in the air. Rachel fisted her nose while nausea rolled anew.
“Yeah, the smell of St. Giles,” said Joe, his mouth twisting sourly. “Don’t breathe in too deep. The air’ll kill ya, it will. Drops ’em like flies around ’ere.”
Molly’s friend grunted, a noise of either affirmation or protest. It was difficult for Rachel to distinguish.
Joe brought the gig to a halt and the woman clambered down first. She sprinted toward a narrow archway spanning two buildings.
“Through ’ere,” she called back over her shoulder.
“Good luck there, miss,” said Joe as Rachel eased onto the slippery pavement.
“Do not tell me you are not coming with me,” Rachel said.
“I leave the gig and it’ll be gone in an instant.” He snapped his fingers to accentuate his point. “Sorry, miss. If you leave before it gets dark, you should be okay. I think.”
Small consolation, that.
“Tell Dr. Edmunds the moment he returns where I have gone, should I not get back before he does. Tell him . . .” I need him to do the doctoring. “Just tell him to come if I do not return soon.”
“Aye, miss. Be quick.”
“I doubt I can promise that. Thank you, Joe.”
Molly’s friend had disappeared. Lifting her skirts to keep them out of the filth clogging what passed for a gutter, Rachel hurried through the archway. It led into a courtyard. A man smoking a pipe leaned against a nearby doorpost, watching as she emerged. Decomposing matter filled corners, black mold grew up cracked plaster walls, and stained laundry hung from open windows. Two scrawny boys with dirty faces and tattered trousers halted their game of checkers and set down the bits of bone they used for playing pieces to stare. The air reeked of ordure, and bile choked Rachel’s throat. The poorest quarter of Carlow was better than this place.
“Have you seen a woman come through here?” Rachel asked the man.
His gaze scanned her, assessing like a backstreet shopkeeper whether the information might be worth some money. The clothing on her back might fetch a pound, which would be a month’s wages to a fellow like him.
Instinctively, Rachel clutched her arms about her. He finished his assessment and decided to take pity. She and her clothing were safe.
“Yep.” He pointed a thumb toward a doorway two houses away, his pipe clicking against his few teeth as he clamped down again.
She thanked him and hurried forward, picking her way around mangy dogs and piles of rubbish. Impossibly, the smell intensified the deeper she moved into the dreary space. She clapped a hand to her nose.
A thimble-sized girl with dirty hands huddled inside the open door, bundling watercress. Rachel smiled at her and lifted her skirts over the threshold, slick with old grime.
“’ere, miss.” Molly’s friend signaled from a room just to Rachel’s right. A sickly sweet scent, a mix of sweat and rot, drifted out. The woman jerked her head over toward the corner. “There’s Moll.”
Oh, you poor creature. That this might become the last place Molly knew.
The space was nothing more than a single room. Light struggled to pierce the web-encrusted window, and the air was damp and moldy, pressing heavily on her lungs. The plaster had cracked and fallen, revealing the decomposing lath behind. A pallet had been shoved against the far wall, a ragged sheet tossed over a rope to act as a curtain. Molly was a huddled bundle beneath a threadbare sheet no longer white but sheer as muslin from years of use.
Her eyes, glitteringly bright, glowered at Rachel. “Why are you here?” she asked, her strength insufficient to voice the resentment clear in her gaze.
Why was she there? To serve more penance? “Your friend came looking for Dr. Edmunds to tend you, but he has been gone all day. I said I would come instead. Until he can come himself.”
The glare shifted to her friend, who had taken down a chair from the wall and set it adjacent the bed for Rachel to use. “You shouldn’t have sent for either of them.”
“Don’ be ungrateful now, Moll. She’s ’ere for free.” A meager offering.
“I am all you have for now,” Rachel said. “Please let me do what I can to help.”
Molly tried to hold onto her resentment, but she lacked the strength for it. The hatred retreated from her eyes, leaving behind only the fever and the fear.
Sitting, Rachel lifted Molly’s hand, felt along the girl’s wrist, hot as a warming pan. Molly’s pulse raced. “You should have stayed at the institute Dr. Edmunds sent