Muffled voices crept out through poorly sealed door seams. Another voice joined them after a time, a gruff male voice. The doctor.
Tears gave way to hollow misery. Maeko stared into the gloomy night, watching stars through breaks in the cloud cover making unhurried progress across the sky. Macak curled in her lap, his warm body contrasting the cold that bit at her fingers and toes and numbed her cheeks.
After a long while, the door creaked open and Tomoe came out, pausing to light the lantern hanging by the door. Maeko hung her head, letting long hair fall forward to hide her face from the light. Tomoe stood for several minutes, staring at Macak with his unusual leg, then she sat beside them. Maeko shifted a few inches away, pressing against the washtub. Tomoe clenched her pale hands in her lap. The few inches between them might as well have been miles.
“Samishi katta desu.”
Maeko’s throat tightened and she clenched her teeth against the threat of more tears. I missed you too, but that doesn’t make it all better. She clung to silence, bearing the pain of rejection up like a shield between them.
Tomoe drew her legs in and wrapped her arms around them. “You are nearly as tall as me now,” she murmured.
Maeko stared at her own hands, at the pathetic remains of her ragged nails. How tiny she felt. She ground her teeth. This wasn’t going to work. She wanted no apologies, no explanations. She couldn’t forgive. Not yet. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving.”
She moved Macak off her lap and started to get up, but her mother shot a hand out, pausing shy of touching her arm.
“Please. Do not go yet.”
Maeko hesitated. She would have to walk around Tomoe to leave. If her mother wanted her to stay, how hard would she try to keep her there?
Macak pressed his head into Tomoe’s outstretched hand and purred, then gazed up at Maeko. She stared at him and he gave a slow blink, patient, content, trusting. She sank back down.
Tomoe drew in a trembling breath and scratched Macak’s head. “All these years I thought you were dead, Mae. It is hard to see you now, so long after I had come to terms with that. Harder still to see you involved in affairs that could get you killed.” Maeko started to speak, intending to point out that she was less involved than Tomoe herself, but her mother shook her head, touching a finger to her lips to silence her. Maeko pressed her lips together and remained silent. Tomoe continued, her English still so carefully enunciated despite all her years in London. “But I am glad I did not have to put you in an orphanage. I am glad you are alive. I only wish I had known before now.”
“You didn’t want me.” Maeko almost choked on the words, surprised by how much they hurt. Macak curled between them, his warm body connecting them.
Tomoe lifted one trembling hand to touch a scar on the side of her chin, a white puckered line that tugged down on her lip. “Do you know why I refused him my services?” Her voice shook and she swiped at the tears now running down her cheeks. More followed.
Maeko didn’t have to ask whom she meant. She stared into the dark, afraid to do so much as breathe for fear that it would bring more tears.
“I attracted enough business to the brothel that Byron allowed me to turn clients down if I had good reason. When that crime boss came to seek my services, you were already blossoming into such a beautiful little girl. I didn’t want him and his kind around you. I told him no. I told him he must find another woman to satisfy his desires. I even recommended someone. He left without a word and I thought it done. The next day, he sent his boys back to show me why no one ever refused him. Afterward…”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, fighting down the same memories Maeko struggled to keep at bay. Screams from the past filled Maeko’s head, screams she couldn’t drown out any better now than she had been able to as a child hiding under her mother’s bed with her eyes squeezed shut, small hands pressed over her ears. Her breathing sped up with remembered horror.
Tomoe opened her eyes again. “I was terrified they would come back before I could get away from there. I did not know if I could trust the man who paid for my surgery. I thought sending you to an orphanage was the only way I could keep you away from them. Then you disappeared. I thought I waited too long. I thought they had taken you and I knew in my heart that you were lost to me. When I thought of what they might do to you, I could only pray you were dead.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with soft sobs.
Maeko stared at a rusty dent in the washtub. What was she supposed to say? Was there a point in telling Tomoe that she’d been trying to earn money to pay off her debt so she could be free of this? Did she want to be free?
