The Hidden Library Read online

  She sighs. Coughs. “If I live or die, Huckleberry Finn is once more in my house.”

  I sit down on the chair. “I’m sorry for taking so long to come see you.”

  A frail hand reaches for me. “You are so handsome. You look like a right, proper gentleman.”

  Her intentions are good, and yet I can’t help remembering being that kid who wasn’t a gentleman.

  A coughing fit overcomes her, and when she pulls away her handkerchief, it is spotted with bright red blood. “I wanted to know life has done right by you before I go to meet our maker.”

  I feel like an impersonator answering this question, but I do so anyway. She coughs again, the sounds rattling her thin chest and shaking the bed.

  “What can I get you?” I glance around the room. If only I’d let Victor come.

  “Nothing.” She gasps. “The Lord will see me soon enough and will take care of me then. Tell me about your life, Huck.”

  The room smells like sickness, and her skin is sallow. Memories nearly suffocate me. “I work for my father in New York.”

  A smile has just enough time to emerge before another round of coughing leaves her even weaker. I don’t let her ask anything further—I just tell her about my life. I tell her how I went to two different universities, and that I can speak three languages. I tell her about traveling all over the world and of discovering new cultures and peoples. I tell her that the family I left her for, the one that I allowed in after years of her trying, were good people and that I love them deeply. I tell her that I found the woman of my dreams, and that she sits downstairs in her parlor.

  The widow smiles the whole time, her coughs punctuating my story like commas and periods. Her handkerchief is nearly scarlet, there’s so much blood. By the time I’m done, she whispers, “You always was the charmer, Huck.”

  Doctor’s orders be damned, I lean over and kiss her paper-thin cheek.

  She reluctantly nods off to sleep, her breath shallow and rattling. Beyond the curtains and glass, it’s started to snow harder. Soon, the rattling stops and there’s nothing but bone-aching silence.

  I make my way back down the stairs, my boots finally soft in their meetings between rubber and wood. Alice and the doc are still in the parlor, but neither is talking. It’s all so quiet.

  Alice stands up the moment she sees me. Within seconds, her arms are around me, and mine around her. I bury my face against her neck, not even knowing how to feel. Her fingers twine in my hair, holding me tightly like once more, she’s afraid I’ll float away.

  Eventually, the sound of new boots on the stairs emerges. Unable to help it, a bitter smile curves my lips at the thought of what Miss Watson would have said to the town doc. Would she have forced him to walk up and down with a book on his head?

  A door opens and closes. A loud, familiar voice fills my ears. I kiss Alice’s cheek and let her go. And then I turn around to face Tom Sawyer in person for the first time in over a decade.

  The sonofabitch has the audacity to look happy.

  “Huck! Sid said you was here, but I didn’t quite believe him. But here you are, an’—”

  I punch him so hard he hits the ground, out like a light.

  IT TAKES MUCH PRODDING, but Finn finally allows me to examine his hand. We are safely ensconced within a local inn, in a snug yet sparse room that at least has a proper fire. Upon arrival, I’d immediately requested water and bandages, which only made my partner’s already questionable mood turn darker.

  “Well.” I peer down at the tender flesh. “I do not think you broke anything. At least on your end, that is.”

  He sighs.

  An extraordinarily pregnant woman who accompanied Sawyer to Mrs. Douglas’ home screamed once her husband hit the ground, and I’d unfortunately been tempted to smack her myself. In any case, I’d hissed, “Show some proper respect. There is a woman dead in this home, and your histrionics will serve no purpose.”

  “Huck!” She tumbled awkwardly to her knees and grappled at the unconscious man’s chest. “How could you?”

  Finn promptly stalked out of the house and I calmly followed. Daisy, the little maid, ran after us and stood on the porch until we’d reached the bottom of the hill, almost as if she couldn’t believe what she’d seen.

  Once I caught up with him, I said mildly, “I suppose you decided you wanted to beat the shit out of him after all, didn’t you?”

