Chapter Fourteen
A flaming red afternoon sun set over a tall white arch. As I walked over a dusty path to get a closer look, I read the silver letters that had been engraved in the arch—SHILLING. Beyond this, I only saw a thick mist, veiling a hidden countryside.
Sharp ringing came from somewhere and I noticed the corner table with a phone placed on its top sitting right in front of the left foot of the arch. Looking around me, I didn’t see anyone, so I went to answer the phone. “Don’t you dare enter that city. It’s dangerous,” my father’s voice said on the other end.
“What?” Feeling the fog seeping in, I couldn’t remember what I was doing or why I was there.
“Alexandra, it’s all right. I’ll keep you safe,” Mason’s voice came from inside the fog, and then I knew why I had come—to be with him. Without giving it a second thought, I dropped the telephone’s mouthpiece and ran into the blinding vapor. And then everything began to spin.
Something was just up ahead…an enormous black dog. I stopped, but it had already heard me. Red eyes and barred teeth turned toward me. As I screamed and turned to run away, it gave chase. Even with the blinding fog between us, I could hear him coming.
The fog seemed to come and go in thick bursts, pressing against me like the chilling hands of a thousand ghosts. I tried to scream again, but nothing came out, making me even more afraid.
To my left, I saw Emmaline watch as I ran by. I nearly fell over when I stopped and rushed back to her. “You have to run!” I shrieked, yanking on her arm as hard as I could. But it felt heavy and stiff, like stone. She lifted her other hand to her mouth and blew. As it opened, yellow sparks ignited, and then enormous bees were flying out of her hand and chasing me too.
“Mason,” I screamed, running from the bees and the dog.
“Alexandra,” he called back. It came from my right, so I turned. Five seconds and terrified leaps later, I ran into his open arms. He seemed to appear out of nowhere as he twisted around so that his back would be facing the onslaught. He flinched and squeezed his eyes shut as everything hit him from behind, but I knew I was safe.
He opened his eyes when it was over and smiled down at me. “Alexandra,” he said softly.
“Yes?”
“Alexandra,” he said again, but the voice was different this time. “Alexandra, wake up.”
My eyes opened just a crack to see my father sitting beside me on my bed. They felt unbearably heavy. I began drifting off. “I know it’s early, but you need to see this,” his distant voice said. Mist was beginning to encircle me. “Are you awake? Alexandra,” My father shook my shoulder and I woke up with a start.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, forcing myself to sit up.
“Mason’s father is on the front page of the newspaper.”
“What?” Now I was wide awake. “What does it say?”
He simply handed me the newspaper he was holding. I saw a picture of Sydney Algoth shaking hands with a man I didn’t recognize. The print in the parentheses under the picture told me that Sydney was shaking the hand of the mayor of New York City. Hero Undercover: Sydney Algoth Breaks Down the Mob was written in big bold print above the picture.
Sydney Algoth, the man long thought to have been a key member of the mob, is now being hailed as a hero. He recently stepped forward with enough evidence to take down numerous large and small members of the mob, the names of which will be released at a future date. In addition to this, he has recovered an enormous amount of stolen and illegally obtained money with records of where it was taken from so that it can be returned, risking his life on a daily basis to do so—
“He’s innocent,” I said, smiling at my father.
“I know, so…” He took a deep breath and stared at my open door. “I guess…I was wrong. I was right to punish you for sneaking out during the night, but—since he came to me the way he did, and gave me his word that it would never happen again…” He took in another deep breath. “Maybe I should have allowed you to continue seeing Mason.”
“Does that mean I can see him again?” I asked.
“Well—he is the son of a national hero now. So I was hoping I would get the opportunity to thank his father for what he did. And it would be an honor to have a daughter dating his son.”
Somehow I knew he was already looking forward to telling the men at work that his daughter was dating Sydney Algoth’s son.
