Weaver's Lament--Industrial Magic Book 2

by Emma Newman

  Charlotte’s blood chilled. “What happened to her?”

  “She were transported. To Australia, y’know. They still do that, especially to thems that don’t like the way the magi do things. So you think on, lass. If you and y’brother are really plannin’ to write somethin’ about this mill and ’ow things are, you might end up on one them ships, too, if yer not careful.”

  The thought of transportation was almost as frightening as being taken by the Royal Society’s Enforcers. “We’ll be careful. What did you mean about being the sort of person you need?”

  “Like I said, me and a few others ’ave been tryin’ to make things better for a while now, but no one listens to us. There are thousands like us who need work, and if we don’t like it, the magi can tell us to bugger off and give our place to someone who won’t complain. Ledbetter prides himself on givin’ us food and beds, but you’ve seen what it’s like. I ’eard what you said to y’brother and you were spot on; once yer ’ere, yer trapped. Once all the food and board and whatnot is paid for, you’ll be lucky to have a shillin’ a week spare. I’ve tried to organise savin’ schemes for people, you know, savin’ up to get out one day, but it’s bloody hopeless. Most just want a bloody drink at the end of the day, and I can’t say I blame ’em. We’re supposed to feel lucky, when them magi and that bloody Ledbetter swan about in their fancy clothes, livin’ out in t’country in their fancy houses, earnin’ a fortune from our labour. Kids are crippled and we die young. It’s not right.”

  Charlotte nodded earnestly. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “We need someone like you, someone who can bring the middle class on side. That’s where we keep fallin’ down, y’see. No one in parliament is goin’ to listen to a bunch of buggers like us when they’ve got them rich magi tuckin’ banknotes in their pockets and givin’ ’em cigars, are they? But if nice young ladies like you went ’ome, spoke to yer friends who spoke to their ’usbands and they spoke to their bosses, well . . . well, maybe someone in Parliament might actually listen.”

  The more Mags said, the more Charlotte realised that there was more to the woman than she’d assumed. She wasn’t talking like an unhappy employee—she was talking like someone who was part of a movement. Bringing the middle class on side? Only someone who saw a bigger picture than just the conditions in their own mill would say such a thing.

  “Maybe,” Charlotte said. “I’m going to do everything I can to draw attention to this, I promise. But please, don’t tell anyone else who I really am.”

  “Of course I won’t!” Mags said, squeezing her arm. “Though y’do stick out like an orange in a barrel full of apples. Nowt to be done about that, though.”

  “Something happened today, to one of the looms . . .”

  Mags nodded. “Aye, I didn’t see much, I were on t’other side. I ’eard y’got a strappin’, though.”

  Charlotte tugged her shawl forwards, making sure the welt was covered. “The foreman is a horrible man.”

  “Better than the last one, believe me.”

  Charlotte tucked that grim thought away for later consideration. “He said I shouldn’t talk about it with anyone, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Mags . . . the loom . . . it lifted into the air. It smashed itself up!”

  Mags nodded, eyes ahead as the street grew darker. They passed a man lighting the gas lamps, but it did little to make it feel safer. “Aye, I ’eard that, too.”

  “Has it happened before? What could cause that?”

  Mags was silent as they rounded the corner to walk down the edge of the mill site. She looked behind her before speaking. “That’s only ’appened the once, an’ it’s proof that things are gettin’ worse. The first few times, the looms just crumpled up. When the foreman asked who did it, there were no one to blame, so he accused us of lyin’ to protect the ones in charge of those looms. Then it ’appened again, and the foreman thought it were a conspiracy. Then last week, when that loom lifted up like that, the foreman saw it with his own eyes. He were right shaken up, and not just cos he realised we’d been tellin’ the truth. He went to Ledbetter and told him what he saw, but Ledbetter said he were a socialist conspirator, as bad as the rest of us. He were found dead in t’gutter the next day. Drank himself to death, apparently. Bunch of arse, that is. That’s why the foreman told yer to keep quiet. He’ll do the same, see? He don’t want to be ‘drunk to death,’ either, if y’know what I mean.”

