Chapter Text
Mama is in the bedroom with Sarah, plaiting Sarah’s hair for bedtime. David is in his nightshirt at the table. He is drawing a picture for Papa. It is of a cat he saw in the alley when he took out the ash can. The cat was orange, but David only has Sarah’s leftover pencil nub, so his cat is gray, just like everything else. He’s drawn a little boy next to the cat; the little boy looks like he is made of sticks. David is skinny. He might look like he is made of sticks too. And he thinks he would probably like a little orange cat. But with the new baby coming soon, he knows better than to ask.
They’ve already eaten; Papa always comes home too late to eat with them. He eats with Mama after he tucks David and Sarah into the big bed behind the curtain. Sometimes, they hear Mama and Papa laughing, and they laugh too. David likes to laugh. It feels like bubbles around his heart.
He laughs when he feels Papa’s rough fingers tickle up the back of his neck.
“You’re home!”
David twists in his chair and stands on the seat. Mama would be angry if she saw, but Papa doesn’t mind. Papa smiles at him. Papa always smiles at David. He is never angry, even when he is tired. And he is tired tonight; David can tell.
“I’m home,” Papa says.
David can’t help himself. “I made you a picture!”
He holds the paper out for Papa to see, and Papa takes it from him. The paper is thin in Papa’s big hands. David is a little afraid Papa will crinkle the edges of his picture, but he doesn’t say so. He made it for Papa after all. If Papa wants to wrinkle it, he can.
Papa looks at the paper, and he smiles. “Look at you, boychik! An artist! Maybe someday your drawings will be in the Metropolitan!”
The little boy’s eyes widen, and he sinks back into his chair. The Metropolitan. It sounds like a magic kingdom. Maybe it is.
“What is the—the Met-ro-pol-i-tan?”
The word feels funny in David’s mouth, like all the English words do. Mama says it will get easier when he is big enough to go to school, like Sarah. David doesn’t think he will go to school. He’s the man of the house when Papa is at work; Papa told him so. He shouldn’t leave Mama alone in their little apartment all day.
“It is a museum,” Papa says.
He sits at the kitchen table and pulls David into his lap. David’s nose wrinkles when Papa kisses his hair. He is a big boy, nearly six. He doesn’t need kisses anymore. But he won’t tell Papa that. He can tell Papa still likes to give kisses, and he wants Papa to be happy.
“A museum?”
Papa nods. “A place where they put beautiful art and other important things. And the Metropolitan is like a palace.”
“Where there is a tsar and a tsarina?”
Papa makes a funny sort of choking noise. He wraps his arm tight around David’s belly, and he kisses him again. His voice shakes a little when he talks.
“No, boychik. Not like that. There are no tsars or tsarinas here. The Metropolitan—it is a palace where anyone can be king. Because the art there is for everyone.”
“Even for me?” David asks, and he doesn’t know why, but his voice comes out in a whisper.
“Yes.” Papa squeezes him. “For you, ahuv. And for me.”
“And Mama? And Sarah?”
“For all of us,” Papa says softly.
David thinks it would be nice if Mama could see a palace. Mama is the prettiest lady in the whole world, and if they went to a palace, she’d have to have a pretty dress to match. Sarah too, even though, as a rule, sisters aren’t supposed to be pretty. But he is sure that everything is pretty at the Metropolitan.
David likes pretty things. They make his stomach feel all queer and wibbly. Like the orange cat in the dirty alley. Like Mama at the stove. Like the tree across the street and the sunshine through the fire escape and Sarah’s hair ribbons on the bureau. Pretty things make him feel sad and happy at the same time, and he doesn’t know why. But there are never enough to look at.
“Can we go there?” David breathes. His little chest nearly aches.
Papa bounces his knees under David’s bottom, and David laughs, even though he is too big for bouncing. “We will have to, when they put your beautiful picture on display.”
“Promise?”
Papa kisses David’s hair again. “Promise.”
--
Jack Kelly was an unadulterated genius.
