For over a decade, the half-burnt down old wood frame of the Irish Rose had silently sat on a forgotten block on the edge of the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. The whitewashed and charred wood occupied a lot between a set of brownstones and other wood-framed homes. The same block even boasted a tiny church at one of the corners and a set of stables.
But the stables were empty, and the church had boarded up windows. It was the kind of street that inhabited an eerily quiet of abandonment and decay. Passersby who traveled along the street could not deny how the half-burnt silhouette seemingly still smoking into the sky struck a sense of dread.
Audrey turned the corner onto the familiar block and was struck with a chill and shudder. She felt suddenly exposed to a stillness, she had never once noticed before. She ducked her head and flipped up the collar of a long men's coat she wore. She was exposed and felt desperate to push through the stillness on the street by running. But shadows, especially ones that did not want to be seen, did not run on a public street.
The young lady had never noticed before how the block had little to no life on it. Spades Fia and her gang had been full of a movement, frantic energy that had hidden the stillness with a brash and unabashed nature. Audrey measured her steps with her breathing until she reached the fading blue door and slipped inside. More careful, more resigned than she had ever entered the Irish Rose in her life. To her surprise, the entry hall was bright with the afternoon light, and without layers of dust, it felt as warm and welcoming as it always had.
"How peculiar," Audrey muttered, louder than a whisper as she tried to shake the goosebumps forming along her arm.
"What's peculiar dear?" Caitlin Conlon walked out of the front parlor, the one that housed the familiar bell desk. Audrey let out a shrill scream, jumping back into the front door. The doorknob caught her in the side making her clamp down her teeth in pain, one of her palms pressing into her chest in a ridiculous attempt to calm her beating heart.
Cat had her ushered into the front parlor before Audrey understood Caitlin Conlon wasn't a ghost but actual flesh and blood. Cat was pulling off her coat, muttering mostly to herself as she folded and draped the clothing over a chair.
"Who does this ensemble belong to?" Cat huffed as she pushed Audrey to sit and tugged at the oversized shirt out of pants only being held up by a pair of suspenders.
"Me." Audrey struggled to stand, or scoot away from the attentions of an unfamiliar Conlon.
"Come now Audrey, we all know you don't own anything this modest or male." Cat shook her head, pressing her hard fingers into the skin that was already swelling and red.
"Ow!" Audrey lashed out a fist, knocking Cat's hand away with real force. Caitlin ceased in her attention, holding both her hands up and locking her eyes on Audrey's frightened gaze.
"At least you didn't break the skin, but that will be an ugly bruise. If you'd been wearing a corset, it might have been better."
"What are you doing here?" Audrey demanded.
"Or maybe worse, depending on the type of corset I would guess." Cat frowned at the untucked shirt. The shirt, as the pants and coat were all too large for Audrey's frame. The girl was covered in beads of sweat and patches of wet fabric stuck to her body. "What a ridiculous coat to be wearing in this sweltering heat. You are drenched in sweat."
Audrey inhaled deeply, taking steadying breaths as her fingers traced the familiar pattern on the loveseat. Jack Kelly had been sitting here one of the last times Audrey had ever seen him. She jumped to her feet at the memory, angrily pushing the shirt back into her pants.
Footsteps thundered down the steps and Audrey closed her eyes long enough to believe it might be Spades Fia and Blue O'Reilly. It sure sounded like a man and a woman, and the memory was so vivid Audrey believed it must be true as she caught sight of worn shoes, a high hem of old trousers, and the edges of skirts. But Spades never wore skirts in the Rose. Was the entire place filled with ghosts and spirits?
Audrey swept her gaze over the couple, a hand clasping another. A missed button on the boy's shirt, loose curls over the girl's ears. Audrey understood in seconds that Matthew and Cammie had rushed to become presentable.
"Courting trouble, are you?" Cat's voice was sharp. The tone making Audrey understand she hadn't been aware of their presence.
"Cat, Audrey." Matthew gave them a nod and a tight smile.
"We heard the scream." Cammie released Matt's hand, taking a hair of a step away from him. Not enough to give them any distance, or even claim any sense of propriety.
"I thought Cat was a ghost," Audrey explained, still starring at the unbuttoned button on Matt's shirt. Cat snapped her fingers impatiently, gesturing for Cammie but Matt reached back out and clasped his fingers around her hand.
Bottle Cap stumbled into the front parlor from the library and Audrey was ready to scream at the absurd frustration of finding people in the abandoned building. All eyes snapped to the newest addition to the gathering.
"Good! Best you all know you are here." Bottle Cap wheezed. He pushed his cap up enough to scratch above one ear, and heavily leaned into the doorframe.
