Hark! the Herald Angels Scream

by Hark! the Herald Angels Scream (retail) (epub)

  Some walls were hot to the touch, giving clues as to where he might be in the house—above the library or the kitchen perhaps—but it was so dark, and in many places the soot was packed hard, narrowing his movement so that he could barely squeeze through, that he soon became disoriented. Worrying about his imminent crime had distracted him from keeping track of which turns he’d taken where, and his fear of Crockett’s wrath was being overtaken by his fear of becoming the next Tom-who-died. As his panic began to rise, all he wanted was to reach the fresh air of the rooftop, but he was trapped in the endless twists and turns of the flues. His whole body ached and he knew his elbows, half-hardened as they were, had started to bleed. Upward. He had to keep aiming upward. Soon there would be a crack of daylight or some drifting snowflakes. There had to be.

  And then he heard it. A scratching. His small body froze, and he tilted his head as far upward as he could manage, peering into the darkness for some hint of daylight. Was it a bird? Up by the chimney? It came again.

  Scratch, scratch.

  Slightly closer this time as if something was working its way toward him. A rat, he thought, even though he knew it was unlikely. Rats live in the streets, not on the chimneys. A rat was too agile to tumble down a chimney. Birds’ carcasses could be found, but not rats. Birds and dead boys. But still, his imagination and fear took hold, and he was sure that a giant fat rat with sharp, hungry teeth was edging toward him to feed on his face. He scrubbed harder at the walls, trying to fight his panic with hard work. There was nothing in here with him. There couldn’t be. Nothing else would fit.

  And yet the scratching came again, and this time he was sure he heard a short sigh of breath with it. He very slowly tilted his head sideways, to peer down the angled flue where two chimney pipes met and where he hoped to find more space than the cramped flue he was nearly trapped in at present. Soot drifted over him like the snow outside.

  Was it his imagination or had it turned colder? Goose bumps pricked on his hot skin.

  Scratch, scratch.

  A shuffling closer. His heart thumped hard against his bony chest and within that awful darkness, a different black shifted. Something he couldn’t—his eyes widened as a flash of something pale behind it made the foreground clearer.

  Hair. Long dark hair, dull and dead. Hanging down in thick strands in front of a face.

  At first he could not move at all, frozen with both fear and confusion, trying to comprehend what he could barely see, and all he could think of was his dead mother and how pale she’d been before she’d died, and that here was a dead woman pushed into a flue, and maybe her hair wasn’t truly a hellish black but she had been up here so long the soot had turned it that way. All these thoughts turned and tumbled in terrified Tom’s head, but still the air froze around him, and now he really could see his breath before him, and then, and then—

  Behind the matted strands of hair, a bloodshot eye, black at the core, opened.

  Tom twisted and let out a cry, the brush banging hard against the walls and, with the beating of his feet as he tried to scurry backward, his only thought to flee this horror, the soot above him dislodged, raining down over him, an avalanche of choking darkness that filled his eyes and nose and lungs. He fought to breathe, forcing himself back down the flue, sure that whoever—whatever—was hiding behind that black hair, was coming and if they touched him every drop of blood in his veins would freeze and he’d be trapped here forever.

  Having spent so much of his short life on the verge of death, he was filled with the panic of the relatively healthy when faced with the reality of a sudden, possible demise. His frame was suddenly stuck, one knee at his chest as one leg dangled free below, and like dirt thrown on a corpse, he was drowning in soot. Stars began to form at the edge of his vision as his lungs burned. He was going to die here and he would be the new Tom-who-died and no one would ever know the name his mother gave him.

  Scratch, scratch. The scrabbling was coming from below him this time. As his breath wheezed in desperation, his terror forced him to look down. An ivory-white hand was reaching up for him. Black, rotten nails on grasping fingers, a bony wrist emerging from the sleeve of a pale nightdress. Farther down, that awful sheet of black hair, one terrible eye open behind it.

