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Chapter One

The late-evening sea air swept through the openCleo inhaled greedily, glad for the fresh gust of salty wind The cottage was stale, rank fro downstairs She shook a strand of hair away fro toddler in arone numb

She knew from experience that it would be days before the stench faded And even then she would still smell it The odor of death never completely vanished from her senses

Heavy footsteps sounded on the plank stairs and she ently, she laid Bess on one of several pallets lining the floor before the stove

A total of fourteen children slept on the ground floor More crowded than usual The youngest four usually slept in the loft with Cleo’s mother and stepfather while the rest of theht The pallets were always cleared away each otten

Except Cleo could never forget It was a wretched existence Even though she knew nothing but this life, Cleo knew this She felt it, absorbed this awareness of her squalid surroundings with every sip of breath Pulling the threadbare blanket up over Bess, she swung around as Mrs Dubbins reached the bottohbor expectantly, her heart a tight, twisting mass in her chest Mrs Dubbins had helped with her mother every time, too ular fixture in their home

"How is she?" Her hands fisted at her sides

Mrs Dubbins shook her gray-streaked head, the weathered lines of her face drawn and tight "She can’t do this again"

Cleo nodded jerkily They were the same words Mrs Dubbins had advised last time The last five times Still, he didn’t listen Didn’t care Didn’t stop

Her eyes ached, but no tears burned there She stared with dry eyes She was past weeping Tears would not help Nothing could be done Her stepfather would never change

As if the thought conjured him, the thud of his boots shook the stairs She looked up, watching as he descended His large fraazed at his ruddy, thick-boned face, carefully schooling her features to reveal none of the loathing she felt for this man He’d been handsome once She could see the evidence in the swollen features of his face, the nose bulbous fro

Heronce, too, a catch Which made it all the more incomprehensible that he’d ever wanted Cleo’soff the charity of relations And yet wanted her he had Even with a four-year-old Cleo in tow

She saw nothing appealing about hi to a halt

"See to this," he said, holding out the small blanket-wrapped bundle

A fale nod, she took the still war as he fished the halfpenny froreat reluctance he handed it to her

She knew if he could, he’d simply toss the body into the sea, but people would know Cere the wrath of their neighbors upon them He’d do the bare minimum and see that the babe was laid to rest on consecrated soil

With a murmured farewell to Mrs Dubbins, Cleo collected her cloak froht

She held the bundle close She always did--always felt an overwhelive soone fro--and never would Not even a proper burial

The waves crashed against the sea wall as she walked a steady line on the broken path in her worn-thin slippers Leaving the row of cottages behind, she made her way toward the end of town As the small spire came into view, sheshe would never know

She opened the squeaky gate into the still churchyard A single light shone in theof the caretaker’s cottage The place was smaller than her home

She knocked briskly upon the door of splintered and cracking wood, shivering inside her cloak It always felt wrong doing this A sacrilege Not that she had any choice in the matter

All warmth had faded from the slimpse She had to do this She did so each tiliement that its life mattered

It was a boy this time His little nose tiny as a button His sainst the tiny curve of his cheek, surprisingly smooth Cold as marble She blinked Suddenly her eyes didn’t feel so dry

"You deserved better than this," she lowered her head and said so softly she could scarcely hear herself

The door opened, flooding her in a burst of light She lifted her head and dropped her hand fro her dead brother with the blanket again

Training her features into her usual mask of impassivity, she lifted her chin a notch and faced the caretaker "Good evening, Mr Hollis"

"Ah, got another one there, do you?"