The Three Thorns Read online

  MICHAEL GIBNEY

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.

  Copyright © 2014 by Michael Gibney

  THE THREE THORNS by Michael Gibney

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Published by Tantrum Books for Month9Books

  Cover by Adam McDaniel

  Jacket design by Victoria Faye

  Cover Copyright © 2014 Month9Books

  This book is dedicated to two people. The first is my Grandfather, David Thompson, from whom I inherited this precious gift and love for the written word. Your imagination never ended with you…it lives on in me and I will carry it until it’s my time to hand it over. I love you Grand-Dad.

  To my dear friend and greatest advocate, Van Dyke Parks. You taught me what true courage and conviction really means. I will be forever grateful for your genuine love, humility and hand in friendship you’ve shown me over the years.

  MICHAEL GIBNEY

  Prologue: New Born

  They say all great legends start small. This one begins with three crimson-wrapped bundles on a rainy evening in London. The year was 1900, but not much had changed to make the turn of the century overly special. Not much, that is, except for the three abandoned babies found that night.

  For they were royalty, bound to a destiny that would one day change the world. But on the night of their arrival, they were merely orphans, crying with misery and about to perish in the cold.

  ***

  A minister and his maid opened the large door of an old church to distraught screams. It was late winter and the rain had been ongoing for days.

  The frail baby had been wrapped in maroon silk that bore the image of a two-headed snake embroidered through a golden crown.

  Without hesitating, the minister swaddled the infant in his knitted woolen sweater, enveloping it in the warmth of his body. Having made up his mind, the minister embraced the infant as if it were his own. He took the crying baby inside the towering church while the maid shook her head behind him, closing the massive doors to shut out the miserable weather.

  “What are you doing, Minister Brannon?” she asked.

  “A cry for help should never be ignored, Miss Illingworth,” replied the minister, shooting a look of disappointment at the cold-hearted woman.

  ***

  That same night, a second screaming baby appeared on a different doorstep that belonged to a wealthy couple who owned a multitude of opera houses along the city’s prestigious West End. Some would say this child had landed on his feet, but not all was what it seemed, nor did everything glitter brightly with promise in the shallow world of show business.

  Puffing heavily on her cigarette, the retired theater actress rolled her eyes at her husband after they had stopped bickering about who was to answer the door first. A look of disgust crossed the woman’s face the moment she heard the whimpering sounds of an infant. Her husband stammered and gently shrugged his shoulders back at her the moment he opened the door.

  “Well, you did want a baby.”

  “This is not exactly what I had in mind, Viktor,” she snapped, taking another drag through her cigarette holder.

  “What do you want me to do?” her husband snapped back as she walked away from the doorstep.

  “You want it, you raise it.” Her voice echoed through the large hallway of the theater without a care.

  Wrestling with his sense of morality, the theater owner lit a cigar as he pondered whether to keep the baby or report it. Then he noticed the two-headed snake symbol through a golden crown on the silk robe, and the businessman suddenly saw the baby as a possible financial investment. Without much persuasion, he made the choice to bring the baby inside.

  ***

  When the rain was at its heaviest, a third baby landed in the worst place of all…the gutter.

  A common cook was dumping leftovers in the alleyway when his ears perked up to the light whimpering coming from an empty waste bin. Immediately the concerned cook ran back into the restaurant to fetch his manager along with several staff who came out to have a look at the startling discovery.

  That afternoon the authorities came to take the infant to a place where it would be looked after and raised—an orphanage a little outside the main city of greater London—to become another statistic easily forgotten.

  1

  Mr. Jennings and the New Boy

  Young Benjamin Brannon had just turned eleven when he stepped onto the grounds of Gatesville, Borstal Home for Boys. What did I do to end up here? he wondered, as he gazed upon the dark gray building towering over him like a castle of doom.

  He squeezed the hand of his present guardian, Miss Illingworth, a cold, hard-looking woman from the Woodson County Orphanage, and hid behind her the moment she pulled her hand away. Until now, Benjamin had lived amongst the other orphans of Woodson County ever since the minister had opened his own orphanage in 1901, when Benjamin was almost a year old. The minister had fallen ill with an unexpected case of pneumonia at the beginning of autumn. Due to his sudden illness, Minister Brannon granted the cold-hearted maid a legal position to run the orphanage in his place. With Miss Illingworth in power, it hadn’t taken long for her new legislations to be put into effect. The first statute she passed in Woodson County was a limitation on age. Anyone over ten years of age currently living at Woodson County Orphanage was immediately rehomed, and Benjamin Brannon was the first on Miss Illingworth’s list to get the boot.

  Benjamin hadn’t been able to stand the sight of the vile woman and now here he was, willing to go anywhere with her as long as he wasn’t left alone in this new and unfamiliar place.

  Benjamin Brannon was a very short boy for his age, a few inches smaller than the average eleven-year-old and unusually portly for such an active spirit. He was just big boned that way. Would the other boys laugh at him for his size and shape like they did in Woodson County? Would they bully him because he was smaller than most of the children he could see running in the foregrounds? All of these fears ran through Benjamin like a heavy gust of wind.