Well, he was pretty sure that he was. He was definitely almost a genius. His idea was genius, anyway. It was not something anyone would ever expect, at the very least. Not that anyone had ever really expected anything of Jack to begin with. Most people didn’t expect things from guys like him. Well, that wasn’t quite true: they expected him to keep his head down, to do what he was told. But Jack had never been good at that. He had the record to prove it.
What Jack was good at was recreating the world on a blank page, or when he was lucky, a canvas. But it was hard to do that when he could barely hold his pencil at the end of the day. It wasn’t that Jack minded honest work; a guy had to pay the bills somehow, didn’t he? But what good was work if all it got you was a shitty room and enough second-day bread to keep you from passing out? Work wasn’t life. At least, Jack didn’t think it ought to be. Not when he knew that he was meant for something more than selling papers or hauling cargo.
It was easier when he was a newsie. At least then, he could stop and sketch on the back of a paper. But now that he was working at the docks, Jack’s brain itched all day long with half-formed ideas of what he would put to paper when he could. But when he got home, it was like the itch had buried itself too deep for scratching. His hands were too tired, his eyes too heavy. He’d fall asleep with his cheek pressed to a blank page, but even in his dreams, Jack couldn’t reach what he’d imagined, just as surely as if it were locked behind a door that had no key. And why not? What could a kid from Five Points give to the world except fleas? Jack wondered just how many things—small, beautiful, grand, important—were trapped in minds that the world had written off.
It shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was going to be famous, after all. And art shouldn’t matter. It was just something to look at and forget. Something for the rich and powerful to prove their status. But Jack knew better. And Jack could feel it in his bones: he was supposed to create, whether anyone ever saw it or not. He only had to find the time and space.
That’s why he’d packed his satchel with the bare essentials—his sketchbook and pencils, Da’s holy medal and Mama’s photograph, a couple clean shirts—and come to the Metropolitan Museum.
Sure, if he’d explained it to someone, it would seem crazy. No one lived in the Met. But that was the genius of it.
Jack was alone. He had no one but himself to provide for, no one who would miss him. Charlie had long since moved West; Race lived in Brooklyn now, and they never saw each other. Everyone he’d known was either dead or had been swallowed whole by the world’s slimy jaws. There would be another warm body in Jack’s room at the boarding house before the week was out; the loadmaster would have no trouble finding another poor bastard to shoulder wooden crates on the riverfront. No one would even realize he’d gone.
Jack would live in the Met. Really live, maybe for the first time in his sorry life.
So, the plan was to pay admission for the afternoon and stay for as long as he liked. Maybe forever. The guards would start ushering people out in the early evening, and Jack would stay. He would slip into a washroom and wait for the others to go—and then after that, well, he wasn’t sure, but Jack had given enough cops the slip over the years that he was confident he could keep ahead of some sorry nightwatchman. He’d find his place, he was sure.
And yeah, there were logistics to consider. Food. Bathing. Living undetected in a popular landmark. But the museum had a restaurant and fountains and plenty of nooks and crannies. He had to try.
The first part was easy. At closing time, Jack had crouched over the porcelain bowl in the water closet, clutching his satchel to his chest, and he’d waited. Hurried steps became a plinking patter on the marble floors as more people left the museum. Then, it was silent. He’d stayed stooped on the toilet seat for longer than he thought his knees could possibly withstand. But the watchman never came.
Jack unfolded himself and set his feet on the floor. When he left the toilet, the washroom was dark; when he opened the washroom door, the hallway was dark. Even though his steps were cautious, he could still hear the soft pad of his shoe leather on the floor. Given that he couldn’t see for shit, he was at least glad for the reminder that he hadn’t disappeared into some kind of void. He would have been almost grateful to see the watchman’s lantern ahead.
Jack waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He’d stayed downstairs, specifically to avoid catastrophic injury right out of the gate. Slowly, a fuzzy understanding of the Great Hall came into view. The ticket counters were vacant and the velvet ropes still. There was no one in sight, no footsteps but his own.
“Shit. I did it,” Jack whispered. “I really fuckin’ did it.”
