STRAY
by EVAN FULLER
Book II of the Rittenhouse Saga
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any reference to actual persons, entities, or events is coincidental or is used fictitiously and is not intended as a statement of fact.
Text copyright © 2013 Evan Fuller
Cover illustration copyright © 2013 by Daniel Govar
Cover layout and text © 2013 By Evan Fuller and Justin Livi
https://www.evanfuller.net
all that is in the world is love;
and knowledge is nothing but gossip
This book is a sequel to the novel Mutt, so read that one first if you haven't yet. The ebook is available for free in most markets.
Visit https://www.evanfuller.net/muttmap to see maps of New Providence!
This is where the dedication goes. Tradition holds that an author names the person for whom a book was written, or else bequeaths it to someone after the fact.
The truth is that I wrote this book for myself, as a project in recuperation following a challenging season of my life. But to dedicate Stray, a novel bolstered by the support of so many, to myself and myself alone seems equally dishonest. So—I extend this dedication to everyone who has mapped the line between self-sacrifice and self-destruction.
Contents
1. The Low Door
2. Burrows
3. The Burial of the Dead
4. Rumors
5. Lighten Up
6. A Friend In Need
7. Talk Therapy
8. The One-Rai Car
9. Walls
10. Impasse
11. Swear to Brahm
12. A Noble Venture
13. Say Uncle
14. Contrition
15. Redemption
16. A Friend Indeed
17. Say Grace
18. Dress-Up
19. Firepower
20. Sovereign
21. Long Live
1.
The Low Door
“Always remember, we must perform even the humblest of work as an act of worship.”
Missus Ebony’s statue of Brahm was shiny white stone, face and chest and belly all worn smooth by pious touching. Brahm stood ‘bout as tall as Leila’s forearm. Brahm’s aspects were half as big. Four of them sat around Him on a table at the front end of the factry, lit by candles, up high so everybody could see from where they sat. Missus Ebony chose a different aspect to carry every day (Brahm was too heavy) as she walked the aisles. Today it was Patience. She cradled Patience in her left arm, stroking with the white wool glove on her right hand. Shana said she’d heard Missus Ebony bragging that she’d get Temperance when she went to Broomall Bazaar out west soon.
Leila wasn’t wearing any gloves, just a cold rusted little thimble on her cold aching little thumb. She took it off and put down her needle for a sec to rub her hands together and blow on her fingers. The warm made the numb tingling sharp, so it hurt more than it helped. Leila’s fingers were shaking but she picked the damn needle back up and got to stitching the buttons on. Day was almost over anyhow.
“I’m cold,” Bustle told her when Missus Ebony was out of earshot. Her brother was shivering harder than she was, his arms pulled inside his ratty brown-gray sweater that used to be blue. Leila reached over with her thimble hand rubbed his bald head. “If you grew your hair out you’d be warmer,” she said. “C’mon, Missus Ebony says Brahm don’t smile on slackers.”
“I don’t give no damns ‘bout Brahm,” Bustle mumbled. “I wan’ go home.”
Leila didn’t blame him. “Sooner we’re done, sooner we can go to the Low Door and get our potatoes and get home in bed.” The boy nodded, his teeth clattering a bit, and pulled his arms out his sweater to get sewing again. Bustle’s real name was Ben, and he was just ten years old, too young (Shana said) to be working in the factry, but food don’t make itself. “End of the month,” Leila promised, “we’ll get our new sweaters and wear them overtop a’ these, then it’ll be warmer.” Leila had got a sweater from the factry every winter since she started but they fell apart fast.
“I don’t wan’ wear it overtop,” Bustle said, crinkling his nose. “I’m gonna throw this ol’ rag away when I get my new one.”
By the time they finished their forty, Leila’s fingers were bloody from where she was shaking and pricked herself with the needle. She stood and called Missus Ebony over to do the count. The overseer stepped between the bunches of hunched kids and grownups still doing their needlework. Some of them knitted the sweaters while others stitched pockets and stuff on. Leila did the buttons. It went faster now that Bustle was here but it was only one person’s worth of work since Bustle couldn’t do much, and they only got one ration out of it instead of two. Leila tucked her right hand in the pile of folded sweaters while Missus Ebony did the count. She sat on her left one. The purebloods wouldn’t take the sweaters if they got even a bit of blood on them.
