Way Down Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

enamel. “You’re Riadne’s daughter. She loved these treats. You love them too.” He knowswho I am, which is good. My mother’s reputation holds, which is nice. It won’t help me haggle, though. “Taste it, right?”
    “No,” I say. Doesn’t matter how tempted I might be. I’ve got enough for shoes. I’d enjoy the bun for a second, but shoes? They’ll last a lot longer. “Another time. I’ll save up for them,” I tell him. I inhale, because that smell . . . It’s almost intoxicating.
    “You sure you’ll have the time?” he asks. “Maybe the end is already here.” He smiles as if he knows something. But this is typical: There are always rumors that the end is coming, and some people believe them. Especially since the Lows fell under their new leadership: They’re worse than ever before. That’s what it feels like, and that’s what the rumors suggest. True or not, this seller is enterprising. He’s benefiting from panic.
    “If it is, I’ll never know what I’ve missed out on,” I say. He shrugs and looks away to find the next—hopefully more gullible—customer, and I tiptoe off, down toward the clothiers. What they have, they make from fragments of what’s been before. Everything we wear is recycled, like the air, like the water, but how they get their materials is different. They scavenge. We’ve come to accept it: that they go to the Pit at the bottom of the ship, take what they need from the bodies, and then clean it, dye it, recut it. They turn the scraps into something new, and you’d never even know where they originally came from. Rumor has it that even the dyes they use come from down there, that they harvest skin with tattoos and recycle the color from them, draining it out of the dead skin, soaking it out, and breaking it down. I don’t know if that’s true, but it feels like it could be. I’ve seen them pressingclothes, driving color out of anything that they can to get the ink they need. When it comes to it, skin is the same as clothes: If you don’t need it anymore, you take what you can from it, I guess.
    At the farthest end of this section, nudged up against the barricades to protect against the Lows, are the shoemakers. There are three of them, all jostling for space, tables set up outside their berths. But as I get closer, I see that there’s a crowd here. They’re shouting for something, crowds of people fighting over something. My foot stings more and more with every step I take. I could really do without the hassle of having to fight through people to get the shoes I want. I know that much.
    I can’t get close enough. I’m at the back, behind other Shopkeepers. I catch glimpses through the crowd of what’s going on, though. There’s a Bell up there, his hand wrapped around the neck of one of the shoemakers: Bartleby. Bartleby is bald and small, the shattered remains of spectacles clinging to his nose and ears. He looks terrified. What’s he done? He must have done something. The Bells are stupid and violent, but they don’t do anything unless they’re provoked.
    “Please!” I hear him shouting. “It wasn’t me!” That’s not good enough for the Bell holding him up, who pulls back his fist and slams it into the side of Bartleby’s head.
    “Don’t lie,” the Bell says. His hands are the size of Bartleby’s face. Hardly seems a fair fight, but nobody’s stepping up.
    “What did he do?” I ask one of the Shopkeepers in front of me. The woman doesn’t look back but stretches up onto her toes to see better.
    “Nicked something from them. Gave them a bad trade.”
    “Bartleby?”
    “He’s the same as anybody. Saw an opportunity, took it.” My mother liked Bartleby. She trusted him as much as she trusted anybody. I feel around behind me to my satchel. I’ve got my knife here: a small scalpel blade that I tell myself I carry to help me in the arboretum with stubborn branches but that I really carry for protection. I could put myself into this.