To the Streets

Blythe yawned, torn from slumber not twenty minutes before by her father’s manservant Raoul, who bade her to dress and prepare for a carriage ride. She looked up, blinking bleary eyes at the gold-plated musket that hung on the wall above her head. She sat outside her father’s office, cocooned in a fine, hooded green cloak. She reached up, making sure the strange, bony protrusions that sprouted from her head two weeks ago were hidden beneath the hood. She touched one of the spines lightly; it was still tender from when the cook had tried to saw it off earlier that week. It hadn’t worked; nothing had worked, and her mother cried all the time now.
 
The door to her father’s office opened and she dropped her hand, sitting up pin-straight. Raoul exited, closing the door before she could see her father inside. He tucked a piece of folded paper into his jacket and stood over her. “Come along, Miss Blythe.”
 
She hopped off the couch. “Is father coming?” she asked him.
 
“No,” he told her. “Come along. Quietly, now.”
 
She followed him, wondering why they were going to the back of the house instead of the front, where she usually boarded her family’s carriage. Raoul led her out the kitchen door and into the dark street, where a small, unmarked carriage waited. She climbed inside at Raoul’s gruff command and curled up on the seat, clutching her hands together nervously. Raoul entered beside her and rapped his knuckles against the wall, and the carriage jolted forward.
The windows were blacked out by dark curtains. “Where are we going, Mr. Raoul?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
 
“The lower city,” he replied, brushing aside a curtain to glance outside. “Someplace quiet for you.”
 
“Oh….Um, why?”
 
He dropped the curtain, and she shrunk back as he pointed at her bony crown. “That’s why.”
 
“Is there someone who can fix it?” she asked, brightening.
 
“No,” he said, and she wilted again. He leaned back, looking again out the window. She hugged her arms around her chest and tried not to cry.
The silence stretched on, suddenly broken by the sounds of raised voices outside and glass shattering. She jumped at the noise, looking to Raoul with alarm. He continued to stare out, ignoring her. The noises varied as they continued. Sometimes moaning, sometimes raucous laughter, sometimes a cry of “alms!” During a lull in the chaos, the carriage juddered to a halt.
 
Raoul opened the door and stepped out, waiting for her. She peeked outside. This street was unfamiliar to her, almost too narrow to fit the carriage. Piles of filth littered the ground, and large rats scurried into the darkness. “Get out, child,” Raoul said, and she hesitantly jumped to the muddy cobblestones.
 
“Can we go home, Raoul? I’m scared.” She clutched her cloak tightly around her.
 
“You can’t go home, Miss Blythe,” Raoul replied, digging in his jacket pockets. “This’ll be where you find your home now.”
 
Blythe looked around uncertainly, beginning to shiver. “What do you mean? Mr. Raoul?”
 
“You’re cursed, child, it’s plain to anyone with eyes.” Her bottom lip began to quiver. She had heard them whisper “cursed” as she lay sick in her bed, all the servants and mother and father. Raoul pulled out a small pouch and the folded piece of paper. “Your father explained it for you in this letter here,” he continued, handing her the paper and pouch. “Don’t try to find your way back. You won’t be allowed back in, no one will acknowledge you.”
 
She took the paper and pouch into her hands. Raoul was speaking far too fast for her to understand, but she knew what he was saying was bad. Tears fell freely from her eyes, and she gulped to speak. “B-but, I didn’t…B-but…c-can we just go home, p-please, Mr. Raoul?” she pleaded, looking up at him.
 
He sighed, shaking his head. “I think it would be kinder to drown you in a trough. You won’t last a winter out here.” He bent down to her level as she blubbered incoherently and grabbed her chin. “Take that money from your father and hide it well, find a nice warm spot to yourself, and take whatever food you can, wherever you can.” He dropped her chin to unfold the paper in her hand. “Now read your father’s letter, I’ll need to take it back.”
 
Sniveling, she wiped her eyes and looked at the letter. Seeing her father’s familiar handwriting brought on a new rush of tears, but Raoul shook her shoulder and she froze in fear, quieting slightly. Teardrops stained the paper as she read:
 
Blythe,
Family is the most important thing in the world. You will not understand now, but you will understand one day; you are saving your family. I do not want to lose you, but neither do I want to lose your mother, or Sarah, or Andrew. We cannot let them be devastated by this cruel curse. Your new life will be hard, but your mother, sister, and brother will be safe. I know you love them, as we love you, so please, stay away for their sakes. There are many children like you in the city, and you will find a home with them. You can have a new name, a new family, a new life, and you will be happy because you have saved your old family from fates worse than death.
Forgive me if you can.
Father
 
Raoul slid the paper away from her as she finished reading. She sat hard on the ground, curling around her knees as she sobbed. She did love them, she did. She loved her father, her mother, her big sister Sarah and big brother Andrew. So because she loved them…she had to leave? Forever?
 
Seizing her brusquely by the arms, Raoul set her on her feet. “Alright, child. Like I said, find someplace warm. Don’t be making so much noise.” He placed a hand over the coin pouch. “Tuck that away, now. People’ve been killed for less down here.” He glanced up and down the dark street and patted her shoulder. “Gods preserve you, girl.”
 
With that, he climbed back into the carriage, and in a moment it was gone, and she was alone.
 
Over the next three days, Blythe lost her cloak, her boots, and her coin purse to other denizens of the streets. Every door she knocked on was slammed in her face, each alley she attempted to sleep in was already home to feral animals or angry people, and always the cold and the wetness was present, digging into her bones.
 
Kelsa Pickles found her half-delirious with hunger, shivering beneath a cart. That night in the Pickle house, warm and satiated for the first time in days, Blythe wondered if she could be happy again, if she could find a new life, and a new family.