

### Enter Elisabeth

by

Kristin Burchell

Copyright © 2018 Kristin Burchell

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Contents

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Part Two

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

# _Part One_

### London 1642

# One

"Shall I sing for you, Madame?" my father asked grandly as he pushed the little wherry from the dock and steered us into the traffic on the Thames.

In the stern of my father's boat sat the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. It was early in the day, so she was our only passenger. She had alighted onto my father's wherry, like a dragonfly hovering on the lip of a water blossom. She was tall and willowy, her shining black hair all in ringlets about her dark face. Her eyes were shaded, and I fancied them full of secrets. When she caught me staring at her she smiled with her full lips and winked, as if she were including me in some private jest. She nodded to my father without speaking.

My father took this to be an assent. He began to sing a merry, hearty tune that carried over the water. Passengers in neighboring boats looked over curiously. The woman smiled and tapped her foot as he sang.

We had left my mother and sister sewing at our house. My father told my mother only that he was taking me along with him in the wherry, not that he would be taking me to see my first play at the Globe. I was sure she only let me go because my sewing created more work for them. Had she known we would be spending a penny apiece, and that for those hours my father would be watching a play rather than working, she would never have allowed it.

First, however, we had to ferry passengers up and down the Thames in his boat. At nine years old, I was still small enough to squeeze into the bow at my father's feet, leaving the other seat open for his customers. We skipped over the dancing water, weaving in and out of the larger, slower boats crowding the river. From some of them, burdened with passengers, came shouts and raucous voices; from others came music, their passengers hidden from view behind heavy curtains.

My father finished his song. The beautiful lady clapped, the rings on her long fingers flashing in the sunlight. We pulled up to the Southwark stop.

"'Journeys end with lovers meeting, every wise man's son doth know,'" my father said with a bow.

The woman smiled delightedly and spoke the first time. "From Twelfth Night," she said. Her voice was low and deep, the voice of a man.

My mouth dropped open. My father, however, did not seem surprised.

She allowed my father to assist her from the boat. "Thank you," she said, leaving an extra coin in his hand. She gave me another wink before she swept gracefully up the stone steps. I stared after her.

My father laughed merrily. "Be careful, my girl, for not all is as it seems. There are those, you know, who think a nobleman close to Good Queen Bess to be the true author of the plays said to be penned by William Shakespeare."

The smile faded from his face. "No, not all is as it seems. There are those who think me a mere wherryman, instead of the poet I truly am."

The chill air pressed in on us. He pushed off into the water and we drifted among the river traffic. But now his head was bowed and it was a low, mournful tune he sang.

"Come, O come, away with me,

Allow my heart to lift.

Let thy lips, like sweet roses,

Promise me their gifts.

It matters not what my lord may say

His shining gold he keeps;

For if I am deprived of thee

I shall never cease to weep."

My father's parents had been wealthy. He'd had a tutor, and had learned to read and write as a child. But now he never spoke of his parents, or of his life before.

Once I'd heard my mother late at night, asking why he'd chosen her over his family's wealth. Though I'd strained to listen, I hadn't heard his answer.

I huddled deeper into my thin cloak. The fog rolling over the river, my father's mournful song reminded me of the story my sister whispered to me late at night in bed, of the Drowned Girl who lurked just beneath the surface, waiting for broken-hearted girls.

Too old to believe in such stories, I forced the image from my mind. Still, I shifted closer to the center of the boat and away from the side.

A prisoner, bound to the nearby bank, rattled his chains and called out in misery as the gray water swirled higher, circling his waist.

"Sing something happy, Papa," I begged over the criminal's cries. He chucked me under the chin, then began to sing once more, his voice carrying over the water. I took a deep breath of the cool river air.

For the next few hours we rowed passengers up and down the Thames, leaving most of them at Southwark before turning back to collect more. Our passengers were rowdy, boisterous. Many of them smelled of ale. All were in fine spirits.

I tried to forget the tale of the Drowned Girl and lose myself in a reverie, as I so often did, to my mother's aggravation.

ENTER ELISABETH. She sits in the bow of her barge. Her true hearted servant rows her ever closer to the flags rippling in the wind over the Globe, and to the afternoon's entertainment...

Invariably my reverie would shatter as we picked up new passengers, forcing me to curl up to accommodate their girth.

Finally—finally—we dropped the last of our passengers at Southwark. Father secured the wherry at the dock there, and we joined the crowds streaming toward the Globe.

I could hear the group of people in front of us chatting. "What happens in this play?" one man asked his wife.

"A fairy king deceives his wife and causes her to fall in love with an ass!" she replied.

"No, that would be the story of _your_ life," the woman's friend interjected, jabbing the woman with her elbow.

"Ha ha," the husband rejoined dryly as his companions burst into laughter.

"But truly," said the second woman, "I thought today's play was to be about a shipwrecked girl disguising herself as a boy and falling in love with a prince?"

"I saw one once where a man was convinced by his most trusted advisor that his wife was cuckolding him, and he strangled her in a jealous rage, only to find out she was innocent," said the first woman.

"And I heard that was a true story," her husband added.

I caught my father's eye, and he gave me a wink. He had told me of all of these plays. On an occasional Sunday, on a day when flags flew over the Globe, he would slip off to see a play there. Later he would describe it to me: the elaborate costumes, the way the audience had drawn its breath as deceit was revealed, the droll way one of the players had delivered his lines that elicited bursts of laughter from the crowd.

It was a brisk, windy day, and the flags over the theatre were whipping violently. I held tightly to my father's hand so we would not become separated in the crowd. It seemed that we had stepped from the wherry and into another world: a devil stood encircled by people who laughed as he swallowed a ball of fire blazing at the end of a pitchfork. Others, mostly men, watched, rapt, as a mermaid, perched on a stool, sang a love song in a rather off-key voice. My father leaned down to speak in my ear. "They're more held captive by the sight of her than by her voice."

As I looked around the crowd I even caught a glimpse of a dragon, with shiny scales and breathing papery fire, weaving in and out of the throngs of people, visible one moment, vanishing the next.

I craned my neck to try to try to find it again. In its place appeared several figures in dark clothing. I caught my breath. This man and the others with him were aldermen, with the short haircuts that had earned them the name Roundheads. They pushed their way in to the crowd. Behind them was a group of lawmen.

The tallest of the aldermen stepped forward. "All of you return to your business! This theatre is closed!"

Some people in the crowd merely glanced curiously at him as they filed into the theatre, but most paid him no attention. My father gripped my hand a little more tightly, and we continued toward the theatre.

Color surged into the alderman's face; the merriment was gone from his eyes. "Do you hear me?" he shouted. "By the order of Parliament, this theatre is closed! All who enter will be arrested!" With that, the lawmen moved across the entrance.

This brought people to a pause. The cheer faded from their faces. My father, too, hesitated.

Suddenly someone stormed through the crowd: a young man with dark features and thick black hair. Had he not scowled so, he might have been handsome. I caught my breath as I recognized him. He was one of Kate's many suitors. His name was Robert Kent, and though he was gruff and quiet, he often brought me little gifts of ribbons or sweets.

Robert glared at the alderman for a moment, then turned to the crowd. "Good people!" he called out. A few people snickered as his voice cracked. I cringed for him.

Robert's face reddened, but he spoke again. This time, his voice rang out. "Despite what some might say" (here he cast another glare over his shoulder at the alderman), "there will indeed be a play this noon. It is some of Master Shakespeare's best work. The King himself sanctions theatre! So enter, if you please!"

The crowd murmured among themselves. We all glanced at the lawmen barring the entrance to the theatre.

Robert and the alderman scowled at one another for a few moments. It came to me suddenly that their faces were mirrors of one another: both had dark eyes with heavy lids and strong jaws. Robert turned his back and began to walk away.

"Take care, Robert," the alderman called, "for even my own son will not escape jail for breaking the law of Parliament." Robert froze in his tracks.

The alderman turned to the lawmen. "Arrest anyone who chooses to enter this evil place."

Robert glowered at his father, but even I could see the tremor in his hands and the slump of his shoulders. The alderman turned away from him without another word.

For a moment the crowd and the lawmen stood glaring at one another. Finally the people began to drift away, muttering among themselves.

My father shook his head, his eyes sad. "Well, people will be wanting rides back across the river." He took my hand and led me toward the water.

The thought of leaving this magical world and returning to the gray, dismal life at home made my throat tighten. I turned back for one last look and saw the elusive dragon, now just a paper costume abandoned on the ground. The Roundheads watched as the crowd thinned.

"They've closed the playhouses," Mother called as we walked through the door.

"We know," my father said.

"Was anyone arrested?" Kate asked anxiously.

"No one, although one young man did argue with one of the aldermen, perhaps his own father."

My sister drew in her breath.

"But nothing came of it," my father added, watching her with a frown.

"I hope that boy remembers who he is, and stops shaming his family," my mother said.

Kate turned back to her sewing, but I noticed her face seemed pale.

"I can't say I'm surprised by the news," Mother continued. "The King has been wasting all the kingdom's money on useless exhibition, filling people's heads with nonsense, paying no attention to the sorry lives of the poor..." She shook her head. "What will you do now that you can't sneak off to the plays anymore?"

Father sighed. "I don't know." He turned and went back out the door.

Mother watched him go, her thin hands clenched. Pursing her lips, she took up the doublet she'd been mending. "Elisabeth, sit down and help," she said, and I obeyed.

That night, my father sat at the little trestle table, his precious papers spread before him. For hours he feverishly scribbled at them, the candle burning low. Mother sat at the fire, squinting at the tiny stitches in her mending in the little light there was left. Once in a while she glanced up at Papa and grumbled something, but my father did not look up. The tips of his fingers were stained with ink.

When I had finished my own chores for the night, I went as quietly as I could to stand at Papa's shoulder, as I had since I was a small child and he'd taught me to read and write.

At last he set the quill back into the ink stand and stretched with a yawn. He gave a start when he saw me, then smiled and pulled me closer.

"This is my blood, Lisbet," he whispered, pointing to the ink. "And this is my soul," he murmured, pointing to the words he'd written.

I strained to read what he'd scrawled on the pages; I'd learned to read and write by candlelight, sitting on my father's lap, following his stained fingertips as they pointed at each word on the page. But now he gathered up the papers and stood from the table before I was able to see what he'd written.

My father left for the river the next morning. That night someone found him floating near his beloved wherry. When we reached the Southwark dock, I could only stare. His face was so bloodied we nearly didn't recognize him. His purse and clothes were gone, stolen along with his life.

My mother and my sister turned away, their faces like stone. But I was sure this could not be my father, that he would leap to his feet at any moment, singing heartily and laughing at our surprise. I believed this even as we buried his body in the churchyard.

We never spoke of who murdered Father. Perhaps a desperate man whose family was starving. Or a drunkard stumbling home from a tavern, looking for a fight. But I refused to believe that it could have been one of the passengers he ferried across the Thames to the wondrous place he'd shown me. It could have only been someone from our gray, grim world.

He'd tried to become the hero of his poems, but his end had been far from glorious.

After we buried him, I searched for the lines he'd written. But when I opened the little box where he'd kept them, all I could find were ashes.

My mother's voice came from behind me. "I don't want you to wander around with your head in the clouds, like he did, following his whims, like a fool, instead of tending to his family. So I burned them."

I turned to face her, a sharp reply on my lips. I was silenced by the tears running down her sunken cheeks.

Later, after she'd gone to bed, I noticed Father's fine leather boots, of which he'd been so proud. They were like those the King wore. They stood next to the bed, as if waiting for Father to rise and pull them on with a cheerful whistle. I wondered why she hadn't sold them yet.

Hanging on a peg on the wall above them was his wide-brimmed hat, which he'd worn in rakish imitation of the King.

I picked through the ashes in the box, searching for his poetry. His words were nothing but blackened dust.

Then I caught sight of a tiny scrap, blown to the side. Though my fingers shook, I took it by a charred edge and lifted it.

Two words were written on the scrap in my father's hand: _I long_ , it said. The paper crumbled in my fingers and the words disappeared.

New tears spilled from my eyes. I pressed my fingers to my heart, willing the last of my father's poetry to imprint itself there, where it could never be lost.

# Two

One evening, two years after our father's death, I sat sewing with my sister in the thin light of a flickering candle. Mother had gone to bed with a headache. I tried vainly to make my stitches as neat and precise as Kate's. But my head ached, and the thread repeatedly worked itself into knots and tangles. In daylight the stitches would be uneven and ragged, and would have to be redone. Sighing, I let my sewing drop into my lap.

My sister's fingers continued to fly over the elegant material. The way it flowed over her lap, it almost looked as if she herself were wearing the gown. With her delicate profile and proud lift to her chin, she could have been a fine lady, sewing for recreation rather than for work. Her long red hair shone even in the dim light. In my bleak world, Kate twinkled like a jewel.

"We look alike," she would tell me, and I warmed under her words. Later, I searched my reflection in the foggy glass of her little hand mirror until my head ached. But even I, who longed to believe in mermaids and true love, could not deny the truth. Where Kate's eyes were luminous, mine were too large for my face. Her cheeks were delicate, while mine were gaunt. Her hair shone. Mine was dull.

Kate stopped stitching. Her expression was faraway, a secret smile at her lips as she twisted something on her finger. The light from the candle caught a gleam of gold on her hand. She glanced up and saw me looking at it, and then set down her sewing, pulled a ring from her finger, and slid it onto mine.

The ring was loose; it nearly fell off again. Quickly I closed my hand around it; then I pushed it on more securely. Holding it up to the candlelight, I could see a small green stone, perhaps an emerald, set into the golden band. Engraved next to it were her initials: K.T.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

Kate's smile widened.

"Is it from Robert?" I whispered, leaning close. Her smile grew, a blush spreading over her cheeks.

I felt a surge of panic. "Kate, don't ever marry."

She laughed. "And who says I am going to marry?"

Mother called from the bed, "Of course you'll marry, child, for who will take care of all of us now that your father is dead?"

Kate leaned close to me. "How could I be content to be like a tulip in the garden—all show and yet good for nothing?"

She sat up straight in her chair and raised her chin. In her deep, lyrical voice, she intoned:

"For what is wedlock forced but a hell,

An age of discord and continual strife?

Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,

And is a pattern of celestial peace."

I'd never heard her perform lines before, the way our father had. I applauded, the sewing in my lap falling to the floor. She inclined her head in acknowledgement.

"If only women could be players, Kate."

"Yes," Kate sighed, turning back to her stitching, "if only they could."

_And_ , I added silently, _if only they were allowed to pen the words the players speak._

Kate gazed at her stitchery in silence, a faraway look in her eyes.

"Kate," I blurted, "tell me about the Drowned Girl."

"Again?"

"Don't fill that child's head with foolish stories," Mother called, "she'll believe them and have nightmares for weeks!"

"Lisbet's a brave girl," my sister replied.

"I won't have nightmares," I assured her. All the children in the neighborhood told this story, to frighten one another. But I wanted to hear Kate's musical voice telling it.

Kate smiled. "She was once a living girl, a beautiful girl," she began. "But her heart was broken when her true love married another. So she rowed herself out into the Thames in a boat bedecked with locust flowers, the flowers for love beyond the grave. She cast herself into the water. The only ones who saw her were the swans."

I stared at my sister, my mending forgotten in my lap. Kate reached over and took it from me and after a moment sighed over my clumsy stitches. She set her own sewing aside and began repairing my work.

"She lurks there still, hovering just beneath the surface of the water, all alone with her broken heart. The Drowned Girl can see any secret a girl might be hiding. She waits for her to come close to the water's edge. When the girl looks into the water she sees not her own reflection, but the face of the Drowned Girl staring back at her. Then the Drowned Girl reaches up with an arm white as bone and all tangled with water weeds—"

Kate raised her own arm, her fingers curled into a claw— "and pulls the girl into the water with her. The girl drowns in her sorrow, down in the water where no one can ever find her again. Only the swans know what happened, and they won't tell. White poppies float in the place where she's disappeared."

"Why are there poppies floating there?" I asked, though I knew the answer.

"Because her heart is forever silenced."

"Enough stories," Mother said.

Kate held out her hand for the ring. When I set it in her palm she gazed thoughtfully at it, then leaned close to my ear. "We will have a different fate."

# Three

Each day, just as the sun began to set, Kate would return from her job at the Kent household, where she worked as a seamstress. She would come up the street arm in arm with her friends Mary, Allison, and Anne. They would be singing or laughing, their cheeks flushed, their eyes shining.

One night I woke to find Kate vanished from our bed. I looked over to see her huddled near the fire, clutching a piece of paper. Her hair was lit by the firelight. I slid from the bed and tiptoed toward her, careful not to wake our Mother. Kate looked up at me, her eyes shining.

"Listen, Lisbet," she whispered joyfully, and read from the letter. "' _There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you love, remember._

And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.'

I have enclosed some lines that someday you yourself shall perform on the stage, and I shall watch you from the audience.'"

"Who sent you that, Kate?"

She put a finger to her lips. "Back to bed with you."

I went, reluctantly.

The next morning, the news was shouted in the street, from the man with a barrel over his shoulder to the woman begging to the boy pulling the cart heaped with dung.

"They've demolished the Globe!"

"Only a pile of rubble left."

I wanted to go and see for myself, but I knew I couldn't steal away without Mother knowing. Nor could I afford the fare to carry me across the river. And I wasn't sure I wanted to see it, anyway, that I could bear to see the pile of rubble that had once promised magic—the possibility of mermaids and dragons existing among us.

As I stood listening to the gossip echo against the stones, the last hope of finding my father scribbling at his table, hearing his song echo over the Thames, drifted away like smoke.

All day I longed to see Kate, to be cheered by her voice. When finally the sun began to lower, I slipped out of the house and went to the stone steps leading to the river to meet her.

I waited a long time. She was much later than usual. It was nearly dusk, a dangerous time to be out. I stood up and sat down again, torn between returning to the safety of home or waiting for Kate. Thick fog rolled itself out over the water like an enchanted carpet. Soon all that I could see on the river were dark shadowy shapes, like ghosts. Disembodied voices and the splashing of oars rose out of from the mist.

Suddenly a wherry appeared before me. The tall, thin figure rowing the boat made me catch my breath. For a moment he'd looked like my father. But as the boat drew near I saw that he was a stranger.

The man bent over and lifted something from the bottom of the boat. He stepped awkwardly onto the landing. It took me a moment to realize that what he held in his arms was a body. Water dripped from her long hair, all tangled with flowers.

I took a hesitant step, then another, with legs that felt like wood. It seemed to take an eternity, but I finally reached the bottom of the stairs.

The boatman had laid the body on the ground and stepped away.

I dropped to my knees beside my sister. Her face was twisted in sorrow, her arms as white as bone. River water ran from her eyes like tears. In one fist she clutched waterlogged blossoms. Rue.

"She was floating near the shore," I heard the boatman say through the rushing in my ears.

Kate's hands were cold in mine. Her fingers were bare, her little ring gone. I was sure that when she'd left the house earlier, I'd seen it gleam on her hand.

"Don't leave me," I tried to whisper, but my lips were too numb, my breath trapped in my throat. I curled my body next to hers, my ear next to her chest, desperate to hear her low voice, the beat of her heart. But she was still and cold as the river beside us.

The day we buried her was cold, the smell of rosemary overwhelming; _for remembrance_ , I heard my sister whisper in my mind.

"To cover the smell of death," said my mother, dry eyed and stony faced.

We buried her on the Western side of the churchyard, face down. Many of our neighbors came; our Kate had been lively and well loved, but throughout the service I could hear them whispering eagerly to one another.

"They should drive a stake through her body."

"Nancy!"

"Mark my words, if they don't, that girl's soul will rise and haunt us until judgment day. Taking your own life is a sin, you know that as well as I do."

"But how do you know she drowned herself?"

"She still had her purse, and it was full. She hadn't been beaten, and her clothes were intact. There was no blood anywhere. And, why would her family have buried her facedown, if they didn't think she'd taken her own life? And far from her own father's grave?"

I looked across the churchyard at the stone marking the place where Father lay.

"But she was a merry girl, always laughing and singing," the neighbor protested.

"Things aren't always as they seem."

"Her heart must have been broken, poor thing."

I stole a glance at my mother, who stared intently into the grave, her jaw clenched. She seemed not to have heard the voices.

Nearby stood Kate's friend Mary. The joy was gone from her face; her cheeks were streaked with tears, and her shoulders heaved.

The gravediggers began shoveling clods of dirt onto my lovely sister. I clutched at the silken lavender ribbon that Kate had often worn in her hair. She had let me borrow it the day she drowned.

The murmurs continued among the neighbors, as if we were in the market and not burying Kate.

"Look, isn't that Alderman Kent's son? What on earth would _he_ be doing here?"

"I'm surprised he would leave his father's bedside. He is said to be deathly ill."

A curious silence fell as I, too, glanced over my shoulder to see the boy with the cross face, the one who had confronted the aldermen outside the Globe, standing a little at the edge of the mourners. He had wrapped himself in a dark cloak. For a moment our eyes met; then he pulled the hood of the cloak up over his head, shadowing his face. He turned and slipped away.

That night, in our house, Mother and I sat in silence. She sewed, her movements sharp and quick, her lips pressed together.

After a time, I drew a breath. "Mother, do you think Kate drowned herself?"

Mother looked up at me. Her eyes were the same green as Kate's, but dull, the gleam extinguished. "We'll never know whether she did or not, will we?"

_But we have to know!_ I wanted to scream. _I have to know what happened to my sister!_

For several minutes the only sound was the crackle of the fire. I gathered my courage, my words tumbling from me. "Is it true that Kate's spirit will rise and haunt us?"

"That's nonsense," she replied tersely, yet touched the cross that hung by a ribbon from her waist. I knew that she, too, had heard the whispers at Kate's burial.

I also knew that until we found out what had truly happened to Kate, her spirit would not rest.

# Four

One afternoon, a month or so after Kate drowned, I heard shrieks outside window.

I dropped the sewing with which I'd been struggling and ran to the door.

"I saw her!" a dark-haired girl was screaming.

I recognized her: Anne Green, Kate's friend. She clutched at another girl, Kate's friend Mary. Both were oblivious to the street traffic that teemed around them. Anne's face was pale and her eyes were wild. "Under the water! She grabbed my wrist!" When she saw me, Anne turned and rushed away. "Anne!" Mary called after her, and followed.

I stood shivering in the doorway, wondering who she'd seen.

A week later wails of grief rang out in the street.

Several men carried a wrapped bundle on their shoulders. Behind them came a group of people, all in black, some of them clutching funeral tickets.

Anne's mother followed, sobbing. She was flanked by two women. They patted her shoulders, but Mrs. Green ignored them, reaching up toward the body. Mary followed, tears streaking her face.

A woman stopped to watch the procession, a child balanced on one hip, a basket on the other. Another woman came to stand at her side.

"Found in the middle of the river," said the second woman, jutting her chin at the wrapped body. "Swans circling around her, that's how they found her. Poppies around her neck. White ones."

The other woman tsked. "I heard rumors that she was having an affair with Mr. Hobbes."

"The merchant?"

"She worked in his house."

The second woman shook her head. "Perhaps she was found out, and drowned herself from the shame."

"Perhaps. But, just days ago she came screaming through the street, saying she'd seen Katherine Thompson under the water, and that Katherine had tried to pull her in."

The women went silent.

"Didn't I tell you they should have driven a stake through her body?" the second woman asked.

"Maybe you were right."

"If Anne's family were wise, they would make sure to do so for her."

The eyes of the first woman fell on me. She dropped her gaze and hurried off, dragging her child by the hand. The other rushed off in another direction.

I stood frozen. How could they talk so cruelly about Kate, how could they believe she would have anything to do with Anne's death?

"Don't listen to their foolishness," my mother said angrily from behind me. "Anne Green was always troubled, I could see that from the beginning."

Still, not everyone thought it was foolishness. Suddenly Mother, once so well respected for her skill with a needle, could not find work in any household. Only one family continued to employ her, one for which she'd worked for years. The lady of the house was quite vain and did not want any other seamstress to know of the special tricks my mother used in altering her gowns to hide her increasing girth.

I could not find a position in any household, even as a maid.

In the year after Kate's death, the world became even bleaker, as if the hope and joy I'd felt with my sister and father had been sucked away into their graves with them.

We were forced to move from our small house to an even smaller one. A woman with a gaggle of children lived on the bottom floor, and Mother and I occupied the room upstairs.

Our first night there shouting and cursing thundered through the thin walls of the house next door. There was a cry, then the sound of fists hitting flesh and weeping.

"Mother?" I said.

She lay stiffly in the bed we shared, staring at the ceiling. "Go to sleep."

I pulled the pillow over my head, but it could not block the sound of weeping.

The next morning Mother ordered me to go to the standpipe to collect water for the washing.

"Must it be done today?" I hadn't been able to sleep, and I dreaded the cold looks I was sure to receive in the line, the accusing words that would be spoken just loud enough for me to hear. "Can't we wait?... " My objections trailed off in the face of Mother's glare.

As I stepped outside a young man, tall and thin, step from the house next door, whistling, and offering a friendly wave. Perhaps I imagined the fight.

A moment later a thin woman, perhaps a few years older than Kate, followed him, her shoulders hunched. Though she kept her eyes on her feet, I could see her eye was swollen and purple.

She slipped away before I could ask her if she was all right.

As I moved among the crowds, toward the standpipe, I kept my gaze leveled at the ground, avoiding strangers' eyes. My feet skidded on the cobblestones, slick with some liquid I couldn't identify. The thick odor of ale hung in the air. One man shoved another against a nearby wall, his angry shouts lost in the clatter of a passing cart. A bird stood pecking at a pile of reddish ooze. It looked up and met my eye fiercely as I drew near.

The force of warm, foul liquid nearly knocked me over. It coated me from head to toe. A split second later the smell enveloped me and I doubled over and retched in the street.

I could hear cackling from above me, even over my gagging. I wiped the slime from my eyes and the vomit from my mouth and looked up to see an old woman leaning out of the window of her house. She clutched an empty chamber pot in her clawlike hand as she pointed at me and laughed. Crooked black and yellow teeth hung from her open mouth.

The two men had stopped their wrestling and stared. The bird took an inquisitive hop toward me.

Still gagging, I turned and raced back into the small house to which Mother and I had been forced to move a few months after Kate died. The rowdy children who lived on the bottom floor stopped their game and stared in astonishment as I raced past them and up the narrow, rickety stairs to our room.

"I hate it here," I sobbed to my mother as she scrubbed at me. "Can't we live somewhere else?"

"No," my mother replied flatly. "If you'd gotten the water, like I asked, you could at least have that to clean with."

"I was covered in shit!" I protested.

"We need water," she snapped, "and you can't let that woman keep you trapped here. Mrs. Williams, I think her name is." From downstairs came a crash and a howl. "You're twelve years old now," she continued, ignoring the tumult, "and no longer a child. Now, off with you!"

I turned on my heel and stomped down the stairs, where the tired mother of the raucous children bounced a sobbing child on her hip. One of the little girls plugged her nose as I walked past. Ignoring her, I retrieved the bucket from where I'd abandoned it in the doorway.

Giving the crone's house a wide berth, I pushed my way through the street, which was darker and narrower than our old street had been. I dutifully stood in line at the standpipe, behind a woman teetering with the weight of her unborn child. She turned her back on me and pulled her shawl over her nose and mouth.

When I had collected a pail of cloudy water, I moved into a nearby doorway and poured it over my head. Then I returned to the line, using the cuff of my sleeve to scrub as much of the muck from Mrs. Williams' chamber pot shower as I could from my skin.

Having refilled my pail, I returned to the house. Mother was waiting in the doorway. "Here," she said, handing me a basket of apples and taking the water, "you can try selling apples in the street. But don't go to the marketplace," she added, "I just bought them from there, and if that woman sees you selling them, too, she'll be furious. Besides, you can ask a higher price away from the market."

