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

paled beneath its paint. “Where did you get these?” she demanded.
    â€œSomeone gave ’em to me.” Which was strictly true. Silas had.
    â€œNo one living,” she muttered, then seemed to decide any coin was better than none, even one taken from the eyes of the dead. “Sit,” she ordered, pointing a ringed finger at a worn velvet stool by his knees.
    Her hand, when it wrapped around his, was soft, powdery as a butterfly’s wing, and it flew away just as quickly to rest on her heart.
    â€œNot a young one,” she gasped, black eyes wide. “An old one.” Trembling, she reached across to hold his cheeks hard enough to hurt as she stared into his eyes. “Old and broken !”
    Thomas tried to speak, but he could make only a muffled sound.
    â€œSo broken!” the fortune-teller shrieked. “Old one, what happened to you ?”

CHAPTER SIX
    A Fistful of Silver

    T HREE STREETS AWAY, THE POWDER from the fortune-teller’s hands was still on his cheeks, cool against his heated skin. Her last words screamed around his head.
    Go back to the grave, old one! Go back to the grave!
    After that, she had said no more, had only stared at Thomas with blazing terror in her eyes, the fear burning into him through her fingertips until he wrenched himself free and ran. And ran.
    Old? Broken? He was perfectly young and healthy, thank you very much, and she was a fraud, just as Silas said about those people. Hadn’t even let him tell her what he needed to know before she put on a performance worthyof one of those big fancy stages up in the middle of the city. A big fancy stage like he’d seen last evening.
    Giving him his money’s worth, wasn’t she?
    Not hardly. Thomas’s stomach sank. He’d left every one of his coins on her rickety table—so that was her game. Get the mug to empty his pockets, then scare the daylights out of ’im. He felt inside his pockets, just in case, but he had nothing left, not even the penny Lucy had given him for the onion, and she’d be looking for at least a halfpenny to come back with it.
    And him. She’d be looking for him by now.
    But he couldn’t be a mug. He’d seen those letters on her sign, hadn’t he? And he’d seen the sign because he’d been standing right there, eating raspberry ice.
    With a girl who had appeared from nowhere, and returned there.
    He needed to find her again. He could not go back to Silas and Lucy. He hadn’t been planning to, though now that he thought on it, none of his plans had worked out altogether very well. If he was going to find his family, Thomas was going to have to get a great deal better at plans, and quickly.
    There’d never been much need for him to plan anything. He had always done as Silas and Lucy bade him, and that filled all the hours he was awake. Thomas was never certain whether that was because he was a good boy,or because he had learned young indeed what happened if he did not: sent to bed without supper, or forced to scrub every last speck of dirt from the floor. Didn’t much matter either way, he supposed.
    But he did know someone who’d always looked after himself, who knew the city where living people dwelled, not just dead ones.
    Thomas would find Charley—
    â€œThomas! Get here, this instant!”
    Another plan scuppered. Thomas turned toward Lucy and watched her face shift rapidly from blotchy red anger to something much more gentle.
    â€œThomas, what’s happened? Have you taken ill again? You look a proper state.” She strode up to him and took his hand. “I think you’ve had too much excitement these few days. It’s not good for the humors. Come, poppet. Let’s go home.”
    Let her think he was ill. Then he could think without her pestering him to talk or do his lessons, or about the onion. Indeed, she did none of those things on the way back to the little house or while she tucked him