Her fingers were freezing, her skin dry and rough like sandpaper.

“Arthur was a violent man,” she said. “When he drank, he would look for Nathan. He wanted to make him strong, he said. He wanted to beat the soft out of him.”

She paused, her gaze drifting back to the dark kitchen doorway.

“I had to protect him,” she whispered. “I had to keep Nathan safe.”

“How did you protect him, Eleanor?”

“I hid him,” she said simply. “In the small space under the floorboards in the pantry. Where the old coal chute used to be.”

I thought of the dark, cramped cellar stairs I had just climbed.

“But he would cry,” she continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “He was so small, Clara. He would sob, and Arthur would hear him through the floor.”

She squeezed my hand. Her grip was surprisingly tight.

“So I gave him the drops,” she said.

A cold knot of dread formed in my stomach. “What drops?”

“The chloral hydrate,” she said. “Just a few drops on a sugar cube. It made him sleep. It made him quiet.”