Heaving a sigh, I turned back around and rejoined the crowds in the street. The ring of a hammer rose above the clamor as I passed a blacksmith. From nearby I caught the faint smell of blood, hopefully from a butcher.

Something hissed past my ear and I felt a hot, sharp pain. Laughter rang out behind me.

I grabbed the back of my head, feeling something warm and sticky. A group of children, younger than me, guffawed and pointed. A boy stood with his arm cocked, prepared to throw another rock

"Your sister's a witch!" he shouted, and let the rock fly.

I managed to duck out of the way as the rock sailed over my shoulder.

The boy bent and grabbed another stone. "You must be a witch, too!" he hollered, and launched it.

I ducked again, grabbing a rock near my feet, smeared with something dark, and hurled it at my attacker.

The guffawing stopped. Several of the children snatched up stones. I turned to run.

Suddenly one of the boys yelped and rubbed his head. A moment later a girl let out a shriek and grabbed her shoulder.

A bright-haired boy balanced a rock in his hand, his arm cocked to throw it. "Who wants another?" he shouted.

The children dispersed, grumbling.

The boy dropped the rock and sauntered toward me, his light blue eyes gleaming. His cheeks were windburnt. A faint scar crossed is temple. "Don't pay attention to those ruffians." He helped himself to an apple from my basket. "They're probably jealous that you have an evil spirit for a sister. I'm only jesting," said hastily as I opened my mouth to retort. "I don't believe in evil spirits."

Then he gave a little bow. "Phillip Midder, at your service," he said, taking a great bite from the apple. "Welcome to the neighborhood."

The next week, at dawn, there was a timid knock at the door.

The house was empty and silent; the haggard mother had taken her children with her to the market.

Mother opened the door only a crack, so I couldn't see who it was. I heard a girl's voice, speaking haltingly.

"She looked as lovely as ever," the girl was saying, "with her hair all floating around her. But then she smiled," and the girl's voice faltered. When she spoke again, her voice trembled. "Her teeth were all broken and yellow. And she reached for me." Now the girl began to sob.

Mother stood silently in the doorway for a moment. Then she replied, her voice quiet, but furious. "You girls with your imaginations," she hissed. "You didn't see Kate, Allison, and you know it."

"Please," the girl said, and I could hear the tears in her voice. "She was one of my closest friends, and I know it was her."

But Mother closed the door on her words.

The next day, the sound of fists pounding on the door reverberated through our house. I opened it to see Allison's mother, her graying hair hanging about her face, her eyes wild. "Have you seen her?" she demanded.

"Who?" I stammered, wondering for a moment if she meant Kate.

"Allison! Have you seen her?"

I shook my head dumbly. Since Kate died I sometimes caught glimpses of Allison returning from work, her steps heavy, her head low. But I never spoke to her, and she never looked up.

Allison's mother rushed away, pounding on the next door, her frenzied cries echoing above the tumult in the streets.

Allison was never seen again, a victim of Kate's restless spirit, the neighbors murmured among themselves. I couldn't stop thinking of the words of Kate's story: _Then the Drowned Girl reaches up with an arm white as bone and all tangled with water weeds,_ _and pulls the girl into the water with her._

One of the few places the neighborhood bullies would not follow me was the churchyard. I went there a few days after Allison's strange visit, to sit next to my sister's grave.

A scent rose around me, hazy, like the earth warmed by the sun. The promise of a deep sleep filled with dreams. Poppies, I realized.

The only other people there were two gravediggers, the calm of the cemetery muffling the sound of their shovels biting into the earth.

We could not afford a gravestone for Kate, so we marked her burial site with a few small stones. Each time I came to visit, I left wildflowers among them.

But today a bouquet of locust flowers rested nearby. _For love beyond the grave_ , my sister's voice whispered in my memory.

I knelt there for a time, wondering who else had visited Kate, and left her such a remembrance. I thought of the way Kate twirled the ring on her finger, the secret smile at her lips, of Robert's face at her burial, twisted with grief. It must have been him, I realized.

The gravediggers gradually disappeared into the hole they were digging.

"We'll be digging another grave soon, mark my words," I heard one gravelly voice from inside.

"Whose?"

"Another young lass—victim of the ghost."

An icy fist gripped my heart. They must have been talking about Allison.

"I didn't know they found a body."

"They didn't. And they might never. But she's dead, mark my words."

The second man grunted. "I heard she'd lost her senses."

"Well, wouldn't you," replied the second, "if you'd seen what she'd seen?" One man clambered from the hole, then leaned over and helped the other climb out. Resting their shovels on their shoulders, the two shuffled away. One of them glanced curiously at me as they passed. He muttered something to his partner, who looked at me as well. He caught his breath; both men turned away and hurried off.

My sister's grave blurred before me from the hot tears filling my eyes. I wished Kate would appear, laughing at the jest she'd played on us all. "See, Lisbet," she'd say, "women can be players!"

"Kate," I whispered, "I know you'd never hurt anyone. I know it can't be true, what everyone says."

The tears spilled from my eyes, and a sob racked my chest. "Why did you leave me here, in this terrible place?"

But the only reply was the wind whispering over her grave, ruffling the petals of the flowers resting there.

# Five

After the deaths of my father and sister, it was easier to block out the nightmarish dissonance of the sounds of the streets, and to take refuge in my own imagination. There, I became like one of the heroines of my father's stories: brave and confident, lovely and poised. No one would ever dare throw garbage or the contents of their chamber pot at me. In my mind, I strode gracefully through the streets, expecting only a felicitous ending to my adventure.

If I could only write these scenes down, they might seem more possible, more likely to come true. But I had no more ink or paper, and there was no money to buy any.

Invariably, my reveries would shatter in the face of reality.

"Apples! Only the finest quality!"

I moved through the crowd, calling my wares only half heartedly. Another year had passed since Kate's death, and at thirteen, my world was bleak as ever. Within a few minutes I escaped into my imagination.

ENTER ELISABETH. She makes her way through the clamorous street to present the lines she has written to the King's Men, in hopes they will use them in one of their secret plays in defiance of the Roundheads. Will they even read her lines, despite the fact that she is a woman? Or will they laugh and drive her away without even looking at them?

She feels an especially intense gaze upon her, and turns to look into the eyes of the GALLANT. She turns to give him a private smile. He cannot drag his eyes away from her.

Overcome with her beauty, his mouth moves soundlessly for several moments before he is able to say:

"Wench! The apple you sold me last week nearly killed me!"

The voice was like a devil's. The visage of the handsome gallant was transformed into the beet red, pockmarked face of a very angry man. His few teeth hung loosely in his mouth and I shuddered from the force of the foul breath that blasted through them. "I was on the pot for hours! I nearly lost my insides!"

I turned my head to escape his breath. Faces turned toward us, eager for a show.

Silently I cursed; I remembered this man well. Last week, when I'd been selling apples, he had given me a good grope beneath my cloak, and when I'd turned on him he'd smiled as sweetly as his ugly face would allow and asked to buy an apple. So I'd given him one of the apples from the bottom of my basket, the ones that look perfect and shiny and red on the outside but are rotten and black in the center. He took a great bite from it, paid me the penny with a lecherous wink, and barged off into the crowd, whistling as he went.

Apparently he wasn't as immune to the rot as he'd appeared to be.

I raised my chin and spoke as loudly as I would if I were a player in The Globe:

"Sir, my apples are of only fine quality. You must have me confused with someone else. Here, take one of mine, and see for yourself." I plucked a shiny red apple from the top of my basket and held it out to him.

He hesitated, his tiny eyes flicking from the apple to my face. He was torn between his outrage and greed. Greed won; he took the apple and used the side of his mouth to bite into it, since his front teeth would most likely break off if he used them. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to leer at me. I sidestepped his groping hand and moved off again into the crowd, without asking him to pay for the apple. He would pay later, though, when once more he was doubled over with cramps. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from snickering at his stupidity.

"Apples! Only the finest quality!" Our audience turned away, disappointed that there wasn't more of a scene.

Every day there were fewer buyers. No one had money to buy apples, and too often, those that I tried to sell were soft and brown, if not rotting.

To avoid thinking of the disappointment in Mother's face when I returned home with no money, I returned to my reverie.

She turns to give THE GALLANT a private smile.

In the blink of an eye he has snatched an apple from her basket and taken a great bite from it.

GALLANT: You are looking lovely today.

Dismayed, ELISABETH realizes that she's mistaken, and the GALLANT is actually a RUFFIAN after all, his blue eyes gleaming wickedly...

"Well?"

Again, my reverie was broken. There was no denying it was Phillip who had fallen into step beside me. In the year since he'd befriended me, I would often feel a tug at my hair or hear a bright whistle, and turn to see him strolling at my side, mischief alight in his eyes.

I'd learned that he lived with his mother near our house, and that his father had died when he was small—hung, for cutting purses. But before he'd died he'd taught everything he knew to his son. When I learned that, I'd tried to avoid him. But he was one of the few who did not recoil or mutter a prayer as I approached, and in my dreary new world I began to think of him as a friend.

"I'm working," I told him, sidestepping a spray of mud from a passing cart.

"Selling apples?" Phillip asked with a smirk.

"What business is it of yours?" I sped up and shouldered my way into a crowd ahead of us in the street.

But a moment later came Phillip's voice from directly behind me. "There aren't many jobs duller than that one!"

"And what is wrong with that?" I called over my shoulder. "At least it's honest!"

We squeezed through the knot of people, into a less crowded spot in the street. Unfortunately, the reason for the clear space was a drunken woman. Vomit cascaded down her front. She stumbled up to any passersby with her arms outstretched, as if she wished to embrace them. Something in her face made me hesitate a moment; she looked like someone I had once known. As her gaze swung toward me, Phillip grabbed my arm and hurried me past.

He glanced all around us, then leaned in closer and muttered, "Honest, maybe. But cutting purses takes skill. And cunning. And cleverness. A good cutpurse steals only from someone who already has too much. You work for no one but yourself. And you earn more money with the foist of one bung than you do in a week of selling apples."

I thought of this, of earning enough money for paper and ink, and food as well, with the flash of a knife. It would be better than slogging for hours through rain and cold to try to sell apples that no one bought.

"And," he added, "you steal more than the coins of the wealthy. You also steal their secrets."

"Secrets?"

He grinned and took a great bite from the apple. "Just last week I found a scented letter in a man's purse."

"What did it say?"

He shook his head ruefully. "I can't read, so I don't know. But I wager it wasn't from his wife. In fact it was probably from another man!" He glanced at me thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll give it to you, and you could read it to me."

My steps slowed. An idea poked its head from the tumult in my mind like a hopeful blossom.

"Oh, no, I hope you're not thinking of—" Phillip said, shaking his head.

"You were just boasting about how wonderful a job it is!"

"Not for you."

"I could do it. I know I could."

"What if you get caught?"

"What if I don't?"

"What will your mother say?"

"She doesn't need to know."

"She's already lost one daughter."

I thought of Kate, her eyes sparkling with mystery, plans she could never complete. She'd done what was expected of her, and look where it got her.

Two aldermen passed, dark and solemn. The drunken woman's voice rang out.

"Murderers!" she shrieked. "My family is starving! How can I feed my children if I cannot do my job? And what right had you to murder the King? God will punish you, who think you are so much more holy than anyone else!"

We glanced behind us to see several constables descending on her, but still she screamed after the aldermen: "Murderers!"

"I recognize her," Phillip said. "She used to perform outside the Globe."

In that moment a vision flashed into my mind of the mermaid I'd seen entertaining the crowd outside the theatre the day it had been closed. Now she had not even her beauty to help her. I turned to get another glimpse of her, but she was surrounded by constables. Phillip took my arm and pulled me away.

"And that," he said, "is why you shouldn't become a cutpurse. Look at what happened to her."

"She was an actress!"

"A long time ago," Phillip shrugged. "Now she's..." he glanced at me, then away. "Besides, you're far too young."

"I am thirteen, same as you!"

Phillip shifted tactics. "You're a girl, and girls can't be cutpurses!"

"Why not?" I demanded. "People will be less likely to suspect me!"

"If you get caught, you'll get us both thrown in jail. Or worse."

An image of Kate's lifeless body in the bottom of a stranger's boat floated into my mind. _What could be worse?_

"Teach me how not to get caught," I countered.

"Your face is too easy to read," Phillip snapped in return.

"Then I'll learn to hide my thoughts."

Phillip snorted and kicked at a loose stone in the street. "Don't be stupid," he growled.

I felt a flash of anger. Biting it back, I adopted a sweet, persuasive tone: "Phillip, I've heard you're the best cutpurse in London. Didn't you learn from your father, who learned from Mr. Wotton himself at his cutpurse school?"

"Before he got himself hung," Phillip muttered, "along with Mr. Wotton."

"If you don't teach me, I'll teach myself. And if I'm caught, I'll tell everyone that you're a cutpurse, and that you taught me."

"Why don't you write, like your father? Why don't you try to live on words, like William Shakespeare?"

He'd caught me off balance. The only remnants I'd found of my father's poetry, _I_ _long,_ flared in my memory. For a moment, only a moment, I allowed myself to hope. But then I remembered his low and mournful song in the wherry the day they'd closed the theatres. "Idiot," I grumbled. "We can't live on words."

Phillip smiled. "And you won't be able to live as a cutpurse, either."

Before I could retort, there was a shout; a boy fell against my shoulder, nearly knocking me over. Phillip gave him a great shove and the boy sprawled in the street, his eyes huge and frightened. In one hand he clutched a headless chicken.

"Stop that boy! He stole my hen!"

A split second later the boy was on his feet and had raced away. A man sprinted after him, throwing me a glare. They both disappeared into the crowd.

"Quick." Phillip took my arm and pulled me along with him as he strode in the opposite direction.

"You knew him, didn't you?" I craned to look over my shoulder.

"Don't look!" he snapped. "And no, I've never seen him before."

I knew Phillip well enough to tell he was lying.

ELISABETH: Oh, what dangers have I sought for myself? Why have I cast my fate with the intrigues of this RUFFIAN?

"Hurry up!" Phillip growled.

The sky was as hard and grey as iron. The wind bit maliciously at my ankles and hands. Kate's ribbon, tied in my hair, whipped across my eyes. The vendors called out their wares only half heartedly, as the marketplace was nearly empty.

The knife in my sleeve was cold against my skin. My eyes darted about, searching for an unguarded purse.

I had found the knife among the few things of my father's that my mother had kept. It was burrowed, oddly enough, beneath our mattress. I had practiced with it for several days following my conversation with Phillip, cutting through castoff scraps from my mother's mending basket that I hoped wouldn't be missed.

At least today I wouldn't have to wander fruitlessly, attempting to sell apples no one would buy. I would not have to return home with no money and sharing the least rotten of the unsold apples with Mother for supper.

My blood danced as I concentrated on how it would feel to slice the knife through the fabric, imagining the thrill of disappearing into the crowd with my stolen treasure. I could almost forget about the dismal world around me.

But cutting through old rags, alone in my house, was altogether different from cutting a purse in a public place.

In the market, I spotted a woman standing alone, looking over some cloth. So absorbed was she in her task that her purse hung unprotected from her waist.

Now, Elisabeth.

I took a breath, then another, and stepped forward. I stood just behind her, pretending to look at the cloth over her shoulder. Then I slid the knife from my sleeve, into my fingers.

My whole body went numb.

If I do this, there will be no going back.

If I don't do this, nothing will ever change for me.

I raised my knife and cut at the strings of the purse.

But the knife did not slide through the strings, as I imagined it would. I sawed at the purse strings. The woman turned to look at me, her face confused. The purse dropped to the ground.

From behind me an angry voice demanded, "What do you think you're doing?" My knees quivered; my mouth worked wordlessly.

A hand clamped onto my arm.

"Elisabeth, how very kind," said a familiar voice. I turned to see Phillip gripping my arm. "But you must allow me to retrieve this lady's purse for her. She must not have noticed that it fell."

I stared at him, my mouth still hanging open. Just behind him stood a scowling man.

Phillip bent quickly and handed the astonished woman her purse. Still grasping my arm, he drew me away.

"Wait!" came the scowling man's voice. Phillip pulled me along even faster.

"I said wait!"

We broke into a run. Luckily the man pursued us only a short while before he turned back.

We rounded a corner and slowed. Phillip finally released my arm. I tried to breathe normally, so I wouldn't look suspicious, but my heart clattered.

"What were you doing?!" Phillip said.

"What I said I'd do!" I gasped between breaths. "Teaching myself to—"

"Her husband was not ten feet away! He saw what you were doing! You're lucky he's not chasing us right now!" I twisted around to look over my shoulder. "No! Keep moving! Do not turn around again!"

We walked and walked. My breath gradually slowed. Phillip's face was tight and stony.

"Well?" I asked finally, rubbing my arm. "Now will you teach me?"

Phillip stared incredulously at me. "I just risked my neck for you! Your bungling nearly got us both caught! Your knife was dull, you moved too slowly, you were obvious..." he listed my mistakes on his fingers. He opened his mouth again, then shook his head. He turned on his heel and stalked away.

"Phillip?" I called uncertainly. For once he did not turn around. "Fine," I said. "I'm better off without him." But my brave words did nothing to ease the uneasy feeling in my stomach.

For several days I left the house with my basket on my arm, intending only to sell apples. I pulled the hood of my sister's cloak over my head as a disguise, in case I was recognized. But the time passed slowly without Phillip's impish grin and flippant jests. By the end of the second day I was bored; by the end of the third I was restless. There was no sign of Phillip.

The morning of the fifth day I pulled the little knife out from under the mattress, where I'd buried it after my mortification in the market, and tucked it into my sleeve. For another few days I carried it with me when I sold apples, the blade sharp against my skin. My eyes would fall on unguarded purses and I'd find myself speculating whether they would be easy to cut.

One morning as I made my way to the marketplace a splash and a shriek sounded from ahead of me. I looked up to see Mrs. Williams leaning from her window cackling, gleefully swinging her empty chamber pot at her victim below.

I shuddered in sympathy for the recipient of the shower, and hurried past.

"You're going to get us both hung."

I swung around to see Phillip striding along beside me.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my chin in the air.

"Yes you do."

"You don't have to help," I retorted. "I'll teach myself."

"Don't you see how dangerous this is?"

"It would be less dangerous if you'd help me."

Phillip scowled. "All right. If you're so determined, I'll teach you. But if you get caught, I will deny knowing you."

"No, you won't," I said, nudging him with my shoulder, hoping to make him smile. The corner of his mouth quirked slightly. He slipped away into the crowd and was lost as silently as smoke.

The bells on the purse chimed merrily as I pulled the penny from it.

I groaned. So did Phillip. "Maybe we should try again tomorrow."

"No! I can do it!" Three weeks had passed since Phillip had promised to help me, and we'd practiced every day, but I had improved little. Today we'd hung a purse from the ceiling of Mother's and my room. Mother was out delivering clothes she'd mended.

My arm throbbed, but I raised it yet again to the purse. This time my hand bumped the purse before I even had the knife ready. The bells rang out mockingly. I groaned and dropped my arm to my side.

"Elisabeth, we've been practicing for weeks. I don't think you're meant to be a cutpurse."

"I am!" I retorted, my teeth gritted.

"Have you still been selling apples?" he asked after a pause.

"Some."

"What does your mother say when you come home with no money?"

"I come home with money. But not much."

"Doesn't she get angry?"

"She doesn't say very much anymore." I massaged my sore arm.

"May I ask you a question?" Phillip asked.

I shrugged. "Haven't you, already?"

"Why are you so determined to become a cutpurse?"

"To earn money for Mother and me, so we can have a house of our own. So we don't starve."

Phillip shook his head. "But why not try to get a safer job, as a maid, or a laundress, or a seamstress?"

"If I have to work scrubbing other people's clothes or waiting on them for the rest of my life, I'll die, as surely as Kate did."

He rolled his eyes. "That's a bit theatrical."

"You don't understand! The only time I've felt alive in the last nine years was when I was cutting that purse!" The beat of my heart, the rush of my blood made the world light with color, just for a moment.

"It does tend to keep your mind off your problems for a time," Phillip said. For once his blue eyes were devoid of mirth.

My skin prickled. He'd understood. He knew how badly I wanted to forget the ragged hole in my life left by the loss of my father and sister. Of course he did, I realized; hadn't he lost his father, too?

But the true answer, the one I could never say aloud, not without risking losing the only person I could possibly call a friend, was the whisper at my ear, the voice I was sure must be Kate's, urging me to try.

He heaved a sigh, and gestured at the purse. "Again," he said.

I turned back and slowly inched my fingers into the purse, and when I felt the edge of the coin, slowly squeezed it between my fingers. Then I eased it out of the bag. Not a single bell sounded. I turned and grinned at Phillip.

"Brilliant. Only it took you too long. By now the gentleman's got you by the ear and is bellowing for the constable."

I glared at him, but gave my throbbing arm a shake and raised it once again.

Once more, I managed to pull a coin from the purse without ringing a bell. I looked at Phillip. He frowned and nodded. "Better," he said. "Try again."

By the time the noisy children burst in from outside, their mother weakly following, I could slip a coin from the purse without a single bell tinkling. Feet tapped up the stairs. Hastily Phillip pulled the purse from the ceiling. One of the small boys stood at the top of the stairs, his finger in his mouth. "What you doing?" he demanded.

His mother appeared in the stairway behind him. "Johnny, you're not supposed to come up here."

"It's all right. We're practicing," Phillip replied cheerfully, and flipped the little boy a penny.

The child retrieved it from where it fell onto the floor and held it in his fingers. "Look, Mama," he said. When she looked at Phillip again her face had softened considerably.

The other children clamored up the stairs and crowded past their mother, around Phillip, plucking at his clothes and whining for a penny, too. His face darkened as he thrust his hand into the purse and pushed a penny into each demanding hand.

Phillip turned to me with a glare. "You'll need to cut a fat purse to make up for this," he growled low, so that only I could hear.

# Six

Sometimes, when I allowed myself to stop and think about it, I wondered if I would have chosen to become a cutpurse had my father and sister met different fates. If anyone asked, I would have insisted that their deaths left me no other choice. But a secret voice in my mind whispered otherwise.

I thought that becoming a cutpurse would allow me to forget the loneliness of my life, that it might ease the pain of losing Kate. I was wrong. The ache grew worse as time passed.

Although I still moved too slowly for Phillip's liking, a few days after our rehearsal at my house he declared me ready to cut my first bung.

From across the marketplace I watched the young man bowing over the hand of the beautiful lady. I imagined what it would be like to be her, haunted by nothing but the soiling of my gown in these filthy streets. If it were my hand over which the young man leaned, I would surely not simper like a fool, the way the lady did...

The GALLANT is young and handsome, and he cannot take his eyes off of ELISABETH. He brushes his lips against her hand. His blue eyes gleam wickedly, his light hair shines in the sun....

I gave myself a shake. The future I imagined for myself did not include Phillip, not if I hoped to be wealthy and respectable.

The young man I watched now stared into the eyes of the lady. It would be easy to cut his purse. I began moving toward them. Phillip had given me one of his knives, a sharp one. Its blade was warm against my skin as I slide it from my sleeve. Just as I reached toward the strings of his purse, the man hooked his hand around the lady's sleeve and the two walked away, arm in arm.

Taking a deep breath, I forced my heart to slow and began searching for another purse to cut.

As I had dressed that morning I realized that someone might well recognize me from my first bungled attempt at cutting a purse. The neighbors would be only too happy to turn me over to the Roundheads, especially if they had crimes of their own to hide.

I had stood biting my lip until my eye caught the basket of mending my mother had gathered from her one loyal client. Right on the top of the pile sat the doublet of a wealthy boy. Tucked below it was a pair of breeches, and hose, as well.

I heard my father's voice in my memory, the words he'd spoken on our last journey across the Thames together, when the beautiful lady had been our passenger. _Journeys end with lovers meeting, every wise man's son doth know_. The line was from Twelfth Night, in which Viola had dressed herself as a boy, so that she could survive in the foreign territory in which she found herself stranded. And look at the way Viola's story ended: with wealth and love.

Quickly, I pulled off my dress. It took several minutes to struggle into the unfamiliar clothing. I looked down and saw my legs so exposed, the breeches and hose revealing their shape. I felt as if I were becoming someone else, an actor in a play, and the thought made my skin tingle.

Now there was the problem of what to wear on my feet. My father's boots still stood by the side of the bed. Wearing them made what lay ahead seem easier, somehow.

Easier, until I took a few steps and realized how poorly they fit me. Slipping my feet from the boots, I rummaged through the mending basket and found some more hose; these I balled up and stuffed into the toes of the boots. After I stepped back into them, I added more hose around my calves. Taking a few experimental steps, I felt more satisfied. Still, I would have to cut my purse so skillfully today that I wouldn't have to run.

The final problem, with my appearance, at least, was how to hide my hair. My father's wide brimmed hat rested on its peg. It had gone out of fashion since Oliver Cromwell had taken power, but I found as I put in on that I could tuck my hair up inside it.

Finally I wrapped my sister's old cloak around myself to hide my clothing. I set off, breathing in the scent of my sister.

Dodging Mrs. Williams's chamber pot shower, I slipped down the street to a shadowy doorway, where I put the hat on and hid my hair. Fervently hoping that I would not meet the owner of the clothing, I rolled the cloak into a bundle and stuffed it behind a barrel near the door. Then I stepped back out into the street.

Almost immediately I collided with a man carrying a large burden.

My stomach plummeted as I recognized the man who lived downstairs, father to the many children. Surely now he would catch me by the ear, bellow for the constable, shout that he'd caught a thief, that he deserved a reward....

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I should not have been so clumsy," he said, bending hastily to gather his scattered load. "You should be careful in this neighborhood, young sir, for it can be quite dangerous. My apologies," he said over his shoulder as he hurried away.

I gave him what I imagined was a cold little nod, and hurried away before I could give myself away. I couldn't help grinning. Never before had anyone groveled before me like that.

My elation dimmed as the weight of the boots slowed me. I was forced to shuffle somewhat. The breeches, on the other hand, were too small and strained around my hips. Still, the people pushing their way through the streets at least tried to step from my path, rather than bumping against me as if I did not exist. I grew more confident, swinging my arms and striding. So this, I thought, was what it was like to be wealthy.

Now, in the marketplace, I heard a loud, complaining voice:

"But that is outrageous! You cannot expect me to pay so much for such a small amount of food!" The speaker was a rather fat man, dressed in clothes that were finely made, though ill fitting. He was shouting at a woman selling pies in a stall.

The woman glared at him. "That is my price." The fat man made a show of sighing and reaching into his purse. He counted out the money and slapped it into her hand, muttering loudly about "robbery." He bit into the pie. Its fillings dribbled down his chin and crumbs flew everywhere as he chewed noisily.

I saw the woman's face dark with anger at the man's rudeness. But all she could do was glower at him in silence.

How many times had I been shouted at, insulted, even attacked, because someone thought they were superior to me? I slipped through the crowd, my knife in my fingers.

The man opened his huge mouth for another bite. By the time he had taken it, I had his purse in my hand.

The market woman's eyes met mine, and narrowed. I realized she'd seen it. For an instant I froze, unable to breathe. Would she alert him? But after a heartbeat she turned away without saying anything. The man, unaware his purse was gone, barged through the throngs, chewing furiously.

I fled in the opposite direction, praying that I had cut smoothly enough that the man wouldn't notice, that I'd disappear before he did. Then I realized that this prayer was probably not one that God would be inclined to answer.

I found Phillip shaking his head in the side street where we'd agreed to meet. "That woman saw you," he said in a low voice. "You're lucky she was angry with the man. You lingered too long there, but then you moved too quickly when you finally left."

"Of course I left quickly," I sputtered, "I had just cut the man's purse!"

"You drew too much attention to yourself."

"Fine," I snapped, "then I suppose you don't want to share, since it's tainted with my incompetence." At that he closed his mouth and waited silently for his part.

Now that the moment had come, I stared at the purse, wanting to savor my triumph. Whatever was inside could change my life forever.

"Come on!"

