Note From Author: Woo-hoo! I am actually writing and updating and I am so
proud of myself because I never update! I was just sitting here and
thinking what a complicated story this will be to write, alas, I shall
worry about that when I get to it. Thank you to the people who review, you
make my day! Spot has his first glimpse of what his future holds (hint,
hint: I try to do foreshadowing in my writing.) So, without any further
ado...
CHAPTER FIVE
As Benji Conlon stood there, watching the woman garbed in the frilly costume sweeping the stage through the ropes, he felt another rip of pain surge from his wrist.
"Ah!" he groaned inaudibly, his right hand cradling his left wrist. He knew it was broken for it had swelled and turned a ghastly purple and black color. He knew something had to be done or else he was going to amputate his damn hand to rid of the pain.
It was either get Luxy and scram, but that meant going out into the rain and most likely going home and that didn't sound too keen, or clear his throat, make their appearance known and hope this lady would be nice and maybe have something for his wrist and not just shoo them out of the place with her broom.
He was in favor of the second.
"L-u-x," he said barely above a whisper, his eyes on the woman with the broom.
When she didn't respond, he turned to her and saw that she was off in Never- Never-Land-staring without blinking at something in the seats.
Trying to erase the frustration that was slowly building in him, he took his right elbow and gently nudged her in the side. Yet, that frustration exploded as Luxy elicited an audible gasp and jumped, oh, about five feet in the air.
Benji's jaw fell as his gaze fell once again to the lady, who indeed had heard the noise.
He saw Luxy's wide and stunned eyes bore into his, yet he only stepped backwards, placing a hand to his head in disgust.
"Who's there?" he heard the woman ask.
His eyes narrowed, Benji shifted his gaze to Luxy who was still standing in the direct line of sight, like an idiot.
"Who's there?" She had taken a few steps closer to the wing. All she had to do was pull back the ropes and she would first see Luxy, and then him.
His eyes still on Luxy, she stumbled back and her eyes met his, their gazes interlocking, her hand rising to her mouth.
Benji knew it wasn't her fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. He had prepared to clear his throat to get the woman's attention; she had only gasped and still got the woman's attention. Yet, this day had been utterly heinous: his father's death threat rang in his ears, freezing to death from being in the rain and only wearing trousers, his eye that felt like it was on fire, and his goddamn broken wrist. Alas, he needed someone to place the blame on, and right now, there was the perfect one to place it on: standing in the center of the left wing: raven hair hanging limp down her back, clad in his only extra shirt, the collar shirt which rode up to show her thin legs and undergarments, electric blue eyes wide, and face full of absolute fear.
It was when Benji prepared to utter curses at Luxy that his father saved only for his mother, the ropes and pulleys were pulled back to reveal the surprised face of the woman, her mouth dropping.
The next few moments were only a blur to him. His stare still transfixed on the woman, out of the corner of his eye he saw Luxy turn on her heels and disappear. He whipped his head in her direction just in time to see her dart out of the door that lead to the hallway. "LUXY!"
He was frozen to the spot. He couldn't will his legs to pick up so he could race after Luxy. He was caught. Caught, as the woman pushed past the ropes and stood in front of him. "What are you doing here? Out out, get out!" she cried, pushing the broom away from her, trying to swat Benji.
Benji was still in a state of shock, as his legs were forced to move him backwards.
"Out! Out!" she hissed, bringing the broom to his feet. All the while his gaze was fixed on the woman's, Benji did not see this action. He realized it all too late as he took a step backwards, his footing getting caught in the broom. It happened in one slow, chain reaction. First his right foot slipped from underneath him, then his left leg buckled, and then he was in the air for a splice of a second on his back. It occurred all so quickly that he just knew he had to protect his head, so not thinking at all, he spread his left hand, letting it take all the force.
His palm did not touch the floor in one sweet rolling motion, quite the contrary it hit the floor with a clean, even thud, followed by the cracking of the broken bone and then the remainder of his body.
And then the pain came.
The pain Benjamin Conlon felt at that moment was more atrocious than anything he had encountered in his entire life span. More atrocious than his father's harsh, alcohol-tainted cries. More atrocious than the reality that the day he was going to have to work in the factory was dawning quite soon. More atrocious than his mother's screams of help. And even more atrocious than the sound of the air being sliced by the cane when his father was drunk and angry and going to beat the living soul out of him.
His breath coming out in gasps and his hearing now void to the woman's shouts, he raised his head from the ground and slowly picked up his wrist. The pain was so sharp, so intense, that it caused Benji to black out.
* Benji knew he was dreaming. Of course, he was unconscious at the time, yet somehow he knew he was dreaming.
In his dream, he was under the Sentinel in The Park with Julie, the dear beautiful Julie that had up and run away the previous summer with David Something-Or-Other. Or, at least he thought it was he and Julie.
He was viewing the dream from a first person perspective. It was he that was with his back against the trunk of the old elm, holding Julie. As he looked out at the surrounding, he found the climate was quite peculiar. The sun was a golden orb hovering high and clear in the sky, yet pure white snow fell all around.
Yet, he felt neither warm nor cool. He only felt Julie's grip tighten around his torso. His gaze flickered down to her. Julie, beautiful Julie with her head resting on his shoulder and her raven hair glitter-shot blue in the sunlight or the snowlight or whatever you would dare call it.
Without force, he was surprised when he opened his mouth and said, "Why won't you come with me?"
And Julie tilted her head up and looked at him.yet, it wasn't Julie. There was something different in the eyes and the nose. "Julie" blinked, and the light caught her fiery blue eyes, eyes that were familiar.
Then a delirious notion struck him. Perhaps it was not Julie next to him. Perhaps it was.Luxy.only older somehow.
He then looked down at his body. His hands, his arms, his legs. All were bigger, wider, longer.
Luxy and I, older? His subconscious questioned.
As he tried to ponder this, he suddenly was interrupted by his voice, "Why won't you come?"
Julie, or Luxy, or whoever the hell she was, did not answer, only rose to her feet. As she did so, the snow and the sun faded, leaving the atmosphere black as raven feathers. She stood, and started to wave her hands up and down.
Benji felt a cluster of dreamy feelings clash within him as the scene dimmed, blurred, as he suddenly felt reality take its hold on him once more.
The dream faded, and the fantastic pain hit him immediately once more. Inhaling deeply, his eyes fluttered open and he quickly sat up. When his sight readjusted, he realized that he was still in the left wing of the theatre, the woman waving her hands wildly in front of his face.
"Alright, alright!" he hissed, swatting the woman's hands away.
The woman, her face deathly pale under the heavy make-up, leaned back onto her knees. "You fainted."
"Sure did," another voice murmured in agreement.
Benji's shifted his gaze to see a boy of thirteen standing over him, pushing back his dingy brown hair from his face.
He sucked in a breath, trying to stifle the pain radiating from his wrist. "I'se didn't faint."
"Then what else would you call it?" the woman shrilly asked.
He narrowed his eyes. "I'se call it blackin' out from pain from an already broken wrist cause some lady tripped ya wit a broom."
The woman raised an eyebrow, yet said no more and only stood up, lending a hand to Benji, pulling him to his feet. "Then maybe you wouldn't be in this pain right now if you wouldn't have come sneaking into private property."
He grimaced in her direction, running his right hand through his brown hair, slicking it. "Well, I'se so sorry Miss, but I wouldn't have snuck into ya joint if me and me friend hadn't been runnin' from me faddah who wants to kill us and while we were runnin' it started to rain. Me eye hurt like hell, me hand hurt like hell, me faddah wanted to kill me, and I wasn't gonna add to that pile pneumonia from the goddamn rain. Now if ya 'scuse me, I will go cause me eye still hurts like hell, me hand still hurts like hell, and me faddah still wants to kill me, and I have to find my friend."
With that, he turned on his heels and walked towards the door that would lead him to the well-lit hallway. Then he would have to go out into the searing cold rain and hunt for Luxy, moronic Luxy who had fled like the Devil himself was on her heels. That being if he didn't black out again from the pain.
His hand on the knob of the door, he was about to turn it when the woman's voice stopped him. "I say, but I've never seen one like you. I have a right mind to call the police on you, breaking and entering and then acting as though it is my fault that I am being so harsh on you. I should, but I won't. Turn around will you?"
Slowly, the woman's words echoing through his brain, he turned around, his ice blue eyes locked on hers.
She had already covered the distance that separated them, and was now standing in front of him. "Let me see your wrist."
Of course, Benji knew he shouldn't have given his wrist to her. He was in a miserable mood and he did not want to give her the satisfaction that she could coerce him in to doing what she commanded.
Yet, he did.
The woman gently took it in her grasp, giving it the once over. Locking with his eyes, she said, "Indeed, it is broken. What's your name?"
And without skipping a beat, Benji replied, "Ben. Ben Conlon."
"Well, Ben Conlon," she replied, dropping his wrist. "I am Medda Larkin, the Swedish Meadow Lark. And you are in the left wing of my Irving Hall."
Benji sighed. "Nice joint. Well, it's been a peach meetin' ya, Medda Larkin, the Swedish Meadow Lark but I have to go find me friend." He then turned as he heard the boy's words behind him, "Wait! Ya have to find ya friend? I have to go anyway and sell me papes. I could keep ya company."
Benji stopped and arched his head to face the boy. "Ya papes?"
The boy nodded, striding over to Benji. "Yeah, ya know, me papes. Me newspapers."
Benji raised an eyebrow. "Ya sell newspapers?"
