Read Online Ghost of the Thames by May McGoldrick - Free Book Online Page B

She’d used it the night she’d gone to Hammersmith
Village. Leaving the clothes by the door, she hurried to the hiding
place. The slate stones on the path were slick from the rain. When
she reached the garden, it took only a moment to see that the
watering can was there, but the key was missing.
    “Of course,” she murmured to herself.
“They have thought of everything.”
    Total darkness surrounded her as Sophy
stood up and stared at the windows of the house. How many of them
were watching her right now, enjoying her predicament?
    “So they have locked you
out?”
    The girl’s voice in the darkness
startled her, and as Sophy whirled around, she stepped back,
tripping on the watering can and falling backwards into the garden.
Looking up, she saw her ghostly friend had returned.
    “Why do you always appear to me in
these late hours of the night?” Sophy asked, picking herself up out
of the dirt. Even in the darkness, she could see the mud covered
her arms from elbow to fingertips. The back of her dress was no
better.
    “You see me best at night.”
    “Why must I see you?” Sophy asked, approaching her. “I do not wish
to see you.”
    The girl gave no answer. Her white
dress and golden hair glowed in the yard like the moon. The weather
clearly had no affect on her.
    When Sophy reached her, she tried to
touch the visitor. As before, her hand passed through, and the cold
that enveloped her fingers was completely at odds with the
apparition’s golden glow.
    “You need to come with me.”
    “To rescue more women who are like
me?”
    “To save those who are in
danger.”
    “There are too many of them.” Sophy
planted her feet, refusing to move as the ghost stepped back. She
remembered the numbers that Captain Seymour had quoted of the women
who made their living selling their bodies on the streets of
London. “I could not even provide shelter to the few I was able to
help last time. It is a hopeless cause.”
    “Those women you helped would not
agree with you.”
    Sophy refused to follow. “No! I am not
coming. What I can do is minute, it’s unimportant. What I can do
will make no difference.”
    She gasped as suddenly the
ghost swept toward her. In an instant, the apparition walked
directly into Sophy, surrounding her and at the same time filling her.
Sophy felt icy fingers thrust into her limbs, chilling her with a
sense of loss, desperation, grief.
    Visions flashed in her mind’s eye.
Women and children dressed in rags, chained together in a belly of
a ship, crying out for help. She was looking down at them through
an open hatch. Their heads had been shaven of every last strand of
hair. Instinctively, Sophy tried to go to them, but a cloak thrown
over her shoulders was too heavy. She tried to take a step forward,
but the weight of the garment was crushing her, body and soul. The
cloak felt like it was a thousand pounds, buckling her legs. She
looked down at the garment. It was made of gold. Pure gold…and
woven from hair. She knew immediately; it was the hair of the
captives chained below.
    Sophy looked up in horror. A sea wind
was stinging her face. She could taste the salt on the air. The
ghost was standing in front of her on the deck of the ship. Her
wrists were shackled together, and she held them out in front of
her.
    “Will you come with me?”
    The woman took a step back and
suddenly they were separate entities, standing in the darkness of
the yard.
    Until that moment, Sophy had forgotten
how to breathe. The image of the captive souls burned in her brain.
She could still feel the crushing weight of the cloak. She somehow
had to shed the weight of it.
    She had no idea where this would lead.
Leaving right now might mean never being welcomed back to Urania
Cottage. But there was no longer a choice.
    She took one step, glanced briefly at
the house, and then followed her guide out of the yard.
    The neighborhoods they passed through
were quiet, with few people on the street and only a rare carriage.
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