Mrs. Walton points a crooked finger to the opposite corner. “You and that mama of yours, girl…”
Before she can finish, I shout, “Keep the full week’s deposit!” I dash down five steps and crawl through the tiny wooden doors at the bottom.
I am welcomed into the cellar with a sticky hug to the face from a spiderweb. I brush it off and duck inside this place that likely hasn’t seen light since Abe Lincoln was president.
Pax Princip is making my life hugely inconvenient.
I feel my way through the darkness to a grimy window on the opposite side of this cave. Only a small amount of light filters through it, a filmy yellow glow. My fingers trail over papery onion skins, bumpy potatoes, cool, slick wine bottles, something uncomfortably damp, and—
“EEEEEE!”
Something furry!
I scream.
The thing screams.
Footsteps sound above.
I curse and stumble over the uneven dirt floor to the window.
The lock is rusted shut. I throw my shoulder against it, to no avail.
I dig out the floppy hat from my bag. Place my fist in it. Slam it through the glass. Broken glass always stems from bad decisions.
My hand burns with pain, but I smash out enough glass to climb through the window with my bag. With everything I own. My hat is torn but I shake out the bits of glass, then place it on my disheveled head.
I stand in the side alley, dirty and bleeding.
Ain’t you a sight!
Looks a fright, she does!
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Shouts of my damnation creep around the corner from the zealots: “TERROR!” “VILE!” “WITCH!”
I see through the window that Pax is in the kitchen now, so I duck through the back alley, chased by echoes: “MONSTER!” “EVIL!” “SIN!”
At one block away, it’s quiet.
I’m free.
I’mneverfree.
Are they right?
Those echoes chasing me—are they right?
They are. Look at what happened to Daisy. Evil and greed took her. The Dark Legion is punishing me for never paying them heed, for never giving their malevolence a voice. I’ve ignored them for years, turned my back on their cries, so they killed my sister.
Daisy didn’t get a first love, a first child, a first… anything.
And it’s my fault.
I want to stop doing this, giving readings, but I can’t. I have no education, no skills. No way to make money other than selling the voices in my head.
They’ll ship me off to Blackwell’s Island if they ever catch me. The island with the asylum. If they’rethatcharitable. Fortune-telling is illegal in New York, and they could certainly toss me in jail instead. The asylum is the better of the two choices.
