Iron House by John Hart

mountains. She thought of why she had come. “Stop the car.” She rocked forward in her seat, pressed a palm into her stomach. The driver hesitated. “Stop the car.”
    The driver slowed and stopped. She swung the heavy door into the falling snow and stepped out, her expensive shoes ruined by slush and salt. Three steps carried her to the edge of the woods, where she bent at the waist.
    “Ma’am? Are you okay?”
    Snow beaded her hair, her fine silk blouse; when she finally stood, she smoothed the back of one hand across her cheek. The cold air felt clean on her skin, and the nausea passed. She turned and found her driver standing by the front of the car, one hand on the hot metal. He nodded. “It’s a big day,” he said, as if he understood.
    “Yes.”
    “I would be nervous, too.”
    She allowed his misperception to stand.
    “Are you ready?” he asked.
    She looked at the wet linen sky, the skeleton trees with crooked arms and a million twisted fingers. “It’s so still,” she said.
    “Let me get your door.”
    “So cold.”
----
    It was after four when the limousine began its slow descent. The road wound into a narrow valley, the town at its center a knot of low buildings. Abigail Vane did not claim to know the place, but she knew what it would look like: properties in decline, bars with vinyl stools and people in cracked skin. There would be a gas station at each end of Main Street, a drugstore near the middle. It was a small town, a blink of light on the dark edge of the mountains, and she knew that in a half-day’s drive there were a hundred others just like it. North Carolina. Tennessee. Georgia. Small towns, and people who dreamed of other places. The car edged onto Main Street and she watched the bar fronts, the rough men with bent necks. “Soon?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    The road narrowed on the other side of town, and the driver turned right onto a barely plowed track of old pavement. Crumbled columns stood in the snow, and a river ran fast and black at the far end of a long field. “This is it,” the driver said, and she leaned forward.
    An institutional building piled up from the valley floor. Made of brick and stone, it rose three stories, with long wings that spread from each side of the main edifice. One wing was completely dark, its windows rowed and blank, some boarded over. From the rest of the structure, light spilled out to touch smaller buildings and an uncompromising yard. Bent figures moved between the buildings. Small figures. Children. A boy stopped and turned, his features lost behind the falling snow. She strained forward, but the driver shook his head. “Too young,” he said.
    The drive curved around the yard and they stopped where broad steps climbed to a covered porch. The door opened and a man stepped out. Above him, letters scored the concrete.
    Iron Mountain Home For Boys
    Shelter and Discipline since 1895
    She stared at the words until the driver turned in his seat. Lines creased his face, and hard eyes shone under the salted hair. “Are you ready?”
    “Give me a minute.”
    Her heart beat too quickly, a slight flutter in her hands. Thinking he understood, the driver got out of the car and stood by her door. He nodded to the man on the high porch, but neither of them spoke. After several minutes, Abigail Vane tapped a ring on the window. The door swung open and the driver accepted her hand.
    “Ma’am.”
    “Thank you, Jessup.” She stepped out and he released her fingers. She took in the broken concrete steps, the rust on the iron handrail. Her gaze traveled to the high, sloped roofline, then to that portion of the building that lay in ruin. Windows stretched away in triple rows. She saw cracked glass and missing panes, weather-stained boards under nails hammered flat.
    “Mrs. Vane.” A round-shouldered man scuttled down the steps. His eyes were attractive and very bright, his Adam’s apple large. He’d combed sparse hair above neat ears, and his teeth, when