The night before the "War of the Ways," as it was called, started, Katie had another dream.
Her and her companion, who was still faceless, were in the kitchen once again, remembering back to the times they had spent in that room. Conversation turned to the day when he had burned Mistress Katherine's shoes in the stove, and the kitchen servants who had been present, which included his mother and the head cook, among others; began to laugh at the memory: the boy rolling on the floor, Mistress Katherine staring at him, aghast, before breaking into her own peals of laughter.
Katie had woken up then, smiling at the recollection. When she had fallen back into dreamland, the atmosphere at the castle had changed vastly.
The boy and his mother were packing their meager amount of belongings into potato sacks, expressions of sheer sadness painting their faces.
Katherine entered the small stone room the boy and his mother shared, stopping dead at their actions.
"What are you doing?!" She asked shrilly, her eyes going wide.
"Leaving, Mistress Katherine," The boy's mother said, her eyes downcast.
"But why?" Katherine, who's hands were becoming cold just from standing in the room asked, her mouth in a perfect "O" of bisbelief.
"Your mother was told that I had stolen from her, told by her most trusted servant. We must leave."
"Mother dismissed you?" Katherine had asked the question, intitial shock sinking in. His mother nodded, her face betraying no emotion.
Katherine looked at the boy. He soundlessly picked up his bag, the muscles in his arms strong from his years of work.
He walked past Katherine, his head down, his eyes on the ground.
"You can't leave!" Katherine heard herself cry out as he reached the front of the house, where a horse and buggy were waiting to take him away.
"I have to," he replied, his voice shaking ever-so-slightly. He cleared his throat, "I have to stay with Mama. It's my duty."
Katherine felt herself losing control. This was her best friend, the boy she had grown up with. It didn't matter to her that he was a servant's son, to her he was as noble and as deserving as any rich boy.
"Oh, you and your blasted honor! You can't go!"
"I told him he could stay," a voice came from behind Katherine. It was his mother. "But he won't. I told him I wanted him to stay, and make money. But he won't."
"I'm staying with you Mama, and that's final," The boy said, throwing his last bag into the back of the buggy.
"Stay. Please." Katherine knew it was undignified for her to plead, and she struggled to regain her composure, failing more miserably than ever before.
"No."
As Katie awoke, she felt her cheeks, wet with the hot tears of grief. Somehow, she felt his pain as well as her own. He didn't want to go, she knew. But his sense of what was right and what was wrong kept him from staying.
Katie didn't sleep for the rest of the night. She knew, somehow, that something terribly horrifying was on the horizon. That as soon as the sun rose, so would trouble.
And trouble rose alright; rose with the speed and vigor of a cheetah through the grasses.
As soon as Katie went dowstairs that morning, dressed in her old brown skirt and a white blouse, her hair tied up in a loose bun; she knew something was wrong. Scots had gotten out of bed before Katie had even considered it, and now she as nowhere to be found.
Her curiosity getting the best of her, Katie stepped outside of the House after a search inside.
It was a little before dawn, and Sunday. As there was no morning Edition, no one should have been awake.
But a group of boys stood outside the Brooklyn Newsboys' Lodging House. From the looks of them, they were newsies, but they didn't stand with the defiant stance of a Brooklynite.
Crossing the cobblestone street, her eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness, Katie noticed that candles flickered in nearly every window in the Lodging House.
As she approached the boys, they turned to stare at her.
"What's going on?" She asked as she reached them.
"Nothin'." One, a short boy with wavy dark heair slicked with hair grease said, a stogie between his teeth.
When the girl didn't seem to have any intention of turning back into the Girls' Lodging House, another sighed heavily, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his hand.
"It's stahted," he said quietly, his voice betraying his sense of defeat.
"What started?" Katie asked, taking a careful step closer to the boy who had spoken, a boy as pale as herself, with blue eyes, and blonde hair the color of straw.
"The war," finished another, one with brown curls and glasses.
"War?" Katie asked, her voice a whisper. Before anyone could reply, Scots came flying out of the Lodging House.
"Oh! Mouse! What're you doin' here eh?" Eyes wide, Scots looked like a frightened child.