"What are all of you doing here!" Audrey exploded. It certainly wasn't still inside the Irish Rose anymore. Three voices answer the demand at the same time.
"Cousin, what are you wearing?" Matt began.
"I was just strolling by," Cap sarcastically snapped.
"I thought this place was abandoned…" Cammie tried. Caitlin Conlon claps her hands together once, before glaring at Bottle Cap.
"How much time?" Cat demanded.
"Give or take a quarter of an hour, maybe two." Cap shrugs.
"He might not come." Audrey squeaks.
"With you dressed like that, he'll be here." Cat rolls her eyes. Audrey shifts her weight uncomfortably, glancing at the discarded coat and Caitlin suddenly realizes the clothes must have been Christopher's. Matt is tugging at Cammie's hand, trying to get her into the entry hall.
"Well, this isn't our affair." Matt mumbles.
"You will stay." Cat commands. "Come over here and sit down girl. Slingshot, fix your shirt."
"Her name is Cammie." Audrey and Cap state at the exact same time. Cammie steps away from Matt, keeping her head high and defiant but doing as she's told, nonetheless. Matt fumbles with his shirt, having to look down to find the missed button.
"I am here for the same reason as you are dear, I appreciate you telling the birds with enough time for me to come see the place myself. Why don't you take some time with Bottle Cap while I have a word on sin and consequences with Slingshot and Cammie?" Cat tilted her head just slightly, in an imperious command achingly familiar of another Conlon.
Audrey squeezes her eyes shut, trying to catch the memory and her breath as Cap presses his palm into her lower back. He guides her into the hall and starts to push her up the stairs.
"I don't have to listen to a lecture from you or any Conlon." Matt declares loudly. Audrey suspects another Conlon might have been sending some strongly worded letters.
"You just sit right up on that counter boy, and keep your smart mouth buttoned up." Cat's words whipped out and Audrey imagined the knock of a cane against the wood planks of the floor. Cap pushes her along quicker.
Wood-framed houses, Arthur Lawson had explained at the dinner party two evenings ago, were inexpensive to build and the land lot they sat on was always more valuable. Arthur believed he had been boring Miss Audrey, with the history of buildings and building materials in New York and he knew his mother would have boxed his ears for bringing up investments with a young lady. But Miss Audrey had seemed genuinely interested, asking questions, and sharing a deep knowledge for blocks of the city that Arthur surprisingly had never even visited. The wealthy architect's son did not know Audrey had heard about the new project being developed at the site of an old wood-framed house that had partially burned 13 years earlier near Brooklyn Heights. Before speaking to Arthur, Audrey would not have known the Irish Rose was a classic wood-framed house. The kind of building that had been prohibited decades before due to fear of fires. The exact building that would be demolished on August 23, 1903, to make way for a new hotel. This block was being developed.
"There wasn't a bird within three blocks." Audrey sighed. They followed the hallway towards the back of the house.
"No," Cap huffed a laugh. "Otherwise, I think they might have warned you."
Audrey stepped into one of the rooms, what she now knew because of Arthur, would have been the lady of the home's rooms. But to her, it had just been where they occasionally slept. The makeshift beds were scatted in the room, amongst a writing table and a trunk. It reminded her of the nest, a place where forgotten and broken furniture served a grateful population. She had never noticed how they had slept anywhere there was something soft and a roof over their heads. It was strange to realize how little they had.
"But you knew we were all here?" Audrey murmured, running her fingers over the back windowsill. She had sat here with Pockets so often, a lifetime ago. Audrey shrugged her shoulders, feeling the weight of time.
"I came across the right collection of birds," Cap explained.
"You found the story, in the many."
Audrey wandered across the hallway into the husband's rooms, where Blue and Pockets had slept. Cap followed her in silence, as she meandered through dust and forgotten pieces of pre-civil war furniture.
"I thought you'd grown out of this habit," Cap reached out and snapped her suspenders against her shoulders. Audrey skipped across the room, to where Scorch had once almost set the rest of the building on fire.
"I may not wander in plain sight unescorted during the day, and there would be too many questions if I charmed an escort. No one would let me enter a crumbling house as Miss Audrey."
"I would hope you'd have enough sense to enter an abandoned house with only a gentlemen escort." Cap's eyebrows shot up alarmed.
"Most gentlemen are well behaved." Audrey shrugged, ducking down to pick up a forgotten card. A face card, likely one that hid in the cuff of Shady's best jacket.
"Until they are not." Cap frowned.
Audrey ducked out of the rooms back into the hallway, traveling to the staircase that led to the third floor. The second floor of the Irish Rose was the only other floor of the building that was fully intact besides the main floor, she hadn't often traveled to the third floor. She had spent most of her time in the Irish Rose downstairs, in the back parlor known as the library. Bottle Cap reached out to catch her, to keep her from the danger.
