One of Us Buried by Johanna Craven (year 2 reading books TXT) 📕

curled around the worn wooden rail of the bridge. Maggie was not the only lifer in the factory, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Couldn’t admit to the shame of it. Speaking of it aloud was too brutal.

Instead, I asked, “How long have you been here?”

“Coming up on ten years. I were cleaning a man’s house at first, til the old bastard turned over the perch.”

I stared downwards, watching ripples emerge from the darkness. Who would I be after a decade in this place? Would I be desperate enough to chase a man like Patrick Owen? Seek some semblance of a future in the bed of any man who could offer it? This, I told myself, as my stomach turned over with dread, was why I could only bear to consider the moment I had before me. I felt a sudden, desperate need to return to Blackwell’s hut.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Parramatta was still covered in golden dawn light as I made my way towards the factory. My boots sank into the mud as I walked. Cold wind whipped my hair against my cheeks and made my skirts dance around the top of my boots. Autumn was slowly becoming winter, though the trees were stubbornly green.

I stopped walking suddenly, my eyes drawn to the scrub on the side of the road. What had made me look? And as I realised what I was seeing, my breath caught in my throat.

I’d seen death before, of course. Seen my father, uncles, aunts laid out lifeless on the mourning table. But it was the unexpectedness of this that caused heat to wash over me. The presence of a body where a body should not have been. A white hand curled beneath the undergrowth; a thin wrist, a twisted arm, a motionless figure in a blue and white striped dress.

I stumbled backwards, my legs weakening. I felt as though the world was tilting around me. I lurched into the main street, whirling around in search of someone to tell. Felt a hand on my elbow.

“What’s happened, Nell?” asked Hannah. “What’s wrong?”

“A body,” I managed. “A woman.” I had trouble forming the words.

“Where?”

I led her back to the white hand in the bushes. Bolstered by Hannah’s company, I dared to look a little closer. The woman lay on her side among the undergrowth, her feet bare and her skirts tangled around her legs. I couldn’t see her face, just the bundle of dark hair at her neck.

Hannah edged forward and touched the woman’s shoulder. The body rolled over. I pressed a hand over my mouth to stifle my cry of shock. Maggie Abbott’s blank eyes stared up into the trees. Her neck was dappled with red marks and bruising, her skin deathly pale against the darkness of her hair.

I swallowed a violent wall of sickness.

I realised we were not alone. People were gathering, clustered on the side of the road, trying for a look.

I felt a hand around my wrist. Lottie appeared beside me and stood with her shoulder pressed against mine, not releasing her grip on my forearm.

I stared at the bruises on Maggie’s neck. “She was murdered,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. My words seemed to ripple through the crowd.

She was murdered.

Lottie pulled me into her arms and squeezed tightly. And at last, here were the redcoats, elbowing their way towards the body. Blackwell was among them, his eyes skimming over me without showing a hint of recognition.

“Who found the body?” asked one of the soldiers.

“I did.”

“This was how you found it?”

Her, I tried to say, but the word caught in my throat. I tried to swallow. “Yes,” I managed. “I mean, no. She was on her side. We turned her to see who it was.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “She was murdered,” I said again.

Blackwell glanced at me then back at Maggie’s body. “Escort the women to the factory,” he told the soldiers. “And take the body to the hospital.”

And then we were back in the factory, spinning yarn as though nothing at all had happened. I sat dazedly on my stool and stared into the spokes of the motionless spinning wheel. The chalky smell of the fire thickened the air, making it hard to breathe. I felt as though I might fall at any moment. Lottie reached out and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, grateful for her nearness.

Despite the wall of nervous chatter that filled the factory, I was acutely aware of Maggie’s absence. The place felt empty without her. Quieter somehow, despite the constant thud and groan of the looms and carding drums. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw her blank face staring into mine.

The superintendent clipped me over the shoulder, barking about my laziness. I drew in my breath, trying to stop the tremor in my hands. I felt moments away from another accident. And today Maggie wasn’t here to save me.

I turned to Lottie. “She was lodging with Patrick Owen,” I said, though I knew she didn’t need reminding.

For a moment, she didn’t speak. “That doesn’t mean anything.” Her voice was thin.

I glared at her. Why was she defending him?

But in the back of my mind, I knew. She was defending him because there was a part of her that desperately hoped Maggie had not died with Owen’s hands around her neck. That her body had not been so carelessly tossed into the scrub by one of the men we drank at the river with. There was a part of me that was hoping the same thing. But what was the alternative? I had seen the bruising on her neck. Had seen the bruising on her forearms the day she had saved me from crushing my hand in the carding machine. Still, I told myself, this was a wild