Plague Moon

"Thou, who like to the spotted leopard are diverse in manners and in mischief, whose head now is growing gray, who are seated on a throne full of deceits and from bottom to top are stained with murder and adulteries; Vortigern, thou foolish tyrant, why art thou so stiff? Do such violent gulfs of sin not yet satisfy thee, especially since the end of thy life is daily approaching? Why dost thou clog thy miserable soul with the sin of lust by putting away thy wife, and after her honorable death, by the base practices of thy shameless daughter?"
(Gildas: De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae)

It was barely daylight and they were killing some poor bastard. A bowshot away on the hill overlooking the crossroad south of Druastè Township, Silas Half stood watching the victim convulse in terror as his captors forced him to the ground. One of them placed a foot roughly on the man’s neck and abruptly bashed his head in. It had been a while since the last public execution and Silas felt a thrill—always a good way to start the day. The wavering cheer that went up from the small crowd gathered there said it was an entertaining, if not particularly noteworthy execution. A tonsured monk made the sacred sign over the twitching corpse and turned away.

The stranger had appeared a week before, saying he was from Wynfarthing, a fenland village two days walk to the south. He had no money and would not tell the nature of his business, so in the absence of a sponsor the watchmen were obliged to hold him. A rider was even sent to Wynfarthing, but no one came forward to vouch for the man. It is the year of our Lord four fifty-five, Vortigern is newly come to power, and nobody trusts anyone.

The crowd dispersed leaving the watchmen to dispose of the body, aided and abetted by the idiot fringe of local youth, namely Mortigan Yapp and a scruffy ginger-haired boy known only as Cutlip.

Yapp’s name was well suited, given his aptitude for disrupting any event with inane comments and general obtuseness. He had survived for seventeen summers in and around the orchards his father tended for the local lord. Scrumpy, the rough cider made from tart apples, had kept his mother happy throughout her baby’s gestation; the very reason, some said, the boy turned out to be an addle-pate.

Mortigan’s inseparable crony, Cutlip, was so-called because of a scar, which crossed his right cheek from the corner of his mouth almost to his ear. He’d been ‘awarded’ it as stark indication of his notoriety as a liar, cheat and blatant toady.

Silas made his way home to Druastè Abbey and delivered the brace of rabbits caught on his pre-dawn hunt to brother Cornelius, the Kitchener. The abbey had been home to Silas Half for almost his whole life. Too young to remember the events that led to his being sheltered at the abbey, Silas learned about them from stories told by the monks about the Romans.

They said the old invader’s final departure had given rise to riotous high spirits, and that savage fools punished anyone they thought had accepted the enemy too readily. No one knew what to do next—It was as if men’s wits had been sucked out. Some of the brethren thought Rome’s abandonment had re-injured everyone, and the brutality was as much indignation as anything else. Nowhere was safe as Vortigern’s bullies and misfits plundered at whim, filled with ale and lust.

Silas was little more than a suckling when hell came through the wall; the thunderous crush of men and horses shattering the night and his sleeping parents’ heads. The family’s lodger scrapped bravely until he was clubbed senseless—his body falling on top of baby Silas; and in the stupefying havoc they too were left for dead. Silas’ scant memories were of a drizzle of burning reeds from the roof and the stink of death in the ruined home. For a long time his baby-dreams were haunted by the clatter of hoof and harness fading into the darkness, along with the sound of coarse laughter and some other child’s terrified screams.

Silently Cornelius cut a thick slice of bread and tossed it on the table, followed by a small chunk of cheese and a crisp onion—recompense for Silas’ contribution to the pot. The boy tapped a couple of weevils out of the bread and trod on them before pulling a cricket, or three-legged stool to the table. It creaked loudly as he sat. Cornelius set about cleaning the rabbits.

“They killed the stranger out by the crossroads,” said Silas through a half chewed mouthful of onion and bread. “He must have kept mum ‘til the end?”