  So Ledbetter had been told the truth and simply didn’t believe it? Ben’s socialist conspirators didn’t even exist. But how could she persuade him of that, when he suspected it was her, turning wild? “Have you seen it happen?”

  Mags nodded. “I were down the other end of a row when it ’appened last week. Killed a boy, it did. The loom landed on ’im, poor bugger.”

  Charlotte bit her lip. “That’s awful.”

  “Aye. And nothin’s bein’ done about it, either. But then, short of gettin’ a priest in, I’m not sure what could be done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  They reached the gates and Mags stopped. “Well, it’s obvious, in’t it? Them looms weigh half a tonne. There’s only two things that could lift them into the air, and the magi aren’t goin’ to do anythin’ that risks their income, are they? So there’s only one thing it could be. Ghosts.”

  Chapter 7

  EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS so tired it felt like her body was weighed down with lead, Charlotte simply could not sleep. The currant buns had gone down well and several of the ladies who shared the dorm had warmed to her as they shared stories over the divided treats. Charlotte had stayed quiet, thinking over what Mags had said about the other incidents, and Ben’s insistence that she submit for testing. The brother she loved so dearly was turning into the greatest threat to her freedom.

  Now that she was in bed, she couldn’t stop churning over the puzzle before her. Ben thought there was a saboteur, but having witnessed the loom’s destruction, Charlotte knew that couldn’t be true. However, his fear of there being some sort of socialist contingent at the mill might have some basis in fact, given the way Mags had talked. Charlotte had agreed with everything she’d said, though. Did that mean she was a socialist? Weren’t they supposed to be bad people? It was all very confusing. Regardless, they weren’t the cause of the problem. Neither was she, by the sound of it; the last incident had involved the loom being lifted into the air, long before she’d even reached the city. Her fragile confidence in her self-control remained intact.

  Mags thought the loom had been destroyed by an angry ghost, and had delighted in trying to frighten them all with a scary tale before lights out. It had no impact on Charlotte; everyone knew there was no such thing. Gone were the days of ignorance, before the Royal Society had explained how supernatural activities could be more than adequately explained by the rise of latent magi. Indeed, reports of ghostly sightings had all but ended, now that Latents were rounded up and confined before their loss of control could be mistaken for poltergeists.

  But she had seen something wispy in the air above the loom. Perhaps it was just some cotton fibres catching the light, and in her fearful state, her mind had made it into something more. That seemed eminently plausible, and the more Charlotte thought about it, the more she doubted what she saw. She’d been hit on the head, she was angry and frightened—how could she trust herself?

  An alternative explanation was becoming more likely, one that made Charlotte feel awful: there had to be another Latent at the mill. For Mags the only explanation could be a ghost, but that was because she didn’t believe that the Royal Society was fallible. Rogue Latents were always hunted down and contained. How could anyone be strong enough to destroy a loom and still be at large? Something that would be impossible in Mags’s world was Charlotte’s very existence. There had to be someone else at the mill hiding their abilities, or unable to accept that they were the cause.

  There were many children there within the age range that abilities triggered. The only flaw in her theory
was the fact they were still hidden. Surely if someone manifested esoteric ability, they would submit themselves for testing right away? It was a means of escape, not only from the mill, but also from poverty.

  Perhaps someone else there shared her fear of the Royal Society. Maybe it was a child with no parents to watch over them and no idea what the strange events meant. But even then, the people they shared a dorm with and those who worked nearby would witness things. With such a generous reward for those who reported rogue Latents, it seemed unlikely that people would stay quiet. The only exception to that could be the foreman, separated from the staff as he was, but the fact that the former foreman had been found dead after reporting the incidents accurately eliminated him.

