MY HAND slid across the grimy surface, fingertips trailing over an inch of thick slime and soot. Beneath was either brick or stone, but there was no way I could have told which.
Behind me, I heard a girl's little grunt, and I turned in time to see Snail wriggle out of the man's grip and take off the way she had come, done with this game. I had moments to become invisible.
Luck seemed to be with me. My fingers slid out of the muck and into open air as the entrance to a side passage opened in the wall. Not a passage, exactly. The top of the wall had crumbled away, opening onto some adjacent space, the lip of the gap at about the height of my waist. As quietly as I could, with trembling arms, I heaved myself up to sit in the mouldering masonry and swung my legs over.
I had forgotten about the others.
A child's petrified scream froze my guts, the most awful thing I had ever heard. Then a crash, and a scuffle, and a meaty thud, and then only heavy boots, walking away.
I twisted to see a broken little body, still and lifeless on the alley's floor... I blinked, and it was gone. But there was a retreating back, and a limp form slung over the massive shoulder.
The sight slid away from me as I overbalanced, scrabbling uselessly at the slick rock, and tumbled sideways into the shadows beyond the alley.
It took longer to fall than it should have, the floor of the dark place being a good four feet lower than the floor of the alley, my brain having slowed to a crawl. The landing was soft, at least, something spongy and giving, filling my nose with the smell of good earth and crushed green things.
Without checking myself for damage, I scrambled up again and felt for the lip of the hole, but my hands found only brick. It was too high for me to reach.
Snail's name bubbled up in my throat, and I swallowed it before it could emerge. If I called out, they would have both of us, and then who would remain to say where we had gone?
The boots came back at a trot, and I crouched down low and held my breath. An amber beam of light, solid as an iron bar, blazed through the hole above me. I did not know why I had not thought they might have lanterns. It came closer, pouring down, and a head appeared beside it. I shrank away, but the light only deepened all the shadows around its revealing circle, and I faded into the dirt. The head turned this way and that and then withdrew, but not before the light had struck a flowerbed, and a worn path, and brick walls all around. I was in the garden of a home.
Then the light was gone, and I was left blind, blinking away the spots it had left in my vision. Safe for the moment. I sank down into the dirt, thinking as quickly as I could.
All right, girl. Analyse.
Snail was taken.
I was not taken.
But the men had come after me. Specifically me. 'That one! There she goes!' After me, but they had taken her. What did Snail and I have in common apart from our sex? We were not of the same age or class or size. Surely, I had not been a Wrong Boy long enough for that to be a factor. Only our sex, then. They were after girls? I shuddered.
But why me first, and Snail only once I was out of their reach? If they just wanted a girl, they should not have singled me out. Or could they have taken her only because she was the one to come after me? Not girls, then, but me, and then whomever had interfered? Or had they taken her to get to me...
That house flashed into my memory, and the people inside it. Was there any possibility—any at all—that my family would send hired men to find and retrieve me?
Good Lord, no. We were not a normal family, but we weren't the sort to hunt one another.
But the men had come after me, and I still had no idea how badly they wanted me. They might be back in daylight, so I could not stay put. I couldn't get out the way I had come, though. There should be a gate, or at least a ladder, not that I thought I could use a ladder, in my state.
My eyes began to recover from the sudden glare of the lantern, and my surroundings gradually resolved from opaque blackness into faint shapes in the dark. There was something big and low and square, with a peaked roof, about five feet wide and four feet tall. I could not think what it could be, except a shed, and that was where a ladder would be found. It was worth a shot.
A few half-blind, tottering steps brought me within arm's reach of it. I felt out the rough edges of a weathered wooden door, then spread my hands and searched out a handle, cautious of splinters. There. But I could not depress the thumb latch. Flakes of rust crumbled onto my fingers and pattered softly to the ground. I pressed harder, but my grip was alarmingly weak. My hands trembled. No luck.
Well, there had to be a gate. I made a slow, grasping circuit of the garden, clinging to the wall like a drunk. My ankle didn't hurt at all, but my bones felt hot, and my teeth, while the rest of me froze. There was no damn gate.
I realized with a terrible, sinking sensation that the only way out of the garden was through the house.
I had not been able to see much of the house. I had the impression of two storeys, or maybe three, but no amount of squinting could confirm it. It was hard to be sure, in the dark, but I thought perhaps my eyes were not focussing quite right.
It was completely dark, though. No light in any of the windows, if there even were windows. Was it late enough for everyone to be abed? Or was the house empty? Good God, what if there was no one to let me out of the garden? If I shouted, I could draw the men back. If I didn't, I could die, there.
Unacceptable. I had to get out and rescue Snail and get to Bordeaux. I didn't have time to die.
There was no gate, but I had found the rear door of the house as I made my circuit of the garden, and I assumed it must enter onto the kitchen. If there were a servant in the house, she would be quartered near the kitchen, and her room might not have windows to show me the light.
