door.

“Well, you did want a baby.”

“This is not exactly what I had in mind, Viktor,” she snapped, taking another drag through her cigarette holder.

“What do you want me to do?” her husband snapped back as she walked away from the doorstep.

“You want it, you raise it.” Her voice echoed through the large hallway of the theater without a care.

Wrestling with his sense of morality, the theater owner lit a cigar as he pondered whether to keep the baby or report it. Then he noticed the two-headed snake symbol through a golden crown on the silk robe, and the businessman suddenly saw the baby as a possible financial investment. Without much persuasion, he made the choice to bring the baby inside.

***

When the rain was at its heaviest, a third baby landed in the worst place of all…the gutter.

A common cook was dumping leftovers in the alleyway when his ears perked up to the light whimpering coming from an empty waste bin. Immediately the concerned cook ran back into the restaurant to fetch his manager along with several staff who came out to have a look at the startling discovery.

That afternoon the authorities came to take the infant to a place where it would be looked after and raised—an orphanage a little outside the main city of greater London—to become another statistic easily forgotten.

Young Benjamin Brannon had just turned eleven when he stepped onto the grounds of Gatesville, Borstal Home for Boys.
What did I do to end up here?
he wondered, as he gazed upon the dark gray building towering over him like a castle of doom.

He squeezed the hand of his present guardian, Miss Illingworth, a cold, hard-looking woman from the Woodson County Orphanage, and hid behind her the moment she pulled her hand away. Until now, Benjamin had lived amongst the other orphans of Woodson County ever since the minister had opened his own orphanage in 1901, when Benjamin was almost a year old. The minister had fallen ill with an unexpected case of pneumonia at the beginning of autumn. Due to his sudden illness, Minister Brannon granted the cold-hearted maid a legal position to run the orphanage in his place. With Miss Illingworth in power, it hadn’t taken long for her new legislations to be put into effect. The first statute she passed in Woodson County was a limitation on age. Anyone over ten years of age currently living at Woodson County Orphanage was immediately rehomed, and Benjamin Brannon was the first on Miss Illingworth’s list to get the boot.

Benjamin hadn’t been able to stand the sight of the vile woman and now here he was, willing to go anywhere with her as long as he wasn’t left alone in this new and unfamiliar place.

Benjamin Brannon was a very short boy for his age, a few inches smaller than the average eleven-year-old and unusually portly for such an active spirit. He was just big boned that way. Would the other boys laugh at him for his size and shape like they did in Woodson County? Would they bully him because he was smaller than most of the children he could see running in the foregrounds? All of these fears ran through Benjamin like a heavy gust of wind.

Whilst brooding, Benjamin caught sight of a tall thin man walking toward Miss Illingworth, which made him forget his initial fear of the other boys. The man wore a creased old suit and looked just as ragged as his clothes.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Jennings,” greeted Miss Illingworth, taking a tight hold of Benjamin’s hand. As the man approached, the unsettled feeling Benjamin had became sheer dread, especially when he noticed the extensive burn marks on the man’s hands. Benjamin stepped backwards, far enough to stay behind Miss Illingworth. She began to struggle with Benjamin, trying to bring him face to face with the old man.

“Eyes to me, boy!” Mr. Jennings snapped. His voice caused Benjamin to jump.

“He’s very troublesome. I’d keep my eye on this one,” Miss Illingworth warned.

Benjamin glared at the wicked woman. He had been well behaved on their travels from Woodson County, and now this was her cruel way of repaying him.

Mr. Jennings smiled at Miss Illingworth through crooked gray teeth before sneering down at the orphan. “They’re easily trained here,” he replied. It sounded like a sinister threat.

Mr. Jennings took Benjamin’s hand and squeezed it tightly, until Benjamin could no longer feel his own fingers. He eyed the other boys gawking at him.