Edna caught the tasseled end before he propelled her through the next set of doors to their car. He shoved her into the seats and yanked the shawl over her head.
Edna let him press her face into his chest, covering her more with the shawl. Her nose fit between his biceps; she hadn’t guessed hm to be that muscled. He shoved the top hat over his head and slumped forward.
“Pretend to be asleep,” he hissed.
“But…” Edna’s voice trailed off as their pursuers ran through the car. How did one pretend to sleep? She closed her eyes, drawing deep breaths through her nose, forcing her stiff body to relax.
“Where’s that cracksman?” one of the men chasing them demanded.
“I don’t see him, keep looking,” another said. Ike stiffened. She held her breath.
As the door opened to the next car, the woman with the crying baby poked Edna’s back. “You want to tell me what that’s all about before they come back through an’ I hand you two over?”
“Ma’am,” Ike said without looking up, “they were trying to take Edna away and put her in one of the orphan workhouses.”
Edna burrowed deeper against him, rubbing her prayer beads. Rumors spread throughout Moser City how children around Edna’s age, too old for the orphanage yet too young for marriage, were locked into workhouses. Within the whitewashed walls, no one left once they entered. The woman clicked her tongue. “So many folks movin’ to the city from the countryside for factory work and still some folk forcin’ it off on others.”
“They think by pulling her away, I cheated them,” Ike added.
A shiver crept over Edna’s skin, but the evil held back. Ike lied too smoothly.
The door at the end of the car swung open and the men clamored back through. “Anyone seen the little thief and his brat?”
The woman with the baby pointed down the car. “That way.”
The men ran on.
“Thanks,” Ike said after they’d departed. “I wish there was something to give you…”
“Thanks are good enough.” The woman bounced her baby on her knee.
Edna whispered to Ike, “You cheated at cards. You could’ve ruined our mission.”
“We need money.”
She pressed her lips into a line to keep from gaping. “I thought you were penniless. How’d you get to gamble at all?”
He winked–winked–as if they played a game. “Don’t worry about it, luv. Didn’t I tell you to wait for me? Everything better still be in our bag.”
Edna bit back a retort. If she angered him, he might abandon her.
“At the next stop, we’d better get off. They’ll check the car and we’ve got a better chance of getting away if we blend in with the crowd.”
She straightened away from him. “Our tickets—”
“We gotta figure something else out before you’re whisked to a workhouse an’ I’m in a ditch with my skull cracked open.”
Edna grimaced. It couldn’t be as bad as that. “The police—”
“Don’t give a fig about us who don’t have money for bribes.”
Her pulse raced again. “So we get off at the next station. Then what?”
Ike shrugged. “Go to sleep. We have another hour, I reckon. I’ll watch over you for now.”
The baby quieted as the woman sang a lullaby, enfolding Edna in its melody. Her head bobbed, and she imagined her mother singing her and Harrison to sleep.
“Bloody rats all in a hat,
Upon which Victor Viper sat.
Little feet with little shoes,
Little people with little hues.
Flames and smoke all leaping high,
Upon which we all might die.”
Knitting needles burned Harrison’s hand. Magic sizzled along the metal, wearing away his fingertips. His skin shone with a silver sheen; no longer pale peach, he’d grayed.
Tears had dried on his cheeks, the sobs fading earlier when the numbness took hold. He glanced at the other children in the wide room around him. They hunched over stools with clacking knitting needles, scarves sprawling across their knees, growing from the balls of glittery yarn in their laps. When the materials ran out, the hag in the doorway removed the scarf and handed the child a new ball. As the scarves grew brighter, the children turned grayer. Shimmers slipped off their skin into their projects, and stray wisps floated upwards to catch in the nets hanging from the ceiling.
“Keep going.” A hag wandered through the room, leaning against a cane. “Keep dreaming of your freedom. Keep giving us your dreams.” Her cackle sent the hairs on his arms upright.
Beyond the hag in the doorway, he saw a larger room of children weaving at looms.
