Free Tracing the Shadow by Sarah Ash

a hunk. “Here!” He tossed it to her and she caught it. “Go on. Eat.”
    Klervie could not help herself. She started to tear at the bread with her teeth, gulping it down. And oh, it tasted so good that it brought tears to her eyes.
    “You’re a pretty one. What’s your mother doing, letting you roam around here so late?”
    “Maman is sick.”
    He touched her hair, running a curl between his greasy fingertips, and his touch made her shudder. “Hair like gold. This would fetch a good price at the wigmaker’s.”
    Klervie shied abruptly away and he began to laugh. “Did I scare you, sweetheart? Don’t worry. I won’t cut your hair. You’re worth so much more to me
intact.
” Wrapping his hand in a filthy cloth, he took the skewer from over the glowing brazier and slid one of the roast fowl onto a battered metal dish. Then, a dull flash of steel in the gathering dusk, and he had begun to carve into the crackling brown skin with a keen-bladed knife. He stabbed the tip into a slice of white breast meat and offered it to Klervie. Klervie wavered.
    “Take it,” he said, grinning. “It’s yours.”
    “I have no money,” Klervie said in a small voice. The delicious smell of the roast fowl tormented her sore stomach.
    “Tender breast meat…for a tender child.”
    Klervie suddenly snatched at the meat and crammed it into her mouth, furiously chewing, swallowing as fast as she could, squeezing her eyes shut with the sheer pleasure of eating.
    “How’d you like to stay with old Papa, then?” the man said. “You could snuggle up, nice and cozy, with me here.” He patted the sacks on which he was sitting. She saw that greedy glint in his eyes again.
    “You’re not my papa.”
    He shrugged and tore a leg off the fowl he’d been carving, chewing on it while the fat trickled down his chin.
    “My papa’s dead.” Klervie took a step back.
    “Where d’you think you’re off to? Aren’t you going to give old Papa a kiss?”
    Klervie saw the firelight glinting on his greasy lips and stubbled cheeks. She took another step back. He leaned forward suddenly and grabbed her. “Oh no, you don’t! You owe me!” The grease-smeared mouth pressed against hers, while his hand groped beneath her skirts.
    Struggling and kicking, Klervie cast around with one hand for something, anything, to help her get away. Her fingers closed on the skewer, hot and slimy with fat and she jabbed it with all her strength into the man’s arm.
    With a howl, he let go and she hurtled away as fast as she could, heart hammering in her chest as he came lumbering after her. “You’ve stabbed me, you ungrateful little bitch! Come back here! I’ll make you wish you’d never been born…”
    Maman will be worried. Maman will fret. Maman will cry if I don’t get back to her soon…
             
    It was not until afternoon the following day that Klervie at last found her way back to their lodgings. She had lost a shoe running to escape the horrible man. But she dared not stop to rest, for fear he’d find her, so she kept limping doggedly on through unfamiliar streets until dawn broke.
    “
Klervie
…
Klervie…
”
    She glanced up, certain that someone was calling her name. Shops were opening their shutters, water carts were clattering over the cobbles.
    “Come quick, Klervie…
” The faint, urgent voice drew her onward, one stumbling step at a time. Was it Maman’s voice guiding her home? It sounded so familiar…
    Weary and footsore, she tramped up the rickety stairs and opened the door to see the old woman rifling through their few possessions.
    “Where’s Maman?” Klervie stared at the empty bed in disbelief. “What have you done with her?”
    “Everything costs money, you know. Even a pauper’s grave. I had to pay the carter too. I’m not a charitable institution. Aha…what’s this?” Her fingers closed around Klervie’s book, hidden beneath the threadbare blanket, and tugged it out.
    Klervie still did not, could