Cogling (8 page)

A shudder possessed her body. What would her mother say when she learned both Edna and Harrison were missing?

“Nice place,” Ike said. “Now I know why you seem so put together.”

Her father’s gingham shirt stood out against his neck, black with filth. Ike’s boots with the holes in the toes clashed with her father’s starched slacks. The thief didn’t look so bedraggled, though, almost… pleasant.

“Thanks,” Edna muttered.

“It’s better than sleeping in alleys or empty attics. Trust me.”

When he grabbed her hand, leading her to the train station, she forced herself not to pull away. He couldn’t help being unwashed, even if it was raining outside. Since he helped her, he deserved respect.

His touch was warm, almost comforting. That strength in his grip almost made her lean against him.

Ike led her through the bodies crowded around the train station. Edna gaped at the marble pillars supporting the ceiling, which boasted a seascape mural. She’d never been in a room so large before. People and luggage covered the benches. Rope-bound steamer trunks. Belongings bulged from carpetbags. The passengers kept their heads covered with hats or shawls, hunched within coats that swallowed their bodies. Rain glistened on their attire.

“I’ll wait in line, you go check the map. Find the nearest village to the swamp.” Ike nudged her toward the wall across from the entrance. “Should be Wilman.”

Edna wove between the people and stumbled over a basket. Her ears rang with the surge of voices filling the brick room. Squeezing around two men in business suits, she studied the map painted on the wall. So many cities and towns. Her lips parted in awe. All those places existed in the kingdom. The world stretched out, leaving her as small as an ant in a kitchen.

At the top of the map, a blue smear read
The Swamp
. The closest red dot, symbolizing a train station, was Wilman Village. She pushed back to Ike.

After waiting in line for an hour, their turn arrived.

“Two tickets to Wilman,” Ike said.

“One brittin a piece,” the man behind the counter informed them.

Edna sighed as she counted out the coins from her coat pocket beneath the clerk’s scrutiny. Ike handed Edna her ticket and tugged her toward the benches, shoving between two men smoking cigars.

“We have to wait until our train comes in,” Ike said. “Ever ride one before?”

“No, but my father builds railroads.” Edna leaned against the bench, clutching her ticket, and wished someone would tell her if she was insanely naïve for following a complete stranger across the empire on a journey that would take at least five days. It was the only right thing to do, the only way to bring Harrison home.

Ike cracked his knuckles and grinned at the woman sitting on the bench across from him in the train station. She rolled her eyes as if the sound offended her, returning to the knitting in her lap. According to the clock by the ticket booth, the train wasn’t due for another half-hour. Bloody luck.

Edna slid into him sideways and mumbled in her sleep before settling against his shoulder. He stiffened, wondering if it would wake her if he unbuttoned her coat. She’d stored the watch around her neck, under her shirt and vest. If he got her coat open, he could lift the chain; pull out the watch, and bolt.

He could go to the swamp alone.

Ways to confront the hags jumbled through his mind.
I know what you’re doing, I found a cogling watch!
They might care, but only as long as he had a human to tell, someone who would listen. He needed proof, and he would get it at the factory—a cogling that hadn’t been activated yet. He could free some of the children and get them to testify too.

You killed my mother.
Ike narrowed his eyes at the chipped tiles of the floor. He would stop the hags in her memory.

Edna had mentioned going to the king before. Would Ike be welcome there, even with proof? After Ike reached the factory, he would study the current layout. If he could, he would sabotage the equipment, pause their progress, and get away with his cogling and the watch. He could go to the king. Even though he hadn’t considered a plan past reaching the factory, using the monarch as a means to destroy the hags could work.

Ike slid Edna’s top brass button through its hole. Three more and he should have enough room to remove the watch without her stirring.

She wanted her brother back. He wanted to avenge his mother. They both sought to stop the hags.

Ike yanked his hand back and slammed his fist into the bench. He couldn’t leave her behind.

Edna blinked, smacking her lips. “Is the train here?”

“Not yet. Go back to sleep.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll wake you when it comes.”

Simone tugged her hood farther over her head and hurried along the sidewalk. The hem of her cloak dragged through the mud, a mist of rain hanging in the air.

“Hag.” A man in a suit steered his son away from Simone. The boy stared at her with widened eyes. She spotted a copper dream cloud over his head. So, he wanted a new toy. How nice, the father must have been taking his child to the toy store.

Simone bared her teeth although the hood hid her face. Foul human beasts. They took their charms and potions, begged for blessings, and then shunned her.

Maybe the Dark Mother would let her steal that boy next.

She ducked into an alley beside a restaurant. Cats pawed through heaps of fish heads and bones. A tabby darted past her with a silver-scaled tail hanging from its mouth. Simone wrinkled her nose at the rotting stench. Next time the Dark Mother sent her to the fish district, she would wrap a scarf over her face.

A little girl in a tan cape stood on a crate, waving at the felines. “Fuzzy! Come here, kitty.”

“What’s wrong?” Simone wove around the fish guts toward the child.

“I can’t find my cat.” She rubbed her fists over her cheeks, smearing her tears. Simone guessed she couldn’t have been older than five.

“What does he look like?”

“Fuzzy is orange and he’s got a really long tail.” A tangerine dream cloud floated near the girl.

Simone smiled. “I see Fuzzy back there.”

“Where?” The child jumped off the crate. Scales clung to her boots.

“Here.” Simone edged toward the back of the alley.

The little girl ran past her. “Fuzzy!”

The hag pulled a rag and a vial out from inside her cloak. She wet the rag and tucked the vial away. “See him?”

“Fuzzy,” the girl wailed.

Simone slapped the rag over the child’s mouth.

Three minutes later, Simone exited the alley with a bundle in her arms, hidden by the cloak. A cogling, identical to the girl, stepped onto the sidewalk with blank eyes.

This is the path I must follow.

dna fidgeted on the train as the wood dug into her bottom and the seat back bumped her neck. A fly buzzed in her ear and she swatted it away. The stench of soiled diapers paired with the stuffy heat in the car left her head whirling.

A woman with a baby on her rotund lap hunched to Edna’s left. The baby hadn’t stopped fussing. The smell worsened as the train chugged along the tracks and the constant hum beat against Edna’s forehead.

She covered her mouth with her handkerchief. “Is your baby sick, ma’am? Poor thing.”

“I’m really gonna miss my little one.” The woman wrapped a stained quilt around the baby. “There’s a farm that takes in babes from cities. It’s nicer there. My little guy’s come down with an awful cough.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Edna couldn’t recall the baby doing anything other than crying.

“A lot of city people do that,” Ike whispered into Edna’s ear. “They send their babies to farms in the country, and they pay every month to make sure their kid is taken care of.”

What if her family had wanted to do that to heal Harrison’s ear infections? She wouldn’t have let them send her brother away. The darkness surged to her fingertips.

Ike stared at the grubby seat ahead of them. The seats were so close together, his knees bumped. “Other times, the new ‘moms’ kill the baby and keep the money.”

Edna’s eyes bulged. “How
awful
.”

Ike shifted. “Wish you’d brought enough money for first-class.” His elbow bumped the man sitting beside him, who grunted.

“Be thankful we managed tickets at all.” Edna rolled her eyes. “I’m not rich. You should’ve stolen a first-class ticket if you wanted to ride up there so much.”