Masked by Moonlight

Matthew forced himself to focus on coiling his whip. When he looked up, the child was gone.

Then, just as he turned back toward his box, Matthew heard it—the long wail of a running boy calling, “Thanks, mister!”

If Georgia Waterhouse was going to save the world one child at a time, someone had beaten her to it.

At least as far as the scrappy newsboy before her was concerned. Snapped from the very jaws of death, to hear him tell it. And tell it he had. He was on his fourth rendition of the morning, the pertinent details growing with every repetition as they sat in the Grace House Mission hallway.

“I thought you said he had one whip last time, Quinn. Now he’s wielding two.” Georgia smiled and put down the package of clothes she was wrapping. She knelt in front of the boy, tight as they were for space as they moved packages from the hallway into the mission linen closet.

She handed the boy a shirt to hold. “You know, Quinn, this is a pretty tall tale. Men don’t just appear out of the shadows with whips and guns in the middle of the night to save boys.” She knit her brows together as she reached behind her for another garment. “And what was it you were doing out so late, in any case? Did anyone know where you were?”

He shot her a look that said she didn’t know anything. “Everyone knew,” he said, with the whine of someone who felt he was stating the obvious. “I always run back to Uncle Hugh with the coins from the newsstand.”

“At three in the morning?” Georgia pivoted around to pack up the shirts she held with the ones she took back from Quinn. The mission was running out of storage space. Again.

“No, most times it’s closer to two.”

She sighed. The fact that ten-year-old newsboys were ferrying money through back alleys at three in the morning was exactly why God had asked her to save the world—or at least San Francisco’s corner of it—here through Grace House Mission.

“You know, Quinn, it’d be easy to make up a tale that some man saved you and your money from those robbers, especially if you thought people might admire you if you did. God—and I—would rather you tell the truth.”

“I am telling the truth. God knows that, anyhow!”

Georgia pointed to another pile of clothes and switched tactics. “Hand me those, will you, please? I’m simply saying that it’s all right to make up stories. I do it all the time. But passing them off as real is another thing altogether.”

Quinn’s eyes took on a nasty edge. “I knew no one’d believe me.” He threw the pile onto the hallway floor. “Prob’ly not even God, and He should know better.” Disgusted, he tore off around the corner, leaving the clothes scattered on the floor behind him.

Georgia heard Reverend Bauers call out down the hall as he dodged out of Quinn’s angry path. The clergyman appeared at Georgia’s side a second later, looking down the hall after Quinn’s exit.

“Told you the tale of his midnight hero, has he?”

Georgia gathered up the clothing. “Four times. It got more heroic with every telling.”

Bauers chuckled. “How many whips in your version?” He was a jovial soul of solid German stock, and Georgia was very fond of him and the work he’d done here at Grace House. The struggling “South of the Slot” neighborhood—named for its position south of the cable car line—was far better off for his efforts.

“I stopped him at two.”

“It got to the point where I thought our hero would resort to cannon fire in my set of renditions,” he grunted as he bent his considerable frame to gather the last of the shirts. “Oh well, I can’t say as I blame the boy.”

Georgia eyed him. “Telling lies?”

“More like exaggerating, I’d say. I believe someone got Quinn out of a scrape last night. Whether or not he wielded a trunkful of weaponry, I am not so sure. But boys need heroes, and San Francisco is in painfully short supply.”

Chapter Two

“Georgia, you always get these kinds of ideas after you’ve been to Grace House.”

Georgia stared at her brother. They sat talking over breakfast in the family dining room. The sun had overpowered the morning fog, to produce a victorious wash of bright light. Unlike the estate’s massive formal dining hall, this was a warm and comfortable room. Georgia had seen to its welcoming palette of honey-colored wood, gold and tan wallpaper, with a few hints of green and burgundy in various accents. She loved that the petit point chair cushions were their late mother’s needlework. That the impressive gold candlesticks and clock on the fireplace mantel had been a favorite of their late father’s. Even though they were long gone, this dining room was one of the places she most felt her parents’ presence. Perhaps that’s why she had chosen to launch her extraordinary plan over breakfast here.

