Shadows Gray

Chapter Twenty-Three



“You have got to be joking.” It’s the only thing I am capable of saying and I have repeated it three times in as many minutes.

Israel looks irritated. “You’ve got a better idea then?”

“No. But-“

“There’s just barely enough room in his little house for us. This doctor, he’s really excited about some of the things I had to teach him, especially about germs. He wants to know more. Their house is small, but there’s a back room we can take. Your dad can come too.”

“Sounds cozy.”

“Quit complaining. Who knows how long we’ll be here? It could be just a few weeks.”

“It could be years.”

“Well, then we can take it one day at a time; we can always figure out a better plan later on,” his voice is beginning to sound irritated. “But we can’t just stay on the streets of London. The place is filthy, winter is coming on fierce, and there are Bobbies all over the place.” Bobbies being the police.

We have reached our little party again. The fire burns brightly in our receptacle, Joe is practicing what looks like ninja moves in the firelight, and Bea and Dad are watching him, bemused. Emme is gone.

“Fine,” I blurt out. “If no one else figures out a better plan, we’ll go with yours.”

I cannot believe what I have gotten myself into. Israel’s pretend wife. My head spins.

“Where’s Emme?” I ask Bea. She is dressed now in the garb of the period, a pea green coat that is buckled over a long brown dress. Dad must have been busy today, I think. We’re such a bunch of criminals it makes me sigh aloud.

“Out. Working,” Bea either looks embarrassed or worried, I’m not sure which it is. Her mouth turns down in a neat little bow shape. “I asked her to come back tonight and stay with us but I don’t know if she will. She says she met some women who were going to take her to a…” Bea’s voice trails off. “Well, anyway, a place where she might be able to live and work both.”

“I think they call them houses of ill repute in this day and age,” I keep my voice light and teasing to candy coat my crass words.

Her bow of a mouth turns back up a little. “Well, it’s a start. I’m trying to get her out of that work, but you know how Emme is. Nobody tells her what to do. She’s stubborn and independent.”

“What will you do here?” I ask. I don’t know whether family members can stay in those places that Emme is thinking of, and I hate to think of Joe growing up in such an environment.

Bea waves her hand through the cold air. “I can sew and that should be marketable. There are factories if I can’t get on in a shop somewhere. It just might take a little time is all. I wish we’d arrived here in summer; the nights are too cold for Joe to be sleeping outside.” It’s worried she looks now without doubt.

“It is cold,” I agree. “Nice that ladies these days wear all those glove and hats and things – keeps them warmer, I imagine. Too bad we don’t have any of them.” I cup my hands and blow into them. The heat from my breath warms them for about a nanosecond.

“Yes, we do look like paupers compared to some of the gentlewomen we’ve seen, don’t we?” She looks down at her coat and fingers a tear in the fabric.

“Well, I miss my over-alls and my Budweiser cap.”

“No one else does,” teases Joe, cutting in on the conversation.

“Hey, now, you little monster!” I tickle him ruthlessly. “Naughty little children don’t give fashion advice. Go finish your candy and rot your teeth; it’ll serve you right.” I push him off my lap and still wheezing from too much laughter, he leaves to join Israel.

Israel. I feel butterflies in my stomach. Am I mad to have agreed to such a crazy scheme? Sonnet Rhode? This whole idea is preposterous. What was I thinking? I glance over at him. He’s talking in hushed tones to the boys and to Dad. I can tell he’s telling them of our plan. His plan. My plan, by default only. I’d like to point this out but my lips seem glued shut for all of eternity.

Emme does come back and seems pleased as punch with Israel’s plot to have a faux marriage with me, and so do Dad and Bea and Emme. Although Emme’s eyes widen at the idea.

“Fancy that,” she smirks. “You’re finally getting married. I always thought it’d be you and Israel actually. I’m never wrong.”

“You’re always wrong, smarty. You said you were going to marry Johnny Depp.”

“Yeah, well,” she tosses her reddish hair over her shoulder. “I ran out of time is all.”

“Sure. Pull up a cobblestone and go to sleep.”