"All right!" I tipped the purse over. A few coins slid out into my palm. I turned the purse inside out and shook it, but it was empty.

I stared at the coins. All that fear, for this?

Phillip threw his hands in the air. "Couldn't you tell that man had nothing?"

"He wore fine clothes—"

"Yes, but did you see how poorly they fit him? He is probably a servant, he must have gotten the clothes from his master! Not everyone is whom they appear to be, you should know that better than anyone!"

Shame flooded me. How could I steal from someone who had little more than I did?

"If you're going to risk your life to do this," he said, "then at least make it worthwhile. Please."

The mirth was gone from his expression. I'd never seen him look more serious.

He leapt to his feet and snatched half the coins from my palm. He disappeared even faster than he usually did.

The sounds of the city crashed around me. _If you're going to cut purses_ , I told myself sternly, _you're going to have to be calmer_. The sun stood high in the sky before my heart beat normally again. I gathered my coins and left.

For days after my failure I kept to my house, leaving only after muttered complaints from my mother that apples wouldn't sell themselves. I'd dutifully hung the basket of apples on my arm and called out my wares half heartedly.

Loath as I was to admit it, I was distracted by the change in Phillip the last time I'd seen him. I kept thinking of the solemn tone of his voice, the way his eyes had changed, how quickly he'd disappeared after his odd request.

But today the wind had risen, carrying the scent of poppies. Its whisper urged me into action. Without thinking, I snatched the boys' clothes from the mending basket and slipped into them. Wrapping my long cloak about me, I pushed through the raucous children on the first floor and out the door, into the street.

I wandered without knowing where I was going, the scent of poppies growing stronger, until I came to the alehouse.

ENTER ELISABETH. She stands before a door, drawn to it against her will. After all, no respectable lady of her class would ever enter such a wicked place, by choice.

ELISABETH: I pray my disguise, as a young gentleman, will protect me. I know I should not enter this place, yet I must, as my fate were inexorably tied to it...

The horse is upon her before she realizes it; with a gasp she throws herself aside. RIDER: What ho, beware, young sir...

"That's no place for young man such as you!"

My reverie ended abruptly. The smells of fish, of manure, of rot, overwhelmed me. The rider moved on, muttering, as I turned back to the alehouse.

Loud calls, raucous laughter, and furious shouts erupted from the alehouse, along with a stench that made my eyes water. And just as in my reverie, I was drawn to enter.

The air inside was thick and stale, smelling of vomit, and ale, and unwashed bodies. The place was shadowy and crowded. Several men had jumped onto a table to perform a raucous, bawdy play. The gentleman standing in front of me turned and glanced at me. He gave me a nod, believing me to be a young boy from his own class sharing a joke. A moment later he turned away again, not noticing that I held his purse in my hand. I moved quickly away through the crowd, stumbling toward the door, my breath loud in my ears.

A girl stepped into my path. I tried to shove past her, but froze in my tracks. For she was Kate. Withered white poppies were tangled in her red hair. Her eyes were eerily bright against her pale skin. Reaching one of her fragile hands to her hair, she plucked a white blossom from her red locks and held it out to me.

"Am I to die?" I whispered.

Instead of answering, she pointed, her long slim arm wound with a wet green vine, at a man hunched over at a table.

Who was he? He looked a bit familiar....

"What do you think you're doing!" came a hiss at my ear.

Phillip stood at my side, glaring. I looked back to Kate, but she had disappeared. "Phillip," I said, "I think I saw...."

"You think you saw what?" he crossed his arms.

_I think I saw Kate_. An icy finger traced its way down my neck. I wanted to run back to see.

Was I to meet the same fate as her friends?

_No_. _Kate wouldn't do that to me_.

A couple locked in a passionate embrace blocked my view.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Phillip, blowing out a frustrated breath.

"I might ask you the same thing." He narrowed his eyes.

Abruptly, he turned and shoved his way through the crowd toward the door, leaving me to fight my way after him.

But I halted when I saw the purse, full and heavy, hanging from the belt of a man with a feathered hat. He leaned forward, breathing in the ear of a girl who bore a pox scar beneath her eye. I could see her smile was forced, her laughter pained, as he stroked her arms.

In a flash I slid my knife from my sleeve and sliced through the strings of his purse. As if I'd performed this task a hundred times, I concealed the purse in the fall of my cape. Neither seemed to notice as I strode confidently from the alehouse, like the wealthy young man I pretended to be.

Phillip waited for me at our meeting place, a narrow alley that rarely saw sunlight. "Let's see," he said, nodding toward the purse.

I took a breath and pushed Kate, and the woman's dilemma, from my mind, concentrating instead on the purse. It was a fine one, fat and made of purple silk. I weighed it in my hand, savoring this moment. What would be inside? Jewels? Enough money that Mother and I could move out of our cramped house, that we would never be doused with a chamber pot again, and no one would dare to call Kate a witch in our earshot?

Phillip took the purse from my hand and dumped it unceremoniously onto a stack of boxes. A fountain of coins spilled from the purse and formed a glittering pile. We both stared in awe. At last Phillip began to count them. "Not bad," he said as he finished.

But when he looked up at me his expression belied the indifference of his words. He threw his arms around me.

Breathing in his scent of smoke and apples, I realized I did not want to pull away.

Abruptly he let go of me and stepped away, his eyes shining. "Of course you know that poor girl has to endure that man's advances, only to discover his money is gone."

My smile faded as I eyed the coins. Perhaps I could slip some of them to her.

"Don't even think of it," he said hastily. "He'll accuse her of stealing from him. Besides, she'll find someone else who's not so foolish as to leave his purse hand in full sight."

I sighed. "Here," I told him, pushing half the coins toward him.

He shook his head. "Keep it all. You've earned it."

The gleam of the treasure made my guilt fade. Phillip grinned foolishly and I couldn't help returning the look.

Later when I returned home I saw my neighbor, whose cries I could hear through the walls. Her gaze was on her feet as she trudged to the door, a fresh cut across her lip.

The coins in my pocket weighed heavily. I thought of the girl with pox scar. I couldn't help her, but perhaps I could do some good for this girl.

She didn't even look at me as she fumbled with the door.

"Wait," I said, pulling a handful of precious coins from my pocket. "Take these. Please." I held them out to her.

Her eyes flicked to the gold, then to my face, and back.

"Quick," I urged, glancing around. I didn't want to be robbed, myself.

Her hand flashed out and the coins disappeared into her cloak. With a slight nod she slipped inside her house.

That night there were no shouts or cries from the other side of the wall. The next morning I saw the man, but he offered no friendly grin. Instead his mouth was set in a grim line, his eyes burning. The girl was nowhere to be found.

And so began my career as a cutpurse.

# _Part Two_

### London 1649

I am standing at the river's edge. It is evening. The ragged, thick fog hovering over the water is nearly tangible. Voices are tangled within it: murmurs, whispers, cries—terrified and despondent.

And then, among them, I hear my name.

" _Elisabeth."_

I look down into the fog encircling my knees. It thins and parts, revealing the murky water below.

The face of a lovely young woman appears beneath the surface of the water, her hair rippling with the current. A few waterlogged blossoms, white poppies, are tangled in the long red locks. Her eyes are closed, as if she is sleeping. I lean closer.

" _Kate?" I whisper. My voice echoes across the water. The other voices fall silent. Kate does not move._

I inch as close as I dare to the water and kneel down. I lower my face until it hovers just above hers. "Kate?" I whisper again.

Her eyes snap open; they are green, and so sad. Tears spill from the corners. She reaches a hand toward mine; in her long, fine, fingers she holds a stem of Belladonna.

" _Oh, Kate," I cry, and reach for her. At that moment her pale hand shoots from the water. Strong and white as bone, it clutches my wrist. Before I can scream she has pulled me beneath the surface. Icy water fills my mouth, throat, and lungs._

So the story is true.

# Seven

A playful breeze skipped through the streets this morning in early spring. It flung men's hats into the air and lifted the hems of ladies' skirts and made all of us more likely to do something unexpected. A young gentleman juggled apples for a crowd of awed boys; the woman who sold fish at the market, usually dour and stern, sang from her stall.

Normally London stank of sulfur, of animal and human waste, even of dead animals rotting in the streets. Today, however, the breeze blew the usual odors away, and even the noble folk in the street breathed deeply rather than burying their noses in scented handkerchiefs. The air smelled of warm earth, of flowers.

I would have to be cautious, especially because my nightmare kept me awake most of the night, and I was still half asleep. I could not afford to stay tangled in my dreams.

That morning Mother had left to go to the house of the rich family for whom she mended clothes. Almost no one employed her now, thanks to the misfortune that hovered around our family. But Mother had been discreetly letting out the waistline of the young unmarried daughter of the house to hide a romantic indiscretion, and the lady of the house was unwilling to risk letting Mother go, fearing that she might spread word of her daughter's mistake.

Perhaps I could still find a position as a maidservant in a wealthy household. But everyone knew my family's story, and whether or not they believed it, no one would hire me, to my relief.

Three years had passed since the first time I cut a bung. If my mother knew of it, her shame would likely send her to join my father and sister in their graves.

Each evening when I returned home I lay the pile of coins I collected on the table beside Mother. She silently nodded, high praise coming from her. The money was obviously more than I could have earned selling apples, but she never questioned me.

I also left a coin or two on the table of the family below. Sometimes I would hear one of the children exclaim when they'd found it. Later, one of them might have new breeches, or the smell of meat might drift upstairs. The children's mother never asked from where the money came, but once she offered Mother and me a bit of their meat.

Each time I successfully cut a bung I felt as if I'd gained another small victory over fate.

But all too soon the elation faded, clouded by Mother's sour silence, the stink in the streets, the clamor of the family downstairs.

Once in a while the ghost of my father's poetry whispers at my ear. _Long._ But I force it away. Such foolishness will only distract me as I am cutting a purse, and get me caught and clapped in the pillory. Or worse.

When Mother left to take yet another measurement on her young client, I slipped the boy's clothes from beneath our mattress. Phillip had brought them to me. They included a linen shirt, a velvet doublet, and breeches. All were finely made though slightly worn. Though I'd asked Phillip where he'd gotten such expensive clothes, he'd only winked without answering.

Shivering, I dressed, my fingers quickly fastening and buckling. It had taken practice, but now dressing in the boy's costume was nearly like wearing my own clothes. The reflection in the cloudy mirror showed me someone who looked passably like a wealthy boy.

To hide my attire, I wrapped myself in the cloak that belonged to my sister. The cloak she'd died in when she was sixteen, the same age I was now. The thought stole across my mind like a shadowy thief. Mother was unable to part with the cloak. Or, more likely, she saw no reason to throw away a perfectly good cloak, one that I had finally grown into.

Lastly, I tied Kate's silken lavender ribbon into my hair and hung a basket of apples over my arm. Now anyone watching would think I was only off to the marketplace to sell apples.

I stepped outside and joined the throngs of people, carts, and animals pushing their way through the narrow, treacherous street. Covering my nose against the stench, I fell into reverie.

Enter ELISABETH. She is a lovely young woman in fine clothing. Coins tinkle merrily together from the heavy purse that swings from her waist.

ELISABETH: Perhaps today is the day I shall find my sister's murderer, find him and exact revenge...

Directly in front of me a cascade of putrid brown liquid drenched a man. I jumped backward to avoid the splatter. The man roared cursed and shook his fists at the empty window as steam rose from the filth coating his clothes. Above the cacophony of the street I heard Mrs. Williams' familiar cackle and knew she hid just out of sight, awaiting her next victim.

Quickening my step, I hurried past the man and wound my way into less crowded streets.

The aroma of fresh baked bread filled a corner as I passed a bakery. _Cake for dinner tonight,_ I promised myself _, if I can cut enough purses._

I slipped between a cart piled high with squawking chickens and a row of stone buildings. Keeping pace with the cart, I pulled my father's hat from the cloak and hastily pushed my hair up inside of it, then pulled it low over my face. I took off the cloak and rolled it, then tucked it into the basket. When I emerged from behind the cart, I was transformed into a boy, basket dangling from my grudging hand, perhaps running an errand for my mother. A mountain of barrels outside an alehouse made a good hiding place for the basket.

My legs were light and unencumbered by skirt or cloak as I strode along. I ran the risk of having the owner of the clothes, or his family, recognize them and have me arrested. But it was unlikely that any of their class would venture to where I am going.

The mischievous wind now carried the jangle of a tambourine to me over the usual tumult of the streets. I followed the sound to find a crowd gathering around a makeshift stage.

Could this be a play? I hadn't seen one since the day the aldermen came to close the Globe. Since my father was alive.

I jostled my way through the gathering crowd. Purses hung from the belts of audience members too engrossed in the activity on the stage to guard them. _I will come back for them_ , I promised myself, and pushed my way to the front.

This play was most certainly illegal, as the aldermen made it clear they considered such activities to be sinful.

A fool cavorted wildly in front of a cloth hung from a pole, shaking his tambourine for all he was worth.

There would be a crowd gathering, for sure, and plenty of unwatched pockets and purses. I smiled beneath my hat at my good fortune.

"We'll all be marched off to the pillory if the Roundheads catch wind of this," a woman said to the man beside her. She cast a worried glance over her shoulder.

The man snorted. "You'd better not let them hear you call them Roundheads. Though the name suits them."

Silently, I agreed.

The woman replied, "There is no telling what they'd do, if they're willing to execute the King. God rest his soul. "

The fool with the tambourine suddenly cartwheeled across the stage. He was a young boy, very thin, with an elfin. No doubt he would play the part of a woman in the play. Apparently women players were barred from even illegal plays.

"All the world is a stage," he shouted, "and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."

Then onto the stage stepped a young man dressed in an ill-fitting gown, his face heavily rouged. He spoke in a falsetto:

"Two households, both alike in dignity...."

At this laughter burst from the crowd. The player's face blazed, but he continued: "In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny—" he stopped and coughed. There was a fresh eruption of mirth from the audience. The player scowled even harder.

Finally mastering himself, he continued, "Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."

"I think I met you in a tavern last night!" a man in the crowd shouted. "I paid you to leave my sight!" He doubled over with laughter at his own cleverness.

I noticed the man's purse swinging unguarded from his waist and slid my knife from my sleeve into my fingers.

The player, his voice cracking, began speaking again. He gave up on using a falsetto and delivered the rest of the lines breathlessly:

"... from forth the fatal loins of these two foes,

"A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life..."

He spoke faster and faster until the last lines were unintelligible. Finally he stomped off to the stage to a roar of mocking applause and laughter.

If only they'd found a woman to play his part.

A prince, tall, with thick dark hair, stepped onto the stage.

"Rebellious subjects,

enemies to peace,

Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel..."

My father told me of this play, of the two young people who die for their love for one another. _Only a few more minutes,_ I promised myself. _Then I will cut my bung and be off._

"Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage. With purple fountains issuing from your veins,

On pain of torture, from those bloody hands

Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,

And hear the sentence of your moved prince."

The voice of the Prince sounded familiar. I leaned forward to peer more closely at him.

"Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife."

His features were stern, his eyes dark. I knew this man.

"The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove..."

I drew a breath as I remembered: Robert Kent, the long ago suitor of Kate's. Suddenly there was a commotion from somewhere across the crowd. Reluctantly I pulled my eyes from the stage.

"Filthy cutpurse, come back here!"

Bodies parted in the audience as someone pushed through them. A panicked, pockmarked face flashed past. I did not recognize the thief; this might have been his first cut.

"He's getting away! He's got my purse!"

Indignant shouts echoed off the walls of nearby buildings as pursuers chased the thief through the narrow streets.

The heckler craned his neck to catch sight of the action, amused and entertained by the antics of the lower class. In a flash I cut his purse. I slipped it into my sleeve along with my knife and moved off into the crowd. A moment later I heard cursing from behind me. Suspicious eyes moved toward me, then slid away, deceived by my clothes.

I should have been able to cut more, but now, thanks to the bumbling of the sloppy cutpurse, everyone would be much more watchful. I would not be able to steal anything else here without the risk of getting caught. The Player vanished, along with the rest of the company. The spell was broken. The crowds pushed past me, back to the gray streets.

I made my way in a haze back to the alehouse where I hid my cloak. Though I wanted to catch another glimpse of Robert, it was dangerous to wear these boy's clothes for too long. Someone would eventually recognize them. I pulled the cloak around myself and pulled the hat from my head. Then I retrieved the basket of apples and hung it over my arm.

As I stepped back into the street, a light rain began to fall. I felt a chill, as if someone's eyes rested on me. A thin girl walked beside me. A shock like ice water raced down my spine. Kate.

Her vivid green eyes bored into me from deep, shadowed sockets. They peered at my sleeve, where I hid the purse, and her mouth curved into a smile. She lifted her long white arm and pointed in the direction of the play. I backed away from her. A moment later she disappeared.

Trying to catch my breath, I looked all around to see if anyone else noticed her. No one was paying attention.

I hadn't seen her outside of my nightmares in two years.

What does she want?

The voice came like a breath in my ear. _Don't forget._

A sudden hiss gave me only a moment's warning before something warm and foul splattered in my hair and ran down my neck.

"Witch!"

I swung around to see a group of boys gathered behind me. Most were laughing, but one glared at me with hatred. Daniel, I remembered, the younger brother of my sister's friend Mary.

I swiped as much of the mess out of my hair as I was able, and cursed myself for becoming distracted. Another good reason to dress as a boy: to avoid scenes such as this one.

Pretending to ignore the taunts of the boys, I kept walking. I reached into the bottom of my basket and found an apple, soft and crawling with maggots. With a sudden turn I launched the apple at them, watching with satisfaction as it hit one of the boys squarely in the face. He squealed as a white wriggling mass splattered across his cheeks.

I looked Daniel in the eye. "Kate didn't kill Mary."

His eyes narrowed. "She came back from the dead and murdered my sister," he snarled. "Everyone who sees her dies. She must be a witch!"

The word rang in the air, above the din. I went cold. "No, Daniel."

"You've seen her too, haven't you?" Daniel said.

"How could I have? She's dead." I felt a cold breath at my ear, as if someone standing just behind me sighed.

"You're lying," Daniel yelled. "I can see it in your face. Why hasn't she come for you?" He pointed a dirty finger at me. "You must be a witch, too!"

He took several steps toward me, the others at his heels. I ducked into the crowd and ran, my heart pounding.

I raced through a knot of women tottering under the weight of their baskets, pushed my way past two men beside a cart with a broken wheel. When I was sure I lost them I slowed to a walk and wiped my fingers against my cloak, groaning as I caught the foul odor of whatever the boy threw at me dripping from my hair. I would have to go and stand in line to fetch water from the standpipe to wash it out.

Witch _._ From the mouths of stupid boys, the accusation meant little. But if it ever came from someone with influence, the charge would be serious.

_I don't need to be afraid_ , I told myself. _The stories aren't true. Kate is my sister, and she would never hurt me._ Of this I was almost certain.

Then why did she return?

# Eight

The morning dawned bright and cheery, much like the day, two years ago, when I cut my first bung. But this was a deception on the part of the weather, for when I stepped outside, the light held no warmth, and there was still a whisper of a rogue breeze that gusted unexpectedly. I set off wearing my own clothes, apple basket on my arm, today's role that of apple seller.

My knife was concealed in my sleeve, for people were sure to be careless on a day such as this.

But so was I. I couldn't stop wondering what Kate was trying to tell me.

And, I was no closer to learning what happened to her.

She'd pointed toward the players, the day I saw her. One of them had been Robert Kent, her former suitor. The Kent House was the last place Kate was ever known to be.

The thought of going to that great, foreboding place, and of what I might find there, made my stomach twist. _Tomorrow,_ I vowed silently. _Tomorrow I will go. There are too many unguarded purses today._

The folk on the street were in good spirits, nodding and calling out jovially to one another. Even Mrs. Williams sat in her window with a faint smile, her chin leaning on her hand, showing no inclination to douse any of the passersby.

The streets were crowded as usual. A stink of fish, of animals, of unwashed bodies, emanated from them like a cloud. Ladies and gentlemen passed by with scented handkerchiefs held to their noses. Trying not to breathe through my own nose, I began calling out my wares.

The bell of St. Paul's began to toll. The clamor of the crowd hushed as everyone silently counted the chimes. Nine, followed by thirty nine. Somewhere in the city, a 39-year-old man lay dying.

"I know of a place where purses will be ripe for the plucking." I swung around to see Phillip at my side, biting an apple I didn't even see him take from my basket. "We won't have to cut another bung for a week."

"Where?" I asked suspiciously.

"Follow me." He quickened his pace, winding his way through the tumult.

We passed the bakery, but no fresh aroma surrounded it today. Its door was closed tight, as were the shutters of the shop next to it.

We arrived at a square teeming with people, milling about and roaring excitedly. Some leaned from the windows of the houses to get a better view. A few boys tossed a limp form up in the air, and as we got closer I realized with a sick feeling that it was the body of a dead cat.

A noose hung from the triangular gallows. As many as twenty four people could be hung from them at once. The clouds hovered overhead like expectant spirits.

"A _hanging_?" I demanded. "We're to cut purses at a _hanging_?"

I should have realized when I heard the muffled church bells, when I saw the shops were closed. Everyone would want to come and watch the hanging.

Phillip disappeared.

I looked nervously around. It was true, there were a lot of rich folk here. But I was sure it must be bad luck to cut purses at a hanging.

A devil danced merrily before the crowd, jumping in the mud and thrusting his pitchfork at the audience. He rushed up to a pretty young girl in the crowd and leered at her, trying to tempt her to join him in his hell of paper flames. The girl squealed and pretended to swoon, while her friend giggled.

Nearby stood a man with a boy on his shoulders who laughed gleefully, his mother standing nearby and smiling up at her son.

The scent of poppies rose above the stink of the crowd. I drew myself into my cloak a little farther and glanced around.

The noise of the horde grew. The city marshal, on horseback, rode into the square. Behind him, surrounded by constables, rumbled a cart full of prisoners.

A few of the men in the cart hung over the sides of the cart, glassy eyed and swaying. Perhaps they were given wine to keep them calm on their way to the gallows. I saw rosemary clutched in the hand of one.

"I repent!" he cried. "Mercy! Mercy!"

"Hang the thieves!" came the jubilant shout of an old woman, and others took up her cry.

"Hang them! Hang them!"

My stomach turned as the man with the rosemary sobbed.

The cart lurched to a halt beneath the gallows. Guards strode forward and began to fit nooses around the necks of the prisoners. The repentant man continued to cry piteously.

Several people surged forward, as close to the prisoners as they could get. Some believed that to touch the body of an executed criminal was good luck. One woman held her child up eagerly, awaiting her opportunity. Another, younger woman, her face streaked with tears, pushed herself as close as she could to the man holding the rosemary. She must have been his wife, or lover, or sister, prepared to pull on his body once it's hanging from the noose, to hasten his death.

The repentant man suddenly raised his head. His eyes seemed to lock onto mine, though he was so far away and there were so many people that it must have been impossible for him to see me. Then he closed his eyes and sobbed anew.

I felt as though I might vomit.

A man stepped directly in front of me, as if he were an apparition. His back, turned toward me as he gazes at the gallows, was straight and betrayed a noble upbringing, although his clothes were shabby and ill fitting. His boots were covered in mud, but finely made. Here was a wealthy man trying to look poor.

I recognized him: the man from the Globe, the player at the illegal performance of Romeo and Juliet, my sister's suitor from long ago. Robert Kent.

His purse was in my sleeve before I was even conscious of the knife in my fingers. I moved swiftly through the crowd, putting as many people between myself and him before he realized that he had been robbed.

Forgetting Phillip's admonitions never to run away from a cut, I raced from the square. Pain shot up my leg as I step into the hole left by a loose cobblestone.

I limped through the streets to the little graveyard that housed Kate's grave. A fresh bouquet of lotus flowers fluttered beside the stone. The wind bit through my cloak with sharp, cold teeth as I knelt.

Who left the flowers, I wondered. Mother? I couldn't remember the last time she'd been to visit Kate's grave.

I emptied the contents of the purse into my hand. Several coins rolled out of it. And then, amid them, something smaller. I caught it between my fingertips and held it to the grey light.

It was a ring, with a narrow gold band and tiny emerald. There, engraved in the band, were the initials K T.

# Nine

I stared at Kate's grave, thoughts racing madly through my mind.

He murdered her.

He could simply have taken her ring, after she died, to remember her. He gave it to her, after all.

But what if he fell out of love with her, and took it back? She might have thrown herself in the water out of heartbreak.

Or, the reverse. She decided she no longer loved him and returned the ring. He murdered her in fury.

The world spun, the graves a blur before me.

I stared at the ring, then slid it on my finger, as I did years before. Now it nearly fit. Kate was my age when she died. In my memory I saw her twisting the gold band, remembered her promise: _We will have a different fate._

Her fate is certainly different than what we'd thought it would be.

_But you still have a chance_.

I heard the words as though someone whispered at my shoulder. Whirling, I searched the graveyard. It was empty except for me.

She didn't drown herself. I knew it. And whether or not she met the Drowned Girl in the cold waters of the Thames that night, there was more to her death than any of us realized.

The air was cold and still. A bird, pecking at something nearby, looked over at me and cocked its head.

It came to me here in the graveyard: I was still alive when others who'd seen her died. I was supposed to discover what Kate's fate really was.

It was a chilly day. My breeches and doublet protected me from unexpected gusts of wind.

Kate's ring was heavy and cold on my finger. At home I wore it concealed under my clothes, strung on Kate's lavender hair ribbon around my neck.

For days, I combed the streets in the disguise of a boy, searching for Robert. I lingered so long in front of the austere Kent house that the servants coming and going began casting suspicious glances my way. But I never saw Robert himself. Perhaps he kept strange hours. Or he left from a different door. He might have even been in disguise.

I was unsure of what to do if I found him. Should walk up to him and ask what he knew of my sister's death? Accuse him of murder? I know that neither of these was a possibility, not when he could have me arrested with a word.

Perhaps Kate would somehow let me know what to do. She seemed to have a plan.

My thoughts were interrupted by a gust of wind carrying the sound of lively jingling. Another play. I should have kept searching for Robert, but there were sure to be some purses to cut in the crowd.

I followed the sound of the tambourine until I found a small audience gathered around makeshift curtains billowing in the bluster. I was right, the people were so entranced by the play that their purses hung unguarded from their belts.

I glanced up at the stage as I slipped into the crowd. A player dressed in long silken robes with a dark mustache painted on his face strode about shouting. He was meant be a Moor, I decided. He quarreled with another player dressed as a young woman whose face was so pale that I suspected he is wearing ceruse, a concoction meant to make him look more feminine.

Just before me stood a man with a full, heavy purse.

"Put out the light," said the Moor, "and then put out the light." I froze at the sound of his voice. Looking up, I recognized Robert Kent's dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. He strangled his wife in a cold rage.

A crowd of characters rushed clumsily past him onto the stage.

The dead woman's lady in waiting cried, "Moor, she was chaste..." She broke off, clearly forgetting the lines. She abruptly fell to the ground for no apparent reason, perhaps hastening her death scene to cover the mistake. The rest of the players stared at her, bewildered. The dead wife, meanwhile, sneezed loudly.

The Moor, glaring thunderously at all around him, stabbed himself. Dying, he said, "I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but this,

Killing myself, to die upon a kiss."

There was a smattering of applause amid guffaws and jeering. I stayed where I was as they dispersed.

The Moor sprang from his prone position. He pulled his cap from his head and threw it at his unlucky wife, who sat up and pulled her wig from her head, revealing herself to be a young boy. The other players, their shoulders slumping, retreated from the stage.

"No one believed you to be Desdemona for an instant!" Robert Kent shouted at the cowering boy. "Did you practice your lines at all?"

"Please, Sir," the boy whined, his voice cracking, "the words are hard for me, Sir..."

"Do you think this a joke?" Robert roared, spittle flying from his lips. His eyes bulged from his head. "Do you find a man driven to murder to be humorous?"