  Finn did not respond, nor did he say anything else until we reached the inn. At that point, everything was clinical and to the point: we wished to have a room for precisely one night. Money exchanged hands, and then furtive glances as a few of the employees whispered amongst themselves how we traveled with no luggage and that they were positive Huckleberry Finn had returned home.

  He wanted to go back to New York but I’d let him know that while he had been upstairs, the doctor informed me Mrs. Douglas had requested Finn to take care of her funeral arrangements. We are to stay until he can do so in the morning and then promptly depart.

  I’ve just finished wrapping Finn’s hand when a knock sounds on our door. It’s tentative, yet neither of us gets up to answer it.

  The tension in Finn’s body rouses internal alarms. I have seen him angry before, I have seen him focused and in a fight, but I’ve never seen him quite like this.

  “Huck?” Another round of pounding, louder now, echoes throughout the small room. “I know you’re in there! Open the door. You—you need to hear me out. Huck?”

  I gently place Finn’s hand back into his lap. “He’s a tenacious one.”

  All I get out of Finn is a grunt.

  The alarms within me ring louder.

  The door handle jiggles, the pounding turns deafening. “If you think I’m goin’ to go away, why, you got another thing comin.’ You hear me, Huck Finn? I am not leavin’ before I say my piece! You owe me that!”

  Finn explodes out of his chair and nearly tears the door off its hinges. Sawyer, now sprouting a red-and-purple-welted face, nearly trips over the threshold.

  “I don’t owe you shit,” Finn barks. “Now get the hell out of here before I finish what you deserve.”

  As I make my way to the door, Sawyer pulls himself upright, straightening his coat. “Now, see here—”

  Finn punches him once more in the jaw. Sawyer slams up against the wall beyond our door, and hysterical wailings sound. Frabjous. The pregnant woman has come along for the show.

  Miraculously, Sawyer teeters forward, undeterred. A hand rubs his chin, which, truthfully, I’m more than a bit suspicious might be broken. “Huck—”

  Finn’s fist pulls back, ready for a third punch, but the pregnant woman slides between their bodies. “Stop it! For the love of God, you two must stop this fighting!”

  “I warned you,” Finn snaps. Instead of a punch, he juts out a finger, past the woman at the wobbly man.

  A crowd swells the hallway. Curious eyes all angle toward the two men and the sobbing lady.

  “Do something!” she shouts at me.

  If I was not so concerned she might immediately go into labor from her histrionics, I just very well might have laughed. But while her tear-streaked face produces no pity within me, I also know that a burgeoning crowd in a town already on edge thanks to war is not the most favorable of places to air grievances. “If you truly want this to cease, then persuade Sawyer to depart at once.”

  She is shocked by my ambivalence. She clearly would not last a full day in Wonderland.

  A hand grabs hold of Finn’s shirt. “Please, Huck. I know you’re mad. But—”

  He jerks away, leaving her stumbling. “Are you fucking serious, Becky? Mad? You think I’m just mad at this sack of shit?”

  Sawyer’s eye has swollen shut. He is a pitiful-looking thing if there ever was one.

  Becky breaks into heaving sobs again. I sigh and push my way into the hallway. A quick scan locates the innkeeper. “You there. Come and take this woman to somewhere more discreet. And be quick about it, lest you w
ish to have a babe born upon your floors.”

  The heavyset man with a handlebar mustache rumbles forward. “You come with me, Mrs. Sawyer. I’ll get you a nice cup o’ tea.”

  She resists, though. Sobs some more. “Don’t you dare kill him. Do you hear me Huck Finn? Don’t you dare! He’s got a family!”

  Finn’s words rattle the walls. “Jim didn’t? What about his kids?”

  The murmuring crowd goes silent. Even Becky has finally gone quiet, albeit hiccupping.

  Jim was the name of Finn’s friend, the freed slave he said was the only from childhood he ever felt a true kinship with. And now . . . is Finn saying Jim is dead?

  “You act as if I was the one to pull the noose,” Sawyer garbles, and Finn pushes past Becky and punches him again so hard, the man slumps once more to the ground. He is still conscious, though. Barely, but his dazed eyes look up at Finn, blinking in shock.