The boy exchanged glances with Medda. "Yeah," he slowly said, "I'se a newsie. Never heard of one?"
Benji snorted as he took a step back. "Ya mean ya don't woik in the factory?"
After yet another exchange of curious looks, the boy replied "N..no. I don't woik in no factory. Never hoid of this factory ya tawkin' about. It was either live in the orphanage or be a newsie. I chose bein' a newsie."
Although this boy with the odd cowboy hat draped around his neck did not realize it, he had profoundly changed Benjamin Conlon. So one didn't have to slave away in the factory? He could be a newsie? He could.
"AH!" His thoughts were derailed when a surge of intense pain found its way up his arm.
"Ya wrist?" the boy asked.
Benji nodded, gritting his teeth.
"Here," the boy said, untying a strip of red cloth from about his neck. "It's me lucky bandanna. Me pa gave it to me. Maybe it'll keep ya hand straight or somethin'."
Benji watched in awe as the boy carefully wound the bandanna about his wrist and between his fingers, finishing by knotting it tightly.
"Bettah?" he asked, stepping back.
Benji nodded, rubbing his wrist.
"Well, isn't that grand, now? It always helps to have Jack around," Medda piped in.
Benji's eyes immediately flickered to the boy. "Ya name is Jack?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "Jack. Jack Kelly."
A wave of gratefulness washed over Benji. Nobody save Luxy had ever given a damn about him before. It was alien to him that others could actually be compassionate. "Th.thanks."
"Hey, no problem!" Jack Kelly beamed, crouching to the ground and hoisting a stack of newspapers onto his shoulder. "Well, Medda, thanks for lettin' me visit ya, but I better be goin'."
"Anytime, Jack," Medda replied, then turning to Benji said, "And you are welcome here anytime you like. And when you find your little friend, too."
Benji only stood dumbfounded as Jack turned to him and cried, "Well, Ben, are ya comin' or not? Ya friend could be anywhere in Manhattan!"
He muttered a stricken farewell to the woman as he followed Jack out the left wing and into the hallway, where Jack began to whistle a tune. "Now, Ben, this friend we lookin' for, is she ya goil?"
Benji let out a choke as he peered incredulously at Jack. "Ya mean Lux?"
Jack shrugged, tugging open the door and striding into the dark room. "Yeah, if that's what her name is."
Benji had to utter a laugh as he shut the door behind him, the darkness impairing his vision. "Luxy? Nah, she's only me best friend. Only thing I have feelin's for on the face of the oith."
Jack raised an eyebrow as they stepped out into the bright, blinding sunlight. "Hey, it stopped rainin'. Whaddya know!"
Benji matched Jack's long strides. "Jist askin', that's all. Poitty goil. Though I reckon that she's poittier when she isn't wearin' a look of sheer fear on her face."
Benji remained silent, pondering this statement. "Never really noticed, ya know?"
Jack raised his eyes, the sunlight blinding them. "So, about this factory ya were tawkin' about."
"The factory," Benji echoed grimly. "It's where I thought all the guys had to go and woik when they toin thirteen."
Jack released a chuckle. "Well, I'se toined thirteen last month and they never sent me to no factory. Or maybe it's jist cause they don't want no streetrats like us woikin' for them. Anyhow, it don't make no difference to me. Won't be a newsie forever. Will be a cowboy soon."
Benji's eye caught the cowboy hat. "A cowboy? How can ya? Don't they live in Texas?"
Jack's grin widened. "Don't know about no cowboys in Texas. I'se only know that they have cowboys in Santa Fe. Santa Fe, yup, that's where me ma and pa are. They out buyin' land there and when they do they'se gonna send for me and then I can be a real cowboy! Yee-haw!" He then leaped in the air and clicked his heels.
Benji couldn't help but smile. "Wish I could be a cowboy." Then a thought occurred to him that made him smack himself on the forehead from stupidity. "Ah, dammit! I'se supposed to be lookin' for Lux! I wonder where in hell she can be?"
Jack halted and slapped Benji on the back. "Hey, don't worry! I'se sure you'se gonna find her. Anyhow, I better be goin'. See that crowd over there, there's a lot of customers who just might be int'rested in buyin' a pape."
Benji fell in posture and sighed. "Jesus, I'se gonna have to go look for her and then if I find her."
Jack's grin fell as he placed a hand on Benji's shoulder. "Hey, Ben, give yaself a break. Look for her later. Here, I know a little diner jist a few blocks from here called Tibby's. They serve real good food. Take a load off there for a while."
Benji's hands went for either pocket and he pulled them out. Empty.
Yet, Jack only smiled as his free hand went to his pocket and he fished around, at last pulling out a few coins. "Here, I got some extra money. Take it and go to the diner. Or maybe ya should git yaself a shirt."
Spot's eyes glinted. "Hey, I'se have a shirt! It's jist that I'se was in a rush this mornin'."
"Hey, it's alright!" Jack laughed. "I'se understand. Here, take the money. Go to Tibby's and eat some food. Hey, maybe ya goil will be there."
Reluctantly, Benji took the money. "Thanks, Jack."
"Hey, it's no problem," he replied, their gazes locking. A smile crept over his face. "Pardon me for sayin', but that's some spot ya got there on ya eye!"
Benji's eyes widened as his hand went to his right eye. In all of it, he had forgotten the shiner that Luxy had given him. "Is it that bad?"
Jack released a chuckle as he picked up his heels. "Hey, it suits ya, Spot!"
Benji watched as Jack Kelly disappeared into the mass of pedestrians, the faint shouting of the headlines ringing in his ears. As he stood there, he knew not at all what Jack Kelly's parting statement would due for him later in life.
*** Each raindrop that fell from the black-gray swirled morning sky was like an hour gone by for Luxy Listin. She had no iota of time as she stood, back facing the peeling brick wall of the alley, mouth gaping, raven hair limp down her back and Benji's white-collar shirt plastered to her petite body.
For the life of her, she couldn't recall how many times she had shrieked his name, only to have the words die, pounded weakly into the ground by the harsh, brutal raindrops, only to be snubbed. She couldn't tell if bitter tears slid down her cheeks, or if it was the stinging rain.
She felt dizzy and weak and sick from the rain and tears and not having Benji by her side. She screamed and scolded herself for being so damn hasty and jumping the gun and running out of that building without checking and making sure that Benji was behind her.
Luxy wasn't worried about her own little self and if she was lost or going to catch pnemonia; on the contrary, she almost felt like doubling over from the waves of nausea that washed over her over the thoughts that clouded her head about what could have possibly happened to Benji. Poor Benji, with a broken wrist and black eye. The Colorful Lady could have called the bulls on him, they could have arrested him, and Oh Christ, they could have returned him to his father.his father and the bitch of a cane. The cane could be in Mr. Conlon's grasp right now, connecting with Benji's skull; his mother's screams meshing with the sickening cracking of his skull bone.
Howls of agony slithered through Luxy's mouth as she stumbled towards the mouth of the alley, blinded to the shards of shattered bottles that cut her feet. As she reached the pavement once again, a fantastic gust sliced through the air, howling like a wounded wolf, almost knocking Luxy off her feet. Stabilizing her balance and brushing her wavering hair off her face, she scanned the unusually deserted sidewalks and storefronts for any signs of life. Through the thick falls of slanted, gray rain, Luxy knew that she was utterly and hopelessly lost: she was nowhere near the Italian district.
Wrapping her arms around her torso to salvage what warmth she possibly could, she started down the sidewalk, her bloodied feet hindering her walking.
"OH MY GOD!" she howled. "ANYBODY! SOMEBODY!"
Squinting, almost ready to surrender out of the corner of her eye she faintly saw what looked like the outline of a cloak. Gasping and eyes widening, she looked harder, and indeed saw it to bee a person, head bowed against the rain, footsteps hurried.
Letting all her inhibitions flow forth, she dropped her arms to her side and picked up her heels, darting to the sidewalk parallel to the one on which the bloody trails of her wounded feet were being washed away on.
"Mister, Mister! Wait, please!" she screamed, reaching the other sidewalk, breathing heavy. The hooded figure in the dingy brown cloak still continued, alien to her cries, head bowed.
"Mister, please! For Christ's sake, stop!" she howled, increasing her speed, wincing from a shard of glass that was still buried in the flesh on the arch.
Incredibly, the figure stopped. Huffing, Luxy halted a few feet behind him, a shiver dancing its way up her spine.
"Mister." she stammered, pushing a tangle of wet hair out of her vision. "I'se don't know where I'se at...I'se."
The breath harshly caught in Luxy's throat and she felt her stomach drop with a sickening feeling to the ground as the figure turned around. Through the rain, framed by the faded brown of the hood was the sever features of Mr. Antonio Antonelli. She felt herself take an involuntary step backward as Mr. Antonelli's piercing black eyes continued to stare her down.
It was a tacit rule that all children stayed away from Mr. Antonelli. Although Natalie Listin hadn't come directly forward and let the words flow off her sharp tongue, Luxy always felt her mother's temper rise when Mr. Antonelli's name was mentioned. She never knew why people though him strange: he was a man in his late forties who had emigrated from Italy for what seemed like eternity ago. Mr. Antonelli lived in the apartment above Luxy alone, and on many occasions she and Benji would stare out his bed room window and into the open window of Mr. Antonelli's apartment and speculate what he was doing. Benji said that Mr. Antonelli was a child mole easter; he said that he had heard his father and his father's friend talking about Mr. Antonelli one day and they said bad things about him and that he liked little girls. Luxy didn't know what a child mole easter was, but she knew it must be bad. She also didn't particularly like it when Benji said that he would let Mr. Antonelli get her. She knew that Benji was just all bullshit, he would never let Mr. Antonelli get her, but right now Benji wasn't here. It was just Luxy and Mr. Antonelli with his horrid black eyes.
