by Merry Farmer
When they reached the center aisle, they spotted the clerk, along with another, older man in a slightly nicer suit. The two men appeared to be searching for them, and as soon as Stephen and Max stepped out from between the machines, the older man’s face dropped into a scowl.
“What is the meaning of this?” the older man growled when he came close enough to be heard, which was almost all the way into Stephen and Max’s faces. “We do not allow visitors on the factory floor. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yes, we can see that,” Stephen replied, attempting to be as authoritative as he could.
“We stepped to the side to inspect one of the looms and got lost,” Max added with a laugh.
Stephen was ready to shake his head and assign Max lines to copy on a blackboard—like he did with any of his disobedient girls—for being a fool. Surprisingly, though, the older man’s expression dulled to mere annoyance instead of dangerous anger.
“You should have waited in the office,” the man said. He turned and gestured for Stephen and Max to follow him.
Part of Stephen felt as though they’d failed, that the entire trip to Gretton Mills had been a mistake. The paper and ticket he and Wrexham had found in the Batcliff Cross warehouse must have come from another shipment of goods that had been stored in the same room as the children. He barely listened, once they were back in the office, as Max spun an unnecessarily elaborate lie about the two of them being reporters hunting down a story. Max came up with questions on the fly for the factory manager, which impressed Stephen even as it made him impatient. By the time they were finally shown the door, Stephen was convinced the manager and the clerk truly did think they were from The Sunday Times.
That didn’t improve Stephen’s mood, though.
“We’ve wasted an entire day up here,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. It came away covered in fine, white cotton dust. He had to remove his spectacles to clean them as well. Less than an hour in the factory and he and Max were covered in fine dust.
“I wish I could disagree with you,” Max said, then fell into a coughing fit.
Stephen paused, waiting for Max to clear his lungs. He would have taken a few deep breaths to clear his own lungs, but the smoke from the chimneys rising above the factory didn’t make the outside air any better than that on the factory floor. And there seemed to be quite a few chimneys.
Stephen adjusted his glasses and started counting chimneys in his mind.
“I’ll see if I can find us another cab.” Max cleared his throat, spitting out cotton dust.
“How large would you say that factory floor was?” Stephen asked, only partially hearing Max’s statement.
“Big.” Max turned, furrowing his brow as he attempted to see what Stephen was seeing. “I’ve very little experience with factories, so I wouldn’t know—” He stopped.
It was Stephen’s turn to follow the line of Max’s vision to see what he was looking at. Max had pulled his focus down from the chimneys and was staring at the far corner of the building. A young woman who couldn’t have been much older than Beatrice walked to the far edge of the path that wound around the building and tossed a bucket of something that looked vile into a muddy stream. She was too far away to see what exactly was in the bucket or to call out to her. Once her bucket was empty, she dragged herself back around the corner of the building.
“I think there’s more to this factory than what we saw,” Stephen said, his pulse picking up with a sickening urgency.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Max said. He reached out to touch Stephen’s hand, then launched himself forward. “Come on. I think we’re on to something.”
Chapter 18
Max couldn’t quite catch his breath as he and Stephen hurried around the side of the factory, looking for the young woman, but it wasn’t because of the cotton dust he’d breathed in. His heart pounded against his ribs as it became clear to him the dimensions of the building were far greater than what he and Stephen had seen from the inside.
“Do you think—” he started and was instantly silenced as Stephen threw an arm across his chest and pushed both of them up against the side of the building as they neared the corner.
Instantly, Max knew why. Gruff voices were arguing just a few yards away.
“—not to go outside for any reason,” a deep, male voice growled.
“But the slop bucket was overflowing,” a frightened, young female voice said.
“Any reason,” the man repeated, nearly shouting.
“There are children in there,” the young woman continued, weeping. “They’re hungry, sick.”
Max felt Stephen tense beside him. He reached for Stephen’s hand only to find it trembling with rage.
“I don’t care if they’re puking themselves as long as they stay quiet until the wagon gets here,” the man growled. “Now get your tarty arse back inside and I’ll show you what you’re good for.”
The young woman whimpered as the sound of footsteps retreated. Max felt sick to his stomach as his imagination filled in what the man meant by his words. Judging by the sound of the woman’s voice, she couldn’t have been much older than Stephen’s girls.
“We have to get in there,” Stephen said, his voice thin and his eyes ablaze with fury. “We have to save them.”
“I agree,” Max said, resting a hand on Stephen’s arm in an attempt to settle him. “But we have to be careful. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
Stephen gulped a few unsteady breaths, still trembling, before nodding his head sharply and shaking out his shoulders. He paused for a moment, eyes closed as if praying, then edged his way to the corner of the building and peeked around.
“There’s no one watching,” he whispered, pulling back and facing Max. “I can see a door farther along the building.”
