The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman

Author:Mat Osman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526654397
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

23

After it was over Shay saw the kidnap happen again, in snatches like lightning strikes. Evans and his men and his horses, all in black. Spurs dug into flanks, hunting cries and the Blackfriars Boys whispering, ‘There’ll be a new boy in the dorm tonight.’

She’d gone up onto the rooftops to watch the sport. The men working like sheepdogs, herding a group of schoolboys away from the throng and into the quieter back streets. Children running, hands on caps. Men laughing.

Evans one-handed at a gallop, plucking the boy he wanted with a studied ease, cuffing his ear even as he rode on. Shay saw a pair of bare legs kicking at the air and then all was silence. The only sign that anything had occurred was a school cap trodden into the mud.

She had chores to do before she could see the new boy. Alouette needed a hand mending the bellows and once that was done Shay rebuttoned a frock coat for Blank. And when there was nothing meaningful left to do, she dusted and cleaned, just happy to be part of the clockwork of the Blackfriars. Now she was halfway competent at the theatre work, Shay realised that the first jobs she’d been tasked with here came more from pity than necessity, the way her mother used to have her carry the seed-pouches during the Murmuration, but she was a quick study and had the Aviscultan way with a needle and thread.

It was nearly dusk before she had time to visit the dorm. The new boy lay face down in a corner bed and wept, quietly but steadily, into his bedsheet. Shay watched his thin shoulders rise and fall. He was barefoot and he kicked out like a girl. Younger than he’d seemed from the rooftops; thirteen, maybe. She felt the immediate kinship of the lonely. Normal dorm life went on around them. Pavey was stitching a sleeve back on to a jerkin, his tongue poking out in frustration, while two boys mimed a sword fight with sticks. Over and over they fought, the same pattern of thrust and parry, spin and crouch, until it became something of a dance. Nonesuch squatted on the edge of his bunk and gave her a solemn wave. He was in the same clothes he’d worn to Evans’ and he pulled on a spluttering pipe. Shay wanted to go to him, but the sight of the new boy tugged at her. She couldn’t bear to see the dorm revolve around the still point of his weeping. She sat next to him, the thin cot creaking under their combined weights, but Nonesuch wagged a finger at her. He slid down to join them.

‘I was just going to talk to him,’ she said. ‘I know what it is to be new here.’

He laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘You can’t, Shay. You’ll say the wrong thing.’

‘I only want to tell him that however hard it is, everything will work out in the end.’ She wanted to say more, that there were deep wells of friendship here, oceans of love.

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