"What are you doing out here in a storm like this all by yourself, little girl?" Mr. Antonelli's thick Italian cut through the rain, sending a shiver down Luxy's spine.
She took another slow step back, her breath bated. "I.I.I."
"Why aren't you home, little girl, in bed like a good little girl?" Mr. Antonelli's slithery, slimy voice sweetly inquired.
"I.I.I.Mr. Antonelli."Luxy stammered, her wide azure eyes still locked on his pitch ones, yet now his gaze wasn't connected with hers anymore.he was scanning her body up and down up and down.
Luxy felt sick. She didn't like what Mr. Antonelli was doing. Her body had just started to develop that summer, and being a tomboy, she wasn't pleased at her mothers sporadic naggings that she wear a brassiere. She still had splashed about in the lake that summer with Benji like she always had, with only a pair of one of her older sisters' hand-me-down knickers on. Her mother had been appalled at this action, and Benji had only made a few jabs over her not-so-flat chest. But she didn't care. She hadn't cared or felt self-conscious of her body until this very moment. Until this very moment with Mr. Antonelli's awful eyes boring down on her body, see-through in only Benji's white shirt and a pair of Meg's old panties, both soaked from the rain.
She backed away. Mr. Antonelli noticed this and his contact broke with her body and flickered to her eyes. Luxy hunched, ready to take off at any second, to get away from Mr. Antonelli and his horrible smirk.
He cocked his head to one side, a bizarre smile lighting up his face, a smile that chilled Luxy to her bones. She had never witnessed a smile like that, save when she was audience to a time when she was in Benji's room and Mr. Conlon came home late at night, stone drunk, and whipped out his came and beat Benji to within an inch of his life. "Where are you going, little girlie? I can take you home, little girlie. You live below me, don't you, little girlie?"
The message lit up in Luxy's mind in bright, fiery letters: RUN! Yet, her feet were cemented to the pavement. She could stare only into his sickening ebony eyes.
"I can take you home, little girlie. Come with Mr. Antonelli. He can take you home."
It was when Mr. Antonelli outstretched his arms, almost catching Luxy in his grasp, that she let out a squeal and spun on her heel, picked up her feet, and ran like hell.
"Girlie, girlie, girlie! Why are you running from Mr. Antonelli, little girlie! He wants to help you!"
The words seeped into her ears, as did the thundering of Mr. Antonelli's heavy boots on the drenched sidewalk behind her.
"STOP!" she screamed, not daring to turn around, not daring to slow her pace, in fear that Mr. Antonelli might catch her and put her away in his collection of little girls, like Benji had said he had.
A flash of lightening lit up the glimmering rain on the sidewalk and a deafening crackle of thunder caused Luxy's heart to beat faster. She thought, for one minute, that Mr. Antonelli was no longer behind her, that somehow he had given up.
Alas, she was corrected when she felt a sharp tug on her hair occur that felt like the scalp had been ripped from her skull. Letting out a howl of agony to rival Benji's when he injured his wrist, she felt her legs buckle beneath her as she fell to the pavement. Letting out a sob, the pain washed over her fast and quickly. She felt herself being sharply drug backwards as a hard pair of hard, clammy hands grasped her ankles.
"NO, NO, NO! PLEASE, HELP!" she screamed through the tears and rain. She then felt the hands start to roughly tug off Meg's old pair of panties. "NO! NO! NO!" her hysterical sobs filled the air as she kicked her legs with a vengeance.
"Stop your whining, you little bitch," Mr. Antonelli's hard, huff voice growled as he succeeded in pulling off her panties and holding them to his nose, inhaling.
"NO!" Luxy croaked. She thrashed her legs violently. Her cries ceased for a moment, though, when she felt Mr. Antonelli's hand slide between her legs. Her high-pitched shriek ruptured the air, and her right heel finally connected with Mr. Antonelli's chin, causing him to cry out in pain and curses, removing his hand.
Without thinking twice, Luxy let out a cry and wiggled her way to her knees, before straightening and taking off, Mr. Antonelli's expletives and shouts invading her poor ears. Tears flowing freely down her cheeks and screaming herself hoarse, she panned both sides of the streets, looking for any signs of life. At last through the blinding rain, she saw a tiny light in the window of a square, ancient redbrick building. Halting and collapsing against the door, she fumbled for the door handle, her mind numb, her legs ready to buckle beneath her. The door swung open, and she stumbled in, half delirious, to have bright, warm, blurry colors blind her and the overwhelming scent of lavender invade her nostrils.
The door blowing in the raging storm behind her, she stumbled a few feet, murmuring incoherent things, before collapsing then blacking out.
*
The dream. The dream was so deliciously wonderful. She felt an overwhelming sense of love for Benji as she lay buried in Benji's chest and smelling his wonderful scent under The Sentinel in The Park.
It was wonderful to have Benji's heavy arm around her, to have the sparkling orb in the sky and the white snow falling all around. She was in love with Benji; Benji was her soul mate and they were to be married.
She buried her face into his chest, his chest adorned with a clean, crisp white-collared shirt and was about to confess her spectacular and undying affection for him when he interrupted her. "Why won't you come with me?"
She looked up at him, stunned, surprised and blinked. I will go anywhere with you, she subconsciously said. Why would you say such a thing?
He stared into her soul with his impossibly deep eyes. "Why won't you come with me?"
Come with you? I would die for you! I will go anywhere for you!
Yet Benji rose to his feet and as he did the wonderful snow and run faded into black, cold hard glassy black.
I love you!
Benji started to wave his arms to and fro and the dream faded.
Conscienceless slowly return to Luxy. Her eyes slowly opened to reveal fuzzy vision. Her ears were invaded with the sounds of faint grunts and moans. The suffocating smell of lavender once again filled her nose.
Slowly, her double vision faded and the sounds became more audible. The last stage of complete consciousness made her eyes flutter open and she jolted away with a cry. Her eyes wide, she panned her surrounding.
A bedroom schemed in royal purples and pale lavenders encapsulated what appeared to be a soft and fuzzy carpet. A lovely canopy bed draped in all colors of the purple spectrum was planted in the center of the room against a wall, looking ever so inviting. A blazing fire roared in the hearth. Luxy realized that she was perched in a soft lavender chair, the mate parallel to her. Carefully throwing off the warm blanket that had been placed over her, she let her left foot touch the carpet. She closed her eyes in ecstasy and rubbed the ball of her foot into the softness of the rug.
Climbing down from the chair, she crawled on her hands and knees to as close to the fire as she could get, letting the delectable heat lick her face. Yet, the grunts and howls filled her head once more. Opening her eyes, she looked down and gasped to see that she was no longer clothed in Benji's shirt, alas, she was draped in a soft white, yet old, nightgown that possessed a few tatters, yet had a reassuring scent about it.
Slowly and cautiously rising to her feet, the nightgown touching the floor, her vision fell to a door. The door that seemed to contain the odd shrieks and moans. Carefully glancing about the room once more, she padded across the soft carpet, not making a sound, her arm outstretched.
Her breath caught, she carefully placed her palm on the brass knob. Yet, Luxy didn't even realize that as she prepared to turn the knob, the strange sounds had halted. As she turned one way, the knob turned the opposite way from the inside, and the door flung open, causing Luxy to let out a cry of surprise and fall forward into the doorway. "I say!" a deep voice declared.
Her breathing sharp, Luxy turned her eyes up to see a flustered looking man in tails staring down at her.
Tacitly, she hurried to her feet, never leaving the gentleman's stare.
The gentleman instead dropped his gaze and reached into his coat pocket to a handkerchief, which her quickly patted his sweaty forehead with. "Well, Rose, I want to thank you, er, so much. I will be seeing you."
The nervous looking gentleman bowed and scuttled over Luxy before exiting through a door in the purple bedroom. Luxy then heard the deep sigh.
She turned her gaze to find a wonderfully perplexing sight. A woman, one to rival the Colorful Lady, stood in the doorway connecting the two bedrooms with her. Stuffed into a tight fitting red dress with her bosoms overflowing from, her tight tendrils of hellfire red hair were piled onto her head. Her defined eyebrows were arched and her green eyes sparkled lifelessly beneath the heavy liner.
Luxy stood, mystified, as the woman let out yet another sigh, and placing her hands on her hips, exited the doorway and made her way over to the fire, warming her hands in front of it.
Luxy stood, head cocked and mouth gaped, as the woman went on as though she was invisible. Finally, without looking up from the fire, the woman asked, "Didn't like the fire did ya?"
Luxy stammered for a reply, yet nothing came out.
The woman turned her head, her eyebrow in an incredible arch. "Well, why you standing in the doorway? Soaked to the bone and probably with a cold. The fire will do you good."
Luxy dropped her jaw, unable to reply. Her gaze never left the strange woman as she quietly padded across the wonderful carpet and once again sat in the lavender chair in front of the warm fire.
The woman was now humming a tune as she left the fire and went over to the bed, Luxy's gaze following her. The questions that were burning in her soul couldn't be kept captured any longer: "Who are you, where am I, and where's Benji?"
The woman looked up, an amused expression playing across her face. "Well, kid," she said, smoothing the covers of the bed and then taking a seat, "If you must know, I am Rose, Rose Danson, you are in the Red Bull, and I am sorry, but I don't know where Benji is."