  Charlotte didn’t pretend to know everything about being a Latent, despite the fact she was one herself. Perhaps people manifested in different ways. Hopkins had made it clear she was exceptional—not just in terms of her power, but also the fact that she’d managed to stay hidden. She was certain that being a woman, often overlooked, was a great help. Perhaps that was also true for a poor mill worker, so ground into the dirt by life that no one could consider them exceptional, not even themselves?

  The sound of the midnight bells made her sigh. She had to be up in four and a half hours. She rolled over and despite the coughing and snoring of her neighbours, Charlotte finally fell asleep.

  * * *

  The foreman pulled Charlotte and Dotty out of the flow of people entering the mill the next morning, and she braced herself for a dressing-down. Instead, the foreman simply asked if she was ready to take on four looms by herself if Dotty worked next to her. Charlotte agreed, relieved that nothing was said about the previous day’s violence. The foreman beckoned for them to follow him inside, presumably to make sure that they were positioned next to each other, only to discover two people arguing in the same row.

  Dotty hung back as the foreman strode over to tackle the dispute. “No one wants to work that loom,” Dotty whispered. “It’s been bashed up three times now.”

  “Do people usually work in the same places?”

  Dotty nodded. “We all like to know where we are. People do change over sometimes, if someone’s off sick, y’know, but mostly we’re in the same place. The man who was next to us yesterday is usually down there, but after Bob . . .” She stopped, looking uncomfortable.

  Charlotte pieced it together. “Did Bob die in the last incident? Was he the boy under the loom?”

  “Oh, that were Sam,” she said. “No, Bob was a loom worker, like us. He saw it lift into the air and keeled over in fright. They said it were his ’eart, but I dunno. No one wants to work that one now.”

  Charlotte approached the foreman. “I’ll work that loom, if they don’t want to,” she said, indicating the one considered unlucky.

  The foreman looked relieved, and shuffled the nearby workers around so that Dotty was stationed next to her. One of the men who’d refused to work it came over when the foreman’s back was turned. “You mind ’ow y’go on that one,” he whispered. “It’s cursed. A boy and a man were killed there, and a girl lost a finger, too, so mind ’ow y’go.”

  Charlotte approached it with trepidation, checking that everything looked as it should. It was a new machine and looked quite pristine compared to its neighbours. After checking that there were shuttles loaded, ready to replace the empty ones when the time came, she waited for the bell to ring.

  The tension built, as it had the morning before, as if everyone were holding their breath before being plunged into the frenetic working day. She dreaded the bell already, and the awful noise and heat that would soon follow. She was nervous too. Would she be able to manage the looms and keep an eye out for a possible Latent? And what should she do even if she discovered who it was? She’d already decided to speak to them first, rather than just turning them in. She’d help them as much as she could.

  People started looking at each other, exchanging shrugs as the bell failed to ring. Dotty drifted closer, keeping an eye out for the foreman, to whisper to Charlotte. “The belts should be goin’ by now. Do you think they’re goin’ to close the mill because of what ’appened?”

  Charlotte shrugged, deeply worried by the prospect. Was Ben in charge today, or his rival? She hoped it was the latter, and that his production scores would be going down, not her brother’s. Then she started to worry that someone had discovered what Ben was doing, and had collared him, stopping him from being able to work the line shaft. She chewed her thumbnail, quietly fretting, until she heard Dotty groan.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Paxton’s on the prowl. Look busy!”

  Charlotte grabbed the cloth and started wiping down the frame of the nearest loom as the apprentice’s fine boots clipped across the floor. She didn’t dare look round, for fear that he would see a resemblance to Ben in her features; they had very similar brown eyes, after all.

  “It were down this row, Master Apprentice Paxton,” she heard the foreman say. Just the sound of that man’s voice set her teeth on edge.

  He was leading Paxton down the neighbouring row to the gap where the destroyed loom had stood the day before. She knelt in front of her loom, pretending to check the positioning of the partially filled roll of fabric, to avoid being seen across the way.

  “These are very serious claims being made,” said a deep, gruff voice. Paxton, she assumed, had an East End London accent, one familiar to her ear. He sounded like the dock workers she used to overhear on the streets near her old house when they were on their way back from trips into the centre of the city with their lady friends.

