Ash & Bramble

  “Well, he knows you, Your Ladyship,” he says, and taps his nose. He opens his mouth to say something else—to deliver his message, I guess—when a door down the hallway slams open.

  Dulcet’s head pokes out. “Bring the water at once,” she orders.

  The ratcatcher’s mouth snaps shut.

  “What message?” I whisper, as I heave up the cans of water.

  His nose twitches and he blinks quickly.

  With a sigh, I start down the hallway toward Dulcet’s room.

  “Thimble,” the ratcatcher hisses after me.

  I stumble. Water from the cans sloshes on the floor. When I look around, the ratcatcher is scurrying around the corner and away.

  Thimble? What does this Shoe person know about my missing thimble?

  I DON’T HAVE time to think about the message, because I am kept hard at work without any break for a midday meal. The cook scolds, the servants pretend they can’t see me, and I go wearily from task to task, my face aching, my fingers cold, my stomach empty.

  This is all part of Lady Faye’s plan for me, I surmise as I slop soapy water over the back doorstep and bend to scrub at it with a bristly brush. I am at my absolute lowest now. There is no escape; I have no choices left.

  Late in the afternoon, an undercook sends me to the market for potatoes. I don’t remember the market, but my feet find the way. The air is cold, and as twilight falls, it gets colder, and I wrap my arms around myself as I go along the wide, well-lit streets to the grand square at the center of the city where the market is set up. The castle clock is about to strike six, and I have to hurry to find a shopkeeper willing to sell me a burlap sack full of potatoes before all of the shutters are closed and the stalls taken down. It is awkward to carry. I try wrapping my arms around the sack, but then it’s hard to walk, so I heave it up over my shoulder and trudge along that way. As the clock is striking six I am rounding a corner when somebody runs into me on my swollen-shut-eye side. The sack falls to the street, bursts open, and potatoes go rolling away in every direction.

  “Oh, curse it,” I say to the person who bumped into me. “Can’t you watch where you’re going?”

  He is a tall man wearing a leather cloak down to his ankles; a wide-brimmed hat hides his face. “I do beg your pardon,” he says politely, and I catch a glimpse of a well-shaped mouth that curves into an easy smile. He has two dogs at his heels, tall black and tan hounds with long ears and wagging tails, and he holds up his hand, keeping them in place.

  I am hungry and exhausted and cold and I don’t have time for pretty politeness. “I’ll give you my pardon,” I say crossly, “if you’ll help me pick the dratted things up.” I shove the sack into his hands and go down on my knees, grabbing after the potatoes. Most men would stalk away at being spoken to so sharply by someone who appears to be a servant girl, but he holds the sack while I put the potatoes in. One of his dogs fetches a potato and brings it to me, holding it gently in its mouth.

  “Drop it, Blue,” the man orders, and the dog obediently drops the potato into my hand.

  I wipe the slobber off it with my sleeve and put the potato into the sack. “That’s all of them,” I say.

  The man leans down to help me to my feet.

  I feel his hand on mine, and then black spots are swimming before my eyes and the ground feels very far away, and I am falling—and his arm, strong and warm, comes around my shoulders to steady me.

  “Are you all right?” he asks. His voice is deep and rich, like melted chocolate.

  Mmm, chocolate. I am so very hungry. “Obviously I am not,” I snap. “Just give me the sack and I’ll be on my way.”

  He doesn’t hand over the sack of potatoes. He bends closer to peer into my face, and I get a glimpse of very bright blue eyes in a face of chiseled handsomeness, and a swoop of curly black hair parted on the side. “You’re unwell,” he says, and the concern in his eyes is genuine. “I think you’d better come with me.” He takes my arm, and leads me along. It is very unlike me, but I am too limp to resist. We go down the street, turn a corner, and he brings me into a warm, well-lighted, cozy room. A tea shop, I realize.

  With great courtesy he leads me to a table and pulls back a chair, and I fall into it. “Tea,” he says to the waiter who hurries up to him. “And a tray of pastries, and perhaps some strawberries.”

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter says with a crisp bow, and turns to hurry away.

  “And chocolate, if you please,” I call after him.

