Storm Child Read online

  Isaac swore as the handcart caught in yet another pothole.

  ‘There are ladies present, you oaf,’ Polly said in a sing-song voice.

  ‘I don’t see no ladies, only you two rough pieces o’ work.’ Polly grinned as Isaac tugged at the cart. ‘You could give me a hand with this,’ he grumbled.

  Annie dropped her basket to the floor and went to the back of the cart to lend her weight.

  ‘That ain’t helping,’ Polly observed. ‘I seen mice weigh more than you.’

  ‘You get round an’ help her, then.’ Isaac frowned at Polly.

  ‘I would,’ she laughed. ‘But I don’t want to make you look like a girl.’

  With a lurch, the cart broke free, the momentum throwing Isaac to the floor. Brushing mud encrusted hay from his coat, he glared at Polly. ‘I know it ain’t much but I ain’t got another one and look at this, it’s covered in dirt now!’

  ‘Ah, stop your whining. ‘I’ll wash it for you later.’ She threw him a sideways glance and twirled an ebony curl around her finger. ‘Maybe I’ll even let you give me a quick cuddle too.’

  The vexation dropped from Isaac’s expression and he grinned. ‘You always say that an’ you never do. You know I’m mad for you, Poll.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But come see me when you’re a man.’

  Isaac puffed out his chest. ‘I’m nearly seventeen.’

  ‘Too young,’ Polly teased and flicked her head towards Annie. ‘Come on, sweet. We can’t stand chopsin’ here all day, we got money to earn.’

  Isaac’s face set into a scowl as he grabbed for the handle of the cart again. Polly slid her arm through Annie’s. ‘Got your basket there?’ Annie held it up. ‘Good girl.’

  Once they had crossed the boundaries of Uxmouth, they headed for the towering stone cross of the market place. The day was bright, the air heavy with the aromas of freshly baked bread, exotic spices, and the sourer tang of horse sweat. The town was vibrant, buzzing with market goers, the clopping of hooves ringing out over the rabble of a myriad conversations and the regular holler of vendors advertising their wares. Polly’s dark eyes were alive with expectation, her head darting constantly as she took in some new sight. Annie clung to her, more subdued, nervously scanning every face that approached.

  ‘What’s up with you, Annie?’ Isaac called as he watched her carefully. ‘You look like you’re scared of seein’ someone you oughtn’t.’

  ‘She ain’t been on market day before, has she?’ Polly called back.

  ‘Can’t she speak?’ Isaac grinned. Polly looked behind and threw him a flirtatious look. ‘Ah, Poll, would you stop doin’ that to me.’

  She shook out her curls and laughed as she faced forwards again. Annie pulled closer, wrapping her arm tightly around Polly’s. ‘Someone in Uxmouth helped you with that baby?’ Polly whispered as she put her head close to Annie’s.

  ‘What you whispering about now?’ Isaac shouted.

  ‘Keep your nose out,’ Polly fired back.

  He put a hand through his long, dark fringe and laughed. ‘I love it when you’re mean, Poll.’

  ‘You should be faintin’ with joy when I come and punch you on the nose.’ Polly turned her attention back to her conversation with Annie. ‘Is that why you’re so scared?’

  Annie turned her wide blue eyes on her. ‘I ain’t scared. Like you said, I ain’t done market day before. So many people, it’s making me nervous, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s just tricks. Ain’t no one goin’ to mind us doin’ a few tricks.’

  ‘Depends who’s watching,’ Annie said as she drew closer.

  Polly narrowed her eyes. ‘What does that mean? You’ve lived her before, ain’t you?’

  Annie hesitated before giving a short nod. ‘I ran away from the Uxmouth workhouse with my sister. There were people there...’

  ‘What? You were scared of ‘em? That’s the workhouse for you, ain’t it? There’s not a one of ‘em with a charitable bone in their body.’

  ‘It weren’t like that… They weren’t just cruel like all the other workhouses…’ Annie sighed. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Well,’ Polly laughed, ‘they ain’t gonna want you back, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘You think so? I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’

  ‘They ain’t gonna want to feed you if someone else is doin’ it. Anyway, you don’t need to be in the workhouse now, do you? You got Ernesto’s roof over your head.’