Involuntarily, Luxy rose from the chair and joined the woman on the bed, her electric eyes boring into her. "What was that man doing here?"
Rose Danson smiled, a nice quiet smile, and let out a small laugh. "Oh, well, kid, this is a brothel. Of course men are going to be here."
Luxy recoiled in her Indian-style sitting position on the bed. "You mean." She had heard of a brothel before. The word had been brought up in a rather nasty argument between her mother and father one night after her father went to a brothel once. She had been in bed with her sisters, listening to the yelling. She hadn't known what one was until her mother screamed in French something about her father being a cheating scoundrel, going to whorehouses to fuck dirty scarlet women. And Rose Danson sure was a scarlet woman. "You're a scarlet woman?"
Rose released a small laugh. "Oh, if you want to put it that way, I guess you could."
"But," Luxy countered, then stopped. The scent of lavender was starting to intoxicate her mind, making her feel drowsy and just curling up on the bed and sleeping forever.
"You came in here, all wet and hysterical and crying. Annabelle found you passed out. They were going to throw you out, but I have a little girl of my own about your age, Ruby, and I knew that that would be an awful thing to do. So, I brought you up here. I hope you don't catch cold."
Luxy sleepily looked up into Rose's emerald green eyes, and felt safe and warm. A yawn escaped her lips.
Luxy's mind began to shut down, and she started to fall back onto the soft covers when Rose asked, "What's your name?"
"Lu-xy," she laxly replied, eyelids falling.
"Luxy, that's a pretty name. Now, kid, who is this Benji that you are looking for?"
Benji. The name was like a shower of icy cold water being poured over her. She immediately sat up, eyes wide. "Oh, Benji, Jesus Christ, Benji!" she cried, throwing her legs over the bed.
"Kid, wait!" Rose called, jumping and grasping her by the shoulder.
Luxy turned to her. "I can't. I'm sorry. Thanks you whatevah ya did.but I hafta find me friend."
Rose's eyes bored into her. "Luxy, it's a shame to see you go. I could have used some company." Her eyes fell to a window. "It stopped raining out."
Luxy's heart jumped, yet at the same time, an awful pang of hunger reared its ugly head.
The scarlet woman raised one of her perfect brows. "What's the matter?"
Luxy felt like doubling over the pain was that atrocious. "Nothing," she grunted, placing a hand over her stomach.
"Look, you wait here a minute, kid." Rose quickly rose from the bed and crossed the room to a small vanity. Opening a small drawer, she brought forth a small beaded purple sack. "Here," she said, returning to Luxy, "hold out your hand." Luxy did as she was commanded, and Rose shook a few coins from the purse and into her hand.
Luxy raised her eyes to Rose's. "Look, kid," Rose quietly smiled. "There's a diner a few blocks from here. Called Tibby's. Great apple pie. Get yourself a slice, you deserve it. Maybe this Benji kid is there."
Luxy let her mouth drop. She stepped back, holding the coins out. "Oh, no, I.I.I can't accept this."
Rose nodded. "Oh, yes you can. And you will. Now scat. Go get some good apple pie."
Gingerly, yet gratefully, accepting the money, Luxy started for the door, when she halted, turning around.
"Keep the nightgown. You only have that guy's shirt, and I don't know what happened to your underwear, kid."
Underwear. Luxy felt a large lump start to form in her throat. Mr. Antonelli. She needed to find Benji. Without thinking, Luxy flung herself across the room and wrapped herself around Rose. "Thank you," she sighed.
Rose returned the smile, running her fingers through the girl's now bone- dry raven hair. "Anytime you come and ask for Rose, kid."
Luxy removed herself from the scarlet woman, and picking up Benji's crinkled white shirt, gave one last goodbye to Rose Danson, closing the door, the wonderful purple colors and lavender smell behind her.
* Rose Danson had been correct. As Luxy padded barefoot down the now populated and noisy streets of Manhattan, the frigid breezes of a dying winter that was still trying to rule the atmosphere licked her skin, yet the warm rays of the almost near spring sun warmed her back.
Pushing her way irritably through the pedestrians, Luxy tried miserably to fight the pangs of hunger and the fear of not finding Benji as she reassuringly clutched the coins in her clammy hand.
"Just a few blocks away. Just a few blocks away," she softly chanted over and over again.
Then, finally, after what seemed like hours of walking for Luxy, she saw it. The glorious sign that proclaimed TIBBY'S. The hunger now almost entirely consuming her, she picked up her heels and was only a few buildings from it when she felt something hard and strong clamp itself around her torso and vacuum the breath from her body. Wheezing, the strong object drug her into an alley, a dank dark alley, the red eyes of rats and the reflection of the sun off the glitter-shot glass bottles visible.
The grasp around her middle was so tight, Luxy could inhale or exhale a single breath. She felt liable to explode as the whatever drug her deeper and deeper into the alley-the busy street she once occupied with the ignorant pedestrians lit up by dark walls of the alley, framed like some sick picture. A picture that was getting smaller and smaller.
Finally, remarkably, the excruciatingly tight grip left her torso and let her fall to the ground, letting her collect a large mouthful of glorious, fresh air. Alas, she hadn't had time to release the breath when she felt a hand go to her throat, throwing her against one of the slimy, moldy walls, pinning her there, her feet a foot off the ground. Her breath now came out in awful squeals and wheezes.
"You got away from me, little girlie, yes, you did." The voice was terrible and rough, as though it belonged to that of the Devil himself.
Luxy let out another series of squeaks as she thrashed her body about, yet that man's grip only got tighter. She felt one of the figure's hands leave her throat. A second later, she felt a piece of cloth dangling in front of her face.
"Girlie, girlie, girlie."
"Oh God!" her muffled cry came. Mr. Antonelli! Mr. Antonelli had cornered her yet again. He had Meg's panties. She had to get away. In one motion, she bucked her lower body and allowed her teeth to come down hard on Mr. Antonelli's hand.
He let out a terrible yell, tearing his hands away from her throat, causing Luxy to fall to the ground, gasping for breath and rubbing her pained neck.
Mr. Antonelli was bellowing out horrible curses and was hunched, cradling his injured hand. With every ounce of her being, Luxy willed herself to her feet and began to run.
"GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE WHORE!" Mr. Antonelli's screams seeped into her brain.
"NO! NO! NO!" Luxy screamed back.
The light. The light and the sidewalk and the people were getting closer. Closer. If only she could make it.
She felt the same iron grip snake its way around her torso, pulling her back, causing her to lose her breath and fling like a rag doll.
"NO! NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" she sobbed.
She felt Mr. Antonelli's putrid, hot breath in her ear as his right hand cupped the side of her face, forcefully turning it towards him. "You. You, little girlie, you won't tell nobody about this, you hear. You hear!" he screeched, roughly snapping her head, causing her to burst into bitter tears. "Because, because if you do, if you tell anybody, I will kill your family. You hear that? I live above you and will know if you tell and then I will kill your family!"
Luxy emitted a futile screech as Mr. Antonelli pitched her forward into the soot and broken glass.
"Nobody," he growled, kicking dirt onto her face with his heavy boot and spitting on her.
Mr. Antonelli parted leaving Luxy in an awful pile on the ground, doused in hysterical sobs.
After what seemed like eternity, Luxy finally picked herself up. Stumbling, disheveled, and with a nasty gash streaming blood on her left cheek from a shard of glass, she made her way to the mouth of the alley, blinking in the light. She stumbled her way to Tibby's, not caring if she pumped into pedestrians. The bell over the door tinkled and a few patrons looked up from their food and newspaper to see a twelve-year-old girl in a filthy, ripped oversized white nightgown with wild black hair and a soot-covered and bloodied face wander blindly into Tibby's, tears leaving trails on the soil on her face.
The world around Luxy was a haze. She didn't know nor care to see where she was going. She wished to be in the purple room in the Red Bull with the intoxicating scent of lavender all about her. She would have continued like this if a voice, clear as clean crystal, hadn't said: "Luxy?"
The haze or the fog or whatever it was seemed to have lifted and Luxy could see clearly now. She looked around, confused, looking for the bearer who uttered her name. She thought herself insane until she heard it again: "Luxy?"
She knew instantaneously who it was. Benji.
She turned and spied him, sitting at a table by himself, a platter of food and drink in front of him. Benji, in only trousers, his silly black eye, and a red bandanna around his wrist. Benji, an expression of utter shock and worry abounded on his face.
"Oh, Benji," Luxy said, before erupting into hysterical tears and dashing over to him, nearly knocking his chair over.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Benji cried, looking around at the gawking onlookers for a moment at the odd girl who was sobbing onto his chest.
"Oh, Benji!" she howled, clawing at his chest.
"Lux, Lux, Lux, it's alright. It's fine. Shhh," he said softly, wrapping his arms around her.
Luxy shook her head wildly. "No, no, no. It's not.it's not!"
"Yeah it is, Luxy," he replied. "Yeah it is."
Somehow, Luxy found Benji's hot breath in her ear comforting, and she quieted down.
"There, Luxy," he said. "It's alright. Now where da hell where ya, and why ya all doity?"
Luxy didn't answer. She only raised her mouth to his ear and whispered in a fear clad voice, "Benji, I love you."
Benji raised an eyebrow as a red wash fell across his face. "Yeah, Lux, I'se love ya too. Now, ya want some food?"
