Kate and Fran looked at each other as Dr. Stringfellow stalked away. “I think she’s experiencing human emotion,” said Fran.
“Does she have children?” asked Kate.
Fran shook her head. “There is a husband—I saw a letter addressed to him. But I have no idea other than that. She’s very private.”
“I’m not sure I blame her.”
Fran cast her a sympathetic look. “It’s not easy to be private here, is it? All of us crammed into those little rooms, living in each other’s pockets. Poor Alice keeps trying to find a place to have a private cry but the best she can manage is under the covers when she thinks we’re asleep. We shouldn’t complain, I suppose. When you think of what we see in the villages . . .”
A little ahead of them, having failed with hoops and skipping ropes, Emmie was trying to coax a group of the children into a game of catch.
“Look, I’ll show you,” Emmie said encouragingly. “You just take the ball and throw it to a friend, like this—”
Emmie lobbed the ball, but the girl she’d chosen had turned away and didn’t see the ball coming at her. It hit her in the shoulder. It wasn’t a hard ball or a particularly hard throw, but the girl went rigid. For a moment the world stood frozen, Emmie and the children staring, and then the girl dropped to the ground, her arms over her head, screaming. Screaming in a way Kate had never heard before. Horrible, high-pitched, inhuman screams.
“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” Emmie flung herself at the girl, trying to comfort her, but the girl just kept screaming and screaming, rolled into a ball in the dirt, kicking out when Emmie tried to touch her.
Kate hadn’t even realized she’d moved, but there she was, on her knees in the dirt next to the girl, elbowing Emmie aside, because couldn’t Emmie see she was making it worse, that the girl didn’t want to be touched?
“Don’t! Leave her,” Kate snapped.
The girl’s screams were beginning to turn into something like sobs; her wasted little body heaved and shook.
Emmie’s face was ashen. She sat back on her heels, staring at the child in horror. “I had no idea—I never meant—oh goodness.”
“Get her some milk,” Kate said decisively, and Emmie stumbled to her feet, tripping over herself in her alarm.
The child was still shaking, her head hidden in her arms, curled up like a hedgehog.
“Hello,” said Kate, not touching her, not moving. “We haven’t been introduced yet. I’m Miss Moran.”
A bit of tearstained face poked out. “Mademoiselle . . . Marron?”
The girl had turned Kate’s name into the French word for chestnut. “Well, yes, I can be Marron if you like.”
The girl lifted her head a bit more, sizing Kate up. She couldn’t have been more than five, six at most. She wiped her nose with the back of one hand. Her voice trembled. “Your hair is the color of your name.”
Kate instinctively put her hand to her hair, which had been braided and twisted back. The braiding was an ineffectual attempt to keep out insect invaders. “Chestnut? Yes, I suppose. I’ve only ever seen chestnuts after they were roasted.”
The girl didn’t move. “We have lots of them in the woods.”
“Would you show me one of these days? I don’t know anything about woods. I’ve only lived in towns.”
Slowly, the girl uncurled, sitting back on her heels. “Like Amiens?”
“A bit like Amiens.”
“But not as big,” said the girl, taking for granted that Amiens was the extent of the metropolitan experience.
“But much bigger.” The girl’s eyes widened. “We have buildings taller than the highest church spire, and railways that run on tracks in the sky.”
“You’re making it up.”
“I’m not, I swear.” Kate struggled up from her knees and held out a hand. “Do you think you can get up now?”
The girl hesitated. There was dirt on her cheek where she’d buried her face in the ground. Kate resisted the urge to rub it away. The last thing the girl needed was fussing.
Kate kept her hand extended, not moving. “No one is going to throw anything at you again without warning, I promise.”
“I know it was just a ball,” the little girl said with dignity.
“All the same.” Kate glanced around. Miss Dawlish had very determinedly got her group of children singing a round about a windmill and a fish. Emmie was waiting in line for milk, looking deeply distressed. But none of the Frenchwomen seemed to be headed their way. “Where is your mother?”