by Julie Berry
Peter sat on my bed, wrapped in my blankets, fingering the things on my bedside crate. Trunks of Aunt's had been opened, their contents strewn about. "Hullo," he said. "I suppose you've brought breakfast?"
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I scrambled the rest of the way up and closed the trapdoor gingerly. "What are you doing?" I hissed. "What's the meaning of all this mess?" "Easy, easy," he said. "No need to fuss. How about that breakfast?" "Hush! My aunt's awake now." I folded my arms across my chest in my best Aunt imitation. It didn't seem to bother him. In the light of day I saw that what I'd mistaken for dirt on his face was a jagged mark down one cheek. He held his hands out, then patted my bed beside him as if inviting me to sit down, the pompous donkey. His greasy, disheveled hair was tangled just like my bedding, curse him.
"We didn't get off on the best foot last night," he began. "I suppose I was abrupt." He took a big bite of bread, and I gasped, realizing he'd reached into my apron pocket and pulled the bread out without my noticing. "Necessity," he went on, chewing largely, "will do that to you. You go through life, well meaning as a cricket, but sometimes you need to borrow a bit, to make things smooth. Like how I needed to borrow a bed from you last night. Which"--he pulled the other slice from my pocket; I slapped his wrist--"you lacked the Christian upbringing to share with me. But we'll overlook that. No, no ."
"Will you shut up?"
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He held up a hand. "We'll attribute it to my bursting in upon you. It caught you off guard. Ordinarily I would have written first, or left a card. By the way," he said, waving his last crust of bread in my direction before devouring it, "a bit of butter wouldn't hurt, in the future."
I saw spots. "In... the... future?"
"Tomorrow, for instance," he said between bites. "Or the day after that. That's what we usually mean when we say 'future.' "
Insufferable peacock! "I know what it means! I took pity on you, and gave shelter to the poor, hungry, homeless boy, and you've gone and robbed me in return. 'Chased by a thief.' You're nothing but a thief yourself!" "Stick with your first instincts, is a rule I live by," Peter said, nodding. "Take, for example, me. When I first saw you, polishing the windows of your warm shop, I said to myself, 'Now there's a place I might stay in comfort, and a lass who looks like she'd help me do it.' I followed that instinct, and see how right I was?"
He grinned, thoroughly pleased with himself, looking as though I should be too.
"You thought that, did you?" I hoisted the window upward. Coal smoke and cold hit my face. "Out, or I will call for the constables, and for Aunt, come what may. Now!"
"You won't call for anyone," he said, smug and self-assured, shoving his feet into his worn shoes. "But as a prior appointment beckons, it is time for me to be going."
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He gripped the top of the window and slid his legs out, agile as a cat. On the ledge he turned and placed his hand on my cheek. "Farewell, sweet wench. Do not pine for me. Perhaps we shall meet again."
"Don't 'sweet wench' me! And get your filthy hands off!" I shoved at him. He started to topple backward.
I gasped. He caught himself, then shook his head at me.
"We shall overlook your carelessness this time. But you could have done us damage." He studied the back of his hand and his nails. "However, you are correct. Next time, a bath is in order. See to it. Adieu." He disappeared over the peak of the roof, as sure-footed as a squirrel.
I shut the window as quietly as I could and wiped my face with my sleeve. Then I got quickly to work straightening the garret before Aunt came to drag me downstairs.
Rude, impertinent, presumptuous, filthy! Who did he think he was? I'd give him a bath, all right, next time he passed by, with Aunt's chamber pot. Now there was a picture.
I heard the unmistakable stamp of Aunt's feet in the hall below. I whirled about, stuffing things back into their trunks and hiding what I couldn't stow underneath my cot. I shoved my hip against my bedside table crate to put it back into place.
Something was wrong. Missing. The jewel! I frisked myself, clutching at the folds of my skirt. Heaven help me. The ladder's rungs squealed under Aunt's weight.
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Hallelujah, there it was, heavy in my pocket still. I panted with relief. I managed to appear to be straightening my bed when Aunt opened the trapdoor and stuck her head through. "What's taking so long?"