  Annie seemed to relax and loosened her grip on Polly’s arm. ‘I suppose so.’ But her gaze still darted here and there as she scanned the crowds.

  ‘So it ain’t someone in Uxmouth who helped you get rid of that baby?’ Polly pressed.

  Annie was silent as she continued to look through the crowds. She took a deep breath. ‘I left her on the heath.’

  Polly’s mouth fell open. ‘You left her where?’

  ‘New Forest.’

  ‘What you go and leave her there for?’

  ‘As far away as I could get her from Doctor Black, that’s why.’

  ‘He ain’t gonna hurt her, you know, he just wants the same from her that he gets from us.’

  ‘He doesn’t, I heard him.’

  Polly thought for a moment. ‘She has real magic, don’t she? Is that why you ran away from the workhouse at Uxmouth?’

  Annie nodded. ‘And then we had to go and end up in another one, the one Doctor Black found us in. Magic is why he wants her back.’

  ‘He bought you and she was thrown in. He didn’t know she’s got magic.’

  ‘Not at first. But she did something… by accident… I tried to hide it, I tried so hard…’ Annie’s eyes filled with tears. Polly gave her arm a squeeze and smiled.

  ‘That ain’t it. We ain’t got real magic and he wants us. All he wants is someone to look after his house and earn him money. That’s all he wants Georgina for. Once she’s old enough she’d be turning tricks like us, and nobody would need to know she got magic… it could be our little secret.’

  Annie shook her head. ‘She could make him a lot of money, not like what we bring him.’

  ‘What did you hear him say?’

  ‘Oi, you two gossips!’ Isaac shouted as he ground to a halt with the cart. ‘Are you helping today or swapping recipes?’

  Polly frowned, vexed that she had come so close to gaining Annie’s trust to be interrupted at the crucial moment. ‘Ruddy ‘ell, Isaac, can’t you do anything by yourself?’

  ‘We’re supposed to do this together. That’s why you come.’

  Annie placed her basket on the floor and went over to the cart, signalling to Polly that the conversation was at an end. Polly stuck her tongue out at Isaac.

  ‘Not very ladylike,’ he grinned.

  ‘Never said I was.’

  ‘Here, Annie, I’ll put the table out and you lay the cloth,’ Isaac directed.

  As they began to unpack items from the cart, curious passers-by began to stop and watch them. The crowd gradually increased, and by the time the trio were ready to begin, about thirty people awaited their performance with interest.

  Isaac put on his most winning smile and addressed the audience. ‘Who likes a bit of magic?’ Three or four young women giggled. Isaac turned to them and bowed, flashing them a wink which made them practically hysterical. ‘Let us delight and entertain you with our mystical gifts –’

  ‘Mystical gifts?’ a man from the back heckled, ‘The state of you three, it looks like you’ve had some mystical dinners!’

  A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd and Isaac waited, unperturbed, for it to end.

  ‘The magician’s mind must be a clear one, sir,’ Isaac replied. ‘To study our art, we must be pure of body and spirit.’ He turned his attention on the group of young women once more. ‘So no scoffing meat pies when the wife ain’t looking.’

  The hysterical giggles erupted again and the man who had heckled could be seen pushing his way out of the crowd to leave.
r />   Isaac scanned the onlookers and spotted a young girl at the front, around seven years old or so, clinging to her mother’s hand, rapt. He squatted down to her level. ‘I bet you like pretty white doves, don’t ya?’ She nodded eagerly. Standing up, he took a satiny top hat from the table and placed it on his head at a jaunty angle. ‘See this hat?’ he said to the girl, loud enough that everyone could hear. She nodded again, her eyes wide, the frost biting through her thin shoes forgotten. ‘If it’s on my head, then there can’t be a bird in it, can there?’ He removed the hat and showed the inside to the crowd, doing a twirl as he did. Polly stifled a guffaw and he flashed her a wink. ‘Everyone agrees that this ‘ere hat is empty?’

  There was more giggling from the crowd and then a gasp as Isaac reached into the hat and then into the air, setting the dove free to circle the crowd once before climbing over the rooftops of the city and disappearing. Clapping began as a slow ripple but then spread into enthusiastic applause as Isaac bowed and placed the top hat onto the ground in front of him. ‘Now then, me and my good lady friends here,’ he gestured to Annie and Polly, ‘will be performing some more tricks for your delight and delectation.’ He grinned. ‘And if you want to chuck us a copper or two while we’re at it we’d be much obliged.’