“That place has cost me thousands of dollars in your brand of philanthropy. They’ve got you hoodwinked,” her brother was saying.

Georgia gathered strength from the room around her and silently held her ground. Or, as she liked to think of it, she held ground for God.

Stuart finally looked up from his paper. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.” With one hand she instinctively gripped the cushioned arm of her chair, as if her mother’s needlework would support her cause.

“Peach, I can’t just run something like that in the Herald,” said her brother, who often called her Peach, especially when being difficult. “You know that.”

“You run whatever you please in that paper, Stuart. Facts or no facts.” Georgia knew she had him there. Stuart Waterhouse ran a highly successful but highly disreputable paper.

“Peach,” he moaned at her display of determination, “be reasonable. We’ve already had a Black Bandit Bart. People aren’t going to believe that some man with the same name as that stagecoach robber has suddenly sprung up to play the noble hero. They aren’t going to believe it at all. It’s fiction.”

Fiction. How funny of him to use such a term. She wondered what he called half of his paper’s contents, since Georgia knew the term “fact” hardly applied. Quite clearly, Stuart viewed fiction as something beyond his dealings, even though Georgia imagined half of San Francisco might think otherwise.

“I know very well what it is. And believe me, Stuart, if I had a set of good deeds for your reporters, I’d tell you. But, as you so often point out, this city seems steeped in bad news. And you gave Black Bandit Bart a lot of coverage, so why not a new Black Bandit?”

Stuart rolled his eyes. “Oh come now, Georgia, times aren’t as bad as all that.”

“Aren’t they? Have you visited Grace House? Seen what kind of people come there asking for help? Things are going from bad to worse lately. You know it. I worry that you thrive on it, for goodness’ sake.” She reached for the morning’s edition of the Herald, which lay on the table between them. The cool black-and-white newsprint stood out against the honey-toned wood that surrounded them.

Georgia unfolded the paper and held it up to her brother. “I don’t see a piece of good news in here, Stuart. Can you show me even one story?”

He evaded her challenge, as she knew he would. “I’m not going tit for tat with you on this.” He rose and walked to the window, slipping his hands inside the pockets of his crisp gray trousers. He was a fastidious dresser, her brother. He always looked sharp and strong, his meticulously tailored coat rarely unbuttoned. “Write all the stories you like, tell tales to your heart’s content,” he said, gazing out the window. “Just don’t ask me to run them in the Herald.”

The servants brought in breakfast, interrupting the exchange. The siblings ate in silence, he thinking he’d ended the conversation, she regrouping for another attempt.

When he’d finished the last of his eggs, Georgia slid the paper over to his side of the table once more. She would not back down. Not again. “We don’t have any good news, Stuart. We’re going to have to make our own. Fiction reminds people of what could be. Stories touch their hearts. This city isn’t suffering from a lack of facts. Folks already have more than enough facts to fill their heads. It’s suffering from a lack of heart. A lack of faith. Stories reach that part of us.”

Stuart’s expression told her she was speaking about things he neither understood nor valued. He ran his empire, and cared little for lingering over breakfast to discuss San Francisco’s moral failings.

He didn’t concern himself with the citizens’ hearts or souls.

Their wallets, however, commanded his full attention.

Georgia looked at the candlesticks, massive and ornate. Her father had brought them back from a trip because he’d felt they caught one’s eye. They were, in fact, the first thing anyone noticed when entering the room. She needed to catch her brother’s eye, then, and put this in terms he could appreciate. She altered the tone of her voice.

“If there’s one thing you know, Stuart, it’s how to give your readers what they want.” She handed him a small stack of handwritten pages. “Read this. Just read it once, that’s all I’m asking.” She sent up a prayer that he would do so. “See what those famous instincts of yours tell you about what people might think of this.”

Stuart reached for a piece of toast and glared at her.

She did her best to glare back. Lord, please let him read it. Only You can do this.

Slowly, Stuart’s hand moved toward the pages. She straightened her spine, trying to look as if she’d never leave the breakfast table until he granted her request. If the sun could conquer the fog this morning, she could stand up to Stuart.

He took hold of the pages while biting into his toast.

Georgia waited. Show him, Lord. Let him see it. See what I see.