Dedication: For all the amazing members of the former Manhattan and Sunrise Lodging Houses whose characters helped Macbeth, Scamp, and April to grow and develop way back when; especially DJ, Irish, Relic, Stretch, Zippy, Spitball, Ershey, and Piker/Echo.

Disclaimer: Newsies and its characters belong to Disney. I am using them without permission. No copyright infringement intended. No money was made. The title of this story and the quotations at the beginning of each chapter are from Sophocles' Antigone; I'm fairly certain the copyright has expired.

A Seat in the Stars

By Flare Higgins

The bride has but to glance

With the lyrical light of her eyes

To win you a seat in the stars

And Aphrodite laughs.

Prologue

Early March

1900

"Ain't really much to establish here. Rent's due promptly on the first o' the month. Spiders an' rats won't bother youse much. Door might stick a little, but just give 'er a good shove..."

"We'll take it." Alexander was already fishing a wad of bills from his pocket. His intent was thwarted by April's hand on his wrist.

"Listen, Mister," she cut in with a winning smile, "I know times are rough, but are these really your usual rates? Wouldn't you consider goin' a little..." She took a step toward the landlord, her smile changing, letting her red dress ride up to expose the briefest flash of bare calf. "...lower?"

The landlord colored and began to look her over. What he saw was promising enough: a seventeen-year-old knockout, her dress cut too low at the top and too high at the bottom for propriety, taking advantage of every endowment her figure possessed. She would have been a beauty in modest attire, with cinnamon skin, cascades of auburn hair, and laughter in her light brown eyes, but her manner made it clear that she was used to doing more than turning heads.

Alex rolled his eyes and yanked his sister behind him as if she were an unruly child, though she was, in fact, a year his senior. "We'll take it," he repeated, shoving his cash into the landlord's face. The man blinked and took it, his eyes still perusing April's neckline.

"Right, well...youse let me know if you need anything." He winked at April and hesitated, glancing at the door of their new apartment. Alex knew what was coming. "The little girl...there somethin' wrong with her?"

"Elizabeth is fourteen years old," Alex replied steadily. "She don't like to talk much, and she don't think much of...well, anyone, really." April snorted in agreement. "But there ain't nothin' wrong with her, 'cept that she suffered a loss a few weeks back. Long as no one bothers her, she won't cause no trouble." In fact, he added silently with a spark of grim amusement, when it comes to the sorta trouble you're worried about, Lizzy's actually the angel of the bunch.

"Well, you just keep an eye on 'er." The older man smirked. "Pair o' sisters like yours, kid, you got your hands full."

"Yeah...they keep me hoppin'." Alex traded glances with April. Chuckling, their new landlord turned to let himself out and leapt back with an exclamation of shock.

She stood right on the threshold, small, scrawny, and white as a ghost, her large black eyes narrowed in a round baby face suggesting a much younger child. Her black hair barely brushed her chin, cut so unevenly that it appeared to have been hacked off with a knife. A black wool skirt swished around her ankles, as wrinkled and neglected as her matching blouse.

"Eavesdroppin' again, Beth?" April observed.

She didn't answer. Her eyes moved coldly over the apartment's three occupants. The landlord shifted uncomfortably and, after a few seconds, shoved his way past her and disappeared down the hallway. It was Elizabeth herself who broke the silence, addressing both of her companions.

"So I'm your sister now?" she snapped.

"Welcome to the fam'ly." Alex ran his fingers through his own black hair and gave her a weak smile. "C'mon, Lizzy, what else was I gonna tell him? That I'm settin' up housekeepin' with my half-sister and the girl who lived down the hall from us back in Brooklyn?"

"Can't be compromisin' my reputation, can we?" The heavy irony behind Beth's words brought the tension in the room to an all-time high. Then Alex cracked a real smile.

"Hey, it might as well be true. Me an' April've spent more time in your apartment than ours these past few years."

A fragile moment passed, and Beth arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, I seem to remember fallin' asleep ev'ry other night with my 'big brother' curled up at the foot of my bed."

Alex blushed beneath his swarthy complexion. "Well, now we ain't even got one bed to sleep on, so why don't we set these bags down and take a look at what we have got?"