  Whilst brooding, Benjamin caught sight of a tall thin man walking toward Miss Illingworth, which made him forget his initial fear of the other boys. The man wore a creased old suit and looked just as ragged as his clothes.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Jennings,” greeted Miss Illingworth, taking a tight hold of Benjamin’s hand. As the man approached, the unsettled feeling Benjamin had became sheer dread, especially when he noticed the extensive burn marks on the man’s hands. Benjamin stepped backwards, far enough to stay behind Miss Illingworth. She began to struggle with Benjamin, trying to bring him face to face with the old man.

  “Eyes to me, boy!” Mr. Jennings snapped. His voice caused Benjamin to jump.

  “He’s very troublesome. I’d keep my eye on this one,” Miss Illingworth warned.

  Benjamin glared at the wicked woman. He had been well behaved on their travels from Woodson County, and now this was her cruel way of repaying him.

  Mr. Jennings smiled at Miss Illingworth through crooked gray teeth before sneering down at the orphan. “They’re easily trained here,” he replied. It sounded
like a sinister threat.

  Mr. Jennings took Benjamin’s hand and squeezed it tightly, until Benjamin could no longer feel his own fingers. He eyed the other boys gawking at him.

  Miss Illingworth gave Benjamin a patronising smile and handed him his personal belongings in a torn paper bag.

  “Good luck.”

  Leaving him in the hands of Mr. Jennings, the hard woman made her way to the borstal’s front gates.

  Mr. Jennings led the way toward the front doors of Gatesville. The grim building looked more like a prison than a standard home for unwanted boys.

  Benjamin studied the long corridors ahead. The ghostly place proved to be bleaker inside than out, and the musty smell was strong enough to make his stomach turn.

  When they reached the first floor, a prefect in charge of reporting misbehavior greeted Mr. Jennings and took Benjamin’s bag of belongings from him.

  “Johnston, take this one to his room, then show him around,” Mr. Jennings said quietly.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Once Mr. Jennings whistled his way down the stairs out of sight, Johnston tossed Benjamin’s bag of belongings back to him. A toothbrush, a hat and a moth-eaten scarf scattered across the floor spilling out from a piece of maroon silk cloth when the wet paper bag tore apart. Dropping onto his hands and knees, Benjamin wrapped up the items in the cloth, and then scrambled onto his tired feet.

  Johnston tilted his head once the strange golden crown and snake emblem on the cloth caught his eye.

  “What’s that?” he asked rudely, pointing at the emblem.

  “It’s mine, my minister gave it to me,” Benjamin said, clutching the cloth tight to his chest. It was the only thing he could think to say. He was unclear as to what the emblem stood for, but he knew the maroon cloth was important, for it was all he had that held a clue to his beginning.

  As they walked down another corridor, Benjamin’s heart began beating in his throat. He felt sick and nervous. Butterflies had fluttered in his belly ever since he met the horrible Mr. Jennings, and the growing tension he felt refused to leave him. He felt like crying when he noticed the crammed bedrooms along the corridor. All he had ever wanted in life was for someone to love and care for him. He had truly believed that one day he would be placed with a loving family like the other children of Woodson County had been.

  Now his dream was over. Benjamin was abandoned in Gatesville; alone and sad at eleven years of age.

  “This is your room. Mr. Porter will be here shortly to show you the curriculum, he can show you around,” Johnston said bluntly.

  Benjamin tried to mutter the words ‘thank you’ but stumbled when all he could see was the back of the boy’s head leaving him alone in his room.

  Everybody within the old compounds of Gatesville seemed to be cold and uncaring like Miss Illingworth. It was a borstal, an orphanage for grown boys and funded by the government to keep orphans and teenage runaways off the dangerous streets. All the boys in Gatesville had either been abandoned at birth or taken into government care after their parents’ death. But there were a few that found themselves placed in Gatesville by a court of law for misbehavior.

  There was one boy in particular who caused Benjamin to be so fearful that he started to have reoccurring nightmares about him. The boy was the same age as Benjamin. His name was Tommy Joel.

  The most frightening thing about Tommy was his eyes. His left eye was a natural sky blue and his right eye was hazel green. He used to tell the other children that he’d received his piercing blue eye from a gypsy’s curse when he was little. Telling them the truth about being born with a genetic characteristic was all too boring for him (as well as embarrassing).

  Tommy was forever telling stories, especially to get out of trouble. He loved making up fabrications to impress and frighten the others. Most of the boys believed his stories and followed him around like they were his apprentices. He was undoubtedly the leader of the pack.

  The very first time Benjamin crossed Tommy Joel’s path was in the playground a week after his arrival to Gatesville. Benjamin was sitting next to the rusted fences, which had become the usual spot he chose in order to be by himself and furthest away from the other children. And there he would sit, gazing out into the distance across the wet docks of London.

  It was 1912, and London hadn’t changed much in the eleven years since he had been abandoned. It remained a cold, filthy place. But even its grim appearance was a better view than the Gatesville building behind him.

