Becoming Johanna

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Becoming

Johanna

C. A. Pack

ARTIQUA
PRESS

www.artiquapress.com

When she was younger, the
prime curator of

The Library of
Illumination
wished her life away
…

1

Peakie’s Foundling Home
was not a pleasant place to grow up. Children—while clothed, fed,
and educated—were given little more than the basics, and often
found themselves hungry, cold, or abused for not learning their
lessons properly. Josefina wished she would grow older quickly and
couldn’t wait for the day she’d be able to escape
the home forever.

She’d been brought to
Peakie’s when she was three years old. She had hazy memories of a
woman, Fina
,
clutching her, and she anxiously awaited Fina’s return. But
as the months turned into years, the child finally realized no one
would be coming back for her.

When Josefina turned
seven, she summoned up the courage to question the matron in charge
of her ward. “Why am I here?” Josefina knew there was life outside
of Peakie’s; wisps of it survived in her memory. The matron waved
her away, but the child would not be deterred. Every day she asked
the same question. Weeks passed before the matron brought her to
see the headmaster. He nodded toward two straight-back chairs in
front of his desk, and the matron and child sat down.

“
You are asking about your
past life. I’m here to tell you it is dead to you. No one is going
to come and save you from your chores and schoolwork. There is no
idyllic haven that you will be whisked away to in the outside
world. You are here until you reach majority, young lady, and I
expect you to behave and to stop bothering the matron with
questions about your past.

“
I will tell you what I
know of it now, and there will be no further discussion.” He stood
up and paced the width of the room. He was a tall, gaunt man with
prominent features, and when he stopped walking, he placed both
hands on his desk and leaned forward, staring at Josefina with
humorless dark eyes. She shivered. “An old man brought you in and
said he found you in a dead woman’s arms in a library. He told us
your grandmother was dead and your parentage was unknown to him.
The only thing identifying you was the name embroidered in the hem
of the apron you wore—Josefina Charo. We alerted all the proper
authorities, but no one claimed you. We searched for relatives, but
found none. Your parents are probably dead. Thus, you are here to
stay, Josefina. Go back to your classroom and tell your teacher to
double your homework to make up for the lesson you missed this
morning.

“
Let me repeat: No one is
coming back for you. Ever.”

The matron returned
Josefina to the classroom, and the child had a hard time
concentrating on her lesson. She usually loved learning new things,
but not on this day. Instead, she held her text book up high to
shield herself so no one would notice the tears streaming down her
face, or the tiny sniffs that punctuated the wretched stillness of
the dimly lit room.

Josefina had always been
exceptionally bright and had excelled in the curriculum available
to her. She quickly surpassed the other students until there were
no more classes for her to take. She questioned the matron about
continuing her education, but was told flat out that Peakie’s
Foundling Home would not
provide a
university education “by any means.” Instead, the matron sent
Josefina to work in the laundry by day and wait on the younger
children during mealtime each night—a tedious existence for a
teenage girl overflowing with intelligence and
imagination.

Josefina’s work schedule
prevented her from participating in outdoor recess. Each day,
regardless of weather, students were herded out the door into a
side yard surrounded by an eight-foot cement block wall. Half the
area was covered in concrete. The other half had a few trees and
benches for people who preferred to sit and contemplate life. The
sparse crabgrass surrounding the base of the trees had a green
tinge, but the rest of the grassy area was brown and would remain
that way. Peakie’s staff would never spend money on something as
trivial as grass seed or fertilizer if they thought children would
trample the resulting lawn to death in just a few weeks. So nature
took its course, and dozens of feet pummeled the dried up blades of
grass, making mowing unnecessary.

During Josefina’s long,
boring work periods, she planned her escape. Sometimes, when she
dragged the trash out to the alley at night, she looked longingly
past the gate. It looked dark and forbidding, but she could see
lights beyond the alley, and hear threads of conversation and
bursts of laughter coming from what lay beyond. All she had to do
was climb over the wall.

One night, Josefina
witnessed something unusual. A tall boy wearing a hooded sweatshirt
ran down the alley, but stopped for a moment to pull money out of a
wallet he held in his hand. To Josefina’s amazement, he stuffed the
money in his pocket and threw the wallet into the gutter, where it
nestled among the trash that had found a home in its crevices and
corners. Josefina’s heart beat faster. Her imagination got the best
of her. She furtively searched the surrounding area to make sure no
one stood watching her and climbed the fence to retrieve the
wallet. She had never climbed a fence before and found it daunting.
It was not unyielding, and it swayed under her weight. The top had
a roll of barbed wire fastened to it, but it looked like others may
have taken this route before; the wire was flattened and easier, if
just as painful, to climb over.