"No, Sir," the boy stammered, "of course not..."

"Get out of my sight!" Robert bellowed, and the boy jumped to his feet and obeyed. Robert sank to the ground, his head in his hands.

" _If only women could be players."_ I remembered my own words to Kate, from years ago _._

Now was my chance. But I hesitated, unwilling to be the target of Kent's rage.

He now appeared to be muttering at the cobblestones as the other members of his troupe sullenly packed up. My heart clattered like the tambourine, my legs heavy and stiff as wood, but I took a breath and forced myself to approach him.

"Your play was interesting, Sir." My voice came out in a squeak. I cleared my throat. "Especially the end."

He glanced up at me and scowled, then dropped his head again. "Interesting, boy!" he said with a snort. "Yes, it most certainly was that. The words of William Shakespeare, destroyed by halfwits who have never even heard of him!" He let loose with a stream of expletives.

"Perhaps you could use some more players, Sir," I suggested when his tirade tapered off. "So that your company is not so taxed."

He got to his feet and turned his back to me. "Who would want to join this troupe of clowns?" His troupe cast resentful glances at him.

"I would, Sir," I replied. He swung around and looked me over, his eyes dark. Recognition flickered in them. I forced myself not to tremble. Then he shook his head.

"I have no time for games, boy. On your way."

Part of me would love to obey his request. But I persisted. "I am familiar with the work of William Shakespeare."

He raised an eyebrow. "Give me an example."

I took a deep breath. "How poor are they that have not patience!" I recited, hearing my father's voice in my memory performing these same lines for a wealthy couple, passengers in his wherry.

"What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;

And wit depends on dilatory time."

I stumbled slightly over some of the words, but I tried to echo the longing in my father's voice as he spoke them, piloting the wherry over the Thames.

The Player regarded me with narrowed eyes. I forced myself to meet his gaze. "Where did you learn that?"

"My father."

"Do you know more?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Go on, then."

I took another breath. "If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die."

He studied me thoughtfully as my knees shake. "What's your name, boy?"

"Edward, Sir." My father's name.

Robert nodded slowly. "Welcome to the New King's Men!" He threw up his arms grandly. A contemptuous snort came from the players behind him. He ignored it. "We begin rehearsing for our next play in a week. Perhaps it should be something by Will Shakespeare."

"Yes, Sir." The wind gusted around us.

"Look what the silly toad has given me now. As if it will make me love him any more!"

The voice was smooth, from the wealthy class. It stood out among the calls of the hawkers and the rough voices of the servant women who stand gossiping before they complete their errands.

A day had passed since I joined the New Kings' Men. I paced our house until Mother snapped that I should go out and sell apples, as long as I was feeling so restless. I'd wandered the streets, my thoughts chasing one another in my mind, until the woman's voice cut through them.

When I turned to see who has spoken, I saw a young woman with glossy golden hair dressed in a gown of deep emerald. She held out her wrist for a handsome young man, also finely dressed, to admire. From where I stood I could see the glint of gold. _Fool,_ I thought. _She is making herself a target for every cutpurse within a mile of here._ Already a skinny young boy had walked back and forth past the pair several times, watching them from the corner of his eye.

"He goes about sighing and moaning," the young woman continued. "His hands are always so cold." She shuddered. "I won't marry him!"

She was perhaps nineteen years old, four years older than me. About the age Kate would be now. _Kate should be in her place_ , I thought. _That bracelet should have belonged to her._ I moved closer.

Now another man approached her. His limp dark hair hung in his face. He reached up with long fingers to brush his hair back, from his long, pale face. His eyes were full of questions.

"Darling!" the young woman cried, her voice too bright.

My eyes, as sharp as the little knife I hide in my sleeve, noted how loosely the bracelet slid on her thin wrist.

She didn't deserve that bracelet, or its giver. In my mind I saw Kate, twisting the ring on her finger just before she died. Kate should have been in this spoiled girl's place.

"Apples!" I called out, moving even closer to the trio. "Only the finest quality! A penny apiece!"

I paused as I neared the woman, glancing at her, then again, feigning shock at finding such a beautiful creature in this place. Taking a round red apple from the top of my basket, I held it out to her, curtsying low. "For you, Mistress. A gift."

I studied the three from my submissive position. The young woman looked down on me while her handsome companion smirked. The pale young man's forehead creased.

"I don't want to buy an apple," the woman said coldly.

"Oh, no, mistress, I would like you to have this apple as a token of my admiration."

She pondered my words, then reached for one.

"A moment," said the pale young man, taking the apple. He inspected it with a frown.

Finally he gave a satisfied nod. He began to hand the apple to his love.

"May I?" I asked, holding out my hand. After a moment's hesitation he handed it to me and I made a great show of polishing it with my sleeve before offered the apple to her with another curtsy.

She accepted it with dainty fingers. I straightened up, and with one last simpering smile, moved on, no longer calling out my wares, her bracelet concealed in my palm.

Phillip fell into step with me after a few minutes.

"There's no help for it," he said. "It is time for you to come and meet someone."

"Who?" But he didn't answer. Compelled by curiosity, I followed.

# Ten

Phillip was silent as he led me through streets and alleys I had never seen before. They twisted and doubled back on themselves until I felt as though I was in the center of a labyrinth. Just as I opened my mouth to demand that he lead me home, he turned into the gate of a great, dilapidated house. Its shutters hung crookedly, its roof bowed tiredly.

I halted in my tracks. "We're going in there?"

He didn't stop. With a last glance over my shoulder at the shadowed street, I followed.

Phillip lifted the rusting iron knocker of the wide door and rapped. The sound echoed eerily, even behind the heavy wood.

After a moment the door opened a crack. A strange, beaked creature peered out at us. It gave Phillip a quick nod, then turned toward me. It studied my face disconcertingly through small eyeholes.

"Meg asked to meet her," Phillip said. After another moment of scrutiny, the creature opened the door wide enough for us to pass.

We stepped into the house. I gave a start and an involuntary cry; my terrified face stared back at me from every wall.

The creature's shoulders shook with mirth. "They're only mirrors," Phillip said.

My face grew warm as I realized there were dozens of mirrors hanging from the walls. I met my own sheepish gaze in the glass.

Our host moved silently toward a staircase that must have once been grand, but now bowed as despairingly as the roof. It was covered in rugs that were faded and worn. More mirrors hung on the wall along the staircase.

I studied the creature as we followed it up the stairs. I could see now that it was most likely human and wearing the birdlike mask a surgeon wore to protect himself from plague. He or she was dressed in a doublet, but a voluminous petticoat cascaded from beneath it. I recognized, from my years of mending clothing for the wealthy, that the cloth was expensive, indeed.

When we reached the second floor our escort turned and walked down a dim hallway. Phillip and I followed, my back prickling.

In this hall, too, the walls were covered in mirrors. Some were old and tarnished, with heavy, ornate frames. Many of them were carved with fantastical creatures: mermaids, dragons, centaurs. In some the glass was clear and sharp. In others it was hazy, our likenesses nebulous and shadowed.

Phillip leaned over and whispered, "Meg believes the mirrors help her see her enemies. She doesn't trust anyone who can't meet the eyes of their own reflections."

I swallowed and looked into one of the mirrors, resolutely returning the stare of the beaked creature in the mirror. The mermaids swimming around the frame seemed to watch me with amusement.

Suddenly, over my shoulder in the mirror's reflection, another figure appeared, dressed in white. _Kate._ I whirled around. But Kate was not there, only our companion, relentlessly watching.

"Elisabeth," Phillip hissed. The masked person turned and stood before a tall, dark door. Phillip followed.

My mouth dry, I turned for one more look into the mirror, but I saw no reflection but my own.

"Elisabeth," Phillip urged. I tore myself away from the mirror and forced my legs, heavy as stone, to carry me forward.

The masked person raised a gloved hand to knock at the door.

It swung open to reveal a room which, in contrast to the rest of the house, was bright and merry. Candles blazed from dozens of ornate candelabras, which in turn were reflected from the mirrors covering the walls. A lively tune played from a corner, and the room was crowded with dancers.

It was impossible to see anyone's face, as everyone wore a mask. I couldn't tell which of the dancers were men and which were women, for they all wore some combination of men's and women's clothing.

From the flurry of dancers I caught a glimpse of a girl with long red hair, but she vanished a moment later.

Someone wearing a gown, her hair cropped close to her head, turned to our host. "Who have you brought, Meg?"

Finally, our guide pulled the mask off. It could either have been a man or a woman, their long hair tied back from a delicate angular face from which two large, shrewd eyes glimmered.

"Meg!" Phillip cried in exasperation. "You could have said who you were. You scared Elisabeth to death!"

My face grew warm again as the room rippled with laughter.

Meg, too, chuckled and lit a pipe, settling into a thronelike chair. The other people in the room arranged themselves around it, like a court. Phillip and I stood before them like serfs. I allowed my eyes to flicker over each of them, but I did not see Kate.

"I wanted to see her reactions to all of this, before she had time to compose herself," Meg said. Her voice was deep, the hint of laughter running beneath it like a current. She took a long drag from her pipe and exhaled slowly. "So, this is Elisabeth." Her bright eyes flickered over me.

She caught my hand in her thin, strong fingers. "Hmm, a long first finger. Excellent." As she withdrew her hand I noticed four marks burnt into her flesh, all sunken and white, as if they were left long ago.

"From the days before I became a master," she said with a half grin, and drew again from her pipe. "So young Phillip here has been singing your praises. He says you are a talented thief, and skilled at the art of disguise. How old are you?"

"Sixteen." My voice was weak.

"Ah." Meg nodded. "I was sixteen myself when I left my father's house. He wanted to marry me off to a horrible man."

Her eyes crinkled at the corners. "You're a pretty girl. I was once pretty myself, you know. It is a strange jest, isn't it, that women like us must assume other identities in order to preserve our true selves."

She pulled deeply on her pipe, then blew out a stream of sweet smelling blue smoke that hung in the air like a spirit. "Well, you are welcome to join our organization." She spread her hands out to either side of her chair, indicating the band of people gathered about her. "I take fifty percent of the cut, mind you, but the rest you share amongst yourselves. You won't have to work alone anymore. And I can protect you somewhat from the authorities. But only once. Make a second mistake, and you are on your own."

In the mirror hanging over Meg's shoulder a pale shadow appeared. I whirled around quickly, trying to catch her, but only an assortment of masked faces looked back at me.

"Do you hear me?" Meg said.

_What does Kate want_?

"What do you see in that glass?"

I thought of the magical world in which Kate was a player, of her plans to marry the wealthy man who would rescue her from her dreary life. I thought of the world in which she was a servant, the world that eventually killed her, and I knew I did not want to work for anyone but myself.

My eyes met Meg's. "Why wouldn't I just keep working on my own?"

There was a muttering from the court. Meg's eyes bored into mine. I held her gaze, though my pulse raced.

Phillip cleared his throat. "Elisabeth, I don't think—"

"You do not have to accept my offer," Meg interrupted, her voice cold. "Only remember, joining me gives you a certain amount of protection. But to not join, that may be risky. You may find yourself caught rather easily, your disguise revealed. I believe that is an offense that merits the pillory."

_The pillory._ Phillip and I had cut many a purse in crowds that gathered to mock and torture criminals locked in them. Though I never lingered, the glimpses I caught of the prisoners' faces was enough to ensure that I was never careless enough to be caught myself. My heart pounded so fiercely that I was sure Meg must hear it.

Beside me, Phillip stood still as stone. The masked court gathered around us was now silent, their expressions hidden. Meg took another long pull at her pipe and watched me through the curtain of smoke.

"I appreciate your offer," I replied, the smoke acrid in my eyes and throat. "but I must refuse it."

Phillip took my arm, his teeth gritted "Elisabeth, a moment?"

"Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of us all," Meg said sharply.

I took a breath. "I work far better on my own, and I would only be a liability to the others working with me. Besides, my mother and I have very little and I cannot afford to pay for your protection, Meg."

Meg watched me another moment. The mirrors around the room multiplied the masked faces surrounding us so that it seemed hundreds of them are staring at me.

Meg made a sharp sound that could have been a laugh or a snort. "Very well. I have offered my protection, and you have refused it, and so you understand I cannot guarantee your safety or anonymity.

"I admire your independence, Elisabeth," she continued. "Let us now see how long you can maintain it." She gave a nod.

Phillip looked at me, then Meg. He opened his mouth to say something, but she waved her pipe to silence him.

"She has made up her mind. Now go." I turned away, relieved, until her voice stopped me yet again. "But, Elisabeth, remember too that should the Roundheads come calling about what we've just discussed, I can only assume it's because you told them of our meeting, and I shall have to seek retribution." I nodded in return, and exited the room, Phillip at my heels. No one else followed.

I hurried through the shadowy hall back to the great staircase, the front hallway, and finally, the front door.

Outside, I rounded on Phillip. "How long have you worked for her?"

"All along. As did my father." He looked away from me, down at the street.

A group of children, shrieking in either delight or terror, raced past us, their feet splashing in the puddles.

"You don't just go around blathering about working for Meg." He kicked at a stone.

How could I have known him for so long, risked so much with him, and never known that he was part of Meg's band? What other secrets was he hiding?

"I thought," I began, but broke off.

"We _are_ friends," he finished, reading my thoughts, as usual.

_But we're not_ , I answered silently, _not if you're keeping secrets like this from me_. I turned away and sped up the street, away from him.

Phillip caught up to me, grabbing my arm. "Don't you know who Meg Founder is?" he asked furiously. "She's the most powerful cutpurse in London! Do you know the trouble you've brought on yourself, and probably me?"

"No."

A sudden, cold rain began to fall. Around us people cursed or groaned and pushed to find shelter. I pulled the hood of my cloak up over my head and began moving through the thinning crowd. Phillip followed.

"I thought you had more sense than you showed today!"

"I was telling the truth. I cannot afford to pay Meg part of my cut."

"You cannot afford not to!"

" _You_ don't pay her!"

"I _do_ pay her!"

A dog, its fur soaked, rested in the middle of the unusually empty street. It gnawed at something glistening and red. As we passed, it stood and barked at us.

"I wouldn't have taken you there unless I absolutely had to," he said. "I never thought I would."

"You might have warned me," I retorted.

"I couldn't risk telling you until you'd met her. Besides, she insisted I say nothing. She wanted to meet you before you'd been warned about her."

"So she'd have the advantage. What does Meg care about me, anyway? I don't cut enough to worry her."

"But you are getting good at it, and you are starting to stray into her territory."

"Her territory?"

"The class of people who are usually her victims. She won't stand for that."

"So what can she do?"

"What can she do? Didn't you hear her? Half the jailers in London are in her pay. Even some of the aldermen, it's rumored! If you were to be caught, she could easily have you released. She's bought my freedom once or twice! But, those same jailers will be under orders to make your stay in jail very unpleasant. She could even have you hanged!"

A thrill of fear danced down my spine.

"Then I won't be caught." The tremble in my voice belied my brave words.

"Oh yes you will, she'll be sure of it! She'll have you arrested for the slightest offense!"

I gulped. Should I go back, say I've changed my mind?

_No_. _I'm not going to give up my freedom to work for someone else, or give up what I've earned to someone who doesn't deserve it. I don't want to end up like Kate._

Thunder rolled menacingly overhead.

Phillip sighed and shook his head. "It's too late, anyway. She won't let you change your mind now. You've already offended her by refusing to join her. You've also put me in a very bad position."

For the first time I realized there is fear in Phillip's voice, something I never expected to hear. I felt a twinge of regret for my quick refusal.

"Will you tell me why you had to refuse Meg?"

"I had to."

"You _had_ to!" he repeated. "You _had_ to!" Now his tone was mocking. The chill rain and his biting tone roused me to anger.

"I thought you worked for no one but yourself," I snapped, rounding on him.

"No one refuses Meg."

"So you _have_ to work for her."

Once again thunder growled; the rain fell harder.

"Tell me why," he persisted. "At least tell me why you refused her. And not because you can't afford to give her part of your cut."

"Kate," I said through gritted teeth. I hoped it would be enough for him.

It wasn't. "Kate," he repeated blankly. "Your dead sister?"

"I saw her in the mirror."

"And I suppose she told you not to join Meg? I must say, Elisabeth, I never thought you to be such a childish fool."

His words were more painful than the stones cast by the neighborhood children.

"If I'm such a childish fool, then stay away from me."

I turned away, but he caught my hand and turned me toward him. His blue eyes held none of their twinkle. "Don't get caught," he said urgently. "Please."

I pulled away and stomped through the muddy street.

# Eleven

I did not see Phillip for days after our argument. Each time I thought of it, my heart twisted. _It doesn't matter_ , I told myself. _I don't need him, not anymore_. Still, whenever I ventured outside, I looked for his bright hair, listened for his whistle.

I haunted the market place, dressed as a boy. I knew this disguise would do little to protect me from Meg's wrath, but it was all I could do. _I must continue_ , I told myself, _or Mother and I will starve_. But truly, I'd come to rely on the thrill that coursed through me whenever I cut a purse.

One gray March morning as I made my way through the street traffic I knew I should be watchful, especially now, but still I fell into a reverie.

ENTER ELISABETH, disguised as a boy, though a knife lies concealed in her sleeve.

ELISABETH: 'Tis better that I work alone now, for I am sure to be more successful. Nor shall I have to share my earnings.

The GALLANT falls into step beside her.

GALLANT: Can you forgive me, for my deceit, and my cruel words? I am the fool, not you.

ELISABETH's mouth falls open in surprise. She replies...

But what would I reply, even if Phillip were to ask my forgiveness?

The night before the first rehearsal, my blood hummed with a new sensation, fear and excitement together.

I, a player!

Not a poet, perhaps, but performing the lines of William Shakespeare himself!

_To watch Robert Kent,_ I reminded myself. _To find the truth about Kate_.

Still, I found myself repeating all the lines taught to me by my father, murmuring them even as I searched for a purse to cut, waited for water, sipped the watery broth we ate for nearly every meal.

Mother watched me. "What nonsense are you spouting now?" she demanded sharply, setting down her spoon.

"They're lines. From a play."

Her face darkened, her eyes clouding. "Don't be a fool. Do you want to end up like them?"

Like them, my father and sister, so caught up with magic and beauty that they let the ugliness of reality catch them unawares.

But I didn't want to end up like my mother, either, relentlessly bitter and angry.

I set down my spoon and rose, no longer hungry.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To sleep," I lied. Leaving her staring into her bowl, I felt a tug of guilt. She looked so frail so birdlike. But I left anyway.

After I passed a night of uneasy sleep filled with nightmares of the Drowned Girl, the morning dawned grey. How long could I expect to hide my true identity as Kate's sister? What did I hope to accomplish with this foolishness? My steps were hesitant. Several times I considered turning back. Each time, the breeze rose, seeming to pull me forward.

I arrived at an alehouse, its walls stained with soot. From outside, I could hear the drunkards' racket as I stood staring dubiously at the place. _One pass through,_ I promised myself. _If I don't see them, I'll leave and forget this whole silly plan._

The door swung open, as if in invitation. A man and a harlot, leaning heavily on one another, stumbled out, screeching with laughter. Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the doorway and into the shadowy room.

The smell of stale spirits and of unwashed bodies assaulted me. I buried my nose into the crook of my arm and pushed my way through the crowds.

I fought my way through the alehouse but saw no one from the company. With a mixture of relief and disappointment, I turned back to the door.

From behind me I felt a cool draft. There was a small door in the back wall of the room that I did not see on my first trip through. I made my way to it and pulled it open.

Before me was a narrow, shadowy alley. In it stood three haggard women, witches, perhaps, swaying and cackling.

"When shall we three meet again," one intoned, "In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"

"When the hurlyburly's done," replied the second, "When the battle's lost and won."

"That will be—" began the third. She stopped and clears her throat. "That will be, er, ere..." her voice trailed off. She scratched her head uncertainly as the other two looked at her in disgust.

"Ere the set of sun!" bellowed a familiar voice. "That will be ere the set of sun!" Robert Kent, his face twisted in frustration, strode to the third witch and cuffed her on the shoulder. "Have you studied your lines at all? And you," he cried, swinging on the second witch, "stop chewing your nails!"

"I can't help it, sir," the witch responded in the voice of a boy, spitting fragments of yellowed fingernail into the dirt.

Robert ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up wildly. Suddenly his eyes fell on me. They narrowed, and I wonder if he recognized me. My stomach dropped.

"Ah, Edward," he cried, and held up his arms imploringly. "Thank God! Someone who knows how lines are to be read! You're too pretty to play a man, but what about Lady Macbeth?"

I opened my mouth to reply I knew not what, when a thin boy with great dark eyes flashing in indignation shouted, "That part is mine!"

"That's all right, Sir, really," I stammered.

Robert glared from the boy to me. "Fine, then, you'll be Lady Macduff. There's not much to it, but done well, you'll have the audience in tears. Of sadness, not of laughter," he threw over his shoulder to the other players as he shoved some pages into my hand.

My father told me of this play, in which a man believed he was destined to become king, and so murdered everyone who stood in the way of his ambition. I was to play a woman who was doomed to die because her husband was one such obstacle.

I read the lines over and over as the play, punctuated by Robert's explosive oaths, swirled around me. My mind was so tense with my other fears that the words slid from my mind as soon as I read them.

All too soon it was time for my entrance. The other players fell silent and eye me. Robert folded his arms and fixed his glare on me.

"What had he done, to make him fly the land?" My voice fell flat in the silence. Robert put his hands to his face.

The boy playing the messenger sent to warn me of my husband's flight cleared his throat. "You must have patience madam."

"His flight was madness," I replied, my voice shaking.

"When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors."

The messenger rolled his eyes. I cleared my throat and raised my voice.

"When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors." This time my voice was strong and sure.

The Messenger's eyes widened in surprise. Robert slowly took his hands from his face. A thrill coursed through me. I felt the way I did when I was about to cut a purse.

The Messenger continued, "You know not

Whether it was his wisdom or his fear."

My voice more sure, I replied, "Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,

His mansion and his titles in a place from whence himself does fly?

He loves us not!"

The other players stopped chatting to watch. A grin spread over Robert's face.

I felt at last what my father felt when he performed lines in his wherry, becoming someone else for the time it took to row his passengers across the Thames.

# Twelve

For days after that first rehearsal, the words of Lady Macduff haunted me. I found myself speaking them aloud, trying different inflections, rates of speaking, volume.

One night I stole out of bed to the hearth to whisper the lines before the fire. Suddenly, instead of smoke, the fire emitted the smell of sun warmed earth, of poppies.

There, on a stool next to the hearth, sat Kate.

The words froze in my throat.

Her skin was pale, but not as pale as the last time I saw her. Her face was thin, though her cheekbones did not jut so severely. She smiled, her eyes gleaming. She rolled her long fingers silently, a signal to continue.

Taking a deep breath, I obeyed. But after a few words she disappeared. I lingered for a long time after she disappeared, both hoping and dreading that she would reappear. When the aroma of poppies completely faded I stole back to bed. Mother slept, still as death.

For hours I lay shivering in bed, hoping that Kate's appearance meant that I was on the right path.

The next afternoon found me making my way back to the alehouse, my thoughts a tangle.

Just in front of me trudged a broad man, who smelled suspiciously as if he'd suffered on of Mrs. Williams' chamberpot showers. Just ahead of him I caught a glimpse of gold hair gleaming in the sun.

Holding my nose, I ducked around the foul smelling man and fell into step beside Phillip. "You've mud on your hose."

A smile flashed across his face when he saw me, but it faded quickly.

"Where have you been?" I asked. "I haven't seen you in weeks."

He shrugged. "Around." He strode forward without looking at me.

His cheeks were windburnt as ever, and there was a slight bruise on his cheek. "Where'd you get that?" I raised my hand toward the bruise.

He flinched away. "I wasn't quick enough."

Or, perhaps Meg or her minions had punished him for my refusal to join them? My throat tightened. He might be taking a great risk, talking to me now.

I should leave. But before I could he spoke again. "I'm sorry for what I said about Kate."

Relief coursed through me. "I'm sorry for botching things with Meg."

"Are you?"

Someone bumped into my shoulder, hard, hissing something I could not make out, but from the tone it sounded like a curse. A gray faced man coughed into his sleeve as he hurried away.

"You think Meg's spies are watching you?" Phillip asked.

"Are they?"

"Of course."

We reached the alehouse. Phillip looked from it to me. "Be careful," he said, and moved away before I could say anything else.

Trying to push away my misgivings, I entered the secret alley. Robert called an enthusiastic welcome, though the greeting from the other players was mixed. But I managed to forget all of this as I threw myself into the lines. Kate did not reappear.

By the time I left the alehouse, the shadows stretched across the street. The noise that echoed between the buildings changed; the ring of voices conducting daily business was replaced by raucous shouts of people who had enjoyed several draughts at the end of the day. From the darkness came the sinister hiss and murmur of conversations between people who did not wish to be overheard. Cloaked forms flashed past, disappearing around corners.

I forced myself to appear unconcerned with the lateness of the hour. Once again my boy's disguise aided my navigation of the streets.

"You seem determined to earn a place in jail one way or the other."

Phillip sidled to my side. "Are you following me?" I asked.

"For which crime will you be caught, Elisabeth, thievery or performing in an illegal play?"

"Then you should keep your distance from me," I replied tartly.

He caught my arm. "Why the play, Elisabeth?"

Looking at the face of my best friend, I drew a breath and began to speak, the words spilling from me like coins from a purse. He listened in silence as I told him of the time that I cut a fine lady's purse, only to have her reveal herself to be Kate. I spoke of seeing her in Meg's mirrors, about finding the ring in Robert Kent's purse, of being drawn to his troupe of players. Finally I told him of Kate's visit by the fire. At this his mouth twisted, but he said nothing.

"I think Kate's telling me that Robert knows the truth about her death," I finished in a rush, "and I can find it out by joining his players."

A cart rumbled past, drowning out his words.

"What?"

"'The play's the thing,'" he said more loudly, "'Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.' From the play Hamlet." He shrugged. "He accused his father's murderer through a play. You're not the only one who's ever been to the Globe, you know. But you'd better be careful. Robert might recognize you. You're beginning to look like Kate."

"What?" I demanded. "How could you know? You never knew her."

"Everyone knew her."

I shook my head. "Well, you must not remember her. I look nothing like her. She was beautiful, and I'm...."

"You are beautiful."

I looked sharply at him. Was he joking? No one ever told me I look anything like Kate. I felt a blush creeping over my face as I waited for him to laugh or smile, but he returned my gaze steadily.

"Hello, pretty boys," came a leering voice from the shadows.

Phillip pulled me away. "We'd better keep moving." The voice broke into a lecherous cackle as we moved quickly up the street. The voices around us became louder and more eerie. The streets were nearly dark.

At last I broke our odd silence. "Well? Do you believe me?"

"Yes."

Relief washed through me.

"But Elisabeth," he added, gripping my wrist, "you must be careful. Meg's spies-"

"Wait." The lightness in my heart disappeared. "You're one of them!"

His eyes, for once, are solemn in the dim light.

"You're following me, too."

"To keep you safe," he replies quietly.

"But you still report what I do to Meg."

"Not everything."

Without a word I turn my back on him and storm through the streets. How quickly I had spewed the entire story of Kate, her appearances, what I thought she was telling me, like vomit.

I gripped my knife in my hand, prepared to defend myself in case one of the shadowy forms came too close to me. But I could hear Phillip's footsteps, quick and sure, behind me all the way to my house. Under cover of darkness I drew my cloak around me and removed my cap. When I glanced over my shoulder, he was still there, a few feet away, watching. He watched even as I closed the door behind me.

# Thirteen

In the weeks that followed, I looked over my shoulder constantly, whether I was rehearsing with the players or looking for a fat purse to cut, Phillip's warning weighing heavily.

I watched Robert Kent constantly. For what, I did not know. A sudden, tearful confession? For him to suddenly rush at another woman, closing his hands about her throat in a murderous rage?