  At that the man turns his charming smile on me, and it’s the first time anyone has smiled at me in the longest time—so long that I can’t even remember the last time. He sits down at the table opposite me and, strangely, leaves his hat on, as if he doesn’t want anyone in the shop to notice him. His face is shadowed, but I can see him well enough. He is young, maybe a few years older than I am. And he is very well dressed. That, with the impeccable manners, tells me that he’s quite at home here in the neighborhood nearest the castle.

  He is studying my face. “You speak like a lady,” he says quietly in his velvety voice, “and you carry yourself like one, but you look like a famished, ill-treated scullery maid. Which are you?”

  A sharp reply comes to my lips but I bite it back, and instead I shrug wearily.

  The man gives a charming smile. “You are a mystery, then.”

  I think what he means is that I’m some sort of romantic mystery woman, when there’s nothing at all romantic about sleeping in the cinders of the kitchen hearth, or lugging five cans of hot water up four flights of stairs to Dulcet’s bedroom and being scolded because her bath is only lukewarm, or scrubbing an entire five-course dinner’s worth of pots until the skin of my hands is chapped and red. “I suppose I am,” I say noncommittally. I am a mystery to myself, anyway.

  The waiter delivers a pot of tea and a tray of gorgeous pastries, some of them oozing chocolate.

  Seeing the food makes me brighten. “Well, I am famished,” I add, and I scoop up a strawberry, drag it through a bowl of whipped cream, and pop it into my mouth. It is sweet and tart at the same time, delicious. I follow it up with a bite-size muffin. There’s gingerbread, too. My hand hovers, ready to choose it, but for some reason I don’t want to, so I take a little chocolate roll instead. “You may pour me a cup of tea,” I say through my mouthful. He does so, and I take a long drink.

  His dogs are lying under the table, their muzzles on the floor with their long ears puddled about them; their brown eyes look up beseechingly. “They’re very good dogs,” I say, bending to pat their heads. “Do they go with you everywhere?”

  His face softens as he looks down at them, and this time his smile is different, not as practiced. “They do. I breed them. This is Blue,” he says, nudging one with the toe of his boot, “and the other is Bunny.”

  I start to make a joke about the names—really, what kind of person calls his dog Bunny?—and for the first time I look him full in the eyes, and something very strange happens.

  It is as if a gear has engaged, and I feel completely enmeshed in his gaze. I can’t look away. The same thing, evidently, has happened to him. His blue eyes widen.

  “Who are you?” he whispers, and his voice is not velvet, but rough.

  At the question, a wave of sudden sadness washes over me. I reach into my dress pocket so habitually—to take comfort from my missing thimble—and realize that I’ve lost my perfect shoe. It must have fallen from my pocket somewhere in the marketplace, maybe when I bent to pick up the spilled potatoes.

  Shoe, thimble, all the things I want to remember but don’t—too much has been lost. Who am I? I am nothing. The more I fight, the more tightly I am bound. All my choices are being taken away from me. It is enough to break me, at last. I feel tears welling up, and I blink them back.

  His fingers graze my cheek, tender along the bruise where my stepmother struck me. “You burn so brightly,” he says. “You are like a flame, my mystery girl. You must tell me who you are.”

  I am
no flame. All my fire has burned away, leaving only ash. “I don’t know who I am,” I whisper.

  He leans closer. “Just tell me your name.”

  My name. Trembling, I shake my head.

  “Please.” His voice is urgent.

  I wish I could tell him.

  But I can’t. Something about this is wrong; I can feel it. It’s too sudden.

  Come on, Pen. Think. “Do you know Lady Faye?” I blurt out.

  “Of course. Have you met her?”

  I ignore his question. “Did she send you here? Did she tell you to find me?” Is this another one of her traps?

  “No,” he says slowly. “I think we were meant to meet. Don’t you feel it too?”

  Yes. No. I don’t know. I am light-headed from hunger and exhaustion and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, or how to do what I’m not supposed to do.

  The only thing I can think of is to run.

  I push away from the table and stumble toward the door.

  Behind me, he gets to his feet; one of his dogs barks. “Wait!” he calls after me.

