OUR STEPS ECHOED off the cold stone walls as Adelaide and I were escorted down a narrow corridor to the ward where Tom was recovering. I could hear Adelaide’s breathing, mechanical and composed, like she was consciously commanding each intake lest she lose control and crumble into fits of tears. “Her Tom” was locked in a coma, imprisoned in his own mind as his broken body attempted to crawl its way back from death.
Many more will die, then you, Ebenezer, Fezziwig’s spirit had promised. I had thought Sunderland to be the first of these, but now I knew I’d been mistaken. His death had been misfortune, nothing more. And now Tom, yet clinging on to life. Humbug had clearly meant to butcher the poor boy; the word HUMBUG was half-written beside his twitching form, and in the victim’s own blood.
