~ Excerpt ~
(Chapter 7, Scene 2)
by Sheila Straus
The walk into Limerick City took longer than Alissa expected. Before, she'd always arrived by train, and Papa had hired a carriage at the station. Now the streets wound around her like a vast, tightening maze. At last she found a landmark, O'Connell Street with its rows of elegant red brick Georgian houses. Patches of sunlight shone on tidy front lawns screened from the traffic by ornate wrought iron fences and privet hedges. Alissa spied primroses in bloom behind a spiked white gate.
Further down the street she found a small neighborhood shop with a display of meat pies and cheese in the front window. Her mouth watered. She stared into the glass. At first she thought the grimy face with the nasty scab on its cheek belonged to someone inside. Then she gasped, recognizing her own reflection. Good God, she certainly couldn't go near Roches Stores or any of the fancy shops she used to visit. With that face and her filthy, ill-fitting clothes, the guards would pick her up in no time. By now there might even have been an article about her in the Limerick Leader.
A man in an apron appeared at the shop door and waved her away. "Be gone with ye," he mumbled. "Ye've no business here."
His words stung. She couldn't help the way she looked. She clenched her teeth, but left. At the corner she headed down a side street, trying to remember the layout of the city. Her parents had spent most of their time in the shops and theaters of Newtownpery. Papa'd taken her to the beautiful old Protestant cathedral in Englishtown, but he'd only pointed out the adjoining Irishtown, a district where poor people lived.
As she worked her way northwest toward a tall church spire, the streets grew narrower, the buildings dingier. Mule teams pulled heavy drays of coal and lumber through muddy streets crowded with traps and flat carts. People jostled against her on the meager sidewalks, but at least here their clothing more nearly matched her own.
She hesitated in front of a dingy shop with a rusting Players Cigarettes sign attached to the open door. Out in front two boys a bit older than young Molly tossed pebbles into a battered tin. The smaller one glanced at Alissa and whispered to his companion. Then they both stared openly, the older one with a challenging look.
She squared her shoulders and went into the shop. The inside reminded her of the hotel shop, especially the odor, a mix of raw vegetables, baked goods, brine, tobacco. This shop was smaller, far more worn than the Golden Stag's store. Bits of scuffed tin covered holes in the bare wood floor, and most of the paint had long since chipped off the counter. But otherwise, the box of cabbages and the pickling barrel looked the same. An open sack of flour and one of sugar leaned against the wall. Slabs of butter floated in a tub of cold water. Best of all was the smell of bread. Three fat crusty loaves sat on the counter in a box labeled MACHINE-MADE BREAD. FRESH DAILY. Her stomach growled.
The customer at the counter turned to leave, and the shopkeeper planted her fists on her ample hips, eying Alissa. "And what do ye think ye're doin' in here?"
The sharpness of her tone startled Alissa. "I want to buy some bread and a bit of butter," she replied.
"Buy, me foot." The woman's eyes narrowed, and she shoved a loose strand of grey hair into the bun at the back of her head. "Ye're all the same. Ye think ye can come in here and pilfer me goods while me back's turned." She shifted her gaze to the customer. "Ragged little thieves. They hang about out front and sneak in when they think I'd be busy."
"But I've the money." Alissa stretched out her palm to show a crumpled five pound note. It was the smallest she had, since the notes in her boot had been intended for buying back Maeve, not grocery shopping.
"A fiver, begor!" The shopkeeper's voice raised several notches. "And how would the likes of ye be havin' that amount of money? Ye pinched it, didn't ye?" She sailed out from behind the counter, shaking her fist. "Well get yerself gone quick like, before I call the guards." She stomped her foot. "Ye'll not be spendin' stolen money in this shop."
Alissa shrank back, her cheeks burning. "I didn't pinch it." Her shoulders sagged. She couldn't explain without giving herself away. The shopkeeper might well have heard about a reward offered for a young woman who set fire to her stepfather. She turned and ducked out the doorway, only vaguely aware of the two boys watching from the step.
The taller one pulled her aside. "D'ye want change for yer fiver?" His large ears stuck straight out from his thin, freckled face. "She's a right bloody crone, that one." He pointed toward the shop with a grimy thumb. "But me brother and me can git change from Hogan."
"Who's Hogan?" Alissa jerked her sleeve loose from his grasp and stepped away, tightening her fingers around the banknote.
The boy raised an eyebrow as if everyone worth their salt knew who Hogan was. "He's the bookie in Old Francis Street. Where're ye from, anyways?"
Before Alissa could answer, the shop woman roared at them from the doorway. "By all the holy saints, didn't I tell ye to git?" She swung a broom at Alissa and her companions. "Guards," she bellowed. "Guards."
The two spalpeens laughed and dodged through traffic to the opposite side of the narrow street. Alissa followed, almost ran into the taller one as he paused to taunt the shopkeeper.
"Ye couldn't hit yer own arse, broad as it is," he called back, then turned to Alissa. "Hogan's no saint, but leastwise he won't be swipin' at ye or brayin' for no peelers." He sauntered up the street, swinging his arms and glancing over his shoulder at Alissa from time to time, as if to make certain she didn't wander off. The younger lad mimicked his brother's jaunty stride, but occasionally threw in an extra step in order to keep up.
Alissa still hadn't decided whether or not she trusted them when the two boys stopped in front of a boarded up shop in the middle of a deserted block. A wooden sign over the door read J.J. Hogan in faded, peeling letters. She clenched her hands at her sides, ready to run. "That door hasn't been opened in years."
"Aye." The older boy grinned. "Hogan'd be usin' the back one. That way the feckin' peelers don't poke their noses in his business." He started down a narrow passage between two brick buildings.
Alissa glanced both ways on the forlorn street. Maybe she'd be safer to take her chances in another shop, or just forget food and go directly to the train station.
But the moment she turned to leave, two guards with tall rounded hats strolled past the corner not a hundred yards from where she stood. Her pulse raced even though she'd done nothing wrong. They hadn't glanced her way yet. Despite her misgivings about the young spalpeens, she slunk between the buildings, her elbows touching the soot-covered bricks on either side.
Excerpt from Keegan Murphy
© by Sheila Straus
Published by The Fiction Works