Doubt assailed me late at night as I lay awake with Mother snoring softly beside me, What good could come of this? Performing in the plays had brought me no further clues to Kate's death. Instead it presented me with a new set of hazards. It was as Phillip warned: now not only must I fear arrest for cutting purses, but also for performing in illegal plays.

In the daylight, however, my resolve returned. The ring I wore round my neck was almost certainly evidence that Robert knew something about how Kate died. I needed only to be patient. And cautious.

_I will see this to the end_ , I promised myself, _and when Kate's spirit is quiet, I can concentrate on cutting purses. I will avoid Meg's territory altogether, even if it means walking across London to find another place to work._

I tried to ignore the hollow feeling in my chest at the thought of not performing anymore.

A few weeks later I found myself about to make my entrance before a rowdy audience at Market Cross. My knees knocked beneath my costume, my hands shaking so violently that I could hold nothing in them. _What made me think I could do this?_ For a mad moment I considered fleeing.

The boy playing Lady Macbeth caught my eye. He looked pointedly at my quivering hands, then up at my face, and smirked. At that I forced my breath to slow and drew myself up into the posture of a noble lady. Then I stepped onto the stage as Lady Macduff.

"What had he done, to make him fly the land?" I demanded of the Messenger.

The boy cleared his throat, which I had discovered was his habit before nearly all of his lines. "You must have patience madam."

"His flight was madness," I asserted. "When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors."

Someone in the audience began to speak and was hushed. Complete silence fell over the crowd for the first time since the play began.

My eyes flicked over the boy's shoulder as he stumbled through his next lines. Robert Kent, dressed as the traitorous nobleman who murdered his King, looked on from behind the makeshift curtains.

Kate stepped next to him, her green eyes standing out in her pale face. She beckoned to me. A jolt of fear raced up my spine.

Several men intent on the murder of my character appeared on the scene. Forcing myself to turn away from Kate, I watched as they pretended to stab the small boy who played my son. Then my character fled offstage for her own life.

I hurried past Robert Kent, who said something to me that I didn't hear, and looked around for my sister. A moment later I saw her, moving away from the play, into the chaos of the street, the poppy scent trailing behind her. She held a funeral ticket in her hand.

She turned onto another street, navigating her way through the clamor like a swan gliding among the chaos of the boats on the river. I followed as closely as I could, but something bumped me violently sideways. A coarse, angry voice split the air next to my ear. A young man glared as he guided his horse around me. When I looked back around for Kate she had disappeared.

For some time I forced my way through the crowds, craning my neck to try and spot her. But she was gone. With a sigh, I turned to make my way back to the play.

As I approached the place where it was being performed, however, someone banged roughly into me. I began to growl a complaint when I saw it was the Messenger. He rushed away, a look of terror on his face.

I looked at the stage to see that a dozen constables had replaced the audience and were herding some of the players into a line. One of the witches, Duncan, Lady Macbeth, and Robert Kent himself, as Macbeth, were surrounded by the lawmen. Now Lady Macbeth's hands shook as badly as my own had before my entrance.

"So, young Robert Kent," one of the lawmen jeered. "What would your father think of this?

"I wouldn't know," Robert growled, "he's dead."

"It's a good thing he's not alive to see the shame you've brought upon your family."

"It's a good thing he's not alive to hear the disrespectful way you address his son, and your better," Robert returned.

"I'll not—" the lawman began, but he was shushed by another constable.

"For this crime it will be a day in the pillory for you."

"That's for the judge to decide," Robert said.

I turned to melt away into the crowd. Had Kate not led me away from the play, I would be joining the players in the pillory.

Suddenly a cold hand clamped onto my arm. A reedy voice called out, "And this one, Sir, he's one of 'em!"

I looked up into the face of a strange man _._ His eyes, yellowish behind his long hair, narrowed as they meet mine. "This one, too, Sir!" I tried to wrench away, but his hand was like a vise.

"The man lies, I'm no—"

"Then why are you in costume?" He bared his teeth in a ghoulish grin.

"I'm not!" But the gown I wore was ridiculously fine for a day in the market, the pile of curls on my head obviously a wig.

My captor bent close to my ear as the constable drew nearer. "So, Elisabeth. A plot deserving of William Shakespeare himself, eh? A girl, disguised as a boy, disguised as a girl. Do you think I should tell them? Or should I let them discover that for themselves?" He gave a lecherous chuckle as I shuddered.

It was clear to me then that he was one of Meg's minions. Wild with fear, I turned my head and closed my teeth on his fingers. He howled in pain and surprise and loosened his grip. For an instant I was free. I had taken barely a step, however, before the constable's hands closed on my arms. "That's enough," he said sharply, "or it'll be worse than the pillory for you."

Defeated, I stopped struggling and allowed the constable to lead me to the rest of the captured players. I risked a glance over my shoulder at Meg's thug as I stumbled over the stones. He cradled his bleeding fingers in his other hand and glared at me with furious eyes.

# Fourteen

Wet warmth rushed down my legs as I lost control of my full bladder. A puddle formed beneath me. Next to me Lady Macbeth glanced down and cast me a disgusted look. But I hardly cared. I must focus on forcing my legs to carry me toward my punishment.

We were marched through the streets, a path clearing for us as if by magic. I turned my face away as people stared, praying that no one would recognize me and tell my mother of this latest shame. Or worse, shun her even more, until she was forced to move again, to a neighborhood worse than the one in which we already lived. My legs moved clumsily and I nearly stumbled several times on the uneven street.

We finally arrived in another square, where stood five pillories. I froze, unable to take another step. One of the constables pushed me forward, shoving my head downward to rest in the rough wooden yoke. He then lifted my hands into place on either side. The contraption moaned as he shut and locked it in place.

A crowd began to gather around us, many of them people who had been in the audience of the thwarted play. Yesterday, they waited with hushed anticipation to see a tragedy performed. Now many of them joked and grinned, waiting with as much keenness to watch our suffering and humiliation. I kept my eyes on my feet, grateful at least that the constables thought me a boy dressed as a girl.

Within a few moments my back ached, and the splintered boards threatened to rub my neck and wrists raw. My skirts clung to my wet legs.

A vegetable flew from the crowd. I did not see it hit, but I heard a splatter, and a foul smell filled the air. Beside me, Robert Kent gave a grunt.

I risked a glance upward. The young woman from whom I'd stolen the bracelet stood watching the scene, a slight smile at her lips. I jerked back against the pillory hard enough to bang my chin, but my prison held strong. Squeezing my eyes closed, I prayed she would not recognize me.

Clods of dirt and eggs now flew from the crowd. I stared down at the ground to avoid becoming their target. Hard thumps rattled the pillory as the weapons met their targets. I heard the sound of gagging, then of vomiting. The smell of rotten egg and the acid contents of the victim's stomach polluted the air. A cheer rose, and a storm of vegetables, eggs, and dirt rained from the crowd.

My face stung as soft, rotten vegetables splattered against it. I began to retch. The crowd cheered even more.

"Bravo, Macduff!"

"A fine performance, Macbeth!"

"Genius!"

The long haired man who turned me in to the constables stepped into my vision. His hand moved in a blur and something hit squarely on my forehead. A rancid liquid ran down into my eyes. When I was finally able to open them again the world was smeared with something putrid and sticky. The smell reminded me of Mrs. Williams' chamber pot. I immediately vomited onto my feet, tears and snot mixing with the foulness smeared on my face.

Immediately the jeers from the crowd rose in volume. My fear and shame hardened into anger. How dare these people turn on us? They, too, enjoyed our performance. Why should they now revel in our humiliation and face no punishment themselves? I blinked back my tears and glared at them.

Meg's minion raised his hand again. But just as he released his weapon, he was knocked off balance. With an angry shout he turned on Phillip. Phillip clouted him in the stomach and the man doubled over. The crowd roared approvingly. The vegetables stopped flying, the attention of the bystanders diverted by the fight.

Two constables pushed their way forward. Meg's spy, apparently unable to speak, pointed a shaking finger at Phillip, who lunged forward yet again, fist raised. But the constables caught him by the arms before he could land a punch. Phillip held my gaze as they dragged him off, fury in his eyes.

Kate appeared before me, lifting her arm, a rope of seaweed tangled around her wrist. She tossed a belladonna lily into the air. I craned to watch its progress as it fluttered to land atop the growing pile of garbage at the feet of Robert Kent. When I looked back for Kate she had disappeared. I could not see Robert's face.

The wind blew violently through my gown. I shook so much that my neck rattled against the wood. Above the stench of rotting vegetables I caught the scent of poppies. The wood scraped my neck as I stretched it as far as I could, searching the crowd for Kate. But she did not reappear.

# Fifteen

I heard the rapping at the door from my tiny room upstairs and burrowed further beneath the blanket, but the sound persisted.

The chafing wounds at my neck and wrists throbbed, but I kept them hidden beneath my clothes. I told Mother I have caught a chill, and though her brow furrowed, she said nothing.

She also remained ominously silent when I gave my excuse for not returning home the night I spent in prison. I told her I was caught late selling apples in the market and so stayed the night with a friend from our old neighborhood. She knew very well that I had no friends in our old neighborhood. But she would rather not know the true reason I failed to come home that night.

The knocking grew louder. I plugged my ears with the blanket.

I breathed a sigh of relief when finally the tapping stops. But then I heard an insistent voice from outside.

"Elisabeth! Elisabeth Thompson!"

It was Phillip. I pulled the covers off my face and sat up. He was all right, then. I sighed with relief.

"Elisabeth!" he called again. "You haven't been seen or heard from in days! Let me in or I'll shout all your secrets to the street!"

I leaped from the bed. _He wouldn't dare._

"Where shall I begin?" he continued. "Would it interest the neighbors to know of your whereabouts this past Tuesday morn?"

With that I flew from the bed and raced down the stairs, past the astonished mother feeding her child in the kitchen below, and threw open the door.

Phillip continued his recitation. "And, what of a certain disguise—"

"Phillip!"

He stopped speaking and grinned.

"I thought that might finally force you to answer me. Oh, don't worry," he added with a dismissive wave toward the street, "no one is paying attention." I fearfully peered at the folk passing in the street to see who might have heard him, but he was right, no one paid the slightest attention. I closed the door behind me.

"You're all right," I said, looking him over anxiously. A purple bruise blossomed near his eye, next to the other faded one.

He shrugged. "They tried to throw me in the prison, but it was easy to slip away. Trouble was, they'd carted me halfway across the city, so by the time I got back, you were gone." His eyes settled on the raw mark circling my neck. "You?"

"I'm fine." I hesitated. "Did you know the constables were coming to put us in the pillory?" I braced myself for his reply.

He shook his head, the smile gone from his eyes. "No. They wouldn't have told me what they were planning. The neighborhood gossips were saying that a troupe of vagrants were about to be punished in the for performing an illegal play, and that among them were a fair young boy who could almost be a girl."

I let out a long breath. "Thank you for helping me."

He grinned. "Well, you were crying like a girl. I didn't want you to ruin your disguise."

"I didn't cry like a girl," I muttered. "Are you in trouble with Meg?"

"No more than usual," he shrugged. "So what now? You'll hide in your house forever, and never discover the truth about your sister? Not to mention allowing all of the undeserving rich to keep their purses."

I shook my head miserably. "What else can I do? I'm a coward. I will find a job as a laundress, just as my mother wants me to do. Then there'll be no more danger, not from the aldermen, not from Meg."

"And you'll follow the path that you think you're expected to follow," Phillip answered, "until you waste away from boredom and misery. And Kate will never stop haunting you. But, if you insist on throwing away all of your talent, then I suppose I can't stand in your way. In fact, I even know of a place where there is a position open for a laundress."

I stared at him. "You'll help me find a job as a laundress?"

"Isn't that what you want? I happen to know that the girl who normally has the job at a certain household has grown suddenly and mysteriously ill, and has recommended that her good friend Elisabeth step in for her."

"What? I don't have any friends."

Hurt flickered across Phillip's face. "I won't take that statement personally. And you do, as it happens. Don't you remember dear Lucy?"

"No."

Phillip rolled his eyes. "Well, pretend you do. It so happens that her friend Matilda works as a laundress at the Kent House."

My mouth fell open.

"Lucy owes me a favor or two. She talked Matilda into allowing her friend Elisabeth to take her place one day. Didn't you just profess your desire to find a job as a laundress?

"Matilda often speaks of having to go to different rooms to collect clothing," he continued, "including the master's chamber, because the head housekeeper is too lazy to go herself. Who knows what else might turn up? Letters, trinkets, diaries belonging to the master, evidence of past loves and dark secrets..."

"I can't go there."

Phillip nodded. "Oh, you're right. It's much better to let your sister's death be unresolved! Let everyone keep accusing you, and her, of witchcraft, whenever a girl in the neighborhood dies!"

"Keep your voice down!" I hissed.

He glared at me. "I suppose it's better to stay in hiding forever, and accept your fate. You're right, this is a wonderful life." As if to illustrate his point, a passing man spat a great glob of mucus toward us. It landed inches from my feet, splattering on the cobblestones.

No, I hated living here, hated the grayness of each day. But my arms and neck still burned from the pillory, and the jeers still rang in my ears.

"I can't."

Phillip sighed, then shrugged. "Well, don't say I've never done anything for you. But don't expect anything to change for you."

He marched away.

Stepping back inside, I slammed the door behind me with a huff and came face to face with our downstairs neighbor, her baby in the crook of her arm.

"Here." She held out a small bottle. "It's a salve. I use it on Peter's bum. When his rash gets bad. I made it myself. Thought it might help with..." she nodded toward my neck.

Feeling heat rush to my face, I covered the wound with my hands. "Oh, this? I've been out in the wind too much, I suppose."

She did not answer, still offering the bottle.

"Thank you," I said at last, and took it, forcing myself not to race up the stairs, away from her.

"And I thank you," she said from behind me.

The next morning I stood at the enormous door of the Kent house, wearing my least patched dress, my hair plaited primly.

The night before, I dreamt of being locked in the pillory. A Belladonna lily floated through the air and landed at my feet _._ Then Phillip's voice floated from the jeering crowd: "Don't expect anything to change for you." Suddenly a lake opened before my feet. I saw my own face, my reflection smiling at me, and its mouth was stuffed with white poppies. With the sound of shattering glass, two white arms crashed through the water's surface and reached toward me. I tried to scream, but couldn't, because my own mouth was filled with flowers, and I was choking on them.

I'd woken to find the blanket crammed into my mouth. I tried to slow my breathing so I wouldn't wake Mother. She didn't stir, although I suspected from her wooden stillness that she was not truly asleep.

By the time it grew light in the room, I knew I was going to the Kent house that morning. I had no idea what I was looking for. Even if I found a letter, or a trinket, or some such clue, would it be enough to prove that Robert Kent had something to do with Kate's death? But each time I considered not going, Phillip's words from my nightmare echoed in my mind, and I remembered the arms, pulling me beneath the surface. I couldn't be free until I discovered the truth.

I circled the house to the narrow servants door, at the side of the house. Taking a deep breath, I raised my hand and knocked. After a moment it swung open. A thin girl, perhaps a year or so older than myself, stood in the doorway, studying me with her protuberant eyes.

"Begging your pardon, Miss, but I am a friend of Matilda, your regular laundress. She's too ill to come today, so I am here in her place."

The girl's eyes widened. "What's she ill with? Do you have it, too?"

"I think it's woman troubles."

The girl nodded slowly. "Follow me."

I followed her into the shadowy halls of the Kent house, the last place my sister was seen alive.

"Is Mister Kent at home?" I asked quietly as I followed the girl through the entry hall.

"No," she said, glancing curiously over her shoulder at me. "He is almost never at home." _That's a bit of good luck_.

From a cabinet the girl produced a great basket. She balanced it onto her hip and continued moving at a brisk pace through the house. I nearly had to trot to keep up with her.

She stopped at a narrow passage. "I will go collect the clothing to be washed. You wait here for me."

I curtsied and mumbled, "Yes, Miss."

She studied me a moment longer, then walked away. The shadows swallowed her as she moved into the hallway.

I glanced around as I waited. Everything about this house was heavy and dark, like a place meant to contain secrets. Someone could be screaming wildly in a room somewhere inside and not be heard.

I picked at the ribbon in my hair, shift from foot to foot as I listened for knocks, doors opening or closing down the corridor, or the rustle of clothing or footsteps. But I heard nothing. The thick walls absorbed sound as well as light.

Finally I took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway. I passed the first door. Surely the master's room wouldn't be so close to the back entry.

I paused and pressed my ear to the next door. Inside I heard voices, possibly maids', though I couldn't make out what they were saying.

Just past this door stood another. A dim sliver of light revealed that it was open a crack. I pressed my eye to it and in a moment saw that a narrow flight of stairs rose behind it.

The door I'd just passed remains closed and silent.

_You've been locked in the pillory,_ I reminded myself. _This can't be worse._ The thought did not cheer me, but I forced myself to ease the door open and start up the stairs.

At the top of this flight was a narrow window, grubby and crossed with spider webs. The door at the foot swung open. I flung myself around the corner, onto the second flight, and listened.

"Not up here," I heard my supervisor's voice. "Where could she have got to?" The door clicked shut.

I waited, trying to slow my breathing. Perhaps I was safer to wait upstairs for a while, then slip out later. _How could I be so foolish?_ _This plan is idiotic._

These stairs led to another hallway, black and silent as the first. I neither saw nor heard anyone at the top, but that didn't mean anything in this house.

At the top, two doors stood opposite one another, both heavy and paneled. I pressed my ear to the one on my left and heard nothing. Taking a deep breath, I turned the knob and pushed the door open a few inches.

The room appeared to be deserted. Heavy curtains at the windows threw the space into shadow. Much of the room was taken up by a bed, meticulously made, and an empty desk. Under the window sat a coffer. The room smelled closed up, as if it was rarely used.

Slipping inside the chamber, I closed the door softly behind me. I moved as quietly and swiftly as I could to the coffer and lifted the lid.

Inside I found fine clothes, folded neatly. They were men's clothes, fashionable a few years ago. _Robert's,_ I decided. _This room must be his._

I carefully slid my hands into the clothing. At first I felt nothing but silk and velvet. Suddenly my fingertips found something coarser: paper. I gripped the edge of it and pulled. A packet of papers, tied with a lavender ribbon, slipped out.

I moved to the door and opened it just enough to skim through. Closing it behind me, I went to the top of the staircase.

Suddenly I heard voices at the foot of the stairs. "Surely she wouldn't be up here?"

I rushed soundlessly to the nearest door, opposite the one I just came from. Opening it, I squeezed inside. There was only the faintest click as I pull it closed behind me. Leaning against the door, I tried to slow my breath.

This room, too, was dim. Unpleasant odors filled it: dust, the sweet smell of something rotting, and another, sharper scent.

I glanced around and saw that the window was hung with heavy fabric, allowing only a splinter of light to enter. I could see furniture in the shadows: a great bed, delicate chairs.

Then I saw the woman.

She was seated at a vanity, her back to me, wearing a fine gown, as if she were to attend a dance. She pulled a comb through her long, gray hair, over and over.

My heart pounded as I met her eyes in the mirror. She spun around to stare at me, her eyes wide, her hand pressed to her mouth. She stood and leaned away from me, up against the vanity, bottles and brushes tinkling prettily as they fell against each other. Her mouth worked wordlessly for a moment before she clasped her hands together and sank to her knees. Her lips trembled.

"Am I to die, then?" she whispered.

I had the doorknob in my hand, ready to turn it and flee the room. At her words I froze, staring at her.

"Please," she says, and shook her clasped hands. "You must forgive me."

She looked far older than my mother. Her great dark eyes were probably beautiful once, but now were like sunken pits. Her lips were bitten and scabbed with old wounds, her cheeks gray, hanging loosely from her bones. I could now guess the source of the rotting smell. Turning the knob, I eased the door open.

"Wait!" she cried, and her voice escaped the room and echoed out onto the stairs. I ducked through the doorway and into the hall, pulling the door closed on her voice, but her cries carried through the house.

"Spare me! Please, spare me!"

Footsteps pounded from somewhere in the house. I couldn't tell from where they were coming.

I raced for the staircase. A servant appeared before me at the top of the stairs. She shrieked and leaped out of my way as I hurtled down the first flight. Behind me the old woman wailed like a child. "It's her! She's here for revenge! I am sure to die now!"

"Lady Kent, what is the matter?" I heard someone shout.

I sped the rest of the way down the stairs. "It is her, I tell you! It is her, come back to haunt me and drag me into the water with her! It is—" I reached the door at the bottom of the stairs and hurtled through it. The screams faded at last.

The sound of my footsteps was swallowed as I raced down the hallway, to the entry, and out the great door. I tumbled out into the chaos of the street and lost myself in the teeming crowds.

I proved myself to be guilty for certain, and most likely Matilda would lose her job. But I felt the same wild triumph as when I cut a particularly challenging purse and got away with it. The paper from the coffer was tucked up into my sleeve, and with luck it would hold a clue as to what Robert Kent might have had to do with Kate's death.

My euphoria lasted only a few steps, however. Soon Lady Kent's cries rang in my mind.

Lady Kent. Robert Kent's mother. Why would she want my forgiveness? Why did she think she was to die when she saw me?

'Come back to drag me into the water with her,' she'd said.

"You're beginning to look like her, you know _,_ " Phillip had said only the day before.

She thought I was Kate.

What did Lady Kent do, to think I was seeking revenge?

Shivering, I made my way to the little churchyard where my sister was buried. Someone had been here recently. Another little bundle of locust flowers lay across the small pile of stones that marked her grave.

I sank to the damp ground and slid the paper from my sleeve, my hands shaking.

Untying the ribbon from the papers, I paused for a moment, holding the ribbon in my palm. The memory of Kate laughing flashed through my mind. We were walking home together, the ribbon in her hair fluttering in the breeze, as it did now, in my palm. Tears burned in my eyes and threatened to spill over. Quickly I tucked the ribbon into my sleeve and turned my attention to the papers.

They were well-worn. Words were scrawled wildly across them, as if the writer were in a great passion when he or she penned them. Lines were crossed out and rewritten. The pages seemed to be a draft of a letter he was trying to compose.

My Dear Kate:

I see the eyes of young men when you pass them by. I know, too, it is in your nature to smile back at them, even to flirt a little. I must confess, I feel pride that your heart belongs to me, you who are coveted by so many others. But I also feel rage, at them and yes, at you as well, for causing doubt to trickle into my heart and destroying my joy.

I know you prize your independence above all else. Ah, what a strange irony, that I love you for your independence, and yet I must possess you! But I will give you every kind of freedom. In return, you must have faith and be true to me. Wait for me. I promise the time will come when I will be free to marry you.

I have enclosed some lines that someday you yourself shall perform on the stage, and I shall watch you from the audience along with all the other men who wish they could have you, but cannot.

More lines were scrawled across the next page, but these were written in verse form:

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you love, remember.

And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

There's fennel for you, and columbines.

There's rue for you, and here's for me.

You must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy.

I would give you some violets, but they withered all...

I closed my eyes for a moment and see my sister in my memory, her hair all lit up with the firelight. She held a bouquet of daisies. "Listen, Lisbet," she whispered. "' _I have enclosed some lines that someday you yourself shall perform on the stage, and I shall watch you from the audience. 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts...'"_

She'd buried her face in the bouquet of daisies.

I opened my eyes and shook my head. How did this letter end up here, among Robert Kent's things?

And how could my sister, who knew so much of flowers and their lore, have forgotten that daisies were for dissembling?

# Sixteen

That night I was besieged by still more nightmares. In one I came upon Kate sitting on the bank of a river, a paper in her hand. Robert Kent sat next to her, gazing at her with adoration.

As I approached, Kate turned to me, her face alight as I remembered it years before as she read her mysterious letters by the fire. "Look, Lisbet," she whispered. "Look what he has written me!" As I looked at the page the words begin disentangling themselves from it, rising like vines to wrap themselves around her neck and tighten against her throat. I tried to call to her, to warn her, but she only beamed, oblivious to her plight. I turned to Robert, to implore him to help her, but it was no longer Robert sitting there, but rather a figure whose face was shrouded in shadows.

Kate opened her mouth. "Forgive me!" she cried in Lady Kent's voice.

I woke from the dream with a start. For a while I lay blinking at the ceiling, the story of Hamlet rolling through my mind. Could I truly use the play to cause Robert Kent to confess what he knew about her death?

I felt that the resolution is near, if only I were brave enough to go a little further.

The crowds were thick outside the alehouse. I hesitated before I entered, gathering my courage.

Something slapped the back of my head. I whirled, angry words at my lips. I had no apples with which to defend myself today. But two ragged boys gaped at me as their filthy ball rolled away under the wheels of a cart. No witch accusations, then. My relief was so great that I smiled at them.

From inside I heard someone bellowing. The words were indecipherable, but I recognized Robert Kent's voice as I stepped through the door.

Slipping between the odiferous bodies, I created a little space for myself. Robert, deep in his cups, was standing on a table, bawling out lines. The other patrons cheered approvingly each time he paused. At the end of his soliloquy they cheered the wit of the playwright as Robert stumbled from the table.

I fought my way to him. He was flush with his success and the drink he gulped down. Perfect. I was determined to convince him to perform Hamlet. It would be all the easier if he was drunk.

"Sir, that was inspired!" I garbled. "Did you write the lines yourself?"

His bleary eyes struggled to focus on me. He went pale, stumbling away from me, his tankard crashing to the floor.

"Sir?"

He raised a shaking finger and points it at me. "You," he stammered.

I went cold, cutting my eyes toward the door. Should I flee? But above the stench of unwashed bodies and ale I sensed the aroma of poppies. _So close_.

"It's only me, Edward, Sir," I told him.

Slowly his face cleared. He lowered his arm and ran his hand through his hair with a humorless laugh. "Edward," he muttered. "Of course. Thought I'd seen a ghost there, for a moment..."

My heart caught in my throat. "Ghost, Sir?" Perhaps Phillip was right. I might look more like Kate than I realize.

He shook his head, waving away his words. "What do you want, Edward?"

"I've come to find out when we begin rehearsals for the next play." As I spoke my knees trembled and my stomach twisted, remembering the chafing of the wood at my neck and wrists, the jeers, the stench of the rotten food.

Robert's face darkened. "The next play?" he rumbled. "There won't be a next play, boy. Don't you remember what happened the last time? Imprisoned and humiliated, and," he squeezed his eyes closed, "seeing apparitions."

I felt a chill arrow its way down my spine. "What apparitions, Sir?" My voice shook.

He turned his groggy gaze on me. "Imprisoned. And humiliated."

I forced myself to speak again. "But then you've let the Aldermen win!"

His face grew thunderous. "I haven't let them win anything!"

"If you, the famous, rogue player, the leader of the New King's Men, the one of whom everyone whispers, is to abandon performing, then most certainly the Aldermen have won, Sir!"

He drew himself up a little, swaying drunkenly. "Rogue player."

I nodded vigorously. "That's what they're saying in the streets, Sir. They're wondering when the next play is to be performed."

"The next play." A smile played about his lips. "The next play!" he cried, clapping me on the back and nearly knocking me off my feet. "Of course you're to be included, lad! Well, then, what shall we perform?"

"Hamlet, Sir. It must be Hamlet. And you must play the Prince."

"Hamlet, eh?" Robert mused blearily.

"Oh, yes, Sir. You are handsome, and regal, and," I dropped my voice, "haunted."

A shadow passed over his face. "Haunted, yes," he mumbled. "And do you know the play?"

"Yes, Sir, quite well! 'The play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.'" As I quoted the lines I watch his face carefully to see if already his thoughts would betray his guilt.

His face clouded briefly, and then broke into an unsteady smile.

"Well, then, it shall be Hamlet." He swayed slightly. "What did you say your name was again, boy?"

"Edward."

"No. Your last name."

I swallowed. "Black, Sir."

He studied me through narrowed, bleary eyes for a long beat. I took a slow step backward, knife in my sleeve. But he shook his head, his face clearing.

