I ran, with Rogue at my heels.
A crowd had already gathered, refugees in the road pausing to witness the latest horror.
The witch’s cap, the cone-shaped roof that crowned the turret, with its gilded balls and fancywork attached, had exploded in the driveway. Next to this heap: General, on his side, shot in the head. His leather lead was still hooked to the post; his black eye stared at the sky.
Rogue nosed General’s hoof and looked at me.
A soldier, one of General Funston’s troops, had his rifle still raised, aimed into Rose’s alley. He wasn’t much more than a boy.
“What have you done?” I cried.
The soldier looked at me as if I were a fool. “Can’t you see? His leg, miss, it’s broken.” He pointed at General. “See that bone? Snapped in two. I was only doin’ him a favor.” He reloaded and slung the gun on his shoulder.
There was agreement in the street that the soldier had been quick and correct. I had to hear the story multiple times: how General reared as the roof came toward him. And given that he was tethered too tightly to the post (my fault, my wretched fault), he had nowhere to land but which-way on the fallen boards. He’d broken his foreleg. I could see the white bone.
Next door, the jolt had tossed Dr. Sugarman to the ground. But he gathered himself quickly and ran over, with Pearl following behind him.
“What a shanda,” he bellowed, and without another word he wrapped me in his arms.
I had no idea what a shanda was, but if it meant I could hide in Dr. Sugarman’s embrace, that was all right.
He passed me to his wife. Mrs. Sugarman pulled me to her starched, capacious bosom. There, my cheek found its first maternal nest.
“Poor, poor,” she said. “What else can this day bring? And you, pulling on that old horse as if he were a dog.”
I breathed in the lavender of her underthings and the scratchy wool of her dress; with every exhale Mrs. Sugarman’s flesh pressed into mine. I buried my cheek and squeezed hard, allowing the tears to come, though they wouldn’t. I was dry as dust. Mrs. Sugarman rubbed circles in my back and said it was all right. Which it wasn’t.
Pearl Sugarman had borne seven ginger-haired sons, the last two, the twins Henry and George, having died in the winter of flu. She wiped my dirty face and called me brave. And I didn’t mind it at all.
When grand Mrs. Haas, who lived in a nearby mansion, pulled up alongside and asked, “What happened here?” Mrs. Sugarman made sure her hand was cupped on my ear so I couldn’t hear. Her voice sounded garbled like underwater sea-murmurings. But something indeed was said, of which I caught this much: Mrs. Sugarman said, “She’s gone missing, but on this of all days, no one should judge.”
And when at last she let me go? I ran to Rose’s garden, where glass from a broken window littered the bushes, and a finial from the top of the house had taken a chip out of the marble birdbath. I squatted on my heels and hoped I’d disappear.
No one had to tell me that had I kept General in his stall, he would be alive.
A hummingbird appeared from a nearby magnolia. He dipped his beak in the bath, then hovered not a foot from my face. His black pellet eye fixed on me. I had the vague notion he might attack my nose.
“What do I do?” I asked him.
He darted away.
That was it. No tears. No General. No Morie. No Rose. I climbed to my feet and went inside. I kept climbing till I reached that room in the attic, with its rocking chair and Singer sewing machine. I looked out the ox-eye window that faced the street. Tan wasn’t there.
That afternoon, on the longest day of our lives, I was attempting to right the heavy walnut chest in Rose’s room, doing penance by refusing to eat or rest, when Pie reported that Tan had returned and this time he wasn’t alone.
He’d brought the old man from Chinatown and—God help me—Lifang. They’d been at work in the alley and had covered General with a blanket, so only his back end and hooves peeked out. The two men were breaking apart the witch’s cap with axes. Board by board, they were untangling the mess.
Lifang had been put into service too, carrying scraps of cornice and odd brick, making neat piles. She’d traded her white silks for the black shapeless tunic and pants her father and grandfather wore. Her clothes were too big: the cuffs on the mandarin jacket hung past her fingers. She looked like a doll. Her little black slippers covered in dust, her black braid swishing the tops of her thighs.
Pie pressed her nose to the glass. “What did you say her name is?”
“Lifang. It means beautiful one in Mandarin.”
“She’s every bit that. How old is she?”
“Your age, I’d guess.”
Pie dipped her chin like a sober judge. “I wonder if she has suitors.”
“Hell, Pie, really? She’s mean as a viper.”
My sister seemed unconvinced.
“Look, she can’t sleep in the house. Do you understand?”
Pie shot me a troubled look. “Where would you put her?”
“I wouldn’t put her. Trust me, Lifang is no servant. She thinks she’s better than you and me combined.”
Below, Tan, the old man, and Lifang were fashioning the boards and bricks into a wall that blocked the view from the street into the garden. Soon enough we’d discover why.
I felt sick to my stomach and had to sit on one of the beds.
“V? I’m sorry about General. I know you wanted to help him.”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
Pie nodded and, turning to go, swept her hand across the bureau in what was, at least for now, her room. “Where did her maids disappear to?”
“What’s that? Oh, judging
