Her father exhaled in relief.
Josephine pressed on to the next urgent thought on her mind. “Where’s Ida?”
Her father sighed. “I don’t know. After we said goodbye to you, we traveled south. Every town we passed through, we asked about a tanner named Torrence, but no one had heard of him, so we just kept moving. This went on and on, but while I was growing older and becoming a teenager, Ida stayed exactly the same, just like all the other children who’d gone into the holes. She’d never have admitted it, but she was tortured by it. She was always searching for a cure. One day she heard about a possible remedy that was in a distant country, and she told me she needed to go find it. I was still looking for my parents, so she went without me.”
“And that was it? You never saw her again?” Josephine was immensely disappointed.
He looked mournful. “No. But I think of her often.”
“Did you find your parents?”
Mr. Russing proceeded to tell her about his years searching far and wide for his mother and father. It was a tragic tale. By the time he’d found the tanner who’d bought his parents from the Master, his mother had died from exhaustion and his father, heartbroken, had drowned himself in the tannery pits.
Josephine felt tears run down her cheeks. “That’s so sad.”
“That’s when I decided I needed to change my name, make a new start. There’d been a lot of gossip about what had happened to the Russing family and their fortune. The Master had left his hometown as a boy and no one had heard from him since. His estate lay unclaimed. I decided that he still owed me for the death of my parents, so I went to Drubshire and claimed that I was his son. I sold his home and belongings and left that place a rich man. I traveled back to the Institute and used one of Brokhun’s Cracks to get here, and I continued living as Leopold Reginald Russing. Fargus was dead as far as I was concerned.”
Now that her father was sharing his life with her, Josephine felt emboldened. “Father, why don’t you ever talk about Mother? Why don’t you ever talk at all?”
His voice trembled a little. “She was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and after she died, it was like she took my voice with her, just like after my parents were arrested.”
“You mean, you stopped talking because you were so sad?”
“Yes. And also because I was angry. I lost my parents, and then you—well, the you I knew as a child—and then Ida, and then your mother. You know I have a bit of a temper. . . .”
Josephine nodded, remembering when he had attacked the Master.
“I was afraid if I spoke that I wouldn’t be able to control myself. The day I stabbed the Master, that was the worst day of my life. I never want to hurt another person as long as I live.”
Josephine could see that he meant it.
Before she could stop herself, Josephine threw her arms around her father. She hugged him fiercely. “I love you, Fargus—I mean, Father.” And she did. She thought of the young Fargus she’d known, who’d been earnest and kind and good, and who’d been her true friend. And here he was with her now! She thought she would burst from happiness.
“And I love you, Josephine.” He squeezed her, and when she pulled away from their embrace, she saw tears running down his cheeks. He quickly pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his face, and blew his nose. He studied her amber eyes and big eyelashes. “I wish you could see how I remember you from my childhood. You were so strong and brave and tough. I named you after that fearless girl.”
Josephine tried to wrap her head around this. She had been named . . . after herself?
He smiled at her. “I can’t believe that it was you—my own helpless little Josephine!”
“I’m not helpless!” she protested, pulling away.
He pulled her back and moved the hair out of her eyes. He answered contritely, “I suppose if I’d been paying better attention, I might have realized that. As a boy, the first time I saw you, I thought that you looked like my mother when she was a girl, with that big hair. You do look just like her, you know.”
“I do?”
“That’s why I brought you the picture of her, with her parents and all her brothers and sisters. It was the last thing she ever gave me.” He dug around in his shirt pocket and brought out the photograph to show Josephine.
She looked at the girl in the middle, who she had been so sure was herself. “That girl . . . is my . . . grandmother?”
“Yes.”
And as Josephine studied the photograph more closely, she could see that the girl in the picture had slightly darker hair and that her nose was just an ooch bigger than her own. She studied the rest of the picture. “Those people are all my relatives?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and took the photo from her father. She placed it on a shelf above the sink, where she could see it every day. Josephine liked the idea of having a family, a past. She’d always felt so disconnected from the rest of the world. And she was an outcast in her own town.
She suddenly felt angry at Fargus and needed to tell him why. She turned and said, “Father, everyone thinks you’re so mean! They hate wearing gloves, and you make them wear them anyway!” Josephine couldn’t believe her own daring, but once she got started, she couldn’t stop. “And they think you’re greedy and rude and a snob because you never speak. And all the children hate me because of you!” The tears began again.
Mr. Russing was completely taken aback. “Why do they hate you? I’m the one . . . oh, what have I done?” He shook his head. “I didn’t force people to wear gloves because I wanted money. I did it because . . . I was ashamed of my hand. I didn’t want to explain how it got this way. To you . . . to anyone. I figured if everyone had to wear gloves, then no one would ever ask me why I was wearing them.”
Josephine sniffed. “But it’s still not fair.”
He nodded. “I didn’t realize it was affecting you. I’m sorry.”
“It affects everyone in the town! Will you change the law, Father?”
“Would that make you happy?”
Josephine nodded vigorously, amazed that he would do something like that for her.
He smiled and said, “Then it’s done. I’ll tell the mayor tomorrow. “
That night, Josephine and her father cooked dinner together, and Josephine told him all about her adventures. She explained all about Ned, Morgan, and the claganmeter. When she told him about what she had done to Stairway Ruth and Kitchen Maggie, he burst out laughing. “That’s fantastic!” he chortled. Josephine watched him in awe, never having seen him laugh before.
He stopped stirring their stew. “Can I see it?” he asked.
“What?”
