Page 41 of Of Fate and Phantoms
I stood by the door, waiting for him to reopen it. He must know I was still there.
But he did not. After a moment, I went to my rooms to retrieve the trousers, shirt and jacket I'd worn in the slums. It was going to be an interesting day; one I wasn't looking forward to. I thought I'd seen the last of my old haunts and the gangs I had befriended. My life felt so far removed from those days now. Revisiting the slums would bring back memories that had only recently stopped haunting my dreams. Memories I'd wanted to put behind me forever.
* * *
Lincolnand I didn't go to Whitechapel, but to the rookery of Clerkenwell. London harbored dozens of slum pockets where the middle and upper classes dared not enter. The slums scaled from bad to worse, with Clerkenwell being on the bad end and Whitechapel, where the Ripper murders occurred, at the worst. Daylight did nothing to improve the dark, damp lanes and yards. In fact, it only served to reveal the filth the darkness hid. The tenements groaned like old men in the stiff wind. Broken windows, peeling paint and grimy façades could be easily fixed, but the rotting timbers and dangerous leans signaled deeper problems that nothing less than demolition could improve.
We didn't speak as I led the way down lanes so narrow I could stretch out both arms to the sides and brush the slippery bricks with my fingertips. I stopped at a crumbling old house that looked as though a child had built it from blocks in the nursery. It felt abandoned, but the telltale signs of life were there for those who knew where to look—the shoe prints leading to and from the boards at knee height, the small marks on the wall where the boards scraped against it.
I hesitated, uncertain whether to knock. A knock might not be answered, so I simply slid the boards aside and crouched at the small opening.
A hand on my shoulder stopped me. I glanced back at Lincoln, at the same moment I heard a whistle inside and the sound of a door closing.
"I can't come in," Lincoln said quietly. He was too big, his shoulders too broad.
"You can be lookout."
Lincoln was never the lookout man. That job always fell to Gus or Seth. He must hate the suggestion, but he simply handed me the canvas sack he'd carried with him. "Be careful."
I nodded and crawled through, dragging the sack behind me. The gap was tighter than I remembered. A comfortable bed and regular meals had fattened me up. I may still be small and slender, but I wasn't a bag of bones anymore.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light filtering through the dirty window but my other senses told me the space was empty. The lookout stationed at the trapdoor had whistled a warning then dropped down to the cellar below. It was standard procedure when a stranger entered through the front door flap.
But I was no stranger. Crouching, I opened the trapdoor an inch. "It's all right," I called down. "It's me. Charlie. I've come back."
Whispers drifted up. I imagined the newcomers asking who Charlie was, the older members telling them about me. If any older members of my last gang remained, that is. It was possible they'd all moved on—or died. Winter was never kind to street children, even ones with a roof over their heads. I shivered and realized just how cold the house was. Not just cold but damp. The sort of damp that turned blood icy and numbed toes.
"I've brought blankets, clothes and food," I said through the gap. "There'll be money too if you agree to help me."
The whispers increased in volume and urgency, then suddenly ceased. I sat back on my haunches, away from the trapdoor. It opened, revealing a set of wary eyes that darted to me then around the space.
"I'm alone," I said. "Stringer, is that you?"
The trapdoor lifted higher. "Charlie? It really is you?"
I nodded and squinted at the face, familiar yet not. "Finley?"
He grinned, revealing a set of teeth, some of them missing, but most still white. "Itisyou!" The boy had changed in the months since I'd lived here. His face had angles where before it had sported the softness of childhood, and his hair was longer. So was mine.
"Is Stringer not here anymore?" I asked.
Another shake of his head. "You came back."
"I did. Are you the leader now?"
He shook his head. "Mink is. Oi!" he called down. "It's Charlie, all right." He opened the trapdoor wider, inviting me in.
I hesitated then followed him through the door and down the ladder. If I wanted them to trust me, I had to show that I trusted them.
The cellar was just as I remembered, with the lumpy mattress pushed into the corner and some blankets piled high at one end. They'd be lice ridden and dirty, but the darkness hid the worst of the grime. The only light came from the glowing embers in the grate. The flames had gone out, the coal almost burned away, although smoke and a little warmth lingered. The pile of blankets coughed, a harsh, racking cough, before quieting again.
"Get back up there, Finley," ordered a reedy voice from the shadows. "Make sure no one followed him here."
"There's a man outside in the lane," I said. "He's my friend. He won't harm anyone, he's just my lookout."
"Why do you need a lookout?" The speaker with the reedy adolescent voice emerged from the shadows. It was Mink, the quietest member of the original gang, and the most serious. He could read, too, unlike the others, and I suspected he was whip smart, although he'd kept to himself so much that it was difficult to gauge how smart.
"He worried that I'd be in danger down here from you lot," I said as Finley disappeared through the trap door.