Luxy was deaf to Benji's words. In her soul kindled the most fear she had ever felt.it was immortal fear. For in the corner of the plate glass window in the façade of Tibby's was Mr. Antonelli, his awful black eyes piercing her soul from under his dingy brown hood.
Luxy blinked.
And the eyes were gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Benji Conlon stood there, watching the woman garbed in the frilly costume sweeping the stage through the ropes, he felt another rip of pain surge from his wrist.
"Ah!" he groaned inaudibly, his right hand cradling his left wrist. He knew it was broken for it had swelled and turned a ghastly purple and black color. He knew something had to be done or else he was going to amputate his damn hand to rid of the pain.
It was either get Luxy and scram, but that meant going out into the rain and most likely going home and that didn't sound too keen, or clear his throat, make their appearance known and hope this lady would be nice and maybe have something for his wrist and not just shoo them out of the place with her broom.
He was in favor of the second.
"L-u-x," he said barely above a whisper, his eyes on the woman with the broom.
When she didn't respond, he turned to her and saw that she was off in Never- Never-Land-staring without blinking at something in the seats.
Trying to erase the frustration that was slowly building in him, he took his right elbow and gently nudged her in the side. Yet, that frustration exploded as Luxy elicited an audible gasp and jumped, oh, about five feet in the air.
Benji's jaw fell as his gaze fell once again to the lady, who indeed had heard the noise.
He saw Luxy's wide and stunned eyes bore into his, yet he only stepped backwards, placing a hand to his head in disgust.
"Who's there?" he heard the woman ask.
His eyes narrowed, Benji shifted his gaze to Luxy who was still standing in the direct line of sight, like an idiot.
"Who's there?" She had taken a few steps closer to the wing. All she had to do was pull back the ropes and she would first see Luxy, and then him.
His eyes still on Luxy, she stumbled back and her eyes met his, their gazes interlocking, her hand rising to her mouth.
Benji knew it wasn't her fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. He had prepared to clear his throat to get the woman's attention; she had only gasped and still got the woman's attention. Yet, this day had been utterly heinous: his father's death threat rang in his ears, freezing to death from being in the rain and only wearing trousers, his eye that felt like it was on fire, and his goddamn broken wrist. Alas, he needed someone to place the blame on, and right now, there was the perfect one to place it on: standing in the center of the left wing: raven hair hanging limp down her back, clad in his only extra shirt, the collar shirt which rode up to show her thin legs and undergarments, electric blue eyes wide, and face full of absolute fear.
It was when Benji prepared to utter curses at Luxy that his father saved only for his mother, the ropes and pulleys were pulled back to reveal the surprised face of the woman, her mouth dropping.
The next few moments were only a blur to him. His stare still transfixed on the woman, out of the corner of his eye he saw Luxy turn on her heels and disappear. He whipped his head in her direction just in time to see her dart out of the door that lead to the hallway. "LUXY!"
He was frozen to the spot. He couldn't will his legs to pick up so he could race after Luxy. He was caught. Caught, as the woman pushed past the ropes and stood in front of him. "What are you doing here? Out out, get out!" she cried, pushing the broom away from her, trying to swat Benji.
Benji was still in a state of shock, as his legs were forced to move him backwards.
"Out! Out!" she hissed, bringing the broom to his feet. All the while his gaze was fixed on the woman's, Benji did not see this action. He realized it all too late as he took a step backwards, his footing getting caught in the broom. It happened in one slow, chain reaction. First his right foot slipped from underneath him, then his left leg buckled, and then he was in the air for a splice of a second on his back. It occurred all so quickly that he just knew he had to protect his head, so not thinking at all, he spread his left hand, letting it take all the force.
His palm did not touch the floor in one sweet rolling motion, quite the contrary it hit the floor with a clean, even thud, followed by the cracking of the broken bone and then the remainder of his body.
And then the pain came.
The pain Benjamin Conlon felt at that moment was more atrocious than anything he had encountered in his entire life span. More atrocious than his father's harsh, alcohol-tainted cries. More atrocious than the reality that the day he was going to have to work in the factory was dawning quite soon. More atrocious than his mother's screams of help. And even more atrocious than the sound of the air being sliced by the cane when his father was drunk and angry and going to beat the living soul out of him.
His breath coming out in gasps and his hearing now void to the woman's shouts, he raised his head from the ground and slowly picked up his wrist. The pain was so sharp, so intense, that it caused Benji to black out.
* Benji knew he was dreaming. Of course, he was unconscious at the time, yet somehow he knew he was dreaming.
In his dream, he was under the Sentinel in The Park with Julie, the dear beautiful Julie that had up and run away the previous summer with David Something-Or-Other. Or, at least he thought it was he and Julie.
He was viewing the dream from a first person perspective. It was he that was with his back against the trunk of the old elm, holding Julie. As he looked out at the surrounding, he found the climate was quite peculiar. The sun was a golden orb hovering high and clear in the sky, yet pure white snow fell all around.
Yet, he felt neither warm nor cool. He only felt Julie's grip tighten around his torso. His gaze flickered down to her. Julie, beautiful Julie with her head resting on his shoulder and her raven hair glitter-shot blue in the sunlight or the snowlight or whatever you would dare call it.
Without force, he was surprised when he opened his mouth and said, "Why won't you come with me?"
And Julie tilted her head up and looked at him.yet, it wasn't Julie. There was something different in the eyes and the nose. "Julie" blinked, and the light caught her fiery blue eyes, eyes that were familiar.
Then a delirious notion struck him. Perhaps it was not Julie next to him. Perhaps it was.Luxy.only older somehow.
He then looked down at his body. His hands, his arms, his legs. All were bigger, wider, longer.
Luxy and I, older? His subconscious questioned.
As he tried to ponder this, he suddenly was interrupted by his voice, "Why won't you come?"
Julie, or Luxy, or whoever the hell she was, did not answer, only rose to her feet. As she did so, the snow and the sun faded, leaving the atmosphere black as raven feathers. She stood, and started to wave her hands up and down.
Benji felt a cluster of dreamy feelings clash within him as the scene dimmed, blurred, as he suddenly felt reality take its hold on him once more.
The dream faded, and the fantastic pain hit him immediately once more. Inhaling deeply, his eyes fluttered open and he quickly sat up. When his sight readjusted, he realized that he was still in the left wing of the theatre, the woman waving her hands wildly in front of his face.
"Alright, alright!" he hissed, swatting the woman's hands away.
The woman, her face deathly pale under the heavy make-up, leaned back onto her knees. "You fainted."
"Sure did," another voice murmured in agreement.
Benji's shifted his gaze to see a boy of thirteen standing over him, pushing back his dingy brown hair from his face.
He sucked in a breath, trying to stifle the pain radiating from his wrist. "I'se didn't faint."
"Then what else would you call it?" the woman shrilly asked.
He narrowed his eyes. "I'se call it blackin' out from pain from an already broken wrist cause some lady tripped ya wit a broom."
The woman raised an eyebrow, yet said no more and only stood up, lending a hand to Benji, pulling him to his feet. "Then maybe you wouldn't be in this pain right now if you wouldn't have come sneaking into private property."
He grimaced in her direction, running his right hand through his brown hair, slicking it. "Well, I'se so sorry Miss, but I wouldn't have snuck into ya joint if me and me friend hadn't been runnin' from me faddah who wants to kill us and while we were runnin' it started to rain. Me eye hurt like hell, me hand hurt like hell, me faddah wanted to kill me, and I wasn't gonna add to that pile pneumonia from the goddamn rain. Now if ya 'scuse me, I will go cause me eye still hurts like hell, me hand still hurts like hell, and me faddah still wants to kill me, and I have to find my friend."
With that, he turned on his heels and walked towards the door that would lead him to the well-lit hallway. Then he would have to go out into the searing cold rain and hunt for Luxy, moronic Luxy who had fled like the Devil himself was on her heels. That being if he didn't black out again from the pain.
His hand on the knob of the door, he was about to turn it when the woman's voice stopped him. "I say, but I've never seen one like you. I have a right mind to call the police on you, breaking and entering and then acting as though it is my fault that I am being so harsh on you. I should, but I won't. Turn around will you?"
Slowly, the woman's words echoing through his brain, he turned around, his ice blue eyes locked on hers.
She had already covered the distance that separated them, and was now standing in front of him. "Let me see your wrist."
Of course, Benji knew he shouldn't have given his wrist to her. He was in a miserable mood and he did not want to give her the satisfaction that she could coerce him in to doing what she commanded.
Yet, he did.
The woman gently took it in her grasp, giving it the once over. Locking with his eyes, she said, "Indeed, it is broken. What's your name?"
And without skipping a beat, Benji replied, "Ben. Ben Conlon."
"Well, Ben Conlon," she replied, dropping his wrist. "I am Medda Larkin, the Swedish Meadow Lark. And you are in the left wing of my Irving Hall."
Benji sighed. "Nice joint. Well, it's been a peach meetin' ya, Medda Larkin, the Swedish Meadow Lark but I have to go find me friend." He then turned as he heard the boy's words behind him, "Wait! Ya have to find ya friend? I have to go anyway and sell me papes. I could keep ya company."
Benji stopped and arched his head to face the boy. "Ya papes?"
The boy nodded, striding over to Benji. "Yeah, ya know, me papes. Me newspapers."
Benji raised an eyebrow. "Ya sell newspapers?"
The boy exchanged glances with Medda. "Yeah," he slowly said, "I'se a newsie. Never heard of one?"
Benji snorted as he took a step back. "Ya mean ya don't woik in the factory?"