Missus Ebony looked at the pile a long time, putting down Patience to pick a couple sweaters up and make sure the stitching was good. Leila always did good but Bustle sewed the buttons on too loose sometimes since he was little. Finally Missus Ebony nodded and bent to get Patience. “Your brother’s hand is growing steadier, Kitten.” (Leila wouldn’t tell Missus Ebony her family name but she hated it when people called her Kitten.)
“Bustle’s a hard worker, Missus,” Leila said. She couldn’t call her Missus Ebony ‘cause Leila wasn’t supposed to know her family name. Shana had learned it from a friend whose brother or cousin or something was giving it to Missus Ebony’s sister. The name she used at the factry was Missus Goodheart, but Leila wouldn’t call her that either since that was just stupid.
The loaded their forty onto the barrow and took it out the back way. It was warmer inside the factry than out since there were a lot of bodies working in there and walls to keep some of the wind out. When they got outside it was gusting and starting to snow, but at least they could run and get their hearts up instead of sittin’ in one place. Leila took the back handles of the barrow. She used to take the front but when she got running fast she was liable to drag Bustle along faster than he could go. Their hands were even colder out here though. Leila wasn’t great at knitting but she was as good as anyone at stitching seams. Maybe when she got her new sweater she’d cut her old one up and stitch her and Bustle their very own gloves.
They were halfway to the Low Door, jogging the barrow through the trench that ran from the factry, when Leila saw two men watching them too close, looking like they might jump into the trench and try to get their hands on Leila’s forty. “How you doin’ today, sweetie?” one of them asked. He stepped forward till his toes were sticking out over the trench, level with Leila’s head.
They came to a stop. While Bustle held the barrow, Leila wiped a melting bit of snow from her face and reached for the knife at her waist, the long skinny ugly knife she’d made from an old rusty metal pole. Leila was long and skinny too, but people never seemed to think she was ugly till she was holding her knife. She stared for a bit and then yelled some dirty words Shana taught her. The thugs grinned but took a good step back, and Leila and Bustle kept running with the barrow.
The trench turned into a tunnel maybe a hundred yards before it got to the little house that covered the Low Door. Leila always felt a shiver when she passed under what everyone called Dusky Street. It was the line between safety and Fairmount, which Missus Ebony said was the purebloods’ holy land. If you crossed Dusky Street toward the Fairmount fence, the purebloods on the wall’d shoot you dead. Leila knew they couldn’t shoot her underground but it still made her scared—no, nothing made her scared. A bit anxious, maybe.
It was the same horseleavings when they got to the end of the bl
ind black tunnel and kicked on the rusty gate to the Low Door. This guy Teardrop (he had a few of them inked on his face) pulled it open and did the whole just-leave-it-with-me-I’ll-take-care routine but Leila was having none of it. If one of those sweaters went missing, never mind her job, Leila would be more worried ‘bout Missus Ebony cutting her hand off. It had happened before, and worse, too: this guy they called Threetooth had got hanged once for stealing a whole load. “I’m not leavin’ till they’re through the Door all the way,” Leila said, sticking up her nose. “Jus’ like every time.”
“Then you and your lil’ brother get to crank the stupid Door youself,” Teardrop replied, “jus’ like every time.”
The Low Door was a wooden box that looked like a casket for a kid. It was scraped and stained and moldy on the outside, but the inside was lined with some heavy fabric even softer than the sweaters Leila carefully placed inside. The box was set on two rusty iron tracks with a conveyer belt between them. Leila slammed the door shut, stuck her nose up at Teardrop, and marched over to the crank that rose from the floor next to the tracks.
Turning the crank was painful slow work, and her arms and back were already aching less than a minute after the box disappeared screeching in the black tunnel at the far end of the shack. Leila pushed and pulled the loose wobbly splintery handle for three minutes at a time and then Bustle would take over, but he could only do it for ‘bout a minute. They did this back-n-forth at least twenty minutes, till finally the conveyer wouldn’t budge. A latch on the other side of the Low Door fell when the box got to the end, keeping it in place so it couldn’t come back till the purebloods sent it from the other side, probably filled with prayer beads and books for the vedas and statues of Brahm’s aspects. That meant Teardrop couldn’t crank the box back and steal Leila’s count and say she hadn’t delivered her forty. She snatched her ration ticket from Teardrop’s tattooed hand and left with her head high.
She’d worked up a sweat turning the crank, but as soon as she was outside again Leila’s teeth were clattering. Bustle was worse off. “Can we jus’ go home now?” he said between clacks.
