Tangled Webs (4 page)

The old memories swept over her.

“You, get your sorry arse out here. You’re leaving.” Agnes, the old kitchen woman, yanked open the door and pulled Arista out of the closet. “And good riddance to you,
too.” Agnes shoved Arista at Sister Beatrice, who sidestepped to avoid touching Arista. None of the other women ever touched her, except Agnes, and her hands were never kind.

The nun led Arista to a group of two dozen other children huddled in the cold foyer, clutching each other. None of them were older than seven. The youngest looked three. Some wept; others
stood with their fists at their sides. That was Arista.

Even at five, she knew what was happening. Twice a year, the crooked old man with the cruel eyes came. Bones. He took the children away. No one knew why, only that the transaction happened on
the darkest, moonless nights. None ever returned.

Arista was pushed against the wall, and Bones went down the line, giving each child the once-over. He barked questions at Sister Ann about disease and fortitude. He forced their mouths open
with sharp fingers and looked at their teeth. One by one, they were chosen or cast aside. The ones overlooked disappeared back into the orphanage without a backward glance.

Arista found herself among the chosen that moonless night.

As she waited her turn to climb into the wagon, movement caught her eye. Nalia stood in the shadows, her hand pressed to her mouth. Her cheeks were shining with tears. Without thinking,
Arista broke free from the group and ran to the woman, her only friend, and threw herself into her arms.

Bones shouted and came after her, but before he got to them, Nalia unwound the scarf from her head and tucked it under Arista’s jacket.

“Never give up, little one. There is a great big world out there, and in it you can find anything your heart desires.”

Before Nalia could say anything more, Arista was ripped from her arms. She screamed and kicked all the way to the wagon, and Bones threw her in. She landed so hard it knocked the wind out of
her.

The supply wagon carried over a dozen children away from the orphanage that night. Arista curled into a ball and tucked her face under her jacket, where the scarf’s familiar smell
helped calm her quaking nerves. They traveled several hours, cramped and wedged together, until they finally pulled up to a door. When Bones prodded them all out, Arista looked up. The building
seemed to loom upward forever, a charred black silhouette against the sky.

She wished she could fly. Push off from the ground and never touch down again.

A tiny girl, no older than three, fell out of the wagon and began to cry. No one moved to help her. Bones lifted her by the scruff of her neck, and she dangled like a rag doll, softly mewling
in fear. Rage curled Arista’s fingers into fists, but there was nothing she could do.

No one else made a sound as they were herded into the house, down a dark, narrow hallway to a room with no windows. He tossed the little girl in, and she hit the wall hard and landed in an
unmoving heap in the corner. Then without a word, he shut the door. The grating sound of the lock clicking into place was a sound Arista would never forget.

They sat, huddled together for warmth, for two days. No food was brought, and only a trough with murky water unfit for animals sat in one corner. The time spent in the blackness was filled
with quiet crying and fitful moans of pain.

The smell of urine, and worse, permeated the air until it choked Arista. When Bones finally opened the door, only eight children staggered out into the light. Four small, unmoving bodies were
illuminated by the lamplight. Arista saw the tangle of dirty hair that belonged to the small girl, still lying where she had landed in the corner.

Two men walked toward them and threw a bucket of ice-cold water over each of them. Arista clenched her teeth tightly to keep them from chattering.

“You want to eat, you bring back something worth a scrap of food. If you come back empty handed, you will go right back in there. If I’m feeling benevolent. Ain’t that
right, boy?”

A boy, only a year or two older than Arista, swaggered up next to Bones. “Aye. He ain’t likely ever feeling that way, tho. So you best be bringing sumpthin back what’s worth
his time.” The boy’s gaze ran over the ragtag group, and he sneered at them. “Follow me, you lazy arses. It’s time to earn your keep.”

They spent all day on the street, learning to beg and steal. When they returned, Bones lined them up in the hallway just inside the door, and they presented him with what they had found.
Arista kept her hands behind her back, fingers clenched around nothing.

The first child, the oldest of the girls, held out her hand. A few pennies tumbled from them. Bones grunted, gave the girl a small piece of bread, and moved on to the next one. The second
child, a boy, had nothing. He glared up at the old man in defiance, his chin lifted, though Arista could see the slight quiver in his jaw. Bones grabbed him by the hair and dragged him down the
hall to the filthy room where they had been kept, and threw him inside. The
click-tap
of alternating shoe and cane echoed as Bones came back to the group.

Arista was last in line. The dreadful boy who led them out and back again stood right next to her, his arms crossed over his chest, staring straight ahead. In the light of the lamp, Arista
could see his jaw flexing as if he were clenching his teeth as hard as he could. He’d barely said a word to her all day, except to bark an order or tell her to get to work.

Sweat beaded on her lip as Bones got closer. When a child gave him something, he in turn gave them a piece of bread. They fell on it like rats, hunched down and devouring their scraps as if
they were nothing more than animals. Arista’s stomach growled and she clenched her fists tighter, pressing her body so hard against the rough wood wall that her knuckles ached. The boy
glanced at her, his expression unreadable.

There were just two children between her and Bones. The thought of spending another second in that black room made her want to scream as loud as she could and tear her own hair out. A tiny
whimper escaped before she could stop it.

Bones stood in front of the girl next to her. Silent tears streamed down the child’s dirty face as she presented her open, empty hands to him. “Please,” the girl whispered.
“I’m so hungry.”

The silence stretched out for several long seconds before Bones grabbed her hair and dragged her down the hallway as she screamed and pleaded with him to stop.