She moved a hand to stroke Macak. Tomoe had done the same and their hands touched. They both retreated, closing in on themselves, leaving Macak to gaze on in forlorn puzzlement.
After so many years, it wasn’t easy to hear that her mother hadn’t wanted to send her away, that she might have been wrong to run away and resent her as she had for so long. It also raised many difficult questions. Might her life have been better if she had come back sooner? Might she be the one with a roof over her head helping Tomoe instead of Lottie? Would that be better than where she was now?
The last was an interesting question. She might not have blood family around her, but she did have the strange and honorable camaraderie of the streets. A whole circle of thieves and other petty criminals who, although they might not call one another friend, would always watch each other’s back. Chaff helped her find that and, in some ways, she had more in him alone than her mother had here, forced into service playing doctor to a band of rebels and hiding behind the façade of a laundress.
She let her head fall back against the house and closed her eyes. In a way, she missed being invisible to the world. When no one cared about you, you could pretend not to care about anyone. It was easier, sometimes miserable and lonely, but easier.
After a time, Tomoe sat up again, wiping her cheeks dry with her hands. “Where do you live?”
“On the streets with all the other castaways,” Maeko snapped.
Guilt made a sick hollow in her chest when Tomoe flinched and looked as if she might cry again. Maeko couldn’t bear the tears. Perhaps we should talk about something else. “How’s Captain Garrett?”
“Barker-sensei treats him.” Tomoe paused to sniffle, staring at her worn shoes. “The bullet is near the back of the leg. He put him out with chloroform and is removing it now. When he is done, I will tend him.” The words were spoken matter of fact. She wouldn’t do it because she felt like she had to or even because she wanted to, but because it was what she did.
“Do you want to be a pirate?”
Tomoe started to shake her head then settled for a small shrug. “I use the skills I have to help those who need them.”
No mention of the debt that forced that role upon her. It hung unspoken between them. Tomoe choosing to hide it and Maeko unwilling to admit that she knew. “Will he be okay?”
“I believe so. He is strong and healthy.” Tomoe started to stroke Macak who had settled into his place between them, purring. “This Asher, this is his son?”
“Yes.” Maeko turned away a little and started to pick at the tear in her trousers again.
“I can fix that.”
She stopped picking.
“He is handsome.”
Maeko shrugged, an irritating flush rising in her cheeks. “I don’t need you trying to be my mate.”
Her mother reached out and ran her fingers through Maeko’s hair. “I never stopped loving you, Mae.”
She jerked her head away. “You don’t know me.”
Tomoe’s hand sank back to Macak. Her lips pressed together in a tight line for a moment as they stared at each other. “No. It is clear that I do not.”
The door opened and Ash leaned out.
She ignored him. “Do you have scissors I can use? I need to cut my hair.”
Ash gave her a dubious look. “If you’
re trying to pass as a bloke, it won’t work.”
They both looked up at him and Maeko set her jaw, defiant. “Why not?”
“You’re too pretty.”
Heat burned in her cheeks. She stared at him, appalled that he would say such a thing so openly. Then again, she wasn’t a child anymore. It was disconcerting how that reality got confused in her mother’s presence.
Tomoe stood to go inside. Maeko also stood, half-hiding behind her mother to conceal the flush in her face.
Ash winked at her, his mood improved now that his father was out of immediate danger, and turned his attention to Tomoe. “Doctor Barker’s finished. He said it went well.”
“Good.” Tomoe put a hand on Ash’s shoulder and turned him into the house, following him with Maeko slinking along behind like a shy toddler.
Macak trotted in with them, tail and head high as if he had always belonged.
Lottie screeched when they entered and lashed out at the cat with her shawl. “Eek! Filthy beast! Out with ye!”
Not one to be discouraged, Macak ducked around Maeko. He bounded to a table then to her shoulders, crouching close to her neck and giving Lottie an offended look that matched the one Maeko was giving her.