“We gotta go get our potatoes first,” Leila told him, putting a hand over his shoulder to try to squeeze some heat into him. She didn’t have much to give.
“We got ‘tatoes at home,” he complained.
Leila figured he was right. They wouldn’t starve tonight, and the ration would be just as good tomorrow. She tucked the rainbow-dyed strip of fabric into a little pocket she’d stitched onto the outside of her old pants. “You worked hard today,” she said. “Let’s go on home, then.”
The snow was just a dusting and it’d stopped falling by the time they got to the Lorraine. Bustle smiled his blue lips when he saw their home. It was ten floors tall with two big arches in the front, and Mama had said it musta been a real sight back when it was built, before Brahm smote all the old world people. Now the entire front face of the building had crumbled away. Most of the bottom story was still there, and a little more had fallen each level up, so it looked like some big ol’ pyramid or a staircase for giant people, each step more than ten feet tall. You could see remains of old furniture and rooms where the front apartments had been, but it was mostly all grown over with moss and ivy. Shana lived on the seventh floor, one above Leila and her family, and that level even had a little tree growing in front.
All this mess made it real hard for strangers to get up into the Lorraine, but Leila had lived there since she was a baby and knew where all the steps and ladders were hiding in the green. She let Bustle go up first to make sure his skinny hands didn’t drop him, and she climbed up after. The rungs of the ladders were cold and some even iced over, so they were even shaking even harder when they finally got up to Floor Six. The bloody spots on Leila’s fingers where she’d pricked herself with the needle were frozen dry.
Mama had forgot to do the bolt on the door, so Leila just pushed it open and they were in, where it was a bit warmer anyhow. She and Bustle went and hopped in the bed first thing, still shaking from outside. She was getting hungry but she’d make supper after she got herself warmed up. She knew another way to get warm, the witchy way, but Mama’d put an end to that after she set their sheets on fire and the bed almost caught. She pulled the comforters over and they hugged till they stopped shivering. Bustle said he wanted a warm bath but that’d take too much time and wood and water and he knew that. “How ‘bout some warm food?” Leila bargained.
Mama was nowhere to be found, so after a while Leila pulled herself out of bed and got to cooking. Soon as she got some wood burning in the stove, of course, Shana was at the door like always. “What you makin’ tonight?”
Leila rolled her eyes. “The hell you think?”
Shana had brought a carrot, so Leila cut that up and mixed it in with the potatoes. There was no salt tonight so it wouldn’t be a very good supper, but it would fill them so they wouldn’t get any skinnier with winter going strong. They might be liable to freeze, but at long as Leila kept her job at the factry, they wouldn’t starve. They might be poor lots of ways but they were rich in potatoes.
The stew (the water and carrots and potatoes) was getting to a boil on the old black rusty cookstove when Mama came in holding a pigeon in each hand. “Where’d you get those?” Leila asked, cocking her head.
Mama put one hand on her hip, pigeon and all. “You know where,” she said in her no-nonsense voice that used to make Leila straighten up. Mama used to use that voice a lot, but she wasn’t strong enough to be no-nonsense these days. Mama was still pretty, but her face had tired lines everywhere now, which made her look queer in the bright shirts she wore with their low necks. Shana said once that Mama dressed like a tart, but Leila slapped her good for that.
Mama forced the other pigeon into Leila’s hand. “Pluck these fast and stick ‘em in the stew,” she told Leila, “and you be thankful for what we got. Gratitude is part of Brahm, Leila.”
“You sound like Missus Ebony,” Leila grumbled, but she started yanking the little gray feathers out of the pigeon anyhow. The blood from the pigeon mixed with a bit of the blood on her hands, which was unfrozen now.
When it was done, they poured the stew into little tin bowls and sipped at the broth, picking with their fingers at the chunks when they cooled down enough. Supper was better for having the bird in it, Leila had to admit. It warmed her deep inside and holding the tin bowl chased the chill out of her fingers. Shana’s papa normally came to supper since Shana’s mama had died from lockjaw and being a man her papa couldn’t cook much, but he was out earning rations tonight.
“I want you to do my hair later,” Shana announced to Leila.
“Your hair’s already braided, stupid.”
“It’s gettin’ fuzzy though. I want you to do it tighter.”