Harrison hadn’t known how to knit until the hag with the cane shoved needles and yarn into his hand. No one had listened when he’d begged to return home. None of the other children had spoken to him, although he’d screamed for help.
Words no longer came to his mouth no matter how much he desired to talk.
What did the hags want from him? Could he escape from them? Harrison fought for a tear, but his eyes remained dry.
Here we meet, here we see.
hank the Saints we don’t have to put up with that train’s sway and growl anymore.”
Edna staggered when she touched the solid ground of the station and Ike pulled her closer to his side. People crushed them from all directions, exiting and entering.
Edna wrinkled her nose against the barrage of engineered garlic and unwashed bodies. “Just like getting on the trolley back home.” Home, with Harrison. She’d trade all to live a penniless, frozen life with him where they stuck together always, where she wouldn’t have to look farther than her right or left to see him.
“Keep the shawl over your head,” Ike said.
“I’ve never worn something stolen before.” She stared at the ground underfoot where dust clung to her skirt and boots.
“I stole it, you didn’t. Don’t let it weigh down your conscience.”
“I’m an accomplice. That doesn’t make it better.” Scowling, she glanced at her bag clasped under his arm. Since their luggage was heavy and they had to move fast, he carried it. “Don’t make off with my stuff. I’ve got all the money. You won’t get far with my clothes.”
Ike snorted as he edged her into the station. A large sign erected over the open door read Kincaid, with a clock hanging beneath it. Benches surrounded a pot-bellied stove, with faded maps nailed to the whitewashed walls. A man stood at the gated window, paying for a ticket. Calico patches decorated the back of his overalls. The other occupant, a girl, sat in the back staring at her lap.
Ike thrust the bag into Edna’s arms. “Take a seat while I talk to the ticket seller, and try to figure out where we go from here. Keep your head down so we aren’t recognized.”
“We wouldn’t have to worry if you weren’t a cheat and a thief.” Edna glared at him until he fell into line behind the man at the window. Of the millions who lived in Moser City, she had to find him to help her. Harrison was going to laugh when he discovered she relied on a thief.
The floorboards creaked beneath her boots as she walked to the back of the station. Grime clung to the cracks in the wood and nails poked up. The girl, around eight years in age, lifted her head to glance at Edna through the fan of her dark lashes. Sighing, she looked back down at a book clasped in her hands. The corners of the pages curled around the faded print.
“Hello.” Edna sat at the other end of the bench. “I got a brother around your age. His name’s Harrison.” He would’ve done something silly, such as poke the girl’s shoulder and cross his eyes to make her laugh.
When she got him back, she would take him for a train ride anywhere he wanted to go.
“You talk funny.” The girl rubbed her pert nose. “Your words don’t sound like mine.”
“I have an accent. Huh.” Edna opened her mouth to tell the girl she came from Moser City, but the men from the train might know that.
Sitting in a tr
ain station wouldn’t bring her closer to her brother. Edna tapped her heels against the floor; there had to be something to do other than wait. “Have you ever heard of coglings?”
“That have to do with clocks?”
Sort of, if the pocket watch counted. “It’s…a tale about the hags in the swamps.”
The girl bared her yellow teeth. “Those filthy things. Best thing the king could do would be to burn the lot of them. That’s what you gotta do with hags. Burn ‘em up.”
“Have you heard that hags steal children, leave changelings in their place? That’s what a cogling is.”
“Don’t doubt it’d be something they’d do.” She snorted. “My name’s Annie, by the by.”
“I’m… Eddie.” She used the nickname Harrison gave her when he was a baby.
“That’s a boy’s name.”
“It’s short for something longer.” Edna glanced at Ike where he spoke to the ticket seller, waving his arms.
“That your man?” Annie scratched her knee through a hole in her gray stockings.
An image of Ike kissing her, his eyes closed and his breath sweetened with mint, sent Edna cringing. Her mind shouldn’t even entertain that thought. “He’s my cousin. We’re heading for… up toward the swamp. To visit family.” Edna wound a curl around her finger to look nonchalant.
