Angel (Bartered Hearts 1)

“Do you know where she’s buried?” Melisande asked.

The girl shook her head. “You should ask at the house. Maybe they’ll know.” Louise named a house on the other side of town, and Melisande thanked her before waving the girl into the room.

“This is all yours. May need to air it out. It’s been empty a few weeks. Other girl left to have a baby.”

She didn’t hear Louise’s response as she turned to retreat to her own room.

Melisande shut her door and sat down hard on the bed. Her mother was dead. She didn’t know what to feel. Melisande had hated her mother. But she’d loved her too. So much. Her mother had been her world when she’d been young. And then she’d been the one who’d turned Melisande into a whore.

Despite that she hadn’t seen her in so long, it felt strange to think her mother wasn’t here. She was gone. There was no chance they’d someday reconcile. No chance Melisande could search her out if she needed her.

She didn’t know how long she sat on that bed, but by the time she lifted her head, she could hear the other girls starting to get ready. Calling out to each other for hair clips or screaming about a borrowed dress. That meant it was after four. There’d be customers soon.

Melisande looked around, trying to remember which of her dresses was clean, thinking to herself that it was a special night and she’d need a pretty dress. She couldn’t remember why, though, and her eyes wouldn’t settle on anything. What could be special about yet another night of letting strangers grunt themselves to release on top of her?

When she scrubbed a hand over her face, her fingers shook. If one of these men touched her tonight, she would snap in two. She’d cease to be Melisande. They’d grab her and call her “girl” and that’s who she’d be. A girl with no family, no mother, no friends, no love.

But there was Bill. And right now, all she wanted to do was find him. Tell him she’d lost her mother. Ask why she felt so empty about it. His mother was dead, his brothers all scattered. Maybe he’d have an answer. Or maybe he’d just pick her up and hold her again. How had she lived so long without that?

Without even realizing she’d made the decision, she stood and grabbed her shawl to wrap it around her head and shoulders. She was already wearing her drabbest, most thread-worn dress, so she didn’t need to worry about attracting attention in the streets.

She slipped silently down the stairs and out the front door without Madame seeing, though Melisande had no doubt the other girls would report it to her. Even if they did, she wouldn’t be put out on the street. Not for walking away for on

e night. But Madame would expect payment regardless of whether Melisande had worked or not.

She had money saved. She was getting old enough to know she couldn’t do this forever, and she’d started setting cash aside. But she’d been cutting her nights short lately and hadn’t added to her savings at all. A night’s pay to Madame would eat up too much of it.

Yet she couldn’t work right now. She couldn’t.

The cold snap had passed, and Melisande was sweating by the time she reached the place where Louise had worked before. Marie Angelle hadn’t been a whore for years, but she’d never ventured far from it, apparently. Or maybe she’d picked up a few cheap customers behind the kitchen. Melisande would never know. She stole into the alley and knocked at the open back door.

The place was big. A little finer than Melisande’s house. The kitchen was a fairly busy place, women rushing by as steam curled from large pots. Apparently men treated this house as their supper club. Her lip curled, imagining them coming to the girls with greasy fingers and beards that smelled of oyster stew.

An older woman with a spoon in her hand finally noticed Melisande standing there. “Help you?”

Melisande swallowed hard. “Did you know a woman named Marie? Marie Angelle?”

“Sure. Worked with her here for two years.”

“Do you happen to know where she’s buried?”

The woman looked her up and down and stepped closer. “You her daughter?”

Melisande drew back in surprise. Somehow she’d assumed her mother would’ve tried her best to forget their connection, just as Melisande had. “That’s right.”

“I’m Clara. You look a lot like her.”

“Yes.” She hadn’t heard that in so long, she’d forgotten how common an exclamation it had been.

“They took her to Charity Hospital,” Clara said, tipping her chin toward the door as if it had just happened. “I imagine she’s buried back there.”

Of course. Where else would she have been buried except the Potter’s Field of Charity Hospital? “Thank you,” she murmured as the woman turned to get back to work.

Melisande glanced quickly around the kitchen, imagining her mother there. She hadn’t been a particularly good cook, but she certainly could’ve handled the large pots of rice and gumbo that simmered on the stove. Had she been happy here, working with these women? Had she missed her only child?

She turned to leave, but as she stepped into the alley and glanced west, she realized how close she was to Bill’s boarding house. It wasn’t even five yet, and he likely wouldn’t be home for an hour or two. Regardless of how much she needed to see him, if she wanted to get to the hospital today, she’d need to go now.

She stepped back into the kitchen. “Miss Clara? Would you have a scrap of paper I could use?”