"Scots? What;s going on? What 'War'?" Katie grabbed Scots' hands in her own.
Scots stole a glance at the three boys who stood, looking as if they had gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
"One Manhattan boy got soaked." Scots said, her voice trembling.
"Harlem?" Katie asked, afraid to raise her voice.
Scots nodded, "He almost got killed. He's..They had to tak him to a hospital. He might've lost an eye."
At her chilliing words, Katie gasped. She knew these boys were from Manhattan, must know the boy. Must be his friends.
"Quail and Jack are inside with Top and Spot. The boys are going to war."
The blood in Katie's veins froze. Her heart pounded in her chest.
After what could have been several mintues, could have been several hours, of the five standing in the cold, a large group of boys exited the House and piled into the street.
Kaite located Spot in the crowd. He was easy to identify, right in the middle, next to Jack and the two leaders.
Spot's felt like his insides would explode out of him if his heart beat any faster. In three months of being in New York, he was already in a war of revenge.
He saw Katie, standing next to the pretty young woman called Scots. He saw her bite the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit. As his mind, trained quickly in the ways of Brooklyn, screamed at at him to look away and go fight; his heart wanted his body to run to Katie, to pull her close and never let her go.
He had barely said three words to her in three months. Cole Conlon had to be buried as Spot Conlon made his rise to glory. Buried along with everything that came with him.
More than anything, for as long as he could remember, he had wanted to be on top. Wanted to cream of the crop, head of the heap...King of the hill.
Notihng could get in the way, no matter how hard it was.
But now, as the boys started on their way to Harlem, more Manhattan boys coming from the direction of the bridge, Katie made her way over to him.
"Cole! Don't go!"
Never, in all the time they had been there, ever since Spot Conlon was formed, had she referred to him as Cole. Not even to herself.
Scots gasped. Mouse talked about Cole all the time. Cole, the boy she had grown up with, the boy who had to be left behind when she came to New York with Spot. She talked of him, the things he found humorous, the things that hurt him. All the girls knew what Cole like to eat, what made him wrinkle his nose, his expressions. They knew what he said often, knew of the things he and Mouse had done as children. Cole was a young man any young woman would want. He was sweet, gentle, handsome, and a good listener, while still having faults that only seemed to make him more deisrable.
Sometimes his pride got the best of him, clouded his senses, sometimes his sense of duty had gotten Mouse into disciplinary trouble. But all the girls felt like they knew him, felt as though if he had appeared, that they would want to be with him. Mouse never seemed as if she had wanted more than friendship, but she loved Cole with every fiber of her being.
Now, hearing his name brought Scots flying back to reality from the daze she had been in since hearing the news of the attack.
"Cole! Cole please!" Mouse's voice came again, and Scots turned hither and thither, trying to find who she was speaking to.
But Mouse only ran to Spot.
A fresh wave of shock rocked Scots' mind. Cole was Spot Conlon. But Cole was nothing like Spot. But...Everything Mouse had said about his pride overruling all else at all costs made it all make sense.
Spot looked at Katie, his amazing eyes serious. He licked his lips.
The group of newsboys fell silent as Top stopped beside Spot, his dark eyes drilling into her, a black cane wth a glossy gold-tip held in his hand. Katie didn't want to think of the hell he planned to unleash with that heavy, lethal tip.
Any other girl would have shrunken away from his burning glare, but Katie barely looked in his direction.
"Cole. Please. You'll get hurt," She begged, her colorless eyes uncharacteristically wet.
"I have ta go," He spoke quitely, hoping no one would hear, but in the dead silence, it was impossbile to cover, "It's paht a my duty."
"Oh, you and your blasted honor!" Katie heard herself yell the words before she had the time to recognize them. When she did, she felt her heart stop. She swallowed heavily, attempting to swallow the tears she felt in her eyes as well, to no avail.
Without responing, Spot squeezed her arm and turned away. In an instant, he was gone, along with the other boys, on his way to Harlem to fight with his fists, alongside his leader and Manhattan.
And all for the revenge of a bot he had never met.
