Sparrow Road Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Acknowledgements

  Also by

  SHEILA O’CONNOR

  Where No Gods Came

  Tokens of Grace: A Novel in Stories

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS•A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.).

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa.

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2011 by Sheila O’Connor. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data O’Connor, Sheila. Sparrow Road / Sheila O’Connor. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51510-5

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Beloved children

  I give you Sparrow Road

  1

  In the shadowed glow of headlights the old pink house looked huge, rambling like the mansions on Lake Michigan. A fairy-tale tower rose high above the roof. The pillared front porch sagged.

  “However humble,” Viktor said. He steered his truck to a slow stop. “I give you Sparrow Road.”

  “You own this place?” I gasped. Viktor’s rusted truck reeked of mud and grease; his sunken face was covered in white whiskers. He looked too poor to own a country mansion, even one as worn as this was.

  “Raine!” Mama jabbed her elbow in my ribs. “Viktor owns the whole estate.”

  “The main house,” Viktor said as if he hadn’t heard me, “is where the artists sleep. Your cottage is a short walk through the meadow.” It was the most I’d heard him say since he met us at our train.

  “Well, it’s nothing like Milwaukee, that’s for sure.” Mama gave me a weak smile.

  Just hearing Mama say Milwaukee made me miss it more. Already our apartment seemed another world away, a place where Grandpa Mac waited, lonesome with us gone. I thought of Grandpa Mac standing sad-eyed at the station, the secret fifty-dollar bill he stashed in my back pocket. In case of an emergency, he warned, like he knew one was ahead.

  “I would assume”—Viktor cleared his throat as if those few words wore him out—“the four artists are asleep at this late hour.” Only one small curtained window was lit up in the house. He opened up his truck door. “I shall get your bags.”

  “I don’t want to stay,” I said the second Viktor left us in the truck. Sparrow Road looked haunted-mansion creepy, the same way Viktor Berglund looked when I saw him at the train. A man so thin he looked more skeleton than human; a man with ice blue eyes and a face as cold as stone.

  Mama touched my cheek. “Sweetheart, we can’t leave.”

  “Grandpa Mac said he’d come to get me. Day or night. All I have to do is call. We can go back to the station, wait there for a train.” I still had the good-bye apple muffins Grandpa baked us in my backpack. A bag of wilted grapes. Grandpa’s fifty-dollar bill.

  “We can’t,” Mama said. “And Grandpa Mac is far away. For the first time in a long time, it’s only you and me.” She wove her sweaty fingers between mine.

  Your mother’s done some crazy things, but this? Suddenly Grandpa Mac’s worries were moving into mine.

  “But you don’t even like to clean,” I said. Grandpa Mac always joked that Mama’s middle name was Mess. Now I’d lose what was left of my good summer so Mama could cook and keep house for some artists in the country.

  “Raine,” Mama said. “We’ve been over this already. A hundred times at least.”

  We had. Still, none of Mama’s reasons for this job made an ounce of sense to me. “But Sparrow Road?” I said. “You had a job back in Milwaukee.”

  “Sweetheart,” Mama said. She opened up the truck door. “This is going to take some brave from both of us.”

  It took more than brave for me to follow brooding Viktor across the dew-soaked meadow. It took Mama’s hand clenched around my elbow and a night so black I was too afraid to stay in Viktor’s truck all by myself.

  “The bats,” Viktor warned. “Don’t be startled by the swoops.”

  I pressed in close to Mama. A symphony of insects rattled in the grass. “Are there snakes?” I asked.

  “Raine’s used to the city,” Mama said to Viktor.

  Even the country air smelled strange. A mix of fresh-cut grass and lilacs, rotten apples, raspberries, and pine. Maybe fish, like a lake might be nearby.

  “And to think,” Mama said like she hoped to get some happy conversation started. “Just three days ago, I was serving lunch to crabby customers at Christos.”

  “Three days ago,” I added, “I was stacking shelves at Grandpa’s store.” All the Popsicles and candy I could eat. Our portable TV tucked behind the counter. Brewers’ games on Grandpa Mac’s transistor. Chess with Grandpa’s best friend, Mr. Sheehan, when the afternoons got long. The summer job I love
d, and Mama made me leave it.

  “Oh, Raine.” Mama faked a cheery laugh. “You spend every summer in that store. Besides, we’ll only be here a few weeks.”

  “Eight,” I moaned. “If you make us stay until September.”