He took a few more steps across the marble floor, and then he broke into an uncoordinated run, satchel banging against his hip. He spun and skipped like he hadn’t since he was a little boy. It probably wasn’t the best idea, but just then, he didn’t care. He was here. The Met was his. This place—the kind populated by millionaires’ bequests and shuffled by well-heeled ladies in the middle of the working day—wasn’t meant for the likes of him, and yet, here he was. King of the castle.
Jack zoomed into the Greco-Roman wing, waving ‘hello!’ to every sculpted body he passed; the white marble was easy to see even in the dim light. He didn’t care how cold or still they were. These were his friends now, reminders of where he was and what he could do. Jack let go a laugh, and it echoed in the arched gallery.
And then, he saw the lantern.
“Shit!”
Jack ducked down behind the marble pedestal closest to him.
“I know I saw something over here,” a voice said, the words low and urgent.
It sounded like a woman, which didn’t make any sense. There weren’t lady nightwatchmen. Nighwatchladies. Whatever. Jack crouched lower, bracing himself against the cold square block.
“Hannah,” hissed another voice; a man this time, Jack was almost certain. “You always get like this when we check on him. You know that he won’t—”
“I saw it, Seitz!”
“Sure. You saw it. Do you see it now?”
A foot stamped against the marble. “No.”
“Well, then, let’s go back. You know Pulitzer will want to start the game before it gets too late.”
“But—”
“Hannah. I’m sure it’s fine.”
The woman sighed. “You’re probably right. I just—”
And then, already tired and creaky from his time in the washroom, Jack’s knees gave out. He fell forward, his satchel flapping noisily against the floor.
“Fuck.” Jack winced.
“Okay, now, I definitely heard that.”
“I told you!”
Footsteps rounded the gallery, and all of a sudden, Jack was face-to-face with two people, a man and a woman. The man held the lantern Jack had seen. He was squat and round with ruddy cheeks and—Jack hoped—a friendly face. The woman was his opposite, tall and willow thin with a pompadour of red curls. Both wore wire-rimmed spectacles and identical expressions of shock.
Jack wiggled his fingers like an idiot, chin still scraping the marble floor. “Uh, hi.”
“Hello there,” said the woman. Hannah, Jack remembered. “May I ask what you think you’re doing?”
Jack pushed himself to his knees. He clutched his satchel close to his chest. “I, uh—”
The man—Seitz—leaned down to shine the lantern in Jack’s face. “You know the museum is closed?”
Jack hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “It is? Guess I got turned around!”
Seitz raised an eyebrow. “For an hour. In the dark.”
“You were skipping,” Hannah pointed out.
“Nervous habit?” Jack tried.
Seitz and Hannah exchanged a glance. Clearly, they didn’t buy it.
“Couldn’t we just let him go?” Hannah asked, her voice low.
“I mean, we could. But if Pulitzer finds out—”
Seitz looked up at the statue Jack had hidden behind, as though the hunk of stone could hear what he was saying. Hannah looked too.
“You’re right,” Hannah agreed. She looked again at Jack. “You’ll have to come with us.”
What the hell did they mean? Who were these people? Come to think of it, what were they doing in the museum after closing?
“Now, wait just a godda—”
“It would be best not to argue,” Seitz interrupted. He smiled, and Jack thought he looked almost sorry.
“Whaddaya—”
“Come along now,” Hannah said with a curt nod. “Mr. Pulitzer will want to see you.”
Jack let Seitz haul him up by the elbow as the other man passed the lantern off to Hannah. Jack wasn’t sure what else to do; he suddenly felt like a statue himself. He couldn’t very well make a break for it and risk these two reporting him to—to who? The cops? Clearly, they were going to report him to whoever Mr. Pulitzer was. But still, Jack let himself be hauled along, out of the Greco-Roman wing, through the Great Hall, and up the grand staircase, Hannah’s lantern swinging as they went. Jack could see light peeking out from a doorway in the distance.
That didn’t make any sense. “What’s goin’ on here?”
“You’ll find out,” Hannah said evenly. “Just—don’t—I’m afraid we can’t promise you anything.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack muttered. “What—”
“I told you, you’ll find out,” Hannah said again.
They were close to the doorway now, and Jack could hear quiet laughter coming from the room beyond.
Seitz stopped Jack by the elbow. “Why are you here, son? Really?”
