Gabriel shakes his head. “They are called the Roma people. They fled faraway lands, where they were persecuted, only to arrive in England to suffer the same fate.”
I am taken aback by Gabriel’s serious tone. I look back at the group. The women are dressed in long, colorful skirts, with scarves on their heads, and the men in loose trousers and black boots. A big, burly man is the source of the music and plays a curious instrument with black and white keys like a piano but held up to his chest by a strap around his neck. Fingers as large as sausages nimbly work over the keys.
“C’mon, then,” Emily says, tugging my hand. “Bloody pie’s getting cold.”
We continue on, the music fading, and pass a storefront with broken windows. A red X is painted on the door. “What is this?” I ask. We all pause and peer inside. It is a clockmaker’s shop, and it is entirely disheveled. Tall tower clocks are toppled over, gears and little springs are strewn about, and the counters have been smashed. Shards of glass sparkle on the wooden floor. I look back at the door. Underneath the X, there is a handbill written in big block letters:
HUE & CRY!
A GREAT PUBLIC MEETING
OF THE WORKING CLASSES
9 NOVEMBER
COMMUNISTS!
IMMIGRANTS!
GYPSIES!
SPREADERS OF DISEASE AND SICKNESS.
PROTECT YOUR FAIR ENGLAND!
FOREIGNERS OUT!
“What’s a communist?” Emily asks.
But I don’t have a chance to answer, for right at that moment, a little boy stumbles out of the alley to our left. He doesn’t wear a shirt or shoes, only ragged trousers cut off at the knee. We all pause. There is something wrong with him, I realize. He’s sick. Red, weeping sores mark his chest.
“Help,” the little boy whispers, thrusting out stiff black fingers, more like a claw than a hand. “Please. Help me.”
I recall the dream I had the other night—?a little girl in a pinafore dress, with blood along the hem. I take a step toward him.
“Wait!” Gabriel warns.
The boy steps closer. He swallows and then opens his mouth. “Ring around the rosy,” he sings weakly. “A pocketful of posies. Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!”
And then he does exactly that, right there in the filthy alley.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Upon a Silver Tray
The three of us stand several feet from the body, silent. The air is cooler now, and fine drops of rain begin to fall. Emily screws up her face. “Wouldn’t wanna catch whatever’s got to him.”
“It’s the same rhyme,” I say, and my voice seems loud in the mouth of the alley, bouncing off the dank walls and back into my throat. “The same message that was written on the slate back home.”
“Strange,” Gabriel mutters. He takes a few hesitant steps closer but remains a safe distance away. After a moment he raises his right hand and makes the sign of the cross in the air. I hear his voice, deep yet soft, and the words drift into my ears. “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,” he whispers.
A prayer?
Emily’s voice brings me back to the moment. “We better get back,” she says, “and tell old Balthy what happened.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” I protest.
“We shouldn’t get any closer,” Gabriel says. “He has surely died.”
“How can you tell?” I ask.
Gabriel turns to me, his dark eyes somber. “I just know,” he says flatly.
“Right,” Emily adds. “He would know.”
I sigh in frustration. “How would you just know?”
But Gabriel doesn’t answer, only lowers his head a moment and avoids my gaze.
Is this something to do with his power? The music?
I look once again at the boy’s body.
“C’mon,” Emily insists, taking my hand. “Let’s be off.”
I pull myself away, but as we head back to 17 Wadsworth Place, I hear the rhyme repeating in my head: Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!
“It was just like the rhyme on the slate,” I tell Balthazar. “The exact same words.”
“He were dirty,” Emily adds, “and all covered in rosy marks. His fingernails was all blacklike, sire.”
We take refuge in the sitting room and warm ourselves before the fire. My clothes have become damp and itchy from the sudden rain. Balthazar sits quietly, but he looks as if he could spring into action at any moment. His brow furrows at our news. “It sounds like one of your nursery rhymes.”
One of your, I notice. I sometimes forget that he is not fully human.
“But what does it mean?” I ask.
“That is still a mystery, Miss Jessamine, but it is surely the work of Mephisto.”
He’s right. There is no other reason why this same rhyme would be sung by the boy and also appear on the slate.
“He was ravaged by disease,” Gabriel says. “Some terrible sickness.”
“Be on your guard,” Balthazar warns us. “If you see anyone like this again, do not go near them under any circumstance.”
We all nod in agreement. There is a moment of silence that seems to go on forever.
“Bloody starving,” Emily finally says. “Who wants some eel pie?”