Moonlight and Ashes by Sophie Masson Page A

volcanic reaction in me, so that I screamed, ‘Stop that! Stop it at once!’
    The big woman paused, looked over her shoulder at me and smiled unpleasantly. ‘What did you say?’
    â€˜Let her be,’ I said, swallowing.
    The big woman dropped the thief, who stared at me with wild green eyes from under a tangled mass of dark hair. The big woman lumbered towards me and the crowd in front of her parted, everyone staring at me.
    Trembling, I held out my hunk of bread. ‘Take this. She shouldn’t have done it but, please, let her be.’
    The big woman stopped and stared for a long moment, then snatched the bread from me and said, ‘You’re a fool,’ just as a couple of policemen, alerted by the noise, came running to see what was going on.
    Nobody told them what had happened, only the big woman, who said that there had been a bit of ‘high spirits and larking about – nothing to worry about, officers’. The policemen were easily satisfied – it was clear they had no stomach for trying to find out what had really happened. Once they were gone, the big woman turned to the thief and said, ‘If you try anything like that again, I’ll rip your guts out.’ Then she looked at me, raised her eyebrows, shrugged, and went back to her friends and her card game – devouring my hunk of bread. The others whispered about it for a little while but soon lost interest and returned to their own concerns, though from timeto time I would catch someone glancing at me and at the thief.
    The thief didn’t try to come near me, and I let her be. She’d given me one wild glance of uncomprehending gratitude, then had huddled down again, putting her head in her arms. She was thin, her filthy feet bare, her nails ragged and bitten to the quick. Her clothes were dirty rags much worse than my own patched dress – she looked altogether a most miserable creature. She was young, too – probably only a year or two older than me. And I hadn’t heard her speak once. Even when the big woman was bashing her, she hadn’t made a sound.
    Time passed and as darkness began to fall the card players put away their games. It grew quiet in the cell, warm because of the many bodies. People fell asleep on the straw strewn over the stone floor. Some snored – the big woman the loudest of them all. But I couldn’t sleep. I had no space to lie down so I sat with my arms around my knees, thinking and thinking and not getting anywhere.
    Still, I must have dozed off, for when the barred door was flung open and the lantern light fell upon us, I came to with a start and saw that four large policemen had come into the cell. But they weren’t alone. With them was a tall dark-haired man wearing elegant evening dress, a cloak and a black eye mask, carrying a smart silver-topped walking stick. In the wavering light of the lantern, the part of his face that could be seen was pale as death, and the silver top of his stick, with its sinuous serpentine curves, glowed with an odd light.
    Though everyone had been woken by the entrance of the five men, no-one said a word. It wasn’t the sight of the policethat stilled the tongues of even the toughest of the prisoners. It was the sight of the other man. Nobody needed to be told who he was or, rather, what he was. A Mancer!
    I was sure my last hour had come. They had found out and were after me. I was so scared that I was beyond fear. I sat as still as a frog hypnotised by a snake, but I knew it would do me no good.
    The Mancer did not speak. He walked amongst us, swinging his lantern, examining every frozen, frightened face. Each time, he passed on. Now, the moment had come – the lantern swung towards me – and my heart nearly stopped. He looked at me and I felt the cold fire of his pale eyes burn into me, even though I kept my own eyes down. And then . . . he passed on to the next person, the next face, until he reached