Leila was happy Earl wasn’t at supper, even if he did give Mama the dumb pigeons. She got her hopes up thinking he wouldn’t show at all tonight, but soon after supper came three loud knocks on the door like someone trying to bang a hole in it. Mama was over to the door in a flash, putting on her best play-acting smile and fixing her shirt. Leila glanced at him as he came in. Like always, Earl wore a shiny black cowskin jacket and his shiny black hair was slicked back so he looked more than a bit like a snake. “How you doin’, precious?” he asked Mama as he slithered inside. His leering eyes didn’t stop at Mama, either. Leila hated how he looked at her. She hurried up cleaning from dinner and went with Shana and Bustle into their room.
They climbed into the little bed they shared, the one with the prickly mattress and the blue blanket patched up with bits of old clothes. The bed was big enough for the three of them, and it used to hold four. Ben had been born with a twin brother named Huey, and they got into so much trouble everyone started calling them Hustle and Bustle. Mama always talked ‘bout how their mischief would be the death of her, but that wasn’t how it worked out. Hustle had died of pneumonia two winters back and Bustle was quiet and Mama was hollow n
ow.
They lay huddled and shivering till they were warmed up a little, then Shana started talking ‘bout how Leila had said she was gonna do her hair. Leila put the blankets over Bustle and got a comb from the little table beside the bed and started taking Shana’s braids out and trying to comb them straight. Shana whined whenever a strand of hair pulled out but Leila smacked her head and told her shut-up-be-grateful.
“You should do your own hair sometime,” Shana said like always.
“I told you like fifty times, I like it how it is.” Leila’s hair was a big black squall going every which way. It set off her skinny body and made her look a bit bigger, so people were scared to mess with her.
“Yeah, well, no boys is gonna go with you if you don’t keep it neat.”
“I don’t care ‘bout boys. ‘Sides, I look like a lioness with this hair.”
Leila was sitting behind Shana, but she knew she was rolling her eyes. “It’s boy lions has hair like that, not girl ones.”
“You ever seen a real lion?” Leila countered.
“I seen pictures.”
“That’s right, jus’ pictures. So you don’t know any better than I do.”
When the noise from the other room stopped and Leila figured Earl must be gone, she told Shana to wait up and went to go find the toilet. There was only one toilet on each story of the Lorraine, but the one on Floor Six was right next to the apartment where Leila lived. She slipped her old shoes on and stepped shivering out into the night.
She jumped when she saw Earl leaning against the wall of the apartment. He was wearing a black cowskin glove on one hand, the other bare as he stuffed a wad of poppy gum into a metal pipe. His thin lips grinned wide when he saw Leila. “Evenin’, baby.” He took a matchbook out of his pocket to light the pipe. The wind blew the first match out, so he struck three at once and held them steady till the sticky ball was glowing.
“Evenin’,” Leila said back, not moving any closer.
Earl took a long drag on the pipe and blew a line of silky smoke into the dark. “You want some of this?”
Unspeaking, she shook her head.
He was still grinning that stupid grin. “How was them pigeons I sent for supper tonight?”
She shrugged, looking at her feet. “Pretty good, I guess.”
She felt his black glove on her chin, pulling her face up toward his. “I’m sensin’ a profound case of ingratitude.” Earl was tall but leaned low till his nose was almost touching hers and said real soft, “Your mama tells me you a good girl.” His finger was stroking her cheek. “You are a good girl, ain’t you, Leila?”
She wanted to kick him, to jab at his eyes, to pull out her big ugly knife and take a swipe at his big ugly grin. Instead she nodded, eyes wide.
“Good.” He gave her a little kiss on the cheek, then let her face go. “You run back inside, now. It’s a cold night out.” When she closed the door behind her, her shivering wasn’t for the cold anymore.
Mama’s statue of Brahm was yellow-brown rotting wood, the same as the wood on the outside of the Low Door. Brahm’s face was worn all the way off, so nothing but a big faceless head was left. He sat on a little ledge over the little bed where Mama was already asleep. Leila’d been hoping to find her awake, but what would she say anyhow? She went back to her room, where Shana was still waiting for Leila to finish her hair.
“I hate him,” she said after a while. “I hate his stupid hair and his gum and that Mama told him my family name. I don’t get why she keeps lettin’ him in here, even if he does own the place.”
“Earl has lotsa girlfriends in the Lorraine,” Shana said. “It’s part of how he deals. Jus’ like you’re tryin’ to put food on the table, your mama’s tryin’ to keep a roof over your heads.”
