The Orphan Collector. Ellen Marie Wiseman
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I am.”
They strode in silence for another few minutes, then Finn said, “Have you gotten any more letters from your father?”
If she hadn’t been so terrified, she would have smiled at him. As usual, he was trying to distract her from her distress. That was Finn, always thinking about other people. She wanted to hug him, now more than ever, but at the same time, now more than ever, she was afraid to touch anyone. “No,” she said. “We haven’t heard anything from him in weeks.”
“Ye will soon, I bet.”
She nodded. “Mutti... I mean, my mother says we should, any day now. I wish he was here now.” Her chest tightened and she blinked back a sudden flood of tears. If Vater were here now, maybe he’d know what to do. Maybe he’d take them out of the city, away from what was happening. Because for as far back as she could remember, he’d always been their protector. Like that time a sudden lightning storm hit while they were on a Sunday picnic and he’d herded her and Mutti into a cave. Or when she accidentally knocked a hornets’ nest out from under the front porch and he picked her up, covered her with his jacket, and raced her inside their shack. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything about the flu, but just having him here would have made her feel safer.
Finn glanced at her with concern. “Try not to worry too much, lass. It takes a long time for a letter to get across that great ocean.”
She nodded again, thankful for Finn’s kindness but unable to speak around the burning lump in her throat.
After turning left on Broad Street, they made their way toward the congested maze of alleys and gritty blocks of row houses they called home—the section of Philadelphia labeled the Bloody Fifth Ward because of the area’s violent reputation. In the last week alone, two men on their block had been murdered—one shot and the other stabbed—and a colored man was beaten and left for dead in an alley behind a warehouse on the corner. Other than the ever-present Home Guard, whose job was to spy on German immigrants, it seemed like the only time the police came into the neighborhood was to raid the speakeasies, arrest women for vagrancy and “night walking,” and apprehend men for gambling, assaults, and drunkenness. Some people said crime had heightened because of the growing number of immigrants and colored who’d moved in looking for work since the start of the war, but Finn said the streets of the Fifth Ward had always been dangerous. He told her stories about a colored rights advocate being murdered, a church being torched, and a number of homes being destroyed during race riots. Pia and her family had only been there a few months when a policeman was shot and killed during a heated race for Select Councilmen, when eighteen men called the Frog Hollow Gang came all the way down from New York to attack one of the candidates.
Had her parents been aware of the dangers of a large city when they’d decided to move here? Did they know and decide to come anyway? She wasn’t even allowed to go outside after dark anymore, which made her all the more homesick for the mountains, where she used to watch fireflies in the switch grass and search for the Big Dipper in the stars. And there was no Spanish flu back in Hazleton, she’d bet. She couldn’t help thinking how different her life would be if they’d never come to Philadelphia.
But then she and Finn turned off the main street into Shunk Alley, and something strange happened. Whether it was the group of boys playing stickball or the little girls having a pretend tea party on a building stoop, she wasn’t sure, but for some reason, her fear seemed to lessen. No one was wearing masks or running from a dead man on a trolley. No signs on doors warned of quarantine. No new posters had been put up. Everything looked normal. When they reached the steps outside her row house, she loosened the grip on her schoolbooks, and a sense of calm washed over her. Maybe the flu wouldn’t reach their little part of the city.
Then the sound of a woman sobbing floated down from an open window.
Finn glanced up at the window, then gazed at her, his forehead furrowed. Clearly he was wondering the same thing. Had the flu already reached Shunk Alley? He opened his mouth to say something when his mother yelled down from the fire escape outside their apartment.
“Finn, come quick! It’s yer brother!”
He shot Pia a worried look, then turned to leave. “I’ll see ye later, lass,” he said over his shoulder. “Take care of yourself, all right?”
Before she could respond, he sprinted across the street and went inside. She fixed her eyes on the door after it closed, shivering. His parting words felt weighed down with apprehension and misery, like an omen or a warning. Would she ever see him again? Dread fell over her shoulders like a heavy blanket. She suddenly wished she had told him what happened with Tommy Costa and Mary Helen, how she had felt something strange when they touched her. He couldn’t have done anything to help, but maybe sharing her secret would have made her feel less alone.
Behind her, someone called her name. She jumped and spun around, almost dropping her books. Mutti stood in the open doorway of their building, scrubbing a calloused hand on her apron, the telltale sign that she was worried. Pia had seen her do it a thousand times—every day when Vater left to work in the mines; when the Black Maria came into the village carrying the injured and dead after a mining accident; when Vater said they were moving to Philadelphia; when she thought she might miscarry the twins the same way she’d miscarried three other babies; when Vater left for the war.
“Hurry, Pia,” Mutti said, gesturing frantically. “Come inside.”
Pia’s heart skipped a beat. Had something happened to Vater? Or the twins? No. That wasn’t it. Fear darkened her mother’s eyes, not sorrow.
“What is it?” Pia said, running up the steps and hurrying inside. “What’s wrong?”
Mutti closed the door behind her, giving it a little extra push after it was shut, as if trying to keep something from slipping inside. “The churches and schools are to be closed,” she said. “All places for gathering, even the factories and moving picture houses, will not be open. No funerals are to be allowed either. Many people are getting sick, so everyone is to stay home.” She moved across the dim foyer, scrubbing her hand on her apron. Pia followed.
“How do you know everything is being closed?” Pia said. “Who told you?” They didn’t own a radio and hadn’t gotten the newspaper since Vater left because Mutti couldn’t read.
“Frau Metzger heard it at the butcher shop,” Mutti said. “And Mrs. Schmidt heard it on the radio.” She stopped and pointed toward the front door, her face a curious mixture of anger and fear. “Those mothers still letting their children outside? They are Verruckt!” She spun her finger near her temple. “You must stay inside until this is over, you understand?”
Pia nodded and put a finger to her lips.
“What?” Mutti said. “Why are you shushing me?”
“You were speaking German,” Pia whispered.
Mutti gasped and put a hand over her mouth. Then she glanced at Pia’s neck and her eyes went wide. “Where is your garlic?”
Pia felt for the rank necklace, only then remembering she had taken it off and laid it on the grass during recess, like she’d done the day before when Mary Helen came over to pick a fight. “I must have lost it,” she said.
“You must be more careful, Pia,” Mutti said. “Mrs. Schmidt was very kind to give us the garlic and I have no more.”
“I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
Mutti threw her hands up in exasperation, then started down the hall toward the back of the building. “Come help with the water, bitte,” she said, too upset to realize she was speaking German again. “The twins will wake up again soon.”
Pia followed her mother down the hall, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the deepening gloom. Except for the front apartments