Ash & Bramble (18 page)

“Please.” His voice is urgent.

I wish I could tell him.

But I can't. Something about this is wrong; I can
feel
it. It's too sudden.

Come on, Pen.
Think
. “Do you know Lady Faye?” I blurt out.

“Of course. Have you met her?”

I ignore his question. “Did she send you here? Did she tell you to find me?” Is this another one of her traps?

“No,” he says slowly. “I think we were meant to meet. Don't you feel it too?”

Yes. No. I don't know. I am light-headed from hunger and exhaustion and I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or how to do what I'm not supposed to do.

The only thing I can think of is to run.

I push away from the table and stumble toward the door.

Behind me, he gets to his feet; one of his dogs barks. “Wait!” he calls after me.

But too late. I slip out the door and into the street, where it is dark and I can make my escape.

When I get home, I am immediately sent to my attic prison without any dinner, as punishment for forgetting the potatoes. Exhausted, I curl on the lumpy mattress and wrap my arms around myself, ready to fall asleep at once.

But I can't stop thinking about him. The velvet-voiced young man in the tea shop, who asks me questions that I cannot answer.

M
ORE CUSTOMERS HAVE COME TO THE SHOP TO ORDER
shoes made especially for them by elves. There is going to be a ball at the castle, they say, and everyone wants dancing slippers to match their ball gowns. Those that wear these wonderful elf-made shoes, it is said, will never get a blister on a heel or feel a pinched toe or have sore feet, not even if they dance until the clock strikes midnight.

Grimly, Natters takes their orders and their coins, glares at Shoe, and goes upstairs to dinner and bed, leaving Shoe to work late into the night by candlelight.

Shoe is stitching a seam along the edge of a slipper-sole when he hears a
tap-tap-tap
at the shop door. He puts out the candle and holds his breath.

Tap-tap-tap
, and then another louder
tap-tap
.

In the near-darkness, Shoe feels his way across the shop to the door, where he stands, the silence pressing against his ears.

“Yer Lor'ship,” comes a muffled voice from outside.

Spanner. Quickly Shoe goes back to the workbench and relights the candle, then unlocks the door and pulls the ratcatcher into the shop. “What's the matter?” he whispers.

Spanner smells of sweat and of something rancid that might be dead rat. He shakes his wild-haired head. “Your girl, Pin,” he answers. “She's in a pile of trouble.”

Shoe nods. “I know she is. I'm trying to figure a way to get her out of it.” He doesn't have much time left, either. He's caught enough whispers from the people on Shoemaker Street to know that Spanner is right. Trouble is coming.

“Your Pin is living in that big house right enough,” Spanner goes on. “But she's not a fine lady like I thought. Them other fine ladies that live there, they're treating her bad, like.”

In his chest, Shoe's heart gives a lurch. “Bad how?”

“Somebody's laid hands on her,” Spanner says with a frown. “That stepmother of hers I guess. Her face is all swelled up. An' I didn't notice before 'cos I doesn't usually notice such things as that, but her dress isn't so fine, neither, and she looks half starved.” He rubs his nose. “I know that look, I does.”

“I know it too,” Shoe says darkly. “I should have tried to get her out before this.”

“Nothing you can do about it, Shoe,” Spanner says.
“There's no getting into that house for you, and the servants isn't talking. Most of 'em wouldn't be no help anyway.”

“I'll figure out a way,” Shoe says. He reaches out and grasps Spanner's hunched shoulder. “Thanks for your help with this. I'll return the favor any time you say.”

“Aye, I know you will,” Spanner says.

“And, look.” He suspects that Spanner is an important person in the city's network of people who are aware of the Godmother's power. “Put out the word with
them that knows
. That trouble you're waiting for. It's coming soon.”

“Right-o,” Spanner says with a nod. “Will do.”

Shoe gives him a handful of coins from Natters's workbench and opens the door so the ratcatcher can slip out into the night, then he locks the door again. Worried, he paces. When he grips Pin's thimble, he can almost feel it, like a low thunder at the edge of his hearing. He
has
to get Pin out of whatever she's tangled up in. It may already be too late.

After a while, he goes back to work at the bench, steadying his shaking hands so he can make shoes so fine only elves could have crafted them.

In the morning, Natters shakes him awake from where he's fallen asleep with his head on the workbench.

“The shoes are finished,” Shoe says, his voice creaky.

“I can see that well enough,” Natters says. “Come and have some breakfast.”

Yawning, Shoe follows him up to the kitchen, where the Missus puts bowls of porridge on the table before them.

