Cogling Read online

  The living room looked too similar to her own—plain white walls, a sofa, and a table covered with newspapers. Hags should have more magical things, like vials of potions and bowls of powder. Whenever she saw them in the streets, they seemed a world apart, hovering on the outskirts of society.

  “I shall listen when you want to tell me.” Hilda leaned against the table.

  Edna opened her mouth, but Ike plunged into the tale first, waving his hands while he spoke. When he finished, Hilda pursed her lips.

  “I tried going to the police, but they didn’t care.” Edna’s voice emerged breathless.

  “Did you know that female officers are the most important?” Hilda pulled on the cameo brooch at her throat. “Dragons respond best to virgin females.”

  Ike snickered, and Edna blushed.

  “Then, sometimes, if you’re close to one, they can read your mind.”

  “How will that help with finding Harrison?” Edna clenched her hands.

  Hilda sighed. “The future is never clear. I only see shadows of the truth, but Ike’s correct. The watch is from the factory, and it sounds like your brother was replaced with a cogling. I’ll write you specific directions of how to get there, but it’s a dangerous trip. Are you up to it?”

  Edna nodded. Is any of this for real? She’d never expected to venture inside a hag’s home.

  Minutes later, back on the streets, she licked her lips. “You’ll still help me, Ike?”

  “I said I would”—he patted Hilda’s map, snug in his pocket—“for a fee.”

  When they reached Edna’s tenement, she made him wait in the hallway, seated on the top step of the stairwell, while she went inside. Kneeling beside the kitchen table, she removed one of the tin cans kept underneath. Edna’s hand shook while she counted the coins of her family’s extra funds. The pile on the table looked like a fortune, whispering to her to spend it.

  “Twelve brittins,” she whispered. “I’m doing this for Harrison.” Lifting her skirt, she tucked the money into the hidden pocket her mother had sewn on her petticoat. Two brittins’ worth of change she left in her coat pocket, and hung the watch around her neck. She couldn’t think about how her family might suffer without the extra funds.

  From the battered desk in the sitting room, she found a scrap of butcher’s paper and a lead pencil. Edna scribbled a note to her mother, explaining what Ike had told her, and apologized for taking the coins without asking. She set the empty tin can atop the paper. Her letter might sound ridiculous, but her parents would recognize it as truth when she returned with Harrison.

  Edna pulled the carpetbag out from beneath her parents’ bed and threw extra clothes into it, including a set for Harrison. From her father’s trunk, she found an extra pair of socks, pants, and a shirt.

  “Come change,” she called from the kitchen. When the young man swaggered inside, she handed him the bundle of clothing. “Through that curtain in the bedroom.”

  He changed while she cut a loaf of bread in half, wrapping one section in a clean handkerchief. She tucked the food into her bag.

  Ike reentered the kitchen, tying his rope belt around the waist of the oversized pants. Her father’s clothes hung off Ike’s bony body. “All done.” He dropped his soiled clothes and stuffed his arms into his sweater. His elbows poked through the worn out sleeves.

  If anyone in her family came home in such filthy attire, her mother would’ve thrown a fit. Edna shoved his old clothes into the corner. She should’ve made him wash before putting on her father’s stuff.

  A shudder possessed her body. What would her mother say when she learned both Edna and Harrison were missing?

  “Nice place,” Ike said. “Now I know why you seem so put together.”

  Her father’s gingham shirt stood out against his neck, black with filth. Ike’s boots with the holes in the toes clashed with her father’s starched slacks. The thief didn’t look so bedraggled, though, almost… pleasant.

  “Thanks,” Edna muttered.

  “It’s better than sleeping in alleys or empty attics. Trust me.”

  When he grabbed her hand, leading her to the train station, she forced herself not to pull away. He couldn’t help being unwashed, even if it was raining outside. Since he helped her, he deserved respect.

  His touch was warm, almost comforting. That strength in his grip almost made her lean against him.