The wallet was like a
small treasure trove. It held no money—the thief had seen to
that—but it contained a driver’s license, a credit card, and a
library card. She scrambled back across the fence. She considered
finding the wallet a sign that she should leave.
I have
to make
plans
. She didn’t consider the idea of
turning the wallet in. She already knew the matron would throw it
out, rather than invite
the police into
the foundling home. They would probably accuse Josefina of the
theft, after all, she had left
the
grounds, so who’s to say she didn’t mug the owner? No. This was
providence. She had been sent
this wallet
as a means to an end, the end of her
association with Peakie’s Foundling home.

She didn’t think of the
blood the barbed wire left dotting her hands and legs until another
girl commented on it.

“
I fell,” Josefina
lied.

“
Klutz,” the girl replied.
“You’d better repair your skirt before the matron sees
it.”

Josefina looked down and
saw a tear in the fabric. “Right,” she muttered. She quickly
finished her tasks and rushed to the shower room where she washed
off the blood and kitchen stench. That night, after mending her
skirt, she lay in bed under the thin blanket allotted to each
child, and she planned her future. The name Joan A. Carr was
printed on the driver’s license. Initials J. C. just like Josefina
Charo. According to the birthdate on the license, the owner was
nineteen years old, just a couple of years older than
Josefina.
This can’t be coincidence. It
must be fate.
The library card held an
additional morsel of information—Joan
Alice
Carr. Of course, she couldn’t
become Joan Carr. Someone with that name already lived nearby and
was probably in a police station at that moment reporting the
theft. No. That name would never do at all. She would have to come
up with a way around it. But first, she had to figure out how she
would get away.

The state forced the
foundling home to pay Josefina a meager wage, because she held two
positions, exceeding the hours required to satisfy her room and
board expense. At first, she carried the money she earned in her
pockets and then tucked it in her socks and underwear. When it
became too bulky, she slipped it inside the lining of her winter
jacket by cutting the stitches on a pocket and then re-sewing it.
It wasn’t that she had a lot of money, but she was afraid to
exchange small bills for larger denominations, because someone who
didn’t have her best interests at heart—which would be everyone at
Peakie’s—might try to steal it. No. She would continue to collect
her earnings, and when the time was right, she would
disappear.

An elderly man with a
thatch of wispy, white hair arrived at Peakie’s Foundling Home one
evening and asked to speak with the headmaster. The girl manning
the reception desk relayed the message, but was told the headmaster
was too busy for visitors. The man smiled at her when she gave him
the answer. “Would you try again? Please tell him Malcolm Trees is
here with my annual gift
to the home. I
wouldn’t want to leave with the donation still inside my
pocket.”

She reluctantly returned
to the headmaster’s office and cringed when he blasted her for not
handling the visitor on her own. “But he says he has a gift—a
donation—and he’d hate to go home with it still in his
pocket.”

That changed everything.
The headmaster rushed out with a smile plastered on his face. “Mr.
Trees, what a pleasure to see you again.”

“
As you know, my
organization likes to present a small annual endowment to the home
for the betterment of the children here.”

“
Yes, I know, and we fully
appreciate it.”

“
I originally set it up to
help defray some of the costs of the little girl I brought
you—after she was abandoned in the Library of Illumination. I
wonder if I could see the child.”

“
No … no. That would be
highly irregular. It would never do to single out one child. It
causes a disruption among the others—petty jealousies and
mean-spiritedness. I couldn’t possibly allow it.”

“
I was really hoping to
check in on her, to make sure she’s okay.” He took a check out of
his breast pocket and looked it over. “Of course, if she’s not here
because she’s been adopted, then there’s no need.” He folded the
check and placed it back in his pocket.

“
I’m … I’m sure there
wouldn’t be any problem if you just look at her from a distance.
That way the others won’t think she’s getting special
treatment.”

Malcolm Trees relented.
“That will have to do.”

The headmaster sent the
receptionist to ascertain Josefina Charo’s whereabouts and inform
the matron about their visitor. A short time later, they stood at
the entrance to a cafeteria, where lines of children waited to get
their dinner.

“
The children all look
rather young to be the girl I’m inquiring about,” the visitor
noted.

“
That’s because she’s not
in the food line,” the matron said. “She’s behind the counter,
serving peas and potatoes.”