  As the crowd dispersed, an hour or so later, Polly retrieved the hat, now heavy with coins.

  ‘A good day here,’ she said, rattling it.

  ‘Yeah, Ernesto should be happy tonight.’

  ‘He ain’t ever happy,’ Polly replied.

  ‘He’s lucky we don’t keep it for ourselves,’ Isaac huffed as he lugged the table back to the cart.

  ‘He’d set the wolves on us in a heartbeat,’ Polly said carelessly.

  ‘He ain’t got no wolves,’ Isaac shot Polly a loaded glance, noting Annie’s hands shake as she packed some wooden balls into her basket.

  ‘Keeps ‘em locked up, though,’ Polly added, glancing at Annie now.

  Annie looked up for a moment, and then bent her head back to the basket.

  ‘Wolves or no,’ Polly said as she kneeled down next to the younger girl, ‘beats the workhouse, don’t it?’

  Annie nodded uncertainly.

  The sun was beginning to set as they dragged the cart back onto the road out of Uxmouth. The walk was slower than it had been going there, all of them beginning to tire now. Annie was silent, her arm linked with Polly who threw back the odd flippant remark to Isaac every now and again. He would laugh and return one of his own; an easy banter between two people who had shared secrets and hardships that no one else could ever begin to understand. As the city grime gave way to open heathland, Polly’s thoughts turned to the baby again.

  ‘Was it nearby?’ she asked Annie in a low voice.

  ‘No.’ Annie replied, not needing to ask what she meant.

  Polly stared into the distance, squinting down the track as the sun blazed gold just above the horizon, making the brackens look as though they were on fire. She shivered and pulled her coat more tightly around her, a plume of steam rolling from her mouth as she spoke again. ‘Must have been cold out there for the little ‘un. Hope you wrapped her good an’ warm.’

  ‘Someone took her in. She weren’t out for long.’

  ‘Was a bad storm that night, weren’t there?’

  ‘I made sure she was alright. When I went back the next day she’d gone, basket an’ all.’

  ‘Could have been wild animals took her? There’s wolves loose out there, Parson’s wife told me a week ago.’

  Annie shook her head vehemently. ‘It weren’t. They wouldn’t have her basket an’ all, would they?’

  Polly shrugged. ‘Just sayin, you sure you done the right thing by her? It seems awful extreme just to get her away from Ernesto. What’s so bad about him wanting her to live with us? I know he’s scary sometimes, but there are worse out there.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’

  ‘All the more reason to keep her close then, I’d have thought.’

  Annie was about to reply when there was a cry from behind. They turned to see Isaac crumple to the floor and a man waving a cudgel menacingly at them.

  ‘Give us that money!’ he growled.

  Annie screamed and ran to Isaac, who was motionless on the ground.

  ‘I said give us that money!’ the man repeated.

  ‘What money?’ Polly pouted. ‘Do we look like we got money?’ she asked, pulling at the hem of her shabby jacket.

  ‘Don’t play innocent with me, missy. I saw how much them folks at Uxmouth threw into that hat. Hand it over.’ He gritted his teeth and raised his weapon as if to strike again.

  ‘Hit me, then.’ Polly folded her arms. ‘You’ll never get it that way.’

  ‘Righto,’ he scoffed, and then turned his attention to Annie, who was still kneeling by Isaac’s unconscious form and watching the exchange with wide eyes. ‘I’ll beat your little friend black and blue, then I’ll finish off your young buck, here.’

  Polly scowled. She sighed and rummaged under the covering sheet of the cart before tossing the man a leather bag.

  ‘Just so you know,’ she shouted as he walked away, grinning. ‘It’s cursed money that is. I hope you get what’s comin’ to you an’ all!’

  Six

  There was a moment where nobody spoke and the hall was filled with a silence so heavy you could almost hold it. Charlotte held her breath and stared, first at the baby, then at her mother, who slowly drew the baby back to the safety of her bosom.