  Mama gave my arm a sharp, be-quiet squeeze. “Raine’s tired,” Mama said, like I was six instead of twelve. “Ten hours on a train. That long ride from the station. She needs to get some sleep.”

  Sleep. I wasn’t going to sleep a wink at Sparrow Road. Grandpa Mac always said he couldn’t get to sleep without the song of sirens, the noise of neighbors humming through our walls, the roar of city traffic on the street. It would be the same for me.

  “Tomorrow,” Viktor said, “I shall take you on a tour. Tomorrow is a Sunday. On Sundays we may speak.”

  “Speak?” I said.

  “As I explained,” he said to Mama, “every day is silent until supper. Every day but Sunday.”

  “What?” I said. “Silent until supper?”

  “I assumed she knew the rules,” Viktor said like his mouth was dry with dust.

  “She does,” Mama lied. She tried to nudge me forward, but I wouldn’t take another step. A thick swarm of mosquitoes feasted on my skin. Tomorrow I’d be covered in red welts.

  “I don’t.” I slapped down at my leg. “Mama never mentioned any rules.”

  “Just a few,” Mama said. No one hated rules more than Mama. “Like there won’t be any newspapers.”

  “Is that it?” I asked. No newspapers was nothing like silence until supper.

  “Or television,” Viktor said to Mama. “Or radio. Or music. Not at any time.”

  “What?” I said. “No TV until September? No radio? And we can’t even talk?”

  “Molly,” Viktor said. “If it’s a problem for the child?”

  “It is,” I answered.

  “Raine’s not a child,” Mama said. “She’ll make it through just fine.”

  “The artists,” Viktor said, “they require quiet. They only have the summer for their work. As it is, it’s already July.”

  I wasn’t going to talk to any artists. The second I saw daylight I was calling Grandpa Mac. Collect. Just the way he taught me.

  “Of course,” Mama agreed. “We won’t disturb the artists. We’ll have enough to keep us busy, as you know.”

  “Let us hope,” Viktor said.

  “As for the rules,” Mama added quickly, “we completely understand.”

  “I don’t,” I said again. “I don’t understand at all.”

  2

  Our cottage was a tiny Snow White house where a gardener used to sleep. Inside it smelled like dust balls and old clothes;—abandoned, like no one had lived in it for years. There was a sunken couch, a painted wooden rocker, and a little purple table just for two.

  “Well, it’s cute,” Mama said when Viktor left.

  “Cute?” The walls were butter yellow, the white lace curtains grayed. “Maybe in a rundown dollhouse kind of way.” I rolled my eyes at Mama. I didn’t care about the cottage. “No TV? Silence until supper? All those stupid rules you didn’t tell me?”

  “I was going to,” Mama said. “Just not on our first day.” She wiped her palm across the dusty table. “Don’t worry, Raine, we’ll make it our own place.”

  The only place I wanted was Milwaukee. I lugged my suitcase up the narrow staircase to the tiny slanted bedroom where Viktor told us we would sleep. Heat pressed down from the ceiling; a hint of breeze blew through the open window.

  “How is it?” Mama asked, but I didn’t answer.

  It was daisy wallpaper peeled away in patches, two sagging beds, a broken mirror nailed to the wall. I flopped down on the musty mattress, hugged a flimsy pillow to my chest. At home, Beauty would be purring on my bed. Grandpa Mac would be watching some old western on TV.

  “Love you to the moon and back,” I whispered to Grandpa Mac. It’s what I always said before I went to bed. A single tear trickled down my cheek. Love you to the stars, he said to me. Good night, sweet girl. I’ll see you in my dreams.

  The strange thing is, I slept. Long and deep, the way I sometimes did with fevers. When I woke up the next morning the spicy smell of coffee filled the cottage and Mama’s bed was made.

  “Mama?” I called. She never made her bed.

  “Down here, sleepyhead,” Mama almost sang. “Come see, Raine. I’ve been cleaning up our cottage. And everything looks better with the sun.”

  Downstairs, Mama sat at the little purple table—her long red curls still wet from washing, her denim overalls rolled up to her knees. The smell of dust had already disappeared. Warm white light poured through the open windows. “Getting ready for our week.” Mama patted a stack of yellowed cookbooks. “I found these in the cupboard. The birds wouldn’t let me sleep.”

  I slumped down in the chair and wiped the sleep out of my eyes. “I need a phone,” I said. “This morning.”

  “There’s no phone, Raine. I’m sorry.” But sorry wasn’t in her voice.

  “No phone?” I looked around the cottage. “No phones at Sparrow Road?”

