Stealing the Dark Moon

The March Gorge

The farmer dragged Kit down the road towards a crooked white house that might have been a grand estate once in more prosperous days. But now paint peeled from the four pillars flanking its entrance and mottled gray and brown ivy vines dove through holes in the gabled roof. Three stacks of porches sagged around the walls, broken balcony spindles jutting out like splintered teeth.

Kit glimpsed at least half a dozen boys and girls gazing listlessly from the tall arched windows of the house, and peeking from behind fence and tree. Grime covered their skin from head to toe and their eyes reflected a dull despair. The children's gaunt cheeks were filled with hollow shadows and their bones poked against their ragged clothes. Did they ever eat here, Kit wondered? Or maybe the Stiles slowly starved all the orphans they took in until they were whittled away to these silent ghosts.

"Sis, I got you a wee present!" Mr. Stiles bellowed as he entered the dank, musty interior of the dead ivy house.

Kit's eyes widened as they entered what might have been an airy main hall once, but now mildewed tapestries drooped from the high ceiling like falling spider webs. He'd never seen a bigger hoard of junk under one roof! A maze of mismatched furniture filled every corner, from threadbare sofas, three-legged tables to grandfather clocks that were missing their timepiece. Cracked vases, mirrors tarnished black, dusty porcelain figurines, empty perfume bottles and all manner of trinkets were piled over every available surface. Mr. Stiles strode through a narrow corridor between the furniture and entered the kitchen, dumping the boy on a rush mat covering the cold stone floor.

Kit fought not to gag as his fingers brushed a pile of chicken bones and feathers with dried blood caught in the mat's weaving. This kitchen made even the Silver Penny Orphanage seem a noble's mansion; black mold climbed the walls and bits of trash, wilted vegetable stems and fruit rinds lay everywhere amid piles of filthy dishes. Shelves displaying rows of spotless teacups stood out like a bizarre oddity in the mess, but even their tidy order was smothered in the dank aroma of rot. He was sure he'd retch if he was forced to stay in this putrid room a minute longer! Lucky for him he had nothing left in his stomach to sick up; Mr. Stiles wasted no time grabbing his good ankle and fastening on a rusty manacle tied to the end of a black iron stove leg.

"Behave yourself now, lad," the master of the March Gorge warned with a stern glare. "Hortensia don't take kindly to sass."

Kit soon learned that Miss Hortensia Stiles didn't take kindly to anything, let alone the mere offense of his existence. A petite woman who fancied herself a fine lady, Miss Hortensia was magnified many times her size by layers of frayed petticoats, and crowned with a faded lavender bonnet with ribbons trailing down her back like curly pigtails. But her attempts at maintaining an air of gracious nobility soured the instant she laid eyes on him.

"My dear—dearest little brother Bertrand—what would I want with a deformed attendant like that?" she demanded in a fluttery, breathless sort of voice. She rapped Kit's knuckles with a chipped red lacquered fan. "Place him with the other useless gutterpups in the barn and get me some proper help!" She sank into a rocking chair by the kitchen hearth with an irritable wave of a kerchief over her heart. "I can barely manage this household with such shiftless domestics as it is, and now you try to foist a cripple on me?"

Mr. Stiles flipped a copper coin under her nose. "Buck up, Hortie. I'm sure you can figure out something,' seein' as we're bein' paid to work the gimp-leg to the bone," he said, cackling and clutching his sides as if they would split from sheer hilarity.

"Oh!" Miss Hortensia said, raising a holey glove to her lips. "In that case, I suppose we might be able to find a thing or two for the boy to do."