Sons of Death

Chapter 3: A Band of Orphans

Chapter 3

~ A Band of Orphans ~

  "Twenty-six, please."

  Digging into his pockets, Meriwether produced the necessary coins and handed them to the vendor. The man gave him a forced smile, placed a steaming mug of coffee in his hands, and moved his attention to the next customer.

  Meriwether skirted around the crowd clutching his warm drink. Snow had fallen everywhere over the past week, painting all the roofs and chimneys white and clogging up the streets. He had spent his money on a pair of mittens the other day after waking up with blue fingers. In all his months in Eerie, it had never gotten this cold. The days had just barely scratched at November, and snow usually did not come until much later in this part of England. He even relented from his nocturnal tendencies to better enjoy the warmths of the day.

  As he neared the edge of the crowd, he encountered a small group of children. The ragtag group stared up at him as he walked past, pleading to him with their melancholy stares at his mug. Meriwether felt guilt wash over him. When he cleared the crowd, he stopped for a minute on the sidewalk and waited to see if their parents emerged from the sea of people. Ten or so minutes passed by, and the children still huddled together without any sign of an adult. Sighing, Meriwether took a last sip of his cocoa and returned to them.

  "Where are your parents?" he gently asked.

One of them, a small girl with dirty curls looked up at him. "We don't have any," she murmured.

  As Meriwether frowned, a little boy beside her spoke up. "We do too, Nora!" he argued. "We just live in the orphanage while they're out working."

   Meriwether supposed that made a bit more sense. "Would you like some cocoa to warm up?"

  Nora and her friends lit up in excitement, nodding their heads. Meriwether lowered his mug and placed it in the little girl’s hands. "Take mine," he entreated her, "I would buy you another if I had the money, but this is all I can afford at the moment. Share with each other, please."

  The little group passed the mug between themselves, alternately taking turns stealing tiny sips of the drink. Meriwether buried his hands, which had grown stiff with the chill once again, in the woolen warmth of his armpits. "Why are you out in the cold?"

  "We mustn't be inside during the day," the boy from earlier answered.

   Meriwether frowned. “So they turn you out into this bitter frost?”

 He received nods all around the circle. Meriwether wondered what kind of orphanage would throw its young tenets into the streets during the day. It seemed awfully uncharitable. He stood by with the children as they suckled from his warm mug, watching their tiny faces flushed with blood. An idea suddenly popped into his head.

  “Would you like something to do today? Something that might keep you...warm?”

The wheels were turning in his head. He had hit a wall in formulating his plan for Julian’s capture. Now, the sight of all these extra hands inspired a milieu of ideas within him.

   Nora pursued her little lips at him. “What is it?”

 Meriwether took a moment to organize his thoughts. Beside the flimsy plans he had made before, he added the inclusion of his possible volunteers. Meriwether knelt down the next moment and whispered his rough plan into the flushed ears of the mangy children. Their faces transformed from confusion, to wonder, to horror, and finally, to excitement. Nora seemed a bit resistant to his plan at first, standing firm and adamantly shaking her head. The other children goaded her into agreeing.