APPLESBY, MAINE. WINTER 1849.


"Turn your face to the wall, Katie, and stop that coughin’."

With her chest and throat burning, racked with chills
that shook her thin frame, nine-year-old Katie Whittington
huddled in her narrow bed.

"Katie, I mean it. Stop it now."

Only half-awake, at first she thought she had dreamed
her mother’s voice, so familiar, tinged with a hard-edged,
soulless quality that held no love. But then she heard it
again, clearly and for real, and the sound burrowed into
sleep-fogged corners of her mind, waking her completely.

There were the other sounds, too. Throaty moans, whimpers,
sharp, keening cries. A man’s harsh, ragged breathing.
The whining protest of coiled bedsprings from across the
cramped, cluttered room.

Katie rubbed her eyes and tried to hold back the hollow,
jarring cough, but it erupted anyway. She covered her mouth
with both hands and listened to the coupling noises, kept
her back to the room and hoped that Mama wouldn’t yell at
her again.

She lay there pretending to sleep through the noise,
painting pretty pictures in her head, dreaming of another
life, another world for her and Mama-the kind of world
she had only glimpsed from afar, the kind she could barely
imagine.

In her lovely dream world, she and Mama wore pretty
dresses, clean dresses, with starched lace and ruffles, and there
were pretty hats to match. The weather was always warm and
sunny, and whenever they walked down the street, no one
stepped aside or turned away. No one pointed at them or
whispered as they strolled along in their pastel finery.

Mama had tried to teach her to ignore the stares and
whispers of the townsfolk, but the rudeness still cut Katie to
her soul, and it always would.

She hugged the torn wool blanket and coughed again,
then wiped the palm of her hand on the dirty sheet that was
little more than a rag.

The linens in her dream home would be soft and clean.
There would be a fancy yellow cover on her bed, too, just
like one she had seen through the window of a big white
house up on Poplar Street. She would have lace curtains,
fancy as snowflakes that would never melt, hanging at every
window. The sun would stream through them, casting strands
of precious yellow gold around her very own room-a
room bigger than the shack she lived in now. There would
be pretty china plates piled high with more food than any
one person could ever eat all by herself.

The roof would never leak. The windows would glisten,
and there would not be even one single crack in them. Wind
would never sneak through holes in the windows or walls.

She shivered, her teeth chattering. Without warning, she
started coughing again, but this time it went on and on until
she lay on her side gasping for air like a dying fish.

"Katie!"

"Jeezus, can’t you shut that kid up?"

Katie rolled herself into a tight ball, hugging the thin
blanket around her shoulders. Her hands were stiff with
cold, her feet nearly numb even though she had climbed
into bed in her heavy shoes and socks.

She tried to picture her pretty dream house and all the
lovely dresses again, and the plates piled high with hot food.

When the images would not come, she looked up at the
frosted windowpane above her head. Between the ripped
curtain and halo of frost crystals, she could see a sliver of
moon and one lone star shining in the night sky.

She closed her eyes and wished upon that star. She wished
all her dreams would come true. Then she opened her eyes,
thankful that the moon was not full tonight.

On moonless nights it was easier for her to disappear inside
herself and shut out the sound of Mama and the men.
On moonless nights she was less tempted to watch.

But on nights when the moon hung full and heavy in the
starless sky, she would silently turn away from the wall, stare
through the milk-white light, and watch the shapes writhing
on the bed. She would peer over the edge of her blanket
and watch as Mama entertained the men who came scratching
at the door.


She must have fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew,
Mama’s hand was on her shoulder, shaking her awake. The
room smelled of burning whale oil. The single lamp on
the crate beside Mama’s bed cast a weak halo in the corner.

"Katie, get up and put your coat on."

Mama stripped off the blanket and tossed Katie the
ugly green wool coat that some little girl across town had
outgrown. They had found it in the bottom of the Christmas
charity box that the "self-righteous do-gooders" (as
Mama liked to call them) had left sitting on the front stoop
last year.

Suffering through another fit of coughing, wiping rusty
phlegm on the sheet, Katie sleepily protested. "It’s still the
middle of the night, Mama."

"Get up. We have to go."

"Where? Where do we have to go in the dark? It’s cold
out," Katie whined.

Mama didn’t answer.

Katie pulled herself up, climbed off the bed. Mama held
Katie’s coat as she shoved the girl’s arms into sleeves that did
not cover her wrists. Katie looked around for her faded red
scarf, but Mama grabbed her arm before she could find it.

"Come on."

"Where are we going?" Mama would not look at her, and
Katie began to worry and wonder why she was acting so
strangely. "I’m sorry I keep coughing, Mama. I can’t help it."

"You almost lost me a night’s wage."

Before she could promise not to cough again, Katie doubled
over with another spasm.

Her mother pulled a tattered cotton hankie out of the
bodice of her torn gown and handed it to her. Then she
grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her across the room, and
opened the door. Katie ducked her head to avoid the blustery
wind that sailed in off the sea and tried to keep up as
her mother tugged her down one cold, deserted street after
another.

Katie knew most of the lanes near the wharf by heart.
They had trodden them since she could walk, she and Mama.
They lived from hand to mouth on the money that the
sailors and fishermen paid Mama when she took them to
her bed. When times were very hard, they lived on do-gooder
charity.

As they passed beneath a street lamp Katie glanced up at
the familiar lines and angles of her mama’s thin face. Her
mama was looking straight ahead with her jaw set.