And the war raged on. The boys didn't come home all that day, and no newsgirl left behind dared to sell. They sat in the Brooklyn Lodging House, waiting. Waiting to nurse the wounded, waiting to make the fatally inujred boys comfortable, waiting for anything and anyone they knew.
But they waited in vain, for the battle went on, continuing past dusk and into the night. No newsgirl had any doubt that if the bulls knew, they didn't care; but most likely, the boys were fighting privately. Privately and viciously.
Images of teenage boys ripping each other apart with claws, fists, and anything else they could find to use as weaponry filled their minds, making them shudder involuntarily.
When the grandfather clock in the lobby struck three, and there was still no news form the boys, Katie stopped her pacing in front of the window.
Sitting on a frayed and patched couch next to Scots, who looked as though someone had thrown her over a broom.
After long, grueling minutes where the two girls merely sat and stared into space, Mugger entered the common room, stretching.
"I put Carrot to bed," she said, her voice dull and hollow. Her short, frizzy curls stuck to her sweaty, stout face as she yawned.
"Mmmm," was all Scots said in reply. She took a quick breath and turned to Katie, her mouth open as if to speak, but the light quickly left her eys and she sighed, closing her mouth.
"Just ask," Katie said, fiddling with the edge of the pillow across her torso.
"Spot is your Cole?" Scots asked, hey honey eyes innocent in their inquiry.
Katie sighed shakily. All memory of her precious Cole made her think of the cold young man he had become; making her want to bury her face in her hands and bawl out the tears of a young woman who has lost a love she never had.
"Yes." She had meant to be firm, courageous, but her one word came out breathy and as quiet as that falling snow.
But they heard; Mugger and Scots. And after a quick glance at oneanother, the topic was dropped and the three girls went back to their thoughtful, worried brooding.
Katie felt herself dropping into dreamland, and dreamland was the last place she wanted to be now, what with this private, unknown war going on in Harlem.
But the Sandman is an irresistable force, and Katie knew that the myths were true. He gave you dreams alright. Yet these dreams haunted her, for she never knew when they would turn from humorous and playful to forboding and dangerous.
As she slipped into the clutches of sleep, she vaguely remembered wondering what would come of this dream.
Her and her companion, who was still faceless, were in the kitchen once again, remembering back to the times they had spent in that room. Conversation turned to the day when he had burned Mistress Katherine's shoes in the stove, and the kitchen servants who had been present, which included his mother and the head cook, among others; began to laugh at the memory: the boy rolling on the floor, Mistress Katherine staring at him, aghast, before breaking into her own peals of laughter.
Katie had woken up then, smiling at the recollection. When she had fallen back into dreamland, the atmosphere at the castle had changed vastly.
The boy and his mother were packing their meager amount of belongings into potato sacks, expressions of sheer sadness painting their faces.
Katherine entered the small stone room the boy and his mother shared, stopping dead at their actions.
"What are you doing?!" She asked shrilly, her eyes going wide.
"Leaving, Mistress Katherine," The boy's mother said, her eyes downcast.
"But why?" Katherine, who's hands were becoming cold just from standing in the room asked, her mouth in a perfect "O" of bisbelief.
"Your mother was told that I had stolen from her, told by her most trusted servant. We must leave."
"Mother dismissed you?" Katherine had asked the question, intitial shock sinking in. His mother nodded, her face betraying no emotion.
Katherine looked at the boy. He soundlessly picked up his bag, the muscles in his arms strong from his years of work.
He walked past Katherine, his head down, his eyes on the ground.
"You can't leave!" Katherine heard herself cry out as he reached the front of the house, where a horse and buggy were waiting to take him away.
"I have to," he replied, his voice shaking ever-so-slightly. He cleared his throat, "I have to stay with Mama. It's my duty."
Katherine felt herself losing control. This was her best friend, the boy she had grown up with. It didn't matter to her that he was a servant's son, to her he was as noble and as deserving as any rich boy.
"Oh, you and your blasted honor! You can't go!"
"I told him he could stay," a voice came from behind Katherine. It was his mother. "But he won't. I told him I wanted him to stay, and make money. But he won't."
"I'm staying with you Mama, and that's final," The boy said, throwing his last bag into the back of the buggy.