“How did you find out about us?” Hannah asked.
Jack blinked. “I—what? I don’t—look, lady, I told you, I got turned around.”
“You didn’t,” Seitz said softly. “We all know you didn’t. If you tell us now, maybe we can help you.”
“Help me with what? I don’t know nothin’, I swear. I just—I’m an artist. I didn’t know nobody was here. I don’t mean no harm. I thought I could, y’know, find a place a’ my own here. To work.”
Hannah’s eyes lit up. “An artist? Oh, that’s good. That might help your case. You be sure to tell him that.”
“Who?”
And what the hell ‘case’ was she talking about? Jack’s previous experience with the justice system was not exactly encouraging.
“Mr. Pulitzer, of course.” Hannah studied Jack for a moment; she reached out and straightened his collar. “That’ll have to do.”
“Are you ready, son?” Seitz asked.
Ready for what? Jack wanted to scream. But he didn’t have the chance. Hannah went into the room, and Seitz pulled Jack to follow.
Jack had never seen the room before. He usually didn’t go in for the decorative arts, but he was vaguely aware that the museum housed reproductions of historical rooms from around the world. From the frills and fauna alone, Jack was pretty sure he was standing in some kind of French drawing room. At its center was a glossy mahogany table outfitted with silk-upholstered chairs to match. In the chairs were more people: a shifty-looking man with close-cropped white hair and blotchy cheeks; a plump woman with dark skin and laughing brown eyes; and an older man with a pointed, reddish beard and owlish gold-rimmed spectacles.
The woman had been dealing out hands of playing cards, but she stopped when she saw Jack.
“Lord have mercy,” she murmured.
The white-haired man sat forward in his chair. He smiled at Jack, but something about his expression made Jack’s gut clench. “What’s this? What’ve we got here?”
“Hannah,” said the bearded man. “You will explain.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Pulitzer,” Hannah said immediately. “Seitz and I were in the Greco-Roman wing—”
White Hair snorted. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”
Hannah ignored him. “We found this young man in the statuary hall. Alone.”
Seitz nodded. “We thought we should bring him to you.”
“A wise decision,” Mr. Pulitzer said. He kept his eyes on Jack’s face.
The woman at the table turned to Pulitzer. “Joseph, don’t you think we might—”
“Medda, you know that I can’t,” said Pulitzer.
“He’s just a boy.”
“As if it matters,” White Hair snapped. “He knows about us now.”
“Mr. Snyder, if you please,” Pulitzer chided.
White Hair—Mr. Snyder—rolled his eyes and huffed back in his chair.
“Medda, please deal. Hannah, Mr. Seitz, if you’ll take your seats.”
Hannah set the lantern on an ornate sideboard just behind the table. She slipped into the chair next to Medda, who dispensed the playing cards with graceful precision. Seitz squeezed Jack’s elbow. He twitched Jack a little closer to the table and let him go. Jack knew better than to try and run.
Pulitzer raised his chin in appraisal. “Now, young man. What’s your name?”
“Kelly. Jack Kelly.”
“Mr. Kelly.” Pulitzer nodded. “I am Joseph Pulitzer.”
“Yeah. I got that,” Jack said softly.
“And this is Miss Medda Larkin and Mr. I.A. Snyder. It appears you’ve already, ah—met the others.”
Jack nodded. Seitz shot him what he thought might be an encouraging smile.
“Who sent you here, Mr. Kelly?”
“No one.”
“Then what,” Pulitzer went on, casually rifling through his cards, “are you doing here?”
“It’s a museum, ain’t it?” Jack countered. “Lots a’ folks visit.”
“I’m sure that I don’t need to explain to you that there are not ‘lots of folks’ around after closing, Mr. Kelly.”
“No.”
“So, indulge us. Why are you here after closing? And don’t lie. This surely is no accident. It takes some effort to dodge the nightwatchman.”
Hannah nodded to Jack. Snyder glared at her.
“I’m an artist,” Jack said slowly.
“Ah! And you’re looking for what?” Pulitzer asked. His mustache moved with his breath. “Inspiration?”
“Time.”
“Time?”