"And you shall perform the role of Ophelia," he said. "We shall begin rehearsals tomorrow, here, at the Boar's Head." He raised his hand to signal another drink.

A tankard was thrust beneath my nose. "Have a drink, boy," said a man I recognized as the actor who played Iago, "for aren't we all equal, here in the Whore's Bed?" He laughed uproariously at his slip.

Revulsion washed through me, but after all I had a victory to celebrate. I accepted the tankard and drank deeply, the ale bitter in my mouth. Returning the man's delighted smile, I handed him his tankard and made giddily for the door.

The crowds blurred as I walked home from the alehouse a bit unsteadily. _I am a little drunk_. The absurdity of it all struck me suddenly, and I couldn't help giggling.

Something hot and wet sprayed my shoulder. I turned to see a cow at my back and realized she'd sneezed on me. Ah. Good luck, then. I laughed even harder.

Just over the cow's shoulder I caught a glimpse of blue eyes, reddened cheeks, bright hair. Phillip, following me still. To spy, or to watch over me, as he claimed? My laughter died.

I couldn't return home now, not in this state. Instead I made my way to the river, where I sat on the stone steps watching the wherries weave among the gilded barges, shouts and songs alike echoing over the water as prisoners rattled their chains and shouted angrily from the banks.

Slowly my head cleared. My stomach churned a little as I remembered what happened at the Kent House. Surely I caused Phillip's friend to lose her job.

I thought over and over of Lady Kent's screams for forgiveness, of the look of terror on Robert's face when he first saw me at the Boar's Head. Something happened to Kate at the Kent House.

The light grew dim. Fog rolled out over the river, and the boats faded. I rose and discovered, to my relief, that my head felt clear. The air smelled sweeter than usual. Someone must have lit a log to ward off plague.

That night I woke gasping from a dream of Kate being smothered in lines of writing that rose from a letter like vines. I lay awake the rest of the night, my thoughts twining through my mind like the lines in my dream. I knew I could trap Robert into a confession, but I feared what I would have to endure to do it.

"What are you doing here?"

Robert's voice was rough and hostile as I entered the alehouse. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot, and I could tell he hadn't slept much the night before, either. He regarded me warily, slouched over his tankard of ale. My stomach lurched, but I forced myself to approach him.

"For the play, Sir. For Hamlet."

He snorted into his ale. "I told you already, boy, there will be no more plays."

I felt a flutter of panic. "But you said yesterday-"

"I was drunk yesterday!"

A group of young men broke into a bawdy song, their arms around each others' shoulders. Frantically I tried to think of an argument to change his mind.

At last an idea came to me. "The people will be disappointed!" I called above the din. "You cannot take the plays from them! What else do they have?"

"I seem to recall the people jeering at me, and at you, too, as we had our necks clamped in the pillory."

The song ended. Good-natured cheers rang out from the other patrons.

A last idea occurred to me. Before I could lose my nerve I leaped up onto the table. My knees knocked together.

"Gentlemen!" I shouted. My voice was too weak to be heard. I tried again, using my best stage voice.

"Gentlemen!"

The few men nearby fell silent and glanced curiously at me.

"Who would like to see the New Kings Men perform another of their plays?"

A few patrons raised their tankards and cheered.

Robert Kent looked around, absorbing the spectacle.

"We must convince Mr. Robert Kent, leader of the New King's Men!" I shouted. "Who is with me?"

Another shout rose, this one louder. I was not at all sure they know for what they are cheering, but it didn't matter.

Robert stood. "Then perform we shall!"

The other patrons cheered, then returned to their drinks.

I climbed off the table, weak with relief, and approached Robert. "Hamlet it is," he said, "and you are to play the part of Ophelia."

A thrill shot down my spine, of fear and, I must admit, excitement.

"And I," he continued, "shall play Hamlet."

A few of the young men who played parts in MacBeth wander over.

"And you, Jack," Robert told a burly fellow, "you shall be Polonius."

From across the room came a voice slurred by drink. "Who would like to see the Kings Men back in the pillory again?"

Another cheer rang through the tavern. Jack exchanged a fearful glance with another player. Robert's mouth tightened.

There was no going back now. I convinced Robert to perform the lines that he gave my sister, just before she died. But the thought of what would happen next filled me with fear. At best, he would confess to his crime and accept his punishment. At worst, I would share Kate's fate.

"O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!"

"In the name of God..."

The pause stretched out. Polonius' face grew red as he repeated, "In the name of—"

"With what, in the name of God?" Robert Kent's voice cut across his stammering. "With what, with what, with what!"

A few of the other players snickered as they lolled on the ground nearby. The New King's Men had been rehearsing for several days in the tavern's yard, but there had been little improvement. Some of the original troupe returned after the arrests, but many did not. As a result several of us played more than one role.

I watched Robert intently, waiting for the time his anger would turn violent, actually hoping he would beat someone senseless so that I might summon a lawman, and see him go to prison. Perhaps then I could accuse him of Kate's death, and he, weakened, might confess to all. It was a weak plan, but for the moment, it was all I had.

However, I couldn't blame Robert for his frustration with the other players. My nerves were raw. It was all I could do to keep from screaming the correct lines at the clowns myself. Their stumbling was ruining the play, making it into a comedy rather than the tragedy it was meant to be.

Once in a while I caught Robert watching me with the same odd expression as at the alehouse, as if he recognized me. But he never said much of anything to me.

_It means he's closer to confessing his crime_ , I told myself, but my stomach always clenched anyway.

"With what!" Robert Kent screamed once more.

"With what, in the name of God?" Polonius repeated faintly. He was the same boy who played the Messenger in Macbeth. He cleared his throat spasmodically, and there was a wild tremor in his hands.

"Again! Say the line again, but don't mumble it!"

The sun shone on us. Although it was bright, the light failed to warm us. I shivered a bit, glad to be wearing my boy's disguise.

"With what, in the name of God?" Polonius demanded in a stronger voice.

Drawing a breath I recited my lines:

"My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,

No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,

Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle,

Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors—he comes before me."

Polonius looked expectantly at me, as if waiting for me to say more.

"Mad for thy love?" said Robert. He watched me as if he were haunted. "Pardon?" Polonius said blankly.

"Mad for thy love?" Robert repeated, turning to Polonius, his voice sharpening.

"Mad for thy love?" Polonius said, his voice shaking.

"My lord, I do not know," I replied, "but truly I do fear it."

As Polonius began to blunder through his lines, I glanced at Robert. His eyes were not on Polonius, however. They rested instead on me, distant and thoughtful, as if he were caught in a memory. I forced myself to meet his gaze.

Suddenly Robert blinked. "That's enough," he barked, and pointed a finger at Polonius. "You. Practice your lines tonight."

The other players grumbled among themselves as they began to disperse. Robert turned and held my gaze for a long moment. I was frozen in place as his eyes filled with despair. At last he spun on his heel and stalked into the tavern.

A voice breathed in my ear: _Follow him_.

Did Kate, too, follow him, just before she died?

But surely he wouldn't harm me here, among all these people, in plain sight?

I glanced around, unsure whether anyone would notice if he were trying to kill me, much less stop him.

_Follow him_. This time the whisper was more insistent.

With a groan I walked into the tavern. The smell of beer was nearly overwhelming as I searched for his blue doublet among the throng.

A young woman careened into me. "I beg your pardon, Sir," she slurred, her breath stale with drink. She made a show of dusting me off, then burst into laughter as I pulled away.

Through the crowd I saw Robert sitting at a table, already drinking from a tankard. I pushed my way over to him and seated myself.

"Well, _boy_ ," he said. "So it's you, my shadow." He took another deep drink. "You seem to know of my unsavory past." His mouth twisted.

This was a mistake. I began to rise, but Robert's hand came down across my wrist, holding me in place. I forced myself to sit and face him, though my heart clattered against my ribs.

"But you're a lover of Shakespeare," he said. "You, more than anyone, should know not all in this world is as it seems." He winked with a cold smile. "'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.'"

Still holding my wrist, he drank again, wiped his mouth with his arm as if he were a common wretch.

"Shall I tell you a story?" I could barely hear him over the shouts and laughter pounding against my ears, and the stench of ale and unwashed bodies was making my head ache.

I wanted to tear my arm from his grip, leap from my seat and flee the alehouse, unwilling to hear this man's secrets, even if Kate haunted me until the day I died. But his hand was like a vise.

"There was a young woman," he said, grandly, as if he were performing on the stage, "with hair the color of dawn, eyes like the sea. She was meant for a wondrous life, too good to be a seamstress in the house of a wealthy man. But such was her fate.

"The wealthy man's son, on the other hand, had been born into riches and could do whatever he wished. But he was an idiot, without an ounce of brains. He thought he'd like to become a performer. One of the actors at the Globe."

His face lost its bitter smile. His voice softened. "Like a fool he confessed his dreams to the angel. He should never have done it. What if she mocked him? But she didn't. She listened, rapt, and never laughed."

His grip relaxed. It would not be hard to escape now. But I stayed where I was, caught in his words.

"But then the playhouses were closed. For a time the fool was despondent. It was she who whispered to him, one day, what if he performed anyway?"

Performing in the street had been Kate's idea? _Of course it was, it's just the sort of thing she'd think of._

"The fool was astounded. Defy parliament? Defy his father? He couldn't.

"But she touched her fingertips to his cheek and said, 'There is a player inside you, you have only to release him.'"

From nearby some drunkards launched into a bawdy song.

Robert went on, as if oblivious to the singing. "The world suddenly seemed like a hopeful place, full of promise and surprise. The fool realized then that he had fallen deeply in love with her." A great tear dripped from his chin and onto his hand, and he took a deep breath. "But she didn't return his love." His voice hardened, his face darkening.

A cold hand gripped my heart. I imagined Kate seeing the fury in his expression, just before she died. He was close, so close, to confessing. "What happened then?"

"Something for which he could never forgive himself." He swiped his arm across his eye. "Her death was his fault."

With that he slapped some coins onto the table and lurched from his seat. He shoved his way through the crowds in the tavern toward the door.

I sat shaking, doubting my legs had the strength to hold me if I stood. But the serving woman set down two tankards of beer at a table full of ruffians, then turned on me. She asked me something that I couldn't hear or understand. She gave me a great shove that nearly toppled me from my seat. I got to my feet and nearly collided with a barmaid. She cursed me as I stumbled from the tavern and darted outside.

At my feet there was an explosion of feathers and frantic squawking. I cried out as a hen launched itself from the ground and whipped its wings at me before it landed and settled itself in the street.

People passing by watched the scene, amused by the wealthy boy's fright over a stray chicken. But no one dared say anything in my hearing. I continued on my way with as much dignity as I could muster.

Something for which I can never forgive myself.

His words rolled through my mind as I changed out of my disguise and returned to my house. I began to sweep the floor, anxious for a chore that allowed me to think.

I was certain of three things:

He knew I was not who I pretended to be.

Kate's death was Robert's fault.

And, he believed he would never be caught. Otherwise, why would he tell me so much?

Then, how to bring him to justice?

I thought suddenly of Ophelia.

Ophelia was driven mad by her broken heart, and drowned herself. Or so everyone thought.

But what if there were more to the story? What if she didn't kill herself, what if she died by the hand of another, someone no one would suspect? A prince who thought himself untouchable?

I stopped my sweeping. Why couldn't Ophelia return from the dead to tell her story?

The oldest of the children who shared our house stood in front of me, holding up his finger, saying something I didn't hear. Why couldn't Ophelia return from the dead, and bring her killer to justice?

Mother's sharp voice cut through my thoughts. "Elisabeth. The floor." I realized that I was frozen in the middle of the room, the broom useless in my hands, and resumed sweeping.

That night, as I lay in bed, lines began to form in my mind, as if they were being whispered to me. They were Ophelia's, but not those written for her by William Shakespeare. They were words that told the truth about her death. Words that could have been Kate's, if she had the chance to speak them herself.

# Seventeen

Over the next days, my elation faded. The thought of returning to the troupe, of hearing Robert Kent's voice, made it hard to breathe.

_Don't be a coward_ , I told myself. _Kate would do this for you._

My nights were filled with dreams in which I heard Kate calling me. I hurried through fog-filled streets, my desperation increasing, until at last I found her, peering at her reflection in the water, winding flowers into her hair. She stood and reached out to me, calling a warning that I couldn't hear. I turned to see Robert Kent behind me, eyes blind with rage. His hands closed about my throat and I couldn't breathe. I woke gasping.

"You must, stop having these nightmares," Mother said tiredly in the darkness.

She was right. The only way I could think to free myself of them is to find the truth about Kate's death, and bring justice to her murderer.

I left the house dressed as Ophelia beneath Kate's long cloak and glided resolutely through the streets as if I were already a ghost, distant from the noise and violence of the city. Under my breath I repeated the lines I planned to perform today.

The wind held a sting. It had just rained, but sunlight pushed through the relentless fog that filled our part of the city. It was a day when things that formerly lay in shadow might now be revealed. Steam rose from the street and light gleamed from the stones. Unused to so much light, the people in the street held their arms before their eyes to shield them. A man carrying a basket piled high with fine clothes cursed as he was nearly hit by a horse and cart. And all around, people swept past, their purses hanging from their waists.

My fingers twitched, my knife sharp against the skin of my wrist. But to cut a bung now would risk missing rehearsal with the troupe, and another night of nightmares. So, I ignored the bounty around me and picked my way through the street, arm over my own eyes to shield them from the light.

As I rounded a corner I saw a flash of red and gold twisting in the fog. I caught my breath, remembering the dragon I saw years ago with my father the day the playhouses were closed. But in another instant I heard a boy's shout and the dragon became a kite, flapping in the breeze above the crowd.

Sadness washed through me as I remember the hope I'd felt once, when I believed in the possibility of dragons and mermaids. I longed to be as carefree as the boy, his eyes alight as his kite dips and swirls.

The breeze died suddenly and the kite plummeted toward the earth. I turned away, unwilling to see it trampled in the mud.

A girl moved toward me. I couldn't see her face, but she lifted her arm toward me, pansies in her hand. I went cold and stopped in my tracks, Kate's name at my lips.

The girl stepped forward, and my heart sank with relief and disappointment. Her hair was dark, not red, and her face was round.

"Sweets to the sweet," she said, and offered me the pansies. I recognized her. She was someone I knew long ago. Someone from before Father and Kate died. But I couldn't remember who she was.

She pressed the flowers into my hands. Taking them, I stepped away from her. Something about her wasn't right, she'd changed from when I knew her before, whoever she was. I fled, feeling her eyes on my back.

The Boar's Head appeared ahead, the makeshift stage in front of it. Long blue curtains, borrowed, perhaps, from the Kent House, blew in the breeze. My palms grew damp as I approached it. Gertrude, the Queen and Hamlet's mother, muttered a steady stream of curses as he tried to fit his long wig to his large head.

"What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?" I whirled to see Rosencrantz standing before the curtain, apparently rehearsing his lines. "Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence. And bear it to the chapel." I took a breath to calm myself. I must not blunder, or I could share Kate's fate.

The pansies were still clutched in my hands. An idea took shape in my mind. I began weaving the blossoms into my hair, the way Kate did.

As I tucked each blossom into my plait I began rehearsing my own lines in a voice too low to be heard. But these were not what William Shakespeare intended Ophelia to speak. Instead they were words that came to mind last night, as if they were whispered there by another voice. Kate, perhaps, speaking through Ophelia, rejecting her fate.

Robert Kent appeared, already dressed as Hamlet. I turned quickly away, the lines catching in my throat. Though I sensed his eyes on me, he said nothing. I burrowed into my cloak and slipped away, pressing against the outside wall of the alehouse, repeating my lines silently now, a litany to calm myself and keep my resolve from faltering.

After a time, people gathered before the curtains. At first there were only a few drunkards, stumbling from the Boar's Head. But soon they were joined by others: a man with great muscular arms, crisscrossed with burns; a woman with two children clinging to her apron. Then a pair of men dressed in fine clothing arrived, their purses swinging temptingly from their belts, escorting two women who held the hems of their dresses above the dirt.

As the time for the play approached Robert began to pace, his jaw set, his dark eyes fixed on the ground. I could tell he was rehearsing his lines silently in his head.

But he would have no chance to prepare for the lines I plan to deliver soon. It was hard to breathe as I realized I had no idea what would happen after I made my accusation. Would he fall to his knees, confess all, allow himself to be arrested? Would he flee? Or would he enact the end of Othello, his hands closing around my throat, silencing me before the crowd was even aware of what was happening?

Even if they did know, would anyone try to stop it?

But I must bring the truth to light, let Robert know that Kate's death did not pass unnoticed, that he was not forgiven. I had to try, no matter what was to follow.

And now Robert stepped onto the stage, the tension gone from his face, as he announced the play. The crowd fell silent as Barnado entered.

"Who's there?" he cried.

A drunkard in the crowd called out a lewd answer, but the crowd around him hushed him angrily.

I watched from the wings as the ghost of Hamlet's father returned from the dead to reveal the true circumstances of his death, watched Hamlet's descent into madness.

The moment of Ophelia's first entrance, as a living, innocent girl in love, arrived. I forced my mind to go blank as I step onto the stage.

Robert's face went still. I wore a long white gown, and my hair was long and loose, the blossoms woven into it. I hoped he saw Kate when he looked at me.

He stumbled through his lines woodenly, forgetting some and needing to be prompted, his eyes never leaving my face. In contrast I delivered my lines smoothly, perfectly, and I felt the audience hold its breath and lean forward.

Now I, Ophelia, cast myself into the water and disappeared from the stage.

A small crowd of mourners gathered around my grave. Robert as Hamlet stood a little away from them. "Sweets to the sweet, farewell!" the Queen said, and Laertes, my brother, prepared to jump into my grave in grief. It was at this moment I chose to make my return from death. _Soon it will be over._ I stepped onto the stage.

Laertes fell silent. Robert glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened, his mouth opened, but he did not speak. I regained my resolve and strode to the center of the stage, facing the audience. A sound escaped him at last, but I spoke over him.

"You thought me dead, and dead I am. But not by my own hand, as Prince Hamlet would have you believe. I was murdered."

Everyone on the stage went completely still. Silence fell over the audience, who must think this scene to be a part of the play.

"I have returned from the dead," I continued, my voice strong and clear, "as I will many times in the future until my murderer is brought to justice.

"Who is my murderer, you ask? It is Hamlet." I raised a finger and pointed it at Robert Kent. "Hamlet, who held me beneath the river water until I drowned. But I have returned to seek justice!"

Murmurs rippled through the audience.

"He has already confessed his crime," I added, "because he believes himself above the law."

I turned to face Robert. His face was gray as the Thames. "Do you want proof?" I asked, and hoed up my hand. The emerald in Kate's ring gleamed in the sunlight. "He took this from me after he drowned me, and carried it with him as a trophy!"

Robert stared at the ring with wild eyes. "Where did you get that?" he whispered.

"From your own purse!"

I watched him carefully, ready to leap away from him, but instead he began to sway, as if his legs would no longer hold him.

There was a shift in the crowd. A dozen constables poured into the yard, followed by an alderman. _How did they know to be here?_ The audience hastily drew away from the constables forcing their way toward the stage. Soon they surrounded us.

From behind them stepped the yellow-toothed man who betrayed me once before. When he saw me his lips stretched over his teeth in a grin. He held up his hand, displaying his wounded fingers, still covered in greenish bruises. I began to shake as I realized he brought the constables to our illegal play, probably out of revenge.

Robert Kent stepped swiftly toward me and grabbed my wrist. "Did you betray us?" he hissed.

I shook my head, though it was hard to swallow. "No, Sir, you have betrayed yourself!"

Much of the company had fled, but Laertes, Robert Kent, and I stood, hemmed in by lawmen. A few curious onlookers, made bold by their ale, circled behind them, watching the show.

"Well, Players," the alderman called out, "here we are again. You have been warned already, and yet you still refuse to heed God's law." Laertes fell to his knees and whimpered.

"This man killed my sister!" I shouted. "He had her ring, the one she never took off! He's already confessed!"

Robert looked up, the stoniness in his face replaced by angry defiance. He turned his back on the constables. "She was buried with that ring on her finger." His voice carried across the tavern yard. "I saw it myself."

Blood pounded in my ears. "No!" I shouted. "I saw her buried, too, and she had no ring on her finger!"

"The only way you could have this ring," he persisted, "is if you dug up her dead body and stole it from her finger. Or, did you use witchcraft to retrieve the ring from her grave?"

I went cold.

A strange, wild smile spread across his face. He leaned close and spoke quietly, though his voice echoed across the yard. "You see her, don't you? Returned from the dead? The two witch sisters, plotting their evil!"

Grabbing my wrist, he tried to take the ring, though I closed my fingers on it. He pried them open and the ring fell to the ground.

My words ripped from me in a scream. "How dare you! She loved you!" I shrieked every curse I could think at him, my throat raw.

I sprang at him, hoping to close my hands around his throat in a reversal of Macbeth, but arms clamped around me like iron, squeezing so tightly my breath left me and my curses came out in wheezes.

"It seems that I have come looking to find a mere player," an alderman intoned, "and I find not only a thief, but a witch!"

At this I tried to jerk out of my captor's grip. "No!" I cried. "I am not a witch! He is a murderer! Arrest him! I am innocent!"

"A round of ale!" roared an onlooker. "To the capture of a witch!" Approving cheers echoed through the yard.

Two lawmen dragged me to a rickety cart parked outside the yard. Phillip appeared at my side, breathing hard, his face pale. He tried to speak to me, but I couldn't hear him over the tumult of the crowd.

The men lifted and shoved into the cart, like an animal, the gate slammed and locked behind me. Immediately the cart lurched into motion, throwing me against the side. I looked back to see Meg's spy waving his injured hand in a mocking farewell. Phillip watched the cart rumble away. A few feet away stood Robert, drinking deeply from a tankard of ale. And at his shoulder was Kate, her eyes cold and bright. I held her gaze until the cart rounded a corner and I could no longer see her.

# Eighteen

Newgate Prison was Hell.

I hesitate for a moment at the doorway to the underground jail. A sharp stench engulfed me. A riot of voices echoed from the darkness: screams, sobs, laughter, oaths, singing, prayers. The damp chill clutched at me like greedy fingers. The guard pushed me forward, and I was swallowed into the blackness.

I breathed into the crook of my arm as the guard led me into the prison, our way lit by the flickering candle he held. Once in a while it illuminated a hollow face pressed to the bars of a door: a laughing woman, a wild eyed man, a solemn girl even younger than myself. As we pass they were reclaimed by the darkness.

We stopped at a door and the guard opened it with an iron key.

The candle lit my cell for a moment. Uneven stones lined the floor. Straw was piled in the corner, from which bright, tiny eyes flashed. I hoped fervently that it was a trick of the weak light.

The guard gave me a rough push, and I stumbled into the cell. The door swung shut behind me, leaving me alone in darkness. Well, nearly alone. Almost immediately I heard the sound of tiny claws skittering against the stone. I took a deep breath, trying to fight the hysteria that rose in me, but my eyes swam at the stink of the prison. I sank to the floor and bowed my head, forcing myself to calm down.

From the corner of the cell a shadow shifted. Jumping to my feet, I pressed myself against the cold stone wall.

"Ophelia." The voice was surprisingly melodious. A candle flared to life, illuminating a face, round and dark skinned.

"Who are you?"

"Sweets to the sweet," she replied, and then I recognized her. She was the mad girl who offered my pansies just before the play.

"What are you doing here?"

She gave a musical laugh. "What an unfortunate prisoner I am, if I am to share Ophelia's fate! I did not mean to frighten you." She set the candle onto the stones beside her, where yellowed cards are laid out. Lavender was tied to her wrist. "I didn't want the guard to see I had light and take it from me. It is hard to come by here."

"Why the lavender?"

"To ward off the plague." From somewhere nearby a woman began to shriek. My cellmate added, "It also helps against nightmares."

She turned back to the cards. The woman continued her wild screaming. To distract myself I turned to the pile of straw I assumed was my bedding, trying to control my shaking.

"Surely I haven't changed so much, have I? Don't you remember me at all, Elisabeth?"

It came upon me in a flash: the girl who came home arm in arm with my sister from the Kent House, the girl who pounded frantically at our door to tell us she'd seen Kate in the water. Allison.

"Changed a bit, haven't we?" Her eyes glimmered as she gave a short laugh. "See what a fine fortune we meet, those who loved her once." She sighed. "But then, her own destiny was worse, wasn't it? So much so that she continues to haunt us. Although I don't know about you, but I certainly plan to return and haunt certain characters once this is over."

But when would this be over? And how would it end?

If possible, it grew even darker in the cell, and colder.

"How did you get here?" My voice was a squeak.

"Just after I met you this afternoon, I yanked a fine lady's hair and made her scream." Allison smiled fondly at the memory. "I'd asked her for money and she and her maid laughed. I couldn't let that pass, could I?"

She glanced up from her cards. "Oh, you mean how did I get to this life? Ah. Well, as the story says, all who see Kate are doomed."

"But we're still alive. You and I both."

"I said doomed," she replied. "Not everyone dies, who sees her, but they may wish they have. We didn't drown, but we are quite mad."

"I'm not mad."

She cocked her head. "Aren't you? Did you ever imagine yourself disguising yourself as a boy, cutting purses, acting in plays?"

"You knew that?"

"I've seen you many times, Elisabeth. You just didn't see me."

She was right. Perhaps I had gone a bit mad. But doomed? I was not ready to call myself doomed, not yet.

"But," she continued, "it doesn't matter whether I actually did lose my senses. Once I'd told everyone I'd seen Kate, I might as well have died. No one wanted to come near me. They didn't want to be associated with a witch."

"I know," I said, my fists clenching at the memory of the taunts in the street, the fear in the eyes of our neighbors.

"That's what he accused you of, isn't it?" She sighed heavily. "It's certainly an easy way to make us disappear. If we say something they don't like, all they have to do is call us witches. We vanish with our accusations."

The woman began to shriek again. I tried to cover my ears but the sound filled my head, ringing against my skull, until I could not think.

I leaped to my feet and stumbled to the door, beating upon it with my fists, willing it to open. _I must get out and find Robert Kent, and take revenge for this_. I imagined him resting comfortably in the great bed that I saw in his bedchamber. I saw myself entering that chamber, my silver knife in my hand, lunging at his throat. _..._

And when I avenge myself upon Robert I will find Meg's spy, and do the same to him.

But the door to my cell was unyielding. The shrieking broke into hysterical laughter as I beat my knuckles raw.

I sank to the floor. Unexpectedly, thoughts of my mother assailed me. Tears burned in my eyes and I covered my face with my arms, sobbing as the laughter echoed through the prison.

"Doomed," Allison sighed.

I woke on the straw. Though I could not tell whether it was morning or night, I felt somewhat calmer, though weak.

I stood cautiously, sore from sleeping on the cold stones, and brushed away any lice or vermin that might made my clothes their home.

From somewhere in the darkness a man began singing a merry drinking tune. Others joined in.

I peered at Allison, a shadow in the corner. She plaited her long hair. "Good morning," she said.

"Good morning." My own voice was gravelly from my shrieks and the cold.

"Do you feel better? You seemed a bit overwhelmed last night."

I gave a slight nod.

Her eyes gleamed in the dim light as she studied me. "You look just like Kate. Your face is always in motion, like hers. Thinking. Planning."

The drinking song swelled into a merry chorus.

"Did you know I have a gift for communicating with the dead?" she said. "It's not something I've boasted about before. You can imagine what would have happened. For instance, I might have been cast into prison." She glanced wryly around.

She really had gone mad. That, or she was truly a witch.

"Lady Kent knew, somehow. I don't know how. But once she called me to her and asked me about a child she'd lost, when it was very young. She wanted me to communicate with it."

A cold finger seemed to slide along my spine. "And could you?"

"The child wanted its mother to know it was much happier in the beyond. I told her this."

I drew away from her. "Can you see these spirits?"

