Free The Children's Crusade by Carla Jablonski

slumped against the wall. He was laughing at nothing, just staring in front of him and laughing.
    â€œNice moggie,” the boy in front of her said. “What’s in the bag? Pretty bag.”
    Marya reached into her pouch and tossed an apple at the boy. He picked it up and stared at it as if he’d never seen an apple before. Maybe he hadn’t , Marya thought. He was terribly thin, and his hair was purple and green. But now that he had released her ankle, he didn’t seem that scary. She peered into the alleyway. Theboys seemed to live there, so they must know the neighborhood.
    â€œDo you know where Ravenknoll Estate is?” Marya asked.
    The boy turned the apple around and around in his hands. “You’re lucky, little moggie. Next corner, you’re there.”
    â€œThank you.” She took out another apple and handed it to him. “This is for your friend.”
    She turned away from the strange, lost boys and went looking for Ravenknoll Estate.
    â€œOh, Tim, poor Tim,” she murmured. “I do believe Kerwyn is right. You will be better off in Free Country.”
    Now that she was here, Timothy Hunter’s house number popped back into her head. She stood and stared at the sad house in front of her. She couldn’t even guess what color it had once been under the grime. A sagging wire fence stretched between two equally dismal lots. A smashed-up car squatted in the run-down driveway.
    He lives here , she told herself. It was hard to imagine anything as wonderful as magic surviving in such a place . The palace was exquisitely beautiful, she reminded herself, and it was full of cruelty nonetheless. So perhaps, even in such squalor, magic can thrive.
    Marya stepped carefully along the brokenpavement; her bare feet were now grimy. She knocked on the door. Marya could hear loud voices inside and music. Perhaps they didn’t hear her knock. She tried again.
    Finally she decided no one was going to answer the door, so she sat down to wait.
    She rummaged through her pouch and pulled out the ballerina statue Daniel had given her. “Are you okay?” she asked the small dancer.
    â€œYou can’t help it if you can’t really dance,” she whispered to the statue. She thought back to her dancing lessons in St. Petersburg. It hadn’t been the shoes that had held her down, Marya knew that now.
    â€œPoor little doll.” Marya murmured. She hugged the statue close. Dolls can’t dance. They can only pretend. That was the reason for Marya’s failure right there. All Marya had been for the Empress was a doll, a plaything. Marya had never believed in herself.
    She remembered the day she had left the palace for Free Country. Kerwyn had arrived as a missionary. He had been doing just what she was doing now. He had left Free Country to spread the word and bring children in. Kerwyn had found Marya crying after the dancing master had called her an oaf and beaten her. Kerwyn found her and told her that he could take her to a place wheredreams could come true. Even dreams like hers.
    So she went. Only it hadn’t turned out quite as she had expected. She never managed to forget the way her mother used to sing to her on summer evenings while she brushed Marya’s long red hair. Or the way that you could draw faces in the frost on the palace windows in wintertime. There was too much she missed. That’s what held her down now. Even in Free Country. She could never dance like the Shimmers. She was too tied up inside.
    And Marya wasn’t in London because Timothy Hunter had somehow cried out to Free Country. He was part of a plan. She looked around at the place where Timothy Hunter lived. Or maybe he is crying out , she thought. Marya knew if she lived in this place, she might be crying all the time.
    She sighed. And wondered how much longer she would have to wait.

Chapter Six
    T IM HAD LEFT THE PLAYGROUND and the strange girl with the missing brother ages