When Leila and Bustle got to the factry the next morning, the knitters hadn’t finished their first round of sweaters yet, so Missus Ebony put them to sweeping while she waited. When the sweaters were finally ready, Leila took them to her station while Bustle got the needles and thimbles and a pocketful of buttons. They started stitching like they always did, buttons down the front of the sweaters in two lines, even though half the buttons didn’t go into anything which made them just as useless as the ones on the ends of the sleeves. The sweaters they got for working in the factry never had the extra buttons, just the ones that closed them down the front, which was fine with Leila ‘cause having the others was stupid anyhow. But that was how the purebloods liked them, so that was how Missus Ebony told her to make them.
When Missus Ebony came to her station and asked her to come talk in private, Leila thought she musta done something wrong. She didn’t mess up very much but Missus Ebony caught mistakes people didn’t even know they were making. Leila told Bustle she’d be right back and kept her chin up straight so she didn’t look guilty.
Missus Ebony had a little office at the back of the factry with a locking door on it. It was small but real nice inside with its own wood stove. Missus Ebony waved Leila into a chair and sat behind her wood desk. She had a smaller white stone Brahm in here.
“Kitten,” she said, “you’re one of our youngest workers here, yet your efforts have been consistently diligent.”
Leila waited.
“Such worshipful labor is very pleasing to Brahm. Do you keep Him in your home?”
“Yes, Missus.” She bowed in His direction to satisfy her.
“As you know, I will be leaving next week with a caravan bound for Broomall Bazaar to trade.” They did it a few times a year and should have left already, but the factry was short on sweaters and gloves this season due to too few workers. “You will be accompanying me.”
Leila blinked. “I’m not big enough to carry much stuff, Missus.”
“There are other tasks that need doing. You’re far too bright to be a packhorse, Kitten. You are being brought on this journey as my personal attendant. You will run errands for me and manage my belongings so I can better focus on my own responsibilities.”
Leila nodded, a little dazed. She sure hadn’t been expecting that.
–
The week heading up to the trip was one of the busiest Leila had ever worked at the factry. Missus Ebony had them there till late each evening, and Leila thought Bustle might get sick from being out so long. “You’ll get to rest the whole time we’re gone,” she told him. It wouldn’t be more than a day each way and a day or two of bargaining, and in the meantime Bustle wouldn’t work ‘cause Leila wouldn’t be there for him to work with now that she was going with Missus.
Missus Ebony was even more stupid cheerful than usual. Not only was she all worked up about Temperance, but word was there was a couple witchy ladies going around saying prophecy out west where Broomall Bazaar was. The overseer didn’t know if it was a good thing or bad—she had to see if they were for Brahm or some strange god before she decided that—but it was something to talk about, and Missus Ebony loved to talk.
Finally it was the last day in the factry. They were gonna leave the next morning, and of course there was so much work it was long past dark by the time they were cleaning up. Leila could swear she’d pricked her numb fingers enough they must have as many holes as the thimble. Bustle was dozed off sitting, his head slumping forward. Leila poked him. “Time to go, you.”
Bustle mumbled something that didn’t make sense, but he opened his eyes and started to get up.
“Kitten.” Missus Ebony was coming up, not running (she never ran) but walking fast. “I just realized that amidst our preparations for tomorrow’s trip, we’ve forgotten to send a shipment to the Low Door. I’m going to need you and Bustle to deliver it.”
“It’s too late,” Leila said. “Door’s closed for the night.”
Missus Ebony reached into her frilly purple coat and pulled out a big black iron key. “Here. Since no one else will be present, you’ll have to operate the Door by yourself.”
Leila nodded. She was used to doing that.
Missus Ebon
y put her gloved hands on Leila’s achy shoulders and leaned over, looking her right in the eyes, even more sour-disguised-as-sweet than she normally was. “I’m placing my faith in you, Kitten. It is in times like these, when we are given great responsibility, that we have the greatest chance either to please Brahm or dishonor Him. I trust that you will be honest and deliver these shipments to the faithful in Rittenhouse, who gave us Brahm, rather than choose selfish gain.”
Leila nodded again. She didn’t really see how getting hanged would be selfish gain.
Outside was cold as death and Leila could barely even keep a grip on the barrow. Bustle was worse, shivering so hard he almost tipped it every few steps. His nose was running and he was making this sniffing sound even though Leila kept telling him if he didn’t stop somebody’d hear and they didn’t want to get robbed right now, now did they?
