Hughson’s Tavern was a deceptively sturdy wooden structure, built at the end of Liberty Street, on the southwest corner of Courtland Market. Three stories high, with a steep roof, the tavern leaned precariously over the dank swirl of the Hudson River. It had an infamous history. Sixty years before, John and Sally Hughson had been convicted of acting as a go-between for criminals, fencing goods stolen by slaves from their masters and selling them on to free New Yorkers who liked a bargain. Today the tavern was just a tavern, run by Seamus Tully, a farm boy from County Tyrone.
The door was wide open. Kerry lowered Rosie to the ground, and the little girl ran inside. She squealed as her mother picked her up and swung her in the air, then settled her on her hip.
“I hope she wasn’t too much trouble, Kerry girl.” Tamsin Tully’s voice was a combination of West African lilt and Irish brogue. She wore a long apron over her indigo skirt, and her shirtsleeves were rolled up to show a pair of strong forearms.
“Not at all,” Kerry said. “She helped me at the school this morning, didn’t you, Rosie?”
“We tidied the books,” Rosie said.
Kerry winked at her. “I thought I’d better not bring her round too early, Tam. In case you had a late one last night.”
“And so we did. I didn’t get to my bed until three. But Seamus was square. I’m usually up at six to clean the place, but he let me rest on and did it all himself. I only just got up.”
“That’s why you look so dimber, girl.”
“Ah, you’re great.” Tamsin lowered Rosie to the floor. “Will you come in for a damper?”
“I will. But only for a moment. I’ve to be back at the school this afternoon.” She had to duck under the lintel. “Jesus! Why did the bloody Dutch build their doors so low to the ground?”
Tamsin laughed. “To keep the bloody Africans out, of course.”
They hugged each other. They were both tall women, but the resemblance ended there. Kerry was slim and wiry, with long, straight hair and caramel-colored skin, while Tamsin was dark and voluptuous, with big almond-shaped eyes, and a broad halo of tight curls. She was seventeen when Seamus Tully had spied her at the Fly Market, shopping for pears for her mistress. He was smitten on sight, but she was a slave then, and forbidden from any kind of relationship that might result in a child. So he saved every penny he had for five years, and then he went to her mistress and persuaded her to sell Tamsin to him. He bought her, freed her, and married her, all on the same day.
Kerry held her friend by the shoulders and looked down. “I thought I felt something. How far along are you?”
Tamsin smiled. “Four months.”
“I thought you were done with all of that.”
“I thought I was too. I suppose God has other plans for me.”
Kerry smiled back. “Congratulations, then.”
“Thanks.” Tamsin patted one of the stools at the counter. “Come on now. I’ll get you a cup of coffee. There’s bull-dogs in the basket there.”
Kerry settled herself, and lifted one of the flour-dusted sweet rolls to her nose.
“I have to tell you something, Tam. We had a bit of a scare last night, Rosie and me.”
The child was balanced on her mother’s knee. She looked up, with big solemn eyes. Kerry smiled at her. “We took a roundabout way home, along Chapel Street. I didn’t want to go up Elm Street. You know, past the old burial ground.”
Tamsin nodded. “It’s a desecration, what they’re doing.”
“Aye. Anyway, while we were there, I heard a sound come from one of the alleyways. There was a girl down there.”
“She was crying, Mammy,” Rosie said.
Kerry took a breath. “I couldn’t leave Rosie on the street, Tam.”
“She was on the ground,” Rosie said. “She was hurt.”
Kerry touched her hair. “Did you see anything else, Rosie?”
The little girl shook her head. “You said to look away.”
Tamsin placed her gently on the ground. “Why don’t you find your dolly, Rosie. Let Mammy and Auntie Kerry talk for a little.”
The girl ran into a back room. Tamsin’s face was tight. “We sent her to you to be safe.”
“And she was safe, I promise. I went straight to call the Watch. And then straight home.”
They sat for a moment, as the sound of the street filtered into the tavern. A man calling out the price of his apple pies. Two women fighting over something. Kerry looked at the basket of sweet rolls. She had lost her appetite.
“I’m sorry, Tam, I had to go down there. That sound the girl made, like an animal with its back broken. What kind of a person would I be if I’d have walked on?”
It was a moment before Tamsin nodded. “You’re right, I suppose. I just don’t like the thought of Rosie being there. Growing up in this city, she’ll see such things soon enough.”
Kerry reached forward and took her friend’s hand. Tamsin squeezed. “So what of the girl? Raped, I suppose.”
“I don’t think so. She was cut, like you gut a rabbit. Here to here.” She drew a line down her stomach.
Tamsin shuddered. “Dear Lord Jesus, this city. It gets worse every day. Did they get the doctor to her?”
Kerry shook her head. “She died.”
“Oh, no.” Tamsin closed her eyes for a moment. “Did you recognize her, at all?”
Kerry shook her head. “She was young. Thirteen or fourteen, maybe. She had some odd togs on, too. Nothing but a kemesa made of some soft cloth. A nightgown, maybe. She was abram underneath, like she’d just come from her bed.”
“Did you see her hands?”
“Soft as gingerbread.”
“So, not a worker. A curtezan, then?”
