Rising to her toes, Eva spoke into Bram’s ear to be heard above the noise of the place. “This cannot be right.”
“Are you sure Mrs. Mortimer gave you the correct address?” he rumbled back.
“Oy! You two.” The man at the counter aimed his pen at them, his voice as rough as the factory floor. “This ain’t no gatherin’ place. State yer business or be off.”
Eva approached the counter, but even standing so close to him, she raised her voice. “We are looking for Greenwell’s School for the Blind. Do you know where it is?”
A great guffaw rolled out of the fellow, his sharp-edged shoulders shaking with the force of his mirth. “Is that what this is now, eh? A blind school? Hah! What a corker, that one.” He slapped his hand atop the counter, a puff of dust rising like smoke.
“Pardon us,” Bram grumbled. “We are clearly in the wrong place.” He guided Eva around with a touch to the small of her back. “Let’s go. We will telegraph Mrs. Mortimer and sort this out.”
Disappointment weighed like wet wool, dragging Eva’s steps. She’d so hoped to see Penny this morning. Near the door, her foot slipped on some of the collecting lint, and when she flailed her arm, her fingers let loose of the book she’d meant to give Penny.
“Oh!” She dashed after the thing, swooping down to pick it up, but then she paused, her gaze locking on to a small rock. She picked it up along with the book, a mix of terror and fury rising like bile up to her throat. The pebble was smooth. Oval. Shiny where a finger had rubbed it, worn with a notch on one end.
And it had a reddish grain to it.
“Bram?” She glanced up at him, his name a shiver on her lips.
And yet somehow he heard. “What is it? You look as if you have seen a spirit.”
She held up the rock on an open palm. “I think Penny may be here after all.”
Bram tensed, recognition crawling beneath his skin like fire ants, leaving a hot trail of fury. Squaring his shoulders, he stomped to the front counter. “Where is Penny Inman?”
The clerk merely sucked on his teeth, making him look more like a ground squirrel than a man.
Bram slammed his palms against the wood, the sharp report of it louder than the machinery. “I asked you a question! Where does Penny Inman work?”
A great scowl carved deep lines into the man’s brow. “There’s no names ’ere. Just numbers. Once a body steps onto that floor”—he hitched his thumb over his shoulder—“they’re part o’ the machine. Ye’d have to ask ol’ Greenwell himself what number she was assigned.”
“She is a twelve-year-old girl, not a number!” Bram lunged over the counter and grabbed the man by the collar, hauling him to his feet. The smack of the stool cracked against the floorboards. “She has dark hair, darker eyes, and she is blind.”
Beneath Bram’s grip, the fellow’s Adam’s apple bobbed like a snake swallowing a rat. “Sh-she’s in the piecing room, first door on the right. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
Bram dropped him like a filthy rag, then turned to Eva. “Stay here.”
He wheeled about and rounded the corner of the wooden partition. Disgust added to his wrath. The people working here—mostly women and children—didn’t make eye contact as he passed. How beat down must they be to live in such fear? Greenwell ought to be hung by his neck from the rafters of this place, and yet such a justice would be a mere drop in the bucket, for all the other factories they’d driven past must surely look the same behind their walls.
Lord,have mercy on these poor souls.
Sickened, he stalked toward the piecing room door.
Just as a brick wall of a man sidestepped into his path,planting his feet for a fight. “Where do ye think yer goin’? Ye don’t work here.”
Bram flexed his fingers. A fight would feel good right about now. “I do not need to work here to find what I am looking for. Step aside.”
“Ye think ye can waltz onto my floor and demand things of me? Turn yer pretty little self around”—he twirled his podgy finger in the air—“and get ye gone. This ain’t no charity house, mate.”
“I am not asking for charity, just for a twelve-year-old girl who has no business being here.” Bram widened his stance. “Now move.”
A sneer twisted the man’s thick lips. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you shall regret it, I promise you that.”
“Ye don’t scare me.” The man spit out a linty glob, then swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I’ve dealt with twaddle like you before, and they all end up pretzeled out on the kerb.”
Bram’s hands curled into fists. He’d have to strike fast and hard, but brute force alone wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to rely on speed, agility, and precision—a lesson he’d learned well as a feral lad.