  He tried to scream. He tried to kick away. As the icy fingers finally brushed his ankle, a weightier darkness took hold, one that started inside him, and as he sunk into it, his final conscious wish was for his mother, but there was no sign of her in that inner night as he became one with the void.

  The light was so bright behind his eyes that he thought he might be in heaven. At first he had no idea who he was or where he was, or whose blurry faces were so huge as they leaned over him, Crockett, Mrs. Pike, and Beatrice Darkly, and then all thoughts were overtaken by the wheezing sound coming from his chest and the buzzing in his ears as he tried to breathe.

  Strong hands had rolled him onto his side and were beating at his back and he coughed hard, a cloud of soot erupting from his lungs and, at least partly, allowing the passage of cool sweet air. His throat was raw and his nostrils clogged, but he could breathe again. A figure stood up behind him and he knew it was the hangman himself.

  “What made him scream?” Beatrice Darkly muttered.

  “He got stuck. They do sometimes, the new boys,” Crockett said. “I pulled him out, though. Grabbed his ankle.”

  Scratch, scratch. Black hair. That terrible cold. Not Crockett’s hand. For a moment Tom was back in the darkness and couldn’t breathe all over again.

  “His lips are still blue,” Mrs. Pike said.

  “He’ll be all right,” Crockett replied. “He’ll be back up the chimney in a few minutes, won’t you, Tom?” It was a growling threat.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs. Pike said. “The boy’s half-dead. He needs to recover.”

  “I’ll take him home.”

  “He won’t make it to the end of the drive in that condition.” The hangman’s voice was as cold as Crockett’s was angry. “I’ve cut down men from the rope with more life in them than the boy had just then. Put him in the old nursery, Mrs. Pike.” Mr. Godwin paused for a moment before looking at the master sweep. “Come back tomorrow. The job can wait until then.”

  “Mark my words he’ll be punished.” Crockett was gruff.

  “I’d say he’s been punished enough,” Mrs. Pike said. “And Christmas is a time for charity, after all. And as such, there’ll be no docking of your fee for this inconvenience, Mr. Crockett.”

  “You’re too kind, Mrs. Pike. Tomorrow it is. Thornfields will be warm by suppertime.” Crockett leaned in, his hot breath sour, and whispered fast in Tom’s ear. “You’d best get something good after all this, boy. Or else you’ll get a beating the likes of which you won’t believe.” He got to his feet and Tom thought he should try to do the same but his skinny limbs were like lead. He could barely keep his eyes open, and the voices around him melted together into a drone he couldn’t interpret. He was exhausted and his skin was hot. It took all his energy to turn his heavy head sideways to look back at the hearth. The sheet was down, no doubt torn out of the way when Crockett had pulled him free, and the fireplace was empty of everything but soot and ash.

  As he started to lose consciousness again, his eyes met Beatrice Darkly’s. She was staring at him with a grim intent, and one hand fluttered at her throat as if expecting the pull of a noose. And then, once again, he sank back into the nothing.

  * * *

  —

  The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a bed. He had vague memories of hot water and sponges but they were like delirious dreams. He was clean, though, and the mattress under him so soft and the covers so warm, that he couldn’t imagine why anyone would leave such a place once they were in it. The room was big, an old cot in the corner alongside a rocking horse, both pushed aside and forgotten, and Mrs. Pike was lighting a f
ire in the grate.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” she said with a smile as she finished her task. “There’s some warm milk by your bed. I put one of my grandmother’s herbal tinctures in it to help you sleep and ease your fever.” She touched his forehead. “Although I think that’s fading already.” Tom tried to murmur a shy thank-you, but his lungs and throat ached and his arm felt impossibly heavy as he reached carefully for the glass she was proffering. “You had a fright, that’s all.”

  The warm drink was soothing, yet Tom still shivered at the memory of what he’d seen in the chimney. But had he really seen anything at all? Perhaps he’d been coming down with a fever and between that and his fear of becoming the next Tom-who-died, his imagination had gotten the better of him.

