Vocabularily Adventurous

The moon was undoubtedly out, it being nearly midnight, but if anyone had been on the street they wouldn't have been able to tell. The old wooden houses on each side of the road had not been built well or with any thought to the problems that could occur in the future. The "street," if one could call it that, was only about ten feet wide at its widest, and the wind and wear had persuaded the buildings to lean towards each other, creating a sort of vaulted ceiling like the one in St. Paul's cathedral down the road. Therefore, if the moon had indeed been eclipsed by the power of witches (or, perhaps, Catholics), no one on Taylors School Road, nor indeed half of London, would have known.

That was why it was a bit reckless of Anne to slip through the uneven doorway of her home and find herself gingerly stepping across the street, pretending that she was successfully avoiding whatever muck had been deposited there. She looked left and then right, scanning the road, praying harder for the presence of light than for the absence of bandits. Directly across from her, the slight glow from the moon betrayed the metal lamp hanging just by the doorway of Jack's house; as usual, it was unlit. Her house had a lamp too, as did every other house in London, it being a law, but most people "forgot" to light them, no wishing to waste candles. There was a law that every house should have a lamp, yes, but there was no law saying they had to be lit.

Anne continued her slow journey across the road, but once she had reached the middle, her excitement got the better of her, and she ran the rest of the way. Meeting Jack in the middle of the night was scandalous and dangerous, but she loved the thought of adventure.

An hour passed. The moon had moved in the sky, even further behind the buildings than before, casting the street into pitch blackness. Anne reemerged from Jack's house, her sudden fear of being caught allowing her maidenhood to remain unblemished. There had, however, been kissing and cuddling, and Anne was so blinded by love that she skipped, eyes half closed, across the narrow road.

Halfway there she hit something dark and solid, and all she could feel was pain before falling to the ground. Whatever was leaking from her abdomen was warm on her hands, but the voices above her were cold in her ears.

"Nedget!"

"She sneaked up on me!"

"You loggerheaded scut!"

"Look, she bumped into me, and–"

"Ne'er mind it, let's trip before someone sights us."

Their footfalls had nearly faded away before Anne's world went black.


The rest of the historical fiction novella A Shilling's Worth can be found at E.G.M.'s Notebook.