Chapter 4 (p.9), chapter 5 (p.1)
As the widow Richardson shucked the peas with her old hands, she got to thinking about how fine it would be to walk once more on the moors and the salty cliffs of her native Cornwall, and she thought of sitting on the shingle as a little girl, waiting for her father's boat to return from the gray seas.
Her hands, blue-knuckled and clumsy, opened the pea-pods, forced the full peas into an earthenware bowl, and dropped the empty pea-pods onto her aproned lap. And then she found herself remembering, as she had not remembered for a long time, a life well lost: how she had twitched purses and filched silks with her clever fingers; and now she remembers the warden of Newgate telling her that it would be a good twelve weeks before her case would be heard, and that she could escape the gallows if she could plead her belly, and what a pretty thing she was—and how she had turned to the wall and bravely lifted her skirts, hating herself and hating him, but knowing he was right; and the feel of the life, quickening inside her, that meant that she could cheat death for a little longer… “Essie Tregowan?” said the stranger.
The widow Richardson looked up, shading her eyes in the May sunshine.
“Do I know you?” she asked. She had not heard him approach. The man was dressed all in green: dusty green trews, green jacket, and a dark green coat.
His hair was a carroty red, and he grinned at her all lopsided. There was something about the man that made her happy to look at him, and something else that whispered of danger. “You might say that you know me,” he said. He squinted down at her, and she squinted right back up at him, searching his moon-face for a clue to his identity.
He looked as young as one of her own grandchildren, yet he had called her by her old name, and there was a burr in his voice she knew from her childhood, from the rocks and the moors of her home. “You're a Cornishman?” she asked.
“That I am, a Cousin Jack,” said the red-haired man.
“Or rather, that I was, but now I'm here in this new world, where nobody puts out ale or milk for an honest fellow, or a loaf of bread come harvest time.” The old woman steadied the bowl of peas upon her lap.
“If you're who I think you are,” she said, “then I've no quarrel with you.” In the house, she could hear Phyllida grumbling to the housekeeper. “Nor I with you,” said the red-haired fellow, a little sadly, “although it was you that brought me here, you and a few like you, into this land with no time for magic and no place for piskies and such folk.”
“You've done me many a good turn,” she said.
“Good and ill,” said the squinting stranger.
“We're like the wind. We blows both ways.” Essie nodded.
“Will you take my hand, Essie Tregowan?” And he reached out a hand to her.
Freckled it was, and although Essie's eyesight was going she could see each orange hair on the back of his hand, glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight. She bit her lip. Then, hesitantly, she placed her blue-knotted hand in his. She was still warm when they found her, although the life had fled her body and only half the peas were shelled.
CHAPTER FIVE
Madam Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.
—W.
E. HENLEY, “MADAM LIFE'S A PIECE IN BLOOM” Only Zorya Utrennyaya was awake to say goodbye to them, that Saturday morning.
She took Wednesday's forty-five dollars and insisted on writing him out a receipt for it in wide, looping handwriting, on the back of an expired soft-drink coupon. She looked quite doll-like in the morning light, with her old face carefully made-up and her golden hair piled high upon her head. Wednesday kissed her hand.
“Thank you for your hospitality, dear lady,” he said. “You and your lovely sisters remain as radiant as the sky itself.” “You are a bad old man,” she told him, and shook a finger at him.
Then she hugged him. “Keep safe,” she told him. “I would not like to hear that you were gone for good.” “It would distress me equally, my dear.”
She shook hands with Shadow.
“Zorya Polunochnaya thinks very highly of you,” she said. “I also.” “Thank you,” said Shadow.
“Thanks for the dinner.” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“You liked? You must come again.” Wednesday and Shadow walked down the stairs.
Shadow put his hands in his jacket pockets. The silver dollar was cold in his hand. It was bigger and heavier than any coins he'd used so far. He classic-palmed it, let his hand hang by his side naturally, then straightened his hand as the coin slipped down to a front-palm position. It felt natural there, held between his forefinger and his little finger by the slightest of pressure. “Smoothly done,” said Wednesday.
“I'm just learning,” said Shadow.
“I can do a lot of the technical stuff. The hardest part is making people look at the wrong hand.” “Is that so?”
“Yes,” said Shadow.
“It's called misdirection.” He slipped his middle fingers under the coin, pushing it into a back palm, and fumbled his grip on it, ever-so-slightly. The coin dropped from his hand to the stairwell with a clatter and bounced down half a flight of stairs. Wednesday reached down and picked it up. “You cannot afford to be careless with people's gifts,” said Wednesday.
“Something like this, you need to hang on to it. Don't go throwing it about.” He examined the coin, looking first at the eagle side, then at the face of Liberty on the obverse. “Ah, Lady Liberty. Beautiful, is she not?” He tossed the coin to Shadow, who picked it from the air, did a slide vanish—seeming to drop it into his left hand while actually keeping it in his right—and then appeared to pocket it with his left hand. The coin sat in the palm of his right hand, in plain view. It felt comforting there. “Lady Liberty,” said Wednesday.
“Like so many of the gods that Americans hold dear, a foreigner. In this case, a Frenchwoman, although, in deference to American sensibilities, the French covered up her magnificent bosom on that statue they presented to New York. Liberty,” he continued, wrinkling his nose at the used condom that lay on the bottom flight of steps, toeing it to the side of the stairs with distaste. “Someone could slip on that. Break their necks,” he muttered, interrupting himself. “Like a banana peel, only with bad taste and irony thrown in.” He pushed open the door, and the sunlight hit them. The world outside was colder than it had looked from indoors: Shadow wondered if there was more snow to come. “Liberty,” boomed Wednesday, as they walked to his car, “is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses.” “Yeah?” said Shadow.
“Quoting,” said Wednesday.
“Quoting someone French. That's who they have a statue to, in their New York harbor: a bitch, who liked to be fucked on the refuse from the tumbril. Hold your torch as high as you want to, m'dear, there's still rats in your dress and cold jism dripping down your leg.” He unlocked the car, and pointed Shadow to the passenger seat.