Now it’s dark and cold and we have run out of miscellaneous kindling for our fire. The smoke that drifts by my nostrils feels like my only heat and I breathe it in deeply. I have kidnapped Joe for a little extra body heat and we curl up together like two pink shrimp. Emme is behind me, her arm around my waist, and now we are three.

Sometime in the middle of the night I feel Joe move and scoot over to be with Bea. The front of my body chills instantly with his absence. Uncomfortable, I sleep once more and dream of Luke Dawes.

********************

I am awakened by an insistent foot nudging me in my shoulder. A concerned and wary looking face peers into mine. He looks relieved when I yawn. He has a bushy, salt and pepper colored beard that comes to a point nearly four inches below his chin. He is wearing the uniform of a Bobbie, the British police.

“Come now, miss, up you go!” he barks. “Off the streets. Thought the lot of you were dead for a minute there. Find something to do besides scare innocent people to death, would you?”

“Sorry,” I smile, ruefully. “We’re all fine.” I motion to the others which consist of just Emme and Joe now, I see. Is and Dad and Bea must have awoken already and are off goodness knows where. Emme stretches and opens her eyes. “We just are in need of a place to go to, sir.”

The man rubs his beard. “Well, you can’t stay here,” he repeats himself. “Isn’t safe. Don’t like stumbling upon bodies first thing in the morning, not nowadays. You say you two girls don’t have anywhere to go?”

“Of course we do!” Emme scowls at me. “We’re just fine, officer. Just had a bit of a rowdy night is all. But it isn’t as though we haven’t got a home. You don’t need to worry about us.”

Stubborn and independent? Isn’t that what Bea described of her headstrong daughter? I sigh. Any hope I had of a nice Scotland Yard hero whisking us off to a lovely home and a bath is dashed.

The officer looks skeptical. “Well, see that you do. Move on, I mean. Name’s Walter Andrews. You remember that name if you ever need me. Miss,” he nods briskly towards me, “Miss,” nods to Emme. “Young sir,” this is directed towards Joe who has awoken and stares up at him with owlish eyes.

“Yes, sir, I mean, no sir, I mean goodbye, sir,” says Joe and salutes smartly.

“You protect these young flowers,” Officer Andrews continues to Joe.

“Yes, sir! I know all sorts of ninja moves, sir!” Joe proceeds to leap to his feet and demonstrates one.

“Ah. Yes. Certainly.” Officer Andrews looks bewildered but properly impressed at the flying feet and hands. “That will unquestionably do the trick should the occasion call for it. I don’t want to see you three here again. Am I clear?”

I nod, embarrassed and chagrined and put in my place, as the homeless, penniless girl I am. A stand in for Israel’s wife is beginning to sound better and better.

“You could have seen if he was offering help,” I scold Emme after the officer leaves.

“He wasn’t. He just wanted us to move on. We don’t need help, we’re doing just fine on our own.” Emme brushes off her pink dress and licking her fingers, tries to comb down her son’s hair.

“My back begs to differ,” I frown, twisting from the waist and feeling my joints pop.

“Oh, it’s our last night here. By tonight you’ll be in a real house and I’ll have Mum and Joe taken care of too. Come on, let’s walk and try to find everyone.”

“Are you going to live in one of those…you know, one of those places?” I can’t help feeling the worry come through in my voice even though I know Emme will resent it.

“Sure. It’s not a palace, but it’ll do for now. I’ll move up, Sonnet, you’ll see. Maybe I’ll be someone someday. But I have to start somewhere.”

I don’t have a response to that and so we walk in silence for a while. Joe stops long enough to pee on a tree (ah, the joys of being a boy) and then he merrily skips ahead, feeling no cold in his bones and no sorrow in his little heart. Somewhere between his age and mine, I seem to have grown old.

“This is where we woke up,” I point out when we pass the spot.

Emme looks around, interested. “Mum and Joe and I were further down a ways. See that ugly blue store front? Over behind that. I knew it was England even before I opened my eyes; smelled just how I remembered.” She takes a deep breath and spreads her arms wide as if embracing all of London.

“Like cabbage and steam?”

“Pretty much!” she laughs.

“We might be walking in the wrong direction. Maybe we should stay put a while. This is the beginning, at least for me.” Go back to the beginning, Dad said.

