“We lost one, sir,” said Gilly, soft.
He stopped. “Eh? I didn’t catch that?”
“I said we lost one, sir,” said Gilly, louder. “Fell in the drink.”
All at once the bull man strode over to the little girl, his legs long and thin like shears, his oilskin coat creaking. He pressed his hands to his knees and leaned very low at the waist, so that he was staring right into Gilly’s eyes. “You lost one,” he said. “Fell in the drink, it did.”
“Yes, Mr. Plumb, sir.”
“The job was for ten, like. Weren’t it ten, Mr. Thwaite?”
“It were ten, Mr. Plumb,” said the thick man at the door.
“It’s nearly all ten of em,” whispered Gilly. “It’s nearly all.”
“Nearly all,” said Mr. Plumb. He reached out and seized the little girl’s wrist and held up her arm. He started pointing to her fingers, one by one. “Let me count, like. One, two, three, four, five. Yes? And on your other hand, six, seven, eight, nine.” He took her littlest finger and bent it back, way back, so that she screamed and leaned sharply backward.
“It don’t matter, this one though,” he said. “You still got nearly all.”
Gilly looked so tiny, dangling in front of the bull man. No one else moved, no one breathed a word.
“You ain’t kept here on account of charity,” he was saying. “You got yer jobs to do, an you got to do em.”
But Charlie couldn’t watch any more. He stepped forward, his heart in his throat. “Leave her alone,” he called. “She’s just a kid.”
At once the thick man near the door, Mr. Thwaite, poured like a shadow forward and a club appeared out of the folds of his coat and it caught Charlie hard on the side of the head, sending him sprawling. Everything went sideways, then dark. He was gasping. Fumbling in the dirt, unbalanced, his ears ringing as he tried to get up.
“Who’s this now? A fresh un?” Mr. Plumb had dropped Gilly in the dirt and turned to look.
“Don’t never mind him, Mr. Plumb, sir,” Gilly begged, clutching her hand. “He ain’t but simple. Shut yer gob, you,” she snapped at Charlie.
He fell back, confused, hurt. His cheek was stinging, the blood seeping down.
“He don’t watch his yap, he’s like to lose his tongue,” said Mr. Plumb.
“I’ll cut it out me own self,” said Gilly.
Mr. Plumb laughed. “Aye you would, you damned sticker,” he said. “That’s the savage in ye.”
When the men had gone, Gilly hurried over. The club had caught Charlie on the side of his face, tearing the skin below his eye, bloodying his nose. He shook his head, feeling the thick weight of it, like a sack of water.
“Your finger—”
“Never mind that. Here now, hold er higher,” Gilly was muttering. She lifted his chin gently and he heard the quick intake of her breath and he understood suddenly. He pulled away, covering his cheek with one hand. But he was not fast enough. She was staring in horror.
“What you done?” she whispered. “Charlie?”
He looked at her, his eyes wet.
“Tain’t human,” she whispered. She took a step back. “Tain’t right.”
“Gilly—”
“Get away!” she cried suddenly. “Jooj! Lookit Charlie’s bloody great saw!”
But before the mouselike waif got near, the tall lad, Millard, was pushing forward, grabbing Charlie’s head, turning it side to side. The other kids were crowding round, dirt-streaked faces, big eyes staring.
“Bloody hell,” Millard was saying. “He’s a bloody freak, he is. He’s a monster.”
Charlie pushed him bodily off.
“Charlie’s a monster?” one of the littlest ones said, maybe three years old. She started to cry.
“No—” Charlie whispered.
“He’s Spring-Heeled Jack, he is!” a second kid burst out.
And they scattered from him then, squealing, all except Millard and Gilly, and Charlie himself stumbled backward, pain and anger and humiliation rising in him. He glowered in the dimness at the faces peering out at him from behind barrels, boxes, water-rotted timbers. Everything, the litch, being hunted in the darkness, getting beaten by that bull man just like in his old life in Mississippi, now this, being called a freak, a monster, all of it filled him with something he hadn’t let himself feel, not in a long time.
Rage.
“The hell with you!” he shouted at the ragged faces staring. “The hell with all of you!”