"Stay. Please." Katherine knew it was undignified for her to plead, and she struggled to regain her composure, failing more miserably than ever before.
"No."
As Katie awoke, she felt her cheeks, wet with the hot tears of grief. Somehow, she felt his pain as well as her own. He didn't want to go, she knew. But his sense of what was right and what was wrong kept him from staying.
Katie didn't sleep for the rest of the night. She knew, somehow, that something terribly horrifying was on the horizon. That as soon as the sun rose, so would trouble.
And trouble rose alright; rose with the speed and vigor of a cheetah through the grasses.
As soon as Katie went dowstairs that morning, dressed in her old brown skirt and a white blouse, her hair tied up in a loose bun; she knew something was wrong. Scots had gotten out of bed before Katie had even considered it, and now she as nowhere to be found.
Her curiosity getting the best of her, Katie stepped outside of the House after a search inside.
It was a little before dawn, and Sunday. As there was no morning Edition, no one should have been awake.
But a group of boys stood outside the Brooklyn Newsboys' Lodging House. From the looks of them, they were newsies, but they didn't stand with the defiant stance of a Brooklynite.
Crossing the cobblestone street, her eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness, Katie noticed that candles flickered in nearly every window in the Lodging House.
As she approached the boys, they turned to stare at her.
"What's going on?" She asked as she reached them.
"Nothin'." One, a short boy with wavy dark heair slicked with hair grease said, a stogie between his teeth.
When the girl didn't seem to have any intention of turning back into the Girls' Lodging House, another sighed heavily, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his hand.
"It's stahted," he said quietly, his voice betraying his sense of defeat.
"What started?" Katie asked, taking a careful step closer to the boy who had spoken, a boy as pale as herself, with blue eyes, and blonde hair the color of straw.
"The war," finished another, one with brown curls and glasses.
"War?" Katie asked, her voice a whisper. Before anyone could reply, Scots came flying out of the Lodging House.
"Oh! Mouse! What're you doin' here eh?" Eyes wide, Scots looked like a frightened child.
"Scots? What;s going on? What 'War'?" Katie grabbed Scots' hands in her own.
Scots stole a glance at the three boys who stood, looking as if they had gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
"One Manhattan boy got soaked." Scots said, her voice trembling.
"Harlem?" Katie asked, afraid to raise her voice.
Scots nodded, "He almost got killed. He's..They had to tak him to a hospital. He might've lost an eye."
At her chilliing words, Katie gasped. She knew these boys were from Manhattan, must know the boy. Must be his friends.
"Quail and Jack are inside with Top and Spot. The boys are going to war."
The blood in Katie's veins froze. Her heart pounded in her chest.
After what could have been several mintues, could have been several hours, of the five standing in the cold, a large group of boys exited the House and piled into the street.
Kaite located Spot in the crowd. He was easy to identify, right in the middle, next to Jack and the two leaders.
Spot's felt like his insides would explode out of him if his heart beat any faster. In three months of being in New York, he was already in a war of revenge.
He saw Katie, standing next to the pretty young woman called Scots. He saw her bite the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit. As his mind, trained quickly in the ways of Brooklyn, screamed at at him to look away and go fight; his heart wanted his body to run to Katie, to pull her close and never let her go.
He had barely said three words to her in three months. Cole Conlon had to be buried as Spot Conlon made his rise to glory. Buried along with everything that came with him.
More than anything, for as long as he could remember, he had wanted to be on top. Wanted to cream of the crop, head of the heap...King of the hill.
Notihng could get in the way, no matter how hard it was.
But now, as the boys started on their way to Harlem, more Manhattan boys coming from the direction of the bridge, Katie made her way over to him.
"Cole! Don't go!"
Never, in all the time they had been there, ever since Spot Conlon was formed, had she referred to him as Cole. Not even to herself.
Scots gasped. Mouse talked about Cole all the time. Cole, the boy she had grown up with, the boy who had to be left behind when she came to New York with Spot. She talked of him, the things he found humorous, the things that hurt him. All the girls knew what Cole like to eat, what made him wrinkle his nose, his expressions. They knew what he said often, knew of the things he and Mouse had done as children. Cole was a young man any young woman would want. He was sweet, gentle, handsome, and a good listener, while still having faults that only seemed to make him more deisrable.