  Ike led her through the bodies crowded around the train station. Edna gaped at the marble pillars supporting the ceiling, which boasted a seascape mural. She’d never been in a room so large before. People and luggage covered the benches. Rope-bound steamer trunks. Belongings bulged from carpetbags. The passengers kept their heads covered with hats or shawls, hunched within coats that swallowed their bodies. Rain glistened on their attire.

  “I’ll wait in line, you go check the map. Find the nearest village to the swamp.” Ike nudged her toward the wall across from the entrance. “Should be Wilman.”

  Edna wove between the people and stumbled over a basket. Her ears rang with the surge of voices filling the brick room. Squeezing around two men in business suits, she studied the map painted on the wall. So many cities and towns. Her lips parted in awe. All those places existed in the kingdom. The world stretched out, leaving her as small as an ant in a kitchen.

  At the top of the map, a blue smear read The Swamp. The closest red dot, symbolizing a train station, was Wilman Village. She pushed back to Ike.

  After waiting in line for an hour, their turn arrived.

  “Two tickets to Wilman,” Ike said.

  “One brittin a piece,” the man behind the counter informed them.

  Edna sighed as she counted out the coins from her coat pocket beneath the clerk’s scrutiny. Ike handed Edna her ticket and tugged her toward the benches, shoving between two men smoking cigars.

  “We have to wait until our train comes in,” Ike said. “Ever ride one before?”

  “No, but my father builds railroads.” Edna leaned against the bench, clutching her ticket, and wished someone would tell her if she was insanely naïve for following a complete stranger across the empire on a journey that would take at least five days. It was the only right thing to do, the only way to bring Harrison home.

  Ike cracked his knuckles and grinned at the woman sitting on the bench across from him in the train station. She rolled her eyes as if the sound offended her, returning to the knitting in her lap. According to the clock by the ticket booth, the train wasn’t due for another half-hour. Bloody luck.

  Edna slid into him sideways and mumbled in her sleep before settling against his shoulder. He stiffened, wondering if it would wake her if he unbuttoned her coat. She’d stored the watch around her neck, under her shirt and vest. If he got her coat open, he could lift the chain; pull out the watch, and bolt.

  He could go to the swamp alone.

  Ways to confront the hags jumbled through his mind. I know what you’re doing, I found a cogling watch! They might care, but only as long as he had a human to tell, someone who would listen. He needed proof, and he would get it at the factory—a cogling that hadn’t been activated yet. He could free some of the children and get them to testify too.

  You killed my mother. Ike narrowed his eyes at the chipped tiles of the floor. He would stop the hags in her memory.

  Edna had mentioned going to the king before. Would Ike be welcome there, even with proof? After Ike reached the factory, he would study the current layout. If he could, he would sabotage the equipment, pause their progress, and get away with his cogling and the watch. He could go to the king. Even though he hadn’t considered a plan past reaching the factory, using the monarch as a means to destroy the hags could work.

  Ike slid Edna’s top brass button through its hole. Three more and he should have enough room to remove the watch without her stirring.

  She wanted her brother back. He wanted to avenge his mother. They both sought to stop the hags.

  Ike yanked his hand back and slammed
his fist into the bench. He couldn’t leave her behind.

  Edna blinked, smacking her lips. “Is the train here?”

  “Not yet. Go back to sleep.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll wake you when it comes.”

  Simone tugged her hood farther over her head and hurried along the sidewalk. The hem of her cloak dragged through the mud, a mist of rain hanging in the air.

  “Hag.” A man in a suit steered his son away from Simone. The boy stared at her with widened eyes. She spotted a copper dream cloud over his head. So, he wanted a new toy. How nice, the father must have been taking his child to the toy store.

  Simone bared her teeth although the hood hid her face. Foul human beasts. They took their charms and potions, begged for blessings, and then shunned her.

  Maybe the Dark Mother would let her steal that boy next.

  She ducked into an alley beside a restaurant. Cats pawed through heaps of fish heads and bones. A tabby darted past her with a silver-scaled tail hanging from its mouth. Simone wrinkled her nose at the rotting stench. Next time the Dark Mother sent her to the fish district, she would wrap a scarf over her face.