The words tumbled out before Jack could stop them. “I spend all day thinkin’ about what I’ll draw or paint when I get home, right? But by the time I get home, I’m so busted I can’t even remember what it was I wanted to paint. Or my hands shake. Or my arms are too tired. An’ I want to follow through, y’know?”
“Follow through?” Medda set her hand of cards down on the table.
Jack nodded again and stood a little straighter. “Yes, ma’am. I could be good. I know I could. If I just had the time, I could do what I want—I could make somethin’ great.”
Pulitzer’s spectacles traveled north with his eyebrows. “So, you thought to come here. To stay.”
“Yeah. Just—I didn’t think anybody else’d have the idea.”
“Oh, my boy. There are plenty of people who think like you do.”
“Here?”
Pulitzer’s eyes narrowed. “Not here. We—we don’t accept many new people. But there are people like us all over the city. People looking for time or any number of other things they couldn’t find out there. So, they hide in plain sight. Department stores, museums, libraries, any number of establishments.”
“Shit, really?”
Hannah stifled a giggle, and Medda elbowed her discretely in the side.
“Yes, really,” Pulitzer replied. “But it comes at a price.”
“What’s that?”
“We can’t have people knowing about us. It would spoil everything.”
A sudden rattle interrupted the conversation, and when Jack looked up, he saw a boy about his own age come through the doorway, struggling under the weight of an unwieldy tea tray. The boy was pale and thin—too thin, Jack thought—all sharp angles and dark circles. His lanky body drowned in ill-fitting clothes, and his feet were bare. He carried himself like a dog that had been kicked too many times, skittish and waiting for the next blow. He was nothing like any of the other people at the table.
But even though Jack couldn’t tear his eyes from the boy, the boy did not seem to notice Jack at all. He managed to set the tray on the sideboard and immediately set to work, setting a delicate china cup at every place.
“Thank you, honey,” Medda murmured when the boy came to her. She touched the underside of his arm, almost as though she didn’t want anybody to see. The boy ducked his head and went back to the sideboard to fetch the teapot from his tray.
A throat cleared. “Mr. Kelly?”
Jack forced himself to look back at Pulitzer. “Yes, sir?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I—”
“We can’t have people knowing about us,” Pulitzer said again. “It would threaten our very way of life. Which puts you in a unique position, dear boy.”
But Jack wasn’t quite paying attention. He was still watching the boy, and he got the distinct impression that even though the boy wasn’t looking right at him, somehow, the boy was watching him too. At the very least, the boy had noticed Jack; blotchy red patches of blush crept up his white neck and into his wan face as he poured Snyder’s tea.
Then, Snyder suddenly reared back with a hiss, his face red in anger.
“Jacobs, you fool!”
The breast of the man’s white dress shirt was soaked with hot tea, and the boy—Jacobs, apparently—shrank backward, the teapot trembling in his hands. He tried to hold his head high, but his eyes were wide. Jack knew that look, knew the cold fear that was probably roiling through Jacobs’ tight belly; it was one of the things Jack had wanted to leave behind. The others at the table kept their eyes on their cards and did not say a word.
Jacobs’ voice shook just as surely as his hands. “I’m sorry, Mr. Snyder, I—”
“You know you’ll be punished for this, don’t you?” Snyder snarled, pawing at his ruined shirt. “And that we’ll be adding laundry to today’s list of chores?”
Jacobs hung his head. Even the teapot stilled in dejection. “Yes, sir.”
“Get back to the kitchens and get another pot, you ingrate. And mind that you don’t get caught,” Snyder commanded.
Jacobs nodded hurriedly and sped from the room, his bare feet slapping a panicked tattoo as he went.
“You know, you don’t have to speak to him that way,” Medda said to Snyder. She took a demure sip of her own tea. “Accidents happen.”
“Yes,” Hannah agreed, although with slightly less oomph. “The boy didn’t mean anything by it.”
“And good help is hard to find,” Seitz said good-naturedly. He laughed at his own joke.
“Like hell,” Snyder muttered. “Stupid little shit is useless. We never should have kept him.”