“Thank you, Father.” I reached out to hug him. “But I need you to leave so I can change.” I climbed out of bed and grabbed my father’s arm before I began pulling him toward the door.
“Wouldn’t you rather go back to sleep?”
“No, I need to go show this to Mason.”
“But it’s five a.m.” I looked out the window and realized it was still dark outside. I also noticed for the first time that my father was still in his night clothes. “And I thought you didn’t know where he lived.” He raised an eyebrow and tried to give me a reprimanding look, but I could tell he wasn’t angry.
“I’ll find him. Please let me go, Father.” How could he deliver this news to me and not let me pass it on to Mason?
“Absolutely not. Although I’m lifting your house restriction, you can’t call on a boy at this hour. You will be allowed to go at eight o’clock. And bring him back here with you. I’d like to have a few words with him when I get home from work. I’m going to wake up your mother and tell her what’s happened.”
I washed up and changed quickly before I met my mother in the hallway on her way to the stairs. “Did Father talk to you?” I asked.
“Yes, this is wonderful news. We should celebrate. Maybe we could talk your father into taking us all out to dinner and invite Mason to come along, unless he’s getting ready to go to New York.”
That hadn’t even occurred to me, even though it seemed so obvious now. How could I not have thought about how badly he would want to be with his father? And what if his father wanted him to move back to Shilling? So many questions began to form and tangle themselves in the relief and anticipation I was feeling.
I sat down at the dining table, as my mother continued on to the kitchen, and spread the paper out in front of me, hoping that I might find some answers in it.
The story of what happened is given directly by Mr. Algoth in the interview he granted us only yesterday:
“It was a Thursday night, I believe, early last December, when the night that changed everything took place. I was having trouble sleeping, so I decided to take a stroll down the city streets. It must have been two in the morning when I walked past the empty old building. Glancing through a window to my right, dim candlelight caught my eye in the back of a room, where two men sat across from each other at a table and four more stood around them. A gunshot was fired from the darkness consuming the rest of the room and a man was killed. Unfortunately, one of the men saw me watching them from the window, and even though I tried to run and fought them tooth and nail, the men overpowered me. After being shoved into a car and driven to a house in the middle of nowhere, I was tied to a kitchen chair in a small room. I was told I would be killed in the morning because they couldn’t leave witnesses alive, and then I was left alone in the dark, to sit and await a certain death.
“But sometime during the night there was a great commotion. Men were shouting about being swindled. Then there was gunfire and more shouting.
“A few minutes after things got quiet, seven men entered the room I was in and wanted to know who I was and what I was doing there, so I told them the truth. I told them what I’d seen and that I was a simple man from a little town called Shilling in Illinois. This struck a place in the heart of the man in charge—I’ll refrain from using any names for now—since he’d visited the town a few years before, when he was still living in Chicago. He remembered it being a beautiful place, full of kind folks, and couldn’t bring himself to kill one of them. So he began explaining several things to me about the mob. This man was one of their higher-ups and agreed to let me
live if I would join his men and work for him. Thinking of my son all alone back home, I agreed.
“He kept a close eye on me so I wouldn’t try to run and sent me with two others to rob a bank within the week. It was torture walking into that bank with a gun in my hand. But it was over quickly, kind of a blur of fear and adrenaline. I remember being careful not to point my gun at anyone. All I really did was help carry the money away. The boss was pleased since he hadn’t really expected me to go through with it.
“Alexandra,” my mother called out from the kitchen. “May I have a turn with that when you’re finished reading it?”
“Yes, Mother. I’m nearly done.”
So he decided he could trust me. And the more I did for him, the stronger that trust became.
“I began to wonder how I would ever get away from the mob and what I was being forced to do. Even though I was alive, my son was still alone, and I needed to get home to him. But I realized, as I got deeper into it, that I was being trusted with valuable information that only those on the inside had. So I began to keep records and evidence of everything. I would stay in until I had enough to have every man that was a threat to my life put behind bars for a long time, if not for the rest of their lives. I’ll be honest, it was frightening, terrifying at times, something I never would have imagined myself capable of doing, but it was the only way out.
“The hardest part was not being able to contact my son and let him know what I was doing. I can only imagine what he must have thought of me over the last twelve months. But it would have only put him in danger.
“So when I realized a couple of weeks ago that I had everything I needed, I began putting everything together and tying up all the loose ends, quietly planning with the police to take everyone down at the same time. And now here I am, ready to go home and resume life as it once was, grateful that this nightmare is finally over.”
So now, jobs and businesses once torn down will be restored. Lives once broken will be repaired. Future crime and the damage it would have caused has been prevented. And it’s all thanks to Mr. Sydney Algoth. What a wonderful Christmas gift he has given to our nation. We can all sleep a little easier tonight. The following year will be better because of him, a true hero.
I looked up and thought about Sydney’s last sentence. He was ready to go home and resume life as it once was. Mason would certainly be part of that. But maybe his father would change his mind when he found out how everyone in Shilling had treated his son. Of course, things weren’t much better here in Chicago.
Standing up, I carried the paper to my mother and took over cooking breakfast so she could read the article.
I wasn’t sure how I felt. There was so much to be happy about, but just as much to be potentially sad about, too. No—no matter what, we’ll work it out. I knew Mason well enough now to know that he would do anything to make sure we stayed together.
My father came into the dining room, so my mother and I carried the eggs and ham to the table, where we all sat down and ate. It was impossible to pay my parents any attention, though. All I could think about was getting to Mason to tell him about his father and that we could finally be together, no complications, no dangerous secrets.
My father hugged me before he left for work, and then I picked up the newspaper my mother had set on the table and went to sit in the living room, where I would stare at the grandfather clock and wait, watching the seconds tick by. Six fifteen.
It occurred to me that maybe someone should wake up Katy to tell her, but then I figured she would only be disappointed.
“Alexandra, snap out of it,” my mother said when she came in the living room at six thirty-six. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that clock. She turned the radio on before she left the room, probably thinking it would help.
At seven forty-five she walked back into the room and laughed. “It’s killing me to watch you like this. Why don’t you go ahead?” she said.
“Really?” The newspaper made a crinkling sound as I sat up straight and squeezed it.
“It is nearly eight o’clock. Go ahead, dear.”
“Thank you!” I ran past her, grabbed my coat, and took off down the street. I ran past Emmaline’s house and took a right, toward the damp alleyway. I slowed down to a quick walk when I was out of the neighborhood and into the busy city.
A few blocks later, I turned right into the alleyway. There were the stairs. I ran to them and began to climb, faster than I ever had before. At the top I raised a hand to knock, but stopped when I saw the note wedged between the door and the wall. Dear Alexandra, was written at the top, so I pulled it out to read.
Dear Alexandra,
I called the police station in New York after you left yesterday, and they found my father. His name has been cleared and he’s being honored for what he spent the last year doing. Today, every newspaper in the country will be running the story New York City’s paper ran yesterday. This will explain everything. I’m taking a train to New York tonight.
“That’s it?” I turned the paper over and found that it was blank on the back. “He left without even saying goodbye?” I sat down and reread the letter. The paper had been torn in half and Mason hadn’t signed the bottom, which was strange, but it was his handwriting. He had written the letter. He couldn’t have come to my window or called or anything?
All the energy and happiness I’d felt all morning seemed to drain away. He was gone, and who knew when he would be back? Certainly not before Christmas. The train ride just to get to New York would take at least two days. He would have to come back after only two days with his father if he wanted to make it in time.
But he would come back eventually, I was sure of that. And things would be better when he did, just like he’d always said they would.
I picked myself up and walked down the stairs, unsure of what to do. I wanted to do something with myself, with the freedom I had returned to me only hours before.
So I decided to go to the dancehall. Surely I would be allowed back inside. It was a long walk, but I didn’t mind. I needed to let off some of my pent-up energy anyway.
When I reached the hall it appeared that no one was there. There wasn’t a single car in the parking lot. But the doors were unlocked when I tried to open them, so I walked through the foyer and into the spacious room inside. People were dancing around on the stage with four people sitting in chairs in front of them.
I wasn’t sure what to do, but the older looking woman sitting on the left of the four turned her head and saw me. She smiled and stood up to walk toward me. Her lips were almost as red as her dress. “What can I help you with, young lady?” she asked in a feeble voice.
“I was just hoping I could look through the picture album from the Christmas dance.”
“I’m sure Charles would love that. He keeps up with all the albums and he loves to get them out to look through with people. So full of memories. I’ll take you to him.”
We walked across the room to a side door and then down a long hallway full of closed doors.
“I’m Martha, by the way. Our performers are practicing for the Valentine’s Day dance. Do you think you’ll be attending it?” the woman asked me.
“I’m not sure yet. I hope so, though.”
“Charles is right up here.” She pointed to an open door on the left just ahead.
We found a handsome man who could’ve been my father’s age sitting behind a desk with papers spread out in front of him. He didn’t even seem to notice us until Martha knocked on the door. He looked up and smiled. “Hello, there. What can I—” He stopped when his eyes fell on me and studied my face as he continued. “—do for you?” I felt myself blush nervously, sure he recognized me, even though I didn’t remember seeing him at the dance.
“This young lady, I’m sorry, what was your name?” Martha asked.
“Alexandra,” Charles answered for me, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head as he continued to study my face.
“You two know e
ach other?”
“Yes, we do.”
“She was hoping to look through one of the albums, so I’ll leave you two to it. It was nice to meet you, Alexandra.”
“You, too.”
She left me standing alone in the doorway, wondering if I was about to be thrown out again. Charles’s behavior was so strange. He obviously knew me, but he didn’t seem upset.
“Would you please shut the door and then come and have a seat, Alexandra?” he said.
I did as he’d instructed. “How is that you know me?” I asked when I took a seat in one of the two saggy green chairs in front of his desk.
He stood up and walked to the wall on the right side of the room, which was lined with rows of picture albums on bookshelves that had been built right into the wall from the floor to the ceiling. He picked up the one that had Winter Ball, 1932 written on its spine. Then he sat back down behind his desk. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Martha, but you’re the girl who was here with Sydney Algoth’s son, right?” he asked as he opened the book and began turning pages.
“Yes, but Sydney’s name was cleared. He’s not a mobster.”
“I heard. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. I hated that they threw you both out. A father’s mistake isn’t cause for the punishment of his children. They wanted to destroy the photos with his son in it, but I talked them out of it. The bits and pieces of the dance caught in these photographs live on through them. We can look back at these to remember and feel what we felt then. Destroying any part of that would be a tragedy, I think. So they let me keep them.”
“You have pictures of us, then?”
“There are a few, yes.” He stopped and peeled the plastic away from a page to take out a picture and hand it to me. “There’s one.”
I had to look through the faces sitting in chairs for a minute before I found Mason and me in our seats, waiting for the show to start. He had his arm around me and I was looking up at the ceiling.
“Here’s another one.” Charles set another picture beside the first, and I saw us still in our seats, clapping after the show had ended.
“There are two more I think, here’s one.” A picture of Benny, Emmaline, Mason, and I eating at our dinner table was laid in front of me. I did not want that one. Charles set a picture of everyone dancing in front of me. Mason and I were hardly visible behind another couple. While I was grateful for the pictures, and for Charles rescuing them, none of them were as good as I had hoped. But they were better than nothing.
“I think that’s it, but I’ll keep looking just in case,” Charles said as he continued to flip through the book. I watched the pages turn as different pictures triggered different memories of that night, and I understood what he meant before. “Wait, how could I forget this one?” I leaned closer to see a close up picture of Mason holding me close as we danced together. Even though Mason was turned so that part of his back was facing the picture, his face was positioned so the camera caught him smiling brightly at me. And I looked just as happy smiling back at him. It was perfect. Charles took it out of the album and handed it to me.
“Could I borrow this one so I can get it copied?” I asked, looking up at him as I took it.
“Yes, take them all if you like. People do that sort of thing all the time. Just remember to bring the originals back. Sometimes people don’t and something happens to it. So they come back asking if I can do anything for them, but I can’t, not without the original.”
“I’ll bring them back as soon as I can. Thank you.” I picked them all up, deciding to cut Benny out of the copies later.
I walked down Michigan Avenue toward MonaMay, a little gift shop with a photo developing center in the back. Here, I dropped the photos off, requesting two copies of each. That way I would have copies, too. Maybe I should get a matching frame. It might be nice to be able to look at Mason as I fall asleep every night. So I picked another one up on the way home.
As I neared my house, I saw a familiar curly blond sitting on my front porch. She looked just like she did the day before, leaning forward, looking away from me. This lifted my spirits as my pace quickened. “Hello, Emmaline,” I said as I approached her.
She sat up straight when she heard my voice. “Hi. Your mother said you went to give Mason the good news.”
Cautiously, I sat down beside her. “That’s right. But he wasn’t home. He took a train to New York last night.”
She nodded and stared across the street absently.
“Do you want to come in? Hayden’s supposed to be picking me up sometime this morning, but—Oh no—I should have called him before I left. Did my mother say if he’s come by?”
“No, but there’s something I want to talk to you about. It might be better if we did it outside.”
“Okay.” I had a feeling it was about one of two very important things, the repairing or conclusion of our friendship.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Mason?” she asked, looking over at me.
“It was his secret, not mine. And I promised not to tell anyone.”
“You told Hayden.”
“No, I didn’t. He found out from his father, but that’s another story altogether—”
“Tell me, then.”
“All right,” I said with a sigh. So I told her everything that had happened the night I was caught sneaking out and filled in the gaps I’d left when I told her about the day I met Mason.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me. I would have kept your secret,” she said when I was through.
“It’s not my secret to tell…What if I told him one of your secrets? Think about how you would feel if I told Mason how your father married your mother when she was six months pregnant with you by someone else, or how you were raped where you used to live by a man that was never caught. You would be furious—”
“Because they would have ruined me.”
“The same way Mason’s secret ruined him. But that’s only part of why I would never tell anyone what you confided in me. The most important part is that those are your secrets, not mine. I promised him, Emmaline. I only told my parents because I would have done anything to keep seeing him.”
She nodded and looked down. “You’re right…I’m sorry I was so mad at you. I felt bad that you didn’t tell me, but I felt worse about Benny. It was easier to blame you than myself for what happened.”
“It wasn’t your fault, either. It’s his own fault for judging Mason so harshly. He was a creep, anyway.”
She shook her head as tears sprung to her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”
I put my arm around her and laid my head over hers as she rested it against my shoulder. “What did you mean then?”
She shook her head again. So I just held her as she cried.
A few minutes passed by before I heard the door open behind us. We both looked back and saw my mother standing in the doorway. Her smile faded when she saw Emmaline. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m okay.” Emmaline turned away as she wiped her cheeks on her coat.
“I just wanted to let you know that Hayden called while you were out and wanted you to call him when you got home,” my mother said to me.
“I’ll call him when I come inside. Thank you, Mother.” The door closed behind her as I turned around.
“Do you want to go to Hayden’s with me?” I asked Emmaline. “I was supposed to go over there this morning. Or I could stay here with you, if you want.”
“No, you already have plans. But I wouldn’t mind going with you. Usually I would feel like a third wheel, but I really don’t want to be alone.” Her eyes began to tear up again, so I stood and held a hand out to her.