The three of them dumped the cloth sacks holding all their worldly possessions, then stood back, shoulder-to-shoulder against the door, and surveyed their new home. It was not an inspiring sight. Bare and unfurnished, there was nothing to draw the eye except a thick layer of dust on the floor, cobwebs festooning the walls, an ancient woodstove, a wilted broom abandoned by the former occupants, and a dead bird in the far right corner, surrounded by entrails and broken glass. It lay beneath a window crisscrossed with strips of plywood; beams of diluted sunlight straggled through to illuminate the grisly scene. The other windows, scratched and cloudy, offered a distorted view of the row of factories across the street, belching columns of black smoke into an overcast sky.

"We need money," Beth announced.

"There's a lonely-lookin' Irishman down the hall," April said brightly.

Alex was not amused. "I was thinkin' I'd go out and work the crowds a little."

"While me an' Beth scrub bird guts off the floor?" April grimaced. "You're a peach."

"Both o' youse go," Elizabeth grumbled. "I'll handle the bird guts."

Alex and April's eyes met over the top of her head. Beth's lips curled into a tight, humorless smile. "And if I see one more o' those looks-"

"Good luck," April chirped, hurrying out into the hall. Alex squeezed Beth's shoulder and followed his sister, closing the door behind him. True to the landlord's warning, it stuck. With a grunt of effort, he rammed his shoulder against it, shoving it into its frame. It was a welcome distraction from the twist of anxiety in his gut at the thought of leaving the younger girl alone.

The door closed with a bang and a shudder, and Elizabeth's stomach swooped. She couldn't be sure whether it was a sensation of dread or relief; probably some twisted combination. Taking in the one-room hovel again, she let out a quick, angry hiss and went for the broom. Her footsteps echoed off the walls. Panic fluttered in her chest.

Relax, she chided herself, her inner monologue taking its usual caustic tone. You're not really alone, are you?

She abandoned the broom and wandered over to the dead bird in the corner. Kneeling, she examined the tiny, mangled corpse. It had been a pigeon. Shards of glass protruded between matted grey feathers, but the downy throat, miraculously unpierced, gleamed emerald and amethyst. It must have been soaring through the air at breakneck speed, flying blind in the dark or the rain, and crashed right through the window.

Glass had slashed the little creature's belly open, spilling a tangle of crimson innards. As Elizabeth bent toward them, the rank smell overwhelmed her. A sick shock ran through her body, and her mind went blank.

She stood in a shabby boardinghouse-unpolished wood, low ceiling beams, patchy yellow light from a scattering of cheap tapers. Row upon row of beds, but only one was occupied; the other boarders had fled as soon as the moans began. Before they escalated into screams. Even Elizabeth backed away as her sister's cries of pain shattered the night. As Adeline's legs and sheets and the surrounding floor drowned in a river of red. As the copper tang of blood enveloped the room like a haze of panic.

The young midwife lost control, crying into her bloodstained apron, praying in a strangled brogue: "For those who suffer, and those who cry this night, give them repose, Lord; a pause in their burdens..."

Beth flew at her, blind with anger, shoving her against the bed, clawing at her face. "Do somethin'! Do somethin'! Help her!"

Then she pushed the sobbing woman aside and knelt beside Ada herself, reached for her sister, clutched at her, till she herself was sticky and red up to her elbows, till the screams faded into a last rasping breath...

"Lizzy?"

Beth started, and the cold, stiff pigeon slipped from her grasp. Dark flakes of dried blood clung to her hands. She looked up to see Alex standing over her, trying in vain to hide the concern in his dark brown eyes. "April sent me back to remind you to lock the door. She figures the Irishman might have dishonorable intentions."

Elizabeth rose slowly, brushing the flakes from her hands. "I'll do that," she growled.

The boy wavered, hands clasped behind his back. "Look, if you wanna come with-"

"Get the hell outta here, Scamp."

He winced at the use of his street name and backed toward the door.

"Don't stay out too late," Beth added, prompted, perhaps, by a faint twinge of guilt. "Storm's comin'."