Was he mocking her? Bacon caught her look. He tilted his head at the bottle of soothing syrup on the floor, and continued, “I just wanted to make sure the lad was safe. And you.”

His gaze flickered across the tiny room, and Pin cringed. A single chair and a metal trunk that held their clothes and served as her mother’s dressing table. A chamber pot with an ill-fitting lid. Pin’s spare clothes hung from nails on the wall, knickerbocker trousers and a grimy white shirt.

Bacon cleared his throat. “Do you have someone you can stay with, Mrs. Maffucci? Family elsewhere in the city? Your parents?”

Gina shook her head. “Not till fall,” she whispered.

“We’ll be fine,” said Pin fiercely. “We are fine.”

Bacon appeared unconvinced. At last he said, “Well. I have to get back to the station house.”

Gina nodded and brushed a flyaway hair from her face. “What’s your name again?”

“Francis Bacon.”

“Of course. Sergeant Bacon. I recognize you.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I work on the Pike. Madame Zanto, the fortune-teller.”

“I’ve seen you, too.” Bacon slid his helmet back onto his head. “I’ll try to keep an eye on your place.”

“We’ll be fine,” repeated Pin. Her mother nodded.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Bacon,” she said.

He crossed to the door, the floorboards buckling beneath his heavy boots, and left.

“Good riddance,” Pin said, and sank onto the mattress. “Are you all right, Ma?”

Gina turned to her, face aflame. Before Pin could move, she’d struck her cheek. Pin reeled backward and hit the wall, so hard the shack quivered.

“Why were you there?” Gina tried to grab her hair, but Pin had already scrambled away. “Do you want to die, too?”

She lunged at Pin, but her daughter’s hand closed around her wrist. She felt the knobs in Gina’s wrist, skin so papery thin it scarcely seemed to cover bone.

“Stop, Ma,” she said through gritted teeth. “Stop.”

Gina stiffened, straining against her. Pin feared her wrist might snap like balsa. After a few seconds her mother’s face went slack. Pin released her, and Gina’s body seemed to disappear within her shabby clothing as she sank to the floor.

“Why would you do that?” she kept repeating. “Why, why…”

Pin dropped beside her. “Ma, don’t,” she cried. “Please don’t. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Her mother rested her head upon Pin’s shoulder. She stroked Pin’s hair, pressed her cheek against her daughter’s. Pin flinched, and her mother drew back, gazed at Pin’s face, and tugged a finger through her daughter’s matted curls.

“We need to cut it again soon,” she said. “Help me out of my clothes.”

Pin hated this task. The metal hooks and eyes dug at her fingers, and she struggled with the buttons on her mother’s boots.