Tomoe glanced over her shoulder at them. The tiniest hint of a smile touched her lips. “Let it be, Lottie-san. It is a guest.”
Before Maeko could battle down years of resentment enough to express gratitude, Tomoe disengaged and went to see the doctor to the door. They stood there for a while discussing Garrett’s continued care. Lottie adjusted a blanket over Garrett who slept, probably still under the influence of the chloroform. Maeko could smell the faint sweet, chemical aroma lingering in the room, reminding her of the day her mother received her scars. That doctor had worked for a long time, each stitch digging Tomoe deeper into debt.
The door clicked shut behind the doctor and her mother came back to them after a few minutes holding the scissors. She eyed Maeko. “Do you want me to cut it for you?”
Maeko shook her head. “I do it all the time.” Though it did turn out better when Chaff helped, she didn’t think she could bear her mother doing it. “I don’t need help, but a mirror would make it easier.”
Tomoe showed her to a tiny bedroom with a vanity tucked in the narrow space along one wall. The mirror had black cloth draped over it. Maeko moved the fabric and sat in the crooked little chair. She winced when the first heavy batch of severed black locks dropped to the floor then struggled to get a good angle for the next cut. She caught Ash’s eyes in the mirror. He held a hand out.
She handed him the scissors, trying not to see the hurt in Tomoe’s eyes when she did so. Her face grew warm and her pulse quickened when his fingers touched her hair, careful not to pull. He was gentle and precise and, if she wasn’t mistaking, there was a slight flush in his cheeks.
Macak sat on the vanity and watched with bright-eyed interest, taking an occasional swipe at the hand wielding the scissors as if objecting to her decision.
Tomoe stood in the edge of doorway, still as a statue. “Where do you go now?”
What right did she have to ask? Maeko chewed her lip before answering to be sure she had her quick temper under control. “We’re going to get Ash’s brother out of the orphanage.” Anything to get away from here.
Her mother wrung her hands and Maeko could already hear the many arguments she was certain to make against the idea. They were arguments she’d heard enough as a child that she had them memorized even now. It’s too dangerous. You’re too small. Let the adults handle it. Let the men handle it.
Tomoe said none of those things. She nodded to herself and said, “Be careful.”
Maeko stared at the mirror, confused by her response to Ash cutting her hair and absurdly disappointed at her mother’s lack of argument. So much pent up emotion wanted for an outlet.
Ash broke the silence, distracting them all by recounting the events that brought them to this point. He glorified Maeko’s role in the escape from JAHF so much she blushed. Her mother laughed tentatively, almost as though afraid to find the story entertaining. It occurred to Maeko then that cutting her hair might have been a bad idea with him around. It was now too short to hide her blush behind.
Once he was done cutting, Ash gave her a scrutinizing look and shrugged.
She bristled. “What does that mean?”
“Means it’s different.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and popped up from the chair. Her head felt light without the heavy length weighing it down. What a shame it would be if it just up and floated away, leaving her body stumbling about, running into everything.
Swallowing a giggle, she met Ash’s eyes. “We’d better get going.”
“It is not sunup yet,” Tomoe protested, a hint of desperation in her voice. “Sleep here and I will mend those trousers.”
Maeko almost objected, she didn’t want to stay, but Ash looked tired and she was weary despite the rest she’d gotten at his house. She nodded. Tomoe gave her a blanket to wrap around herself and ushered Ash from the room. Maeko came out in her blanket wrap to find Ash already asleep on the floor near his father. Tomoe took the torn trousers and gestured to a small couch. Maeko curled up on it, Macak making himself at home on her chest after much kneading and licking. His little body made a better heater than hot coals.
