Finding You Page 8

  “Why not?” I snap, still irritated with her.

  Jewel grins. “They’re fine if you hold yer nose.”

  Just when I’ve chewed long enough to try to swallow, Jewel tells me about the snails they come from, and it’s too much. I choke and spit the slimy substance back into my bowl, and both Caddy and Jewel laugh.

  “They ain’t that bad.”

  “I’ll wait for tomorrow’s dinner, I think.” I’m not the only one.

  * * *

  For the next hour or so, Caddy tells stories of their escapades at the orphanage, while Jewel embellishes them. We ignore Robbie’s heavy gaze and the rumblings of our stomachs, and for a long, sweet moment, the horror of everything seems to pause.

  But then the door, the awful door at the top of the stairs, opens. Soldiers appear, with Des between them. They throw him into his cell and remind him they’ll be back in “just a bit,” and Robbie smiles to himself as we grow quiet again, uneasy.

  “What’s going on?” I ask as Des dusts himself off and takes a seat near our cell. He looks puzzled.

  “Curram’s hosting a gala tonight; looks to be quite grand and important, and he wants me to join them. Officially I’ll be staff, but really I’ll be there to listen to secrets and wait on Curram’s smoking room, where he means me to deal cards. Maybe he knows I used to set up games at school, when I was a kid.”

  “You seem worried,” I say.

  “Confused, more like. I don’t know what his game is, with me or his guests. I wish I knew what’s going on, is all.”

  Phoebe crawls over to the bars, shooting a glance at Robbie before whispering, “If they’re distracted, we should make our escape tonight.” She has reined in her fire this time, but it still smolders in her eyes. “The guards will be—”

  “Everywhere, I’m afraid,” Des interrupts her. “They’ve already brought in half an army in preparation for all the dolled-up guests Curram has invited. You’d think Nicholas Carr himself was expected. Sorry, love, tonight is less of a chance than ever.” Phoebe frowns, sitting back on her knees. Still, I think, with a little comfort, at least Curram will be busy tonight.

  Eventually the guards come again for Des. I find a corner and curl up, waiting the day out and hoping to find sleep. Robbie stays at his post, watching us and whittling, and rest evades me long enough that my hunger grows until it’s all I can think about. Despite the dampness of the air below ground, my lips are cracked and dry, and my head throbs. But somehow I do sleep, only to be troubled by dreams that make my ribs ache and my heart pound.

  I wake to a scream and the sound of a dozen boots on the stairs. I shrink against the wall in a now-familiar way, trying to breathe, trying to think. Trying not to panic.

  But why shouldn’t I?

  Soldiers pour down the stairs, Boyne leading them with his superior attitude, his fine clothes, his condescending sneer. Robbie lurches to his feet and hurries to unlock our cell, and I want to beg him not to, as if his disobedience could save us all, only because he has a key.

  How many have they come to take? I can’t move. Valentina is clutching my hand, trembling. The iron door swings open, and Boyne steps inside.

  “That one,” he says, pointing to a girl. The soldiers follow his finger and grab hold of someone I don’t know. She begins to scream and thrash, and Boyne ignores her as she is dragged away. “And that one,” he goes on, and this time his gaze falls on Winifred, a quiet girl with skin the rich color of mahogany. She begins weeping even before a hand has reached her, and as they pull her out of the cell, her body slackens. I think she has fainted.

  “This one,” continues Boyne, pointing down at the girl with the freckles. She is sobbing and scarcely seems to register that she’s being moved as hands take hold of her arms and drag her off. For an instant I find myself remembering her grandmother. Who will take care of her now, since she is really gone forever?

  I’m trembling when I look up at Boyne again. Anyone but me, I pray silently, anyone else. I don’t care about selfishness. But then I think, Except for Valentina. Please, don’t pick Valentina.

  And then he’s pointing again, and he says, “This one, too. Then lock it up.”