I forced myself to slow my breathing.
"Nothing, Aunt."
She peered at me. "You've got a guilty look about you. Makes your face even plainer, if that's possible."
I looked at my toes. "Yes, Aunt."
Her eyes darted around the garret. I closed mine. Here it comes. Silence.
Then, "You've got dishes and washing waiting downstairs. What have you been doing up here all this time?"
I opened my eyes. Aunt's cheeks were red from climbing the ladder, and her breath came in little puffs between words.
"Nothing," I said, looking at the floor. "I was straightening up. A rat knocked some things over in the night." How true.
"Leave off," she said. "I need you downstairs." Her head disappeared down the hole in the floor. Nine days out of ten I'd have gotten a beating for an untidy garret. I was so relieved I swayed in my boots.
If I ever laid eyes on that dratted Peter again, I swore I'd get my pound of flesh back from him for this.
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Chapter 6
I pulled myself together and went down the ladder. Aunt met me at the kitchen door with the mop and bucket. "I mopped yesterday," I said.
"Do it again."
My hands mopped the kitchen floor, my mind seethed at Peter's nerve. Perdition, the cat, yowled at me for sloshing his napping corner with suds. When I'd finished the kitchen and hallways, I headed upstairs. I mopped the parlor, then reached for the door of Aunt and Uncle's bedroom. Aunt met me coming out. "Leave this room be," she snapped. "Let your uncle rest." I shrugged and carried the bucket back to the kitchen. "Windows," Aunt said. "All of 'em."
"But I washed the windows yesterday morning," I said, then wished I hadn't. Red spots appeared on Aunt's cheeks. "Windows."
"Yes, ma'am." I washed the windows.
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It drew on toward nine o'clock, time for the shop to open, and still no sign of Uncle. Aunt passed out of their bedroom door and I thought she must be rousing him, but he didn't appear.
"Is Uncle unwell?" I asked when she passed through the parlor.
"Mind your business. When you're done there, polish the silver." And then it was, "polish the woodwork in the shop and in the parlor." And then, "dust the china cabinets," and if I chipped so much as a saucer, she'd take it out of my backside. As if there was enough spare flesh on my backside to mend a chip. Not with what she fed me.
Where was Uncle? I needed to talk to him about the stone.
My belly growled a protest that I'd given up breakfast for such an unworthy as that blackguard Peter. But as the morning slipped away I forgot about Peter and worried more and more about Uncle and why he hadn't gotten up yet. The shop remained closed, and passersby paused to wonder at the darkened windows. The sky was gray and heavy, though no snow fell. As I lifted and dusted each china curio, I imagined what might be wrong with Uncle, each thought more lurid than the next. A festering molar? Infectious fever? Typhus? Consumption?
The chores were done. I hung my rags in the kitchen corner and waited. 40
"Here, girl," Aunt called from down the hall. "You can come clean the bedroom now."
She stood at the door with mop, rags, and bucket. "Is he awake?" I asked. "Hmm." She opened the door.
Uncle lay on the bed, still sleeping, facing the opposite wall. "Start with the windows," Aunt said. "Don't wake him." She shut the door behind her.
I tiptoed across the room and dipped a rag into the bucket. Drips fell and splashed into the suds. A clock ticked on the mantel.
Something was wrong. The hair on my neck stood on end. I turned around. Uncle was resting peacefully, a sma
ll smile on his lips. I held my breath. His breath never came.
I went to his side and touched his hand. It was cold.
Panic swept over me. I shook his shoulder and he barely budged. It felt like trying to roll a boulder. "No, no, no, no," I heard myself saying, as though I was watching myself from a corner of the room. "Uncle, please wake up. It's me, Lucinda."
Fear and shock tore me into two pieces. Part of me knew trying to wake him was in vain, the other part had to try. Lucinda watching from the corner couldn't persuade Lucinda by the bed that Uncle was plainly dead.
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To act was better than to think. I ran to the door and yelled. Aunt! Come quickly!"
I heard a kitchen chair creak and scrape against the floor, followed by her slow, heavy footsteps. My heart beat a dozen times between each of her steps. Why was she taking so long?
