Free Petals in the Ashes by Mary Hooper Page A

don’t,’ I said.
    We moved on. We were very near our shop now and I began to be nervous, for I had no idea what I’d find. Had all our neighbours perished? Had our shop been looted of what little we had left? Had some drunken hawker, seeing it was empty, set up home in it? Where would I turn for help if things were not as they should be?
    â€˜There’s our sign!’ I said to Anne, pointing above the row of shops to where the metal sign swung and creaked. ‘See the sugared plum!’
    We reached the shop and stood outside, staring up. The floor above had been rented by a rope-maker who had stored his twines there; but I didn’t know whether he had survived the plague or not.
    â€˜Is this it, then?’ Anne asked, disappointment in her voice, and I remembered that when I’d arrived a year back, I’d been disappointed at the sight of it too. ‘It’s quite small,’ she said.
    I nodded. ‘I know. It’s not like the shops on the bridge – or in Cornhill or Cheapside. Were you expecting more?’
    â€˜I thought it would be bigger,’ she said. ‘Varnished in bright colours. With a glass window.’
    â€˜Well, maybe if we work hard and make our fortune we’ll be able to have one of those soon. A little shop in the Royal Exchange, perhaps!’ I put my bundles on the ground, found the key (which Sarah had placed on a long ribbon around my neck for safekeeping) and opened the shop door. It was dank and gloomy inthere, though, and we needed the shutters opened before we could see anything. These, however, were fixed with pegs and a turning device, and a damp winter had swelled them so that they no longer turned. After a struggle I went to the shop of our neighbour, Mr Newbery, who, trading under the sign of the Paper and Quill, sold parchments and fine writing paper.
    I pushed open the door of his shop somewhat nervously, for I had last seen Mr Newbery at the very height of the plague when people had been dropping like flies around us. The day Sarah and I had left London he’d informed us he was going to shut up shop and take up drinking at the Two Pigeons instead.
    He was back in his shop now, however: a short stocky man bent over the counter reading
The Intelligencer
, his oversized wig pushed to the back of his head. He looked mighty surprised when he saw it was me.
    â€˜Young Hannah!’ he said. ‘How are you? Not dead of the sickness, then?’
    â€˜No, indeed not!’ I said, smiling to myself as I remembered Mr Newbery’s relish for conversation of a morbid nature. ‘I am here to open up our shop.’
    â€˜Your sister Sarah is with you?’
    â€˜No, she—’
    â€˜She’s dead?’
    I laughed. ‘No. She is well. I have my younger sister with me – Sarah is staying at home to help our mother with her lying-in.’
    â€˜Ah, lying-in,’ he said. ‘A tricky business. Midwives kill more than they save.’
    â€˜Well, it is our mother’s seventh and she will morethan likely deliver it herself,’ I said. ‘But I am here to beg your help, Mr Newbery. Our shutters are jammed and we need a man’s strength.’
    â€˜You’re going to start trading again?’
    â€˜We are.’
    He shook his head, sighing. ‘Your rooms are like to be in a terrible state – fair eaten away by rats, I should think. Or dripping damp from the rain we’ve had over the past months. And to be in London now – don’t you know that there have been bad omens about this year? There is a hellfire preacher at St Paul’s who says that God’s dreadful punishment will be meted out to sinful London soon.’
    â€˜But you’re still trading,’ I pointed out.
    â€˜Well, that’s as maybe,’ he said gruffly, pulling his wig forward on his head and straightening the curls.
    He took a small hammer and a stool from beneath his counter, then followed me