  And it isn’t until the soldiers worm their way past him and one yanks me forward by my arm that I realize he was pointing to me.

  eleven

  I can feel my head shaking back and forth, the word no pulsing on my lips, but everything feels slow. I hear chaos all around me, girls crying and struggling. My throat burns and something like indignation throbs at the back of my thoughts, but I can’t make enough sense of anything to know how to react. All I can think is, Eugenia Margaret Rigney, as my heart tries to choke me. Her fate will be mine. The men holding my arms pull me past Boyne, and for a second I meet his eyes.

  He’s so content.

  I hate him.

  Suddenly I’m on fire. I writhe away from the soldiers so I’m facing him, holding his gaze, willing him to feel the anger that’s coursing through me. Don’t forget me, I think, hoping I’ll haunt him when this is all over with. That would be enough. That, and the hell I’ll give Curram, until he’s sorry he ever bought me.

  Boyne puts up a hand. “Wait,” he says.

  The soldiers pause. I hang between them, my shoulders aching, my arms numb.

  Boyne watches me, searching for something. The cold, white hatred surging through me leaves no room for fear. I stare back at him, waiting to see him shrink. Instead, he seems pleased. He stands back, beginning to smile.

  “Leave this one,” he says to the soldiers, and then, leaning in toward me again, “We wouldn’t want to waste you on one of the master’s guests. Not with all that fight still in you.” Before I know what’s happening, I’m on the ground, my knees burning, and Boyne is saying, “That one will do instead.” They grab someone else and pull her past me, screaming.

  I lie on the ground, frozen and numb, while everything moves slowly around me. The girls are dragged upstairs and Robbie locks our cell. My hands and knees sting where I landed on them; I look down and see blood, but I can’t remember if I should do anything about it. I close my eyes, my face against the cold, damp floor as I listen to the sounds of the other girls crying. I used to think trial and happiness balanced each other out, but that feels naive now. Whoever the other girl was, she didn’t deserve to be taken upstairs any more than I did. Guilt tugs at me, but in the end it feels pointless.

  Someone was going to be taken. This time it wasn’t me.

  But if we don’t escape, the next time it could be.

  * * *

  It’s hours before Des returns, by which time I’m the only one in the jail besides Robbie who is still awake. I try to keep from glancing over at him too often, since he always meets my eyes when I do.

  Des looks exhausted, his eyes rimmed in dark half circles and his shoulders heavy.

  “Cards went well,” he exhales as he slumps to the ground next to the bars. I nod, my throat tight. “How many did he take, Isla?”

  I’m surprised he knows about it. “Four,” I say quietly. I don’t tell him the details.

  “He brings them up for his guests, the ones who are staying the night. Filthy pigs.”

  His eyes move across the group, sad and resigned.

  When Robbie eventually climbs the stairs and the cell is quiet, I clear my throat. We’re as close to alone as we’ll ever be.

  “There are only seven of us left, Des. I’m going to get us out of here.”

  There is perfect silence for a moment. He doesn’t chuckle like he does when Phoebe talks of escape. When he meets my eyes, he just looks like he’s really sorry. “I told you to give up,” he says.

  “No,” I say, pressing my eyes shut. “No, I don’t care what you say. Haven’t you ever considered making Curram pay for what he’s done? Couldn’t you find a weakness? A way to make him tell you where your sister is?”

  Des shakes his head. “I take one step out of line and Curram’ll have me beaten half to
death. It’s happened before.”

  “Could you bribe a servant, do you think?”

  “Isla, listen to me—”

  “Could you?”

  “No. They hate him, sure, but they’re all as terrified as rabbits when he’s around. He pays them to inform on each other, so you can’t trust anyone.”

  “Could you steal something, if I told you what I wanted?”

  “Isla, forget about—”

  “Don’t tell me that!” I snap, slamming my hand against the bars. Des starts, and next to me, Valentina stirs in her sleep. “Don’t. I’m the one who Curram’s going to take to bed, Des. I’m the one he’s going to rip open and then throw to the dogs when he’s finished. As long as I’ve got a life to risk, I’m going to look for a way out of here. Just because you’ve seen girls like us come and go again and again does not mean we are less than people, that we aren’t worth saving. If I have to find a way to save us without your help, then so be it. But stop telling me to give up.”

  Tam would be proud of me, I think in the silence that follows, but I feel tired.

