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

She chewed her lip, as though debating whether to talk. Dark, tangled curls blew loose around her cheeks. “I lost my ma,” she said.

“Where did you last see her?”

The girl didn’t speak for a few moments. “Well,” she said carefully. “I don’t really remember.” She looked down at her scuffed boots. “They took me to the Orphan School when I was little.”

I let out my breath. I had heard far too many stories of the Orphan School around the spinning wheels.

I thought of the crying woman I had sat beside in my first week in Parramatta, tears falling for the child she would never see again. I thought of all the women in the factory sleeping beside their babies in the night, knowing it was only a matter of time before they were taken away. And I thought of the lifeless body I had found in the scrub on the side of the road. Because when I looked down at the young girl with my coins her hand, I saw Maggie Abbott’s stark blue eyes staring back at me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

This runaway from the Orphan School would not find her mother; of that I was certain.

I swallowed heavily. “What’s your name?”

She looked over her shoulder, then back up at me. “Kate,” she said finally. “Kate Abbott.”

My heart was beating fast. “You’ve got to go back to the Orphan School, Kate. This is not a safe place to be.”

She shook her head. “I finished at the school now. Got my Bible and everything. Only they sent me to work for some toff up in George Street. And he were real nasty… He… Well, he…” She faded out, her eyes back on the ground. “I don’t want to say.”

Something twisted in my chest. “You ran away?”

A faint nod.

My heart lurched then, for this child, traipsing through Sydney Town, looking for the mother she could barely have remembered. Walking the streets and waiting for a woman to claim her.

“All right,” I said, churning through my mind for a way to tell her of Maggie’s death. I had to take her back to the tavern with me. I could hardly tell her the truth standing here in the street with Sydney Town heaving around us. Who was I but a stranger with the worst of news to give her?

“Come with me,” I said carefully. “I’ve a room at the Whaler’s Arms. You can rest there. Have some food and—”

Kate whirled around suddenly and started to run. I looked over my shoulder to see what had startled her, coming face to face with a soldier. Kate’s pockets, I guessed, were full of stolen coins.

I grabbed a handful of my skirts and ran in the direction she had disappeared. I wove past the market and into the narrow streets of the Rocks, my basket bumping against my hip.

I called after her, my voice bouncing between the walls of the alleys. I turned corners, climbed terraces, peered into shops and houses. But Maggie’s daughter had disappeared.

By the time I made it back to the tavern, I was a dishevelled, sweaty mess. I was also late for work.

Charlie glared at me as he heaved a fresh rum barrel onto the shelf. “Don’t make me regret hiring a lag.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I tossed my basket into the kitchen and hurried back to the bar. My stomach groaned loudly and I realised I hadn’t managed to eat.

Charlie flung a dish cloth at me. “Get to work.”

I poured ales and rum with my head full of Kate Abbott. I couldn’t bear the thought of her roaming the streets of the Rocks, searching for her dead mother.

A part of me wished I could return to the state I had been in when I’d first been shipped out to this place; that state of pushing others’ predicaments to the back of my mind. Of emptying myself of empathy.

But I couldn’t do it. I ached for Lottie, for Willie, for Kate. I felt the weight of it all upon my shoulders. I felt the loneliness of the men and women shipped away from their loved ones; of men like Blackwell who had left their wives in the name of duty. I ached for the croppies tied to the triangle, and for the women sleeping between the spinning wheels on piles of tick-infested wool.

I felt suddenly exhausted. This was my life now, I realised. Even if I were somehow to obtain that magical pardon, and see the shores of England again, I knew I could never go back to my old ignorance. Couldn’t turn my back while men were flogged and women died, and pretend the world was as it should be. I was powerless, yes, but I was no longer unaware. This place had changed me irrevocably.

I cringed at the sight of Arthur Flynn strolling into the bar in his top hat. I knew I looked a right mess, after tearing through the streets in search of Kate. Loose strands of hair clung to my cheeks, my plait hanging limply down my back. I knew my face had caught the sun. But at least with Flynn, I would be guaranteed an intelligent conversation, whether I looked a right mess or not. Something to take my mind off Kate and Lottie, and all the others who were pushing their way into my thoughts.

“This heat is quite dreadful, don’t you think?” he said, as I poured him his customary liquor. “Although my farmhands tell me the corn crop is flourishing in this weather.”

“Well,” I said, pushing the cork back into the bottle. “Perhaps you ought to wish for more hot weather. I hear there are many farmers not lucky enough to have their crops flourishing.”

“That’s very true.” He smiled. “You’ve a sharp mind. I like that.”