  As he nibbled at his last sandwich, a small stone unexpectedly grazed the side of his forehead. The sharp stinging pain woke him from his daydream and made him look over his shoulder. He knew right away the nature behind the fired attack and it didn’t surprise him when he noticed three boys, much bigger than himself, walking toward the fences, including Tommy Joel, his friend Jimmy Donald, and the brash prefect George Johnston.

  “Hey, you!” Tommy shouted.

  Benjamin’s heart raced as he froze on the spot.

  “What’s your name, pip-squeak?” Tommy asked in a broad, harsh, cockney accent.

  Benjamin found it hard to utter a word and nervously dropped his sandwich. “Benjamin,” he mumbled.

  The other boys immediately mocked his name, but Tommy looked hard at Benjamin, examining the cut on his forehead. Tommy turned to the boys on either side of him who continued giggling.

  “Shut it,” he snapped. “So, you’re the new boy?” he asked, turning his attention back to his victim.

  Benjamin looked intensely at the bully.

  “Are you gawking at me?” rasped Tommy. The bully’s eyes appeared even more bizarre up close, which fascinated Benjamin, for he had never seen such an extraordinary feature in a person before. Not realising that he’d been staring, he swiftly looked away.

  “Well, what are you staring at, oddball?” Jimmy interrupted.

  “Nothing,” Benjamin replied, avoiding eye contact.

  “This is our spot now,” said Tommy, pointing his finger at Benjamin.

  Without hesitation, Benjamin picked up his sandwich from the grass and slowly walked past the three boys, keeping his head down and eyes to the ground.

  George Johnston handed Tommy a field rat and using great stealth the odd-eyed bully placed the rodent inside Benjamin’s lower coat pocket the moment Benjamin passed him. The other boys started to snigger while Benjamin walked off, ignorant of what he carried with him.

  Benjamin disliked Tommy but he also envied him. Tommy Joel was everything that Benjamin Brannon wasn’t and everything Benjamin Brannon wanted to be: bold, brave, popular and respected.

  Even though Benjamin longed for the same adulation Tommy received, he never looked up to Tommy’s bullying ways, nor did he seek Tommy’s notoriety. Benjamin was confident in his own way. He was aware of his own strengths and weaknesses. Showing no weakness in the face of punishment was one of Benjamin’s many strengths, but even that didn’t make him feel more at ease at Gatesville, especially now that he had a notorious bully on his back, watching his every move.

  After lunch, Benjamin made his way to the main classroom for the eleven to twelve year old groups in Gatesville. The government had recently offered jobs to unemployed teachers who were sent to work in struggling borstals, teaching two compulsory subjects of English and Mathematics to the underprivileged. Gatesville’s staff had no objection, for the classes kept most of the boys out of trouble…somewhat.

  Benjamin followed the long line of boys into the room and sat at the front of the class, far away from Tommy and his gang who usually sat in the back row.

  Class began, taught by Mr. Porter, the very odd-looking mathematics teacher. He was a large rounded fellow and spoke in a voice so low it could put the most energetic soul to sleep.

  “Let’s begin, shall we?” Mr. Porter yawned. “We are going to start with long division today.”

  Mr. Porter began to write numbers on the black board while everybody in the
class copied his instructions onto their books, giving a long sigh. Everyone was putting pencil to paper except for Tommy Joel and his sidekicks, who were preoccupied making paper airplanes.

  Benjamin was unsurprised to realize he had no pencil. Most of his stationary had been stolen from his room since he had arrived at Gatesville, and even if he had a sharpened pencil at the ready, he was already lost because he had never been taught mathematics. Panic set in, and his heart raced. If he told the truth to Mr. Porter, the rest of the class would surely laugh at him. Everyone in Gatesville would brand him stupid, a long-term taunting he could not afford to let happen, not this early in his stay.

  Benjamin started to sweat. He looked around the room, which seemed to be getting smaller by the second. Maybe I have a pencil in my coat pocket, he thought to himself. When his fingers reached into his coat pocket, he could feel nothing but damp fluff that had gathered due to natural wear and tear, until his left hand tried the other side. Nothing but fluff again…at first…then something moved. Something alive!

  As he dug deeper to find out what exactly it was that his fingers touched, he felt the sharp stinging pain of a bite.

  “Get it off!”

  The entire class, including Mr. Porter, stared in shock at the fat black rat that dangled from the tip of Benjamin’s index finger—its tiny teeth locked deep into the skin.

  “Good Lord,” gasped Mr. Porter, fixing his spectacles onto his round face to get a better look. Benjamin gave his hand one mighty shake that flung the black rat across the room, to the top Mr. Porter’s gray hair.

  “Benjamin Brannon, you are in deep trouble, boy!” Mr. Porter shouted, trying to grab the rat. But the rodent was too quick and agile for the large man. It leaped onto the teacher’s desk, startling another boy at the front of the class who shooed the rat off it. Mr. Porter scattered a stack of pages onto the floor in an effort to detain the rodent under a pile of paper.