"There is an old woman standing behind you now, one who died in this cell five years ago."

I jumped sideways and look over my shoulder. Allison burst into laughter. "I'm only jesting. Perhaps."

I pressed my back to the stones so that no spirit could sneak up from behind me. "Have you seen Kate often?"

"Haven't we all, who've suffered broken hearts?"

The chorus dissolved into a drunken argument over the correct words of the song.

"One day, the lady asked a different question. She did not like the answer I gave her."

I waited for her to pick up the thread of her story, but she lapsed into a dreamy silence. "So what happened?"

"She tried to poison me," Allison replied.

I caught my breath. "How?"

"Nightshade." _For silence_. "I knew, for I had concocted it myself. She'd told me it was for her rival." Allison held my gaze. "At first she thought to accuse me of being a witch. But, it must have occurred to her that her own desire to communicate with the dead would then be called into question. So she thought she could use my own poison against me." Her voice became bitter. "A few drops in the wine she offered me, pretending to reward me for my service.

"But I knew what she'd done. I could taste the poison in the wine. I fled that house."

The men now bellowed curses at one another. A woman's screamed shrilly at them to let her sleep. Allison turned her back on me and sat in silence, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I was not sure how much time passed. The chorus of wild laughter and sobs and voices rose and fell like the tide of the Thames. I heard cell doors opening and closing up and down the corridor. Finally the door to our cell swung open. A bowl was tossed inside, a runny substance slopping over the sides. "That's for the cleaner witch," came the impassive voice of the guard. "Looks like you'll be scavenging for vermin again, dirty witch." The door slammed shut once again.

We stared at the bowl. "Obviously that's meant for you," Allison said.

"Why don't you have any?"

Without taking her eyes off the bowl, Allison replied, "Someone outside the prison is paying for your meals."

_Who?_ _Mother? Where did she get the money?_

"What do you eat?" I asked.

"You heard the guard."

I studied her face to see if she was joking, but I could not see her expression in the dimness.

I slid the bowl toward her. "We'll share."

Without a word she lifted the bowl. Cupping her other hand, she dipped it into the bowl. The runny gruel poured between her fingers as she lifted it to her mouth, but she swallowed eagerly and helped herself to more. I shuddered, hoping I would not be here long enough to become so desperate.

She put the bowl down abruptly and wiped her hand on her skirt. "You do know what our fate is to be, don't you?"

"We are to be tried as witches." My voice wavered.

She snorted. "We are to be drowned. That is the trial. If you don't die, it proves you're a witch."

Bile rose into my throat, though I had eaten nothing. "And if I am innocent?" She did not reply.

The fear, cold and gripping, threatened to paralyze me. I curled up into the straw, ignoring the vermin, and shook, my eyes dry and burning.

She picked up the bowl and began eating from it again.

In my ears echoed the memory of the piteous cries of the prisoner about to be hung: "I repent! Mercy! Mercy!"

# Nineteen

The stench in the courtyard was nearly overwhelming. The prisoners, including myself, stood blinking in the daylight. Although the sun was blocked by clouds as thick as blankets, even the dim light was harsh on our eyes after the blackness of the prison.

The wind gusting through the court held a frigid edge. Its howl drowned almost all the words spoken by the judge or prisoners. I was able to hear only the loudest pronouncements made by the judge and the most emotional pleas made by the defendants.

Spectators, dressed in their holiday finest, squeezed together into the courtyard and cheer or jeer at the proceedings, as if they watched a play rather than the ruination of someone's life. I stood with the other prisoners, my eyes fixed on each of the defendants.

The guards nudged Allison forward. She strode gracefully across the courtyard to the stand, then turned to face the judge. In the daylight, I could finally see my cellmate clearly. Her skin was leathery, as if she had often been exposed to the elements. I still saw traces of my sister's friend: her round face, upturned nose. Her dark eyes shone with a sharp light as she awaited her fate.

The judge looked out over the audience. I could hear only the last words of his question: "...accuses this woman?" The spectators turned and peered at one another. Allison, too, looked into the crowd. But no one stepped forward.

"Although your accuser is not present," the judge began, and then a great gust of wind rose. His mouth moved, but I could hear no more. Allison turned her back on the crowd. Even from where I stood I could see the fury crackling in her eyes. I sensed it was not only the judge's words that enraged her.

"... bound and thrown into the river," the judge's voice rose over the wind.

I stopped breathing as cheers erupted from the crowd.

Allison never faltered. I tried to catch her eye as she stepped down from the makeshift wooden stand but she never looked at me. Her gaze straight ahead, she moved back across the courtyard, seemingly unaware of the guard who gripped her arm.

"Elisabeth Thompson!"

I glanced around wildly, seeking escape, but behind me a guard growled, "You've no place to go."

A breeze fluttered past, tugging at my hair. A soft, earthy smell enveloped me. _Poppies._ My panic eased as I took a deep breath and drew myself up. I tried to stand as gracefully as Allison as I crossed the courtyard to the lonely wooden stand, but my legs threatened to collapse beneath me. The wind and the noise of the crowd combined into a roar that was nearly deafening.

Somehow I arrived at the stand without falling. I turned and faced the judge, forcing myself not to look anywhere else.

"Another witch!" someone called from the audience.

"Look at her, you don't even have to try her!"

I glanced down at the ruins of Ophelia's gown, smeared now with the filth of my cell, and torn. I combed my hair this morning, and removed the last of the dead blossoms, but the wind had already blown it wildly about my face. I certainly looked the part of a witch.

The judge was an older man, perhaps the age my father would be. His jaw was set, his eyes so light they were nearly clear. They gazed unrelentingly into my own. I returned his stare, trying to raise my chin. "Who accuses this woman?" he asked.

"I do."

I glanced around to see Robert Kent standing a few feet away. Today he was well-dressed, looking the part of a wealthy, respectable man. Hatred boiled in my chest. I glared at him with all the fury I could muster. Calls, some approving, some mocking, rose from the audience. Robert avoided my gaze, looking instead at the judge.

"On what grounds?" the judge asked.

"She had something in her possession, Sir, something I thought it would be impossible for her to have, except by witchcraft."

I looked back to Robert and opened my mouth to accuse him in turn. His next words stopped me.

"But I was mistaken."

Behind me, the crowd quieted. My mouth dropped open.

The judge's eyes narrowed. "Mistaken? Explain yourself."

"She had stolen the item, Sir, rather than retrieved it from the dead."

I bunched the fabric of the gown in my fists.

"Are you sure about this?" the judge demanded.

"Yes."

Another voice called from the crowd. "Wait! I recognize her! She stole from me as well!"

The voice was clear and shrill. My hope disintegrated. I turned to see the young woman from whom I stole the silver bracelet. A path cleared for her as she stepped closer to the judge, her faithful companion at her heels like a dog. Her fine features were knotted in fury.

"Your name, Miss?"

"Anne Signet," she replied proudly.

"Ah, yes. I know your uncle well."

Was it only chance that has brought her to watch this trial, a way to while away a windy afternoon? Or had she come each afternoon since I stole her bracelet, eager to see me brought to justice?

"What did she take from you?"

"A bracelet which was a gift from my betrothed." She indicated with slender fingers the man who stands uncertainly beside her, the one she insisted she would not marry.

The judge turned back to me. "At the very least, that makes you a thief." He studied me for some moments. Despite the wind, sweat trickled down my back. _Stand tall,_ I ordered myself, but my courage was nearly gone.

"There's something else, Sir." Swallowing hard, I stared straight ahead and waited for the next blow.

"A few months ago, some illegal players were locked in the pillory for performing a play. This girl was among them. I can only assume she was disguised as a boy to play a girl, for surely not even Robert Kent would allow a girl into his troupe?"

It seemed an eternity before Robert answered. "I was deceived."

I felt the judge's eyes upon me. "Are you sure this is the same person?"

"I am sure, Sir," Anne said clearly.

"Deceived, Mr. Kent? I wonder," the judge mused. "Didn't this girl have a sister?" I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe deeply. "And didn't this sister have a reputation?"

"For what, Sir?" Robert asked.

"I understand that this sister's morals may have been questionable. She caused trouble in your household a few years ago, if I am not mistaken."

My breath caught in my throat.

"She may have drowned herself. Now there are stories of her spirit returning from the dead." The words floated around my head like specters.

If this man believed the stories about Kate, then I was as good as dead.

Robert's voice was strangled as he replied. "They are stories, Sir, meant to frighten girls into behaving themselves."

"Every story has a kernel of truth to it, Mr. Kent," came the judge's cold reply. "Isn't it possible that this girl, like her sister, has dark powers? Couldn't she have bewitched you, to make you retract your accusation?"

"No!" the cry left my mouth before I realize it.

"You come from a reputable family, Mr. Kent," the judge continued as if I hadn't spoken. "Your father was an honorable man. I loved him well."

"I know, Sir," Robert replied stiffly.

"Your wits have been clouded by this girl, and her sister before her. Out of love for your father, I must protect you."

Robert started to speak, but the judge's voice drowned his out.

"Since it is impossible for us to determine here in court, we will test this young woman, and she herself will tell us whether she is a witch."

My eyes flew open to see the judge staring at me with an icy gaze. "Elisabeth Thompson, you are to be bound and thrown into the river."

The last of my bravado rushes from me. Though my stomach is empty, I felt as though I could vomit.

"If you float, you are innocent. If not..." he spread his fingers silently.

_If not, I drown._ I felt myself shaking.

Cheers and groans rose from the crowd. I barely heard his next words. "Perhaps your sister can help you."

My knees gave way and I slid to the ground. The world grew dark as I heard the judge's impassive voice say: "Take her out of here." I knew nothing more.

I woke on the stones of my cell, my body stiff. My mouth was coated with the sweet, sharp taste of vomit, my eyes swollen. I sat up to see a pair of legs, dressed in fine boots. Robert Kent stood glowering down at me. I scrambled to my feet.

"What do you want?" My voice was hoarse.

He could not meet my eye. "Please, you must forgive me. I've come to make amends."

"Amends?' My voice cracked. "Amends? I am to be drowned in the river, and you have come to make amends?"

"I paid for your meals in this place," he said.

I stared at him, then broke into wild, screeching laughter. "I would rather have starved!"

"You won't drown!" He shouted over me. "I lose my temper easily, far too easily. And twice now it has cost someone their life." He ran his hands through his hair.

"I went to the judge, and retracted my accusation. As he said, he loved my father well. He is my mother's brother. So though I shouted and pled, he refused to relent. Not until I paid."

"So I am to be freed?" I whispered.

He looked away. "You are to be hung for your thievery."

The room began to spin. "It's better than drowning," he said roughly. He stood there for another moment, as if debating whether to say anything more, then abruptly turned and strode to the door. In a moment he disappeared, the door slamming shut behind him.

As if from a long distance, I heard Allison's voice: "That one hasn't changed at all."

# Twenty

I dreamed of words written on scraps of paper. If I could catch one, read it, I could be free. The papers floated from the ceiling, and I reached toward them. But as each touched my fingertips, they curled on themselves and turned to ash.

Finally one landed on my hand. _I long_. The words glowed for a moment, as if lit by embers. Then they faded.

"Elisabeth."

I startled awake. A head of bright hair gleamed in the shadows, on the other side of the bars. I sat up, my bones aching from the cold stones.

Phillip? But it couldn't be. He is too still, too solemn.

Slowly I rose, self consciously brushing my hand over my hair, and moved toward him.

My throat was too full to speak. For once, the sparkle was gone from his eyes. I reach through the bars and he caught my hand, holding it tightly.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I'll get you out of here. I promise."

I knew he could keep no such promise, but I had to believe him. I clutched at his hand.

"Tell Meg I'll join her, if she'll help me! Tell her I'm sorry for refusing her!"

The rims of his eyes reddened.

My stomach plummeted. "Phillip?"

"I'll get you out of here," he said again. He pressed his lips to my fingers, then pulled away, disappearing into the darkness. I could not even draw a breath to call after him.

I sank to the ground, gripping the bars, the stones cutting into my knees, my tears blinded me.

"You didn't ask me what the lady's question was, the question that made her poison me."

Allison's voice came from the dark. The prison was strangely quiet. I spent the day after Phillip's visit curled up in a corner of the cell, the stink of my vomit enveloping me like a cloud. I tried to summon a reverie to escape this horror, but none would come. Then I tried to recall all of the lines from William Shakespeare's plays that my father taught me. The only lines I could remember were Ophelia's, from the depths of her grief:

"Larded with sweet flowers

Which bewept to the grave did go

With true-love showers."

But I wanted nothing more to do with plays, nothing more to do with magic. I wanted only to return to my dull, drab world, sewing endlessly at Mother's side in our tiny house, teasing Phillip in the street, each day the same.

Allison's voice interrupted my thoughts. "She wanted to know if her husband, the respected Alderman Kent, loved another."

Despite my dejection, I swiveled toward her voice. "Alderman Kent?"

"She had asked me this question before. My answer was always no. But I was tired of lying for Kate. This time, my answer was yes." Resentment leaked through her voice like old poison.

"You mean, Robert Kent," I corrected her.

"No. I mean his father. Alderman Kent."

A face floated into my memory: the older man with the sharp features and the malice in his eyes, who'd come to close the playhouses with such relish years before.

"That can't be true. Kate would never—"

"She did." Allison's voice was flat.

"But _why?_ " I demanded. "Why would Kate love Alderman Kent?"

"You would have to have seen him in private to understand. He was a different man in his house than he was in public. He could be kind, and intelligent, and amusing. When he chose to be charming, his face would change, and become handsome...." her voice trailed off. "He knew that Kate loved plays, and so he would talk about them with her. He made her promises."

I remembered the lines in the letters I took from the Kent house. _Someday I will see you perform on the stage..._

"And he had the power to make those promises come true. If he wanted."

"But I thought she loved Robert—"

"So did Robert. But it was just like Kate, wasn't it, to flirt with every man she saw?" There was an edge of anger in her voice. "She would read those silly letters he wrote her over and over until we both had them memorized. You would have to love him to believe that drivel. Or be a great fool."

The letters Kate had read to me had been written by the alderman, not his son.

I thought of the promises that filled those letters. Promises made not by Robert, but his father. And who more able to make them come true than a respected alderman?

"He was very convincing. Kate was not the only fool." Allison sighed into the blackness.

"You loved him, too," I realized through my cloudy thoughts.

"I thought I did. And he made me think he did as well."

She was quiet so long that I wondered if she would speak again. The idea of the Alderman as someone Kate could love was too strange to comprehend. But then, he could provide her with an escape from our gray life, from marriage to a witless man who might treat her no better than a servant. He could carry her off into the magical world of which she'd always dreamed, where she could perform on the stage and never have to mend another stranger's clothes.

I remembered Robert's words at the alehouse: _The fool realized then that he had fallen deeply in love with her. But she didn't return his love._ Robert must have felt doubly betrayed when he realized who Kate truly loved. He could have been driven to a rage, perhaps murderous.

"And so when Lady Kent asked me if her husband loved another, I told her the truth. And then I showed the fine Lady how to drop a bit of nightshade into the wine she planned to offer Kate."

"What?" I whispered.

"Envy is a powerful thing. It muddles one's thoughts, as surely as witchcraft."

I drew away from Allison.

"Before you accuse me, it was not I who killed your sister," she said. "Though I tried. And now is the time for confessions, is it not?

"That afternoon," she continued, "Lady Kent invited Kate to have a glass of wine with herself and her husband. Young Robert Kent was there. I'd put only a drop of nightshade in the wine, enough to give her a good headache, nothing more. I stood outside the door to listen. But I couldn't hear anything.

"Kate burst from the room without warning. At first I moved away, prepared to hide. But then I saw her face. Her eyes had always been beautiful. But now they were huge. I said her name. But it was strange, I don't think she really saw me. It was as if she were looking at something far away, that no one else could see. A moment later she turned away and ran from that house. I never saw her alive again.

"The next afternoon Lady Kent invited me into her chamber to have a glass of wine. She sat alone, waiting for me. She meant to poison me, just to be sure. I turned and fled. I didn't even take my things."

Lady Kent's face, once beautiful but now wasted with grief, floated before me in the dark. I heard her howls in my mind.

"Although, if I had taken the poison then, I wouldn't be facing this predicament now. It would have been a quicker death." Allison sighed.

Quicker than the death Kate suffered. Fresh grief washed through me.

"I heard Alderman Kent died a few days later. And Lady Kent has not been seen by anyone outside the house since."

"Wait," I said suddenly. _You must forgive me_ , Lady Kent had begged. She'd had more of a hand in the poison than Allison knew. How easy would it be to blame a jealous rival for Kate's poisoning, hiding your own crime? A drop of nightshade wouldn't have caused Kate to lose her senses so completely. Not unless more poison had been added.

Allison waited, but I decided suddenly not to tell her my suspicion. After all, she did try to hurt Kate. Let her suffer in her guilt.

I sat in the dark, imagining what words were exchanged in that room, my sister's heart breaking as she rushed from the house.

Envy. My sister died of the envy of others. Allison's, Lady Kent's. _Something for which I can never forgive myself_. What had he done, when he'd learned it was his father Kate loved, and not him?

Lady Kent hid herself away, dreading the revenge she was sure would come. Allison, rotted away in this jail cell, waiting for her death.

_Not everyone dies who sees her_ , Allison had said, _but they may wish they did_.

And Robert Kent? What awaited him?

"Allison?" I whispered into the darkness. "What promises did the alderman make you?"

Allison's candle flared to life. Her cards were laid before her. "What does it matter? Soon you can ask him yourself."

Her mouth twisted. "Have I upset you? Well, don't worry. You aren't to suffer much longer." She hummed a little tune.

# Twenty-One

I began to wonder if my mother would come to see me at the prison, or if shame and disappointment would keep her away. Then suddenly, she was there, on the other side of the grille, illuminated by the candle held by a silent guard. Even in the dim light I could see that her face was grey and creased. When her eyes meet mine her mouth tightened, her chin trembling.

I burst into tears, as if I were a child. She reached through the bars and I clung to her fingers, drawing as close to her as I could.

"I'm not a witch!" I wasn't sure she could understand me through my sobs.

"Neither am I!" another prisoner called out, breaking into mocking laughter.

"I know, child, I know," my mother said in reply, her own voice unsteady. "Is it true what the constables say, that you dressed as a boy and cut purses?"

I nodded, unable to meet her eye. She gave a heavy sigh, then wiped some of my tears with her calloused finger tips.

"I will let God be your judge, as He will be soon enough. He also knows you kept us from starving these past months."

She reached into her basket pulled out a chunk of bread and a bit of meat. My stomach rumbled as I took it, and I forced myself not to devour it.

"Here is something else," she said, and took out another small bundle. The guard stepped forward and took it from her. He unwrapped it and inspected it, then handed it back to her, his face stony.

It was her old cross, the one she wore around her waist for years. "May this bring you comfort, as it never did me." Tears spilled down her cheeks.

As I reached for it she caught my hand and slid something else to me, with the cross. "It will help you sleep," she breathed. She pressed her lips to her fingers and then touched my forehead. A moment later she was gone, and I fell in a heap on the floor of my cell, sobbing.

"You'd better do as you mother says," came the voice of Allison, close to my ear. Opening my hand, I saw a tiny glass vial alongside the cross.

"Here," she said, "I'll help."

She pulled the stopper from the bottle. "Open your mouth." When I obeyed, she allowed a few drops of a bitter liquid inside to fall onto my tongue. Almost immediately, the world blurred. A warm, sleepy feeling spread from the top of my head to my whole body.

I gripped her hand. "It wasn't your poison that killed Kate. There was more." My words were already slurring.

Her face swam in and out of focus. I opened my mouth, but it was too late; no more words would come.

"When you see your sister," she whispered, "please ask her to forgive me."

I watched as she tipped her head back and helped herself from the vial. As she replaced the stopper, I fell thankfully into a deep, dreamless sleep that was not haunted with faces or voices or memories.

# Twenty-Two

I stood in a rickety cart. A rank smell overpowered the odor of sweat and fear. Someone must have fouled themselves; I hope it wasn't me. From nearby a voice moaned, "I repent, I repent." _It will do you no good,_ I wanted to tell them, but my tongue was like a stone in my mouth.

I should have been terrified, but I felt numb and sleepy. Everything around me was hazy, outlined in light.

The square into which our cart rumbled teemed with people. Their excited voices roared like the flames of Hell to my ears. A group of boys watched us pass, laughing gleefully.

Beyond them stood a man with a small girl on his shoulders. She pointed at us, clapping her hands in delight. Her mother smiled up at her.

The sound of pipes rose above the tumult, playing a merry melody. The crowd parted and I caught a glimpse of a siren, warbling words I could not understand in a coarse, off-key voice. As we passed she looked at me.

"Elisabeth," she said in Kate's voice.

I blinked and for a moment her face was Kate's. When I blinked again she became an ordinary woman after all, her face covered in garish make up, the green silk of her costume straining against the fat rolls of her belly.

A devil appeared at the side of our cart, thrusting his pitchfork at me. He poked it toward me again and again, running alongside. "Go away," I tried to tell it, but my voice was merely a groan. Laughter rang around us.

The devil fell away as the triangular gallows came into view. Through my stupor I felt a stab of fear. A line of nooses hung from the beam, and I knew that each would be looped thirteen times, to be sure that our evil spirits would not return. The next moment I was pulled from the cart and pushed onto the scaffold. My legs were too weak to hold me, and I stumbled, only to be jerked to my feet. The rope tightened around my neck like a spiny vise. I shook so badly my teeth chattered.

_Mother_. My lips could barely form the word. I searched the crowd with heavy eyes.

A girl with great, hungry dark eyes came into my view. She looked like someone I might have known once. Her eyes flickered over me for an instant before she turned to a well-dressed man pushing his way through the melee. She followed him, a knife winking in her fingers.

At my feet stood a boy not much older than myself, skeletal and leaning heavily on an older woman, perhaps his mother. He coughed weakly and leaned forward, watching me intently. He must have been waiting for the moment I died, to reach out and touch my lifeless body to restore health to his own. Acid rose in my throat, my stomach lurching weakly. But there was nothing left inside me to purge, nor do I have the strength.

"Elisabeth!"

Jostling his way next to the boy who awaited my death stood Phillip, his blue eyes locked on mine. _He looks wrong_.

The alderman presiding over the spectacle intoned something I couldn't understand. I turned groggily toward him, trying to make sense of what he said.

At that moment my eyes fell on Robert Kent, standing a little apart from the crowd. In my stupor I wondered if he planned to pull on my body to hasten my death, before I could cause him more trouble.

It wasn't fair. He'd taken Kate, and yet it was I who would die in a moment while he watched. I summoned all the strength I had left. "Murderer!"

My voice barely rose above the revelry. The prisoner next to me turned her head toward me. Robert's expression did not change.

A wave of fury swept through me. I struggled though the noose tightened around me neck, fighting to reach him, to tear at his skin, to claw at his eyes. "Murderer!" This time my cry carried over the audience. The cacophony dimmed for a moment as astonished faces swiveled toward me. Robert looked away.

"Hang the wench!" cried a jubilant voice.

Others began to chant. "Hang the thieves! Hang them! Hang them!"

The scent of poppies filled the air as a breeze rose. Kate glided through the crowd to Robert's shoulder. Shuddering, he pulled his cloak about himself more tightly. She held up a stem of Belladonna and trailed it down his cheek, and he brushed at it without seeming to see it, or Kate.

She moved off again, stopping beside a thin, drab woman with hunched shoulders. _Mother_. Her face was twisted with grief.

"Mother, I'm sorry!" My words were lost in a sob.

Kate's eyes held mine.

From nearby church bells began to toll mournfully. A hush fell over the crowd as a drum began to beat, persistent and unyielding.

Someone began to scream. My mother's eyes closed and she bowed her head, but Kate's never looked away from me.

Then the platform fell from under my feet, and I died.

# Twenty-Three

I stand at the river's edge. It is evening. The ragged, thick fog that hovers over the water is nearly tangible. After a moment I realize voices are entwined among it: murmurs, whispers, cries of despondency and terror.

And then, among them, I hear my name.

"Elisabeth."

I look down into the fog encircling my knees. It thins and parts, revealing the murky water below.

The face of a lovely young woman appears beneath the surface of the water, her hair rippling with the current. A few waterlogged blossoms, white poppies, are tangled in the long red locks. Her eyes are closed, as if she is sleeping. I lean closer.

"Kate?" My voice echoes across the water. The other voices fall silent. Kate does not move.

I inch as close as I dare to the water and kneel down, lowering my face until it hovers just above hers. "Kate?"

Her eyes snap open. They are green, and so sad. Tears spill from the corners. She reaches a hand toward mine.

"Oh, Kate," I cry, and reach for her. At that moment her pale hand shoots from the water and clutches my wrist. Before I can scream she has pulled me beneath the surface. Icy water fills my mouth and throat and lungs.

So the story is true.

I open my eyes and find I am sitting in a chair before the fire in the house we lived in until Kate died. Kate herself sits across from me, needle flashing rhythmically as she sews a lovely gown made of fabric I don't recognize. The air is cool, the light a pale greenish color that seems to ripple slightly.

She looks up at me and smiles, then bows her head back to her work.

The house is just as I remember it, small but cozy, lit by a few sputtering candles that throw odd shadows against the walls, the scent of bread baking.

"Am I dead?" My voice sounds odd, muted, as if we're underwater.

Without looking up, Kate points with a long graceful finger at a basket at my feet. Some wealthy person's elegant cape to mend. _I must have died and joined her in Hell._

I pull the cape from the basket. This material, too, is made of nothing I have ever seen before. It seems almost liquid, the way it flows over my lap, and changes color with the flicker of the fire, from sky blue to emerald green to blood red.

"There's no needle," I tell Kate.

A silent smile is her only reply.

"Did you hear me? There's no needle."

She neither looks up nor answers.

I stand, the cape sliding from my lap onto the floor. "How am I supposed to do this with no needle?!" Fury fills me. I fly across to Kate and tear the gown from her hands, tossing it to the floor.

"Why did you bring me here? Why did you die and leave me? Why do you haunt me! What do you want?" I shriek the last word with such force that my throat feels raw.

She raises her face. Her pupils are enormous. They undulate slightly, as though a great current moved through them. "I am forbidden to tell the secrets of my prison-house." Her voice is as I remember it, low and musical.

"How did you die?" I persist.

Her needle glints in the strange light.

"Is this it, then?" I ask. "You're doomed to sew for all eternity?"

"It is you who imagine me sewing for all time. You see me the way you choose to. Even when you saw me as a frightening hag."

She leans toward me. "Tell me, why would you want to see me that way?"

I shake my head. "I don't."

She sighs and touches my shoulder. "Perhaps you are angry with me."

"Why would I be angry?"

"Because I died."

"How could I be angry with you for dying? It wasn't your fault." But as the words leave my mouth I realize that I do blame her, for falling under Kent's charms, for being so easily deceived. I am angry with her, for dying, but most of all, for leaving me.

I curl up, my head on my knees. "I'm sorry, Kate."

She strokes my hair, the way she did when I was small and suffered from some childhood upset. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry I blamed you for dying, and I'm sorry I became a cutpurse and shamed our family. I'm sorry your murderer is still free."

"Shh," she says, and I feel comfort and warmth flow through me at the sound. My tears are soaking her dress.

Her voice croons like a lullaby:

"Then, my queen, in silence sad,

Trip we after the night's shade."

I rest with her for some moments, my sobs gradually slowing until they are childish hiccups.

"Remember the story of the Drowned Girl?" she says.

"Am I to be the Drowned Girl, now?" I ask with a shiver.

"To be the Drowned Girl," Kate answers gently, "you must be dead. And you are not."

# Twenty-Four

"Elisabeth."

Opening my eyes, I saw myself lying in a coffin, pale, my eyes ringed with dark circles. Raw red burns circled my neck.

A face moved into my view. Meg Founder.

