"Rose Nolan, you stop right there."
I was halfway into the window when Mother Superior's voice stopped me cold. I looked up into the dim room, blood roaring in my ears. Maybe I was just imagining things…
The lights came up. Three figures occupied the plain room. Mother Superior was front and center, eyes flashing with anger, a truly terrifying figure in her stiff Habit. Just behind her left shoulder stood Hades, who had a sickening smirk curling her lips as her arms sat folded across her chest. Then there was Becky, my Becky, who sat rigidly on her bed behind the terrible twosome, eyes trained intently on the shiny wood floor, bony shoulders hunched up by her ears.
I tried to swallow and failed. Mother Superior spat out another command. "Get in this room this instant, young lady." Strangely enough, I kept my mouth shut and did as I was told, fear of what was to come drying up the river of snide comments usually flowing from my lips. I wanted to curl into myself and disappear. This couldn't be happening. How? Why? Hadn't I gone through enough already?
Mother Superior pressed her thin lips together for a moment before beginning to speak, her voice quavering with anger as she tried to keep her cool. "It has been brought to my attention, Ms. Nolan, that you've been leaving the convent at night for…over a month. Is this true?"
Silence. Why was she asking me? Didn't she just catch me in the act? If there was one thing Mother Superior knew, it was her mind games. I dug my hands into my pockets and stared at my feet. "No—" I began in a sad, defeated voice, only to be cut off shrilly.
"You dare to lie to my face? Do I have to remind you that lying is a sin, young lady?" She paused, considering her words. "However considering your behavior lately, I'm sure that hasn't been your only sin. Lying is probably the least of your worries, Ms. Nolan. I know full well what you've been doing. How inconsiderate. How low. You've taken my hospitality, my charity, and my generosity and thrown it back in my face. I am horrified, disappointed, and angry. To say the least." Hades snickered behind Mother Superior's back. Becky did not look up.
I paused for a minute, considering my situation. Finally, I looked up, meeting Mother Superior's angry gaze with clear eyes. "Fine. Fine, it's all true. Whatever you've heard, I've done. Worse, probably." I shrugged and leaned back against the wall, strangely calm, accepting the fact that I was already done for.
"You—you—" Mother Superior sputtered, completely caught off guard by this new attitude. She was obviously not used to people not crumbling under her heavy, accusing stare. A wrinkled finger went out in my direction. "You will report to my office at ten o'clock sharp tomorrow morning, young lady. I will deal with you then, after a good night's rest, prayer, and reflection." She sniffed, glared fleetingly at the two other girls, and swept out of the room like a large black cloud, and in her anger-fueled hurry, Mother Superior forgot to take the stolen key that I still had safe in my pocket.
A dense silence settled over us. No one moved.
"How long did you really think you could keep it from me, Rose?" Hades, of course, elected herself worthy to break the deafening quiet. "I mean, honestly. We share a room, for Christ's Sake. It was only a matter of time. How stupid can you be? Sneaking out of a convent? You were bound to get caught, and I was more than happy to be the one to accelerate that possibility." Her tone was haughty, self-admiring, and it took me only three long strides to glide over to her and slap her hard across the face.
"You. You are worthless. It is horrible, cold people like you that make this world the way it is. You can't be happy unless everyone else is miserable." As I spat out these hard, bitter words, Hades was crumpling to the floor, one hand pressed against her stinging cheek. Now I was on a roll, adrenaline roaring through my veins. "And what about you?" I asked, turning to Becky.
She looked up at me with big, sad eyes. I steeled myself against them. "I thought you were my friend. I even cared about you for awhile. How could I have been so blind? You're just like her." I jabbed my thumb back toward Hades, and Becky winced as if I had struck her, too. "Why did you do this to me, Becky? Why did you betray me like this?"
There was no answer. Becky turned her attention back to the floor, which apparently was vastly more interesting than I was, as big tears began to roll down her cheeks. With a cry of frustration I threw my hands in the air. "I'm not staying here any more. You two can go to hell. And so can Mother Superior." I rushed to my bed, meaning to gather my things for departure, then stopped when I realized that I had nothing to gather. Shaking my head in bewildered disillusionment, I back away toward the window and scrambled out, ripping a long cut into my trousers as I shimmed down the fire escape, empty-handed and crying.
After I left the convent, I didn't go running to Pete—surprisingly enough. I couldn't even stand to be around myself, much less anyone else. I spent weeks racing through the muggy city streets in a desperate attempt to lose the girl I had become, and hating that I could not.
It didn't take many days of scrounging for food and sleeping on hard, unforgiving park benches to make me actually miss the convent, with it's soft beds and hot meals. And Becky. Looking back, I realized that maybe I should have heard her side before exploding…but there was nothing to do about it now. I couldn't have gone back to the convent—for obvious reasons--and even thinking about the Lodging House made my stomach tie itself in knots.
So I remained suspended, going neither forward into the future nor retreated into the comfortable routine of the past. Like a ghost I roamed the streets, eating little, talking less, trying in vain to find a place where this new, grotesque version of Rose Nolan fit.
And then, three long weeks after I had left the convent, Pete found me. Finally, he did what I had wanted him to do—on about a four-year delay.
As it was told to me later on, I was delirious with hunger and dehydration, my legs and arms covered with open wounds—compliments of the rats that I shared an alley with. By pure chance, Pete took a short cut through that very alleyway, saw me, and brought me home. He didn't even recognize it was me until after I was safe in bed in the Lodging House under the watchful care of the kindly old owner. Apparently, when Pete picked me up, he thought I was a little boy, abandoned and starving. He was only half-wrong.
It took me awhile to get my strength back, and even longer for me to start talking again. Even three months after I came to the Lodging House, my eyes still retained an eerie, empty quality, or so Pete told me. I believed him. That was how I felt inside, anyway.
The idyllic, happy life I had expected at the Lodging House was no where to be found that autumn. It seemed as if I had arrived during a tumultuous time. Rumors concerning the mutiny Pete had mentioned in passing to me so many months ago were growing to large to ignore; so much so that Pete, strong, invincible Pete, was a nervous, paranoid mess. His fingers were constantly wrapped around the handle of his favorite knife, eyes shifting over everyone, even his closest friends, suspicious, scared even. I hated to see what it reduced him to, to see the layers stripped away, revealing a soft, fearful inner young man. Mortal and feeling, just like the rest of us. Who would've known?
My installation at the Lodging House was accepted by most of the Brooklyn newsies; a few girls even became sort-of friends, and they told me boys took some notice of me once in awhile, but I was convinced it was for no other reasons than pure curiosity. They were all more like brothers to me, anyway. And besides, knowing Pete, I was probably off-limits to the likes of them. I was settling nicely into my new job as a newsie. Keeping my head down and staying out of trouble, the lifestyle suited me just fine.
And then there was Mix.