Read Online The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden by Emma Trevayne - Free Book Online

fact that there were still things as boring as mutton to be thought of wasn’t perhaps the strangest part of this whole business.
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    There wasn’t, in fact, much need to wrap up at all. A warm sun shone on the soot and muck in the gutters outside, making even the filth seem bright and new and pleasant. Inside his pocket, Thomas kept his hand wrapped around the coins he’d fetched from his box so they wouldn’t jangle.
    They weren’t worth an arm and a leg, but he didn’t want to give them to Lucy or the butcher.
    He needed them. It was possible that whoever had left the note and the tickets had truly wished for Thomas to speak to Thistle at the theater, and the answers were farther afield than Shoreditch. Brighton, Torquay, Glastonbury. He would need the coins to get there.
    If he could sneak away.
    It took an absolute age for them to reach the market, or it felt so. Lucy kept stopping to greet people, and Thomas was forced to do the same so nobody would think him rude, especially not Lucy. He needed her in a kindly mood when they finally reached the square crammed with ramshackle stalls and bright, frayed bits of bunting. He smiledat the mother of the Robinson girls and an old man with a walking stick and a young chap whose mongrel wove in and out between Thomas’s ankles.
    A few feet at a time, they edged closer to the market, until Thomas could hear the shouts of the stall holders, each trying to tempt customers to buy from them and not from the thieving swine across the way.
    It made Thomas smile. They were thieving swine, of course. Every last one of ’em.
    So was he, when it came down to it, thanks to Silas. But not anymore.
    â€œBe a love,” Lucy said. “Take this and go fetch us an onion.” She waved a package of meat wrapped in cheap newspaper in the direction of a farmer’s table, the vegetables wilted and brown. With her other hand, she slipped a penny into Thomas’s palm.
    Someone tapped on his shoulder. Thomas turned and faced a pretty girl in a worn, mud-colored cloak. She gave him the oddest stare Thomas had ever been on the pointy end of, but that was girls for you. The Robinson twins were always giving him funny looks too.
    â€œHello,” she said. Her voice wasn’t quite as strange as her expression, but there was something a bit off about it.
    â€œHullo,” said Thomas, there being no reason to be rude.
    â€œAre you lost, child?” Lucy asked.
    â€œOh, no,” said the girl. “It’s only that my . . . my uncle gave me a coin to get an ice, but I’ve looked, and they’re so big, I’d never finish one myself. I’ve no one to share it with, so I’ve been waiting until I saw someone who might like to.”
    The ices. Thomas wanted to see them every time he made this outing with Lucy. They couldn’t buy one, of course, but he could look while his mouth watered at how he imagined they would taste, as bright on his tongue as their colors were. Cherry red and blackberry purple.
    â€œWell, that’s right kind of you,” said Lucy. “You sure you was given that coin to spend on sweets?”
    â€œOh, yes.”
    â€œMay I? Please?” Thomas asked.
    â€œOh, I daresay you may. Hurry back, mind, and bring the onion with you.”
    The girl put her hand inside Thomas’s, comfortable as if they were the best of friends, and pulled him into the crowd.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” he asked her. “Seeing as we’ll be sharing an ice, feels only proper to know.”
    She smiled at him. “Mari—Mary.”
    â€œQuite contrary?”
    She looked puzzled. “Pardon me?”
    â€œYou know,” Thomas urged, “the rhyme. Mary, Mary, quite contrary . . . ” In fact, he himself couldn’t remember the rest.
    â€œOh,” said Mary. “Yes. I mean, no. Just Mary.” She scowled a bit, but