Annie widened her eyes. “Only hags and ogres go there.”
“Wilman City’s just outside the swamp,” Edna said.
Annie shrugged. “Dad’s heading out to Strathmore tomorrow to sell furniture if you want a ride.”
Edna’s heart sank as Ike walked toward her, his face blotchy and mouth twisted into a scowl. They didn’t need any more problems.
“Those idiots.” He slumped beside Edna, lowering his voice. “They won’t refund our tickets and the next train isn’t due here for three days. We’ll have to hire a carriage.”
“I told your cousin you two can hitch a ride with my dad tomorrow for Strathmore,” Annie said.
“We don’t got a lot of money.” Ike stood.
“Father will let you ride along if you work around his shop tonight and tomorrow,” Annie said. “He gives rides just so long as he’s already heading there.”
Ike tapped his foot. “I’ll help out in his shop, sure thing, but what about… her?” He nodded at Edna.
“Eddie,” she whispered, refraining from a grin. Annie’s friendly manner had come in handy.
“What about Eddie?” Ike asked.
“Mum can use help around the house. We’ll go see Father.” Annie slid the book into the front pocket of her coat.
“Where’s your pa?” Ike swung the bag from Edna’s lap under his arm. His dark hair hung stiff around his shoulders.
“He’s unloading at the store and then we’re heading home. I help him pick up the things and then I come read. It’s warm here.” She pointed at the coal stove, the station’s heating source. Back in the city, steam pipes kept rooms warm. “Father’s got Jimmy to help with the unloading, anyway. He’s our tomtar.”
They left the station and followed Annie through the town on wooden sidewalks. Horse-drawn carriages rattled by on the cobblestone street, with a few locomobiles. Two boys tossed an airship toy, steam chugging from its miniature engine, the propeller in back whirling.
“The storekeeper’s tomtar makes those.” Annie pointed at the toy. “He’s really crafty.”
“Harrison would love that,” Edna said. He only had his stuffed bear, a hand-me-down from her younger years. “I shouldv’e gotten him a new toy. I should’ve done a lot for him. He was my responsibility. I… I failed him.”
“Shh,” Ike hissed. “We’ll get him.”
The general store, a two-story building with a wrap-around porch, had a wagon parked in front. A tomtar wearing a brown sack hefted a barrel off the buckboard. Sweat beaded his black lips and slid through the wrinkles in his leathery skin. Without a hat, sunburn flaked on his bald spots.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Annie called. “Tomtar!”
The tomtar didn’t respond, its gaze focused on the task at hand.
Upon reaching the wagon, she grabbed his scarf. “I’ve been talking to you, tomtar!”
He blinked at her through rheumy eyes.
“Where’s my father?”
Annie’s sharp tone made Edna wince. Tomtars had hearts and minds; they didn’t deserve to be yelled at. She chewed on her fingernail to keep from scolding Annie.
“Inside, miss.” Jimmy shuffled his bird feet through the dirt.
“Stay here while I go ask him,” Annie sang as she skipped past Jimmy into the store.
“Let me help you.” Edna held out her arms for an edge of the barrel. The tomtar shook his square head and turned his back to her. She sighed, folding her arms as she studied the town.
Two-story buildings bordered the narrow street. Each house was painted white, each office and store a brick structure. A motorcar rumbled by. The man driving watched them from his good eye, a patch over his right one. The good eye, though, swam with liquid, the white marred with veins.
“I don’t like this village,” Ike whispered.
Edna shivered. “Annie’s help’s a miracle.”
Down the street, a bell clanged
“I have a feeling the sooner we’re out of here, the better for everything.”
She lowered her voice. “Do you still want to go with Annie’s family? They do treat Jimmy awful.”
“That doesn’t say too much. He’s a tomtar—their slave.”
She gnawed her lip. “If you think we should leave, do we go? You got us this far, even if it has been rock-strewn.”
Annie bounded from the store, swinging her arms. “This is Father.”