Finally they got to the part where the trench became a tunnel, and Leila let herself breathe a bit easier. They made the last hundred yards pretty fast, but as her eyes got used to the dark, Leila started to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. It was coming from inside the rusty gate to the Door. Somebody musta forgotten to put the stove out. She put the big key in the big slot and yanked it open.
“Oh, hell…”
The stove was still burning wood, but not ‘cause somebody had forgot to put it out. Three guys were sitting around it, passing a bottle of liquor and chewing poppy gum. Two guys Leila didn’t know, and the third one was turned around so she couldn’t see him. They were all maybe twice Bustle’s age, seven years older than her. And way bigger. She began to back out.
“You said this space was cool, man,” one of them said.
The third guy got up and turned around slowly, like he thought he was in trouble. “Oh,” Leila said when she saw who it was. “It’s just you, Teardrop.” She was still a bit nervous but trying to sound tough.
Teardrop smiled a big scary drunk smile. “Yeah,” he said, “jus’ me. Whatcha got there, Kitten?”
Don’t be afraid of nothing, she told herself. A lioness is never afraid. “I got a late forty to put in the Door.”
He stepped forward from where he was sitting. “You want me to take care that f’you?” he slurred.
“I’ll do it myself,” she said. “Jus’ like every time.”
His smile got bigger and he said, “I think this time you gon’ have to leave those w’ me, Kitten.”
Leila stepped between him and the barrow. “Yeah right.”
She wasn’t even sure how she dodged it, his swing came so fast. When she came back up, her ugly knife was in her hand, dancing in the air in front of her.
His friends were up now and his smile was gone. “Stupid bitch.” He made right like to swing again, then jumped left farther than she could reach. Teardrop kicked the barrow over, and by the time Leila dodged it, he’d grabbed Bustle by the neck. Leila’s brother gasped.
“You can’t,” she said, real scared now. “We’ll tell.”
“Who gon’ believe you? We ain’t even here.” Teardrop was holding Bustle off his feet. He jerked his head at his friends. “Toad. Git the stove.”
There was a big hiss of water on fire and all at once she couldn’t see a thing. “Y’all gonna get outta here, or I have t’ break this mutt’s neck?” He was close enough that Leila could smell the stink on his breath. But she couldn’t see good enough to take a swing at him, not with her brother between them. Bustle was choking, whimpering. She could hear the others stumbling toward her, knocking over the chairs as they came.
“Fine!” she shouted. “Fine. Just get off my brother.”
She heard him hit the floor with a thump and gasp. Still holding her knife up with one hand, she reached around with the other till she found his arm and yanked him up. Without saying another thing she pulled him backward out the gate, into the tunnel. Leila turned and ran, dragging Bustle along.
By the time they got far enough that she thought Teardrop and the others wouldn’t follow them, Bustle was crying. “How’s your neck?” she asked him, but he couldn’t stop long enough to get a word out. He just sat on the ground big-eyed and sobbing, so she bent down to have a look. There was a bruise, but it didn’t look as bad as she guessed it coulda been. Then Leila started to think of what had happened and almost cried herself, but a lioness never cries so she sat down and pulled her brother to her chest and stayed with him like that till she felt it starting to rain. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered, but she had no idea how it would.
When they finally got home, Mama was already in bed asleep, and thank Brahm, Earl wasn’t around. Shana musta been watching from her floor, though, ‘cause she was down there just as soon as Leila had got Bustle into bed. He was all cried out and fell asleep. Shana started to say something about her hair but Leila told her shut up and listen for once. “I need you to promise me you’ll take care of Mama if somethin’ happens while I’m on the road.”
Shana made a pshhhh sound. “You probly be safer there than me in this dump.”
Leila grabbed her by the jaw. “I mean it. You promise.”
Shana tried to pull away but Leila kept holding her face till she said, “Okay, okay. I promise.”
Soon after that Shana was asleep along with Bustle. Leila just lay there trying to stop thinking so much so maybe she could get some sleep herself, but it was no use.
The rain had turned to howling snow when they left the next morning, and the drops that did make it down as water were frozen underneath. Leila led Bustle half-blind to the place outside the factry where they were supposed to meet the group. There were maybe two dozen barrows and wagons, most filled with sweaters and gloves and socks but some with food and water for the trip. Everyone was wearing their heaviest clothes (for Leila and Bustle, and many of the others, it was just their sweaters). Missus Ebony had on white cowskin gloves and a bigger purple coat than the one Leila had seen her wear before. She didn’t look too happy to see Bustle. “I see you brought your brother along, Kitten.”