Sometimes his pride got the best of him, clouded his senses, sometimes his sense of duty had gotten Mouse into disciplinary trouble. But all the girls felt like they knew him, felt as though if he had appeared, that they would want to be with him. Mouse never seemed as if she had wanted more than friendship, but she loved Cole with every fiber of her being.
Now, hearing his name brought Scots flying back to reality from the daze she had been in since hearing the news of the attack.
"Cole! Cole please!" Mouse's voice came again, and Scots turned hither and thither, trying to find who she was speaking to.
But Mouse only ran to Spot.
A fresh wave of shock rocked Scots' mind. Cole was Spot Conlon. But Cole was nothing like Spot. But...Everything Mouse had said about his pride overruling all else at all costs made it all make sense.
Spot looked at Katie, his amazing eyes serious. He licked his lips.
The group of newsboys fell silent as Top stopped beside Spot, his dark eyes drilling into her, a black cane wth a glossy gold-tip held in his hand. Katie didn't want to think of the hell he planned to unleash with that heavy, lethal tip.
Any other girl would have shrunken away from his burning glare, but Katie barely looked in his direction.
"Cole. Please. You'll get hurt," She begged, her colorless eyes uncharacteristically wet.
"I have ta go," He spoke quitely, hoping no one would hear, but in the dead silence, it was impossbile to cover, "It's paht a my duty."
"Oh, you and your blasted honor!" Katie heard herself yell the words before she had the time to recognize them. When she did, she felt her heart stop. She swallowed heavily, attempting to swallow the tears she felt in her eyes as well, to no avail.
Without responing, Spot squeezed her arm and turned away. In an instant, he was gone, along with the other boys, on his way to Harlem to fight with his fists, alongside his leader and Manhattan.
And all for the revenge of a bot he had never met.
And the war raged on. The boys didn't come home all that day, and no newsgirl left behind dared to sell. They sat in the Brooklyn Lodging House, waiting. Waiting to nurse the wounded, waiting to make the fatally inujred boys comfortable, waiting for anything and anyone they knew.
But they waited in vain, for the battle went on, continuing past dusk and into the night. No newsgirl had any doubt that if the bulls knew, they didn't care; but most likely, the boys were fighting privately. Privately and viciously.
Images of teenage boys ripping each other apart with claws, fists, and anything else they could find to use as weaponry filled their minds, making them shudder involuntarily.
When the grandfather clock in the lobby struck three, and there was still no news form the boys, Katie stopped her pacing in front of the window.
Sitting on a frayed and patched couch next to Scots, who looked as though someone had thrown her over a broom.
After long, grueling minutes where the two girls merely sat and stared into space, Mugger entered the common room, stretching.
"I put Carrot to bed," she said, her voice dull and hollow. Her short, frizzy curls stuck to her sweaty, stout face as she yawned.
"Mmmm," was all Scots said in reply. She took a quick breath and turned to Katie, her mouth open as if to speak, but the light quickly left her eys and she sighed, closing her mouth.
"Just ask," Katie said, fiddling with the edge of the pillow across her torso.
"Spot is your Cole?" Scots asked, hey honey eyes innocent in their inquiry.
Katie sighed shakily. All memory of her precious Cole made her think of the cold young man he had become; making her want to bury her face in her hands and bawl out the tears of a young woman who has lost a love she never had.
"Yes." She had meant to be firm, courageous, but her one word came out breathy and as quiet as that falling snow.
But they heard; Mugger and Scots. And after a quick glance at oneanother, the topic was dropped and the three girls went back to their thoughtful, worried brooding.
Katie felt herself dropping into dreamland, and dreamland was the last place she wanted to be now, what with this private, unknown war going on in Harlem.
But the Sandman is an irresistable force, and Katie knew that the myths were true. He gave you dreams alright. Yet these dreams haunted her, for she never knew when they would turn from humorous and playful to forboding and dangerous.
As she slipped into the clutches of sleep, she vaguely remembered wondering what would come of this dream.