  “What you need is a good sleep.” Mrs. Pike said. “You’ll be right as rain by tomorrow. A hardy little chap like you.” Almost on impulse she leaned in and kissed him on his forehead, as if now that he was scrubbed clean and tucked up in bed she saw him as human boy rather than some monstrous urchin. “It’s nice to have a child in the house again,” she said softly, getting to her feet and drawing the curtains against the evening. “There should have been more. Now sleep. It will make you feel better.” By the time she’d reached the door, Tom, his eyes heavy, realized he was exhausted.

  Although he did sleep heavily for several hours, he was unused to such comfort, and indeed such rest, and as soon as his immediate exhaustion had lifted, he became fitful and restless, too aware of the quiet away from the bawdy streets of the overcrowded slums.

  The first time he woke fully was with the sound of his door opening. Rolled onto one side, his instinctive thought was that it was the master sweep come to rouse him, but there was no shouting and noise and this was no sack of soot he slept on. The door clicked shut, and behind his lids a shadow with a delicate tread darkened the glow of the firelight. As he carefully listened to make sure that the clicking footsteps were not close by the bed, Tom opened his eyes just a sliver, expecting to see Mrs. Pike perhaps, checking on him before going to bed herself.

  But it was not the housekeeper, and the darkness the fire cut through was that of the dead of night, the witching hours. Tom recognized the straight, narrow back of Miss Beatrice Darkly, as she stood, facing away from him, staring into the fire. After a moment, she lifted the wash bowl she held and hurled water onto the dying flames. With an angry hiss the fire died instantly, but loudly enough to make her spin around to check whether the noise had woken Tom, and he quickly closed his eyes. He didn’t open them again, even after she’d tiptoed back out to the corridor, leaving him alone in the dark. He didn’t know what to make of it. Was this what happened in big houses? Did someone put the fires out each night? But surely it would have been a servant? As it was, he preferred the room cooler. Coldness he was used to and there was too much luxury here for him to sleep.

  He woke once more, not long before dawn, when the black of night had turned to a deep blue, and even this deep in winter, the morning began to battle for its claim. This time, however, he was immediately filled with a terrible dread.

  Scratch, scratch.

  He held his breath, his toes curling as he pulled his knees up under his chin. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be. That had just been his imagination. There had been nothing in the chimney. He’d just been a cowardly boy. And yet it came again, a small sound, but persistent. And it came from the fireplace.

  Scratch, scratch.

  The temperature dropped, his nose stinging in the sudden cold, and although the scratching did not return, there was a whispering of ash from the hearth as if something moved there. Terrified of looking, but more afraid of not seeing, he forced himself to sit upright as fast as he could and his eyes flew open, sure that this was when he would suck the last breath into his damaged lungs.

  There was nothing in the gloom. Aside from the wet ashes, the hearth was empty. He stared at it, his vision grainy and his chest burning as he panted hot bursts of air, relief rushing through him. Nothing. Just his imagination. It must have been the remaining traces of his fever. His mouth dry, he drank what was left of the now cooled milk and waited for his heart to stop racing.

  Although he had been sure after that second waking that he would not return to sleep, his body made a liar of his thoughts, and a lifetime of tiredness and the heaven of the cotton sheets meant that he was soon once again lost to the darkness and this time he sunk deep. When he finally awoke properly, it was with the ever bustling Mrs. Pike saying his name as she pulled open the curtains. He stretched, blearily.

  “It’s nearly three o’clock. You’d have slept all through another night if I’d have left you, I warrant. Perhaps my tincture was too strong for a scrap of a thing like you.”

  The sky outside was an off-white wash turning to muddy gray, a dull deadened shade that still had a kind of brightness even though it was leaning toward dusk. A snowstorm sky. As his eyes adjusted, Tom could see that heavy flakes were indeed still falling, dancing around each other in the freezing air. He thought of Harry and the others who would already have been up from the soot sacks they called a bed for nearly twelve hours. That thought led to the master sweep and the task he’d set Tom, and the boy’s heart sank, but as if she could read his mind, Mrs. Pike said, “Not that there’s much reason to rush. Mr. Crockett hasn’t made it back to Thornfields today. And he won’t in this weather. You’ll be staying with us until at least tomorrow by my reckoning.”