"You knew Matthew was here and for what purpose." She challenged using his surprise to charge up the stairs out of his reach. Bottle Cap was taller and possibly strong enough to hold her these days but unpredictability had always worked in her favor.
The third floor had been the children's rooms, Arthur had explained. Audrey didn't know if that's how Spot, Spades, and Blue's family had boarded when they all lived here. Part of the floor from the fourth floor, the servants' quarters had collapsed into the hall. Everything looked unstable, dangerous in a way that made Audrey want to explore.
She danced onto the floor, being only cautious enough to test her weight on the planks of the floor with darker patches of ash. It was warm on this floor, despite the gapping breaks in the exterior allowing for the outside elements to swirl around. The smell of ash and age-old fire invigorated Audrey.
Cap stood two steps down in the stairwell, on the last stable step worrying over his thumb as he recalled the words of some of the birds he had encountered recently. Laces is seeking danger. Laces is being reckless. Laces was looking for something. Just beneath the surface they warned, like Spot had written just a week before. Restless energy directed in a way a younger Cap remembered her.
Bottle Cap recognized this Laces, the one that had been left to her own devices just too long. He had seen this child before and startled to realize Audrey had been just about his own age now when she had been caught by Pepper.
Dressed in the trousers and suspenders, jumping from spot to spot in the debris she looked almost the same as she had then. She had been escorted into a building by a man with the worse of intentions. It was so easy to forget Audrey Alexandra Kai had been Laces before, had known the harsh realities of the world. She understood violence and sex in equal measure to any of the gentlemen protecting her sensibilities now.
"AUDREY ALEXANDRA KAI!" The bellow from below was clear in the command. Come down, immediately. Cap jumped enough to stumble back a step at Critter O'Connell's voice. Audrey had stilled and Cap knew she was weighing out her options, the threats, and the rewards of each. For though everyone believed Laces to be impulsive and careless in her decisions, Bottle Cap knew better. He understood how she viewed the world; how precise her decisions were and had become.
A Minute – two-three full minutes passed before anything creaked and it was not from above but from below. Cap groaned as he took the steps back to the second floor, not wanting to be in the direct path of Critter O'Connell on the hunt for his wayward girl. But it was Caitlin Conlon that appeared at the end of the hall.
Caitlin with hair just a bit darker and sandier than her younger brother. She had a rounder older face and shorter stature but the same bright and piercing blue eyes and determined stride. As truly physically Conlon as anyone Bottle Cap had seen in nearly 15 months. She smiled at Bottle Cap, a warm and welcoming expression so oddly unlike her brother.
"Best go on down, you should mind making sure Slingshot goes to confession and keeps his word about the girl." She waves him down, dismissing him. Giving him a direct order without squinting eyes or scowling. Cap jogged down the steps trying to remember at what age Caitlin had disappeared from a young Spot Conlon's life.
Audrey had not moved when Cat appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Christopher is mighty disappointed in you." Cat calls out to the girl.
Audrey flinched at the words.
"He wanted me to wait for him."
"And you gave him the slip. Patrick's been writing for months that you'd get up to some mischief."
"This isn't mischief." Audrey spits back. Cat rolls her eyes; semantics arguments were her least favored in young people.
"Bit dangerous, all the same." Cat smiles at the girl. Audrey stares at this Conlon, unable to match her look with her tone and her words. Audrey had never spent any time with Caitlin, not even when Spot was in the city and even less since he had left. Audrey was never sure she liked older sisters much. Cat was a stranger with a familiar face, but a sorely missed familiar face.
"Is this where your family lived?" Audrey whispers as she let her gaze sweep the wreckage.
"No, we were above on the servant's quarters. Blue, Spades, and Angel's family were on this floor." Caitlin explained carefully.
"And on the second floor?"
"The McCall Sisters and Samuel Masters."
"The one who took the photographs," Audrey whispered.
"Why, yes. How do you know that?" Cat startled.
"The photos, some of them are down in the basement. I came… I came to get them." Audrey admitted.
Cat blinked back the tears that sprung to her eyes. She had kept from crying all afternoon, taken to dusting and organizing objects that she didn't remember. A bird, Firecracker, the one that sometimes followed her around had told her this morning.
The Irish Rose would be demolished tomorrow, it would cease to exist more than it had 13 years before. Her family's last home would be erased from the world and Caitlin needed to see it one last time. She understood why Laces was here, the girl that had taken over Fiona's role in Spot's life. She didn't doubt Fiona would have been here too.