After yet another exchange of curious looks, the boy replied "N..no. I don't woik in no factory. Never hoid of this factory ya tawkin' about. It was either live in the orphanage or be a newsie. I chose bein' a newsie."
Although this boy with the odd cowboy hat draped around his neck did not realize it, he had profoundly changed Benjamin Conlon. So one didn't have to slave away in the factory? He could be a newsie? He could.
"AH!" His thoughts were derailed when a surge of intense pain found its way up his arm.
"Ya wrist?" the boy asked.
Benji nodded, gritting his teeth.
"Here," the boy said, untying a strip of red cloth from about his neck. "It's me lucky bandanna. Me pa gave it to me. Maybe it'll keep ya hand straight or somethin'."
Benji watched in awe as the boy carefully wound the bandanna about his wrist and between his fingers, finishing by knotting it tightly.
"Bettah?" he asked, stepping back.
Benji nodded, rubbing his wrist.
"Well, isn't that grand, now? It always helps to have Jack around," Medda piped in.
Benji's eyes immediately flickered to the boy. "Ya name is Jack?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "Jack. Jack Kelly."
A wave of gratefulness washed over Benji. Nobody save Luxy had ever given a damn about him before. It was alien to him that others could actually be compassionate. "Th.thanks."
"Hey, no problem!" Jack Kelly beamed, crouching to the ground and hoisting a stack of newspapers onto his shoulder. "Well, Medda, thanks for lettin' me visit ya, but I better be goin'."
"Anytime, Jack," Medda replied, then turning to Benji said, "And you are welcome here anytime you like. And when you find your little friend, too."
Benji only stood dumbfounded as Jack turned to him and cried, "Well, Ben, are ya comin' or not? Ya friend could be anywhere in Manhattan!"
He muttered a stricken farewell to the woman as he followed Jack out the left wing and into the hallway, where Jack began to whistle a tune. "Now, Ben, this friend we lookin' for, is she ya goil?"
Benji let out a choke as he peered incredulously at Jack. "Ya mean Lux?"
Jack shrugged, tugging open the door and striding into the dark room. "Yeah, if that's what her name is."
Benji had to utter a laugh as he shut the door behind him, the darkness impairing his vision. "Luxy? Nah, she's only me best friend. Only thing I have feelin's for on the face of the oith."
Jack raised an eyebrow as they stepped out into the bright, blinding sunlight. "Hey, it stopped rainin'. Whaddya know!"
Benji matched Jack's long strides. "Jist askin', that's all. Poitty goil. Though I reckon that she's poittier when she isn't wearin' a look of sheer fear on her face."
Benji remained silent, pondering this statement. "Never really noticed, ya know?"
Jack raised his eyes, the sunlight blinding them. "So, about this factory ya were tawkin' about."
"The factory," Benji echoed grimly. "It's where I thought all the guys had to go and woik when they toin thirteen."
Jack released a chuckle. "Well, I'se toined thirteen last month and they never sent me to no factory. Or maybe it's jist cause they don't want no streetrats like us woikin' for them. Anyhow, it don't make no difference to me. Won't be a newsie forever. Will be a cowboy soon."
Benji's eye caught the cowboy hat. "A cowboy? How can ya? Don't they live in Texas?"
Jack's grin widened. "Don't know about no cowboys in Texas. I'se only know that they have cowboys in Santa Fe. Santa Fe, yup, that's where me ma and pa are. They out buyin' land there and when they do they'se gonna send for me and then I can be a real cowboy! Yee-haw!" He then leaped in the air and clicked his heels.
Benji couldn't help but smile. "Wish I could be a cowboy." Then a thought occurred to him that made him smack himself on the forehead from stupidity. "Ah, dammit! I'se supposed to be lookin' for Lux! I wonder where in hell she can be?"
Jack halted and slapped Benji on the back. "Hey, don't worry! I'se sure you'se gonna find her. Anyhow, I better be goin'. See that crowd over there, there's a lot of customers who just might be int'rested in buyin' a pape."
Benji fell in posture and sighed. "Jesus, I'se gonna have to go look for her and then if I find her."
Jack's grin fell as he placed a hand on Benji's shoulder. "Hey, Ben, give yaself a break. Look for her later. Here, I know a little diner jist a few blocks from here called Tibby's. They serve real good food. Take a load off there for a while."
Benji's hands went for either pocket and he pulled them out. Empty.
Yet, Jack only smiled as his free hand went to his pocket and he fished around, at last pulling out a few coins. "Here, I got some extra money. Take it and go to the diner. Or maybe ya should git yaself a shirt."
Spot's eyes glinted. "Hey, I'se have a shirt! It's jist that I'se was in a rush this mornin'."
"Hey, it's alright!" Jack laughed. "I'se understand. Here, take the money. Go to Tibby's and eat some food. Hey, maybe ya goil will be there."
Reluctantly, Benji took the money. "Thanks, Jack."
"Hey, it's no problem," he replied, their gazes locking. A smile crept over his face. "Pardon me for sayin', but that's some spot ya got there on ya eye!"
Benji's eyes widened as his hand went to his right eye. In all of it, he had forgotten the shiner that Luxy had given him. "Is it that bad?"
Jack released a chuckle as he picked up his heels. "Hey, it suits ya, Spot!"
Benji watched as Jack Kelly disappeared into the mass of pedestrians, the faint shouting of the headlines ringing in his ears. As he stood there, he knew not at all what Jack Kelly's parting statement would due for him later in life.
*** Each raindrop that fell from the black-gray swirled morning sky was like an hour gone by for Luxy Listin. She had no iota of time as she stood, back facing the peeling brick wall of the alley, mouth gaping, raven hair limp down her back and Benji's white-collar shirt plastered to her petite body.
For the life of her, she couldn't recall how many times she had shrieked his name, only to have the words die, pounded weakly into the ground by the harsh, brutal raindrops, only to be snubbed. She couldn't tell if bitter tears slid down her cheeks, or if it was the stinging rain.
She felt dizzy and weak and sick from the rain and tears and not having Benji by her side. She screamed and scolded herself for being so damn hasty and jumping the gun and running out of that building without checking and making sure that Benji was behind her.
Luxy wasn't worried about her own little self and if she was lost or going to catch pnemonia; on the contrary, she almost felt like doubling over from the waves of nausea that washed over her over the thoughts that clouded her head about what could have possibly happened to Benji. Poor Benji, with a broken wrist and black eye. The Colorful Lady could have called the bulls on him, they could have arrested him, and Oh Christ, they could have returned him to his father.his father and the bitch of a cane. The cane could be in Mr. Conlon's grasp right now, connecting with Benji's skull; his mother's screams meshing with the sickening cracking of his skull bone.
Howls of agony slithered through Luxy's mouth as she stumbled towards the mouth of the alley, blinded to the shards of shattered bottles that cut her feet. As she reached the pavement once again, a fantastic gust sliced through the air, howling like a wounded wolf, almost knocking Luxy off her feet. Stabilizing her balance and brushing her wavering hair off her face, she scanned the unusually deserted sidewalks and storefronts for any signs of life. Through the thick falls of slanted, gray rain, Luxy knew that she was utterly and hopelessly lost: she was nowhere near the Italian district.
Wrapping her arms around her torso to salvage what warmth she possibly could, she started down the sidewalk, her bloodied feet hindering her walking.
"OH MY GOD!" she howled. "ANYBODY! SOMEBODY!"
Squinting, almost ready to surrender out of the corner of her eye she faintly saw what looked like the outline of a cloak. Gasping and eyes widening, she looked harder, and indeed saw it to bee a person, head bowed against the rain, footsteps hurried.
Letting all her inhibitions flow forth, she dropped her arms to her side and picked up her heels, darting to the sidewalk parallel to the one on which the bloody trails of her wounded feet were being washed away on.
"Mister, Mister! Wait, please!" she screamed, reaching the other sidewalk, breathing heavy. The hooded figure in the dingy brown cloak still continued, alien to her cries, head bowed.
"Mister, please! For Christ's sake, stop!" she howled, increasing her speed, wincing from a shard of glass that was still buried in the flesh on the arch.
Incredibly, the figure stopped. Huffing, Luxy halted a few feet behind him, a shiver dancing its way up her spine.
"Mister." she stammered, pushing a tangle of wet hair out of her vision. "I'se don't know where I'se at...I'se."
The breath harshly caught in Luxy's throat and she felt her stomach drop with a sickening feeling to the ground as the figure turned around. Through the rain, framed by the faded brown of the hood was the sever features of Mr. Antonio Antonelli. She felt herself take an involuntary step backward as Mr. Antonelli's piercing black eyes continued to stare her down.
It was a tacit rule that all children stayed away from Mr. Antonelli. Although Natalie Listin hadn't come directly forward and let the words flow off her sharp tongue, Luxy always felt her mother's temper rise when Mr. Antonelli's name was mentioned. She never knew why people though him strange: he was a man in his late forties who had emigrated from Italy for what seemed like eternity ago. Mr. Antonelli lived in the apartment above Luxy alone, and on many occasions she and Benji would stare out his bed room window and into the open window of Mr. Antonelli's apartment and speculate what he was doing. Benji said that Mr. Antonelli was a child mole easter; he said that he had heard his father and his father's friend talking about Mr. Antonelli one day and they said bad things about him and that he liked little girls. Luxy didn't know what a child mole easter was, but she knew it must be bad. She also didn't particularly like it when Benji said that he would let Mr. Antonelli get her. She knew that Benji was just all bullshit, he would never let Mr. Antonelli get her, but right now Benji wasn't here. It was just Luxy and Mr. Antonelli with his horrid black eyes.
