Dad Hears My Thoughts novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: The Foundling House

I got up out of the snow.

"The carters' gate," I said. "Round the side. They leave it on a latch for the bread."

I lifted the latch with my fingers through the gap, the way the bakers' boys do.

The kitchen window glowed, and beyond it the matron's parlor door stood open.

Cici. Here. Bad hands.

Through the steamed glass I saw the parlor.

The matron at her desk in a nightcap.

The footman in his brown coat, standing over the desk.

A big man by the stove with a cudgel.

And on the blotter, the daisy blanket with my baby rolled in it.

The footman had a little knife.

He was picking at the daisy hem, stitch by stitch, with the point.

"He said it's in the blanket or nowhere," he said. "Hold her still."

The matron put one fat hand on the baby's chest and pressed.

The baby howled.

I don't remember opening the kitchen door. I remember the footman's knife coming up.

Tristram went past me.

He hit the footman so hard the man went back over the desk and took the inkpot with him.

The big man by the stove swung his cudgel.

Tristram ducked under it and drove his shoulder into his chest, and they went into the wall together.

I went for the desk.

The matron grabbed the blanket first.

She held the baby up against her front, both arms round her.

"Stay back," she said. "Stay back, or I'll..."

Fat one is grey like old soup, the baby said in my head. Cici, bite her.

I picked the matron's iron ring of keys up off the blotter and hit her across the knuckles with it.

She screamed and let go.

I caught the baby against me, blanket and all.

She clamped on to my neck with both arms and both legs and didn't let go.

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