Chapter One
CHICAGO
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1871
Meg’s father was gone. Again.
She stood in his empty room for only a moment, summoning her wits. Crickets chirred outside the open windows, and moonlight spilled across the unrumpled bed. Surely he hadn’t gotten very far.
A gust of wind swung the door closed behind her. Dread mounting, Meg pulled out the top drawer of Stephen’s desk and found it empty. Oh no.
She hurried into the hallway of their second-floor apartment to find her sister, Sylvie, emerging from her room, her dark hair in a braid down her back. At twenty-one years of age, she was two years Meg’s junior, but her brow wore the cares of someone much older.
“I heard a door slam. Did he leave?” Sylvie asked.
“He has his gun.”
Meg rushed to the building’s exterior stairwell. Cold metal met her skin as she climbed up the stairs barefoot, one pale hand on the railing, the other hoisting her nightdress as dew-heavy air flowed around her.
“Wait!” Sylvie cried from below, but Meg didn’t slow until she gained the landing halfway between the third floor and the roof. The stairs shook as Sylvie chased after her. “Stop!” Wild-eyed and breathless, she caught up to Meg and grasped her arm.
“Shhh!” Meg pointed above them. Stephen was pacing the flat, block-long roof, patrolling to keep his property safe from dangers only he imagined. “Don’t startle him. I need to talk him back inside before anyone else sees him.”
“Please don’t!” With uncharacteristic force, Sylvie jerked Meg down so they sat together on the landing, the bricks at their backs pressing through their cotton gowns. Coronas of light surrounded the lampposts on the street below.
“What are you doing?” Meg whispered. On the other side of the wall was the third-floor apartment they rented to James and Flora Spencer. Meg hoped the elderly tenants wouldn’t stir.
“Listen to me.” The end of Sylvie’s braid swirled in the wind that moaned past the building. Her fingers dug into Meg’s arm. “You remember him as he was before the war, before Andersonville changed him. I know him as he is. He’s unpredictable, Meg. Stay away from him. I wish Mother had.”
Meg’s voice bunched into a hard lump at the base of her throat. Swallowing, she forced it back into service. “She was ill and never should have gotten out of bed.”
Sylvie’s jaw hardened, and her nostrils flared. “You make it sound as though it were her fault.”
Meg’s blond hair pulled from her braid and whipped across her face. “If I blame anyone, it’s myself.” Even in illness, Ruth’s first concern was for her husband. Meg had fallen asleep when it was her turn to keep vigil through the night, or she could have stopped her mother and checked on her father herself. The drenching that Ruth endured in the storm that night while trying to coax Stephen down was too much for her weakened state. She never recovered. “With her last words, she begged me to take care of him. I promised. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”
Sylvie drew her knees up beneath her chin and looked toward the city’s dark silhouette. Bats stitched their flight across the moon. Several blocks away, voices crescendoed, signaling a crowd’s exit from a music hall, theater, or saloon. Hearing them, Stephen grew more agitated, muttering to himself as he paced.
Sylvie gripped Meg’s hand. “I think he needs help.”
“I agree. Before he hurts someone.” A dim light flickered behind the window of James and Flora’s apartment. Meg started to rise.
“No.” Sylvie pulled her back down. “Not our help. Other help.” She waited until Stephen’s voice receded as he marched to the opposite end of the roof. “I think he needs more than we can give him.”
“What are you saying?”
“It has been six years, and Father still isn’t himself.”
“He’s not insane,” Meg hissed.
“I didn’t say he was. But he isn’t well either. It’s time to reconsider some kind of treatment.”
“Treatment.” Frustration licked through Meg. “That happens at the asylum. No. Mother never wanted that for him.”
“Mother isn’t here and hasn’t been for two years.”
“I don’t want that for him.”
Stephen’s voice grew louder, hovering above them. He about-faced, and splinters of tar-coated wood from the roof rattled through the stairs and fell into Meg’s lap. He was walking too close to the edge. Her heart banged within its cage. What if he slipped, with his foot or with the finger on the trigger?
Below, a dog barked and gave chase through the leaf-strewn alley, upsetting a crate of tin cans. Two gentlemen jumped out of the way, nearly falling over, then laughed drunkenly before weaving their way to the front door of the Sherman House hotel, which shared the building with the bookshop Meg’s family owned on the ground level.
Sweat misted her skin, then chilled it as wind rushed by. “After being in a prison camp for so long, how do you think he would respond to being locked in an asylum?” A cloud passed over the moon. “He’s not going.” She stood without waiting for her sister’s response.
“Who’s there?” Stephen’s pace increased as he neared. “Show yourself!”
Unmoving, Meg called out, “Father? It’s me, Meg. It’s all right.”
“Meg?”
“Yes, it’s Meg and Sylvie. We’re on the stairwell. No one else is here.”
Stiffly, he marched to the edge of the building and peered over. “What on earth are you doing? This is my watch, not yours.” His Colt Army revolver glinted in his hand.
Meg steadied her voice. “Put the gun away. There’s no need for it. Come on inside.”
Moonlight gleamed in Stephen’s eyes. “I can’t go in. I must stand watch.”
As Meg began to climb the stairs, Sylvie tugged her from behind with a whisper. “Don’t you dare. Don’t go up there.”
Caught between her sister’s fear and her father’s paranoia, Meg felt her shoulders knot. How could she care for one without neglecting the other? Little wonder her mother had suffered chronic nosebleeds after Father came home.
Lifting her head, Meg tried to reason with him. “It’s really windy up here. We’re tired, and we’d like to go in. Let’s all go in together. We’ll lock the doors once we’re inside, and we’ll be fine.”
Silence met her request. Long moments later, the stairs shook with his heavy tread. She knew better than to embrace him, for touch was no longer a comfort. It was just as well, considering she felt less affection than irritation right now. Compassion, she had discovered, was not a bottomless well.
“They took John.” He glanced over his shoulder, then down below, scanning. Cares etched his face. “I received a letter today that said they took him right from his home and locked him up. They say it will keep him safe, but it won’t, you know. It isn’t right. They took John from his home.”
“You need to rest,” Sylvie told him. “Let’s go inside.”
A puff of air escaped his nose. “I don’t feel restful.” He hushed his voice. “There’s devilment afoot, I know it. John must have stopped his lookout, or he’d never have let them take him. I won’t be caught unawares. I won’t be locked up again. Upon my life, I won’t.”