Chapter 6: Elopement

A thick, miasmic fog began to rise, swift and silent, blanketing the gas-lamp lit streets in a greasy shroud. The muddy tracks, already choked with the day's filth and refuse, now glistened with a thin, treacherous layer of frost. Flickering, uncertain lights glowed from within the grimy windows of every hovel and leaning tenement, and plumes of dense, black smoke – the city’s foul breath – curled upwards from a forest of chimneys, disappearing into the starless, indifferent night sky.

No wonder even these homeless and shivering beggars, huddled in their doorways and sodden alleys, went to the desperate trouble of scavenging scraps of wood and refuse to build their sputtering, smoky bonfires. Otherwise, this damp, bone-chilling fog alone, thick as a charnel-house pall, would be enough to steal the life from a body in their sleep.

Something felt… deeply wrong. The fog here was too heavy, too cloying, unnaturally so. It seemed to swallow sound and light. Even the meager warmth of the bonfires could only push it back a little, carving out small, precarious islands of visibility. Buildings a short distance away were blurred phantoms, their lit windows visible only as ghostly, leering eyes staring out from the gloom.

I huddled in my corner of the alley, a forgotten bundle of rags, trying to peer through the narrow opening at the street beyond, desperate to get some sense of this strange, sprawling, gaslit labyrinth I’d been cast into. But it was no use; I could see next to nothing. It wasn’t just the fog, thick as soup; even the wall right beside me, inches from my face, was a wavering blur.

If it weren’t for the flickering bonfires further down the alley, I’d be completely blind in the unlit patches. The vagrants moving around the flames looked like shifting, distorted shapes to my eyes, their shadows dancing like devils.

Night blindness. The thought, cold and unwelcome, surfaced. A common ailment brought on by severe malnutrition, the curse of the starving. Of course, I couldn’t see properly in the dark. One look at this child’s emaciated, bird-like frame told the whole sorry tale of her previous, wretched existence.

They say that in ages past, it was common for the poor, the forgotten, to suffer from night blindness. I found a grim sort of comfort in the thought that most of these other shivering wretches were likely in the same boat. Come full dark, they probably wouldn't be able to spot me cowering in my shadowy nook, another small, frightened animal.

It must be suppertime, or what passed for it in these parts. The faint, tantalizing aroma of cooking food – onions, perhaps, or a bit of fatty broth – mingled with the ever-present stench of coal smoke, damp, and unwashed bodies, drifted through the fog. My stomach twisted with a hunger so fierce it was a physical pain, an agony I’d never known in my past life, not even in its worst moments.

I imagined that ever since Parula had fallen ill, the greedy, miserly MacDuff wouldn’t have wasted a single decent morsel on her. Given his eagerness to be rid of her the moment she became a burden, he’d never have spared food for one he’d already marked for abandonment, for the cold earth of a pauper’s grave.

Worse than the hunger was the sickness. I was burning with fever, that much was certain, my skin hot and dry. Whether I’d caught some other pestilence from the filth of this place, I couldn’t tell. But after the unearthly torment of that previous, monstrous disease, this current suffering, this mere human ailment, felt almost… manageable. A grim sort of endurance had been beaten into me.

It felt like I’d simply been left here to die, a piece of refuse tossed into the gutter. If, by some cruel miracle, I was still alive come morning, what then? I’d need to find something for warmth – more rags, old cotton, anything to ward off the gnawing cold. And food… but the thought of scavenging through refuse heaps, of fighting rats for scraps, turned my stomach. Would I have to resort to begging again, to Parula’s old, humiliating trade?

First things first, survive the night. Then… My thoughts grew hazy, thick as the fog outside. This frail, sick girl’s body was so weak, so easily broken. Fear and discomfort warred with an overwhelming weariness, and my consciousness began to drift, sinking as if into a cold, bottomless, lightless pit.

I hovered in a dim twilight between waking and sleeping, a chilling numbness spreading through my limbs, feeling the last vestiges of warmth leech from my body. So cold. At this rate, I’d be dead again before long. Another brief, pointless flicker of existence snuffed out.

What a joke. To die twice in such a short span. Would I meet that repulsive cosmic fly again, its multifaceted eyes staring into my very soul? Would I be flung into yet another existence, another nightmare?

Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad. Being reborn, it seemed, was a lottery, a cruel game of chance. And my luck this time had been atrocious, the worst possible draw. Better to die and try again. Maybe next time, I’d draw a better hand. A normal start, at least? A life without monsters, both human and otherwise?

Just as my awareness began to fray, to unravel like old, rotten thread, I heard soft, hesitant footsteps approaching from the alley entrance. I didn’t open my eyes; didn’t have the strength, or the will. What did it matter who it was? I was dying anyway. Let the end come.

