Oddfellow's Orphanage (15 page)

Delia smiled and clambered up on the couch next to the baby.
I’m not the newest one here anymore
, she thought. The baby grabbed her thumb. “Welcome, little one,” Delia said with her eyes.

Daniel was sent to fetch baby clothes and a diaper from the laundry room closet. When Nurse Effie changed the baby into
warm, dry pajamas, they found a dirty undershirt with “Davey” embroidered along the back of the neck.

“You got here just in time, young sir!” said the headmaster as both hands of the living room’s grandfather clock landed on midnight. “Happy New Year!” he said, and kissed the tops of Delia’s, Ava’s, and Daniel’s heads, before Nurse Effie made a little crimson lipstick mark on the headmaster’s cheek.

“Happy New Year!” they all said to each other.

Delia held up her notebook to everyone.

Nurse Effie picked the baby up again, and everyone oohed over his rosy cheeks and his cute tuft of downy hair. At that moment, anyone standing outside Oddfellow’s Orphanage would have seen in the golden light of the living room something that looked very much like an ordinary family: a tall man with a blue-black beard, two little girls, a boy in glasses, and a lady dressed in white, holding a squirming baby.

ON
New Year’s morning, the rest of the house stirred into motion, welcoming the tiny newcomer into a family that was hardly ordinary, but rather … extraordinary. A family stitched together from the scraps of other families, living together in the enormous house made of brick that is called Oddfellow’s Orphanage.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you kindly:

To my editor, Mallory Loehr, for her clever head and lovely heart. Her curiosity about this band of ragamuffins, and the hospitality she showed them, helped grow some scrappy seedlings into a garden of stories.

To Nicole de las Heras, designer extraordinaire, for her beautiful work, impeccable eye, and love of dancing bears.

To the rest of the Random House team, for taking such good care of this book.

To my agent, Brenda Bowen, for lending me her warmth, expertise, and kind words.

To the lace in my shoe, Josiah, for listening to the orphans’ stories from the beginning, when they were but little urchins.
For granting me access to your magnificent mind. For being so good to me.

To A. and the three fairies, for always being game for chats concerning important things like sea monsters, orphans, and cake.

To the other A., for lending her uncommon eyes and stalwart encouragement.

To F., for the support and sweetness and light.

To my friends living here with me among the giant firs, and those scattered to the four winds.

And

To my family, who formed the underpinnings for so much about these stories, in ways both obscured and obvious. This is, perhaps more than anything else, a valentine to you and to the real Oddfellow Bluebeard (whose beard was truly red).

EMILY WINFIELD MARTIN
is a story and picture maker. She is fond of rabbits, pies, and seashell-pink poppies. She likes to bake sweet things and hunt for old children’s books and 1930s dresses. Emily’s work is inspired by fairy tales, vintage children’s clothing, old toys, her favorite music, and her own life.

The world of
Oddfellow’s
began as a series of portraits of imaginary people, each accompanied by a short tale of how that person came to the orphanage. The series was inspired by many things, chief among them an affinity for orphans and the beautiful, mystical iconography of a fraternal order called the IOOF. The portraits grew into the stories contained in this book: adventures and vignettes taking place in a gentle land of lake monsters and dancing bears that exists in Emily’s waking dreams.

Emily lives among giant firs in Portland, Oregon, with her best fellow, Josiah, and her rotten cat, Miette. She runs a cottage industry called the Black Apple, through which she sells her artwork, paper goods, and etceteras. You can find her at
emilywinfieldmartin.com
.

The cover art for this book was painted in acrylic.

The interior art for this book was rendered in graphite.