  Becky resumes her hysteria.

  “Take her,” I order the innkeeper.

  He jabbers, “This is a peaceful establishment! I won’t put up with this kind of—”

  “But you’ll stand back and watch innocent people lynched,” Finn rages. “Right? Or, is the only kind of violence you accept the kind against people you don’t even consider people, because they’re nothing more than property to you? Because their skin isn’t the same color as ours?”

  Frenzied whispering of Northern sympathies surface.

  “He’s been dead going on ten years now,” Sawyer mumbles. “It ain’t like—”

  Finn rounds on him, his hand closing around Sawyer’s throat as he shoves the man up against the wall. “Say it,” he hisses. “Go ahead and try to justify, once more, what you’ve done. And I don’t care if it’s been ten years or ten minutes. Jim was my friend.”

  The innkeeper finally pulls Becky away, with threats of fetching the sheriff.

  Tears leak out of Sawyer’s eyes. “You don’ understand, you—”

  “You’re right.” Finn’s fingers tighten, leaving Sawyer gasping. “Because here’s the thing: Jim was good to you. He risked everything to ensure you were okay after you got shot. Remember that? When you were an idiot and went and got shot? Hell, of course you do. You still wear the damn bullet around your neck like a badge of honor! But Jim risked his freedom to get you help. And what for? You knew he’d been freed by Miss Watson. You knew. And yet, you nearly allowed him to get killed all so you could chase your fucking high.”

  Sawyer’s eyes roll back in his head. The pieces of Finn’s puzzle begin to slide into place. Suddenly, I am reminded of a framed photograph in Finn’s bedroom, of a dark-skinned man with eyes crinkled and a warm smile. A younger Finn stands beside him, his arm around the older man’s shoulder.

  “How does it feel?” Finn’s voice is filled with fury. “Knowing the life is being choked out of you? Wondering if your last breath is almost here? Did you ever wonder what it was like for him that night?”

  The crowd is so thick, I would not be able to traverse down either side of the hallway if I even desired to. I touch his shoulder, and immediately, Finn lets go of the swine. “You killed him anyway,” he spits out. “You fucking led them to him.”

  Sawyer coughs gasps, his hands instinctively, protectively, going to his own throat.

  “He was my friend, and you led a group of murderers straight to him. You stood back while they beat him and then hung him from a tree. You did nothing to stop them! You were there, weren’t you? I bet you watched the whole damn thing!”

  My blood turns cold. Any shred of pity I might have for Sawyer dies a quick death.

  But Finn isn’t done. “You then stood by while they cut him down and then burned his body. You did all this to a man who was warm and gentle and generous, a man who had a family and whose heart was wasted on a piece of trash like you.”

  Sawyer cries silently, still slumped on the ground. The crowd moves closer, disgustingly eager for every word.

  “Becky says I shouldn’t kill you because you have a family.” Finn squats down. “Did that stop you from letting your slave-loving buddies know where Jim was hiding?”

  Sawyer says nothing as he stares at his former friend.

  “What the hell happened to you, Tom? I knew you were a selfish bastard, but I didn’t think you were so evil. Jesus, I was blind, wasn’t I? What kind of person are you? You sell out your friends, you buy your way out of the war . . .” He shakes his head. “You’re a coward.”

  “H-h-huck,” Sawyer mumbles, as if words are physically painful to utter. “Y-you—”

  “Don’t you dare apologize. Your apologies are worthless. You’re the one who chose to get involved with Southern sympathizers. You are the one who fell in with anti-abolitionists.”

  “I didn’t know at first! They were just—”

  Finn refuses to let him finish. “Your excuses mean nothing.”

  “I did my best to separate myself from them once I saw what they were up to!”

  Finn is not swayed one bit.

  “You don’t understand, they threatened Becky when I told them I—”

  “I. Don’t. Care.” Finn stands back up, his hands curling into fists. And then, “I have a lot of regrets about my fucked-up childhood. But you’re the biggest of all.”

  Fat tears streak down Sawyer’s face. “Don’t say that, Huck. We can—”

  Finn is merciless. “Don’t ever contact me again. Is that clear?”