“Ah, and therein lies the point,” Pulitzer said, and he looked back at Jack. “You see, Mr. Kelly, if you are to stay with us, we’ll need to know that you are truly prepared to become one of us; in your case, that you are an artist who is committed to his craft.”
“’Course I am,” Jack said, trying to ignore the pit that was beginning to cave in his gut. What did they mean they never should have kept Jacobs? Kept him from what?
“Oh, no. We’ll need proof. We must know that you are earnest, that you’re prepared to leave whatever life you’ve lived outside these walls.”
Jack shrugged. “Wasn’t so great. I ain’t got much to miss.”
“That’s promising. Because you must understand, Mr. Kelly—if we find you suitable, you can never leave. The risk that you would expose our way of life is too great.”
Jack’s ears were hot now, and he felt the sudden prickle of perspiration under his arms and against his scalp. This was not how he’d expected this to go.
“An’ if I’m—if I’m not—if I’m unsuitable?”
Pulitzer grimaced. “Well. Then, there will be consequences.”
“What kind of, um, consequences?”
“Mr. Snyder, could you explain?”
Snyder leaned back. “No one gets out once they’ve found their way in, Mr. Kelly. And if you’re not with us, well—”
Jacobs reappeared with a fresh pot of tea. Snyder’s thin lips curved into a smirk.
“Set that down and come here, boy.”
Jacobs did as he was told, but evidently, he wasn’t quick enough. Snyder grabbed him by the wrist and wrenched him toward the table. When Snyder let him go, the boy lost his balance and caught his weight against the table’s sharp edge. It must have hurt, but Jacobs didn’t so much as take in breath. Jack saw Medda bristle, could hear Seitz mutter to himself, but no one moved.
“Just ask Jacobs here,” Snyder said to Jack. He jerked his head in Jacobs’ direction. “Are you happy here, boy?”
The others at the table looked away from Jacobs’ pale face. The boy stood as still as one of the statues in the downstairs gallery.
“Jacobs, I asked if you were happy here.”
“No,” said the boy to his feet.
Snyder’s strange little mouth quirked at its corner.
“But you won’t try to leave, will you?”
“No, sir.”
Snyder smiled, wide and hard. “Why’s that, boy?”
The boy did not look up. “The Dark Men,” he said softly.
“That’s right,” Snyder replied. He nodded at Jack. “Y’see, Mr. Big Artiste, even Jacobs here knows better than to break our rules. And he’s goddamned miserable. Aren’t you, Jacobs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Jacobs,” Pulitzer said, his voice tight. “If you’d serve the rest of the tea.”
Jacobs nodded and went back to retrieve his pot.
“You see, Jacobs here was spared the Dark Men because he was so young when he came to us,” Pulitzer explained. “But we haven’t had anyone new in a very long time, and I’m afraid that we cannot afford to be so lenient again.”
Jack watched as Snyder shoved his teacup into Jacobs’ gut. This time, the boy’s shaking hands managed to pour the tea into the china cup without spilling a drop. It didn’t seem to Jack that they’d been very lenient with poor Jacobs at all. Whoever they were, whatever they were, the Dark Men must really be something.
“I don’t get it. What’re the Dark Men?”
“Prove to us you’re an artist, Mr. Kelly, and you need not know. Fail to demonstrate your worth, and you will most certainly find out.”
Jacobs set the teapot down on the sideboard with a clatter.
Snyder slapped his hand at the table, and the women jumped. “Damnit, boy, don’t you know to be more careful? You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Damn well should be, you clumsy fool,” Snyder snapped. “We could give you to the Dark Men yet. It isn’t as though you’re all that useful.”
“That’s enough, Mr. Snyder,” Pulitzer cautioned, his eyes on Jacobs’ bloodless face. “Jacobs, if you please.”
Jacobs nodded and sank into the shadows next to the sideboard with something approximating relief. He knelt on the carpet and flattened his hands against his thighs, and at once, Jack understood that it was a posture Jacobs had assumed thousands of times before. The boy was waiting for his next order. He wouldn’t move until then. He couldn’t. But he was safe, even if only for the moment. No one but Jack was looking at him now.
Pulitzer returned his attention to Jack. “Now, Mr. Kelly. The proof.”