  “And I wouldn’t ’ave made ’em, if I didn’t think it were serious,” the foreman said. “I were up all night thinkin’ about it. But I can’t in good conscience manage a factory and not report goings on like that. P’raps that’s why Jimmy drank himself to death. It must ’ave scared the life out of him.”

  “I knew it,” she heard Paxton mutter. “There’s a rogue Latent on your staff, Foreman. Someone turnin’ wild. Maybe someone who’s got certain political sympathies. Who was workin’ this loom yesterday?”

  “There were two of ’em, Master Apprentice, two girls.”

  “Bring ’em over.”

  Charlotte, still huddled out of sight, looked across to Dotty who was busily polishing her machine, oblivious. Of course, she hadn’t heard the conversation. She flapped her hand and Dotty looked over, frowning at the sight of Charlotte’s panicked expression. She only had time to point in the direction of the foreman before he appeared at the end of their row.

  “You two, come w’me,” he barked.

  There was nothing to do but obey. Charlotte didn’t want to get another strapping, and if she ran now, she’d all but out herself as a Latent. Dotty grabbed her hand as they followed the foreman, giving a quick, reassuring squeeze before letting go.

  As much as she wanted to stare at Paxton and get a good look at his face, Charlotte kept her eyes on his boots. They were well polished. She hoped he couldn’t see how much she was shaking.

  “The foreman has told me that the loom that was there yesterday lifted into the air and smashed itself up. He tells me you two were there. That right?”

  Charlotte nodded and saw Dotty do the same from the corner of her eye.

  “Way I see it,” Paxton said, taking a step closer, “this is either a load of codswallop, cooked up between yah to cover for some saboteurs, or one of yah is a Latent.”

  “Why one of us two?” Charlotte blurted. “There were dozens of other people nearby!”

  “Who are you?”

  “She’s just a new girl,” the foreman said. “She weren’t working ’ere when the other loom . . . went funny last week.”

  “But she was?” He pointed at Dotty.

  “Aye. That’s Dorothy. She’s been ’ere for a few years now. Longer than I ’ave.”

  “She were next to the loom that got smashed up last week!” said a man further down the row.

  “I w
ere not!” Dotty said. “I were over on t’other side, tell ’im, Mr Foreman!”

  The foreman scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t rightly recall,” he muttered. “But she were definitely there yesterday, she were supposed to be lookin’ after this loom.”

  “Right,” Paxton said, grabbing Dotty’s collar. “You’re comin’ with me.”

  Charlotte glared at the foreman as Dotty was pulled out of the mill. “You know she’s got nothing to do with this! Tell him he has the wrong person!”

  “Know who it was, do yer?”

  She shook her head. “No, but it definitely wasn’t Dotty! Why would she risk her job? She has nowhere else to go! If she was a Latent she’d have put herself forwards for testing to get out of this horrible place!”

  The foreman looked briefly uncertain and then settled into a scowl. “Any more lip from you and I’ll give y’another strappin’. You watch ’er looms when the shift starts.”

  “But I can’t manage twelve!”

  “I’ll find someone to ’elp.” He looked at the other workers, all watching. “What are you lot starin’ at? That bell is gonna ring any moment now and we’ve time to make up. I’ll take it out of yer lunch break if I see anyone slackin’!”

  Charlotte watched Paxton pull Dotty through the double doors. Stupid man. He was so desperate to find a scapegoat, he wasn’t even bothering to properly investigate.

  Then she remembered what Hopkins had told her about people taken by the Enforcers who refused to cooperate. He’d implied that they were tortured. What if Paxton said she was a Latent and when she didn’t show any ability, he thought she was being obstructive? Would he take it that far?

  She looked around at the other workers, seeking any signs of guilt or relief at this turn of events. Everyone just looked scared, heads down, trying not to draw attention to themselves. All except Mags. She looked furious. Their eyes met and they shared a moment of pure frustration before the bell rang.