Max nodded and moved to the corner to get a look for himself. They were lucky in that no one seemed to be patrolling that side of the building, but Max didn’t trust the apparent emptiness of the packed, grassless dirt that stretched away from that side of the building at all. If the mill really was some sort of a holding place for kidnapped children, or even if the children had been put to work there, someone had to be guarding that side of the building. There were a few doors along the long back stretch of the building and no telling what waited on the other side.
“We can’t just stand here dithering while children are being held captive,” Stephen hissed as Max tried to form a plan in his mind. “Jane and the boys could be in there.”
Max’s heart went out to Stephen, and he stepped back to face him. “They could be,” he admitted, taking Stephen’s hand and squeezing it. “Which is why I know you would want to proceed as cautiously as possible to bring as little harm to them as we can.”
Stephen huffed out a breath and rubbed his free hand over his face, knocking his spectacles askew as he did. “You’re right,” he said, letting go of Max’s hand to fix his spectacles. “But the longer we wait, the more likely we are to be spotted, one way or another.”
He had a point. “We have no choice but to do exactly like we did before—we walk in there as though we’re supposed to be there.”
Stephen winced, proving that he didn’t like the plan any more than Max did, but they were out of options. He pulled himself to his full height and walked around the corner of the building as bold as brass, Max following. When they reached the nearest door, Stephen turned the handle, his hand still shaking.
The world on the other side of the door was a thousand times worse than the noisy, dusty chaos of the front half of the factory. The clatter of power looms and spinning machines made it impossible to think, let alone hear any sounds of conversation that might have been going on in the cavernous space. The same cloud of cotton dust filled the air, but unlike the front of the factory, there was very little light or ventilation. Max spotted windows around the top of the room, but they were all closed.
He was about to point out as much when Stephen clamped a hand
on his arm. Max turned to him. His blood chilled when he saw the expression of shock and horror in Stephen’s eyes. A moment later, Stephen broke away from him, dashing through the cramped and crowded rows of machinery. Max just barely heard his shout of, “Jane!” over the noise.
She was there, just a few yards away, crouched on the floor with her arm thrust dangerously up into one of the whirring, clacking looms. The expression of terror on her face as she went about whatever insane task she’d been set to do so close to the monstrous machine alone would have been enough to shake Max to his bones, but Jane’s ripped and threadbare clothes, her sunken cheeks, and her pale skin had him pulsing with fear and rage that he wasn’t sure he would ever get over. And the poor girl been gone less than a week.
“Jane!” Stephen called again, dodging around several other, hapless and frighteningly young workers to reach her, Max hard on his heels.
Jane must have heard something over the din. She pulled her arm back, shrinking in on herself for a moment before her glassy eyes focused on Stephen. Once they did, she screamed and leapt up from her position, crouched half inside of the thundering machine. The twist of terror and joy in her expression brought tears to Max’s eyes as she threw herself at Stephen, wailing, “Sir!”
Stephen caught her, lifting Jane into his arms and hugging her as though he would never let her go. Jane hugged him back, tears streaming down her dirty face. The sight was so dire and tender that Max couldn’t breathe.
The workers in that part of the factory were far less disciplined than their fellows in the front of the factory. They sensed at once that Stephen and Max weren’t supposed to be there, but unlike the hostility and suspicion they’d been met with before, these workers looked to them as though they were long-awaited saviors.
“Help us,” a young, rail-thin lad who couldn’t have been more than fourteen gasped, clinging to Max’s sleeve. “Help.”
“Help us. Save us,” an even younger girl pleaded, leaping away from her loom to grab Max’s other arm.
Their pleas spread through the factory floor like ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond. The aura of desperation that pervaded the room intensified at an alarming rate until it felt like the air had gone electric with panic.
“Where are the others?” Stephen shouted, still only barely able to be heard over the machinery.
Jane clung to him, wild-eyed and panting, unable to answer his question. Max doubted she’d even heard it.
“Where are the other children?” Max asked the youngsters who had attached themselves to him.
“Everywhere,” the young man answered. “Help us, please.” Tears now cut trails through the dirt on his face as well.
Rage hardened Max’s insides. More and more workers had abandoned their machines to rush toward them, or to stand, trembling, where they were. None of them could have been older than fifteen, and none of them seemed to be steady enough to offer Max and Stephen the kind of help they needed.
“We have to get everyone out of here,” Max called to Stephen, hoping Stephen could hear him.
Stephen answered with a nod, but he, too, was so distraught that he merely stood where he was, crushing Jane against his chest, and searching through the increasingly frantic activity of the factory floor.
Max started forward, knowing the only way they would be of any help was if they moved. Already, he swore he could hear loud, deep shouting over the clatter of the machines. He gestured for Stephen and the others to follow him as he backtracked to an aisle between rows of looms and headed in what he hoped was the right direction to take them to one of the doors.
They made it only a few yards before a tough, muscular man stepped into the aisle ahead of him, a cudgel of some sort in his hands. He used it to beat a young man who was trying to dash past him before glancing up and spotting Max, Stephen, and the dozen or so young people who were now following them. The man pointed his cudgel at Max and shouted something before charging forward.