She dozed some, but mostly she watched Ash and Garret, and her mother. She pretended sleep when Tomoe brought the trousers over, setting them on one arm of the settee and giving Macak a quick scratch on the head. Pretend sleep led to true sleep. When she opened her eyes again, late morning light filtered in through the shutters, illuminating swirling dust motes. She ousted Macak from a bath. He huffed at her for the interruption. She grinned and scratched his head, then yanked on her trousers and prodded Ash awake with the toe of one shoe.
He struggled to his feet and stood rubbing his eyes.
Maeko’s stomach grumbled. She ignored it, unwilling to ask any more of her mother than she had to. She frowned at the still form of the injured pirate musician under the blankets on the cot, then turned to Tomoe. “I don’t know when we’ll be able to take him back to their house. Can he stay here until it’s safe? Macak too?”
Tomoe watched the sleeping man for a few seconds. Her gaze wandered to Ash. He chewed at the inside of his lip, waiting for her answer. After several more long seconds, she turned to Maeko.
“They are both a risk,” she said, giving Macak’s leg a meaningful glance, “but they may stay. Garret-san will need to pay for his keep at some point,” she added to Ash.
“That’s not a problem,” he blurted.
Tomoe nodded and held Maeko’s eyes. “Be careful. You have survived this long on your own, so I will not try to stop you, but I must speak. You should not be involved in these things. These are political battles, the makings of revolution. Do not become mixed up in the affairs of pirates.”
Maeko frowned. “You’re in too deep to be telling me that, aren’t you?”
“I knew you would not listen.” The tremulous hint of a fond smile tugged up the corners of her mouth. “Do not become lost to me again.”
Maeko blinked her eyes against the sudden sting of tears. She stepped around her mother and strode toward the door, wiping at her eyes, then stopped and turned back when she noticed that Ash hadn’t followed. He gave her a dark look and turned to Tomoe.
“Thank you,” he nodded to his father, “for taking care of him.”
Tomoe swallowed hard against tears that brimmed in her eyes. “I expect you will return the favor.” She indicated Maeko with a small wave of one hand.
Maeko bristled at the implication that she needed someone to look out for her, but she kept her mouth shut.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Arigato... Thank you, Ash-san.”
He nodded and hurried after Maeko.
Chapter Ten
With a long walk ahead of them and a tempest of emotions to outrun, she set a brisk pa
ce. When things went wrong, she and Chaff had a standing agreement to find each other at the Cheapside lurk at night or the nearby marketplace during the day. If he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble trying to find her, there was a good chance he would be at the marketplace. Since he’d gotten away from the new Literati orphanage once, he would know how best to get to Ash’s brother. He was her one constant in this life, and right now she needed someone she could count on.
“If your mum’s alive, why are you living on the streets?”
“It’s complicated,” she snapped.
He stared at the ground in front of them, his lips curving down hard.
She tried for a less bitter tone. “You saw the scars?”
He nodded.
“She was attacked by some men and hurt bad enough that she couldn’t work at the brothel anymore. No one pays for a woman with scars like that. The brothel owner let her do odd jobs around the place in exchange for a room while she healed, but that didn’t help with the medical bills. One day I overheard her telling another woman there that she was going to give me up to an orphanage.”
She chewed at her lip, remembering her mother’s stitched face the last time she had seen her. The solemn resolve in her expression, the distance she forced between them like scar tissue Maeko couldn’t see, but she felt it building. The rejection still stung, like the prick of a thousand angry bees.
“So you decided to run,” he prompted.
“Better that than to end up in a Literati workhouse.”
“Don’t you think you were a little hard on her back there?”
Maeko gave him a look of warning. “It’s not your concern.”
He glared back. “Is money all you care about?”
Maeko increased the pace. She didn’t have to explain herself to him. Theirs was only a business arrangement.
They ducked into crowds a few times along the way when Lit officers on steamcycles passed by. Ash followed her direction without question, which gave her some hope for their chances of getting through this without too much more trouble.
“Do you think the detective believes my parents killed those people?” he asked after a noisy steam-collector rumbled past.
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