  A little girl in a tan cape stood on a crate, waving at the felines. “Fuzzy! Come here, kitty.”

  “What’s wrong?” Simone wove around the fish guts toward the child.

  “I can’t find my cat.” She rubbed her fists over her cheeks, smearing her tears. Simone guessed she couldn’t have been older than five.

  “What does he look like?”

  “Fuzzy is orange and he’s got a really long tail.” A tangerine dream cloud floated near the girl.

  Simone smiled. “I see Fuzzy back there.”

  “Where?” The child jumped off the crate. Scales clung to her boots.

  “Here.” Simone edged toward the back of the alley.

  The little girl ran past her. “Fuzzy!”

  The hag pulled a rag and a vial out from inside her cloak. She wet the rag and tucked the vial away. “See him?”

  “Fuzzy,” the girl wailed.

  Simone slapped the rag over the child’s mouth.

  Three minutes later, Simone exited the alley with a bundle in her arms, hidden by the cloak. A cogling, identical to the girl, stepped onto the sidewalk with blank eyes.

  This is the path I must follow.

  dna fidgeted on the train as the wood dug into her bottom and the seat back bumped her neck. A fly buzzed in her ear and she swatted it away. The stench of soiled diapers paired with the stuffy heat in the car left her head whirling.

  A woman with a baby on her rotund lap hunched to Edna’s left. The baby hadn’t stopped fussing. The smell worsened as the train chugged along the tracks and the constant hum beat against Edna’s forehead.

  She covered her mouth with her handkerchief. “Is your baby sick, ma’am? Poor thing.”

  “I’m really gonna miss my little one.” The woman wrapped a stained quilt around the baby. “There’s a farm that takes in babes from cities. It’s nicer there. My little guy’s come down with an awful cough.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Edna couldn’t recall the baby doing anything other than crying.

  “A lot of city people do that,” Ike whispered into Edna’s ear. “They send their babies to farms in the country, and they pay every month to make sure their kid is taken care of.”

  What if her family had wanted to do that to heal Harrison’s ear infections? She wouldn’t have let them send her brother away. The darkness surged to her fingertips.

  Ike stared at the grubby seat ahead of them. The seats were so close together, his knees bumped. “Other times, the new ‘moms’ kill the baby and keep the money.”

  Edna’s eyes bulged. “How awful.”

  Ike shifted. “Wish you’d brought enough money for first-class.” His elbow bumped the man sitting beside him, who grunted.

  “Be thankful we managed tickets at all.” Edna rolled her eyes. “I’m not rich. You should’ve stolen a first-class ticket if you wanted to ride up there so much.”

  Ike scowled. “I’m going for a walk.”

  A man in the seat behind hers coughed. Edna’s heartbeat increased as Ike stood, stretching his long limbs. “You’re not really going to leave me? You’re taking me to Harrison.”

  “Be right back.” Turning sideways, Ike maneuvered his frame from the row into the walkway, barely wide enough for a grown man to fit.

  “That your brother?” the woman with the baby asked.

  “Goodness, no, he’s…” Edna bit her lower lip. Should they pretend to be a couple? “Ike’s my cousin.”

  “Nice you’re travelin’ together.” As her baby cried, the woman tipped back her head and sighed.

  Edna craned her neck to spot Ike. The train hurtled forward with a roar, accompanied by random clanks. Each time the locomotive swayed on its tracks, she closed her eyes to still the nausea in her belly.

  “Trains are safe,” she whispered. “Father makes them that way when he lays down the tracks.” The jumble of voices made the veins in her head pound. Standing, Edna gripped the back of her seat and edged around the woman’s legs.

  “May you go to a good home,” Edna whispered to the baby before stumbling into the walkway. Her legs wobbled and she gulped. People sat in their seats, either rigid or slumped, Edna the only person up. Maybe the rigid folk waited for the train to derail, and the slumped folk didn’t care. She was certainly one of the rigid. If she had to suffer through the hard seat, worry about the train, and stress over Harrison, then her guide would do it next to her.

