Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
So even though the dance with death is my only distinction, they assume there are others I could wield against them.
I’m perfectly content to have this man worry about what I can do to him.
With my message received, I straighten. “Dispose of your boy properly as you did not the wife and daughter you first lost. And know that at the moment of your death, no matter where I am, or what I’m doing, I will know—and I will rejoice.”
I don’t tell him to mind being around that hearth of his. Don’t warn him that there will be an accident, soon. Say nothing about the flames that will claim his flesh first and then his life.
I leave as I came in, sneaking back out into the freezing rain and the dangerous night. I’ll have to see Mare tomorrow. With a full pub and the hour being late, there will be tables to wipe down, messes to clean up, tankards to wash. But none of that, and even my elderly patient being left without help through the night, is what’s on my mind.
Another side of me, one that’s mostly hidden and that I don’t recognize as myself, has broken free, and like a horse bolted from a stall, there’s no easy way to get the anger and vengeance back under control. It’s just so hard to see the same thing played out, over and over again.
And to be used and discarded in my own fashion, just like these other young women.
As I retrace my route back to the lodging house, I almost hope I cross paths with whatever stepped in behind me. Though I ran from what stalked me earlier, my own truth cannot be ignored.
I am one of the things the villagers fear in the dark.
And with me in this mood, they’re right to be afraid.
Four
A Stranger Arrives.
The pub is especially loud. The village men are waving their tankards around, their heads flipping back as they project their laughter like cannonballs at what Mr. Cavenish’s intrusion forced them to confront earlier. The air is thick with the stench of sour sweat and pungent ale, and as I skate over and pick up another empty tankard, I check the door. Since I returned, I’ve been able to sneak into my hovel under the stairs a couple of times and prepare more of the chews that will help Elly.
That husband of hers better show.
Grimly turning away, I weed back through the tables and chairs, which take up most of the floor. The bar runs down the far side, and I go to the end of its pitted, stained counter, adding my lot to the dozen or so I will have to clean before the end of the night—
There’s a shout, and a crash of chairs falling over. Then an explosion of laughter, as three men who can’t walk straight start to navigate toward the exit.
“Don’t just stand there, get the mop,” Mr. Lewis says.
He’s emerging from the doorway in the corner, the one that opens into his private quarters. In all his grumpy disapproval, he is the opposite of the wife he lost a couple of years ago. I tried to save her, but didn’t catch the timing right. I might believe he resents me for this, but the truth was, he didn’t like me even before he became a widower.
“Yes, Mr. Lewis.”
The mop and bucket are behind the bar, and the tender, who’s yanking at the barrel pulls like he wants to tear his arm out of its socket, glares at me as I enter his territory. He is the one person I take no offense at when he shuns me. He doesn’t like his job, doesn’t like the pub, doesn’t like Mr. Lewis. Doesn’t like anybody or anything.
There’s a water pump and a drain right by our employer’s private door, and I steer the bucket with the mop into place under the spigot. The iron grip is warm as my hand as I throw my shoulder into the work of—
“Aye! Do it!”
“Do it—”
“—it!”
A chant starts up, and then the chatter calms a little. Sallae Mae casts a flirty glance at the sweaty, bearded man who’s called out to her the loudest. She’s wearing a sky-blue dress that’s so low-cut, a deep breath would fully expose the top half of what she barters with, and that long blond hair of hers is a peekaboo shawl around her bare shoulders.
“A copper, then,” she taunts as she goes over to him, lifts her skirting and plants an arched, stocking foot between his legs on his chair seat.
When the coin is in her hand, she holds it up and the customers hush into murmurs. With every eye in the place on her, she tucks the penny into her cleavage and sashays over to the bar. The tender looks as though he’s about to quit, but he ducks under the counter and produces a thin glass on a slender stem.