Authors: Eva Wiseman
Another Me
ALSO BY EVA WISEMAN
The World Outside
The Last Song
Puppet
Kanada
No One Must Know
My Canary Yellow Star
A Place Not Home
Text copyright © 2016 by Eva Wiseman
Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisherâor, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agencyâis an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Wiseman, Eva, author
Another me / by Eva Wiseman.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77049-716-0 (bound).âISBN 978-1-77049-718-4 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8595.I814A7 2016ââjC813â².54âââC2015-905460-5
C2015-905461-3
Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Tundra Books of Northern New York, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947647
Edited by Janice Weaver
eBook design adapted from printed book design by Rachel Cooper
Ebook ISBNâ9781770497184
www.âpenguinrandomhouse.âca
v4.1
a
For my parents
and for Nathan, Sam and Marni
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy
.
âWilliam Shakespeare,
Hamlet
THE FREE IMPERIAL CITY OF STRASBOURG FEBRUARY 7, 1349
T
he Angel of the Night is hovering over the city of Strasbourg as the boy makes his way home. It's so dark that he can barely see his feet as he scurries across the town square. His mind is full of her. He can still feel the silkiness of her hair beneath his fingers, still see the dimples quivering at the corners of her lips as she smiles. He can still hear her sweet voice soothing his spirits.
The cathedral bells break his reverie. He is so startled that he stops in his tracks, almost slipping on the icy cobblestones. Then he sees them on the other side of the plazaâthree shadowy figures heading directly toward him. He hopes that they won't notice him. His clothes are dark and he pulls down the hood of his cloak to cover his face. Just then, the moon escapes the clouds and kisses the yellow badge on his chest.
He clamps his hand over it to make it disappear and wills himself to stand completely still, just another shadow in the vast square.
“Who's there?” cries a harsh voice.
“What's the matter with you, Anselm? You're seeing ghosts,” says a voice full of ale. “You're afraid of your own shadow!”
“No, Anselm is right. I saw something moving too.” The third speaker sounds older than the other two.
The boy breaks into a run. Feet come pounding over the cobblestones behind him. He sprints past the town well and shrinks down into the shadows cast by the cathedral beyond it. How he wishes for a knife in his grasp, but Jews are forbidden from carrying weapons.
He peeks around the side of the building. Three men are standing beside the well. They too are dressed in dark clothes. Two of them are bent under the weight of large sacks, while the third, a giant in the shadows, has a white cat squirming under his arm. The boy presses a hand over his mouth, for his breathing is so ragged and so loud that he's terrified they will hear him.
“There was somebody there,” one of the men insists. “I would bet my last coin on it.”
“Forget about it. Let's do what we came for,” says his companion.
They turn to the well and empty their sacks into it. The boy's nose twitches from the stink of rotting food and feces. He hunkers closer to the wall of the cathedral.
“Did you hear a noise?” asks the man with the cat. He steps away from the well and moves even closer to the cathedral wall. The boy could touch him if he extended his arm. “Nothing here,” he finally says.
“Let the Jews explain this!” shouts the man called Anselm. He sounds deep in his cups. He gestures to his cronies. “Your turn.”
The giant raises the cat high into the air and throws it in the direction of the well. The animal misses its target and lands with a loud thud on the ground beside it. With a mighty yowl, it sets off into the darkness, barreling into the boy in the shadows. He jumps backwards, loses his balance on the slick cobblestones and ends up sprawled on the ground next to the animal. It rubs against his knees and begins to purr.
As he pulls himself up, he finds himself staring into a menacing face pushed close to his. His assailant is young, no more than his own seventeen years.
“Hey! Come over here and see what I've found,” his attacker calls. He reeks of spirits.
His companions crowd around him. The first one, also his age, seems on the verge of collapse from drink. He grabs the cat and tosses it into the well.
There is yowling, a splash, a muffled thud. Then echoing silence.
“What have we here?” asks the one who found him. He points to the yellow badge on his cloak. “A Jew boy!”
“How fortunate,” says the third man.
Now that the boy can see his face, he recognizes this person immediately. He could never forget that evil sneer crowning the red goatee.
“You again!” cackles the man. “You won't get away this time.” He turns to his accomplices. “We'll leave the Jew by the well,” he says. “We'll tell everybody that we came upon a bunch of them poisoning the well and tried to stop them, but there were too many. We'll say the rest of the Jews ran away, but we caught this one.” He laughs and points at him. “We'll be heroes!”
“You'll never get away with it!” the boy cries. “I'll tell everybody that I saw you throw garbage and even the live cat into the well. Everyone will know that you poisoned the water and not my people!”
The man with the goatee gives a harsh laugh.
“You won't have the chance,” he says as he lifts his knife high into the air. It glints coldly in the moonlight.
The blade descendsâ¦
