Within These Wicked Walls(47)
“Anything is better than staying here,” she said.
I let her climb into the coach, trying to distract myself from her crying as Saba finished preparation.
* * *
It was closer to lunch, now, than breakfast. I jumped down the short distance from the perch and paid the stable boy, waiting for Emma as she slowly climbed out. It was obvious she’d been crying, her face red and puffy, and I took the liberty of tipping down her hat to hide it.
“You have enough to live on?” I asked. I didn’t want to specify money in this public space, but she seemed to understand, patting her vest pocket and bag.
“Enough to reach England. And I have plenty of friends and family to help me from there.”
Her face was already rosy from the heat. I wasn’t sure she’d last a day without boiling.
We were quiet for a moment.
“I really respect what you’re doing,” Emma said suddenly. “Finding your own job, your own way in life. Women don’t have that option where I come from.”
Women here didn’t have many choices either. No one did unless you had money. Starve or survive, those were our options.
I shrugged. “I just do what’s necessary to survive.”
“I suppose it’s about time I do the same.”
“Do you have protection?” I asked. She allowed me a glance of the gun she had in her pocket. “God be with you, Emma.”
“And with you.” Emma took my hand and nodded. She looked both certain and uncertain at once.
I watched her go for a moment, then looked up at Saba, who had joined me.
It was time to go—my good survival habits didn’t like me standing out on an open street for too long.
We snaked through the crowded marketplace, passed fruit and nut vendors shouting, customers haggling over meat, before passing over into the labyrinth.
This time I didn’t bother going into the church—by now Jember would be sleeping after his busy night. I led Saba to the back alley of the church, blocked off from the maze behind it by a wall along all sides but the front, to where a cellar door was embedded in the dirt. The chain and lock weren’t on the outside handles, which meant Jember had locked it from the inside. He was definitely home.
I looked at Saba. “Will you be okay waiting outside for a few minutes? No one ever comes down here, I promise.”
They really didn’t. Law enforcement held no power over the church—or rather, the people seemed to respect the church over law enforcement—and so the portion of my childhood I spent under the church somehow felt freeing in more ways than one. Perhaps that’s why Jember had chosen to live beneath the church, literally. No one would dare commit a crime in the vicinity. It was the safest place in the city to be.
Despite that, I knew there were a couple booby traps around the door. Just because it was safe didn’t mean Jember trusted anyone.
“You may not want to touch anything,” I added.
Saba gave me a reassuring smile, waving me toward the door. I knelt in front of a small grate beside it, a forceful tug with both hands making it squeak against its metal chamber before yielding to me.
I grinned.
Lazy old man, still hadn’t gotten this fixed.
I peeked in to make sure the way was clear, then slid in through the small opening, legs first, landing on a crate right below, and closed the grate behind me.
There wasn’t much light, other than the little bit of daylight peeking through the grate. I got down from the crate, dust puffing up at my movement. I muted a cough with the bend of my elbow and used my welding pen to light the first oil lamp I could find. If I were still living here, this entryway would’ve been clear. Now it was cluttered like a storage closet, with books and boxes, vases, a bicycle. Our small cooking pit was completely blocked by wooden crates, a caked layer of dust and dirt confirming that it’d probably been that way for weeks.
If the door hadn’t been locked from the inside, I would’ve thought no one lived here anymore.
Looking down, I could see a path from the bedroom to the stairs leading up to the cellar doorway that was a little less dusty than the rest of it.
I picked up the oil lamp and shoved my way through the junk, pushing aside the curtain over the door at the back wall. The light of the lamp shone like a yellow path to the bed centered against the wall. I took a deep breath, then let my body deflate, my annoyance overtaking my relief. The silhouette of Jember lay on his back, and when I put the lamp on the dresser I saw that he was in nothing but his white pants and red leather gloves, peg leg missing. He’d never eaten any better than I had, but I guess older bodies processed food differently or just needed less of it, giving him a relatively fit chest and arms and a slight gut. Glass bottles and jars littered the bed, and there was a paper bag of pills on the side table that were most definitely illegal.
“Jember,” I called from the doorway, and only when he didn’t respond did I move closer, clapping my hands. “Get up, old man.”
Nothing. My heart suddenly picked up, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed with myself for it. He wasn’t dead, and I shouldn’t care if he was. But I was used to caring, and old habits were hard to break.
I went to the bed and laid two fingers against his neck, but there was no time to regret that decision, let alone scream, as Jember’s gloved fingers closed around my throat. My knife was in my hand by the time he’d slammed my back onto the mattress.