Max reacted before he could think, dropping into an attack stance and rushing to meet the man. He managed to collide with him shoulder first, knocking the man off-balance. The man was bigger and more muscular than Max, but he evidently hadn’t expected to be met with any sort of force. Max used surprise against him, throwing a punch across the man’s face that splattered blood across the roll of cloth attached to the loom behind him. The man recovered, staggering for a moment, before turning and sprinting off through the machines.
Max turned back to the others, under no illusion that the man was running out of fear. He would be going to fetch help. “We have to get out of here,” he shouted above the noise—which was diminishing ominously, as if the machines were being shut down.
“We have to find the boys,” Stephen shouted in return.
He was right, but Max was certain it would cost them. He glanced around, trying to think fast in spite of the edge of panic that he couldn’t shake.
His indecision was interrupted as a young woman who looked about fifteen, with dark hair and eyes, her face dolled up with cosmetics, grabbed his wrist. Max met her eyes and nearly shouted in relief to find intelligence and urgency staring back at him instead of mindless panic. The pieces clicked in his mind, and he recognized her as the young woman with the bucket he’d seen outside earlier.
“The youngest children are locked in a cage over there,” she said, throwing her free arm out to the side. “The brothel is coming to pick them up within the hour.”
Everything about her statement chilled Max, but he nodded to her. “Lead the way.”
The young woman nodded back, turned to dash off, and gestured for Max to follow her. She knew exactly how to weave her way between the machines with the least impediment, speeding along to the far end of the room. Max had a harder time following her, since Stephen and the small army of frightened young people who must have seen them as their last hope attempted to follow as well. Stephen seemed unwilling to leave a single one of them behind, and Max couldn’t blame him.
The sight that met them at the far end of the room was the most horrific one Max had seen yet. The young woman hadn’t been lying when she said the younger children were being kept in a cage. They had obviously sensed something was going on and all stood, pressed against the bars, reaching out and calling for help. The sight was heart wrenching.
“Jerry!” Stephen called, rushing past Max to grab the hand of a tiny, wailing boy who was half crushed against the bars by the others. Max thought he recognized the boy, but it was hard to tell, the way the poor lad was covered in dirt and clearly malnourished.
“How do we get them out?” Max asked the young woman who had led him there.
“The foreman has a key,” the young woman told him, a vicious spark in her eyes. “Or at least he did.” She drew a key ring with several keys from the pocket of her tattered dress.
Max smiled and took the keys when she handed them to him, but his heart sank as he noticed for the first time how she was dressed. The cut of her cheap gown and the chintzy fabric, combined with the cosmetics she wore, made it clear what she was, even though she was years too young for such a profession. But Max didn’t have time to feel pity for her. He lunged toward the cage’s door and began attempting to fit the keys into the lock.
“Lily,” one of the tiny children in the cage called out. “Lily, help me.”
“I’m trying to, love,” the young woman, Lily, called back, reaching to squeeze as many hands poking through the bars as she could. “Not long now.”
Max finally found the right key and opened the lock, but as he swung the cage door open, a thundering crack filled the air. A moment later, the drone of machinery ground to a stop, filling the air with an ominous, ringing silence.
“Come on,” Max urged the children fleeing the cage. “We need to get out of here.”
“This way,” Stephen shouted as though the looms were still clattering, leading the growing sea of children back through the rows of machines toward the doors.
�
�You! Stop!” a deep voice shouted at them from the other end of the floor.
“Run,” Lily told Max, physically turning him to face the retreating crowd that Stephen led.
“You’re coming with us,” Max told her, trying to grab her hand.
She pulled away. “I can stop them from following you. Or at least I can try.”
“They’ll kill you,” Max said, grabbing for her again.
“Believe me, they won’t,” she answered, darkness and steel in her eyes. Before Max could argue with her, she stepped closer to him. “Find my brother,” she said. “Tell him it’s the man with the lion.”
“The what?” Max shook his head at her. “Who’s your brother?”
The crack of a gun being fired prevented Lily from answering. Max flinched, which gave Lily enough time to dash past him, heading straight for the men who were barreling closer. One held a smoking gun, but to Max’s surprise, one of the others was raging at him as though he’d committed a grave sin. Firing a gun in a cotton mill filled with lint probably wasn’t the smartest idea. Max took the distraction as his opportunity to flee and sprinted down the row of looms in the direction Stephen had gone.
He caught up with Stephen and the others as they flooded through tall, broad doors into the dreary, grey of the chilly afternoon. In spite of the slight drizzle and smoke from the chimneys, it was as if the children were seeing light for the first time. Max caught up to Stephen as he gathered the escaping young people, leading them toward the front of the building.
“How do we get them all out of here?” he asked, resting a hand on Stephen’s back.
“I have no idea,” Stephen said, attempting to keep the children moving. “If we can get them close to the nearest town—”