Early Summer June 1850 Chapter One Scilla stumbled in the rainy woods, her heart flopping like a snared bird. This was a bad idea, sneaking into the earl's walled garden--just asking for more trouble. But she'd not eaten in days. Her trousers gapped. Her stomach begged. Go on, you gawby--get what you came for! She swallowed hard, then tugged down her sodden cap. Would it be what she dreamed of night after night? There was only one way to find out. She groped forward through the dark and found the branches she'd stacked high against the garden's towering wall, then--careful, careful --climbed the pile and eased upright, teetering against the mossy bricks. She stretched for the top. Not high enough, even on tiptoes. Drat the earl and his stupid wall! She stretched higher as rain pelted her upturned face. Higher. A sudden shift, a brittle snap , then gone were the branches, clean from under her feet. Yet somehow she sprang up, hooked her fingers over the wall's capstones--that quick--and hung on, her workhouse clogs churning against the brick. Another hard scramble and Scilla straddled the top of the wall, gasping. She peered out over the earl's vast garden. Black. All black. Of course it was. Like she'd dunked her brainless head in a tar bucket. Black, but for a candle in a cottage window, past the north garden wall. Someone's home, so cozy in the cold and dark. And far to the west, over the garden and the black woods beyond, a blurry glimmer. Bolton Hall, maybe. Where the earl himself lived, in all his glory. A cold gust slapped her hard, like she'd been rude to even glance there. And Dora's warning came to her yet again, from when they'd trespassed through these woods, three days back. That's when Scilla had smelled peaches from over the wall. Peaches, rare as rubies! The best thing she'd ever tasted. She had begged Dora to steal one. "Be done with yer foolin', girl," Dora had rasped. "There'll be no peaches yet, not in June, not even in the garden of a lardy-dardy earl. Besides, steal one puny pea from a place such as that and we'd be tossed on our hinder-ends in Kirkdale Gaol." The gaol, not eight miles distant. A cesspool of robbers, of murderers! Scilla clenched her knees against the wall. She'd risk anything to taste a peach again, so ripe, so delicious--fit for a queen! And here was her chance, before her life spiraled back to the workhouse, her only choice now. Scilla eased onto her front and dangled both legs into the dark of the garden. There had to be a way down without breaking her scrawny neck. She probed further, hit something. A branch, snug against the bricks? Then another, maybe strong enough to hold her. Another. Another. A tree was fastened flat against the wall, its branches like a ladder. An invitation to drop right in, addressed to her--Scilla Brown--from the earl himself! So easy. No constables yelling at her heels. No red-faced bakers or farmers giving chase. There were peaches in the earl's garden, same as in her dreams. And she was going to get one. Scilla dropped onto squelchy ground, one hand on her leafy ladder, and listened. Rain. Only the rain. No one was about--some luck, at last. A streak of gray caught her eye--a path, maybe headed nearer the peaches. She trotted along it awhile, her long coat slapping wetly round her ankles, then slowed and scoured the dark. An inky patch, there. That way, a low border. Nothing tall and wide like trees in an orchard. Where were the peach trees? She'd starve before she found them, be discovered dead in the morning, stiff as a celery stalk. Scilla pivoted again. Nothing. She shook her head. Nothing? She was sneaking through the Earl of Havermore's walled kitchen garden--the grandest in Lancashire, Dora'd said--filled with acres of splendid things to eat. What was she waiting for? Scilla slogged through a patch of low plants, knelt in the mud, then probed where some wet leaf stalks met the soggy ground. Maybe a beetroot, good enough for now. As she tugged the plant free, a distant thunk sounded, far off in the garden. Scilla held her breath and listened. Had she imagined it? Nay, there, right there, off to the north, a blurry dot of light bobbed. A lantern. Please, she couldn't get this close and not get what she'd come for. Eyes locked on the light, Scilla stood and edged backward toward the path. The light moved right, heading away, blinking in and out, blurred by rain. She was safe, then. But there it was again. Not going away. Turning. Turning more. Bobbing quick toward her. Scilla dropped the beetroot and raced blindly for the wall, arms pumping, feet pounding through the dark--flying fast as she'd sprinted after Dora, so many times, while shouts of Stop, thief! echoed down the village streets. Then not flying. Tripping. Flailing, falling, face down in a prickle bush. Scilla bolted up and onward, gulped air and raindrops, kept stumbling across squashy plants, the rutted ground. Something snagged and she sprawled again, her ankle folding, folding wrong. She sprang up, yelped in pain, ran anyway. The moon broke through the clouds, only a sliver but all silvery and bright. The wall! Scilla hurtled the last yards, leapt through the air, and clutched the flattened tree. The bobbing light was closer now, the lantern bearer running, too. She grabbed a higher branch, then another, her ankle a millstone, her wet coat dragging. Up, up --she'd make it now! But the branch let go of the bricks, like it knew she was trying to get away, and Scilla lurched back, a jarring drop. A rough shout. "Who goes there?" She heaved herself skyward. An ominous creak . And the night tilted, tilted more, as the entire tree ripped from the wall and bent outward, backward, down, down into the rainy blackness of the garden. She clung to it, midair. Then a splintery crack and she slammed to the ground. Scilla scrabbled out from under