  ‘Mrs Brown…’she began, ‘would you let Mr Finch know that we will be taking care of this little girl after all.’ She said this, almost as if she couldn’t believe her words herself, as if someone was talking through her.

  Mrs Brown stared at all three of them, and then with an impatient click of her tongue, spun round to leave them. ‘I’m sure you can see yourselves out. Good day to you, Mrs Harding,’ she called behind, her voice growing smaller as she retreated into the house. ‘Have no fear, I’m certain that little monster will find her way back to us eventually….’

  ‘Good day. And sorry for….’ Charlotte’s mother didn’t get to finish, as Mrs Brown had already left them alone in the high-walled lobby. ‘Well,’ she turned to Charlotte, with an expression that showed she was still surprised at the strange turn of events, ‘I suppose we’d better get back. We’ve a long walk and it promises to be dark before teatime today.’

  They crept out from the vast sandstone house, shutting the front door with a heavy clunk behind them.

  Later, the three of them were gathered round the warm embers of the kitchen fire eating their supper of bread and the jam Charlotte’s mother had made from the last of the summer’s strawberries.

  ‘I suppose,’ began Charlotte’s mother, looking at the baby thoughtfully, ‘we should give her a name.’

  ‘She could be an Agnes.’ Charlotte suggested.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t look like a Jane either.’

  ‘Erm…Hildegard?’

  ‘Goodness, no!’ Charlotte’s mother laughed. ‘That’s the name of my horrid old maiden aunt – where on earth did you find that one?’

  ‘I don’t know, really I don’t. It just popped into my head.’

  ‘Well, please un-pop it immediately.’

  Charlotte grinned up at her mother. But then her face was crossed by a troubled shadow. They might never know who had left the little girl out in the storm. That didn’t worry her. What worried her was that whoever it was might come back. What worried her was what else may come from out of the darkness.

  Seven

  Isaac slowly opened his eyes with a groan.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Polly said, putting a hand on his chest. ‘Wait until the world stops spinning.’

  ‘How did you know?’ he croaked as he closed his eyes again.

  ‘You think I never had a clout round the head before?’

  ‘What happened
?’

  ‘We got robbed, that’s what.’

  He opened his eyes again. ‘We got robbed?’

  ‘You didn’t see him?’ Annie asked, dragging the cover from the cart. ‘He’ll be cold,’ she said in answer to Polly’s questioning look as she draped it over him and tucked it around his body.

  ‘We’ll all be cold if we don’t get moving,’ Polly replied, casting a glance at the orange ball of the sun, now slipping below a distant line of skeletal trees.

  Isaac threw one leg over the other to get up.

  ‘We got five minutes,’ Polly said, pushing him back. If you stand up now you’ll only go and fall down again so you might as well stay where you are.’

  ‘Doctor Black will be angry when we go home with no money,’ Annie said.

  ‘Ol’ Ernie? He will at that,’ Polly agreed.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go back,’ Annie whispered, scanning the heath nervously, as though the ferns and bracken were listening to them.

  ‘That would be very much worse,’ Polly said, her voice deadly serious now. ‘Wouldn’t it, Isaac?’ She looked down at him but he didn’t reply. His eyes were closed; his arms limp by his sides once more. ‘Isaac?’ she nudged him. ‘Heaven help us, he’s only gone again.’

  ‘I’m here…’ he mumbled. ‘Wassermarrer…’

  ‘You’re the matter, you great lump. Fancy getting yourself a crack on the head. Talk about knight in shining armour. More like damsel in distress.’ It was then that Polly noticed him trembling. She sighed and began to unbutton her coat.

  ‘You’ll freeze!’ Annie squeaked.

  ‘Not half as quick as him lying there,’ she grimaced as she wrapped the extra layer around Isaac. ‘Give it another half an hour or so, and we’ll have to try an’ get him on the cart an’ drag him back if he don’t look like he can walk it.’

  Annie hugged herself and shivered. ‘Last time I was here I heard wolves.’

  ‘Polly narrowed her eyes. ‘Was it just here you left your sister?’

  ‘Not here, no…’

  ‘Why don’t you trust me?’ Polly held her gaze until Annie pulled away and stared down at her hands.

  ‘It ain’t that,’ she said awkwardly, ‘it’s just that…’