  “Ike?” she called.

  Steeling her nerves, she wandered to the door at the end of the car. Opening it led to a walkway between her car and the next. Wind whistled through cracks, making her shudder. Edna darted across the covered space to the next door, slamming shut the one she’d left behind. She stepped into another car identical to hers. A fresh barrage of voices assaulted her ears.

  “Ike?”

  No one looked at her. She moved to the next car, where the hot air hung thick with cigar smoke that burned her throat. She coughed into her handkerchief. This car contained rectangular tables between benches facing each other, where men sat drinking from foamy mugs. They wore suits or button-up shirts, their hats slung over their knees.

  Edna squinted through the smoke at the first table. Men hunched over playing cards with a pile of coins between them. The brass circles glistened; more money than she’d ever had, and she’d thought the savings can at home was a fortune. There had to be at least twenty brittins’ worth here.

  A man bared his teeth, then nodded in her direction. “Lookee here, boys.”

  Her body froze, but her pulse raced. Breath caught in her throat. “I’m… I’m looking for my cousin.”

  The man at the end of the bench grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm. She tried to yank away, but he tightened his grip. “See these pretty little fingers, just right for some fancy stitches.”

  An image flashed through her mind, in which she bent over a table, hand-sewing gloves like the pair she wore.

  “You know the boss don’t care how tiny the fingers are so long as the stitches are neat.” A man threw two shillings onto the gambling pile.

  “Where are your parents, girl?” The man holding her turned her hand to inspect her palm and tugged on the glove’s frilly cuff.

  A squeak emerged from her mouth. She coughed as the smoke tickled her throat. How dare he touch her?

  “She’s an orphan,” another man at the table said. “Anyone can see that.”

  “My parents are just down the aisle and my father’s on his way here. There he is.” She waved at a table farther away, hoping one of the players would look menacing enough to make her captor release.

  The man holding her wrist tugged her toward him. She stumbled into his chest, the thick stench of tobacco rising from his shirt. “I’ll find you a real nice home.”

  Metal clamped onto her wrist. Edna craned her neck to see the brass cuff he�
�d slid over her skin. “You put a prison cuff on me?” It would link him to her with an invisible wave until he released the cuff at a workhouse, a brass cuff with a chain no one could see.

  “Just a pretty bauble for a pretty girl.”

  “I’ve seen these before! Take it off..”

  Ike leapt off a bench at a table down the car and jogged toward her. He grabbed her free hand to yank her away from the man. A cry of relief burst from her throat and she almost hugged him before catching herself.

  “There you are, sis. Why didn’t you stay back at the seat with Pa?” Leaning close to her ear, he whispered, “Walk. Now.” Sweat beaded his brow, his pupils the size of newspaper periods.

  “Look what he did to me!” She held up the prison cuff while the criminal swore.

  The darkness danced through her veins and the cuff snapped before it clattered to the floor in two pieces. It couldn’t have been her; had to be the man realizing his mistake.

  Ike reached for her and three playing cards fell from his sleeve to drift like feathers.

  “By the seven Saints,” Ike swore.

  “Hey,” a man yelled from Ike’s table. “He cheated us!”

  “Go.” Ike grabbed her hand, interlacing their fingers as he bolted. Behind them, men pounded to their feet, shouts bouncing off the walls.

  Ike kicked open the door and pulled her through. He shoved his shoulder against the next door, dragging her down the hallway. People looked up, gasping. Doors banged behind them. Footsteps followed.

  “They’re coming,” Edna pressed her prayer beads to her lips. Seven Saints, save us.

  Ike was supposed to help her rescue Harrison, not get them thrown into prison. There had to be a way to convince the men they were harmless.

  As he ran, weaving between bodies and satchels left in the aisle, Ike grabbed a top hat off a man’s head and a shawl from a woman, tossing the mess of gray wool at Edna. The owners yelped.