It was pity that made sure she didn’t get caught.
Willow let the wind catch her cloak, sending it snapping away from her, her crutch on full display to everyone on the crowded sidewalk. Cold crept through her bones as the December wind bit against her thin woolen dress. The clocktower chimed out four times as she gazed into faces as she hobbled by. And it was the same in every one: pity, pity, pity.
Poor girl hobbling all alone up the street.
Poor girl with her crutch.
Poor girl missing her right leg from the knee down.
Pity, pity, pity.
Willow had been cloaked in pity from the day she was born without half a leg. Poor baby. Poor dear, whose mother died bringing her into this world. Poor dove, whose father abandoned her at the abbey when she was three. Pity, pity, pity.
It disgusted her.
But also made things so easy.
Another gust of wind tore through the street, rattling the door signs hanging from shops along the street. A stumble here, a groan there, and she hit her mark. The gentleman turned – only a quarter turn, because her missing leg made people uncomfortable. Too uncomfortable to even look at her. She mumbled an apology, head down and tears in her voice.
“No matter,” the man said, then quickly walked away, his cane clicking on the cobblestone streets as the tails of his finely made jacket flapped after him. Poor man. Well, no, he wasn’t poor. Or at least, hadn’t been before she bumped into him. Willow kept her shuffle up for two blocks before she ducked down an alley. Triumph sang through her bones when she pulled the man’s leather wallet from her pocket and turned it over in her hands. She’d marked his golden pocket watch and fine silk vest as the dress of a wealthy man. One who wouldn’t look at her and wouldn’t dare guess that the poor girl with no leg was the one who’d swiped his wallet. She grinned as she opened it.
And found nothing.
Outrage tore through her, like pain searing her muscles. She turned the wallet upside down and shook it, hoping missing bills would reveal themselves. But no. Only a lone scrap of paper tumbled to the street. She picked it up and unfolded it, her heart quickening as she read the words:
"Meet me at the clock tower at midnight. I have a job you may be interested in. Bring my wallet with you."
Cold that had nothing to do with the wind seeped into her bones. She pulled another scrap piece of paper from her pocket, her eyes darting from one to the other.
No. No, this couldn’t be.
The message was shocking enough, but it was the handwriting that made her hands shake as she held the papers in her hands. Because the handwriting on the paper in her right hand – the one from the wallet she’d swiped – was identical to the note she’d been carrying around for fifteen years -the note he left with her when he sat her down at the abbey’s door and walked away.
The wallet she’d just stolen was her father’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment