Gilbert’s breath has been knocked out of him, but after the woman scrambles off of him, he finds that his legs and arms work fine. The woman helps him to his feet, and when he asks her if she is all right, she touches her own face and hands, as if she needs evidence that the answer is yes.
“No more ladder,” he calls up to McCaw. Better to be on the ground, where his feet can find good purchase, and if he is thrown off balance, he won’t be at risk of breaking his own neck. “Hold ’em like they’re babies, and I’ll catch them.”
McCaw steps back inside the building and helps a young girl up and over the sill. “You mean like this?” he asks, one arm under the girl’s knees and the other wrapped around her shoulders.
“Yes, sir,” shouts Gilbert. “Rump first.”
Gilbert holds his arms out wide and bends his legs at the knees, ready to move fast in any direction if the girl doesn’t fall in a straight line. He can’t afford to take his eyes off her for a second, can’t spare the time it will take to wipe the sweat from his brow. He tells himself that catching her isn’t much different from playing a game of cup and ball.
“Ready?” McCaw yells.
“Go!” says Gilbert, then he watches the girl trace a neat path between McCaw’s outstretched arms and his own. When she lands in his arms, he staggers under her weight, but manages to plant his feet on the ground and remain standing. After he tips her onto her feet, the girl stutters a thank-you, but Gilbert just waves her away. A moment later, he thinks better of it, and catches her attention. “Miss, you know a girl named Louisa Mayo?”
“Yes,” she says.
“She up there?”
“I saw her on the way in. But not—”
McCaw’s “Ready?” interrupts them, and Gilbert looks up at the window to find another woman in the doctor’s arms.
From below, the woman’s backside looks a great deal wider than the previous two women’s, and when she lands in Gilbert’s arms, she nearly flattens him. Gilbert hates doing it, but he sees no choice other than to shout up to McCaw, “Save the heavy girls for last. Or you’ll knock me out of this race before it’s begun.”
McCaw nods and says something to a middle-aged woman with a fat face. She looks crestfallen, but then she moves out of view and a slim girl takes her place.
The doctor and Gilbert work in this manner for several more minutes, and all the while the fire rages. Gilbert catches three women, then four, then five. Eventually he loses count, just knows that his arms have begun to shake, the same way they do when he’s been at the forge for too many hours in a row. It is hard not to wonder when and how this work will end.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” says McCaw finally. “The fire’s at my back.”
“You want me to try to catch you?” Gilbert shouts, certain McCaw won’t take him up on the offer. The doctor is as big as Gilbert is. Over six feet tall, with arms as thick as tree limbs.
“Catch my sister. If you can,” is all Gilbert gets for an answer. The woman with the fat face is back at the window, and this time McCaw gets her up and onto the sill. Gilbert studies the old gal as McCaw does his best to maneuver her into his arms. She is a big one, almost as tall as her brother, and Gilbert begins to realize, studying her, that all he is really going to be able to do is break her fall.
McCaw doesn’t even shout “Ready?” like he’s done with each of the other women. He just gets his sister as many inches away from the building as he can manage and lets her go—trusting Gilbert to figure out the rest.
And he does.
When the time comes, Gilbert steps into the shadow she casts and braces for what is coming.
CECILY
Cecily is nearing the stagedoor at the back of the building, no sign of Maria anywhere, when she comes upon a group of actors who are still in costume. The man who played the Baptist stands next to a second man, who played Monsieur d’Orbesson, and between them is a third man—his face still wet with shoe polish—who played the old servant.
A half-dozen yards away stands a young boy, visibly upset, with dark hair and a thin face, and she wonders if he might be the missing son of the man with the stock buckle. She skirts the group and moves toward him. “Are you George?” she asks, but he doesn’t answer. She waves her hands at him, but it isn’t until she is right up on him that she gets his attention. “George?”
“Huh?” he says, as if he is only just seeing her.
“There’s a man looking for a boy named George. I thought you might be him.”
For a moment, the child looks almost disappointed. “No, I’m Jack.” He wears a shirt and waistcoat but no jacket, and he shivers uncontrollably.
“Are you with them?” she says, tilting her head in the direction of the actors.
He seems unsure of the answer, but finally whispers, “Yes.”
“Were you in the play?” She doesn’t think she remembers seeing him onstage.
He shakes his head no, quickly, like he doesn’t want her to get the wrong idea. “I’m a stagehand. I—”
