Dad Hears My Thoughts novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: Wanted

The crowd turned with him.

Fifty faces black with soot, and every one of them found mine.

"Mistress Hawtrey," the captain said. "Come here."

I didn't move.

"Your father's hammer," he said, louder. "In a dead man's hand. In a fire you started."

"He was alive at midnight," I said.

It was the worst thing I could have said.

The captain smiled. "So you were with him at midnight."

Tristram's hand closed round my wrist.

"Run," he said.

We ran.

Up the Street of Lamps, through the bucket line, with the captain bellowing behind us.

The chandler stuck his foot out as a watchman passed him. The watchman went down in the slush.

"The baby," Tristram said. "She's at the widow's."

"Through the bakery. The yards join."

The bakery was empty and warm. The widow was down at the fire.

The baby was asleep in the bread basket by the ovens with her blanket pulled over her ear.

Tristram scooped her up, basket and all, and she woke up furious.

"She says it's not morning yet," he panted. "She says we're very rude."

I went through the widow's back gate into my own yard and in at my own back door.

The brass foot of the scale came off in my hand.

The Sun Diamond dropped into my palm, cold as ever.

I shoved it inside my bodice next to the Keeper's letter.

The book and the rag of moulds were under my mattress in the loft. I went up the ladder two rungs at a time.

Somebody hit my front door with a fist.

"Open in the King's name!"

Tristram came up the ladder behind me with the baby on his chest in the sling.

My father had cut a hatch in the loft roof so he could sweep his own chimney.

Tristram pushed it open, and snow fell in on both of us.

Below, my front door gave with a crack.

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