Chapter Twenty-Seven‘Hello again.’
I moaned. Everything hurt, from my back to my eyes and everything else. Why were my fingers so sore? What had I ever done to them?
‘Wake up, Emmeline. It’s time for you to eat something.’
I growled, but I opened my eyes.
Patrick sat beside me, grinning despite two black eyes. He waved a heavily bandaged hand. ‘I don’t suppose you could make me a new finger?’
‘Maybe in a day or two,’ I croaked.
The room smelled of whitewash and lime, strong scents that were not quite strong enough to full hide the smell of vomit and bedpans. I was in hospital.
There was a distant clanking and rattling coming from outside. Melbourne, then. Good. Nothing smelled of death, so the city wasn’t on fire either. Excellent. Just ordinary coal smoke and cooking smoke and sewa
