The Eyeball Collector Read Online Free PDF Page B

followed her down the stairs into a large kitchen furnished with a long table and benches. All the while she continued to talk about the Lord and her good deeds with an occasional reference to ‘Poor Ned Upstairs’.
    A girl was chopping vegetables at the far end of the table. She looked up at the sound of footsteps and smiled.
    ‘Ah, Polly,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘We have a newcomer. Hector. He needs somefink to eat and then perhaps you could find him a bed. But first let’s say a very quick prayer of fanks that he came to us and didn’t succumb to the evil streets of the City.’
    Instantly Polly stopped chopping and put her hands together and closed her eyes, as did Mrs Fitch, and they both mumbled a quick prayer to the Almighty. Hector, although not strictly a religious child, knew enough to join his own hands and mumble along. Mrs Fitch seemed pleased. She handed him over to Polly and left.
    Many abandoned boys had come and gone in the few years since Polly began work at the Home, and she had cared for them all equally, but this boy struck her immediately as different. His dark hair flopped over his face and the eyes that stared out from under the wet fringe were black as coal. Despite his bedraggled appearance he stood erect and looked around with an air of confident enquiry. He was not plump, but obviously well fed; and he was tall, nearly as tall as she was, despite the difference in age, which she judged to be five or six years. In a practised glance she noted that his cuffs reached his wrists (not a child here had a shirt that fitted any longer) and that his cloak was of a high quality and, despite the mud, she could tell that his boots had been recently polished. This Hector, she decided, had lived well until now. He could not have been more different from the other boys at the Home if he had tried.
    ‘Welcome to Lottie Fitch’s,’ Polly said kindly. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
    ‘Yes, please,’ replied Hector, realizing that despite his grief he was actually very hungry. He had hardly eaten since his father’s sudden death.
    Polly brought over a plate of bread and ham and a big mug of milk and set it down in front of him. She continued to chop vegetables and tend to the fire while he ate and drank, but she was watching him. ‘You are not from the south, are you?’ she said eventually. It was more a statement than a question.
    Hector shook his head. ‘No. And you sound as if you are from outside the City entirely.’
    Polly nodded. ‘I come from a village in the Moiraean Mountains called Pagus Parvus. I came to Urbs Umida to find work but it was not as easy as I imagined. I was fortunate to meet Mrs Fitch.’
    That makes two of us, thought Hector as he finished his bread. ‘Have you a napkin?’ he asked.
    Polly laughed. ‘Use your sleeve. That’s what we do. Saves the laundry.’ With the side of the knife she pushed all the vegetables into a pot and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Let’s find you a bed,’ she said. ‘You look worn out.’
    Polly took a candle for herself and one for Hector and led him up the stairs. It was dark and in her shadow difficult to see.
    ‘No gas lights?’ he asked.
    Polly shook her head. ‘You might find things different here,’ she remarked as they reached the landing. ‘Don’t mind the noises from up there.’ She glanced in the direction of the attic. ‘It’s only Ned.’
    ‘You mean “Poor Ned Upstairs”?’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Fitch’s husband. He’s in the attic. He fell in the Foedus some years ago, in the middle of winter. They dragged him out but he never fully recovered. He was poisoned by the water and is now abed day and night. Mrs Fitch says that it is his punishment for their sins.’
    ‘What sins?’
    Polly shrugged. ‘I think it is to do with her son, Ludlow. No one has seen him for years. Oddly enough, he lived in Pagus Parvus himself for a while when I was there. I suspect the Fitches treated him cruelly, but he never did tell me