Arista held her knuckles against her lips to keep from crying out. With sickening dread, she knew she was next. Her legs went weak, as if she would fall to the floor any second. If she went
into the dark room again, she knew with certainty she would not come back out.

As Bones started back down the hall toward her, something brushed against her hand. The boy next to her still looked straight ahead, but his arm stretched behind her. She opened her fist and
something was pressed into her palm.

Then Bones was standing in front of her.

“Do you eat or starve?” Bones asked. His eyes narrowed, and he was just about to grab her when she pulled her hand out from behind her back and shoved it at him. Arista had no
idea what she was giving the man. What if the boy had set her up? He’d been treating them badly all day, yelling and ridiculing them when they failed to beg successfully for even a halfpence.
What if he’d given her a rock?

But Bones growled out a warning, and she had to open her fingers. Two shillings gleamed in the lamplight. Arista had never seen so much money before, much less held it in her hand.

The boy had given that to her?

Why?

“This, my wee bits o’ baggage, is how it’s done. Mighty fine work on your first day, gypsy. You earned yourself an extra ration.” Bones shoved a chunk of bread twice
the size of his hand at her and she grabbed it without thinking. She sank her teeth into the stale crust even before Bones stepped away.

“What about you, boy—where’s your offerin’?”

The boy shrugged nonchalantly, though Arista noticed that his fingers were curled tightly at his side. “Looking after these good-for-nothings all day took all me time.”

Bones backhanded the boy before Arista could swallow. She tried to protest, but her words were muffled by the chunk of dry bread clogging her throat. The boy lay panting on the floor, his
gaze downcast.

“Show ’em where they’re sleeping.” Bones was halfway down the hall when he stopped and turned. “And Nic, my boy, next time you’ll be in the dungeon with
the rest o’ the worthless ones.”

Arista met Nic’s gaze, and in that moment something happened. She offered him a hand up, and half her bread, while the other children looked on wide-eyed.

Nic led them to the room where they would sleep for the next ten years.

That night had only been the beginning….

A drunken shriek too close for comfort jerked Arista back to reality. Nic’s hand tightened on her arm.

He stared at her curiously. “Where’d ya go, gypsy? Not like you to be so quiet.”

Arista couldn’t meet his eyes. Unconsciously, she lifted her hand to touch the scarf she had wound around her wig. She never went out as Lady A without it.

Have you been to India?
The phantom voice filled her head. How could she explain that she was not herself because she’d been so close to her dreams of escape?

“Nerves,” she answered. “I didn’t think that fat arse would fight.”

He seemed to accept her explanation. He stopped them in front of a familiar locked door. Though she was older now and not returning empty handed, the sick, strangling feeling from that first
night never quite went away.

Nic squeezed her hand in understanding, then gave a series of knocks. After a moment, the door swung open. Becky stood just inside the door. Her eyes darted around like a frightened
rabbit’s, but she opened the door wide enough to allow them inside.

Arista stepped back into her personal hell, leaving behind the brief illusion of freedom.

Becky held out a lantern and hurried them down the same narrow hallway where Arista had been led that first night. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, the sounds of men’s voices
rumbled. Arista drew Nic’s jacket tighter around her shoulders.

No one outside these thin walls knew that the infamous Lady A lived only a few feet away.

At the end of the hall, Becky stopped in front of two doors and pulled out a ring of keys. She unlocked the door on the right, pushed it open, and disappeared inside the room she and Arista
shared, taking the light with her. Arista blinked against the sudden darkness.

“Until we meet again, Lady A.” There was more than a hint of laughter in Nic’s voice.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Arista used her best aristocratic vowels as she quoted a line from a Shakespeare play Nic had once taken her to see.

They had stood in the very back at the Haymarket Theatre, and Arista held her breath until the very last line echoed in the hushed room. The tale of doomed love had been unlike anything
she’d ever seen before. Her heart had ached for days.

Nic had just shrugged. “Neither of them needed to die.”

Still, his words had done nothing to diminish the emotion running through her.
Was it worth it, Juliet?
Arista still yearned to know the answer, but what did it matter? She would live and
die without ever knowing love.

“Gypsy,” Nic whispered into the darkness. He wrapped his fingers around hers, and for a second, her heart stopped. They were warm and calloused. Familiar. She started to tell him
about earlier, about the errant thoughts flying around in her head, but he stepped closer and she forgot everything. The warmth of his breath caressed her cheek.

This was
not
part of their usual routine. Not at all.

In the dark, where no one could see them, anything could happen.

“I have something to tell you, but this is not the place. Meet me later, at the spot—you know.” He left before she could exhale. A key turned in a lock, a door opened and
closed, leaving Arista alone. Nic had gone down a short flight of steps that would take him into the main living area, where Bones would be waiting for the packet. Arista pushed into the shared
room and closed the door behind her. The lock clicked as it slid into place. What did Nic want to tell her? Arista tugged at the ribbon holding her mask in place. Cool air washed over her skin.

“Oh, Miss. A feather is missing,” Becky fussed. “I’ll have to have Mr. Nic find me another before you go out again.”

She vaguely heard Becky chattering, but was too distracted to pay much attention. What did Nic want to tell her? The look in his eyes had been strange. A sort of excitement mixed with pride. His
meeting with Bones would not take long. She had to hurry. Filled with a sudden urgency, Arista began pulling the pins from her hair to loosen the wig. Becky swiftly pushed Arista’s hands away
to do it for her. Arista fidgeted under Becky’s ministrations. She hated to be tended to, but didn’t protest.