scabbed over, raised in tiny red welts. Anyone can see the nape of my neck is unblemished, smooth as a pearl. My stomach tells a different story.
One shaped by the teeth of strange children.
“For three years I’ve told you what’s happened. You, Ma, and Jez. In my head I’ve rehearsed, imagined how I’d explain where I’ve been, what I’ve done. What’s been done to me.” I wish I had that drink now. My mouth is so dry, my voice already breaking. “And now you’re here. Bethany and Miah—and Harl, poor stupid Harl—they may never get a chance like this. So you’ll wait, and maybe you’ll judge.”
Again, I take in the sight of Ma nestled against my pregnant belly and I almost can’t say, “But no matter what, you won’t end up like us.”
He opens his mouth and I cut him off.
“Stop. Before you take or lay blame, sit here a spell and listen.”
Listen.
They came for us at night.
Mister Pérouse shook me from a dream. The light from his candle obscured my vision. My head was bleary with sleep, so what I saw after I’d rubbed my eyes didn’t make much sense. Strangers, two men and an old woman, were leaning over the children’s beds. They were pressing their faces too close to Harl’s; to Bethany’s; to Miah’s. Each adult paired with one child, as though whispering secrets into their ears, or nuzzling their necks so they’d laugh. But there was no laughter, no talking. More like a snuffling, a smacking, accompanied by the kids’ night-time sighs.
“How are you feeling, chérie?” Mister Pérouse’s voice ruffled like pages in a book. His breath smelled of roast lamb.
“What?”
“Are you well?” He brushed my forehead with his fingertips. I flinched from the cold of his hand, not from his touch. It felt like months and months had passed since Harl and I’d first seen him from our hidey-hole in the pantry; in that time he’d become Ma’s favorite evening visitor. With his wan coloring and milkweed hair, he was a hit at her parties—he had no need for makeup or wigs. He wasn’t stingy with the grog either, though he rarely drank. And while he always left in the wee hours of night, more than one morning greeted us with a gold-toothed smile when we found the coins he’d left behind for our trouble.
“Leave it to an out-of-towner to show us locals how to treat a host,” Ma had said, the only time she commented on Mister Pérouse’s contributions. “Ain’t no hick ’round these parts would spare a crust for a starving man unless he were kin.”
That didn’t stop her from inviting these hicks to her shindigs, of course. But from then on she kept the newest and best apparel aside for Mister Pérouse: a square-cut velvet waistcoat belted with a fringed sash, tied in a drooping bow; ribbed leggings tucked into high boots; a lacy cravat spilling from his collar; a floor-length, hoodless mantle worn open on the shoulders. All of which, apart from the blue-black cloak, were the fine gray of sodden ash.
Mister Pérouse fired questions at me. “Does your head hurt? Mal au ventre? Can you sit up?” He stroked my cheeks with the back of his hand, then took hold of my chin and forced me to look directly at him. His irises were pink in the candlelight, his lashes long and white. Over his costume he wore the rancher’s coat Ma had made for him when she learned he dealt in livestock.
“Ma?” The strangers were lifting my brother and sisters from their beds, carrying them like sacks of spuds over their shoulders. I tried to turn my head to see where they were being taken, but Mister Pérouse’s fingers were bands of iron around my jaw.
“Elle est malade, chérie—she has come down very sick,” he said. And then I heard her groans through the wall between our rooms. Her head knocking against the plaster. The bedsprings squeaking as she thrashed. Her cries, muffled, turning to whimpers. A man’s rumbling voice, deep and close, strained as though struggling to speak. “Attends,” I think he said, I think he growled. “Hold still and take it,” he said, and other things I couldn’t quite understand.
My confusion must have been obvious. “I’ve summoned a doctor to inspect her,” Mister Pérouse said. “He’ll see to her, ne t’inquiete pas.”
The words didn’t sound right, but he was so earnest I couldn’t not believe him.
“It’s a miracle you haven’t fallen ill, Ada.” He released my chin,