  But too late. I slip out the door and into the street, where it is dark and I can make my escape.

  When I get home, I am immediately sent to my attic prison without any dinner, as punishment for forgetting the potatoes. Exhausted, I curl on the lumpy mattress and wrap my arms around myself, ready to fall asleep at once.

  But I can’t stop thinking about him. The velvet-voiced young man in the tea shop, who asks me questions that I cannot answer.

  CHAPTER

  16

  MORE CUSTOMERS HAVE COME TO THE SHOP TO ORDER shoes made especially for them by elves. There is going to be a ball at the castle, they say, and everyone wants dancing slippers to match their ball gowns. Those that wear these wonderful elf-made shoes, it is said, will never get a blister on a heel or feel a pinched toe or have sore feet, not even if they dance until the clock strikes midnight.

  Grimly, Natters takes their orders and their coins, glares at Shoe, and goes upstairs to dinner and bed, leaving Shoe to work late into the night by candlelight.

  Shoe is stitching a seam along the edge of a slipper-sole when he hears a tap-tap-tap at the shop door. He puts out the candle and holds his breath.

  Tap-tap-tap, and then another louder tap-tap.

  In the near-darkness, Shoe feels his way across the shop to the door, where he stands, the silence pressing against his ears.

  “Yer Lor’ship,” comes a muffled voice from outside.

  Spanner. Quickly Shoe goes back to the workbench and relights the candle, then unlocks the door and pulls the ratcatcher into the shop. “What’s the matter?” he whispers.

  Spanner smells of sweat and of something rancid that might be dead rat. He shakes his wild-haired head. “Your girl, Pin,” he answers. “She’s in a pile of trouble.”

  Shoe nods. “I know she is. I’m trying to figure a way to get her out of it.” He doesn’t have much time left, either. He’s caught enough whispers from the people on Shoemaker Street to know that Spanner is right. Trouble is coming.

  “Your Pin is living in that big house right enough,” Spanner goes on. “But she’s not a fine lady like I thought. Them other fine ladies that live there, they’re treating her bad, like.”

  In his chest, Shoe’s heart gives a lurch. “Bad how?”

  “Somebody’s laid hands on her,” Spanner says with a frown. “That stepmother of hers I guess. Her face is all swelled up. An’ I didn’t notice before ’cos I doesn’t usually notice such things as that, but her dress isn’t so fine, neither, and she looks half starved.” He rubs his nose. “I know that look, I does.”

  “I know it too,” Shoe says darkly. “I should have tried to get her out before this.”

  “Nothing you can do about it, Shoe,” Spanner says. “There’s no getting into that house for you, and the servants isn’t talking. Most of ’em wouldn’t be no help anyway.”

  “I’ll figure out a way,” Shoe says. He reaches out and grasps Spanner’s hunched shoulder. “Thanks for your help with this. I’ll return the favor any time you say.”

  “Aye, I know you will,” Spanner says.

  “And, look.” He suspects that Spanner is an important person in the city’s network of people who are aware of the Godmother’s power. “Put out the word with them that knows. That trouble you’re waiting for. It’s coming soon.”

  “Right-o,” Spanner says with a nod. “Will do.”

  Shoe gives him a handful of coins from Natters’s workbench and opens the door so the ratcatcher can slip out into the night, then he locks the door again. Worried, he paces. When he grips Pin’s thimble, he can almost feel it, like a low thunder at the edge of his hearing. He has to get Pin out of whatever she’s tangled up in. It may already be too late.

  After a while, he goes back to work at the bench, steadying his shaking hands so he can make shoes so fine only elves could have crafted them.

  In the morning, Natters shakes him awake from where he’s fallen asleep with his head on the workbench.

  “The shoes are finished,” Shoe says, his voice creaky.

  “I can see that well enough,” Natters says. “Come and have some breakfast.”

  Yawning, Shoe follows him up to the kitchen, where the Missus puts bowls of porridge on the table before them.

  “There’s bacon and egg to come,” she says in her piping voice. “Eat up.”

  By the time he’s drunk a cup of tea and eaten half a bowl of the porridge with goat milk, Shoe has woken up enough to put two thoughts together in his head. “Natters,” he says, setting down his spoon. “Missus Natters. There’s something that I have to do.”

