Her broomstick’s not lost. A devil-child took it whilst Geraldine searched a puddle on the town square. The spell calls for a newt but they are impossible to find in the city. Mistress Pirbright won’t cough up until she gets her intimate poultice so—
In her current mood, when Geraldine catches the scrawn-spawn she’ll soon thereafter have a newt. She strides the cobbles. Townspeople scatter before her. Where is the little—? Ah.
Down this alley.
The lickspittle is using Geraldine’s broom—Outrage!— to sweep a doorway.
‘Come here, vile creature.’
The guttersnipe—Amazement!—doesn’t stop.
‘Tuppence for a sweep, Missus,’ it says. ‘Cutting my own throat, but what’s a girl to do?’
The child’s bravado in the face of a witch’s wrath is admirable. Reminds Geraldine of herself, back in the day.
‘That’s my broom,’ she says.
The girl frowns.
‘Nah, Missus. I found it. I’m excellent at finding things. S’in me nature. Do you want me to sweep, or not?’
Geraldine notes the grime on the child’s face, the hollow cheekbones. She hears herself, in a voice unused to gentleness, say:
‘What I really need is an Assistant. A Finder. Of Things.’
The girl's eyes calculate whether to listen or scarper, sharpish.
‘There’s a shilling in it. Maybe dinner.’
The girl swallows. Dinner wins. She spits on her palm and holds it out.
‘I’m your new Assistant, Missus.’’
Geraldine takes her broom back, shakes the wet hand by the fingertips.
‘Find me a newt.’
The girl scurries away. Geraldine sweeps the rest of the dust into a pile. Feels for the shilling on a fine chain around her neck and remembers a fierce old woman with a broomstick.
Smiles.
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