With customary glumness Cornelius muttered; “They wouldn’t have done him otherwise”, and slit the belly of the first rabbit. He reached into the carcass and began drawing out the still warm innards; giblets, heart, lights, liver. It would be cut up and added to the bottomless kettle of pottage stewing by the hearth, followed, after supper, by the bones.

The year’s sorry harvest meant nothing could be wasted. No sooner was springtime sowing over than an uncommonly heavy downpour washed much of the topsoil away exposing the seed—a bounty for local fauna. It was only proper for their ilk to have a place at Druasté’s table.

The monks were not avowed to live in silence, though none could claim to be much of a conversationalist, least of all the acerbic Cornelius. “Hang those in the flesh room,” he said, plonking the gutted carcasses in front of Silas, “And bring me the brace of pheasant from last week.” Silas popped the last bite of onion into his mouth and stuffed the remaining cheese and bread into his shirt; breakfast would almost certainly be stolen if he didn’t take it with him.

In the rare event of a hot summer the priory’s cool corridors became a welcome retreat, otherwise they were gloomy and chill. Only days of sunshine could warm the stonework enough to keep heat into the evening hours. Silas negotiated the warren of dimly lit passages of the abbey’s under croft. There was a place known as the flesh room where meats were stored, and sometimes the cadavers of newly departed monks awaiting burial. Rounding the last corner he collided with someone running the other way. Silas’ step was barely broken, but the slight woman who had caromed into him went sprawling gracelessly—all dark wool and pale linen.

“You oaf!” she said in a harsh whisper; “What in God’s name are you playing at?” Not considering that anyone smelling so clean would be of significant rank, and consequently untouchable to commoners, Silas reached down and grasped the woman’s slender wrist; “An accident—I’m sorry,” he said.

“Unhand me,” she growled, “And be quiet.” She snatched her arm away and struggled awkwardly to her feet, hampered by voluminous skirts. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Should I?” Retorted Silas. He reached up and took a torch from its sconce. “And why need anyone whisper down here—in God’s name or otherwise?”

“There are dead people here”, said the woman; “I was being reverential.” Silas raised the torch so he could get a better look.

Her clothes were not those of a girl, but from her unblemished complexion and cheeky look he guessed her to be no more than fifteen. Below the woolen tunic that hung to her knees a chemise of white linen draped to the flagstones. His impulsive glance told Silas that beneath her garments her chest was either modishly bound or she was sadly flat chested. A hood, or cowl, covered a taut wimple, which in turn hid the woman’s hair. She was wearing the sparse accoutrements of a novice nun.

“Forgive me, sister.” Said Silas, “I was hurrying on an errand for the kitchener”.

“Then hurry on, man.” She said, and jostled past him haughtily.

The light fragrance of lavender hung in the dim corridor. “What a pity”, thought Silas; mildly lamenting the loss of such a pretty woman to the dreary retinue who were The Brides Of Christ.

In the flesh room he hung the rabbits and found the pheasants he’d been told to get. After being bled pheasants were hung for at least four days before cooking; this much Silas knew. But he had never eaten pheasant, cooked or otherwise. As he made his way back to the kitchen Silas mulled over his encounter with the young nun. What with natural body odours and the rare smell of soap he had never thought nuns smelled particularly nice, but the girl’s scent lingered with him. He even considered making a quick visit to the privy to relieve himself, until fears of blindness and possible eternal damnation bridled his thoughts.

The air in the kitchen had changed noticeably in the few minutes Silas had been gone. Scratch Folland stood warming his back at the kitchen fire, his lips pursed peevishly tight. Silas met the man’s gaunt stare as he sidled to the table, placed the pheasants on it and sat down, intending to resume his breakfast. But Friar Folland was there to mete out trouble, seemingly his prime raison d’être. To Silas the mere presence of the irascible man was disquieting enough. 

Folland got the nickname ‘Scratch’ because of his tendency to worry the hair behind either ear when in deep thought; his former calling as tutor to Druasté’s novices often found him that way. But something got into Scratch, and he no longer taught—at least not under the auspices of the church. Now an itinerant monk, Scratch haunted streets and alleyways shouting blandishments at the heavens and God’s instruction to the masses. Most of the townsfolk had become persuaded that his brain was addled; but, just in case God was in mad friars too, they fed him and let him sleep with the livestock when the weather was bad.

