Cogling (13 page)

The slap came so fast she didn’t see it. Her head reeled, cheek stinging.

“I don’t keep you to be clumsy and wasteful.” Augusta yanked the jug away. “That boy did the same thing earlier. I shouldn’t have bought the two of you. No good klutzes, the pair. Where is that lad? He’ll show you where the spare clothes are kept. Ah, there he is.
Boy
.” She waved Ike over. “This girl’s as clumsy as you. Take her to the dorms to change, and be quick.” Augusta shoved Edna toward him. Her soaked dress sloshed, rivulets of gin dripping down her legs.

“Sure.” Ike smiled at the woman, showing his teeth, and narrowed his eyes at Edna. “Come on. We have to get back to work.”

Augusta’s gaze burned Edna’s back as Ike led her through a door near the pantry, revealing a staircase. Ike shut the door behind her, extinguishing their light.

“We need a lamp.” Edna rubbed her throbbing cheek. “I keep tasting blood.”

“I found windows at the top. Let your eyes adjust for now.” Ike squeezed her hand. “Does it hurt too much?”

She extracted her hand. “I’m fine.” She could survive a slap. She wouldn’t be weak while Harrison suffered.

“We’re going to climb through the windows using the ladder.”

“The windows will be nailed shut or painted over, like in the workhouses. Augusta won’t want people escaping.” She followed him up the creaking steps. Her skirt clung to her legs.

“Most people who work here are foundlings. They don’t mind it. Warm place, roof overhead, food at mornin’, and they even get clothes.” At the top of the stairs, Ike turned to the right, down a hallway lined with doors. Anyone could lurk in those rooms, ready to seize the ladder and drag them back to work.

“Do you think hags are waiting for us? They might know what we’re planning. They might know I’m after Harrison.”

“Shhh.” He shook his head.

The hairs on her arms lifted, and the evil crept away from her core toward her extremities. “Where does the window lead?”

Ike opened a door, displaying a closet with shelves and built-in drawers. He grabbed a clean white dress and threw it at her. “An alley. It’s the best chance to get out of here. I was talking to people and they said Jimmy used to work in the kitchen, before Annie’s pa bought him off Augusta. That’s how he knew a ladder would work, I reckon.”

“I told you Jimmy could be trusted.” Edna stepped into the closet, closed the door to a crack, and changed her clothes. The wet cotton stuck to her body, so she found a towel to dry off on, and tossed the soiled pile aside. The pine stench of gin lingered.

She had to trust Ike, as she’d trusted Jimmy, as she trusted the seven Saints to light her path.

When she emerged from the closet, Ike grabbed her hand and she smiled. It came upon her, that gladness, so fast she blinked. The evil dissipated as if it had never started growing.

“I’m glad I’m not alone in this.” Her throat tightened. “I’ve got you and Jimmy.” Before, Harrison kept the evil away. Ike did now.

He pulled her to the last door on the left and opened it to a long room lined with metal bunk beds.

“This here’s the dorm for the older workers.” He pulled the ladder out from underneath the closest bunk and she followed him to the window at the end of the room. “Help me work this open.”

Clouds hid the moon and stars, casting the damp night into blackness. The sill felt cold and rough against her palms. Edna gritted her teeth as she forced her weight against it, straining on her toes.
Is that really freedom hovering an inch away?
For Harrison, she could become the strongest fifteen year old alive.

Next to her, Ike grunted. The window snapped open and he wiggled it. “All right, it won’t fall.” He threw one end of the ladder out and carried the other end to the closest bunk, tying it to a leg.

“The alley’s awful dark. I can’t see anything out there.” She shivered as cold air washed over her. No, hags didn’t know what she planned. They weren’t waiting to snatch her. “We’re gonna freeze out there. Augusta’s got our warm clothes and money.”

Ike tugged the ladder. “I’ll go first. Wait until I whistle and then you climb down.”

Her eyes widened as Ike grabbed the rope and swung over the windowsill. His head disappeared down the side of the building. Edna leaned over to watch him descend. Her heartbeat increased, pushing that evil back into her conscousness. She’d never climbed anything other than stairs before. Could she do it, or would she fall? She couldn’t help Harrison if she broke her limbs.

Ike’s whistle filtered through the darkness. Edna drew a deep breath.

The rope felt sharp and thick beneath her palms. She grasped the rough windowsill, struggling to swing her legs over in the dress’s tight skirt. She slipped and gasped, tightening her hands on the rung.
One step, two steps…
Her legs wobbled like jelly. Edna squeezed her eyes shut, feeling for the next rung with her foot, and the next, the brick wall scraping her knuckles and knees.

Ike’s arms fastened around her and he plucked her off the ladder. She gasped, writhing, and he held her tighter, as if he truly cared about her safety. “You’re off. Mind if I hold your hand while we run?”