  “How will you do it, then? Dunbar wasn’t the brightest chap, but in three years even he wasn’t stupid enough to get tricked out of his keys. That creep Josiah Boyne has the only other set, and he’ll kill you if you try anything. Even if you did manage to get out of here, where would you go next? Those stairs take you into the house itself. It’s a maze upstairs, even if you weren’t spotted, and a trap downstairs. There’s no way out.”

  “There’s another door, though, to the courtyard; we came down those stairs the first time. If we left at night, we might not be—”

  “That door’s locked. And again, the keys aren’t just lying around.”

  “If I could free us, would you come?” His expression turns to one of fear. “Des, you’ll never find out what happened to your sister if you keep on doing the same thing day after day. You can’t keep working for the man who took her and hope you’ll learn the truth. Certainly not if you want a happy ending.” I shouldn’t promise anything, but I can’t help myself. “If we get out, we’ll look for Lillian. We can find out what happened once and for all. I’ll help you.”

  He watches me for a long moment, his jaw set like he won’t let himself hope.

  “The day I was taken, Des, there were so many people that when the hands grabbed me and dragged me away, no one noticed.” I’m there again in my head, on the platform in the hot sun. I can feel the fear again, the same as when they pulled me through the crowd. “How did no one notice?”

  “I’m so sorry, Isla.” Des’s voice draws me out of my memory trap and I look down, realizing I’m clutching the bars between us. I release them, my fingers burning from holding on so tightly, and take a deep breath.

  “I can’t remember if I even kissed my pa when I left, Des. I was going to say good-bye to someone.” I feel as if something is crushing my chest; the talking hurts, but keeping quiet is worse, with the words pulling at my tongue. “His name is Tam and I love him. Everyone in this cell loves someone they’re missing. Your sister, Val’s family. We need to get home to them.” For the longest time, everything is quiet, with only the breathing of the other girls stirring the air.

  “You really do look so much like her, you know,” he says quietly, his eyes far off. “And she could always twist my arm.” He smiles ever so slightly, nodding. “Where was he going, your Tam?”

  My Tam. “To join Nicholas Carr’s army. I don’t know where he is now.”

  “But you’ll go and look for him?” I nod, hoping I look confident. “Maybe we can look together, after we find Lillian.” I hiccup on a sob of relief. “Do you even have a plan?” Des says, shaking his head. “Nothing stupid, I hope.”

  “All my ideas are stupid.”

  “Well, so long as one of them works, then.” He grins, running a hand through his dark hair, shaking his head like he can’t believe he’s agreeing. “But let’s keep the plotting to ourselves for now. Better not get anyone’s hopes up.” His gaze flicks away from mine, and he sighs. “I must be the biggest fool,” he says.

  We scheme all night. Des shoots down most of my ideas, even though I don’t see escaping the dungeon as the same problem that he does. As far as I’m concerned, we can leave at night as long as Robbie is unable to raise the alarm; Curram would hardly keep more than a few guards in the wee hours before dawn; we could fight our way out if necessary.

  The real difficulty is getting the keys. Dunbar may have known better than to be lured to the bars, but Robbie might have a weakness we can exploit. I doubt we could overwhelm Boyne when he opens the door, not with our jailer behind him and at least two soldiers. We’re all half starved and brittle-boned at this point, and Des would still be locked in the next cell.

  “If we can get Robbie to come to the bars,” I start, “then the battle is half won. We just have to bash his head against them or choke him or something before he can sound the alarm. We could be over the manor walls before anyone knew something was up. It can’t be that difficult.”

  “We need to get upstairs, though,” Des says. I give him a questioning look. “To find Lillian.”

  “I doubt Curram’s keeping her here.” I frown.

  “Why not? He must have seen her recently, don’t you think? I keep asking myself how he knew I was good at cards, and that’s the only thing I’ve got—she must have told him, let it slip or something.”

  “Maybe,” I say, still frowning. “But I think we’ll have a better chance of finding your sister once we get out. If he was keeping her here, why wouldn’t he just leave her locked up with us?” Des nods slowly, still looking unconvinced. “How long have we been here, do you know?”