"What are you doing out here in a storm like this all by yourself, little girl?" Mr. Antonelli's thick Italian cut through the rain, sending a shiver down Luxy's spine.
She took another slow step back, her breath bated. "I.I.I."
"Why aren't you home, little girl, in bed like a good little girl?" Mr. Antonelli's slithery, slimy voice sweetly inquired.
"I.I.I.Mr. Antonelli."Luxy stammered, her wide azure eyes still locked on his pitch ones, yet now his gaze wasn't connected with hers anymore.he was scanning her body up and down up and down.
Luxy felt sick. She didn't like what Mr. Antonelli was doing. Her body had just started to develop that summer, and being a tomboy, she wasn't pleased at her mothers sporadic naggings that she wear a brassiere. She still had splashed about in the lake that summer with Benji like she always had, with only a pair of one of her older sisters' hand-me-down knickers on. Her mother had been appalled at this action, and Benji had only made a few jabs over her not-so-flat chest. But she didn't care. She hadn't cared or felt self-conscious of her body until this very moment. Until this very moment with Mr. Antonelli's awful eyes boring down on her body, see-through in only Benji's white shirt and a pair of Meg's old panties, both soaked from the rain.
She backed away. Mr. Antonelli noticed this and his contact broke with her body and flickered to her eyes. Luxy hunched, ready to take off at any second, to get away from Mr. Antonelli and his horrible smirk.
He cocked his head to one side, a bizarre smile lighting up his face, a smile that chilled Luxy to her bones. She had never witnessed a smile like that, save when she was audience to a time when she was in Benji's room and Mr. Conlon came home late at night, stone drunk, and whipped out his came and beat Benji to within an inch of his life. "Where are you going, little girlie? I can take you home, little girlie. You live below me, don't you, little girlie?"
The message lit up in Luxy's mind in bright, fiery letters: RUN! Yet, her feet were cemented to the pavement. She could stare only into his sickening ebony eyes.
"I can take you home, little girlie. Come with Mr. Antonelli. He can take you home."
It was when Mr. Antonelli outstretched his arms, almost catching Luxy in his grasp, that she let out a squeal and spun on her heel, picked up her feet, and ran like hell.
"Girlie, girlie, girlie! Why are you running from Mr. Antonelli, little girlie! He wants to help you!"
The words seeped into her ears, as did the thundering of Mr. Antonelli's heavy boots on the drenched sidewalk behind her.
"STOP!" she screamed, not daring to turn around, not daring to slow her pace, in fear that Mr. Antonelli might catch her and put her away in his collection of little girls, like Benji had said he had.
A flash of lightening lit up the glimmering rain on the sidewalk and a deafening crackle of thunder caused Luxy's heart to beat faster. She thought, for one minute, that Mr. Antonelli was no longer behind her, that somehow he had given up.
Alas, she was corrected when she felt a sharp tug on her hair occur that felt like the scalp had been ripped from her skull. Letting out a howl of agony to rival Benji's when he injured his wrist, she felt her legs buckle beneath her as she fell to the pavement. Letting out a sob, the pain washed over her fast and quickly. She felt herself being sharply drug backwards as a hard pair of hard, clammy hands grasped her ankles.
"NO, NO, NO! PLEASE, HELP!" she screamed through the tears and rain. She then felt the hands start to roughly tug off Meg's old pair of panties. "NO! NO! NO!" her hysterical sobs filled the air as she kicked her legs with a vengeance.
"Stop your whining, you little bitch," Mr. Antonelli's hard, huff voice growled as he succeeded in pulling off her panties and holding them to his nose, inhaling.
"NO!" Luxy croaked. She thrashed her legs violently. Her cries ceased for a moment, though, when she felt Mr. Antonelli's hand slide between her legs. Her high-pitched shriek ruptured the air, and her right heel finally connected with Mr. Antonelli's chin, causing him to cry out in pain and curses, removing his hand.
Without thinking twice, Luxy let out a cry and wiggled her way to her knees, before straightening and taking off, Mr. Antonelli's expletives and shouts invading her poor ears. Tears flowing freely down her cheeks and screaming herself hoarse, she panned both sides of the streets, looking for any signs of life. At last through the blinding rain, she saw a tiny light in the window of a square, ancient redbrick building. Halting and collapsing against the door, she fumbled for the door handle, her mind numb, her legs ready to buckle beneath her. The door swung open, and she stumbled in, half delirious, to have bright, warm, blurry colors blind her and the overwhelming scent of lavender invade her nostrils.
The door blowing in the raging storm behind her, she stumbled a few feet, murmuring incoherent things, before collapsing then blacking out.
*
The dream. The dream was so deliciously wonderful. She felt an overwhelming sense of love for Benji as she lay buried in Benji's chest and smelling his wonderful scent under The Sentinel in The Park.
It was wonderful to have Benji's heavy arm around her, to have the sparkling orb in the sky and the white snow falling all around. She was in love with Benji; Benji was her soul mate and they were to be married.
She buried her face into his chest, his chest adorned with a clean, crisp white-collared shirt and was about to confess her spectacular and undying affection for him when he interrupted her. "Why won't you come with me?"
She looked up at him, stunned, surprised and blinked. I will go anywhere with you, she subconsciously said. Why would you say such a thing?
He stared into her soul with his impossibly deep eyes. "Why won't you come with me?"
Come with you? I would die for you! I will go anywhere for you!
Yet Benji rose to his feet and as he did the wonderful snow and run faded into black, cold hard glassy black.
I love you!
Benji started to wave his arms to and fro and the dream faded.
Conscienceless slowly return to Luxy. Her eyes slowly opened to reveal fuzzy vision. Her ears were invaded with the sounds of faint grunts and moans. The suffocating smell of lavender once again filled her nose.
Slowly, her double vision faded and the sounds became more audible. The last stage of complete consciousness made her eyes flutter open and she jolted away with a cry. Her eyes wide, she panned her surrounding.
A bedroom schemed in royal purples and pale lavenders encapsulated what appeared to be a soft and fuzzy carpet. A lovely canopy bed draped in all colors of the purple spectrum was planted in the center of the room against a wall, looking ever so inviting. A blazing fire roared in the hearth. Luxy realized that she was perched in a soft lavender chair, the mate parallel to her. Carefully throwing off the warm blanket that had been placed over her, she let her left foot touch the carpet. She closed her eyes in ecstasy and rubbed the ball of her foot into the softness of the rug.
Climbing down from the chair, she crawled on her hands and knees to as close to the fire as she could get, letting the delectable heat lick her face. Yet, the grunts and howls filled her head once more. Opening her eyes, she looked down and gasped to see that she was no longer clothed in Benji's shirt, alas, she was draped in a soft white, yet old, nightgown that possessed a few tatters, yet had a reassuring scent about it.
Slowly and cautiously rising to her feet, the nightgown touching the floor, her vision fell to a door. The door that seemed to contain the odd shrieks and moans. Carefully glancing about the room once more, she padded across the soft carpet, not making a sound, her arm outstretched.
Her breath caught, she carefully placed her palm on the brass knob. Yet, Luxy didn't even realize that as she prepared to turn the knob, the strange sounds had halted. As she turned one way, the knob turned the opposite way from the inside, and the door flung open, causing Luxy to let out a cry of surprise and fall forward into the doorway. "I say!" a deep voice declared.
Her breathing sharp, Luxy turned her eyes up to see a flustered looking man in tails staring down at her.
Tacitly, she hurried to her feet, never leaving the gentleman's stare.
The gentleman instead dropped his gaze and reached into his coat pocket to a handkerchief, which her quickly patted his sweaty forehead with. "Well, Rose, I want to thank you, er, so much. I will be seeing you."
The nervous looking gentleman bowed and scuttled over Luxy before exiting through a door in the purple bedroom. Luxy then heard the deep sigh.
She turned her gaze to find a wonderfully perplexing sight. A woman, one to rival the Colorful Lady, stood in the doorway connecting the two bedrooms with her. Stuffed into a tight fitting red dress with her bosoms overflowing from, her tight tendrils of hellfire red hair were piled onto her head. Her defined eyebrows were arched and her green eyes sparkled lifelessly beneath the heavy liner.
Luxy stood, mystified, as the woman let out yet another sigh, and placing her hands on her hips, exited the doorway and made her way over to the fire, warming her hands in front of it.
Luxy stood, head cocked and mouth gaped, as the woman went on as though she was invisible. Finally, without looking up from the fire, the woman asked, "Didn't like the fire did ya?"
Luxy stammered for a reply, yet nothing came out.
The woman turned her head, her eyebrow in an incredible arch. "Well, why you standing in the doorway? Soaked to the bone and probably with a cold. The fire will do you good."
Luxy dropped her jaw, unable to reply. Her gaze never left the strange woman as she quietly padded across the wonderful carpet and once again sat in the lavender chair in front of the warm fire.
The woman was now humming a tune as she left the fire and went over to the bed, Luxy's gaze following her. The questions that were burning in her soul couldn't be kept captured any longer: "Who are you, where am I, and where's Benji?"
The woman looked up, an amused expression playing across her face. "Well, kid," she said, smoothing the covers of the bed and then taking a seat, "If you must know, I am Rose, Rose Danson, you are in the Red Bull, and I am sorry, but I don't know where Benji is."
Involuntarily, Luxy rose from the chair and joined the woman on the bed, her electric eyes boring into her. "What was that man doing here?"