"If they are in the basement, then why are we tottering around here dangerously?" Cat coaxed Audrey to her by curling her fingers and brightening her tone.
"You sent me away." Audrey challenged but started moving back to the steps.
"So, it's my fault, is it?" Cat laughed even as she reached out and caught Audrey's hand. She wrapped her hand around the girl's hand, in the exact same fashion she might grab one of her charge's hands. A child in need of minding, Cat shook her head at the truth of the idea. She expertly pulled the young lady down the steps to safer floors.
"Do you write to Spot often?" Audrey asks in a small voice.
"I try, just like I'm sure you do." Cat continued leading the girl down to the first-floor landing, where Christopher loomed over the newsboys and Cammie fidgeting in the entry hall. As their boots clicked off the last step, Christopher snapped his attention immediately to Audrey.
Caitlin Conlon had been a tutor, a nanny, and a governess for more than a decade and a big sister to a gaggle of younger siblings before that. She knew how to take care of others. She guided little souls into adulthood, cuddled and cajoled as needed. She provided boundaries to their worlds, but she was never a guardian. She had always known Christopher was a guardian, a man who took charge and took in charges to protect. But it was in this moment, when she caught sight of his panic settled on Audrey that she understood him as a parent. Critter had countless children, he had ever since Caitlin had met him. He was a shepherd for lost souls but unlike Cat, he claimed them as his own.
"Come here." Critter pointed to the empty space directly in front of him. His voice hard and sharp in a way that reminded Caitlin of her own father. Caitlin saw Audrey give her head a small shake, even as she kept her chin obstinately high. But the refusal seemed more habit than intent, as the girl stepped forward easily enough.
"You knew where I was," Audrey argued even as she stepped directly where Critter demanded. He hummed at her, removing the ridiculous cap on her head allowing her hair to tumble down, and tracing his fingers lightly down her neck.
"I gave the report about the Irish Rose to you." Audrey continued. Critter's fingers were just under her ribs, where the bruise had likely already formed when he caught her jaw clench.
"Is that when you took these items you're wearing?" He asked as he pulled at his own shirt billowing around her waist. Pushing the material up to her ribs, giving everyone a clear view of the injury.
Slingshot snorted and Bottle Cap shoved an elbow into his gut.
"If I didn't know Caroline so well, I'd believe all Kai children were ill-behaved," Cat murmured.
"Don't let her fool you, she ran away from home to marry Jim at the age Audrey is now." Critter laughed as he studied the blooming bruise on Audrey's torso. To Audrey's credit, she didn't try to pull away from his ministrations, as she had from Caitlin.
"You knew I was going to be at the Irish Rose!" Audrey stamped her foot.
"Yes, the timing of telling me when you crossed the bridge doesn't escape me, Audrey." Critter growled.
"I couldn't wait for you to escort me; it would not be here tomorrow." Audrey sighed defeated.
"You could not wait an hour?" Critter untucked the rest of the shirt, before softly patting down her legs checking for injuries.
"No one saw me." Audrey pouted. All her defenses were true, it was the reason Critter wasn't angry at all.
"You were on the third floor because no one saw you?" Critter counter, finally standing and taking a step back to glare at the girl.
Audrey fidgeted, curling her fingers into her palm in a fist. She had learned to fight here years before, and she idly wondered if she could beat Critter in a fight. Caitlin noticed the flexing fingers and remembered how her brother had begged her to seek Audrey out, to see if she was twitching with impatience.
"You couldn't." Critter leaned forward to whisper his challenge. She glared at him, but it wasn't anger or innocent or righteous or any of her usual petulance. He raised his eyebrows at her, waiting and warning.
"I am sorry." Audrey conceded. "I was careful."
"I gave her a fright, it's how she got hurt," Caitlin added helpfully. Critter sighed, pushing, and pulling his own shoulders up and out in an imposing manner.
"We shall ask Casey to find lessons in patience for you." Critter declared.
"But Critter," Audrey whined, every bit the child she claimed not to be any longer.
"We could, of course, return to our usual forms of punishment." Critter threatened. Audrey shrank back meekly and shook her head with real submission. Critter nodded once more, pulling the girl into his chest to drop a kiss to the top of her head.
If he didn't lose sight of her, Christopher O'Connell had Audrey Kai well in hand. She was safe, and healthy, and sometimes even happy. It was only some that saw the danger simmering - Bottle Cap, Skittery, Spot. Spot warned in his letters that Audrey was like a tea kettle left to boil too long.
"That's a good girl," Critter murmured. "Bid your cousin and Cap farewell, they waited for you to return before fleeing."
"And then we'll find these photographs." Caitlin smiled up at Christopher.