“I had to, Missus.” She said a quiet prayer to Brahm and tried to keep looking Missus Ebony in the eye. “Mama said she can’t look after him. I always take care of him anyway, he ain’t much trouble. Promise.”
The overseer gave a long look like she was seeing through Leila’s insides. She nodded. “I trust that last night’s errand was completed without a problem?”
“It was just fine. Took a while to crank the Door but we did it till it latched.” Leila dug the iron key out of her pocket and handed it over.
Missus Ebony smiled. “I knew I could count on you. Come, let’s get going.”
Leila didn’t start breathing till a second later. Missus Ebony didn’t know yet, but she would soon. Either the factry would send a runner to catch up with the caravan and tell her today, or they’d just let her know when she got back. It was a matter of time. Leila blew on her aching hands and took Bustle’s arm. “Keep close to me.”
For one or two people in a hurry, it would probably only take a few hours to get to the Bazaar, but with all the barrows and wagons, they were guessing it’d take all day—maybe even longer with all the snow coming down. They were gonna have to cross under the train track right between Rittenhouse and Fairmount, and if you went too close toward either one the purebloods would start shooting. Then there was a long stretch with lots of villages and little towns where the people might try to rob them. They had some big men with them but it was still never very safe.
But before all that, there was the Vine.
Leila had gone to the bank of the river before. Even on summer afternoons it was scary, big and wide with a current too strong to swim in. The only way to cross was a long stone bridge, so skinny it was only safe to go over in a single line. If you fell off, the current could push you right out into the bay before you got a chance to swim back to land. And all that was on the best days. By the time they got to the near side of the bridge, the snowfall had turned to a whole blizzard. The river was
huge and black and roaring, with bits of ice breaking off the banks and floating along. The caravan stopped, and a couple guys came over to Missus Ebony and started talking about whether they should keep going or wait or just turn around and try another day. “That bridge has gotta be frozen over,” one insisted. “We go over now, half this stuff is gonna end up in the river.”
“My task is to deliver results, not excuses,” Missus Ebony replied. “We will proceed with due caution, but we will proceed.”
So they went, with one man up front to lead the way before the wagons and Missus Ebony at the back to keep an eye on things. Leila and Bustle went right ahead of her, to feel the way and let her know if there were any icy patches. But when they got onto the bridge, Leila found that it wasn’t icy patches, it was just ice: the whole thing was frozen clean over, the ice buried in half a foot of snow. And the snow was still coming down so hard they were all near blind. There was nothing but white overhead and white underfoot and awful black down below. Between cold and nerves Leila couldn’t stop shaking, and she knew that wasn’t helping much. The snow melted when it landed on her sweater and was starting to soak through. And the whole time she was wondering when someone was gonna catch up to tell Missus Ebony that the shipment didn’t go through the Door.
By the time they were to the middle of the bridge, the first barrows had got to the far side. Missus Ebony was nodding, looking satisfied, and Leila was thinking she should be satisfied in that big warm coat. And then outta nowhere there was a slip and a shout and the barrow right in front of them was tipping toward the edge of the bridge, hanging over the river. The man who had been driving it was pulling his hardest but his feet were sliding too.
Leila ran over to help and almost skidded into him. Bustle was on her other side, and together the three of them pulled, trying to get the barrow steady again. For a sec they almost had it back up, but Leila’s numb hands lost their grip and it was going over again. Two of the sweaters on the top of the load fell out and she watched them come unfolded as they spun down into the river thirty feet below. The barrow was pulling them all the same way. Leila felt her feet sliding on the icy stone.
Missus Ebony was shouting the whole time, but she finally came to help. Her white gloves grabbed onto the barrow, and with her helping it finally started to even out. Leila sighed relief as she pulled. But then something strange and awful came on her and she knew that if she wanted to get her and Bustle to safety, this was her chance. All in the same second she let go, pulled Bustle’s hands off the barrow, and gave it a sharp kick.
She saw that horrible confused look in Missus Ebony’s wide white eyes the moment before she went over. Leila was already stepping back before Missus Ebony and the other man and the barrow fell out of sight. Taking her brother’s hand, she turned and ran.