The Pearl in the Attic by Karen McCombie

Author:Karen McCombie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

The Pearl in the Attic

Chapter 4

A latch scraped back, and the door was pulled open.

She was skinny, the girl who stood warily, just inside the room. Her eyes seemed huge in her gaunt, milk-white face.

And there was a strange softness to her person: a haze around her, as if she were an apparition, almost…

Just as Ruby felt a kick of panic in her belly, she realized the cause of the softness was the spectacles she was wearing, which were only for reading and close work.

With trembling fingers, she unhooked them, folded them neatly and slipped them into her apron pocket.

Now she could see the girl more clearly. Her red hair was scraped back into a messy bun, and seemed in need of washing. The white pinafore she wore over some grey clothing was clean enough, though. And she wore woollen stockings, but no boots or shoes.

Were they of around the same age, Ruby wondered? She thought so.

“Are you Ruby?” asked the girl, staring at Ruby as much as Ruby was staring at her.

“I… How do you know?” Ruby stumbled over her words.

“The only other girl or young woman here is Nell, I think,” the girl replied. “And I do not suppose you are her…”

Pearl looked at Ruby’s stomach and made a little round gesture with her hand over her own.

Ruby almost smiled – but then questions and wondering and worry took over again.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking back down the stairs, though no one was there.

“I’m Pearl. Come,” said the girl, ushering her inside.

Ruby hesitated, taking only one step forward, enough to see what lay inside the attic.

And what she saw inside made her take a step more.

The sloping-roofed room was bare enough. But there were comforting touches too … a paisley-patterned counterpane on a mattress that lay on the floor, a chair with a dainty oil lamp upon it, a cheerful rag rug, a posy of dried violets in an old jar, some books piled along the far wall where the chimney breast jutted out.

And papers … paper bags, in fact they were, lay spread on an old wooden chest, with drawings scribbled upon them in charcoal.

Bags that were normally used downstairs in the shop, for the cakes and breads.

“What are you doing here?” Ruby asked, taking a further step inside, and seeing more signs of regular habitation. A tapestry bag with knitting needles sticking out. A dirty plate with a cup and a fork neatly piled upon it. A chamber pot in the corner.

“Living. Hiding,” Pearl answered, clutching one arm with the other, and smiling shyly. “I heard you crying in the night.”

Ruby’s cheeks coloured a little. She had eventually sunk into the deep, dark sleep of exhaustion after her encounter with her aunt on the stairs last night, but woke herself up with muddled dreamings and sobs well before dawn.

“I heard you too,” she told Pearl. “Just creaks and taps, as you moved about. I thought you were a rat.”

“Oh, dear,” Pearl giggled, baring her two front teeth, and lifting her hands to become claws.

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