 Ok, ok... anachronisms a-plenty; but I'm working on it!

Waiting
(An exercise in creating characters of the opposite sex.)

The last train to anywhere was gone.  Outside the night was foul; rain spattered on the windows and ran down the glass in sorry rivulets, leaking through the skylight at a couple of places where glazing putty had cracked and fallen away.  I’d mentioned it several times to the maintenance man― while he was busy gazing at my boobs.  At a back table of the otherwise deserted waiting room sat a man, poring over a newspaper laid on the Formica tabletop.  Something about him seemed familiar:
Forty-ish, I guessed; Charcoal gray suit, conservative necktie, and pale shirt with just the right amount of cuff showing at the wrist; Dark, well groomed moustache and hair, the latter graying slightly at the temples.  Perhaps the familiarity I felt was simply that he fit my idea of how a well-heeled middle-aged gentleman should look.
I squirted Windex at the huge mirror behind the refreshment counter, furtively watching the man’s reflection.  Without lifting his eyes he slowly moved a sun-browned hand to a black trench coat lying on the seat beside him and took a silver cigarette case from one of its pockets.  Then he pulled out a lighter… not a seventy-nine cent disposable but a hefty little chunk like a Dupont or a Dunhill.  Suddenly he looked directly at me and, feeling a flush come to my face, I fell to buffing the mirror with exaggerated care.  Should I say something? He must have seen me eyeing him.
“I made fresh coffee,” I blurted out, unnerved by the stranger’s sober gaze. “Would you care for a cup?”
The man lit his cigarette, one of those acrid smelling French things.  He puffed smoke, slid scholarly looking reading glasses down the bridge of his angular nose and quietly cleared his throat.
“Thank you, yes; That would be nice.”
“How do you take it?” I asked with forced geniality.  For some reason I expected him to order it black but he asked for it creamy ― “With a little extra sugar!”  I set a clean cup in a saucer and took another glance in the mirror as I turned to the coffee maker; his reflection was watching me.
“The south-bound is gone,” I said; “Nothing will be through here for some time, not counting the one-oh-five fast freight.”
He folded his newspaper, then his glasses and laid them on the paper.  Leaning back in his chair he passed a well-manicured hand over obviously tired eyes.
“I imagine it will be here soon enough,” he said, a little pensively. Outside the rain paused and a watery moon crept from behind tattered clouds into a patch of indigo sky.  I wondered again about the man’s familiar look and decided to take a stab at it:
“Haven’t you been here before?”  The dash of cream I’d put in his coffee made a little whorl.
“You’re very observant,” he said, and for the first time I noticed the hint of an accent.  The legs of his chair scraped noisily on the floor as he stood and started forward, negotiating his way around the furniture to stop directly in front of me.  “I came this way once before but it’s been a while.”
He was quite tall and athletic-looking, and I made an attempt at what I hoped was a disarming smile ― though I wished I’d had a gun hidden somewhere close.  The coffee cup rattled in its saucer as I slid them across the counter.
“No charge,” I said, my heart in my mouth; “You’re our millionth customer.”
A smile brought friendly wrinkles to the corners of dove-colored eyes, and he spoke in a tone cool as stream water.
“Please; you need not be alarmed young lady,” he said. Nevertheless my heart raced.
“Oh?” I bleated.
“I’m old enough to be your grandpa,” he chuckled, “and feeling none too nimble right now.”  My anxiety eased a bit;
“I get some real characters in here sometimes and, well… you know.”
The man crushed out his smoke in an ashtray and, squaring his shoulders a little, extended a hand across the counter. 
“My name is Kirby Roush,” he said; “May I know yours?”
I flopped my hand out like a wet fish and swallowed almost audibly.  “Sylvia Malone; my friends call me Coco.”
He laughed softly; “Enchanté, Mademoiselle Coco.”  Then gently taking my hand he bowed slightly and began to lift my flaccid fingers toward his face.
“Oh God!” I thought; “He’s gonna kiss my friggin’ hand!”  But he didn’t.  Releasing it he picked up his coffee and turned away.  My stupid hand hung in the air.
Thunder growled nearby as Kirby Roush returned to his table, chair creaking sharply as he sat.  I busied myself with side-work as rain again began seeping through the skylight to drip and puddle on the cracked linoleum.  I glanced at the man more openly. 
He sipped his coffee, holding the cup handle almost delicately between finger and thumb with his pinky raised like a little antenna and the other hand cradling the saucer a few inches below his chin.  I wondered incongruously if the posture was meant to demonstrate good breeding or merely showed a simple desire to avoid dripping coffee on his tie.
“You picked a rotten night to travel,” I said; “There’s a storm-warning for the whole east coast.”  He rested his cup carefully in its saucer and gave a faint smile.
“Yes,” he said, looking up at the roiling clouds outside the window. “Thank goodness for trains; I’ve always hated flying in this.”
We exchanged banter about the weather for a couple of minutes before the conversation lagged and I retreated behind the counter.  A squall carried the distant wail of the approaching freight train.  “What kind of business are you in?” I asked, looking up.
But Kirby Roush was gone.  As I tidied his table I noticed the headline of the newspaper he’d left.  It read: “Train wreck demolishes station.”  A single chime of the ancient wall clock marked the passing of the first hour of Friday, October thirty-first.