“Right, luv,” Emme agrees. “But I’m hungry. Give me some of your dad’s money and I’ll get us some breakfast and bring it back.”

Joe sits with me on the nearest bench. He’s a bundle of energy, swinging his legs back and forth and talking a mile a minute. I am only half listening as my mind is wandering off to places unbidden; thoughts of what I left behind, what is coming for me next, worries about Emme and Prue, sadness over Rose. I am mindful of his musings - barely - but when I hear the words that come out of his mouth next, I am so shocked I nearly fall off the bench.

“Hullo, Mr. Dawes! Did you bring me some breakfast?” Joe chirps.

********************

For what seems like a maddeningly large amount of time, everything stands still. I feel as though I’m trapped in a dream, can’t speak, can’t move, and can’t even seem to blink, as I stare at Luke. Luke, in a shabby eighteen-hundreds style overcoat and hat, his hair as floppy as ever underneath, his whiskers even more stubbly than normal. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. He looks beautiful.

“You’re here,” I have this terrible feeling my words will come out in a girlish squeal, but actually they are only a whisper.

“I got that impression as well,” Luke says, ruefully.

I somehow find my legs and stand; take a step slowly, then another one, faster, until I have reached him. He raises his arms and his eyebrows simultaneously. I find myself launching myself into the former.

“Gray,” he breathes into my neck. “You don’t know how much I was hoping you’d be here too.”

I laugh and pull away enough to look at his face, though our arms are still entwined.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I never even hoped you traveled with us. How?” I finally feel the awkwardness of our embrace and step away, my hands falling to my side.

“The night we all traveled I didn’t go home,” he confesses. “I was out on your porch and slept there. I didn’t feel exactly welcome after I was stupid enough to realize I knew where you had been the whole time, but I was worried about you. Plus, I was way too tired to walk all the way home.” He winks.

“I can’t believe you came with us,” I shake my head in amazement. “I guess your father isn’t living a double life in Topeka. He really was – is – Lost. You’re one of us!”

“Is there a special ceremony or anything I should know about? A cool robe to wear or a secret handshake or a hazing?”

“Funny. Wait ‘til everyone hears. Here comes Emme!”

“Well, well, well,” Emme laughs as she nears us, her hands full of hot bread. The steam from them rises up in the cold in a column. “Look what the cat dragged in! Nice to see you, Lukie my boy. Been here long?”

“Couple days, same as you I expect. Hi, Emme,” Luke bends down to kiss her upturned cheek. Wait, where was my kiss? Somehow my face doesn’t seem to beckon and invite kisses the way Emme’s cherubic face does.

“Hullo, yourself! And the number of our family grows, just like that,” Emme snaps her fingers after handing over the bread to a jumping Joe. “Here, you little beggar. Save some for Auntie Sonnet. I had mine already.”

“Where have you been staying?” I ask, biting into the fresh hot bread and offering a piece to Luke.

Luke shrugs and takes the bread thankfully. “Here and there. Not sure exactly what to do or where to go. New to this, you know. I spent the whole first day in total shock and hardly moved.”

“That’ll never do now that you’re Lost,” Emme says practically. “You have to figure things out lickety split. No sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Why, we had hardly been here at all when Sonnet here got herself married to Israel!”

Luke chokes on his bread. While Emme slaps him on the back sympathetically, I glare at her and hurry to explain the situation. Luke appears only slightly less aghast when I finish my tale.

“Unless of course, you have a better offer for her?” Emme asks offhandedly. Was she flirting on my behalf now? I’d like to smack my infuriating best friend. “I mean, you could pretend to be married to Sonnet yourself.”

“Or you could,” I snap. “It’s not like you’re a married woman either.”

Emme waves away the ridiculous notion and doesn’t even blush, which naturally, I am doing to the roots of my hair. “I’m not the marrying type. Luke knows that. No hard feelings?” She looks at Luke expectantly.

“I’ll try to get over it,” he agrees good-naturedly. “And Gray, you don’t have to pretend to be married to me, but if you aren’t going to eat the rest of that bread I’d take it off your hands.”

My hero.