Page 136 of The Reformatory

“Me, sir,” Kendrick said. “I’m over the cookstoves.”

“And you didn’t see the fire start?”

“No, sir. I was helping the boys chop carrots on the counter.”

Haddock stepped closer to Kendrick until he could smell the fear baking from the sweat on his brow. “You’re in charge of the cookstoves. But you didn’t see it start.”

“Wasn’t none of us in there, Mr. Haddock,” Kendrick said.

“You left my goddamn stoves burning unattended?”

“No, sir. I swear it on all my people. On my grandmama. None of them burners was on, Mr. Haddock. We was still choppin’ carrots. They… was running late. We hadn’t started boiling yet. Wasn’t nobody in there.”

Haddock pressed his palms in a prayer position, his fingertips to his lips. He leaned closer to Kendrick, reminding himself that he could be gentle now because he would teach Kendrick’s lying ass a lesson to remember him by in the shed later. “So… you’re trying to have me believe… that fire started all by itself? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Kendrick didn’t have the nerve to repeat the words out loud. He only nodded, his stoicism giving way to a tiny tremor of his jaw.

“Explain to me,” Haddock said, “how a fire starts by itself.”

Kendrick wanted to answer but didn’t. Haddock surveyed the boys’ faces and saw their absolute agreement, not only that the room had been empty but that they knew the fire had started itself. Awareness brushed the back of Haddock’s mind. He stepped away from Kendrick as if to escape his own fledging thoughts.

“The first one of you who can explain to me in plain English how that fire started by itself won’t go to the Funhouse,” Haddock said. “The rest get fifty lashes.”

A small, gap-toothed boy raised his hand. Haddock blinked to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating: except for his gapped teeth, the boy was a ringer for Kendall Sweeting, who had died in the fire in 1920. Again Haddock felt himself slipping through time. One by one, all of the other hands went up. They all knew. Haddock realized he knew too.

Haddock pointed toward the boy who looked like Sweeting. “You,” he said.

“A haint,” he whispered.

Haddock shot a look at Boone. The anger in Boone’s brow had caved to nervousness.

“It’s true,” Kendrick said. “I never seen one, but… the younger boys…”

“That room’s haunted,” another boy said. “Always cold, even with all the burners on.”

“We used to see him sometimes, that white boy with the knife in his back,” said the boy who looked like Kendall Sweeting. “We thought it was done with, ever since…”

The ground rocked beneath Haddock’s feet. Haddock turned to Boone. “Was that where you found the haint in the kitchen?”

Boone nodded. “Yessuh. That very room. Like I told you, I never saw nothin’ like it.” Clint Newsome, that had been his name. Just like Cleo, Boone had promised a slow-witted boy he would never go to the shed again if he buried a butcher knife in that swamp-trash troublemaker’s back when no one was looking. Clint Newsome had died on that kitchen floor in a mess of his own blood at least four years ago. And Boone had just captured him for his jar.

Haddock knew haints could touch objects in the physical world—hell, Lucy had taught him that. Broken windows and rattling lampshades and slamming doors had followed him all his life. But he had never heard of a haint starting a fire… until now. Could it have been Clint? Had he escaped the jar? Or was another haint taking up his cause?

Haddock realized his heartbeat had sped up while the boys were watching, so he took a deep breath until he felt his heartbeat slow. If a new haint had set the fire, he’d put that haint in his jar too. That was what his haint catcher was for.

“Where’s Robert Stephens?” Haddock said.

“He didn’t come to the kitchen today,” Kendrick said.

“I saw him by the schoolhouse before,” one boy said. “But he didn’t come to class.”

“I saw him by the band room,” said another. “Outside the window.”

“So he’s everywhere and nowhere, is that it?” Haddock said, raising his voice.

Finally, Boone explained: “I said he could go hunt haints today.”

“But where is he now?” Haddock said. The pinched look on Crutcher’s face made Haddock’s eyes land on him. Crutcher fussed with his pocket, looking for his missing handkerchief. Instead, he used his sleeve to wipe sweat from his brow.