If He Sqeals 

My sister-in-law Sylvie had a way of showing-up at family functions way too early and most often already half drunk; such was the case on the fourth of July, 1989.  Looking back I think she may have been the only sane one in the whole bunch.  Maybe I can write it now; it was too hard then, I'd get a knot in my gut the size of a Volkswagen and feel like throwing up.
The rituals took place in Huntington Beach, California at the home of my other sister-in-law Frances.  After exchanging obligatory air-kisses she and my wife Doris would verbally pussyfoot around each other looking for an opening.  Thirty-odd years of practiced rivalry made this thrust-and-parry seem endless.
Guests usually comprised mostly of other siblings — also with incendiary attitudes learned from birth — who frequently started squabbles which often became quarrels that had been known to degenerate into actual fights.  Anyone would think they hated each other.
Youngest brother Jon and his significant-other, Sue, brought twins Sam 'n Eric; products of one of Sue's other marital disasters.  They usually just ricocheted around until swatted then hid in separate closets until it was time to leave.  Frances detested Sam 'n Eric and not surprisingly their father, who was serving eighteen-to-life in Soledad prison for killing some other drug dealer.  Whenever his name came up in conversation Frances would bustle off mumbling something like, "He's the kind of guy that gets niggers a bad name".
Jon and Sue met over a roulette wheel in Bullhead City, Arizona where she was croupier in a riverside casino.  Jon past-posted a bet; a practice whereby, after the little ball stops rolling, the cheater surreptitiously switches chips of higher value for smaller ones already placed.  The inscrutable Sue wasn't fooled but nevertheless paid off Jon’s bet without giving the alarm, in return for which she made him bonk her vigorously for several hours. 
A couple of days later Sue quit her job, bundled up the toddling twins and drove her failing Oldsmobile to San Bernardino where Jon had told her he ran a thriving Harley Davidson dealership. The whirlwind romance took a hit when it became clear that he was a humble auto mechanic somewhat lacking in recognizable personal virtues; but the sex and drugs were good enough that Sue stayed anyway.
Older brother Barry brought wife Mickey, short for Michaela. The almost seven foot tall Barry owned up to being a spy.  Once after he'd gone missing for several days Mickey phoned Doris in the wee-small hours one night to say he'd called from the Azores or somewhere similarly remote...Tierra Del Fuego? Casual as the guy was about his anonymity I supposed Barry was either a very bad spy or an extremely good one.  Frances' Mexican gardener said Barry's face was "Big: Like a horse".
Besides being married Barry and Mickey were in business together selling surveillance and security devices; Barry's 'cover'.  She, a traveling rep for a burglar alarm manufacturer in San Francisco, fell for Barry right away; the similarly smitten Barry closed up the store and together they zoomed off to Grand Bahama, returning a week later hitched.
Parents Henry and Marjorie were long and no doubt blissfully dead, thus having the only acceptable excuse for not showing up at Frances' perennial soirées. 