  “I’m not sure … maybe nine or ten days? At least a week.”

  “And how long does a … a group of us usually last?”

  He looks at his lap. “A month, give or take.”

  I bite my lip and taste blood. “We can’t waste time, then, can we?” There’s silence for a moment. “Have you ever tried to pick the cell’s lock?” Des gives me a condescending look. “Of course you have. Sorry.”

  “At the beginning, before I knew just how scared of Curram I should be. But it’s no good; I’m a decent burglar, but these are the good locks. Boyne’s not stupid.” He must see that my spirits are dropping because his hand finds mine through the bars. “Isla.” I look at him. “I said I’d help, didn’t I? I’ll find my sister, and you’ll find your soldier. Happy endings all around, all right?”

  * * *

  My jittery heart won’t let me sleep, even when Des insists he’s too tired to keep planning.

  I lie down where I am, curling an arm beneath my head and bringing my knees close to my chest for warmth. But all I can think about is Tam—what it will be like to find him, the surprise on his face when I show up to whatever base he’s stationed at. The days feel so much longer down here, it seems strange to think that he’s most likely still in the beginning of his training.

  I wonder if the army is hard on him, if he’s miserable. I wonder again if he saw the hands take me, and if he’s worried about me, or trying to find a way to get to me, even now. Or maybe he likes what he’s doing, because he can finally see new places. Maybe he thought he would miss me, but he doesn’t. Maybe he is free, and he likes it that way.

  I hate that I don’t know how he is, that I’m disconnected from him.

  The first time we fought was the day he found a ship that needed a cabin boy, and he told me he was going to volunteer. He told me to cut my hair and borrow some of his clothes and come with him. I said he couldn’t abandon his family like that, and he said I was too scared to go myself and didn’t want him to leave me. He was right, of course, but I told him he was stupid, and he stuck out his tongue and said it was my fault if I never saw him again.

  I didn’t sleep at all that night, wondering if he’d actually gone and joined that ship, but I was too proud to go over to his family’s flat and ask for him. I felt l
ike the flow of blood to my heart had been cut off, not knowing what Tam was thinking or whether or not he hated me. I waited for hours on my roof, certain he was gone forever, cursing myself every minute. I even wished—a hundred times, but only for a second—that I had done what he’d suggested and gone with him.

  And then Tam’s head appeared at his window, bronze hair tousled by the wind, and I watched as he climbed out the window and across the rusty platform and down. In a moment he appeared before me, oblivious to the anxiety that had torn me apart and ready with a new plan about a man who built enormous balloons, who was hiring apprentices.

  Our hearts are disconnected again, but this time there’s no easy fix. I wonder if he feels the same loneliness that I do.

  I dream that I’m the only one left. That all the other girls have been taken to Curram and that I sit alone in the corner of the cell for days, hoping Curram will forget I’m there, but knowing he won’t. When I wake up, it’s hard to convince myself that won’t be my fate after all.

  * * *

  There’s no way to predict when we’ll be fed; once or twice we’ve been forgotten altogether, and it’s beginning to show: When the women at the warehouse laced me into my corset, it was snug across my waist, ribs, and breasts. No doubt it’s stretched a little because I’ve been sleeping in it, but there’s more than enough room to wiggle around now.

  I suppose they don’t bother to feed us much because nobody needs us to live very long.

  When the soldiers arrive with our dinner, they bring the usual number of bowls, and I’m angry, suddenly. “There are only seven of us!” I shout impulsively as they climb the stairs. They laugh. Valentina is staring at me when I turn around, but she looks away when I meet her eyes.

  The anger feels good in a way; hot and sharp. But it does me little good, with nothing to do but sit and wait all day. All we have to do is lure Robbie to the bars at nightfall. Only one thing between us and freedom, but not an easy thing. I look down at my hands. They’re small, weak; I doubt they can overpower anyone. What would Tam think of my unstable plan, if he were here? Would he think it was too risky, or would he be proud of me? I convinced Des to help. I’m the one who is trying to save these girls. That’s more than anyone else is doing.