EscapeWithMe Read Free

Then you turn north
to Covent Garden. It’s not far.”
    “Is this as far as you go?” The boy nodded at her question
and wiped his nose again. “How will I know Southampton when I see it?”
    “I think you’ll know it.” Sam looked past him up the Strand
and swallowed. She was scared. Her disguise was flimsy at best and she didn’t
know what she would do once she reached Covent Garden.
    “You’ve been very helpful, Peter.” He grinned, showing off
slightly crooked teeth that needed lots of fluoride. “I can’t repay you now,
but will you tell me where I can find you again?”
    “I live with my parents in Whitechapel. You can ask for me
there.”
    Sam cocked her head. “Whitechapel is in the East End, isn’t
it? What are you doing in Westminster?”
    He scratched his cheek and dropped his gaze. “Earning my
keep.”
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re a pickpocket, aren’t
you? That’ll get you into trouble, Peter.” He looked back at her and shrugged.
    “What else can I do?” He reached into his pocket and pulled
out the garnet earrings she had taken off. Sam gasped and reached for them. He
evaded her with another toothy smile and took off running.
    She cursed under her breath. Those earrings could’ve bought
her at least a couple weeks’ room and board, if not an entire month’s worth. No
way was she selling the locket, though, not after what she had found inside it.
Unfortunately, the only thing left she could sell were the clothes on her back.
    Hoping that Peter’s directions had been the truth, she
hunched into her trench coat and attempted her best impression of
inconspicuous. Even so, she felt eyes on her nearly every step of the way.
    Keeping her eyes down and her feet moving should’ve been
first on her list of priorities, but her surroundings were too fascinating to
simply ignore. The crowd didn’t march past with their eyes on their watches and
a cell phone to their ears. They strolled, talking, pointing and chatting with
shopkeepers. Shop names and their trade were displayed in large gold letters
painted on or above the entrances. Clockmakers, tailors, coffee houses,
boot-makers, confectioners, tobacconists and a curious abundance of liquor
stores that merrily advertised, Foreign spirituous liquors sold here .
Church bells rang above the noise of the street. It was ten o’clock. It all
seemed so productive, capitalistic and full of potential.
    However, a glance down narrow byways reminded her of the
poorly constructed buildings, the filth in the streets, and the assuredly real
dangers that lurked there at night when the only thing lighting the main
streets were oil-fueled street lamps. Pickpockets would be the least of her
concerns if she were out after dark.
    The thought gave her pause, and she wondered if the locket
would give her any protection. It had healed or at least reversed her gunshot
wound as well as brought her through time. Perhaps it would lead her to
shelter.
    At a T intersection she noticed the northbound street of
which Peter had told her. She could see carts loaded with produce at the far
end of Southampton Street in what was Covent Garden’s daily market. She walked
north toward the square and passed by a side street full of drays and horses
that had brought goods to the market. A pair of servants hurried past her, both
holding heavy baskets of produce they were probably bringing back to their
employer’s home.
    The closer she came to the square, the better she could
hear—and smell—the doubtless daily raucous of the market with its produce
sellers singing out the price and freshness of their goods. A sweet and
powerful odor, something akin to rotting apples, pervaded the air despite the
open drains, one of which Sam nearly stepped in. She entered the piazza and,
having once visited the square more than two hundred years in the future, was
awed by how different yet familiar it looked.
    St. Paul’s church still occupied the entire western edge of
the