  “But . . . I’m the liaison for—”

  “We are going to go to your house,” Finn continues, “and I am going to collect every last piece of equipment. And I swear to God, if you say one thing to me during the handover, I will not hesitate to finish what I should have started all those years ago. The only reason you’re even breathing right now is because my parents physically restrained me from coming the day you told me about Jim.”

  A murmur ripples through the crowd. A singular word sticks out like a sore thumb, and it has me immediately on the defense. I touch Finn’s shoulder again. I murmur, “We need to go.”

  Sawyer has begun babbling. His words are hard to understand, coming from such swollen lips and a bruised jaw, and it only further enrages my partner.

  In any normal situation, I would not hesitate to stand back and allow Finn to extract whatever bits of justice he feels necessary. His compass has not steered us wrong before. But if the crowd is correct, his reluctant visit to 1876/96TWA-TS will become much longer than the singular day he’d hoped for.

  “Finn.” My grip on his arm is firmer. “This coward is not worth any further time. We need to go. Now.”

  The crowd’s murmurings intensify just as Finn stands back up. And then Sawyer says, “If you just listen to reason—”

  Finn’s fist first meets Sawyer’s stomach and then his bloody face once more. The man finally slumps to the ground, unconscious. And still, Finn hits him again. Kicks him.

  A harsh voice yells out, “Put your hands up, or I’ll shoot.”

  There is a gun pointed our way, and a badge on a coat. Finn’s hands slowly rise, and when his eyes meet mine, there is no regret in them.

  The next few minutes are a flurry of confusion. The town’s doctor has been summoned, and I am agog when the crowd sympathizes more with Sawyer than Finn. My partner is placed into rudimentary handcuffs, and the whole while, the only thing he says is, “It’ll be okay, Alice.”

  I immediately go for my dagger, hidden beneath the folds of this massive dress I’m trapped within. Finn shakes his head when he recognizes my intent, as if he knows even I cannot fight our way out of so many people in this tiny hallway.

  Helplessness, the worst of all emotions, clamors just under my skin. Arguing with the sheriff does no good. And when I move to follow them, the grizzled man puts a hand out. “Ma’am, I’m requesting you stay behind. Jails ain’t a place for ladies such as yourself.”

  Finn mouths, “Get the equipment.”

  My blood boils when the sheriff roughly shoves Finn down
the hallway. The crowd is scandalized my partner would dare to put his hands on an upstanding citizen like Sawyer. Those who recognize him shout about how they knew he’d never grow up good. One elderly lady says something along the lines of, “He was a devil of a child, and all of his godlessness has come home to roost.”

  It takes supreme will to not to knock her down on her arse.

  The crowd surges behind the sheriff and Finn, jeering and calling for blood, and I do my best to push through. The moment I reach the door, though, there is a pair of men who must have heard the sheriff’s inane order, because they remind me that it would be best I go back upstairs and rest.

  One dares to put his hands on me. I inform him that if he does so again, he will most assuredly lose said hand. And I am close to following through when I force myself to remember that getting myself incarcerated is not the best way to free Finn. That said . . .

  Sobbing makes its way out of the inn, informing me that Sawyer’s wife must still be inside.

  A decision is made.

  I make my way back in and follow the weeping. Sure enough, Becky Sawyer sits inside a small sitting room, a cup of tea clattering in her hands as she acts as if Armageddon has descended upon us. A woman I do not recognize waits with her.

  “Get out,” I tell the woman.

  She scurries away. I shut the door behind her, lock it, and then for good measure, drag over a nearby chair and wedge it beneath the knob. The insipid woman upon the couch shrieks, and I have no other choice than to slap her smartly across the face—not hard by any means, but just enough to focus her attention.

  “My God, woman,” I snap. “Will you pull yourself together? This cannot be good for you or the babe.”

  She gapes at me, but luckily, her outrage supplants weeping.

  I pry the cup and saucer from her hands and sit down in a chair across from the couch she’s draped across. “Now that you have ceased your ridiculousness, we will have a talk, you and I.”