At last she appeared around the corner. "What is it?"
"It's Uncle," I said. "I think he's..." The dam broke, and I began to cry. She pressed her lips together and pushed past me to the bed. She lifted Uncle's hand and listened at his nose and mouth. Then she straightened and looked at me.
I saw the charade in her eyes. She knew! She'd known since morning. She'd let me find him this way on purpose, but not until she'd gotten half a day's hard cleaning out of me.
She sucked on her lower lip, chewing it with her rodent teeth.
"Look what you've done to him," she said, her voice soft and deadly. "He's worn out from the burden of caring for you all these years, ever since your high-living parents died and left nothing provided for you. The strain killed him in the end. I hope you're pleased."
Aunt's red face and gray-clad body swam before my watery eyes. She always found new holes in my armor. Hateful lies and nonsense! Of course I didn't kill Uncle.
But maybe it was for my sake that he put up with her
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so long. Maybe, if it weren't for me, he could have left the old shrew and found some gladness. Maybe she was right.
Aunt crossed the room and delivered a stinging slap to my face. "I'm just sorry he died before he could find out how you returned the thanks for all he's done for you, you thieving little vixen." She struck me on the other side, and this time, her hand was a fist.
This pain burned. I stumbled back out the door. "What?"
Aunt caught me, grabbed my chin and jerked it so I was forced to look at her. Her breath in my face was foul. "You have one minute to be gone from here, before I call the constables."
I tried to speak for myself. "Thieving? What--"
Aunt answered with her palm on my cheek. "Don't 'what?' me." Slap. "I've been to your room this morning." Slap. "Boxes of family heirlooms--" Slap. "Rifled through, precious ornaments and silver taken--the few things I have left of my poor mother's." Slap. "You've eaten your bread at our table your whole life, and this is how you thank us for our sweat and sacrifice." Slap. Slap. The irony of it overwhelmed me. I'd endured her for Uncle's sake, and he'd endured her for mine. She trapped us both. And now, for Peter's theft and Uncle's death, I was blamed.
I stood tall. "I've never stolen anything from you, Aunt. I can explain about the missing things. There was a young man in my room last night, and he--" 43
Aunt screamed. "Taking up with men! A slattern, sneaking around with boys in her room while we sleep, bringing disgrace down on us!" She boxed both my ears. Then she reached for the poker by the stove and brandished it like a sword.
Had she gone mad? She had never used a weapon on me before, never done worse than what hands could do. Not with Uncle around.
I edged away.
She squinted, her stout bosom heaving, the end of her poker drawing circles in the air.
Then, looking shaken, she lowered it to the ground. She held her index finger up before her nose. "One. Minute."
I swallowed and pushed past her toward the door. "I'll just go get my things." She blocked my path with a meaty arm. "You have no things."
I turned and walked on shaky legs down the hall and through the shop. I felt as though someone was forcing me to walk off a cliff. What happens to a girl kicked out of her home and robbed of even her petty possessions? I supposed I'd soon find out.
I let the door slam behind me.
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Chapter 7
Freezing air drew me up sharp. My coat was one of the things I'd left behind. Frost lay over the dingy shop windows of Feldspar Street like a coat of dust. I glanced up at Uncle's bedroom window.
"Good-bye, sir."
Then I hurried away before Aunt could decide to come outdoors and vent more of her spleen upon me. I stumbled around the corner, rubbing my hands together. My tears for Uncle froze upon my cheeks. Heaven reward him for his kindness to me, was all I could think. Perhaps he was with my parents now. And Evangeline, his first wife. I hoped wherever he was, there was roast pork and bread pudding aplenty.
I almost envied Uncle.
I walked for a while, thinking only of putting each foot
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forward. When Aunt and the shop seemed truly behind me, I found a sheltered, abandoned doorway where I could sit and think. No use in just walking without making a plan.
I had no place to go, no person to go to. I couldn't stay out in the cold or I wouldn't survive the day.