When the kids were young Hank and Marge were so often preoccupied with chiding each other that Barry and Frances more or less ran the family.  After visiting one or more of his favorite watering holes Dad would come home from work at the General Dynamics plant in Verona and resume the customary fault-finding he'd begun that morning.  Marge would keep him off the kid's backs by steering him to the wet bar in the den, then in due course pour him into bed.  Following mom's death Barry joined the Marines and Frances assumed the role of matriarch while dad floated away on the eighty-proof waters of oblivion.  It was while making his funeral arrangements that Frances met Gary; the mortician.
Though he was not really looking for a wife Gary's funeral home sported enough oak and brass that his marriage to Frances was soon a done-deal; she was very into the oak and brass thing. Daughter Chastity was conceived on the floor of the viewing chapel with the bride still in her wedding gown.
Sylvie considered herself to be a hopeless romantic - her words - but a penchant for switching lovers with the frequency some people change their bed linen hinted that Sylvie's condition was more of the obsessive-compulsive kind.  She also expressed it as a taste for strong drink.
Drinking had been a favorite pastime for Sylvie since childhood when cocoa was her beverage of choice.  Marge made it on school nights but Sylvie wanted it all the time and started making herself huge mugs of it laced with enough sugar to stun a small horse.  Barry began calling her Coco and it stuck.
Determined to become a painter Coco succeeded in winning a scholarship to Pittsburgh Art Institute.  There she learned to her chagrin that [a] life for most artists is a constant struggle, [b] fame almost always stays two weeks away, and [c] pregnancy can be terminated with lots of gin and hot baths.  She married fellow student Donovan Malone, who accidentally took a fatal overdose of methaquaalone and Beaujolais before Coco got the chance to tell her family.
In those days I was a musician enjoying something resembling life in the Pittsburgh jazz scene, and home was a rented apartment in a converted north-side warehouse.  Coco and Donovan were my neighbors across the hall.  After Don died I did what I could to console his widow; we compared past misfortunes - for which we were naturally blameless - and I learned she wasn't one for small talk.  The look she gave me on Frances' patio over a half empty tumbler of Chivas Regal was pretty graphic; it said "We have to talk."  I strolled over with feigned nonchalance.
"There's somebody here I don't know," she said as if a little piqued.  "The guy over there by the pool; who'd he come with?"
For a second I wondered if Frances had planned an ugly Hawaiian shirt competition as part of the afternoon's revelries; if so its easy winner stood beside the pool swizzling his drink and scanning the scene through reflective shades.  I said I didn't know who he was but that I thought he looked a little nervous; furtive even.  Coco was already edging towards the patio steps.
"Someone should check him out," she said, tossing her ash blond hair the way ash blond airheads sometimes do.  That was the last I saw of her for two weeks.