But the footsteps didn’t pass by. They came straight to my hiding place, and stopped right in front of me. A jolt of alarm, of primal fear, shot through my failing body. I forced my heavy eyelids open, dreading what I might see – some gin-soaked brute, perhaps, or worse. But the figure standing there, silhouetted against the faint, distant glow of a gas lamp, was familiar.

Jared. He’d actually come back. I’d assumed his promise was just an empty platitude, a kindness offered to a dying girl to ease her passing. And what good could his return do anyway? He wasn't a doctor, no miracle worker. He couldn't cheat death, could he?

“Sorry I’m late,” he whispered, his breath misting in the cold air as he crouched down. He gently lifted me again. This time, he’d found a thick, rough blanket somewhere – stolen, no doubt – and he wrapped it around my shivering form before heading out of the alley.

The vagrants by their fires watched him with shifty, avaricious eyes, like rats scenting cheese. But when they recognized Jared, their gazes dropped. They looked away, feigning disinterest, shuffling their feet. It seemed Jared was a known figure in these parts. More importantly, he was MacDuff’s boy. And MacDuff’s violent temper, his readiness with a fist or a boot, was notorious in this rookery. None of these scattered dregs, these broken men, would dare cross him or his.

“Why?” I rasped, the word a painful effort. So many questions swirled in my fevered brain, a chaotic mess, but that was the most pressing. Why had he come back for me in the dead of night? Where in this godforsaken city was he taking me?

“Sorry,” he said again, his voice low and urgent as he hurried along the darkened, cobbled street. “MacDuff’s finally dead to the world, snoring like a pig. I… ah… borrowed this blanket from him. Thought you’d be warmer. I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

“You stole from MacDuff? He’ll kill you for that,” I said, a flicker of surprise cutting through my lethargy. Had the boy lost his senses entirely? This wasn't some petty theft; this was defiance.

“I know.” Jared’s voice was tight with a mixture of fear and grim determination. “That’s why I’m not going back. Not ever. I know another slum, a bit further out, across the river. We can hide there. We’re never going back. Let MacDuff rot in hell!” The bitterness in his tone was stark, raw. He’d clearly harbored his own deep resentments for a long, long time.

This… this was… it sounded like he was running away. With me. The thought was absurd. Me, a man’s soul trapped in a girl’s dying body, "eloping" with a teenage thief? Though, to him, I was just Parula, his little sister, wasn't I? A burden he was choosing to shoulder.

“Can you even survive like this?” I asked, my voice barely a breath against his shoulder. “Especially dragging me along. It’s pointless. I… I don’t think I’ll last much longer.” If Jared had stayed, kept his head down, not defied MacDuff, he could have managed, scraped by. This… this flight into the unknown, into the maw of the city, it was a desperate, foolish gamble.

It wasn’t just about being a good thief, a nimble pickpocket. A new place meant new dangers, new bullies, new gangs to avoid or appease. They’d need shelter, food, everything. And they’d have to constantly watch their backs, sleep with one eye open.

Even in the short distance Jared carried me, the city revealed its rotten, festering underbelly. Thankfully, it wasn't entirely plunged into medieval darkness; flickering gas or oil lamps lined some of the main thoroughfares, casting long, dancing shadows, and faint light spilled from the grimy windows of a few dwellings, allowing my night-blind eyes to make out vague, threatening shapes.

But what I saw in those brief glimpses was a catalogue of human misery and depravity. Down one shadowed, narrow alley, I saw a group of hulking men assaulting a girl, her clothes torn, her struggles futile as they dragged her deeper into the Stygian darkness. People hurried past on the street, heads down, collars pulled high, pretending not to see, not to hear her muffled, desperate cries. Their indifference was almost as chilling as the act itself.

Further on, a dark, hunched figure was silhouetted against a grimy window on the second floor of a decaying tenement, prying at the sash with a crowbar. A fellow thief, like Jared, out on his nightly rounds? Or someone with even darker, more terrifying intentions?

And the sounds… A furious, drunken argument erupted from a nearby house, escalating quickly into the sickening crash of breaking furniture and the thud of blows, followed by a woman's shriek. People on the street merely paused to gawk, their faces blank or filled with a grim, morbid curiosity. Jared clutched me tighter, his heart hammering against my side, and quickened his pace.

Was there no law in this city? No order? No sanctuary? Just two children, one of them gravely ill, out in this dangerous, predatory night… how long before we attracted the attention of some other monster lurking in these fog-wreathed, labyrinthine streets? How long before our desperate flight ended in an even grimmer tragedy?