stairs, which servants and children are never supposed to use.
Between the second and the ground floors, two staircases sweep down the walls of a round foyer, forming a kind of harp when you look at them from below. He takes the nearest, descending two steps at a time, and dashes across the marble-floored entry to the front door.
He intends to run into the street, flag down vehicles, bring traffic to a stop, look for a police cruiser. He’ll tell them that terrorists have broken into Theron Hall and taken everyone hostage, his parents and brother and the entire staff. Terrorists with guns, and they’ve taken everyone to the basement. Crispin will make so much commotion that the police will have to send in a SWAT team like they always do on TV, and when that starts to happen, nobody will dare do anything to Harley. They won’t dare.
When he yanks open the front door, he discovers a uniformed policeman standing on the doorstep, not facing Crispin as if about to ring the bell, but facing the street as if guarding the house. He is a big man, and when he turns to the boy, he’s got a billy club in one hand. His face is broad and hard and, in the stoop light, red with anger.
“You should be in bed, piglet.”
Crispin lets go of the door, backs away as it swings shut. The policeman can be seen in silhouette through the beveled and lightly frosted glass in the top half of the door, but he does not attempt to come inside.
Crispin’s heart is knocking hard against his breastbone, as if it wants to break out of him.
He sprints through the house, into the deserted kitchen. This should be a busy place right now, because dinner is always served to Clarette and Giles promptly at eight o’clock. Nothing simmers on the stove, and the ovens are off.
A cop stands also on the back doorstep. In fact, it seems to be the same officer or his twin, facing the door this time, billy club in his right hand, rapping it menacingly into the open palm of his left.
“I have my assignment, piglet. You’ll find me at every door you open.”
15
Sunday, the fourth of December, on the evening of Crispin’s thirteenth birthday …
Snow fell through the previous night and all morning, but in the afternoon the storm relented.
They sit across from each other in the same booth in Eleanor’s, though this time Harley lies on Amity’s bench, his head in her lap. Dinner is done, and the dog is dozing.
She sings the birthday song softly, sweetly. It’s corny, but he doesn’t stop her. Her singing voice is lovely.
After the song, she says, “Tell me again about the cards.”
“I told you the first time I was here. There’s not much to it, really.”
“I want to understand better.”
“There’s no understanding it.”
“Try me.”
Her face is lovely in the candlelight. There is nothing of Nanny Sayo in this girl and never could be. Nothing of Clarette, either, or of Proserpina.
Crispin taps the deck, which lies on the table, in its box. “The shop sold magic tricks and games. The old man, the owner, said dogs were welcome.”
“This was the night of the day you first met the dog.”
“Yeah. I hadn’t named him yet. After I bought the cards, me and Harley sneaked down to the shop’s basement to stay the night.”
“The owner didn’t know you were down there.”
“Nope. He closed us in when he closed the shop.”
“Why did you buy the cards?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed …”
“What?”
“Something I needed to do. That was my second day on the run, so the feast of the archangels … that was still so fresh with me. Middle of the night, I woke up from a bad dream about my brother, woke up saying his name. That’s when I named the dog Harley. When and why.”
The sleeping dog snores softly in Amity’s lap.
“That’s when you opened the deck the first time,” she presses, for she knows this story well.
“We had a light down there in the storeroom. The cards were something to do, to take my mind off … whatever. It was a brand-new pack. I know it had to be new because I broke the seal, stripped off the cellophane.”
He opens the box now, removes the cards, but leaves them stacked facedown.
“I shuffled them,” he remembers, “I don’t know … maybe five or six times. I was nine, the only card game I could play was five-hundred rummy, but I couldn’t even do that because I didn’t have anyone to play with but the dog.”
“So you just dealt two hands faceup, so you could play against yourself.”
“Stupid kid idea, playing against yourself. Anyway, the first four cards I deal are the sixes.”
The memory still disturbs him, and he pauses.
She can read him better than anyone has. She gives him time, but then nudges with three words: “Four moldy sixes.”
“A brand-new deck, but the sixes are dirty, creased, and moldy.”
“Like the sixes on the warehouse floor.”
“Exactly like. There were other cards scattered on the warehouse floor when the dog led me in there to the dead junkie and his money, but the sixes were all together, faceup.”
“All together when you went in.”
“Yeah. But when we came out, only one six was on the floor. All the other cards seemed to be scattered where they had been, but three of the sixes were missing.”
“Someone took them.”
“No one was there. And who would want some moldy old cards?”
In the basement storeroom of the magic-and-game shop, he had sat staring at the filthy cards for a long time, afraid to touch them.
“What I finally did was go through the rest of the deck to make sure there wasn’t a completely different set of sixes, clean ones, but there wasn’t.”
“And none of the other cards were dirty or creased, or moldy.”
“None,” he confirms. “I just didn’t want to touch those four, like there was a curse on them or something. But Harley kept sniffing them and looking at me. So I decided if they didn’t scare him, they shouldn’t scare me.”
Harley sighs and shudders, still asleep but evidently dreaming of something that pleases him.
“I put the moldy sixes on top of the deck and reached for the box to stow them away. But Harley slaps one paw down hard on the box before I can pick it up.”
“Good old Harley.”
“He gives me this stare that seems to say,
“The hairs were up on the back of your neck.”
“They were,” Crispin agrees, “but in a kind of good way. I don’t know what the dog wants me to do, so I shuffle several times and deal out four cards again.”
“The four sixes, but not the moldy ones.”
“You might as well tell it, since you know it so well.”
“I’d love to tell it if I knew anyone to trust with the story. But I like to hear you tell it.”
“With your editorial assistance.”