the branches on her hands and knees as light flared on the shattered tree. On cherries strewn wide across the mud. She kept scrabbling, until a boot stomped on her back and squashed her flat on her face in the muck. One fist full of the earl's cherries. The boot pressed harder. "Off a me, sir!" Scilla sputtered. "Let me up--I'll not run, I promise." She kept her voice low to match her boys' cap and clothes, her shorn hair. A boy could blend in, get out of scrapes a girl might not, Dora'd always said. She tried to push herself up. The boot forced her down. "Please, sir, I've done nowt." Gasp . "You're squashing me, I can't breathe!" Had she heard her ribs crack? Oh, surely she had--like crispy little twigs. From above came a voice of rusty nails, sharp with anger. "It's no use struggling, boy. The more you fight, the worse it will go." But Scilla tensed, ready to bolt, like she'd done from that baker only yesterday, leaving a hard-got barm cake behind. She was hopeless at stealing without Dora. Going to starve! "I'd not try that, boy." As if he knew what she was thinking. Slowly, the weight eased, then the boot prodded her right in her twiggy ribs. Scilla struggled to her knees. The lantern glared so she couldn't see the man's face, only his oilskin hat and coat, shiny with rain. "Let's get this over with," said the rusty voice. "I'd like to finish my supper while it's still worth eating." He clutched the back of her coat and hauled her up. "Hey, let me go, you, you--" Scilla lunged, yelped again. Her ankle! No bolting, not tonight. She was stuck like a flea in a glue pot, the evidence of her crime right in her fist. She'd not meant to grab the cherries. But the man must not have seen them. He hustled her off, limping, too, as if as hurt as she was. Scilla stuffed the cherries in her pocket as she hobbled along, cold to her marrow, his lantern so bright she could see little else. Shadowy plants, a flash of path, the light glinting on steep sheds made entirely of windows--so many windows!--rain rattling on the glass. He'd steered her some distance when Scilla lifted her head. That scent--was it peaches? She'd never be sure, for the man pushed her through an arched door in the north wall and shut it with a thud, leaving the earl's garden behind them. A new scent, not sweet, and all too familiar. Dung. Iron fingers forced her forward, beside a row of connected brick sheds that stretched along the back of the garden wall and into the night. Rain ran down her back, sloshed in her clogs. Maybe he only wanted her out of that walled garden. Maybe they'd go as far as the road, and he would-- "In here, boy." The doorway where he'd stopped was black as a privy pit. Scilla dug in her heels as, inside the shed, something rustled. That sound--it was rats. She couldn't go in there! But he gave her a hard shove and she stumbled inside. Jumpy light raked the room. No rats, not that she could see, only loads of flowerpots, some packed in straw-filled crates, some nested on their sides, stacked high against the wall to her right. Opposite, a stone sink. Below it, more pots, crusted with dirt. Above, a shelf of scrubbing brushes and a paper that flapped in the wind, tacked to-- The door thudded shut. Scilla blinked in the utter blackness. He'd taken the lantern! Then came the kchunk of a lock. She lunged for the door, ankle twinging. "Don't go!" she cried. She rattled the knob. Heard lurching footsteps fading. She pounded the wood. "Come back here, you ninny-hammer, and let me out!" The man had locked her in the dark, same as Mr. McQuaig, the master of the Ormskirk Workhouse, had done near all her life. Scilla thumped again. "So sorry, sir, I shouldn't a said that. You're not a ninnyhammer--please let me out." She put her ear to the wood. Nothing. "Please, sir!" she cried now, voice rising in the darkness. "Let me out of here, or give me a candle or summat, please!" As if he would. How long would she be locked in, then--for minutes while he fetched a rod to beat her with? Or for days? A deep breath. Another. At least she was out of the rain, that was something. And there was straw on the flagstone floor, spilled from the crates--she'd seen it. She scraped it blindly toward the wall at the back--the same wall that guarded the garden--then collapsed on it and pulled her knees under her wet coat. A man's fancy frock coat once, of mossy velveteen, that Dora'd flounced around in. She fumbled out a muddy cherry and devoured it. Gritty. Sour . Not a peach. She gobbled the other two. At least the evidence was gone, the lantern man no wiser. Scilla shivered, stomach gnawing. She hit her middle with the side of her fist, then leaned against the wall, eyes squeezed tight to shut out the dark. But it oozed on through her, black, and cold, and-- Warm? Her eyes popped open. She shifted her shoulders. Shifted again. Warmth! Warmth was soaking through her coat. She twisted around, reached both palms to the wall. Warm, like it was alive. But how? Did it matter? She curled on the prickly straw, pressed her back against the bricks, then closed her eyes again. Why, it wasn't the wall that warmed her, nay . It was her own sweet Emily at the workhouse, cradling her tight, Scilla's one bright light in the darkness of that place. Emily--two years older, much wiser, but sent from the workhouse by now, to the cotton mills or into service as a maid-of-all-work. Lost to her forever. Same as Dora. Same as her real mam, too. Would everyone do that? Leave her behind, one way or another? "You're a good lass," Scilla whispered into the dark, as Emily had done. "Everything will be all right." What a gawby, came a louder voice in her head. You're nowt but rubbish, bound for gaol in the morning. Without a soul to stand beside you. Excerpted from The Peach Thief by Linda Joan Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
