tore open the packet with my teeth, then shook out a few of the precious little seeds. Carefully, I placed four seeds each in the shallow furrows I’d created in my shoulders.
“We’re not talking about this now,” Mártira said. “Not until everyone has been found and settled. And to think, discussing things like this where Laura and the other children can hear …”
“Those children used to steal for you. Laura is fifteen,” Claudia argued. “I was robbing houses at fifteen. You always shield her from everything!”
With that, I heard steps on the ladder that led to the loft. Claudia was coming, and that meant I had to work quickly. Willing myself into the shadows, I shoved the seed packet beneath my pillow and caressed my shoulders, urging my skin to resume clinging to my flesh. I’d water the holes later.
“Laura? Are you up here?” She sounded cross. And closer.
Drawing the shoulders of my gown up and pushing my hair forward, I answered, “Yes?”
My sister climbed into the loft and wrenched aside the black netting I’d draped between her side and mine. Death had made Claudia hideous, her face strangely softened and filled with decaying blood. She looked like an old woman rather than the eighteen-year-old she was. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse. Dog edged away from her.
“Dressing,” I told her as my hands went instinctively, protectively across my chest. Claudia always destroyed whatever I grew, and so now I kept my plants close to me, let them root themselves in my very body. Myrtle at my wrists, ivy at my hips, roses at my waist, and soon, calendula on my shoulders.
I was no longer alive, but I might help something else to live.
Claudia’s eyes moved over my body, her upper lip curling. They then darted up to the little wooden shelf above my bedroll where I kept my few belongings. Inwardly I cringed, knowing what was to come.
I’d forgotten to hide them.
She reached over me, grabbing two chipped terra-cotta pots from my shelf. Each held a handful of sandy earth swept from the street and a struggling seedling. Before I could plead for their lives, down they went. One smashed apart on the floor below, the other hit someone. “Hey!”
“I’ve told you ten thousand times—if you’re going to sell flowers, you steal them from toffs’ gardens. You don’t grow them! You’re a flower girl, not a farmer!”
Dog hid behind me, and I sent back a hand to comfort him. “But stealing is wrong, Claudia.”
“Not for people like us. It’s how we survive. It’s only because Mártira coddles you that you get away with such pathetic work.” She smacked the wall. “If our parents’d thought about how ‘wrong’ it was to steal, you’d’ve been a corpse years ago. You’d’ve starved in infancy!”
I’d heard this argument before. My father had been a road agent, preying on travelers outside New London. He and my mother were in prison—had been since I was ten. He was the reason Mártira set up shop in the city. He’d told her to be smarter than him. Get other people to steal for her.
I took a different tack. “If they’d done right, they wouldn’t be away from us now.”
“Oh, shut up! I’d yank out the things growing in you if I didn’t think your intestines would come with them.” Claudia rolled back onto her blankets, glaring at the ceiling. “Get out of here!”
I obeyed, shimmying my way onto the ladder and helping Dogmount it above me, doing my best to support him as he learned how to climb down with one hand. The Grave House on Ramee Street was large, a dilapidated and abandoned old place, its dirty rooms smoky and mostly devoid of furniture, but nonetheless overly crowded with people. It was located in the run-down northwest section of New London, the part most New Victorians liked to forget about—the slums where children begged and charity workers cringed and aristocrats never ventured. Once, it had only been our center of operations, our
“We’re not talking about this now,” Mártira said. “Not until everyone has been found and settled. And to think, discussing things like this where Laura and the other children can hear …”
“Those children used to steal for you. Laura is fifteen,” Claudia argued. “I was robbing houses at fifteen. You always shield her from everything!”
With that, I heard steps on the ladder that led to the loft. Claudia was coming, and that meant I had to work quickly. Willing myself into the shadows, I shoved the seed packet beneath my pillow and caressed my shoulders, urging my skin to resume clinging to my flesh. I’d water the holes later.
“Laura? Are you up here?” She sounded cross. And closer.
Drawing the shoulders of my gown up and pushing my hair forward, I answered, “Yes?”
My sister climbed into the loft and wrenched aside the black netting I’d draped between her side and mine. Death had made Claudia hideous, her face strangely softened and filled with decaying blood. She looked like an old woman rather than the eighteen-year-old she was. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse. Dog edged away from her.
“Dressing,” I told her as my hands went instinctively, protectively across my chest. Claudia always destroyed whatever I grew, and so now I kept my plants close to me, let them root themselves in my very body. Myrtle at my wrists, ivy at my hips, roses at my waist, and soon, calendula on my shoulders.
I was no longer alive, but I might help something else to live.
Claudia’s eyes moved over my body, her upper lip curling. They then darted up to the little wooden shelf above my bedroll where I kept my few belongings. Inwardly I cringed, knowing what was to come.
I’d forgotten to hide them.
She reached over me, grabbing two chipped terra-cotta pots from my shelf. Each held a handful of sandy earth swept from the street and a struggling seedling. Before I could plead for their lives, down they went. One smashed apart on the floor below, the other hit someone. “Hey!”
“I’ve told you ten thousand times—if you’re going to sell flowers, you steal them from toffs’ gardens. You don’t grow them! You’re a flower girl, not a farmer!”
Dog hid behind me, and I sent back a hand to comfort him. “But stealing is wrong, Claudia.”
“Not for people like us. It’s how we survive. It’s only because Mártira coddles you that you get away with such pathetic work.” She smacked the wall. “If our parents’d thought about how ‘wrong’ it was to steal, you’d’ve been a corpse years ago. You’d’ve starved in infancy!”
I’d heard this argument before. My father had been a road agent, preying on travelers outside New London. He and my mother were in prison—had been since I was ten. He was the reason Mártira set up shop in the city. He’d told her to be smarter than him. Get other people to steal for her.
I took a different tack. “If they’d done right, they wouldn’t be away from us now.”
“Oh, shut up! I’d yank out the things growing in you if I didn’t think your intestines would come with them.” Claudia rolled back onto her blankets, glaring at the ceiling. “Get out of here!”
I obeyed, shimmying my way onto the ladder and helping Dogmount it above me, doing my best to support him as he learned how to climb down with one hand. The Grave House on Ramee Street was large, a dilapidated and abandoned old place, its dirty rooms smoky and mostly devoid of furniture, but nonetheless overly crowded with people. It was located in the run-down northwest section of New London, the part most New Victorians liked to forget about—the slums where children begged and charity workers cringed and aristocrats never ventured. Once, it had only been our center of operations, our
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