City of Lies - Lian Tanner [12]
“You’re supposed to be dead,” whispered Goldie. “You died in the Great Storm.”
Guardian Hope smiled and pulled a thin silver chain from the pocket of her robes. She held it up to the light. Then she began to thread it, bit by bit, between Goldie’s ribs and around her heart.…
Goldie opened her mouth to cry out—and just in time remembered where she was. She bit the inside of her cheek until the dream faded, and leaned back in the narrow doorway. It was almost morning, and all around her the streets of Spoke were waking up.
The Piglet had made landfall the night before, after three days at sea. They had been a dreadful three days. From dawn to dusk, Goldie hid in the dinghy, with nothing to eat except some hard biscuits that she found under the seat, along with a sealed jar of water. In the evenings, she watched helplessly as Smudge carried her friends up on deck, fed them, took them to the stinking toilet in the stern, then drugged them again and carried them back below.
At night she slipped out of the dinghy, stretching her aching limbs and wishing that she could steal some of the two men’s food. But she dared not do anything that might betray the presence of a third child on board the Piglet.
When at last they had sailed into Spoke Harbor and Goldie saw its dim outline, looking exactly as it did in the engravings, she could hardly believe it. She had imagined that she and her friends were being carried somewhere so far away and so strange that they would never find their way home again. But here they were, still on the Faroon Peninsula, a few hundred miles down the coast from Jewel!
Her spirits rose. And when Cord and Smudge loaded Toadspit’s and Bonnie’s limp bodies onto a horse-drawn cart and drove off into the city, she grabbed a useful-looking coil of rope from the deck and followed them.
Although it was late, the footpaths of Spoke were crammed with people. Goldie dodged past them, trying not to lose the cart. Up the narrow streets she went, and away from the harbor, until the smell of the sea was left behind and the houses crowded around her like curious aunts.
The cart stopped halfway up a hill, outside a bread shop. The shop appeared to be closed, but when Cord rapped sharply on the door, a light came on. Goldie caught her breath. Was she about to see the mysterious Harrow?
But whoever came to the door did not show themselves. Instead, Smudge carried the children into the shop; then he and Cord came out and drove away. The door shut behind them. The light went out.
Goldie sank back onto the nearest step and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her friends were still unconscious, so she could do nothing tonight except keep watch—and make sure that she was not seen by whoever was in the bread shop.
In the doorway opposite, something moved. Goldie froze, wondering if Harrow had set guards up and down the street. But then she heard a young boy grunt drowsily, and a bare foot slid out and rested on the cobblestones, as limp as old cabbage.
Goldie peered into the shadows. She couldn’t see anything much of the boy, except that he was ragged, filthy and fast asleep. In fact, now that she looked more closely, several other doorways were also occupied by sleeping children, some of them alone, some in pairs.
After three days and nights in the Piglet’s dinghy, Goldie was nearly as dirty as the boy opposite. She settled back against the door and rested her head on her knees, hoping that anyone who saw her would think she was just another homeless girl, trying to keep out of the wind.
She meant to stay awake. But although she was hungry and the step beneath her was hard, she was so tired that she fell asleep almost straightaway.
She had wild and terrible dreams. Pa crawled up the hill toward her, chased by something she couldn’t bear to look at. Ma wept droplets of blood. Guardian Hope threaded the silver chain through her ribs and around her heart, over and over