Page 36 of City of Liars

My family, the girl thought, and the scent of laundry soap filled her lungs, along with the memory of being snuggled close. Maybe the Ghost People had figured out who she belonged to, and had dressed her up all pretty so she would look nice when she saw them again. Hope filled her chest, fragile and expansive as a soap bubble. It flooded into her throat and spilled from her eyes. Gently, Mrs. Reming wiped her tears away.

“Don’t cry,” she said, stroking the ghost girl’s hair. “Soon you’ll be home and everything will be all right.”

Encased in her delicate, silent bubble, the ghost girl stood at the window as a group of the other children filed onto the sidewalk below. The Ghost People herded them onto a streetcar, and envy swept over the girl. Why could she not go with them? The air smelled like the breakfast they’d had that morning—eggs and toast—and the lye soap the Ghost People had made all the children wash with before stuffing them into their fancy, itchy clothes. She held tight to the book that had no pictures and tried not to cry.

Then Mrs. Reming took her hand, turning her from the window. “Come, Lucinda. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Mute, the girl followed. In the center of the room where the Ghost People held their meetings stood a man and a woman. The woman wore a pink dress with capped sleeves, embroidered with black etching. Her brown hair was cut short, curved to follow the roundness of her face. She looked familiar, and for a moment the girl hoped she’d found her mother at last. But no. The ghost girl recognized the feathered hat perched on the woman’s head. The first time she’d seen it, it had reminded her of one of the birds from her picture book.

New York was filled with birds, pigeons that grazed in the gutter and nested on ledges, craving crumbs. One had visited the ghost girl’s window each night, pecking the glass as if it hoped to come inside. It had a damaged wing, folded close to its body like a crumpled piece of newsprint. The girl wondered that it could fly at all.

The hurt pigeon was gray and black, its dull colors nothing like the bright green plumage of the woman’s hat. Pigeons were birds of the city, like the girl herself. In her picture book, the girl had seen the places the bird-on-the-hat called home: deep green forests, edged by sweeping seas far from the gray, barge-combed waters of the Hudson. The ghost girl imagined living in such a place—an island where people were made of birds, where she would be cut up and put back together again, stitched with feathers. Maybe the people on the island would stuff her full of feathers where her heart should be. Maybe her mouth and throat were already filled with them, muffling her voice.

The woman knelt, her eyes level with the girl’s. “Do you remember me, Lucinda? I was here last week. I read to you.”

Mama? the girl thought, remembering the feel of arms around her. But that was a distant memory. This one was newer, fresher. She remembered the woman, whose eyes had been kind. She had never yelled, even when the girl had refused to speak to her.

Carefully, the girl gave the smallest of nods.

The woman smiled, taking the girl’s hands in both of hers before she rose to her feet. “See, Daniel?” she said, turning to the tall man beside her. “Isn’t she precious? Look at those curls and those big brown eyes. Isn’t she the sweetest thing?”

The man cleared his throat. “Are you sure this is what you want, Esther darling? I know how committed you are to improving conditions for these poor orphans. But Mrs. Reming says the girl doesn’t speak. Who knows what her intelligence might be, or what she is capable of? To adopt her is a huge commitment, far greater than your hours of volunteerism. Surely with patience, we might have children of our own⁠—”

The woman looked up at him, her gaze imploring. “She’s just a little one yet. And think of all she’s been through! I’m sure she will speak, given time and loving care.” She ran a slender finger along the sleeve of the man’s coat, flashing a brilliant smile—but the girl detected a sad expression behind it that reminded her of how she herself ached inside. “I would love nothing more than to have children of our own, you know that. Our home is large, but our hearts are larger still. Why can there not be room for our own children and this poor lost soul as well?”

“If I may,” Mrs. Reming interrupted, “other than her lack of speech, she is a most biddable child. She can be affectionate, once she comes to trust you. And she is so young. Surely you can shape her to your way of life. You will be the only parents she has ever known, the only ones she can remember. She will be a gift to you, as you are to her.”

“Oh, please, Daniel,” the woman pleaded. “Do say yes.”

Now it was the man’s turn to kneel. He inspected the girl from top to bottom, then placed a hand on her shoulder. The heat of his grip burned through the fabric of the girl’s dress as he turned her in a circle, then back to face him once more. His mouth was set, his eyes dark, but in them glimmered a softness that gave her hope. “This is really what you want,” he said slowly, and the girl understood he was not speaking to her.

“More than anything,” the woman whispered.

“Then you shall have it,” the man said, straightening. He turned to Mrs. Reming, his voice descending into a low murmur.

With a cry of joy, the woman swept the ghost girl into her arms.

21

Liv

Isat on the plane that would take me to LaGuardia Airport, struggling to get comfortable in the cramped seat. I’d handed Chloe over to Gray for an extended visit with mixed feelings, admonishing him to talk to her about Luna, or whoever was next in his string of conquests. He’d promised me he would, but I’d believe that when Chloe told me her side of the story.

The plane was tiny, with two seats on either side of the aisle and no first-class section. It was worth it not to have a layover. What wasn’t worth it—what was making my stomach flutter and my heart pound—was being trapped for two hours next to Theo Dressler.

The man in question sat next to me, gazing at his phone, his hazel eyes half-lidded and his black hair brushing the collar of his long-sleeved tee. I remembered the silken sensation as it had slipped through my fingers, and had to force the memory away.

If the tension crackling between us troubled Theo, he hid it well. “I checked into the online records, like I said I would,” he said over the hum of the engine, glancing up from his phone. “I couldn’t get my hands on the police reports. But I did find a couple of agencies that handled abandoned kids in New York back then—the Children’s Aid Society and the Foundling Hospital.”

“I know the Aid Society,” I said, grateful for something to focus on other than his too-close proximity. “Isn’t that the place that sent children west on the orphan trains?”

He nodded and took a sip of his soda. “Yeah, and the Foundling Hospital did, too. I thought if our missing mystery girl ended up there, we might be able to track her through the orphan train’s records. They’ve got a whole system.”

That seemed promising. Not to mention, distracting from the situation at hand. “So, what happened?”

“Well,” he said, “I hunted down an archivist at the Aid Society, but the guy told me that by 1927, the place didn’t take kids in off the street anymore. The Foundling Hospital had a basket where you could drop off infants, but our mystery girl would’ve been too old for that. The Aid Society dude said it was more likely a private orphanage would’ve taken her in.”

“Like Divine Grace, where Grandma Ella went,” I said, brightening as I reached across him to toss my discarded cup into the flight attendant’s trash bag. “That makes sense.”