Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris by Tim Willocks

peculiar characters in the street. In Paris such figures were legion. Should she wake Symonne on the floor below and frighten her? Where was Altan Savas? The contraction passed but left her feeling faint.
    She returned to her room and closed the door. She drank some water. She went once more to the front window. The Rue du Temple was empty. She made up her mind to go down to the garden. As she turned she heard a sound – a dulled clattering – as if from behind the gable wall. Carla started for the door. A muffled squeal, of fear marbled with fury, stopped her. Cinder fragments tumbled into the fireplace followed by a billow of soot. A moment later a pair of arms appeared, and coils of hair, then a head. A small, scrawny body slithered from the chimney, naked from waist to feet.
    Carla stared at the rat girl.
    The girl crawled into the hearth and coughed on her hands and knees. Her rough woollen smock had slipped up past her hips, which bore fresh grazes. She was filthy, though perhaps not much more so than was usual for her. The descent had grazed her elbows, too. Her long, corkscrew hair was so matted with grease that the soot had hardly gained purchase. The ringlets looked dark red but it was hard to be sure. She recovered with remarkable speed, as would a wild animal, and hawked black spittle onto the rug.
    She looked up and saw Carla.
    Wild grey eyes glittered in a soot-smeared face.
    Inspired by the girl’s example, Carla recovered quickly.
    ‘Are you hurt?’
    The rat girl didn’t answer. She scrambled to her feet. She was all skin and bone, poorly nourished, but rather older than Carla had imagined, perhaps nine or ten. Perhaps street life had aged her beyond her years. She coughed again. Carla went to the table and poured a glass of water. She stepped forward and offered it to the girl. With quick glances the girl took in Carla, the room, the glass.
    ‘If you try to stop me, I’ll kill your baby.’
    ‘I won’t try to stop you.’
    The girl grabbed the glass and drained it. She gave it back to Carla.
    ‘You came down the chimney head-first?’
    ‘Gobbo pushed me down head-first, so I couldn’t climb back out.’
    The rat girl went to the window. She seemed scared, but not of Carla.
    ‘I’m in the wrong room.’
    The chimney stack on this side of the house served the fireplaces in Carla’s bedroom, the parlour below, and the business office on the ground floor. None had seen use during the summer. The second stack, on the southern gable, served the children’s room, Symonne’s bedchamber and the kitchen stove. Carla wondered how much so small a thief had expected to steal. Then she realised.
    ‘You were sent down the chimney to open the front door for your friends.’
    ‘The back door.’
    ‘Is Gobbo the big man?’
    ‘No. That’s Grymonde, the Infant of Cockaigne.’
    She recited this bogus title with a fierce solemnity, as if she expected Carla to tremble. When she didn’t, the girl bared her teeth and clawed her fingers and growled. Without meaning to, Carla laughed. There was something elvish about the girl, elvish in spirit, and Carla couldn’t help but be charmed by it. The spite in the girl’s threats reflected the world she lived in.
    ‘Don’t laugh at me. You won’t laugh when Grymonde comes.’
    ‘I didn’t mean to be unkind. If you look in my mirror I think you’d laugh too.’
    ‘You have a mirror?’
    ‘You can use it if you tell me your name. My name is Carla.’
    ‘Estelle.’
    ‘I love that name. It’s one of the prettiest of all names.’
    ‘Grymonde calls me La Rossa. Because he loves my hair.’
    ‘I’m sure it’s beautiful when it’s clean. Why don’t you stay with me, Estelle? I can help you wash your hair and find you some clean clothes. Then we can eat breakfast if you’re hungry.’
    Estelle considered this, with a mixture of innocence and guile. Fear won out over hunger. She shook her head. ‘I have to go. Don’t try to stop me.’
    There was a hard