  Mama shook her head. “The artists come to Sparrow Road to get away.”

  “Right. No talking. No TV.” I dropped my head into my hands. Six days a week of silence, now I couldn’t even find a phone. “But what about emergencies? A fire? Someone could get hurt.” I was two when Grandpa Mac taught me how to phone for help.

  “In an emergency,” Mama said, “I’m sure a call can be arranged.”

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s an emergency today.”

  Mama stared into my eyes. “This isn’t an emergency. It’s change. I know that you’re unhappy, but we’ll get used to it. We will.”

  “But why?”

  Mama turned the pages of her cookbook like an answer would be there. “I told you, Raine, I came to do a job.”

  “You had a job at Christos.”

  “Another job,” Mama said. “A job that wasn’t in Milwaukee. And I’ll have my Christos job when we go home.” She slapped the cookbook shut. “Raine,” she sighed, “not everything’s a mystery.” It’s what she always said when she was tired of my questions or when she held a secret she wasn’t going to tell.

  “I know,” I said. “Not everything. But this?” Our move to Sparrow Road was a mystery to me.

  “But hey!” Suddenly she jumped up and an unexpected smile lit up her worried face. “If you’re looking for a mystery, I’ve got a real one you can solve.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the counter. “Look!” she cried. “Like Easter!”

  Underneath a drape of emerald velvet was a lilac wicker basket filled with water-colored eggs, a jelly jar of flowers, warm banana bread, and two small tangerines. On a torn scrap of paper WELCOME had been glued in golden glitter. “I found it here this morning, at our door.”

  “Weird,” I said. “Viktor didn’t make this.”

  “No,” Mama said. “I don’t think so either.” I heard a hint of wonder in her voice. Like maybe something was a mystery to her. “And this?” Mama handed me a linen napkin, white, with the towered house embroidered in the center and my initials R.O. stitched into the corner. “There’s a second one for me,” Mama said.

  “So someone knows our names,” I said. “Someone besides Viktor.”

  “Yes,” Mama said. “Someone who must be happy that we’re here.”

  3

  Mama was right. Sparrow Road looked different in the sunlight. Outside, miles of rolling hills formed a patchwork quilt of green, wildflowers swayed graceful in the meadow, and the sky seemed to stretch forever in a perfect, deep blue sea. It was a pretty place I might have loved with Grandpa Mac and Mama. A vacation place without Viktor and his rules, and all the silent days I had ahead.

  When Viktor came to take us on the tour, I let Mama walk beside him. I was happiest a few steps back, away from Viktor’s stony quiet, his icy eyes, his sunken face covered in white whiskers. Plus there was something I was watching—the friendly
way they talked, the way Mama seemed too sweet, too comfortable with a man as cold as Viktor. Too at home, like she and Viktor knew each other before he met us at the train.

  He led us down a steep path to a lake. “Sorrow Lake,” he wheezed when we’d made it to the shore. “But here, I need a rest.” He sat down in the shade while Mama and I left him for the dock.

  “Sorrow Lake?” I said to Mama, when I was sure Viktor was too far away to eavesdrop. “Isn’t that a strange name? And how can Viktor own a lake? No one owns Lake Michigan.”

  Mama shook her head. “So many questions, Raine.”

  “Did you know Viktor before he got us at the train?”

  “Know him?” Mama closed her eyes, tilted her face up toward the sun. “Viktor hired me. It’s how I got the job.”

  “But did you know him in Milwaukee? Or some time before now?”

  Mama opened up one eye and gave me a mean squint.

  “You just seem to know him, like he might be your friend.”

  “Viktor is my boss.” Too many questions got on Mama’s nerves. “I’m here to work for him.”

  I slipped off my flip-flops and dipped my toes into the lake. A school of minnows skittered near the surface. “So can we swim after the tour?” I wanted something happy up ahead, something besides Viktor’s boring tour and Mama planning out her menu for the week.

  “We’ll see.” A flush of red washed over Mama’s face. Already, her pale Irish skin burned a little pink. I didn’t have Mama’s coloring or beauty. I was dark-eyed, dark-skinned, with straight black hair, and skinny, where Mama was all curves. “This afternoon,” Mama said, “I need to go with Viktor into Comfort.”

  “Comfort?”

  “It’s a town not far away. It’s where I’ll buy the groceries.”

  “You? You mean you’re going without me?”

  Mama kept her eyes closed. “Viktor’s truck,” she said. “There isn’t really room for three.”

  “There were three of us last night.” We were crowded knee to knee, but we still fit.