I made my way back and felt out the door handle, twisting it carefully. The door did not budge. Who locks a door that opens onto an inaccessible garden? I shrugged to myself in the dark, as though someone had spoken the question aloud. Anyway, even if it had been unlocked, sneaking into a house was a dangerous prospect. Sneaking into a private garden was little better, I mused, but at least I could say I had fallen, and it would not be a lie.
I raised a hand and brought it down forcefully to rouse the house.
My fist smashed through glass.
There was a little pain, then, cold and distant, and I waited to hear myself scream, but there was no sound other than the musical tinkle of shards cascading down my arm and a wet pit-pat of falling droplets. Now, that was curious. People who put bits of themselves through windows usually had something to say about it, didn't they? I waited a moment longer, in case the reaction were merely delayed. It was not.
No one came to investigate the noise. Empty house, or sound sleepers. After a few seconds' deliberation, I reached gingerly through the jagged hole in the glass and slid back the latch, then froze.
Silence reigned. Still, no one came.
The door shrieked on its hinges. Still, no one came.
And no one would. An inhabited house, even one inhabited by sleepers, could not have been so utterly still. I was alone, then, not in danger of being found and arrested for breaking and entering. I let out a breath and patted my way into the kitchen, closing the door behind me. Then, for good measure, I locked it.
I felt around until I found the range and the box of long kitchen matches I knew must be somewhere near it. The sudden spurt of light showed me a candle stub, and the candle stub showed me a basin and faucet. I washed the blood from my lacerated hand and found it not as serious as I had expected. It dripped sluggishly onto the cold floor. A cloth stopped the flow. There was an endless supply of pickled things in the pantry. I opened a jar of something I thought was apples and ate them all, then filled the jar with water and drank that.
I vomited the lot of it into a bucket and drank another jar of water. The candle was almost unbearably bright.
Trembling, I sought out coal and built up a fire in the range, huddling in front of it as it grew. The heat didn't seem to touch my skin, but my insides burned.
I did not feel safe, somehow, though I did not fear discovery. No one who meant to come back soon would have left a cold range. The homeowners had gone somewhere, maybe for the entire winter. I should go see if the furniture were covered. It didn't matter much to me, of course. There was no point in going back out, that night. I would never be able to find the Wrong Boys at night, or even find my way back to Doctor Peach. That could wait until morning. It would have to. One night was a necessity, but I could hardly plan to stay any longer than that, so it didn't matter whether my unwitting hosts returned in a week or a month. I would be gone by then, either way.
But I did not feel safe.
I inched closer to the fire, unable to stop my shaking. I should check the rest of the house, if only to see if I could find some blankets.
A sudden sting lanced through my eye, and I swiped at it in alarm. My fingers came away wet. I couldn't possibly be crying, could I? Now, of all times? I wasn't, though. The other eye stung, and I swiped at that one, too, realising that my brow was pouring sweat.
The water I had drunk gushed out of me and down the front of my coat, and it seemed to burn me. I struggled to peel the soiled layer away, but my fingers were impossibly clumsy, and I could barely focus my eyes well enough to see the buttons.
The house shifted suddenly, not with a creak but a deafening crack like a gunshot. I almost fancied I could feel the floor heave under me, pitching me, unresisting, onto my side.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Not the house. Terrible, monstrous footsteps, the footsteps of a colossus. Stertorous, watery breathing, and sharp, piteous gasps. The sounds Mother had made in the moments I first knew I could not stay. The sounds rang in my ears. The sounds of dying.
I knew it was her, but some part of me knew Mother was far away. Barring ghosts, that left only me. I hadn't managed to spit up all the water, and much of it had gone into my lungs. If only I could cough...
The attempt sent a spasm tearing through my insides, and I heaved again, curling into a tight, damp ball.
'Are you going to die, Morrigan?'
I started, but there was no one there. Certainly not my brother, who was far away, with Mother. It was his voice, though. The tone was biting, sardonic, but then, it always was. Sherlock showed his love in strange ways, and never in words.
'Not real,' I whispered to myself, exhausting all the breath I had been able to collect.
'I'd rethink that decision,' the phantom voice went on. 'It would be counterproductive.'
Not real, but I cursed him silently all the same. If I were going to die, I didn't think I really had much say in the matter. Few people did. Few... but some did make a choice.
'Exactly,' he said, responding to my thoughts. 'Dying now would be inconsiderate, too. Haven't you caused enough trouble already?'
I fought to catch my breath, fought against the cold leaching into me from the stone floor, to control the heaves wracking my body, but there are fights you cannot win alone.
'You might help,' I mouthed, forgetting for a moment that no one was there.
I retched again, and the glow of the fire seemed to wink out. Again, and the light died entirely.
Floating between pain and emptiness, I was sure I could see Sherlock's smugly knowing face.
'I suppose this wasn't how your brilliant plan was supposed to play out.'
'Shut up.'
'Don't die, Morrigan.'
'Leave me alone.'
'Don't die, sister.'
There was another sound, very far away, faint, so faint.
The pain faded, and the spasms faded, and my brother's face faded... I faded. But before I was quite gone, I imagined that other noise may have been a key turning in a lock.
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