The Lincoln Conspiracy by Timothy L. O'Brien Read Free Book Online

“How are you feeling? Temple?”
    How does she float there like that? Even the nuns can’t fly. AsTemple stared at her longer, the curtains drew farther apart and he realized she wasn’t floating at all. She was seated in a chair and had a moist rag in her hand.
    “Temple,” she said again. “How are you feeling?”
    He began to recognize her. Yes, Fiona, in my orphanage. In my Dublin. Why is she here?
    “You’re still murmuring. You’re not in Dublin,” she said. “You’re in Washington.”
    “I’m cold. My nightshirt isn’t warm enough,” he said.
    “You’re in Washington, with us. You’re safe. Try to talk to me.”
    “I am talking to you. I just don’t. Don’t. I’m not.”
    “Think clearly now,” she said. “You’re in Washington.”
    “No, I’m in Dublin, Fi,” he said. “I’m cold.”
    Again she disappeared, evaporating along with her column of creamy light. Angus replaced her, standing there with his fists clenched and a mass of angry pimples scattered across his forehead.
    “You can’t run from breakfast till I say ya can run from breakfast, laddie,” said Angus. “You’re the only one who never seems to mind me. I’ll tell the nuns you’re disobedient and they’ll ship you to the Old Bailey and have you hung.”
    Temple nodded briskly.
    “I’ll be goin’ now. Not to bother ya.”
    “But you do bother me, and mightily, Temple-without-a-last-name.”
    “Few of us have last names. The Oblates say we’re to be unknown in the world but not in the eyes of the Lord. I’ll be off now, Angus. Please let me pass.”
    Angus stepped forward, aiming a punch at the smaller boy’s jaw. Temple, trembling, slipped beneath his arm and sprinted to the dormitory door. Angus raced after him, bouncing off the stairwell’s cold walls and then down a hallway, cornering him. Tears welled up in Temple’s eyes. Angus slapped him.
    “Temple,” he heard Fiona say. “Come back here with us.”
    “It stings my face,” Temple said.
    “No, the bullet was in your
shoulder
, not your cheek. You’re healing.”
    A small cross dangled from a chain around Fiona’s neck. Temple reached up to it.
    “Your jewelry,” he murmured.
    “My bedrock,” Fiona said. “You could use a foundation of your own.”
    “No, no. Got to flee. See you when I see you.”
    Late at night in the dormitory, and Temple was knotting sheets he had filched from a closet down the hall where the Oblates kept their bedding. Straw fell from the fabric and a roach flitted across his wrist. The other boys were sleeping, and he had stuffed his pillow, nightshirt, and towel under his bedspread to make for a proper body should the nuns take a look. He had his clothes and jacket on and a piece of bread that he’d nicked at breakfast jammed into a pocket. He pushed open one of the tall windows that overlooked the courtyard, tied one end of his makeshift rope to one leg of his bed, and dropped the other from the window. Then out and down he went. He heard the bed slide across the stone floor and crash into the wall as he slithered down, then shouting in the room. A boy’s head peeked out the window, then another, shouting at him, pointing. He hung on to his sheets, unsure of what to do—up or down? He was still five yards off the ground and already found out. Some of the boys had pulled back his bedding and savaged his mattress; they had torn straw from it and were tossing wads of it down at him from the window.
    Confiteor, Deo omnipotenti, beate Mariae semper virgini …
    “Temple, stop struggling, lie still,” he heard Fiona say.
    He looked up again and saw Angus there, stretching down from a window, pushing a knife into one of the knots, giggling as he cut through it. Temple rushed, trying to slide down as fast as he could, but the rope went slack and he dropped through the air, all of himlanding on his right leg, his knee twisting, the long bone in his thigh pressing up into him, snapping.
    Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima