Anna Peregrine--Library of Souls

Chapter Three

 Devil's Acre was everything I was brought up to believe it was. I wanted to leave more and more as Sharon led us through the loop. I wouldn't be surprised if I started to have nightmares about this place again.

Sharon led us into a building, climbing four flights of stairs, before coming into a room where two women were. In front of them were old black sewing machines that were foot powered.

"We need some clothes," Sharon said.

The women's faces paled as one grabbed a needle, holding it like a weapon, "Please."

Sharon pulled down the hood of his cloak. They gasped before whimpering and fainting onto a table.

"Was that really necessary?" Jacob asked.

"Not strictly," Sharon said, putting his hood back up. "But it was expedient."

I started to pick through what the seamstresses had made, and then something caught my eye. Everything else was bland, darker colors with no extravagance to them. However, a light teal dress caught my eye. I picked it up to find that it was the same one I had worn in the tourist loop before my uncle ruined everything. How had it made its way here? Unless it was picked up by someone while everyone was taken here. I may stick out, but at least the dress was in for the year that it was, 1886.

"Are peculiars really living these discarded lives?" Jacob asked Sharon.

"Peculiars would never allow themselves to be so reduced. These are common slum dwellers, trapped in an endless repetition of the day this loop was made. Normals occupy the Acre's festering edges--but its heart belongs to us."

I grabbed the dress and went behind a falling apart dressing screen as Jacob looked through some clothes for himself.

"I'm sure we'll know the peculiars when we see them," I said.

"One always does. Subtlety has never been our kind's strength," Addison said.

I walked out from behind the dressing screen and looked down at the skirt, which would be a pain in the ass getting around in.

"It'll be impossible to run in this," I said, grabbing a pair of scissors.

I cut the loose fabric that hung at my feet, just below the last ruffle around the petticoat. The outer skirt I left alone, as it had enough give for running. I turned to the mirror to see that my cutting wasn't the greatest.

"There. A bit rough around the edges, but . . ."

"Horace can make you one better," Jacob said, making me snap my head to him. "I mean . . . if we see them again . . ."

"Don't," I interrupted, looking down at my feet.

I took a moment, hoping that we would be able to find everyone, but also wondering if we even could.

I exhaled slowly before walking out of the room, leading everyone out.

We walked down passageways through the streets of Devil's Acre, eventually coming to a street with red bricks down the middle, and sidewalk paving the edges. We came to a sign that red Louche Lane, piracy discouraged.

"Discouraged?" I said with a scoff. "Then what's murder? Frowned upon?"

"I believe murder is 'tolerated with reservations'," Sharon said.

"Is anything illegal here?" Addison asked.

"Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that's just for paperbacks."

"There's a library?"

"Two. Though one won't lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable."