The VowAs I walked up Snow Street in the lightning storm, sodden and discouraged, I thought about the Masked Man.
Ma thought I slept. But after Eleanora took Air’s body, the Masked Man entered our quarters. I peeked through the gap between the too-small door and its jamb. Ma told him everything while he listened.
“Well, this is a situation,” the Masked Man said.
“She’s gonna ask,” Ma said. “What do I tell her?”
“You know very well what to tell her.” They went out of view and sound.
After he left, I heard my mother sobbing, and the memory brought me to tears as I walked that rainy street ten years later. It was the first and last time I ever heard her cry.
I never saw him again.
The rain poured down. A carriage pulled up beside me. Major Blackwood leaned out of the window. “Madam, wo