A tall man followed with his hands in the pockets of his denim overalls. A straw hat hung over his face, whiskers poking from his chin. “My daughter said you need a ride to Strathmore.” His gaze brushed over them. “You’re willing to work?”
“Yes, sir.” Ike nodded. “What kind of work d’you have in mind?”
“Just a bit of carrying. Follow me out back.” The man headed around the store. Annie grinned before following him. Edna glanced at Ike, smiling when he grabbed her arm. They would reach Harrison. Ike’s feeling must’ve passed after he met the man.
As they ventured around the shop, the air adopted a fish odor.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fish market back here,” Edna muttered. “It reeks.”
Ike chuckled. “We’re near the river.”
That shouldn’t make such a difference. As she turned toward him, he grunted.
“Ike?” Something clamped around her throat, sending up a barrier between her and breath, and unconsciousness crept over her.
Here you are so here I be.
dna’s nose tickled and she opened her eyes. “Ike, what happened?” A hard floor pressed into the back of her head. The veins in her temple throbbed. Edna rolled onto her front and propped herself up to relieve the pressure building in her skull. Firelight from wall sconces illuminated the room, where clothes in a multitude of colors hung from metal hooks on the peeling walls; the only furniture a table near the door.
She’d never seen this room before. Could she be hallucinating? Edna rubbed her forehead. I was in the alley. Shouldn’t be here. “Ike?”
Edna pushed onto her knees and grabbed the table to pull herself up. She wobbled as the room spun. Squeezing her eyes shut, she counted to ten before drawing a deep breath that rattled in her lungs. The air stank of cheap perfume and mold. The four walls closed in to suffocate her; a tomb, a cell.
Staggering to the door, she tried the knob; locked. She fell against it with her fists, banging as she screamed. “Help! Somebody, lemme out!”
The rough wood sawed her hands and caught in her lace gloves, but she ignored the pain. The gloves could be fixed later, but escaping couldn’t wait. No time could be wasted when Harrison needed her.
The darkness exploded in her fast; if she
let it, it would take control. “Stop it, stay down.” Edna pictured her brother, his smile when his front tooth had been missing and he would stick his tongue through the gap. Despite her racing heartbeat, the evil receded back toward her core.
A key ground in the lock before the door opened outward, and she stumbled against a plump bosom. Hands grabbed her shoulders to push her backwards and she stared into the white-painted face of a broad woman wearing a black dress with skinny straps. Her beige corset laced over a maroon apron. Edna opened her mouth to ask who she was, but the words caught in her throat and she licked her lips to wet them.
“The boy woke up ages ago,” the woman said. “Thought maybe they choked you a bit too much.”
Edna tugged on her brown curls. “What?” The words didn’t process. She hadn’t choked.
In the alley, that thing around her neck. She’d blacked out.
“I’ll have one of the girls bring a bath in for you.”
Edna shook her head, mouthing no. “I don’t need that.” Edna lifted a trembling hand to her mouth and wiped her dry lips. “Can I have some water?”
“After you’re clean.”
“I want a drink… I have to straighten my mind, really think.”
“Welcome to Austen Valley’s Gin House.” The woman laughed. “Only proper gin outside Moser City. We serve our customers right.”
Edna gasped. “I’m in a gin house?” The underworld dedicated to addicts, where a customer could drink himself dead. Fate couldn’t have thrown her into one of those. “Annie and her father—”
“That gal with the carpenter pa? They got plenty for you and the boy. Children work best here, since they aren’t already addicted.”
Annie had only pretended to be her friend. They’d tricked her and Ike. A slave scam. Nausea churned in Edna’s belly.
“You can’t keep us here.” Edna’s voice wobbled. As soon as the woman understood the confusion, she would escort Edna out. “We aren’t slaves. My parents…” Edna’s voice trailed off. They didn’t know where she was. She would need a different plan. “Where’s Ike? The guy I was with.”
The woman shook her head. “I’ll be back with a tub of water for you, hon.”
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