He grins at her. “I appreciate the vote of overconfidence.”
The last dying rays of the sun light the Thames, setting it on fire: orange and red and gold. The twilight chill of late spring won’t be far behind, the breeze off the river already cool against Beatrix’s skin. She waits for her heart to sink with the sun, another dark night stretching before her. It doesn’t. This must be what it feels like to have a full belly and a heavy purse.
“Are you staying the night in London?” she asks, nonchalant. No expectations. No commitment. It means nothing, unless he wants it to.
The glint in Oliver’s eyes when she meets his gaze is unmistakable now, the twist in his lips telling. But he hesitates a moment too long. “No. I’ve already stayed longer than I meant to.”
Beatrix’s disappointment surprises her. Then again, she isn’t used to goodbyes.
“It was nice to meet you,” she says. It’s not just a pleasantry. All her days are the same, an endless cycle of sunrises and sunsets that blur together into months—years—she can’t tell apart, except that each night is longer and lonelier than the last. Today has been different.
“I seem to recall you wanted to stab me not six hours ago,” Oliver points out.
“I didn’twantto stab you.”
He laughs. “Oh, well, that changes everything.” His smile fades, and he turns serious. “Thank you for a truly remarkable day, Beatrix.”
She forces a smile. “I’m glad you think so highly of it.”
He hesitates another moment, then turns away from her.
“Thank you,” she murmurs as he disappears into the London crowd.
June 7, 1665London, England
The house will be empty. Beatrix watched from the mouth of the alley as the doctor—a tall man in sweeping black robes, a wide-brimmed hat, and a pointed mask the color of bone—left for the final time. Watched as a pair of grim-faced men hauled three lifeless bodies from inside, heaved them unceremoniously onto their wooden cart. Watched as they moved on to the next door painted with a red cross and the next, down the narrow cobbled lane, until their cart overflowed with the dead.
She traces the letters gouged into the door above a cross that could be painted in blood. Fresh splinters prick at her fingertips. She can’t read the words, but she knows what they must be, carved so deeply into the wood. A desperate prayer to live.
A desperate, unanswered prayer.
A shiver runs down Beatrix’s spine that has nothing to do with the damp evening air settling over the city. She pushes the door open. It swings easily, unlocked. No one else would be mad enough to enter a plague-marked house.
It reeks of sickness, and Beatrix nearly retches from the sour stench hanging heavy in the too-warm air. When her eyes adjust to the dimness of the room, she is met with an eerie tableau of a life interrupted. A man’s coat hanging behind the door. Boots drying by a fire that burned itself to nothing days ago. A half-darned sock set aside for a moment in the basket of mending on the table. A hard loaf of bread, wrapped in a towel for a supper that never came.
She makes her way methodically around the room. She peers inside every basket and cupboard and drawer, searching for any money that has been hidden away, any food that hasn’t spoiled, any trinket she can easily sell tomorrow at the cathedral walk.
St. Paul’s will be the only thing she misses. She doubts Calais will compare with London, but from what she’s heard from the sailors at the riverside market, Paris will. Half the size of London, with twice as many people, at least. She could never feel lonely in a place like that. No one will care about the woman with the strange eyes who never ages, who is never ill. They won’t even notice her. With another few houses scavenged, another handful of pockets picked, she’ll be on her way.
She checks the coat by the door. The pockets are empty, but the coat itself is heavy wool and better than her threadbare cloak, even if it is too large. She shrugs it on. It smells vaguely of pipe tobacco. Too heavy for June, but she’ll be happy to have it in a few months.
Maybe not. She smiles at the exhilarating thought. She has no idea where in the world she’ll be by then. Perhaps she won’t need a coat at all.
Something clatters behind Beatrix, and she spins toward the sound. A brown tabby sits at the edge of the table, a tin mug fallen to the floor beneath it. She lets out a long breath.
“You scared me,” she says, approaching the cat. She scratches it behind the ears before it leaves as suddenly as it arrived, slinking through a door at the back of the room.
Beatrix follows. Another sound greets her. This one is faint, quiet enough that if she turns away now, leaves the house and the lane far behind her, she can convince herself she has only imagined it—the wind down the chimney or the mewing of the cat.
But she can’t leave. It’s a sound she would recognize anywhere. There is no mistaking it for another, no convincing herself it is anything other than what it is. A baby, crying from the next room.
Beatrix throws the door wide. The stench of death knocks her back, suffocating and clinging. Her eyes water as she scans the bedroom, the soiled bed, the cradle by its side.
Empty.
Another cry, muffled, from the corner. Beatrix dives for the mess of blankets piled there. She flings them away, pulls out the whimpering infant. “Hello, lovely,” she coos. She clutches the baby close and carries it from the room, her heart pounding a wild rhythm inside her chest.
There is still water in the kettle by the fire. Beatrix washes the baby,and the infant screams at the sudden cold, her wide, dark eyes flying open with a feeble cry that pierces Beatrix through. She counts every rib beneath the gray-hued skin, every shallow breath, willing the next to come.