One day while I was downtown hounding my agent I ran into Coco at a sidewalk café.  She was breakfasting on Danish pastries and latté and looking all L.A. Bohemian in a wrap skirt over a backless swimsuit, sunglasses, Huarache sandals and a contrived shabby straw hat.  I sat, and in lieu of a less hackneyed greeting said "Hi stranger; where'd you disappear to the other day?"
"Oh, hi!" she said, hiding a crumb-garnished smile behind slender fingers.
"You went to Ojai?" I quipped.
"No, silly; Gavin and I flew to New York."
"Gavin? The Hawaiian shirt guy?"
"The same," she said coyly.
A large waiter arrived and I ordered a Pepsi.
"Ve haf no Pepsi," he lisped in Anglo-Transylvanian; "Coke?"
I nodded. He minced off.
"How was the trip?' I asked, "Seems to have agreed with you." The woman was beautiful despite being a lush.
"Terrific," she said; "You want this other Danish?"
The morning rush was over and the lunch-crunch beginning to build.
"Downtown's not bad this time of day," said Coco, oblivious to the world grinding by so close to our little cast iron table. "But you wouldn't wanna be here after office hours; they hose the place down to keep the bums out".  I didn't want to be steered away from the Gavin thing.
"How come your buddy was at Frances' party?"
Coco shot me a rueful look over her Foster-Grants.
"Hey, pal;" she said flatly, "I'm all growed up now and do what the hell I want."  With a middle finger she pointedly repositioned her shades.
"Ok, I'm chastised," I said, "But you know there's weirdos out there." My drink arrived as Coco dismissed my concerns with a shrug.
"I can take care of myself," she said.  "Anyway, Gavin and I go way back.  I didn't recognize him at first but we were at Pittsburgh art institute together.  He found me in the phonebook, my service forwarded his call to Frances and Gary's and Gary invited him over."
A seamless explanation.
"And," she continued with girlish delight; "He wants me to do some paintings for his gallery in Lawnguyland!"

Jacket Woman

These main characters are based on some of my actual ancestors; Martha was a great-grand-aunt.

The central theme of History is not so much what happened, but what people felt about it while it was happening. Set in the England of Queen Victorian and King Edward the story focuses on Martha, fifth of nine children born to rural blacksmith Moses Attridge and his wife Ellen. 
People struggled with life's complexities in a time of burgeoning technology.  Martha fought desperately for survival in a world she barely understood; one she had little expectation of influencing. Victorian and Edwardian nobles, together with other wealthy land-owners and merchants constituting 'The Ruling Class', squabbled over blood-lines, real estate and commodities, while people like Martha went unheard.  Attempts to improve one's lot generally meant working in the lower levels of administrationo, or enlisting in the army.  Serial foreign wars drained the nation's life blood, while the few 'rights' of ordinary Britons were continually eroded by the demands of a bloated and increasingly unmanageable empire.

Martha’s oldest sister Miriam, eight years her senior, dreams of an idyllic motherhood of her own but falls ill and dies from consumption; tuberculosis.  Their mother sinks into a morbid depression and it falls to next oldest daughter Frances to tend her; ultimately becoming woman-of-the-house after Ellen’s death. Frances performs loyally but marries out of the situation at the first opportunity, her family duties transferring to Martha.  The demanding Moses insists Martha’s younger sister Eleanor, or Nell, help with the drudgery of household chores, besides the care of three infant siblings.
Martha and Nell become increasingly wayward, a situation Moses thinks to remedy by taking a new wife—the haughty Rebecca; a woman thirteen years his junior.  By the time Rebecca conceives a child the defiant Martha has also managed to get pregnant, but stoically refuses to implicate the father.  While Rebecca’s baby thrives Martha’s child dies of what Moses reports as ‘a gastric disorder’.
Tension in the home builds until Martha gets pregnant again and Moses throws her out to have the baby at the notorious local workhouse.  Nell is also found to be pregnant, earning Moses’ wrath and her own place at the workhouse.
There, unmarried mothers are customarily separated from newborns and made to wear a garish yellow jacket as a mark of shame.  Readily giving up her baby, Nell is allowed to return home, but Martha grabs her child and escapes.
She finds work as a domestic servant in Eastbourne, a fashionable coastal resort some miles away, thus beginning a new life. Though she never marries Martha goes on to have three more children.

Text:

Moses swung a hammer, his anvil ringing and hot metal clashing as he braced its glowing end for the next strike. Between the planks of the outhouse where she was hiding Martha watched, waiting for the old bastard to turn away so she could bolt across the yard and back into the house. Little escaped her father’s attention as a rule, but from the grimy confines of his smithy the man’s thoughts often wandered to worlds of his own.