My head throbbed, my neck burned as if it were on fire. Would I feel pain if I were dead? Would Meg Founder be here? Perhaps I was in Hell.

"You're not dead," said Meg. "Though for a few hours you might wish you were."

She was right. The throbbing felt like a hammer against my skull. "What...?" I groaned. My mouth was thick and dry, my throat raw.

"The executioner owed me some favors. He cut you down before you were dead but sealed you in your coffin all the same. Then I had you brought here."

I realized I was looking up at a mirror fastened to the ceiling of Meg's chamber. Clutched in my fingers was the cross my mother gave me at the prison. I closed my eyes against the brightness and gratefully sank back into my black sleep.

When I woke again I found myself lying on a great plush bed with heavy velvet curtains closed around me. _Better than a coffin._ I could smell a pipe from somewhere outside the curtains.

Cautiously I sat up. The room spun, then steadied. I peered out through an opening in the curtains.

Meg sat in a chair nearby. She looked up from a thick book. "Ah, she's awake!"

"What happened?" My voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Don't try to talk. You've been hanged, you know! Not many people can say that."

Hanged?

"Why don't I remember?" But the memory of a burning on my tongue, then warmth spreading down my throat and through my whole body, floated to me as if I were recalling a dream.

"Why aren't I dead?" I croaked.

"As I said before...."

"But, it was your man who betrayed us."

"Not on my orders. You made him very angry. Something about your biting him?" She chuckled as I groaned. "Of course, everyone else thinks you dead."

"My mother?"

"She knows only that she was to deliver the vial to you and that it was your chance to escape death. She doesn't know if you lived or died. And it is better that she never find out. I shouldn't have to tell you that if you reappear after being hung, your next death will not be as easy, and she will likely join you, as the mother of two witches. Remember, I will help you once, but make the same mistake again, and you are on your own."

I sank back against the pillows. How could I never speak to my mother again, let her go through life thinking she lost both her daughters? But Meg was right, I couldn't endanger her anymore. She probably already had suspicious eyes watching her, waiting to punish her for my crimes.

Swallowing my grief, I asked, "Why did you help me?"

She smiled. "A rich man came to me and asked for my help. Can you guess who?"

"Robert Kent?"

"He said something about making amends. After all, it was his accusation that nearly got you forcibly drowned."

He wished to atone for something else as well.

"I planned to keep the money and let you hang." She shrugged. "You were awfully rude in rejecting my invitation to join my band, you know! And you were trespassing into my clientele."

Meg sucked at her pipe. Smoke poured from her mouth in a long column. "But then Phillip came to me. He told me of your apology, your promise made from prison. Neither of which meant anything to me. But then he reminded me of how alike we are."

Her eyes twinkled. "And he made an argument I couldn't resist. He said, 'What better way to make fools of the aldermen than to help a prisoner escape from under their noses? And think of the favors she'll owe you!'"

She shook her head. "I never thought I'd see that boy beg."

He'd kept his promise. He'd helped me escape, as he'd said he would.

"I sent him on his way, but his words stayed with me. It's true: You and I are kindred spirits. We should have been born men, my dear. We both have plans and ambition, and the brains to accomplish them, but society won't let us. We are both forced to pretend to be someone else in order to do what we must do.

"Now, this won't be easy. You will have to leave your old life behind, but it wasn't much of a life, you must admit, a cutpurse on the streets who has already spent some time in the pillory. You would eventually have met a bad end. Now you've been reborn. Think of it, Elisabeth. You can do or be whatever you want!" She puffed her pipe.

"I can never repay you."

"Knowing there's a witch walking the streets that's supposed to be dead lightens my step," she replied, a gleam in her eye. "I expect there will be a favor or two here and there I'll ask for. But please, make your life worth saving."

# Twenty-Five

For weeks I stayed hidden in the little room in Meg's house.

I thought of the legend of the Drowned Girl, of the words of my strange cellmate: _See what a fine fortune we meet, those who loved her once._

When I asked Meg about Allison, she turned away without answering.

I shivered and couldn't stop, as if it were my own body weighted in the cold water. Now Allison could ask Kate's forgiveness for herself.

I spent my days in my room, the shutters closed against the light, trying to lose myself in a reverie, without success. Instead I distracted myself by reciting lines from plays that surfaced in my mind.

At night I opened the windows and gazed out. The streets were nearly deserted. Occasionally a figure passed, hardly more than a shadow. Sometimes one of these called out with a woman's voice, and another shape emerged from the darkness and joined her. Sometimes raucous laughter filled the air, and drunken voices raised in song. But most of the figures traveled past silently.

During the day, the light that poked its way in between the shutter cracks was dim and grey, and though I fought it, I sometimes drifted to sleep. In my dreams I wandered through identical empty chambers, strung together in a maze, dreading what I would encounter in each room I come to. Just as I began to relax, I walked into a room to find Kate's ghost standing there, reaching out a white arm to me. Or Robert Kent's father, choking with laughter as he recited lines of gibberish in no language I could understand, his son silent beside him. Or, Mother, intoning, "We should have driven a stake through your body," as foul-smelling liquid rained down on me from above. Mrs. Williams' cackling followed me into wakefulness.

Once I have a dream in which I fled from the neighbor woman brandishing a stake at me, only to run into my father, who turned and shook his head. "You've lost your way, Lisbet," he said mournfully. He opened his shirt to reveal gaping wounds. Black ink poured from them. "This is my blood, Lisbet," he whispered, pointing to the ink. It ran onto the floor, where it begins forming words. "And this is my soul," he said, pointing to the words. I tried to read them, but they were written in some strange language that I couldn't understand. When I looked back at him his face became a skull from which hung shreds of pale skin, his eyes glassy and unseeing. I woke with a shriek.

It took several minutes to slow my breathing. _Am I to be haunted by my father, now, as well?_

Finally I rose from the bed and wrapped myself in my sister's cloak, which was hanging in this room when I first arrived. My mother's cross took the place of the knife I once hid in my sleeve. The streets would be dangerous, but I was less fearful of what I would encounter there than what awaited me in my sleep.

I tiptoe down the stairs of Meg's house and out the front door. Night had fallen and Meg's house was cloaked in shadows. I made no sound as I glided down the street. Up close, the shadows I watched from my window became groups of rowdy men, vendors from the market hurrying home, tired women. None of them seemed to see me. I was like a spirit.

I slipped past the shuttered businesses, past the square where I'd been hung, the gallows silhouetted in the moonlight.

When I reached the graveyard I picked my way among the markers to my sister's grave..

The little pile of stones had been replaced with a small grave marker. _Katherine Thompson. 1629-1645._ A bundle of locust flowers rested against it.

Then, next to her grave marker, I see another one. I knelt to read it.

Elisabeth Thompson. Beloved Daughter.

In death I became a "beloved daughter." I didn't even mind that my grave lay here, among those too sinful to be buried in the main churchyard, where my father was. I was glad my grave marker stood next to my sister's.

I sank to the ground in front of my grave, the soil cold against my knees. Tears blinded me, stopped my throat. I could hardly breathe.

Here was the escape I longed for. I was free, untethered from the life I thought I detested. No one would ever pester me to learn to sew, or collect water from the standpipe. I could float through the streets answering to no one. I'd become a ghost.

I could never speak to my mother again. I could only catch glimpses of her, leave her little hints that I think of her still.

I was bound by new rules. Yet I must still eat, and find someplace to live. Now I would have no choice but to cut purses.

My chest tightened as I thought of Phillip. He hadn't come to see me. It would be dangerous for him to be seen with me. I swallowed as I remembered when he'd told me I was beautiful, the way he'd gripped my hands through the bars of the prison, pressed his lips to my fingers. He would find a way to make me laugh at all of this, or at least he'd refuse to let me pity myself. He'd distract us both with a new plan or a diverting story.

I lay on my back between the two graves and stared up at the sky. Looking at the sky, I could almost convince myself I was far from London, alone in the country. Stars dotted the sky, like jewels. The moon was rising, full and bright, like a lantern illuminating all below.

Suddenly someone stood beside me. I shrieked and leaped to my feet.

"Wait," the person said, and removed his hood.

We stood in silence, regarding one another. Even in the shadows I could see the way his skin hung from his face. His dark eyes were like open graves.

I took a step away. "Why are you following me? Haven't you done enough?"

"Following you?" He shook his head. "I thought you dead!"

"You paid Meg to have me cut down."

"I did. But she didn't tell me she'd kept her end of the bargain." He ran a hand through his hair.

"Obviously she did."

He turned away, staring down at Kate's grave marker. "I came her to visit."

"You paid for the graves markers," I realized.

"No need to thank me," he said sullenly.

But it was thanks to him I'd been hung, thanks to his family that Kate was dead. I clenched my fists, my blood pounding in my ears. "You tried to have me killed!" My voice was shrill on the night air.

"I saved you!" he shouted over me. "I'm a coward. I was tempted to let you die. It would have been easy, your own doing. One less person to know the whole sorry story. But I saved you, didn't I?"

"Attempting to bribe Meg to rescue me from the gallows, where, by the way, your accusations put me, does not earn you absolution for what you did to Kate." I spat the words at him through clenched teeth, no longer afraid. "You will pay for this. Perhaps not in this life, but in the next." I watched the grief replace the defiance in his face, saw his shoulders slump.

"Do you want to know what happened?" he asked, his voice low and rough.

After all the years of searching for the truth, of wondering, suddenly I was not so sure I wanted to hear. But I stood rooted between my grave marker and my sister's as he spoke.

"I've told you already how deeply I loved her. How she made me feel I could be anyone. After a time I suspected she loved another. But I convinced myself I was wrong."

Whispers rose around us; of the wind, the night, perhaps the spirits. A black bird landed like a shadow on a nearby gravestone. It cocked its head and fixed us with its dark stare.

"You recognized me," he said.

"I found the ring in your purse."

He let out a long, slow breath. "I was a fool to carry it with me." One corner of his mouth lifted in a humorless smile. "I should have recognized you earlier. You resemble her. I wonder what Kate would say if she knew her sister had resorted to cutting purses."

"You're one to judge," I retorted between clenched teeth.

"You're right," he said sadly. "I have less right to judge than anyone." He knelt and rubbed his knuckles against Kate's grave marker.

"Then I discovered her betrayal." His mouth twisted. "One day my mother summoned me to her chamber. I found Kate and my father with her. They were all drinking wine from her finest goblets.

"My mother handed Kate a little package. A gift, she told her. Something she would need soon. Kate opened it and frowned. She help up a sprig of something. A weed maybe."

"Rue." In my memory I saw Kate's body lying on the landing, rue in her fist. And only now did I realize that women took rue to rid themselves of unborn children.

"My mother started screaming accusations at her, how she'd seduced my father, the revered alderman." His voice shook. "I waited for Kate to deny it, to tell her it was me she loved. But she looked at my father and said, 'Tell them. Tell them what you've promised me.'

"He said nothing. Kate stood and faced him. She never looked lovelier. She said..." Robert's voice hitched. "She told him it was his child she carried. And still my father said nothing."

I let out a long, slow breath. She'd been pregnant when she died.

"She pulled a paper, folded many times, from her sleeve and threw it at him. She pulled a ring from her finger and dropped it on the ground. 'I curse you!' she said. And she stormed out."

Though Lady Kent had given her the rue as a taunt, Kate must have planned to use it, especially when she saw the alderman for who he was. She wouldn't have wanted to add another mouth to feed, another burden to our family, and she surely didn't want to shackle herself to a dull simpleton in marriage just to avoid scandal.

But she also wouldn't have drowned herself.

Robert knelt next to Kate's gravestone. "I loved her. I loved her to distraction. I believed that she loved me as well." He looked up at me, a wild glint in his eyes.

"You have to imagine, what it was like for me to discover that it was my father she loved. My father, in whose shadow I was always trapped, on whom I was totally dependent."

He ran his knuckles along her grave marker again, this time leaving a smear of blood. "I followed her, shouting at her, begging her to stop, to explain. But she wanted nothing to do with me." His voice trembled. "We had reached the steps to the boat landing. I was so angry. But she barely seemed to notice me; her eyes were far away, focused somewhere else, somewhere I couldn't follow. That made me even angrier. I took her arm, well, grabbed it, really, and she pulled away. She fell. All the way down the stairs. I rushed down. I tried to save her, but it was too late. She died in my arms." His shoulders heaved. He buried his face in his bloodied hands.

I sank down beside my own gravestone, the earth cold beneath me, and shook as if I will never be warm again. My eyes stung, but I had no tears left to shed.

He spoke in a broken voice. "I left her there. It wasn't her anymore, and I had to protect my family. I had to. But her death was an accident, Elisabeth. Truly. I loved her."

_Trip we after the night's shade,_ Kate had said.

The story fell together, at last. It began with the envy of her friend Allison, who dropped a bit of poison into her wine. A petty revenge, to give Kate a headache, nothing more. But Lady Kent, whose envy held an edge of fury, added more, enough to make her dangerously clumsy, enough to break her neck on the stairs after a struggle with Robert, who was consumed with desperation and love and jealousy.

But what had broken Kate's heart was the alderman's betrayal, his refusal to acknowledge his love for her after she entrusted him with everything she had.

There was still one question left unanswered.

"How did she get into the river?"

"I don't know," he choked. "I left her at the foot of the stairs."

A breeze, smelling of poppies, lifted the ends of my hair. I heard Kate's voice: _When the girl looks into the water she sees not her own reflection, but the face of the Drowned Girl staring back at her._

In my mind I saw Kate, not dead, as Robert thought, dragging herself to the water's edge with the last of her strength. She looked into the water and saw a face there, a young woman, her hair rippling with the current, a few white blossoms tangled in the locks. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping. She was the girl from the story Kate told me, the Drowned Girl.

As Kate leaned closer, the eyes snapped open. The Drowned Girl's hand shot from the water and clutched Kate's wrist. She pulled Kate into the water before she could even scream.

So the story was true.

"Her curse came true, you know." Robert's voice cut across my thoughts.

"What do you mean?"

"Weeks later my father caught a chill and couldn't be warmed. For days he lay suffering in his bed, delirious. At first he begged Kate's forgiveness. Then he would scream, imploring her not to pull him down into the water with her. Neither my mother nor I could stand it; we left the room. But we could hear his voice all over the house. He pleaded until he died, alone."

I could tell him the truth of Kate's death. But as I watched him weep, I heard the lines from Macbeth in my mind.

"When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors."

His eyes widened, and he gave a great, shuddering moan as I turned and left him there, among the dead.

# _Part Three_

### London, 1649-1650

# Twenty-Six

The next morning, Meg summoned me to her great mirrored room. She sat alone in her throne, though our reflections cast at us from every mirror made it seem as though the room were full of people.

"A job has been found for you," she announced, "as a seamstress in the house of a wealthy elderly widow, a Mrs. Dormer." She waited, perhaps for my happy exclamations.

I nearly laughed. After all that had happened, I was to become a seamstress. "But I can't sew a stitch, my sister always had to redo my—"

"You can't live here forever, you know. My generosity extends only so far. I would think that you would be grateful to so easily fall into such a position."

I sighed. "When do I start?"

"Tomorrow. You'd best go pack your things. I don't need to tell you how important it is that you not be recognized."

Despite my disappointment, I knew I owed Meg a debt. But as I began to form words of thanks, her voice cut across mine.

"Don't make this the end of your story. Surprise us all. Do something daring, something no woman has ever done!"

She inhaled deeply from her pipe. Purplish smoke streamed from her nostrils as she regarded me through narrowed eyes. "All of this would make quite an entertaining play, wouldn't you agree?"

• • •

"I've finished, Ma'am," I announced loudly to Mrs. Dormer, months later. She dozed in a chair near the fire.

Her eyes popped open and she turned her head all around, trying to discover who was speaking.

"It's Elisabeth, Ma'am! I'm here!" I shouted, holding up the gown I'd been mending.

"Oh! Elisabeth!" she called, as if she had just remembered my name. With shaking hands she reached for the gown and slid her fingers over the place I have mended, frowning a bit.

Then a smile spread over her face. "Lovely," she wheezed. "You have quite a talent with the needle, my girl."

"Thank you, Ma'am," I replied, dropping a curtsy, although she cannot see it.

Her compliment was true, strange as it seemed. I had become good at mending.

"Well, you are free for the afternoon, then!" Mrs. Dormer said, her smile stretching like a grimace over her few teeth.

"Thank you, Ma'am!" I shouted in return, dropping another curtsy. By the time I reached the door she had turned to the fire, perhaps asleep again already.

It was a bright day, spring once more. A year had passed since I cut Robert Kent's purse and found Kate's ring inside. In that year, I died and was reborn, finding a home cocooned within the walls of this quiet house. I had created an entirely new life, one empty of adventure or daring or risk. I had not seen Kate once since I came to live here.

I paused in the hall of the house, soaking in the patch of sunlight spilling in the through the windows.

When I first came to live in this grand house, the emptiness frightened me. Now I had come to appreciate the silence, to enjoy being left to myself. Still, escaping outside would be a welcome relief. _A few minutes can't hurt._

A cloak hung from a peg on the wall. I didn't have one, as I never left the house, and this one belonged to Mrs. Dormer. Surely she would not miss it. Drawing it around my shoulders, I slipped outside and sat outside on the doorstep, closing my eyes and turning my face to the sun.

This street is quieter than the one that I lived on with Mother. Though people bustle by, there were fewer carts, less shouting. The air smelled of mud rather than waste.

The minutes passed.

Suddenly I feel my ribbon pulled from my hair.

My eyes snapped open to see Phillip, grinning as he dangled my ribbon in front of my face. "Haven't I taught you anything?"

My mouth hung open like a fish as I stared at him, until he held out his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me to my feet.

He was taller than me now, his hair a bit darker. I threw myself into his arms.

He staggered backward, his arms tightening around me. We stay that way, wordlessly, for some moments. Finally I pulled away.

"Well."

"Well," he replied. "So you're not dead."

"No, sorry to disappoint you."

He grinned.

"But Meg told me what you did. Phillip, thank you."

He waved away my words, his already pink cheeks reddening.

"Are you still working for her?"

He shook his head and held out his wrists. I gasped: they were crisscrossed with scars, burns pink and black, the brands of a cutpurse who has been caught.

"I have gotten careless," he said with a sheepish grin. "Meg released me. I'm too much of a liability now. You must have been my good luck."

"So what are you doing now?"

"I'm a waterman," he said proudly. "I have my own wherry. Meg bought it for me for my years of service, and for pain and suffering," he added ruefully, glancing down at his wrists. "And also as a bribe, so that I wouldn't start cutting purses for someone else. I have somewhat of a reputation, you know," he adds with pride.

"I know." My head was light with the happiness of seeing him. "How do you like being a waterman?"

"I like it. I like the independence of it. I am my own master. Come out with me on my boat sometime."

I would love nothing more, but I shook my head. "You know I can't. I've already been hung for a witch once. What will people say when they see me returned from the dead, walking the streets? What would happen to you, rowing a witch up and down the Thames?"

"Have you really changed so much? What happened to your sense of daring? Are you not working as a seamstress? It would be easy to borrow a disguise! The old woman is blind and deaf, and even if she weren't, she's beyond caring now!"

I laughed loudly, carelessly, for the first time in a year.

"So," he persisted, "when will you come for a ride in my boat?"

It was a blustery day the first time I agreed to ride with Phillip. I disguised myself, of course, as an old, wealthy woman, who leaned heavily on Phillip's arm as we make our way to the boat launch.

The noise of the streets beat against my ears after the quiet of Mrs. Dormer's house. I kept my hood pulled carefully over my face, peering through the little tunnel I've made at the stones at my feet.

"Careful, Grandmother," Phillip said as he helped me down the steep steps to the river. I cast him a glare.

Only when he rowed us away from shore did I gather my courage and pull the hood from my face.

He maneuvered us through the busy traffic to the middle of the river and steered us to a quieter place. I tilted my head back, allowing the cool light to wash over my face. Water lapped against the boat; seagulls called to one another.

"I should be wooing you with poetry," Phillip said.

I smiled into the sunlight.

I also know some bawdy songs. Shall I sing one for you?"

"No, thank you."

"What about you? You used to know some fine stories."

"I used to."

A pair of swans circled the wherry.

"I have a gift for you," he said.

From his satchel, he produced a parcel of paper, tied up with ribbon.

"Phillip!" I breathed. "It's so expensive!"

"What, for a waterman like me? I make plenty of money, nearly as much as I did before!"

Tears filled my eyes; I knew this couldn't be true. I reached out and took the paper, rubbing my fingertips on it, breathing in its smell.

"There's more." When I looked up he was holding out a bottle of ink. "Don't cry," he said, exasperated, as I wiped my tears with my sleeve, careful not to let them fall on the paper. "Just write your wondrous tale."

Finally he could no longer ignore the impatient passengers waving at him from the shore.

That evening, once Mrs. Dormer dismissed me, I hurried upstairs to my room, where the paper and ink wait for me on the little table. A vase was balanced on the corner of the table, containing a sprig of sweet briar Phillip found and presented to me with a flourish on the walk back from the river.

I sat at the table and held the quill in my hand, savoring its smooth weight. The lines that had been building in my head for all these past weeks suddenly rose in a chorus, demanding to be heard. I dipped my quill in the ink and began writing furiously.

The papers filled, one after another, with the story. Only when the little candle finally sputtered, threatening to extinguish entirely, did I stop and sit back on my stool, aware of the terrible ache in my neck and shoulders.

All through the night, voices haunted my dreams. As soon as it was light enough to see the next morning I went back to the table and began writing once again. I scribbled until I knew Mrs. Dormer would be wondering where I was.

Each night, the voices grew quieter and more content. The darkness became shorter, the days longer and warmer.

Finally, on a morning when the sun stood high and bright in the sky and the breeze from outside smelled warm and promising, I finished.

Holding the pages close to my face, I smelled the fresh ink—and something else. It was a faint smell of earth and spices, of sleep and dreams, like poppies.

# Twenty-Seven

It was Sunday, the day that Mrs. Dormer agreed I might have free. This was the third Sunday I ventured out, emboldened by my escapade with Phillip, but the first that I came to see my mother since my death.

I lingered so long that Mrs. Williams has begun eyeing me with suspicion. Finally I was rewarded by the thin, bent figure trudging through the crowds toward me.

I strode forward several paces before I remembered myself and stopped, hunched over in my old woman's disguise, peering out from my hood to catch a glimpse of her.

She glanced up. Our eyes met.

My heart lurched. I remembered the warmth of her fingers, the harshness in her voice, that I now realized came from the grief of losing her family, one after the other. If she tried to impose rules on Kate and me, it was to keep us from the end that we each met anyway. The end she feared. I felt a surge of love and affection for her, so strong that my chest hurt.

Her hair was grayer, her face more lined. As we passed, she put her fingers to her lips and tilted them toward me, very slightly, blowing me a kiss.

Then she turned away and disappeared inside the house. I might have imagined it, but her step seemed lighter.

I stood there after the door closed, hoping that she would find the little bag of coins I left hidden for her, tied to the cross she gave me in prison and slipped in the doorway.

As I turned to go I froze for a moment catching my breath. An alderman in his dark clothes and round hat walked toward me like a malevolent shadow. Cursing under my breath, I pulled my hood closer around my face.

Suddenly a foul brown shower splatters over his shoulders. He shouted out an oath, drawing the attention of the crowds in the street, as he jigged angrily, waste dripping from his clothes. "Mind what you're about, old woman!"

"I'm sorry, Alderman," came a creaky voice in reply, "I didn't see you there." The alderman stormed away in a malodorous cloud.

I looked up at Mrs. Williams' window to see her staring directly at me. She broke into a great cackling laugh and waved the chamber pot over her head in triumph. I smiled in return and raised my hand to her in a small wave before bowing my head and continuing on my way.

I found Robert Kent kneeling by Kate's grave, carefully placing a bunch of locust flowers at her new headstone. He glanced over his shoulder, his face creased with annoyance at the intrusion.

When I lowered the hood of my sister's cloak his face relaxed. He let out a long sigh.

I held out the sheaf of papers. Robert looked at it for a long moment, then reached up and took them. Kneeling, I placed the bouquet of rosemary I brought onto Kate's grave. Then I turned and left the graveyard without a word.

# Twenty-Eight

It was another warm day, weeks after my recent graveside meeting with Robert Kent. A breeze skipped, childlike, through London, carrying with it the promise of a change in season.

Phillip came for me at Mrs. Dormer's. "It's an unpredictable day, when anything can happen, and there's something you might want to see. Come out with me."

We turned in at the old tavern, the Boar's Head. I looked questioningly at Phillip as he pulled open the door, but he only grinned and waved me in, pressing two coins into the palm of the man at the entrance.

It was crowded, mostly with drunk men, but here and there I even caught sight of younger, more finely dressed people. Curtains were hung near the bar.

As we watched, Robert Kent stepped onto the stage.

I stared at Phillip. "What are we doing here?"

"Shut it, old woman!" growled the man on my other side. I gave an outraged cry but Phillip hushed me as Robert announced in a ringing voice that the theaters were closed. He threw out his chest and strutted around importantly, and I realized he was mimicking his father.

And then it began:

Enter ELISABETH, in costume once more, this time as an elderly woman. She leans on the arm of the GALLANT as part of her disguise. They make their way through the streets to the alehouse.

GALLANT: I rather enjoy having to drag you around the city.

ELISABETH: Beast! Show some respect to your elders.

GALLANT: You're hardly my elder. But as you are returned from the dead, perhaps I'll at least try to stay in your good graces, so you won't curse me.

ELISABETH hushes him as he laughs.

Suddenly, I recognized the lines as my own, those that I gave to Robert Kent at Kate's grave, the story of her death. I caught my breath, my heart beating unsteadily.

Around me the audience hissed when the alderman deceived Kate. They sighed as Kate's heart broke. My eyes were not the only ones spilling tears when Kate fell, when she was left for dead.

I pressed forward with the rest of the crowd when Kate roused and dragged herself across the bar, decorated to look like the landing. She peered at the floor, where a length of blue fabric lay. From under it another face appeared. The tavern fell silent as the Drowned Girl pulled Kate into the water with her.

But in my play, I gave Kate a different ending, in which she danced gracefully through the water, singing the songs she was meant to sing in life, free at last from the burdens of her life.

And the man who spurned her? One evening, when he was being rowed across the Thames, he looked into the water and saw the young woman there. He dropped to his knees and begged her forgiveness. The girl entwined her arms around his neck and dragged him into the water.

I looked around in wonder as the tavern erupted in applause.

My eyes fell on Meg Founder, standing near the stage. When our eyes met she smiled broadly and winked. I smiled in return

The New King's Men, looking slightly dazed, stepped hesitantly back out onto the stage and, then, with growing confidence, bowed. At their center, still dressed as an alderman, stood Robert Kent. He held up his hands for silence.

"The author of this play must remain anonymous." The crowd groaned. "But I expect their voice will not now fall silent. There are many more tales to be told, after all!"

I stared up at him. Was he mad? Where would I get the paper, and ink?

As if reading my thoughts, Phillip leaned over. "You'd best be getting a cut of the money for this performance."

Tales had spun themselves in my mind in the quiet hours I spent mending at Mrs. Dormer's. Perhaps they, too, deserved to be told. Perhaps I could do them justice.

Robert bowed deeply to the audience, then turned and gave a slight bow to me, before he exited the stage amid the applause.

On my way back to Mrs. Dormer's, in the wherry crossing the river, a voice floated to me over the water. I looked up to see a small boat with a sole passenger: a young woman, her red hair lifting in the breeze. The sun was behind her, so I could not see her face, but I heard her singing in a low, melodious voice. The song was a hopeful one of love and promise.

I leaned over to try to see her, Phillip protesting that I would upset the wherry. A barge full of raucous passengers passed between us. By the time it passed, the girl and her boat had vanished. In her place floated a ring of white poppies.

I trailed my fingertips in the passing river as Phillip's sure arms guided us across the river. The petals of the poppies fluttered gently in the breeze.