Just yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago. Meeting the pretty prince and letting my fancy take hold of me. Meeting Peter, the rascal. Meeting the mysterious Beryl, and learning she was called, by some, the Amaranth Witch. Yesterday I doubted the priest. Today I depended on him being wrong. Witch or no, if Beryl wanted a servant, she'd have one. In my pocket was my entrance ticket.
Her address was the Palisades, Riverside. Easy enough to remember. Almost as if I'd always known it.
The cold flagstones in the doorway chilled my backside right to the bones. I hugged my arms around myself and huddled into the smallest ball I could make. The Palisades, Riverside. I was curious to get a glimpse of that place. On the other hand...
The lady was nothing to me. Uncle would never know if I didn't return the stone. I could sell it for enough to live on in comfort for a long time. Comfort. Something I hadn't known since I was five.
I didn't feel I owed Aunt any favors. It would serve her
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right to have the woman come looking for her stone. Maybe, if she was a witch, she'd turn Aunt into a lizard. More likely, Aunt would blame me and haul me before the magistrate.
Aunt had accused me of being a thief. Did I want to prove her right? I sat there confounded in the doorway until I noticed a light tugging on my hair.
A goat was eating it! A small brown billy had apparently ambled past me and decided to stop for lunch. He nibbled on the loose ends of my hair that spilled out from under my cap.
"Shoo! Go on!" I teased my hair from between his teeth and tried to scare him away. He looked at me out of one eye, like a rooster, and baaaahed. "Where did you come from?"
He nibbled on my chin with rubbery lips.
I patted his coarse hair. A cloud of warmth hung around him, and I rubbed him with both hands to warm my fingers. He bleated, twisting his spine and backing up until his rear end was practically in my lap.
"What do you think you are, a dog?"
He butted me with his behind in reply and wagged his docked-off stump of a tail.
"Right then, Dog," I said, scratching between his stubby horns. "You're the strangest goat I ever did see."
The stone slab I sat on became unbearably cold, and
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at last I rose and continued on my way up the main road, still unsure what to do. Dog fell into step at my heels, his hoofs clacking on the pavement. He baaahed and brayed at people we passed like he was announcing a passing dignitary.
The streets were full of people pouring in for the Winter Festival, which started in earnest the next day, but vendors came early to stake out the best spots. Even the royal family came and joined the party at festival time. All the c
ity went wild, eating and drinking and spending to celebrate the winter solstice.
Dog and I pressed on. I wondered if he'd go back to where he'd come from. But he just butted my legs along when I paused.
I made my way in the direction of the bridge that would lead me to Riverside. Was that it, then? Had I made my decision to go to the Palisades and return the jewel?
Better to cast myself at this woman's mercy than to freeze to death or be trampled underfoot at Winter Festival. Wasn't it?
Dog and I trotted on until we came to a wide intersection. Two streets, St. Honoré and Jericho, flowed into each other, creating swirling eddies of people and animals and carts, the wares in which bobbed on the surface like the debris from a shipwreck. A shepherd steering a flock of two dozen dark sheep created no small commotion as he
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corralled his charges through traffic. Passersby jeered, but he ignored them, murmuring to his agitated sheep from underneath his wide-brimmed hat. Young ladies dressed as housemaids hurried along in twos and threes, pretending to ignore whistles from lanky youths in laborers' garb. A shiny coach pulled by a smart pair of matched bays tried to gain headway, its driver shouting at everyone to clear away, while a lady in the carriage rapped at the glass with her white-gloved knuckles.
I held on tight to one of Dog's horns and stepped off the curb into the fracas. We wound our way through the clot of sheep. Dog had plenty to say to them. The craggy-browed shepherd eyed me and said, in a deep voice, "He shall separate the sheep from the goats."
"Yessir." A Calvinist. I kept my head down and pressed forward. I was far from pious, but even I knew to keep my distance from fanatics.
At last we reached the other side, where Dog found a watering trough. I was so thirsty I could have dunked my head in alongside him. I cupped my hand under the trickle that fed the trough and drank.
The sun was past its highest point in the gray December sky, and its limp light reminded me of how hungry and tired I was. No breakfast, no lunch, no Uncle, no home. A heavy morning.