Rose Danson smiled, a nice quiet smile, and let out a small laugh. "Oh, well, kid, this is a brothel. Of course men are going to be here."
Luxy recoiled in her Indian-style sitting position on the bed. "You mean." She had heard of a brothel before. The word had been brought up in a rather nasty argument between her mother and father one night after her father went to a brothel once. She had been in bed with her sisters, listening to the yelling. She hadn't known what one was until her mother screamed in French something about her father being a cheating scoundrel, going to whorehouses to fuck dirty scarlet women. And Rose Danson sure was a scarlet woman. "You're a scarlet woman?"
Rose released a small laugh. "Oh, if you want to put it that way, I guess you could."
"But," Luxy countered, then stopped. The scent of lavender was starting to intoxicate her mind, making her feel drowsy and just curling up on the bed and sleeping forever.
"You came in here, all wet and hysterical and crying. Annabelle found you passed out. They were going to throw you out, but I have a little girl of my own about your age, Ruby, and I knew that that would be an awful thing to do. So, I brought you up here. I hope you don't catch cold."
Luxy sleepily looked up into Rose's emerald green eyes, and felt safe and warm. A yawn escaped her lips.
Luxy's mind began to shut down, and she started to fall back onto the soft covers when Rose asked, "What's your name?"
"Lu-xy," she laxly replied, eyelids falling.
"Luxy, that's a pretty name. Now, kid, who is this Benji that you are looking for?"
Benji. The name was like a shower of icy cold water being poured over her. She immediately sat up, eyes wide. "Oh, Benji, Jesus Christ, Benji!" she cried, throwing her legs over the bed.
"Kid, wait!" Rose called, jumping and grasping her by the shoulder.
Luxy turned to her. "I can't. I'm sorry. Thanks you whatevah ya did.but I hafta find me friend."
Rose's eyes bored into her. "Luxy, it's a shame to see you go. I could have used some company." Her eyes fell to a window. "It stopped raining out."
Luxy's heart jumped, yet at the same time, an awful pang of hunger reared its ugly head.
The scarlet woman raised one of her perfect brows. "What's the matter?"
Luxy felt like doubling over the pain was that atrocious. "Nothing," she grunted, placing a hand over her stomach.
"Look, you wait here a minute, kid." Rose quickly rose from the bed and crossed the room to a small vanity. Opening a small drawer, she brought forth a small beaded purple sack. "Here," she said, returning to Luxy, "hold out your hand." Luxy did as she was commanded, and Rose shook a few coins from the purse and into her hand.
Luxy raised her eyes to Rose's. "Look, kid," Rose quietly smiled. "There's a diner a few blocks from here. Called Tibby's. Great apple pie. Get yourself a slice, you deserve it. Maybe this Benji kid is there."
Luxy let her mouth drop. She stepped back, holding the coins out. "Oh, no, I.I.I can't accept this."
Rose nodded. "Oh, yes you can. And you will. Now scat. Go get some good apple pie."
Gingerly, yet gratefully, accepting the money, Luxy started for the door, when she halted, turning around.
"Keep the nightgown. You only have that guy's shirt, and I don't know what happened to your underwear, kid."
Underwear. Luxy felt a large lump start to form in her throat. Mr. Antonelli. She needed to find Benji. Without thinking, Luxy flung herself across the room and wrapped herself around Rose. "Thank you," she sighed.
Rose returned the smile, running her fingers through the girl's now bone- dry raven hair. "Anytime you come and ask for Rose, kid."
Luxy removed herself from the scarlet woman, and picking up Benji's crinkled white shirt, gave one last goodbye to Rose Danson, closing the door, the wonderful purple colors and lavender smell behind her.
* Rose Danson had been correct. As Luxy padded barefoot down the now populated and noisy streets of Manhattan, the frigid breezes of a dying winter that was still trying to rule the atmosphere licked her skin, yet the warm rays of the almost near spring sun warmed her back.
Pushing her way irritably through the pedestrians, Luxy tried miserably to fight the pangs of hunger and the fear of not finding Benji as she reassuringly clutched the coins in her clammy hand.
"Just a few blocks away. Just a few blocks away," she softly chanted over and over again.
Then, finally, after what seemed like hours of walking for Luxy, she saw it. The glorious sign that proclaimed TIBBY'S. The hunger now almost entirely consuming her, she picked up her heels and was only a few buildings from it when she felt something hard and strong clamp itself around her torso and vacuum the breath from her body. Wheezing, the strong object drug her into an alley, a dank dark alley, the red eyes of rats and the reflection of the sun off the glitter-shot glass bottles visible.
The grasp around her middle was so tight, Luxy could inhale or exhale a single breath. She felt liable to explode as the whatever drug her deeper and deeper into the alley-the busy street she once occupied with the ignorant pedestrians lit up by dark walls of the alley, framed like some sick picture. A picture that was getting smaller and smaller.
Finally, remarkably, the excruciatingly tight grip left her torso and let her fall to the ground, letting her collect a large mouthful of glorious, fresh air. Alas, she hadn't had time to release the breath when she felt a hand go to her throat, throwing her against one of the slimy, moldy walls, pinning her there, her feet a foot off the ground. Her breath now came out in awful squeals and wheezes.
"You got away from me, little girlie, yes, you did." The voice was terrible and rough, as though it belonged to that of the Devil himself.
Luxy let out another series of squeaks as she thrashed her body about, yet that man's grip only got tighter. She felt one of the figure's hands leave her throat. A second later, she felt a piece of cloth dangling in front of her face.
"Girlie, girlie, girlie."
"Oh God!" her muffled cry came. Mr. Antonelli! Mr. Antonelli had cornered her yet again. He had Meg's panties. She had to get away. In one motion, she bucked her lower body and allowed her teeth to come down hard on Mr. Antonelli's hand.
He let out a terrible yell, tearing his hands away from her throat, causing Luxy to fall to the ground, gasping for breath and rubbing her pained neck.
Mr. Antonelli was bellowing out horrible curses and was hunched, cradling his injured hand. With every ounce of her being, Luxy willed herself to her feet and began to run.
"GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE WHORE!" Mr. Antonelli's screams seeped into her brain.
"NO! NO! NO!" Luxy screamed back.
The light. The light and the sidewalk and the people were getting closer. Closer. If only she could make it.
She felt the same iron grip snake its way around her torso, pulling her back, causing her to lose her breath and fling like a rag doll.
"NO! NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" she sobbed.
She felt Mr. Antonelli's putrid, hot breath in her ear as his right hand cupped the side of her face, forcefully turning it towards him. "You. You, little girlie, you won't tell nobody about this, you hear. You hear!" he screeched, roughly snapping her head, causing her to burst into bitter tears. "Because, because if you do, if you tell anybody, I will kill your family. You hear that? I live above you and will know if you tell and then I will kill your family!"
Luxy emitted a futile screech as Mr. Antonelli pitched her forward into the soot and broken glass.
"Nobody," he growled, kicking dirt onto her face with his heavy boot and spitting on her.
Mr. Antonelli parted leaving Luxy in an awful pile on the ground, doused in hysterical sobs.
After what seemed like eternity, Luxy finally picked herself up. Stumbling, disheveled, and with a nasty gash streaming blood on her left cheek from a shard of glass, she made her way to the mouth of the alley, blinking in the light. She stumbled her way to Tibby's, not caring if she pumped into pedestrians. The bell over the door tinkled and a few patrons looked up from their food and newspaper to see a twelve-year-old girl in a filthy, ripped oversized white nightgown with wild black hair and a soot-covered and bloodied face wander blindly into Tibby's, tears leaving trails on the soil on her face.
The world around Luxy was a haze. She didn't know nor care to see where she was going. She wished to be in the purple room in the Red Bull with the intoxicating scent of lavender all about her. She would have continued like this if a voice, clear as clean crystal, hadn't said: "Luxy?"
The haze or the fog or whatever it was seemed to have lifted and Luxy could see clearly now. She looked around, confused, looking for the bearer who uttered her name. She thought herself insane until she heard it again: "Luxy?"
She knew instantaneously who it was. Benji.
She turned and spied him, sitting at a table by himself, a platter of food and drink in front of him. Benji, in only trousers, his silly black eye, and a red bandanna around his wrist. Benji, an expression of utter shock and worry abounded on his face.
"Oh, Benji," Luxy said, before erupting into hysterical tears and dashing over to him, nearly knocking his chair over.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Benji cried, looking around at the gawking onlookers for a moment at the odd girl who was sobbing onto his chest.
"Oh, Benji!" she howled, clawing at his chest.
"Lux, Lux, Lux, it's alright. It's fine. Shhh," he said softly, wrapping his arms around her.
Luxy shook her head wildly. "No, no, no. It's not.it's not!"
"Yeah it is, Luxy," he replied. "Yeah it is."
Somehow, Luxy found Benji's hot breath in her ear comforting, and she quieted down.
"There, Luxy," he said. "It's alright. Now where da hell where ya, and why ya all doity?"
Luxy didn't answer. She only raised her mouth to his ear and whispered in a fear clad voice, "Benji, I love you."
Benji raised an eyebrow as a red wash fell across his face. "Yeah, Lux, I'se love ya too. Now, ya want some food?"
Luxy was deaf to Benji's words. In her soul kindled the most fear she had ever felt.it was immortal fear. For in the corner of the plate glass window in the façade of Tibby's was Mr. Antonelli, his awful black eyes piercing her soul from under his dingy brown hood.
Luxy blinked.
And the eyes were gone.