They were climbing now, up the hill, away from the
wharf and the ramshackle houses that lined the narrow by-ways
and shops close to the water. Katie fought for breath as
they ascended. The houses up here were larger, prettier, and
surrounded by trees, part of a forest that had once grown all
the way down to the sea.

Well into unfamiliar territory now, Mama turned another
corner. Barely able to do more than shuffle behind her
mother, Katie lifted her head and saw a tall bell tower and
the steeple of a brick church. Her eyes tearing from cold,
she struggled to read the sign on the front of the building.

Saint Perpetua’s Church.

Mama was fairly dragging her now, walking faster, more
determined.

"Ma-ma?" Katie had to gasp for air. She wiped her eyes
with the kerchief.

"It’s somethin’ I have to do, Katie-girl. Somethin’ I should
have done long ago."

Mama’s huge brown eyes were watering from the cold,
too. A fat tear slipped down her bony cheek.

The freezing night air, heavy and damp off the sea,
burned Katie’s lungs. She had never set foot inside a church
before. In awe, she stared at a ghostly white statue of a sad-faced
young woman in a niche above the door. Something
about the statue made her whisper.

"Are . . . we going . . . in there?"

The building looked old and sturdy. It was probably
warm as toast inside. If she could just sit down and catch
her breath, maybe close her eyes for a bit-

Mama tugged on her arm when Katie kept staring at the
statue. Katie sighed when they hurried past the church and
the small graveyard beside it.

Except for the sound of their hollow footsteps, the neighborhood
around them was silent. Not a single lamp was lit
inside any of the big houses lining the street.

Suddenly Mama stopped to open a small iron gate in a
low fence bordering the yard of another brick building, one
almost as big as the church. The gate clanged shut behind
them, ominously loud, with a sound that shattered the
silence.

The cobblestone walk that led up to the front of the
brick building was patched here and there with dirty snow
left from the last snowfall. Dead leaves trapped since fall
peeked through. Katie lifted her head.

Mama had already started up the six wide steps to the
front porch. Katie’s legs gave out after the first three. She
knelt on the stair, doubled over, coughing. Mama stood
over her.

"I can’t lift you, Katie."

"I know, Mama," she whispered. She struggled to her
knees and with Mama pulling on her arm, made it to the
porch. "Can I just sit here a minute?"

Mama started beating on the heavy wood door with
her fist.

Above the door hung a small gold-lettered sign. There
was another statue, too. Smaller, but it was the same sad
lady who stared down at her with her empty, marble eyes.

"Saint Perpetua’s Home for Orphan Girls."

Orphan girls.

Katie slowly read the words again, faster this time, and
frowned. They didn’t know any orphan girls.

"Mama?"

Her mother pounded on the door again, then whirled
around and knelt down beside her. She grabbed Katie by
the shoulders, leaned so close their noses almost touched.

Mama was whispering frantically now, her raspy voice
ragged and hushed. She talked fast, as if her mind were running
a race with her tongue.

"This is for the best, Katie. Someday when you realize
that, I hope to God you’ll forgive me. I should have done
this when you were born so’s you wouldn’t remember. I’ve
been selfish, Katie-girl, trying to keep you with me, but it
ain’t workin’ out, see?"

Panic squeezed Katie’s heart and lungs. She couldn’t
breathe anymore. "Mama-" She let go of the kerchief and
desperately grabbed hold of Mama’s coat sleeves.

"I gotta do it. Don’t you see, Katie? What kind of a life
are you going to have, growin’ up with me in that shack?
Followin’ me around? It’s bad for both of us, you and me."

"You’re scaring me," Katie wailed.

Mama’s eyes narrowed and her bottom lip trembled
uncontrollably-that frightened Katie more than anything.
"I’m leavin’ you here with the nuns where you’ll have a
warm bed and plenty to eat."

Katie stared in horror at the big door and the gold-lettered
sign. Inside, someone had lit a lamp. Yellow light
bled through plain white curtains. Her heart began to
pound in her ears.

Mama’s fingers tore at hers as she tried to push her away.
"Let go, Katie!" Mama shoved her away. "Don’t make
this worse for me than it already is."

Having freed herself, Mama stood up; she stepped back
as Katie tried to grab hold of the uneven hem of her coat.
Mama dragged the cuff of her sleeve across her eyes and
then wiped her nose.

Katie jerked around at the chill whine of the front door’s
hinges. An elderly woman wearing eyeglasses and clothed
entirely in black stuck her head out, blinking against the icy
chill.

"Yes? Who’s there?" The woman had a gentle voice, but
Katie was still frightened.

Katie expected her mother to answer, but when she
turned around, Mama was already down the cobblestone
walk, hurrying through the little iron gate.

"Mama!" Katie strangled on the sound, choked on a
cough. She struggled to her knees, grabbed the column of
the porch rail beside her, clawed her way to her feet.

The iron gate clanged with a lonely, hollow, terrible finality.
"Don’t leave me here, Mama! I’ll be good." Her
scream echoed through the empty streets. She was gasping
between sobs, fighting the dizziness that clouded her vision.

"Come-b-b-ack!"

As she wilted toward the cold wooden porch floor where
Mama’s torn white hankie lay, Katie felt the old woman’s
arms close around her, heard the clack of wooden beads and
a hushed prayer whispered beside her ear.

"I won’t cough, Mama," Katie sobbed, staring at the
empty walk through a blur of tears. "I . . . promise. I’ll . . .
be good."