“I hope you know you won’t be getting paid.” He had an accent Patience couldn’t place. Long o’s and rolled r’s. She would learn, in later years, that the man had been an aristocrat. But she didn’t know, when she was seven or eight, why the man had talked so oddly, or why he was so angry, or why Mama was begging him to stay, promising him that next time there would be no interruption, next time she would be entirely his, she promised, please, don’t go, please, please . . .

When he left, attempting to slam the door behind him though it hung off of its hinges, Mama crumpled to the floor. Patience ran over to her.

“Mama, don’t cry. I got us dinner. A lot of meat and a bone, too. And a few coppers. Look!” She dug the coins out of her pocket, holding her palm open. “We’ll be okay. You don’t need that man.”

Mama slowly lifted her face from between her folded arms. “Did you steal this?”

“No, Mama. I worked. Do you know the butcher at the covered market with the blue handkerchief around his head? He—”

“What did you do for him?” Her words pierced Patience’s skin like butcher’s knives. Beside her, Scratch noticed with horror, was Mama’s new dress, a gaping tear in it like an open mouth. “Why did he give you this money?”

“I cut meat.” What else would she have done for him? “I cut it and wrapped it up for people who were buying it.”

“Oh yes?” Mama snarled. “Do you know why grown men are nice to little girls like you?”

“He said I have small hands, and that I’m good with a knife.”

Mama’s coarse laugh scraped her skin. “Don’t go back to him. Men like that are never nice.”

She remembered the butcher’s smile, his insistence that Patience deserved payment for a job well done. She wanted to defend him, to tell Mama that there were good men, good people, in the world. That not everyone would hurt a poor Lakes girl with no friends.

“Okay, Mama,” she said instead.

“Okay, Mama?” Mama’s nostrils flared, eyes blazing. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Um, yes, Mama?”

And Patience folded into herself as Mama’s fists began to fly.

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Scratch jolted awake with no idea where she was or how she got there. Dawn was creeping overhead, cool blue and fresh. She spread her fingers, feeling blades of grass. A breeze zinged across her skin, slightly dew-damp and chilly, no blanket covering her. How had she fallen asleep like this?

“Scratch?”

Brella stared at her. She also lay in the grass, her bronze hair dimmed by moisture and plastered to the side of her head.

“Where are we?” Scratch asked hoarsely. “How did we . . .”