  At the table, Natters nods; the Missus gets up from her chair and goes to lean against him; he puts an arm around her wide hips.

  Shoe rubs his eyes, weary. What he’s planning will put them in danger; it’ll draw attention that they don’t want, and it might break their hearts, too. How can he consider doing such a thing?

  “Go on, lad,” Natters prompts.

  “No, I can’t,” Shoe mutters to himself. “I’ll figure out another way to do it.”

  “Your girl,” the Missus puts in unexpectedly. “Pin’s her name?”

  Shoe looks up. “Yes. Pin.”

  “How long did you know her before she got caught up in this?” the Missus asks. Her bright eyes are sharp.

  With a shock, Shoe realizes that he and Pin were together for only a few days. He’s been working here in the shop for longer than that. “Not very long,” he admits. “But she saved me. We escaped together. She knows me, and I know her better than I’ve ever known anyone.” Which is true, as far as he can remember, because his Before is still lost to him. “She’s brave, and smart, and sharp, and she’s beautiful too, and she laughs at irony.” And then he adds, “If there’s ever an expected thing to do, she’ll do the opposite.”

  “Does she love you?” the Missus asks.

  Shoe rests his elbows on the table and puts his head in his hands. “Maybe,” he says, his voice muffled. “Probably not. I don’t know.”

  There is a silence. When he looks up, the Missus has gone back to her seat and she and Natters are having one of their conversations where neither of them says anything.

  After a moment, Natters gives a resigned shrug. “All right, Missus, if you think so.”

  “I do,” the Missus says, and gives a satisfied nod. “We’ll do what we can to help you, Shoe. What is it you’re planning?”

  “I have to get into the house where Pin is living and try to get her out of there. But the Godmother has plans for her, so it might be dangerous.” Shoe pauses. The Missus gives an impatient nod, and so he goes on. “This is what I’m thinking. Natters, you’re the most famous shoemaker in the city right now. The orders are coming in faster than we can fill them.”

  “It’s the prince’s ball up at the castle,” Natters puts in.

  “Right.” Shoe nods. “There are fine ladies living a
t the house where Pin is, and they’ll probably be invited to this ball, and they’ll want the best, elf-made dancing shoes.” He’ll try to keep Natters out of it if he can. “If I tell them I’m taking orders for your shop—”

  “—They’ll not let you in the door,” Natters interrupts.

  “They might,” Shoe argues.

  “Natters is right,” the Missus puts in. “They won’t let a servant in to see the ladies. He’s the shop owner; it’ll have to be him that gets you in.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  WHILE I SCRUB POTS IN THE LATE-AFTERNOON KITCHEN, I think about the tea shop man. I only caught glimpses of his face, but I’d know him again if I saw him. I’d recognize his chocolate-smooth voice and easy smile.

  I wonder if he is thinking about me, the snappish girl with the bag of potatoes and the black eye and the enormous appetite for pastries.

  Oh, he probably isn’t. He’s handsome and obviously rich; it’s likely enough he’s got beautiful girls like Dulcet and Precious flinging themselves at him. Why would he look twice at a wretch like me?

  But I am his mystery girl. We shared something, there in the tea shop. Maybe he is thinking about me.

  “Pen,” a housemaid interrupts.

  I look up. “Yes?” It’s Anna.

  She holds out a bucket with a brush and a rag in it and a jar of brass polish. “I’ve got the table to set for dinner. Would you do the hearth in the downstairs blue drawing room?”

  “Yes, all right.” I set down my scrubbing brush and dry my chapped, reddened hands on my increasingly stained and ragged dress. Taking the bucket, I trudge up the stairs from the kitchen and down the hallway.

  I go into the drawing room. My stepsisters are there with two other people, tradesmen of some kind, I guess, a tall, bent old man wearing a leather apron, and a boy about my age holding a wooden toolbox; he’s the old man’s servant, evidently.

  As I come into the door, the younger one gives a start and his eyes widen. He stares at me as I cross the room to the hearth. Giving him a little frown, I set down the bucket and go to my knees, pulling the grate out of the ashes.