Kerry shrugged. “She didn’t seem so well-used.”
A floorboard creaked. A short, bearded man stood in the doorway that led to the upstairs rooms. He had wide shoulders and sharp green eyes, and Rosie was balanced on his hip, chewing the end of one of her pigtails.
“This one woke me up, asking for her dolly,” the man said, and kissed Rosie’s forehead.
“Sorry, Seamus,” Tamsin said. “Let me take her.”
“No, she’s grand.” Seamus Tully bounced his daughter a couple of times, and she giggled.
“How dost, Kerry?” he asked.
“Well enough, Seamus. What time did they go to last night?”
“Last night? This morning, you mean.”
“Well, it’s good business, if nothing else.”
“That’s true.” He pulled the pigtail gently out of his daughter’s mouth. “Justy Flanagan was by earlier.”
Kerry shifted on her stool. Tully’s eyes sparkled. “Nice to hear youse are back to talking.”
“I wouldn’t go so far.” She winced at the sound of the bitterness in her own voice.
“Oho! So he’s still hunting coney down in the First Ward, then?”
“Enough, Seamus!” Tamsin squeezed Kerry’s hand. “He’s a fool. They’re both fools.”
Tully was unfazed. “He told me about that girl you found last night.”
“Did he?”
“He thinks she might be a Mohammedan. Something one of the nuns at the Almshouse told him about the duds she was wearing. A kemesa, he said, made of some kind of soft wool, with an embroidered edge. It made me think of that shawl I bought you for your birthday, Tam, remember? The red one.”
His wife narrowed her eyes. “The one you used to mop up spilled brandy at Christmas, you mean?”
He grinned. “Aye, well, I bought it from one of the Mussulman families that lives up by Hudson’s Kill. I was told it was the best cloth in the city.”
“Good thing the bingo washed out, then,” Tamsin said. “I’ll fetch it.”
“Thanks, a chara.” He kissed her on the cheek as she squeezed past, taking Rosie from him and balancing the child on her right hip in one swift motion. He watched his wife as she swayed up the steps, and then winked at Kerry, who tried to smother her smile.
“Thanks for looking after Rosie for us, Kerry.”
“No bother. She’s like my own.”
“I see that.” He squeezed her hand. “I worry sometimes she makes you think of Daniel.”
And there it was, the desperate ache in her throat. The sensation of standing on the edge of a chasm, the wind at her back. She had been just seventeen years old when she had given birth to the boy. They had just celebrated his second birthday when he fell ill with colic and was taken to the sanatorium at Turtle Bay. Away from the city, Daniel had escaped the yellow fever that ravaged New York that summer, but he could not escape the fire that tore through the hospital and burned it to the ground. Kerry had to content herself with burying a box of ash.
Tully walked to the counter, refilled her cup, and handed it to her. The hot coffee eased her throat and warmed her hands. She smiled at him. “She’s a lovely wee girl, Seamus. I’m happy to have her, anytime.”
“Well, we’re grateful.” Tully poured himself a cup. “So what about this girl, then? You think she might have been Mohammedan?”
Kerry shrugged. “She looked like a hundred others. Darker than me. Not as dark as Tam.”
Tamsin returned, carrying a red shawl. “Is it the same cloth?”
Kerry weighed the material in her hands. “It’s close.” She examined the embroidery on its hem. “I’d say the girl’s shirt was finer, but the edges are the same.”
Tully put an arm around his wife. She rested her head on his shoulder and turned into him. Her hands crossed over her belly, cradling the slight bulge.
“Kerry?” Tully was staring, a worried look on his face. She could feel every hair on her body standing on end. An image flashed in her mind, the girl’s hands dark and sticky with blood, crossed over her belly, holding herself. Her own stomach felt suddenly hollowed out.
“Tell me about these Mussulmen, Seamus.”
He shook his head. “Not much to tell, for they keep to themselves. You know the kill?”
“Well, I’ve never been there, for I’m not mad. But I know where it is.”
Hudson’s Kill was a small tidal stream that decanted into the river of the same name. It was surrounded by marshes, which had an evil reputation amongst both the Negro and Irish populations. They said spirits lived up there, selkies and kelpies that drifted up from the sea to hunt for children in the night.
“They built a kind of compound up there, years ago,” Seamus said.
“Compound? I thought you said it was a family.”
“It was, ten years back. A dozen or fifteen of them settled on the meadowland south of the kill. Not anyplace I’d like to live. Swamp and mosquitos in summer and floods and ice in the winter. But they set about draining some of the land and building on it. A lot of buildings. Well made, too. Not your usual Canvas Town kips.”
“So how many live up there now?”
“A lot more than a dozen. But there’s no way to find out. The way they’ve built the place, there’s only one way in and out, and there’s always a couple of stout fellows standing about there to help with directions, if you take my meaning.” He gave her a sharp look. “So whatever it is you’re thinking of doing, don’t.”
Her temper flared. “You can read minds now, can you?”
“No need, when I can read your face. You look like you’re measuring a man for his coffin.” He tried a smile. “You’d be terrible at cards.”
“Aye, well, I’m not thinking about playing games just now.”
Seamus Tully nodded slowly. “I can see that.”