She shook her head. “Don’t let go.”

He pulled her down the alley. Their breath pulsed from their lungs, echoing off the walls.

You might think you can change it.

can’t do this!” Pain stitched through Edna’s side. Gasping, she fell to her knees in the ferns and her hand slipped from Ike’s. Moonlight filtered through the branches above their heads, swimming amongst the forest’s trees with a spooky glow, as though ghosts watched their plight.

Ike grabbed her under the armpits to hike her up, but she sagged against him. “I hate being this weak! I should’ve walked to work. Why’d I always take the trolley?”

With her in his arms, Ike sank to the ground. “Edna, I know you’re tired, but we can’t stop. They might come after us. The gin house already paid Annie’s father.” He massaged her shoulders as if it would give her strength.

“We’re not slaves. Odds bobs, this can’t be real!” She gasped for breath. “I only need to rest a few seconds, I promise.”

His shoulder brushed her chin. Goose bumps prickled her skin and her stomach fluttered at his closeness. She’d never been around an older boy so much. “We left everything back there. We don’t have any money. It’s night, and by the seven Saints, we’re in the middle of a forest. How do we know a wolf isn’t gonna spring out?” They couldn’t help her brother if they were dead.

“I know where we’re going.” He patted her back.

She jerked away to stare at his shadowed face. “How can you know? You might be in charge of finding Harrison, but that doesn’t make you a genius. We have to question everything, for Harrison’s sake. Nothing can go wrong.”

“I saw a map at the train station.” He pulled her up and brushed debris off her arms, her skin so cold his fingers felt like blades. “We’re almost to Roberson Glen, and I got family there.”

“You have family, but you live on the street?” The evil ticked her nerves–it sensed a lie in him. Edna tried to wet her lips, but her tongue was too dry. Her lips stuck to her front teeth. At least the evil stayed at bay, a nasty little reprieve from burning through her entire body.

“Not close family. I’d never go move in with them, ‘cause they don’t have much, but they’ll help. This way.” His teeth flashed in a grin and he lifted a brass compass from his sash. “I stole this off a customer at the gin house. I don’t know how much longer, but we’re bound to come across a stream if we keep heading east. We’ll get a drink and rest there.”

Not a liar then, just a thief. Edna sighed as the evil faded. “Bloody immoral.”
May the seven Saints protect me from sin.

A cottage with a thatched roof rose from the forest. Shutters covered the windows, dark and hollow. Since it was his family, she would let him go first. They might ignore callers at night.

Edna hung back until she spotted a well. Finally, water. “Ike, I need a drink of water.” The river they’d stopped at hadn’t quenched her thirst, leaving her lips chapped. As Ike strolled to the door, she grasped the well’s wooden handle, but no bucket hung from the metal hook. Scowling, she stepped away. Behind her, Ike knocked. Perhaps the occupants wouldn’t answer, thinking they were criminals. Well, he was, but she wasn’t. If Ike thought they couldn’t get in, he wouldn’t have suggested it.

A barn peeked over the two-story cottage and a woodpile was stacked near a shed, with more cut logs in a wheelbarrow. Eyes flashed near the chopping block. Edna gasped, pressing her hand over her heart.

“Ike…” The words trailed off as the skunk blinked. Just that, then. Not too dangerous, albeit odorous. She held herself still until the stout animal waddled across the lawn into the forest. If they’d been at an estate, there would’ve been one-room tomtar shacks far back from the main house.

The front door swung open and a man’s voice boomed from the candlelit interior: “Who knocks at midnight?”

“It’s Ike. I come like they did.”

The man stood outlined in yellow, the light spilling across Ike. “So you do.” The man stepped aside and bowed his head. Pockmarks marred his cheeks, and veins covered his bulbous nose.She tried to find a resemblance to Ike in him, but this man was pudgy where Ike was lean and muscled; they both had black hair, but where Ike’s was thick, the man’s hair seemed thin, stringy.

Edna folded her arms, shivering as a cold breeze blew up her skirt. What odd things to say. Could they be speaking in code? Family didn’t nod to each other in Moser City. Maybe Ike lied about them being blood related. If they weren’t, would they still help? The man had moved so they could enter. That had to be a positive sign.

Ike held out his hand to her. “Here’s my friend, Edna.”

Keeping her arms folded, Edna crossed the yard into the cottage. The main room smelled of cinnamon. A table with split-log benches adorned the middle of the floor, across from a cold hearth. A woman stood beside it tossing in a log. She didn’t look up until the man shut the door.

“I didn’t expect you, Ike.” She straightened. Like the man, her face had been scarred from the pox. Edna wondered why she didn’t use cosmetics from a hag to make herself pretty. Maybe that wasn’t important in the woods, where neighbors lived far apart.