“There's bacon and egg to come,” she says in her piping voice. “Eat up.”

By the time he's drunk a cup of tea and eaten half a bowl of the porridge with goat milk, Shoe has woken up enough to put two thoughts together in his head. “Natters,” he says, setting down his spoon. “Missus Natters. There's something that I have to do.”

At the table, Natters nods; the Missus gets up from her chair and goes to lean against him; he puts an arm around her wide hips.

Shoe rubs his eyes, weary. What he's planning will put them in danger; it'll draw attention that they don't want, and it might break their hearts, too. How can he consider doing such a thing?

“Go on, lad,” Natters prompts.

“No, I can't,” Shoe mutters to himself. “I'll figure out another way to do it.”

“Your girl,” the Missus puts in unexpectedly. “Pin's her name?”

Shoe looks up. “Yes. Pin.”

“How long did you know her before she got caught up in this?” the Missus asks. Her bright eyes are sharp.

With a shock, Shoe realizes that he and Pin were together for only a few days. He's been working here in the shop for longer than that. “Not very long,” he admits. “But she saved me. We escaped together. She knows me, and I know her
better than I've ever known anyone.” Which is true, as far as he can remember, because his Before is still lost to him. “She's brave, and smart, and sharp, and she's beautiful too, and she laughs at irony.” And then he adds, “If there's ever an expected thing to do, she'll do the opposite.”

“Does she love you?” the Missus asks.

Shoe rests his elbows on the table and puts his head in his hands. “Maybe,” he says, his voice muffled. “Probably not. I don't know.”

There is a silence. When he looks up, the Missus has gone back to her seat and she and Natters are having one of their conversations where neither of them says anything.

After a moment, Natters gives a resigned shrug. “All right, Missus, if you think so.”

“I do,” the Missus says, and gives a satisfied nod. “We'll do what we can to help you, Shoe. What is it you're planning?”

“I have to get into the house where Pin is living and try to get her out of there. But the Godmother has plans for her, so it might be dangerous.” Shoe pauses. The Missus gives an impatient nod, and so he goes on. “This is what I'm thinking. Natters, you're the most famous shoemaker in the city right now. The orders are coming in faster than we can fill them.”

“It's the prince's ball up at the castle,” Natters puts in.

“Right.” Shoe nods. “There are fine ladies living at the house where Pin is, and they'll probably be invited to this
ball, and they'll want the best, elf-made dancing shoes.” He'll try to keep Natters out of it if he can. “If I tell them I'm taking orders for your shop—”

“—They'll not let you in the door,” Natters interrupts.

“They might,” Shoe argues.

“Natters is right,” the Missus puts in. “They won't let a servant in to see the ladies. He's the shop owner; it'll have to be him that gets you in.”

W
HILE
I
SCRUB POTS IN THE LATE-AFTERNOON KITCHEN,
I think about the tea shop man. I only caught glimpses of his face, but I'd know him again if I saw him. I'd recognize his chocolate-smooth voice and easy smile.

I wonder if he is thinking about me, the snappish girl with the bag of potatoes and the black eye and the enormous appetite for pastries.

Oh, he probably isn't. He's handsome and obviously rich; it's likely enough he's got beautiful girls like Dulcet and Precious flinging themselves at him. Why would he look twice at a wretch like me?

But I am his mystery girl. We shared something, there in the tea shop. Maybe he
is
thinking about me.

“Pen,” a housemaid interrupts.

I look up. “Yes?” It's Anna.

She holds out a bucket with a brush and a rag in it and a jar of brass polish. “I've got the table to set for dinner. Would you do the hearth in the downstairs blue drawing room?”

“Yes, all right.” I set down my scrubbing brush and dry my chapped, reddened hands on my increasingly stained and ragged dress. Taking the bucket, I trudge up the stairs from the kitchen and down the hallway.

I go into the drawing room. My stepsisters are there with two other people, tradesmen of some kind, I guess, a tall, bent old man wearing a leather apron, and a boy about my age holding a wooden toolbox; he's the old man's servant, evidently.

As I come into the door, the younger one gives a start and his eyes widen. He stares at me as I cross the room to the hearth. Giving him a little frown, I set down the bucket and go to my knees, pulling the grate out of the ashes.

“No, no, Dulcie,” Precious is saying patiently. “You can't wear brown slippers with a blue dress to the prince's ball. Hm.” She pauses. “Silver would be lovely, though.” She looks at the tall old man, who is holding a set of metal calipers and a measuring tape. “Can the elves who work in your shop do them in silver, Shoemaker?”