  Tom didn’t have time to bask in the joy of his temporary reprieve before the housekeeper went to light a lamp on the wall and as she turned back, her face fell in surprise. “Well, what have you been up to in the night?” She looked up at him from glancing at the floor. “It’s on your face too.”

  Confused, Tom looked down at the bedsheets and his stomach turned to water as he saw long cobwebs of black dust trailing on his covers. He stared at the thin lines. As if strands of sooty hair had been dragged across them. “And look at my clean floor too.” Mrs. Pike tutted. Tom peered over the side of the bed, a growing sense of dread filling him. Ash footprints from small, bare feet. His eyes followed their path. They came from the fireplace. He swallowed hard. As if someone had crawled out of it and come to lean over him as he slept.

  Beyond the fog of his fear, Tom was aware that Mrs. Pike was complaining about the dampness in the hearth, that she was questioning him about sleepwalking, or whether he’d thrown his jug of water onto the fire and why on earth would he do a thing like that when it was so cold a night, but her words were muffled as if she was far away, and he kept staring at the footprints and hearing her words—It’s on your face too—and all he could imagine was the thing from inside the fireplace standing over him as he slept.

  “I suppose it will clean up well enough,” Mrs. Pike sighed, standing over the footprints and bringing Tom’s attention back to her. “Maybe you’ve still got a fever.” She touched his cheek, unconvinced. “There’s some fresh clothes on the chair. Some of Mr. Godwin’s from when he was a boy. There’s a belt too for those old breeches.” She turned away. “Get yourself dressed and come down to the kitchen where it’s warm when you’re ready. There’s some stew and bread there.”

  “Thank you,” he said. His mother had always taught him to be polite and Mrs. Pike was the kindest woman he’d ever known other than her. “Have you children, Mrs. Pike?” he asked from nowhere, the badly strung together words merely a thought spat out from his rusty tongue. She paused in the doorway and for a moment that cheerful face was awash with an old sadness. “I did have a son. A long time ago. He died before his life got started. But Mr. Godwin and Miss Darkly are my children. I love them as if they were my own. Can’t help it, can you?” She was wistful, her words snowflakes, beautiful and yet so fragile. “When you’re around them growing up. You always want the best for them.”

  It made Tom want to cry—a small moment of self-pity. He had no one who wante
d the best for him. Not anymore. He was entirely alone in the world. “Now enough chatter. Get yourself dressed,” Mrs. Pike said, back to her practical self as she closed the door behind her.

  Tom kept his head up as he clambered out of the side of the bed, not wanting to look down at those disturbing footprints, and as he yanked the nightshirt over his head he rubbed his face clean of sooty trail marks on the cloth.

  Scratch, scratch. He didn’t want to think of that. Not now, not in the dying daylight. Neither did he want to linger in this room too long. Perhaps, if he was to stay tonight in this room as well then he could ask for the fire to remain unlit. Maybe the flames woke it, whatever it was. He doubted the people of Thornfields would want to waste their coal and wood on the likes of him anyway. Now that he could stand and was almost healthy again, the hangman would probably make him sleep in the cellar or some such, just as Mr. Crockett did. Beds weren’t for boys who by rights should have frozen to death by their mother’s side.

  It took him some time to negotiate himself into the clothes Mrs. Pike had laid out, and when he was finally buttoning up the shirt, he went to the window to look out at the snow. The snow was his respite. Despite the fireplace and the fear, he still had the master sweep’s theft to commit before he returned. But if he stole a thing, where would he hide it without his special pocket? Under the mattress perhaps? It would have to be a small item for sure. But what? What would be enough that he could escape Crockett’s wrath but not enough to be noticed by Mrs. Pike? His heart was heavy. He was a good boy and he didn’t want to commit any crime, even if he did find this house and all its occupiers—with the exception of the housekeeper—quite strange indeed.