I told my mother about Mason before I called Hayden, who said he wouldn’t mind at all if Emmaline came over with me. So Emmaline and I had lunch with my mother and Katy before we left for Hayden’s.
It was such a relief to have my best friend back.
“When will Mason get back?”
Emmaline asked as we turned the corner.
“I don’t know. He left a letter that didn’t really answer that. We don’t have school tomorrow. Maybe you could spend the night over.” As much as I wanted to show her my ring, I figured it was best to avoid the subject of Mason. She would probably associate him with Benny, and I didn’t want her to have to think about him.
“I would love to spend the night over. I’ll call my mother from Hayden’s to check with her.”
As we walked and talked about what we could do together later that night, a wonderful idea came to me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. If I could get Emmaline and Hayden alone, maybe they would really hit it off.
When we got there, we followed Hayden to his living room and listened to the radio while we talked about our Christmas plans. Emmaline was leaving Christmas Eve to visit her grandparents in Kansas, but Hayden and I were doing mostly the same thing. Luckily, it seemed that Hayden wanted to talk about Mason just as much as I did, so the subject didn’t come up.
When he suggested we play cards after a while, I told them to start without me so I could talk to his mother about something. I wondered what I would talk to her about as I walked down the hallway toward the patio. I found her sitting at the table in a sunshiny yellow dress, with a book in her hand. Oh, now I’m interrupting her reading…But it’s for a good cause. “Sorry to bother you, Mrs. West,” I said as I sat down across from her. “I was just wondering if you could tell me what happened on the Friday night mystery radio show since I missed it.”
She smiled and set down her book. “It’s no bother. I would love to retell the story. So, Christina’s trapped in the cellar and she still thinks there’s just a problem with the lock on the door. Her fiancé is trying to find the old place…” She told it so well, her face and voice so full of emotion, that I became completely lost in The Killing Plot. Right in the middle of an intense nightmare Christina was having, the door opened behind me and I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Hayden and Emmaline laughed as I took in a deep breath to try and calm myself down. “You nearly scared me to death,” I said.
“What are you doing? We’ve played through three full games already,” Hayden asked.
“Your mother was just telling me what I missed on The Killing Plot Friday night.”
“I missed that too, would you mind if I sat down to listen?” Emmaline asked.
“Not at all. I’ll just backtrack a little so it makes sense to you,” Hayden’s mother said. Both Emmaline and Hayden sat down and we spent the next twenty minutes or so listening to her tell the story. The show ended just as Christina began to understand what was happening, that someone was plotting to kill her.
I looked at her with wide eyes. “That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s just cruel. Now we all have to wait until Friday night to find out if she escapes. Oh, she must be terrified.”
“Alexandra, it’s only a story,” Hayden reminded me.
“I know, but aren’t you afraid for her?” I always get way too wrapped up in mystery radio shows.
“I’m more worried about you. You’re taking this way too seriously.” We both laughed as we stood up.
“How about we all go have some oatmeal with brown sugar and almonds?” Hayden’s mother asked as she stood up, too.
“I am a little hungry,” I said.
“Me, too. I’d be happy to help you in the kitchen,” Emmaline added.
We all went to the kitchen and helped put lunch together before we sat down in the dining room to eat.
“Emmaline and I were talking about the Frankenstein film they’re playing in the theatre right now. Maybe we could all three go see it tomorrow,” Hayden said before taking a bite.
“A film?” I’d only seen two films before, and for some reason, I just didn’t enjoy them, which worked out well in this situation. “That’s all right. You two should go ahead, though.”
“Are you sure? We could go a different day if you’d like.”
“No, I don’t really care for the movies.”
Hayden looked at Emmaline. “Would you still like to go with me?”
“Yes,” she said, looking happier than she had all day.
“All right, I’ll call later to see what time it plays.”
Hayden began eating, but Emmaline smiled over at me and stopped to hold her spoon just in front of her lips as she mouthed out thank you.