Jack looked away from Jacobs. “The proof?” he asked.
“Of your artistic aspirations.”
“Yeah. Yes, of course.”
He opened the satchel at his hip and pulled out his sketchbook with sweaty hands. The soft cardboard creased a little as he thumbed it open and flipped through the pages. Most of his work wasn’t beautiful. There were sketches of charwomen leaning against brick walls; of newsboys, like Jack himself had once been, their caps askew and cigarettes hanging from their young lips; of other people’s masterworks, smudged and imperfect. What would they want to see? What might convince them? He couldn’t afford to fuck this up.
“Well?” Snyder rolled his eyes.
“Give the boy a moment,” Medda snapped. She nodded to Jack. “It’s alright, honey. You take your time.”
But he didn’t have time. He could tell. Even as Seitz and Hannah did their best to look reassuring, Pulitzer sniffed impatiently. The only person who wasn’t waiting on him was Jacobs, who stared at the carpet with singular fascination. Something about the boy’s vacant expression made Jack’s chest tight. Would that happen to him, if he failed? Could he be surrounded by the things he’d wanted for so long and not even be able to look up, to see?
But they hadn’t given Jacobs to the Dark Men, he reminded himself. Jack wouldn’t be so lucky. If Jacobs could be counted lucky at all.
Jack swallowed what felt like a ball of hot lead. Embarrassed, he set the sketchbook on the table and slid it toward Pulitzer.
“I—well, y’can take a look there.”
The bodies at the table clustered together, all of them apprising Jack’s work with serious faces. They flipped past the tired faces of people who would never set foot in the museum, past the landmarks Jack had faithfully recreated, past the mostly abstract landscapes of his dreams. Medda and Hannah and Seitz seemed relieved as the pages kept turning; Snyder looked annoyed.
Finally, Pulitzer looked up, the thick glass in his spectacles making his eyes seem even more owlish and strange. “Well, boy. It seems you’re an artist.”
Jack let go a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I am? I mean, yeah, I am. I—”
“Good then. Saves us some trouble.” Pulitzer slapped the sketchbook closed and shoved it unceremoniously across the table. “You’re welcome to stay, so long as you understand the terms. Do you?”
“I—I do.”
Jack heard himself say the words, but he felt oddly separated from his body, even as he reached for his sketchbook. What had he just done?
“You’d better,” Snyder muttered. He leaned back in his chair and snapped his fingers. “Jacobs!”
The boy’s head shot up, so quickly it seemed he’d nearly given himself whiplash. “Yes, sir?”
“Mr. Kelly here will need accommodations.”
“The Hart room, Jacobs,” Pulitzer said. “In the American wing. You’ll take him there. We’re in the middle of a game, after all.”
“Yes, sir,” Jacobs replied.
Jack went to the boy and offered a hand to help him up, but Jacobs ignored him. He rose carefully and smoothed his oversized shirt.
“And Jacobs?” Snyder asked.
“Yes, sir?”
“There will still be consequences for that little infraction earlier. You’ll bring a boiling kettle to my quarters when you’re done.”
Jacobs gulped. “Yes, sir.”
Jacobs took a step forward, turning his head to make sure that Jack was following. The boy was a bit unsteady on his feet, like he might be dizzy or sick, but Jack had a feeling that if he tried to help him, he’d be rebuffed—or even worse, that he might somehow get Jacobs into more trouble.
“You know, I think I could use a constitutional.” Medda watched Jacobs with soft eyes. “I’ll accompany the boys. I haven’t been to the American wing for a while. Jacobs, if you’d escort me.”
Jacobs looked almost grateful, and he extended his elbow for Medda to take. She slipped her plump arm through the bony crook of Jacobs’ arm; Jack didn’t miss the way that she gently held the boy upright.
“You ready, Mr. Kelly?” Medda asked with a smile.
Jack nodded. He was not ready. But he was here now, and he had no choice but to follow their lead.
“Alright, Jacobs. Lead on.”
“We hope you’ll be very happy here, Mr. Kelly,” Pulitzer called after them. “A hearty welcome to you.”
But Jack didn’t feel hearty at all.