“Yes,” the old shoemaker says. “They can.”

Keeping my head down, I get on with my work, scrubbing the ash from the grate, then using the rag to apply the brass polish. Behind me, the shoemaker is slowly measuring each of Dulcet's stocking-clad feet, and then Precious's. I polish
the brass grate until it shines, and then I gather up my brush and my rag and my bucket and leave the room.

The shoemaker's servant follows me into the hallway.

“Pin,” he whispers.

I stop and turn. He is about my height, slim and straight. He's got one of those thin-skinned faces that show every blush. Something about that bothers me, though he's quite good-looking, too. “You're mistaken,” I tell him. “My name is Penelope.”

He frowns. His green eyes are very serious. “You don't remember me.”

“I have never seen you before in my life,” I say. The bucket is heavy, and I set it on the floor between us.

“Yes you have.”

“No I haven't,” I insist. Talking to him is making my head hurt, and that makes me snappish. “And I didn't like you staring at me like that, either.”

“Pin, it's me,” the young man says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Shoe. Do you really not remember?”

“Oh, you're
Shoe
?” I say. “You're the one who sent the message with the ratcatcher.” I narrow my eyes, suspicious. “What do you know about my thimble?”

“You don't remember,” the young man named Shoe mutters, as if talking to himself. His face has gone rather alarmingly pale.

“I don't remember a lot of things,” I say impatiently. “Now, what about the thimble?”

He blinks. “I've got it here.” He puts his hand into his coat pocket and brings out my thimble.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, and reach out to take it from him.

He closes his hand around it. “You gave it to me, Pin,” he says seriously.

“Pen,” I correct. “Penelope.
Lady
Penelope, actually. And I didn't. You must have stolen it.” It's the only explanation, because I never would have given my thimble away to anyone.

“No, I—” There is the sound of a door opening from down the hallway, and he lowers his voice. “Pin, you have to get out of this house,” he says urgently.

Well, I know that perfectly well. But what has it to do with him? “I think you should give me the thimble—
my
thimble—and go away,” I say.

“Will you come with me now?” he asks, holding out his hand.

“No,” I say, and take a step away. He tries to follow and trips over the bucket I'd put down between us, lurching into me; we both stagger back until I bump into the wall, and he bumps into me. We stand there nose to nose for a moment, panting. I feel the length of his body, pressed against mine.

“Pin,” he breathes.

“Pen,” I tell him.

“Pin,” he repeats.

“Oh, you are stubborn, aren't you?” I say.

As an answer, he leans closer and his lips brush against mine. A kiss. I am so surprised by it that I can't move. The kiss deepens. My lips tingle and warmth spreads through me, and I savor it, the touch of another person when I've been alone for so, so long. I close my eyes. Somehow my arms have gotten around his neck and I am kissing him back.

At that moment a door slams, and I look over Shoe's shoulder to see my stepmother coming down the hallway in full sail.

“Oh, curse it,” I mutter, and shove him away from me. He stumbles back and trips over the bucket again, landing sprawled on the floor before Stepmama.

“
What
are you doing?” she shrills. “Penelope!”

Shoe's face is scarlet, and he scrambles to his feet.

“You
slut
,” Stepmama says, kicking the bucket aside and bearing down on me. “Carrying on in the hallway with a”—she looks Shoe up and down, sees his raggedly cut hair and his shapeless coat—“with a common servant. I might have expected it!” She raises her hand to strike.

Shoe steps in front of me, holding up his arm to block the blow.

Stepmama's face turns red and she looks as if she might explode.

Then the shoemaker pokes his head from the drawing room.

Stepmama lowers her hand quickly and draws herself up, but continues to glare past Shoe at me.

It's all I can do to lean against the wall and try to catch my breath.

“Shoe,” the old shoemaker says, “I'm finished with the measurements. Come along now.”

Shoe has gone pale again. He turns to me. “I'm very sorry,” he blurts, backing away, and he takes the wooden toolbox from the shoemaker and they go down the hallway and out of the house.

I, of course, am given the usual punishment.

Only tonight, as I curl on the mattress of my prison room, my cheek throbbing with a new bruise, faint with hunger and aching with weariness, I think about Shoe, a mystery himself, who stole my thimble and who calls me by the wrong name and who is so sure he knows me, even though I am absolutely certain that he does not.

And as I am falling asleep, my thoughts drift to the velvet-voiced tea shop man. I feel the gentle touch of his fingers on my face. I want to see him again. Somehow I know that I will. Our next meeting has a kind of inevitability about it.