Free Past Lives by Shana Chartier Page B

she opened them. Finally, she pushed the chair back and pulled out a few dirty mugs, filling them with a thin broth from a large pot on the stove.
    “It’s not much,” she said, stern. “But it will at least get you through the day. I can likely find work for you and your father, boy, but the girl should not be out so young. We should keep her here and raise her like a proper Irish lass.”
    We sipped at the plain broth, which was still better than the dry biscuits and nasty water we had been imbibing for the last month and a half. I didn’t want it to end, but I knew better than to ask for more when it did. It was then that my father spoke up.
    “Is there a room to let here?” his voice was creaky and he sounded much older than his 28 years. The woman looked relieved that he was able to speak at all.
    “Yes, for $1.50 a week there’s a room upstairs to let, though don’t be expecting anything grand. If you can’t afford that, there’s room on the lawn or in the cellar. The lad down there died of pneumonia just a few days ago, so I’d be careful to wash everything before you bring the children down.”
    “We can take the room upstairs for now, thank you,” my father said, his words dripping from his bearded mouth in a dull monotone. I wished secretly that he would shave…that he would bring back the light in his eyes I had barely known. Although we had struggled in Ireland, the love of my parents kept us strong. Without that, I truly knew not how we would survive in a land that hated us so much. The woman raised her black eyebrows in surprise, but said nothing. My father slipped her the coin across the table, and she ushered us up creaky, moldy stairs into a dark, smelly room on the third floor.
    There was no window, just a filthy blanket and pillow on a slatted wooden floor. I gazed up at our new guide as though she had three heads. Surely she couldn’t expect us to live in such a place?
    “The boy can start his begging with the others in the morning. There’s a man downstairs who recently had a few of his workers die off of cholera. He needs a good shovel hand for the police stables. If you’d like, I can get you started on that,” she said, looking expectantly at my father. He stared at her, his pale blue eyes devoid of any emotion, before giving a short nod.
    “Alright then. Sleep well, and welcome to America!” she cackled as she made her way back down the hallway. I must admit that I didn’t find her joke very funny at all.
    “J, go ahead and curl up on the bed. You’ll need some good sleep, and we can stretch out for the first time in ages,” Jack said. I shook my head.
    “You’ll have to go to work tomorrow. You should take the bed.”
    I jumped as my father’s hand came to rest on my shoulder. I gazed up at him in confusion, though I leaned into him for comfort. His other hand rested soundly on the shoulder of my brother.
    “You will both take the bed, and I shall sleep on the floor. Tomorrow I will discover a good place for us, my children.”
    We curled up on the makeshift bed, hard as it was, and tried not to breathe in the stench of an unknown number of sweaty bodies. Although it was uncomfortable, it was still better than the stacked bunks from the boat ride over, and I fell asleep within minutes.
    This was what it was like to be in America as a hated outsider in the 1850’s. But surely by the 21 st century things will be much better…

Chapter Nine
    Midnight Train to Georgia

    It took one day to fully convince my father that we needed to get the hell out of Boston. I sat in our room quietly all day while everyone else went to work, too scared to leave it without my brother. Jack had come back later in the afternoon with a few small coins in his hand, and he let me play with them until our father returned.
    “Why do they look different from our money, Jack?” I asked, amazed at the grainy feel of the edges and the little bumps of words on the hard metal. I stroked the pieces