Horses he’d shod and re-shod for years came less often now, and when they did it might be to haul in some greasy contraption like the one Moses was working on. He struggled to mend machinery of increasingly perplexing design; how could he be expected to know how it all went together?  Men of the village liked to gather at the forge to smoke their pipes and spit, and the blacksmith had begun setting especially puzzling bits and pieces aside until he could pick the brains of his more quick-witted neighbours. He ambled to the water butt to quench his workpiece, unaware of Martha’s dash from the privvy to the kitchen door.

Closing the heavy door in a hurry without shaking the entire building took more than a little effort, even for the vigorously fit Martha. She pressed her back to its rough planks while her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light filtering in through the lattice window. Her brothers delighted in tormenting her and were ingenious at it. Of course little Marjorie and baby Earnest meant no harm, and poor Miriam had gone-the-way-of-all-things, as mother often said in that sullen way of hers. But Miriam wouldn’t have hurt a fly anyway. Perhaps the boys were doing fetch-and-carry for father, or skiving off to smoke a bowl in some secret place. They would magically re-appear as soon as they smelled hot food.

Martha worried the embers in the grate before placing seven   potatoes in the stove's oven. The biggest for father; two good-sized ones for the boys; one each for herself and Nell and one for Frances... but Frances was in love and probably too bemused to eat much. Little Earnest and baby Marjorie would share a spud, and mother would take as much bread and milk as she could stomach.

Outside on the street the London coach trundled by; time for mother’s wash and a plump-up of her bedding. Martha ladled tepid water into a bucket from an iron pot on the stove and wiped her hands on the bib of her apron.

Here's a related bit; currently riding high in the 'Most Rejected' lists.

With pallid fingers Martha grasped the top of the coverlet as tightly as she could and pulled it up beneath her chin. Across the room sheer curtains billowed on the breeze that wafted off the English Channel and in through the open French window. She could barely make out where the sea blended into clouds the color of old pewter. Somewhere out there was the place she had come from.

She could hear her father pounding something in his forge, the anvil ringing and hot metal clashing as he steadied it for the next blow. Martha watched him between the boards of the outhouse where she hid, waiting for the old bastard to turn away so she could bolt across the yard and into the house.

Sounds outside the window drew Martha back... children playing around top hat-ed and parasol-ed parents as they strolled along the seaside promenade. A Punch ‘n Judy show down on the sand.

Martha drifted again.

She ran, battling the sudden downpour and clutching her precious bundle firmly; never would she give up her child to the baby farmers just to get out of that wretched workhouse. Pity the poor cows that did!
The road to the coast was dark and unpaved beyond the edge of the city; a wide track furrowed by cartwheels and horse traffic and pitted with holes. Martha’s muddied toes kept snagging the threadbare hem of her sodden dress, but she dared not stumble for fear of the wardens dogs. How close might they already be?

Beyond the treacherous road and the unholy darkness was a better life―albeit one of servitude; but after the bollocks she’d already been through that would be easy. Oh, the money wouldn’t be much at first but Martha would find a way: “Thousands of the London ‘oi-polloi take ‘olidays at the seaside―and some decent gentlemen among ‘em,” they said. Martha’s thin eyelids fluttered as she dozed fitfully and the sullen clouds blew a little closer.

The servants lined up in the entrance hall to be presented.
“This is your new parlour maid Martha, sir,” said the butler. Martha did a small curtsey as the posh gent silently appraised her, she didn’t meet his eyes, but there would be time for that. The gentleman moved on by. Down the line of arrayed ghosts waited a son he would never own. A frown creased the pale skin of the sleeping woman’s forehead.

“Oh, you can dress ‘er up but I’d know ‘er anywhere,” they whispered with knowing winks; “She was ‘is ‘ouse-keeper”.
“Got some nerve, she ‘as... wearin’ white like that,” they said. In her dream... or not... the below-stairs doorbell jangled.

Martha opened her eyes and smiled at the figures beside her bed; “My dears! You all came,” she said quietly, “How wonderful.”
On the beach the donkey rides stopped and the tethered animals turned their haunches toward the approaching squall. Soon it would be over and they’d be back in business.