What Child Is This?
If it hadn't been for the rain, Fox would have missed seeing the small hand.
She'd been taking some papers to an associate of Mr. Templeton's, some estimates on purchasing a particular quality of marble, and the sky had been heavy with clouds all morning. She had a hat but no umbrella, and when the first rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, she looked up at the foreboding grayness overhead. If she hurried, she wouldn't get soaked.
But she had to wait because the man she'd been told to see was already with a client, and the first fat drops of rain were starting to spatter the cobblestones as she exited the shelter of the building. Grimacing, Fox pulled her coat tighter about her shoulders, glad to have dropped the papers off so they wouldn't be illegible. She, on the other hand, was likely to be drenched by the time she reached the mason's workshop again. At least it was warm rain, not the freezing kind the city got in winters. Being wet to the bone was no delight, to be sure, but catching pneumonia was a fair sight worse.
The apprentice was three blocks away from her destination when a jagged streak of lightning ripped across the now-black sky, followed by a bellow of thunder directly overhead, and she made a mad dash for the shelter of a doorway as the sky opened up. Rain fell in a solid sheet from the heavens, obscuring the buildings down the street from sight, and Fox huddled under the narrow archway, feeling water dripping down the back of her coat and underneath her shirt. She would wait here for the storm to abate. There was supposed to be vegetable soup at Mrs. Soames' that night; if she did get chilled it would take the cold out of her bones.
She took off her hat, raked wet black hair away from her forehead while watching the deluge come down. The gutters were going to be awash for hours after this, she'd have to get that pair of rubber boots from the storage area before trying to walk home. Times like this, she wished she trusted horses enough to learn to ride. Ah well, never mind, she was used to walking anyway.
There were some empty crates further inside, and after a quick look around Fox decided that no one would mind if she sat instead of stood as long as the storm lasted. Her shoes left wet prints in her wake, the cuffs of her pants trickling water, and wood creaked as she took a seat on the crate closest to the door, being mindful of possible splinters. At the rate it was coming down, it couldn't last that long anyway.
At first she thought the object peeking out from behind the crate closest to the wall was a piece of pale wood, or perhaps even stone. These warehouses were used for all sorts of storage, and it stood to reason that sometimes things would be lost or left behind. But as the rain came down outside, some of it blowing in on the breeze, Fox felt a sense of foreboding slipping over her as she continued to look at it. Wood creaked again as she got up, and she was barely aware that her socks were wet against her ankles as she crossed the floor for a better look. The light was bad, but even the grayish sky left her enough illumination to see by.
Fingers. Four fingers and a thumb, curved slightly upwards from a palm that was as soft and white as an infant's. A beckoning gesture, urging her closer. Not all of the crates were flush with the wall, some of them simply stacked haphazardly as if they might topple over at any second. Fox's arm brushed against one of them, and it swayed a little. Closer. It seemed imperative that she see. The hand was pleading with her to do so. The arm attached to the hand was plump, dimpled at the wrist.
She'd seen a dead person before, of course, and she was thinking of poor Mr. Cullen with his head all bashed in. But the rest of what was attached to the fat little arm was not an adult by any stretch of the imagination. Fox, who had helped slaughter pigs for meat, felt her gorge threaten to rise when she realized the top of the girl's head was missing. The saliva in her mouth had turned metallic, and she coughed-gagged-coughed before forcing herself to take those two extra steps forward.
"You poor darlin'..."
Outside, it was still pouring down rain, and thunder grumbled as if God were looking down through the roof of the building and expressing His displeasure. Fox unbuttoned her coat and took it off, draped it over the girl's face and upper torso. Couldn't leave her uncovered, not as if she were a dog that had been run over by a carriage. The hands that ran through the apprentice's hair were shaking. One faltering step backwards, then another, then a third. Beyond the walls of the warehouse, lightning crackled. Fox turned and dashed back outside into the maelstrom, prodded into action by the sound.
"Help!" She had to raise her voice to hear herself, the rain half-forgotten even as it sluiced down her back. There would still be people about, the work of the day went on despite the weather. "Someone find a constable, and make it quick. She's dead, my God, she's dead!"