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

down at the pistol, feeling an inexplicable tug of dread. “Where did you get that?”

“Stole it from Patrick.”

“Does he know you have it?”

“Course not.”

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. Far from reassuring me, the sight of the pistol was unnerving. Visitors in the night. Door don’t lock so good…

This was what I wanted, I reminded myself. This was what I had cajoled Blackwell to get. The freedom to come to Sydney Town and find Lottie, in whatever state she might be in. The freedom to get her out of it.

I wanted to believe there was hope for us. For me. For Lottie. For her son. I wanted to believe we could cobble together a decent life from the wreckage of our mistakes.

My sleep was broken and shallow, interrupted by footsteps and dreams and Willie’s midnight shrieking. I was glad when the first hint of morning strained down the alley.

But I was nervous about the day ahead. And every other day after that. My only plan had been to find Lottie, and now my life stretched out hazy and uncertain. I needed to find work. Somewhere to live. But I had little idea how to go about doing either. Every day of my life, I had been told where to sleep. At least until my ticket of leave had been pressed into my hands.

“Come with me,” I told Lottie, as I tried to smooth the creases from my skirts. After a night on the floor of the kitchen, they were in dire need of a wash.

“Come with you where? I’ve a child. I can’t take him out into the world with nowhere to go.”

“You can no more keep him in this place.” My words came out sharper than I’d intended. I had offended her, I could tell. But surely she could see this was no place to raise a child.

“Get out of here, Nell,” she said. “A ticket of leave lass can do far better.”

I shook my head. “Not without you.”

“If you stay, it’s just another person I’ve got to look out for. Another person I got to worry over. I’m walking around with another man’s child on my hip – no one’s even going to look at me.” Her eyes met mine, and her tone changed suddenly. “But you got a chance. You can make a go of things.” She pressed a hand to my wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t waste it.”

I trudged out towards High Street. I wasn’t abandoning Lottie, I told myself. Getting out of the Rocks and finding a way to earn some money was the best way to help her and her son. It was the best thing for all of us.

I had no thought of where I was to go from here. I was a free woman. Free for the first time in almost three years. It was a lost, shipwrecked feeling.

Here I was without a thing to anchor me. No Father. No Jonathan. No Blackwell. My entire life I had been shaped into what men wanted me to be. How was I to craft a life on my own? I felt horribly, sickeningly free. A concubine let loose in the streets of New South Wales.

A lodging house, I supposed was the logical first step. I had a few coins left in my pouch, courtesy of Blackwell’s incessantly unhemmed shirts. Enough for a bed for a few nights at least.

I went back to the Whaler’s Arms where I had asked after Owen.

“I need a room,” I told the barman. I could hear the tremor of uncertainty in my voice and I cursed myself for it. After all I had been through, was it truly asking for a room that had my nerves rattling?

“Pound a night,” he said.

I reached into my coin pouch and handed over enough to cover me until the end of the week.

For three days I traipsed through the colony, calling at houses and shopfronts in a desperate search for work. But a ticket of leave lass, I was quickly coming to learn, was no great commodity. Why would a man pay a woman to wash his laundry, clean his house, make his supper, when he could pull a lag from a prison ship and put her to work for far less cost? In a fleeting burst of optimism, I’d even called on a wealthy couple seeking a governess for their daughter. Outlined my education and my bank of unused knowledge. There had been enthusiasm in their eyes until I’d laid my ticket of leave on the table.

I slunk back to my room and perched on the bed, hands folded in my lap. My head and heart were thudding with anxiety. My coin pouch was close to empty, and I’d paid for just two more days at the Whaler’s Arms. It felt like only a matter of time before I’d be on the floor of that kitchen beside Lottie.

I pulled the end from the loaf of bread I’d bought and chewed on it, short of anything else to do. I longed for a drink. Craved a few mouthfuls of the Rum Corps’ dreadful liquor. When had I become a person who relied on moonshine to get me through the day?

I swallowed another mouthful of bread, trying to push the thought from my mind. Sashaying alone down to the tavern and ordering a glass of rum would be wildly inappropriate. I could barely believe I was even considering it.

But considering it I was, and before I could stop myself, I was tiptoeing down the stairs into the tavern. I peeked through the crack in the door that led to the bar. In the late afternoon the place was almost empty, just a couple of older men drinking by the window. I stepped inside before I changed my mind.

The innkeeper was leaning